“This is very nice house, you are guest,” he said. “Allah happy.”
Allah might have been happy, but I was getting frustrated and annoyed. “I don’t think Allah would like what you’re doing to me,” I argued. “Allah would want me to go back to Kabul, and then back to Canada.”
“You no understand Koran. You must study Koran,” he replied, echoing Zahir. “You will understand Allah if you study Koran.”
“I want to study the Koran. I want to know where it says in the Koran that it’s okay to do this to someone. You probably also believe that this will help you get to heaven and your seventy-two waiting girlfriends.”
Abdulrahman smiled. “Yes. Seventy-two girlfriends.”
“What about your wife? What happens to her when you have girlfriends?” I was getting angrier.
“My wife is my wife. My girlfriends are my girlfriends.” He grinned again.
“You can’t have a wife and seventy-two girlfriends at the same time.”
“Why not? Allah say okay!”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Allah wouldn’t want you to ignore your wife while you’re entertaining your girlfriends. What kind of God does that make him?”
“Allah say okay! Allah is great!”
As with Zahir, I realized the conversation had reached a dead end and I didn’t want to pursue it any further. Even though the Koran says women and men are equal under God, I knew that the Taliban and other Muslim fundamentalists believed in applying traditional laws to women. Women have to be covered up; they have to wear chadors or hijabs, to hide any trace of their sexuality in public. They even pray separately in mosques. Men and women are anything but equals in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Women are stoned for infidelity; men are allowed to have up to four wives. No wonder they’re promised seventy-two virgins when they get to heaven.
“You must be Muslim!” Abdulrahman said loudly. “Allah is great!” He glared at me. “This,” he gestured with his hands at the hole, “is Allah’s will. We no kill you. Inshallah, money come, you go.”
“You’re saying that kidnapping me, and holding me like this, is God’s will?”
“Yes. Inshallah, money come, you go.”
“Inshallah,” I said. The light bulb attached to the ceiling flickered. I had noticed it was getting dimmer and dimmer throughout the day. Abdulrahman noticed it too and pointed to the battery. He said he’d ask Khalid to bring a new battery the following day. I told him I didn’t want to still be in the hole by then. Abdulrahman laughed. “Maybe day after tomorrow. Why you go to Kabul?” he asked.
“So I can catch my flight back to Canada,” I answered.
“Canada. I know Canada,” he said. “I have been to Canada.”
“Yes, you told me. Where in Canada did you go?” I knew he wouldn’t be able to tell me. “Eastern Canada or western Canada?”
“Do not… remember. Close to New York.” I asked him why he was in New York, and he told me he had friends there and was learning English. I remembered he had told me that on the first night, when we were in the bullet-ridden white house.
“And then you visited Canada?” I asked.
“Yes, very close to New York. But Canada—Canada is not a country like Afghanistan or Pakistan.”
“What do you mean?” This was a very strange thing to say.
“Afghanistan, Pakistan—this country been hundreds of years. What is Canada? How old?”
“One hundred and forty-one years,” I answered. I knew that because I had been in Italy during Canada Day in July, when my girlfriends and I had been invited to the Canadian embassy for Canada Day celebrations.
Abdulrahman scoffed. “That is nothing. Other countries are hundreds of years old. What is a country that is one hundred years? It is nothing. Not a country.”
This bothered me a lot. Just like I wouldn’t say I’m a devout Catholic, I wouldn’t call myself as an unduly patriotic Canadian. I’d gone to graduate school in the United States, and I’d travelled the world in search of other cultures and history. But everywhere I went, I was pretty proud to be a Canadian, proud of everything Canada stood for internationally in the tradition of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. I had recently been in Beijing for the Olympic Games, where I’d been lucky enough to see Canadian athletes win medals in their sports. I wasn’t embarrassed to say my heart would skip a beat every time I saw the Maple Leaf raised and the anthem played.
“Canada is a great country,” I told the fat Afghan. “You don’t know anything.”
“Why you think it is so great?” he asked. “It is not a country.”
“It is a great country. You don’t have to be old to be great. It’s a young nation, but we are a peaceful nation, and Canadians care about other people,” I said.
“You send your soldiers here to kill Afghan people,” he said.
“We send our soldiers here to help the Afghan people.” I must have sounded a bit like any one of the Canadian military commanders I’d interviewed about the war and their struggle with the Taliban. “The Afghan people do not want the Taliban to rule here. The Taliban are bad for Afghanistan. Our soldiers are here so young girls can go to school, and women can feel safe outside their homes.”
“Women no work, girls no school,” Abdulrahman spat. “My wife, she no work.”
“Does she want to work?” I asked.
“No. She happy. She work at home. She cook, she have baby.”
“What if she wanted to work?”
“She no work. She work at home.”
“That’s fine if she doesn’t want to work. But some women like to work outside the home,” I argued. “And they should be able to. And girls should be able to go to school.”
“Why you work?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t I work?” I answered.
“You no husband, you must work.”
“I like my job. I like to go to work. What is wrong with that?”
“Women should not work.”
“That’s your opinion.” I was getting tired of this. If we were having this conversation anywhere else, I would have walked away. Unfortunately, that option wasn’t open to me. I didn’t need to worry, though. Abdulrahman reached over and disconnected the cables.
“Sleep time,” he said.
I looked at the clock and saw that it was after ten. I’d spent at least three hours arguing with him and now welcomed the silence. The ground was hard and uncomfortable. I pushed my face into the red pillow and forced myself to shut my eyes.
I was finally drifting off when I felt Abdulrahman’s hand on my leg. He was inching closer and closer to me. I sat up with a start and fumbled to reattach the wires to the battery. The light came on, but it was definitely fading. “Don’t touch me,” I warned him.
“I must fuck you,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Fuck off.” I told him. My blood felt cold as it coursed through my body. I told myself to calm down, but more than anger now I was feeling fear, something I’m not used to.
“I must fuck you,” he repeated.
“No.” I was willing my voice not to shake. “Allah will punish you. You will not go to jannat if you dare touch me.” I pulled my legs up to chest and hugged my knees together. “You’re married, you have a wife, and the Koran says you must not touch a woman who is not Muslim. You will go to hell.” I spoke slowly and firmly.
There was silence for what felt like hours. Abdulrahman reached over and touched my leg again. I shuddered and shook his hand off me. “Do not touch me,” I repeated again. “Allah will kill you. I will kill you.”
At this, he laughed. “You cannot kill me! You are a woman!” He undid the string on his pants.
“I can and I will. I know karate. And you will be dead. And Allah will send you to hell.” The karate thing was a half-truth. I know tae kwon do, a martial art intended for practising self-discipline and control, but I had no problem using it for self-defence or murder at this point. “You will go to jahannam.” I used t
he Muslim word for hell, which I had learned from an imam in Toronto a few years before when doing a story on the arrest of eighteen men for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks on Canadian targets like the CN Tower and Parliament Hill.
“Allah will send you to jahannam,” I repeated.
Abdulrahman scratched himself and pulled down his pants. I inched closer to the wall next to me.
“Stay away from me,” I warned again. Then I saw the glint of a knife.
“I must fuck you,” he said, more menacingly, holding what looked like a small carving knife to my throat.
“Fuck off, go to jahannam,” I repeated. He pressed the blade into my neck. I closed my eyes and started to pray.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
When he finally moved away from me, he reached for the wires on the battery. “Sleep time,” he said.
“No,” I answered. “I want to sleep with the light on.” He shrugged and turned his back to me. I left the light on for much of the night, even though I knew the bulb was dying, but I didn’t sleep. I rocked back and forth in a fetal position, hoping that I would wake up and realize this was all a horrible nightmare. I repeated the Hail Marys, looking at the clock and watching the seconds pass into hours, until I could see a faint spot of light on the wall behind Abdulrahman’s head.
Monday, October 13, 2008, 7 a.m.
My dear P,
I hope wherever you are, you are sleeping on a soft mattress, your head resting on a sheeted pillow. I’ve spent the last two nights on hard ground, and I haven’t been able to get much sleep at all. I can’t imagine how worried you must be about me. I just need you to know that I am okay. My stab wounds have scabbed over and I’m not bleeding anymore. I’ve eaten a few cookies since my last breakfast at the Serena, but I’m not really hungry.
I’m in a hole somewhere outside Kabul. I don’t really know where, or which direction we were going in, but we had to hike over a mountain and into a village.
I’m not sure where you are—whether you’re on the base in Kandahar or maybe on your way to Kabul, but I’m sure you’re sick with worry, just as I’d be if it was you who had disappeared. These guys just want money. I don’t know how much, but I will take out a loan when I get back and repay whoever can put up the cash right now.
It’s Thanksgiving today, and I’m supposed to be at the embassy for a turkey dinner, and even though I’m in this hole, I have a lot to be thankful for. This year, I’m thankful for you. I’m thankful for all the fun and laughter and happy times we’ve been lucky enough to share.
I’m not afraid to die, you know that and we’ve talked about it so many times. I don’t believe in regrets and I like to think I’ve tried to live a good life.
But we shouldn’t be talking about death. I’m coming back soon. And we can get on with our lives and our plans. We have a lot to do, remember? Surfing in Tofino to start.
xox
“What you writing?”
Abdulrahman hadn’t moved all night, but now he was sitting up and staring at me. I didn’t want to look at him.
“Give to me,” he ordered, motioning to my notebook. I handed it over and watched as he read my letter to Paul, although I’m not sure he actually read it, or understood what he was reading, since he threw it back at me pretty much right away.
“I go bathroom,” he said, pulling down his baggy pants. I quickly turned around as he reached for the pop bottle by the door. With my back turned, I could hear him rinsing his hands with the water from the green can, and then he burped.
“You hungry?” he asked me, unwrapping a sleeve of sandwich cookies and offering them to me. I shook my head, then watched as he ate one cookie after another until the whole package had filled his bulging stomach. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and reached into his pocket for his cell phone. Like Khalid, he also had taken the phone apart and was now putting in the battery, the SIM card, and then fitting on the back cover. He turned the phone on, pressed a few buttons, and then put it back into his pocket.
“You have cell phone?” he asked me.
“No, Khalid took my phone,” I answered. “Can I use your phone to make a call?”
He shook his head.
“Please, Abdulrahman. Please let me call.”
“No. They know you okay. We call.”
“When did you call?”
“Khalid father call. He is boss.”
“Has he already called?”
“I do not know. Yes. No. Maybe he call tomorrow.”
“Khalid’s father is your brother?”
“Yes. He is boss.”
“Khalid is his son.”
“Khalid youngest, but he is very brave.” Abdulrahman seemed both proud and jealous of his nephew.
“So Khalid is number two. His father is boss, he is second. Yes?” I was trying to get an idea of the hierarchy of this family organization and figure out where this fat Afghan fit in.
“Khalid is boss here. Khalid father—my brother—in Pakistan.”
“Your nephew is your boss?”
Abdulrahman twitched his nose, probably not liking the way that sounded. But he nodded.
“Yes, but he listen to me. I know things he don’t know. You ask many questions.”
“I’m a reporter. I’m supposed to ask questions.”
“Okay. Ask me something.”
“You want me to interview you?” This was a strange request, but Abdulrahman seemed to like the idea of being the subject of an interview. I reached for my notepad and flipped to an empty page. I pulled out my pen and took off the cap.
“Where are you from?” I started. “I mean, where were you born?”
“In Kabul.”
“Is that where you live now?”
“Sometime. Sometime I live here. Sometime I live in Pakistan.”
“Where are we? What is the name of this town?”
“Tsk, tsk.” He waved his finger at me. “Not allowed to ask this.”
“Are we north of Kabul? How far are we from Kabul?” I asked.
“Maybe we are north. Maybe we are west. About one hour to Kabul.”
“Why can’t you tell me where we are?”
“I cannot. My brother kill me.”
“What do you do with all the money that you get from kidnapping people?”
“We buy gun. Kalashnikovs very expensive. We buy at market.” I was surprised that there was a gun market and asked him where it was.
“You know Mazar-e-Sharif?”
I nodded. Shokoor had tried to persuade me to go to Mazar-e-Sharif the year before to do a story on a women’s program in the city, northwest of Kabul. We never made it there because of time constraints.
“There is market in Mazar-e-Sharif. We buy gun there. Very expensive.”
Mazar-e-Sharif, I scribbled on my notepad. Guns, very expensive. “How expensive?”
“For one, maybe one hundred thousand afghanis.”
I did the math in my head. US$2,000 for a used Kalashnikov, I wrote.
“Is that all you buy with the money?”
“No, we also buy things to make bombs.”
“You know how to make a bomb?”
“It is easy. You need only few things. We make many bombs.”
“But you’re not really Taliban, are you?”
“We are different but same.”
“Is Mullah Omar your brother’s boss?” I was referring to the man known as the leader of the Taliban.
Abdulrahman laughed. “No, we do not know Mullah Omar, but he is very good man.”
“So, if you’ve never met or talked to Mullah Omar, you can’t really be Taliban.”
“We are all different Taliban.”
“Either you’re Taliban or you’re not. If your boss is not Mullah Omar, you’re not really Taliban.”
“We are all different Taliban. And this area where we are—many Taliban.”
“
Is the Taliban the same as Al Qaeda?” I asked. Abdulrahman smiled and looked at me. “Osama bin Laden is very good man. Very good person.”
“So you are connected to Al Qaeda?”
“We do not know bin Laden. But he is a very good man.”
It was becoming more and more obvious to me that my kidnappers were no more than a gang of thieves who seemed to espouse the same anti-Western philosophies as the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but they weren’t real terrorists, or real members of those groups. The insurgency in Afghanistan was becoming fractured, more like a patchwork of disenfranchised groups that hate the central government and the presence of foreign troops in the country. My kidnappers were most likely just a group of thugs who hated the government and wanted foreigners to leave. Afghanistan is full of criminal gangs like these. Kidnapping is a big business, with a lot of money to be made on unsuspecting foreigners. I’d heard stories about hostages being bought and sold, and even if their kidnappers weren’t Taliban, they eventually ended up in the hands of the Taliban, or other insurgents. Lives are measured in dollars, and in the desperation of the kidnappers to make a quick sale. I knew I did not want to be traded or sold to the Taliban.
“What do you do with the bombs you make?” I asked.
“We put them on roads. Americans come on road. Boom!” His laugh was now starting to sound more like a cackle.
“I thought the Taliban did that.”
“We all the same.”
“Why do you hate America?”
“They come, they kill our people. America very bad. George Bush—you know George Bush? He very bad man.”
“I agree, I think George Bush is a very bad man,” I said. This wasn’t completely untrue, and I figured it was time we agreed on something.
“Yes, George Bush very bad person.” He seemed to spit with every word.
Suddenly, the light went out. I jumped back and grabbed the alarm clock, pressing the button on the side to light up its face. Abdulrahman took it from me and held it by the battery. He detached the wires and then held the clock up to the light bulb at the ceiling. He unscrewed the bulb and screwed it back in again. Then he ripped apart the wires and rewired them together before reattaching them to the dying battery, after giving it a good shake. The light bulb buzzed and came on, but it was now even dimmer than before.
Under an Afghan Sky Page 7