Days of Fear by Daniele Mastrogiacomo Page B

betray them—our versions are identical. My interrogator’s name is Munir—the one who travelled in the cab of the pickup and who wears a white turban. He orders me to kneel and then to lie down on the floor. I’m waiting for my punishment, my arms stiff behind my back. I remember what Sayed told me, that they had tried to strangle him. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a Taliban at my shoulder, moving closer. It looks like Hassan, the oldest among them.
    He has a length of wire in his hand that he shapes into a noose, twisting the two ends together. He draws closer. I prepare to hold my breath; they’re going to tighten the wire around my neck so that I can no longer breathe. But that’s not what happens. At the cry of “Allah Akbar” two, three, four, I stop counting at twelve, hard blows fall from on high. My back arches, I try to soften the blows by tightening my back muscles. But those men standing over me lash out with wild fury. They don’t stop for a second. They beat me on the back, on my thighs. The whistling as the lengths of rubber garden hose that they use to flog me is overpowered by their cries. They flog me and shout. Tears line my face, which is covered in dirt and dust. Finally, I yell, “
Basta
,
Basta
!” It comes out like an order, but it is a supplication.
Basta
, enough, is a word they use in Pashto as well.
    The one holding the wire tight in his hand moves in front of me. I recognize him—it’s Hassan, all right. He orders them to stop, and the soldiers obey. Some of them laugh; others lift me to my feet. Munir, the boy with the white turban, comes over to me and says they’re just following the rules, they’re Taliban, nothing personal. I feel insulted and humiliated, but I object weakly: you don’t beat civilian prisoners. I remind them that I am an old man, and above all a journalist, a figure that is considered neutral in any armed conflict.
    â€œWhy don’t you take soldiers prisoner?” I ask angrily, the pitch of my voice getting higher, and my tone becoming dangerously fervent. “Why take a journalist prisoner, someone who came here among you just to do an interview, unprotected, without any weapons, armed with only a pen and a notebook?”
    I’m up on my feet now. My clothes are filthy with dirt and dust, and I’m screaming at Ajmal, who has not moved, who appears paralyzed, to translate word for word. He must not change anything. He must not leave out the adjectives or alter the intonation. I can’t tell if he does what I say or not. I believe he does not, in order to protect us and to avoid further violence. He mutters something, his voice meek.
    Â 
    I’m beside myself. The situation is becoming unbearable and my resistance has reached its limit. I turn around without waiting for their replies and head toward the prison-cell hole that awaits me, walking a little like a duck because of the pain, my hands still tied behind my back. I prepare myself to face a long and difficult time in captivity—I am a prisoner, nothing more. That other Daniele, the journalist, foreign correspondent for
La Repubblica
, is still back in Lashkar Gah. Munir, the Taliban who was in charge of the interrogation, comes over to me. I turn quickly and stare darkly at him. He smiles as he says: “So, we managed to squeeze a few tears out of you. You never cry.”
    He’s right, I think. I only cry in moments of deep sadness and desperation. I will cry more than once over the course of these fifteen days, mostly at night, alone in the middle of the desert—brief silent fits of sobbing full of anger and fear.
    Munir unloosens the knots around my wrists, grabs my left hand and discovers that I’m still wearing my wedding band. He tries to pull it off, but I make a fist. “No,” I say. “No.” With a bemused smile he opens my hand and, as he stares into my eyes, he slips the ring off my