No More Tomorrows

by Corby, Schapelle

  Sonia found her own unique ways of filling in her time, usually annoying the hell out of everyone else.

  All the grounds of the girls’ block were so flooded, idiot Sonia went swimming and doing backstroke!

  Diary entry, 20 January 2005

  6.30 a.m. woke up to Sonia singing at the top of her lungs. By 10.30 a.m. I had just about had enough of her singing the one verse, ‘One day at a time, sweet Jesus – that’s all I’m asking from you.’ I went to her, asking if she could please stop or sing a different song. She does not understand how irritating she is! She thought for a bit then said to me, ‘Oh, these words, same like in jail, yeah? One day at a time!’ She sang a different song, still at the top of her lungs, but came back to the first song about ten minutes later. Luckily Merc came at 11 a.m. and saved me. When I returned at 12 she was still at it.

  Diary entry, 6 December 2004

  Being continually stuck with all these women often did my head in. I was never left alone. I never had any personal space. I was endlessly fascinating, with my blue eyes and white skin. They’d sit on my bed, stroke my arms, offer to wash my clothes, massage my feet and ask incessantly, ‘Skepel, you shower, you eat? You have shower, you eat?’ If I cried, it got worse. ‘What wrong, Skepel? What wrong?’ Sometimes I just wanted to strangle them. I wanted to scream out: ‘Leave me alone . . . Fuck off !’ But I didn’t. I knew afterwards I’d feel too bad. I’d just breathe and walk outside, sometimes down to Salma’s cell, sometimes to my little pool.

  Sat in my pool for an hour. That’s the only place I can be alone because it’s in the sun and I lie down and pretend to be asleep, so I don’t have to answer them when they yell out, asking if I’m hot, telling me, ‘It too hot’, or telling me to get out of the sun, asking if I’m showering.

  Diary entry, 6 December 2004

  I also started going to church, as an escape from the women’s section and a place to cry. Church and visits were the only times we were regularly allowed out. Initially at least, church gave me a bit of privacy.

  I cried throughout the whole service: two hours. I found myself staring at Jesus – whether sitting or standing, my eyes never left the painting, as if he were drawing out all my pain and fear. Halfway through the service Chris Currall and an Indonesian prisoner joined me in the back row. Chris patted me on my back and let me be. After the service I met three of the African prisoners, one had already been sentenced to death.

  Diary entry, 3 December 2004

  Church and visits were the only time the sexes mixed, though prisoners did find ways around that rule. Talking to men was a good change, a nice rebalancing. I grew close to one guy, Eddie, who was in here for possession of eight Ecstasy tablets. I first met him at Polda. He was an Indonesian Buddhist but converted to Christianity. We could meet at church. He had a miraculous effect on me, always instantly turning my tears into a smile. I started to lean on him emotionally. On my black days when I cried inconsolably for hours, the guards would bring him to the women’s block to calm me down.

  I started having more black days: more days when I couldn’t get out of bed or stop crying. I just wanted to go home. This was so, so unfair. It was not my crime. I was trying so hard to be patient and positive, trying so hard to do my best. But I was teetering on the brink. I couldn’t hold my tears back. I cried for whole days. I got exhausted and dizzy. My heart ached. I had to get out; I had to prove my innocence. I had held on tightly to hope, but as the weeks passed, my grip started to slip.

  This is my life. I know I’m innocent – so hard to prove. Really we are guilty until proven innocent, which hurts so deeply.

  Diary entry, 30 November 2004

  Lily and Vasu had returned from Australia, from all their meetings with Qantas, the airports and politicians, with zilch. My case was going nowhere. I knew I wouldn’t get home for Mum’s birthday in January. I had no idea when I would be going home. I just had to prove my innocence in court.

  Had first visit with Lily and Vasu since they came back from Australia. I was disappointed and felt a lot of fear for my future.

  Cried a lot. I couldn’t stop.

  Diary entry, 27 November 2004

  Just after Lily got back, the Polda police asked to see me again for further questioning. ‘Why did you cry when you were arrested?’ was their question of interest. It was so ridiculous that Lily became fearful it might just be a ruse to give them one last chance to get me to unwittingly sign a confession. The police were running out of time to find their second bit of evidence, as it was just days before their deadline to pass the case over to the prosecutors.

  I simply couldn’t trust anyone. Not the police, not the guards and definitely not the other prisoners. I had to watch my back all the time. People were still always trying to snap photos of me, and snippets about me and my case regularly made it into the newspapers. There were spies everywhere, all ready to earn cash.

  Lily, Vasu, Merc and I had a meeting in the Kerobokan office discussing important details of my case. There is no privacy. Prisoners and guards walking in and out of the office. Lily was trying to get them out. There are still so many spies; they like to make up stories and sell them to the newspapers. Come on! This is my life we are trying to talk about.

  Diary entry, 30 November 2004

  So many lies were still being reported in the local media that Merc and Lily held a press conference to set a few things straight: I did not visit Bali in January 2004, Merc and Wayan did not live in Bali permanently, I was not part of a drug syndicate here or anywhere else, and I did not own a drug factory that converts marijuana into heroin!

  I felt so exasperated. No one was helping me or my lawyers. Not in Australia and not in Bali. I’d consented to the testing of the marijuana, but the Bali police had said ‘no’. I had asked for fingerprinting of the inner bag, but the Bali police said ‘no need’. What the hell sort of investigation were they running? I pushed my lawyers to keep pushing. This was my life. My life!

  Of course the police knew I wasn’t a drug dealer. Why else were they refusing to do any investigation? They had a strong case. It was in my bag. No point digging for evidence that might actually weaken their case, especially one that was so high-profile. I presented a chance for them to make an explosive example of what Bali did to Western drug traffickers.

  I was taken to the prosecutors’ office on the day the brief was handed over. While being held in a cell, I met the Australian yachtsman Chris Packer, who’d been charged with failing to declare six guns on his boat. He was about to be transferred from Polda to Kerobokan. We were like two animals in a cage, the media snapping away wildly. We both tried uselessly to hide until Merc cut a deal: we’d pose for a couple of shots then they’d go away. Done.

  Once inside the office, it was my chance to personally plead with the chief prosecutor. ‘Please, please, fingerprint the inside bag. PLEASE!’

  He pretty much ignored me. ‘Ask the judge!’

  What I’d thought was an important meeting was just a media show. In front of the photographers, I was made to repack my boogie-board bag. The prosecutor also pulled out the bag of marijuana for the photographers to snap away at, with me in the background. He even gave them my passport to look through and photograph. I could trust no one. No one!

  It was exhausting. The stress was endless. Nothing was OK. Just when I thought a day was passing bearably, some sick new drama would break and shock the hell out of me. I’ve discovered that no matter how many times you see it, you never get used to watching another human being get kicked in the face or brutally beaten.

  The first time I saw prisoners attacked by guards was about three weeks after I’d arrived at Hotel K. By chance, I was in the office when the guards laid into them and was shocked at how fierce they were in full public view.

  About eight new prisoners were brought in – Chris Currall being one of them. He was very skinny, shaking and extremely nervous and scared. I told him he’ll be OK, gave him a packet of my ciggies and a bit of mo
ney. They had to do a bunch of push-ups, take their shirts off and the guard punched them in the stomach quite fiercely three or four times. Some of the Indonesian guys had their hair chopped with a blunt carving knife, even though they already had short-back-and-side cuts.

  Diary entry, 2 December 2004

  Merc was not going to come today, but because Chris had arrived at Kerobokan and has no one here to bring him anything, she decided to do some shopping to pick him up some things; also she bought both of us a nice salad roll.

  Diary entry, 3 December 2004

  A week later, I saw real bloody, brutal violence for the first time. Gabriel, the American guy I’d briefly spoken to while he was playing tennis, was beaten almost to death. I’d been having a good day and was sitting in the visiting hall chatting to a few girls on holiday from Perth when action broke out, suddenly turning the lazy, hot afternoon fast and furious. There was movement everywhere, people everywhere, all running, all sprinting towards the front jail doors. We leapt up to see what was going on. Through the windows, we saw Gabriel being shoved, pushed, punched and beaten up badly by the guards.

  We watched in shock for a little while until I had to go back for roll call. The girls had to stay for nearly two hours until they were finally allowed to leave. They passed the wide-open door to the room where Gabriel lay and saw his legs splayed out on the floor. The guards were still attacking him.

  It turned out that Gabriel had tried to escape over the fence. He’d only had a few months to go but was drunk. He reached the street outside and started running down it until he hailed a passing cab. But that’s where his luck ran out. As he was climbing in, the driver suddenly saw prison guards yelling and running towards him, so he accelerated, knocking Gabriel out and running over his leg before speeding off.

  The guards caught Gabriel on the road while he was down, kicking and attacking him before dragging him back into Kerobokan, where more guards fiercely laid into him with iron bars. Even when he was lying in a pool of blood, almost unconscious, with deep gashes to his head and neck, they kept kicking and punching him. He was almost out, and they still didn’t stop the attack.

  Later that afternoon, I convinced the guards to let me out to buy a bottle of Fanta. I snuck a peek at what was going on in the office. There was still a lot of commotion and yelling, but poor Gabriel was unconscious on the floor. A guy from the American Embassy was being pushed around. He was fighting to get Gabriel to a hospital. He was in dire need of it. But the guards refused and kept yelling and shoving him against the wall. I felt panic. Gabriel might die. I wanted to help. I wanted to scream, ‘Get him to a hospital, you monsters!’ But I didn’t. It knew it wouldn’t do any good. It would just put me in the firing line.

  This American embassy guy is getting nowhere; they won’t let Gabriel go to a hospital. The guy needs help. I went back to my section and paid the guard to use her mobile – with a friendly smile I told her I was calling my sister. I quickly told Merc what was happening and to call the Australian Consulate and the Red Cross. The conversation was over in seconds.

  Couldn’t get back out as we were all locked away early. Couldn’t sleep at all, spent the night crying and praying. The next morning I found out that Gabriel had stitches. He’s now in isolation – the tower of the bombers. I went to church. Walking past the tower I yelled out, ‘Thinking about you and praying for you.’

  Diary entry, 13 December 2004

  The next day, I put together a bag of antiseptic soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, water, mosquito repellent, pack of cigarettes and lighter, some nibbly food and a magazine. I wrote a little something inside the cover to let him know we were thinking of him. I gave it to my guard helper-friend, Willy, when he came into the women’s section, and he assured me he’d take it straight up to Gabriel.

  At 9 a.m. walking past the tower on my way to church I slowed down to the back of the line, so the guards were way in front and I was able to let everyone go on without me. I stood still with my ears pricked.

  I could hear Gabriel trying to yell out for help – faintly could hear the moans, ‘Help, help me . . . please, help me.’ There was nothing I could do; I had to keep walking to the church now as male prisoners began walking up behind me.

  After church, as I walked back past Gabriel in the tower, he was quiet. I looked at the ground and with a loud voice I said, ‘If you can hear me, I’m trying to get help, I’m trying.’

  Later I saw Willy. He had taken the bag in to Gabriel; said he looks really bad – both eyes big, black and puffed up, fat lips, broken leg, no cast, extreme pain in his spine, his head’s been shaved and has stitches, most of his body is bruised, he’s on the floor with no bedding and he’s been asking for painkillers. I cannot believe this place; they will not give him painkillers. When he was caught, he had a huge amount of American notes on him to organise his freedom. He’ll never be seeing that again.

  Diary entry, 13 December 2004

  Walking past the tower I saw Gabriel standing, trying to look out of a little square window. I stopped for a second and from what I could see his face was still swollen; I could only see his eyes and nose, and his hairline, which has been shaved. Good to know he’s on the way to physically getting better. I told him I’ll be going to church each day this week so when he hears us girls, to yell out to me anything he needs and I’ll do my best to get it for him.

  Diary entry, 14 December 2004

  We might have been prisoners, but we were still people. We were human beings, but in Hotel K we were treated worse than animals. We had no human rights. They did not exist. Prisoners were regularly assaulted by the guards, and Christmas Day was no exception.

  Must have been around 2.30 or 3 p.m. I heard a male voice screaming in deep pain from a room just off the visitors’ room. There were visitors at the time and everyone could hear. We all had the same sad, concerned expression. I asked the drinks guy if a prisoner was in there and he nodded with the same expression as ours.

  Apparently the police are torturing a prisoner to find out how the drugs are getting in. His torture had started around 9 a.m. He’d already had two of his fingernails ripped off. So I dread to imagine what else has happened to him by now.

  Diary entry, 25 December 2004

  The prison didn’t provide any medicine. Prisoners had to buy it. If you were poor, you suffered. Merc was regularly buying eye drops and antibiotics for girls in my cell, so their infections didn’t endlessly circulate among us. Unbelievably, the prison didn’t even give us anything to sleep on or sit on. Those who couldn’t afford to buy a mattress slept on the bare concrete floor.

  But the most frighteningly inhumane thing was that at night in the women’s block we were trapped in our cages, with no chance of getting out in an emergency. There was no key. After the guards locked us in at 4.30 p.m., they went home with the key. If there was a fire, we’d die. We’d be trapped like useless monkeys in our cages. We’d be left for dead. We couldn’t get out, and no one could get in. We were locked in cages, penned in behind concrete walls with no guard. The only way to get help was by yelling, screaming and banging like crazy. But even if someone heard us, it’d be hours before the key turned up.

  One night I thought my cellmate was going to die. We could not get help.

  Watini arrived a few weeks after me, bringing knife-edge dramato the cell. I found out she was just over a month pregnant, after conceiving while in a police holding cell. I didn’t ask her whether the father was a guard or another prisoner. I didn’t want to know. But we spent days talking about this little baby with Watini in tears, not sure whether to have an abortion or have the child and adopt it out.

  ‘It’s OK if you want to have the baby,’ I told her. ‘I’m going home soon, I’ll take care of it for you. Or my mum would love to look after your little baby. We’ll do that for you, if you want to have the baby.’ She said thank you.

  A few days later she came out of the bathroom saying, ‘I’m clean!’

  ‘What are you tal
king about?’ I asked.

  She’d just miscarried her baby. She didn’t seem upset or in pain. I felt so sad for her. That night I cried for her and for the lost life. But in the morning, the girls in my cell told me not to be upset, explaining to me that she’d secretly been doing rough stomach massages to help abort it. I felt sick. We’d talked about this little baby. Yeah, she was in jail, but it was a baby. They said it was something they all did as a form of contraception. I felt disgust.

  Tonight the new cellmate had a miscarriage. We have no guards in our section during the night, as they leave after we’re locked in at 4.30 p.m. – no doctor, no help. If something happens, they have to go outside the jail to get the keys. Not quick.

  Diary entry, 2 December 2004

  The drama wasn’t over. Watini was a twenty-two-year-old prostitute who’d forced her poor young body to endure fifteen massaged miscarriages, which had shredded her insides, and a few nights later I woke to her blood-curdling screams of agony. I didn’t know what was going on. Fortunately, some of the other girls did. Her insides were falling out. Someone spread her legs, held her ankles for grip and then forcefully put her heel to Watini’s groin to push her insides back in. The first time I saw this, I thought she was going to die. I couldn’t believe we could not get outside help.

  Watini had six or seven more excruciating episodes. She’d just start screaming and screaming and the girls would run in, take her jeans off and put their heels into her. I’d gently stroke her forehead to try to soothe her.

  She was in bad shape. She needed to go to hospital. But the prison refused, despite Merc offering to pay the bill. It was ridiculous red tape. Watini’s release papers had to come from the police station, as she hadn’t yet been sentenced, so she wasn’t yet the jail’s problem. Eventually, the prison doctor suggested that she get a girdle to help keep her insides nice and tight. She did, and it seemed to work.