Days of Fear (14 page)

Haji Lalai, his lieutenant Ali Ahmad and Maulvi, are deep in conversation on the top of a sand dune. They're alone, each of them with his back to us. They're writing something on a piece of paper. They order their men to open the doors of the pickups. They pull us out, accompany us away from the vehicles, and sit us down next to each other. They blindfold us with a piece of thin fabric. Behind me, commandant Haji Lalai is ready. Every single face, except ours, is covered with shawls and turbans.

This detail alarms me: I'm sure something serious is about to happen. The commandant reads aloud what turns out to be our sentence: “In the name of Allah Most High and All-Merciful, Sayed Agha, Ajmal Naqshbandi, and Daniele Mastrogiacomo are sentenced to death for acts of espionage within Taliban territories.” I do not catch a single word, but I hear Ajmal beginning to cry uncontrollably. He is sobbing. I have never before heard him weep so.

My voice struggling to make itself heard, struggling to emerge from my throat, I ask him what is happening, what the commandant said. Ajmal can hardly speak through his sobs. He says: “They're sentencing us to death.” I turn to Haji Lalai. “What's going on, commandant? I don't understand. Wait, won't you? Just for a second. There's been some kind of mistake.” I try to contain myself, to remain as dignified as possible, but I can't stop stammering. I raise one knee. The light fabric covering my eyes allows light to filter through and when I tilt my head I can see out through a small slit. The scene in front of me is terrifying. I watch, paralyzed, horrified. The taste of vomit rises from my stomach, which is as hard as stone.

 

Sayed has been dragged in front of us. He is on his knees. Three, maybe four large men are standing right behind him. They push him down into the sandy desert floor. Sayed can't breathe. Now, they're on top of him, they turn him over and as they do so I see that the knife has already been drawn. One of our jailors holds it in his hand. I can't see the blade but I see something that cuts into Sayed's neck. A quick, neat cut. There are no spasms, no moans or cries; nothing. The scene plays out in an icy silence. Then, a hand. One of the Taliban works on Sayed's neck, front and back. Sayed's body is inert by now. His head is removed and they lay it on his torso. They clean the knife on his white tunic.

Sayed's blood does not splatter over anyone; it does not gush from his severed arteries. This is not butchery. It's worse: a barbaric and cruel rite cloaked in religious mysticism. I cannot tear my eyes from the scene. Now, it is our turn. I'm sure of it. Our chances of saving ourselves are next to nothing. The sentence weighs on us, heavy as lead: death by execution for acts of espionage. Ajmal confirms everything. He cannot stop crying. The bile in my mouth gets stronger and stronger.

The decapitated lifeless body of the driver is delicately lifted, taken to the riverbank, placed in the shallows, and pushed away on its final voyage. Luthar is not far away, video camera in hand. He is filming the closing scene. Someone comes over and adjusts my blindfold. Perhaps they have realized that I saw everything.

 

I'm in shock, shaken by uncontrollable convulsions. I stand up and walk towards Haji Lalai's pickup. Again I ask what is going on. I pretend as if I haven't seen or heard a thing. I wait, my heart beating madly, for my turn. I see myself manhandled, suffocated in the sand, decapitated, my body floating downriver with the current, ending up trapped in the marshes or in one of the small dykes that regulate the irrigation systems. Eaten by fish. Lost, never again to be returned to my family. I feel something touch my shoulder and turn brusquely. They take my blindfold off. Before me, I see the commandant, smiling. My hate for him rises, almost overpowering me. He is capable of killing a person and then laughing about it. He shouts some order at the boys, who have already taken their positions in the back of the pickup. They jump down and lead me with my hands and feet in chains to the truck. Ajmal follows me, trembling and still sobbing. “They're not going to kill us, they're not going to kill us,” I repeat, over and over, almost as if I were prey to a mad obsession. Fear is coursing through me: death will now be our constant companion. We will have to learn how to live with it, with the idea that we might be slaughtered from one moment to the next.

We have been sentenced. The execution has merely been postponed.

 

 

 

 

W
e have returned to our prison. I am exhausted, worn out, incapable of shaking off my almost catatonic state. I wrap the green shawl around me. I'm trembling with cold. I unwind my sweat-soaked turban and let it fall to the ground among the crumbling dry-mud bricks. They are infested with ants, spiders, strange and enormous fruit flies going back and forth between the piles of dry bread and the orange peels scattered in the courtyard. I allow myself to be colonized by this army of insects. My legs buckle beneath me, my knees are no longer able to carry the weight of my body. I fall. The chains are still on my feet, which fold beneath me like shapeless rags. I let myself go. My breathing is labored. The dry retching that began back at the river doubles me up with pain.

 

The air is heavy with death, blood, and pain. The old wooden door to Sayed's cell is open. I gaze into that black hole and tears fall down my dusty, dirty face into my white beard. My lips, chapped and dry, are bleeding. I dry them with the back of my hand. My arms shake. Ajmal is already in our cell, its door also ajar. He is sitting on the ground, gazing at nothing, his face ghostly, pallid, his lips trembling. I collapse onto the filthy earth and fidget with a few breadcrumbs, losing myself in the frenzy of the ants. They work without cea­se, surmounting every obstacle with enviable tenacity and en­durance.

I try to distract myself. I have to find a way to interrupt the horror film playing in my mind. I see my driver again, the jailors suffocating him, the knife cutting his jugular, the severing of his neck. His head coming free from his body. His murderers are still here, before me. They keep their distance, re­specting the silence that oppresses us. They move slowly around the thatch pergola, where the oldest of them is already at work preparing dinner. They gather around the hand pump that brings water up from the farm's well. They wash thoroughly, one part of their body at a time until they've covered everything, without, however, stripping naked. They then busy themselves with their clothes: shirt, undershirt, trousers, shawl. They go about this very carefully, scrubbing each piece of fabric, their hair, hands, face, ears, nose. They wash away every trace of blood. It is a purification rite, they are cleansing themselves, protecting themselves from being contaminated by the spy they have just executed. There is no sign of anguish, horror, or penitence in their movements. They are silent, serious. The metallic, rhythmic sound of the hand pump reigns over all.

 

I spend part of the afternoon collapsed in a corner of the courtyard like a bundle of rags. They let me sleep. My sleep is troubled. I am mocked by nightmares that swell up like ocean waves. A hand touches me, shakes me awake. I open my eyes. Leaning over me is the Taliban with whom I usually exercise. He has never told me his name, but now I recognize him: I realize, with horror, that he is Sayed's executioner. I despise him and from this moment forth I will keep my distance. He inspires terror in me. With a sharp jerk of his head he indicates my cell: it's time to go back in.

I'm unsteady on my feet. I lose my balance several times. The executioner holds my arm as he accompanies me to the entrance of my cold dank hole. Once there, I begin to panic. I'm facing another long night locked away in utter darkness, another restless night during which I will wake often, each time unable to step outside or leave where I am. I will wake and stare at the wooden door and wait for the first light of dawn to show through the cracks in the thick boards. I grasp hold of the idea that Ajmal and I are still valuable hostages, that the Taliban need to keep us alive, that the negotiations have moved ahead, that our deaths would render any possible exchange impossible. But I do so without conviction.

I turn things over, trying to apply cold, hard reason to my thoughts. I do so alone, for my interpreter sits there immobile in the same position he has been in all afternoon, his eyes wide open. We don't talk: there is so little to say. I finally whisper, my voice barely audible: “They have killed him.” I don't know if Ajmal witnessed the scene. I imagine he did and his answer confirms this impression. “Yes, yes,” he replies, his voice strained, high-pitched, muffled by his sobs, which he tries to hold back with his hand. We are anguished, depressed, desperate. Ajmal rouses himself with a start and in the same tone of voice, says, “We have only two days left. Tomorrow it's my turn, they will kill me. I'm certain of it. The next day it's your turn.”

He is shaken by sobs. I reassure him, embrace him, take his hand in mine. I tell him that nothing is certain, that the ma­cabre video they shot at the river exists only to show how serious and resolute they are. “They can't kill us,” I point out. “They still need us.” I am holding tight to this conviction.

Luthar, the cameraman, returns. He enters our cell as if he were not directly involved in what has happened, as if he had not witnessed Sayed's decapitation, one charged with the job of carefully recording each small detail of the event. He asks us to shoot yet another video, the fifth. He wants me to make another appeal. It's not necessary that Ajmal accompany me. I'm petrified. I don't trust him. Now, I think, my time has come. I stand up, my legs trembling. The jailors take hold of me and drag me out of the cell to the back of the main building and place me in the middle of an uncultivated patch of earth enclosed by a high wall. I'm going to die. They are going to shoot me.

They haven't blindfolded me and this makes me think that there is still a ray of hope. I have to play my last card: I address the Prodi administration together with the entire parliament, including the opposition party. I plead with my friend Silvio Sircana, Prodi's press officer. My appeal is to “our society's Christian principles.” I am adamant about the humanitarian nature of our tragedy. I speak first in English and then in Italian. I look at Luthar. The Taliban turns the video camera off. Rivers of sweat are running down my back. I am picked up and taken back to my cell. For now, at least, the execution has been postponed and I am still alive. I think back to our breakfast together, the one this morning that ended in the orange-peel battle. I now see this episode under a different light: it strikes me as a kind of last meal, something that is granted every prisoner sentenced to death. Sayed has already been killed, now it's our turn.

 

I'm in my cell again. It is time for the fourth and penultimate daily prayer. Our jailors are eating and they wish to do so in peace, together, inside their room. We fall asleep without uttering a single word and are woken at dawn the following day by the door being flung open and the jailor on duty entering and announcing that it's time for morning prayers.

 

Saturday, March 17. I leave Ajmal alone to perform his ablutions and I devote myself to mine. Now, as I wash, hunched down on my ankles, which are still in chains, I pray to my God as well. This is one of the most dramatic moments of our captivity. Everything has been turned upside-down; everything is once more in doubt. We have been plunged again into uncertainty and death looms over us once more.

Time is running out for us. The ultimatum was clear: forty-eight hours and we will be executed. Staring fiercely at Ajmal, Maulvi reminds us of this fact. His look reminds me of the first time he set eyes on Ajmal, a savage gaze that literally terrorized my friend. Afterwards, he had said: “Did you see that face, those eyes? They belong to a real murderer, a cutthroat.” Now the mullah says there's no more time. “Daniele has to call someone important. A minister, a senator, Prodi himself, his wife, the newspaper. He has to say that there are only forty-eight hours left, then we kill him.”

I look at him, bewildered. I ask him what is happening, if there are fresh obstacles. This most recent change in their mood has left me distraught. I know nothing about what is happening in the outside world, for we are inside a bubble, where only a few vague signals reach us and guide us through the darkness. Nobody tells us anything, nobody explains. We are alone again, a knife at our throats.

Maulvi doesn't pursue the idea of a phone call. He leaves and I watch him as he walks away, calls someone on the satellite phone and returns. He yells at Ajmal, his tone severe: “What does
lapo
mean?” My friend translates the question. I have no idea what he's talking about. My interpreter repeats the word: “He said
lapo
.”

I don't understand his question. Lapo is a name, and the only association that comes to mind is Lapo Elkann, the ne­phew of Gianni Agnelli, he, too, party to a misadventure that brought him face to face with death. But then Maulvi repeats his question this time with greater clarity. “Is it true,” Maulvi says, “that you have two
lupi
at home?” Now I see what he's getting at.
Lupi
, in Italian, means wolves. I reply with haste, as if I were answering a question in a quiz show, one that might decide my fate. “No, yes, I mean . . . I have two
lupi
, two wolves, but they belong to my father and mother. The wolves live with them, at their house outside Rome, not with me.” The mullah smiles, satisfied. He asks me what color they are. “One is black, the other the color of this wall,” I say, and point at the mud walls of our cell.

I add some other details without being asked. I want the answers that make it to the outside world to be clear and accurate. I realize that this will serve as further proof that I am alive. Just a little while ago we were videotaped witnessing the execution of our driver. Almost certainly, this video has made its way to those people who are negotiating for our freedom. They will have seen it. Their blood will have run cold at the point in which Sayed's throat is cut and he is decapitated. They will be wondering whether Ajmal and I met the same fate, and now they want to ascertain whether we are still alive or not. I tell Maulvi that one of the wolves is a male, the other a female, that the former is bigger and his name is King, and the other, Joy, is smaller.

I am overwhelmed by a storm of emotions and fears, my mind is terribly confused, and for a moment I struggle to remember the name of the female. It comes to me after a few desperate seconds. In order to be sure that everything has been understood and that the message will arrive clear and accurate, I write the two names down on a page in the mullah's agenda. Everything, in that moment, seems to be of supreme and decisive importance.

Maulvi walks away to communicate my answers via satellite. One of the Taliban calls me outside. He wants to listen to the suras from the Qur'an on the MP3 player I was given by Commandant Lalai. I have not grown fond of it in the least. The buckets of blood, the countless horrors on the hands of these murderers cloaked in religious piety disgusts me. I give it to him and tell him he can keep it as long as he wants. I watch him walk outside with the earplugs in his ears, his lips moving as he recites the Sacred Book. He is engrossed, submerged in this moment of spirituality. I will never see him again. I'll ask about him but they will tell me only that he's left, called back to the front. Knowing he might easily die there, he asked me for the device in the hope that the verses from the Qur'an in Arabic would fill him with courage.

 

We change prisons, the fourteenth such prison in thirteen days. They wait for night to fall before moving us. The interpreter has overheard some of the soldiers saying that the trip will be short: we will probably remain in the same area, Garmsir District, the heart of Taliban territory. The commandant, his lieutenant, the cameraman, the owner of the first house, the one who cooked us rice, all arrive at once.

Our transfer is not an easy matter. The tension is high; I believe they suspect there has been some kind of interception because they've been on their satellite telephones all evening. Spy planes have been rumbling overhead more often than usual. Every time they pass, our jailors raise their eyes skyward with worried looks on the faces. They tell us to remain where we are, covered. And whenever we're invited to get a bit of fresh air, to indulge in some exercise, we must stay near the wall, under its sloping roof. And the hard, watchful eyes of our jailors are always upon us.

 

We leave this most recent prison in a Toyota Corolla station wagon and Haji Lalai's pickup. We drive for half an hour along a small dirt road full of holes that runs alongside one of the principal irrigation channels. The night is pitch black. I can no longer see the stars that I have so often admired in the desert. The fields are covered in a fog that is caused by the water-filled canals and the small marshes that dot the acres and acres of opium poppies.

We stop in front of a black gate, get out of the trucks and walk down a small dirt path. We enter a first room, open at the front, with three walls and a roof that is partially collapsed, where several Taliban whom we have never seen before are preparing a bed. They tell us to keep going and we enter a second room, larger than the first. It looks like some kind of storehouse: clean, larger than our previous prisons, a high roof held up with large iron columns and wooden cross-beams that have been painted and lacquered. I note that each of the wooden beams has two words written on it: “Metaldis, Karachi.”

 

The place lifts my spirits a little. “We'll be all right here,” I say to Ajmal. We examine the mountain of objects that fills much of the large room. I stop before the back wall. Behind a pile of shovels, spades, picks, grain sacks, buckets, and other tools, there is a small wall of dark-colored bricks. I move closer, swaying from side to side because of the chains around my ankles. I take a closer look: they're shrink-wrapped bricks of opium. Maulvi, who has poked his head into our new cell, picks one up and says, “Two kilos, each brick is two kilos of opium.” Good business, I say. How much does each cost? “Three hundred,” replies the mullah. “Would you like to take one with you?”