Hostage Three (28 page)

Then I thought of something.

— Dad, I said. Are you awake?

— Yes.

— Would you come to my room with me?

— What? Why?

— Well, I want to go to my room, but I guess that you'll worry about me, and so I'm saying come with me.

— Why do you want to go to your room now, though? he asked.

— You'll see, I said.

— What about the guards? said Dad.

— They won't care. It's the last night. And anyway, they still owe me.

— That's true, said Dad.

And sure enough, when we opened the door of the cinema room, it was Ahmed standing there. When we said we wanted to get something from my room, he just waved us past casually.

In my room, Dad sat down on the bed, while I went to the wardrobe. I took the Mulberry case on wheels and I unzipped it, took out my clothes.

I lifted out my violin case.

— Can we go outside? I asked Dad.

He held my eyes for a moment.

— OK, Amy-bear, he said.

Outside, the air was cool. Unconsciously, I led Dad to the rear deck, and I realised it was because I didn't want to be seeing Mohammed's invisible body, lying there on the front deck. Maybe, I thought, that's one meaning of the word
ghost
. Mohammed might not be there any more, his blood and brains might not be there, but if I went out on that wooden floor, I would see them, I knew it.

Up above, the sky was scattered with stars. I could see the Camel and the Pleiades, the dusty streak of the Milky Way.

The sunlounger, when I sat down, was damp. I felt the dew seeping into my trousers.

I took my violin out of its case, felt its wooden smoothness in my hands. It was warm, almost like it was alive, which I know is a super-stupid thing to think, but I thought it anyway. The bow almost jumped into my hand, wanting to be held, but I made myself put the bow down and apply some rosin to the strings, because the violin hadn't been played for a long time and I didn't want to hurt it.

Then, very gently, I laid the bow on the strings. There was sound waiting to come out – I could almost hear it – but I needed to move the bow if I wanted to release it. Did I want to do that?

I hesitated.

Then, slowly, I started to draw the bow. I hovered on the notes, listening to the tuning, adjusting the pegs. The warmth and the moisture at sea hadn't done the violin a lot of good, but it was still just about in tune once I got it right. Behind me, I heard Dad take a breath, but I didn't turn around.

I started to play, the music bright and clear, like spring water.

At first, I didn't know what I was playing, but then I realised: it was the
Chaconne
, Bach's
Chaconne
, the piece I was preparing for the Menuhin Competition, when Mom died, which I never got to play for her on stage. What was I thinking? Was I thinking that I was playing it for her? Because that would be an idiotic idea, of course.

Really, though, I was playing it for Farouz. I just hoped he was listening, and knew what I meant.

Anyway, I was still playing, and the sound was filling the deck, reaching out to Eyl beside us, to the stars. It was everywhere, surrounding me, in me, resonating in my ear canals, shivering along my skin. I let out a long, slow breath. It was like I'd been living with the screen turned to black and white, and now someone had switched the colour on.

Because I didn't just hear the music – I saw it. When you've played like I have, as long as I have, this is what happens – the notes that are in your head, in your memory, are there in front of you, just as present as the stars, superimposed on them. It's like you can see this whole architecture holding up the world, this skeleton, like you're looking at a building and can make out the beams, the stairways, the arches. So I was seeing the sunlounger, the life ring set into the side of the yacht, the moon sparkling on the sea, but also and at the same time I was seeing this:

 

 

And it was hanging in the air in front of me.

How did I live without this? I thought.

When I had finished, I put the violin back in its case.

— Beautiful, said Dad. Thank you.

He came over and gave me an awkward hug.

— Er, yeah, I said, realising that he thought I'd played for him.

— I've missed you, Amy-bear, he said.

That broke the magic. I pulled away.

— You're the one who's never around, I said.

A veil came down over his eyes.

— Uh-huh, he said. Come on. Back inside.

 

*

 

 

At dawn Ahmed and Farouz
came and told us to get ready.

— Shower, said Ahmed. One time.

— One time? said Dad.

— One at a time, Farouz explained. So you're presentable, when you return to your people.

— Hostage One first, said Ahmed. Rest, stay here.

So we waited while Dad went and had a shower, then changed into new clothes that the pirates had brought for each of us. The stepmother followed, then Tony.

I went fourth. Ahmed pointed to the showers down the corridor, not the en suites, but the ones that were meant for the crew. I nodded and went in. There were two shower cubicles inside, and the door of one of them was slightly ajar. I frowned. Then the door opened, and Farouz stood there.

— Farouz! I said. Does Ahmed –

— Yes. I persuaded him. He is not happy.

I smiled.

— I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, I said.

— No. I didn't want to, either, he said.

— I played for you last night. Did you hear?

— Yes, he said. I heard. Thank you.

He handed me a little piece of paper, folded.

— My email address, he said. When I go back to Galkayo . . . It will be complicated. Mohammed's family might be looking for me. But email me when you are home. I will try to reply.

— Should you go to Galkayo? I said. If it's dangerous?

— I have to. My brother.

A dull fear settled on me. I'd been thinking about myself, about the risks, the exchange. I hadn't thought about Farouz being in danger when he left the yacht.

— Shower, he said. We can talk while you do. Otherwise you'll be too slow and your father will suspect.

He was right, I realised. As much as I wanted to look at his face, to memorise it – the mole on his right cheek, his long eyelashes – I went into the cubicle, undressed, turned on the water.

— I will come to England, he said, after, when –

— I'm sorry, I lied. I can't hear you.

I didn't want to deal with that. Farouz, in England? I didn't want to think about it in real, practical terms, didn't want to ruin the stupid impossible fantasy I had of him coming, of us having a life together; speaking about it might make it disappear, like a soap bubble going pop. To stop him talking about things that could never happen, I said:

— Tell me something. Tell me something about when you were young. Before the war.

— Which war? There are many wars.

— The one . . . when your parents died. Tell me something from before that.

This was probably the last time I was going to see him. I wanted something to take away with me, something that was just mine.

— All right, he said. I will tell you. But it is not a story about my parents. It is a story about Abdirashid.

He started to speak, and I closed my eyes as the water flowed over me.

 

*

 

 

Sometime soon after 6 a.m
. we trooped out on to the deck, came out of the shadowed corridor into that total sunlight, blasting at us from all angles. It was early, the sun low, but the heat was already like a beating. It was already all around us, giving us no room for escape.

Farouz was out there, waiting. He caught my eye when I came out, then looked away. The navy destroyer had moved a little closer in the night, I saw – I guess to comply with the go plan. I could just make out tiny figures on its deck, watching us. Ahmed had his AK at the ready, his finger resting in the trigger guard. Everyone seemed nervous. Even Farouz was shifting from one foot to the other, tapping his thumb on his pistol. I guess, for them, this was when things could go really wrong.

I tried not to think about the logical consequence:

If things went wrong for them, it meant they would go wrong for us. And they were the ones with the guns.

Ahmed shepherded us with the barrel of his rifle, pointing us further down, to where the diving platform met the sea. We shuffled forward, giving him and Farouz the advantage of height. The sea was clapping against the deck:
clap, clap, clap
. The sun blared its heat, unchanging, like white noise. I don't know how long we stood there. After a certain time, Dad put his arm around me, and I smelled his sweat and thought about how far we had come from normal life, if my dad was smelling like that and not of Clinique.

Dad glanced at his watch. The pirates had never taken it because he had always been wearing it – which was unlucky for them, because it was a Patek, and probably worth nearly as much as the yacht.

— Six thirty already, he said. What the hell are they doing?

— Don't worry, said Tony, who was perched on the railing, scanning the sea. They're professionals. They'll stick to the plan.

There was no sign of any helicopter, though. We waited for ten minutes, twenty. That was when the navy dinghy appeared, scooting over the waves, getting closer and closer. This had nothing to do with the game plan – I didn't have a clue what they were playing at. It was like they were deliberately trying to antagonise the pirates, or maybe they just wanted a closer look. I don't know. All I knew was that the men on the dinghy were armed.

But you know how this played out – you have seen it already. Ahmed started to freak out and told the navy over VHF to back off, or he'd kill a hostage.

Even Dad lost it a bit.

— What the living fuck are they doing? he said to Tony.

— Relax, relax, said Tony, though there was sweat beading on his upper lip and his fingers were shaking. They're just testing. Testing, and getting a closer look.

— Shut up, said Ahmed reflexively.

And the dinghy kept coming.

That was when, with the VHF turned on so that the navy could hear, Ahmed told Farouz to point his gun at me, and kill me.

Click
.

 

 

Farouz takes off the safety, and it makes that noise.

Click.

I close my eyes, and the sun is just as bright behind my eyelids, only it's red now, billowing, like clouds of blood in water. I listen to the waves, smell the salt of the sea.

I was scared before. I was. But it was, oh-this-is-frightening-but-kind-of-exciting-too. Now it's, OH-GOD-OH-GOD-I'M-GOING-TO-DIE-AND-THERE'S-NOTHING-I-CAN-DO-ABOUT-IT. Fear doesn't so much seize me as surround me, the way that a dark cloud breaks and the air all around is suddenly hail.

I'm actually going to die, right here and now. I'm thinking about how Farouz promised me that he wouldn't hurt me, that he would rather die himself, but I don't know if he will hold to that promise. I don't think he will.
I would rather die
is an easy thing to say, but it's a harder thing to do.

You might hope that I would have a more profound thought than that, but I don't. It's more a peculiar realisation – that this moment, the moment of my death, that has always seemed really abstract and far away, is actually NOW. I feel like that polo horse, waiting for the vet to come and give the injection.

Then I think, we'll be on the news for maybe a week. And then it'll be something else, some earthquake, some footballer having sex with a prostitute. And that will be it. In my head, I start to listen to Milstein's 1953 recording of the
Sonatas
and
Partitas
, trying to remember every note, every flourish.