A Long Walk Home: One Woman's Story of Kidnap, Hostage, Loss - and Survival (20 page)

But this was typical Kaalim: a fully paid-up member of the awkward squad. He had a cocksure, chauvinistic edge to him, and seemed always to want to be loudly at the centre of any masculine gathering. One early morning before I had received my blanket I had crept out to the toilet past him and some other pirates, and he must have seen I was shivering, for he opened up his blanket with a grin as if to say I should join him. The ‘lads’ appreciated his gag: he got the laugh he was after. For my part I’d have sooner cuddled up to a snake.

On another occasion his chauvinism was more actively unpleasant and disturbing. However, I was not the target of it.

I had got accustomed to Amina’s daughter drifting into my room to sit idly while I walked. She was short and round just like her mother and it was difficult to engage with her initially. But after a while I grew used to her. She was like the standard shiftless teenager in that respect, and I was glad of her presence. On this particular morning she was playing music on her mobile through earphones, and she beckoned me over for a listen, laughing and jigging about delightedly. I imitated her, just for the fun of it. Then she showed me a photo on the phone, of the female singer, a beautiful woman with coffee-coloured skin, painted lips and long lustrous hair, her cleavage on show in a tight, red, low-cut, V-necked dress. I couldn’t imagine what she thought of this particular vision of femininity, though I had a
clear enough view of her culture’s opinion. At any rate I resumed my walking, she her listening, until Kaalim intruded on us, and I knew straight away by his surly expression that he didn’t like this scene one bit.

He strode up and stuck his hand between the girl’s legs – an act that shocked me, and utterly startled the girl, who pushed herself backwards and shot out of the chair, screaming at him. He snatched the phone from her, but she snatched it back, irate, and wagged a finger at him while tucking the phone into a belt round her waist. Kaalim ripped the
khimar
off her head, took her by the shoulders and shook her. Still she bravely resisted, bashing him on the chest with her fists. But he only laughed. He was much larger and stronger than her, and finally he shoved her back onto the floor. As she grasped about for her
khimar
he stepped towards her.

‘
Maya
[no]!’, I shouted.

He stopped and stared at me with scorn. I backed off, worried now, but this had given the girl enough time to get up and run out. Finally Kaalim stomped off too, muttering oaths. I saw no one else for the rest of that day.

The one person from this nightmare I sensed I might feel agreeably towards was Amina. She had shown kindness and fellow feeling to me without my asking, and that had been precious. But even if I wanted to overlook her function and complicity in the pirates’ operation, little reminders presented themselves none the less. One night she visited me with Ali, and as the two of them chatted a little between themselves she let out a big engaging laugh, slapping her thigh and dipping her head – whereupon I glimpsed something within the fold of her
khimar
,
something glinting and shiny. She and I were ‘friendly’ enough that I could presume, so I came over to her, very carefully moved her headdress aside, smiling all the while and maintaining eye contact, for ‘trust’, and I could see she was wearing a quite fabulous pair of gold drop earrings, like mini chandeliers on her lobes.

I said to Ali, ‘Tell Amina, she must be very, very rich! Lots of money!’

She laughed without any seeming irony. Her finery was an ill-gotten gain, perhaps, but there was no point in my pursuing that with her. She was consistently good to me. One afternoon she brought me a small ripened melon, plonking it into my hands with her familiar secretive index finger to her lips. I thanked her, she touched my face, smiled, and I did the same to her. Once she was gone I faced a quandary: how to get the delicious-looking thing sliced open, with nothing but a fork and a spoon at my disposal. There was nothing I wanted more. But if I bashed it on the ground then I expected it would splat rather than split. So great was my need that, unwisely, I stuck my head out of doors, thinking about a pair of scissors that I knew the pirates kept stashed in the low breezeblock wall. But as luck would have it Kaalim was exiting Room 4 at that same moment, and he shouted at me, and harried me back indoors.

‘Knife,’ I said. ‘Need knife.’

‘What? What?’ He shook his head, indignant. Then he saw the melon, and glowered at me. ‘What
this
?’

I indicated that I needed to slice it. He went out and returned brandishing a blade.

‘
Mahadsanid
,’ I said, a shade too soon.

With one blow he chopped the melon in half and scooped up one piece for himself. Then he glared again.

‘Where get? Where?’

‘Amina,’ I said helplessly.

‘
Amina!
’ he spat, and walked out.

I scooped up my half and ate messily: it was such a treat, I was glad of half. Kaalim sat outside and noisily dissected and ate his confiscated treasure, spitting the pips. The downside for me was that I suspected I had got Amina in trouble, and that this could be the last of my secret privileges. Sure enough I didn’t see her in the days that followed. I hoped at least I’d have an opportunity to say goodbye to her.

One of the unquestionable bonuses of the Big House over the Horrible House was the relative dearth of unwanted small intruders: roaches, flies and spiders were all in evidence, but not to the same sickening extent. However, a couple of visitors who never failed to disconcert me were two pointy-beaked birds that looked rather like ring-necked doves – grey with a subtle pink hue on their breasts. They made a habit of flying in under the eaves and then roosting on the opposite top of the wall, where there was no escape for them, and so they cooed and scratched about. Their presence perturbed me on account of a very specific and unpleasant memory from childhood, of a day when I was accidentally locked inside an aviary, and found myself terrified as the birds flew up and around me. The trauma was such that even the pigeons congregating in Trafalgar Square reduce me to a nervous wreck. Now I hated sharing my confinement with this pair.

When one of them flew suddenly across the room I must have screamed, for Jamal came running in, with his gun at the ready. I pointed frantically at the birds, to let him know I’d have no
objection to his dispatching them with bullets. But he only grinned and said, ‘No problem.’ I didn’t agree.

While I was now quite well inured to insect life I could still get a surprise in that department too. While playing word games with my torch one night I sensed something in my peripheral vision, shone the beam around – and lit up a large green praying mantis, unmistakable with its inquisitive head and two spiky forelegs. Again I must have shouted out, because in seconds Ibrahim darted in bearing his
AK
47. Seeing the source of the disturbance he took a broom that I had been using to sweep the room earlier that day, pushed his gun into my hands, and began to chase the mantis out of the room. I stood there holding this Russian assault rifle, thinking (a) how heavy it was and (b) how incredibly unprofessional Ibrahim was to let me have it. Ali then stumbled in, and doubtless found the scene most irregular.

I had to laugh. I was going home soon, and so a little slackness on the security front made no great difference to me or the pirates.

I had counted off the days as Ali had indicated. I assumed Ali was as inwardly excited as me at the prospect that ‘he go’ when ‘I go’. And so I went to bed hopeful on 10 December, and rose as usual on 11 December, but in the faith that this was D-Day, departure day.

I waited for Ali to show up and give me my instructions – orders to pack, directions on where we were headed. However, the day very quickly began to seem disturbingly like any other. On my toilet visit I looked around outside, but Ali was nowhere to be seen. I glanced to the pirates’ Room 3, knowing Ali always slept on the same mattress, just underneath the window.
Ordinarily the most fleeting of glances could establish his presence. But he wasn’t there.

I didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps, then, Ali had been released from his particular bondage to the pirates and was headed back to his family. But it didn’t seem that I was going anywhere, or else no one cared to tell me. I walked, alone, and tried not to dwell on my rising disappointment.

At night my rice was brought by one of the pirates who spoke no English at all. I looked up at him disconsolately.

‘I go home?’ I said. He looked at me as if my speaking was highly irregular, turned and left.

I felt utterly crushed, and angry at myself – at my sheer folly in believing some scrap fed back to me, purportedly from the Fat Controller of all people. Why had I bought into Ali’s yarn this time after his assorted previous lies? There was an element of turning circles, of Groundhog Day, to all of this. Would I ever get home? How was I going to manage in the meantime without Ali in his communications and liaison role?

As ever I knew I had to pick myself up:
OK, so you don’t go home today. Tomorrow is a new phase, then. Brace yourself to get through it.
But this time it took a very concerted effort.

My birthday on Monday, 12 December 2011 was a small and miserable affair. I had told Ali it was coming, but now he was gone. Late in the day I felt somewhat heartened to see Amina creep in. I got up to greet her, we shook hands and smiled as was our way. Then she put her finger to her lips, made her hushing sound and produced from under the folds of her
jilbab
a plastic bottle of Sprite lemonade. Later, when the deed was done, Amina crept back and spirited away the evidence of the empty bottle – my best and only birthday present.

So I returned to square one. For weeks previous I had been actively keen to receive fresh stores of water, batteries for my torch and radio, a new book to scribble in. Now the sight of new provisions cast me into gloom – made me fear there were no active plans for me, no word in sight from anyone about anything, just the drear sense that I would be languishing here a while longer.

I had been getting ready mentally never to see the pirates again. Now I had to drag myself back to the chore of
interrelating
with them, seeking their favour. I had begun to notice a further symptom of their seeming wish to avoid most forms of exchange with me. Whenever I drained a small bottle of Bosaso water I would put the ‘empty’ down beside the front door, near my black wash-water container. Gradually I got used to a particular and peculiar sight, that of a black-skinned arm creeping round my open doorway, groping about, locating an empty bottle and snatching it away. What I figured out eventually was that the men wanted the bottles as receptacles into which to decant their brews of sweet tea while on night watch.

Right,
I resolved,
if they want them they’ll have to come in and ask.

Instead of putting the bottles by the door I took to replacing the empties in the box that was my makeshift bedside table. The pirates soon realised that their groping expeditions were coming up with nothing. One night Bambi came in looking shifty and pointed to my box.

‘
Biyo
[water]?’

‘Ah, yes …’ I said, pretending to cotton on, and fetched him an empty bottle. In no time at all the others were following suit. I called this another little victory, however meagre. I’d encouraged some good manners, a little more human interaction.
In an abnormal situation you do value the establishment of certain norms.

Ali had been gone for four days: I was dealing with his departure in the only way I could, by trying to stay occupied. I was writing at the table on the fifth night when he came through the door, and I could have fallen off my chair in surprise.

‘Ali, I thought you’d gone home.’

He shook his head. ‘No, no, they take me, looking for ships.’

‘Ships? Are we near the coast here?’

‘No, no. Ships far away.’ He gestured. ‘We go there in car, and we see four ships.’

‘OK.’

‘Yes, very bad.’

I had been puzzling a little over what purpose this viewing of ships would serve. His wary tone now suggested that the pirates were sizing up some new piratical venture.

‘So, you and me – we no go? We still here?’

‘Yeah … No go. Money not come through.’ He shrugged.

I looked at him carefully. He certainly didn’t look as disappointed as I had felt when my D-Day dream had turned to dust.

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said finally. ‘I don’t believe the Fat Controller ever told you money was nearly there. I wasn’t ever going home last week, was I?’

His brow furrowed. ‘Yes, oh yes. We go home soon.’

‘No, I don’t believe you. And I don’t like lies. I’d rather you told me I’m going to be stuck here for a year, so long as it was the truth.’

‘No, we go home soon. You go, I go.’

I waved a hand in front of his face. ‘Stop it. I don’t want to hear it.’ I turned away, unable to stomach any more
faux-naïf
fakery.

‘You angry?’ he said to my back.

‘Not angry, no.’

He wandered out. I wasn’t convinced he had my feelings at heart. Rather, I felt he wanted to be sure I wasn’t about to make a fuss, to be ‘difficult’. It seemed to suit the pirates to keep the temperature of my spirits at a manageable level. And to that end they would tell me anything – or, rather, have Ali tell me.

The next day I saw Ali again around 1 p.m. and he gave off the demeanour that nothing much had happened, really. I was finishing a little bit of potato I had saved from ‘breakfast’, as my ‘lunch’. Ali mentioned that he was going outside for a walk.

‘That would be so nice,’ I murmured.

‘You want to come?’ he said with a smile.

‘Yeah,’ I stood up. ‘Of course.’

His smile wavered. ‘Ah, tomorrow. Tomorrow we do.’

I sat back down, unsurprised, and returned to my potato. ‘Tomorrow never comes, Ali.’