We left after dinner and after dark on Day 63 (Valentine’s Day) but after travelling only about an hour we suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere—no rocks, no trees, just undulating sand. Thus, Camp Outside. Our blankets were thrown down at our feet and we were told we would be spending the night. We slept on one side of three tightly grouped trucks and they bedded down on the other. Sentries were posted and everybody was asleep in minutes.
The next day we set out just after dawn. Louis and I were assigned to the truck driven by Abdul Rahman. It was a surprise to be travelling with the camp emir, and I had the impression that this severe and taciturn man wanted to tell us things without having to rely on the doubtful mercies of Hassan as interpreter. However, it was going to be difficult as AR had only a smattering of French. After nearly an hour of travelling in complete silence, he rummaged in his robes and wordlessly handed us each a tiny pair of folding scissors, the kind you get in the higher-end Christmas crackers. Evidently he was trying to be accommodating. I think it was to offset the fiasco of the meeting the previous evening, during which Hassan had refused to interpret AR’s long answer to my question about the state of negotiations. It was a confusing but not unwelcome gesture. After that, with hand signals, a few dozen words of French and palpable frustration, he explained that he had no idea where the negotiations stood. This at least told us that there were negotiations.
Elaborating further he noted, “The Canadians tell us that there is always another meeting … always somebody else who needs to be consulted,” and, yes, that sounded like home. Bitterly, he told us, “A special emissary was to come to a meeting with us, but he never showed up.” We had no inkling of what that might be about.
We drove until noon, when we stopped in a very different landscape from Camp Canada. This was harder, harsher desert: almost no greenery, a couple of stubby, thin acacias around which they made their camp, and we were told to use the shady side of one of the trucks. However, as it was near midday, with our backs against the truck we had only a strip of shade about fifty centimetres wide in which to cower from the sun. We rigged our bit of blue tarp to various points on the truck and found what shelter we could. When we asked how long we would be at this site, Hassan, swelling in his role of acting hostage manager in Omar’s absence, replied, “a few hours or maybe weeks.” But the whole arrangement seemed transitory, temporary—as if they were waiting for something.
Louis had sensed something fishy and in pretending to fiddle with the tarp, he spied an operating tape recorder wedged between the door against which we were leaning and the seat. He told me about it as we were off collecting rocks to hold down the tarp, and we considered spending a couple of hours detailing the thousand ways Hassan was a prick—but prudence prevailed. I don’t think this gambit was tried again, but who knows?
Around us were seven rather phallic, hoodoo-like rocky outcroppings rising from the desert floor and, in the middle, one softer, rounder formation (we’d been in the desert a long time), so we named that camp Seven Brothers and One Sister. Once the recorder ploy had failed, we were directed to make camp on the far side of a small dune, separating them from us, with no cover whatsoever. We convinced our guards to let us have four metal tent poles and then attached “our” rug at the four corners to create a canopy that offered a reasonable amount of shade. Hassan, no doubt annoyed at the failure of his attempted bugging, arbitrarily rejected our first two walking tracks and then screamed at Louis for repeatedly staring at the brothers. “We know,” he shouted, “you are collecting information for Western intelligence agencies and this behaviour must stop now or there will be severe repercussions.”
This was a serious and dangerous accusation and I needed to put it to rest fast, or a Louis-the-spy infection would spread among our jailers. I took Hassan aside and walked with him far from Louis and the others. When I insisted that I didn’t know what he had been talking about, Hassan said that Louis had them under constant observation and was clearly filing data away in the hope that one day he might be able to use it against them. I retorted that Hassan clearly didn’t like Louis and was making things up to generate ill will toward my friend and colleague.
Hassan vigorously rejected my claim and demanded that I watch Louis myself and come to my own conclusion. In the meantime, and until Louis desisted, Hassan blustered rather under-whelmingly, there would be no more access to the Belgian high school history books.
So I did. I watched Louis to see if he was staring at them, and … he was. But it was so very clearly, at least to me, not to “observe and report” but simply because they were our entertainment. What they were up to was the only diversion available—more interesting than staring into the empty desert. There was no doubt, though, that Louis would sit and stare, sometimes without even seeing, just letting his mind wander while looking in their direction. Obviously, this had to stop. Our kidnappers were quite paranoid enough.
I explained all this to Louis and he gallantly agreed to try to observe himself. Soon he allowed that he did spend more time looking in their direction than in any other. So we contrived, whenever possible, to put his back to wherever they were and I’d quietly snap my fingers when he resumed his vigil. Eventually he largely weaned himself from this source of passive entertainment and our captors became less aggressive.
In the evening of our third day at Seven Brothers (Day 66), we had just made up our bed when out of the blue one of the children brought us a litre Tetra Pak of mango juice. It was the most wonderful drink I have ever had. We savoured every drop, swishing the nectar around in our mouths. We had a long discussion about how much we would consume then and there and how much we would save at least for the morrow. The morrow option didn’t do very well.
An hour later, as we were sitting on our blankets watching the stars, Omar Two of all people showed up with a bag of candies, another Tetra Pak of juice, a package of some kind of sticky, sweet pastry, and a large, stuffed-full plastic bag. We looked up at him uncomprehendingly. With a grimace, which we took to be the best smile he could manage, he simply said, “These are for you,” and left. We had no idea what was going on. We wolfed down the sticky sweet thing, reserved the juice, and tore open the bag. Inside were two brightly coloured and very cheaply made tracksuits—but no shoes, socks, or underwear.
We were, of course, pleased with these goodies, but what did they mean? At this point—and it was really the only time I fell up a rabbit hole—I put together the facts that we had suddenly left Camp Canada with little warning, that for the past four days we seemed to have been waiting for something external to the camp to happen, and that a truck had clearly just come in bearing these welcome supplies and possibly news, and concluded that we had received our “liberation suits.” We had seen the news clips: the hostages emerge from a vehicle wearing spanking new, identical tracksuits and are handed over to the Red Cross or some other group of smiling authorities. I really wanted to see that movie and concluded that we were about to star in it.
Louis didn’t completely fall for my logic, but needless to say, he liked the idea. We drank off half of the second litre of juice in celebration of our imminent release. I stayed awake all night in a state of euphoria. Loving the stars, loving life, so very excited about seeing my family.
The next day we broke camp early. There didn’t seem to be as much excitement in the air as I had expected, but they did smile at our having changed our rags for the bright, new, itchy, and utterly incongruous-looking tracksuits. We travelled all day and covered a lot of ground: lots of speed across wide flat spaces. But there was no mood of something significant about to happen. My euphoria began to ebb. Soon there was nothing left but a sweaty, chafing, and silly tracksuit whose zipper had already broken. By the time we reached a camp we called Thornhill (for obvious reasons), I was in another deep and disappointed funk and I swore that thenceforth I would never again indulge in such self-delusion.
This camp was not unpleasant, even if there was a surfeit of thorns hiding in the s
and. We were situated far from our jailers and had an outstanding walking track—seven circuits to the kilometre—but unfortunately a number of other creatures were also in residence. Omar One later reported that six vipers and nine scorpions had been dispatched over the two weeks we spent at Thornhill, in addition to our own kills.
I was again plagued by constipation (perhaps it was the prospect of squatting over desert vipers), and just as I feared we would have to deploy “the instrument,” Omar One returned from his traditional cure on Day 80. He asked how we had been bearing up, and I told him of the return of my bowel problems. The next day he showed up with a dog-eared package of appropriate pills but gave no hint from where or how long they had been available. There were twenty pills in bubble packaging and after endless calculation, I broke one in half, chewed it, and—as advertised on the package—within twelve hours everything worked. So, I had thirty-nine further chances to defeat the problem before again resorting to mechanical means, and that was comforting. That package became my most valuable possession. I never went anywhere without those pills secreted somewhere in my clothes.
Around Day 81 (4 March) at Thornhill, in the context of a game of Twenty Questions, Hassan told me, “We are seeking the release of twenty of our brothers in return for your freedom,” and by that it was clear—even if I cannot remember what made it so—that he was referring to all seven of their captives.
I then asked, “Is it a reasonable list; that is, one the relevant governments could possibly agree to?” Smiling, he allowed that it was. Without further elaboration I had the impression that we shared more or less the same understanding of what constituted “reasonable.” I couldn’t figure out whether Hassan’s transmittal of this information was sanctioned.
While Louis and I talked about everything, we inevitably ended up discussing some aspect of what it would take to get us out of there. Those were rarely very uplifting conversations. The essential issues—those that determined whether we would live or die and, if we lived, in what kind of shape we would emerge from this ordeal—were, from my perspective, neither numerous nor complicated. I was utterly preoccupied with these pertinent questions. Would the United Nations and Canada be able to work out an arrangement for effectively handling our case and avoid getting in each other’s way? Would the Canadian government take a stand on principle (tough, inflexible: “We do not deal with Al Qaeda”), in which case we would die, or would the Prime Minister be pragmatic and instruct the public service to find a way to get us home without offending such principles? Would the right person be put in charge within the bureaucracy, with the right authority to cause our case to be managed in our best interests? Would a clear and informed decision be made over which agency of government was given the lead responsibility for knitting together and reconciling the diverse and sometimes conflicting strands of our situation? Would Canada work well (that is, in a manner likely to bring about our release) with our friends and allies and their various agencies, as well as with our African partners in the region? And, so very important, would our families be properly and sympathetically briefed, involved, and protected, and would our friends at home and abroad support them?
Louis and I debated endlessly—literally ad nauseam—what it would take to gain our release. We calculated all the permutations and combinations of the extent to which the United Nations and its current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, would be influenced by the UN aristocracy (the five permanent, unelected members of the Security Council), and concluded that this sort of conjecture was unlikely to improve our sleeping patterns.
Louis believed that eventually—perhaps only after many, many months—our abductors would tire of the costs and risks of holding us, leading them to release us in some form of “humanitarian gesture.” I simply did not believe that Al Qaeda did humanitarian gestures, and insisted that they had a rep to protect as the meanest buggers in the valley. There was no room in their raison d’être for generosity. In short, I believed—no, I knew—that they would have to get enough if we were to be released. I agreed with Louis that they would not bear the costs and suffer the inconvenience of holding us for a great length of time, but disagreed that this would inexorably lead to our release. He, perfectly reasonably, wanted me to explain how much was enough, and I said with increasing exasperation that I had no bloody idea. But that didn’t mean my analysis was wrong.
One afternoon at Thornhill we saw half a dozen of our guards drag a huge bag across the wide-open space between where they camped on the other side of a dune and our designated spot. In the middle of this football field-sized space they began to dig and were at it for a few hours. Eventually they dumped the bag into the hole, filled it in, and were at pains to flatten and smooth out all traces of their excavations. It seemed obvious to us that they were caching supplies of some sort—we later learned they were hiking boots—but we had never seen them do it like this before and it unnerved us to know that they did not mind our observing the whole thing.
Similarly, Hassan had taken to showing up at odd times, always wanting to talk or, rather, to spar. Often we saw him wrapping his scarf tightly around his head and face as he approached. Were we just imagining it or was he becoming more careless about the possibility we could subsequently identify him?
And then there was the matter of where Soumana was. In previous camps we had been able to see him. Now we could not. Had he been freed? Killed? Was he sick? We asked, but the answers seemed increasingly evasive.
Little things took on greater significance and small frustrations exacted a heavy toll. I first lost my spoon at Thornhill. I have always been a fastidious eater and I didn’t want to eat—like them—with my hands. I spent hours on my hands and knees excavating our entire area in my version of an archeological grid, but to no avail. Everything disappeared into the sand. Leave it on the ground for thirty seconds and it was gone. Our captors were always losing tools and utensils. Twice I saw them perform a two-jack tire change and then drive off over one of the jacks, causing it to disappear into the sand.
I sat down and traced every movement we had made that day in my mind. We had moved our sleeping position, and while I had covered both comprehensively, I recalled that our habit after eating dinner was to stick our spoons, handle first, into the sand by our heads so we could find them the next morning. Returning to our first position, I lay down where I thought I had been the night before and, with eyes closed, stuck my imaginary spoon in the sand beside my head and between the roots of an acacia—and there it was.
I was to repeat this whole routine a week later and then again a few days after that, but then it would not be found. I asked for another and was curtly refused. So I was reduced to shovelling whatever mess of rice or pasta was on offer out of the bowl and into my face, in the dark, with my 77 mm Canon lens cap, which had been in my pocket when we were taken twelve weeks previously. Eventually I petitioned Jaffer, who had been newly appointed camp commandant to replace a weary and burnt-out Abdul Rahman, and without a word he pulled a spoon out of the pocket of his jelabiyah and handed it to me.
As we wandered about the Sahara, our movements dictated by no pattern or rationale we could discern, we faced a variety of other trials, but by far the most taxing were the ravages of the psychological roller coaster that racked us back and forth between hope and despair.
From Day 3, at the Board of Directors, I considered suicide a valid option among the few available to me, and I tried to ensure that I had or could get the means to end my life should I deem that it had become intolerable. I’m glad to note that I was never seriously tempted, and despite my extreme depression and confusion in those early horrible days and nights, I knew that such an act would have to be weighed exceedingly carefully against the devastating impact on my family and, most immediately, on Louis. I agree with those—like Mary—who hold that suicide is an essentially selfish act in all but the most extreme circumstances, but from my late teens I’ve deemed it nonetheless a legitimate choice, the ultimate act of free w
ill.
Our fanatical captors, however, while anxious, even impatient, to get past this veil of tears and into paradise, consider suicide among the most heinous and unforgivable of sins. Therefore, any such option had to be surreptitiously preserved and never telegraphed, even to Louis. I was careful to protect the tiny pair of folding scissors that Abdul Rahman had given to each of us as we left Camp Canada and was loath to lend them to Louis even when he could not locate his own, and despite the fact that he was working on our constantly deteriorating shoes. Those centimetre-long blades offered cold comfort against the possibility of extreme suffering, but comfort nonetheless, even if it would take some doing with such an instrument.
At times I came very close to losing heart, when my reserves were nearing empty and I generally considered our situation all but irredeemable, but hope never deserted me completely. From the outset, I believed that the likelihood of our emerging alive from such a trial would be, as the Duke of Wellington said about Waterloo, “a damned nice thing—the nearest run thing you ever saw.”
On occasion I wondered if in such extreme circumstances I ought to reconsider a lifetime of committed atheism and seek—though I knew not how—comfort or inspiration from the god to whom Louis prayed. But God just wasn’t there for me. I have never had any religious beliefs of any sort, despite a number of well-intentioned people seeking to instil them within me (and, just to be clear, I am not referring to my Al Qaeda proselytizers). God never joined me in that shallow Saharan foxhole and I knew, and was quite serene about the fact, that He was never going to do so.
God was there for Louis, however, offering him support and consolation, and buttressing his penchant for seeing the bright side of things as I meandered about on the darker side. Without doubt, this helped me enormously. When I was unable to drag Louis out of a hole, his God stepped in and helped. When Louis was tempted to join me in holes of my making, his God helped him to avoid such traps. So, perhaps in a way God was there for me too, but we never established any kind of a direct relationship.
A Season in Hell Page 19
