Gruel

Stasi prison April 21, 1985

Dirk is right.
I had a horrible night.
Cramps, contemplating his words all night.
What if I endure psychological damage with the hunger strike?

I decide to eat.

Call boy brings me a bowl of gruel with cinnamon.
It takes half an hour to eat it.
Need a rest afterwards.
Dizzy.

Bowl of gruel

And I have a new goal:
Go through all this as healthy and as strong as possible.
This actually feels liberating, it feels right, it feels great to be me!

“Thanks Dirk!”
“Don’t mention.”

The rest of Sunday we spend with stories.
Dirk asks me whether I can teach him English.
Mine is rudimentary at best but his is none existent.

So, we start working on our future in an unlikely way.
Dirk by adding vocabulary and grammar to his daily routines.
Me by eating prison food and enjoying every bite of it plus push ups.

Fresh clothes in the afternoon.
We pencil our names onto the insides.
There is even a call boy showing up with a book trolley.

“Sunday is book exchange.”

Adventures for 14 year olds.
Cookbooks.
Great.

I pick a Tolstoy.
Thinking about my parents.
I’ll ask Baby Schubert when I can see them.

Noise in the neighbor cell in the evening.
Dirk teaches me the tap code.
It’s simple.

Number of taps according to the number in the alphabet for letters.
Triple tap for question mark.
Double tap for period.
And so on.

Mario is there, 23.
Caught near the boarder.
He was held in three police stations before.

He’ll be charged with §213.
2 years maybe?
With luck.

This is a good day.
Sunday.

*Testimony -> Start. This blog entry is part of a linear narrated testimony of the contemporary witness Jens Thieme who was imprisoned 1985-1986 as a political prisoner in various GDR prisons by the GDR Ministry of State Security. Stasi prison, Stasi jail, Stasi detention.