10

FROM WHERE SHE SAT on a little wooden stool chained to a radiator, Maria could see Joey. A chain had been attached around his waist with the lead attached to another radiator at the other end of the room. Beside her was a pail, which both she and Joey used as a toilet. It was awful, dehumanizing. And it stank.

They were in a room with high ceilings and windows that looked out on what must have been a garden. It was now totally overgrown with high weeds, which concealed almost all of the view. But Maria could tell the time of day by the degree of light that managed to seep through the foliage.

Her resilience amazed her, although she worried about Joey, who had grown morose by his confinement. Yet she had derived strength from trying to keep up his spirits. Mostly, she made up long stories from her memory. She was, in effect, reliving her life, creating entertainment for her son from the events of her past.

Maria was surprised at the interest it engendered in her son and the degree to which it kept her revitalized and able to cope with the physical discomforts of this cruel confinement. It struck her as a miracle that she had alighted on this idea. We humans are resourceful little suckers, she told herself now, although she had been paralyzed with fright when the man had first fastened her to the radiator.

"Not the boy. Please," she had begged.

He had smiled and chucked her under the chin.

"Nothing to it." He had looked around the room. "We will feed you well." With a thick hand, on which tufts of thick black hair grew along the ridges of his fingers, he tousled the boy's hair.

"You want to play, little boy?" the man said with surprising gentleness. Joey shrank from the man, cowering against the wall.

"I want my daddy," Joey whispered.

"But you have your mommy," the man smirked.

"Leave my child alone! Can't you see he's upset?" Maria shouted.

She had an urge to spit in the man's face, kick him in the testicles. He had blindfolded them both, covered them with canvas and made them lie on the floor of the rear seat. They had driven for what seemed like days, although, after the blindfolds had been removed, she had noted that only three hours had elapsed since they had been kidnapped.

She heard voices of other men in the house, which seemed large and smelled musty and old. Her nostrils picked up the fetid smell of moisture and she decided that they were somewhere close to the Nile. Unfortunately, her Arabic was spotty and she was not able to understand some of the words that, at times, could be heard clearly.

It took Maria some time to make an intelligent assessment of the rhythm of life that went on around them. Meals came at regular intervals, giving her a time frame to adhere to. They were brought by a fat woman wearing a galabia. She also wore a veil and smelled putrid, like rotting fish.

"I hate this food, Mommy," Joey said as he spat it back into his plate.

"You must eat it, sweets."

He would try again. Sometimes he gagged and retched. Finally, he began to keep it down.

"That's a good boy," she said with encouragement.

"I want to go home."

"I know, sweets. Soon. I promise."

In a few days, she got somewhat used to the rhythm. They gave them both sleeping bags, which they spread out on the floor near the radiators. The most pressing problem was being able to sleep with the chain, but soon that, too, was compensated for by some mysterious inner mechanism. It was this same mechanism that goaded her senses, awakening in her an alertness that she had never known.

The worst part was not being able to touch her son. Even when they both stretched as far as they could, there was still a man's length between them.

"Make believe we're touching, Joey. Close your eyes and imagine that our fingers are entwining. Do that."

She watched him close his eyes and stretch his small arm as far as he could reach.

"Do you feel my hand?"

"Yes, Mommy."

"Is it warm or cool?"

"It is cool."

"Shall I tell you a story?"

"Tell me about when you were a little girl."

It was essential to keep the mind going. She was proud of her son.

"I love you, Joey," she said often.

"And I love you, Mommy."

In the middle of the day it grew very hot in the room. Occasionally the man who had kidnapped them, the one with the ridges of black hairs on his fingers, would come in and squat down near them, but just out of reach. Sometimes he smoked a fat cigar, blowing the smoke out of his nostrils and spitting great wads of brown saliva on the floor beside him.

"Why are you doing this to us?" she would ask.

"Because you are a great prize," he would say.

She wondered if he knew the identity of her father, but she declined to tell him. In the back of her mind, her father represented the ultimate hope. To him the concept of family was far more important than the concept of God. Even at her most desperate, this was the primary thought that kept her spirits up.

"Why?" she had asked cautiously.

"Americans are sentimental about women and children," he said. "It turns out that this little accident may be what you call the straw that broke the camel's back. Your President is against the wall. He will have to negotiate."

"Never," she said.

It seemed a reflex. Negotiate what, she wondered. But she would not give him the satisfaction of her ignorance. As she sat there, she memorized him. She did not want his face to escape her mind. A day would come when she would exact her revenge. I am my father's daughter, she told herself. Robert is wrong. His morality is an illusion. There is only one law, one rule, one unalterable fact of life. Survival.

"The least you could do is release the boy. It is terrible to make war on children," Maria scolded him.

"Children always suffer most in a war," he replied coolly.

"It is not necessary. I beg of you."

"At least you are together," he interrupted. "I could easily separate you." His words found their mark, and she felt the paralyzing effect of her fear.

After about a week, the fat woman came in carrying a bucket of warm soapy water and a scrap of towel. Maria stripped down and began to wash herself. The fat woman stripped the boy and began to wash him. As they bathed, the man with the hairy fingers came in and watched.

"What I like most about this place is the privacy," she said. With an effort of will, she tried to ignore his gaze, washing herself as if she were alone in the shower. Whatever is done to me, she vowed, I will show him my dignity. She continued to bathe, ignoring his presence. She forced herself to remember her feelings, to record its awfulness in her mind.

The smell of vengeance, she assured herself, is pungent, like smelling salts. It will keep me from flagging. She made resolutions to herself, folding them inside her memory. Her father would do that. She wondered if she could reach him through a massive effort of will, across oceans and vast spaces. Daddy, your little girl is holding on. And your grandson is showing much courage.

As she washed, she stared at her tormentor. Let's see who blinks first. She washed her womanly parts, deliberately, minutely. You do not exist, her eyes told him. His gaze drifted from her to the boy. She wondered if he was deliberately showing her his contempt. Then he sent the fat woman away and knelt before the boy.

"He is a good-looking young man," he said. He kneeled down and smiled at Joey.

"Would you like me to wash you, little fellow?"

He took the bit of towel and slowly moved it along the boy's skin, pausing just below his midsection.

Joey threw his mother a frightened glance.

"Leave him alone, you bastard," she cried.

He looked at her and shook his head in mock sadness.

"He is such a juicy little morsel."

She knew that the perverse demonstration of his aberration was to show his power over her, to diminish her will. There was no question about its effect. It was exactly the right button to push, worse than a knife brandished across the boy's throat. At least, in that gesture, there was some dignity. When he threw down the piece of towel and left the room, she was relieved, but he had shown his mastery, illustrated his contempt. The woman returned and dressed the boy.

Later, after she had told her son a story, she urged him to sleep.

"Imagine I am kissing you, my darling."

"I am, Mommy."

"Are my lips cool?"

"Very cool and very soft."

"I love you, Joey."

"I love you, Mommy."

She must have drifted just beneath the surface of consciousness. A wave of thunder seemed to engulf her. She heard heavy footsteps on cement, then smelled sour breath as she was manhandled. Someone was unchaining her. She heard the metal clink heavily as it fell to a hard surface.

"Joey," she screamed.

A voice she recognized as the man with the hairy fingers demanded silence. A hand pinched her arm as she was jolted forward.

"Mommy."

She heard her son's panicked voice and somewhere in the distance a coughing motor. The pitch darkness confused her sense of time and place.

"Quickly," the man's voice said, an urgent whisper.

She felt herself pulled forward as if someone wanted to tear her arms out of their sockets. The pain jolted her. Daddy, she cried in her heart.

Save us.