Days of Fear (17 page)

 

Haji Lalai, the commandant, pulls me aside for the last time. He smiles with that angelic look of his and whispers in my ear: “You are a lucky man.” He repeats what the man who orchestrated our abduction told me two nights ago: “Remember, you were saved by Mullah Omar himself. He decided not to cut your throat.” Then, calmly, almost as if he were saying farewell and good luck, he adds, “God willing, we will see one another in Paradise.”

 

 

 

 

 

T
he Mediator, Rahmatullah Hanefi, director of the Emergency-run hospital in Lashkar Gah, shakes me: “Let's go. You'd better get in the car right now.” He has been standing at a distance all this while. Nobody has greeted him or embraced him. We leave, with a car in front of us and a jeep behind us, both carrying our guarantors: four tribal leaders who will escort us along the road back. Three hundred kilometers of desert, dunes, rises and depressions, small lakes. It's a difficult journey. The atmosphere is tense. We are still in hostile territory.

The mediator watches me in the rearview mirror. He sees my tears, watches my sobs, he reaches back and takes my hand in his. “I didn't want to come,” he says. “I'm risking my life and that of my family. I did it because Gino Strada asked me to. He's waiting for you.”

Slowly, I begin to understand. My eyes full of tears, I ask: “Emergency?” Rahmatullah nods and smiles. He pulls out an ID. “I'm from Emergency. Check it. Stay calm, you're safe now.” Then he continues: “I haven't slept for three days and three nights. We worked hard, we didn't stop for an instant. It was really very difficult to pull you out of that hole. An impossible endeavor, but we did it. I didn't want to, I would never have come here, into these lands. The risks are great, and we are still running them now. But this is how we work: we're a humanitarian organization. For us, human life holds the highest value, it represents an absolute. We cure and we save people. We saved you and Ajmal. We would have liked to do the same thing for Sayed.”

I look around, smoke, cry. I let myself go. I chase out the nightmares, release all the anxiety, anguish and pain that accumulated over two weeks of physical and psychological torture.

That hell is now behind me. But another authentic hell is yet to arrive. It will strike me in waves, hour after hour, as surprises, shocks, arrests, ferocious arguments, and threats arrive one after the other. And at the end of all this comes the final devastating blow: the death of my Afghan interpreter. He will be held prisoner for another fifteen days, then his throat will be cut, he will be decapitated, perhaps as part of the same ritual that befell our friend Sayed. Betray­ed by the Taliban, by himself, by someone who was playing with our lives in a game that was bigger than any of us could know.

 

There's time for the penultimate daily prayer, the one that precedes sundown. The sun is setting in the west, disappearing behind the sand hills. The sky is red and orange, long purple ribbons in the sky announce the coming of night. Rahmatullah has already laid his mat out and is facing Mecca. The tribal chiefs arrange theirs beside him. They pray in silence following a rite that I have seen many times during our captivity. I pray too, at a distance. I thank my God for the fact that I am alive; I thank him also for Ajmal's life. I think back to my friend, I ask myself what he's doing right now, who will accompany him to Kabul. I remember how afraid he was these last days, when euphoria at the possibility of our imminent release alternated with moments of profound distress. I always tried to avoid slipping into the well of depression. I exalted every grain of hope that came our way. We continued to hope, because hope was the only way we knew to resist.

I ask Rahmatullah if he has any news of my friend. I speak quietly, glancing left and right warily. I still do not feel secure, we are in the middle of the desert, in Taliban territory. They could still stop us, attack us, abduct us again. The idea alone is enough to strike dread in my heart. I'm not sure I could endure anything like that. It would be another awful shock, the latest of many.

The mediator does not reply. He gets back into the car and invites me to do the same. We're in a hurry, the sky grows darker by the minute. Lashkar Gah is still a long way away. I look at the dunes, the large oases transformed into marshes, herds of camels drinking at their edges, and I realize that I would never have been able to leave the heart of Taliban territory alone. I am certain of it. It would have been impossible; they would have caught me immediately and probably have killed me. Even the tribal leaders have difficulty finding and following the trails that are barely visible on this carpet of stones and sand. On our left, at the edge of a long high sand dune, I can see the shapes of several armored vehicles. “English,” says Rahmatullah. “They keep their distance. They watch without intervening.”

The landscape changes suddenly and we finally turn onto a paved road. Small villages appear here and there, men and young boys sit near the intersections and watch us pass, their looks curious and suspicious. We stop a few kilometers outside the city to say farewell to our guarantors—their work ends here. Rahmatullah is finally able to get a signal on his cell phone. He calls Emergency and asks for Gino Strada. He speaks instead with Strada's collaborator, Gina. He explains where we are, and how long it's going to take us to get there. His first words on the telephone are: “They released him. Daniele is in the car with me. Safe and sound.”

 

I'm riding beside Rahmatullah now, on his left, in the passenger seat. The Skoda's steering wheel is on the right. It's a brand-new model, the seats still covered in plastic. The mediator keeps shooting looks at me. He is keeping tabs on me, afraid that I might suffer some kind of collapse, that I will not respond well to all this. He's right: I'm struggling to understand what has happened to me, where I am, where I'm going to. I'm still inside a kind of bubble. I don't know anything about anything. My only sensation is this feeling of being tossed from one situation to another, as if I were watching a film about myself. It is an instinctive reaction, a protective mechanism. My mind is beginning to play strange and terrible tricks on me and I'm surprised that I still manage to resist. My approach is similar to that of my mother. I have inherited these maternal genes: when faced with immense pain, intense stress, tragedies, she keeps an emotional distance from things, which protects her and saves her. She conserves her strength so that she can react like a lioness when the decisive moment arrives. She reared five children and trailed after her husband, following him to every godforsaken corner of the world.

 

“Gino is waiting for you,” says Rahmatullah. “He has to talk with you. He wants to explain lots of things.” I turn to my right and my heart stops again for a fraction of a second: I recognize the collection of mud and straw houses we're passing. It's where they stopped us and abducted us. I point it out to the man who saved me. “Are you sure?” he asks. I look over at the houses again. Now they look like all the others. I recognize some crossroads, I think I don't know: the landscape around here is all the same. No, I'm not sure. I ask how long until we reach Lashkar Gah and the mediator answers a dozen kilometers or so. He explains that we were abducted elsewhere, not far from here, but in another zone. Our driver, Sayed, was well-known around here, his brother Mohammed Daoud was the first to raise the alarm when Sayed did not return on March 5. Our abduction was reconstructed in detail, and this is not where it took place.

 

 

 

 

 

W
e're in front of the gate to the headquarters of Emergency. It opens and we enter. As I get out of the car I see Gino Strada with his whitish beard and his long hair. His eyes are bloodshot, showing the signs of many sleepless days and nights, and stress. He has, as always, a ci­garette dangling from his fingers. We run towards each other and I wrap him in a long, intense embrace. I repeat the same words over and over: “Thank you. Thank you. You saved my life. I'm alive. I can touch you.” He holds me tight and says, “It was hard, very hard.” He says he had to throw all his weight against those who were blocking the way to a successful negotiation, that he had to raise his voice; he threatened, gave in, found the strength to continue. He fought for us. “I really had to struggle to make them keep the knife in its sheath,” he adds. He is lauding the efforts he and Emergency made and the re­sults they obtained. But he deserves this moment of triumph: it is a way of releasing the tension that has built up inside him. There is nothing quarrelsome or manipulative about his words.

The telephones are ringing off the hook. The entire staff greets me. There must be twenty or more young men and wo­men: doctors, nurses, specialists, paramedics, and technicians. Slaps on the back, handshakes, hugs, warm greetings, a quick toast in front of a table covered in delicacies, the kind I dream­ed of at night in my cell. Gina, Strada's collaborator, gives me a quick checkup. She examines the injury on my head and checks my eyes. My entire body is shaking and I can do nothing to stop the tremors. They decide to give me ten drops of some kind of sedative to calm my nerves, I'm sure, but the only thing I taste is the fresh, cool water into which the drops have been dissolved. I start smoking, a lot, too much.

The few telephones that still work are white hot. The calls arrive one after the other without a moment's respite and grow even more frequent as the minutes pass. I talk to many people, mostly colleagues. I know their work well and I understand what they're going through right now: they must contact me at any cost. I first speak with the editor-in-chief of the newspaper I work for, Ezio Mauro. He says a quick hello and hands the phone to my wife, Luisella. Her voice wraps itself around my heart and squeezes it tight, then descends into my stomach, turning it inside out like a glove; from there it moves into my breast where it falls back into place like a veil coming finally to rest.

From the depths of my being rises a sadness that wholly envelops me. I weep uncontrollably, my face twisted by sobs. The young men and women from Emergency leave the room and close the door, leaving me alone with this immense sadness. I repeat, obsessively: “It was terrible, terrible, terrible.” Nothing else comes out of my mouth. She hands the phone back to the editor-in-chief and I manage to get a grip on myself. He comforts me and asks if I am able to write. His question stirs my sense of pride. He knows well enough that I always complete the assignments given to me. I tell him I'm ready. To return to the world of the living I need to gain a sense of normality: writing will do me good. For the past fifteen days I have spoken little and understood even less. I have to vent all the frustration accumulated during this period of forced silence on the keyboard of my PC; I have to pour the story that changed my life into the computer's memory. I write hastily, without my glasses, which were taken from me, along with everything else, by the Taliban during the initial ambush.

Gino Strada is sitting next to me, talking about all that happened during our captivity. Out in the lobby confusion reigns. There are photographers everywhere and right now they're recording the video that will be put online in a few minutes. In a loud voice, Gino says, “Here's Ajmal. He's here, too. He's having pictures taken. Let's get him over here.” I wait for a few minutes, but I'm overwhelmed, confused, beset by emotions. I remain submerged in the piece I am writing.

I smoke, nibble at some pieces of cheese. But my stomach is closed tight, I need water more than anything; I feel dehydrated. I call the newspaper again and send in the piece. I'm completely exhausted, devastated, but adrenalin is keeping me going. I look at the clock hanging on the wall: it's two-thirty in the morning. We decide to sleep. Tomorrow morning we'll have to be up early for the trip to Kabul. Gino Strada tells me that we'll drive to Kandahar with a convoy of Emergency vehicles. I don't like the sound of it; it sounds dangerous. I tell him I'd like to think about it, but I know that I don't have many options: those who saved my life know the best way to get me home safe.

I sleep for a couple of hours, wrapped up in my clothes, dressed, as I have been for fifteen days, in the green
patu
which I use to cover myself. I wake with a start shortly after dawn. They take me into the main room, where breakfast is ready. I look around trying to find the yellow tea I've gotten so accustomed to, pick up a few pieces of bread, sample them and swallow with difficulty. There are a few people already up and about. I ask about Ajmal and they tell me that they don't have any news. “Gino was mistaken. The person he thought was Ajmal is a new worker at the hospital. He'd never met him and he got things mixed up.”

 

The founder of Emergency bursts into the corridor. He is distraught, his hair a confused tangle, worse than usual. “They've arrested Rahmatullah,” he cries. “They picked him up at home, or maybe along the road at some point. Maybe even here out front. We have to learn why, what they're accusing him of.” He's desperate, furious. He sucks on his cigarette and blows out smoke as he paces the corridor like a caged lion. I am silent and immobile before Gino's rage, and shocked by the news of the arrest of the man who came to save me from the clutches of the Taliban. I feel that something awful is happening, that this ordeal is not yet over.

I think things over hastily. I think about the fact that I was freed, that the Afghan police are looking for me because they want to interrogate me. My position is delicate, I must move with great caution. With the Taliban I learned to trust no one, to think carefully before acting, to weigh each word before pronouncing it.

There is shouting and fighting at the entry gate. Slogans being chanted. A hospital security guard enters the room breathless and says there are at least two hundred protesters outside. Many of them are part of Sayed Agha's clan. They're asking to be let in, they want precise answers about their relative. Gino Strada is concerned. He's worried that they will break down the gate—the crowd, armed with rocks and sticks, is growing every minute that passes, they shout and beat against the large white iron gate.

The Emergency personnel and I move towards the internal garden. The security officers suggest we stay away from windows and the walls that protect us from the crowd outside. Doctors and paramedics lead me to a room. I want to change my clothes. I am not a Taliban and I have no intention of being mistaken for one.

I'm afraid. I look into the room and search it quickly for a place to hide. I feel like a hunted animal. I ask for a change of clothes. Gina, Strada's right hand, gives me a pair of brown pants. A young man who looks completely lost offers me a light gray sweatshirt. “Take it,” he says, his voice choked. “You can give it back to me when this is all over.” I put the clothes on as fast as I can and pick up a pair of green hospital clogs that I find in a large box. I'm wondering how I can protect myself, frantically looking around again for a hiding place. If the crowd breaks through the gate, I think desperately, I'll slide in under the bed. Perhaps they won't find me.

Outside, the crowd is still growing. There must be more than three hundred people out there by now and the police are having trouble keeping them back. A delegation is allowed to enter: four, maybe five men, some of them very young, all of them relatives of the driver. They sit around a table and talk with Gino Strada. They ask to see me and I enter the room and join the group. One of the driver's cousins goes straight to the point. His eyes are bulging almost out of their sockets. “Did you see Sayed's release?” he asks me. “Where did they take him?”

I'm dumbfounded. I realize that the video of his decapitation was never made public. Five days have passed since that barbaric murder and nobody knows anything; even his clan, the large tribe that is laying siege to us, is convinced that he is still alive. It seems impossible, but this is Afghanistan. Here, news can travel like the wind or at a snail's pace. And in the territories controlled by the Taliban only what they want to be known is allowed to leak out. The Taliban, the current overlords, the dictators of the Shariah, are in complete control of a kidnapping from which they hope to obtain the maximum political profit. They hide the horrors and exalt their successes. I no longer know what the free world knows of us, of our abduction, of our fifteen days in captivity. But I know the truth and I tell it to them.

I reply plainly, directly, my surprise evident: “They killed him before my very eyes.” Their reaction is violent. They cry out and yell. “Where, who was it? You have to tell us who his murderers are.” I'm frightened. I don't know what to say anymore. I don't know how to lie, especially about such an atrocious death. I look over at Gino Strada and realize that he is confused and worried. The boy in front of me stares at me, his gaze stern. He is enraged. “You tell me they killed him. You have to tell us where and who. We will now go to vindicate his death.” I try to stop them. I encourage them to be calm and patient.

A policeman enters the room. Afghan, an officer by the looks of it, perhaps a captain. He smiles and settles everyone down. He notes the questions posed and answers given. I am still dazed, shocked by the idea that Sayed's family had no idea he was dead and I ask myself just how much of the truth made it to the outside world, how many of those videos we made were sent. I realize that the game is more complex, that it may even be a different game from the one we thought we were playing. The mediator arrested, news kept hidden, the anger of Sayed's relatives. I feel suddenly alone, vulnerable once again, a pawn to be used who knows how in this unending nightmare.

 

The tension eases, the crowd of relatives leaves wrapped in their grief and deepening pain. We wait for another two hours, shut inside two rooms with the young Emergency workers acting as human shields out in the corridor. Nobody says a word; everybody is worried. The atmosphere is one of alarm. Gino Strada appears to be searching for some solution. We have to get out of this building—even Strada agrees that it is not well enough protected. One crowd brings others in its wake. There may be groups of Taliban ready to jump into action, as well as bandits, criminals, the police themselves, who are anything but pleased with the way the negotiations went.

Rome is on the line. It's Luisella. Her voice is calm, as it always is in the most critical moments. She says, “Listen to me carefully. You must not go to Kandahar under any circumstance. You have to go to the English. They've laid a trap for you. They want to abduct you again.” She hands me the editor in chief, Ezio Mauro, who repeats the same words: “If they get you again we won't be able to bring you home. Do what Luisella tells you to do.”

Gino Strada abandons the idea of transferring us to Kandahar. He accepts, though he has many, many doubts, the plan of heading straight for the English base, which is about ten kilometers from the hospital run by Emergency in Lashkar Gah. The journey will be made in two phases: first we will go to the hospital, then to the British military outpost. We ask the police for protection and they put two manned jeeps at our disposal—they're waiting outside for us. We will travel in civilian vehicles, not pickups, without Emergency decals.

I get into the backseat of the sedan and throw a cover over myself. I have started shaking again. I'm exhausted and feel in danger of succumbing to a complete physical and mental collapse. I look around as if lost, disorientated, out of place, and again pray to my God that he protect me for just a little longer. We reach the hospital, where we remain, visiting the wards, for about an hour. The children—ill, injured, their gazes vacant—are cheered up by visits from the medical staff who have accompanied us here as part of our convoy.

There are few words spoken. Everyone is afraid, the situation could very easily spin out of control, and we all know it. There are many people who would like to see us dead right now. We have to get out of this part of the country now, nobody is safe here. I later learned that the siege on the Emergency headquarters lasted another five days and that the entire staff was forced to remain inside the hospital the whole time. Threats by Taliban members, perhaps even by the Afghan police themselves, caused mass resignations on the part of the local staff. Nothing like that had ever happened to Emergency in years and years of activity on the ground.

We ask the police for further protection. There is a frenetic exchange of telephone calls between Kabul, Rome and Lashkar Gah, and then we go out onto the street and leave the hospital behind us. We travel ten kilometers along deserted city streets carefully checking every corner, every suspicious vehicle, every intersection—especially the intersections, where we could be hit with antitank rockets.

We get to the English post with our hearts in our throats. They open the gates but only after checking our IDs, despite the fact that they know perfectly well who we are. Finally they let us through. Gino Strada is still worried. We are met by two men, Italians in civilian clothes, who speak very little and are slightly stiff. They draw near and one of them speaks to me. “We were always there,” he says quietly. “Down there with you and the others. We knew where you were being held. You were being monitored every minute.” They are members of our intelligence corps. I don't reply. I don't even have the strength to smile.