Lebanon Hostage Ch. 06

What you're about to read: This is a work of historical fiction—recent history—inspired by actual accounts, so it's rather realistic though definitely fictional. The novel is built around themes I find erotic: captivity, sexual tension, male intimacy. However (disclaimer and spoiler), you won't find any full-blown sex here. This is the story of a queerly romantic, lopsidedly erotic, but unconsummated relationship between a gay man and a straight man held together as hostages.

Chapter 6 -- Transferred to an abandoned office

(November-December 1986)

Exactly three weeks after Robert Berg was taken away, Allan and I are taken.

They come for us in the night. It's the night at the end of shower day, therefore the night of the weekly shift change. They rouse Allan and me from sleep, take us upstairs together. I'm pretty certain, anyway, that Allan is with me: I hear another guard go into the cell right after my guard leads me out of it, and more than one set of footsteps follow me up the stairs.

I'm breathing a little heavily, from nervous excitement. Donald and Paul's confidence that Robert was released, not just transferred to some other holding place, makes me all the more hopeful that Allan and I are being released, too. Robert's release was the beginning of the end. Everything has been resolved, or at least is in the process of final resolution. Everyone's going home, albeit in stages. Please, God, let it be...

In the front room, I stand waiting for several minutes while activities of some kind go on around me. I assume Allan is still here, waiting too. I hear guards entering and leaving through a wooden door ahead of me—the door to the outside, it must be. Perhaps during one of these trips they took Allan out already.

After a while, the guard who walked me upstairs, who has remained beside me, gripping my arm, passes me off to someone else. I quickly discover that my new keeper is Makmoud; the incoming shift is his. He pats my shoulder. "Home, Jérémie," he says.

I take a deep, shaky breath. I feel light-headed. "I'm really going home?"

"Yes, home. America." Makmoud's voice sounds slightly tense, or maybe just distracted. There's still a lot of movement going on, other guards talking to each other. "No problem, Jérémie. Okay?"

I haven't forgotten that the guards repeatedly assured me I was going home when they transferred me to this prison. Nevertheless, I believe it this time. Makmoud wouldn't lie to me, plus there's the precedent of Robert's release. I feel an urge to cry, out of relief and gratitude—tinged with sadness at the thought that I will not see Makmoud again. More literally, I am going to leave this country without ever having seen Makmoud, his face anyway. I will miss him, strange as I know that is.

"Goodbye, Makmoud," I say. He doesn't respond, but another guard, who has just taken hold of my other arm, hisses at me. Someone is talking in Arabic, apparently I interrupted some kind of instruction to the group. Or I'm just not supposed to be talking, as usual.

Time to go. Makmoud and the other guard lead me out of the house, off the concrete threshold, onto cold ground; I can feel the chill through my socks. The night air is chilly, too—too chilly to be walking around outside wearing nothing but pajamas. Allan was right: we were warmer in the basement than above ground.

I'm leaving this place the same way I came to it, in the back of a van. The guards seat me on the floor, opposite the side door, just a little ways toward the back. Allan comes in right behind me. We sit next to each other with our backs to the side wall, hugging our knees for warmth. Across from us, the van's door remains open. We can hear the guards walking quickly back to the house, except for a single man who stays behind to keep watch on us. It sounds like he's sitting on the threshold of the van's open door.

I lean sideways a tiny bit into Allan, imperceptibly to the guard, I hope. I'm trying to give some muted expression to my excitement. We're going home! Allan presses back. If I'm going to miss Makmoud, I'm going to miss Allan much, much more. I love him so much. I owe him so much. I could not have survived this experience without him. We'll stay in each other's lives, there's no question of that. Close friends, even from a distance. How could we not, after what we've been through?

I am extremely grateful to God that Allan and I are going home together—that I don't have to live with the guilt of leaving him behind. This is an unexpected gift. Because we've assumed that we're being held for different reasons, we've always assumed that we would be released at different times, and Allan has always taken for granted that I would go first.

We're still waiting in the van. I need to do something other than sit here ready to explode with impatience, so I lay my right hand on the floor next to me and explore my surroundings a little. I quickly make contact with an empty water jug, the size that would be used in an office water cooler. Because it's empty, my light touch is enough to set it rattling on the metal floor and against other empty bottles that are packed in close around it. The jiggling of the bottles triggers a plastic rustling atop them—a bag of trash, I imagine, being packed out for disposal in the city.

The guard stretches over and delivers a smack to my forehead that knocks the back of my head against the side of the van. Ow! I hang my head as a show of contrition and resume hugging my knees. Moron! Don't piss off the guardsnow. They might keep you here longer as punishment and release one of the others now in your place.

Footsteps approach. The guard sitting in the open doorway scoots all the way into the back with us. Someone tosses a few bulky objects onto the floor just beyond my feet. One of the objects lands close enough to my toes that I can make contact with it. It's flexible, like canvas. I intuit that what they've thrown into the van are duffle bags, the outgoing guards' luggage.

The side door closes, a driver and passenger climb in front, and we're off. In contrast to the silent trip that brought Allan and me to the Shouf five months ago, tonight the guards are cheerful and chatty. They, too, are going home.

While we're still making our way down from the mountains, a frightening incident slashes through the upbeat mood. The two guards up front suddenly become agitated by something they've seen. The driver brakes, turns off the engine. The guard in back grabs a handful of my hair and yanks my head down with a warning hiss. I imagine he's doing the same to Allan—or, actually, no, since Allan is sitting to the guard's right, the guard could be using his right hand to hold his gun to Allan's head, as was done to me on the trip up here. Come to think of it, this could be the very same guard who did that to me: it's the same shift.

My face is screwed up in pain from having my hair pulled, but I force myself to hold absolutely still. I don't want to do anything that might make the guard panic and shoot Allan. For what feels like a long time but is probably only a few minutes, everyone in the van sits in silence, except for quiet, tense words exchanged occasionally between the two up front. Then the driver restarts the engine, and we resume driving. The guard releases my hair. The tension in the van eases somewhat, but the guards remain vigilant for the rest of the trip. No more happy chatting.

We reach a level highway. Not long after that, we're back in the city, pausing at intersections, turning at right angles. My anticipation is mounting. I have no idea what the logistics of our release will be, but I'm on the verge of finding out.

At one point, I hear gunshots behind me, away toward what would be the driver's left—somewhat distant, but close enough to be unnerving. I brace to have my hair pulled again, but we simply speed past, leaving the shooting behind us.

We stop. I have the impression we've parked on a street, curbside. The neighborhood is quiet, it must be the wee hours of the morning. The guards seated up front get out and walk away, the guard in back stays with us. This routine is familiar. The guard watching us whispers threateningly, "No talk!" We know, you don't have to snap at us. I console myself that I may have just heard that order for the very last time.

A minute later, the side door opens, and the other guards climb in. Allan and I are made to stand up at the same time, but only Allan is taken from the van. I hear them hustle him away. After a few hurried steps, a wooden door closes. Okay, they've taken him inside a building...

I am standing just inside the van's still open door. I feel and smell the crisp night air. A single guard stands next to me, to my right, with his left arm wrapped around my back, clutching my left arm like a vise. The position keeps my arm pressed close against my side, and me pressed close against the guard. His right hand holds a pistol to my chest. The barrel happens to be touching my nipple, which intensifies my feeling of vulnerability.

As we stand there waiting, he puts his lips to my ear. My body stiffens involuntarily, and my head flinches away—I'm having a flashback to the Bully, in my first prison, whispering into my ear that he "loved" me. The guard reacts to my flinching by squeezing my arm even more tightly and jabbing the gun painfully hard against my nipple.

"You not move," the guard orders in a furious whisper. Since he doesn't add anything more, those must be the same words—ironically—that he was about to speak into my ear, as a warning, just before I flinched. I'm not certain, but I think he may be the guard who Allan and I used to help with his English. The phrase he just used is not one he practiced with us, though.

His manner is giving me doubts about this being a release. Despite all the time I have spent longing to be released, hoping I was about to be released, imagining the aftermath of my release, I've never thought to ask Allan what the release itself would look like, based on his knowledge of past hostages' releases. Do our captors just turn us loose somewhere? Do they hand us over to someone? More to the point: Does a release look like what's happening now?

So far, things are unfolding much like they did when we arrived at the Shouf prison. Oh please don't let this be another transfer...

Maybe they're only letting one of us go. When Makmoud said, "Home," he was speaking tome. Maybe Allan is being transferred. They're dropping him off at his new holding place, and then they're going to come back and drive me to wherever I'm going to be released.

By imagining that, I have betrayed Allan. I have wished him into continued captivity. But if this building they've brought us to isn't a release site, then I am desperately hoping for the treasonous alternative I just imagined.

Except... if they're about to drive me somewhere else, then why am I being made to stand in the van near the open door? Dear God...

The door I heard close earlier reopens. Two guards approach. One takes over holding my left arm, while the guard who has been waiting with me takes responsibility for my right; the extra guard must be serving as a lookout. The guards who are holding me help me step out of the van. My feet touch down on concrete—a sidewalk, I surmise. Goddammit, I'm standing in a cold puddle, it must have been raining. The guards run me across the sidewalk, then I'm inside the building, walking on a smooth floor. My socks are soaked, my feet freezing. As the guards thread me across the room, I hear someone else walking in front of us. That means there are more than three guards in the room. Someone else was here to meet us.

Another door opens. Not a clanging metallic cell door, just a regular wooden door with a knob and hinges that could use a little oil. I pass through into another room, with a rough cement floor, much like that in the Shouf basement. Several steps more, and I'm made to sit on a mattress. The guards leave without a word, locking the door behind them.

Blindfold up, at last. Before I do anything else, I peel off my wet socks. Then I take stock of where I am. The room is dark, but the door—several feet to my left, in the wall facing me—has an abnormally large gap at its base, a few inches high, which allows light from the next room to stream in across the floor. Although my mattress lies on the floor, there is a metal bedframe nearby, closer toward the door, with an equally thin mattress spread out on top of it. Allan is sitting on the edge of the bed, beaming down at me with his triangular grin and waving one hand in boyish delight. What the hell is he so happy about?

Allan pats a spot on his mattress alongside him; he wants me to come sit on the bed. I step silently across the floor. The bedframe creaks as I sit, making me wince. Beyond the door, we hear some guards exit the building while others remain behind.

Allan grips my knee. "I'm glad they didn't separate us," he whispers. That remark leads me to suspect that he assumed from the start this was another transfer, not a release. He leaves his hand on my knee. I want to lay my hand on top of his, but then we would be practically holding hands, so of course I don't. I become acutely self-conscious about what to do with my hands, though. I resort to clasping them across my stomach.

Gesturing with his head, Allan mutely encourages me to check out our surroundings. The room is a rectangle, with its longer axis running left to right relative to our current position sitting on the bed. By the standards we've grown used to, the room is spacious. Tall and long, stretching off to our right for... several yards, I would guess, I don't estimate distance any better than I do time. Even the room's narrow width, which we look across as we face the door, is still a little wider than the cells I've been living in ever since my kidnapping.

The bed is set back in the corner across from the door, flush with the walls. My mattress is laid out on the floor parallel to the bed, but with most of its length extending past the end of the bed. This leaves plenty of space for the guards to approach the bed when they enter the room without having to walk over the mattress. Apart from the bed and mattress, the room is empty, except for two rectangular pieces of furniture stashed against the short wall at the far end of the room, off to our right. The light coming in under the door isn't sufficient to let me make out what the objects are, exactly. Cabinets of some kind? Maybe a dresser and a wardrobe?

Allan points my attention high up on the long wall behind us. I have to bow forward as I crane my neck around. Up close to the ceiling I see a barred window. No, on second thought it's a grate, given how narrow the slats are. The grate appears to look out of the building: the space visible through the slats is fairly bright, as if there's an electric light, like a street lamp, not too far away. Opposite that grate, on the long wall we face as we sit on the bed, is a second grate at a similar height. The second grate evidently overlooks the room where the guards are.

Allan gives my knee another squeeze. "So far this is a big improvement," he whispers. He gives a breathy laugh. "Big," he repeats. He goes on laughing at the double meaning, a little hysterically; he's releasing stress. His laughter rises high enough in volume that a guard drops to his hands and knees on the other side of the door and hisses for quiet through the large gap underneath.

I scurry back to my mattress on the floor. I wouldn't call this new place a "big improvement." Certainly the size is an improvement. But this room is freezing; no wonder, with a grate letting in air from outside. And I don't want to be in another holding place at all. We're supposed to be free now.

On my mattress is a folded-up blanket, topped by the usual tub and bottles. Also, I discover, a pullover sweater and a pair of thick, woolen socks. I put the new clothes on right away. Looking over, I see that Allan is pulling a sweater on over his pajamas as well. When he sees me looking, he grins and nods.

I curl up under my blanket with my head tucked inside so that my breath will warm me up. Not long after, I hear the guards settling down to sleep in the next room. The building becomes so quiet that I can hear the guards' slow, heavy breathing passing under our door.

I'm too agitated to sleep. I'm building a case for believing that we could still be on our way to being released. It makes perfect sense, now that I think it through. They wouldn't release us at one or two or three in the morning, whatever time it is right now. However the release is done, exactly, Allan and I will need to go somewhere for help afterward—our countries' embassies, I assume—which means the release needs to happen at a reasonable hour. So: we're spending the night here, and they'll release us some time tomorrow. That explains why our conditions in this place seem so thrown together. This isn't a place to hide hostages long-term. The security's too poor. A grate in our cell, open to the street? That makes no sense, there's too much risk of our being discovered.

I hear Allan moving around on his bed. Not far from my head, he whispers, "Jeremy? You still awake?"

I emerge from under my blanket and sit up alongside the bed. Now that the guards' room is dark, the only light we have is what filters in through the grate from the electric light outside. I can make out the shape of Allan's head but not his features. Allan lays his head on his mattress, very close to where my head is, so we can keep communicating in whispers. "How are you doing?" he asks.

I'm annoyed that he made me get out of my relatively warmed-up bed to answer such a mundane question. But there is something I want to discuss with him. I want him to confirm my theory about our being released tomorrow.

"Makmoud said we're going home," I begin. Suddenly I'm afraid to pose the question that comes next. Does Allan believe Makmoud was telling the truth? I'm afraid that his answer will be no, and that he'll have an unassailable reason for answering no.

Allan thinks before he speaks. That's a bad sign—it probably means he's trying to figure out how to put a positive spin on things. "They could be preparing to release us from here," he whispers slowly. "Or at least, to releaseyou. That might explain why there's only one bed." I am ashamed to hear him propose the same scenario I had imagined in the van: I'm going home, he's staying. Still, I cling to the lifeline of hope that scenario offers me. Allan continues, gingerly: "But they didn't do what they did when Robert went home."

I'm about to say, "I don't know what you mean," when the horrible understanding dawns. The hubbub, as Donald called it. Moving everyone from cell to cell so we wouldn't realize they were taking Robert away. Allan's right, they didn't do that when they took the two of us out of the basement.

I bury my face in my hands and fight not to cry. The evidence is incontrovertible. It makes no sense that the guards do things that way, but they do, we know the pattern.

Makmoud lied to me. Helied. How could he do that to me? All the good will I have ever felt for him is dying inside me at this moment. His betrayal compounds my despair.

Allan puts his hand on my shoulder. "Hey. Don't lose hope," he says. But that's only half our maxim. The other half is: Don't lose yourself in hope. And I have no realistic grounds to go on hoping that we—or even I—am about to be released. The reassuring case I was building for myself just before Allan sat me up to talk was built of straw.

Allan moves his hand from my shoulder to the base of my head and sort of jiggles it. This is an unfamiliar gesture to me—an unknown term in the straight male lexicon of touch. I deduce that it's supposed to mean something like, Buck up. "Let's go to sleep, all right?" Allan tells me. "We'll see what happens tomorrow."