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  ‘My head was lifted and I heard tearing and cutting.

  ‘Big plasters were pressed onto each of my eyes, then a long, wide strip from temple to temple, carefully pressed and modelled round my nose. It wasn’t Nicotine Fingers and I recognized the voice of the one who had shouted, “I’m responsible for the goods being intact.” I tried to feel his hand—the size of it would give me an idea of his general size—and he hit me a blow that sent my face deep into the mattress.

  “‘Don’t try playing the policeman with us! And don’t move unless you’re told to move. And, if you’ve any sense, you won’t let yourself cry with those plasters on. It’ll burn you till you scream.”

  ‘They knew their business. He unchained me. I wanted to turn over and massage my wrist and ankle where the chain had almost stopped my circulation but I didn’t dare.

  “‘Get on all fours. Follow me.”

  ‘I crawled out of the cave behind him and someone waiting there dragged me to my feet. The freezing wind attacked me, almost throwing me off balance, a wind whose cutting edge was at my face but whose low, menacing moan was miles away. I sensed an infinite space around me. I smelled snow, and even behind the sticking plaster I could feel a dazzling light.

  “‘Jesus fucking Christ!”

  “‘Now what do we do?”

  “‘Shut up! Just shut up!”

  ‘The one in charge was angry, panicked even. I recognized his voice easily but I wasn’t sure about whoever had said, “Now what do we do?” The driver from last night, perhaps. He hadn’t spoken in the car. The accents were Florentine, strong and rough.

  “‘You’ve made a mistake, haven’t you? You don’t want me—I’m not rich enough—”

  ‘A slap across the face. “Keep your fancy mouth shut. Give me your left hand.” I held it out. “Feel that—I said feel it! Don’t drag on it to help yourself. Just keep your hand on it as you walk. If he stops, you stop. When he walks, you walk. Move!” He prodded me with what I guessed was the barrel of a gun.

  ‘I felt the rough canvas of a rucksack which the boss in front was carrying. I tried to do as I was told and walked with my left hand touching the rucksack very lighty. I felt the snow crunch under my feet. I knew we were very high up, not just because of the snow but because the wind’s low-pitched whine came from far away below us, not above. We were on a stony track which sloped away from us steeply on our right and, because it was so narrow and my boots weren’t suitable for such rough ground, I stumbled on those stones that stuck up out of the dry snow. How could I help saving myself by clutching at the rucksack?

  ‘Immediately I was kicked from in front. “Don’t drag on me, you stupid bitch!” The one behind pulled me up and thumped me in the back.

  “‘On your feet! Don’t drag on the rucksack and don’t try falling as an excuse to touch one of us or you’ll get this across your face.” He pushed the barrel of the gun against my cheek and then put my hand back on the rucksack. “Walk!”

  ‘I hadn’t fallen on purpose, I hadn’t! But I didn’t dare speak in case another blow came. I wanted to talk. I wanted to ask them why they were doing this to me. I wasn’t rich enough for this. Why wasn’t it someone really rich who’d never had to struggle, who’d had it easy? The sort of person these types felt they had a right to hate and punish. I wanted to say, “Not me! Not me!” I wanted to tell them that I had been poor and had to struggle to bring up my children and that I’d worked so hard, for so many years. Didn’t I deserve at least a few years of tranquillity between the problems of poverty and the problems of riches? It was so ridiculous that I should be kidnapped before even having time to finish paying my debts.

  ‘But I didn’t dare and what difference would it have made? They’d labelled me a rich bitch and I had to stay labelled for the benefit of their consciences. That’s true, I promise you. You wouldn’t believe how they preached at me over the weeks, how they justified their greed and cruelty.

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t dare speak so I walked. My body in the sheepskin became overheated with the effort but my head and especially my ears ached with cold. I couldn’t feel my hands anymore so it was difficult to tell whether I was touching the rucksack half the time. I tried for a while to keep my right hand in my pocket but I needed it for balance, sensing the abyss to my right where my boot kept slipping down off the path. Each time I stumbled they hit me and cursed me. We walked all day, and it seemed to me that almost all the time we were climbing. We never stopped for a rest, and I knew that they were nervous, afraid even. Something was wrong. That remark they’d made when they got a good look at me that morning … Perhaps I was right. They had made a mistake and didn’t want me at all. Perhaps they would make me walk in circles for miles and then leave me somewhere near civilization. After all, I hadn’t seen any of their faces. I couldn’t identify them, they were safe from me.

  ‘Still without stopping, the one behind reached over me and took something from the rucksack. He put a plastic bottle into my right hand.

  “‘Can’t we stop? I’m afraid of falling.”

  “‘Walk.” I sipped at the water and at once air broke from my stomach, making me dribble. It was so long since I’d eaten. He gave me a slice of rather stale bread and a lump of Parmesan cheese. That tasted good, especially the cheese, crunchy and salty. But when I tried to swallow what I’d chewed, more air came up and my stomach just didn’t seem to want me to swallow anything, tightening up the way it does when you want to vomit, or are trying not to. I kept trying, unable to believe that my psychological state could override my basic physical needs. Surely it should be the other way round? In the end I left a bit of chewed food in my mouth and waited until it became so sodden that it was bound to be washed down with my saliva, bit by bit. I got through six or seven mouthfuls like that and drank more water when it was offered. I had to try and keep my strength up. I was sure now they’d made a mistake and were going to let me go. I told myself I must be super-obedient. I was careful to keep my left hand flat and touching the rucksack very lightly. I kept my head even lower than before and trod carefully so as not to stumble and anger them, especially as I might have to walk a longish distance alone at the end when they let me go and didn’t want to be slowed down by any injuries.

  ‘I stopped when Rucksack stopped. I heard him step off the path to go and pee. The other pressed the gun into my back in his absence. I don’t know where he thought I could run to but I stood quietly with my head down until Rucksack was back in front of me again and Gun put my hand back in place and went to pee, too. It was only then that I realized fully that Nicotine Fingers wasn’t with us. I made a sign that I needed to go and pee, too.

  “‘Do it here. On the left.” The ground on the right still fell away from us steeply and I couldn’t have kept my balance. I was able to hide myself with my coat and tried hard not to wet it. Sightless as I was, I felt all the fears we have as small children when this emergency happens. The fear of prickles, nettles, broken bottles. There was nothing except short, prickly grass and powdery snow and the icy wind creeping into my exposed warm body. At the thought that they would release me, my brain became alert and began working furiously. We must be climbing a hill or mountain and, since it still fell away to our right, we hadn’t changed direction. We weren’t simply going in a circle then. I decided that we must be crossing the hill and that at some point we’d turn in a circle, big and gradual enough to confuse me, and start down again. You can imagine my joy when we did start going down. I was right. They were going to dump me and I wanted to cry for joy! It was all a mistake, and tonight I would be home, having a hot shower, sitting in my corner of the sofa with Leo and Caterina close to me. I would watch television—I could telephone my friends—ring Patrick! Would he be over here already? He would, he’d have caught the first plane out of New York if he’d heard. Would he have heard? … My own bed, my own lovely quiet room. None of this had any meaning. It was a mistake, it was nearly over.

  ‘Rucksack stopped. This was it
. As I waited for instructions I imagined a road close by, perhaps a service station or one of those bar-shop-restaurant places you get out in the country. I prepared what to say to them, afraid they’d think I was mad, appearing like that out of nowhere without even money to phone. And, of course, there might have been nothing in the papers yet… How long exactly had I been missing? It seemed like weeks to me but—

  “‘Here?”

  “‘The rifle. Not that piddling thing.”

  ‘My ears prickled, my heart started pounding. It was Rucksack who’d spoken. They weren’t going to free me, they were going to kill me. I didn’t panic. I felt nothing except a great wave of sadness and I began to turn my face up. I wanted to face the sky, even if I couldn’t see it. Gun smacked my head down and Rucksack said, “Go on.”

  ‘Some fidgeting, then a bolt was pulled. I waited, my head down. Gun fired. Something hot rolled down my face and I felt a splash on my boot, then another and another.

  ‘The crack and whine of the rifle shot was still loud in my head. Another shot echoed far away.

  ‘Rucksack said, “All right.”

  ‘Gun placed my hand back on the rucksack and thumped my back.

  “‘Walk.”

  ‘They hadn’t killed me. They hadn’t released me. They had given a signal and the signal had been answered. They had signalled with guns. We were so far from any civilization, any hovel, any human being, that they were able to signal with guns. The blood was dripping from my temple because he’d hit me there, probably with the pistol. ‘“Walk.” The nightmare was going to go on.

  ‘After that, the terrain became much more difficult. For a long time we fought through scrub where thorns pierced us, and I heard Rucksack using a machete. Otherwise we couldn’t have moved forward at all. The last part of the journey was the worst of all. It must have been an area of completely impenetrable scrub in which a tunnel had already been cut. We had to crawl for hours, and my legs and back burned with the pain of this unaccustomed strain in such a position. Brambles tore at my head and face, hands and knees. A thorny twig pierced deep into the palm of my hand and stuck there. I had to stop.

  “‘Please, I can’t see to—”

  “‘Shut up! Move.” He whispered it, as usual. It seemed like it was out of fear. Why? First they fire guns, then they whisper. What is there to be afraid of here? I rid myself of the twig, leaving the thorn still embedded, and we crawled on. Soon I felt Rucksack getting to his feet in front of me. We must have come out into some sort of clearing. Gun pushed me forward and another pair of hands got hold of me, chained my wrists together, and pushed me to the ground against a tree trunk. I felt the chain pull as he wrapped it round the trunk and I smelled a different person, the stale, fatty smell of a butcher’s shop, one of the reasons I never ate meat. Steps crunched away from me and I sat still as a mouse, listening. I was tensed up and, being unable to touch or see, my brain was concentrated a hundred percent on hearing. The voices were subdued at first. I suppose they didn’t want me to hear what they said but a quarrel broke out and I heard Sardinian accents. I couldn’t understand the quarrel but I knew I had been right and that Gun and Rucksack were afraid of the men here. When it was over I heard the crunching and dragging away through the tunnel of thorns as Gun and Rucksack left.

  ‘Someone approached and began unwinding the chain. Finding my hands free, I started to rub my sore wrists but the chain was pulled tight round my ankle and I heard a padlock snap shut. A voice whispered, “Turn to your right and get on all fours.”

  ‘By this time I had learned to obey quickly so as to avoid being hit. My hands and knees ached and smarted already from the crawl through the tunnel but I didn’t protest. These were new people and might be more violent than the others.

  “‘Crawl forward. There’s a tent in front of you. Crawl into it and lie down. Don’t pull yourself up by the tent pole or you’ll have the lot down.” It was all whispered, but not like Rucksack and Gun when they were afraid—this was just to disguise the voice. I felt angry. I wasn’t so stupid as to pull on a tent pole. But then I touched it by accident as I felt my way forward and he kicked me hard in the back of the thigh. He must have been wearing heavy boots, and the pain in an already suffering muscle was acute. Yet the tears that came to my eyes were because of the injustice of it. At once I felt my eyes burning and I gasped. I’d forgotten the warning. I tried to swallow the tears and transform my upset into anger. I hadn’t pulled on the tent pole. It wasn’t my fault. What was I supposed to do if they hit me no matter how hard I tried to do right? I lay down in the tent and felt him crawl in beside me.

  “‘Take your boots off.” I did as I was told though it wasn’t easy in such cramped conditions. “Give me your left hand.” I felt the chain pull tight and another padlock. My wrist was chained to my ankle. Butcher. I hated him because he had kicked me unjustly and because the chain round my wrist was much tighter than it could possibly need to be and it hurt me badly. Even so, I prayed he would take the burning plasters off my eyes, but he didn’t. Why? If we were so far from help that they could fire guns, how could I possibly escape? I was inside a tent and could have no idea where I was and they would surely have ski masks on. As if he could read my thoughts—how many times had he done this before?—he whispered, ‘You can take the plasters off yourself.”

  ‘I was glad he wasn’t going to touch me. I held my breath, terrified by the thought of my eyebrows and eyelashes. I tore the long strip off and lifted a corner of one of the underneath ones. I tried to do it quickly and close to the skin. Pain is a strange thing. Women have their legs waxed, for instance—and the pains of childbirth can be devastating but it’s the reason for the pain, after all, that counts. That same level of suffering inflicted on us as torture or punishment would be unbearable. Once I had ripped those plasters off and seen my eyebrows and lashes embedded in them, I understood that I was going to have to develop a new way of dealing with pain if I wanted to survive.

  ‘Butcher wore a black ski mask as I had expected. He was big and filled the small tent. He whispered, “All the stuff you need is behind your head.” He threw my boots out, crawled out after them, and pulled down the zip.

  ‘Once I was alone I sat up very carefully, without making a noise. I had been told to lie down but once they were out of sight, my fear and subjection waned. I looked for my watch but they must have taken it from me in the car while I was unconscious. The tent was small and low and I could only sit up in the very centre of it. There was no mattress, only the plastic floor, but there was a sleeping bag and an old flowered cushion. I picked up the cushion and sniffed it. All my life I’ve been over-sensitive to smells. As a child I would come home from playing with a friend and ask my mother, “Mommy, why does Debbie’s house have a funny smell?”

  “‘What smell?”

  “‘I don’t know … I don’t like it.”

  “‘All houses have an individual smell.”

  “‘Ours doesn’t.”

  “‘Yes, it does. You’re too used to it to notice.” Patsy’s house had a warm smell of cakes and ironing. I loved it there.

  ‘The cushion had a dusty smell but nothing offensive. I was grateful for that since I would have to sleep with my head on it. Behind me, as Butcher had said, there were piles of things: a package of eight rolls of toilet paper, one of twelve plastic bottles of water, a packet of thin, cheap paper napkins. Next to me, to my right, was a bedpan and an already loosened roll of toilet paper.

  ‘There were noises outside. I stopped breathing and listened. They were working, chopping and moving things. A rustling noise above me made me look up and I understood that my tent was being camouflaged with brushwood. No doubt they had living arrangements of their own to hide, too. It all sounded very near and I imagined the clearing as being quite small. When footsteps crunched towards the front of the tent I lay down. The zip went up.

  “‘Slide forward to the entrance.” A hand pushed a tin tray in. There was bread on it and, to my di
smay, the chicken with two or three bites taken out of it. Rucksack and Gun had brought it with them! It seemed incredible but at once I felt guilty. The rich bitch. Even supposing I ever ate meat, a partly eaten quarter of yesterday’s chicken was something which I would have thrown out without a thought and which in hard times I would have made into a soup or risotto for the three of us.

  ‘Despite my feelings of shame and my determination to force the stuff down so as to survive, I didn’t succeed. My stomach sent up spurts of air and remained closed. Afraid of punishment, I did as a child might do: I broke off most of the slippery cold chicken and tried to hide it in a bit of toilet roll in the tent. Then I took the thick piece of hard bread and kept it to suck on slowly with sips of water. It wasn’t much but I didn’t see what else I could do.

  ‘A hand slid the tray out a little way and a voice whispered, “Clean yourself with a drop of water and the napkins and pass them out.” I took this chance to suck out the thorn and clean the worst of my scratches. The cool water was very soothing to them. Only as the tray disappeared did I think I might have got away with hiding the broken meat in these napkins. The tray was gone. It was too late.

  “‘Use the bedpan and push it out. Then pull the slack of the chain in so you can get in the sleeping bag. Get a move on, we’ve a lot of work still to do.”

  ‘I did as I was told. The zip went down.

  ‘It was very difficult to get in the sleeping bag. I managed by pushing my chained leg in first but even then, my thick coat slowed me down. After a long struggle, I got my arms out of the coat, pushed it down the chain, got into the sleeping bag and put the sheepskin coat on top. The zip opened and the bedpan was pushed back in. I was so exhausted by my struggle with the sleeping bag and by the day’s walk that I fell asleep without a moment’s thought for my situation.

  Two

  ‘My foot was grabbed through the sleeping bag and shaken roughly. I woke up, still groggy. The smell of the tent, my aching limbs and an over-excited feeling confused me. Why was I so distressed if I was on a camping holiday? Then the excitement became recognizable as fear. Outside the tent there was a lot of activity, chopping and dragging.