“Yeah, I told him not to let the haircut fool him; I’m way beyond redemption!” I said, laughing, knowing neither one would understand what I had said.
After about forty-five minutes of this I was taken back to my cell, where I paced for the rest of the night without sleeping. I had averted a serious ass whipping, or worse, thanks to my photographs, sense of humor, and quick thinking, and I had also done something else without even realizing it: I had strengthened my bond with General Mohammad. As I would later learn, if General Mohammad liked you, you were untouchable.
If he didn’t? Well. Then you had a serious problem.
Shortly after the darkness ended, the screaming began. It was coming from down the hall, in what I’d learn was the boiler room.
“Allah Akbar!” the victim cried out, and between his screams:
Whack! Whack! Whack!
I would come to know the sound well—they were whipping the bottoms of his feet with a thick cable. This went on for about fifteen minutes, and then stopped as suddenly as it began. A few hours later it started up again, with someone else. This guy didn’t scream Allah Akbar like the first one. He just screamed.
Whack! Whack! Whack!
I paced faster, holding my hands to my ears to muffle the sound.
“Jesus Christ, where the fuck am I?” I muttered to myself, over and over again.
The screaming continued, on and off, all day. I paced; I sat; I stood there awaiting my turn, but it never came.
All night long I heard intense fighting between the regime and the opposition just down the block; the machine-gun fire and shelling were constant. Outside my door, rebels marched by in large groups; they congregated in a room not far from mine. Sometimes they would all scream “Allah Akbar!” at the same time, something that always gave me an unsettling feeling.
That night the electricity went out, which was common in Aleppo, and shortly after it did, two or three men came to look at me. One of them spoke perfect English; I called him the Ghost Man because I never saw his face. They busted in with flashlights when I was lying down—there wasn’t time to stand so I scrambled up and leaned my face against the wall while on my knees. As the others searched the room, the Ghost Man walked over to me and shined his flashlight right in my face.
“Can you see me?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
“Good. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
A few minutes after he and the others left, one of the guards brought me a piece of bread and a small Styrofoam container filled with cold rice. With no utensils I ate like an Arab, ripping off pieces of the bread and using them to scoop up the rice. It was too dark to see my hands, and I dropped more rice on the floor than I got in my mouth. The next day, when it was light again, I noticed that the Ghost Man and his friends had ripped out the one remaining wire where the light switch used to be. Life was definitely not getting any easier.
I had no real contact with anyone except the guards, who fed me and took me to the bathroom. If it weren’t for these bathroom breaks I never would have left the cell. The guards were mostly young, in their late teens or early twenties. Two or three times a day, one would appear and say hamam—bathroom—and I would lift my head from the wall, cover my eyes with my cap, grab my piss bottle, and walk to the door. The guard would seize me by my arm and lead me down the hallway. I always kept my eyes open, looking out the bottom of my cap where I could see everyone I passed from the knees down. They parted before me and I could feel their stares as I walked by. I was glad I didn’t have to look any of them in the eyes.
The bathroom was big and had two rooms. The first was for washing up before prayer time, and held a trough with three faucets and two sinks adjacent to it. The room beyond this had three stalls; I could not lift my cap until I had entered one of them. The stalls were always very clean, and inside each was a squat toilet and a hose connected to a faucet on the wall. I’d hardly ever used one of these, though I was familiar with them. In that part of the world they don’t usually use toilet paper, just the hose and their fingers. I remember having to overcome a deep sense of repugnance to adapt to this, and before I was kidnapped I would wait to relieve myself until I got back from the field to the apartment where I was staying in Hraytan, which had a regular toilet. After my first bowel movement as a prisoner, I came out with my eyes covered and headed over to the sink to wash my hands. There was no soap.
“Can I have some soap, please?” I asked.
The kid didn’t understand, so I rubbed my hands together as if lathering up and asked again.
“La,” he answered stiffly.
This meant no.
“Oh, come on,” I said, pleading. “How can you not give me soap after I just cleaned out my asshole with my fingers? Please?”
“La!” he repeated.
“Man, this is disgusting,” I said, as I rinsed off as well as I could.
Back in my cell I stared at my fingers through the darkness. As hungry as I was, I dreaded my next meal, knowing I was going to have to eat it with those hands.
By my third day the solitude was really starting to get to me. My two-day
