Under an Afghan Sky (7 page)

I also saw some of the videotape you shot in the camp, before they grabbed you, including some of your on-camera. It was hard to watch, M, knowing that just a few minutes later a bunch of thugs threw you into a car and took you away. We’re all wondering if they were watching you, or if they were tipped off, or were they just there looking for a foreigner to kidnap?

I just got distracted by another call from Shokoor inside the prison. They took away his mobile, but he bribed some cop to use his, and essentially called to say he’s still there. I don’t suspect Shokoor at all, but there are stories that his brother lives somewhere near the camp and was having money problems. Who the hell knows, but I can’t see them releasing Shokoor soon.

It’s getting dark here, M, and it makes me shudder to think of you getting ready for another night in the dark and the cold. I’m very, very frightened.

I heard the familiar ring of a Nokia cell phone and instinctively reached into my left pocket, only to find it empty. It was Zahir’s cell phone, and I was shocked there was a signal down in the hole. I watched as Zahir pulled the phone from his shirt pocket.

“As-Salaam Alaikum,” he answered with the Arabic greeting used by Muslims. It was one of the first phrases Shokoor taught me on my initial trip to Afghanistan, so that I could say hello to the people we were meeting and interviewing. Translated, it means “Peace from Allah be with you.”

I listened for several minutes, not knowing what Zahir was saying—I assumed he was speaking Pashto, but then I thought it might be Dari. Pashto is spoken mostly in the eastern and southern parts of the country, and also by a significant number of Pakistanis, especially those living in the tribal areas close to the Afghanistan border. When Zahir finished his call, I asked him who he’d been speaking to.

“That is Khalid.”

“When is he coming?”

“This…” He was searching in his mind for the right word. “Afternoon.”

“I thought he was coming at noon.”

“Later.” I asked him if he’d spoken to his father, and he said he’d see him the following day. I asked him to tell his father that I needed to go home to Canada, and he agreed.

Zahir shuffled over to the wooden door. “I go bathroom,” he said, motioning for me to turn around. I turned and faced the wall opposite the door as he crouched behind it to urinate into an empty plastic water bottle. There isn’t much privacy when you’re trapped in a space smaller than many closets. Zahir finished and reached for the watering can to rinse his hands, pouring the water onto the dirt floor just outside the door.

“You go bathroom?” he asked me.

I hadn’t gone since before I was thrown into the hole, and I wasn’t really feeling the need, and I also wasn’t sure how it worked. I assumed the dirty black bucket was my toilet. I looked at it and shook my head, delaying the inevitable for a little longer. I’ve peed in worse places—in a rice paddy in China when our family’s minivan broke down; in a hole in the ground when I was out with the Canadian battle group the summer before, though that was better than the porta-potties the military used on its forward operating bases; and in a farmer’s field in southern Saskatchewan, where I’d been posted for the last two years, trying to avoid the sting of mosquitoes when I pulled down my pants. This dirty bucket was nothing in comparison, but the idea of having to pee in front of my captor bothered me a lot. It sounds silly, but I felt somehow that by using that bucket I would be surrendering in a physical way and resigning myself to being a prisoner, and that was something I wanted to put off for as long as I could.

It wasn’t that I was in denial about what was happening to me. Rather, I wanted to maintain as much control over the situation as I could, even if it meant holding it in for another hour or two.

I looked at the clock again. It wasn’t even noon. Time is amazing. There’s never enough time when you’re in a hurry, with a deadline looming, and you have a zillion things to do. If I were at home
in Canada and awake at six in the morning, on a Sunday like this, I would have already gone to Mass, gone for a run, showered, changed, and barely had time to meet my friends for Sunday brunch. Here, in the darkness of a hole in the ground, with nothing to do, time couldn’t have passed more slowly.

Zahir was playing with his cell phone. I pulled a pen and my notebook out of my knapsack and flipped it open to an empty page. It was one of those thick spiral-bound stenographer’s notebooks, divided into five or six sections. I’d started the last section a few days before, taking notes at the refugee camp, the names of the people we’d interviewed, and details about their background, which I planned to weave into my script on the refugee camp.

I started to write.

Dearest P,

I can’t imagine what you’re thinking right now, or what you’re going through, and I don’t even know where you are, so I just wanted to write and tell you that I’m okay. It happened so quickly—Shokoor and I were just leaving the camp when this car drove up and these men grabbed me. I have two small stab wounds because I threw a punch at one of them when they were trying to get me into the car, but I’m okay. They say they are with the Taliban, but I’m not sure I believe them. They don’t seem entirely organized, and they just keep talking about money.

“What you writing?” Zahir interrupted.

“A letter,” I answered. He shuffled over, grabbed my notepad, tried to read what I’d just written, and handed it back to me.

I think these guys are a bunch of kids with guns, darling. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine and I’ll come home soon. Please tell everyone at home that I’m okay. They’re not hurting me, although I’m not sure where we are. We walked up and over a
mountain to get here. I think I’m somewhere outside Kabul. It’s dark here, but I am not afraid. So don’t you be afraid either. I’m just so sorry for all the trouble I’m sure I’m causing everyone. I’m so sorry I ruined our plans. I miss you so much, P. I hope you know how much I miss you and I’m thinking about you. It will be okay. I know you don’t really believe, but if you have that little rosary I gave you the last time you came to Kandahar, and say a prayer for me, I’m sure that will help. I’m so sorry for everything you’re going through. I’m with you, and I’ll be back. I promise.

I put down my pen and blinked back the tears that were threatening to roll down my face. I couldn’t help but imagine the panic that must have already set in. Paul is one of the calmest and most level-headed people I know. The consummate foreign correspondent, he’d reported from every war zone over the last two decades and had been to Afghanistan more times and knew the country better than most journalists in Canada. We’d met in Afghanistan the summer before, and spent five weeks together on the base, jogging around the airfield together, working out at the gym together, and meeting up in Kabul for a few days, on different assignments for our respective networks. We’d kept in very close touch over the past year, exchanging emails and chats almost every day. We’d grown very close and cared about each other deeply, and we both knew we had to make some hard decisions about our personal lives. With a little editorial organizing, we’d arranged another five weeks together in Kandahar.

I started doing the calculations in my head. If Zahir gets to his father by tomorrow, and if it’s really money they want, and not very much money, it could be over in a week. I could arrange to borrow some money when I got back, and repay whoever put up the funds. If Zahir would plead my case to his father, I could be back on the base by next Monday—since there were no
flights to Kandahar on Sundays—and we could still catch our scheduled flight out to Dubai on Wednesday.

It will be okay, P. We’ll still get there. I know we will. I’m here and I’m okay. I just miss you so much it hurts.

xox

The spot of light behind Zahir’s head had faded, a sign that it was getting dark. I wasn’t sure how we’d managed to spend an entire day sitting in that one spot, but I’d been praying the rosary (although I’m not sure rote recitation constitutes real prayer) over and over and over while Zahir napped. I found out a little more about him as we talked on and off throughout the day. He had a girlfriend and he liked listening to music—two admissions, which, as a young devout Muslim, he was both giddy and sheepish in telling me. He told me his mother liked the girl, but he had to wait for his father’s approval before marrying. We talked about marriage and family, and he told me he wanted seven children, one girl and six boys, because he had grown up with only three brothers, but one sister was enough. He asked about my family and seemed surprised to hear that I only had one sister and no brothers. “No boy in your family?” He was incredulous.

I had also caved and peed in the dirty black bucket. Zahir covered his head with his blanket and turned his back while I pulled down my hiking pants. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but the can had obviously been used before and was very dirty and smelly.

The alarm clock read five-thirty, and I had my rosary in my hand and was about to start another decade of Hail Marys when I heard digging overhead. Zahir pointed up.

“Khalid,” he said before covering his mouth and face with his kaffiyeh. It sounded like the digging was being done with a shovel,
and billows of dust swept down the tunnel and into the hole. I closed my eyes and covered my head with my scarf. Dust rained down on us for several minutes, and then I could hear something being dragged off the opening of the hole.

“Goodbye, Mellissa.” Zahir moved the wooden door to the side and hiked up his pyjama-like pants to crawl up the tunnel.

“Zahir, please tell your father to hurry,” I implored.

He took my hand and looked into my eyes. “Yes, I promise. You go home soon.”

And then he inched his way into the tunnel and up. I could hear voices speaking in Pashto outside. A few minutes went by and I heard a thud. I could see a pair of worn black leather shoes at the end of the tunnel.

“Hello, Mellissa!” It was fat Abdulrahman from last night, with two white plastic shopping bags.

“Hello, Abdulrahman,” I replied.

“How are you? Do you like your house?”

“No. It is dark and uncomfortable. I want to go back to Kabul.”

“You will go, you will go,” he assured me.

A second pair of leather shoes appeared at the end of the tunnel. It was Khalid.

“Mellissa.” He held out his hand as if to shake mine. I took his hand and he held it tightly. “How are you, Mellissa?”

“I am okay, Khalid. When can I go home?”

“You not like here? I make this house.”

“I want to go home.”

The two Afghans spoke to each other in Pashto, then Abdulrahman reached into one of the big white plastic bags. He pulled out a kameez and matching pants, nylon and the colour of rust, with vertical beige stripes.

“Here,” he said. “This for you. You wear.”

I picked up the outfit and ran my fingers over it. It was better than the smelly men’s kameez they had put me in for the ride through town on the motorcycle.

“Are you hungry, Mellissa?” Khalid asked.

I shook my head. The only things I’d managed to eat all day were two chocolate cookies. Khalid reached inside the plastic bag and pulled out several sleeves of cookies—mango cream, orange cream, strawberry cream. He also pulled out two apples and several boxes of mango juice.

“You must eat,” he told me.

“Not hungry,” I answered.

He took a juice box, stuck a straw in it, and handed it to me. “You must,” he said.

I took it from his hand and took a sip. It was syrupy thick and sweet. Still, it was probably better than the water I’d been drinking from the red plastic can. I noticed there was also a full green plastic can of water, no cleaner than the water in the red can.

“It is good?” he asked. I nodded.

“I come tomorrow,” Khalid said, moving toward the opening of the hole.

“Wait,” I said. “Where are you going?”

“I go home. I come tomorrow. My uncle stay here tonight,” he said.

“When can I go home?” I asked.

“Inshallah, soon,” he said. “I go now. I see you tomorrow.” He crawled up the tunnel and back out, leaving me with fat Abdulrahman. I heard something that sounded like a heavy wooden board being dragged over the hole and then the sound of shovels. I covered my face with my scarf as dust swept in. Abdulrahman did the same. The whole process took about five minutes and at the end of
it, after the dust had settled, Abdulrahman looked up and stared at me with his beady little eyes.

“You no like your house,” he laughed at me.

“No, I hate it here. I want to go home,” I said to him.

“What? It is a very good house,” he smiled. “I help make this house.”

“I thought Khalid said he made this place.”

“Yes, Khalid and me. We build. Very nice, you no like?”

“No, it’s dark and not very comfortable. It’s hard to sleep.”

“You no like your clothes I bring for you?”

I didn’t say anything. I was perfectly happy in my bloodstained clothes.

“You wear.” It sounded like an order.

I took the top and put it over my head, over my ruined flowered kameez.

“No, you take off,” the fat Afghan said.

“It’s okay. I’ll keep it on. It doesn’t matter, it’s just a little blood.”

“No. Off.”

Reluctantly, I pulled my bloodied kameez over my head, leaving my once-white undershirt on. I noticed that it, too, was now brown with dried blood. I felt self-conscious with Abdulrahman staring at me, so I quickly slipped the clean rust-coloured kameez on and adjusted the sleeves. It was too big, but at least it was clean.

“Pants,” he said. I stood up, my head almost touching the ceiling, and pulled the baggy pants over my hiking pants. They immediately fell off. Abdulrahman laughed and shook his head.

“You too thin,” he said, pointing at my waist.

“It’s not me; the pants are too big,” I said, sitting down. “Where did you get these? Who do they belong to?”

“A friend of Khalid,” he replied. “A girl.”