Captivity (23 page)

Nephew emerges slowly from the shadows. There’s an air of regret about him, something kind, even apologetic in his eyes. He tells us he’s
thirty-six, but his face, round and smooth, looks much younger. He’s five foot seven, squat, bursting with stomach like a retired football player. He is tentative and shy at first, stands back, watches, smiles. When he comes in during the day to check on us and we ask if we can go to the bathroom, he holds up his finger and goes in search of Junior or Uncle. He begins by carrying the lantern when the power is out, holding the handcuffs and chains for Junior and Uncle, giving us our food. As the days pass, he graduates to issuing instructions—hurry up in the bathroom, sit down, lower your voices—and then, sometime in the new year, he is given charge of the keys. We suspect this must be his first mission.

The nights become unbearably cold. We lobby our captors for permission to close the door at night to conserve the heat our bodies generate. They say no at first but then eventually relent. This seems to have a negative effect on the air quality in the room. A few mornings later Junior gags when he comes into the room, pulls his shirt over his nose and makes a beeline for the window. He pushes the bedsheet back and opens the window a crack. A shaft of clear gold light streams into the room. I’m transfixed. Junior turns to us, scowling and pinching his nose. I am surprised. I’d been paying close attention, monitoring myself and the others for the emergence of noxious odours. I sniff my shirt. There is a hint of staleness, but nothing strong or malfeasant. “Is it because of us?” I say to the others under my breath.

Junior bends down to unlock the chain around Norman’s ankle. He breathes heavily through his nose, lip curling in disgust. “Najis,” he says, gritting his teeth. “
Naaa-jisss
.”

Uncle comes into the room, coughs, waves his hand in front of his nose. Junior turns to Uncle, his arms full of gestures and complaints. Uncle breaks into knee-slapping laughter. They turn and point at Norman. “Najis,” they say, erupting in more laughter.

This is how the
najis
treatment begins. For a while it is gruelling and relentless. Every time the captors interact with Norman, when they unlock him in the morning and lock him up again at night,
when they give him his food, when he passes them on the way to the
hamam
, he has to endure this word and its contemptuous tone. He steadfastly ignores them, carries on with unalterable dignity. I watch, furious at the captors and ashamed at my silence.

When Junior and Uncle aren’t around, I ask Nephew what
najis
means. He frowns, holds his nose, grimaces, shakes his head. That’s what it means. Something that is repulsive.

It is a growing concern for me, how to maintain a basic level of hygiene as the days pass into weeks. “Dudes, look at my socks! These used to be white!” Harmeet says one day. They’ve turned dishwater grey. We laugh though I can’t help but wonder, is this what’s happening to us too? Are we turning grey?

Cleanliness is next to godliness when you’re a captive. Your life depends on being seen as a human being. If you look and smell loathsome, you will be treated with loathing. Our worst enemy is the contempt of our captors. And, perhaps just as dangerous, getting sick.

Some things we have control over, such as the handling of our cups. It becomes quite a skill, passing a cup back and forth in handcuffs. Some of us, at first, have the unfortunate habit of gripping the lip of the cup, a major sanitary faux pas when you consider that’s exactly where you put your mouth to drink. It takes a bit of coaxing and some gentle reminding, but everybody eventually learns: when passing the cup, please and thank you, always hold it at the base.

A lot of things we don’t have control over, including being able to wash our hands, the preparation of our food and washing of our dishes, how often and when we have access to the bathroom. This is a constant worry for Norman. Our diet is having an unfortunate effect on his digestive system, causing what he calls “loose bowels.”

It first happens in the days before Christmas. Norman is seized by an immediate need to use the bathroom. He rushes to the hostess trolley and we follow him in our handcuff line, a vector sweeping across the room in an eight-foot arc with Tom as the pivot. Norman
grabs a glass tray from the hostess trolley, pulls his pants down and sits over it. He does as much as he can with his left hand, his right being handcuffed to my left. I squat down beside him and turn my head away.

I would have been mortified, but Norman is remarkably composed. “I think I can do this with a minimum of mess,” he says, as if describing a scientific procedure. “I just have to make sure I have the tray in the right position. We don’t want any accidents. I kept some pillow stuffing handy for just such an emergency.” When it’s over, he laughs. “Sorry about that, chaps, but that’s what you get being chained up with an old man.”

It is the vulnerability of age that makes Norman a target. The long hours of inactivity are taking a toll. His body is stiff and non-compliant. He moves slowly, carefully, reaching for chairs and walls to steady himself. Uncle and Junior scowl and complain.
“Imshee
. Hurry up. Najis,” they say, feeding on each other’s contempt. I sometimes worry Junior is about to strike Norman.

Norman blocks them out, avoids their eyes, looks through them. He gives up trying to understand what they say to him. This increases the captors’ frustration and interferes with his ability to understand what they want and respond appropriately.

I worry even more about Tom. He’s lost weight and he’s not sleeping. His face is a bleak, impenetrable mask, sullen, impossible to read. When I sometimes imagine how our captors must see him, something within me hardens like a fist. But when he smiles, the effect is very different. Then there’s life, buoyancy, warmth in his eyes, and the fist gently opens.

I debate long and hard. In the end I figure there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. They might be hurt or offended, but their lives just might depend on a little bit of coaching. I swallow hard and begin with Tom. I know it might be a strange thing to say, I tell him, but you might consider smiling more for the captors. Your face is often, well, difficult to read, and it’s hard to know what you’re thinking. If you smile more, it might shift something in the captors so they’ll want to react more positively to you.

I’m relieved. Tom is not defensive. “I guess you’re right about that. I call it my poker face. It used to upset my kids, especially if we were having an argument about something. They said they could never tell what I was thinking. Maybe that was unfair to them sometimes. I guess it’s the way I deal with things. Put on my poker face. It does come in handy sometimes.”

I talk with Norman next about how he interacts with the captors. “I don’t understand anything they say,” he says. “I’m just terrible with the Arabic. You three are much better at it.”

When they’re disrespectful to you, I say, ignoring them can be the best strategy. But if they’re being neutral or positive towards you, ignoring them risks frustrating them. Every interaction with them is an opportunity to make them see our humanity. It’s the only thing that protects us. If you look at them in the eyes and smile, that reinforces your humanity and makes it harder for them to treat you disrespectfully.

Norman agrees and tries to interact more with the captors. Eventually, though, he figures out his own solution to the
najis
treatment.

We’re lying down, locked up on our communal bed. Junior enters the room with a gun. He points it at Tom, at his head, in firing stance, feet planted firmly at shoulders’ width, arms straight and locked at the elbows, finger around the trigger. He stands this way, glaring, for ten long seconds, then is gone.

DECEMBER 23
DAY 28

I’ve been thinking about it for days. On the surface things are going well, but in the spaces around and behind our words I sense tension, and it’s building, like seismic forces deep in the earth. We need a safety valve, some kind of routine, a structure to help us communicate, make decisions, ease the inevitable frictions of our pressure-cooker existence. I want to propose that we think of ourselves as the CPT Kidnap Team, that we assume the disciplines of team life: daily worship, check-ins,
even formal meetings. I don’t know why—it’s my job, I can see exactly what needs to be done, I am the delegation leader after all—but I just can’t bring myself to say the words. I detest and abhor my inability to act. I too am infected with the creeping paralysis of captivity.

I almost laugh when Tom makes the suggestion. It’s as if he took the words right out of my mouth. Everyone agrees. Daily check-in and worship will start tomorrow, Christmas Eve. Norman volunteers to lead our first worship.

Tom also wants to do a daily Bible study. “How would you propose to do that without a bible?” Norman asks.

“From memory,” Tom says. “It could be a paraphrase of a story, a single verse, a word or a phrase. Just say it aloud and we can discuss it together. When I did Bible study with the Young Quakers, I would pose four questions. What is the meaning of this Bible verse to me? How does it accord with my experience? What do I find difficult or troubling about it? How might it change my life?” Tom offers to lead the first Bible study.

I’m so relieved. The yoke of inertia has been broken. It’s now official: we’ve become a team.

Voices downstairs. There’s a formality, a politeness that’s different. One of the voices is higher, softer. A woman. Uncle enters the room on tiptoe. He has a gun in his hand. He looks at us sternly, puts his index finger against his lips. “Shhhh,” he says, moving with a hunter’s stealth.

Being careful not to make any sound, he pulls out a ring of keys and opens the padlock that locks the chain around the door’s cantilever handles. He gathers the chain together, sets it on the hostess trolley, then closes and locks the door. He waves his finger in warning, pretends to cough into his fist, shakes his head, pulls an index finger across his throat.
If you make the slightest noise, I will kill you
.

Footsteps and voices coming up the stairs. Uncle stands to the right of the door. The footsteps and voices move into the foyer and gather in front of the bathroom. The bedroom door to the left opens and
closes. Uncle is ready with his gun, smiling, eyes twinkling. He’s enjoying this! The footsteps and voices move in front of our door. The door handle turns, rattles. A voice with a question in it. Somebody is trying to come in. Who could it be? A landlord perhaps?

My body explodes with adrenalin. A mad screaming fury of
Help! Help! Help!
thrashes in my chest. Uncle looks at me, touches his index finger to his lip. I sit like a stone. There’s no other choice. I’ll put whoever is on the other side of the door in danger too.

The voices and footsteps move away. Uncle steps back from the door, giggling, blows on the muzzle of his gun, tucks it into his waist. The voices make their way downstairs. He opens the door and peeks out. My head falls in despair.

I am haunted by the old joke about the man caught in a flood who takes refuge on the roof of his house. He’s on his hands and knees praying to God when a boat passes by and asks him if he wants help. No thanks, the man says, God will save me. Another boat passes by. They ask him if he wants help. No thanks, he says, God will save me. The flood waters rise higher and higher. A helicopter comes and lowers down a rope. No thanks, he says, God will save me. The water sweeps him away and the man drowns. When he gets to heaven, he says to God, “I prayed and prayed for help. Why didn’t you save me?” And God says, “What’re you talking about? I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more could I have done?”

I burn in a crucible of questions. Was this the helicopter waiting to lift us to safety? Was our freedom only a shout away? Did we doom ourselves with our silence? There are no answers. And, therefore, no relief.

DECEMBER 24
DAY 29

I have no idea where I am or what is going to happen to me. There are steel bracelets around my wrists. Each bracelet is connected to another by a single link of chain fastened by a swivel eye. Right hand first, then left, I move my handcuff towards the one next to it. The two links sag together as the swivel eyes touch; then, being careful not to pull against my neighbour’s handcuff, I move it away until the chain becomes tight. I do this again and again.

My beard is itchy. I bend my face towards my wrist so I can scratch myself without pulling against Harmeet’s handcuff. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for twenty-nine days. There’s a long vertical tear in the front of my shirt. My pants are saturated with the oils from my hands. I’m ravenously hungry.

My mind wanders to Dan, my family, the Catholic Worker community, CPT. I visualize the various dinners people will be having—Dan in Owen Sound with his mother and brothers; my family gathered at my sister’s in Sault Ste. Marie; the Zacchaeus House potluck dinner line snaking out of the dining room into the hallway—the yuletide spreads of tourtière, turkey, mashed potatoes, mincemeat, shortbread. It is Christmas Eve and the people we love don’t even know if we’re alive. I remember with dread the chocolates and hand-painted cards I left for my sister to give to my nieces and nephew before I left for Iraq. I hope she’s forgotten about them. I wave these images away. It’s all too painful.

Norman clears his throat. “Shall we sing some Christmas carols?”

“Yes!” I say. I love singing. I wish the others wanted to do more of it. When we sing, our handcuffs melt away and I am free. With the help of Norman’s prodigious memory, we reconstruct parts of thirty-nine
Christmas carols. My favourite is “Ding dong! merrily on high, In heav’n the bells are ringing; Ding dong! verily the sky, Is riv’n with Angel singing; Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!” The long, breathless descent of the
Glo-o-o-oria
fills me with celestial joy and transports me to that holy, heaven-singing night when the darkness was broken open by astounding angel words. Words delivered on seraphic wings to a bunch of lousy, mutton-odoured, good-for-nothing shepherds out in the middle of nowhere where nothing ever happens.
Do not be afraid, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth
.