Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story – Part 9 • The Muj brothers
(Page 5 of 5)
The next morning, I didn't knock on the door to come out. I waited for them to fetch me. When they did, I just kept my head down and walked to the bathroom. I was quiet and deferential – as I had been in my ordeal's early days.
I had to keep my eye on the larger goal, which was survival. I had to give in.
The Muj Brothers had won the battle with me. That didn't mean they had won a war. In the following days, Abu Hassan slept less and less. He'd pull out his handgun and play with it.
"The American soldiers, they will never leave Iraq," he said one day. "It will be 300 years before they go away."
It was the first time I had every heard any of the mujahideen express anything less than complete optimism about the future.
***
As March slipped away, to some involved in the long effort to free Jill, it was as if they were now coasting – like a car that was moving forward, but with the engine off.
So Team Jill did what they had agreed to do when things seemed too quiet. They'd kept one person in reserve, someone who might get lots of attention and elicit much emotion: Jill's twin sister, Katie. It was time to put her on TV.
The funny thing – the ironic thing – is that Katie and Jill were twins who didn't get along. Not when they were youngsters, anyway.
They fought and fought and fought all the way through high school. The points of contention between them were the usual sibling irritants, such as whose turn it was in the shower, and who'd been in whose room, and when, and for how long.
They were just different sorts of people, with different lives. Katie was a dancer and looked like a ballerina; Jill loved competitive swimming and had a muscular swimmer's build.
But their relationship changed when they went away to college (Tufts University for Katie; the University of Massachusetts for Jill). They spent hours on the phone with each other, and suddenly the person who had been so irritating when they lived in the same house seemed like an invaluable support.
After graduation, both ended up working in the same area: foreign affairs. Katie joined an international development firm, based in Washington. Jill pursued her dream of becoming a foreign correspondent.
Katie appeared on Al Arabiya on March 29. She talked about how Jill's kidnapping had affected her family and appealed for information that could lead to her release.
– P.G.
***
I got worse. I was losing it. I would curl up in the bed and cry so hard. But I couldn't be loud, so I would cry into the bed, into the plush blanket.
Through all the weeks and months I hadn't prayed. I thought it would be hypocritical. All of my extended family is Catholic, but I hadn't been to church in a long time. I hadn't grown up with much religion, in fact. But I needed to calm myself. I knew that my family and friends were doing all they could for me, but it just wasn't enough anymore. They were out there, and I was here alone. OK, I thought, I'll ask God for strength and patience.
"God, thank you for getting me through all these days so far," I began. "Please just give me the strength to keep going.
"Stay with my family right now and sit with them and give them strength.
"I know I never used to come to You before and it's bad of me to come to You now when I really need it.
"Please, just stay with me right now. Just stay with me right now and don't leave me."
Next part:Freedom
