An Evil Cradling

  The suite in the bathroom was green and the walls and floor tiled in a complementary colour. There was a window here also, high up in the wall. Unlike the other windows it was not shut, but it had some paper or cardboard over it.

  New toothbrushes and toothpaste were brought to us. We were given clean towels and new shorts and T-shirts. We were delighted to receive these. The clothes we had been wearing for so many months, sometimes unwashed for weeks, were ragged and torn and had to be held up by our hands or with pieces of string as we walked to the toilet.

  Within a week we learned that we were not the only ones being held in this fancy country house. We soon knew that it was again the Americans, Tom Sutherland, Frank Reed and Terry Anderson who were with us. Unfortunately there was no way in which we could communicate with them.

  The food had improved. We were occasionally given some meat with our rice, and often we were given fresh fruit. Said was an occasional visitor here, but he sensed that when he spoke with us we were not interested; our curt answers displayed our antagonism. We asked once for books and within days they were brought to us, a huge pile of them. A small television set was also given to us for a few hours in the evening. We knew it was being shared between us and the Americans.

  We devoured these books. Most of them were cheap US detective thrillers. Abed, who brought the books to us and exchanged them for those we had finished, would before giving us the book look at the cover and if there was a partially clothed woman on it, he would tear the cover off, then ask us ‘Is this book sex?’ We would answer cutely ‘Don’t know, Abed, have to read it first.’ He would throw the book at us and walk off. When we weren’t reading or watching the hour or two of television that we were permitted, we would be plotting our escape. We had convinced the guards when they gave us the new clothes to let us keep our old ones so that we might wash them and have a change. It was a simple logical request, and they did not refuse.

  We heard helicopters flying regularly overhead. We knew we were pretty far south. The only people who would have helicopters in this region were the UN or Israel. We were convinced we were very close to the Israeli-occupied zone. Where precisely we were we didn’t know, nor did we care. We were sure that we would be able to get away.

  The guards were very heavy sleepers. I used to joke with John that empty minds are hard to wake. On one occasion as I slept and the resonance of their snoring told me how deeply they were held by sleep, I rose, walked the four paces to the far end of our small room, climbed up on the water taps fixed in the wall, opened the tiny six by six window and looked out. All around me was open countryside, to the right was another house. There was no life in it. I looked down and estimated that we were only some eighteen or twenty feet from the ground. Off to the left about half a mile away stretched a patch of scrub land. To the right the landscape rose up to a roadway. I could not see much else but it was enough to fuel the fires of escape.

  It was not unusual for some of the guards to unlock John and myself at the same time in the morning before going to the toilet. It meant that we were both off our chains at the same time. We reasoned if there were only two guards and both of us were off our chains it would be worth the risk of attempting to overpower them. We also knew that on occasions, one of the guards would still be asleep, therefore with two of us free and only one guard awake, the escape would be very simple.

  During one of Abed’s discussions with us as we played dominoes, peering out from under our blindfolds, I saw a small rounded thing in Abed’s trouser pocket. ‘What is that?’ I asked. From his trouser pocket he took a small compass. ‘It is for my prayers, it shows me where is east and where is Mecca.’ ‘May I see it?’ I said, holding out my hand.

  He placed the compass in my hand. I looked and took my bearings and, saying nothing to him, handed it back. He was unaware of the information that he had given to us. He talked boastfully of the Koran and his prayers. Abed loved to brag and from his boasting we could obtain information. The door just outside our room with the glass panel which gave us that glorious light always had the key in the lock.

  Everything was favouring us. We knew our position in terms of the compass. We knew roughly how many miles we might be from Beirut and we knew the immediate terrain outside the window. We had enough clothes. We were only lacking shoes, and those we were convinced we could take from the guards. We would have to wait until night, then leave through the glass door, drop down onto the ground below, and no one would know until the next evening that we were gone. We would have a full day’s start. We decided to try and remain on friendly terms with our captors. We did not want them to become anxious or wary of what we were thinking. We wanted to relax them into carelessness; when they were confident they were weakest. We only needed now to wait until the occasion presented itself to us.

  One of the new guards who came to speak with us had good English.

  He told us about himself. His father was a butcher. The flesh on his bones, the bulk on his forearms confirmed he wasn’t lying: he had access to more meat than the other guards. But he would talk on many occasions about his desire to be married. Then surprisingly he said to John ‘John, teach me to dance.’ In total surprise John laughed. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘Teach me to dance.’ We were both laughing now, then John sobering up to the idea answered ‘I cannot teach you to dance with chains on my feet.’ Bilal, as this lad was called, was quiet for a while then asked ‘You explain to me how I am to move.’ This was a difficult proposition. Dancing for our generation is a spontaneous response to music, to the emotion that rises in us. We were too young for the era of formal dancing, the waltz and the cha-cha. John tried laughingly to explain. ‘There are no movements, you just move with the music; if you take these chains off and bring me some Rolling Stones music maybe I could help you. Why do you want to dance?’ he asked curiously. ‘For when I am married to dance with my wife at the wedding.’ It was simple and honest, and its innocence stopped our laughter.

  Bilal persisted with John, several times later asking him to teach him to dance, and John would always answer ‘With chains on my feet and with my eyes blindfolded, how can I teach you?’ But still he would insist and still the answer was the same. And when he left we would laugh a curious kind of laughter, not at the guard but at our situation.

  We both imagined John with chains and a blindfold waltzing around the room with this huge kidnapper.

  It was not often so playful. The guard Abed had always sensed my antagonism towards him. I remembered the beating he had administered and his pleasure in it. One day he watched me exercising. I would always exercise with a kind of brutality, competing with myself, trying to crush out any sloth or emptiness in my mind. Abed whispered to John ‘Your friend very strong.‘John quickly answered without thinking ‘Yes, very strong, his name is Rocky.’ Abed was dumbfounded and I laughed quietly to myself, remembering all those young Arab lads watching Rambo and Rocky. I knew John had hit a nerve. Abed left. I told John. John laughed and we decided to play the Rocky game with Abed. We could in our own way wreak our vengeance without violence; we could without laying a finger on him terrify him and enjoy it.

  Abed carried his information to the guard Saafi, who seemed the oldest. Saafi came one day with the other guards and gave us some fruit. The other guards spoke to John. Saafi’s English was very poor indeed. John tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘He wants to fight with you.’ I turned, amazed, ‘He wants what?’ ‘He wants to fight with you.’ ‘Who does?’ I said, hoping it wasn’t the big one whose father was a butcher. ‘Saafi.’ I sat in silence for a few minutes, then said ‘Okay let’s go.’ I stood up quickly, hoping to frighten them with my enthusiasm and hide my own fear. They laughed nervously and John joined them. ‘Come on then.’ I bent down and rattled the chain. A large guard came in and unchained my feet. ‘Christ,’ I said to myself, ‘What have I let myself in for?’ and I walked out feeling my way into the kitchen. I turned towards the large guard behind, pointed to my blindfold and said ??
?Take this off,’ pretending to be hugely courageous.

  He laughed quietly. ‘Not possible,’ he said. I shrugged my shoulders again. ‘Okay no problem.’ Saafi touched me on the shoulder gently and said ‘Jokey, jokey, I joke.’ I realized that he was a little more afraid of me than I was of him.

  Then suddenly the fever grabbed me, ‘Go through with it, Brian, wrestle with him,’ and I began. I grabbed the hand that touched me on the shoulder, looking desperately for his feet, but he was behind me quick as a flash and around my neck trying to pull me down. My weight was better than his and my exercising over the past years had benefited me greatly. He could not struggle me down. I turned now knowing where he was and we tumbled and crashed about the room. I was blinded, seeing nothing but his quickly moving feet, and he trying to take hold and trip or pull me down. Finally we crashed to the floor. To my luck and his misfortune I was able to scramble up quicker than him and position myself over him, and then with a stroke of intuition I stopped and said gently ‘Okay my friend,’ and stood up. He too stood up, nervous, excited, laughing, and I laughed. We walked back to the room together, him tapping me in a comradely way on the shoulder. ‘You good, you strong, you very strong,’ he was still laughing and inside I was shaking. I went into the room where John sat quiet, and squatted down. Saafi chained my feet delicately and patted my knee before leaving without speaking.

  Our relationship with the guards was now good enough for them to give us the keys to open our own locks in the mornings and to lock ourselves up when we came back. It was a golden opportunity. On one occasion I came back from the toilet and fumbling blindly to lock myself in, deliberately looped only the padlock end through one part of the chain. I pressed the lock closed and returned the key. The guard was unaware that I was not locked in. John returned and locked himself in. The guard left. Only hours later did I tell John what I had done. John looked cautious and whispered ‘How did you do it?’

  Equally cautiously I explained. ‘Jesus,’ he said ‘what happens tomorrow morning when they discover it.’ ‘They won’t,’ I answered.

  ‘They give us the keys, they don’t look.’ The next morning, the guards gave me the key and I unlocked my unchained feet. They didn’t notice.

  The next few days saw us both regularly practising our Houdini stunt. Still no-one noticed. We meticulously went through our plan to get ourselves out of that building. It necessarily meant overpowering the guards, but we were convinced this was not a problem. They would be fast asleep. They would be shocked and terrified to see us standing above them. Our one and only fear was that they would panic and start yelling and that we would not be able to do anything but beat them into silence. The guns we might hold in our hands would be useless to us. Any gunfire would have attracted attention.

  But we were now ready. There was nothing to hold us here. The next morning we would pretend to lock ourselves up for the last time. We were calm, resolved and confident.

  The next morning came and with it came Said. We were distressed but not panicked until Said came to us with the guard who was to walk us to the toilet. He gave some instruction in Arabic. The guard instead of throwing us the key bent down and unlocked us. When we returned Said was waiting. The guard bent down, locked us back again and tested the chains with a strong jerk. Said gave another order and though I did not understand the words I understood its meaning.

  Never again were we to have the keys.

  My devastation was total. Every time we had come near liberation a strange fate had pushed us back. This man Said represented fate and I loathed him. That it had to be him struck me forcibly, that this man so disturbed, so malformed within himself should be the agent of destiny. I was filled with a silent but huge anger at myself, at Said, at the world that had been denied me. Said was, I assume, unaware of what he had prevented.

  He squatted down beside John and began talking. I sat in silence. It was the silence I maintained always with him. I knew the strength of this weapon. He spoke with John, common pleasantries. ‘How are you, John?’ ‘Fine,’ John responded. ‘Everything for you is okay?’

  Said continued. ‘No, I am chained to a wall,‘John answered. Said laughed. If one showed any pain or grievance Said laughed. ‘It is very bad for you’ said Said mockingly. John did not answer. I continued my silent disregard of him. Said tapped John. ‘Your friend, why he not speak, he never speak?‘John answered ‘Ask him, don’t ask me!’

  ‘Why you don’t speak?’ I was silent. ‘You hear me, why you don’t speak?’ and I was silent, all our anger at our foiled escape still being redirected into this silence that I knew was defeating Said. He spoke again to John. ‘John, you see, he don’t speak, why he don’t speak?’

  John said again ‘Do not ask me!’

  Said stood up; he began to make jokes. ‘I know, he like it here very much, he does not want to go home, he like me to come visit him and give him cigarette. He does not want to go home, he loves Lebanon.’ I could resist no longer. I sat up violently, turned to him, my blind eyes staring at him and spat out after an intense silence ‘Shut up.’ Said leaned into the room. ‘What you say, what you say?’ Passion was quivering in me. I was afraid of what was about to happen, and yet I wanted it to happen. ‘You heard me,’ I said. ‘You heard me.’ The challenge was out. The consequences were to come.

  I waited, fearful but filled with desire for this man’s brutality. I waited to be dragged out and beaten. I felt joy rise in me at the thought of it and the desire for it. He could do with me what he wanted but I would have the victory. I felt it in my blood’s heat.

  Perhaps he saw the perfect stillness of the anger in me. Perhaps he saw that I could welcome death just as vehemently as any Muslim warrior. Perhaps he knew that no amount of pain would frighten me for I had gone beyond it. But after a few moments of silence he said calmly ‘Do not speak it again.’ He walked off. I flung myself back on my mattress exhausted, more tormented than if I had been physically tortured. John sat in silence for what seemed a long time. I lay quiet, the anger slowly dissipating. John’s hand touched me on the shoulder, ‘Don’t worry old son, there’ll be another time, there’ll be another time.‘John sensed more than Said did. He knew the thoughts that were charging through my head.

  The next morning Said was back. I sat alone. John had gone to the toilet. Said squatted a few feet from me in the tiled kitchen. From under my blindfold I could see his reflection in the polished mahogany of the doorframe. With an elastic band he was swatting flies on the door and as they fell injured to the floor he would squat over them with his elastic band and say ‘Little fly, little fly, you die, little fly, you die, little fly.’ He was back playing his cartoon role. I was revolted.

  Swatting flies, talking to them as they lay crippled and crawling about the floor. In that moment I witnessed all the obsession, fixation, and infantilism that commands the mind of a man as disturbed as Said.

  I felt again a kind of pity for him, but I would not let it overwhelm me. I kept it in check. Angrily I wrenched at the chain. Said looked at me. ‘Break it, break it … you want to break it.’ His malignant comments mocked me and I withdrew in silence, and grinned broadly. I felt him sit and watch me. This was another kind of battle.

  For some reason Blake’s aphorism swam into my head: ‘The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction’ and with that thought I silently hummed to myself’Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire’, and at the same time pulsating in the back of my head came the words ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil’. The tension between us was fiercely charged. Something broke. I heard Said strut off barking orders to the guards in the other room. I never saw or heard him again.

  The next few months were a blur of routine. Morning, toilet, return, lock up, read a book if you haven’t read it before and if you have, read it again. Talk if you can find something to talk about. The sunlight coming in had lost its magic. We were, after all, constantly blind
folded.

  It had been this way now for many, many months. We both began to feel a kind of unresolved irritation. We both knew it was caused by the tininess of the space we were in. The brightness of the light reinforced our confinement. Now we thought that those long months in the dark had been less exasperating. In the darkness you can’t see the walls. In the darkness the mind can dream, but in light, you see the absolute limitation of your condition and can measure it in inches. After months and months it hammers into the back of your mind and causes pain and distress at the most unlikely moments. We each began to sink back into periods of manic depression. We would recognize them in each other and attempt to pull one another up from their horrid depths. But they would come back again, for longer periods. In these states the mind would fly ofFleaving us dizzy, trying to find our balance.

  Abed had begun his old tricks again, walking us to the toilet with our hands tightly twisted, high up our backs, and a pistol jammed in the side. Our response was always the same: laughter. His reaction was always to inflict more pain. He had become more frightened. My playful wrestle with Saafi and my confrontation with Said must have made him even more wary than he had been before. Daily he abused us and on occasions came into the room to wave his gun and give unnecessary orders. We smiled and complied.

  The stress we were undergoing in such a tiny space was making it more difficult for us to contain ourselves. My loathing of Abed would not let me rest. His antagonism fuelled mine and on occasions I would turn to John and say ‘I can’t take much more of this … If that little bastard keeps this up I am going to push him through that fucking window.’ John laughed ‘Don’t do that Brian,’ he would continue.

  ‘That’s what he’s waiting for; don’t give him the pleasure; that’s what he wants you to do … start something, say something, he is looking for an excuse.’ ‘I know,’ I would answer, ‘I’m just finding it harder to contain myself.’ John, reassuring and comradely, placed his arm around my shoulder ‘Don’t give in to him Brian, don’t give him what he wants.’ And I answered ‘I know, you blue-blooded bastard, you’re always right.’