From the depths of my being rises a sadness that wholly envelops me. I weep uncontrollably, my face twisted by sobs. The young men and women from Emergency leave the room and close the door, leaving me alone with this immense sadness. I repeat, obsessively: “It was terrible, terrible, terrible.” Nothing else comes out of my mouth. She hands the phone back to the editor-in-chief and I manage to get a grip on myself. He comforts me and asks if I am able to write. His question stirs my sense of pride. He knows well enough that I always complete the assignments given to me. I tell him I’m ready. To return to the world of the living I need to gain a sense of normality: writing will do me good. For the past fifteen days I have spoken little and understood even less. I have to vent all the frustration accumulated during this period of forced silence on the keyboard of my PC; I have to pour the story that changed my life into the computer’s memory. I write hastily, without my glasses, which were taken from me, along with everything else, by the Taliban during the initial ambush.
Gino Strada is sitting next to me, talking about all that happened during our captivity. Out in the lobby confusion reigns. There are photographers everywhere and right now they’re recording the video that will be put online in a few minutes. In a loud voice, Gino says, “Here’s Ajmal. He’s here, too. He’s having pictures taken. Let’s get him over here.” I wait for a few minutes, but I’m overwhelmed, confused, beset by emotions. I remain submerged in the piece I am writing.
I smoke, nibble at some pieces of cheese. But my stomach is closed tight, I need water more than anything; I feel dehydrated. I call the newspaper again and send in the piece. I’m completely exhausted, devastated, but adrenalin is keeping me going. I look at the clock hanging on the wall: it’s two-thirty in the morning. We decide to sleep. Tomorrow morning we’ll have to be up early for the trip to Kabul. Gino Strada tells me that we’ll drive to Kandahar with a convoy of Emergency vehicles. I don’t like the sound of it; it sounds dangerous. I tell him I’d like to think about it, but I know that I don’t have many options: those who saved my life know the best way to get me home safe.
I sleep for a couple of hours, wrapped up in my clothes, dressed, as I have been for fifteen days, in the green patu which I use to cover myself. I wake with a start shortly after dawn. They take me into the main room, where breakfast is ready. I look around trying to find the yellow tea I’ve gotten so accustomed to, pick up a few pieces of bread, sample them and swallow with difficulty. There are a few people already up and about. I ask about Ajmal and they tell me that they don’t have any news. “Gino was mistaken. The person he thought was Ajmal is a new worker at the hospital. He’d never met him and he got things mixed up.”
The founder of Emergency bursts into the corridor. He is distraught, his hair a confused tangle, worse than usual. “They’ve arrested Rahmatullah,” he cries. “They picked him up at home, or maybe along the road at some point. Maybe even here out front. We have to learn why, what they’re accusing him of.” He’s desperate, furious. He sucks on his cigarette and blows out smoke as he paces the corridor like a caged lion. I am silent and immobile before Gino’s rage, and shocked by the news of the arrest of the man who came to save me from the clutches of the Taliban. I feel that something awful is happening, that this ordeal is not yet over.
I think things over hastily. I think about the fact that I was freed, that the Afghan police are looking for me because they want to interrogate me. My position is delicate, I must move with great caution. With the Taliban I learned to trust no one, to think carefully before acting, to weigh each word before pronouncing it.
There is shouting and fighting at the entry gate. Slogans being chanted. A hospital security guard enters the room breathless and says there are at least two hundred protesters outside. Many of them are part of Sayed Agha’s clan. They’re asking to be let in, they want precise answers about their relative. Gino Strada is concerned. He’s worried that they will break down the gate—the crowd, armed with rocks and sticks, is growing every minute that passes, they shout and beat against the large white iron gate.
The Emergency personnel and I move towards the internal garden. The security officers suggest we stay away from windows and the walls that protect us from the crowd outside. Doctors and paramedics lead me to a room. I want to change my clothes. I am not a Taliban and I have no intention of being mistaken for one.
I’m afraid. I look into the room and search it quickly for a place to hide. I feel like a hunted animal. I ask for a change of clothes. Gina, Strada’s right hand, gives me a pair of brown pants. A young man who looks completely lost offers me a light gray sweatshirt. “Take it,” he says, his voice choked. “You can give it back to me when this is all over.” I put the clothes on as fast as I can and pick up a pair of green hospital clogs that I find in a large box. I’m wondering how I can protect myself, frantically looking around again for a hiding place. If the crowd breaks through the gate, I think desperately, I’ll slide in under the bed. Perhaps they won’t find me.
Outside, the crowd is still growing. There must be more than three hundred people out there by now and the police are having trouble keeping them back. A delegation is allowed to enter: four, maybe five men, some of them very young, all of them relatives of the driver. They sit around a table and talk with Gino Strada. They ask to see me and I enter the room and join the group. One of the driver’s cousins goes straight to the point. His eyes are bulging almost out of their sockets. “Did you see Sayed’s release?” he asks me. “Where did they take him?”
I’m dumbfounded. I realize that the video of his decapitation was never made public. Five days have passed since that barbaric murder and nobody knows anything; even his clan, the large tribe that is laying siege to us, is convinced that he is still alive. It seems impossible, but this is Afghanistan. Here, news can travel like the wind or at a snail’s pace. And in the territories controlled by the Taliban only what they want to be known is allowed to leak out. The Taliban, the current overlords, the dictators of the Shariah, are in complete control of a kidnapping from which they hope to obtain the maximum political profit. They hide the horrors and exalt their successes. I no longer know what the free world knows of us, of our abduction, of our fifteen days in captivity. But I know the truth and I tell it to them.
I reply plainly, directly, my surprise evident: “They killed him before my very eyes.” Their reaction is violent. They cry out and yell. “Where, who was it? You have to tell us who his murderers are.” I’m frightened. I don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t know how to lie, especially about such an atrocious death. I look over at Gino Strada and realize that he is confused and worried. The boy in front of me stares at me, his gaze stern. He is enraged. “You tell me they killed him. You have to tell us where and who. We will now go to vindicate his death.” I try to stop them. I encourage them to be calm and patient.
A policeman enters the room. Afghan, an officer by the looks of it, perhaps a captain. He smiles and settles everyone down. He notes the questions posed and answers given. I am still dazed, shocked by the idea that Sayed’s family had no idea he was dead and I ask myself just how much of the truth made it to the outside world, how many of those videos we made were sent. I realize that the game is more complex, that it may even be a different game from the one we thought we were playing. The mediator arrested, news kept hidden, the anger of Sayed’s relatives. I feel suddenly alone, vulnerable once again, a pawn to be used who knows how in this unending nightmare.
The tension eases, the crowd of relatives leaves wrapped in their grief and deepening pain. We wait for another two hours, shut inside two rooms with the young Emergency workers acting as human shields out in the corridor. Nobody says a word; everybody is worried. The atmosphere is one of alarm. Gino Strada appears to be searching for some solution. We have to get out of this building—even Strada agrees that it is not well enough protected. One crowd brings others in its wake. There may be groups of Taliban ready to jump into action, as well as bandits
, criminals, the police themselves, who are anything but pleased with the way the negotiations went.
Rome is on the line. It’s Luisella. Her voice is calm, as it always is in the most critical moments. She says, “Listen to me carefully. You must not go to Kandahar under any circumstance. You have to go to the English. They’ve laid a trap for you. They want to abduct you again.” She hands me the editor in chief, Ezio Mauro, who repeats the same words: “If they get you again we won’t be able to bring you home. Do what Luisella tells you to do.”
Gino Strada abandons the idea of transferring us to Kandahar. He accepts, though he has many, many doubts, the plan of heading straight for the English base, which is about ten kilometers from the hospital run by Emergency in Lashkar Gah. The journey will be made in two phases: first we will go to the hospital, then to the British military outpost. We ask the police for protection and they put two manned jeeps at our disposal—they’re waiting outside for us. We will travel in civilian vehicles, not pickups, without Emergency decals.
I get into the backseat of the sedan and throw a cover over myself. I have started shaking again. I’m exhausted and feel in danger of succumbing to a complete physical and mental collapse. I look around as if lost, disorientated, out of place, and again pray to my God that he protect me for just a little longer. We reach the hospital, where we remain, visiting the wards, for about an hour. The children—ill, injured, their gazes vacant—are cheered up by visits from the medical staff who have accompanied us here as part of our convoy.
There are few words spoken. Everyone is afraid, the situation could very easily spin out of control, and we all know it. There are many people who would like to see us dead right now. We have to get out of this part of the country now, nobody is safe here. I later learned that the siege on the Emergency headquarters lasted another five days and that the entire staff was forced to remain inside the hospital the whole time. Threats by Taliban members, perhaps even by the Afghan police themselves, caused mass resignations on the part of the local staff. Nothing like that had ever happened to Emergency in years and years of activity on the ground.
We ask the police for further protection. There is a frenetic exchange of telephone calls between Kabul, Rome and Lashkar Gah, and then we go out onto the street and leave the hospital behind us. We travel ten kilometers along deserted city streets carefully checking every corner, every suspicious vehicle, every intersection—especially the intersections, where we could be hit with antitank rockets.
We get to the English post with our hearts in our throats. They open the gates but only after checking our IDs, despite the fact that they know perfectly well who we are. Finally they let us through. Gino Strada is still worried. We are met by two men, Italians in civilian clothes, who speak very little and are slightly stiff. They draw near and one of them speaks to me. “We were always there,” he says quietly. “Down there with you and the others. We knew where you were being held. You were being monitored every minute.” They are members of our intelligence corps. I don’t reply. I don’t even have the strength to smile.
Minutes pass, then hours. There are problems concerning our transfer from the military post to the nearby base, where it is possible for aircraft to land. More telephone calls, more pressure, further delays. Then, finally, a helicopter arrives and we board in a hurry, together with several British soldiers. It’s a ten minute flight to the base, which is situated in the middle of the desert. There’s a C-130 bearing the Italian colors on its way in. All together there are a dozen or so people in our group: me, Gino Strada, some Emergency staffers plus the two Italian military intelligence agents. Upon arrival there are handshakes, a few weak smiles that betray the tension. A group of British soldiers, their guns leveled, some of them walking backwards covering our backs, accompanies us to the rear door of the military aircraft.
We take off and fly through the darkness that has descended over all of Afghanistan. We land in Kabul, where Gino Strada would like to hold a press conference, but there’s no time: the prime minister’s executive jet is waiting on the runway, engines running. I barely have time to greet and hug the ambassador, Ettore Sequi. I hold him tight. He is a friend.
The jet is small but comfortable. I am met by the two pilots. I try to decipher their gazes, to get some sense of what has been happening in Italy during our detention. In the turmoil of the past several hours I have had very little news. I know that there was a massive mobilization, one that I could never have thought possible. I sit down on one of the eight comfrtable leather armchairs arranged around two small tables in the front cabin. On board, in addition to the female flight attendant, there is a man. I presume he is a member of our secret services. Both want to shake my hand. “Welcome back,” they say, smiling.
The small plane lifts off. The turbo jets are at full throttle as we clear the mountains surrounding Kabul. Six hours later we will be landing at Ciampino airport, Rome. I relax, finally. My thoughts are of Afghanistan, of the months that I have spent in this country, of the snowstorms and the suffocating heat. I know that I will never come back. It is something I feel within me.
Now I am truly free. Safe. Alive. I have to write something for the newspaper. Ambassador Sequi handed me a laptop belonging to one of my colleagues, Attilio Bolzoni, still on assignment in Kabul, and a letter with some indications from my editor-in-chief. I ask the hostess if I can smoke. “I know it’s prohibited,” I say. “But I really need a cigarette.” The captain has no objections. They close the curtain that separates the front cabin from the cockpit and offer me every kind of drink. I need water more than anything else but I allow myself a beer and a gin and tonic.
I concentrate on the article. I write everything, a spontaneous stream of memories regarding the Taliban, their life, our conversations, the fears and anxieties that assailed us time and time again. I write and I think. Perhaps I am really dreaming with my eyes open. My mind fills with images of the series of rooms in which we were imprisoned, the dashes across the desert, the rifles, turbans and dirty walls. I hear the sounds of our abduction and smell its odors.
I ask how long until we land. Three hours. I will not be able to deliver the article by hand. I’ll have to send it in. But that proves impossible: the jet is well appointed but the Internet connection is acting up. My article on the Taliban has encountered one difficulty after another, and this is just the latest. The idea was simple enough: an interview with a Taliban commander. But the road has been full of obstacles, right to the very end. I ask if there’s a telephone on board. I resort to what is by now an outdated method: I will dictate my piece. The newspaper can then publish it in tomorrow’s edition.
I phone the call-corder and dictate the report. Those listening to me are happy, they heap words of affection on me. I hang up. I am stunned and still confused. I try to relax but the adrenalin coursing through my veins, the joy of feeling myself free and alive, alternating with moments of anguish for the violence and the blood I have witnessed, do not allow me sleep. I wander into the cockpit, talk with the pilot and co-pilot, observe the starry night and the lights of the cities dotting the land beneath us, and then go back to my seat. My head is completely empty. Exhausted, I no longer feel capable of thinking about anything. I’m caving in.
We land. The door of the executive jet opens and the stairs are lowered. I stand. I don’t want to make my exit looking tense and crushed. I refuse to step out there looking like I have been defeated by the Taliban who kidnapped us. Ajmal and I fought for our freedom. We have to demonstrate this to the world, we have to proclaim our joy, and cry our pain for the murder of our driver, Sayed Agha. I raise my arms above my head. I’m in Italy again, alive. I have escaped from a slaughterhouse.
TWO YEARS LATER
My stupor lasts for hours. The airport is full of people: the authorities, Prime Minister Romano Prodi, agents from SISMI, carabinieri from the special Ops division, the director of my newspaper, Carlo De Benedetti, my editor-in-chief, Ezio Mauro. And then my wife, L
uisella, and my children Michele and Alice, who break the tense and awkward protocol and run to embrace me with a liberating cry as I come down the stairs. And friends, colleagues, my brothers and sisters, my mother, who always remained firm in her conviction that I would return home. I wave and embrace everyone. I need human contact, tenderness and support. I need to feel that I am alive. There’s a festive atmosphere, a celebration for my rescue. This ordeal has kept tens of thousands of people holding their breath, torn between anguish at having lost me forever and hope for a miracle.
I think about Sayed, the boy I knew for only a few hours and whose throat was cut right before our eyes. An atrocious, absurd, incomprehensible death. It will haunt me during the long nights to come; I will wake with a start, in a cold sweat, my heart beating madly again. I think about Ajmal, who I imagine is already in Kabul, wrapped in the warmth of his loved ones’ affection.
Two days of parties and joy as I desperately try to return to the real world, incapable of fully understanding what happened in Italy and elsewhere. I avoid asking myself too many questions: prison has made me taciturn. I try to interpret fragments of sentences overheard, allusions half grasped amid the rumble of voices I am incapable of fully deciphering. These voices now feel extraneous to me. I feel extraneous to myself. Everything appears extraneous and different. But the real storm is yet to arrive. It comes in waves that grow more and more powerful. Ajmal is still being held. They released him and then abducted him again when he was on the road back home. As they planned to do with me. Nobody was talking about Ajmal: the arrest of the mediator became a priority. But for me, the nightmare is not over. It continues, stronger than ever.
Days of Fear Page 16