Captives (5 page)

“And if we get out of this—”

“
When
we get out of this,
chérie
…”

“All right, when we get out of this, I'm going on a refresher course and I'm going to take the nursing profession by storm.”

“At last,” says Louise.

“Oh, honey, don't be so gloomy.”

“Huh,” says Louise, and looks up at Martin as if she's expecting something from him.

“And you?” says Melanie. “What's your story?”

“English teacher in a high school in London,” I say, pointing at myself, “and social worker,” pointing at Carol.

“And writer?” says Jacques. “You always seem to be writing.”

I tell him that yes, it's always been important to me, though I've had little published as yet. “But still, you know, we try to live the creative life—my writing, and Carol—she draws.”

“And Martin?” says Melanie.

“Has still to declare himself,” I say, and we all laugh. “Isn't that right, Martin?”

“Yeah, that's about right,” says Martin.

“You know what's really weird?” says Melanie.

“Surprise me,” says Louise.

“I know they're there, in the darkness, with their guns and everything. But sitting here with the fire glowing and the talk, it's like this is just a…”

“… regular campfire?” says Louise.

“Yeah, honey, something like that.”

“Mom, you're going crazy.”

“Nick—you know,” says Carol, her voice breaking, “our son Nick—he would have loved this.”

[CAPTIVES 2]

A GAME TO THE DEATH

Day Eight

We break camp and walk into the forest. Any excitement it might once have had for us is long gone. It has become only this narrow trail and on either side a mesh of impenetrable green. It's malicious—not only is there the tree with the black sharp spokes; many others seem to have needles hidden in them somewhere, if not on the trunks, then on the edges of the leaves, like hooks, or running down their centers. Whoever thought this could possibly be Eden was greatly mistaken.

Our spirits are affected by the sheer repetitive drudgery of our situation. Louise puts a good face on it—such a good face, it's obviously a source of irritation to Melanie.

“It's not a holiday camp, honey.”

“No, but turning it into a hell isn't the best way of dealing with it.”

“Turning it into a hell?” Melanie shoots back. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, I was with the Young Pioneers last night, singing songs around the campfire. Didn't I see you there?”

“Oh, Louise, go to hell.”

“Moth-er!”

*   *   *

We are following the same pattern—elusively successful so far, I suppose, for our captors—in that today we leave the cooler air of the hills behind and dip once more into the heat of the valley. But I sense we're walking deeper into it than we've been since the day of our capture. There's an unmistakable tension in the air. Though Rafael hides it well, I note Miguel and El Taino have brought their guns down from their shoulders and carry them in the crooks of their arms.

A scream rips through the air. Miguel turns his gun to us and we drop to the ground as we've been told to. I'm aware of them on either side of us, the slap of hands on metal. But when I look up, there is Rafael, still standing at the head of the trail, a smile on his lips.

“
Tranquilos,
” says Miguel. “
No pasa nada. Miren.
” And to our side, a lithe black piglet scampers through the trees to catch up with its mother.

The trees thin out and we see on a rise a small wooden hut with a palm-thatched roof and a veranda. There's a patch of garden before it, showing green shoots in furrowed rows. An old woman with tight curls of silver hair rocks in a chair on the veranda. She rises when Rafael approaches, her heavy breasts pulling at her gray top. She greets him warmly—a kiss on each cheek—and peers over his shoulder at us, nodding slightly as she does so. Of course, I think, Rafael knows them all! He has scouted out his route beforehand and is not behaving from instinct, but from meticulous planning.

Rafael turns to Maria, smiling broadly. “Handsome but deadly” is Melanie's description. He zigzags his hands a couple of times through the air. I pick out the word
montañas.
They all laugh a little, but I know it's the laughter of release.

“This is good,” says Eduardo. “This is good for tonight. We all eat well.”

“Well there's a change,” says Melanie.

“Yes, tonight,” says Rafael, “you are our guests.”

“Guests are usually free to leave,” says Melanie bitterly.

“Ah, that I'm afraid we cannot arrange. Not yet. But it is the time, I think, for a photograph.”

“Oh, Happy Campers now,” says Louise.

“Please,” says Rafael, and points to where he wants us to be.

“Close, please.”

Miguel pushes us with the flat of his gun and we bunch up—Jacques, Melanie, and me at the back; Carol, Louise, and Martin squatting before us. Rafael takes a small camera from his pocket. It's one of the disposable ones—the ones that in all the ads are only for holiday or party snaps.

“Smile,” says Rafael.

“Yeah, sure,” says Martin.

“Tennes-
see,
” says Louise.

“And again,” says Rafael.

“
Naturellement,
” says Jacques.

“
Naturellement—quoi?
” says Melanie.

“Low tech,” says Jacques. “Everything is low tech. No radios, no mobiles, no laptops—nothing that could give any photo-sensitive imaging of where we might be.”

“So primitivism is the new sophistication,” I say.

“‘
Exactement.
The camera will be dropped off somewhere, maybe taken to the city and delivered to the world anonymously, leaving no trail.”

“Oh my God,” says Carol. “We really
are
lost, aren't we?”

“Leave it, Mum,” says Martin. He speaks so rarely these days, Carol looks at him as if she's been scalded.

*   *   *

We sit under the veranda, guarded by Miguel, watching El Taino and the old woman make the fire. But before they light it, they make a spit and cover the whole thing with an awning of woven palm leaves. Rafael appears with a piglet, its throat cut, still dripping blood. A stick is sharpened and forced up its back passage and out of its mouth.

“You learn, eh?” says El Taino, smiling.

“Aw, Jesus,” says Louise.

“Lost your appetite, honey?” says Melanie.

“You're kidding,” says Louise. “If I could eat a horse, I'm not going to turn up my nose at bacon.”

“Well said,” I say. “What do you say to that, Martin? You hungry?”

“I'm up for it.”

“Good boy.”

As El Taino turns the piglet on the spit, the first smell of burned hair fills the air and smoke thickens in the V of the awning. Again, it seems without us noticing it, darkness has fallen. We are staring at the red-hot embers when I catch sight of two shadowy figures leaving the shack and moving swiftly down the trail.

“Now,” says Maria, “better you all inside.” We move into the shack and the old woman, Julia, lights a kerosene lamp. It shows her rusted metal bed. A table. A chair. A chest of drawers. A cross on the wall. The fire has burned through the skin of the pig and the smell of roasting meat is almost overpowering.

“What's happening now?” says Louise, and the way she says it sounds just as if she's at home on any Saturday night when the parents haven't filled her in on their agenda.

“What do you mean, what's happening?” says Maria. “We wait. That's what's happening. We wait for the pig to cook.”

“And for Rafael and Miguel?” says Jacques. “I saw them go off down the trail.”

“So you saw what you saw,” says Maria, and runs her hand tiredly through her short hair.

“Why do you hate us so much?” says Martin, in that way he has of suddenly springing the awkward question.

“Martin, not helpful,” I say, under my breath.

“I don't understand what you mean by ‘not helpful,'” Maria says. “But no, is a good question, why I hate you so much.”

It seems for a moment as if she won't answer the question, will simply leave it hanging in the air for us to work out for ourselves. She undoes a shirt button and massages the back of her neck. Then she begins, in an even voice.

“I don't hate you. What are you? Fathers, mothers, two childrens on holiday. No, I don't hate you. I hate what you stand for. Not tourism. I am proud of my country. I want to share it with others. Our people share their history and their pain and their struggle. We are used to sharing. No, I hate the dollars economy you bring, which makes our
pesos,
our once proud
pesos
—now defaced with Quitano's ugly face all over them—almost worthless.”

“We were right,” says Melanie.

“Right?” says Maria. “You think you're
muy listos
—very clever—to see what is wrong with my country? You look past the beach and the hotel and what do you see? A people with its nose in the dirt. So do not feel too clever, my friends.”

Julia, who surely can't understand a word of this, still nods her head in support of Maria—who isn't finished with us yet.

“And with your dollars you bring prostitution, thieving, the lack of pride that says, ‘Why work? I can beg dollars from the tourists.' You tourist men”—she looks from Jacques to me—“you all think we're ‘up for it,' as you say. I've seen it in all your eyes—even in the eyes of the innocent. Yes, it begins and they cannot stop their imaginations going to that possibility. It is so close, yes, no further than their wallets. And how do you think this makes our men feel—our boys—when they see old men with fifteen-year-old girls—girls who should be with them at the cinema? I tell you, it strips them of their dignity, as surely as the women are stripped of theirs.”

“But these are choices,” says Melanie.

“Choices! Ah, your American choices. You say they have choices. At four dollars a month? When doctors have to cycle rickshaws to make ends meet? You call this a choice?” She shakes her head. “No, no, my friends, this”—and she taps her gun—“
this
is a choice.”

*   *   *

We sit silent, motionless, in the dim yellow light of the hut. A large moth bangs repeatedly against the casing of the lamp till the heat withers its wings. It lies on its back, kicking its legs, till Julia brushes it from the table. She takes out some dried brown leaves from a drawstring bag. We watch as she uses her two fists to crush and roll them together. She places them in the groove of a piece of wood and begins to tease out a whole leaf on the table. It's elastic as skin. She takes the crushed leaves and rolls her cigar, feeling for unevenness, repacking or adding bits of leaf till she's wholly satisfied. She cuts a crescent from another leaf and licks it, smoothing it round one end, then, with a knife, neatly trims the other. She places the first cigar to the side and begins to work on a second.

“No need for that trip to the cigar factory now,” says Melanie.

“Pah,” says Maria.

“Do you know … do any of you know”—Jacques speaks into the silence—“what you're risking with this kidnapping?”

“Ay-ee, you think we're childrens playing a game?”

“No, but—”

“Ah,
la vida.
You're asking me if we know we risk our lives? You ask me if I know what life is worth?” She seems amused by the question. “Do
you
?” This she issues as a challenge. “In that moment when you must decide, when you must truly know the worth of your own life? What would you be prepared to put in the scales against your life?” She looks at us each in turn. “Eh? Eh? Eh? Pah!” This time it is like a small, breathy explosion that tilts her whole head. “Nothing, eh.
Nada por nada.
Which is why your life is weightless, why it drifts without anchor—through the jobs you do not like and the years passing. Yes, I hear you and I ask again, what are you prepared to put your life on the line for? We know. That is the difference between us. We know.”

There's no sound, but the doorway darkens with the figure of Rafael, then Miguel.

“Maria,” Rafael says, and there's a lightness in his voice. She rises at once to go to him.

There are other questions I still want to ask, but we are waved outside. After the hut's smoky glow, the stars are so thick, the sky seems curved with light.