Free Days of Fear by Daniele Mastrogiacomo Page B

as if it were a game, a stupid game of soldiers and prisoners. They ask me who I am. I am a journalist, I say. It’s a detail, for me a vital one, that I will continue to impress upon the Taliban. The story of three captured spies is an obvious lie, an easy excuse for an arrest that in reality is nothing more than kidnapping, a trap. I obstinately insist on establishing another rule: each of us must assume responsibility for our actions. They must admit that they arrested me, abducted me, that they are moving me to some hideout because they want to use me as ransom. I accept this but demand the respect that any prisoner deserves. I discuss the question with Commander Ali that evening. At first he rejects my demands, but I finally convince him to accept them. He will return to the question often during the seven days we spend together, putting everything in doubt again and again.
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    It’s still Monday, March 5. We move another few kilometers toward an isolated group of houses. The Taliban help us get down from the cargo bed, they unload covers, gas stoves, tea­pots, weapons, and ammunition. The put us in a barn full of grain sacks, bags of seeds, equipment, old canisters, large containers made of black, smoke-stained clay. We sleep stretched out on a straw mat, all three of us together, our hands still tied with a strip of fabric but mercifully no longer behind our backs. I have certain bodily needs. The tension and the adrenalin mean that I must often ask leave to meet my bodily needs. This will be a feature of my detention. I will also use this need as an excuse to get in some exercise, get a breath of fresh air, try to keep my body in shape, especially my legs, which will end up reduced to something like matchsticks. I use the same excuse to interrupt the monotony of hours and hours stretched out on makeshift beds and to calm the waves of panic that assail me, at times so violently that I can’t breathe. That night, Commander Ali warns me: “Once you’re inside your cell, you don’t come back out. If you knock for your needs, we’ll kill you.”
    We sleep like logs. Tired, distraught, incapable of fully accepting a situation that we continue to think of as a bad dream, a nightmare from which we expect to wake sooner or later and recount to our loved ones as if it were a sign to be interpreted. But that’s not how things turn out.
    The sudden wake up call—the small steel door opening and slamming against the wall—brings us hurtling back to reality. The Taliban on guard emits a short, sharp order: time for morning prayers, the first of five such prayer sessions that every Muslim must observe daily. This one is among the most important; the prayer must be recited according to a precise ritual and followed by a series of gestures. You must wash your hands, feet, face, ears, nose, mouth, arms, and elbows first. A method for eliminating all the impurities absorbed by the body during the previous day and night. You can skip these ablutions only if you have not yet taken care of your own needs. It is a delicate and very spiritual moment in which one comes before God. It is a question of respect and devotion.
    I do not pray to my God that morning. They hand me a small empty canteen, one of those used to hold oil for cooking, and jerk their heads toward a spot where I can go to empty my bowels. I will not be out of their sight, and more importantly, the spot lies away from Mecca, the direction in which the militants, Sayed and Ajmal, are all praying. I watch them from afar, sitting on their heels. Mine have grown sore, unaccustomed as I am to this position. They insisted that I sit this way right from the start, and not, as they repeat with disdain, “western style.” I will grow so used to this position that even two days after my liberation I will not be able to assume others without pain.
    They pray as a group, one beside the other, including my two collaborators, whose