Free Save Johanna! by Francine Pascal Page A

I’ll find some way to exercise it. The key lies with Maheely. I don’t know the man yet, but I’m getting closer. I must move on with the book. If only so many people weren’t trying to spoil it for me.
    But I’m not going to let them.

Chapter Six
    The prison’s visiting room is small and must be near the kitchen because it’s heavy with that peculiarly institutional wet-rag odor of food steaming for long hours. The smell is so repugnant to me that I feel I’m going to gag unless I can get near some fresh air. Fortunately there’s a window in the corner. It’s open only a crack so I ask the matron if I can open it wider, and she smiles understandingly, though she couldn’t possibly be aware of the smell anymore, and opens it as much as she can. A pleasant breeze wafts in, carrying lightly scented salt air. I fill my lungs and feel revived.
    Choosing the chair closest to the window, I hang my pocketbook over one side and, with pen and pad in hand, sit and wait for Swat.
    The matron has left me. No other visitors have arrived yet. I’m tensed, bracing for Swat’s entrance. Though I know she has to be coming through the door on the other side of the mesh screening, I hear sounds and keep turning to watch the door behind me. I’m uncomfortable. I shouldn’t be. I’m the interviewer, supposedly the one in control. Still, I feel vulnerable, naked in this empty room, alone on alien turf. And yet excited, tingling with anticipation.
    The door behind me opens, and an elderly man, neatly dressed in a frayed brown suit that has reddened in spots with age, comes in. He’s wearing a straw hat. I haven’t seen a straw hat in years, and it makes me smile. He accepts the smile and tips his hat. My involuntary reaction is—what’s a nice man like that doing in a place like this? Falling right into such a cliché makes my smile even broader. Now he offers a pleasant greeting, “How d’ya do?”
    “Very well, thank you,” I say. He comments about the weather and I comment right back, and we might just as well be having this conversation on a park bench on upper Broadway. Certainly more probable than a maximum-security prison on the opposite coast. He even has a New York accent. There’s a momentary comfort in being together with such a nice person in a strange place. The door behind the screen suddenly opens, but it’s not Swat. It has to be Mrs. Straw Hat because she’s too old to be his daughter.
    Of course, she doesn’t look at all like a prisoner. She belongs on the bench on Broadway too, though her crime must be heinous indeed to keep her in this kind of prison.
    I try to give them some privacy, but the room is small and I can’t pretend not to hear. I become very involved in my notebook.
    Her name is Nancy, a name that sounds too cute for a sixty-year-old woman so plain and drab in her dull beige-gray prison uniform and matching hair. His name is Leo, and their talk, small and familial, is about their daughter Margie, her son Elliot who didn’t get into the air force—obviously not too promising a young man—and then lots of admonitions from Nancy about remembering to fill out insurance forms, tax forms, a Medicare bill to be mailed, two or three other small chores none of which Leo has taken care of yet. A testy Nancy snipes at him a bit, and Leo looks at his watch in retaliation. It works as a warning and Nancy gets nicer, but there’s very little to say. Finally, they sit in silence.
    The matron pops her head in the door to announce that Miss Rheinlander—Swat—will be along in a minute.
    Now, unfortunately, all three of us are waiting for Swat. Even though the presence of Nancy and Leo is somewhat inhibiting I feel a little less tense being part of a group.
    A different matron escorts Swat in. She’s wearing the same uniform as Nancy, but Swat’s is probably fresh from the laundry this morning with stiff creases that hold the already too-large dress even further from her body. The short sleeves