Grasp the bird’s tail, become the white stork, repulse the monkey, face the tiger, let your hands become clouds and circulate the water of life. Let the white snake creep down and ride the tiger. Shoot the tiger, gather your chi, and go back to tan tien, the center.
The complete cycle took an hour, and when it was finished Tracy was exhausted. She went through the ritual each morning and afternoon until her body began to respond and grow strong.
When she was not exercising her body, Tracy exercised her mind. She lay in the dark, doing complicated mathematical equations, mentally operating the computer at the bank, reciting poetry, recalling the lines of plays she had been in at college. She was a perfectionist, and when she had gotten a part in a school play where she had to use different accents, she had studied accents for weeks before the play went on. A talent scout had once approached her to offer her a screen test in Hollywood. “No, thank you. I don’t want the limelight. That’s not for me,” Tracy had told him.
Charles’s voice: You’re the headline in this morning’s Daily News.
Tracy pushed the memory of Charles away. There were doors in her mind that had to remain closed for now.
She played the teaching game: Name three absolutely impossible things to teach.
To teach an ant the difference between Catholics and Protestants.
To make a bee understand that it is the earth that travels around the sun.
To explain to a cat the difference between communism and democracy.
But she concentrated mostly on how she was going to destroy her enemies, each of them in turn. She remembered a game she had played as a child. By holding up one hand toward the sky, it was possible to blot out the sun. That’s what they had done to her. They had raised a hand and blotted out her life.
Tracy had no idea how many prisoners had been broken by their confinement in the bing, nor would it have mattered to her.
On the seventh day, when the cell door opened, Tracy was blinded by the sudden light that flooded the cell. A guard stood outside. “On your feet. You’re going back upstairs.”
He reached down to give Tracy a helping hand, and to his surprise, she rose easily to her feet and walked out of the cell unaided. The other prisoners he had removed from solitary had come out either broken or defiant, but this prisoner was neither. There was an aura of dignity about her, a self-confidence that was alien to this place. Tracy stood in the light, letting her eyes gradually get accustomed to it. What a great-looking piece of ass, the guard thought. Get her cleaned up and you could take her anywhere. I’ll bet she’d do anything for a few favors.
Aloud he said, “A pretty girl like you shouldn’t have to go through this kind of thing. If you and me was friends, I’d see that it didn’t happen again.”
Tracy turned to face him, and when he saw the look in her eyes, he hastily decided not to pursue it.
The guard walked Tracy upstairs and turned her over to a matron.
The matron sniffed. “Jesus, you stink. Go in and take a shower. We’ll burn those clothes.”
The cold shower felt wonderful. Tracy shampooed her hair and scrubbed herself from head to foot with the harsh lye soap.
When she had dried herself and put on a change of clothing, the matron was waiting for her. “Warden wants to see you.”
The last time Tracy had heard those words, she had believed it meant her freedom. Never again would she be that naive.
Warden Brannigan was standing at the window when Tracy walked into his office. He turned and said, “Sit down, please.” Tracy took a chair. “I’ve been away in Washington at a conference. I just returned this morning and saw a report on what happened. You should not have been put in solitary.”
She sat watching him, her impassive face giving nothing away.
The warden glanced at a paper on his desk. “According to this report, you were sexually assaulted by your cell mates.”