Despite his fear and pain throughout the ordeal, Decker had found it amazingly easy to not cry out. His surprise and curiosity at this fact was an extremely propitious distraction from the pain. Lying there, he remembered a short poem he had read years before by Nguyen Chi Thien that explained his silence under torture. Nguyen, a prisoner of the Communist Vietnamese for twenty-seven years, had written a volume of poetry about his life called Flowers From Hell. The particular poem Decker recalled was:
I just keep silent when they torture me, though crazed with pain as they apply the steel.
Tell children tales of heroic fortitude -
I just keep silent thinking to myself:
"When in the woods and meeting with wild beasts, who ever cries out begging for their grace?"
Several hours later Decker woke to find that the pool of blood had dried, gluing his ear to the floor. As he tried to pull free he felt the scab begin to tear. He knew he couldn't just lie there. If he didn't move himself, his captors would, and they would not be gentle about it. For the next three hours Decker let spittle run from his mouth, down his cheek to the floor to soften the dried blood while he carefully worked his ear loose. Still, some fresh blood was added to the pool.
Now Decker's biggest problems were boredom and depression brought on by the feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and anger. Decker had read about an American P.O.W. in Vietnam who handled the boredom and kept his sanity by playing a round of golf every day in his mind, but Decker had never had time for sports. For the last twenty-three years it seemed that all he had done was write and read.
For a while, he tried to recall every article that he had ever written. Then he hit on the idea of rereading novels from his memory. When he couldn't remember how the story line went, he'd make it up. Somewhere along the way, like Nguyen Chi Thien, Decker began to compose poetry. Silently he'd recite each line of the poem over and over in order to be sure to remember it. Mostly he made up poems to Elizabeth.
Moments lost, I thought would last; Promises broken that cannot mend; Dreams of days from a wasted past; Days of dreams that never end.
Nights and days form endless blur. Walls of drab and colors gray, Pain and loss I scarce endure, While dirty rags upon me lay.
I've wasted such time that was not mine to take, Leaving sweet words unsaid, precious one. Now walk I on waves of a limitless lake of unfallen tears for things left undone.
There are many things a man can think about when left alone for so long, and it seemed to Decker that he had thought about them all. Usually he thought about home and Elizabeth and his two daughters. He had missed so many things because he had always put his job first. And now, because of his job, he might never see them again. So many chances and opportunities lost.
As he lay on his mat in the room, illumined only by the light which came through the cracks in the boarded-up window, it suddenly seemed strange to him, almost funny in some pitiful way, that he had always called his wife Elizabeth and never Liz or Lizzy or Beth. It wasn't that she was somehow too proper to be called by a nickname. It just seemed that they had never had enough time together to become that informal.
Chapter 9
Dream a Little Dream of Me
Two years, three months later – Lebanon
"Mr. Hawthorne."
"Mr. Hawthorne."
"Wake up, Mr. Hawthorne, it's time to go."
Decker opened his eyes and looked around the room. As he twisted his body and shifted his weight to sit up, the ropes that bound his hands and feet slipped off like oversized gloves and shoes.
"It's time to go, Mr. Hawthorne," the voice of a young boy said again.
Decker rubbed his eyes and looked toward the voice. There in the open doorway of his room stood Christopher Goodman. Now 14 years old, he had grown remarkably since Decker last saw him. "Christopher?" Decker asked, puzzled at this obviously unexpected turn of events.
"Yes, Mr. Hawthorne," Christopher answered.
"What are you doing here!?" Decker asked in confused disbelief.
"It's time to go Mr. Hawthorne. I've come to get you," Christopher said, making no attempt to explain.
Christopher walked from the room and signaled for him to follow. Decker lifted the 115 pounds that remained of his body and followed Christopher out of the room and toward the front door. Halfway there, Decker hesitated. There was something he was trying to remember, something too important to forget, something he could not leave behind.
"Tom!" he said suddenly. "Where's Tom?" he asked of the friend he had not seen since they were brought to Lebanon.
Christopher hesitated and then raised his arm slowly and pointed toward another door. Silently, Decker opened it, looking for any sign of his captors. There was none. Inside, Tom lay on a mat identical to the one Decker had now spent nearly three years sleeping on, sitting on, eating on… living on. Tom was lying with his face to the wall. Decker entered and began untying the bonds that held his friend's feet.
"Tom, wake up. We're getting out of here," he whispered.
Tom sat up and looked at his rescuer. For a moment they just stared at each other's faces. Decker forced his eyes away and began untying Tom's hands. He had not looked in a mirror at any time during his captivity, and though he knew that his body was emaciated, he had not seen his face, where the most dramatic effects of his captivity were evident. Seeing Tom's face, he was struck with such grief and sympathy for his friend's similar condition that he had to look away to hold back tears.
Outside the apartment, Decker and Tom walked stealthily down the hall, hoping to avoid detection. Christopher, on the other hand, walked on ahead of them, showing absolutely no sign of concern about the seriousness of the situation. They went down a long stairway, cluttered with trash and broken bits of plaster and glass. Still there was no sign of their captors. As they emerged into the open air Decker closed his eyes as the bright sunlight struck him in the face with its warmth and glow.
When he opened his eyes again, he looked around at the empty room and realized that he had been dreaming. The morning sun shown in on his face through the cracks in the boarded-up window. Usually Decker dreamed of his family. When he awoke from those dreams he would close his eyes again to try to hold on for one more moment to the vestiges of the illusion. It was all he had. This dream, however, was just a curious distraction.
Decker flipped over onto his back. As he twisted his body and shifted his weight to sit up, the ropes that bound his hands and feet slipped off like oversized gloves and shoes.
He shook his head to reorient his thinking; was he still dreaming? He wasted no more time thinking about it, but quickly got to his feet. The door was unlocked, and he quietly cracked it open to look into the apartment. It looked just as it had in his dream. No one else was there. He crept toward the room which, in his dream, held his friend. Until this moment Decker had not known where Tom was, or even if he was still alive, but when he looked into the room, there was Tom.
Moments later Decker and Tom were walking down the hall and then down the same cluttered stairway. When they emerged from the building, Decker used his hand to shield his eyes in anticipation of the sunlight. None of this made any sense, but if he was dreaming this time he didn't want to wake up.