Captivity (16 page)

“Hey, that’s just like us,” Harmeet says, holding up his hands and pointing to the prisoners in their handcuffs. Junior looks over at him and scowls. We watch as two of the prisoners extract pieces of wire they have embedded in the palms of their hands.

“Don’t tell me they’re going to pick the lock and escape,” I groan. This is exactly what happens.

“Yeah, right,” Tom scoffs. It’s so ridiculous it has to be lampooned. As if reading my mind, Tom calls out to Junior and mimics picking open his handcuffs. I laugh. Junior turns towards me. I hunch my shoulders, look furtively left and right, grimace with pain as I pretend to pull a piece of wire out of my hand. Junior glares angrily. He doesn’t think jokes about escaping are funny.

I try to explain. I point to the television. “This action film
Amriki
, Hollywood. Hollywood action film
mozane …
no good … stupid.” I circle my index finger at my temple in the universal sign language for “crazy.”

Junior scowls. I’m only digging myself in deeper. I look chastened and turn my attention back to the movie.

–

It is maybe eight o’clock. They’ve turned the channel to Al Jazeera. We watch grim footage of burning vehicles, body parts, bloody survivors. Number One stands behind us in the doorway, watching through the green towel. They’re angry, gesture at the television, shake their heads.

“Who do you think we are?” Number One says. No one responds. “Who do you think we are? Jim?”

“I don’t know. You are fighting for Iraq.”

“Doctor? Who are we?”

“I don’t know,” Norman says.

“Tom?”

“You are
mujahedeen,”
Tom answers.

“We are Iraqi. We are not al-Zarqawi. We are not terrorists. We are different. We are fighting for Iraqi freedom.”

“In the West you would be called freedom fighters,” Tom says.

“What this, Tom, freedom fighters?” Number One says menacingly.

“Freedom fighter. It’s a word for someone who is fighting for their freedom,” Tom says.

“No,” Number One says. “We are mujahedeen. We are fighting for Iraq, not for George Bush freedom.” He pauses. “We have some video of our organization. Would you like to see it? This very secret.” We don’t answer. He asks again. Harmeet says yes. My body starts shivering. “Good. I show you. But remember, you must not to look at me. This very dangerous.”

Junior points to where he wants us to sit, on the floor in front of the TV. He is excited.

“I hope you guys don’t mind. I’m just really curious. Maybe we’ll learn something,” Harmeet says to us. I don’t say anything. I’m profoundly uneasy. I wish he hadn’t said yes. What are they about to show us? Where is this going to lead?

Great Big Man inserts a DVD into the player. Junior turns off the light and sits on the floor, hugging his knees. The video begins. Flames boil wildly and fade to black. “This
mujahedeen,”
he says, pride fluttering in his voice like a flag. I feel sick. Arabic script rolls across
the screen. Music. Men’s voices, haunting, menacing, undulating, marching in a revolutionary anthem. An endless sequence of exploding tanks and Humvees, burning military vehicles, masked men launching mortars.

Junior jumps up and points excitedly at the television. He rewinds the DVD. We watch it again: a bomb rips through a Humvee, there’s a spray of black smoke, debris arcs through the air. Junior points to two black objects twisting in the trajectory of the blast. It’s the charred rag-doll bodies of two soldiers hurtling through the air. “Amriki! Amriki!” he cries, delightedly. I close my eyes in horror.
These were human beings!
I want to cry out. I swallow hard to hold the words back.

Laughing, Junior rewinds the DVD and plays it again. I shake my head in protest. No one can see me in the dark. The DVD plays through. I watch like a block of stone. Yet again, silence in exchange for survival.

The time has finally come for us to go to bed. I thought the day would never end. We collect our bedding from the other room and set ourselves up in the middle of the living room. One of the mats is thinner than all the others—the one I slept on last night. I secretly hope someone else gets stuck with it.

“I’ll sleep here tonight,” Harmeet says, pointing to the thin mat. “I had one of the thicker ones last night.”

“Thomas. This,” Junior says, pointing to the outside edge of the communal bed. Tom moves to his assigned position. Junior points to the place next to Tom. “Doctor. This
nam,”
he says. I end up next to Norman—on the thin mat.
Of course
, I think.
That’s what happens when you want something too much
. We settle into our places and Junior uses three narrow blankets to cover us. Harmeet and Tom, on the outside, are barely covered.

“I have something I’d like to say,” Norman whispers. Harmeet and Tom move closer in order to hear. He wants us to pass a message on to his wife, in case we are separated and the Canadians are released first. He chokes up, fights to get the words out. Four things, he says.
He’s sorry for what’s happened, he asks for her forgiveness, he loves her, and he thanks her for forty good years.

“What this!” we hear. We look up from our huddle. Junior is standing over us with his hands on his hips.

“I was just talking about my wife,” Norman says.

“Norman’s madam,” Tom says.

Junior’s eyes narrow. “No talk! Nam! Nam!” He turns out the light. I lie on my back and watch the television’s blue light flicker on the ceiling.

I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I know, the lights are on and Junior is shouting
“La firar! La firar!”
as he tears the blankets away.

“What’s going on?” I say, completely bewildered.

“Shut up!” Junior says. He slaps me in the face and grabs my handcuffs. He locks my right hand to Harmeet and my left to Norman. The ratchet bites into my wrist so hard I can’t close my hand. “Amriki
mozane. La firar,”
I hear him say, his voice full of loathing.

Great Big Man locks a chain around the wooden arm of the couch and then around Tom’s wrist. This outrages me.
We’re not dogs!
Junior gives us another angry blast and throws the blankets over our heads. The lights go out and the television falls silent. The captors converse in low voices as they settle into their places.

I replay the events over and over in my mind.
La firar
, he said. “No escape.” Did he think one of us was trying to escape? Harmeet and Norman certainly hadn’t tried anything. Had Tom? That was very unlikely. Junior must’ve been spooked, either by our mimicking of the handcuff escape scene, Norman’s whispered message, or both. It makes me realize that the simplest misunderstanding could be a death sentence.

I can’t sleep for all the pounding in my ears. Is it fear or rage? Rage. A screaming hurricane of it. I want out. I want this to end. This and the mad, stupefying, demonic waste of war that’s put all of this in motion. I want it all to end right now.

When I’m sure the captors are asleep, I tilt my head back and use my chin to fold the blanket down. It takes me several tries but I
eventually manage to push it off my face. Calmed by this tiny act of defiance, the storm of rage passes and I gird myself for the long night ahead.

NOVEMBER 30
DAY 5

Staring at the ceiling. Eyes fixing uselessly on scabs of peeling paint, smudges, cracks, a long spatter of something that looks like tomato juice. My back a single sheet of burning.
I can’t stand this I can’t stand this I can’t stand this
. I have to do something. I lift my right knee into my chest, extend my leg out straight, bend it in again, rest it back on the floor. I do this over and over, right leg then left leg. It’s somewhere to put the rage.

I thought it would never happen. The captors pull themselves into the day, put their bedding away, move in and out of the room, do things in the kitchen. Finally they unlock us. Getting up is a co-operative effort now that we are handcuffed to each other. Junior and Great Big Man chortle as we struggle to stand. Junior wags his finger at Tom.
“La hazeem, la hazeem.”
He says something in Arabic and slices his finger across his throat.

“Haji, mumkin hamam?”
Harmeet says.

“No
hamam,”
he snaps. Then, eyes darting to the doorway, he barks, “
Killeators
down!”

Every movement has become complicated. I bend my head towards my hand so I can pull my hat down without pulling on Harmeet’s wrist. “I hear about what happen, I hear about this. I am sorry,” Number One says from the doorway, his voice grave.

“This must be some kind of misunderstanding,” I start to say.

Number One interrupts me. “I am sorry. You must not to escape.”

Junior leads us into the bedroom, a blind chain gang of four, our bodies tensing against a sudden collision.
“Ogod,”
Junior says. He maneuvers us in front of a bench in the middle of the room. We sit and Great Big Man chains Tom’s wrist to the metal frame of a bed. “Shut up.
La killam,”
Junior orders.

When we speak to each other, it’s in whispered fragments, always
after checking to make sure no captor is watching. Tom was punched in the chest. Everyone else was slapped in the face. We’re all bewildered. No one had been trying to escape. Tom thinks Junior did it to impress Number One. It’s ironic, I say, how they’re accusing Tom when I’ve been thinking about escape since the minute of our capture. I tell them how I came within a hair’s breadth of pushing Junior into the window well. “I’m glad you didn’t,” Harmeet says.

I ask if anyone else has been thinking about escape. Harmeet says it’s too much of a risk, we should wait to see what happens, they say they’re going to let us go. I say I wouldn’t put too much stock in that. Norman says maybe he would’ve tried it in his younger days but it doesn’t seem to be much of an option for him now. It’s like a puzzle, I say; we just have to figure out a way so we all get out. They only have to make one mistake.

Tom doesn’t say anything. I ask him directly. His answer shocks me. “When we’ve been here a hundred days, maybe I’ll think about it.”

“A hundred days,” I groan. The very idea sends me into paroxysms of despair.

Harmeet says he’s worried about how we were separated for the video. “They’re treating us differently. That’s not good.”

I tell Tom I’m sorry, it looks as if they’re singling him out. “That’s the price of having an American passport,” he replies. “There’s nothing we can do about it. I’m just trying to live in the present moment. The past is gone and the future doesn’t exist. All we have is the present moment. I’m just meditating as much as I can, praying for us, the team, my kids—letting go of everything and just being in the now.”

He’s right, but I can’t help but be irritated. “That’s easier said than done,” I say.

Norman says he’s going directly to the Green Zone when we get out. He doesn’t care about his things at the CPT apartment—he’s getting the first flight back to London. “I could be back in time to go to church on Sunday. It’s the children’s annual Christmas liturgy. I haven’t missed it in almost forty years.” Norman chuckles, “I’m supposed to play God this year.”

Tom cautions Norman to be prepared for a long wait. “We just don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says.

“Yesterday was such a good day,” I say. “Tea and jam and TV. This must be some kind of plan. They’re messing with our heads, trying to throw us off balance. They want us to know they’re in control.”

“Maybe,” Harmeet says.

Sounds. A throat clearing. Bodies shifting. Handcuffs clinking. A helicopter roaring low over the house. Windows shuddering. A burst of gunfire somewhere nearby. The constant chatter of television.

I’m ablaze with pain. I lift, roll, pull my shoulders back, sit straight, slouch, stretch my neck—nothing helps. It astonishes me. What an agony it is to sit like this, without any support for my back.

There’s a bird calling out to us from the courtyard. It reminds me that there were swallows darting in and out of their living room, fluttering in the mud nests they’d built high along the ceiling. I tell the story of the day we visited Ahmed and his son Ali at their farm on the outskirts of Baghdad. We took off our shoes at the door and sat on the meticulously swept hand-woven rug that covered the brown dirt floor. Ahmed’s wife brought us tea. The door, a sun-faded bolt of cloth, puffed back and forth in a February breeze.

Ahmed was fifty-two years old, the father of eight children, the youngest eleven. His hands were hard, his body thick, his face weathered—the physical accumulations of a lifetime spent in hard agricultural toil. Ali was twenty-six, the father of three children, the oldest four. The line of his hands, the edges of his body were softer and rounder than his father’s. He was a driver for the Ministry of Education. Ahmed puffed calmly on a cigarette while Ali simmered under a dark cloud. They had a story to tell, and we had come to listen.

Two weeks earlier, the men had been picked up by the American army, Ahmed on his way home from the mosque, Ali at their home. The Americans were “collecting intelligence” about a nearby bombing incident. For seventy-two hours they were subjected to an excruciating
regime of what the military calls
stress positioning
. Hooded with their hands handcuffed behind them for the whole time, first they were forced to lie on their stomachs, then to sit cross-legged on the ground (soldiers kicking their kneecaps to keep them awake), and then to stand continuously, each of these positions lasting for a period of twenty-four hours. They were held outdoors and given only water to drink, no food. Each day they were asked if they knew anything about the bomb incident. Ali was screamed at, kicked in the groin and beaten in the face. They held them for five days and then let them go. There were marks on Ahmed’s wrists where the handcuffs had been, and the bone of each of his ankles was covered with a round scab.

“Imagine what they’re going through in Guantanamo,” Harmeet says. “What we’re going through doesn’t even compare to that.”

The punishment appears to be over. When the ratchet slides free, I immediately grip and massage my wrists, red-ringed from the hours of metal pressing against bone.