Madness, the great statesmen would call it. Sheer insanity. Butchery.
But I knew nothing of war, this one or any other. The little I knew was that women didn’t fight in wars. Lucky women stayed home while men marched off and fought and died in wars. Unlucky women were swept away by wars, and mowed under by them. They were chewed up by wars, and sometimes spit out. The politicians in Moscow wanted a war, you might even say they needed a war, but I also knew nothing of politics.
The war had come like a tsunami, or a hurricane, or a tornado, or some other natural force much larger than myself.
War is such a force, even though it is not natural. War is a giant, wanton, careless child. It breaks things, and then laughs in delight. And now I had become its plaything.
The hours of my captivity had evolved into days, the days into weeks, and now the weeks had become more than two months. Every day felt like an eternity. Something had gone wrong. I was still imprisoned, and hope was all I had to live by. But the war drained the hope from my body and my mind and my soul.
What hope could there be when outside the walls of my pathetic cell, people were dying by the hundreds? What hope could there be in the face of pointless cruelty? What chance of escape? Would I flee this place and run into the arms of the falling bombs and the spray of machine gun fire? No. The lights had gone out on my former sheltered life, and I descended, fully exposed, into the gathering darkness.
***
It all happened suddenly.
It was morning, and I heard a loud commotion outside the door – rapidly approaching footsteps and menacing male voices. Something dangerous was happening – this time I knew it for sure. My nerves were as taut as a ship’s ropes. Adrenaline raced through my system. A thousand chilling thoughts pierced my brain – I was prepared for the worst.
The door opened and a short, stocky man appeared in the doorway. Foxy. From behind him, bright daylight burst into my room, streaming from the window in the larger room. I squinted in surprise as my gloomy room was instantly filled with light – after so much time in the shadows, the normal light of day nearly blinded me. For the first time, the curtains on the window behind him were thrown wide open. In my head the thought flashed: they are going to execute me – I will be shot and killed. They no longer needed to hide their location from a hostage who wouldn’t tell anyone anything because she would soon be dead.
This day and all subsequent days, every time the door opened, I would be frozen in fear, expecting something terrible. Approaching footsteps or voices near the door would always bring the most horrible expectations. Emotionally I was ready to die. I was only hoping for salvation as I would hope for (but never expect) a miracle.
Foxy threw a plastic bag on the bed. He gestured at its contents.
“Put on this dress and shawl,” he said, his voice whistling. “You’re coming with us.”
His voice was cruel. Something had happened and it made him angry.
Everything inside me tightened again in a tangle of fear. Sometimes I still could not believe that all this was really happening, that it wasn’t a nightmare. What are they going to do? An overwhelming sense of horror was my constant companion. I could never get used to this feeling, or accept the absurdity of this miserable situation.
In the bag, I found a long blue dress and a white square scarf with subtle brown patterns on it. The presence of the dress meant I had to part with the long pink robe, which I wore all the time over my black dress. I had to take off my imaginary shield, the thing that made me invisible, the only thing that protected me. I was used to the robe – I realized now that I loved the robe – and I did not want to part with it. But I did.
Now I was wearing a floor-length wool dress with long sleeves and a collar under the throat. It was dark blue. I took the little black dress – the one and only thing remaining from my past life – folded it and put it under the pillow, not knowing why. I did not know if I would ever return here again.
I covered my head with the scarf in the Russian manner, twisting it around my neck and linking the ends at the back, completely covering my blonde hair under the headdress. My hands and knees trembled. I was in an agony of terror. My life was over. Perhaps the same feelings are experienced by the prisoner sentenced to death. He does not know the exact time of his execution – he only knows that it is coming. There is no escape. He spends every day flinching at any rustle from behind the door. He does not live his life, he does not think, he simply exists and waits for the moment of execution, which could come at any second.
They came for me. The door opened and I went into the unknown. The big room and the corridor were filled with people – bearded men, all fully armed. Their faces were blank and their eyes were hard – killers, every one of them. The blood froze in my veins – there were too many men at once. I could not look at them. Speaking short guttural phrases to each other – it could have been dogs growling and barking – they led me out of the apartment.
Then we were outside in the cold air, moving fast. I couldn’t see what was happening – the men surrounded me in a circle. All I could see was the light of day and the broad backs of the men in front of me. We sprinted, packed in a dense ring, from the building to the car – as if I was the head of state and these were the men assigned to take a bullet to protect me.
Someone pressed my neck down hard, forcing me to bow almost to the ground. The strong man’s hand wrapped around my thin neck, his fingers like steel – he hurt me and shoved me into the back seat of a green military jeep. I prayed that someone was outside at this moment and called the police.
I lifted my head and looked at the street, as I awkwardly scrambled inside. There was not a single person around. The front yard of the building was completely deserted. I was right – I had been held on the first floor of an ordinary apartment complex that was built during the Khrushchev era. It was a residential district of five-story buildings - nothing special. But I suddenly felt how much I had been missing even this simple image. Trapped in my dark room, my mind had become a blank canvas.
The day was cold – early winter. There was a thin, nearly transparent layer of white snow on the ground. I was in the back seat between two armed men. They were talking in their hacking, barking, guttural language. I tried to listen to their words very carefully, but I couldn’t understand a word. I did not know where they were taking me. I prayed for one thing: if they were going to kill me, please let it be instant death. I could not bear torture.
The jeep started rolling down the empty boulevard. I hadn’t seen streets in what seemed like a long time. My world had recently acquired rather limited outlines – 12 feet by 12 feet.
Foxy was sitting on my left.
“Cover your eyes,” he said in his hissing voice.
He handed me a piece of dark fabric. I wanted to see! But even that had to be taken from me. The endless feeling of fear had become an integral part of my existence. I did not want to cry in despair - in my heart I hoped that I was being taken to be exchanged.
Blindfolded, I pictured the landscapes that we were passing in my imagination. I could not enjoy it. Sandwiched on both sides, I felt the warm flesh of the two gangsters pressing against me. I knew I would never be able to cause them a sense of compassion. For them I was not a human, but only a means to an end, a way to make money.
After a time, Foxy’s lisping voice ordered me to take off the bandage.
The blackness under the blindfold suddenly turned into gray – it was a gloomy, overcast day, gray skies, gray snowy streets – everything had the same bleak color. The car moved through the streets, into the center of the city, Grozny, the Chechen capital. The name of the city was all I could understand from the conversation of the gangsters. The further we went, the dirtier the road became.
Everywhere there was evidence of the recent fighting – bullet-scarred buildings, charred by fire, burned out Russian tanks and trucks thrown askew like broken toys. I was taking no sides in this war. I had my own war to fight – the war to su
rvive, to stay hopeful, to stay alive... to be saved.
Outside the window, the picture became even more terrible. The trees were bare, and the new snow was mixed with mud and blood, white and brown mixed together, with jarring smears of bright red. Here the buildings were destroyed, crushed and smashed as if by an army of giants – we were right in downtown Grozny. I stared in shock at the wreckage – I had never seen a war up close.
The car stopped at a plaza in the center of the city. They parked near a large tree with massive naked branches spreading out to the sides. I looked around in a stupor, and soon I noticed something lodged between the thick branches. It wasn’t one something – there were several of them. At every crook of the bald tree, one of these things had been carefully placed. I stared and stared at them, trying to make out what they were.
Foxy spoke, the intensity of his voice startling me. “That’s what will be left of all the Russians who come to our country.”
They were human heads.
Cut off heads of Russian soldiers, plastered with mud and blood, decorated the tree like Christmas bulbs. They were probably very young – they had been boys just recently – certainly so young that they couldn’t even hold their heavy guns right. They had been called up for military service only yesterday, and now they had to remain here forever. Their mothers must be…
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t face it. A wave of dizziness and nausea passed through me. How is this possible?
Around me in the car, the gangsters prattled among themselves in their unknowable language, their voices excited and cheerful. They were happy. No, they were jubilant. This atrocity, this disgrace… for them, it was a victory to be celebrated. They had won the first battle, but not the war. I stared straight ahead, my face numb from the horror.
The car lurched into motion again. I expected that I too would be beheaded, and soon, so I prayed quietly and thought about my mother. It only took another ten minutes to reach our next destination. We came to a stop.
“Listen to me,” Foxy said, his lisping voice right in my ear. His mouth was so close that I could feel his breath. Then we were face to face. My own breath caught in my throat. His dark eyes bored into mine. His teeth seemed sharp and dangerous. I was so deadened by fear, his words did not reach my brain right away, though he spoke simply and with barely an accent. He spoke seriously, his words angry and abrupt, pronouncing each phrase in a clipped and threatening manner. I looked into his close-set eyes, trying to find some humanity in him.
“We’re going to get out of the car, and you’re going to talk to your mother over the phone.”
I gasped. I’ll be talking to my mom!
“Tell her she has to find the money. The full amount. Tell her that you’re alive and you’re doing well. So far. Tell her that if she gets the money, you will go home unharmed. If not, you’ll go home in pieces. In two weeks I will cut off your first finger and send it to her by mail. Tell her that. But behave yourself. If you try to scream, no one will help you, and it will only make things worse. I’ll shoot you in the arm or the leg, and you’ll sit chained to the radiator for the rest of your time here.”
Foxy’s words shocked me like a bolt of lightning from a blue sky. I was not a hero; I was not a special agent trained by the military. I was an ordinary Russian girl. I had never encountered violence in any form before, but in the course of twenty minutes I had seen dead boys with their heads cut off, and now a man was telling me he would cut me into pieces, or maybe shoot me and chain me to a radiator. I had no idea how to react to the things he was saying – they simply terrified me.
But besides the overwhelming fear, another feeling absorbed me even more. I would hear my mama’s voice! I missed her so much. It was excruciating. I knew how anguished she must be over my kidnapping, but I had no way to comfort her. She probably didn’t know if I was even still alive.
The jeep was stopped in front of the main post office.
For a while we stayed inside the car, as if the men were waiting for a command. Suddenly, everything was set in motion, all four car doors opened at the same time, and all the kidnappers hurried to get out. They didn’t have to push me out of the car - I could not wait to hear my mom’s voice. I jumped out almost instantly, along with Foxy and the three others. There were another three men outside. I was once again pressed inside a dense circle, surrounded by the men. I couldn’t see, but I also didn’t care. I couldn’t wait to get into the building. A few quick steps and we were on the tiled floor in the building’s cool lobby. It was a standard Russian post office. One side of a large hall was lined with telephone booths. On the opposite side, there was the telegram office. A few people milled around, sending letters, making calls – who knew? They didn’t seem to notice us at all.
Our tight circle moved quickly down the hall, feet stumbling to keep up, my heart torn by impatience. At the end of the hall a door opened, and I was pushed into a tiny phone booth. Everything happened at lightning speed. Someone gave me the phone receiver already warmed by someone else’s hands. I pressed it against my ear.
“Mama?”
I could no longer hold back the tears. They ran down my face. I was dying inside - how badly I wanted to dissolve from here and appear at home! I couldn’t stand it anymore. Anguish and pain and fear tore me to pieces. On the other end of the phone line I heard the breath of the most wonderful and lovely person - my favorite person in the world. I could feel her there. I felt her struggling not to weep too, and not fall into despair. I knew that she did not want to show me how bad and hopeless everything was.
“Sweetheart,” she said, and paused, and I heard how she swallowed a lump of tears in silence. She did not want me to hear it. Her voice entered me, and tore me up inside. I wanted to die and not feel this unbearable pain any longer. My mom’s voice sounded dry and cracked after spilling so many tears.
But she tried to instill hope in me.
“Sweetheart, are you ok? Are you hurt? I’m going to get you out. Everything will be fine, and we will meet again very soon.”
“Mama, I’m okay. They just want money.”
I held the phone and I did not want to let it go - I wanted to stay here and listen to her voice forever. I was supposed to tell her that they planned to send me in parts, and in two weeks they would cut my finger off. But I wouldn’t do it. It would be better to be killed right now, right here, rather than cause her any more pain.
“Sweetie, everything will be okay.” She spoke to me in a comforting tone, as in the days when I was a child. She talked to me, her voice washing over me, the words not as important as the sound of her voice. Her talking alone made me feel better, just like in my childhood.
Someone started to pull the phone away from me. I grabbed it with both hands, fighting him. I did not want to leave the booth.
“I love you, Mom!” I shouted.
I heard her screaming. “I love you, Lena! I love you!” At the end, her voice turned to sobs.
Someone dragged me from the booth. Stone hands twisted my arms behind my back, snatching the phone away. I couldn’t see – tears filled my eyes.
They raced me back through the post office, pushing me, dragging me. In seconds, I was inside the car. I covered my face with both hands, bent over, and hid my face on my lap, sobbing silently. I didn’t want to look at these men. I hated them with all my heart and wished them only death.
December 12, 1994
Astrakhan, Russia
For the woman, each new day was just like all the previous – overflowing with sorrow and grief. The woman avoided people, staying at home all the time, dedicating herself to waiting for the abductors to call. She did not go to work, fearing to miss a phone call. Would they ever call again?
The elder had met with the kidnappers, but the operation had failed completely. The angry terrorists did not heed the exhortations of the elder, and promised revenge on the prisoner if their demands were not met.
For the woman, hope, which had appeared for a moment, now c
ollapsed. There was no hope at all anymore. All that was left was pain, as if part of her very self had been torn away, and terror for her only child. She did not know how to weather the grief. She no longer spoke. She no longer listened. She no longer thought. She caved into herself. Guilt and powerlessness led her into a downward spiral, deep into depression, and then past it, down into something like quiet insanity.
One day, the telephone rang.
With aching heart, she picked it up - the receiver weighed a thousand pounds.
A man’s voice was there:
“You will speak with your daughter in a minute.”
The woman froze, as if shocked. It was almost impossible to believe that she was going to hear that sweet voice...
“Mama!”
How much she loved and how much she missed her! She was ready to endure any pain, any physical torture, if only it would bring her daughter home.
“Sweetheart…” she began. The lump in her throat made it hard to speak. “Sweetheart, are you okay? Are you in pain? I’m going to get you out. Everything will be fine. We will meet very soon. My love, do not lose hope. We should be strong. I’m doing everything to bring you home very soon. We just need more time.”
She didn’t believe her own words. Only moments before, she had been abject, with no hope for the future at all. She still had none. Now she was telling her daughter not to give up because soon she would be home. She was lying, not just to the girl, but to herself as well. She told a lie because the truth was too hard to face, and because maybe her daughter would believe the lie. She also told it because it was just possible that she herself might come to believe it.
“I love you! I love you!” they shouted at the same time.
At the other end, a rough man’s voice replaced the sound of her daughter.
“You have three more weeks to get the money. This is your last chance. You’ve made me angry. After three weeks, you will get her finger in mail.”
He hung up.
Girl, Taken - A True Story of Abduction, Captivity, and Survival Page 7