During the years my father was held captive, the U.S. State Department maintained regular contact with my mother and my father’s employers, the Associated Press, ostensibly keeping them up-to-date on the government’s efforts to free him. As a child, I was always confident my country was working as hard as it could to secure his release. And then it finally happened.
I was almost seven when my father was set free. There’s a photograph in my bedroom of the night I met him. He’s beaming, clutching an enormous bouquet of flowers in one arm. I’m attached to his other hand, wearing a little red coat and a confused smile. Cameras flash in the background. It’s a famous, almost iconic image of the 1980s Lebanese hostage crisis—the man, the flowers, the little girl.
Nick Ludington, my godfather and former chief of AP services in the Middle East, was charged with avoiding bias while covering my father for the news organization my dad had been an integral part of before he was kidnapped—no easy feat, since the AP wanted desperately to help secure his release.
A couple of months before my jaunt to Dahiyeh, I interview Nick—who for some forgotten reason I’ve called Silly Turtle or just the Turtle for as long as I can remember—in the cozy, familiar little TV room behind my godparents’ kitchen. Their house is one of the only places I consistently returned to during my nomadic childhood. It’s at least a century old, a sprawling but unostentatious villa in Rockland County overlooking the Hudson River.
The Turtle is happy to reminisce about his days in Beirut, and my godmother, Cass, a grandmotherly woman from an old-money family, occasionally chimes in. She’s like something out of another time—her beautifully antique American accent brings to mind mansions and yachts and ancient silverware polished to a bright shine.
Nick says he was heavily insulated from what the AP was doing behind the scenes—working with the government to try to bring an end to my father’s captivity.
“These guys were doing things that were sacred and they were talking to intelligence services and this and that,” he explains. “They were very clear that they were keeping me out of it because I had to cover it. They were absolutely right.”
My mother and I had become close to my godparents while we were all living in Cyprus, before my father came home. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know Cass and the Turtle.
“Mostly I try to think about the nice stuff from that time,” Nick says with a smile. “We all lived in Cyprus, and you were so cute. You loved your mum, and Cassie and your mum were great friends, as you know. It was wonderful.”
I ask them about the night my father came home.
“When your dad was getting out, we weren’t told by anyone,” Nick explains. “I think it was the American embassy in Syria that told us we maybe needed to get over there, so we took you and your mum.
“We were really worried, everybody was watching us,” he continues. “They knew if Nick goes to Damascus—well, they were friends of ours, the journalists. Who was the guy I’m thinking of, the BBC guy—Cass, who was the BBC guy who was so interested in Terry’s release, who was constantly sniffing around?” No one wanted the media to jump the gun on my dad’s release. If it wasn’t true, the brouhaha might have had severe consequences for him.
Cass responds with a name I will not disclose, then says, “Oh my God, absolutely, so we had to hide our departure. The morning we left, his wife calls and says, ‘What are you doing today?’ We were getting ready to leave with you and didn’t know what to say and we certainly weren’t going to—”
“He put her onto it, obviously,” Nick remarks.
Cass jumps back in. “He had to have suspected something.”
“Anyway, we flew into Damascus, but I had booked a room in a really skuzzy commercial hotel that wasn’t the Meridian or anything where any of the journalists would be and they said we could stay there and we’d flown out quietly,” Nick continues.
“Did I stay there?” I ask. A faint memory of a grimy hotel room stirs.
“Yes, you and Madeleine and Cass and I. It was a pretty awful hotel—it wasn’t bedbuggy but just between bedbuggy and good.”
“All I really remember is that my mom woke me up in the middle of the night,” I say quietly. It’s not an easy thing to think about. I know I cried because I had to leave my friends behind, and all the life I had ever known. Even then, I felt instinctively that everything was going to change, and I was afraid. “I remember Mom waking me up, and we rode on one of those army planes at some point and I remember throwing up. I think I threw up.”
“Yes,” Cass says. “You did. Anyway, we were there for a couple of days, and we were amusing you with games. But we couldn’t go out, we couldn’t show ourselves in public.”
“So a couple of days later we find out it was true, that your father had really been released,” Nick explains. “So there was a mad rush to get to the embassy, which was a zoo.”
“Tell me about that night,” I ask. “What was it like? If you can describe it for me.”
“I remember seeing him, and we went crazy, everybody just went nuts,” he recollects. “I remember Harry pushing forward and hugging your dad, he was the wonderful AP photographer, Armenian guy. He died recently.”
“How did Dad look? I only remember him one way.”
“I saw him from far away and he looked pretty good,” Cass says. “Everybody expected this wraith to appear, but your dad wasn’t that bad. They were asking questions and he was smiling and then he said, ‘You’ll have to pardon me but I have two ladies waiting.’ He meant you and your mom.”
“That’s right, great line, that was a good one.” Nick laughs.
“What was it like between me and my dad at first?” I ask. This is what I really want to know. Was it ever good for us? Was there some point when I was Button, the pretty little girl he had seen on television in the dungeon he lived in for seven years? Was he ever the father I needed him to be?
“Well, you know what, I didn’t see much of it,” Cass says. “I remember we were taken to somebody’s house for a while. I saw you every so often, but your dad was busy. There was no sense of a relationship or anything at that time. All I knew was that he didn’t want you out of his sight. But I remember a night or so before, when we were in that little hotel before your dad got free, you said, ‘I know what my daddy is going to be like. He’s going to be just like the Turtle.’ Which was so cute. Nick was very flattered.”
“I was flattered.”
“Then we went to Germany, then we went to Antigua, right?” I ask.
“No, then we went from Germany to New York,” Cass responds. “There was all this welcoming at Rockefeller Center. I have never forgotten the ride. We were part of the cavalcade from the airport to Rockefeller Center. It went without a stop the whole way. They cleared everything. The lights in the city . . . even the lights were turned off, and there were people standing along the streets yelling, ‘Terry, Terry,’ and some people were asking who it was, and they said, ‘It’s Terry—Terry.’ It was really beautiful.”
“I must have been petrified,” I say. I remember being petrified.
At that exact moment, my phone starts to ring. It’s Dad. I had been trying to get hold of him for days, but his number kept going straight to voice mail and I was starting to become worried.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he says.
“Hi, Dad, I had a quick question for you, but I’m doing an interview with the Turtle, with Nick. Can I call you back in ten minutes? And why is your phone always off, by the way?”
“Oh, that,” my father says absently. “I keep forgetting to charge it.”
“Okay then, please don’t do that because it’s not safe. You need your phone on. Bye.”
I actually remember the moment I met my father in startling detail. Exhausted, I had fallen asleep on a couch in a waiting room at the American embassy in Damascus. A thin, pale man in thick glasses woke me. He said he was my father, but he didn’t look like any of the images I had of him in my head. He was s
miling. Mama was sobbing. He hugged me and my mother hugged him. Dazed, I held on to his hand as we walked outside into a sea of people, all cheering and shouting their congratulations. The cameras flashed constantly, hurting my eyes. I noticed that despite his smile, my new father flinched at the noise and the lights. I wondered at his hand shaking in mine.
A couple of years ago, a man I dated for a bit slept over at my house. Forgetting he was there, I began counting out the handful of pills I take every night before bed. He saw what I was doing and asked what medication I was on. Thinking an abbreviated version of the truth would suffice at that stage in our relationship, I told him I was on antidepressants.
“Wow,” he exclaimed, half joking. “Baggage.”
I looked at the picture hanging on my wall. I saw that little girl and I wanted to put my hand to her cheek, wrap my arms around her, and never let go.
2. THE ABDUCTION
I feel utterly powerless, and that feeling is my prison.
—HARUKI MURAKAMI
NOW
The day my father was kidnapped began with the best of intentions.
“The night before, we were all at your dad’s house,” Don Mell tells me. “It was myself and Scheherazade [Faramarzi], a couple of others, and [Robert] Fisk. We were all drinking, and at some point we realized we weren’t getting enough exercise. So tennis was kind of our thing, and you could play tennis for free at that little court by the lighthouse. We agreed to play and your dad picked me up at about seven the next morning.”
Don Mell used to be an AP photographer in Beirut. He became almost a little brother to my dad as they covered the daily violence of Lebanon’s civil war together. I’ve known him practically my whole life, but this is the first time I’ve seen him in years. He is just the same as I remember him: round, with a wry smile and a caustic sense of humor. My best memories of him were in our big old house in Bronxville, laughing with my dad, flirting with my mom. He always made me giggle, and I looked forward to his visits.
My dad and Don share a bond that’s as unique as any I can imagine. He was in the car with my father when Dad was taken, and although I know he’s told the story countless times, he agrees to take me back to the morning he saw one of his best friends kidnapped in front of him. I’m interviewing him in his uncle’s beautiful SoHo town house in Manhattan, which boasts a rare, lovely garden and what looks to be some priceless artwork. We sit on a slightly uncomfortable antique couch and he begins to talk.
“When we parked at the courts, I saw the car that would turn out to be the kidnap car drive by us, but I didn’t really register it,” Don recounts. “I mean, three creepy guys in a car in Beirut during the war, you know. We played tennis for about an hour . . . then we get in the car and I see them again, and I thought to myself, ‘If I see them a third time I’m going to say something.’ But I let my guard down.”
After making a stop at my dad’s building, they eventually pulled up in front of Don’s apartment. I imagine it was probably starting to bustle in that part of Beirut at 8:15 A.M. The city would have just been waking up.
“I looked out of the front window and that car is sitting there in front of us,” Don Mell tells me. “And I said, ‘Holy shit,’ and I got out of our car. I told Terry to get the hell out of here, because I thought they were after me. You’ve got to realize, all this happened in the space of twenty seconds.
“Your father is trying to get the car in gear, but he starts to panic, he can’t do it,” he continues tonelessly, a faraway look in his eyes. I suppose even after all these years, it can’t be fun to relive this event. “One guy went across the street and he had a Kalashnikov. He was just there to make sure that nobody interfered. There was a little taxi stand and they all—everybody knew what was happening. And then another guy, a really big guy, came and literally reached in and grabbed your dad in a sort of bear hug.”
“And Dad’s not a small man either,” I murmur. I’m trying to put myself in that car with them, imagining Ain el-Mreisseh in March, the quiet of the street shattered. The exhilaration of an early-morning tennis game devolving into panic. What must have been going through their heads? Utter helplessness, I’m sure—the impotence of knowing nothing you do or say will stop what’s happening. The knowledge that someone else holds your life interlaced between their fingers, and they can snap it like a rubber band whenever they choose. The violation of having your body, your fate, belong to someone else. It’s a feeling I’m not unfamiliar with, but I know my experiences can’t compare to what that day meant for them.
“Right, he’s not,” Don answers with a brief grin that dies almost immediately. “So anyway, this big guy pulls him out of the car. The third guy came up to me directly, and he had a Beretta. He puts it to my forehead and I am thinking, you know, one of two things is going to happen here. I’m getting in that car or I am dead. But they threw your dad in the back of the car. And then the other guy with the Kalashnikov jumps back into the car. He was the driver. The guy who was with me, he starts to back up with the gun pointed at me. He backed up about three or four feet and then I took a step forward toward him, and another step, and he just looked at me and waved the gun.” He mimes a dismissal at me.
“Like, get out of here.”
“Right. None of them said a word, they didn’t say anything to each other or me, he just went like, scoot. And then he got in the car and took off. I realized our car is still running, so I threw my stuff in the backseat and I got in.”
“You actually drove after them?” I ask in disbelief. That must have taken some serious balls.
“I drove after them about three or four blocks and we kept going toward the old Jewish court. We got past the Mirror Tower, and there was starting to be traffic. I mean it was Saturday, but the traffic was starting and I caught up to them. I saw the guy looking out of the window at me. And I thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ I mean, all I had was a tennis racket in my hand. I was hoping to get to a checkpoint and then go around them, but they obviously had their escape route, and you know they had a safe house. So I just drove to the office and that was that.”
“And then you told everyone?” I ask.
“Right. Of course, everybody in the office was hungover. I said, ‘Terry has been kidnapped,’ and they asked how I knew and I said, ‘Because I was there.’”
I need more detail about the day my father was taken, and I know Scheherazade Faramarzi, another colleague of my father’s, was present that morning, so I contact her and she agrees to an interview.
Iranian by birth, Shazi was invaluable to the AP, not just for her fluency in both Farsi and Arabic, but because, I’m told, she was fearless and fiercely dedicated to the job. She used to be my mother’s best friend, although they’ve lost touch now, the consequence of some decades-old fight—my mother nurses her grudges with great care and attention—which is sad because she was a sort of aunt to me growing up. I’ve known her since I was a toddler in Cyprus, and her stories of what a cute but stubborn child I was are as much a part of my understanding of those years as the ones my family tells. In a Skype conversation from Iran, she shares how she remembers that day while I sit rapt at my computer in the living room of our house in Fanar, Lebanon.
It’s highly uncomfortable because my mother, in one of her characteristic bouts of stubbornness, refused to get air-conditioning in the house when she had it built. I was forced to actually buy my own crappy little AC unit that I drag with me from room to room, where I sit sometimes with my sweaty face inches away from the grate. Months of my relentless complaining—and the rest of my family pointing out that even the Bangladeshi superintendent has AC in his little ground-floor apartment—have not convinced Mama to relent, so it’s sticky hot, but I barely notice as Shazi begins her story.
“We didn’t really become friends, Maddy and I, until the day Terry was kidnapped,” she says in her slow, slightly raspy voice. It’s always had a calming effect on me. “I was going to the office and stopped in a stationery sho
p. I saw a friend of mine and she said, ‘Hey, did you hear they kidnapped an American in Ain el-Mreisseh?’ I thought . . . it’s either Terry or Don. I ran to the office and I saw Don Mell standing outside and I just said, ‘It’s Terry.’
“We went upstairs and the office was in like, just a hurricane,” she continues. “Not physically but everybody was in shock, literally their faces were white, or that’s how I remember them. Don was feeling guilty and so I was just walking around. Then Maddy comes in and she just came toward me and she was shivering and crying. I had no idea what to tell her. It’s okay, it’s not okay, he’ll be fine. I didn’t know. She just needed to hold on to something, and so I held her while she shivered.”
Keep in mind; my mother was six months pregnant with me at the time. Her baby’s father was gone. He was still married to another woman, from whom he was in the process of obtaining a divorce, who had a daughter of her own—my half sister, Gabrielle. Mama didn’t even have the security of his last name. For all she knew, I would be denied U.S. citizenship because no one would be able to prove I had an American father.
My mother, all five feet of her against the world. She must have felt so frightened, so ripped away from everything that made sense—completely and utterly alone. I think Mama always felt as though she couldn’t count on anyone but herself; a worldview that was likely the product of an almost completely absent father and a mother with a gambling addiction that became somewhat adorable in her old age—my teta’s affinity for chain-smoking at slot machines was a constant source of amusement to my cousins and me. I imagine it must have been significantly less cute to the five children she didn’t attend to because she spent all her time and money at the casino. Mama basically raised herself, with the help of her older siblings, and this left her with a firm belief that no one can really be trusted, that leaning on others was unwise and bound to end badly. It was a message she constantly tried to instill in me when I was older: you can’t rely on other people, because they always disappoint you. Like my father, who may not have been able to avoid it but nonetheless wasn’t there when she needed him most. People always leave.
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