Dear William
Letter, April 2004 Saturday 10 April 2004
April 2004
Dear William,
I’m writing this letter while the rain hits the windows and the wind shakes the trees in our street: this is Holland. Oh, how I would love to be in Florida now, sitting beside the pool at our motel and letting the sun shine upon my face. But I’m home, in the wet Netherlands, and these showers, too, will pass. “All has a beginning, all has an end”, often philosophizes Joshua, one of my pen pals. And that’s the way it is. Joshua is incarcerated at the infamous Bangkwang prison in Thailand. He would love for me to visit him some time, but Thailand… I’m not so sure. Before you know it, you find yourself in the pokey, innocent, all because someone put drugs in your luggage. Now I can see you raise your eyebrows thinking, “she’s a bit paranoid”, and you’re right, of course, so maybe one day I will travel to Thailand – it’s supposed to be a beautiful country. Still, Florida beckons me more, even though you’re not located in the most beautiful part of the Sunshine State, but I don’t go there for the surroundings; I go there to visit you. The last time we sat in the visitors’ room you asked what exactly happens when I enter the door of the prison building and I told you that, in order to visit you, I always have to wait in line with other visitors first. Then I have to fill out a form and submit a hand scan before being ushered back outside again to wait there until the administration is completed. After I’m finally admitted I have to wait my turn to have my money and jewellery counted. Everything is noted, the pockets of my clothing are searched and I’m patted down. When all that’s done I have to go through a security gate and metal detector, I have to part with my passport, and pin a visitors’ pass to my shirt. I receive an invisible stamp on my hand and then, finally, I may pass through the squeaky fence and enter the long, fenced corridor to walk to the death row cells. That’s how it’s done. You live in a dreadful place, William, in one of the most somber environments I can imagine. However, once we’re in the visitors’ room none of that matters anymore. The first time, I was completely amazed by the upbeat atmosphere of the visitors’ room. Twenty-five death row inmates were sitting there and everyone was so happy with the visits. This time, again, that was the case. There was talking, walking, scrabble playing, eating, drinking, laughing, and card playing going on. You remember how sometimes we would pause at one of the windows with a view of the fenced corridor? Behind the corridor was a small, grassy patch where someone had tried to start a little garden, and on that pitiful, little piece of land one single rose was blooming. How much that struck me, that one rose, which, in spite of the unfertile ground, was blooming courageously. Later, after I had returned home, you made an artful drawing, depicting the beautiful, red rose in that little garden with a fence, but you made it prettier than it really had been and imagined a blue/yellow butterfly and a tulip alongside it. Fantasy and imagination are a necessity in prison, hence the beautification. And tulips… everyone in America seems to love tulips. “Where are you from?” my travel partner and I were frequently asked and when they heard we came from The Netherlands, they became lyrical, the Americans, especially because of the tulips and, of course, the windmills. You, too, love windmills and tulips, but you’re most keenly interested in Friesland. I have sent you picture postcards of our province with water, meadows, cloudy skies, farms, grazing cattle… During the visit, you keep asking about Friesland, oh, that hunger for knowledge about Friesland. How could I explain to you, in my limited English, how it is to smell the fresh sea wind in Harlingen, at the Stone Man? I tried, while we sat at our small table, but Florida smells so differently, there’s no comparison, so how do I tell you about the scent of the Waddenzee and the forests at Appelscha? The difference from the endless forests in your environment cannot really be conveyed. How I would have liked to hike in those forests in Florida, but that wasn’t possible: too dangerous, because there are small, brown bears, deer, boars, lynx-like little animals, and snakes, and lots of mosquitoes and ticks. No, then our forests, where you can safely take a walk, although you do need to be careful and watch for ticks, and mosquitoes can be real pests as well. Instead of roaming the woods we walk around the visitors’ room and I tell you about Harlingen, Sloten, Hindeloopen, Dokkum, Sneek, and other cities and villages. And Ameland, of course, because you have various picture postcard of Ameland – “Aimland” you call it. “Come, let’s take a little drive,” I said, as my imagination becomes active as well. We drove through breathtaking Gaasterland, peered out onto the IJsselmeer, and later you were so impressed by the Sneeker Waterpoort, and we stood by the Oldehove. We drove through the green landscape and you thoroughly enjoyed the scenery, the small villages in the late afternoon sun, the cows, the horses, the sheep… Oh William, how I would love to show you this in real life, but no, that’s not possible, for you’ll need to spend the rest of your life in prison. Perhaps you’ll be transferred to that other building, which we saw from behind the windows in the visitors’ room. That’s the building for long-term prisoners, where men aged fifty and older are housed. Many of them will need to stay there until their death, like Joe, with whom I write as well but am not allowed to visit by the prison authorities because I’m visiting you already. Joe was on death row as well, but the judge ruled that he was not accountable for his crime because of temporary insanity and so he ended up with a life sentence. I hope when you have to reappear before the judge that he, too, will be convinced that you weren’t yourself when things went wrong. After all, under the influence of drugs you’re never yourself. Drugs you used to forget part of your life; that part of your life when, as a young man of eighteen, you were sent off to Vietnam and returned completely traumatized, like so many others. In any case, the death sentence is entirely incomprehensible to me, but the fact that already so many have been murdered by the state, who, just like you, suffered from the Vietnam syndrome, is inconceivable to me. I think that you, after more than eighteen years on death row, have been punished more than enough already.We stood in front of the window and looked at the rose, and you pointed to the building for long-term prisoners. “That’s where I’ll go, Dini,” you said, and I nodded and said that I would visit you there and that we would be allowed to sit outside and take a walk. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? You should dream of a better future and if it is your dream to go to the building for long-term prisoners, then I’ll dream right along with you. How your days will be spent, with more freedom to move around, and work, and you’ll be allowed regular phone calls. And you’ll continue to make your artwork, write letters, you’ll laugh, sing, be happy and, once in a while, sad. In short, you’ll live. And I’ll continue to tell you about Friesland, my Friesland, which cannot be compared to your Florida in any way, but I would so much enjoy showing you Friesland. You’d love it here. Except for the weather, for it still rains and the wind continues to blow, and it’s cool. But “all has a beginning, all has an end.” The sun really will return.
Until the next time, take good care of yourself.
With much love,
Dini
(Translation: Maria O’Neill. This article has been published in Friesland Post)