Days of Fear (12 page)

 

We leave the desert behind and enter a land cultivated entirely with opium poppies. Acres and acres of terraced plantations, with small irrigation channels linked in a sophisticated network. I will discover only later that we are in the Garmsir and Khanashin districts, in the heart of Taliban territory. The sound of pumps bringing water from the Helmand River to the fields accompanies our journey through these lands. Small villages, clusters of houses and workshops dot the large fertile plain that is the principal source for the flow of Taliban money: they live and fight on the proceeds coming from the production and sale of opium.

Ali Ahmad, Haji Lalai's right hand, explains to me one day that Helmand is the richest province in all Afghanistan and that the toughest, bravest Mujahedeen come from these lands. Kandahar is awash with the myth of Mullah Omar, Lashkar Gah with the blood of martyrs killed in battle.

We hurtle down a series of dirt roads running alongside the poppy fields and stop before a small mosque next to a school that was transformed into a Madrassa several years ago and is now little more than a pile of ruins. The Taliban have decided to leave it as it is. For them, it is a symbol of the American attacks on the civilian population. The leaders of the group who arrested us will often remind me of this. More than once, during our moves, we will pass before this school, built before the regime of Mullah Omar.

Every time I saw it, I would think of how grotesque a form of Taliban propaganda it was. Firmly against schooling, they systematically burned school houses during their sweep of the remotest and poorest villages in Afghanistan. But there, in the territories under their control, they go so far as to exalt one school; they show it off with the singular goal of demonstrating to the world the damages wreaked on them by the enemy.

 

We wait for hours in front of the mosque, on the side of the road, hidden beneath blankets and covers. I feel as if I am suffocating and at a certain point I lift the blankets in a quest for air. As I do so I glance at Ajmal and Sayed huddled together, immobile, like they're sleeping. The wait is endless. Then, suddenly, the pickup's motor turns over and we begin moving again.

We head in another direction, driving down overgrown paths that all look the same. We cross a bridge that passes over a dyke. We leave the area entirely and head back towards the desert. Then we stop. The commandant orders us down from the truck. We wait a few minutes and then another car arrives, a Toyota Corolla driven by a man in his early thirties. I will never learn his name. He owns land, cultivated with opium poppy, where there is an empty house. He's Taliban. He wears the typical gray and black turban, and dark-colored traditional attire. We get into his car with Ali Ahmad and the young jailor who joined us when the prior group of soldiers was replaced. Haji Lalai and his pickup disappear into the desert.

We reach the Taliban's house and we're put in a room with high ceilings and thinly plastered walls. On the floor there is a large mat on which we will sleep. There are even some red-velvet cushions. Tonight, for the first time, we will sleep in a place that is clean and dry. But it is a temporary prison. The group is not organized well enough to handle a long detention—they have no secure bases, they have to be constantly on the move. They fear interception, and each member is forced to change the SIM cards of their satellite phones frequently.

It is above all my presence that creates difficulties: my foreign appearance, the fact that word of my capture has spread both in and out of Afghanistan, the risk that some farmer or another from one of the villages will recognize me is growing. They must keep me in good health, feed me, attend to my wound, but also hide me from curious eyes. The five different prisons in which we will be kept over the course of the next six days will all be surrounded by high walls.

 

We eat plain rice with butter. It is the first meal cooked in a real kitchen that we've eaten since we were arrested. The taste—delicate, aromatic—explodes and fills my senses. That night I dream of
caprese
—fresh water-buffalo mozzarella, with its tart yet sweet taste, together with ripe tomatoes. I'm hungry, we eat so very little, and I've lost a lot of weight. I also feel like I'm dehydrated: all those many days and nights spent in the desert have dried me out.

I make a quick count of the days. It's Wednesday, March 14. The wake-up call comes, as always, with someone bursting into the room. The young jailor informs us that it is time for prayers. Ajmal and Sayed, increasingly silent, leave the cell and I am left to sleep a little longer. I feel lazy, listless, prey to overwhelming psychological and physical weariness. I have memorized many, too many details: things, objects, sounds, words. My wound is closing, but it still bothers me. As usual we drink some tea and eat some bread, for once fresh and crisp. I ask permission to leave the door to the cell open: fortunately, I'm granted my wish. My fear of an attack of claustrophobia has become psychotic. Outside there is a well-tended walled garden with little paths running through it.

Haji Lalai reappears late in the morning. He greets Ajmal and me in English, then shoots Sayed a menacing glance. He asks after our health and our well-being, explains there are only a few days left, that soon, very soon, we will be free to go home. Ajmal doesn't believe him. Neither do I, but I want to know what he means by a few days. “How soon?” I ask. He opens his arms and positions his hands about twenty centimeters apart. “We're close to an agreement.” I interpret Haji Lalai's gesture to mean that negotiations have begun. Those on the other side of the table, working towards our liberation, have agreed to talk. The feared wall of silence, the utter refusal of any sort of negotiation, has not been erected.

The commandant orders his men to remove the chains binding my wrists. I can hardly believe it: for the first time after seven days of torture, I can open my arms, I can fold them, and wrap them around myself. He calls me and Ajmal outside. With the tone of an interrogator who is surprised by some recent piece of intelligence, he asks, “And Claudio? Who is this Claudio? He called me. I'm thinking you might know him.” My heart leaps and my face brightens. I immediately think of Ajmal's friend, the freelance reporter Claudio Franco. Ajmal spoke volumes about him when we were in Kabul together, busy preparing for our journey to Lashkar Gah and the interview. I've never met him, never even seen him. But it's a sign: he called, he's trying to make contact; this is a foothold in the outside world.

I'm happy, excited. I shake my head and wait for Ajmal's answer. I look at him, torn between wanting to reveal their friendship and maintain this secret. I elbow Ajmal, urging him to speak. I whisper: “You know him, it's your friend Claudio Franco, the Italian journalist who lives in London.” Ajmal remains immobile, inert; he doesn't respond to my solicitations or to the commandant's question. I don't insist but my mood darkens once more. I shake my head, surprised, embittered, tired of understanding too little about what is happening around me. Haji Lalai walks away, then returns and calls Ajmal over to him. He puts his arm around Ajmal's shoulders and they walk off together looking like two friends out for a leisurely stroll.

When Ajmal returns to our room about ten minutes later, Sayed and I note that the interpreter's face is finally more relaxed; he is almost smiling, his eyes shine with the secret Lalai revealed. His translations are increasingly rare, cautiously measured according to the prevailing mood and his sense of what I do and do not need to know. I will learn to read his facial expressions in order to determine how dramatic certain moments and decisions concerning our fate are. It is anything but easy.

The same thing happens now. The interpreter remains mute, and doesn't share with us what he has learned from the commandant. Later, I discover the reasons for his silence: Sayed has been found guilty. With no explanation, he is removed by the commandant himself and taken away. Ajmal is worried. He tells me that Haji Lalai considers the two of us clean and thinks that Sayed is the real problem. “He talked too much and he was full of contradictions,” Ajmal adds, torn between joy for our temporary absolution and anguish for the sentence hanging over the head of our friend. “I told him over and over, I advised him to explain only what was essential. He didn't listen. He talked and talked.”

I ask Ajmal what he told the commandant. Ajmal raises his eyebrows and replies firmly: “Naturally, I denied ever having worked for the British, as they seem to think. I told him that Sayed's clean, too, that I know him well, that he only helped me get in contact with the Taliban on various occasions.” I interrupt him: “Why didn't you say that you knew Claudio? He is an important contact, if he called the commandant it means that he has a message from outside, they want to use him as a messenger.” Ajmal looks frightened. “I can't tell them that. I don't want them to know who I know and why. The less you say the better.”

I say nothing. I find his answers unconvincing. Once again, I don't understand. I'm worried about Sayed: recently, his si­lences have been growing longer and gloomier, I don't know what's going on in his head, how he's holding up. It's not easy for us to communicate due to the language barrier. When Ajmal and I are alone, I begin to think aloud. “In the best of cases, they'll rough him up a bit. But I'm worried they're going to kill him, that we'll never see him again. And we will meet the same fate, sooner or later.” Ajmal's mood has grown dark again. He nods, silently.

 

The following day, March 15, we change prisons. The owner of the house in which we slept last night is afraid. He feels the foreign and Afghan secret services breathing down his neck. My interpreter confirms this fact. He overheard some exchanges outside our room. “He's mostly afraid of the consequences,” he says. “One day, we will be free, and we might be able to recognize him.” This thought freezes the blood in my veins. I suddenly realize that all the Taliban have shown us their faces from the start. This detail, certainly not a minor one, can be interpreted in two ways: they have decided to kill us no matter what, or they are already wanted, their faces known to those who are looking for them, and our being able to identify them makes no difference at all.

We're moved to a nearby house, a kind of farm with two large square central buildings, a spacious tree-filled courtyard, three verandas with thatch roofs, small fields and gardens enclosed by high walls, and two towers at either end of the property. It is not a fortress, but a small, abandoned farm. We will stay here for two days and two nights, watched over by nine very young Taliban fresh from the Qur'anic academy—devoted, pious, ready to obey every order. The hierarchy be­comes clearer when I learn that our detention is managed by a mullah named Maulvi. He is about thirty years old, tall and robust, with a thick dark beard. He is a teacher at a madrassa. I will have dozens of discussions with him about religion, especially Islam, to which he will attempt to convert me time and time again, but without excessive zeal. He is convinced that success in this endeavor would gratify him as much as a martyr's death in battle.

I try to converse with these boys. I ask about their lives, their habits. At first they resist, but slowly they begin to respond to my questions. They tell me about their origins, about the ambitions and passions that animate them. We speak in gestures, with occasional words and phrases translated by Ajmal and the few words of English they have learned who knows where. They seem open, willing to exchange ideas. But when it is time to flog me, they will feel no compunction.

 

Punishment arrives without warning. The chains come back out. They take them off, put them back on again, close the door to my cell for hours on end, loosen and tighten the chains around my ankles. They flog me, just a few lashes, for no apparent reason. I'm convinced that these choices are made on the basis of how negotiations are going, that they do not represent anything personal, that every action corresponds to a precise order given by the leaders of the group that is holding us prisoner. Tolerance and discipline alternate continually and the days seem endless, each one the same as the last. We spend them for the most part sitting on steps of dry mud and straw, surrounded by clouds of dust and the rubbish scattered throughout the courtyard.

 

But our jailors' youth encourages a particular relationship between us. I interpret some of their gestures as concessions in my favor: the radio on during news hour and the way their facial expressions change when news of our kidnapping comes on; the fact that we share the same food, boiled potatoes, with beans drowned in tomato sauce; their increasingly frequent offers of tea over the course of the day.

I realize now that I have been eating out of a metal dish that is different from the others. I imagined that this was a gesture of courtesy toward a foreigner, but Ajmal explains that it is because I am a kafir, an infidel. The same segregation will be applied to water as well: in order to avoid causing controversy and bringing upon myself further punishment, I must be very careful to drink and wash using the small canteen they've entrusted me with, which is distinguished from the others by a differently colored top and a mark on the handle.

Contact with non-believers is to be avoided. It is a sin. Religion dominates everything. Prayers are said five times a day in a liturgy that is followed to the letter. Maulvi is curious about my origins, my birth in Pakistan, and he continually puts my spiritual fortitude to the test. But during our conversations there is always a great deal of respect shown for our differences. We are both interested in these differences.

To kill time, the Taliban play five-a-side football using a small ball of plastic by now reduced to a formless, unidentifiable object. Every so often one of the boys sticks the point of his knife—the favorite weapon of the Taliban—into that stiff lump and reshapes it so that it will roll better on the stony, littered surface of the courtyard. They face up to one another, bump up against each other, free themselves with heel kicks, passes, and give-and-go moves that amaze me. They laugh aloud, never complain, never protest even when fouls against them are obvious.