In the Presence of My Enemies (18 page)

Amazingly, we were able to walk out of that area under cover of darkness. I couldn’t believe it. Just as at the hospital, the government troops didn’t seem interested in pursuing us. After all, it was night now; their “shift” was over. Their commitment to the cause certainly had its limits—unlike that of the Muslim rebels, who would fight to the death for the reward of instant paradise (with its seventy-two dark-eyed perpetual virgins waiting).

We mobiled all night. Our three casualties were carried in
malong
s by the others. Then Ibno’s older brother came along, leading a
carabao
(water buffalo). The water buffalo was pulling a rig with a huge woven basket, and we could use it to carry our wounded. Where he had commandeered it I could only guess.

Some new faces joined us, from where I didn’t know; perhaps they were from Mang Ben’s village. They followed at the end of the column as we moved along the trail.

Every hour or so, we stopped for a short rest. I usually used these stops to head out into the brush for another bathroom break.

At one such place, I left my backpack beside Martin, and when I returned, everyone was already standing up to walk again. I quickly fell in line behind Martin, who was tied to Sakaki ahead of him. I had an odd feeling of lightness.
I’ve just been through another gun battle, and we’re not getting any sleep tonight—but I still feel so light, almost like I’m bouncing along here,
I thought.

Suddenly it hit me: I didn’t have my backpack! No wonder.

I immediately turned around to retrace my steps the hundred yards or so and get it.

“No!” one of the new guys barked at me. “You go!”

“
Oh, please, my backpack’s there, with all my things!” I pleaded. “It’s just a little way. Let me get it, please, and I’ll catch up.”

He cocked his gun at me as he repeated, “No—you go!”

I didn’t know this fellow at all. If he had been one of the familiar captors, I would have ignored him and gone back up the trail anyway. But this one seemed so callous. Did I dare challenge him?

I turned around to run forward and catch Sakaki. I pleaded, “Sakaki, my backpack! I left it back there; help me!”

He tried to intercede on my behalf, but before he could get out half a sentence, the new guard cut him off. “No—you go! Hurry!”

My heart sank to the bottom of my toes. Everything we owned in this life was back there in that backpack. The sheet we pulled over us at night, my long-sleeved shirt, our toothbrush—it was all there. A horrible wave of guilt swept over me.
How stupid of me! I just lost it all.

“Oh, Martin, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” I cried between my sobs.

My husband did not reproach me. He just quietly answered, “You know, honey, we’ve got to save our energy for walking. I forgive you. And you need to forgive yourself. It’s going to be okay.”

But I couldn’t forgive myself. I was engulfed in torment. There was nothing I could do now to correct my tragic mistake. I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other the rest of that night. With every step, I mourned.

11

A Song for the Jungle

(Late July 2001)

Around daybreak, we arrived utterly exhausted in a small village. In fact, our single-file column was disintegrating as various people slumped down and instantly fell asleep, only to be roused by others to keep going.

A small shelter came into view. As we got closer, we saw a welcome sight: some ripe bananas on the ground. Suddenly energized, I ran to grab as many as I could, even stuffing some into my pockets for later. Martin and I sat on the ground and savored every bite of nourishment.

The people of that village must have felt very safe, because they openly came around to sit with us and talk in their language. They looked at our wounded and made clucking sounds of sympathy. They arranged for Ibno and the other two wounded men to be evacuated on a boat to Zamboanga, where they could get medical attention.

And then, who should show up in the middle of this small village but Sakaki’s wife! As a Muslim woman, she was totally covered from head to toe with the black garb; I couldn’t even see her eyes through the netting. Her hands were covered with black cloth as well.

But to us, she might as well have been an angel in shining white, because she carried with her a big green bag for us with a long strap. She handed it to Solaiman, who pawed through it, removing several items before he brought it over to Martin and me.

Inside were
malong
s and soap and toothpaste and sanitary napkins. As I sorted through the items, I realized the bag contained everything I had lost the night before! I gasped with joy. It was as if God had already planned ahead to erase my disastrous loss. Suddenly the tragedy of our horrible night on the trail was reversed. But the bag contained an even greater treasure: letters for us! They were our first contact from loved ones after two months on the run. How in the world had she received these? We had no idea, but we didn’t care. We were just grateful to hear from our children.

Jeff’s letter said:

Hey my cool parents,

We are having fun here with Grandma and Grandpa and all our cousins. Aunt Felicia took us to rent movies just now. It was great. I didn’t really enjoy the movie we got but that’s okay. I just wanted to say hi and that I’m looking forward to seeing you again. I’m praying for you. Bye.

Jeff (the cool one)

He then added a happy face. I don’t think Martin and I had smiled this broadly in weeks. What a thrill to hear from our firstborn.

Mindy wrote about going to the animal clinic and all the dogs and cats she had seen. She concluded by saying,

I just want you to know I am praying for you. Bye Mom, bye Dad.

Love always, Mindy

P.S. Happy Fathers Day dad.

It was so sweet.

Ten-year-old Zach’s was short and to the point.

Dear Mom and Dad,

How are you? I am fine. We went to Walmart today. It is fun here. At Mega Mall we bought two computer games.

I will write you back.

Love, Zach

We just screeched with delight, laughing especially about his last line about writing us back. “No! We don’t want to be here long enough to get another letter from Zach!” we said. We wanted instead to go running into that house in Rose Hill, Kansas, and sweep that little guy into our arms for a long, long hug.

There were letters from Martin’s parents, my parents, each of Martin’s siblings, and others as well. We sat reading them aloud to each other again and again. Some of the letters had pictures. We gleefully showed them around.

And finally, the bag contained a pair of replacement glasses for Martin. We figured that Francis or Chito must have called our New Tribes Mission colleagues and explained Martin’s need. So here was a new pair of his prescription from the same optical provider in Manila’s sprawling Mega Mall.

“I can tell what these people look like now!” Martin exclaimed to me, a big smile on his face. For nearly two months he had been living in a haze.

The dear woman had also brought along a second big bag of bread rolls. The Abu Sayyaf looked at them but were skeptical about the ingredients. So Joel, Martin, and I had a whole bag of bread to eat. We dove right in.

I went over to Sakaki’s wife and gave her a big hug. “Thank you so much for coming,” I said. “Sakaki is a good guard.”

She nodded, and we talked briefly. She told me she was an elementary schoolteacher.

A while later, Fatima, who fancied himself one of the religious leaders of the Abu Sayyaf, called over.

“Hey, Martin, let me see your new glasses.”

“Why?” Martin asked him.

“I just want to see them.”

Martin took them to Fatima. The man held them in his hand, turning them one way and then another as he studied them. Then he announced without warning: “We’ll keep these. If you had them, they would help you escape.”

No!
I wanted to scream, or jump up and dig my fingernails into Fatima’s flesh. Martin was finally enjoying clear vision after all this time. We stared at the man. Martin’s shoulders sagged with disappointment. Finally, he said, “Well, you might as well have the case, too. I don’t want them getting messed up, in case I can ever have them back.”

Fatima took the case, saying, “Yes, maybe someday.” He passed the glasses along to Haija, who put them in his backpack.

We never saw those glasses again. Martin had worn them for less than two hours.

* * *

Sakaki, of course, was delighted to see his wife. He asked if he could have a one-night leave with her. He’d be back in the morning, he promised. Permission was granted.

After he left, the others noticed that Sakaki had taken his gun with him. Everyone got upset—especially Zacarias. After all, why did he need his weapon to go home for a visit? Some of the other Abu Sayyaf had no guns at all.

The villagers volunteered to kill a cow and throw a feast for us. The meat was being cooked in pots over an open fire, and delicious smells began to waft through the air. My mouth was watering as I imagined what that fresh beef was going to taste like. We hadn’t had beef since . . .

“Sundalo!
At the school! Everybody pack up!” There would be no feast after all.

We did manage to collect some of the pots and the half-cooked meat to carry with us up the hill and into the woods. Martin proudly carried the new green bag with all our goodies.

Curiously, we never saw Sakaki again. His overnight leave request turned out to be a permanent defection from the Abu Sayyaf.

This left Martin and me without an official guard, so Hurayra was appointed to take on this responsibility. This was nice for us, because Hurayra had such a gentle spirit.

A brand-new recruit from the village joined us in our trek. His English was quite good. Although I never did catch his name, I remember him because of something he said while we were sitting on top of the hill. Wearing only a T-shirt, shorts, and
tsinelas,
he said with uncommon frankness, “I never wanted to be a soldier. I never wanted to be in jihad. But these guys said they needed me.”

It was a brief but poignant testimony to the fact that coercion was not just a tactic for hostages. It was apparently standard practice throughout the Abu Sayyaf.

Later that day, Sabaya came over to where Martin and I were sitting. “They’re asking for a ‘proof of life,’ ” he told us.

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“We’re not sure.”

But then later, Solaiman appeared to know more. “It’s that guy who’s always smoking a cigar on TV,” he volunteered, referring to the trademark pose of former Philippine president Fidel Ramos.

Soon Martin and I were ushered in front of a camera. Sabaya had assumed his beloved hard-guy image: dark sunglasses, knit cap, weapon in hand. Bro took the shots. Then the film was removed from the camera, and Sabaya told him where to deliver it in town.

They also asked us to make a tape recording. Martin was told what to say, of course: “Please bring this matter to a swift end. Please appoint a mediator.”

Next, I was asked to record something for President Arroyo—sort of “mother to mother,” they said. So I put together a little speech, pleading with her as a woman to work something out with this group, because I really wanted to see my children again. “Please do whatever you can, and have mercy on us,” I concluded.

This tape was sent out along with the photo film.

As we walked away, I found myself coming to terms with the thought that this captivity just might be a long thing after all. Others had been ransomed—Reggie and Rizza, Francis and Tess, Letty and Kim and Lalaine, even Chito—but no such hope existed for us. The days were going on, there was always another trail to hike, another hill to climb . . . this wasn’t going to end anytime soon. I began to be depressed.

In the days that followed, the depression really took hold. I thought about all that Jeff and Mindy and Zach must be going through without me, and the tears started to flow. A pall settled in around me and I just sat and cried, which was new for me. I had never been the weepy type—until now. The captors hated to see me crying. I tried to be quiet about it, and I hated to have Martin see me in this state. He had known me for many years and he knew I wasn’t the type of person to be sad or upset for long. He was especially concerned and did his best to lift my spirits. But I just couldn’t seem to snap out of it.

I didn’t see Reina at all during our stay on that mountaintop. The poor girl had been through an awful ordeal with her face wound. She asked Joel to clean out the shrapnel, and he tried. But with no anesthesia, the pain was just too great. Finally, she took the forceps from the medical bag, got a mirror, gritted her teeth, and did the job herself.

It turned out not to be shrapnel after all. It was a splinter from a tree that had been shredded by a mortar during the all-day battle.

* * *

Sabaya came to Martin one day and said, “You’ve told us you were never in the armed forces. Did you lie to us?”

“No, I didn’t,” he replied. “I got out of college and went right into mission work.”

“Then why is Fidel Ramos calling you a ‘brother’?”

“I don’t know,” Martin replied with puzzlement.

“Well, you must have been in the army with him!”

Martin thought for a moment and said, “Actually, for one thing, I’m a lot younger than Fidel Ramos. If he called anyone ‘brother,’ it would more likely be someone the age of my dad, who was a paratrooper in the army, for whatever that’s worth.”

The interrogation continued. “Tell us why he’s using that term for you,” they insisted again.