The first few nights in prison were the worst.
Alone in his fetid, sweltering cell with nothing but a ragged blanket to comfort him, Audé tried to fight the urge to go to the window and peer through the wire mesh at the gallows in the courtyard outside.
It was early evening in mid-February and it was already dark inside the prison at Rawlapindi. But the hard, whitewashed walls still felt feverishly warm against his back.
Up and down the cellblock, Audé could hear the voices. The dull hum that seemed to pulsate constantly through the building was growing louder and more excited. In Urdu, in Persian, in Farsi and Arabic, and in a host of other languages Audé could not even identify, 5,000 voices were urging him to go to the window and take a look.
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| Erik with coach Jim and his Mom |
Rapacious. Exuberant. The voices reminded him of the crowds back in Lancaster, California, the Poppy Capital of California, when he was playing football for Bethel Christian Academy.
On the gallows he could see the silhouette of a man, a drug courier like him probably. He couldn't tell if he was young or old, tall or short. He couldn't make out the language the silhouette prayed in. He could only see the outline of the man with the rope around his neck.
The voices fell silent for an instant. The figure dropped through a trap door. The rope snapped his neck and the man jerked back and forth frantically, a cheer went up, 5,000 voices in Urdu and Persian and Farsi and Arabic all cheering as if the home team had just scored a goal.
"Look at him go," one man laughed shrilly.
"I never wanted to see anybody die," Audé muttered to himself. And alone in the fetid cell, with nothing but a ragged blanket to comfort him, Audé cried.
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