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MARCHING POWDER

Portuguese ‘cerveja’ instead of the Spanish ‘cerveza’. He often did that, especially when he was drunk, so I had trouble understanding him.

Samir wasn’t talkative that afternoon, but he did have that look in his eye that meant he was up to something. I eventually got him to tell me what it was: he was going to escape.

‘When?’

‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Soon.’

‘But how?’

‘Easy.’ He pointed upwards with his index finger and then back down, whistling the sound of something falling. He was planning on climbing over the wall, or through the wall, or something of the sort.

‘Are you loco?’

It was pure madness and I tried to tell him so. San Pedro was like a castle. It had been built over a century before with walls that must have been at least fifteen metres high. Even if someone managed to get up to the top, he would die or break his legs from the fall to the pavement below. Digging under the wall was impossible since the ground was solid cement, and digging through it was also out of the question since there were actually two walls, an inner and an outer, and each was several metres thick.

Although he couldn’t tell me how, Samir insisted that he would escape and I knew that he was crazy enough to try. I couldn’t prevent him from attempting to carry out his ridiculous plan, but it was worse than that: he wanted me to break out with him! There was no way I was going.

‘Forget it, Samir.’

‘You’re a fucking coward, inglés,’ he said angrily, spitting on the concrete just in front of my feet. ‘You know that? A coward.’

Samir persisted, but I kept refusing until he got sick of asking. I didn’t care if I was a coward; I wasn’t going over that wall, and certainly not with a crazy Brazilian as my escape partner. It was suicide. Finally, he abused me in Portuguese and stormed back inside, banging his fists on each of the cell doors as he went along the corridor. Which was probably when he had the idea about having a fiesta.

Samir was back in the yard almost immediately, all excited about something. He had obviously forgiven me.

‘Thomas. My brother, I need you to get us something good,’ he whispered, moving his hand closer to his face and flicking his wrist