by Tom Pow
She appears in the main clearing where the shelters are, her reddish hair cropped and spiked.
“Christ, baby, who did that to you?”
Martin’s standing behind her, not knowing whether Melanie’s joking or not. She’s not.
“Was that you? What in Hell’s name did you think you were doing? The mess you’ve made of my baby’s beautiful hair…”
“Mom, I’m not your ‘baby,’ and it was me who asked him. If you want to shout at anyone, shout at me.”
“Good idea,” shouts Melanie. “Did you never think of consulting me about whether it was a good idea?”
“Never,” says Louise.
“Martin,” Carol begins, “you’d no right to—”
But Louise doesn’t let her finish. “Oh, come on, Mom, get a life. Where are you—still in some mall with the hairdresser’s on the corner? I was coming out in sweat rashes. This is so much more sensible for this place. In fact, I should’ve had it done before all this even started.”
Louise says this in that way teenagers do—like a challenge to her mother, with that forward lean, so she’s almost in Melanie’s face. I see Melanie’s jaw tighten, but she says nothing, and I’m glad Martin’s had the sense to keep quiet, for I’m aware of Eduardo, on the sidelines as usual, grinning at the confrontation.
I think Melanie’s accepted she went over the top about the hair, and actually the cut, though crudely done, suits Louise. She’s got strong cheekbones and bright, greenish eyes. Still, the argument, though one-sided, ruffles our day, and for the rest of it we keep to ourselves. We’re living on a knife-edge and at times the best thing to do is withdraw into ourselves, to avoid any possible conflict.
Day Fourteen
We eat in the late afternoon—rice and beans, but today supplemented with the tiny roasted carcasses of birds Miguel has netted. We let the scraps of meat almost melt in our mouths and suck on the tiny bones. Later, when we’re about to leave the fireside and retreat to the privacy of our shelters, Rafael waves us back.
“Hey,” he says, “un regalo,” and he throws us a pack of cards. “Play,” he says. “Play with El Taino and Miguel. It will make the time pass.”
“Play what?” says Melanie, still prickly from yesterday.
“Pinochle,” says Rafael. “It’s easy. Eduardo will explain.”
Eduardo tells us the rules. It’s very straightforward—seven cards each and the aim is to get rid of your cards by putting them down, following face value or suit. There are minor sophistications, but that’s about it.
“Well,” I say, “we can’t all play. Jacques, why don’t you and Melanie go first?”
“Bonne idée!” says Jacques. “Come on, my little card sharp.”
“Like, snap!” says Melanie.
“Shouldn’t parents let their children play first?” says Louise.
“Well, pardon me for being such a terrible parent,” says Melanie, and it’s hard to tell how much she means it. “I stand aside, suitably chastised.”
“You sure, chérie?” asks Jacques.
“Is there a choice here? Have I not damaged my daughter enough with my poor parenting?”
“Oh, Mom, please,” says Louise, and picks up one of the sets of seven cards Miguel has dealt.
It dawns on me that the regalo—present—is not really for us, but for El Taino and Miguel. Since they have taken us captive, their concentration has not wavered. While the others have held their private discussions, El Taino and Miguel have kept their watch on us. Even when we get up in the night, if we must, there is always one or the other of them, the darkest shadow, sitting in the clearing.
Carol, Martin, Melanie, and I gather round the players, and although we are only watching, it seems the most exciting spectacle. To see how each card is fated to follow another is almost miraculous. The fall into a predictable universe is so calming that the shock when a penalty card—a two or a king—is played, and then another on top of it, is almost unbearable.
“Merde,” says Jacques, and slowly picks up his four extra cards. I note him grimacing across at El Taino, who has two cards left. Jacques sits forward on his haunches, as if ready to spring. El Taino puts down a ten of spades, then an ace of hearts, and holds up his empty palms.
“Hold on, what was that?”
“Ah,” says Eduardo from the shadows. “I should have told you. The ten allows you to play another card and the ace, remember, you can play anytime.”
“Great game, when you find out the rules after the event,” says Jacques.
“Well, move aside,” I say. “Let the professionals in.” But I can see Jacques is not amused.
“No,” he says. “I’m not finished here yet.”
“I am,” says Louise, and makes way for Melanie.
El Taino and Miguel clink tin mugs of coconut milk and another hand is dealt. Once we get the hang of it, it’s a quick game, though everyone shows patience with Melanie, who ponders all her options.
“I’m thinking,” she says. “I’m thinking.”
“Jesus, Mom,” says Louise. “It’s a game of chance. Just play something.”
Still, in any game of chance, chance will dump on someone, and in this sequence of games it’s Jacques who is suffering most. His concentration has intensified with his losing streak. His eyes are narrowed on the small patch of ground where the cards are laid. He squints at them in the fading light.
Opposite him, El Taino and Miguel have become limpid. They put their cards down in extravagant sweeps compared to Jacques, whose hand flicks out like a snake’s tongue. Often El Taino and Miguel look at each other and laugh at their good fortune.
Miguel plays his king of hearts and turns to Melanie.
“Huh,” she says, and places the king of clubs on top of it.
“Ai-ai-ai,” says El Taino, pretending to reach out for the pack to pick up his penalty cards. Jacques visibly relaxes. Then El Taino, with his two stiff fingers, plucks a card—a king of spades—and lays it down on the other two kings.
“Fuck it,” says Jacques, throwing down his hand and standing up. “I’ve had it with this.”
Miguel’s smile gleams. “Qué mala suerte, hermano,” he says, and El Taino gives a little giggle.
“What’s that? What’s that he said?” says Jacques.
“Dad, calm down,” says Louise.
“I will, once I find out what that big ape’s saying to me.” Jacques says this as he stands over Miguel. A frown has crossed Miguel’s face—all the lightness gone from it. He stands up with some difficulty, as Jacques refuses to give way before him.
“Qué te pasa?” says Miguel, and pushes Jacques in the chest.
“Who are you to push me? I’m sick of being pushed around!” Jacques’s is the loudest voice we’ve heard in two weeks. He returns Miguel’s push with interest. What happens next I have to play back in my mind, it happens so fast. Miguel’s knees appear to buckle momentarily, but he is only reaching for a machete propped behind the palm log he was sitting on. He brings it up in one movement and drives the wooden handle into Jacques’s stomach. Jacques’s eyes widen as the breath leaves him and he jackknifes in pain. But Jacques isn’t left to cough and splutter, for Miguel goes down on one knee beside him, seizes his hair, and pulls back his head. He holds the blade of the machete to Jacques’s throat. We think of the dog, the pig …
Rafael steps forward from the darkness.
“Basta!” he says, and waves Miguel away. El Taino puts an arm around Miguel’s shoulders and leads him off.
“Now, señor, you will be calm.” He addresses Jacques, who is still on his knees, still retching in pain and fear. “Remember what you were told. You are our prisoners. If you put in danger what we do or make it difficult for us, we will not hesitate to kill you. And wouldn’t it be a pity to die for such a small thing as a ‘big ape’ telling you that you had mala suerte—bad luck?”
There is not another word spoken by anyone as we make our way to the shelters, Melanie holding Jacqu
es by the arm, Louise following behind. In the darkness, I’m sure I hear him sob.
[CAPTIVES 3]
A GLIMMER OF HOPE
Day Fifteen
Jacques doesn’t come out of his shelter all day. Melanie tells us that he’s in pain and passing blood. But I think worse than anything for him must be the shame. Melanie glares at any of our captors who come near her. She makes a comment to Rafael about the damage his “muscle” has done.
“What is the meaning of ‘muscle’?” says Rafael.
“Oh, come on,” says Melanie. “Your henchmen, your hard men, your thugs.”
“Cálmese, señora. Yes, Miguel and El Taino are hard men. The times have made them hard. And Miguel was too rough with your Jacques. I have told him. He knows the importance of discipline. But we have always been a violent society—ruled by the dog, the whip, the machine gun. You cannot expect such men always to turn the other cheek. And señora—please, I’m still speaking—when you talk of ‘muscle’ and ‘thugs’ and so on, you do not know of what you speak. You have much to learn and, until you do, it is better—like the boy Martin, I think—to listen and not to be so quick to judge. Remember, nothing you say will stop us from doing what we have to do.”
* * *
“‘From doing what we have to do.’ You heard what he said,” Melanie repeats for Carol and me. “Doing—what—we—have—to—do.” She stabs each word into the silence.
“God,” says Carol, reading the unspoken. “You heard him last night too—they ‘will not hesitate to kill us.’ These were his exact words. Will not hesitate.”
“Calm down, Carol. Why would they kill us? We’re no good to them as dead hostages,” I say.
“Don’t use that word ‘hostages’! Have I not said, don’t use that word? It carries too many echoes … too many echoes of Iraq. Have you forgotten what happens to hostages there? Their white pleading faces. And for what? To be slaughtered like animals. Laugh if you want, but I saw what Miguel did to that dog. And I can’t look at him splitting open coconuts without thinking of skulls.”
“No one’s laughing, Mum,” Martin says. But Carol pays him no attention.
“‘We will not hesitate…’ You heard him.”
“Look, love,” I say, “it’s not a comparable situation.”
“No? How?”
“Because those hostages were made to plead for the impossible. No government’s going to change its policies for a bunch of fanatics.”
“Well, isn’t that what they’re asking their government to do?”
“No, and they’re not a bunch of Che Guevaras calling for Revolution or Death either, as far as I can tell. This lot’s dumping on tourism, and they’re asking a mining company to treat its workers and the environment with some respect. Which side would you be on?
“I can’t believe you said that!”
“What?”
“That they’re in the right. Those who took us at gunpoint and hold us against our will and will not—in their own words—hesitate to kill us. Have you lost your mind?”
“No, I’m just trying to hold on to some sense of perspective.”
“Perspective. Perspective. Oh, my God, I’m never going to see Nick again.”
* * *
“… never going to see Nick again.” It was the sound his mother made that Martin remembered. Woven through the words was something like a high-pitched wail, almost beyond the human ear. But not beyond Martin’s. And he’d heard this trapped sound most frequently when she said something his father—for the clarity of the narrative perhaps—had chosen not to include in the diary. “Oh, Lord, I can’t bear to lose him for a second time, not just when we’ve got him back.” Nick, of course.
But his mother hadn’t been wrong to think about the shelf life they had as valuable hostages. For each week the guerrillas maintained this situation, they added to the success of their mission, though they must be wary of overplaying their hand. News media were fickle, and once hostages faded from view, so too did their worth. Who really knew when such a time would come?
Although both parties had to share the incredible boredom his father’s diaries couldn’t quite capture—the repetitive elasticity of each day; the sitting around; the distastefulness of unwanted intimacy; the constant pangs of hunger and thirst—for the guerrillas it was bearable because time had a purpose. For the captives, each one of them had to find a way of dealing with despair and a homesickness that was graver than words could catch.
Martin recalled his father telling his mother that he didn’t think it prudent for her to let Jacques catch sight of the sketch she had done of him, buckled over, with Miguel, machete raised—an artistic license—above him. Sometimes it was better, he explained, not to see ourselves as others have seen us. Yes—Martin smiled—better to be the author of our own histories.
And so Martin carried on reading of how, in his father’s eyes—with its lethargy, its discomfort, and its humiliations—time passed.
Day Twenty
Strange things are happening to us. I write with a passion I thought had left me forever, Carol draws compulsively, and I find reams of poetry I thought I’d forgotten returning to me. It’s mostly of the rhyming kind. I resurrect it in my head—each verse is a loom with missing parts, but I find that if I can remember a few end words, I can weave the rest. It becomes something, I hope, to keep us amused. So I find myself, in our jungle theater, as the sun goes down, declaiming Morte d’Arthur by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to the other captives. As a student I recited it for drinks in the bar, but I haven’t done it for almost thirty years. It’s a sonorous piece and I’ve been rehearsing it in my head for days, yet still I’m surprised by how the words move me. Perhaps it’s simply tiredness that brings emotion so close to the surface. But I can tell, out of the corner of my eye, that my captors’ ears are drawn to the rhythm.
“For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?”
“Repeat, por favor.” It’s Rafael’s voice and he draws closer to catch the words. I recite them for him. “Again,” he says, as if there’s an urgency about what the words may say. Now he says them with me. His slight uncertainties, the awareness that he is shining a light on the words inside his head before he says them, slow down my usual delivery. I speak the lines as if for the first time.
“For what are men better than sheep or goats … If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?”
“Pah,” says Maria. “Impressive, but ‘hands of prayer’ will not clear corruption from our land.”
Rafael nods sadly. “You have something to say?” he asks.
“I’m amazed,” I say. “These lines, you speak them … like a poet.”
“Yes, I was a poet once.”
“And still you are,” says Maria, with a shake of her head, as if it’s a weakness.
“So, how did you go from a love of words to a love of guns?” asks Melanie.
Rafael smiles at her. “A brave question, señora, and it deserves a longer answer than I can give now.… At first my allegiance to the cause was not political, but simply cultural. I wanted to write poems in my language that addressed the history of my people. All of the history. All of the people.”
“But cultural allegiance is not enough,” says Maria, and she turns to Rafael as she says it, as if this is a conversation she has had with him many times.
“No,” says Rafael. “And that is what I learned from Maria. She always recognized the necessity of the political dimension.” Briefly he turns to her. “You see, she is the strong one.”
“And you,” says Maria, “you are still talking as a student.”
“Still,” says Melanie, “you have chosen a strange route for a poet.”
“Not so strange,” says Rafael. “And remember I said I was a poet. But anyway, what is poetry about but imagination? No, Mig
uel and El Taino are not literary men. But do you know the imagination it takes to see a new world, to hold it before your eyes? Yes, and to keep it there, even as your face is being ground down in the dust? Listen to me. You have been to the palacio in the capital, yes? You have seen on your fine tour the cases full of the symbols of power—the swords, the plumed hats, the medals awarded in all the wars of suppression. One day, my friends, we shall have a museum like that in every town. In it will be the shirts of men and women like Miguel and El Taino. There will also be photographs, yes, of what Quitano’s henchmen have done to them. You have seen Miguel’s back, yes? And the instruments of torture will also be there, but they will be behind glass, and speaking like so many accusing tongues of the cruelty of what has been. The scars on Miguel’s back—that is the map we follow, that is the symbol of our struggle.”
“This ‘we,’” I say, “who is this ‘we’?”
“Do you not listen?” says Maria. “It is the people, those who can never be blindfolded, silenced, defeated.”
“Yes,” says Rafael, “it is first of all them. Then it is the whole country and its history. We honour the living and the dead in our struggle.” He turns and gives Maria a gesture somewhere between a wave and a salute. Maria watches him go.
“You love him, don’t you?” says Melanie. The air grows strained as the question hangs there.
Maria turns her face stonily to her. “Love, you say? There are things greater than the individual heart. We meet, you know, as privileged white students. Rafael, he has hair that falls everywhere and it’s the colour, you know, of molasses. And everywhere he goes he is speaking poetry. As natural as breathing. But I see unhappiness in his eyes. I know he needs more—for himself as much as for his people. So we work, Rafael and I, and the love, the love becomes no more personal, no more selfish. It embraces the sufferings of Miguel too, and El Taino and all who want to see a better future. So, no, we do not share any more that ‘in love’ thing you like so much. The struggle is about feelings that are stronger and deeper. What can you know?”
