Lebanon Hostage Ch. 03

* * *

A perverse irony of our situation is that the guards, who spend only some of their time in the basement, are a much more prominent presence in our lives than the other two hostages with whom we share the basement 24 hours a day.

The hostage whose cell is toward our left is the Handcuffed Hostage. We know this because we hear the handcuffs jangling as he is taken on his toilet runs. Otherwise, we never hear any sound from his cell.

The hostage whose cell is toward our right, next to the stairs, is the Praying Hostage I used to hear in my last prison. He doesn't pray nearly as loudly anymore as he must have been doing when I first became aware of him, or maybe he doesn't pray as frequently anymore; either way, we don't regularly hear him. But he raises his voice loudly enough and often enough, especially when he's chanting Arabic phrases, that I've been able to deduce who he is. Here as in my last prison, the guards don't chastise him for praying out loud. I think he tries to pray at the same times he hears the guards praying in the front room; at those times, they're probably not aware that he's praying, too. But even if he prays audibly at another time, if the guards recognize from his Arabic phrases that he's praying, they'll leave him alone. If he's just talking to himself, as he does at times, they'll demand he stop.

(It sounds like our guards pray fewer than the five times a day that I was taught are required of Muslims when I studied world religions. Allan's understanding is that this is one of the differences between Sunnis and Shiites: Shiites pray only three times a day. I've heard the guards praying upstairs during the middle of the day and after the evening feeding, but I've never been awake to hear their early morning prayer.)

Right away, Allan is keen to see the other two hostages. On the first day after our arrival, he spends quite a bit of time, while the guards are upstairs, crouched on his mattress a couple of feet away from the fan, figuring out what angle he needs to hold his head at to be able to get a line of vision that will let him see the Handcuffed Hostage's face as he's led past our door to the bathroom. I don't realize at the time what Allan's planning; I imagine he's just trying to see as much outside our cell as he can.

I understand the next morning—our second morning here—when Allan takes his position during the Handcuffed Hostage's toilet run. I'm terrified: If Allan can see out, won't that mean the guard will also be able to see him? I sit pressed into the back corner of the cell with my blindfold down, prepared to plead my innocence if Allan is discovered.

After the guards have left, I explode at Allan in whispers: What the fuck are you doing, you'll get us killed! He tries to calm me down. He had the angle wrong, he couldn't see the hostage's face or the guard's, so there's no way he could be seen either, but he doesn't think he could have been anyway; it's different looking out through the fan than looking in, especially when he hangs so far back. I'm not pacified: "Don't fucking do it again!" Allan apologizes. He's sorry he scared me, he didn't mean to, it's all right, nothing happened.

He does not, however, promise that he won't do it again, an omission I don't pick up on until the next morning, when he again crouches a couple of feet from the fan, his head bent over practically to the floor this time. Again, I sit in the corner with my blindfold down, trembling with fear and rage. Allan is ecstatic afterward: he got the angle right. He's convinced that the Handcuffed Hostage is a Korean diplomat who was kidnapped in January. Something Chung—Allan can't remember the name. Allan's rationale for identifying the hostage as Korean, without being able to see his eyes, is that he has a somewhat wispier-than-normal beard and "Oriental cheekbones." I give little credence to either the evidence or the conclusion, especially since I know how blurry the view through the fan is from my own peek the day before. For these dubious and ultimately useless observations, Allan is endangering our lives!

Allan tells me he wants to try to get a look at the Praying Hostage tomorrow. But since he'll have to look the other direction, toward the stairs, he needs permission to crouch on my mattress. By an entirely implicit understanding—an unspoken rule—our mattresses are personal space, private property, no trespassing. I refuse permission: Absolutely not. Allan is soothing, cajoling, but insistent. Please, Jeremy, I need to do this, I'll go crazy if I can't have a picture of him in my head when it would be so easy to do, please don't be afraid, I'm not going to be caught, trust me, can you trust me?

I start to cry. "Don't do this to me. I can't lose you."

That's how attached I've already become by our third day together. That's how desperately I need him.

The tears win: Allan folds. "It's all right, I won't do it. I promise." He's embarrassed. By my crying? Or by what I said? I know I'm mortified. "I can't lose you"? I hope to God that didn't come across as gay. Desperately needy and pathetic, fine. But not gay.

Allan drops the subject, but he prevails in the end because my guilt is treasonously working on his side. It takes only a couple of days for me to crack, although I'm grudging about it for the sake of my pride. I tell Allan he can crouch on my mattress to look at the Praying Hostage. "You're sure?" Yeah. "Thank you so much! I'll be very careful, you don't need to worry."

There's virtually nothing for him to report. The Praying Hostage has white hair, is probably in his 60s. Multiple hostages could fit that description, Allan has no way to narrow the options down. And if this man was kidnapped after Allan was—which might be the case, given whenabouts he showed up in my first prison—then Allan couldn't possibly know who he is. I'm unimpressed. I had already guessed the Praying Hostage's age from his voice, from which I also knew he's American. I know more about this man from hearing him than Allan has learned from seeing him. This peeking through the fan has been a pointless exercise, a pointless danger.

But Allan's happy, that's what matters. I want him to be happy. I want him to be happy with me.

We keep referring to the Praying Hostage as "the Praying Hostage," but Allan starts calling the Handcuffed Hostage "the Korean." I don't. Unconvinced and resentful of the distress Allan's peeking caused me, I hold conservatively to the epithet "the Handcuffed Hostage."

Later on, we will hear the guard who practices English with us trying out his new vocabulary and phrases with the Praying Hostage, too. The guard never tries to communicate in English with the Handcuffed Hostage, though, at least not that we ever hear. On occasions when guards talk to the Handcuffed Hostage, they use pidgin—words like pee-pee and hoom, which Allan tells me is the Arabic equivalent of yum, the way a mother might refer to food when talking to a toddler.

Allan finds the pidgin a puzzle. It's remotely possible that the Korean doesn't know any English, but it's unlikely, Allan thinks, given that he's a diplomat. If he doesn't know English, then he certainly has to know French, but the guards don't use any French with him either (beyond douche, which they use with all of us). This surprises Allan because he and I both heard guards deploying a rudimentary French vocabulary in our previous prisons.

I imagine myself saying to Allan: Maybe what all this means is that "the Korean" isn't who you think he is. But I don't actually say it. I would never permit myself to be so catty to Allan.

The fact that Allan and I share a cell while the other two hostages remain in solitary confinement is a greater puzzle. It is all the more mysterious given that, if Allan's picture of the basement is correct, there are seven cells here, of which only three are being used. Perhaps more hostages are coming, Allan theorizes. Perhaps this place is about to fill up. But then why not pair up the other two hostages as well? Maybe the Korean's been violent, and the guards consider him too unstable to pair up with someone, Allan speculates; maybe that's why he's kept handcuffed. Or maybe our being paired up is a rare concession—maybe because our captors are concerned about my youth, that I'm more likely to break down in solitary confinement.

I suspect that last theory is probably the answer, although I'm excruciatingly ambivalent about it. I'm relieved and grateful not to be alone, but it's shaming to think that this may be because I have proved so much weaker than other hostages. Also, I feel guilty about receiving a privilege other hostages do not.

As usual, Allan urges me not to feel guilty. My guilt won't do any good for anyone—not me, not the other hostages. We each have to play the hand we've been dealt. Anyway, Allan consoles me, the other two hostages appear to be coping. They're not ranting or pounding their heads on the wall. They haven't sunk into a stupor: they go on their toilet runs, we don't hear the guards harassing them about not eating or asking if they're sick. No doubt the Praying Hostage's praying helps him get through. Maybe the Korean uses Eastern meditation techniques. In any case, their survival is their problem, our survival is ours.

What Allan's saying makes sense, I can't question that, but I hate how callous it sounds. I pray often for the other hostages. Praying for them helps appease my guilt, whether or not it does them any good.

* * *

As Allan and I are setting up our rules and daily routine, I recommit myself to the discipline of morning and evening prayer. I pray on my knees; I feel I owe God that formality, I worry that I'm too casual in my relationship with him. At the same time, inspired by Allan's precepts about being gentle with ourselves, I set a low bar this time around. I decide to embrace the inevitable repetitiveness of daily prayers by committing to always recite the Lord's Prayer as a light act of disciplined devotion. If I feel like adding anything extemporaneous afterward, I'll do so (and I very often do), but I won't place myself under any expectations about doing that. This routine works, I'm able to sustain it.

When the guards aren't around, Allan and I spend hours sitting side by side at the back of our cell, talking. We lean against one another's shoulders so we can speak softly and still hear despite the radio. (Allan doesn't want the guards to hear us; I don't want the other hostages to hear us so they won't resent that we have the privilege of conversation.) As much as I crave the companionship—and the physical closeness; that's another issue, though—I get tired out by these conversations before Allan does. He's more extroverted than I am. He needs some daily "alone time," but not as much of it as I do. I reach a point where I cannot bear to talk or be talked at anymore, I need to go be with my own thoughts for a while, but he's still energized to continue. I try to meet halfway by letting him keep talking past the point I start wanting to bow out; then, finally, I snatch a breathing moment to apologize and tell him I need a break.

We exchange extensive information about ourselves—our pasts, our families, our studies and work. We do not discuss religion, however. Once, after we've been talking about my undergraduate studies at a college with an obviously Catholic name, Allan asks, "Your religion's still Catholic?" in a tone that suggests he assumes the answer is probably yes but he doesn't want to take that for granted if he shouldn't. Yes, I reply and wait to see if he's going to follow up. When he doesn't, I ask, "Are you . . . anything?" I feel awkward and intrusive as soon as I've asked, which I suppose is why we don't talk about this. "Church of England," he replies, "so no," and laughs. I take this to mean that he's nominally a member of the state church but doesn't find it personally meaningful. Then Allan points the conversation toward a different subject.

On the assumption that Allan isn't religious, I begin to worry that my kneeling to pray comes across as ostentatious or preachy. To be more discreet, I get in the habit of doing my morning prayer while Allan is on his toilet run. But he still has to be aware of me kneeling behind his back for my evening prayer just before I lie down to sleep.

It must be over a month, maybe closer to two, after we've been brought together before religion comes up again as a topic of conversation. As we're chatting one day, Allan tells me he's curious about my praying. He doesn't want to intrude, but would I be bothered if he asked me some questions about it? No, that's fine, I say. His ginger approach makes me wonder if he hasn't brought this subject up before, not because he was uncomfortable, but because I've given the impression that I'm shy about it.

What follows feels like a journalistic interview. Allan is curious whether I prayed as frequently before I was kidnapped as I do now, or if prayer has become more important to me in captivity. Do I pray in a different way now that I'm a hostage than I used to? Do I recite a fixed prayer, or do I pray extemporaneously? Does praying help me to feel a certain way? What kinds of things do I pray for? Do I believe that prayer affects God's will, or is that already predetermined? Do I pray for God to intervene to change material conditions in the world, or do I think that God answers prayers by giving people emotional strength to confront material conditions as they exist?

They're astute questions, I'm impressed. When he asks what kinds of things I pray for, I tell him, among other things, that I regularly thank God for "making us cellmates"—that seems a safer way to phrase it than "bringing us together" or "bringing you into my life." I don't dare look at him when I say this, so I can't see his reaction, but he says, "That's kind of you. I appreciate knowing that."

After we've talked about my praying for a while, Allan confides, in an adroitly non-judgmental way, that he finds the idea of God problematic. He cites the philosophical problem of evil, although he doesn't know that's what it's called: if there's an all-powerful God, why is there innocent suffering and injustice? And while he sees that belief in God can be positive for individuals, it also leads people to do cruel and destructive things. He gestures with his hands toward the walls of our cell.

But... At this point Allan becomes shy but decides to continue: While he was in his last prison, there was this one day when he was feeling absolutely overwhelmed, like the ground had opened up and he was plunging into a hole—and then out of nowhere, he had this incredible sensation. There was this force running through his body and radiating out of him, and it lifted him back up, and for something like a whole minute, he was infused, he was basking in this powerful feeling of joy. And then it faded, but the effect was still with him, meaning that it had gotten him firmly back on his feet and he could go on again. He doesn't know if this force was something outside him that came into him, or if it was something that had been inside him all along. But he thinks of it as some kind of... Spirit with a capital S. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before in his life, and it hasn't happened again since.

I am intensely jealous. God is present in my life in the sense that I spontaneously pray when I'm stressed or relieved, and in the sense that I'm often guilty about falling short of God's expectations. But I don't feel God's presence in any way approaching what Allan has just described. I had some reasonably powerful experiences on retreat as a teenager—for a while in high school, I envisioned myself following Bernie into the priesthood—but I've never had a mystical experience. It seems so unfair that I believe in God but don't actually experience him, whereas Allan, who doesn't believe in God, has had the experience. Isn't it supposed to work the other way around?

God gives the gifts he wants to give. He gave Allan a taste of his presence. He gave me Allan's presence. I certainly shouldn't complain about that.

* * *

Allan is a smoker. I discover this very challenging fact our first night together (we hardly sleep that first night!) as he is exploring his tub, a little like a kid on Christmas morning. He expresses something akin to religious fervor when he sees the two packages of cigarettes. He tells me that in his last prison, they gave him only five or six cigarettes each morning, which he had to make last the whole day. Ridiculous, he grumbles, when cigarettes are so cheap! He asks me if I received whole packs of cigarettes in my last prison, too. When I tell him yes, it was just like what he sees here, he asks me how often the guards used to give me new packs. I explain that the guards never gave me new cigarettes because I told them I don't smoke.

He looks up from the cigarette he has just lit in his mouth. I assume he's about to ask if it's okay with me if he smokes. But he doesn't. Instead he requests that I please not let the guards here know that I don't smoke. That way he can have a double ration.

It turns out that we are each allowed two packs of cigarettes per week. (One more occasion for Allan to tell the guards "thank you.") The guards are unbending about the ration. Not even Makmoud can be prevailed upon to dispense packs more frequently, although he will give Allan an individual cigarette or two from his own pack if we're at the end of the week and Allan hasn't properly paced himself. If Makmoud offers me a cigarette, I accept, pretend I'm saving it for later, and pass it on to Allan.

Two packs a week is forty cigarettes, which means in effect—Allan does the math instantly—that we are still being rationed to five or six cigarettes a day, just as in Allan's last prison. Of course, adding my ration to his, Allan can now allow himself ten to twelve cigarettes a day. He still complains about not receiving more. I have no experience with smoking, so I have no basis for comparison: I grew up in a non-smoking family, my friends in high school didn't smoke, and I didn't really have friends in college, smoking or non. But ten to twelve cigarettes a day seems like very heavy smoking to me.

I am unhappy about sharing a 6-by-6-foot cell with a smoker. I can't stand the odor, and high school health classes have conditioned me to fear secondhand smoke and lung cancer. But I don't say anything to Allan. Enduring his smoking is the price I have to pay for having him with me. Perhaps God wants to teach me forbearance. In a tradeoff between the irritation and possible health risks of a smoking cellmate and the likelihood of a breakdown were I to remain in solitary confinement, there's no question which option I have to prefer.

In addition to cigarettes, Allan is obsessed with getting his hands on a candle. He asks Makmoud in both English and French—lumière is the best Allan can remember for a French translation—but Makmoud doesn't know either word. Allan attempts pantomime. "No," Makmoud tells him. From his inflection, I don't think Makmoud is denying the request, he's indicating that he still doesn't understand. Allan is forced to direct his request to other guards, who evidently do understand but tsk their refusal.

I know that Allan was given candles in his last prison to use during power outages, but I don't understand why he wants one here. The fluorescent light outside our cell is always on, and we don't have anything to do that requires more than the little light that filters through around the fan. It's perfectly sensible for the guards not to give us a candle: we have nowhere safe to put it. I don't want to be trapped in a locked cell with a mattress that has caught on fire. I'm nervous enough as it is about Allan igniting matches and cigarettes.