I have easily memorized the parameters of my prison. The cellar is belowground. No windows, just a large square box. Across from the staircase is a hidden door, the entranceway to the tiny dungeon where I reside. The entrance to this room is behind a shelf of Monsieur’s gadgetry. When he is gone, my door is closed, and the shelf is secured in front of it. No one knows it’s there. Therefore no one knows I am there either. When I am allowed out, there is a tiny bathroom consisting of a shower, sink, and toilet where I can clean myself.
One day, Robach opens the door to my dungeon and announces I may leave. I can walk out. The first day he does this, I eye him. My mind whispers, He lies, but hope for freedom overcomes the voice. He moves away, freeing the pathway to the steps that lead up to the kitchen and beyond it, to the world and freedom. Freedom I have not known in who knows how long. Time, for me, is one endless stream.
I take a few tentative steps. His expression is apologetic, and he holds his hands out as if promising not to touch me. I take another halting step. My hackles rise, but my need to flee overcomes my fear. I move faster so as not to tempt fate with slowness. My footsteps on the first stair. My fingers grasping the edge of the railing.
Behind me, he is blubbering, “Due,” sorry, in broken Twi, butchering my language. “Fa me b?ne ky? me.” Forgive me.
A bit more courage pushes me to climb. The taste of freedom is sweet on my tongue, permeating every fiber. Each step brings me closer to liberation and farther from him. My arm extends toward the cellar door, which is open a tiny sliver of a crack. The bright, natural light I almost forgot existed beams through radiantly, energizing me.
I am barely aware the blubbering apologies have stopped behind me. The tips of my fingers graze the inside of the door. It feels odd, padded like stiff Styrofoam. Later, I learn it is material to mask the screams that come from his cellar, cries sometimes from others, sometimes from me.
Another step. My fingers push the door ever so slightly, widening the crack. There is a window and, beyond it, a bright, shining, sunny day. A kitchen where wonderful aromas of baked bread waft in the air. My stomach growls its response, and my eagerness to leave this wretched place blots out all caution.
Initially, I am not aware when rough hands as thick as sausage and strong as steel grab me by the back of my neck, so focused am I on the door and the world beyond it. They yank me off my feet. The apologetic butchered Twi switches to angry, vitriolic French, a barrage of horrible names and a multitude of curses. With his free hand, Robach grabs the door handle and slams the door shut. The sound reverberates in the stairwell, ricochets like a bullet in my ears. The cutting off of freedom, literally, figuratively. The impending of my doom.
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out because terror has paralyzed me completely. With the door now secured, Robach turns his full attention on me. He lifts me off the stair by my neck. His strength is nearly inhuman, the way he can hold me up as if I am a limp doll. Perhaps it is not that much of a feat. I have not eaten well since I arrived here. The bottom of the staircase pitches precariously under the harsh recessed lights. My feet sway lightly, my toes dangling in the air, trying to gain purchase on a bit of step, somehow.
Then he throws me.
I am airborne, still reeling at how quickly he came upon me, how quickly freedom was just within my grasp and snatched away. I still have not entirely come to terms with the fact I have not freed myself until I crash near the bottom step, my right shoulder taking the brunt of the force. It is when my body tumbles head over heels onto the cold cement that I realize what he has done to me. The side of my head whacks the floor. Silvery-white firecrackers explode. The pain is beyond excruciating. My teeth sink deeply into my tongue, filling my mouth with a geyser of blood.
“Stupid cunt,” he says in a mixture of giddiness and disgust that I fell for his ruse. I lie crumpled, helpless, with waves of pain paralyzing me. The wooden stairs vibrate from his heavy footfalls as he bounds down them. He grabs my ankle and tugs. My body twists horribly when he spins me around. My screams flow freely now. But as he pulls me, kicking and screaming, toward my dungeon, they are of no concern to him. He is laughing. Each scream makes him laugh harder.
This is my first significant encounter with Monsieur’s true nature. It is not the last. We play this game a few times more because my need to flee overcomes my want to remain healthy every time.
Monsieur is the chat, cat.
I am Souris, his pitiful trained mouse.
And so he renames me Souris, one name among many. One of the kinder ones he uses. And eventually, Monsieur and I fall into our dangerous game of jouer au chat et à la souris. Cat and mouse.