Pieces of You (16 page)

Five days have passed. It seems like my life has been moving in slow motion ever since I got the first e-mail from Martin. His updates are still encouraging although I sense a tinge of desperation in this latest note. If only I could talk to Martin or anyone else who knows Mark. I need help to stay focused; to be assured Mark will wake up and be as he was.

I can feel the dam that’s been holding back my tears for five days collapsing. I can’t stop crying. I’m glad I’m alone - I wouldn’t want others to see me sobbing like this. I’m so afraid! What if I lose him?

Along with my agony I can sense something else bubbling up through my subconscious. My temples are throbbing with the pressure. It’s more than fear—I can restrain fear once I recognize the cause but I don’t know where this sensation is coming from.

I feel the pressure threatening to suffocate me
.
Suddenly,
the identity of the source becomes
clear;
i
t is despair.

Now that I have labeled it, I’ve discovered a tiny bluish light that remains in my line of vision even when I turn my head. It, too, seems to come from nowhere. The thought has just come to me: ‘Name it; name the light.’ Just as my fear seems about to crush me, I hear a whispered word: ‘Hope’.

Ah, the light of hope.
             
Hope bathes my soul and I feel the despair dissolving. Breathing my gratitude, I’m still crying, but these tears comfort and liberate.

I send a prayer across the ocean: ‘Dearest Mark, you will be all right. And we will be together again.’
             

***

As Janine slept, far away in her own bed, Mark’s spirit once again fused with his body, one that seemed to serve no other purpose than as a wrapping, like the paper wrapped around a gift.

No one in the hospital room saw any change. The hospital monitoring system hooked up to his body was registering the same levels of temperature and heart rhythm, flow of nutrients into his body and discharge of bodily waste out of it. The same blank stare remained fixed upon his face.

The immobility of Mark’s body was in direct contradiction of his psychic state. Within his spirit, activity was intensifying
as he struggled to make sense of a world remade at each turn—as with each twist of a child’s kaleidoscope.

“I’m pretty sure the next stop on this ultra-strange journey will be Geneva. Was I really there with my old friend and co-worker, Steve, replaying his invitation or was all that only happening in my mind?

“
Why that destination? I wasn’t a player in anything as horrific as a war or as sordid as a banking scheme there. Anyway, why am I asking you where I’m going?

“
I still think it’s conceivable that you’re nothing more than a fantasy I’ve concocted
,
someone to connect to in a world that doesn’t seem to know I’m still here.”

“Do you think you’d be more certain of me if I was in a flesh-and-blood body?
Did you really know your ex-wife with whom you had physical contact for more than ten years?” Zachri asked.

“If you were as certain of her as you wish to be of me then you would have known of her plans to leave you.

“
Mark, I can’t hurt you like she did. The truth I reveal is sometimes painful, but it always leads to healing and gratitude.

“But i
f you would like more time to ponder my existence and my proposal, you could always command me to leave.”

“Oh my God, no, please don’t leave! I’m sure I would go out of my mind. Maybe I already am, although I seem to be thinking rationally.

“
For the most part, I have to admit that if you are only a figment of my imagination, I like what I’ve conceived! Please help me do whatever I must to regain my life.

“
I sometimes think I hear Janine crying and calling me, and it breaks my heart that I can’t reach out to her. I wish there was a way to let her know how much I love her.”
             

Mark’s premonition of where Zachri would take him next proved correct. He recognized the conference room of Eurotanko-Central in which he had led numerous meetings and was even pretty sure of the time; nearly five years earlier.

The scene evoked powerful and painful memories that he had no desire to re-live.

He seemed to be viewing the scene through the two-way mirror in the viewing room that his marketing team sometimes used for focus group surveys
.
By using the mirror,
the people involved
didn’t
know they were being observed.

Without his being aware of it, the mirror of time slowly tipped and Mark merged into the scene on the other side.

***

An astute observer
,
scanning the faces and listening to the accents of the men and women seated around the conference table
,
could pick out at least five different nationalities: German, French, Chinese, American and possibly Russian.

The leader of this group, an American in his late fifties, had the air of one who knows that his influence is considerable. He was still rather handsome; the lines in his face and gray in his hair giving Mark Kennecott a dignified appearance.

Pulling a stack of papers from a manila envelope marked ‘Confidential
,
’ he looked down at them in his shaking right hand. He brushed his forehead with the back of his hand and shifted his focus to a point above the heads of the people staring at him. Finally, he made eye contact and began to speak.

“Yesterday one of our crude-oil tankers was attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean.”

After a brief pause to allow the accumulated gasps of horror to subside, he continued.

“It was the ‘Oceanora’, carrying roughly 93.5 million gallons of crude from Saudi Arabia to Houston. All eighteen crew are being held hostage. We had counted on our increased security to spare us but, as of yesterday, we are the hundred and ninetieth victim in eleven months.”

Mark stopped talking and gazed slowly around the table. The room had become so quiet that it was possible to catch excerpts of a conversation being held by someone on the phone across the hall.

The twenty-four sets of eyes looking back at him registered everything from shock to confusion, grief to irritation. It was easy to differentiate between those who had friends among the crew of the ‘Oceanora’ and others who only knew of the tanker as a corporate asset.

“Before we discuss our response to the pirates, I need to tell you why I am unable to view this matter objectively. My son, Martin, was on board.”

It was clear that Mark was struggling as he presented this information. His glassy eyes and shaking hands spoke plainly. Steve Kraysman, one of the senior members of his team, was the first to reach Mark.

Others crowded around him with the same thought in mind
,
but nobody who knew Mark well was surprised when he abruptly left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind Mark, the room erupted. Angry pronouncements, palpable distress, and stifled fear were welded into a confused mass of voices and gestures.

Steve elected himself as facilitator and, knowing that to allow some venting would be constructive, he decided to wait twenty minutes before bringing the room to order
.
In the interim he took
careful note of the prevailing attitudes.

Rich, a senior member and VP of Business & Legal Affairs was the first to speak.

“They just want the money. These Somali pirates are terrorists, murdering and hazarding disastrous oil spills as a fast track to wealth and power.”

“They’re more like Robin Hoods, trying to take from multi-national corporations to give to their starving countrymen,” Kat, a popular young executive from H.R. interjected.

The fiery female boss of Advertising responded sharply.

“Robin Hoods! All these people know is pillage, rape and slaughter—they’ve been doing it to neighboring tribes forever. They just have better weapons now.”

“Yeah and, with those weapons, small bands of pirates are disrupting the flow of oil through the Gulf of Aden,” the Fleet Operations Manager, a wiry man with over thirty years of shipping experience, pointed out.

Leah, in her forties and normally quiet, had only recently been named as the International Shipping Specialist. She responded with a question aimed at the room in general.

“What would you do if you were a Somali eking out a living by fishing along that coast and observing the wealth of the world sailing by?”

“Actually, if I were a Somali, I would no longer be a fisherman. I would have given up. On top of the toxic waste dumping that’s going on, there’s illegal fishing by foreign fleets. They steal the fish and harass local fisherman, all under the protection of naval vessels belonging to their own countries.”

This information came from Jeremy, the IT Support Engineer and one of the youngest men in the room.

“You can sympathize with poor people all you want, but our issue is with armed robbers and kidnappers. They have our people and our ship.”
Their Senior Accountant, known for his bushy eyebrows and sardonic humor
,
sealed his claim with a glare, seeming to challenge anyone to disagree.

With the tension mounting, Steve brought the discussion to an end and directed the meeting back to its primary agenda.

“We have to decide how we’re going to respond to this heinous act. The owners of other tankers attacked by pirates have paid ever-increasing ransoms rather than disrupt their businesses. The action we choose to take should be the one with the highest probability of achieving our crucial goal: bringing our people back alive.

“
It is, therefore, imperative that we first look at all realistic options for saving their lives. While we’re waiting for the ransom demand, Mark had planned to ask each of you to think about how you would respond if the decision was yours alone to make. Let’s follow his recommendation.

“
As you think about this, please reflect on the following questions: One: Do we pay the ransom, try to make a deal, or reject their proposal outright?

Two: Should our company discontinue transporting crude oil, chemicals and petroleum products to and from the East African coast?

Three: If we continue to transport the same products to and from the same destinations, how can we improve our chances of eliminating pirate attacks?”

Steve paused for a moment to allow those who wrote more slowly to catch up with their note-taking and then continued.

“If most of you opt for discontinuation of any of the services to our existing markets, the development of a new business plan may be necessary
,
but let’s save that dialogue until this crisis is behind us. When we have heard from the pirates, Mark will reconvene this group.”

After Mark had slipped away, overwhelmed by the kindness of his co-workers and knowing he was unable to think rationally, he had gone directly home.

Sitting in his favorite recliner, trying to pray and to subdue his terror, he had been staring at a blank screen behind his closed eyes. Suddenly the screen was populated by a single image: Martin.

Mark could see every beloved feature of his son’s face as though Martin was sitting in the chair across from him.

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Mark became transfixed by the vision of the blue eyes that mirrored his own. He lost track of time and of his surroundings and did not notice when the eye color gradually changed to a deep brown.

The face now in his vision was younger, darker, thinner, and sadder.

***

Abdi had been driven from his village by hunger after a band of warlords murdered his parents and all three of his brothers. They had taken his sister with them. He was more dead than alive when he stumbled upon a group of men from his own clan. Creeping along the beds of dry sand left behind by the shallow creeks of the rainy season, the starving and parched boy had suddenly smelled food and heard men’s voices.

If they had been from a rival clan, Abdi’s young body would have been splattered over the scrub land, another victim of the AK-47. The underbrush provided only scant cover, even at the shadowy time of day and, lacking the strength even to crawl through it, Abdi decided to wait.

The midday sun spotlighted the movements of reptiles, birds and desperate boys. The man on the other end of the gun looked only three or four years older than Abdi and had similar features.

Even though
Abdi’s eyes and emaciated limbs revealed his suffering and deprivation
, h
e showed no sign of fear or loathing
.
T
he armed youth
could not force himself to
shoot one so courageous. Instead, he took Abdi to the camp where the others were eating their meal of dried camel meat, mangoes and bananas.

They made a place for him by the fire and shared their food with him. Through that meager act of kindness they secured Abdi’s loyalty.

***

“Abdi, get my dinner now. I must leave soon to take my place as lookout. A Saudi tanker, a real prize, is due to pass through the Gulf of Aden this evening.”

After weeks of living with the pirates, Abdi had, in essence, become their slave but he didn’t mind. They never asked him to do anything detestable except maybe the time they had obliged him to help skin and cut up a goat spotted wandering near their camp.

He was beginning to feel part of a family again. Even though his parents and siblings could never be replaced, living with people of the same clan was comforting. He rarely let himself think of his mother’s bottomless hugs or his brothers’ playful punches.

His sense of belonging was greatest while seated around an evening fire listening to the stories. Abdi’s favorites were the poetry readings. He kept in his heart the words of a Somali national poet
he
remembered from childhood
, poems often repeated
by
the older men
.

Tonight, their confiscated radio entertained them as they kept watch over their cache of weapons. Keeping watch included sleeping and eating since the weapons were stored in makeshift benches which alternated as beds and tables. The subject of the broadcast was a rather lewd love poem
,
but it reminded Abdi of nights long past when his extended family had enjoyed the poetry of Salaan Arrabay.

In common with his
favorite
uncle, he loved one poem especially
,
and had tried to memorize
“
O Kinsman, Stop the War
.”

With these words, Arrabay had appealed for an end to the long-standing feud between two rival sections of the Isaaq clan in northern Somalia. According to accepted oral history:

‘The poet on his horse stood between the massed opposing forces and, with a voice charged with drama and emotion, chanted the better part of the day until the men, smitten with the force of his delivery, dropped their arms and embraced one another.’

During a lull in the conversation among members of his new family, Abdi asked quietly.

“Do you know the poems of Salaan Arrabay?”

“Is your question ‘do we know of his words’ or ‘do we approve of his message’?”

The response from the group’s leader sounded threatening to Abdi. The man continued without waiting for an answer.

“There was a time when it was a sad thing to fight against our brothers in other clans but we have no more brothers, only enemies. We fought together to rid our country of its most cruel dictator but once that fight was over, our brothers turned on us. They call themselves the new leaders but they have no skill for leading, only for shedding blood.”

Abdi had not expected to hear this. He had never before been spoken to by the leader, except to be ordered to work or to listen. He didn’t need to be ordered to listen to these words; they had immediately found a hiding place in his heart.

The leader continued, still facing Abdi.

“Now that our country is destroyed, the enemies from across the water take advantage of our misery. They poach our fish. They don’t leave enough to keep us from starving. They take from us the only work we know.

“
They also dump their garbage in our water, making our people sick and destroying fish habitats. What can we do but rob to take back what they steal from us?

“
Abdi, you reminded us of ‘O Kinsman, Stop the War’. Now I ask you to make a poem. Maybe you could call it ‘O Pirates, Save the Poor’.

***

Save the poor
.
Save the poor
. The words echoed inside his head as Mark looked around, bewildered. The strange boy’s face was still hauntingly with him but so was the face of his own son. ‘God, I appeal to you for justice! Please give me some assurance that my son and his colleagues will be treated justly. What must I do? Whatever it is, I’ll do it!’