An Evil Cradling (25 page)

For a moment I despised these men for the anguish they had visited on my family. The great wellspring of compassion I felt for them drowned my fear.

We travelled bumping and jostling for fifteen minutes and then came to a halt. The men in the rear jumped out and I was taken from the van. Quickly my blindfold was removed. ‘Close eyes,’ a voice said as two men took me by the arm and walked me into a lighted building.

I was walked swiftly along a corridor and into what was obviously a doctor’s surgery. I squinted about me. My guards pushed me onto a chair. Another man, presumably a doctor, addressed me. He was extremely nervous, speaking quickly, his voice shaking. I described my condition and before I had finished he placed an instrument in my ear. I flinched with the pain. He spoke in Arabic and was gone. I sat with the guards’ hands clamped on my shoulders. A few minutes passed then I was taken back to the awaiting van. Another journey. To where, I wondered? Again I felt myself being dropped through that hole in the ground. Quietly I was walked back to the same cell. I sat again where I had always sat. My plan had failed. But I was untroubled. I felt only a great relief that a doctor had seen me. Now they would do something about my ears. One of the guards entered.

With real surprise he said ‘Why are you here?’ I shrugged, then asked him about what the doctor had said. He did not know. ‘Sleep,’ he said, and left.

I was too excited and too relieved to rest. When I was sure the guards had settled themselves in their own room I stood and peered over the top of my cell door. To my astonishment I saw in the cell opposite a man staring back at me. Only half of his face was visible.

We stood transfixed by each other, entranced and silent as though watching a miracle performed. I came to my senses and gesticulated with my hands telling him to wait. Rapidly, I dropped to the floor and grabbed one of the tissues. There had been a pen in my clothes, which they had given back to me. Quickly I scribbled on a piece of paper in large capitals ‘i am irish. I scrambled up to the door again. The other prisoner was standing, waiting. I held up the tissue for him to read. He signalled that he could not read it from his cell. I knew it would be extremely dangerous to cry out to him. Instead I thrust my hands and arms outside the bars and held the note to him. It seemed he was taking an eternity to read this simple message.

My legs ached and trembled with the effort of standing so long on my toes with my arms outstretched. ‘Hurry up, you fool; if the guards see this we will both be in trouble,’ I said quietly to myself. Then I saw his face change. His eyes seemed to light up. The frown from the effort of reading vanished. His eyebrows raised and his forehead wrinkled with surprised delight. Suddenly, ecstatically he was throwing me kisses and shouting in his old squeaky voice ‘I love you, beautiful, beautiful, I love you,’ his strong French accent betraying his nationality. He continued blowing kisses and exclaiming his devotion.

I panicked and gestured furiously for him to be silent. But he continued, oblivious of the danger. I dropped to my knees in desperation. ‘The crazy old fool,’ I muttered, excitement and fear filling me. I thought if he did not see me he might shut up. I stretched out on the floor and looked through the fan at my new-found friend’s cell. He was silent now but still watching.

Again I stood, signalling him to be silent. He blew me kisses and I returned them. The pathetic foolishness of what we were doing made me laugh, nodding and waving and blowing kisses to this old man. I was beginning to feel tears forming in my eyes.

I suddenly saw in the cell next to this old Frenchman’s, a figure move and another face appear. I had always known there was someone in that cell but had never seen him. Perhaps he had been too frightened to look out. It was obvious that the old man’s cries had caused this other prisoner to look when he thought it safe. I looked at this new face. He looked back. Then he raised his hand and waved it slowly like a metronome. I waved back. Three of us like silent marionettes waving and blowing kisses, caught in an awful wonder. I signalled to the old man that the person in the cell next to him was waving. He nodded and clasped both his hands over his head in a victory salute. I gestured to the other man to wait. I repeated what I had done with the message I had held up to the Frenchman. He nodded and began spelling the word ‘American’ with his finger, tracing the letters in the air. As he was doing this another face appeared alongside his. We exchanged waves. On another tissue I wrote ‘My friend is English.’ Again they nodded and began to spell their surnames. Sutherland and Anderson. The old Frenchman, understanding that I was communicating with the cell next to his, began crying out again, ‘Beautiful, beautiful.’ I watched the two Americans rapidly disappear at the sound of his voice. I laughed loudly. It was like watching coconuts knocked from their stands at a fairground. I signalled the old man to be quiet and waved to him as if to say goodnight. I signalled goodnight by resting my head on my hands, and sat down knowing there would be little sleep. My cell was filled with invisible strangers.

Next morning I breakfasted with my secret knowledge. I knew John was in one of the other cells. I wondered if my new comrades might know if he was near them. I was anxious to communicate with them. When my turn came I washed quickly. I had counted the number of doors opening and closing before the guards came for me.

It seemed that there was one more door banging closed than had been the case before John’s move from my cell. I was sure he was still here, though the appearance of two Americans in one cell cast some doubt on my assumption. I stood waiting as my cell door was unlocked. I walked in and heard it bang behind me. I lifted my blindfold and saw the smiling face ofjohn McCarthy. ‘Couldn’t stay away, could you!’ I said with smiling nonchalance. John returned my greeting. ‘I was convinced you had gone home, I recognized your shoes passing my cell door.’ ‘Peeking through the fan again, naughty!’ I joked back.

I told him the events of the night before, my visit to the doctor and my contact with the other captives. John knew they were Americans.

He had been kept in the cell next to them and heard them talking to the guards. ‘I have some bad news for you,’ he said slowly. ‘We are with Islamic Jihad.’ We both knew the consequences of this knowledge but chose not to speak of it.

I continued to complain of my hearing. I knew that the visit to the doctor must have some outcome. I was sure the doctor was terrified but believed that he would at least provide medicine. Three days after we had made contact with the Americans one of the guards came to our cell. He presented me with a course of very strong anti-biotics and promised to return in some days with ear drops. It was ten days before they arrived. However the penicillin and the companionship of near , faces worked their own magic.

The next days and weeks were spent signalling to the Americans. It was a long and difficult process, spelling out words letter by letter, but we persevered. The need to communicate was greater than the risk involved. After a few days of this laborious activity I suggested to John it would be less complicated and no more dangerous to secrete written messages in the toilet overnight and the Americans could pick them up the next morning. We conveyed this to the Americans. There was a hole in the wall high above the sink. We would leave messages there for collection. We would also leave the pen so the Americans could return a message. They had told us that they had no news of events outside since their capture. We had lots to tell them, too much for hand signals.

It was necessary to write very small and on thin paper. Too much bulk would be discovered and hard to transport. The tissues we intended writing on were too soft. They either tore, or the tiny script became illegible as the pen imprinted onto it. We discovered a method of hardening the paper, thus allowing us to write as small as we wished. We separated the double layers of tissue into a thin single sheet. This sheet we soaked with water and held in front of the fan until it dried. It was now hard and resistant to tearing. We penned voluminous notes about world events, and the continuing campaign in America for the hostages. I was able to tell Tom Sutherland about his wife, as I had worked with her at the University. John and Terry, both journalists, had lots in common. The finished letter was then rolled around the pen and tied tightly with a thread pulled from our bedcover.

We each took turns delivering and collecting the correspondence.

With our first message we instructed the Americans to let us know the following morning that they had successfully collected the letter.

Confirmation would be conveyed by rattling something against the spinning blades of the door fan. Every morning we sat waiting for that noise.

Our anxiety about this exchange of letters soon made us change the hiding place. The wash hand basin rested on two hollow steel pipes. Into this we inserted the pen with its message tied around it. A short length of thread was left hanging out of the pipe so that the pen could be drawn out. For over a week the pen passed secretly across the prison. We devoured each letter as it arrived, but there was a limit to the amount of new information we had to exchange. Even the attempt to play chess by post soon petered out. Each letter ended with the words ‘Coppula earn, se non posit acceptera jocularum.’

As the week progressed the letters were becoming more dangerous.

Sooner or later someone would be caught. Then one morning John returned to the cell with a letter. There were only a few words on it.

The pen had dried up, and it was impossible to replace. I felt empty and angry. Our game had come to an end. The little piece of victory that each letter represented was taken from us. For hours I sat with the pen trying to make it work. It was hopeless. We began again spelling out conversations.

Terry Anderson came to the rescue. He had devised his own version of the deaf and dumb alphabet. He taught it to John and John passed it on to me. It was like learning to read and write again. For hours John and I would sit silent in the cell practising this strange hand-language.

So intense was our concentration that frequently as we spoke we would automatically signal words. Our hands had become our mouths. They danced in the air, telling silent stories and jokes.

But our written communication had not ended with the pen. We had continued to save the silver paper from the packet of cigarettes we were given every three days. The foil from the cheese we also squirrelled away. I would store anything and everything. ‘This place is like a rubbish tip,‘John would complain. ‘What are we going to do with all that silver paper? You’ve already made three chess sets and all those other daft games that only a daft Irishman could think of.’ ‘Well I might make some Christmas decorations. But I am seriously thinking of opening a shop!’

Amongst the ‘pruck’ as I called it was a cigarette box and matchboxes, cotton buds for my ears, dead matches, stubs of candles and candle wax. One day I took some of the silver cigarette paper and a match. I was just about to begin imprinting some crude design on the foil when it struck me. ‘I’ve got it John-boy, I’ve got it. Fuck the bastards, we’ve beaten them again’ I burst out excitedly. John looked at me. He was used to what he called my ‘homebred Irish insanity’.

‘What are you raving about now? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear. You are more crazy than these halfwits who have locked us up. I am going to sue you for mental torment when I get out of here. Now what is it?’ John was fascinated. ‘Simply a piece of exquisite Irish genius,’ I said, mocking his accent. I handed over the cigarette foil with the words ‘Brits out’ scrawled on it. ‘Look, with this match, or anything pointed, you can write.’ I reached over and flicked my fingers against the fan. Tom Sutherland stood up across the passageway.

I signalled the words ‘Tomorrow a letter.’ His puzzled expression made me laugh. Again I signalled him to watch. I held up the cigarette paper and the match. He could not see the match. ‘Wait,’ I signalled again. ‘John, quick, give me a cotton bud.’ He handed it to me and I held it up for the Americans to see. Terry Anderson was now also looking across at me beside Tom. I held up the silver paper again.

They nodded. Then with my other hand I held up the cotton bud; again they nodded. I tore the cotton end off and pretended to write on the foil. Anderson instantly understood. His eyes blazed, he raised his two fists above his head, puncturing the air. His delight was rapturous and infectious. The postal service was re-established with tubes of silver cigarette paper being delivered to and collected from our hiding place under the sink.

Our days of finger talk and the ‘hammam’ mail service slowly petered out. Again we had exhausted the news we could meaningfully share. Days went by when we did not bother communicating across the ‘Great Divide’ between ourselves and the Americans. John and I once more retreated into our endless games of dominoes. Long intense discussions on English and Irish politics were always given some light relief by our ‘telephone conversations’: John and I, sitting in separate corners of the cell with our hands on our ears holding imaginary telephones, as Margaret Thatcher and Charlie Haughey engaged in long exchanges.

Charlie: Hello, hello, oh hello, Margaret. , . What’s that, Margaret, you wanted to speak to me about something important. You mean you’re thinking of … No, no of course you’re not thinking of resigning. I know, I know, Margaret, you don’t believe in that word. Yes I remember what you said about the divine right of Prime Ministers …

Thatcher: Charlie, you do remember Boadicea?

Charlie: Of course, Margaret… But she was a Celt and overcame the alien invaders. She was …

Thatcher: An inspiration, Charles. But history has been rewritten since the British Empire. I am the new warrior queen and I will…

Charlie: Yes, yes of course you will, your holiness … Now what exactly was it you wanted … at 4 o’clock in the morning …

Yes, yes I know time stands still when the Queen is on her throne. But we lesser mortals need our sleep … There is a difficult situation in the Middle East, of course, Margaret. It’s been there since the British Empire. How can the Irish help you, Margaret?