Days of Fear (10 page)

Ajmal doesn't trust him. During a break in the journey he warns me to be careful: “He's from al-Qaeda, from Pakistan, he understands English perfectly but pretends he doesn't.” I'm worried, but also puzzled. I sincerely doubt that Tariq is part of bin Laden's network. I have run into them a couple of times, in other theatres of war: their faces are full of hate; they want nothing more than to see you dead. Tariq, on the other hand, is a mild-mannered man. He is educated and intelligent—completely different from our jailors. I learn that he is a pious man, a religious scholar; he studied for many years at the Madrassa. He knows the Qur'an by heart and he is always reciting it. But it is the topics we touch upon—he in his labored English—his open-mindedness, and the absence of any form of fanaticism in him, that convince me Ajmal is mistaken. He will acknowledge these qualities the following day, when he says, “Tariq is an anomaly in this context. He seems like a true believer, a man of piety. He is cultivated and blessed with a depth of knowledge that is rare among the Taliban.”

 

We head back the way we came, leaving the maze of gorges behind and winding our way around the mountain ranges. We're heading north. My heart's beating like mad. I remember well our journey to the south and I follow every move the commander makes at the wheel. We're heading back on the same routes we took to get there, those used by smugglers; then there's the stretch of desert, the two mountains that marked a new phase of the journey. I smile in a way that I have not smiled in two whole days: we're going back, I think. Something has happened. Our detention has taken a new turn. The change announced by the sparrow last night has perhaps come to pass. I need to believe this.

Tariq is sitting beside me. Unlike the others, he's not cradling a Kalashnikov in his arms. I believe he has a role that's different from the others, perhaps he has been brought into the group to obtain information. My first hypothesis proves false, and my initial diffidence, amplified by the almost paranoid suspicions of Ajmal, will be diluted as the hours pass. As he himself confesses when I ask him why he isn't armed, Tariq is a fighter, a marksman, an expert in rocket launchers. I picture him in battle, loading the rocket with his seraphic calm, taking aim and blowing an enemy tank to smithereens. He stares at the landscape through his smallish sunglasses, his straight pointy nose punctuating a face that is lean and elongated; his hair is long, dark, slightly copper-colored, and when he smiles I see that his teeth are brilliant white. “If you're here with us now,” he says in his awkward English, “it means that Allah has decided it. He wanted to give you a sign, let you see the beauty of our land and acquaint you with our customs; he wanted to submerge you in the profound significance of the jihad. I know, it could have been different, but remember: behind every event in one's life, even the worst ones, there is a hidden meaning. And it's usually positive. I'm convinced Allah brought you to southern Afghanistan so that you could see firsthand the Islam of the Taliban.”

Mahmud, a small, jumpy Taliban full of wit, who loves to provoke me by calling me Tony Blair, observes the conversation between me and Tariq from the center of the cargo bed. Tariq and I speak at length, but Mahmud is not concerned: he trusts his comrade-in-arms completely. He has grasped the sense of our conversation. “Have you ever seen a landscape like this?” he says, making a wide sweep with his arm. “There's nothing like it anywhere in the world. This is the land of the Taliban.” He's right: the view from the pickup, moving as always at full speed, is one of rare beauty.

 

I think once more about the absurd situation I am living through. In a way, I'm doing exactly what I would have liked to do. I'm finally in the midst of a group of mujahedeen Taliban: I live, speak, eat, and sleep with them. I have gone well beyond a simple interview. I touch their life with my own hands and see it with my own eyes. I understand their expressions and study their customs. I am in a privileged position, but the price is extremely high: I am a prisoner, a hostage who doesn't know whether he will come out of this alive.

I vent my frustrations with Tariq. I explain this paradox, this bitter twist of fate. “I would have liked to do this as a free man. I don't understand why you've arrested me and why you hold me captive. Was it really necessary? Now you know who I am, none of you believe anymore that we are spies. You've discovered that I am a journalist, excellent merchandise for an exchange. And this has caught even you unprepared.”

Tariq smiles. He grabs the edge of a blanket that's flapping in the wind and pulls it up to my neck. He extracts a long yellow turban hidden under the pile of sleeping bags and quilts and, with extreme delicacy, wraps it around my head. Then he unwinds it and does the same thing again, careful to be sure I'm following his movements. Finally, he adjusts it a little and makes sure that it is not wound too tight over the wound on my head. He looks at his work, satisfied, and the other fighters applaud.

 

We travel for eight hours straight with only occasional brief pauses in the middle of the desert to satisfy our bodily needs, gulp down a prepackaged snack, gather water from large natural springs to quench our thirst, and perform prayer rites, which must be observed with a certain regularity. We cross the Helmand River at the same point, on the same little barge. I hide beneath the covers again and suffer the same anxiety, fearing that I will be overcome by an attack of claustrophobia.

I adapt to everything, obey their orders, which I am now able to foresee thanks to a kind of coerced complicity. We stop just before the sun sets for the second to last daily prayer. This one is performed as a group and presided over by Tariq. I don't know our location but they ask me often where I think we are, especially the highest-ranking among them, the one with the satellite telephone, who rides up front in the cab. I look around and mention regions and provinces which I imagine are far from here. I want to allay their suspicions. Kandahar, Herat, even Iran.

My questioner smiles and looks around at the others, bemused. “
Iran?
” he says. I nod and they leave me alone, visibly satisfied that I have no idea where we are. In truth, I have memorized routes, directions, details, symbols, reference points. We have been moving north, but we are still far from Lashkar Gah. Thus far we have not so much as crossed paths with a single British or Afghan patrol.

The area that has been chosen for our nightly stopover is covered with opium-poppy fields and channels of running water. The vegetation is denser and the hills are rock and sand, typical of desert zones. Commander Ali doesn't trust the trails, he takes long detours and makes risky maneuvers; he charges up high ridges, coasts down steep slopes, the pickup slipping and skidding, makes swift U-turns, the tires screeching, and finds himself bogged down in the sand at least four times. We've already blown two tires and as the pickup struggles out of the most recent rut a sharp explosion announces that the third has bit the dust. The commander gets out of the cab, scratches his head, looks at the flat tire and, in desperation, pulls out a small battery-powered air compressor. The mujahedeen have already taken up scattered positions on the peaks of the rocky hills that surround us. The commander stands there watching the pressure gauge as the needle slowly rises in the edgy silence. They make us get out of the pickup. Everyone, myself included, is concentrating their energy on getting out of this situation, which is ridiculous, almost grotesque, but extremely dangerous.

The sound of several pickups in the distance puts the soldiers on alert. The man on lookout duty up on the most distant hill whistles, then makes the sound of a camel. It's a military convoy, probably British. It is the first and the last of such convoys that we will see over the course of our captivity. And it's not particularly close. Two mujahedeen shove me down onto the sand and gesture me to keep quiet. I obey, my heart pounding hard once again. There are a few minutes of extraordinary tension. The tire has been inflated. We all jump back into the cargo bed and the pickup heads off in the opposite direction of the convoy, entering a gorge formed between three high sandy hills.

Darkness has fallen and we stop for the night. We sleep out in the open. The soldiers feel safe and decide to light a fire to cook dinner—the usual potatoes with beans and some hot tea. Ajmal, Sayed, and I prepare our bed: a red straw mat and three blankets. Sayed and Ajmal are still chained together by the ankles. My hands and my feet are fettered. The chill night air impregnates the chains and my wrists freeze overnight. My ankles are protected by the socks I've been wearing for six days. I try to sleep. I calculate how many cigarettes I have left. I smoke sparingly. It is a miracle just to have them, here in the middle of the desert. The sky is the usual black mantle illuminated by astonishing constellations. But I am depressed, downcast. I have to get used to the idea of a long and difficult captivity. I leap on every new development, each new twist or surprise, anything that will inject me with a little faith, a little hope. I need a sign, some contact with the outside world. I have to know there is someone out there who is working to get me released.

Contact with the outside world is made while I'm trying to sleep. The man with the satellite telephone comes over to us, wakes us up, and with Ajmal's help asks me: “Is you wife pregnant?” I look at him, surprised. Not that I know of. But it's a strange question. I give him a little more to go on: “We would have liked a daughter, but we already have four children, two each from previous marriages. We've given up on the idea of having another.” The officer puffs air out of his cheeks, frustrated. He reads a note on a piece of paper he is holding in his hand and continues: “What were you going to call this new daughter?” I tremble with cold and emotion. I swallow, only now grasping the meaning of all this: they're looking for me, they want confirmation that they're in contact with the right group. There are always many profiteers in the wings, particularly when there's a kidnapping in course. I gather my strength. “Antaya. We wanted to call her Antaya.” The man with the satellite phone repeats the name, making sure he's got the right pronunciation. He walks away, calls someone, then comes back to me, radiant. “Antaya,” he repeats. “Good, very good.”

The mujahedeen scattered on the sandy hills, hiding in ditches dug in the earth behind jutting rocks or stretched out near the fire listen in almost religious silence. Then they explode in a cry that echoes within the walls of our open-air prison: “Antaya! Antaya! Antaya!” They yell the name joyfully, almost as if they were celebrating a birthday or intoning a hymn. This name has brought us a ray of light. There is hope for negotiations, freedom, a prisoner exchange, something, anything, planned and proposed as one part of a package determined by others, elsewhere, in the world from which I am isolated but which continues to turn. That world has mobilized a marvelous network of solidarity that I cannot even begin to imagine. I am moved to tears. That name, Antaya, reaches into the depths and touches me to the core. It was a secret between my wife and me, an overwhelming desire that we dreamed about for days and nights. It strikes me right in the heart. It is a name that will resurface often during my captivity. It will become known throughout the Taliban territories.

 

The party for Antaya leaves us all dazed. It is Sunday, March 11. We have only slept for a few hours, and badly. We wake up late and the sun is already up. The happiness of the night before has vanished, and I am once more assailed by a sense of oppression: I cannot get used to always having my hands bound. When it is time for tea, still wrapped in my blanket, before the fire, I find myself unable to repress an outburst of anger. I refuse to eat breakfast and, offended, I turn my back on Tariq, who sits there with my cup of tea and a piece of stale bread in his hand. The Taliban observe the scene and draw closer, alarmed but respectful of this bitter petulance of mine. They ask me quietly what has happened, why I refuse to eat. Ajmal translates, and, my voice steely, I explain: “I'm tired of having my hands in chains. I cannot accept this kind of treatment. I'm a journalist, not a soldier.”

Tariq allows me to vent my anger and then tells me that my hands will soon be freed. He takes a little container of tiger balm from his jacket and rubs it on my wrists. That icy massage does me good, the cream softens my skin, which is bruised by the metal rings. I'm not the rancorous type, I've never been able to hold a grudge for long: I drink my tea and eat my piece of stale bread.

Commander Ali is under the pickup working on the damaged tire, which is flat again. The air compressor has added to the damage, for now the Toyota's battery is dead. We're on foot, isolated, in the middle of the desert. I raise my eyes to the sky, smile and think about my father. He passed away last summer, but now, like any self-respecting sailor, he is rendering difficult the lives of those who have wronged me. He has released sand storms, made it so we get stuck in the sand, punctured three tires and now he's left the pickup with a dead battery, immobilized.

But the Taliban have friends and supporters everywhere. They are overlords of the territories they control; they police the districts, arrest people, issue sentences and apply them in public according to the dictates of the Shariah. In addition, they mediate conflicts and contrasts on social questions and matters concerning private interests. The inhabitants accept this role and they help the Taliban in difficult moments. All it takes is a telephone call and within an hour a tractor shows up with a local farmer at the wheel.

I stay where I am, lying under the blanket, completely hidden from sight. The farmer makes a couple of maneuvers, yelling in a husky voice that I will hear again when we reach our next prison, the seventh. After a few fits and starts, the pickup roars to life.

We're off again, heading north across stretches of virgin desert. We climb a group of hills and from the top of one we observe a farm—two large houses and a barn in the midst of a vast opium-poppy plantation. There are a few cows grazing in a field and a flock of sheep in a corral. We coast down a long steep slope, once or twice the pickup nearly flips, and finally come to a standstill in front of the doors to the barn. The soldiers get down, stand around in a circle and make a lot of hubbub—they don't want us to be seen by this small community. As soon as I get down from the cargo bed they order me to cover my face with a green shawl that I will keep with me for the remainder of my captivity.