Days of Fear (16 page)

Dadullah even tries to be funny, adding: “In the end, you have obtained much more than an interview. You have seen how we live and how we think. Do you think yourself capable of telling the truth about us? You journalists never do.” I don't reply to this further provocation. His presence alarms me: I'm convinced that we're on the verge of some kind of turning point. Ajmal is mute, his head hung. He raised his eyes for an instant, enough time to reach out and greet the mullah with the same deference he shows everyone. Nothing more than good manners on his part, certainly not fondness. He's already understood whose company we're in and the discovery is like a cold shower. We have been used, sold out, mocked, fooled. It fills us with bitterness and makes us feel impotent, almost ridiculous.

Just as swiftly as he appeared, Mullah Dadullah vanishes in the maze of paths that cut through the fields of opium poppies, and is swallowed by the dark night. But before leaving us, he turns to me and adds in a voice that is almost a growl: “You owe your life to our supreme commander. It was Mullah Mohammed Omar himself who suspended your death sentence. He decided not to have your head cut off.” Ajmal is paralyzed by fear. We both are. His voice, as he translates, is barely audible. I think I understand what he said, but I ask for confirmation: “He's talking about Mullah Omar?” My interpreter nods, his head lowered, his chin almost touching his chest and his hands tied behind his back. I reflect on this latest revelation while my heart beats hard. I wonder if this might be the latest in a long line of lies. If not, if it is the truth, then I have been had another reprieve. The damned knife that appears in my dreams every night is still in its sheath. But I have no way of knowing how long it will stay there.

 

There is still a long stretch of road to travel, over bumps and small bridges, past dykes, clusters of houses, and workshops built with sheet metal, small villages of tents and huts made of straw, brushwood, and cardboard dotted along the edge of the desert, down paths that cut through the fields of opium poppies and lead God knows where. Everything is cloaked in darkness, submerged in the night. Electricity has not made it this far, not yet at least, although the Taliban do not suffer because of it. Their world remains shackled to the past. They dream of a society that follows in the footsteps of Mohammed, a great emirate that embraces the entire planet; an immense oasis of peace ruled by the sacred Book, the only one that can save humanity, they repeat often, and reward every pious man with Paradise.

Around me I see only poverty, dust, dirt, and very few women, all of whom are covered in long black tunics. They move quickly down the village streets, as close as possible to the outside walls of the houses and buildings. I see children, boys, and men preparing for the opium harvest armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers.

We stop in front of a large country house surrounded by high whitewashed walls. The entrance is nothing but a small narrow door, so low that one must bend down to enter. We pass through the door and emerge into a garden in full bloom. There is a tool shed, a stall, a pen and a central structure made up of two large rooms. There is a crowd here, maybe thirty people. Our jailors have been joined by twenty or so Taliban from other parts of the province. They're all armed. Their control over us has been tightened once more.

Ajmal is completely closed within himself. He has difficulty translating what our captors say. He tells me that his head hurts so much that it feels like it's going to burst: he has gathered so much information, memorized thousands of details, discovered a world that he didn't even imagine existed, one that is completely different from what he thought he knew when he was in Kabul, a thousand kilometers away. I believe he has thought long and hard about what is happening to us, about errors he may have committed, about who might have laid this trap for us. He inspires tenderness in me: he is suffering, he feels as if he has been betrayed, and, perhaps, as if he is the victim of a game that is much bigger than us and that we don't know how to get out of.

We sleep. The morning wake-up call is the same as ever. Breakfast is the same. Morning prayers the same. We're tired, awfully tired. At this point we are on the brink of a complete mental and physical breakdown. I ready myself for yet another day without books, pens, amusements of any kind, or friends. We are alone. We don't even speak to each other anymore. We pass the entire day in a kind of daze, stretched out on the quilt we've been dragging around with us for two weeks. I prepare myself for another seven days in captivity. I don't know if I can resist, but I must. I think of other kidnappings and make a few calculations: the average is about twenty-five days. We need more time, the people trying to save our lives are working on finding a solution. We don't know who they are, but surely someone is on the other side of the negotiating table.

 

The leader of this gang of jailors once indicated a virtual length of time by holding his hands about twenty centimeters apart. The distance between one hand and the other grows less every day. Towards noon, the distance is little more than a hair's breadth. And at two in the afternoon, right after the collective prayer, nothing separates one hand from the other. Maulvi comes into the room where we are sleeping and for the first time ever he is smiling. “It's done,” he announces. “We are very close to an agreement.” After half an hour Commandant Haji Lalai arrives at the compound. His presence troubles me: he is the bearer of tidings that will either decree our deaths or announce our release. We hear the roar of the Toyota, his voice in the garden, his footsteps on the concrete footpath in the courtyard. He pulls open the sheet of plastic nailed to the wall that is the door to our cell. I look at his shining eyes, his brilliant smile. He opens his arms. “Two hours. Get ready. You're free, you're going home.”

Ajmal and I remain immobile, refusing to believe his words. We fear being deluded once more, for we can no longer believe in anything or anybody. We no longer trust our own shadows. The word “freedom” is no longer part of our vocabulary. We have eliminated it as a form of self-preservation.

 

But it's true. They release us. The mujahedeen that have held us prisoner for the past seven days burst into our cell and send up an excited, contented cry. They're happy, radiant, they congratulate us, shake our hands, hug us. We stand there like blocks of stone, not reacting to these demonstrations of affection. We consider them part of a fresh trap, theatrical gestures to which our imprisonment has made us accustomed. We reject them entirely. But the Taliban insist: they take a large stone from the garden, place it beneath the padlocks on Ajmal's chains. They start hitting them with other stones and awls. Two of them work on the locks. Then they're joined by a third. A fourth and more experienced man offers advice and finally picks up the tools himself and, more methodically and with greater precision than his fellows, he continues striking the padlocks for almost half an hour. The padlocks must be broken, they can't be opened with the keys: the group that captured us near Lashkar Gah lost them somewhere in the middle of the desert.

I look at Haji Lalai. He's on the telephone again. I ask him to be clear and sincere with us. “You're free,” he repeats, looking me straight in the eyes. Finally the large padlocks on Ajmal's ankles break open, and, not long after that, my rusty padlocks, smaller but full of dust and earth, are busted open. For the first time in two weeks I can actually walk, take long strides, bend my legs, open them. I can even run—I had almost forgotten I was ever capable of doing so.

I run around in the middle of the garden dragging Ajmal with me, forcing him, yet again, to get a bit of exercise with me. He resists at first, as he always has, but then goes along with it and finally I see him smile. His grin gets wider and wider until he begins to laugh and to cry. Tears, rivers of joy, roll down his cheeks into his beard, onto his shirt and chest. We unite in a long embrace. We're free! They let us wash and change our shirts. Mine is still dirty with the blood I lost after they struck me with the Kalashnikov. Now, the Taliban want to show the world that they treat their prisoners well.

 

Haji Lalai is in a hurry. He looks at his watch and says, “Let's go.” Two mujahedeen that I have never seen before accompany me to the exit and put me into a Toyota Corolla station wagon. Haji Lalai himself is at the wheel. Beside him is his lieutenant, Ali Ahmad. They put the chains back on my wrists: a precautionary measure, they explain. We're in the final stages of the kidnapping, and the smallest hitch could send the whole thing up in smoke.

I turn towards the house as Ajmal emerges. He makes a gesture of victory: he raises his arms high over his head, his hands still chained. I will repeat this same gesture when we land at Ciampino before the crowd of colleagues and officials who will be there to welcome me. It is a public tribute, a gesture of immense joy at having won the battle that we waged over two weeks of terrible imprisonment, and a grateful acknowledgement of all those who did not give up on us.

 

Haji Lalai drives us through poppy fields, across bridges and past intersections. We're heading for Helmand River and I feel anxiety mounting within me. My hands are tied, there are two mujahedeen, one on either side, blocking my exit. I fear that our liberation has been staged, that we've been lied to yet again. I don't know who to trust, where and how the exchange will happen. Nobody tells me anything. Only Luthar, who has appeared out of nowhere, confirms that I will soon be free. He has his video camera in his hand and he carefully records everything: our exit from the farmhouse, the brief journey, the caravan of vehicles hurtling through poppy fields. The whole thing is under the expert direction of Haji Lalai.

We stop several times: in front of a cluster of small bodegas that look like places where some kind of food is prepared and perhaps sold; near a house full of Taliban, armed to the teeth and awaiting orders. The atmosphere is electric. Everyone's nerves are on edge. They are continually in contact via two-way radio—no one uses the telephones anymore.

We're still heading towards the river and we've entered the same tract of desert where our driver was executed. Panic stiffens my muscles and I feel as if I'm in a straightjacket. There are all the ingredients for another trap: the scene is set, the Taliban journalist has his video camera, the soldiers are armed, their faces covered with shawls and turbans. That barbaric murder, preceded by just such a scene, occurred only three days ago and it could happen again now. The death sentence for acts of espionage has been handed down; it just needs to be executed. It is not a remote hypothesis, rather, something concrete that could happen from one moment to the next.

The convoy stops a few meters from the riverbank. The leaders of the group get out of the car and sit down beneath a small cluster of palm trees. They watch the horizon through binoculars. They speak on their two-ways and wait for answers. The wait lasts at least two hours.

Then a signal arrives. They get back in the vehicles and we begin moving again, but back in the direction we came from. We trace a long wide arc and return to the banks of the river Helmand at another point, about three hundred meters away from the site of Sayed Agha's execution. The Corolla heads straight for the river and stops in front of an iron barge.

On the other side of the river there are dozens of men. Behind me forms a long, compact phalanx of armed men. They run to join us, coming out of nowhere, pulling out rifles, rocket launchers, and large-gauge machine guns. I am in the middle, feeling, even now—now more than ever—like vulnerable prey. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I crouch down on my heels behind the barge.

I'm afraid that they might start shooting. I ask, my voice little more than a whisper, “Who are all those people on the other side of the river?” The commandant replies in English. Finally. He speaks it perfectly. He lied to me to the very end. “Friends, they're friends,” he says. I don't trust him. “They're soldiers, but whose? Afghan? Italian? British? They won't start shooting, will they?” Haji Lalai reassures me, but his men are getting more and more agitated, and he knows it. They're moving too close to the riverbank. They want nothing more than to shoot, to fight, but there's nothing against which they can hurl their accumulated rage. “Stay back and don't fire,” says Haji Lalai. The soldiers obey. They stop dead in their tracks. They oversee the process. From a distance.

We board the barge. First two, then three Taliban board with me, then more, until the iron barge is full with about ten Taliban. It twists to one side—at that point in the river the current is strong. The barge is hand-operated; it's necessary to pull a cable that connects one side of the river to the other. A few minutes pass during which many hands grasp the vibrating, shuddering cable, during which I remain seated at on the floor of the barge. They finally take the chains from my wrists. They tell me to keep my turban on, to keep my wound, which is still dressed in band-aids, covered.

The minute we touch the other shore they pile out of the barge. There is rejoicing, a tangle of embraces, many smiles, loud greetings. It is completely chaotic: they touch me, they hug me, they bounce me from one to the other.

I'm free. I'm really free. I smile and think of Ajmal. I can picture him somewhere in the midst of this desert, unchained and ready to leave for Kabul. “I know,” he told me during the few confused minutes prior to our departures. “They will arrest me, they'll put me in jail. The Afghan police will want to interrogate me. It's logical enough. But I prefer that kind of prison: my father can visit me every day. I will feel protected, safe.”

Somebody grabs me by the shoulders. I turn. A voice whispers, “Welcome back. You're safe now.” The leaders, the soldiers, everyone, let go with bursts of machine-gun fire and blasts from their Kalashnikovs. They are celebrating a victory. I jump with every shot. My nerves are shattered. I collapse before even the slightest form of violence. I've seen too much of it. I can't stand it anymore.