He didn’t stay long, but came often. It was hard to keep track of days, but he had a talent for showing up just as she was starting to wonder how long it had been. It was nice to have someone. All the other girls had large families, squabbling and fussing, and she had him. None of them, she realised, had any friends outside the movement, or at least none close enough to visit now. They weren’t supposed to touch, but now and then he brushed his hands against hers and she felt a tingle.

“If you weren’t here, I’d probably go mad,” she said to him one time, instantly regretting it in case it sounded like blackmail. He seemed to understand, nodding gravely and telling her more about the book they were reading in class, something by an old English man. She didn’t mind, he had a way with these stories that let her understand, if not why they were interesting, at least why they were interesting to him.

A few months in, she found she was able to talk about what was happening to her, and then it burst from her in chunks: describing her tactics for keeping cockroaches away as she slept, speculating what animal exactly their lunch meat had come from. He nodded kindly the whole time, responding to her last point to show he’d been listening.

“But you’re all right?” he’d say, after one of these monologues, and she’d have to stop and think if she was. They weren’t questioned very much any more: really, it was just a matter of form, in case a confession or denunciation might suddenly have occurred to them after all this time. It wasn’t clear if anything she said would earn her release, and even if that was the case, she could hardly buy her freedom at such a price. This was transitional, she told herself, the world would bend towards fairness, and soon it would be unthinkable for people to be locked up merely for their beliefs.

The outside world receded, and soon she thought of it in the same hazy way she did places she’d only read about. At least in normal prison, you knew exactly how long you’d be inside. She could be released the next day, or never. The uncertainty was killing. Once, she noticed Jason looking at her strangely. “What?” she tried to smile. “You said ‘home’, but you meant here,” he said gently.

She told the others about her fear—that her mind was growing weak. “You mustn’t,” said Lay Kuan sharply. “No time to be feeble. You have to know exactly what you’re going to do on the outside, so you can start right away when we’re released. Otherwise you’ll waste time. Like when you set a caged bird free, but it’s forgotten how to fly.”