Carol Off - All we leave behind: a reporters journey into the lives of others

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Bitter Chocolate

The Ghosts of Medak Pocket

The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

Copyright 2017 Carol Off

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2017 by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

Extracts from Richard Wagameses The Canada Poem, from the book Runaway Dreams, published by permission of Ronsdale Press.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Off, Carol, author

All we leave behind : a reporters journey into the lives of others / Carol Off.

Includes index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 9780345816832

eBook ISBN 9780345811448

1. Off, Carol. 2. Aryubwal, AsadFamily. 3. JournalistsCanada.

4. FamiliesAfghanistan. 5. Immigrants. 6. Refugees. I. Title.

DS371.415.O34 2017305.9069140922581C2016-906066-7

Text design by Colin Jaworski

Cover photos: top (tile from the Shrine of Hazrat Ali) Jane Sweeney;

bottom (tile from the Ancient Blue Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif) Scott Peterson, both Getty Images

Image credits: Photo on courtesy Lana lezi;

All other photos courtesy Carol Off and the Aryubwal family

v4.1

a

For Chloe Alice and Clara Mae,

that they may always have the freedom,

and the courage, to speak their minds.

and in the end it is all we carry forward and all we leave behind. Our story. Everything we own.

FROM THE CANADA POEM, BY RICHARD WAGAMESE

KARACHI, PAKISTAN

SEPTEMBER 5, 1986

I WAS RUNNING THROUGH THE DARKNESS across the tarmac of Jinnah International Airport, weaving to avoid armed soldiers but carrying on with single-minded purpose through the bedlam and towards the gunfire, fuelled entirely by adrenalin. And at that moment I had my earliest and, perhaps, most important morality lesson about journalism: Be careful what you wish for.

Members of the Abu Nidal Palestinian terrorist organization had gained access to a runway early that morning and boarded Pan Am Flight 73 bound for Frankfurt, then New York City. The jumbo jet was taking on fuel and passengers for its return journey when the hijackers, dressed as airport service workers, took control. I had just flown into Karachi, but I was already headed towards downtown, unaware of the event that would change so many peoples lives, including mine.

My taxi lumbered into the city as first light penetrated the smog, revealing shapes and figures that were foreign and exotic to me. It was my first trip abroad as a journalist and I wanted to absorb the otherness of everything, to feel a sense of adventure, but instead I was intimidated. Why on earth had I decided to come here? I had no idea what to do as a reporter in a distant country. And I was freelance, on my own dime, gambling that this venture might relaunch my faltering career. I said a prayerplease make something happen.

It was at that moment, I figured out later, that four terrorists boarded the aircraft, armed with assault rifles and a briefcase full of grenades, their waists girded with plastic explosives. By way of opening talks with the Pakistanis, they shot an American passenger and threw his dead body onto the runway.

A message from the news desk of CBC Radio in Toronto was waiting for me when I checked into the hotel. There were preliminary reports of a hijacking. The news department knew that I had just arrived. Could I return to Karachi airport? I gathered up whatever kit I presumed necessary to cover a hostage-taking and hailed a cab.

At the airport, negotiations between the hijackers and Pakistani authorities went on all day and into the night. I passed on the scraps of news that airport personnel shared with reporters and eventually had a half-dozen agencies, including the CBC, relying on my dispatches. One senior airport manager was surprisingly forthcoming during media briefings and we learned that the terrorists were growing more agitated, their demands less coherent, as night fell.

When the auxiliary power unit on the plane shut down without warning, plunging everything into darkness, the gunmen panicked, detonated their grenades and fired off their weapons. Flight attendants, who had stayed on duty through the entire ordeal even as the pilots fled through the cockpit window, frantically tried to save as many lives asthey could. A senior purser, an Indian woman who had been trying to comfort and console passengers for the previous seventeen hours, managed to get one emergency exit open before the hijackers shot her in the head. The remaining crew members coaxed bewildered hostages down an inflatable slide into the uncertain night. Other passengers attempted to jump to safety from an emergency hatch where the slide had failed to open. Many of them were injured.

Authorities on the ground had been caught off guard by the sudden exodus and no one was outside the aircraft to help. With little guidance, people scurried in every direction, some holding children or trying to support the wounded as they sought refuge from the explosions and the shooting. It was impossible to tell who was firing or in what direction. Soldiers frantically hunted for the hijackers, passengers ran for cover, and I sprinted across the tarmac towards it all with my tape recorder rolling.

From the earlier media briefings I knew that Pakistani commandos had been preparing for some kind of a raid. But they were nowhere to be seen and it fell to regular army troops to try and gain control. I caught sight of someone lying in the back of an army vehicle whom I presumed to be a wounded passenger. The soldiers allowed me to crawl into the wagon where I attempted to interview the man: Are you hurt? It turned out that the person I thought was a victim was actually one of the hijackers who had just been apprehended. I sat in the truck for a brief moment, bewildered, face to face with the terrorist, while the soldiers laughed. To say that I was in over my head would be an understatement.