Impossible Odds

people understand that about her.
    You can’t let them take her from us. That night he prayed without any sense of what the listener might look like. Surely, he thought, the loved ones of kidnap victims all offer the same prayer, if they pray, hoping their cause somehow makes them more worthy of cosmic favor than mere gamblers praying for a happy roll of the dice.
    •  •  •
    Jessica:
    About two weeks into the kidnapping, Jabreel sidled over to me one evening and announced we would be talking to Mohammed that night. I had already started to fall asleep and didn’t relish jumping into an SUV and bouncing across the desert to wherever they felt was a good strategic location for a call.
    “Planes. Spies,” Jabreel said, pointing overhead. “Amer-ee-cahn. We go far for call.”
    I rolled my eyes at that. Really, I couldn’t help myself. The idea of magical American spy planes buzzing around overhead because of Poul and me was just another absurd image in this broken landscape.
    “No planes, Jabreel. I’m not an important American.” I pointed at him. “You. Too much khat !” I pretended to chew.
    He looked up when something caught his eye, and we both turned to see a couple of cars pull up. Dahir and a few other familiar faces jumped out looking pleased with themselves. They presented Poul and me with a two-inch foam mattress for each of us, plus one pillow apiece and a hijab for me, to cover my head.
    Jabreel beamed at me as if this was all his personal accomplishment while the men brought over a large bag of bananas and grapefruit. As hungry as we were for fresh food of any kind, my heart sank at the sight of this. These guys were hunkering down for the long haul and instructing us to do the same. Sure, I welcomed the idea of getting something soft between me and the ground. And a pillow? I hadn’t even thought to ask for one. But still, I couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for the specter of an extended stay.
    Jabreel clearly wanted some sign of gratitude. The best I could offer was a politely vague response, so he quit and walked away.
    Eventually some mysterious person decided it was too late to journey into the wilderness for a phone call that night. There was no way to know for certain whether my words or my attitude toward Jabreel actually had anything to do with the decision not to go, or if he was the one who made it. Being left in the dark about decisions was standard procedure for us.
    Instead they walked us back out into the open for some sleep-or-we-shoot-you. We toted along our new mattresses and pillows, and as soon as we reached the selected spot we set up our beds right away, moving swiftly to make it unnecessary for anyone to yell, “Sleep!”
    Repetition and habit were teaching us to move half a step ahead of the enforcers, doing everything possible to stay in rhythm with them and avoid triggering anyone’s paranoia. I lay down like a good doggie who didn’t need to be ordered to sleep. After that there was only the open sky and a veil of darkness that I hoped would be unfaithful to them.
    A few more days blurred together into a single piece. They were more about frustrated boredom and smoldering resentment than the moments of terror we had before then. Poul and I agreed neither of us felt any sense of “Stockholm Syndrome” in terms of mentally joining these fools. But it was impossible not to feel attached to the rare individuals who seemed to look at us and see human beings, even for an instant.
    When Dahir, the guy we nicknamed “Helper,” had to take a car in for shop work or leave to pick up supplies, I felt insecure in his absence because at least he spoke some English. For that reason we didn’t like to see him get too far away.
    “Helper” often helped without realizing it; we could mark the passing of time by his punctual prayer sessions, repeated five times a day. He also carried a small radio around, which none of the others had, and we could sometimes overhear Somali BBC newscasts.The most bizarre twist arrived when I heard my name and the name of our NGO within the indecipherable Somali commentary. But there was some comfort in simply hearing signs of life in the outside world, when our own world had shrunk down to this one small and unhappy camp.
    I found myself late one morning sitting under a torn orange tarp and taking wry note of the fact that the tarp could have been taken from that pirate video showing those two captive Spanish sailors, the ones who