We see Badruddin for the first time in three months and he is utterly contemptuous of us. He claims he has no idea what is happening with the negotiations and then leaves. Everyone is sick of us. Yet no one will free us.
We are visited by two teenage boys, one of whom is a computer wiz who apparently edits jihadi videos for the Taliban. Using his laptop, he shows us a PBS documentary called
Return of the Taliban
, which documents the group’s resurgence in the border area. The teenage boys cheer each time one of their commanders appears on the video. The film presents detailed evidence that the Pakistani military continues to support the Afghan Taliban. It features experts who say the Haqqanis—the group that is holding us—have been an asset of the Pakistani intelligence since the 1980s. I know that no Pakistani rescue mission will be arriving to save us.
The dirt room where we are being held is the most cramped of our captivity. We inhabit one fifteen-foot-by-ten-foot room and are not allowed to leave it. Throughout the day, children come to the well in our yard to fill up buckets of water. They are covered in dirt and fleabites. Human waste flows down a drainage ditch that runs through the center of the yard. We chat with children to pass the time.
One afternoon, a student who appears to be roughly ten years old arrives from one of the local hard-line religious schools. When I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he says he wants to be a suicide bomber. When I ask him his second choice, he says he wants to be a mujahideen or “freedom fighter.” When I asked him his third choice, he says he wants to be a Muslim.
On June 4, Abu Tayyeb reappears without warning. He announces that the American government is now offering to trade the seven remaining Afghan prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for us. I tell him that is ridiculous. For months, Abu Tayyeb has been vastly exaggerating my value. I am furious that he will not stop. He insists that I am best friends with Richard Holbrooke.
“Then why am I still sitting here after seven months?” I ask him.
He smiles. If I make one more video, he says, I will be released. Ashamed of my previous video and convinced that Abu Tayyeb is lying yet again, I refuse.
“This is all about you,” I say, raising my voice. “You are demanding millions of dollars so you can make yourself look good to the other commanders. You are the problem.”
He declares that he is doing everything “for the jihad.” Visibly angry, he again tells me to make the video and leaves the room. Thirty minutes later, he returns and says that making the video is not a choice but an order. The half dozen guards in the room stare at me. Once again, Abu Tayyeb repeats his order, and I say no. I know it’s reckless, but standing up to him feels enormously liberating after months of acquiescing.
Sensing that Abu Tayyeb and his men are about to beat me, Tahir and Asad step in. “Just do it,” Tahir says. I relent, but I am determined to turn it into an opportunity to console our families, not worry them. Abu Tayyeb has no guards pointing guns at my head. I refuse to cry.
“My name is David Rohde. Today is Thursday, June 4, 2009,” I say calmly. “Myself, Tahir, and Asad are alive and well. Please tell our families that we are alive and we miss them very, very much and we are so sorry for the pain they are feeling.
“I want to say to my wife Kristen that what you said in your January Red Cross letter still helps me. I am strong because you are strong,” I continue. “Your love helps me so much during this time. And the love of Asad and Tahir’s family has helped us during this time.”
“However this ends, Kristen and all my family and friends should live in peace with yourselves,” I say. “I know you have all done absolutely everything you can to help us.
“I am responsible for this situation,” I add. “And I apologize to you all from the bottom of my heart and thank you for all you have done for us.”
I finish with several lines Abu Tayyeb asks me to include. Without them, I fear he may not actually send the video. “Please do all you can to release us as soon as possible,” I say. “We are in a very difficult situation. Please help us, please help us now. Please help us as quickly as possible. Please free us soon. Please.”
Abu Tayyeb departs and I feel at peace for the first time in months.
HOME MOVIES
Kristen, Early May-Mid-June 2009
W
e spend days crafting and redrafting a message to the kidnappers that the FBI says it will channel through the source who provided the “crying video.” Despite the fact that the letter will be arriving via the FBI, we are advised by them to remove any references to the United States government. We are also advised by our private security consultants not to respond with a specific offer of money. A low offer could endanger the lives of our three; a high offer could extend captivity by increasing the expectation that more money could be raised the longer this drags out. We are told merely to ask for proof of life and state that we are ready to settle this matter through communication. We include Tahir and Asad in the letter.
This is a message from David’s family:
We want to bring David home. Please allow us to come to an agreement that returns David to his wife and family. David is a journalist and a good man. We are very concerned about David, Tahir and Asad. Please let David phone home so we know this is the authentic way to get him released. We are available and ready to communicate. We respectfully await your reply.
We list the local contact numbers for John and for Team Kabul. Lee sends a copy of the statement to the rest of our family via text message. The letter is dispatched on May 9, a few days before Mother’s Day. Then we wait.
I spend the rest of May in our New York apartment, feeling no further along than when I left for our meetings in Washington. At times, I glance at our wedding photo, which sits on a console in the hallway. It’s an exuberant photo—my mouth permanently shaped into a wide-open smile. David, too, is beaming. The background is marsh grass and fog—the fog gives the image the feeling of a dreamscape. I stare at my expression and think how easily this open-mouth laugh could be reinterpreted as a scream, should our situation end in tragedy. The fog, too, takes on an eerie quality. It’s difficult to know which world or reality will prove true. The idyllic marsh or the eerie fog. I recall Munch’s painting,
The Scream
, and cringe thinking that this will forever be my association with this photo should things end badly.
I try to think of a way to maintain a positive connection to David. I remember our wedding service. One of the songs we chose was based on the prayer of St. Francis, entitled “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace.” I have a prayer card of it, at the back of my nightstand drawer. I pull it out and tuck it into the photo frame.
It reads:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
And where there is sadness, joy.
Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love with all my soul;
For it is in giving that we receive—
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
I decide to say this prayer each night for me and for David as a way to stay connected and centered until he returns. I can no longer find this positivity within myself. I rely on this prayer and hope its recitation brings us both some peace, strength, and acceptance. Faith is an old resource of mine. Having gone through decades of exploring, questioning, and rediscovering my religion, I am still a practicing Catholic. And these are the words that feel most genuine as I surrender to a need for something beyond me. Prayer and positive intention offer me the ability to let go without feeling like I am giving up. Reciting prayers I knew from childhood provides me with a sense of continuity.
More than ever, I realize the need to take care of myself. That means reaching out for help, and then embracing the help that is offered to me. I have been obsessed with David’s well-being for the last few months. Yet the only thing I have the ability to maintain is my own sense of wellness.
In late May, one of our Clayton team members in Kabul puts me in touch with Dr. James R. Alvarez, a hostage negotiations specialist and psychologist whose writing appears in the book
Trauma Psychology: Issues in Violence, Disaster, Health and Illness
. Alvarez’s chapter, “Psychological Impact of Kidnap,” addresses the stress and emotional issues experienced by kidnap victims and their families. While it is not an uplifting read, it is a life preserver of sorts. Reading it, I feel less isolated. It gives voice and perspective to our situation and to my own conflicted feelings, which Alvarez claims are “normal reactions to an abnormal situation.” I e-mail a digital scan of the chapter to Lee and the rest of our family.
Throughout the case, I’ve heard periodically from the FBI’s victim specialists. Their job is to provide support to family members as well as prepare them for the return of their loved one—and introduce the idea that there may be aftereffects from captivity, namely posttraumatic stress.
While I don’t take this idea lightly, I do marvel at the fact that David was kidnapped in a country that has been at war—civil and otherwise—for the past three decades. Afghanistan and the neighboring tribal areas are home to millions of PTSD sufferers and survivors—almost none of whom, in all likelihood, are in therapy. It seems a Western notion to deal with a disorder before one has even been affected by it.
Physical numbness and pain have proved to be chronic side effects of dealing with the emotional pressures and uncertainties of the past few months. However skeptically, I decide to see a somatic therapist to ease my own growing physical discomfort. Needless to say, finding a therapist in Manhattan is even easier than locating a Pashtun translator. Despite my skepticism, the treatment technique called somatic experiencing proves to be a welcome release and a way to feel grounded in my own body again. The method, developed by the psychophysiological theorist Peter Levine, is based on the concept that the body stores memories and that we respond to trauma with fight, flight, and fright response—much like predatory animals. The idea is that traumatic events can leave you immobilized. The body needs to release this blocked energy to prevent chronic ailments and to find a new vocabulary that emphasizes support and groundedness.
During our first meeting, the therapist asks me about my situation, and interrupts as she notices physical tensions and movements that may indicate that my body’s natural defensive systems have been activated. She tells me to identify the parts of my body that feel most supported and at ease. Then apparently because I have acknowledged places of safety and solidity, when I’m guided again to notice where I’m tense, subtle releases take place. She also asks me to do some visualization. This proves to be quite satisfying; I’m comfortable working with images. These practices will turn out to be invaluable tools that enable me to manage my stress and carry on over the next few months.
Several days later from the other side of the globe Michael e-mails to say he has spoken to the mullah, the religious figure in the Swabi district in Pakistan that claims to have contact with the Haqqanis. Michael complained to him that the kidnappers do not know how to negotiate and settle this. Our letters were ignored because the Taliban thought they were spoofs. According to Michael, the mullah advises that I make a video to prove the communication is indeed from our family. The mullah has said that the kidnappers have provided us with videos and it would be fitting to respond in kind.
Michael asks that I film the footage as soon as possible and e-mail it to him. He will have it translated into Pashto and give it to the mullah to deliver to the “Waziristan brothers,” a.k.a. the kidnappers Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani. Michael jests that he had considered sparing me this activity by wrapping himself in a headscarf and making the recording himself, but thinks it best that I do it.
“It will be helpful to David because we’ll use it to establish clarity in our communication, demonstrate the family is ready to settle, and point to the channel they must use to settle,” Michael says. “We are herding them towards the final deal.”
I am skeptical, but I defer to Michael’s judgment and agree to make a video. My friend Josh comes over to my apartment the next day. It’s a sunny afternoon in late May. I have known Josh for more than twenty years. We were classmates at Brown and sat next to each other in film class. We moved to New York around the same time, following graduation. He is now an independent filmmaker who also produces and edits for TV shows. His latest project is editing the reality show
The Real Housewives of Atlanta
.
We set up a makeshift studio in the living room, removing paintings from the wall to create a neutral backdrop, one that provides no clue as to my whereabouts or circumstances. I prop myself up on the back of the sofa, against the wall. Josh frames my face, cropping the image at my shoulders. My wardrobe is a maroon pashmina that David purchased for me during a trip to Islamabad. I wrap it around my head loosely. Michael has advised me to emulate Benazir Bhutto when it comes to styling a headscarf. I am to gently cover the top of my hair and let the fabric drape around my neck. I overthink this process every step of the way. Maroon, a relatively sedate color, now seems a bit brazen in this context.
“Is this too racy?” I ask Josh.
Josh assures me my wardrobe will not offend anyone. “You look like a Connecticut housewife in a headscarf.”