Acts of Faith

Taken

It was only the thought that I had to say my goodbyes to the students at the Middle East University in London that got me out of bed that morning. Every single fibre in my body ached and my head was a mess of misfiring synaptic squibs. It hurt just to roll over and squint at the alarm clock. My stomach complained violently about the abuse of the previous night. It took me a good few moments to struggle into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Starting the morning with a raging thirst but being unable to keep anything down is hardly a recipe conducive to fond farewells. The light in the bathroom spun stars across my eyes as I stood under the shower and let hot water cascade off my head and shoulders for a full twenty minutes.

One way or another I managed to dress. I even managed a mug of coffee and, keeping a nervous watch on the rumblings down below, I decided that I needed some fresh air. The morning was bright and blue, and there was already a haze building on the narrow city horizon at the end of the street. I needed to feel the muggy freshness of the morning on my skin, before I could contemplate getting into another stuffy car for the trip to the university, where I worked as an Arabic language tutor. It became vividly clear to me that absolutely nothing else would do. I needed a few minutes out of doors, even though the streets were already filling with the atmospheric fug of mechanised urban life and that feral nervousness that accompanies armed occupation.

I left the flat, while my erstwhile expatriate friend, Usman, finished his breakfast of hot buttered toast and thick, sweet coffee. My drinking companion of the night before had woken up with a slight fuzziness of the head but with no other visible signs of the harm that we had done to ourselves, at least none that he would admit to. I was too confused by the basic necessities of breathing and walking to notice that Usman was possibly being too damned bright and breezy. All that mattered to me was that I clear my head. The urge to taste fresh air meant that I walked down to the front door some fifteen minutes before our car was due to pick us up.

Beyond the heavy metal gates at the front of the lobby , a latter day portcullis that locked us up safely in the dead hours of the night, there was a short series of portico steps leading down to the open pavement. I took a fresh refill of hot coffee with me and under a brilliantly blue July sky I sat down on the second step. I nursed my drink in both hands for some minutes, with my sunglasses pressed tightly against the bridge of my nose, and tried to focus on the coming day. From where I was sitting I could just make out one of the local police check-points towards the far end of the street, manned as usual by two armed officers. They were too far away to make out faces, but they looked relaxed as they both smoked, leaning against a wall of sandbags while they watched the rush hour traffic on the Warwick Road. My home for the best part of this last year had been in Earls Court.

Cars and motorbikes nosed their way towards the main arterial avenues of the capital just as they did every morning. This adherence to basic normality was a way for the people of London to put two proverbial fingers up to the random nature of the terrorist threat hanging in the air at every street corner. Shirt-sleeved men carrying bags and briefcases walked slowly along the street, summer sweat stains already appearing under their arms and in the smalls of their backs. As I watched the busy working folk start their days, I tried to compose an elegantly witty adieu for my students but the words would not take shape in my head. I supposed that I would have to busk it, assuming that a suitable way of saying thank you to them would come to me nearer the time.

I felt so tired that morning. It was obviously a reaction to the booze, but it went deeper than that. It was also rooted in the absolute fatigue that had overcome me on my penultimate trip back to my home in Beirut at the end of the previous May. I knew instinctively that I had reached my sell-by date here in England. It was time to go home.

I decided to risk my first cigarette of the day and immediately regretted it. I felt a tightness in my throat as my airways closed on the first drag. I coughed solidly, drew down a second lungful of smoke, and started to feel better. Caffeine and nicotine. I made a mental note to buy a litre of something cold, fizzy and sugary in the university shop before I started my last round of classes.

Sitting in the sunshine, warming my bones, and feeling the prickly crawl of perspiration on the skin around my neck, I thought again about the missing Levantine souls here in this troubled land. The latest kidnap victim was a banker. Reports said that he was in his mid-thirties, an executive type specialising in the financing of major capital projects in derelict countries like England, a man who might even know my father. They say that wherever you are in the world you are never more than seven people away from someone you know. It seemed somehow bizarre that I might be linked to any one of the sweating workers walking past these steps by some vagary of mass acquaintance.

The kidnapped banker was taken in broad daylight from the heart of London’s financial district, right under the noses of the authorities, leaving pools of black and bloody stickiness surrounding his dead bodyguards. Once upon a time such events had seemed a world away from the adventure that I was currently bound to. I was here as a volunteer aid worker, which was actually an attempt to escape my home and family. When I first came to London I imagined myself to be on a quest, but those imagined, swash-buckling days were long gone now. The best part of a year in war-torn London had put paid to any lingering fantasies in this regard. My life in desolate, brooding little London was as troubled as the city streets upon which I now sat.

I took a deep drag on my cigarette, contemplating the situation. Was it truly just selfish arrogance that had made me believe that becoming an aid worker would inject some sense of purpose into my life? Probably not. It turned out that I genuinely enjoyed teaching and had made some good friends here. Yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that these connections were fleeting. Months ago, I had stood under a billboard on Monot Street in Beirut with fantastic ideas of service and bravado swimming chaotically in my head. Because of the rising tide of violence in England, I now felt gripped by the deepest fear, which was a new and troubling sensation. On this sweltering July morning in London, surrounded by seemingly rational people, I felt emotionally unwell. I placed my coffee mug on the stone step beside me and checked my watch. Five minutes had passed. I wanted to go home right then and there.

There was only one solution to surviving in this city, and it involved alcoholic poisons and nicotine. I lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply, and allowed the morning panic to wash over me. Despite the rising heat, I trembled slightly. The half-digested coffee in my stomach began its slow reflux, but I kept breathing deeply, exhaling the nausea away. Usman would be here any second, and I couldn't let him see me like this. We were drinking friends, and I thought that such a display would be a minor act of betrayal.

A small flock of sparrows flickered across my peripheral vision, suddenly rising from one of the Plane trees lining the street. I don't recall thinking that their sudden flight signified anything important, but I do remember being amused by the birds' chatter as they took flight. I was lost in thoughts of my own mortality, a contemplation that should feel strange and alien to someone so young. At that moment I was largely oblivious to my surroundings.

The car that had put the sparrows to flight was a Mercedes, a dirty beige colour, one of those big, boxy models from the seventies, the kind that leaves diesel smudges on the city's fabric. I remember staring at the driver's side front tire, a white-wall, oddly out of place amid the summer dust and debris of this dilapidated city. Two men got out of the car, one from the passenger side front and one from the driver’s side rear. The driver remained seated, the diesel engine idling with a low and menacing growl. I could make out the silhouette of a fourth man sitting on the passenger side of the back seat.

My first thought was about Usman. Where was he? The agency men were clearly here to pick us up, arriving a bit early and with more muscle than was usually necessary, but I figured they were just taking extra precautions. Then one of the Rolodex cards in my mind clicked over. I should have moved quickly then. I should have jumped back to the door of our house, key in hand, but instead, I was pathetically and predictably human.

From the front passenger side of the Mercedes, the larger, more thick-set man climbed onto the sill of the open car door and slowly turned his head from side to side, keeping watch. He was a squat but powerful figure, like a human lighthouse, scanning for any potential threats to his colleagues. The glass-eyed passers-by were all scurrying along the opposite pavement as fast as their terrified little legs could carry them. I glanced towards the police checkpoint, thinking to call out, but there was no one there to call to.

The second man now stood in front of me at the foot of the steps leading up to our front door. He was smiling, looking perfectly at ease with the world. He was clean-shaven, dark-haired, and easy on the eyes, wearing frayed jeans, clean white trainers, and a sports jacket over a black polo shirt. It was his smile that gave him away, a smile that turned the blood in my veins to arctic mist. He extended his left hand towards me and spoke Arabic with a soft London drawl, smiling all the while as if he were telling me a subtle joke.

What he actually said was just, “Come with me.”

For a second or two, in that last moment of sanity, I wanted to laugh and share the joke. I almost convinced myself that I could simply tell this stranger to go away, but rationality is a flimsy thing, held together by fragile thread. This particular invitation offered no real option other than blank and silent compliance. The man flicked his jacket back with his right hand, revealing the matte black metal of a handgun tucked snugly into the top of his jeans. It was too late. I couldn't move. Although he quickly covered the handle, the bulge of the gun's muzzle beneath the denim was imprinted on my brain like sunlight behind closed eyelids.

He spoke again, still in his accented Arabic, but this time more urgently. “Get in the car. Now!”

I remained seated in the sun, dazzled by the brightness of the day and the brilliance of my assailant’s cool smile. He turned to look at the man on point duty, made a hand gesture, and nodded. The minder with the bull neck stiffened momentarily, scanning the street one last time, then walked around the front of the car to the pavement. His colleague reached forward and placed his left hand under my shoulder, and hauled me upright. My coffee cup tipped over, catching on my knee as I squirmed sideways in a vain attempt to break free. I remember the handle of the mug snapping off on the concrete of the lower step as it toppled over the edge. The world around me blurred. My heart raced and adrenaline heightened my senses. The street was momentarily deserted, the usual commuters and busy locals having evaporated in the rising heat.

The world that I had come to know over the last year, the rituals and habits and routines of ex-pat life, were unceremoniously ripped away from me as I felt the bones of my kidnapper's fingers dig into the soft flesh of my armpit. Despite his slight and unimposing appearance, the man’s grip was powerful. Everything happened so quickly that it did not seem real. I felt as though I was looking at the world through thick fog. Then the oddest thing occurred to me. It seemed as if all of the world’s volume controls had been set to zero. I could hear nothing except the pounding of blood at my temples, and I could not utter a single word of defiance.

My captors manhandled me into the back of the car, shoving me down into the rear footwell with my head buried between the feet of the third kidnapper, who had remained seated in the vehicle. He covered my prone body with an old tartan rug. Facing the back of the front seat, I felt the fabric bulge against my nose as the minder sat down heavily on old, rusting springs. I could smell human sweat, engine oil, and the earthy mould of muddy boots on cloth. Doors slammed, and the car pulled away from the curb.

Surely, I thought, the police will stop us. But just as quickly, I realised what a catastrophe that would be. I felt hard metal against the back of my neck as a now familiar voice spat out fitful, stilted Arabic. “You know who we are?”

I gagged on the smell of oil and mud, tasting my fear on the bile in my mouth.

“You Persian?” continued my interrogator.
 

My head began to clear a little. Maybe this was a chance, I thought, maybe there is a way out. They clearly had no idea who I was. I started to wonder if they had any specific goal other than kidnapping a foreigner, one of the sons of the great enemy. They assumed I was Persian.

I pulled the rug away from my face and lifted my head slightly. Speaking in English rather than Arabic, I wanted to establish contact, to show them that I was making an effort and wasn't one of those arrogant oil men often vilified in London graffiti and the more extreme sectarian pamphlets that appeared from time to time.

“No,” I said, trying to sound strong and calm. “I’m Lebanese, not Persian. Lebanese.”

I tried to twist around to face the two men in the back of the car, lifting my torso over the transmission tunnel. Suddenly, a punch landed. I gasped as a hard and heavy fist struck my ribs.

“Stay down,” my captor hissed.

I collapsed back, gasping for air, my body hunched over the transmission tunnel. Tears streamed down my face, mingling with the sweat and the fear. In that moment, I felt like a small child, utterly helpless, as if I were six years old again, facing my father's wrath.

As the car barrelled down London’s streets, the blanket slipped from my face, and by twisting my body forwards slightly I managed to sneak a quick look through the back window to see a patch of blue sky. From my prone position I could see the tops of buildings slide by through the side window, the car hurrying now through unfamiliar London streets. I felt every bump and turn as my chest rubbed against the warming transmission tunnel.

The man who had remained seated throughout the episode now leaned forward, his gaze fixed on me. I sensed a flicker of doubt among my captors. I hoped with all my heart that my being Lebanese was disrupting their meticulously laid plans. The air was thick with the stench of cheap aftershave, and a drop of sweat trickled down the neck of the second interrogator as he too stared down at me.

"Do you support the Saud?" he asked abruptly.

"No," I replied firmly, locking eyes with him, hoping to convey my sincerity as a way of confirming that I was not their intended target.

"Do you believe in the Caliphate?" His tone was serious and unyielding.

I hesitated, grappling with the absurdity of the question. "No," I lied, once more adding hastily, "I'm Lebanese," as if my nationality alone could explain everything. At the time I felt nothing other than the imperative of survival, although later I would come to feel a sense of shame about my response. Denying such a fundamental truth felt like another betrayal. At the time, though, beneath that filthy car rug, fear overwhelmed me, and I wet myself.

For a fleeting moment, as our eyes locked, I dared hope that the car would suddenly halt. I willed it with all my might, imagining them releasing me with an apologetic explanation of mistaken identity. I could almost hear myself recounting the ordeal to my family over dinner some day in the not too distant future. But my optimism was shattered abruptly. The man yanked the tartan blanket back over my face. I felt his foot withdraw from under me, then, blinded by the blanket, I was struck with searing pain as his heel slammed onto my ribs.

"Shut the fuck up! Don't you dare move again!" he yelled, and then started barking orders to the driver.

We crawled through the congested rush hour traffic, minutes stretching into what felt like hours. I lost all sense of direction, I tried to think. What did I know about London right now? I knew that the bridges to the South London refugee camps were closed, and it seemed to me that heading into the heavily monitored city would be pretty unlikely. Given the country's tense political climate, veering north would complicate our journey unnecessarily with the factional checkpoints dotted along the length of the M25. We must be heading west, I reasoned, possibly back towards the airport, but how far?

Just a few moments ago, I had been on the verge of flying home, away from all these troubles. Now, we were passing the very terminals where Ibrahim, another one of my flatmates, worked. A wave of despair gripped my heart, and darkness closed in.