The Prison
Under a black cloud, the prison. And within the prison, a bright rebel. The walls were extremely high, and although this was not possible, they appeared to lean inward yet also to bulge outward, and they were topped with a luminous frosting of broken glass. Seen from the heights of the modest hill named Victoria Peak—from the summer residence of the governor of the Crown Colony
of Hong Kong—the prison must have looked very fine. “If the sun were ever to shine,” said Annie to the Portuguee, “the glass would probably glitter. It would look like a necklace of diamonds, Lorenzo. Or a big margarita, in a square cup.”The sun had not shone since November. This was March 2nd, “In the year of Their Lord” (Annie’s words again) 1927. The vast cloud, several hundreds of miles in diameter and near as thick, squatted upon the unprepossessing island and pissed upon its prison. Annie Doultry (named Anatole for Monsieur France, the novelist) was negotiating the one hundred and eightieth day of a six-month stretch. Born in Edinburgh in the year 1876, he looked his age, every passing minute of it.
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