It was clear from the voices and the faces, the situation was bad. She stole the moment and sat beside me silently. I asked her, "Is it that bad?"
"Yes," Mahnaz replied. "It is that bad."
"What did they tell you last night?"
"We have just 48 hours starting from yesterday midnight, and then..." she drew her finger across her neck in a childish way, "beheading."
We stopped talking when our warder came to take her to the WC. She left me with my dreadful thoughts hovering around the image of my four-year-old son, Ahmed.
It was yesterday night when Walid, our warder, came to take the other hostages, my colleagues in the Italian humanitarian organization, the two Italian women, Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, and the lraqi one, Mahnaz, for a talk in the nearby room. They left me lying on my "bed." I was weak with fever that did not let move . I knew it would be a serious talk, the type that brought bad news. I heard the chief of the kidnappers talking quietly and slowly. Between consciousness and the hallucination of fever, I heard his words like a roar, without meaning, as if they [ Page 13 ] did not belong to any alphabetical language. Then the terrified voice of Simona Pari came clearly, "How dare...How dare...!"
Sleep was over this morning. The thick, brown curtain covering the window was the first thing I saw. I imagined the sun in the heart of the sky, shining on everything outside that room, unlike my heart shrouded in deep darkness. I could feel daylight glowing behind the edges of that curtain.
Just two days ago, since our kidnapping from the NGO's office in Baghdad a week ago on Sept. 7, 2004, I had been allowed to remove the blindfold from my eyes on one condition, if we hostages were alone in that room. When the guard knocked to enter to bring us food, water or some information, I had to put it on again quickly and firmly. Two persons could enter there, Walid, our warder, and the leader of the group.
Walid was tough, did not speak too much, and was always there outside the door. He addressed me as "Abu Ahmed" (the father of Ahmed), the Iraqi way to show respect for a man who had had a son. The leader of the group had come to us frequently in the past six days. He tried to be gentle and polite with us.
The room itself was about 4-by-8 meters, with three long windows, one of which was beside my bed. All these windows were covered with very thick curtains. Two doors were placed on the long side of the room, but we did not know where these doors led. The floor was covered with poorly crafted white mosaic tiles, to which narrow strips of red marble had been added to shape an Arabic eight-headed star in the center of the room. I knew each one of those tiles, as I was staring at them all the time. The furniture was a series of sofas with small tables in between. The wa1ls were bare but for some nails above the dusty outlines of photo frames that had hung there for a long time and had been removed recently before our arrival. It seemed to me [ Page 13 ] that the house belonged to someone with some money, but of Bedouin style. We had been in that room for almost six days. Each hostage had to be in a different corner and we were not supposed to talk with each other.
That morning, Walid started our day by taking us one by one to the oriental WC in the front yard outside the house. I was the last one back. Walid placed me in my usual seat on the sofa, left us and closed the door. I removed my blindfold, though I did not wish to remove it. Each one of us was sitting in his own place, swimming in dark thoughts. Simona Torretta was in front of me looking downward. She did not move her eyes from a certain point on the floor. Simona Pari was to the left and doing the same. And Mahnaz was on the far side of the room. We did not exchange the usual morning greetings. Maybe there was no place for greetings, or maybe there was no morning.
But we all shared the same thing: a dark veil covered our faces. Our bodies were drained of blood.
I put my blindfold on my eyes, although Walid was not there. I was no longer willing to see. I began to prepare myself. I fixed it firmly around my head, and its bad smell went through my senses. All I could see was the darkness. It gave me a comfortable feeling. That endless darkness expanded before me, and I went through it, maybe without return. I did not know what time it was. I did not care. How much had passed, how much remained. When the moment arrived, it arrived. It was useless to think about. I kept it for its moment.
But one thing did not stop digging into me, something that shook every part of me-my son, Ahmed. I could not stop thinking about him.
Oh my son, how much I miss you.
I did not share time with your four years.
Only now I realize that I was far away from you; only now, too late.
[ Page 14 ]I had been running after a mirage all my life, and I forgot you.
I had worked hard to build schools, health centers and water plants, but failed to build for you a small room.
I taught university students, but I would not live to teach you your first letter.
I visited places nobody could imagine, but I did not spend time with you.
I crossed deserts, marshes, rivers, but I did not walk with you in a garden.
I tried to help people I had never met before, people from the south, from the north, and from the west, but I did not heJp you.
Oh my son, forgive me. Forgive me that I tried not to let them down...but I failed you.
My son, just forgive me.
How much I want to hold you in my arms and feel your soft body.
How much I want to kiss your brow.
Oh how much I want to sing to you that old lullaby when you sleep peacefully on your blue pillow.
How much I want to say a few words, just one simple phrase..."forgive me."
Walid entered the room to do something. I did not know what it was, nor did I care. I did not even notice his knocking. I wanted to say something, just to release a word that ached in my heart. When he was about to leave, I opened my mouth to speak. It was heavy, dry and bitter. It was as if I had not opened it for centuries. The words came slowly.
"My son...I just cannot stop thinking about my..." and the words disappeared; my voice disappeared. I cried. The tears came from my closed eyes and were lost in the blindfold.
[ Page 15 ]Before he left the room, Walid put a hand on my left shoulder. It was big, heavy and wet, and he said with his strict and strong Iraqi voice, "twakal balla Abu-Ahmed"-"Have faith in God, Abu-Ahmed..."
His hand was warm. It would be the same hand that would wield the knife.
The hours passed, the days passed. The miracle of our liberation was waiting for us about two weeks later near a mosque in Baghdad. I could feel the air, the fresh air running around my face. Between the hesitation, uncertainty, and confusion I was not sure if I could look on the faces of those around us. But my eyes knew surely one place that they could stare without restrictions, without limits, without fears. The deep blue sky of the early evening was clear and open. Its color was an announcement for the arrival of the darkness. It was a perfect clarity, not a single stain of cloud hanging, not a single bird flying over there. It was the moment to feel the warmth of the nest.
The voice of Ahmed was a question by itself. It came faded among the din of family greetings, celebrations, and many phone calls. His small body standing straight between my arms, his eyes were two questions stating, hardly to understand what had happened. "Why did you not come to me last days?"
I did not answer. I just held him tightly; that was the only thing that I could offer.
But one thing remains hanging on my shoulder like a ghost, that hand that carried the warmth and horror, waiting for the last moment of the eternal 48 hours.
Electronic edition created by Megan Kipper for New Letters Digital Archive, Culminating Experience, Spring 2021