Since it wasn’t like we had a choice, we just dug in and began carrying stuff out of the shaft and tossing it on the other debris pile in the corner. There was an upside-down awning full of old dirty clothes; Theo took a pair of sneakers and put them off to the side and I did the same with some sweatpants. In three hours we had the entire elevator shaft cleared, scrubbed, and squeegeed—and miraculously, not one rat jumped out during the entire process. Theo put his bed in first, directly beneath the elevator; the Moroccan was next, in the middle; and then me. We could see through the cracks that on the first floor the elevator was right next to a garage door that was always open a little; this gave us a bit of sunlight on the dark days when the electricity was out. To conceal ourselves we hung a line across the entranceway to the shaft and draped several dark blankets over it. It was a cozy, if depressing, spot. Omar had to stay outside like a dog.
Once I found materials in the debris piles to use as weights I began to spend most of my time working out, and pretty much kept to myself. There was an axle I used for curls; an extension cord I used for a jump rope, and an exercise mat that I used for air bicycles and sit-ups. In between reps I jogged around the entire floor three times. I’d always kept in shape back home, hitting the gym six days a week, so this was a way for me to try to reclaim some semblance of my old life. It also helped me keep my head clear.
Sometimes hours would pass without me saying a word to anyone. This was a change as I had always been somewhat talkative, and now that I wasn’t feeling chatty Abdelatif decided to become Theo’s new best friend. The two would sit right outside the elevator shaft when I was inside, speaking in French because they knew it annoyed the hell out of me—not because I wanted to know what they were saying but because I knew that if the guards heard Theo speaking in yet another language it would only reinforce their suspicions that he was a spy, which wouldn’t do anything to help my case.
At night the Moroccan would sing the Koran so it echoed all through our vast prison. While he sang Theo would lie next to him facedown on an exercise mat like a mutt, letting the flies land and swarm around him by the dozen without moving to swat them off. He was now always at the Moroccan’s side, sleeping when he slept and staying awake when he was up.
“I want to go to Anadan with you,” Theo said to him one day as we all sat in bed, staring up at the sunlight creeping in through the shaft.
Abdelatif promised to take him there if we all got released together, and when I tried to convince Theo that it was smarter to head straight for the Turkish border than to accompany the Moroccan back to the town where he had been shot and kidnapped, it was like talking to a brick wall. He was totally infatuated with Abdelatif; sometimes it seemed like the two were in love. Theo even planned to help him get back into the States if we survived, offering to put him up at his mother’s house in Vermont and give him money to get started. The fact that Abdelatif was a member of al-Qaeda no longer seemed to register. Listening to them talk long into the night I thanked God that I’d never told Theo I was Jewish. There was little doubt in my mind that if I had he’d have told the Moroccan during one of these conversations, and even less doubt that this would have been my death sentence.
The rats in the warehouse were big, but it was their boldness that intimidated us most. Before we relocated to the elevator shaft, we’d often be sitting on our mattresses when a rat came charging out of a debris pile like a raging bull. It would run straight at us, its little claws screeching across the concrete, and just before it reached the beds it would break to the right, darting around the mattresses and behind a lone file cabinet that stood against the wall.
“They’re not afraid of us!” the Moroccan exclaimed the first time this happened.
“No shit!” I said. “You see the way he came at us? It was like someone dared him to do it!”
I tried several times to make traps, but these rats were way too smart for that. We were totally defenseless if they ever decided to rise up against us . . .
The Rat Offensive began when I was sleeping. Next to me my cellmates sat on their mattresses, enjoying the little light we had. I was just drifting off into a peaceful slumber when I suddenly felt something heavy racing up my bare arm. My eyelids flew open to see a Chihuahua-sized rat sitting on my shoulder, staring me right in the eyes.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, flinging the giant vermin off.
The rat hit the floor and then made for the garbage pile, dragging its hind legs as if it was injured. Meanwhile, I’d jumped up and run for the corner under the elevator; the Moroccan and Theo—who hadn’t seen a thing and still had no clue why I was screaming—scrambled to do the same. The three of us stood there, clinging to each other
