“Matthew,” I said.
I had stopped saying Matt a while ago because it means “dead” in Arabic.
“No, now you are Jumu’ah. Forget Matthew. ‘Jumu’ah’ means Friday, a holiday. Do you like it?”
“Yeah, sure, who doesn’t love Friday? Listen, what’s going on here? Why did you guys take me? I mean, I’m on your side! I hate the regime.”
“My English no that good, Jumu’ah, but wait—Wait.”
A few seconds later a translator appeared to clear that problem right up and begin my interrogation. His name was Abdullah and his English was immaculate.
“How are you?” he asked after he sat down in a chair across from me.
“I’ve been better,” I said.
“Keep your head down.”
“Sorry.”
“Now I am going to ask you some questions. You answer them very honestly or else you will be very sorry, okay?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you, and what are you doing in Syria?”
“My name is Matthew Schrier and I’m a freelance photographer. I was invited here.”
“By who?”
“By my friend Ahmed, who’s a Syrian refugee in Kilis, and my friend Majed, in Hraytan.”
“I see. Do you speak Arabic?”
“No, just a few words and phrases.”
“Like what?”
“Uh, ana isme Matthew. Ana moswer. Ana Ameriki. Ana osla.”
The last sentence made everyone laugh. I’d said, “My name is Matthew. I’m a photographer. I’m American. I’m bald.”
“What is your background?”
“My background?”
“Yes, your background.”
“Well, I’m thirty-four years old and I was born and raised in New York—”
“No, that is not what I am asking. What is your religion? What are your parents?”
“I’m a Christian and my great-grandparents were all German.”
An older jihadi seemed to like this answer and reached over to give me a pat on the back.
“Ah, German!” he said.
Like being German is something to be so proud of, I thought. I’d figured my captors would love that answer, for obvious reasons. Actually I am of mostly Russian descent—and 100 percent Jewish, a detail that if discovered I knew would probably lead to me being decapitated online, Daniel Pearl–style, for all the world to see.
“Look, what do you guys want from me, man?” I said impatiently. “I didn’t do anything to you and I’m not worth shit.”
“Don’t curse. We have information that there are CIA agents in the area,” replied Abdullah.
“CIA? You think I’m CIA? Look at me, my socks don’t even match,” I said, laughing. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
“Please don’t use foul language,” said Abdullah, firmly.
“Sorry, it’s just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, we have to investigate you. We have to know who you are.”
“Well, then bring me my phone and I’ll give you the numbers of all my friends in Syria and Turkey, and bring me my cameras and let me show you my photos. I was in Karm al-Jabal and outside Air Force Intelligence. The fuckin’ regime almost blew me away for those pictures.”
“Don’t curse!”
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, as sincerely as possible.
This obsession with cursing was a second sign that I was with fanatics. They hate profanity and consider it haram—a sin.
“So if everything I say checks out, are you gonna let me go?” I asked.
“Yes, if you are telling the truth we will let you go.”
“All right.”
For the next ten minutes or so I answered questions about who I knew, where I had been, and where my funding came from. He didn’t seem all that surprised when I told him I’d funded the trip myself with my savings. Toward the end of the conversation, Abdullah told me to raise my head and I did.
“Now, take the cap from your eyes,” he said.
“No, I’m cool, man. I don’t have to see your faces.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Look, I don’t wanna see you guys. Just make your calls, do your investigation, and then let me go. That’s the deal, right?”
Mohammad reached over and lifted the cap for me, but my eyes remained closed. After a second I slowly opened them and got my first look at Abdullah. I was shocked. He was young and very good-looking, with pale skin; he had dark, wavy hair, and a neatly shaped goatee. I was expecting a Salafi, one of those ugly bearded maniacs.
“Do you know who Jabhat al-Nusra are?” he asked me.
And that was the third sign that I was with not only fanatics, but the fanatics—al-Qaeda in Syria.
“Yes,” I said.
“Who are they?”
“They are the fiercest warriors in this war and the reason the opposition has been able to take on the regime so successfully. They are always at the front of the most dangerous battles and have no fear of death. I know that my government has labeled them a terrorist organization even though they have never committed one terrorist act or—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Abdullah said, smelling the bullshit on my breath. “We are going to search you now and put you in your room.”
“But what about my pictures? They’ll prove everything I just said to you. Let me show them to you, come on, please?”
“In time.”
I remember sitting there for a little while longer, waiting, while my captors put on a surreal kind of show-and-tell. I saw my first suicide belt: This little nerdy guy walked over wearing one and displayed it for me. It was pin-striped—talk about going out in style. Then Mohammad showed me this giant gun, one I think I had seen in some SWAT scene in a movie once.
“American! American!” he said proudly, wearing a huge smile.
“It’s very nice,” I said, not sure how to respond to this.
Two kids, teenagers, came in and started cleaning out my pockets. They took my passport and wallet with my credit cards in it. One of them was wearing green scrubs, which was the first detail suggesting the building I was in might once have been a hospital. After my pockets were emptied, my eyes were covered again and I was led out, where I was allowed to put my sneakers back on and taken down the hallway and into another room. Abdullah, Mohammad, and a third jihadi called Sheikh Ali followed me in, and Abdullah gave me permission to uncover my eyes. The room was
