Free An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan

fine.’
     
    He then gave me back my briefcase which had been withheld from me since the day I was taken. I thanked him, still staring at him.
    Abruptly he said ‘I want the names and addresses of fifteen English teachers.’ Something in his expression had changed. He was now giving me an order. I looked back at him and said ‘I have not been here long enough to know fifteen English teachers.’ He was silent and I repeated that I had not been in Lebanon long enough to know so many English teachers, and then emphasizing my Belfast accent and retreating into a stubbornness that has always been part of what I am when I feel myself cornered or under attack, I told him ‘I am Irish, I am from Belfast… Why do you think I would have made friends with English teachers … I do not know where these English people live.’
     
    He insisted that I must know their addresses, I insisted that I did not.
    Those few foreign teachers that I had got to know all lived on campus and I told him surely he must know this. As he knew where I lived and where to come and get me, he must also know that many of the foreign teachers lived within the University for their own security. He took from his pocket a piece of paper folded neatly, passed it to me, and I opened it. On it were written the names of two English members of the teaching faculty, who had arrived some weeks after my own appointment. One of them I knew reasonably well, the other was a much older man and I had only a nodding acquaintance with him. I said that I did not know their addresses, only that one of them lived on campus and the other near one of the Embassies.
    He talked to me in some detail about one of these men. He knew that he had been in some of the shops in Beirut that sell hi-fi equipment and flashy transistor radios and TVs, enquiring about the possibility of ordering a piece of computer equipment. I could tell him only that I knew him on campus and that I knew nothing about his interest in computers. Whether or not he was satisfied with this information, I cannot tell. He left the paper on which the two names were written with me and insisted that I add the names of other teachers and their addresses. I reiterated that I knew some of their names but did not know their addresses, beyond the fact that they lived on the campus, and that had I had more sense, I would have done the same. I tried to make this sound funny, but he was unresponsive. He said something to the guard who was with him and they left. I
    The guard came back within a few moments. He asked this time whether I had registered with the Irish Embassy. I told him that I had, and he replied ‘We do not think so.’ I gave him the address and the precise location of the Irish Embassy and the name of the first secretary to the Irish Ambassador, with whom I had had dinner and occasional drinks. It seemed to make little impact. I doubt if he understood much of what I was saying. He rose, said ‘Goodbye’ and left.
    Again I was alone. I passed the rest of the day listening to the noises of the people in the street, aware of the smells of the men in the next cells, and also an obnoxious and throat-choking smell of some kind of paint percolating into our prison from outside. I remembered once ™
    having driven through Beirut and noticing a number of small car repair shops. Beirut is a great place for having your car stolen and seeing it the next day, driven by someone you might know. It would definitely be your car, but it would be a different colour and there
    would be no number plates on it. There was little you could do to prove it was yours, and it was dangerous to try and claim it back.
    As yet the different emotions of resignation, rebellion, of religious abandon, fear, despair, anger, frustration had not fully taken hold of me. I was to know them in their fullest and most profound sense much later. At the moment I was still riding that high wave, convinced that my time would not be long. It would be a