Captives

by Tom Pow

  * * *

  “Will they kill us?” asks Martin. The sudden question sends a chill through our discussion. For a moment I don’t know what to say and am grateful for Jacques, who fills the gap.

  “I think no,” he says. “Think how your shin was bandaged so quickly. It’s as live tourists we’re of value to them. The only thing is, the longer they keep us, the more valuable we are.” Then he adds, “For a time, anyway.”

  “But,” says Louise, “the government and the Americans—they’ll come for us. Won’t they, Dad?”

  “They’ll certainly try,” says Jacques.

  There’s a silence then, and Rafael, who’s been standing a little way off, staring out over the hillside, turns to us slowly.

  “Your analysis of the situation is not far from the truth.” We stare at him in astonishment.

  “Ah, yes, I can speak English well enough. Maria too. El Taino knows a few words. Only Miguel cannot understand your language.” He’s smiling slightly as he speaks, enjoying our bewilderment.

  “You see, at the start there is much to think of and much tension in the air—yes?—and it is better if we do not speak. Too many questions. Too many questions. Better leave it all to Eduardo”

  “A boy?” says Melanie.

  “Eduardo the guerrilla,” Rafael shoots back. “Perhaps you should know that Eduardo’s parents were both ‘disappeared’ by Quitano’s illegal government. He may still look like a boy to your eyes, but there is a guerrilla’s iron in his heart.”

  “So, will you kill us?” asks Martin, looking straight at Rafael.

  “We do not want to have to. It is as this man says. You are of value to us alive. We have let the government know that we have taken this action to draw attention to the abuse of human rights caused by nickel mining in the north. When there is an international commission set up and announced on national television, you will be released.”

  “And what would this commission be asked to do?” I ask.

  “The government issued licenses to United Nickel for mine exploitation without consulting the local people. It is against international law. People have been forced to abandon homes, schools, and crops to make way for mining operations that devastate the land. A commission would make sure the authorities protected and guaranteed the rights of the local people and perhaps even suspend the licenses.”

  “But,” says Jacques, “no government will be held to ransom like that.”

  “We shall see,” says Rafael. “We shall see. What is your work, Señor Jacques?”

  “I work in the oil industry. I’m a diver.”

  “Ah, then you will know how much a global corporation like United Nickel cares for small domestic politics. For them everything is a trade-off. They will go along with whatever keeps the field workable and the market steady. A commission will be a small price to pay for that.”

  “And if the commission goes heavily against United Nickel?”

  “Then they pay their dues and, like a shark, go off somewhere else, where the feeding is better.”

  “Meanwhile,” says Melanie, “with the possible suspension of mining and the uncertainty about tourism, you’ll have brought Quitano’s government to its knees.”

  “Which is where it belongs,” says Rafael.

  “This is a very dangerous game you’re playing,” says Jacques.

  “Oh, I don’t care for the analogy of ‘game,’ but if you will call it that, yes, we know it. We know we are—how you say?—putting our head in the lion’s den, but rather that, I think, than ‘up its backside.’ Yes?” No one feels free to share his humor; then he himself becomes serious.

  “Oh, do not fear, Quitano’s henchmen, and the Americans, and the Mafia who run the big hotels, they’ll all be coming for you. But first they must find you.”

  “You can’t … We’ll find a way…” says Louise, though I thought we’d made it clear to Martin and her that we mustn’t say anything that might provoke them.

  “Please, señorita,” says Rafael, making calming motions with the flats of his hands, “and please to all of you, you are right, the stakes are very high, and this is only the beginning. But if any of you do anything to endanger this mission, be clear that we will not hesitate to kill you.”

  He looks at each of us in turn. His brown eyes are both serious and sad. But I do not doubt him and hope none of the others is stupid enough to do so.

  “Buenas noches,” he says, and begins to withdraw to the outer rim of our area. Carol runs after him before I can do anything. He turns, his hand on his gun, and for a moment I’m terrified of what she is doing.

  “Nick? Nick? Our boy, Nick?” Carol has Rafael by the arm and we see him shrug her off. I’ve tried not to mention him for her sake, but of course it’s Nick who’s been filling all her silences. “Please,” she says. “Please.”

  Rafael places both hands on her shoulders and turns her firmly back towards us. She tells me later that Rafael nodded and smiled and that Nick must be all right, mustn’t he?

  When did darkness fall? By the time she’s returned to us, Rafael is a black silhouette of a man and a machine gun against a starlit sky.

  Day Four

  How wrong I was about a permanent encampment. This morning we’re told to dismantle our shelters and kick our ashes into the earth. There must be a clear plan they’re following, for today would have been a good day to stay put. Even as we take to the trail, the sky is leaden, the air moist.

  And when it rains, it isn’t a tropical five minutes, but for much of the day. At its worst, we cluster under the thickest trees as the rain drums above us. But mostly we walk through it, till our clothes stick to us with water and sweat. We slip on the treacherous paths, and even the smallest river, swollen with rain, becomes a challenge.

  At the first of these, we bend down to remove our sneakers; but Miguel shakes his head at us, so we tramp across the river floor fully shod. The mud around the river is a rich, dark red and I note Melanie stepping in it as much as she can, leaving red trainer shoe prints up the riverbank.

  “Por favor, señora,” says Rafael, almost sadly, and signals to Miguel to brush the footprints away.

  “Well, we’ve got to do something,” Melanie snaps at me.

  “Yes,” says Jacques, answering for me. “You heard them, we’ve got to keep tranquilos.” I’m thankful Jacques seems to see things my way. Melanie has lots of spirit, but she could cause problems for us all.

  You’d think the rain would make us feel less alienated from this landscape, but I think the opposite is true. Even in the rain, I feel the heat gathering under my arms, down the small of my back, my waist, my crotch. The heat spots are most intense wherever my backpack touches. Louise winds her hair round her fist and knots it up, but I see a heat rash already forming down the back of her neck. All of us have red marks where our T-shirts and shorts chafe.

  When the rain stops, we look across yet another valley and see the forest stretching out, its trees in the distance like smoke. Everywhere feels like nowhere.

  Even Jacques, the strongest of us, seems cowed as we make camp tonight. He leads us in the making of the shelter well enough, but there’s little energy about his movements, and at times I worry his wielding of the machete is so loose he’ll damage himself. For the first time I sense that it is not only guns we have to fear, for we’re a sorry-looking bunch. The red mud marks our legs and our clothes where we’ve fallen. Our faces are haggard with exhaustion. Neither Martin nor Louise asks anything of us. And neither do our captors trouble us tonight. We spoon up our mess of rice and beans, stare into our tin plates, and topple into sleep.

  Day Five

  We sit under our shelter to keep the sun off. Our captors too seem lost in their own thoughts; perhaps like us they’re exhausted from the previous days. I write in this diary to stave off feelings of helplessness, a black lethargy I fear will swallow us all.

  Day Six

  Carol has terrible diarrhea. All through the night she gets up
and goes as far into the forest as she dares. But it can’t only be me who’s had to listen to it pouring out of her—the sound of exhaustion, stress, and the little she’s eaten. As she slumps back down beside me, I can see by the shards of moonlight that make it through the thatch the indignity and shame she feels. She simply shakes her head at me, as if the spirit’s going out of her. I’m grateful Martin’s slept through it all.

  This morning at dawn she says to me, “Look, I don’t know if I can … these cramps…” Then she spots Eduardo approaching.

  “Oh, God, no, the boy…”

  “Rafael wishes to say we rest here for another day. Tomorrow we go for a swim.” Eduardo says it as if it’s a gift he’s offering us.

  “A swim! Oh, Christ!” says Carol, and she bends into her cramps.

  “Look,” says Melanie, “I used to be a nurse once upon a time. Anything I have that could help you is back at the hotel, but I know you need to drink lots of liquids.”

  Carol groans. But just then Maria approaches with a mug of hot greenish liquid. Carol swills it around; bits of leaf float in it.

  “Drink,” says Maria. “It will help your stomach.”

  Carol holds the mug out in an ironic toast—a way of avoiding her natural inclination to thank—and begins to sip.

  “If this kills me, I’ll put in a good word for you all.” It sounds more like something Melanie would say, but I know she’s trying hard not to be beaten. Still, I worry about the effect of such comments on Martin, who seems more withdrawn, closer to the edge, than Louise. I just hope she can help to pull him through.

  For most of the day we rest and sleep.

  Day Seven

  Eduardo, El Taino, and Miguel take us back down the forest path to the river. It doesn’t seem so far when it’s not raining, and today we carry only what we need. We’re led downstream to a small waterfall, at the foot of which is a deep pool in a curved arm of rock.

  “Here you can swim,” Eduardo tells us. “There”—pointing to a ledge of rock edging into the river—“you can wash clothes.” Within moments he strips to his underwear and jumps into the pool. He surfaces and gives his head a shake, the way I’ve seen dolphins do, seeing us all standing looking down at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he calls. “Don’t you like water?”

  It’s the kind of cocky question I expect from Eduardo. I like his false amiability less and less: even though he’s just a boy, he too holds the power of life and death over each of us.

  “No,” says Louise, “not that. I want to know what might be in there. What’s dangerous?—snakes, insects, animals.”

  “Oh no,” Eduardo calls, “there’s nothing like that here. No danger to you but the spikes on the trees.” We’ve seen them, black and strong as nails, like a warning to us to keep on the path, not to think there’s any way for us through the forest.

  Miguel looks at Martin’s shin, the redness around the closed wound. He shakes his head. “You no swimming,” says El Taino.

  The rest of us look at one another and decide, yes, we like water. For a whole hour we almost forget our situation. As Miguel and El Taino sit on the riverbank, their guns on their knees, we have clothes to clean—the water reddening with the dried earth—sweat marks to be removed, hair to be washed. We use the overnight bars of soap we brought with us sparingly—we don’t know how long they must last us. Martin not joining us is the one disappointment of the afternoon. Whenever I wave up at him, he’s sitting on his heels and holding his ankles, as if he’s trying to fold himself away.

  After a while Miguel and El Taino take turns to bathe. Miguel seems as shy as we have been when he takes off his shirt. He dives in and turns through the water a few times, but it’s only when he’s climbing out that we see his back—the startling white lacerations that scar it. On the bank, his reservations gone, he stares us down with fierce, anguished eyes.

  * * *

  I write while Jacques prepares our fire. We’ve lasted a week and no harm has come to us. There must now be outside forces concerned for us and acting on our behalf. The first horror is past and more and more I feel we’re becoming a unit, one that’s getting the measure of its captors.

  “You know,” says Carol, “I think that green sludge worked. I could eat.”

  Rice and beans again, with some fried plantain this time, but after the exercise and the washing—in clean underwear at last—it actually tastes good, sweet and nutty.

  “So, you’re a nurse,” says Carol.

  “Was—or will be again,” says Melanie. “It’s complicated.”

  “Well, we’ve not got anything else planned this evening,” says Carol.

  “Oh, Lord.” Melanie glances at Jacques and takes a deep breath. “We met in Bali…”

  “Exotic,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, anyway … Jacques was working on a rig in the Indian Ocean and I’d just finished my nurse’s training.”

  “So you are a nurse,” says Carol.

  “Not quite. Bali was to be my last hurrah before I started work. A gap of two months—”

  “That turned into a gap of sixteen years,” adds Jacques with a smile.

  “Aha,” says Carol.

  “You guessed it. I got pregnant. We got married and Jacques, my Bali boyfriend, was rarely there.”

  “Oh, Mel, don’t start all that never business again.”

  “Did I say ‘never’? I said ‘rarely.’ Argue with that and you’ll get a cooking pot on your head.”

  Jacques puts up his hands in surrender.

  “Sixteen years bringing up baby,” I say, and the minute I say it I know it’s a stupid thing to have said, but still I’m surprised by the way Louise turns her narrowed eyes on me.

  “No,” she says firmly. “More like a bird in a cage.”

  “Baby, you’re all I had,” says Melanie.

  “Harrumph,” says Louise, and there’s a moment of awkward silence. I’m aware Martin has turned slightly away from me in a sign of teenage solidarity.

  “And all the time, I admit it,” says Jacques, “I am in these exotic places.”

  “Yes, your life didn’t change one bit,” says Melanie.

  “Oh, come on, Mel, Colorado is not the worst place in the world to live a life.”

  “Yee-ha!” says Louise, and slaps her thigh. “Cowboy country!”

  “Besides,” Jacques says, “as I tell you many times, it is one thing to holiday in a place and another to work there. Then you do not think of places as exotic—any more than this is exotic. I mean, not very like the posters, is it?”

  “The difference between being tourists and prisoners, I suppose,” says Carol, and the thought briefly sucks our hard-won contentment from us.

  “Anyway,” says Jacques, “I say to them both, when Louise is sixteen we’ll go on an adventure together. This is it, but not quite as we planned.”

  “And if we get out of this—”

  “When we get out of this, chérie …”

  “All right, when we get out of this, I’m going on a refresher course and I’m going to take the nursing profession by storm.”

  “At last,” says Louise.

  “Oh, honey, don’t be so gloomy.”

  “Huh,” says Louise, and looks up at Martin as if she’s expecting something from him.

  “And you?” says Melanie. “What’s your story?”

  “English teacher in a high school in London,” I say, pointing at myself, “and social worker,” pointing at Carol.

  “And writer?” says Jacques. “You always seem to be writing.”

  I tell him that yes, it’s always been important to me, though I’ve had little published as yet. “But still, you know, we try to live the creative life—my writing, and Carol—she draws.”

  “And Martin?” says Melanie.

  “Has still to declare himself,” I say, and we all laugh. “Isn’t that right, Martin?”

  “Yeah, that’s about right,” says Martin.

  “You know what�
��s really weird?” says Melanie.

  “Surprise me,” says Louise.

  “I know they’re there, in the darkness, with their guns and everything. But sitting here with the fire glowing and the talk, it’s like this is just a…”

  “… regular campfire?” says Louise.

  “Yeah, honey, something like that.”

  “Mom, you’re going crazy.”

  “Nick—you know,” says Carol, her voice breaking, “our son Nick—he would have loved this.”

  [CAPTIVES 2]

  A GAME TO THE DEATH

  Day Eight

  We break camp and walk into the forest. Any excitement it might once have had for us is long gone. It has become only this narrow trail and on either side a mesh of impenetrable green. It’s malicious—not only is there the tree with the black sharp spokes; many others seem to have needles hidden in them somewhere, if not on the trunks, then on the edges of the leaves, like hooks, or running down their centers. Whoever thought this could possibly be Eden was greatly mistaken.

  Our spirits are affected by the sheer repetitive drudgery of our situation. Louise puts a good face on it—such a good face, it’s obviously a source of irritation to Melanie.

  “It’s not a holiday camp, honey.”

  “No, but turning it into a hell isn’t the best way of dealing with it.”

  “Turning it into a hell?” Melanie shoots back. “Where have you been?”

  “Oh, I was with the Young Pioneers last night, singing songs around the campfire. Didn’t I see you there?”