30 - Malmaison

Summary

At Malmaison they stripped me, and two agents searched my clothes in detail under the supervision of a third, who seemed to be the head of detention.

“Get down on all fours,” he said, after the search was over.

I didn't understand.

“Sit on your hands and knees so I can search your asshole, you sodding meathead,” said the head of detention. I must reproduce verbatim his words, for the sake of authenticity. At the end, the one doing the search kicked me in my behind for good measure, to please his boss.

They gave me back my clothes and I carried them to the cell. The cell was two by two meters, with two bunk beds, a little table, and a stool. The window was above the door to the hallway. I was troubled and dead tired. After a few minutes, though, the head of detention, a huge individual resembling an orangutan rather than a man, opened the door.

“Already tucked in, eh? Get dressed quickly, we didn't bring you here to sleep.”

In the interrogation room, four grim faces were waiting for me, seated at a long table. I told them good evening, but they didn't answer.

“Sit down,” said one in the middle, showing me the chair opposite them.

“When, where, and by whom were you recruited as an agent of American espionage services during your studies in America?”

“I don't understand the question,” I said. “In America I was a scientific researcher at university as a Rockefeller Foundation scholar. Just like Dr. Badgasar.”

“Don't mention Professor Bagdasar's name, you’re smearing it, and don't you lie to us, we know about the milk you’ve suckled from your momma. You think we don't know that the Rockefeller Foundation was a front for the intelligence services? Professor Bagdasar told us himself, but he was honest and when he came back he renounced those American gangsters, while you, you bastard, betrayed till the end, when we arrested you.”