Scene: 1
This is the scene where he is moved from his cell in constantinople. What he doesn't know is that Tjanja handmaid (Clara Zucco) Hijacks the prisoner carriage he is in and takes him off into the Desert of the middle east and puts him in an ottoman prison where the Sultan of Constantinople can find him. The prison is run by hired thugs and murderers. The Prison takes the over flow from other prisons through out the empire.
Scene: 2
The first stage of MC's torture is done on Mass Volume... they fake is death... the scene ends with him moved to a private cell where the torture continues in a different way, just on him.
Scene: 3
Scene starts with Faria and Dantes Talking, Faria tries to persuade Dante that She (Who MC thinks is Tjanja but is actually Clara Zucco) is lying to him. (She is trying to find out where Tjanja is and if he succeeded in getting her free - but he refuses to say anything)
Then she arrives in the cell and tries to persuade him otherwise...
Scene: 4
It is in this scene that MC is tortured in an individual cell and reads the letter planted by Clara, actually written by Tjanja and received telling of her existance & imprisonment in Tunisia, a gift from the Sultan of constantinople to the Bey of Tunis.
Scene: 5
Chapter 20 - Monte Cristo's torture
Monte Cristo stirs as voices drift in from the hall outside his Cell door. A sharp pain flashes through his head. The pillow sticks to him in a crisp fashion that speaks of the gash that has tried to heal since he was bludgened.
A growl rumbles at him through the great. "Wake up, italian ponse. Show me your hands. Now" Monte Cristo raises his hands, but not from passive acceptance of the order, but more to shield his eyes from the bright light that shines in through the grate that has been slid back by the guard. The door swings open violently and three guards, in the dress of the Ottoman sultan enter, silhouetted in the doorway of the cramped jail cell. Still sluggish from the head trauma, Monte Cristo looks down at the torn ragged clothes he is wearing. Good clothes, ruined. But before he can spare anymore though a shadow crosses the small space as he looks up to see one of the men, crossing toward him, swinging a pair of shackles. He grabs Monte Cristo, picking him up and slamming him against the wall, driving an elbow between his shoulder blades the other two are on hand to rip back his arms, almost dislocating them in the process. The cold, sharp edges rasp acrossed his wrists an the flat surfaces clamped tightly against his skin. Horror crosses his face as realisation sets in. He wants to scream, he wants to fight. He remembers Chateau D'If so well and if he could he wants to jump into the sea and swim from that boat. He didn't know then what was coming, but he was sure he knew now. His struggle soon told the guards of his experience. But they held him as if he had been placed in an iron grip.
"Tisk, This pathetic christian is that vile thing we've been hearing about, wrilling the peasants have we?" spittle spraying from the guards lips flecked the face and that vile stench of halitosis turned the stomach "famous Count Zuconie isn't it? At least your not that fekless freak Byron. If he is not killed before he is captured, I bet he wishes he had been. As for you though, it seems you have a more favoured interest with the Sultan. This way, Move!"
The shackles bit down on his wrists as they are bulled down by the guard by the chain, standing behind him, putting and keeping him off balance. Their laughter echoed and followed them down the stone hall.
Soon they arrive in a small room, close to freedom, it only lay on the otherside of that door. A desk and ledger were amongst a few of the decorative things in the room, clearly a guard room and office of sorts, whilst also the live in quarters for the rotating guard "You've made a mistake. I'm not who you think I am." The captain of the guard steps in to the room from a side door. The guard as his shackless thumps him in the spine, dropping the count to his knees. The captain in turn lashes him across the cheek with his pathetic whip. "Shut up you non believer. You have insulted and conspired in rebellion. Stand him up, and seat him over there by the wall."
"Please. I haven't done anything -- I am here in Constantinople on business. I am trading. I ------" a thick hood is slid over his head.
"Shut up christian! I know what you are and what you have been doing. Since your little visit to the Sultan and your business transaction with him, we have been following you. How does a trader come by something so 'unique' with out theft or politik! Who sent you? Think about it. It seems your transport has arrived. We don't want to keep your interrogation waiting."
It is sometime before the hood is lifted from his head. Monte Cristo squints hard, a wash in darkness, completely different from the blinding light he had been able to see since he had left the cell.
He had been travelling now for 12 days wearing this hood, and although it had been exhuasting, their had been a clear change in the way he had been handled. The second team, he presumed, which has taken over his transport had been much rougher. They had only fed him at the brightest time of the day. He had had to drink water pored on him through the bag, and he had been stripped of his clothes and thrown back into his transport carriage naked. IT was hot. Hot like a furnace. And they never seemed to stop. Not even at night. As though he was being rushed somewhere with the utmost urgency. The guards must have been on some rotation or something. Sleeping whilst travelling, on an on / off shift pattern. He glistened with sweat, and the bag made it sufficating, he constantly felt as though he was affixiating. Respite only came at night, when he could enjoy the cool air, although he could tell when it was nearl dawn, as the temperature reached it's coldest and he found himself pleading for the sun to warm his little box again.
Then, as suddenly as the journey had begun, it had stopped. A figure had climbed into the carriage box he was held in and checked his shackles and chains that he was attached to the floor by, shook them, the n touched him gently on the face. A hand had found his and handed him some rags of clothes to wear. A simple slip like sack that barely fit his shoulders and covered him to the knee in a single peice. Thread bear and worn in places, or so if felt, it chaiffed. Then, the shackles chains released by another who had replaced the first he was haulled from the cart box and dumped on the ground. More acurately, rubble like sand. His landing threw up a cloud of dust. He clearly wasn't in constantinople anymore and this place wasn't anywhere he knew. The sand felt like it was on fire, making him want to stand quickly, only to continue burning the souls of his feet. Before he is pushed from behind and chained to gang of others. Then the realisation hit him. He was being put together and most probably sold with a group of slaves. Terror now truely over took him, he couldn't wet himself, he was to dehydrated, but if he had been, he would have disgraced himself. Never had he planned on this... but he found his mind drifting to thoughts of Haydee ... he knew very well that the fate of make slaves was quite different and he bit his lip in horror at the thought of the stones or the heated knife.
The group is shuffled through an archway, that much was clear through the bad that covered his head. They had been forced to shuffle it had seemed for over an hour. But now it seemed they had arrived, and the desert sun, which he could feel burning and blistering his skin vanished so suddenly his body couldn't deal with the sensation. He felt like he was experiencing hot and cold all at the same time. Then suddenly his hood was ripped back and he was met with quite a sight. He was in an arab prison. That much was clear. Few sources of light, with the lack of windows, the place was dark and smelt of swet rom it's inmates. He was chained in a gang. A gang of about a hundered and twenty people. Men is swaddled head scafs that crossed over and hid the face stood at equal passings along the wall on the opposite of the corridor. The line slowly shuffles forward, as he hears from behind him, guards moving down the line snatching back hoods and exclaiming, 'well, what do we have hear then...' . Exhaustively after an hour of waiting and shuffling, before him, the man he has spent the last two hours chained to is, unchained, stripped and led away. Revealed, sat before him, a man, dressed like a turk in origin, but fat and bulbous in all his features including his nose like an over fed arab with a to caring wife, sits, fidgetting, at his desk. A guard at his side, lit by open holes over head letting in the harsh white light of the desert out side.
Monte Cristo tries to blink to remove the grit that has built up in his eyes. A guard steps over and washes them with a cup of water his drops over the counts face. Bringing instant release. The pain in his eyes fading as he blinked to clear them.
His interrogator spoke, "Do you know where you are? Why you are here?" he looked down at the ledger before him, "...Edmond Dantes?"
A week reply dribbled from Dantes dry mouth, "No, ... No, I ...., please, I didn't do anything."
"Allow me to be more precise. Did you participate in the murder of one ________________, ________________ and _______________? Then insight rebellion against he who is holy that governs us and rules us by the summons of almighty Allah?"
"No."
"Did you participate in the assult that took place on the residence of the sultan and his advisors, the murder of Ottoman officials and other co-ordinated attacks through out the city of Constantinople under your direction?"
"No, I --
"Did you participate in the murder of the diplomat Gueillme De Phiney and his concierge on the road between macedone occupied territories and the city of His greatness the Sultan?
"No, I didn't --
"What is the identity of your supporters in this hidious and sedicius crime in our great city?"
"I don't know. And I don't know what you are talking about"
"You are lying Edmond Dantes. I have hear a letter, addressed from Venice, to acquaintances of yours I believe in our great city instructing them with orders to, and I quote, excuse my bad italian, a disgusting language, 'smooth the way for him'. Do you care to explain?"
"I have never seen that letter before in my life. I do not know what you talk of and I have no friends in Venice. Only enemies."
"So you claim to be a victim? Not the first. And i'm sure you won't be the last. Now ...uh, No! Shut up, enough prattle from you. We are done."
Dante swallows hard when he sees what the man scrawles on the ledger next to his entry. Torture indiscreet, execution.
"Edmond Dantes. I find you vile and twisted. Poison on your tongue, tainting every word you say. I do not believe anything you have said, as the evidence against you concludes and supports me to state. You may not have done the deed, but you were the puppet master. I will not tolerate any more of your lies. Do you want to know why you're here? You are formally being allocated punishment, based upon charges of murder on, fourteen counts of acts to create rebellion, attempt at theft and sedition against our great Leader and country which brings an automatic sentence that will result in torture and finally of death.
"Please...." the interrogator finally looks up at Dante stood before him. The man before him clearly didn't fear him, or clearly have any regard for him as a threat. "Take the prisoner away and place him in a cell until he can be made to be more cooperative. What will happen to you now will be down to you and your decisions. Next."
The guard at the interrigators side stepped forwrd and slips a rope collar around his kneck, over Dante's head. He is then unchanged and hauled off by the kneck behind a guard, followed by another. The line around his kneck chocking him and making him wretch.
He was then led to a large hall, where line after line of others were seated on short stools. Men working on their heads with blades. Fear surges through Dantes body. Rough hands push Dante down onto a small wooden stool and then runs a plade over his scalp. Huge clumps of hair fall from his head to the ground.
Dante lies crumpled on the hard floor oh his cell, unmoving, rammed into a room with ten other lost souls. All sullen and down cast as suddenly a bowl of scraps is thrown into the roomfrom a whole in the centre of the door.
All ten of them in the room rushed for the bowl and fought like animals, bearing their teeth as they scattered the contents of the bowl across the floor, grabbing and snatching at peices of food.
Dante watched on as they scuttled back to their positions like rats crossing from a hole in the wall. He felt panic welling in his depths. This was Chateau D'If again. He barely survived that. His only saviour. Faria. There was no Faria or saviour here... he was alone in a sea of humanity.
* * *
"It worries me.... because... I've never had course to be brave. I have speant most of my life locked in a prison..."
"Are you talking to me boy?" Faria sits on a stool across from him, a look of disinterest on his face as he glances either way down the length of the gallery.
"... ... I worry... I might lack the capacity... ability..." delerium and lack of water make it difficult to concentrate, "...so I must identify with those from the lower reaches of life... scum and cowards...fearing that..."
"My son, but for an accident of history, your fate has decided to cast you as the villain. You are, now, walking amongst them."
"...I am... I seem to them, to be their comrade and equal."
"I fear for you Dante. I fear the constant loss of mind as time slips away." The faria wore a sullen frown as he looked on at his student. A man close to breaking. The Farias image faded ... was gone. How much time? How long have I been here? Shackled? the days drag slowly... so slowly. Punctuated by... The gallery's gate clanged and screached as the gaurds opened it and called out in a harsh arabic tongue, words that could only be understood as get up, move. followed by some insult. At first the meaning was not known to many, but after a close meeting with the whip, most seemed to carry their skeletal like frames which distinguished then as prisoners through the gate and out into the hall ways, soon moving together as a single mass. Marched out as they were caged, together. Chained to each other in lines. The group shuffled out into a vaulted courtyard with high ribbed ceilings. Sand covered the floor and caught between the toes. These events happened randomly. There could be three days of these re-educations, then nothing for a week. Even the way they chose those to be their demonstration seemed to be at random. The process seemed void of logic. He couldn't understand why, and when ever he sought Faria and questioned the old man, he recieved the simplest of answers "it's not what you are that matters, it's what they want you to be." then he would descend into ramblings of condesention and lecturing. As a critic he damned Dante, then challenged him as being a coward. Dante knew that Faria only voiced what he felt everytime he and the other prisoners were marched out to watch, as random explanations were read out for the reason of execution, those prisoners who protest were killed slowly... those who are dead standing, are cut down like firewood. Today was going to be no different. Often all it took was a single blow. Those who didn't watch , were beaten. From Faria's earlier lecturings Dante had found the courage to avert his gaze and had been beaten to. He had returned to find the Faria preaching in the gallery 'All soon learn to watch, even if they've had a belly full!.' The crazy Abbe they had called him at the Chateau D'If ... he was certainly crazy here. Though he couldn't work out why the other prisoners kept staring at him and not the Abbe.
Slowly the weeks crawled by... the same torturous parades continued. Known amongst the prisoners as the black parade, all it needed was a marching band and it would be complete. But the Faria started appearing at the events. Walking amongst the watchers... 12 of them, who would stand opposite the lines. Heads swoddled in desert shemagh's, only their eyes shone through the wrapped cloth to identify them as human. Eyes that stabed into the crowd of prisoners, hate pouring from their stares. Faria would play at inspecting them and snearing, moving on and passing right in front of their eyes. Those all seeing eyes never saw him. The watchers never aware, continued their stare at their slaves before them.
"I know you are a creation of my imagination! Why won't you go away!"
"Oh, come come Dante. That's no way to speak to a friend now is it. I'm here because truely you want me to be. Otherwise simply I wouldn't be."
"But I don't want you here!"
"Why not? Or more acturately you should be asking the question, why you want me here,"
"Why then!?!"
"Because your not ready. I am here to teach you."
As the exections progressed, the squimish cowardice that sits in the belly began to slip away, to a mild discomfort, then an ache, then, finally, no more than a lead weight. Before it soon became unnoticable all together.
"Good Dantes, we are finally achieving something. Start now to learn. To study. You no longer should be distracted by the horrors... look for the things that the eyes of an innocent would miss."
The deaths and executions continued. New victims would arrive daily, the prison groaned at the seems with it's prisoner volume. They sat cheek to jowl with each other. All though Dantes found he had a little more space about him than others due to his random out breaks of madness, or so the other prisoners described to him when through the haze of dillusion he could string together sentences to ask why they feared him. Many languages filled that room. French, Dutch, English, scandinavian, itlalian in small numbers ... the majority were Afrikan, islamic or hebrew. He would then slump back into his delirium. The deaths continued and as Dante became more and more descensitised to it, he started to focus. Watch. Learn. He notices that the executions started to turn and change. They become more toturous, more violent, more sadisitic, then manipulative ... demanding prisoners to make logical decisions... choosing between two evils. Each one more complex than the last. More sadistic. The Abbe was taking him down a different path... a path that was opening Dante's eyes to humanity at it's basest and cruelest. But there is only so much violence a mind can take before it becomes jaded and one dispatch melds simply into the other as the mind gets board with the violence. With no lust or desire the mind again tries to sheild itself behind a vail. The eyes simply appear vacant.
Suddenly Dantes is chosen. He is lashed. re-awakening him to his situation, the pain cutting through the fog in his mind like a search light. He is given an ultimatum. "Remove your own tooth... or, nail this through your hand as was done to your christian bastard god, since his own father claimed not to have concieved him. Choose your edict Christian! We wash our hands of you." The 12th stood before him, metal extraction clasps in one hand, stake and carpenters mallet in the other. Dante takes the metal clasps from the 12ths open palm "...Eye for an Eye, tooth for a tooth christian. Don't forget it."
Dante held the metal clasps before him. Rought iron, they were heavy, they were getting heavier... a weight like this could break a skull, he would at least get revenge for what they had done to him. He points the pliars at the 12th. Th man doesn't flinch. But he is ready. He is stronger and faster than any prisoner could be after weeks of starvation. Everything slowed in Dantes mindHe placed the clasp to his mouth fluidly, to fast clearly for the 12th as he flinched at this, but to date it was slow, Everything had slowed, figures were just slow blurring shapes... except for the Faria who passed between them like a predator in a crowd. Moving slowly and with purpose.
"You know Dantes that they are going to kill you. To pull your tooth is but the beginning. You have seen other prisoners do this before. You know it is only the beginning. Stop telling yourself it will end. For it won't. They will draw it out. Yes... that's it... good. Accept it. Realise that what I am saying is truth. let your helpness wash over you... take control of the only thing left to your control... face death. Don't be scared of it. It is your escape. Don't fear it." Faria pulls a small golden sand egg timer from the sleeve of his cloak, it's two glass bulbs holding sand that flowed as it counted his time. "Watch as you time left to live pours away, grain by grain... second by second. Do it. Get it over and done with... why are you savouring it?" A smile slowly draws across Farias face as realisation replaces contempt. Then Faria rotates the little golden egg timer.
Crunch!
Dante readjusts the grip on the tooth. Half pulled from his skull, he utters not a howl or a scream of pain, only a single tear is shed. He is too busy looking at his executioners, studying the room. Feeling the sandthat rasped under his knees. He felt the most alive, more than he ever had, in that exact moment. His nuerons firing so fast that every detail in the room filled his senses and his mind. His senses were so keen that they were even tricking him... he was back in his cell, cell no 34, he could taste the salt and smell the damp rot of stones riddled with the roots of plants. He was back in the Chateau D'If and Faria was before him, not as he appeared in his visions of him smartly dressed, but as the old dirty, wrapped in wrags skeleton of a man he remembered. Faria was watching him. Crossed leg. The stone to the hidden tunnel between their cells sat to the side of the entrance.
"Focus now Dante. Or you will miss it... concentrate. Don't let memories cloud your vision. You are now living each second faster than any other person in the room that you have left behind. Your mind is trying to protect you. IT has placed you in the safest room you now. And of course, the room that you are so familiar with. Do you recognise it?" Faria pushed himself off of the cold damp floor. His joints creeked and his bones growned like limbs of wood on an old oak tree.
"It's where we had our lessons when I was your student."
"Yes. It's where i gave you all the knowledge that you would ever need. It's where you started this process of change. But we aren't finished yet. You now need to learn how to apply it. I unlocked a whole new world to you. Now, I have one last gift to give you..." Faria pasced about the room until he stood behind Dantes knelt form. Swiftly dropping to his knees, Faria grasped Dantes head tightly. A vice like grip held his head perfectly still. Faria pointed Dantes head slightly to the right and told him to focus on the wall... "concentrate" a figure stood out from the wall. It's form taking shape from the very stone. The aged stone gave way to shape and form. Life moved across rock and was replaced by colour. A complete figure stood there. How could he have not noticed it! It was one of the 12. An executionar that had always stood in that spot and watched. A sharp jar of the head focused his gaze more. "Notice it now Edmond?"
"Yes, the eyes. The eyes, they a
Crack!
The vice like hands pull away from his head suddenly and his head feels heavy like a block of lead.
The world rushes by around him, it's colours, smells, textures shattered. Walls crumbled and turn to dust as though a millenia had passed by in mere seconds. The world tumbled about him like water being drawn down an unsealed plug. The sensation of falling began to emminate through him, but through out, he saw those eyes, and he stared at them... he saw the flinch. The minute glance away as the sound that registered the action was comprehended. The tiniest flutter of the eye lids try to hide the laps as the eyes locked back on Dante, for that was all it was. A flutter. But it was there. Empathy. They were a womans eyes. The shape. The lashes. But it was the deep shades of gold that gave away their owner. Like gold decoration that frames a picture, they framed the black pools that were the very windows to that womans soul. He hit the sand with a thump.
His world swam as the cloud of dust billowed into the air around him, the pain struck him like a hammer burried into his face. He passed out.
The prisoners watched on as the first man they had ever seen to pull out his own tooth with out a murmur lay face down on the floor. Not a sound passed around that room. It had been like watching a tree fall... it had happened slowly. He had ripped the tooth out and disgarded the tooth and tool. Then he had slowly pitched forward. landing on his face kicking up the sand in dust edies. The 12th, in his swaddled shemagh, didn't say a word. He nodded in satisfaction and motioned another from the left of the line to step forward. The slightly rotund individual stepped over the body with one foot and firmly planted both either side of Dantes. With his back to the prisoners lined up behind him, he lifted up Dantes head, wriggling his skinny fingers into Dantes black clumped hair, withdrew his knife from his belt. And at the nod of the 12th, drew the blade swiftly and smoothly in a horizontal fashion for the cleanest and precisist of cuts. Blood gushed gushed across the room. Spraying everywhere. Forming a semi circular pattern in the sand that held the deaths of many men and foot prints of visitors passings. It now claimed one more.
The body was dragged uncerimoniously from the room. gore dripped from the front of the executioner who had used his blade. The 12 filed outand the wardens stepped forward with their crops and whips in hand. Putting the mto use on prisoners backs, thigs and heads. This sent the lines quickly scurrying back to the galleries that served as their holding cells.
* * *
<<INSERT TEXT HERE FROM NOTES ABOUT THE TRANSFER>>
* * *
Faria stands in the shadows, very little light bleeds into the cell through the small grate window. "How are you holding up my son? Do you want to talk?"
"Not to argue I don't"
"No, of course not. But But I want to ask you something."
"What, what do you want to ask?"
"Do you thin you will survive her? She is playing mind games with you. It's a control thing. She wants to control you. Do you think she will simply stop if you deny her? You don't know her Edmond."
"It's not as simple as that Faria. I don't know what she is going to do next, bang me on the head, let me go or even kill me. I just... don't know."
"I can't believe that you're actually considering going along with this!"
"I am secure enough to weather anything she intends to do or make me do..."
"Of course you are" ... sarcasm dripped from the phrase, Faria carfully measured his next words " ... but you should be questioning her motives. You don't know what they are well enough yet. I honestly think you
should take her more seriously. She is no push over Dante. Even dangerous. One false move with her..." Faria paced about the small cell. His clean pressed robes, black with the red chasing at the edges were a stark contrast with the cell that he now occupied. He only paced when he was thinking, ordering his arguement, "... you know. you know what I think Dante. I think she is lying to you. Lying and manipulating you, ... to you. I don't know why she is lying, but she is lying."
"If thats what you think, so be it Faria. Let's see where this rabbit hole leads us. I have no other choice," he wrattled the shackles about each wrist "but it is very unfair..."
"Well there's a simple solution. Wait and let it come to you. Or, chase her down in finding out her motives and go on the offensive. Let's see what she thinks of your aggressive move. See how she will respond to you. That'll tell you everything doesn't it? No?" the two were saturated by the long silence "So, what is really going on? What are you doing?"
"That will tell her everything. Not a good idea."
"You have thought of something else?!"
"Listen to me. Listen, I need you to trust me on this. At the very least, don't give me away on this. Alright?"
"So I am right? She is lying, lying to you. Tjanja..." Faria looks over his shoulder at the door and steps aside. Behind Faria, watching him she stands. How long has she been there?
Dante stared at her sullenly. He had believed everything she had said, now she stood before him. He was her captive, she his captor. "Leave, leave right now. Please, before I do something I regret!"
"You will do what? or?" a snear crossed Tjanja's face. The guards spoke of his incessant mutterings that at times could last for hours. Other times they would report him completely silent. She wasn't sure if he was still truely with them or if it was just a mad man that sat before her "You forget that you are still chained. What could you possibly do to me? You will listen to what I have to say. It will be good for you to listen. "
"No. You are lying to me. Again. Your words are poison."
"Hmmm. What ever gave you that idea? I have never lied to you. I have only implied. You filled in the blanks. You should listen carefully. Especially this time."
"So what are you here to tell me?"
"I've been wondering. Why do you think what is being done to you, is being done?"
"Why does who do what?"
"Nice try. No names. Your captors. Their job, questioning you. It takes such a toll, Why do they think they continue? And why do you continue to put yourself through it?" She could see it in him, he still thought he was hallucinating her presence. He didn't believe she was real. He believed that she was just something his mind had created.
"I don't see how this is relevant? Your letter was a fabrication. And so, how can i trust that every word you speak isn't a lie!"
"It wasn't a lie. It was all true."
"Yes it is. I was going to keep it. But it seems wrong now that I know you wrote it to manipulate me."
"That maybe what you think. But you are wrong. I know it is what you think, but you won't find anymore locked doors here anymore. You are free to go anytime you wish. You just have to say the right words and they will end all of this."
"May I show you something before you ask me to leave again?" Dantes nods his head reluctantly. She has never asked before. What has changed? The door behind her suddenly moves with action. It opens and two guards walk in. The guards cautiously move over to where he is sitting and unshackle him from the wall, his chains with their wrist and ankle braces still firmly in place, they led him from the cell. Escorting him, they follow behind whilst Tjanja leads the way. They follow and she leads them to a courtyard somewhere deep in the complex maze of rooms, corridors and stairs. He follows her into the courtyard. Where another woman sits. She is almost identical to Tjanja. The only major difference was the eyes. Tjanja's gold. This other womans were green.
"It was all real. It really happened?"
"Yes, my fathers work. His hand at play if you will. Yes? She is beautiful isn't she? hmmm." She watched Dante closely, not sure what to expect him to say next.
"Did you ever find out why?"
"He always knew that Alessandro had plans. I wrote the letter at about the same time as his plans begun to start taking place. It was about the time he died. Or so I found out later and realised that his death had been at the hands of my Uncle. Of course, our tell is that I have gold eyes and she green. She was my fathers attempt at trying to protect me. I delivered the letter to you, to try and explain, so you could understand me better. But my father had not counted on my Unlces unscrupulous ways by planting Marc close to me so that he knew where I was all the time."
"Then, what you're telling me, it really happened? Didn't it?" Both woman nodded.
Tjanja was the only to vocalise their conscent "Yes"
"You were caged. Caged by him, your Uncle, the same way he intended to cage me." She nodded absently. He watched as what he said registered and she suddenly awoke from her thoughts...
"What do you mean?" She leveled a stare that could kill at him.
"I was carrying his letters. He asked me to deliver them to his contacts on route. As the route I was taking would mean I could deliver them for him and he would be safe in the knowledge of knowing that they had been delivered. I planned to use everything I could get my hands on to use against him. It was why I had infiltrated his operations and had been led to Venice where I had met him. I want to destroy him. But it seemed he found out about me some how, that or he knew all along. So he planned to get rid of me. I opened the letters before I delivered them. One was an arrest warrant for me." He looked into her eyes. She had plans, or at least something. Something she had in mind. He decided to take a gamble, "And that's what this is all about. Isn't it? You want to destroy your uncle to? You are trying to get back at him... and you think, together we can achieve this together?"
* * *
Monte Cristo hangs limply from a set of manacles as he is washed and deloused with lime by heavy hands in another stone, cold, bare room. Coughing in the white chalk like powder cloud, it burned his eyes and nose and the red welts on his wrists and ankles.
Dantes curls up on the floor, his back to his part of the wall, now gaunt arms
wrapped around his legs.
He blinks when he hears something moving. A new prisoner added, only a few days ago. The length of time he had been there now, uncertain in his mind. Crawls over to him.
"You're not alone brother."
Dantes raises his head as something is pushed into his hand. "Read it brother. It may save you."
Tentative fingers search the coiled peice of paper, thin and fragile as though scraped and pulled. Pulling out only a small portion of its length... it was written in french. Over every inch of it, a delicately scrawled
message. A noise disturbs him and he quickly stuffs it into a crevise in the wall, hiding it from view. Guards step in and walk towards him. The prisoner who handed him the paper is booted away by the two.
Dantes is hauled off to the interrogation room again. Dantes is pull out from the shadows he had been left in, his skin returned to the white hew that his body was now accustomed to. The outline of the interrogator's
silhouette was framed against sharp light coming into the room from the wooden geometric shuttered frames that cover the windows, only letting in a fraction of the light from the outside harsh desert.
This was Dante's routine. The same thing every fifth day hauled out and interrogated. Asked questions. Often not even in relation to him, then thrown back into the hole he was being kept.
He read the letter. Hid it. Slept. Woke. Was questioned. Tortured, then returned, only to read more of the letter again.
The prison guard buckles Dante's thin arms and legs into an arabic chair designed just for the purpose.
His now frail frame barely held the frayed rags that hung from him. And then they left him to sit there. On the table in front of him, sat there, a large wooden basin of water. Starring at the water, sometimes for days, he would be made to sit. Without a satisfying drink of water.
Over and over... this would happen.
Then he knew what would be coming, but never know when. The interrogator would enter the room, then violently dunk his head into it.
The letter was from Tjanja.
* * *
As I child, I would sit in my fathers villa in the hills above the lake of Lago di Ledro. Our summer retreat from the heat of the city. Our governess would read from her books in front of our rows and rows of smartly dressed, turned out school girls, scribbling down her dictations. Slaves to our desks in an all girls private school, that used my father's offer to them of his villa during the stifling heat of the Italian summers, near Mezzolago. I remember her voice droning on and on like a priest at Sunday mass. I clammered for the cool waters of the lake we could see from our large hall like room which we seemed to spend most of our days, before we were removed to our rooms, which we shared two to a room. I would sit and stair out of the window and just remember, think and imagine.
I was born on a rainy day. I don't remember it, but my mother reminded me of the story of how she recieved her 'little miracle' as she called me, numerous times. I passed my classes with my private tutors as a youth before my father gained me entry to the all girl's school who now used our family villa in the hot summers. I didn't realise at the time why my father went to great lengths to make sure I remained removed from family politics that rippled in the big city, and going to the lengths of moving the whole school as well to do this. But it would soon be made very clear.
I've always prefered wearing breachers. I don't know why, but my father always used to dress me in them when ever he would take me riding. He said he prefered riding with me over mother as she always complained, whether it was about her pettie coats or dirt on her skirts. So I often dressed unappropriately and was repremanded often for it by my mother and governesses. It was my blonde, golden locked friend who would always sneak me a smile that got me through the punishments, and then the food she would steal for me at night, as my punishments consisted of removing my meal privaledges. The governesses claiming I was getting too muscular and defined for a woman, 'I was to be leith and fragile as a woman should be, fair in skin, light in weight'. I however was always the opposite. Tanned and strong in my frame. She was my first girlfriend. Her name was Sara. Her smiles. Her ways with words were ... beautiful. It was how she showed me her soul.
We would often slide a hand each under the desk. Hold hands, our fingers tickling each other. Just to let each other know that we were still there.
Our teacher's voices changed often, dropping octaves, as we progressed through the years, as we only had our first male teacher in our later years. Sara had a crush on him.
I remember sitting in our latin classes staring at aristotle and plato ... we were both caught day dreaming when our relationship was exposed. I remember continuing that day dream whilst Ms. Cozenza berated us both, stating that the way we were behaving was inappropriate and saying that it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew. I remember looking at Sara standing next to me, her head down in shame. Sara grew out of it. We both did really. But where she forgot about it completely... I didn't. I courted as was expected, but I still always prefered the company of my friends over the boys.
I still have the images in my mind of the day my mother told me that my father died. Standing in front of her. I couldn't have made it through that day with out my best friend there to hold my hand. My mother noticed, but simply but it down to my need of a friend a such a difficult time.
On my twenty fourth birthday, I stopped pretending and took my first girl friend called with me to meet my mother at our countryside home near Piran. We had moved, to a smaller house now that our father's wealth and companies had all failed or been absorbed into the family business. We were only given a limited stipend to live on my my uncle. Alessandro by then held the purse strings firmly. But that Autumn I took Carmen home to meet my mother.
I will never forget my mother on that day. She repeated the sign of the cross over and over, sobbing into a handkerchief. Her new boyfriend of the time, some vile english man named George or Gordon, I can't remember which, contrasted with that of my mother's face. Hers, quite contorted in disgust. His, placid and unshocked and unsurprised. I think I have him to thank for my mother not disowning me. He must have talked her around. But it was not for reasons of keeping a family together. No. More to serve his own sexually deviant purposes. A week later I moved to Venice under my uncles orders where I was to go to college and study under his watchful eye. My mother, refused to say goodbye to me. She said I had broken her heart.
Two young women walk socially exceptably side by side through the streets of Venice under an italian spring sky, talking of the future and day dreaming about things.
But, as my uncle had firmly pointed out 'it was my integrity that was important. It is not selfish to know what you want, but society is. Because of this you must keep up a certain appearance.' Integrity, I remembered musing at the time, 'It sells for so little in these times, yet our society places so much belief in it, but then i suppose it's all we have left in this place...
I would day dream about our private moments in our apartments, I the dark brown haired girl nibbling on my blonde equals ear. That lovely satisfyed giggle that she would let slip at her satisfaction and which let me know she felt it two. Rising within her. It was the very last barrier between us... the carnal barrier of flesh, but we sought and succeeded to break it down and often became one.
* * *
Dante struggles against his interrogators weight. A weight that is easily over powering any strength he has left in hi limbs. And who's weight keeps his head submerged in the bowl of water.
Afixiation taking him to the brink of life the words from the letter tumbling around in his mind '...within those moments of shared experience, we were free.'
"....Enough..." was heard by Dante as his head was removed from the bowl. His head is wrenched back and he sucks hard for the air, it burns and coughs out the water that had started to fill his airways.
"Now, let us review..." Dante can hardly stare at him, soul broken, eyes red from lack of sleep, heart pounding, and the sound of his life blood booming in his ears. Dante begins to shake his head, as the noice of the same menotenous voice washes over him, water sluicing off his thin face, flicked across the room with each emphasised shake of his head.
"Isn't that what happened?" The same circus, the same questions around and around again and again.
"No. No ...." he whispers, voice parched and shrivelled from under use and prolonged periods of use. He had at one point taken to drinking the water that his head was dunked into, just from his need of thirst. Then they had caught on rather quickly and now they salted it "... it isn't true --"
"Oh dear, you keep saying this, but our evidence says otherwise? Stop lying. Evidence doesn't lie. So why are you. We want a confession from you."
The interrogator grabs the paper and thrusts it into Dantes face sign it .... fine...." he goes to gesture to dunk again....
"No, wait! ..." Plunging his head back into the salted water bowl. Water fills his nose and ears. Burning at his eyes again.
* * *
I was happy in Venice. Even with my over bearing Uncle who demanded me visit him twice a week. I was happy, I had my Carmen. We often went to the theatre. A packed house was the best, watching the operas or silly things such as a Princes on one knee before a woman's bare hand, or sicilians with vendettas, going to work with their knives. Carmen would do this delightful thing where she would would brush away a tear from my cheek. But sadly it didn't last. I don't think it was of her choice that it ended. To this day I am certain it was my uncle. His iron grip forever tightened on me. It was not until my final year of study that I met Marc. He was my first real boyfriend. I think we fell in love. I hope we did. But I was never always sure with him. He was too good a liar, as I was later to find out.
He was always such a gentleman. He would buy me roses and court me intensly, often secretly as my father often limited his visits. He used them as insentives to get me to do his biddings. I remember my apartment smelling beatifully of flowers, bouquets of violets, crimsons, blues and red roses.
Oh god, I had so much. And he used to spoil me so much. Sneaking me out to ride at night. Our secret trips and boat trips. Those were the best months of my life so far at that time, oh what it was to be young.
The following year was my graduation, they came. My uncles men. It was a night when Marc had sneaked into my apartments. I'm certain that my Uncle knew. They had come with two of everything. They bundled us into sacks and loaded us into a boat. After that there were no more flowers..."
* * *
His interrogator indicates that the guard was to let him up. The elbow pressing onto the back of Dante's neck, holding him submerged lets him up. His red burnt eyes, bleary and lungs snatching and gulp at the air.
* * *
After we were take, I soon found out the true story. We were being setup especially by my uncles. I don't know whether it was Alessandro, or my other Uncle, ___________, who you have met. We were dumped on the street in Laibach. Where we were collected by another group of people and quickly hustled into a basement, where we were kept for a week or two. It was only during this time that I got to know the real Marc. He revealed everything. How all the last few months had been carefully planned. How he had to fulfill his role as they had is wife held somewhere in Venice, and now he feared that he would never see her again. Yet, I kept asking him "Why are they so frightened of us?" he couldn't answer... he had no more answers. He had never known this was going to happen. All our romance, our secrets. They had all been planned.
* * *
Dante wheezes, on the edge of unconsciousness. And is dumped back into his cell. The numbers in the cell had dwindled. They had started killing them because the torture was reaching such brutal levels.
* * *
We eventually found out what was happening. They took Marc. He would return with burns. Where they had burned his face with things and made him give up our names. He then signed a statement saying he'd seduced me. I didn't blame him. God, I thought I loved him. The first proper love I though that was normal and is expected between a man and a woman. but I couldn't help myself, I started to blame him. Then hate him. He never loved me. He made it clear. He never did.
* * *
Dante's interrogator unshackles him, slipping a black bag over his head. Dante's knees buckle as he is forced to stand. To weak to stand he has to be lifted under the arms of two of the cell guards. The words of the letter still spilling through his last functioning parts of his mind "....he killed himself in the cell we shared. He couldn't live any longer knowing that he would never see his wife again and that he had betrayed all that had been left of himself. Giving up that last inch of life he had left in him. That last peice of hope, finally broke. Oh, Marc."
Dante is carried under each arm down the corridors of the prison to his cell. His interrogator following close behind.
"...They caught me to Dante. They have cut off my hair. They have tried to drown me and have continueously taunted me. I fear they will soon turn to rape. They brought me at the same time as you. I recognised you in the line of chains. You were too far ahead for me to call you, and i have seen what they do to those who speak out of turn here..."
The cell door swings open.
"I can't lift my own weight anymore, feel my throat. and I can't speak. So I have found a way to right to you instead."
His jailors yank the hood from his head and drags him into the cell, dropping him in the place where they found him.
"...It is strange that I feel that my life will end in such a terrible place. But for a time I experienced a type of love, and I was happy. I apologized to no one..."
The cell door creeks and squeelsshut, the iron bolt on the outside of the heavy, thick wooden door slams shut, a lock ringing in the dry dusty air.
"I shall die here. Every currupt inch of me. I shall perish... and never have found true honest, unbidden love, respect and loyalty..."
Dante, tries to prop himself up and finally gets into a position leaning against the wall after rolling onto his knees and elbows, thighs then backside.
"...Except one..."
He gently slips the crumpled and warn parchment roll form the crevis in the wall. and furled it to where he had last left off reading...
" ... a heart ... It is small and fragile and it's the only thing in this world that's worth having."
His hand shakes from fatigue and emotion as he holds it before him.
"We must survive this place. That means never losing it, selling it or giving it away likely. We must never let them take it from us. I don't know where you are in this maze of a prison, but I hope this letter finds you and I hope that we can escape this place. I hope the clock will turn things get better for us and that one day I may see you again."
Dante holds the parchment to his face, dry tears running down his cheaks, failing to soak or even damage the fragile paper. But the emotion was still there. As he let out a silent howl. Dante, slowly balls up the parchment and grips it tightly slipping away....
He had come to know every inch of that cells stone four walls, carved his name in them, deficated on them in that dark, and been left in them to rot like a corpse in hell, and they knew every part of him.
Every part ... including his heart.
* * *
Bright light glares against Dante's sunken, hollow face. He is out side and for the first time in months he can feel the sun on his skin.
A hand written document is held out in front of him by the same man who had processed him over three months ago on his arrival, placing it on a small intricatly carved table infornt of him.
"This is for you. Let me read it to you. Nod that you understand. Good. My name is Edmond Dantes. On the 5th of August 18__, I formerly accept the charges placed against me by the representatives of all that is holy to Allah and his representative the great Sultan on earth, may god rest his name, that I Edmond Dantes is guilty of all charges named her within, that are named and placed against me my this cout of jusitice."
His guards stand rigidly just behind him, holding him up by the shoulders as the fat arab reads him the confession he must sign. He continued... "Once in the care of the investigating body, I was systematically
and thouroghly co-operative with their investigations and I was frequently helpful in answering their enquiries. I was never subjected to sexual abuse during this period."
Dante's expression was unchanging. At least the last bit was true, but who knew with these Arabs what would come next.
"I admit that I was terrorized into helping to commit the murders of the previously named ." He then places a stilo between Dante's fingers. "I, the undersigned, swear that the above statement is genuine and that it was not signed by means of interrigation."
The stilo never moved.
"We'd like you to sign that Edmond Dantes. Where we've put the symbol."
He blinks. Then drops the pen to the floor.
"No."
"As you wish." He picks up the pen and signs it for him. "Escort this man back to his cell, ... where he will wait to be moved to his holding cell to await his execution."
Dante is picked up under each arm and is led away.
* * *
The door is slammed shut and he scambles to recover Tjanja's letter one last time. Half an hour later, the cell door opens again behind him.
"It's time, Edmond Dantes, to meet your god. unless you want to change your mind."
He lets the tattered piece of parchement fall from his balled fist onto the floor.
'Offer to sign that statement. At least then they can make your execution quick...' the tone was that of Farias, but he pushed it from his mind. The old man was taunting him.
Dante closed his eyes and didn't answer.
His lack of words hung in the air. Then a sudden level stare sent the two guards at the interrogators back shrinking away from the prisoner before them. This man now scared them. No prisoner had ever behaved like this before.
"Then there's nothing left we can threaten you with, is there? You are truely free." Dantes interrogator turns and leaves. "Seize him" The two cell guards march in and kick other prisoners in the holding cell out of the way. Picking Dantes up. They led him from the cell.
* * *
The guards move him into an open room. Dumping him on the sand covered floor. They move off through another door, the wind suddenly knocked
from his chest as he finally sees where his prison was built --
Before him great sand stone arches open out to a desert vista that radiates out to the horizon. He clearly was not in Turkey anymore.
Tjanja steps from the shadows. "You are free now, Dantes".
"You...!!!!"
His mouth clamps firmly shut as he contains his anger. His jaw sets... then total disbelief flies away from him like an egg shell that had just been shattered, his mouth hangs open.
"You did this ... to me." Dantes' thread thin figure begins to shake, as panic starts to shoot through every vain. "You did this to me!"
He stumbles and falls to the floor, hands brace him from falling face against the stone floor. His legs unable to support himself from the shock.
"You -- You hit me and -- and cut my throat. You made me watch as you mudered hundreds. It was you. It was... just... you, all this time.
He doubles over, covering his face as he starts to shed tears down a face that has not seen such things in a very long time.
"You tortured me. ... You ... tortured, .... me -- !"
Dante looks up at her, as his body shivers with the over whelming emotions of relief, disbelief and anger. Watching, as Tjanja quietly glides across the stone floor toward him.
"Oh god, why? Why?"
"Because I didn't trust you Dantes. And... at the same time I loved you, Edmond. And because ... because I wanted to set you free. You were a prisoner to your own fears.
"Love? You loved me? So why did you deny me when I asked you?"
"Because I still feared you. I didn't truely understand who you were. Now I know. You are much stronger than I thought."
A look of horror twists and distorts his starved face.
"Set me free? Don't you realize?" Filthy, emaciated fingers ball into fists. "Don't you realize what you did to me? You nearly drove me mad! You did drive me mad!"
Disgust, distrust and anger lit up in his eyes. But she didn't shy from him. She stepped forward to meet him in his challenge. "I hate you. I hate you for what you have done. You have broken me."
"No, I have set you free... you no longer fear, you have seen the worst, you no longer need to worry about loosing everything, because you have already lost it."
He coils his body tightly as she circles him. "I dispise you! Let me go! Now! You claim you set me free? You put me in a prison to set me free?! You have no knowledge of my fears! I have already been a prisoner for most of my life!"
"You faced your fears ... You were already in a prison. You never left that prison in your heart. It is why you always feared to take the steps necessary. You feared returinging to that place in your history. It was not the mortar and stone of your first prison that still held you... you've been in a prison all your life. Your fears held you there. You had lost everything once before. And you regained your freedom, but you held onto the fear of loosing it again. Now these fears don't. Can't. You have faced them once again."
"Stop talking! I don't want to hear it. How can I trust you anymore? I wasn't in a prison. I was happy! Satisfied! I was doing what I wanted... I was achieving my aim --"
"...Illusions of achievement is the most insidious and will lock you in a world of it's own. The constant want of success, the belief of happyness as you feel as though you are fullfilling your goals. Dillusions of happiness, now thats the worst prison of all. And you weren't getting what you wanted. You were on the run, loosing. Deluding yourself. If I hadn't done something, you would have lost everything, your followers, friends and influence."
"That's just twisted! That's evil and it's wrong! What gives you the right to decide and think you know me? Who are you to say what's not good enough?!"
You were put in a prison, by others who exploited you. Society exploited you Dantes. I didn't put you there. I just showed you the bars. You've been in a prison so long, you no longer believe that there's an outside world. You fear to effect it because if you do, it will prove that you are wrong." He tries to move away from her, covering his ears, clenching his eyes tight, trying to get away from her voice.
"Cease! You're more mad than I! I don't want to hear it!"
"That's because you're afraid, Dantes. You're afraid because you can feel freedom closing in on you. You're afraid because your freedom to finally fulfill what you want to do is so close, so terrifying. Because you could actually achieve it." Dante tries to run away from her, stumbling through the arches that frame the desert scene.
He fills his lungs with the furnace like air "I can't feel anything anymore! There's nothing left to feel! I don't want it anymore! Don't you understand?!"
"Don't back away from it, Dante. Part of you understands the truth even as part of you pretends not to. Your tutor, accept his teachings now."
He collapses onto the desert shale, head pounding.
"This is the most important moment in your life. Don't run from it. Embrace it. It is part of you. It is what will make you!"
"I don't know what -- or why -- how to --- it's like --- Oh god -- I can't breathe --" Tjanja crouches next to him. Her sent fills his nostrils, the image of sweat that beads like jewels on her tanned skin fills his eyes as his eyes absorb every detail like a man so thirsty he would drink a lake. He drinks the scene in before him through all of his senses. She wraps him up in her arms and cradles him like a babe. "Good. You're almost there. Let it in. Feel it take hold of you. Accept it as naturally as water would flow over you. You were in a cell. They offered you a choice between the death of your inhibitions and the death of your body." She cradles him as he hyperventilates, tears streaming down his whole slab like cheeks. He completely gives into her. "I feel -- I feel like I'm going to burst."
"You said you were ready to face your own death. You faced the fear of your own death and you were calm. Ready to fight if necessary. Try to feel now what you felt in that moment.
" -- I felt -- " Tjanja's face fills his view. She squeezes his shuddering body.
" --- Alive --- Oh god, I'm petrified. What's happening to me?"
"The door of the cage is open, Dante. All that you are feeling is the wind from outside. Don't be afraid." Gently, he lifts himself from her hold. He attempts to walk.
"I -- I don't want to be chained."
"No more chains."
The two figures stand in the desert, a raging tempest of wind Shatters the stillness of the sand in neatly heaped piles as the wind lifts it up into the impending sand storm. The potential force and energy that is held in the air daws Dante deeper into the storm. Quickly, he is enveloped by it, the wind and grains pounding against his thin frame. Tjanja following behind him. Her desert clothes wrpped around her, the ends of which flap violently in the wind. Dante lets the coarse sand slipover him, falling to the ground, he stares straight up into the tempest, naked, but for scant wrags and the dirt and filth that covers his body the elements soak into his very being.
Tjanja moves up behind him. "Do you feel it?"
"Everything's so -- different."
"I know. A few years ago, I too stared up, standing beneath a night sky like this. Naked of all that we believe so prescious to us, under a roaring storm scudded sky. I can still hear the low rumbles of thunder washing over everthing. The night is yours, Dante. Seize it. Encircle it within your arms."
Her words fill his thoughts.
"Bury all of this in your heart up to the hilt. It is your essence. Your body is only the vessel which carries it."
He raises his arms to embrace the raging tempest. He becomes transfixed and transfigured by it -- then glancing over his shoulder. A new fire in his eyes and a mischevious smile across his face, he runs into the spinning and whirling wall of sand about him and it swallows him. He is gone.
She turns away and returns to the arches, a glance over her shoulder confirms what she believes. The storm is going to last for sometime.
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