But Gareib came back and told us we were free to leave. They just wanted to use our Thuraya phones to call our office in Baghdad and confirm that we were really who we claimed we were.
We went outside and stood beside our car, waiting for the unknown. The driveway door opened, and Gareib asked for Matthew’s Thuraya once again and the number of the bureau. There was a palpable tension between our captor and Gareib. They seemed to be fighting over what to do with us.
The man in black approached and looked us over.
“I want to marry a foreign woman,” he said, looking me directly in the eye, smiling with tarnished, crooked teeth. Khalid was translating.
“Thank you,” I put my hand to my chest, “but I am married. I have three sisters though . . . Perhaps I can introduce you to one of them the next time I am here . . .”
Our captor suddenly decided he had had enough of both Gareib and the man in black. He turned to us and directed us back into our car. “Everyone get in the car!”
He ordered me to lie down across the floorboard in the backseat, out of view, and ordered Fat Khalid and Matthew into the backseat and Waleed into the passenger seat. He wrapped his face with the keffiyeh and got into the driver’s seat. I felt us backing out of the driveway, the sky darkening with every second, and we drove slowly through the town toward the main highway leading to Baghdad. I raised my head just enough to see that every ten feet or so an insurgent stood, poised with his weapon along the side of the road. They were building trenches with explosive devices for the next arrival of American troops to the village, our captor proudly explained.
We had reached the highway. He tapped Waleed on the shoulder, motioning him to take his place once again behind the wheel, and with that he jumped out of the car and ran across the street, back toward the village. Our captor had saved our lives.
We were on our way home.
I sat up to see the sun setting over darkened fields. We drove in a superstitious silence. No one wanted to speak about our fate until we were home. Our cell phones didn’t yet have service, and we didn’t dare stop long enough on the side of the road to make a satellite call with our Thuraya. Matthew and I clenched hands, no longer ashamed to show our feelings in front of Waleed and Khalid. Forty minutes passed in a blur until we entered the periphery of Baghdad and Waleed’s phone started ringing. I heard him cooing typical Arabic expressions of love and affection: ayooni (my eyes), habibti (sweetheart), galbi (my heart).
I thought only of my parents and hoped they hadn’t been told anything.
? ? ?
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT the New York Times house, our office manager, Basim, started toward us from outside the front of the house, where a crowd of about twenty staff members had gathered. The formalities between men and women in the Arab world disappeared, and we embraced, one by one. It was dark, but I could see proud Basim weeping like a child. He sent me reeling into fits of tears as the gravity of the last few hours overcame me.
“Your parents have all been called by the New York office,” a colleague said. “You should call them.”
I went directly up to the roof, one of the few places where I found solace in Iraq, in search of the stars and the open sky. My hands were too nervous to dial; my throat was dry and cracking. I couldn’t remember phone numbers emblazoned in my memory since childhood. I scrolled through the cell phone in search of “Mom” and dialed her first. I got her voice mail and started crying at the sound of her voice.
I then scrolled to “Dad.” He never answered his phone. What day was it? Wednesday. He was working. I called his salon, my memory returning. The squeaky voice of their receptionist answered at the hair salon on the other end, and nothing came out of my mouth.
“Is my dad there?” They knew who my dad was, right? “Is Phillip there?”
“Yes, yes, honey, yes.” Her voice was urgent, and I knew she knew. I was immediately flooded with guilt for the pain I had caused my parents.
My dad picked up the phone, and he couldn’t speak. I could only hear him whimpering on the other end, struggling, like me, to form a sentence. It was one of the first times in my life I elicited a trace of emotion from him; I felt his love for me in the absence of his words.
“Dad? Daddy? It’s OK. I am fine.” I was crying so hard I could barely get the words out, but I wanted to sound strong for him.
“Oh, baby. Please come home. Please come home.”