I am woken from a restless sleep by a hand over my chapped mouth. Startled, I see above me a man in uniform who holds his finger to his lips for silence.
Then I notice the light that falls into the cell.
I writhe with near madness. Pure excitement takes over my higher functions. A door! A door! An open door! The corridor! It is as if a new world opens before me. I am Alice and the corridor is my wonderland; I want to leave. Can you not see, my dear guards? My wonderland is ready to be explored.
While elation travels through my body till I am near as giddy as a child, I am pulled upright by the collar of my tunic. I squeal with glee. The trousers of the people that restrain me fascinate me, and I long to touch the colourful fabrics, but each time I reach out, they slap away my hands with repellent tsks and they exchange disturbed glances. I care not.
Their ugly, ugly faces.
They are salvation to me.
Manacles are locked round my wrists and yet I give no resistance. The chains gently cling-clang against each other when moved, and the chafed, rusted iron stinks. I laugh at that. Throwing my head back in sheer, unapologetic mirth. The guards exchange an uncomfortable look.
Don't mind me, children. Let an old woman have her antics. Because how long has it been since I had something clean, myself?
And there is the corridor. Closer. Closer. So wide and long and open! Oh— good God how high the ceiling actually is here!
With one guard on either side of me, I pass through a long range of gloomy passageways. Each time we move past a torch, the sabres and carbines of the guards glitter enticingly. Another involuntary giggle wells up in me. We ascent a flight of stairs and pass through a door. The door closes behind us and my guards halt for a minute.
We have arrived in an unfurnished waiting hall; at the far end there is a window. I hear the measured tread of sentinels, and as they pass before the window, the barrels of their muskets reflect the sun.
Pretty, I think. Pretty.
"Is that her?"
My attention is pulled back as a third man enters. A thick-set man of tall stature with flat hair and kind eyes, wearing a jacket that is good on his shoulders but too slight anywhere else.
"Yeah." The guard on my left replies.
"Let her follow me, I will take her to Sanz."
"Yes, sir," the left one says. The other one trusts me forward half-heartedly.
"Go on."
Another corridor, another door. And once that one is locked behind me, I arrive at a hallway that is sparsely dressed, but nonetheless furnished. A comfortable chair stands before each of the three doors. The last door stands awry. My guard leads me towards it and disappeared inside the room.
I wait.
"Yes— yes, bring her in."
The door opens once more and I am admitted. The room is a compact area of files and filing cabinets, dominated by a hardwood desk with cabriole legs, holding stained files buried under a timepiece that has seen better days, a cast iron paperweight, and a small easel frame in bronze. The opposite wall is bare. Outside, the sun is high and shining, but the window falls in the constant shadow of the flag-post right in front of it.
Unbearably conscious of myself, I start playing with the links of the chains and shift my weight. The man seated behind the desk doesn't spare me as much as a glance. Instead, he cards through his hair, takes off his glasses, and points with them at the chair opposite.
"Sit."
I nod warily. The man puts his glasses back. Halfway into my seat I hunch into myself in surprise as the guard slams the door shut. His footsteps distance themselves and I look back at the clerk before me as he shuffles his portfolios. I swallow. My hands are clammy.
A dry cough wells up in the otherwise silent room, and at once, the clerk scratches his stained foul blond moustache, touches his fingers to his lips, and turns a page with them.
"Your name?"
"Maria Bovio Garcicea."
The clerk hums, squeezing his eyes as he reads the form through his thick-rimmed glasses. "Your age?" He continues.
"Fifty-three."
The man frowns. "You're sure?" He keeps scrunching his nose as the glasses slip down.
"Yes."
The clerk hums. His pen scrapes as he adjusts his form with quavering hands. He has yet to look at me.
I tilt my head and swallow, still tentative of what I am doing here. The clerk makes some sort of smacking, moite sound with his mouth. One that sounds idle and involuntary. He turns another page. The room reeks of bile. My hands are clenched and yet they are moving in tiny spasms, and I don't quite manage to regain control over them.
Flee, the voice once more whispers. Flee.
I would, I tell them. How?
My attention falls with sudden linear focus on the impish man in front of me as he rises from his seat, pushes back his chair, and, with the great difficulty of a man of age, steps round the desk towards a filling cabinet. I don't know what he is looking for. I know I'll never know. I don't care.
He smacks again.
My resolution is formed, and, swinging myself out of the chair and onto him, I take him to the ground.