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MARCHING POWDER

When he returned, they smoked more pipes and started laughing. The smoke smelled really odd, like a strange chemical burning. For five minutes the conversation started up again, then there was some kind of argument. One of the men screamed at his friend, then laughed hideously. The sound bounced off the damp walls into the empty space. Finally, they were silent and I went back to waiting and shivering.

An hour later, I was shaking so much I couldn't stand it any longer. I got weakly to my feet and made my way out through the door.

'Chao, gringo. ¡Suerte!' one of the men called from behind me, and all four laughed. Still wrapped in my blanket, I walked carefully back up the corridor. When a group of prisoners passed me, one of them bumped into me on purpose and the others hissed 'gringo' at me. I hurried on through the courtyard and into the section with five stars above its entrance. I thought I might collapse at any moment. I asked the first inmate I saw if he knew Ricardo. He laughed at me.

'Which Ricardo?' he wanted to know. I shook my head.

'¡Ricardo! Le busca. ¡Ricardo!' he yelled up into the night air, then shrugged as if to say that was all he could do. There could have been fifty men called Ricardo in that section. How would I ever find my Ricardo?

'Hey, Inglaterra! Up here!' a voice came from above. I looked up. It was him! 'What are you doing down there? Get your sorry black arse up here!' He waved his arm to come up. 'What are you waiting for, Inglaterra? There's no elevator. This is a prison, for chrissakes. The stairs are right there!'

Ricardo greeted me warmly on the second-floor balcony with a firm handshake. His hair was wet and he smelled of aftershave, as if he had just stepped out of the shower.

'How was your day, Thomas? Are you well?' The way he said this made it sound like we weren't prisoners, but two good friends meeting after work, and I responded in the same way.

'Not bad, thank you.'

'Really? You don't look it,' he poked me playfully in the ribs. 'You look sick, actually. Are you sick?'

'Yes. A little bit. But I'm OK,' I responded automatically for the second time that day.

That morning I had prepared myself to die and now I was so weak

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