Lebanon Hostage Ch. 04

Fuck your rules, I retort. This is not a regular situation.

"Regular situation"? Jesus, how could I think of any situation in this place as regular? We are in hell, I cannot do this. God, help me...

I'm not the person in this basement who needs God's help most desperately at the moment. I pray for the Beaten Hostage, Robert, whatever his name is. I pray for God to be with him, to comfort him, to heal him, to ease his pain. The praying makes me feel a tiny bit better, at least.

I'm still angry at Allan. Part of me doesn't want to be angry at him, because that part of me can't bear to have distance between the two of us; but a different part of me has the upper hand right now, and that part isn't willing to swallow my pride and make up. It's not as if Allan's being any help to me anyway. For weeks, he has been endangering himself—and me—with his chatting and his exercising and his obstinate thank-yous and his peeking through the fan and his tapping on the wall. But he's too stubborn or blind to acknowledge how incredibly, perilously foolish he has been.

It could have been us out there, screaming helplessly for them to stop. It could have been me.

***

Little by little, over the next couple of weeks, the Beaten Hostage walks more normally to and from the bathroom during toilet runs. We hear only an occasional groan from his cell. Allan is confident that he's receiving painkillers or sedatives; Allan claims he heard a guard tell the hostage, "Take this," and heard the hostage ask what it was. I suspect that this is wishful thinking on Allan's part, his typical useless cockeyed optimistic speculation. He can't bring himself to look reality square in the face, he's never been able to.

Every now and then, when the power goes out and the silencing of everyone's door fans slightly reduces the background noise, the Mustached Hostage or his cellmate taps on their metal door—a single tap, loud enough for the rest of us to hear over the static but hopefully soft enough or fleeting enough not to attract the attention of the guard upstairs. I presume they're fishing for a response from the Beaten Hostage during the window of opportunity before a guard comes down into the basement to escape the heat.

The Beaten Hostage, in his new cell by the stairs, never responds. But someone across from the Mustached Hostage's cell does develop the custom of replying with a single tap of his own. It must be either the Handcuffed Hostage or the Praying Hostage. Allan thinks it's more likely to be the Praying Hostage, since the Handcuffed Hostage has always been silent. I agree, but I feign disinterest in the question: it's a useless speculation, beneath my notice, I don't know why Allan's so obsessed by it. That's the pose I strike, anyway.

It's not clear why the Praying Hostage is tapping. Is he replying to the Mustached Hostage? Is he asserting his existence to all of us in general? Or is he, too, tapping to the Beaten Hostage, an act of solidarity and comfort?

Allan wants to tap as well. I am vehemently opposed. We argue about it in fierce whispers. Allan appeals to the need for solidarity: Wasn't I accusing him earlier of not being concerned about Robert's suffering? Well, now we have a way to let Robert know that he's not alone, that we care about him, we're pulling for him.

What a fucking low blow. I'm not fooled, Allan isn't as selfless as he's passing himself off to be. He's been itching to communicate with the other hostages since they arrived. He would want to tap even if he didn't have the Beaten Hostage to provide a fantastically noble excuse. I will not let him endanger me for the sake of this communication game. Don't do it, I order him, seething. Don't do it.

I can read in his face the effort he's making to rein in his frustration with me. He drops the subject.

On a later occasion, when the power has gone out again and the Mustached Hostage's cell gives their customary tap, Allan crouches by our dead fan, as usual, as if he were just listening. But then he raises his hand to the door, he's getting ready to tap back. I fling myself at him, hitting his back and shoulders with my fist repeatedly. "Jesus Christ!" he hisses. "Stop it! I won't do it, I promise. Calm down, he's coming, you're the one who's making noise."

After the power has returned and the guard has left the basement, Allan tries to reason with me. He's sorry I'm scared, he would like to help me be less scared. He's convinced that I will become less scared, more confident, if we push back a little against the guards' restrictions. Like tapping now and then to the other hostages. It will be good for our mental health. There's not that much risk of our being caught, and even if we were, they wouldn't hurt us that badly. The absolute worst the guards would do is "thump us around" a little, like we heard them to do to the Mustached Hostage and his cellmate. But not even as badly as that, not for a mere tap on the door.

Allan judges "a thumping" to be a price worth paying for the sake of being in touch with the other hostages. Making contact will be good for them and for us, we'll feel less isolated and constricted. I don't accept Allan's cost-benefit analysis; I don't consider the price worth paying. I keep hearing in my head the screams of the Beaten Hostage. Perfect obedience is our only hope of safety. We mustn't do anything that might make the guards fly off the handle again.

Allan urges me to be logical. The beating was horrific, yes. But it can't have been unpredictable, it can't have been a case of the guards flying off the handle. They wouldn't beat a Western hostage that badly on impulse, even in a fit of rage; we're too valuable. The beating was a deliberate, pre-planned punishment, administered in response to some highly unusual situation. Robert must have done something very wrong, apparently before he was brought here, maybe that's why he and the others were brought here. Maybe he tried to escape or communicate to the outside for help. The point is, the guards aren't going to beat Allan or me like that unless we do something very, very wrong—something far worse than tapping on our cell door now and then.

At this moment, I am filled with hate for Allan. He thinks he's so fucking superior to me, when in reality he's a callous bastard. I want to bring him down, knock him off his goddamn high horse. "You're blaming the hostage for his beating?" I say. "You're disgusting."

Allan stares. Then he says, "I can't talk to you anymore," and lies down with his back to me. I'm rattled, though I don't want to admit it. Allan has never shut me out before.

Hours later, guilt has eroded my self-righteousness to the point that I apologize. Allan says, "I know you didn't mean it. I know you're under a lot of stress." But his voice is strained, and he doesn't turn around to face me.

True to his word, Allan doesn't talk to me anymore after that. We spend our days in silence, lying back to back. He stops exercising, as do I. We keep some of our rules out of habit: sitting up when the guards bring us our food, laying out our bowls, waiting on our feet for the toilet runs. But soon even those habits decay. Allan's thank-yous to the guards, which he had suspended briefly right after the hostage's beating, then resumed over my objections, dry up again. I am simultaneously relieved and guilty; every time he doesn't say "thank you," I feel stabbed.

The atmosphere in our tiny cell is oppressive. Sometimes I'm frightened by the crumbling of our relationship. Sometimes I'm angry and self-justifying. Sometimes I'm in grief.

One day I muster the strength, and the humility, to break through the wall between us. "Allan, I'm sorry. Please—I don't want things to be like this."

He doesn't look at me. His words are polite, but his voice is ice cold. "I need time to myself, please."

That evening, while we're eating (or maybe it's the evening after, I don't recall exactly), I nearly drop my dinner when out of nowhere Allan hurls his bowl of rice at the wall, next to the door. He shouts, "Christ, I need some privacy!"

The guards are still distributing food to the cells across the way. One rushes to our cell and lifts our grate cover; I barely have time to get my blindfold in place. "What you do?" the guard shouts. I don't reply, neither does Allan. "What you do?" the guard screams again, even louder.

I start to hyperventilate. This is it, we're going to be beaten. Please, Jesus, I can't do this... Let them take Allan, not me. He's the one who did it...

I cry out and reflexively cover my head when the guard hammers on our door, very hard, several times in rapid succession. But it's just a threat, he still hasn't opened the door. Miraculously—thank you, God, thank you!—he never does. He contents himself with roaring at us one more time, "No talk!" followed by an enraged clang as he slams our grate cover shut.

I keep my blindfold down until the guards have gone back upstairs. In the meanwhile, I sit, feeling my fear ebb slowly down to a slightly lower level. Relief flows in on top of it—and guilt. Guilt for having betrayed Allan in my panicked prayer. Guilt for having caused him so much frustration that he exploded.

When I lift my blindfold, Allan is kneeling at the foot of his mattress, scooping spilled rice and vegetables into his little garbage bag. I take a long, shaky breath. My eyes tear up. "Allan, I'm sorry..."

Allan whips his head around to look at me over his shoulder. His face is contorted into a vicious scowl. "No talk!" he whispers, in imitation of the guard.

I am cut to the heart. To have Allan talk to me the same way as a guard... It is hard to imagine anything he could have said that would be more wounding.

He resumes scooping rice into the trash. I don't understand why he doesn't salvage some of it to eat. Pushing through the hurt of what he said to me, I approach to help. He smacks my arm away, hard. He snarls, "Go. Away."

I retreat to the head of my mattress; that's as much physical distance as I can give him. When he's finished cleaning up the spilled food, he lies down with his arm across his eyes. I feel awkward eating next to him, but I continue until I've finished half. I set my bowl, with the remaining half of my dinner, on Allan's mattress. "Here."

Without looking, he knows what I've done. "I don't want it." When I leave the bowl anyway, his voice, though soft, turns lethal. "I said, I don't want it."

I retrieve my bowl. I don't feel I ought to eat the remaining food after having designated it for him, but I can't bring myself to throw it away, either. I'm hungry. I finish the food, guiltily. I rinse out my bowl. I reach quietly over Allan's head, to his tub, and retrieve his bowl for rinsing as well, since he hasn't done that. I assume Allan can tell, from behind his closed eyes, what I'm doing, but he doesn't comment.

That night I cry. I clench my mouth shut, but it has to be obvious from my breathing and sniffling what's happening. I'm pretty sure Allan's still awake to hear it. He ignores me, which is better than snapping at me.

I keep my back to Allan constantly in the days that follow, and I never say a word. I hope he understands I'm not sulking. I'm trying to give him the privacy he said he needed. I'm trying to make amends.

***

One morning, when the guards bring us breakfast, Allan doesn't get up, not even after the guards have placed his sandwich and tea on the foot of his mattress and left. He lies on his side with his face to the wall. I ask him if he's feeling sick; they're the first words I've spoken to him in days. He doesn't respond. Bending more closely toward his head, I realize that as he lies there, he's wearing his blindfold over his eyes, not up on his forehead. That's very odd. I have the feeling he's awake, but when I finally build up the courage to nudge him, he doesn't move or say anything.

My intuition tells me that something is wrong. But I also know I have a morbid tendency to imagine worst-case scenarios. If, in fact, this is simply Allan's way of saying that he still doesn't want to be disturbed, then I don't want to push him.

I speak to him one more time, to ask if he wants to eat. When I get no response, I drink his tea, so it won't accidentally get spilled onto the mattress. I wrap Allan's sandwich in a tissue and hide it in my tub, in case the guards would want to either take it away or force-feed him.

The guards return for our toilet run. For some reason, our usual practice is for me to take my toilet run before Allan does. I don't remember how this norm started. Maybe I had a particular urgency to go on our first morning here, and that random occurrence fixed the pattern for the future. Maybe Allan started making me go first to prevent me from lying around despondent in the morning. Or maybe it's part of our older/younger brother dynamic: Let the little guy go first.

When I return from my toilet run, Allan is still lying down blindfolded. As I enter, he gets up, without a word, and heads off with the guards to the bathroom. Locked alone in the cell, I see that Allan has forgotten to take his bottles with him. I carefully pour half the contents of his pee bottle into my newly emptied one; hopefully, neither of us will run out of room before the day is out. Meanwhile, the guard responsible for taking our drinking bottles upstairs to refill them with potable water has discovered that Allan forgot to bring his, so that guard reopens our cell and demands irritably that I pass the bottle to him.

Allan returns, carrying his refilled water bottle. He immediately lies back down with his face to the wall, his blindfold still down. I tell him what I did about his pee bottle. No response. I am irked by his persistent silence in the face of my efforts to help him, but I have absolutely no right to complain: I've been an asshole to him, too.

Later in the day, Allan reaches for his water bottle, still blindfolded, has a short drink, then puts his head back down on the mattress. Not only he has been lying down all day, he's been lying down in exactly the same position all day. I ask him if he would like his sandwich now. No answer. I eat the sandwich, partly to make sure the guards don't find it and partly because I'm hungry, as always.

When the guards leave us dinner, Allan's behavior is bizarre. He sits up with his blindfold on and gropes around until he finds his bowl. Then, instead of using his fork or spoon, he eats with his fingers. He pauses for an unusually long time between bites. He's breathing a little heavily. I feel like I'm watching an animal eat. Disturbed, I ask him again if he's sick. Then I ask if he's mad at me. He ignores both questions. After just a few bites, he abandons the bowl and lies back down in the same position he's been in all day.

Shortly before I go to sleep, I try to coax Allan into eating some more. He doesn't respond. I eat what he left and put his bowl away for him.

The next morning, Allan again doesn't eat breakfast. When it comes time for the toilet run, I nudge him to make him go first. For several unsettling seconds, I think he's not going to get up, but then he does. Peeping under my blindfold, I see that he's leaving his bottles behind again. I pass his water bottle to the guards just before they lock me in. I carry his pee bottle to the bathroom with mine.

When the two of us are alone again, I plead with Allan to talk to me, tell me what's wrong. "Are you depressed?" I ask, and in the silence that follows the question, I become certain that's what this is. Allan is deeply, deeply depressed. So deeply, he's gone somewhere else. He's left me.

I'm on the verge of a panic attack. I kneel by Allan's side and pray: Please God, bring him back, I can't lose him... I want to cry, but then I think: No, don't do that, that's precisely the problem. He's been carrying me all this time, I've been letting him carry me, I haven't been considerate of his needs and his struggles, I haven't been supporting him like he's been supporting me, and now with the stress of the beating and our fighting, it's all gotten too much for him, and he's collapsed inside. This is my fault, oh Jesus.

I want to lay my hands on Allan's side and tell him I'm sorry, I'll do better, please come back. But no, my being clingy and demanding is what made him like this in the first place. I have to be strong now. It's my turn to carry him. I can't cry. I can't be needy or weak. I have to... just be here for him. Take care of him. Give him time to rest and recover. Nurse him back. Show him that he can come back without me sucking away his strength again.

Allan continues without speaking or moving, and barely eating, for the next three days. He gets up only for his toilet runs, to eat a little at dinner (sometimes), to drink, and to pee—although he's drinking so little that he pees only once or twice every 24 hours, as far as I know. I fear for his physical health in addition to his mental health. One morning he doesn't go on his toilet run. The guards don't seem concerned by that; they just move on to me, then on to the next cell.

Since the guards don't see Allan lying motionless all day, they don't realize how bad things are. I wonder if I should try to tell them, but that doesn't feel safe, I can't predict what they'll do. As a rule, they don't show much concern about our health. These are people who beat a man, possibly fractured his leg, and then left him alone in a cell. I can't put Allan in their hands.

I start observing our rules again, as best I can on my own. Daily exercise, being careful not to bump against Allan, lying on his mattress. Wait for meals sitting up. Wait standing for the toilet run, all four of our bottles cradled in my arms. (The guards never comment on my extra load.) During the long inactive hours, I don't let myself wallow, I set myself mental tasks and distractions, punctuated by periods of rest so I don't burn myself out. I'm rebuilding my discipline, setting up a structure to support me, so I will have the strength to carry Allan for as long as I need to. I had let my morning and evening prayers slip when Allan and I started fighting; now I resume the habit. I pray spontaneously all the time: Help me help Allan.

One day I lie down on my side, facing the back of Allan's tank top. I reach out to lay my hand on his spine. I have something to say to him, a speech I've been rehearsing in my head. I think he's awake to hear it. I hope so. I speak in the calmest, most matter-of-fact voice I can muster. "Allan. You do whatever you feel you need to, for as long as you need to. If you need to keep being alone, I'll leave you alone. But if there's anything I can do to help, tell me, and I'll do it."

I force myself not to cry. I leave my hand on his back a little while longer, willing him to get better. When I feel an urge to kiss his back, I remove my hand and roll over the other way.

***

The guards start to figure out that something's wrong when shower day comes. From our cell, I hear a guard shouting at Allan in the bathroom, "Douche! Douche!" I don't hear Allan make any reply. In my head, I picture him standing there, waiting to be taken back to the cell so he can lie down again. "Douche!" the guard keeps shouting. Then I hear what must be Allan getting shoved and falling onto the floor, followed by the sound of a few blows. Allan doesn't speak or cry out.

The guards haul Allan back to our cell. They don't ask any questions, they're merely exasperated: Allan's being a nuisance. Allan flops onto his mattress and resumes his customary position, face to the wall. His clothes are soaked in back.

After completing the other hostages' toilet runs, the guards reopen our cell before returning upstairs. I feel my way to the back corner as a guard squats on my mattress next to Allan. "Hey, whatsa madder whichoo?" the guard asks him. His irritation sounds genuine, even though he seems to be quoting a line he's learned from some movie. "Whachoo problem?"