Captivity (43 page)
Authors: James Loney
MARCH 13
DAY 108
Harmeet is taken downstairs by Nephew to help with preparing lunch. This gives me and Norman a chance to talk. “You know, this conflict between you and me,” he says, lifting my wrist with his handcuff, “it’s really the consequence of these, isn’t it? We’re two very different people with very different habits and ways of coping with this situation that we’re in. That’s why.”
His voice is gentle, but there’s an edge of finality in it, as if this settles everything.
“Yes, I agree,” I say. “This is very difficult for all of us. And yes, we are quite different. But I was quite hurt by the way that you talked to me. I felt really dismissed. Attacked, actually. It was so strong and happened so suddenly. It felt like it came right out of the blue, as if there was something more behind it. Is there something more that you need to say?”
“Well, it’s just that we’re very different people, aren’t we?”
“Yes, that’s true. Is that your answer to my question?”
“Basically, yes. William Blake is one of my heroes and I guess I didn’t like the way he was being attacked.”
“I wasn’t trying to attack William Blake. I didn’t even know it was his poem. I guess, if it had been Gerard Manley Hopkins we were talking about, I’d have jumpped to his defence. I was joking around, taking a potshot at poets who try to justify things that don’t quite work.”
“But you choose your words very carefully, much more carefully than I do. You really think before you use a word, and when you do, it means something.”
“And I chose ‘clunk’ very deliberately. I don’t know much about poetry—nothing at all about Blake—but when I heard it … There’s this lovely build of phrase—‘tiger tiger burning bright/in the forests of the night’—and I felt my ear was being prepared for a beautiful rhyme, and then it doesn’t carry through. I was disappointed. And there’s the word ‘symmetry’—there is no symmetry in the sound. The stanza fails to deliver what he sets up for the ear to hear. So just because it’s William Blake—”
“It doesn’t mean he can’t write a piece of bad verse,” Norman says.
“That’s right. It was when you said, ‘When you can write poetry as good as Blake, then you can criticize,’ that’s what really hurt. Now as a principle—that you have to be at least as good as the person you want to criticize—that’s not a sound principle. How, in the first place, would you make that judgment—what is good, and who is good enough? And really, with that kind of criterion, how could we
have any discussion at all about art or literature or film? But I was trying to think, why was I so hurt? And I guess it’s probably my writer’s ego was attacked—every writer has one. But that’s an ongoing struggle.”
“Well, we are such different characters, hopefully we can respect each other in our differences,” Norman says.
“Yes, we’re going to have different opinions about things and we need to allow each other to have those opinions. It isn’t always easy to respect each other in that. I hope that you feel respected by me. Maybe there are ways you feel that I don’t respect you?”
“No, not really. It’s an example of our differences, but not something I—”
“That’s what hurt so much yesterday. I felt like you just didn’t respect me. I know it’s hard—we all fail at that—but please …” I hear Nephew and Harmeet coming up the stairs. Rage spews out of me like a gusher of lava. “… DON’T you ever tell me what I
can
say or
can’t say
. Especially
here!
When we’re chained up!” I slam my handcuffed wrist against the arm of my chair, eyes swimming with tears of rage.
“Okay,” Norman says.
Harmeet enters first, Nephew follows with our lunch. I open my
samoon
. Reheated white rice. More rage. I have to hold my
samoon
for a long time before I calm down enough to eat it.
What I noted, what’s interesting, what I wanted and hoped for most was just an apology. A simple acknowledgement of my feelings. That was not offered. I can manage, continue on normally in my relationship with Norman, get through what we need to in order to eventually, hopefully, get out.
Somehow, sometime in the early evening, my feelings shifted. The hurt let go and I had moved on. I no longer
needed
an apology; I was no longer carrying the injury I had sustained. I can live without receiving an apology, but I can’t help noting the fact
I did not receive one. It tells me, I think, that Norman is not someone I can have a friendship with. Funny—I had entertained the idea of visiting Norman when we get out. I have almost no desire to now.
This brings me to reflect on the group nature of this experience. While on one hand, on the whole in fact, having brothers to go through this with has made survival and coping so much easier. It is hard to imagine how hard it would be to go through this alone. (Tom! It’s been over four weeks now!) On the other hand, in many ways this has been the most challenging aspect of this experience, and the occasion of some of the most intense emotional pain.
—notebook
MARCH 15
DAY 110
Today we have a flower! Nephew gave it to me last night, just as Junior was leading us back to our room upstairs. “Here, for you,” he said. It was a rose.
I was so surprised, I all but forgot myself. “Why
thank
you. Nobody
ever
gives
me
flowers,” I said in my best Southern belle accent, eyelids fluttering. He frowned at me as if I belonged to a deviant species. It was like a slap in the face:
Remember where you are, Jim
.
I brought the flower close to my nose. Wowmygoodnesswhatheavenlypleasure! It was like breathing in a choir of angels. “From the garden?” I asked, rubbing the delicate rose skin between my fingers.
“Yes, garden,” Nephew said.
“Thank you,” I said.
So yes, we have a flower. Floating in a clear plastic cup. A lovely swirl of magenta pink, giving fragrance and beauty for free. Grace indeed, but oh so fleeting: its petal edges are already curling, wilting, turning brown. Everything changes, everything goes, I think. But for right now, today, we have a flower, and that is all that really matters.
MARCH 16
DAY 111
Curfew today. No car traffic. Scooters and donkey carts only, please. There’s a police presence at the intersection, as indicated by occasional loudspeaker instructions. Nothing for sure will happen today.
Our rose has survived another day. We asked Uncle how the garden was. He nodded.
Zane zane, wardeh
(gestures everywhere with hands, sniffs)
zane
. So we are in the season of roses, the season of flowers, spring! Praises be to God.
It also appears to be a season for killing. Was it yesterday, or the day before, that Nephew reported fifteen Sunnis had been killed in Baghdad? People attacked, gun-fired to death in their cars, shot by snipers. Killing—any kind, no matter for what—all killing disgusts me. I’m sick to death of it. Seeing it on the news, hearing about it, watching movies about it. The glorification and idolization of it. The money that’s spent on it. The blind orders and justifications for it. There must come a day when killing will finally be seen for what it is: a collective insanity, a moral scourge, a blasphemy against God and against the human.
—notebook
While Norman is in the bathroom taking his bath, Uncle sniffs in his larger-than-life way.
“Shstem, shstem,”
he says, points to the open window in our room, then to the window he’s opened in the stairwell leading to the roof, and body-languages the flow of air between them.
“Zane, zane shstem,”
he says, gets up, motions us to follow, leads, pointing towards the open stairwell window, goes up the stairs, we follow, and I get within three feet of the open window, and ah! there’s blue sky! a date palm green frond flowing in the breezes! rooftops! the top of a flowering orange tree!
“Shstem,”
he says, and we all breathe deep the sweet spring air.
“Can I look out the window?” I ask. Uncle laughs. No, he says, and gently pulls me back downstairs.
Thus, the first glimpse of our beautiful blue world in 111 days.
—notebook
–
After the bath, Norman is sitting in bare feet, his pants rolled up. His feet and ankles are quite swollen. I ask him if he’s noticed this. “Well yes, but my feet generally are a bit swollen. This one especially after I hurt it,” he says, lifting his left leg and pointing to a large area of wine-coloured skin on his calf. “I’m not worried about it.”
“Okay,” I say, “but they do look pretty swollen. Can that be linked to your blood pressure?”
“Heart failure.”
“Heart failure?”
He chuckles. “If your blood pressure gets too high, it leads to heart failure, which then causes your feet to swell.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Norman straightens his legs, turns and examines his feet, comparing them. “They are swollen, aren’t they? I had sort of noticed, but I just didn’t want to think about it.”
Yesterday’s movie, Resident
Evil: Regeneration
, filmed on location in Toronto. A surreal treat indeed to be feted with hometown images: City Hall, Nathan Phillips Square, Bloor Street Viaduct, Metro Hall, the Toronto skyline. The world I come from does exist, and it
is
there to return to.
MARCH 17
DAY 112
Uncle announces that Medicine Man will be coming to do a video.
“Haji
make Hindi movie,” Harmeet says, imitating a Bollywood dancer. Uncle laughs.
We prepare our Medicine Man list. At the top of the list, as always: news. Then an update on Tom. Then requests. Reading glasses and combs, a bible and a Quran, a lighter blanket. The contentious issue is whether or not to tell Medicine Man about Norman’s swollen feet. Norman doesn’t want to—he doesn’t think it’s a big deal. We think
otherwise. It’ll put pressure on Medicine Man to come to a resolution. Emphasize your chest pain, tell him that you have a heart condition, you have to see a doctor, we’re worried.
Medicine Man arrives at nightfall, followed by Junior and Uncle. “Harmeet,” he says, smiling. “I have come to make some Hindi film. Are you ready?” Medicine Man and Uncle exchange laughter. How interesting, I think. Everything we say is being reported to Medicine Man.
“We have to take another video,” he tells us. “Just the name and time. This is to show you alive. They have some worry, especially about this one … if we kill him.” He points to Norman and snaps his finger. He’s forgotten Norman’s name! “Just this video, we have the money, and you release. All of you. The other video, I not send it.”
“The one of just the Canadians?” I ask.
“Yes, I still have it, I not send. This the last one,
inshallah
. News good. I send the video and then not long. Just some little thing … taking the money … when and where to release you. Now I make the video.” He wants me and Harmeet to say our names and the date, Norman to refer to three questions that his wife has sent.
Medicine Man sits on the blue folding chair and replays the video. The three captors talk amongst themselves at great length, their faces solemn. Then Medicine Man stands up. He’s about to leave.
“There were a couple of things you said you would get for us—combs, reading glasses, books,” Norman says.
Medicine Man takes a breath. “I forget these things. I have been working every day on your case, making some negotiation. Believe me, I not have time for anything. I must to do the important thing. Books, glasses—these are some small thing. Not important. I forget them.” He shrugs. “I am bad for that.”
“There is one other thing. My ankles.” Norman points to his feet. “My ankles are swollen.” Medicine Man bends down to look closer. “This is a condition that could be related to high blood pressure,” Norman says, pointing to his heart. “This is what I am taking medicine for.”
“The heart?” Medicine Man says, peering closely at Norman.
“Yes,” he says.
“You need this? Something to check the blood pressure around the arm?”
“Yes,” Norman says.
“I bring it.”
“Plus a stethoscope,” I say. Medicine Man nods, edges towards the door. “Before you go, is there anything more specific you can say about the news?” He leans towards me as I ask the question.
“News good. For all of you. For you,” he says, pointing to Harmeet and me, “it has been good from the beginning. Your government is always ready for the negotiation. But now it is good for the Doctor.”
“So there is progress with the British?” I ask.
The power cuts out. Medicine Man takes out his cellphone and shines it towards me so he can see my face. “Yes. We will send the video to Canada and Britain. The British have agreed to negotiate. The only thing more is to make the transfer of the money and some details for you release. Everything looks good. I will see you tomorrow.”
MARCH 18
DAY 113
Uncle arrives with “supper”—a common plate of stone-cold fried potatoes and three very stale
samoons
. One of the
samoons
falls on the floor with a thunk. Uncle picks it off the floor, dusts it off and plops the stack of them on the
zowagi
cube so he can unlock us.
The thoughtlessness and disrespect of this sends my anger engines roaring—anger so caustic it threatens to eat me alive. It’s the ugliest feeling. I hate how it pulses in my veins, a burning, cauterizing, consuming fury. Action!
Action now!
it screams, lashes, goads. It is the only thing capable of breaking the suffocating hold of our plastic-chair passivity. This, I start to think, is its real purpose. I formulate a test.
When I am angry, it is because of a perception that something is not right. I need something to be different
. I apply it to every situation I can think of, from the whole of my life. In every instance it seems to be true. I am unable to find a single exception.
Maybe this is what anger is, I think, a sacred energy, a vital inner force that irresistibly drives us to act for the change we need. It builds and
builds until it is discharged, either in a carefully executed plan, or a blind flailing tantrum. If it cannot be discharged then something worse happens. It dies, and then there is only the open grave of despair. There seems to be no getting around it. You have
to do
something with anger. Sometimes all that’s required is the slightest change in perception. This is what happens today. A thought comes to me, free and untethered, like a floating balloon.
You can sit there and rage all you want, it says, but you’re the one who will suffer, not the captors. Your moods are of no consequence to them. But they do affect you, and the two men sitting with you
. This is enough. My jets begin to cool and I return again to some semblance of calm.