The Last Hours of Marion H

by Margaret Davis

The cell where they kept her was cold. Probably deep underground, she thought. They’d brought her to this house three months ago after abducting her on her way to open up the clinic. Since then, she’d remained in this gloomy room except for two occasions.

The first was when they blindfolded her and took her to a room somewhere else in this house. Probably upstairs—it was warmer there. Men she couldn’t see had told her they were holding her for ransom. What they demanded, they had said, was for the oppressors who occupied their country to release all female prisoners. They knew, and she knew, this demand would not be met. But at that time, she still was hopeful they would release her anyway because of the general outcry at her abduction.

They didn’t.

The second time they took her from her cell was about a month after the first time. Again, she was blindfolded. She was taken to a room and seated at a table. The blindfold was removed and she saw she was surrounded by hooded men and camera equipment. They gave her a speech to read for the camera. In the speech, she pleaded with the outside world to meet their demands for otherwise she was to be executed. By beheading.

That time, she was really frightened. Her distress on the videotape was genuine.

Last night, she had a visitor in her cell. A tall bearded man, hooded as all the men were. Only the two women who attended to her in her cell were not hooded. The man told her, “Your people are not acceding to our demands. Now you must die.”

“When?” she asked.

He didn’t reply but left the room.

She awoke the next day after a fretful night. But every night was fretful in this place. It was probably dawn. Some birds sang at dawn every day. She could hear them even though she couldn’t see the outside. She sat up in bed to pray, first arranging a shawl around her shoulders. It was so cold in here.

Some time later, a woman jailer came in. She nodded a greeting and said, “Would you like breakfast?”

“What’s happening? Has anyone heard from my people yet?”

The jailer looked surprised. “They told me they’d talked to you last night and explained. No one is going to free you. This is the end for you.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She started to sob. The jailer opened her mouth to speak but she begged, “Please, give me a moment.” She kept sobbing. Then the jailer said, “Come now. You have to get ready. Would you like some breakfast?”

It seemed an odd request under the circumstances. She shook her head. But as the jailer turned to leave she said, “Maybe a sip of water. Or tea.”

The jailer looked pleased. “I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”

When the jailer left the cell, the prisoner lay back in the bed, overcome by nausea. Dry heaves. She was still heaving when the jailer returned with the tea. The jailer said, “Now, sit up and drink this. It will settle your stomach.”

As devastated as she felt, this struck her as comical. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed before taking the tea. Then she clutched her shawl and pulled it around her, shivering. “It’s so cold in here.”

The jailer said, “It’s nice and cool. Outside, it’s so hot.”

After a few sips, she asked the jailer, who seemed like a reasonable woman, “Do you think they’d let me write a farewell letter to my husband?”

“A farewell letter?”

“Yes, I’ve never said goodbye to him. I want to tell him that I love him and give him messages for my family in England.”

The jailer looked doubtful. “I don’t know about that.”

“Well, would you please ask them.”

The jailer left. The prisoner sipped more tea and pulled the shawl around her tighter. After a few minutes, the jailer returned. She was accompanied by two burly hooded men. She said, “No letter.”

“No letter? But surely…”

The two men interrupted. “You’re to come with us now.”

The jailer took her tea cup from her. She bent down to put on her sandals, then stood up, gripping the shawl. The jailer reached out and pulled the shawl from her. “I’m telling you, it’s hot outside. You won’t need this.” She protested but the two men gripped her arms, one on each side.

“Please, let me go to the toilet first.” The men made sounds of exasperation, then released her, pushing her in the direction of the curtained-off drain in the corner. The jailer accompanied her. She squatted awkwardly over the hole in the floor. She hated these squat toilets. The jailer held her arm throughout as though she thought the prisoner might escape. Another comical thought.

Then the two men, one each side, walked her out of the cell, along a narrow stone passage, up a steep flight of stone steps. It was unfamiliar to her and it suddenly dawned on her why. It was because the previous times she’d traveled this route, she’d been blindfolded. Was this a good, or a bad, sign that she wasn’t blindfolded now?

They took her upstairs to a room she recognized. It was the one where she’d made the videotape. Now it was full of hooded men. One gave an order, and a set of handcuffs was produced. They handcuffed her hands at her back. Firmly, but not so tightly the circulation was cut off.

One of the men produced a hood and pulled it down over her head. “No, please, I’m suffocating,” she pleaded. But he fastened the hood around her neck. She protested again, and someone said, “If you keep making a noise, we’ll have to gag you. And that’s not pleasant.” She kept quiet.

Someone opened a door to the outside. She could tell because of the blast of hot air that entered the room. They marched her toward the hot air and then outside where she felt the full heat of the sun descend on her. It really was hot outside. Suffocatingly hot.

They marched her to what was evidently a car. “Get in the car,” they told her. But she couldn’t see with the hood on her head and couldn’t feel her way with her hands secured behind her back. In the end, a couple of the men roughly lifted her up and into the car, into a sitting position on a bench seat. And then they pushed her down so that she was lying on the seat. Then they put some kind of a blanket over her. They evidently intended to hide her as they were driving, in case they were stopped at a check point. This made her hopeful that maybe they would be stopped. But the blanket was terrible—hot and smelly, and when they covered her head, more suffocating than ever.

She felt the panic creep over her. Maybe they intended to kill her this way, by suffocation. Maybe they’d just dump her body in a ditch. She forced herself to stay calm, to take little regular breaths.

She heard the men get into the front of the car. No one got in the back with her. They started driving. The men didn’t talk much as they drove. No one stopped them along the way. It was only a short ride—no more than 15 or 20 minutes—but it seemed an eternity to her in her suffocating cocoon.

At first, as they drove, she heard the sounds of the city. Not too much traffic this early in the morning. Then they were on the smooth paved highway that led to the north out of town. After a short while, the car turned off at a dirt road and they bumped along for a couple of miles.

Finally, they slowed and stopped. She heard new voices join her captors. They must be in the country, she thought; she could hear chickens clucking. The sound brought back memories of the war. They lived just outside Coventry then. Her father grew vegetables to aid in the war effort. He kept chickens so the family could have more than one-egg-per-week-per-person. This was the official ration that hardly anyone actually received. More like one egg per month. If they were lucky.

The car door was opened. Someone reached in and—oh, thank goodness—pulled the suffocating blanket off her. They they pulled her out of the car, feet first, her skirts getting hitched upward. They placed her on her feet on the ground but she felt too dizzy and disoriented to walk by herself.  First, one arm and then the other was grabbed by a captor and they dragged her away.

She heard the car door slam. Then a sudden frantic squawking, accompanied by laughter. Oh, please, don’t hurt the chickens.

Into a building, cooler here, down shallow steps. She felt horribly disoriented with the hood still covering her head. Finally, into a place where they propped her up against a cold masonry wall. No air conditioning evidently; she could feel fans. The men released her arms and she leaned back against the wall for balance. One captor untied the string from around her neck and pulled the hood up and over her head. Her first silly urge was to smooth her hair.

She blinked and peered into the gloomy room ahead of her. Men in hoods on each side of the room. Equipment—tripods, cameras, lights—facing her. No doubt, to film her execution.

She remembered seeing the execution of an American hostage on Arab TV. They stopped short of showing the final gory details. Too unsettling for the viewers. She and her husband had commented on how the victim had looked. Not particularly frightened but dazed, uncomprehending. As though he didn’t really believe it. Or he’d been drugged.

She hoped they would drug her first. Although, she thought, they’d want her to look sufficiently alert to look terrified for the cameras. She trembled and one knee buckled. One of the men who’d been holding her arms reached out to steady her.

A stir in the room. Someone was coming in, someone important. He was hooded too—a tall, slender figure dressed in black. With a shiver of horror, she saw the knife in his hand. This must be the Executioner—the one shown on TV. He barked an order. Two of the captors grabbed her, one each arm, and dragged her forward a few feet. They pushed her down onto her knees. The Executioner walked up behind her, flanked by the two captors.

Then suddenly they were flooded with light and the television cameras started to hum. In a loud voice, the Executioner started intoning something—a prayer, a declaration—in Arabic. She remembered that in the execution she’d witnessed on TV, there had been this ceremony where the Executioner appeared to justify his gruesome deeds to Allah.

But where were the drugs? She called out, “You must drug me. I’m an innocent woman. I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s not fair that I’m made to suffer pain.”

The Executioner didn’t reply. Just kept droning his prayers.

In the background, she could hear the sound of a plane overhead. Not unusual. But then an explosion from outside rocked the building. The Executioner’s drone stopped. He muttered to the men who flanked him. She lifted her face and saw the hooded men exchanging glances. Clearly, this was unexpected.

There came another explosion, also nearby. Was someone trying to destroy this building? The sound of a plane receding. The Executioner gave an order to one of the men. Maybe telling him to go check out the surroundings. The man left. The Executioner resumed his droning prayer.

Finally, he stopped. After a pause, he turned to another man and muttered a query. Probably wondering what had happened to the first man. A stir in the room and all faces turned to the entrance. Hardly daring to breathe, she turned her face also. Someone had come in—not the same man who’d left. This one was an Arab, but not hooded. He had wild eyes and bulky clothing. He stared around as if looking for something. Or someone.

There was frantic shouting and panic as everyone started rushing. For what, she didn’t know. Perhaps the door—or for the wild-eyed man. He suddenly ran toward her and she had a brief insane notion he’d come to rescue her. But he was reaching for the person behind her, the Executioner, and called out his name.

And then he pulled the pin on the bomb strapped around his waist.