Days of Fear (9 page)

It is my interpreter's turn. They take him from our cell and lead him away. Sayed mutters something in English—he asks me not to betray him. If I am interrogated, he implores, I must say that I gave him fifty dollars a day to be my driver. Ajmal warned me of this last night: if they interrogated him, he would say the same thing. You gave me two hundred dollars, he said, for the whole five-day journey to the south. This aspect had not occurred to me. Apparently Sayed and Ajmal had already dealt with the question in their conversations with the Taliban, but nobody told me.

We're in the middle of the investigation now, and they want to know who the five thousand dollars belongs to. It's actually Ajmal's fee, paid in advance, for setting up the interview. I was stunned by his request at the time, for the price struck me as unusually high. We discussed the matter in Kabul, and his response to my objections was firm: “All the TV stations pay the same amount. It's also a kind of safeguard.” I explained that I work for a newspaper and wouldn't be needing the kind of support that entails an entire crew. But I intended to use a video camera, and this fact alone put me in the same category as his previous clients. I'd been about to give up on the interview. Ajmal had become too costly. But in the end, slightly annoyed, I accepted.

It was right before they stopped us. We were traveling along that final stretch of road, a road littered with large stones, and I handed him the money. Four thousand dollars—in the end, he had given me a discount. He put the money in his pocket and that's when they stopped us. They found the money straight away. The Taliban suspect that the money is mine, but, on the other hand, it could just as easily be the fruit of Ajmal and Sayed's labors, as spies. They want answers: they don't remember whose jacket they pulled the money out of when they searched us.

I reassure Sayed. I tell him there's no problem: what he said during his interrogation seems credible to me. It's only logical that that wad of cash, the four thousand dollars, belongs to me. But I'm underestimating the shrewdness of the Taliban, together with their desire to squeeze me and, as they will continue to do, punish me for every lie, even the smallest.

 

It's my turn. Ajmal is sitting on his heels in front of the door to the second room. He looks down, without a word. His face is dry. He has not shed a tear. They take me into the first room. They're all standing there in a circle. They tie my hands and my arms behind my back with some rags and move me to the center of the room. I ask if Ajmal can be present. I know that I'm going to be interrogated, and at this point there can be no misunderstandings: Ajmal must be in the room to translate their questions and my answers.

They begin by asking what I had in my computer bag. I list off some items: books, pens, notepads, a red notebook, receipts, and money. How much? I don't know, perhaps two, maybe three thousand dollars. It's the truth. I watch them, waiting for a reply that does not come. They ask once again: What did I have in my computer bag? I picture my black computer bag, mentally searching the inside and outside pockets. Maybe I've forgotten something. But I have no reason to hide anything. Wires, technical equipment, network cables, I say. “I don't know what else to tell you, really. That's it. You have it now, you can check.”

 

What item has betrayed and condemned me, I wonder. Nothing comes to mind, unless they saw some news article they didn't like. Though that seems unlikely—they're all in Italian. There are numerous dispatches from Jerusalem: maybe they object to my trips to Israel. But many Palestinians still live in the Holy City. I promptly dismiss these possibilities. That they object to something they found on my computer seems suddenly too complex a hypothesis. These mujahedeen would not be able to translate articles written in Italian. What's more, they've never even seen a computer before. Indeed, the Taliban who are interrogating me focus on the money, they want to nail the driver, maybe the interpreter, too. They use me as a witness for the prosecution. They're fishing for something that will confirm their suspicions. They know that the four thousand dollars is mine, but the important thing is to figure out who I paid, my driver or my interpreter. Whoever it was, they hold him responsible for having introduced a spy into their territory.

They ask me how much the interpreter and the driver cost, all together. I reply according to the agreement I have with my cellmates. I don't betray them—our versions are identical. My interrogator's name is Munir—the one who travelled in the cab of the pickup and who wears a white turban. He orders me to kneel and then to lie down on the floor. I'm waiting for my punishment, my arms stiff behind my back. I remember what Sayed told me, that they had tried to strangle him. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a Taliban at my shoulder, moving closer. It looks like Hassan, the oldest among them.

He has a length of wire in his hand that he shapes into a noose, twisting the two ends together. He draws closer. I prepare to hold my breath; they're going to tighten the wire around my neck so that I can no longer breathe. But that's not what happens. At the cry of “Allah Akbar” two, three, four, I stop counting at twelve, hard blows fall from on high. My back arches, I try to soften the blows by tightening my back muscles. But those men standing over me lash out with wild fury. They don't stop for a second. They beat me on the back, on my thighs. The whistling as the lengths of rubber garden hose that they use to flog me is overpowered by their cries. They flog me and shout. Tears line my face, which is covered in dirt and dust. Finally, I yell, “
Basta
,
Basta
!” It comes out like an order, but it is a supplication.
Basta
, enough, is a word they use in Pashto as well.

The one holding the wire tight in his hand moves in front of me. I recognize him—it's Hassan, all right. He orders them to stop, and the soldiers obey. Some of them laugh; others lift me to my feet. Munir, the boy with the white turban, comes over to me and says they're just following the rules, they're Taliban, nothing personal. I feel insulted and humiliated, but I object weakly: you don't beat civilian prisoners. I remind them that I am an old man, and above all a journalist, a figure that is considered neutral in any armed conflict.

“Why don't you take soldiers prisoner?” I ask angrily, the pitch of my voice getting higher, and my tone becoming dangerously fervent. “Why take a journalist prisoner, someone who came here among you just to do an interview, unprotected, without any weapons, armed with only a pen and a notebook?”

I'm up on my feet now. My clothes are filthy with dirt and dust, and I'm screaming at Ajmal, who has not moved, who appears paralyzed, to translate word for word. He must not change anything. He must not leave out the adjectives or alter the intonation. I can't tell if he does what I say or not. I believe he does not, in order to protect us and to avoid further violence. He mutters something, his voice meek.

 

I'm beside myself. The situation is becoming unbearable and my resistance has reached its limit. I turn around without waiting for their replies and head toward the prison-cell hole that awaits me, walking a little like a duck because of the pain, my hands still tied behind my back. I prepare myself to face a long and difficult time in captivity—I am a prisoner, nothing more. That other Daniele, the journalist, foreign correspondent for
La Repubblica
, is still back in Lashkar Gah. Munir, the Taliban who was in charge of the interrogation, comes over to me. I turn quickly and stare darkly at him. He smiles as he says: “So, we managed to squeeze a few tears out of you. You never cry.”

He's right, I think. I only cry in moments of deep sadness and desperation. I will cry more than once over the course of these fifteen days, mostly at night, alone in the middle of the desert—brief silent fits of sobbing full of anger and fear.

Munir unloosens the knots around my wrists, grabs my left hand and discovers that I'm still wearing my wedding band. He tries to pull it off, but I make a fist. “No,” I say. “No.” With a bemused smile he opens my hand and, as he stares into my eyes, he slips the ring off my finger. He studies it, turns it over, looks back at me, and drops the ring into his pocket. He raises his index finger. It's a threat, his way of reaffirming the same idea he will repeat many times over the next weeks: I'm in charge here.

I whisper an insult that he duly ignores.

 

 

 

 

I
return to the dark, cold, damp pen that is my jail cell. Ajmal is still being held outside. I find Sayed folded in on himself, huddled in a corner of the room. He looks at me with his large eyes wide open and mimes being flogged. He's looking for confirmation, he wants to know what they did to me. He then mimes strangulation, shakes his head, and weeps. Again he whispers: “Taliban, fuck you, fuck you!”

He has looked death in the face. He says these men want to kill us. I understand his feelings: we have been deceived and we're starting to distrust everything and everyone. We can never let down our guard, we must always attempt to see what is hidden behind acts that seem conciliatory; we have to foresee every danger and correctly interpret sudden mood changes. We must study our captors more carefully. These Taliban are cunning, adept at discerning a prisoner's psychological state. They are no longer young madrassa students—they're soldiers. I tell the driver that they beat on my back and legs. They didn't try to choke me as they did him.

Ajmal returns to the cell. They haven't tortured him further; Munir and the others kept him back only so that he could translate my last words, which they hadn't understood. He explains that he, too, was flogged on his legs and thighs. But he doesn't complain. Sayed is the most frightened among us. I have the impression that they said something awful to him, some kind of terrible threat. He is turning over the implications of some change in the situation that apparently concerns him alone. They still consider him a spy, the only real spy in our little group.

 

They bring us something to eat. It's midday but we're not hungry. We hurt all over. We're humiliated and depressed. I dwell upon this violence and torture for some time. The thought that this might happen had never really occurred to me, but faced with what just took place I must resign myself to the possibility of further days of mental and physical anguish. Once again, I pray. I ask my God to spare me further interrogations. I am willing to remain a prisoner for many days yet, but the idea of having to suffer torture and humiliation scares me. I replay the scene: those lengths of hose coming down on me. Then I reflect on the order to cease, that “
basta
” in Pashto the minute I implored them to stop in Italian. It strikes me as strange, an unusual reaction on their part, for torturers typically do not stop at the first cry from a prisoner under interrogation. Perhaps the flogging was staged. Our jailors must have received an order from on high. Whoever is in charge of our detention ordered them to up the ante, to frighten us. Their fury towards Sayed knew no bounds; they tried to kill him; they hold him responsible for our entry into Helmand Province and they want him to confess. Ajmal and I were treated with greater consideration: a good number of lashes but nothing that would injure us too awfully. It's a subtle distinction that will grow less so, becoming evident, pronounced, and tragic.

 

With the darkness and last prayers come our chains. Commander Ali and the Taliban with the satellite telephone shuttle back and forth between our hovel and a nearby village. They buy provisions and some essential items we have requested. Finally, they bring us some medical supplies: a plastic bag containing antibiotics and ointments, bandages, Band-Aids, cotton-wool, hydrogen peroxide and a little vial of iodine. Ajmal is given the task of attending to my wound. He does so with delicacy and great care. While he is cutting my hair so that the Band-Aids will stick I tell him that I'm worried about what might have happened internally, that I'm afraid a hemorrhage or a hematoma might lead to a clot. If I move my head even an inch it feels like it's going to explode. I have to stay perfectly still. The Band-Aids do not stick well to my wound and with the dust, the ants, the fleas and the thousands of insects that have invaded our kennel, the risk of infection is high. My two collaborators suggest I cover my head with a turban. But when I wrap anything tightly around my head, I feel my blood beating and the pain spreads all over my cranium. I will use the turban as a swab, protection against the rats that could be attracted by fresh blood during the night. I sleep little and poorly. I have a block of clay for a cushion. It crumbles beneath the weight of my head but I can't do without some kind of cushion. One does not sleep well on a mattress of stony ground, with one's movements fettered by chains and padlocks. I have been noticing an unsettling development: they now tend to separate the three of us, as if underlining the differences between us, dividing us into the good guys and the bad guys.

 

Ajmal and Sayed are chained together at their ankles. They can walk, but they must always do so together. I wear a chain a few inches long around my ankles. I can only shuffle along slowly. It is closed with two small padlocks that bite into my flesh. Unlike my two fellow prisoners, whose hands are free, a second chain fetters my hands, one that is tightened or loosened according to the ever-changing moods of our jailors. I can never understand these moods nor foresee changes in them. I understand only one thing: they are conditioned by orders that come from far away. I'm convinced that by now all Afghanistan is talking about us, particularly here in the south. There are many signs to this effect. A radio, for example, has appeared out of nowhere and we overhear BBC newscasts, in Pashto, reporting on three missing journalists. We can barely hear the report, a confused murmur that my two collaborators struggle to make out.

News of our fate is spreading. Definitive confirmation of this fact comes late that night. Darkness has enclosed the pen in which we have been lying now for several hours, the same pitch black that covers the entire area. It's Friday, March 9. We've been in the same part of Afghanistan for two days by this time. The officer with the satellite telephone bursts into the room followed by four men in traditional attire, their faces covered by turbans. It's not easy, but we stand up. With chains around my wrists and my ankles fettered, I frequently lose my balance. I lean against one of the freshly arrived guests.

They stare at us with great interest, scrutinizing us as if we were strange animals yet to be classified. I no longer hear the word “spy.” It has disappeared from the dialogues that the Taliban hold while on guard duty; it is not even hinted at in front of these four mysterious men.

Ajmal and Sayed greet them deferentially, touching the arms of our guests with one hand, according to Afghan custom. You may be enemies, but when you meet one another both hands must be lifted to the person in front of you, and you mutter a few words that signify peace, welcome, may Allah guide us, pleased and honored by the visit. Even these four men squeeze arms and hands, and speak in stock phrases and standard greetings. We had been told that the leaders, the
helder
, wanted to see us. Here they are, I imagine, in the shape of these four men.

But I'm wrong. I catch a familiar word, though it is pronounced in Pashto with the closed vowels that I will eventually learn to identify: al-Qaeda. I grasp hold of whatever I can—words that crop up often in conversation, expressions, verbs, adjectives, anything that will help me intuit the gist of the conversation. Ajmal does not translate except when authorized to do so. Without the support of my interpreter, I feel increasingly isolated. Ajmal is terrified by the idea of accidentally revealing some kind of secret: among them, the fact that he is the nephew of a high-ranking officer in the Afghan police.

I'm now obliged to ask permission before having conversations translated, conversations that seem connected to our condition as prisoners and weigh upon our future. It's not easy. Now, for example, I cannot catch nuances, those details that might help me understand who, exactly, is standing before us.

 

The four men, their faces covered, stand inside the pen for a few minutes. Then they make their farewells and disappear into the darkness. Ajmal, frightened, whispers: “Al-Qaeda, Pakistanis.” I don't know what to think. I realize that Ajmal is following his intuition. I ask if they are the famous leaders, the ones who wanted to meet us. He says he doesn't know; he's convinced that they are local leaders, and that they come from over the border. We will never see them again. Indeed, for the entire duration of our captivity, we will never see foreign fighters: no Chechens, Arabs, Bosnians, none of the so-called international jihadists. We are held prisoner by Afghans. Yet the presence of these four characters confirms that we are in a tribal zone a few kilometers from the border. The Pakistani city of Quetta, a center of Taliban activity, must be just beyond the mountains hanging over us. We are in the heart of their territory.

I ask Ajmal about this when darkness falls, whispering in his ear. But he's afraid. He doesn't want to reply. He says I have to trust him: “After I'll tell you all the important parts. They're suspicious of us, every time they see us or hear us talking they ask me what we've been saying, they expect an instantaneous translation.” I am silent. I close in on myself once more and try to make some sense of all this. I'm afraid that Ajmal knows more than he admits, that he's developing an assessment of our situation that is different from mine. He has decided to listen rather than talk. But he has also decided to tell me only what is essential.

 

I close my eyes and try to sleep but I can't. My mind is again overwhelmed by a tempest of thoughts, hypotheses, and considerations. I have committed many things to memory: details, sounds, and smells. As I often do, I begin to run over the opening of the story I will write about this incredible, impossible adventure. I reread it a dozen times in my head. The sentences flow clearly and smoothly; the periods, commas, and adjectives are all where they belong. I'm surprised: I'm thinking of the piece I'll write even though my hands and feet are in chains, even though I am a prisoner, merchandise to be exchanged. I imagine they are already planning a swap, or are engaged in some kind of negotiation. In the meantime, the mere idea of one day being released and writing the article instills courage in me; it helps me overcome what is perhaps one of the first truly difficult moments of our captivity.

 

I hear a loud chirping inside our pen. We have a sparrow that comes in and out of our hovel constantly. I interpret its presence as a sign. My wife Luisella, who is Italo-Peruvian, once explained to me the symbolic meaning of some occurances. Birds signify change; they are messengers bringing news of a turning point, a development of some kind. The thought comforts me in this moment of extreme desperation. I feel her close to me. I delude myself into imagining that she is here with me, that she has come to deepest Afghanistan under the guise of that sparrow. Perhaps she wants to send me a message of hope, or make me understand that I am not alone, that she is actively studying the right moves to make. Above all she wants to convey serenity. And this she does. Whenever I manage to close my eyes the dream is almost always the same. And so it is now. I fall asleep and dream of her.

 

The Taliban bring me cigarettes, a packet of SS 80s, Korean made. I will never be without something to smoke. I thank them, but I am distrustful. The flogging they gave me still smarts, and this pain encourages me to be prudent. A gift, a small consideration on the part of our jailors cannot be confused with kindness. It almost certainly hides another trap. The game is demanding and it must be played with shrewdness. Ajmal continues to use the same tactic, acting the part of one who is offended, sick, and depressed. He is closed in on himself, his head hanging down, and his languid eyes fixed on an indefinite point somewhere in front of him. He tries to make our jailors feel pity for him.

Sayed, on the other hand, is loquacious, taking advantage of the relaxed atmosphere to talk with the Taliban. I don't know what he says, Ajmal refuses to translate and every so often he glances reproachfully at Sayed, shakes his head, and returns to his self-imposed isolation. He often rebukes Sayed when we are together in the cell. He says he talks too much, that he contradicts himself, and that in this way he increases the suspicions of our kidnappers. He says the same thing when we're alone. “He's writing his own death sentence.” He whispers: “They're collecting information. Sayed is from Lashkar Gah, he knows this region. They will soon know everything about him. It's different for me. I'm from Kabul, it will take them more time to get accurate information.” I turn to him and ask, “Are you afraid they'll discover that you're the nephew of a police officer?” He shoots me a terrified look and tells me to be quiet. He says that they may be able to understand what I say. In fact, he's convinced that the man with the satellite telephone understands English perfectly though he pretends not to. “You too,” he continues. “Sometimes you are imprecise, when all that is needed is some small doubt to set off an alarm. You have to explain your answers carefully.” I ask his pardon, and ask myself, though my strategy has been different from his all along, if he's right. But then I remind myself that I have nothing to hide.

 

They wake us at seven. It's Saturday, March 10, the sixth day of captivity. I ask the time constantly and thus manage to follow the rhythm of the days. We're on the move again. Finally, I think, we'll be leaving this hole behind us. I'm pleased. I prefer movement because the time passes more quickly. I ask if our journey today will be a long one, but the Taliban give me only a vague answer. The pickup is ready. As always the fighters sit on top of one another in the cargo bed—their weapons leaning up against the side rails, the rocket launchers loaded. I find it difficult to get used to my new arrangement: the chains on my wrists hamper my movements, leaving marks and bruises on my skin. It is a damn uncomfortable position that I barely manage to tolerate. Ajmal tells me the commander has spoken to him about an investigation that should take about five or six days. Perhaps they have already obtained the information they were looking for. There's a new Taliban in our midst, young, like the others, his face framed by a short black beard, his eyes dark, deep, his gaze inscrutable. He helps me up into the cargo bed and asks about my wound, my state of mind. Then he introduces himself: “My name is Tariq.”