Lebanon Hostage Ch. 05

Allan's second theory is that he's being held to pressure Britain to do something desired by the Shiite regime in Iran. Allan hasn't persuaded himself of either of those first two theories. The problem with the second is that if his captors demanded something on Iran's behalf, Iran would be exposed as connected to the kidnappings, which Iran wouldn't want.

His third theory is that he's being held for a monetary ransom, like the Korean. But if money were all his captors wanted, he thinks they would have photographed him already to prove that they're holding him. Actually, none of Allan's theories can explain why our captors haven't "officially" claimed him yet.

While Allan wants to know more about Paul and Donald's hostage experience, Paul and Donald fish for news about family and friends. Donald wonders if Allan knows anything about his wife. In particular, has she left Lebanon? Allan has no idea. Donald was kidnapped during Allan's first month working in Beirut, and Allan remembers from his company's news coverage that Donald's wife was working at the same university he was, but Allan doesn't know what she did afterward.

Allan does know, through the journalists' grapevine, that after Paul was kidnapped, his Lebanese girlfriend went to the U.S., where she gave birth to their daughter. Paul thanks Allan but says he already knew that. He doesn't explain how he knew; we assume his captors must have found out and let him know. Paul asks Allan about two friends of his, fellow journalists in Beirut. One name rings only a dim bell for Allan, which suggests that he's probably left the country, but Allan is able to report that the second friend is still working in Lebanon.

We learn that this is the first basement prison Paul and Robert have been held in. Only Donald spent time in a basement previously, in what he calls a "cage." Otherwise, the three have passed their captivity in "apts." I'm confused by that statement because I take it to mean that they were heldunderneathapartment buildings, like Allan was, in which case I don't know why they say they weren't held in basements. Allan assumes that, no, they mean they were held above ground, inside residential apartments—like the apartment Allan lived in before he was kidnapped, or like Bernie's. Allan knows of other hostages being held that way. The two hostages he told me were rescued by a rival militia were discovered in a first- or second-floor apartment by some boys who were climbing around outside and spotted the hostages through the window.

Precisely because of the risk of discovery, keeping hostages in apartments strikes me as insanely, if fortuitously, stupid of our captors. That might explain, I suppose, why Paul, Donald, and Robert have now been moved to a basement, and why Allan and I have always been in basements. Still, I'm puzzled by how slow our captors have been to make the transition in the case of Paul, Donald, and Robert.

Paul and Donald are under the impression that they were transferred to our prison as a punishment. The reason Robert was beaten, they inform us, is that their captors became convinced he had sent a coded message through a video he recorded for them. Their captors have always been paranoid, Paul and Donald complain. They're paranoid of Paul because he served in the Marines, and of Donald because they suspect him of being CIA. "(Not!)" Donald adds, in case we're wondering. Of course, I would expect him to deny it if he were. Still, I'm inclined to believe him if only because I've decided that I like him.

Allan wants to know if Paul and Donald crossed paths with George Wills. The commentator? I ask. Allan thinks I'm joking, but my confusion is genuine. No, Allan clarifies for me, the commentator is George Will, nos. George Wills was the CIA's main operative in Beirut. The fact that he was CIA became an open secret, so he was one of the first Americans kidnapped by the Organization for Jihad. Allan pauses, then continues in a carefully matter-of-fact voice: Later, Wills's captors executed him. Allan preempts my reaction with a level look. "Don't panic. If anyone's in danger, it's Donald, not you."

As it turns out, Paul and Donald have quite a bit to say about George Wills, enough for multiple messages. Paul and Robert Berg were held in the same apartment as Wills, though they "only heard," not saw him. Paul reports that Wills became "sick, died. (Bumped off? RB thinks no.)" So, Allan remarks with intellectual satisfaction, it wasn't a simple execution. People had speculated as much at the time, because the Organization for Jihad claimed to have executed Wills but didn't provide photos or leave the body somewhere as proof.

Donald says that his captors gave him a written confession produced by Wills, which they wanted Donald to copy into his own handwriting so they could use the copy to claim that Donald, too, had confessed to being CIA. Allan and Ithinkthat's what happened, anyway: Donald's story is hard to follow in the telegraphic form it comes to us, and what he seems to be telling us sounds so absurd that I'm not convinced we've correctly understood.

Wills touched their group again, indirectly, in the incident where Robert was accused of transmitting a coded message while recording a video. When Robert inserted some words of condolence for Wills's family into his recorded message, their captors decided that his words must have a secret meaning because, unbeknown to Robert, Wills didn't have a family. "RB sent condol's to GW's wife, kids. GW didn't have. Ow!"

We learn that for a while, Paul, Donald, and Robert were held in the same apartment (but not, apparently, the same room) as four French hostages, one of whom, like Wills, was sick for a long time and then died. Allan is able to tell them who that was: Guillaume Pierrat, a French scholar studying Islamic fundamentalism. The Organization for Jihad claimed to have executed him; they released photos of him with a bullet wound in his head. Paul and Donald are adamant: "Fraud!" Pierrat died of illness, probably cancer. They know this because they "read MD's diary." We assume they mean "doctor's diary," but even on that assumption, the statement remains mysterious to us.

I am terrified to learn that hostages have died in captivity, possibly killed. I vent my terror by lashing out at Allan: Why has he never told me? Precisely because of how I'm reacting now, he replies. He didn't want me to get stressed. I'm furious: You lied to me! No, he insists, he didn't lie, he just didn't disclose. What about the times Allan assured me that our captors would never kill us because, as Westerners, our lives are worth too much to them? Allan defends his integrity: He always meant that our captors would never endanger our lives out of sheer rage.

Anyway, he continues, I'm missing the point: Wills and Pierrat probablyweren'tkilled. They died naturally—or at worst, they were on their way to dying naturally, and their captors put them out of their misery. And then their captors falsely claimed to have executed the hostages, trying to show the world they mean business, when what they were really doing was scrambling to cover up a disaster.

I don't see how the fuck that's supposed to make me feel better. Executed or dead from natural causes, the fact is, two hostages are dead. In the "natural causes" scenario, our captors could see the hostages were dying, and they let it happen anyway. They didn't get the hostages proper help, nor did they release them. Maybe Allan's right, maybe we're not in danger of being executed. But we are in danger of dying because of our captors' neglect.

In this moment, I feel toward Allan much as I did following Robert's beating: appalled at his ability to be cerebral about other hostages' suffering. I guess it's how he survives, how he manages to face down the horror without becoming panicked the way I do. Maybe his capacity for detachment is a trait he developed as a journalist, or maybe it's a trait he already had which fitted him for journalism.

I retreat into myself for a while. I'm not sulking, I'm not angry at Allan. Or rather, I'm not allowing myself to continue being angry with Allan. I'm not going to allow a repeat of the breakdown that occurred between us after Robert's beating. But I'm scared. And I've lost whatever inkling of hope I still had of receiving a humanitarian release because of my youth. Our captors don't do humanitarian releases. Two sick hostages are dead to prove it.

Allan moves to make peace by apologizing for having kept me in the dark. He asks me please not to be angry at him, he was trying to spare me, he's sorry if that was the wrong thing for him to have done. I'm not angry, I say. I tell him what I'm actually feeling.

Allan responds that he doesn't think I should give up hope for a humanitarian release. My situation is different from that of the sick hostages. Because no one in the outside world knew that the hostages were sick, no one was pressuring our captors to release them for that reason, whereas our captorsareunder pressure to release me. A humanitarian release could still be coming for me, even half a year later. These things can take a while, Arabs don't have the same urgency about time that Westerners do.

Furthermore, Allan insists, I shouldn't worry about my safety. Our captors can't let me die, because they couldn't possibly cover it up afterward by claiming to have executed me. That would be too outrageous. If they have decided to keep me because my youth makes me valuable, by the same token my youth will protect me.

I don't know how much credence to give this, but I derive some comfort from it, if not as much as Allan intends. Also, the longer Allan talks about it, the guiltier I feel. Why does Allan's energy have to go into comforting me when he's in a worse situation—still unclaimed and without the advantages of my "celebrity" status? I need to shake off the goddamn self-pity and carry my own weight. Even better, I need to help Allan carry his weight.

Trying to lighten the mood, Allan says he wants to tell Donald and Paul about my confusing George Wills with George Will—they'll get a kick out of that. In a flash, I'm angry at Allan again. The man is tragically dead, you can't tell jokes about him! Allan, unruffled, maintains that I'm mischaracterizing the situation. But he respects my feelings, and if I would rather he not do it, then he won't.

I suspect he knows me well enough that he's banking on my relenting in a few hours out of guilt. So I force myself to wait a couple of days before I relent. You were right, I overreacted, let's tell Paul and Donald, they could use the laugh. I want Allan to be happy, yes, but I also have my pride.

I'm glad that Allan has Paul and Donald now to "talk to," I know how much the contact means to him. I appreciate our exchanges with them, too. I appreciate the expanded network of support. I appreciate the scraps of information that Paul and Donald provide. I am drawn into the anticipation, the entertainment, of seeing what our secret pen pals have to say today.

But push come to shove, I would be perfectly happy if Allan were the only other person I had. He's all I need.

* * *

October 11 is the six-month anniversary of Allan's kidnapping. He remarks on it at the beginning of the day, but he takes it in stride. Perhaps he's been preparing himself ever since my six-month anniversary. I give him a good amount of "alone time," then ask how he's doing. Fine, he assures me, he was thinking about happy memories. Would he like to tell me about them? I ask. Sure, if I don't mind listening to him ramble. Of course I don't mind.

Some of the memories Allan recounts to me involve friends from college, but most are about his parents and siblings. None are about Emily. Allan rarely talks about his time with Emily.

I envy Allan's family life. They seem close knit, even as adults. Allan refers to his parents, in the third person, as "Mum" and "Dad," whereas I talk about "my mother" and "my stepfather." And, of course, I envy him knowing his father at all. Sometimes, when I wax psychoanalytic, I wonder if the differences in our family lives explain why Allan copes with stress better than I do: he grew up feeling more secure.

I have also wondered, in my psychoanalytic moments, if growing up without a father at home explains why I'm gay. Bernie was a big presence in my life, but I was always vividly aware of being fatherless. I've read enough to know that the "distant father" theory of homosexuality has fallen into disfavor, but it seems like it could work in my case.

Anyway, Allan handles his six-month anniversary well. He thanks me for listening. We're sitting side by side at the back of the cell, and I sense that this would be the right moment for me to casually pat his thigh, the way he's done to me on a couple of occasions. But I know I can't pull off the unlabored manliness that gesture requires. So I don't.

* * *

In October, we receive buzzcuts again. Also, now that it's autumn, the guards put us back in pajamas. As part of the clothing change, they give us fresh underpants for the first time since June. God, it feels good to put on new underwear, even if it is another pair of those silky briefs I despise. We're given socks again, too: black, but sturdy like athletic socks, not flimsy like dress socks. The change of clothes lifts my morale. For the first time in months, I sit in the cell feeling clean and... something else. Properly clothed, yes, that's what I'm feeling.

I look at Allan in his pajamas and sexy beard stubble, and I think that he cuts a handsome figure. It's a shame they didn't leave him a decent amount of hair up top, he'd look really good then. He would have looked so good, I might have been in trouble. I've gotten to a point where I can say something like that to myself as a joke, not as self-flagellation. I feel safer, more licit, less exploitative, admiring Allan's appearance, now that what I'm admiring isn't exposed flesh.

The nights are getting chillier. Allan maintains that the temperature hasn't actually dropped that much yet, but we feel the drop that has occurred more intensely because of the humidity. Winter will be the same way, he informs me: it will feel colder than it actually is. The good news—that's Allan, always looking on the bright side—is that we'll be warmer in the basement than the guards will be upstairs, just as we've been cooler in the summer.

I don't find this reassuring. Since I never felt cooler in the summer, I don't expect I'll feel any warmer in the winter. I'm already wishing we had a way to turn off the fan in the door. The guards aren't going to leave it running all winter, are they? I huddle under my blanket at night, hoping for a power outage. Thank God I have socks again to help keep my feet warm. I fastidiously safeguard the single pair I've been given. I don't pull them on too tightly, so my toenails won't poke holes in them. And I always remove my socks before my toilet run: I want to delay their wearing out, and I don't want them getting wet on the bathroom floor.

Despite how miserable I was during the summer heat, I don't like the current change in climate any better. I generally dislike changes in our conditions. I want things to stay normal. Dammit, stop saying that. I mean I want things to stay the way they were, the way I got used to. Some things, anyway. I welcome the change to pajamas, for instance. But really, that's not a change; that's just going back to normal—I mean (dammit again!), it's going back to what I knew originally, at the beginning of my hostage life.

"Normal." I have got to stop using that word.

* * *

After a few days of privately stewing—privately because I'm trying to carry my own weight—I confess to Allan that I think I may actually, literally, be going crazy.

He appears to take the announcement calmly. Why do I think that? he asks.

"More and more often, it feels perfectly normal to me that we live like this."

Allan probes for clarification, still calm, cerebral. Live like this, how? What do I mean, exactly?

"Living here, in this tiny little cell, 24/7. I don't feel so... closed in as I used to. Or trapped. It feels normal that we wear pajamas for clothes. Or that I pee into a bottle. Go to the bathroom once a day. The food, the tea. I'll be eating, or peeing, or whatever, and I'll realize I feel... totally natural. Like, why would I expect to live any other way? That's crazy. How can I be thinking that?"

Allan looks reflective. "I don't think you're going crazy. I think you're adapting. That's good. Adapting is how living things survive."

* * *

The Communication Game enters the final stage of its evolution as we cross from October into November. We won't realize it's the final stage until later, of course.

It begins with our being woken up in the middle of the night during what must be the guards' shift change—we know it's that day of the week, and there are more men than usual in the basement. But what they're doing is entirely unexpected. They spend several minutes bustling around, moving hostages to different cells, one right after the other, seemingly at random. They don't move our mattresses and tubs, just us. All through this process, cell doors open and close noisily, and guards keep clomping up and down the stairs for no discernible reason. No one speaks; the guards preemptively hiss for silence.

I'm moved across the way, toward my left, into what must be either Durham's cell or the Handcuffed Hostage's cell. I spend a few minutes there, stressing over the mysterious commotion and my separation from Allan. Then they return me to my usual cell. Allan's not there, so again I'm alone, but a minute or so later they bring him back, too. We hear a couple more hostages being moved around. Then all the guards clomp back upstairs, they shut the trapdoor, and that's that.

Allan and I lie awake whispering, trying to figure out what the hell that was about. Allan brainstorms: Maybe they removed us from our cells so they could search for contraband—maybe they've come to suspect, somehow, that we've been passing messages? But our tubs haven't been disturbed. I'm finicky about how I organize mine, I can see nothing's been moved. Maybe they were treating the cells for roaches? That would certainly be welcome, but we don't smell bug spray, and a look under the mattresses doesn't reveal traps or anything that resembles poison. Maybe they were trying out a new arrangement for distributing hostages among the various cells, but they decided they didn't like it, so they put us back? Or maybe they haven't put all of us back where we were, maybe some hostages have been moved permanently? We'll have to try to check during tomorrow's toilet runs.

Allan regrets that we had no way of knowing this was going to happen. If we had known, we could have prepared a note for me to leave in the cell to which I was moved. Or if the guards had left me in that cell longer, and if I'd had the presence of mind, I could have written a note right there, using the hostage's own fork and cigarette foil. Did we just miss our only chance to communicate with Durham? Allan didn't pass through an occupied cell; the guards moved him to the empty cell next door to ours, the cell we were housed in before Paul, Donald, and Robert arrived. We wonder who may have passed through our current cell.

I tell Allan it was weird being in someone else's cell. Everything was the same yet foreign. The hostage's possessions were identical to ours—mattress, blanket, tub, drinking bottle, pee bottle—but he had arranged them differently than either Allan or I do it. I felt like I had invaded the hostage's home, his privacy.

The next morning's toilet runs reveal that there is now only one person in Paul and Donald's cell. Otherwise, the same number of hostages occupy the same cells as before. One person, then, is missing. Either Paul or Donald, assuming that everyone ended up back where they started.