Serendipity Foundation_292

by The Serendipity Foundation (retail) (epub)

  The morning passed slowly. At 1pm the door opened. A couple of trays were slid into the room before the door slammed shut. Chicken shashlik was an absurd culinary accompaniment to the situation: it refused to sit with the despair of being a western hostage in a Muslim country and hinted at a slim optimism that subsequent events might not involve bloodshed.

  Liam lay on his bunk, choosing to keep what he knew to himself. The strangeness of his surroundings made him think they must be the kidnappers he had been looking for. But why kidnap them? It felt out of character: the others had all been local people and concerned local issues, seemingly without the need for the guns that had been pointed at his head.

  None of them fell asleep until the early hours. As a result, none of them heard the door open as an assortment of coffee, toast, jam, fried eggs and fruit was slid through the door on three trays. Breakfast was served with serviettes, salt, pepper, with metal knives and forks. A sole red rose stood in a vase. On the tray was a note:

  Good morning, gentlemen! I hope you slept well. First, some housekeeping. Please leave dishes by the door along with any clothes you need washed. We don’t do ironing. Sorry.

  We are setting you some homework. Today you must read a book from the myths and beliefs section of the bookshelf. It doesn’t matter which. Later today I will send you some activities to complete based on your readings. No excuses, please.

  Scream if you need anything!

  Aiya

  ‘This is fucking ridiculous,’ said Jordie. ‘We’ve been kidnapped by a renegade book club. The girl’s going to pull off her balaclava and reveal Oprah Winfrey. I say next time she delivers food we jump her.’

  ‘We’ve got knives now,’ said Richard, pointing to the dishes by the door.

  ‘And she’s a midget,’ said Jordie. ‘Miller?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe we should watch her deliver it again.’

  ‘If she sees us watching too closely she’ll be prepared for next time. I say we use our element of surprise,’ said Jordie.

  They sat in silence for a minute.

  ‘Let’s take a vote,’ said Richard. ‘All in favour of doing it this lunchtime?’

  Jordie, Richard and Miller slowly raised their arms. Liam remained unmoved.

  ‘What’s up? Scared?’ said Jordie to Liam with a hint of ridicule. ‘You’ve been a little too calm for my liking. Do you even want to get out?’

  Liam flashed Jordie a malicious look; but it was a pertinent question. If the kidnappers were who he hoped they were, he was interested in sticking around. This was balanced by the terrifying consequences if they weren’t. ‘Forgive me if I doubt tackling armed terrorists is your destiny.’

  The comment silenced Jordie: it was a poor motivational speech for a break-out.

  ‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘three to one. It’s on.’

  It approached 1pm. The escape plan had been agreed and rehearsed. Miller would hide to the right behind the door and wait for a nod from Jordie. Richard was positioned to the left to help Miller in any struggle. Due to Jordie’s physique, he would be in front of the door to create a distraction.

  Liam had sat reading on the sofa all morning, claiming that his presence there would create a further diversion. The others took it as a cowardly refusal to take part, but they had no desire to draw his negativity into their operation.

  Miller’s body had been shaking all morning. The hand that held the knife no longer made sense to him. What was he supposed to do with it? The actions required of him seemed impossible. Once more, events had been set in motion that he was unable to halt.

  They heard footsteps approach the door, took their pos-itions, and nodded at each other expectantly. But out of keeping with their run-throughs, the steel door was thrown open violently, hitting Miller on the side of the head. In front of Jordie were the two gunmen, both holding AK47s, wearing all black and balaclavas, their heights mismatched.

  ‘Does the one behind the door mind coming out and standing against the back wall with the other two?’

  So this was it. The two rifles pointed at them as they took their places against the wall. They wouldn’t even hear the shots.

  But as they closed their eyes they heard a clunk and the sound of footsteps. They opened them to see the tall, silent gunman placing moussaka, grilled chicken, rice and bread on the table.

  ‘Gentlemen. You’re in our room. We can hear everything you say. Now enjoy your lunch. Mum’s moussaka is legendary. And after that I think you have homework to do.’

  Jordie and Richard closed their eyes and rested against the wall in hopeless relief, as Miller collapsed to the floor. Liam continued to read in his place on the sofa. He wore a smirk and held his silence: no one likes an ‘I told you so’ in captivity.

  After a silent lunch they went to the bookshelf and selected their reading.

  They were out of practice: Richard didn’t read books, Liam only for work, Jordie had given up a decade ago, and Miller only while commuting.

  Without events or the tracking of sunlight, time lost its significance.

  Evening arrived and the door opened. Two trays were slid in with a variety of mezes: hummus, baba ganoush, matzo balls, vine leaves and pitta bread. To the side of the trays stood a bottle of red wine and four glasses.

  Gentlemen. I thought you might be hungry. Apologies for my violence earlier: Mum says I misjudge my own strength. Please accept this bottle as an apology.

  I’ve cancelled this evening’s activities as you have had a long and stressful day. Please post your breakfast order soon. Sweet dreams.

  Aiya

  They ate, and drank a glass of wine each. Jordie and Richard made tentative enquiries about the books they had been reading. They continued reading until they went to bed at eleven and quickly fell asleep.

  *

  Richard was coming out of the bathroom when the door opened to reveal Aiya, without balaclava or gun, sliding in their breakfast trays. She made eye contact and smiled. Richard, without thought, smiled back: it was a natural reaction to a girl he guessed was no more than fifteen. She had plaited hair, an undeveloped slight frame, and puppy-fat cheeks. Her expression carried an innocent whimsy ill-fitting for a terrorist.

  She closed the door. On one of the trays was a note.

  Good morning gentlemen.

  Today’s homework is to read a book from the hope and community section of the bookshelf. Before dinner, please explain to one another what your book is about, and how it might have relevance in your lives and work. I will bring some shisha in at 6.45 so you can discuss things like real Egyptian men.

  Knuckle down,

  Aiya

  After breakfast they chose their books: all focused on individuals or groups that had achieved great things against the odds. These ranged from local-scale stories of dedication, such as doctors risking their lives in war zones, to a biography of Nelson Mandela.

  They discussed Richard’s encounter with Aiya before Jordie and Liam retired to their bunks, Richard and Miller to the sofas. They took time to settle, but soon adjusted to their newly enforced schedule. Lunch crept up unnoticed. The afternoon waned between turning pages, yet the strangeness of spending a whole day immobile gradually drew attention back to the stark realities of their detention. The prospect of performing for their kidnappers rekindled their anxieties.

  At 6.45 the door opened. Aiya delivered four shishas, along with a metal container with smouldering coals, then left.

  They looked at each other, before bringing them to the sofas. Miller had some expertise in making shishas from his time at university; a friend had made a trip to Turkey and gained a short-lived notoriety for being worldly before his friends started seeing them appear in middle-class knick-knack shops and stores selling hash pipes.

  Miller offered one to Liam who shook his head.

  ‘You’re a washed-out journalist. You must smoke,’ said Miller.

  ‘I took up self-loathing instead.’

  ‘Well, sunshine, th
is is double-apple flavour,’ said Jordie, patting Liam on the cheeks to incite him. ‘Consider it two of your five a day.’

  At first the conversation about their books carried the awkwardness of saying hello to the person waiting to use the shared toilet after you have just had a bad stomach.

  Jordie took the initiative. His tone held a trace of disdain for the story he described, continuing a habit of dismissing the moral actions of others. In the desire to fulfil Aiya’s challenge, Richard asked further questions. He had come to view the world through a similarly cynical lens, but his keenness to contradict Jordie saw him champion the cause of hope. ‘At least they’re trying to do something!’

  They struggled through the remaining three book descriptions, unsure of the purpose of their task, or the qualities they were expected to display. No questions were asked. Liam seemed at ease in the tension, leaning forward as if to absorb the conflict for a later date.

  Once they had all given a synopsis, Miller reminded them that Aiya had asked them to explain how the books had relevance to their lives and work.

  ‘Well, Mandela was, of course, a huge inspiration in my life,’ said Richard. He gave a nervous laugh; the self-deprecation was an attempted apology.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jordie aggressively, ‘I’ve heard that apart from him you’re every African’s beacon for democracy.’

  ‘Don’t give him too much credit,’ said Liam. ‘The idea of Richard being this evil puppet master is off the mark. He was powerless rather than evil.’

  Richard eyed Liam suspiciously. ‘You are kidding, right? After framing me as the wicked face of capitalism, you now say I was irrelevant?’

  Liam shrugged and turned away from Richard.

  ‘You think you can just shrug it off ? Do you have any idea what that did to me?’ Richard continued. ‘You don’t give a shit about what you do to other people, do you?’

  Liam sat back and folded his arms.

  ‘For Christ’s sake. Listen to me,’ Richard said loudly. ‘What right do you have? How can you live with yourself writing stuff you know is a goddamn lie?’

  Liam rolled his eyes. ‘This world isn’t about fair. I didn’t give a toss what you did during Crest Voyager. In all likelihood you probably tried to negotiate and your board shut you down. I didn’t choose this. I didn’t choose you. Everywhere in the world people find themselves in positions they don’t want to be in because they don’t hold the chips to get out of them – too much debt, too much responsibility, playing out the demands this shitty world places on us. I was held ransom by my reputation as much as you were. I, along with every reasonably well-thinking person knew you had no ability to change Crest Voyager. I’m not always proud of what I write, but this is who I am now. This is what we are now. This is what we do. You can’t negotiate with a world that doesn’t give a shit.’

  The silence that followed was only broken by the sound of bubbling water: Jordie and Miller’s shisha inhalation had increased in direct proportion to the tension. Richard paced around the room. Liam watched him.

  ‘And don’t go believing the story I’m sure you’ve told yourself all these years,’ Liam continued, ‘that you’re some misunderstood warrior for good. That you’re chipping away at the periphery, doing things that others in your position wouldn’t. There’s no glory in futility – only misplaced vanity.’

  ‘Well, my book chartered the history of an initiative I’ve often copied,’ said Miller, tentatively trying to move the discussion on. He had read a book on the founder of micro-finance that lent small amounts of money to people so poor that banks refused to lend to them. ‘It just feels like they were the pioneers, and we’re the second-rate followers who suck the magic out of it.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Richard, angrily turning towards him. ‘We’re all here locked in a room because I was convinced to fund a project that was supposed to be pioneering and cutting edge.’ He shook his head, continuing to mutter under his breath.

  Miller looked puzzled as he momentarily forgot all the reasons for his life’s accumulated disappointments.

  The note Aiya delivered the following morning told them to read something from the literature section. Instead of sliding the trays in on the floor, Aiya had walked calmly into the room and placed the food on the table. As she left, Miller called out, his eyes remaining glued to the page, ‘Thank you, Aiya.’

  ‘Pleasure,’ she replied as she closed the door.

  At 6.45, shishas arrived and they broke from their books to discuss their thoughts on the day’s reading. None of them realised they had not been asked to.

  The next day, they were advised to read from the poetry section. It required patience to find reward in these lines. But what else were they going to do?

  Liam privately did the maths. This was day five. The ransoms for El Sayed, Fathima Ahmed and Salma Mirza appeared a week after the kidnap. He would soon discover if the kidnappers were who he hoped they were.

  The following morning they received another note from Aiya.

  Gentlemen. Today is self-help day. On the shelf is a range of titles that might take your fancy. Pick the one that appeals to you. All the pages are blank inside. It is your task to write that book. Write as much or as little as you desire. I won’t ask you to read its contents. All I want to know is how the book you thought you were going to write at the start of the day compares to the one you ended up writing

  Author away,

  Aiya

  They approached the bookshelf, their eyes trying on each title to see if it would fit the disappointments they were harbouring inside. Miller selected Change Yourself to be the Change You Want to See in the World. Richard chose I Am Not My Job: Finding Identity Beyond the Workplace. Jordie took some time before pulling out Better the Devil You Are: How Nasty is the New Nice in Changing the World?. Liam saw a title that challenged his negativity, much as Barrett had done in their last conversation: A Firm Affirmative: The Art of Saying Yes.

  After lunch, six bottles of wine were left on the table, a liquid companion to their deepening introspections.

  Each wrestled with their books in a different way: Jordie’s pages were filled with crossings-out and rewrites; Richard wrote a stream-of-consciousness tome; Miller was controlled, deliberating over each sentence; Liam spent the day making a list of every yes/no question or decision he could remember making in his life.

  At 6.45 Aiya delivered shishas to the sofa. ‘Thank you, Aiya,’ they said, as if she were the well-treated domestic help. She dutifully retired to the sound of laughter as they sloppily refilled their glasses.

  They smoked for a few minutes, the nicotine enhancing their stealthily acquired drunkenness, before Liam broke the silence. ‘I’ve written many autobiographies, hidden within the criticism of others,’ he said with a strange smile. ‘In all of them I’m the man who says “no”. I choose the wrong fork in the path, the one of reproach, of negativity—’ He broke off. ‘But I’m not sure I’ve actually said “no” to many things . . . I’ve drifted here . . . an accumulation of all the times I never fought for yes.’ He sat back and crossed his arms as a way of signalling his conclusion.

  Miller spoke next. ‘You know . . . I grew up thinking I could change the world simply by reading books and committing time.’ He paused before giving his audience a rueful smile. ‘I’m coming to think what I thought was altruism was arrogance.’ A swaying shrug indicated he had finished.

  They turned to Jordie, who had been quiet all day. He sat back against the sofa and ruffled his hair. ‘What the fuck do you want me to say?’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘Ten years ago I was working in slums helping families secure housing and safe drinking water. Look at me now. Do you really think I find my current state acceptable?’

  Legs were crossed and faces rubbed as the awkwardness of unchartered emotional waters took its toll.

  ‘We’re all hypocrites here,’ Richard said. ‘I was a hypocrite when I started writing; 43 pages of self-analysis and a bottle and a
half of wine hasn’t changed that. But you know what?’ He looked around the group. ‘Writing this down made me wonder why I’d given up so early. I’m not talking redemption here; what’s done is done. I’m merely saying, if the chance appeared, would I recognise it as an opportunity to be who I wanted to be?’

  That evening they put the world to rights. They did not suddenly become best friends, nor did their flaws dissolve in confession. They did not say anything overtly profound. But talking together seemed to ease their personal disappointments. They would blame the moments of empathy on the alcohol.

  They woke the next day with a feeling of having had a convivial evening without being able to sketch in the details.

  At 8am the following morning, they awaited breakfast. At 8.30 it still had not arrived. At 9.00 they became restless, more through a breaking of routine than hunger. By 10.00 it was hunger. By 10.30 they became self-righteous in a way hostages rarely feel entitled to. At 11.00 Miller noticed that the door stood slightly ajar. They stared at each other in confusion. Liam took the lead, edging towards the door and slowly opening it.

  Aiya sat on the chair in the room they had first entered from the street. ‘You’re the four most unobservant people I’ve ever met. I’ve been here three hours. My mum’s waiting. It’s time for some reintroductions.’

  ‘How long has the door been open for?’ asked Liam.

  ‘It’s never been locked,’ said Aiya.

  *

  Aiya led them up the stairs to the small room where they had first entered from the street, and then through a door to their left, up a set of dirty wooden stairs. The air was stale and humid. They entered a dark, sparse room with a small table, a sofa of faded brown, three wooden seats, some black and white photos of men sitting in an arc, wearing galabeyas, playing drums and exotic stringed instruments; and an armchair that was filled by a figure who they presumed was Aiya’s mother. A creaking fan attempted the impossible task of ventilation.

  ‘Curiosity won’t kill these cats, Mum,’ said Aiya. Her mother’s brown hair was in a ponytail; her lips were raised in a permanent closeted smile; her eyes had stolen all the room’s available light. Her oval face was beautiful, but unconventionally so: the lines and muscles gave the subtle impression of activity.