Sometimes I have foreign visitors, and sometimes they dare to ask me if I regret, if my
conscience bothers me regarding acts against my enemies. Regret! It is hard for me to take them
seriously when they ask this. These naive children do not understand that this is a clash of
values. How long will it take them to learn the fundamentalists will destroy their way of life if
unstopped? Have these outsiders or the Afghans themselves forgotten so soon the benefits I
brought? Freedom of speech, the multi
party system, an independent judiciary. I‟ve allowed for
political differences of opinion and given women full rights. Yes, I had to strong-arm the past at
times to prepare it to meet the future. But it was a healthy future I aimed to create.
I say to those who would condemn me: look not only at what I accomplished, which
should be enough. Look at who I am. I studied for ten years to be a doctor, in between a prison
sentence for my political convictions. Ten years. Why would I spend nearly one fifth of my life on
these studies? Because I dreamed of bringing health to our country. Only when I realized I could
achieve more toward that goal as a leader did I abandon my plans to be a medical doctor. And I
retain those goals still. How I laughed, dear Heelo, when you urged me to publicly announce I
was forsaking politics to set up a medical clinic abroad. You hoped that would mean I could
finally leave Afghanistan and join you all in Delhi. Do you remember what I said? First I joked
that I could not leave just as I was regaining popularity among my countrymen. Then I told you
that, to a football player in the middle of a game, his fans‟ support is very important. "I am still
in the game," I said. "Do not give up on your player." And you haven‟t, none of you.
When I am not with visitors, my project now is to translate The Great Game into Pashto,
and I am adding a chapter from my times to update the book, since it ends with the fall of Tsarist
Russia in 1917. I also work out almost daily in my small gym. I will send you my exact body
measurements in my next letter—I w
ill be strong and fit when I‟m reunited with you all. I hope
you are keeping yourselves in shape and will be the same! I only wish I could swim in Lake
Qargha as I once did, battling the swells, then stopping to drink chai and eat goat roasted over
small gas cookers. Those fond days. But then I remind myself this is better than when we had to
run up and down the stairs for our exercise, so sharp were security concerns. I‟ve
achieved
much; Allah willing, I will achieve more. But I will not speak further in my own self-defense.
Others will do so in time, I am sure. Our people, and the world, will understand eventually what
repression and civil war really means. Allah forgive and save them.
I miss you, my girls, and your precious mother. I can sometimes almost taste the sweet
cakes that dear Heelo would bake for me; your cakes, Heelo jan, were becoming better and
better and I can only imagine that you are by now a master. Onie, I miss our Ping-Pong
matches, and dear Muski, I miss when we would sing together "Sta de stergo bala wakhlom." I
miss our geography lessons, the dinner-table discussions about your dreams and goals, and
everything about my dear Fati, your mother.
But we will endure. Inshallah, I will soon be with you; this poor government that has
refused me exile doesn‟t have long to last. So we will see each other again, maybe even within
weeks, and then I shall challenge you to a game of carrom and I will share the Hindi movies that
have become my favorites while here and we will eat gulab jamun and laugh until the tears
come.
Only a little bit longer, my three girls. But every day until then, I am sending love to you
and, as always, to your astounding and wonderful mother,
--
Najib
Todd, September 7th
Waking.
Exhale.
Waking.
Long inhale.
Waking, translucent dreams trailing behind like crumbs left over from a feast.
Awake.
Awake now in the dark. And knowing right away where he lay: on a mat on the floor in a two-bedroom house with the spit of a front yard in an unfamiliar province. Not alone. Two other men slept in the next room and a third stood outside, the overnight sentinel. Three men among those who had kidnapped him.
And then thinking how wonderful it would be to wake and feel disoriented and not immediately know. To wonder for at least a moment if he was stretched next to Clarissa, or at the guesthouse in Islamabad, or running late for a meeting in Kabul, instead of wondering only if this would be his life‟s last bed. To forget for a few more heartbeats. To let the oblivion of sleep extend into waking, even briefly.
To his right in the dark, about four feet above the ground, he knew a small window graced the room, maybe 14 inches square. He glanced that direction but couldn‟t make out the opening. The color of tar encircled him, and eyes opened were the same as eyes closed. He wondered on which end of midnight he‟d awakened. He was—
had been—a man of Sky
pe and Internet, of multiple time zones and hotel wake-up calls, room service for breakfast: coffee, a toasted English muffin and one egg scrambled, please. Now he was caught within a village with neither streetlights nor headlights, adjusting to a rhythm of life that lacked connection to the world beyond. Frozen in far simpler, crueler times.
As soon as he‟d seen that window, he‟d imagined crawling out, and he‟d forced himself not to stare so the guards wouldn‟t follow his gaze and decipher his thoughts. But it would be difficult to avoid awakening the men in the next room, and what of the one in the courtyard? The compound was encircled by a tall wall topped with barbed wire. And even if Todd somehow, magically, got beyond that, where would he go? He knew the landmarks of Kabul, but here? Upon arriving, during the brief trip between the car and the residence, he‟d seen that this compound was separated from all others by a field of green that stretched at least a mile; he didn‟t know what was grown there or, more importantly, who lived in those other houses, what kind of people. He didn‟t even know the name of the village. He‟d asked, but the question had floated in the air until it finally sank to the ground, unheeded.
Through the thin walls, Todd heard a guard in the next room give a quiet snore. He put the fingers of his left hand to the socket of his closed left eye and then ran the tips up to his eyebrow, around to his outer eye and down to his cheekbone. His body felt warm under the scratchy wool blanket but his cheeks were cold from the air. He turned his hips to the right and then to the left as if trying to free them. This body in captivity was all he had left now; he needed to keep it healthy and limber and strong if he could. They‟d taken his watch, his wallet, even his Western clothes. Each morning since the kidnapping, he‟d awakened feeling disconnected from himself, and not only in a physical sense. Out of touch with his own identity. He‟d become unimaginable to himself. The captive, the victim. The infidel.
Todd had always been proud of being logical, even if logic was, as someone once said, the art of going wrong with confidence. But now, his ability to reason functioned oddly. In the hours and days since the kidnapping, his mind seemed to be working overtime, running up and down as if through the labyrinth of Tora Bora caves. Yet his thoughts were rebellious and disjointed, refusing to flow together easily.
He‟d thought of Clarissa and Ruby and what their days must be like now, and how hard this must be for them. He thought of that often. He‟d remembered a recent conversation with Clari. "Youth and entertainment. Those are the kings in our culture," he‟d said. "So there‟s builtin obsolescence, simply in the act of aging. That‟s not true over there. You can be over 40 and still be accomplishing something with your life." He cringed, thinking of it. How ridiculous had he sounded? How much more obsolete could he be than now, kidnapped, powerless and helpless?
He‟d thought, in an endless loop, what an idiot he‟d been to have gotten nabbed in the first place. He should have been paying closer attention. There had to have been signs—there were always signs. No kids at the ice cream stand, the look in the eyes of the man in front of him: had it been significant? How often had he counseled newcomers to stay alert? "Attention is your best form of protection," he‟d said. "Don‟t become complacent." And yet he‟d allowed himself to be preoccupied.
He‟d thought of Amin, who had to feel worried but also, on some level, pissed off with this American who refused to listen and insisted on solo ice cream runs. He wished he could have Amin‟s advice now. His own thoughts were scrambled. He concentrated, trying to envision
Amin.
Should I risk it? Should I try to escape?
Not now. You don‟t want to get caught and anger these men,
or end up in worse hands
.
Just stay alert.
Only one of his captors spoke more than a dozen words of English, and that one, who called himself Sher Agha, appeared infrequently. He‟d told Todd negotiations for his release were underway. He‟d told Todd the negotiations were going badly. Todd asked if he could send a message to his family. Sher Agha said he‟d consider it.
Todd removed his arms from under the blanket, stretched them into the dark around him, reaching high, and then made a couple half-hearted punches into the air. He swung his arms in circles, feeling the movement all the way to his shoulders. After a few minutes, he slipped them back under the blanket. He crossed them over his chest and imagined holding Clari. But he didn‟t want to think too much about what he missed. He wouldn‟t have been home yet anyway. Maybe he‟d get lucky, and a deal would be reached so he would be home in a couple weeks as he‟d originally planned.
He felt a momentary lifting of his spirits—was that possible? There‟d been a number of previous kidnappings in Afghanistan, so there existed a pattern, he suspected, and he wished he knew it. He imagined a manual, a numbered to-do list for kidnap victims, highlighted and with exclamation points for emphasis. Keep up your spirits. Wait with grace. Continue eating! Don‟t imagine the worst!
He suspected prayer would be advised but he didn‟t know how to pray in a way that meant anything to him. He did know, however, how to feel grateful. If he listed the reasons for gratitude, like a Muslim recited the ninety-nine names of Allah, it might suffice.
Inhale. Grateful he wasn‟t hurt, or in pain.
Inhale. Grateful that his fear had been paralyzing only at the beginning, the explosion, the smoke, men with hidden faces grabbing his shoulders, shoving him into a waiting car, the sense of forced birth into something unwanted.
Inhale. Grateful the worst kidnapper had vanished to Somewhere Else, the tall one who spit at his feet and hissed a few mangled sentences, the words "A
mrikaee" an
d "k
afir" breaki
ng free.
Inhale. Grateful that the rest of them—so young they would be college students in his country—seemed to regard him primarily with curiosity instead of rage. This led him to feel more empathy for zoo animals than he ever had before, and he was once tempted to scratch his privates and stuff food in his mouth with one hand as the guards sat furtively watching him. But even that thought served a purpose, bringing him brief amusement. They didn‟t know what to make of him, these young Islamists. They seemed more fearful of him than he was of them. As if he might contaminate them.
Contaminate. Something he was not so grateful for: the food. They shared the same food they were eating, but it had left his stomach in tatters, necessitating urgent runs to the outhouse, the use of quick, elaborate hand gestures and then a dash across the courtyard, hoping they wouldn‟t misunderstand, wouldn‟t misconstrue this as a hamhanded escape attempt and shoot him.
But okay, grateful again. Inhale. Grateful that they didn‟t misunderstand; that they didn‟t shoot him.
Inhale. Grateful the weather was not too cold.
Inhale. Grateful his kidnappers regarded him as precious cargo that they didn‟t want other
kidnappers to pirate. One of them called him "the Honored Guest"—though in a tone that held sarcasm—and in fact they hid him like treasure as they traveled from one "safe house" to another. Though he wished he could look out the window, instead of being rolled into a carpet or shoved on the floor beneath a blanket, it was a price he could pay.
Inhale. Grateful that, though they sometimes poked his ribs with the end of their guns instead of using words to tell him to move, or stand, or stay still, they hadn‟t, after those first few hours, held a weapon to his head. Exhale.
Inhale. Grateful no one had forced him to make a videotape.
Inhale. Grateful that he was in good health when taken.
Inhale. And that his vision was fine. He‟d heard about hostages, robbed of needed
glasses, who suffered as both their inner and outer worlds blurred.
He didn‟t have a plan yet, and he wasn‟t grateful for that, but he hoped one would come to him, eventually. And then, there would be cause for more gratitude.
He tried to let thankfulness flow through him, even as his stomach argued against it. He tried to focus on the sound of his breath, proof that he still existed, and to rest while he could. But just as he reached the edge of blessed sleep—the ultimate gratitude right now—the call to prayer resonated through the room from a nearby mosque, followed within minutes by the stirring of his kidnappers pulling themselves sluggishly to their feet, rising into a fresh day, another day of his captivity, to pray.