Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban by Jere van Dyk

Author:Jere van Dyk [Dyk, Jere van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Autobiography, Non-Fiction, Personal Memoirs, Political Science, Terrorism
ISBN: 080508827X
Google: IZrLI4wuXrYC
Amazon: B003JTHZ34
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

Tuesday, February 26

Morning came. I got up to wash for prayers. I felt dizzy standing. We had finished after 2:00 a.m. When I finished praying, I sat on my knees and prayed to the God of my youth and to the God of Light. I wanted light. I didn’t want any more darkness. I went back to bed.

I heard voices, and Gulob came in with our bowls of lentils and potatoes. I wasn’t hungry. “I didn’t sleep last night, worried about this,” he said. “I am trying to get them to lower the amount of money.” My hopes rose slightly. Was this a good cop, bad cop routine or was he serious? This roller-coaster was wearing me out.

Gulob sat on the kotgai and was silent for a few minutes; then he came to his main point. “They are trying to capture Abdullah and to find out how much you paid him and what kind of work he was doing for you. Abdullah is trying, through other Taliban, to release you.”

I absorbed this. Abdullah, whom we were on our way to see when we were kidnapped, was trying to find me, while they were trying to find him first. They wanted to find out from him if I was a spy. He was trying to rescue me. They were hunting one another. If they killed him, they would kill me. There was no one in charge. Everyone was betraying and fighting one another.

“Gulob is cunning,” said Daoud in English. “Do you know cunning?” I had lived in a world of cunning for months now, along the border, confusing me, frightening me, but here, I didn’t know what was going on.

Gulob went out and returned with a package, wrapped in a plastic cover, that he placed on the floor. In it were four books on Islam. The Maulavi had kept his word. “Thank you,” I said. “This will help me better understand Islam.” It was something to read. The Maulavi wasn’t going to kill me, at least for the moment. Gulob took out a packet of naswar and put some beneath his lower lip. “The men who were here last night will contact your people within three days,” he said, and then he left.

A few hours later, the door opened again, and Abdul Samad stood on the threshold, like a ghost. He was alive. He was blindfolded in a black turban and his wrists were chained together. He walked two steps into the room and stood there. Gulob came behind him, holding the chain, his head down. A man in a black turban stood behind them. Gulob directed Samad to his cot. He took of the chains and the blindfold, and then he and the other man left.

We stood up happily to welcome Samad back. He gave me a long, fierce hug. I looked to see if he had been tortured. “How was it?” we asked. “Where were you? What did they do to you?” I hadn’t expected to see him again.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, clasping his hands, his head down.

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