Under an Afghan Sky (37 page)

I had absent-mindedly been playing with the chain around my wrist, and now realized that Shafirgullah had tied it looser than Khalid had before. I was able to slide my wrist out of the loop—my left hand was free. I took off my sneakers and tried the same thing, but the chain around my ankles was too tight. Still, I was happy to have the free use of both arms. I took it as an omen that true freedom would come soon.

I pulled out my notebook and wrote down on a fresh page,
I will be home soon.
Then I flipped the page, realizing it had been a day since I’d written anything.

Hi dear P,

I will be home soon. I just spent an incredible twenty-four hours in the mountains of northern Afghanistan. My kidnappers dug me out of this hole last night, and for a while, I was very scared they were going to shoot me, but instead, we went on this long hike. Up this big mountain, and I thought I wasn’t going to make it to the top. But once we did, it was the most amazing view of the stars—and the Milky Way—and even shooting stars. It was so beautiful, P. I wish you could have seen it. Maybe you did, from wherever you are tonight.

We stayed up on top of the mountain all day, thinking that we’d get a call, a
signal that it was time to take me back to the refugee camp in Kabul, but it never came.

So tonight, after waiting all day for that call, Khalid and Shafirgullah took me back down the mountain. And put me back in this hole. At least this time, I managed to slip my wrist out of the chain, so I have two free hands.

It’s the little things, huh? I still don’t have any idea when this nightmare might end, but I hope it’s not much longer. Maybe you know more than I do these days, because I am truly in the dark. I’m just trying not to get despondent, and remember that you’re looking for me. You and everyone else.

I’m just so sorry for everything I’m putting you through. I can’t imagine how hard it must be on your end.

I’ll be home soon, P. Love you.

xox

I must have dozed off, for I woke up to see the small hand of the alarm clock pointing to six. It was morning. The long hike of the last couple days had tired me out, and I was grateful to have slept through most of the night. My legs were aching from the lactic acid that had built up in the hours after the long walk down the steep mountain. I stood up and stretched my right leg against one of the walls. I bent my head down to meet my knee and stretched. Then I switched legs, almost losing my balance. I felt like I’d just run a marathon, and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d been sitting in almost the same position for three weeks, without even being able to walk, and then over the course of twenty-four hours I’d hiked for kilometres, up and down a frigging mountain. Still, I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t in better shape, and that my body didn’t seem to be able to cope with these sudden changes. I sat back down and rolled up the bottoms of my pants to my knee. My once too-big calves were about half the size of what I’d last remembered. And the tops of my pants were very loose.
I’d worn the Afghan pants my kidnappers gave me over my hiking pants, and both were now on the verge of falling off. I pulled them up, and I could feel my ribs jutting out. I ran fingers up and down my rib cage and counted my ribs—
one, two, three, four, five, six.
How much weight had I’d lost over the last few weeks?

I’ve never been fat, but I’ve struggled with a little chubbiness over the years, mostly because I eat more than anyone else I know. I figured I could lose up to five kilograms, but because I exercise on a regular basis and am in pretty good shape athletically, I’m not obsessed with weight loss. I laughed a little. How ironic that I might finally have lost the weight I’d been wanting to, but it required being kidnapped and fed nothing but juice and cookies for almost a month.

A month. I’d been here almost an entire month. A month out of my life, a month that I’d lost forever, that had been stolen from me. How could time pass so slowly, day to day, hour to hour?

Four weeks was too long. Too long to be held hostage in a hole, and too long to be away from my family and friends. It felt like forever since I’d had a decent conversation. I was tired of the circular discussions I’d been having with my kidnappers, and I was tired of talking to myself. I longed to pick up a phone and call someone, to open my inbox on my laptop. I was sick of being alone.

But I wasn’t entirely alone. Another big spider—it looked like a daddy-long-legs—was crawling toward me from the entrance. I hate spiders.

This spider was about the size of a loonie, not including its very long legs. I took off my shoe and whacked it. Its legs curled up and it stopped moving. I picked it up with my fingers, something I never would have done if I had been at home. (I’d use a piece of thick paper towel to pick it up and throw it in the garbage.) The thing had started to move a little again, and I was determined to
stop it. One by one, I picked off its long spindly legs, until all I had left was the body. It was almost as though I was getting back at every mosquito or spider that had bit me and made me swell up. Then I put it down on the ground and held Khalid’s lighter to it. The smell of burning spider permeated the air.

I picked up the English books Shafirgullah had been reading, ripped out more pages, and burned them as well. But, as before, the dampness prevented them from fully catching on fire. I stared at the glowing embers and wondered how I would spend the time. And how much time I’d have to spend before someone came back. I had only enough cookies and juice to last a couple days.

I flipped open my notebook and reread some of the letters and notes I’d written that first week in captivity.

October 13, 4:30 p.m., eating two chocolate cookies. I suppose this will be dinner.

October 20, 6:15 a.m., Grandma’s birthday. Lots of noise outside last night—possibly a firefight.

October 26, 9:30 p.m., Khalid called Shafirgullah to confirm he wasn’t coming tonight.

I reread all the letters I’d written—to Paul, to my friends, to my parents. I could see the times I had been hopeful, and the times I had not.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps.
Clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp.
Someone was walking overtop of the hole. I stood up and looked up the pipe, which I knew was futile, but at least I’d be able to call out if I decided I needed to.

“Mellissa!” I heard. I thought it sounded like Abdulrahman.
I was about to answer but then remembered I wasn’t supposed to respond to my own name.

“Khalid!” I heard a few seconds later. “Khalid!”

“Yes? Abdulrahman?”

“Yes, Mellissa, hello. Can you hear?”

“I can hear you. Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear. Okay. Tell me what is your sister’s favourite hockey player?”

My sister’s favourite hockey player? Another proof-of-life question. They had to be getting them through Vanessa. The answer was easy.

“Trevor Linden!” I yelled.

“What?”

I yelled it again but it was still lost on the fat Afghan.

“TREVOR—T-R-E-V…”

“T-R-E-B…” he repeated.

“NO! Not B! V!”

I made him repeat the spelling to me until I was satisfied with it. And I made him put down the number 16, which was Linden’s number, so there could be no mistaking. But I didn’t want him to go just yet. I told him I needed more batteries for the
tsiragh,
and that I was running out of juice boxes. Oh, and I also wanted more cigarettes.

“Okay, okay,” he called down. “I bring for you.”

“Abdulrahman!” I had one more question. “When do I go back to Kabul?”

“In two days, inshallah.
Saba, saba.
”

“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing that he wasn’t, but I wanted to see how he’d respond.

“Inshallah! I go now. Goodbye!” And he was gone.

That was the third proof of life, a sign that my captors were
still talking to whoever was negotiating for me, and it made me feel a little better that the process was still in play.

Trevor Linden. The one-time captain of the Vancouver Canucks, he was the most popular player ever to wear the team uniform. With his dark curly hair and nice-guy demeanour, he had been the heartthrob for a generation of female Canucks fans, my sister included. She had all the incarnations of the team jersey with the number 16 emblazoned on the back, which she’d wear proudly whenever she was at a Canucks game in Los Angeles or Anaheim.

Hey V

I hope you’re doing okay over there. They asked me who your favourite hockey player was today, and I almost laughed. I had to explain to them what hockey is, and here is one of my kidnappers asking who your favourite player is. I thought that was pretty funny.

I know you’re probably dealing with a heck of a lot—with Mom and Dad and the CBC and everyone else. I hope you’re managing and hanging in there. I feel terrible that I put you down as an emergency contact because I can’t imagine the phone call you would have got in the middle of the night from someone telling you I’ve been kidnapped. I’m so sorry, but I never thought this could happen. You shouldn’t have to be dealing with all this when you’ve already got enough on your plate.

But I wouldn’t trust anyone else to take care of stuff for me, and I hope I’ll be out soon enough and can make it up to you. I’ll take you to a Canucks game maybe! Although you get to enough of them down there as it is.

If you’re reading this, and something’s happened to me, just know that I’ve made you the beneficiary in everything. It’s the least I could do, right? There should be enough to pay for everything that needs to be paid for—like my massive Visa bill—and some left over for you to do what you want with.

I love you so much. Hope you’re taking care of yourself. I’m glad I got to see
you before I came here—I just wish we’d had more time.

See you soon, hopefully.

M

I was glad that I’d been able to see my sister before I left for Afghanistan. She had been in Toronto for the international film festival, and we’d spent the night with Jen and Paul at the bar of the Drake Hotel, on Queen Street. I hoped they were all leaning on each other now and helping each other get through whatever hell I knew they were enduring. A fresh wave of guilt came over me. The pain and anguish and worry I was causing everyone at home was something I didn’t want to think about. It scared me and had the potential to paralyze me, so I’d been trying hard not to dwell on what my parents must be suffering, or what my sister might be thinking, or how my friends might be coping.

I looked down at my hands and noticed they were a dark shade of brown, and there was a thick layer of dirt under my fingernails. I looked through my makeup bag and found my nail clipper. I used the tip of the small nail file to dig out the dirt from underneath each of my nails. Soon, I had a small pile of dirt in front of me. I rubbed my hands together hard, and noticed that thin ribbons of brown grime were forming as I rubbed. I rubbed the back of my left hand with my right middle finger and a ball of brown goop formed underneath my finger. And it was the same everywhere. My forearms, my neck, behind my ears, my chest. I was covered in it, and was suddenly obsessed with rubbing it all off. I hoped I wasn’t losing my mind, but I kept rubbing and rubbing, until I had a pile of brown dirt balls in front of me. I threw them all toward the door, and they scattered among the cigarette butts and rocks on the ground.

Shafirgullah had not left me any water, so I couldn’t even rinse my hands after that nasty exercise. I thought I had some hand sanitizer
with me, forgetting until I started digging in my knapsack that I’d already been through that routine. It wasn’t there. Abdulrahman must have taken it when he brought my bag down from the mountain on that first night. Maybe I really was starting to lose my mind. Too many hours spent talking to myself, going back and forth and forth and back over possible scenarios and why they might or might not happen. Too much time spent repeating the same phrases over and over again, talking to kidnappers who didn’t understand what I was saying. Too much time spent by myself wondering and waiting and twiddling my thumbs. No wonder I was starting to lose it. Any sane person would, wouldn’t she?

I looked down at the rosary I’d vowed not to pray with again and picked it up. I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?

Funny that the Act of Contrition would be the first prayer to pop into my head at that moment. I had planned on starting with the Hail Marys, but for some reason, the Act of Contrition just came to me.

I’d last been to confession in Italy, when the girls and I had taken a day trip to Rome before Maureen’s wedding. We were in Vatican City, and they were heading to the Vatican Museums, but I wanted to go to confession instead. The only time I ever went to
confession anymore was at St. Peter’s Basilica. A special occasion. The priest in the confessional told me to say the Act of Contrition, and for a second, I couldn’t remember it.

“Look down,” he told me, and that’s when I noticed it was written right there, where my elbows were. It was obvious that I didn’t go to confession very often.

My mother used to remind us around Lent before Easter, and Advent before Christmas, that we should make a confession before the major feast days. My sister and I are both somewhat lapsed Catholics, and neither of us had been to confession regularly since high school, when priests would come to our school for penitential services.

Maybe, I thought to myself now, the Act of Contrition came to me because I was about to be released soon. A big feast day
was
just around the corner.

Okay, God, maybe you are listening to me. Maybe you’re hearing me after all. I’ll come off my prayer strike, and you can prove to me that you’ve been listening all along. I’m beginning to think, after all, that you are the only one who can help me out of here. So please make it happen soon. Please hear my prayers.