The Dawn Prayer_Or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison

by Matthew Schrier

  The worst part was the way he gave the massages, dropping to his knees as if before a caliph, placing Abdelatif’s leg upon his shoulder as the Moroccan lay smirking with his arms outstretched on the floor. We were in a room full of soldiers; the symbolism of this was undeniable and noticed by every man in the room. More times than I can count men would look from this spectacle back to me with their arms out in disbelief, as if waiting for an explanation of how an American could so readily kneel before a member of al-Qaeda, his country’s greatest enemy. This didn’t help things between Theo and me, because he wasn’t only humiliating himself by doing this, he was humiliating America, which was definitely the Moroccan’s goal—making us look so pitiful and weak that anyone who survived would grow old telling their grandchildren that this was how Americans acted without their military around to back them up. It made my life twice as difficult because I had to stand twice as tall whenever I was tested by another prisoner, to prove that not all of us bleed pink like Theo.

  The Alawites knelt in prayer five times a day, which meant Theo was now kneeling before al-Qaeda more often than they were kneeling before God. I didn’t know who I hated most for this, the Moroccan or Theo.

  The one time Theo did refuse a request, it came from me—and it wasn’t for a massage. The guards were feeling particularly vicious that day, and we were being treated worse than the sheep we heard them keeping in the room next door, where the punishment cells were. That morning Crop Top asked who had to take a shit and only those who raised their hands were permitted to go on the bathroom run. Everyone else, those who only had to take a piss, were forced to use the bottle that had been brought just for me because of my urinary tract infection. By nighttime it was completely filled with pungent yellow fluid.

  When Crop Top and Abu Ali returned in the evening for our second and final bathroom break of the day, they were still on their sadistic streak, with the sound of Abu Ali’s Taser snapping out and Crop Top blessing everyone with his signature smack to the back of the neck. Knowing that both Abu Ali and Crop Top took particular pleasure in making me suffer, I decided to skip this run since I didn’t have to go anyway. The only problem was the piss bottle and who was going to empty it. I turned to Theo, who was already lined up to go on the run.

  “Theo, can you empty the bottle for me?” I asked, as the sounds of blows and Tasers echoed in from the hallway as the men started down. “I don’t wanna go out there tonight.”

  “No,” he replied coldly.

  “Why not?” I asked. He was going anyway, and he’d emptied the Moroccan’s bottle every day at the hospital. “You want me to go out there and get Tased and stomped?”

  “Yes.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you deserve it.”

  It took me a second to absorb this. I looked at him, sitting there rocking back and forth, staring at the ground with a blank expression. Then I dealt him a solid slap across the face, which set off a commotion in the room, given the proximity of the guards.

  “Jumu’ah!” I heard from all directions as the men pointed toward the open door.

  “What’s going on over there?” piped the Moroccan.

  “I asked Theo to empty the bottle and he said no because he wants me to go outside and get stomped and Tased!” I said, enraged.

  “Theo, empty the fucking bottle!” the Moroccan shouted.

  “Fine!”

  “Oh, so you’ll empty the bottle for al-Qaeda, but not for me?” I said, disgusted.

  The feeling of being betrayed by one of my own left me consumed with anger; at that moment I could happily have beaten Theo within an inch of his life. Sometimes I was jealous of the POWs, who were locked up with others they shared a bond of culture and country with—they had something bigger than themselves that connected them and kept them strong. The fact that Theo and I were both Americans meant something to me. I wanted it to mean something to him, but it didn’t and never would.

  Crop Top’s malicious behavior toward the Alawites reached an all-time low one day when he came downstairs just to confiscate all of the Korans in the room. There were about six in total—including mine, which Yassine had returned to me as promised after we were transferred—and every one of them was taken. This was a huge blow to the men and sent a wave of devastation through the room, as every man there spent time reading the sacred book, some of them hours upon hours. When Yassine joined Crop Top and Abu Ali outside our door, I started complaining as soon as we made eye contact.

  “Yassine, he took my Koran!” I said. “The one you came down here to give me after we left the last place!”

  Yassine pulled my Koran swiftly from Crop Top’s grasp and handed it down to me with both hands where I sat on the floor. Crop Top tried to say something, but Yassine cut him off.

  “Jumu’ah, this is yours!” he said, so his voice carried through the room. “Do not give it to anyone!” The way he said it, I could have sworn he didn’t just mean the other prisoners, he meant Crop Top, too.

  After the door closed we could hear Crop Top still arguing with Yassine’s decision, but he got nowhere and they moved off down the hall. I sat there wide-eyed with disbelief at what had just happened. All the actual Muslims had their sacred texts confiscated, while one jihadi overruled another to allow probably the only Jew in the entire country to keep the only Koran in the entire room. My God, I thought to myself, Larry David couldn’t make this shit up.

  “Kawa’s dead!” someone said.

  It was during a bathroom break; one of the men had learned of Kawa’s fate from a guard.

  “What? He’s dead?” I asked eagerly.

  “Yes, he was killed at a checkpoint when he wouldn’t let them search his car,” a soldier answered.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. “Yes! This is great news! You hear that?” I asked Theo, patting him on the back.

  “Yeah,” he said, without emotion.

  I was so jubilant that my friends had to warn me to keep it down so the guards wouldn’t hear. Kawa’s death gave me hope: Everyone in the room knew he had a hard-on for me and Theo and loved having us in his custody like little American trophies. Now we had a chance of getting someone else put in charge of our fates, and I had something new to pray for—surely there had to be one reasonable soul in this cursed fucking organization.

  In spite of underfeeding, death, torture, and general horror, there were moments I remember with something almost like bliss, like when we all saw a full moon for the first time since being taken prisoner. Because my sleeping spot faced the window I had a clear line of sight, and some of the men who didn’t would come and sit by my feet, staring through the bars as they were bathed in moonlight. Syria has some of the most beautiful and clear night skies I have ever seen. I had forgotten all about that since being kidnapped.

  On another night I heard Oqba’s voice calling me over.

  “What’s up?” I asked, kneeling next to him in the dark.

  “Come here,” he said warmly. “Come lie next to me and tell me all about New York!”

  He said “New York!” with such excitement that it made me smile. I lay down next to him and we put our arms around each other’s shoulders like we were at camp, staring into the blackness as I told him all about Times Square, Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, Central Park, the East Village, and all the other places I’d seen and been fortunate enough to grow up thirty miles away from. After I got through this list I started in on the places I only wished I’d had a chance to see, like Carnegie Hall and the Statue of Liberty. I talked for hours about New York, until Oqba was dozing off like a child and I left him to get some sleep.

  I went to bed that night feeling lighter, thinking, Maybe I’ll get a chance to see those places yet.

  It was at the villa that I first began making an effort to learn some prayers in Arabic, starting with the most important, the Fatiha. I’d requested a pencil or pen at the hospital to help me learn but was told it was forbidden. Being that our treatment was a hundred t
imes worse at the villa, I didn’t even bother to ask, and set out to learn by memory alone. The men who helped me the most were Ali and Oqba—deep down they knew I was faking it, but they never once held that against me. Instead they seemed to love teaching me about Islam and the Alawite sect in particular. I will never forget the first time I heard Oqba admit to being a member.

  “We are Alawite,” he said, a gleam in his eye. He stated it with such pride that I could feel it in the air.

  That night he told me all about his people; how they lived side by side with Christians in their cities on the coast and even celebrated Christmas with them, because Jesus was one of their prophets as well. What bothered him most was that they were portrayed in America as the enemy because of their government’s actions.

  “I don’t want to kill anybody,” Oqba would say, again and again.

  All he wanted was to go home to his two little girls, who he’d finally opened up to me about, and who I often saw him thinking of with tears in his eyes.

  I never really felt lonely when I was with the soldiers, but I always felt homesick. At first when we prayed, I’d say “There’s no place like home” instead of “Allah Akbar” and the four other sacred phrases, running the mesbahahs we had made out of knotted fabric through our hands to keep track of how many times we’d said each, but in time, out of respect for my friends, I stopped and began saying the prayers correctly. I also prayed, hard, for my freedom, and to see my family again soon. I prayed for our captors to judge us fairly and release us with only a warning to never come back. I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, but none of my prayers were ever answered.

  Instead, they moved us again.

  THE STORES

  MAY 5, 2013

  As always, there was no warning. The door opened and Crop Top, sounding unusually civil, made an announcement in Arabic. I didn’t understand him, of course, but I could tell from the reaction that it was good news.

  “He said we’re all going home!” the Moroccan bellowed.

  “Us too?” I asked, confused, knowing that kidnapped Americans were not exactly in the same boat as the POWs.

  “He said everybody!”

  And before I knew it everyone was hugging and kissing and celebrating like it was V-Day. In order to keep morale up I went with the flow, but when they started taking us from the room in groups, I brought all my spare clothes with me just in case. Not waiting for me, Theo jumped in with the first set to leave the room.

  Because it was so hot, I had retired the ski cap blindfold and replaced it with the sleeve of my tee shirt; when it was stretched out around my head I could see almost everything through the cloudy green fog it created. Outside, there were jihadis everywhere, all of them armed to the teeth. As I walked on at the end of the line, the Moroccan and I were separated from the group and told to stand off to the side where Theo was waiting for us. This was when I heard the voice and laughter of General Mohammad, who was walking over with his camp.

  “Jumu’ahhhh!” he said, like it was old times.

  “What’s up, General?” I replied.

  After a friendly exchange we were told to follow one of the jihadis to a vehicle. I shook General Mohammad’s hand, kissing both of his cheeks and then his shoulder as custom demanded—he jumped back, laughing, because he was wearing his suicide belt.

  I never saw him again.

  The three of us were loaded into the back of an SUV, as usual. The ride started out rough, with the jihadis quizzing the Moroccan about what medication he would prescribe for high blood pressure and accusing us of being spies, but for some reason I had a good feeling about where we were going. The ride would have been perfect, with the cool breeze hitting my face as I thought of freedom, except that Theo started to absolutely lose his shit. He was sure we were on our way to be executed, and about fifteen minutes in he started to panic.

  “Sick! Sick!” he cried out in Arabic. “Pull over!”

  I heard him struggling to keep down vomit.

  “Swallow it, dog!” barked one of the jihadis.

  “Don’t do it!” another jihadi yelled, sliding back the action on his AK for emphasis.

  Now the Moroccan and I were yelling at Theo along with everyone else, but he couldn’t hold it down and puked all over himself.

  We rode up what looked like a highway for about an hour. Then I heard the bustling streets around us and knew that we were back in Aleppo.

  As soon as my feet touched the pavement, someone took my arm and gently led me into a building and through several rooms. Upon entering one there was a step, and when I purposely bumped into it so as not to let on that I could see through my blindfold, he lightly tapped my leg and led me over the step and into a crowded cell. Inside were the soldiers, hunched down and crowded toward the back just as they’d been when we arrived at the villa. When the door closed I immediately lifted my blindfold and looked around. Over my shoulder I saw three little dark-skinned men sitting on a thick mattress: Shabiha. One by one the other men began to remove their blindfolds as well.

  My plastic ties were bound around my forearms this time so I was able to slide them down to my wrists where they were so loose I could move almost freely. The first thing I did was help Ayman loosen his restraints by sliding his jacket sleeves out from under the ties, pulling on the fabric with my teeth. Then I switched into patriot mode and moved on to Theo. His hands were bound behind his back so tightly it looked like the circulation had been completely cut off.

  “What are you doing?” the Moroccan snapped. “Sit down!”

  “I gotta try and help Theo,” I said, crawling over to him.

  By now he was lying on his side in agony, his shirt and beard soaked with vomit from the ride. I thought I might be able to loosen the zip tie by sliding the pointed end of mine into the lock on his. After we were cut loose at the villa I’d examined the thin piece of plastic that had the grip of a python, trying to figure out how to get it off another prisoner should an opportunity ever arise. Now was a perfect time to put this to the test.

  “Okay, I’m gonna try and loosen it for you,” I whispered, so the guards outside wouldn’t hear me.

  As soon as I slid the pointed end of the tie in to work my magic, Theo’s tie tightened by one click.

  “Ahh!” he yelled. “Get away from me! Get away from me!”

  I felt truly awful, and apologized profusely. On the other hand, I was always taught that it’s the thought that counts.

  The lights went out not long after our arrival, but almost as soon as the darkness descended, a huge rechargeable fluorescent illuminated the room like a rescue flare. It was one of the Shabiha, and a few minutes later Shabiha Ali, their unspoken leader, picked up their water bottle and walked around giving each of us a much-needed mouthful to relieve our thirst.

  After a short while the electricity came back on and we heard movement outside our door, sending everyone scrambling to put their blindfolds back on. A large, soft-spoken jihadi entered, holding a giant kitchen knife, which he used to loosen and remove our restraints without cutting them. So that’s how you do it, I thought. I had never seen him before.

  As we were freed we all instinctively lined the walls, leaving the center of the cell clear. We were told that the emir was on his way to see us and asked if we needed the bathroom.

  One by one we were taken from the cell to relieve ourselves. There was no yelling, there was no hitting, and no one rushed us. When my turn came I walked to the door and stopped in front of a guard holding an AK-47. As he reached up to my blindfold my heart jumped—I thought he could tell that I could see through the cloth—but he was only raising it. I slowly opened my eyes to see a very good-looking young man with light-brown hair and beard wearing a skullcap with black cargo pants and an Armani Exchange tee shirt. He looked at me with a raised brow over kind eyes that said: If you don’t give me any problems, I will not give you any. He was Abu Obeida, and he ran shit in this jail.

  The cell we were in looked like a small bodega
, the kind you’d see in Brooklyn or Manhattan back home. In the front was a solid steel gate that had been pulled down and locked on the outside with a padlock. Inside, the room was about twenty-five feet long and nine feet wide. The door of the cell, the one we used to go in and out to the bathroom, had not been there during peacetime: they had smashed through the wall between our cell and the space next to it and bolted a metal door into the resulting hole. The door was not solid, instead it was the kind you might see being used instead of a screen door in a bad neighborhood, with a slot above it to hand things through. Covering the iron curlicues that served as bars was a thin sheet of cloudy plastic, with a peephole cut into it above the doorknob.

  As I made my way out with Obeida, I saw that several other rebels stood outside along the path from the cell to the bathroom. They kept their AKs pointed at us the whole way. These men were a far cry from the kids who had taken us to the bathroom in previous jails. These were some real-deal jihadis, all with long, thick beards and the scent of the front lines on their clothes. The room next to ours was cluttered with everything from furniture to gun parts, with cinder blocks stacked to the ceiling. In the room next to that was the bathroom and an enormous pile of clothing. There was also a stack of wooden crates, ten feet high, and next to these was a huge military trunk overflowing with guns.

  This was the first time in almost a month we’d been able to use the bathroom without being screamed at to hurry up, and it was more than an hour before we had all finished. At one point a jihadi entered the cell and screamed at us to face the wall, but almost immediately Obeida appeared and warned him not to do it again.

  My positive feeling upon leaving the villa had been justified. It may not have been freedom, but for now we were in a much better place.

  When the emir entered he had our full attention from the moment his shiny black shoes touched the floor. He was about forty-five, with dark skin, jet-black hair, and a long, thick, but neatly trimmed beard. He was wearing a blue-and-white pinstriped dress shirt with black dress pants. This emir was unlike any of the others we had seen during our confinement, most of whom were young thugs who wore suicide belts as fashion accessories. He was professional, and so were the men under him.