A Brighter Fear (10 page)

Whatever happened to Sacha? Part IV

Sacha remembered the first time she saw a dead body. She remembered the shelter at Amiriyah. Her dreams and nightmares remembered it best of all. She didn’t know how many bodies she watched being pulled or carried out to rest on the beige earth. Most didn’t look like bodies; they looked like her mother’s burnt cooking, just bigger. Lumps of meat she’d leave cooking while she glanced over notes from work. Lumps of meat she’d forget about, smoke reminding her twenty, thirty minutes later.

She remembered the evening spent in the shelter, the Eid ul-Fitr celebrations, remembered six-year-old Lina feeling sick in the early hours, remembered taking her out for air with Hana.

She closed her eyes and saw the three of them walking together, enjoying the quiet, watching the city sleep. She heard the noise of the bomb, felt it hit, heard the screams, spun around towards the noise. She saw the shock on her sister’s face, her daughter’s face, the smoke coming from the shelter, the second bomb hitting, people running, shrapnel flying, glass shattering.

And the smell.

They watched bodies pulled out. Some big, carried between two, some small, cradled in arms. The sound of the fire, the bombs, the screaming, was replaced with silence; heavy, waiting. Deafening. Then crying and sobbing. One person crying for a dozen.

She remembered raising her head to the sky and thanking God, she remembered her relief and thanks that Joe had been away. And she remembered her anguish, her pain, her frustration, knowing that never again would she make that journey to see her family. Not her Mama, or Papa, her grandma, or her brother or her two other sisters.

She held on to Hana and Lina as silent tears fell.

Sacha looked away from her memories and down to her hands; blistered from the spade, palms bleeding and sore, her head throbbing, the sun at its highest, its heat pouring on to the five survivors. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, her lips cracked, her throat sticking together inside.

No water. No rest.

She looked at the bodies around her; they still looked like people; still warm as she struggled to drag a woman to her grave. She wished she could give them some dignity, wished she could pick them up in her arms and carry them to their resting places, lay them down, place a flower on their chests.

She was exhausted, weak, dehydrated. The woman’s dead arm slipped away from her sweaty palm and thudded to the floor. Another survivor pulled at her feet and together they dragged her to the hole with no choice but to just push her in.

They went back for another. And another. And another.

As they back-filled the hole, Sacha didn’t look at the mesh of arms and legs bent in all the wrong ways, dead eyes staring up, questioning, mouths open to scream. She turned off and shut down.

She stumbled as they were led into another yard, barely the strength left to walk. She saw the metal ladder on the floor, saw the metal sheets on the ground, six feet across, square, with handles, punctuating the brown expanse. The sun hit them, white light reflecting back.

Her chest tightened. Fear filled her. Nausea rose in her throat.

The survivor next to her was dragged away. Ordered to lift open a lid, screaming, his hand burning on metal. Sacha watched the ladder taken to him, slid deep into the earth, disappearing. She watched the survivor climb down, the earth eating him whole, the lid clanging shut. Gone.

And there were four.

Sacha was pushed to another lid. She slid her sleeve over her hand. Lifted the lid. The smell took her back home, a hot iron left on cotton. Smoke drifting up from browned edges.

She stepped down the ladder. Heat searing through her bare feet. Darkness engulfed her. The square of light she was leaving behind retracting. The ladder was pulled away. Darkness swallowed her, absorbed her.

The lid clanged shut and there was nothing.

Nothing but darkness and heat and smell.

She collapsed to the ground.

…She dreamed. Christmas. A tree inside, huge, stretching to the ceiling. On top, an angel, blonde hair, golden wings. Presents underneath. Small fingers flicking at gift tags. One for Hana, for Evan, for Samara, for Fay. One for Sacha. Her sisters. Her brother. A hum of conversation, laughter, happiness. The smell of food, drifting, floating. A full household, friends, relatives, neighbours, colleagues. Warmth, humanity, kindness…

…Music blares, bright, raucous. Neon lights, laughter and shrieking. A rollercoaster thunders towards the ground. A pirate ship swings back and forth. Her papa takes her hand, pulls her to the ghost ride. Her face whitens and he laughs, tussling her hair, holding her in his arms, protecting her. She feels his warmth, feels his laughter vibrate in his chest…

…A black dress, a man sits next to her. A large hall. She watches the orchestra, she feels the music, hears the music. Never forgetting the man sitting next to her. She closes her eyes, listens to Gershwin, Mozart, Beethoven. She listens to the breathing of the man next to her…

She wakes back into the darkness. The smell of what she doesn’t want to imagine turns her stomach. She blinks, her eyes focusing, adjusting to the dark, shapes swirl before her.

“Don’t be frightened,” says a voice. “I won’t hurt you.”

Sacha could make out the shape of a person in front of her. The faintest needle of light squeezing between the side of the metal lid metres above her head. The voice stepped forward. The light too small to illuminate much, her image pieced together, a searchlight scanning indiscriminately and infinitesimally.

Sacha’s sanity rested on a knife edge and she felt herself swaying.

“I’ve been here a long time,” the voice continued. “My name is Nahla. The man over there is Salam.”

Sacha waited to hear Salam introduce himself, but silence remained. She searched the darkness for Nahla.

“It’ll be nice to have company again,” Nahla continued. “Someone to talk to when I’m dying. As Salam talked to me.”

Sacha frowned. She wanted to wake up.
Could my imagination conjure this hell?
she thought. She sniffed again and retched.

“He’s dead?” she asked.

“About a week ago,” Nahla replied. “They won’t take him. I moved him over to the corner, but I can’t do any more. He was heavy, too heavy for me. It took me days to get him that far. When I die, you can lay me next to him.”

“I need to sit down,” Sacha said.

Nahla put her hand on Sacha’s shoulder and led her to the wall. They sat together. As she steadied her breathing her wide eyes searched around, but the edges, the walls, blurred away, the size, the space, impossible to fathom. In one corner she could make out the dead man, next to him a bucket, dark splodges around it.

“The bucket is never emptied,” Nahla told her. “I put Salam next to it to keep the smell together.”

Sacha’s head shook.

“They won’t let you out for the toilet. They probably won’t let you out ever again. You’ll die in here.”

Sacha felt Nahla lean in close, her eyes needling through the dark. “Judging by the look of you, you’ll die before me. Not in good shape, are you? Been in prison?”

Sacha nodded.

Her thoughts spun back to her dream. She remembered the necklace, shining in her imagination like a beacon of love and comfort. A reminder of her husband, her child. She reached into her jacket. A tiny zipped pocket. She remembered buying the suit, frowning at the pocket, wondering why on earth it was there. She remembered that day, in her office, all that time ago. She remembered walking into the foyer at work, pausing, seeing the men outside waiting for her, then reaching up, unclipping her necklace and dropping it into her pocket, wanting and hoping to keep it with her and keep it safe.

All this time
, she thought,
and it’s still here
.

She pulled the necklace out, the chain pressing into her fingers as she clung on to it. She held it to her face. The cold, the smoothness of the stone against her lips. She ran her thumb across it and remembered her family.

I was on the back of the motorbike, a pair of old trousers on, a scarf around my face and head, sunglasses hiding my eyes. Could anyone tell it was me? That I was female? That I was with a soldier?

I hoped not.

I waited for him to start the engine, for it to roar into life and I felt nervous, worried, yet exhilarated.
What should I do with my hands?
I thought.
Where do I put them? How do I stay on?
I felt embarrassed at the thought of holding on to his waist, or putting my arms around him or of being that close to him.

But as we moved off, my hands went straight to him, clinging to him as the bike leaned in and out of corners, dodged around pedestrians and squeezed between cars. I sheltered behind him, my face tucked into him, and my eyes closed. I felt the acceleration pull at my stomach and the air blowing at my clothes, and I was transported away.

And I became braver. After he’d dodged through roadblocks and passed through checkpoints with a nod and a word to the right person, I lifted my head more, and I kept my eyes open, and I watched the city fly past me.

We left behind the houses, the bustling streets and busy roads, the shells of burnt-out cars and remnants of homes, the children on street corners who had lost mothers and the men strolling around who had lost jobs.

And I left behind my fears and my worries, my grief and frustrations.

We turned on to an old track and I pulled the scarf from my head, the wind lifting through my hair, buffeting at my face and around my clothes. It took away my breath as I shouted up to the sky, and for a moment I lifted up my arms, trailing the scarf behind me and stretching out my fingertips.

The breeze was warm, the air was clear and the track in front of us was empty.

I felt alive. I felt free. And I was – for those brief few moments, I was free.

When we stopped I didn’t know where we were, yet I didn’t particularly care. I didn’t know how long we had travelled for, but to me it felt like another world, a world beyond the city. A lake stretched out in front of us, the water blue and clear, a dusty path leading around it, long grasses stretching up here and there.

The engine was off and I could hear nothing.

We stood without saying a word, staring across the lake and away into the distance.

He beckoned me to follow him as he moved towards the water’s edge. Still neither of us spoke, and I could hear now the rustle of the grasses under my feet and against my legs, the brush of his jacket as he walked, the faint creak of my shoes.

I followed him. And we sat down together. And in the August heat and in silence, we watched the ripple of the water, the swaying of the grass, a flock of birds swoop low then lift up and away.

“It’s so quiet,” I whispered.

He nodded. “No generators. No traffic.”

“No gunfire,” I said. I closed my eyes and I felt the stillness, the calm and the peace. I felt it wash over me. I listened to nothing but the lightness of the silence. “It’s beautiful,” I said, my eyes still closed.

I felt the tension drift from my shoulders, my head clear of stress, my whole body ease and loosen. My skin was warm, the air was clear and the company was good. Fear seemed distant.

I opened my eyes again and thought. I pulled my bag towards me, flicking it open and pulling out my sketchbook. “I want to show you something,” I said. Steve shuffled towards me as I opened the pages. “I drew these the month before the war began, February 2003. I wanted to try to remember the city how it was, before anything happened.”

I turned the page. “That’s Firdos Square,” I said. “Paradise Square, you call it. Not a square at all. A roundabout, really. Saddam’s statue in the middle before it was pulled down. See how big it was? It used to stare at you as you drove up the road towards it.” I pointed to the next one. “A street not far from where I lived. You see the houses there?” I tapped my finger on a row of white houses edged with small, concrete walls. “They were completely destroyed. That line of palm trees? They were burnt down.”

He didn’t say a word.

I turned another page. “This,” I said, “I drew when I was sitting at the bank of the river with some friends. That tall building in the background is the old communications tower. It was a landmark, before the sides of it were ripped out.” I stared at it for a moment, remembering drawing its straight lines, its angular walls, and its arched windows.

“This one is Ramadan Mosque, but it’s not very good, because you can’t get any idea of the colour. It’s beautiful; turquoise, and deep blue patterns with orange and white and a lovely green. I only have my pencil,” I said.

He scanned over the rest of my drawings without saying a word. A church with its cross stretching into the cloudless sky, the low Sarafiya bridge with its heavy iron spreading along it like a cage, Baghdad museum standing magnificent with its two square towers as if it was a fortress protecting its treasures inside.

“It’s wonderful,” he said at last. “You never said, y’know, that you can draw.”

I smiled at him. I didn’t want to share with him my dream of becoming an architect. It seemed so hopeless at that moment, a senseless dream that could never come true.

“You should draw this,” he said, nodding out to the lake.

And in the sunshine, with only birdsong breaking the quiet, I took my pencil and sketched the lake, the water shimmering, the grasses paused as they swayed, the skyline of Baghdad hiding in the distance.

And when he wasn’t looking, I turned the page and I sketched Steve, my pencil dancing through his short, blonde hair; stuttering along his stubbled chin; gliding up his high cheekbones and around his mouth. I sketched his T-shirt bagging at his neck, his shoulder blades visible through the material, and the line of his arm as it stretched out and rested on his knee. I wished I was better at drawing.

I flicked back to my sketch of the lake. “How did you know about this place?” I asked.

“A friend told me,” he replied. “I’m glad you agreed to come.”

I paused. “I wasn’t going to. I was going to tell you then that I couldn’t go, couldn’t see you again.”

He frowned at me.

I sighed and looked away. “It’s so difficult,” I said. “So dangerous. I don’t know what would happen if people knew I was here with you.”

He nodded.

“I don’t know what I think about all this. You confuse me. I don’t want you to be an American. Don’t want you to be a soldier. Don’t need you to come into my life and rescue me.”

“I’m not…”

“But you are. However little. Not physically, but you lift me, lift my spirits, my thoughts, away from what I’m living in, the hell that surrounds me and threatens me every day.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying, couldn’t believe the honesty in my words. “You, just you, being with you, thinking of you, can pause that fear that I live in, the thought that I’m not going to make it to tomorrow, even if it’s only for two minutes, it’s two minutes that make me feel awake again, alive and… and hopeful that there is more. That maybe, maybe one day, things
will
get better.”

“But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? That I can do that for you? Or is that not enough?”

I shook my head. “It shouldn’t be like that,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t need you to make me feel better.”

I glanced away into the distance, back towards Baghdad.

“Do you wish we were gone?” he asked. “The soldiers? Do you think it would be better?”

I looked up at him, a fragment of light reflecting in his blue eyes. “I don’t know,” I said. “Not you. I don’t want you to go. But… I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think anyone does. Not really. Everyone thinks they do but…” My voice trailed away. Hadn’t every single Iraqi, whether Sunni, Shia, Christian, Kurd or whatever religion or faith, thought about all these questions, and thought they knew the answer only to change their minds a few days or weeks later? What about the Americans? The British? Did they have any answers for us? Did they know what to do?

“It’s a mess,” I said, shrugging. I didn’t want to talk about it with him, not of what my country had become, not of the forces, the militia that it now housed, the insurgents, Al-Qaeda, not of our daily struggle for survival. Not here. Not now.

I felt him sigh, and he turned to me. “Why don’t you leave?” he whispered. I spun around to him, a lurch in my stomach, my breath caught.

“Leave?” I repeated.

He nodded. “Leave the country. Go somewhere safer. I could help you. I could find out. Question people. See how you could do it. Where you could go.”

And I stopped and thought. But it seemed unbelievable and impossible. How could I leave without finding out about Mama? But then…? What had Papa told me, all that time ago? To leave if things became too bad, if something happened to him… And I dared to think about it.

“At least let me find out for you,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, shaking my head. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Lina,” he sighed. “Y’know, I’m sorry. For everything. For your country, for your friends, for your papa, for all this destruction.” He lowered his voice. “But it’s not my doing. And I’m not trying to rescue you, or save you, and I’d like to keep you here, just to be with you, and to know what was happening with you. But that’s selfish. I want you to be safe.”

His words surprised me. Shocked me. They lifted me and made my spirits dare to believe that to someone, I mattered. That someone cared. With Papa gone, with Mama missing, I felt alone. I was special to no one. I was no one’s priority. Yet this? I wanted to believe I was special to him. I looked at him. Was I imagining the warmth and compassion I thought I could see?

I wanted to believe it. I wanted it to be real. But my thoughts and worries kept coming back to that one thing over and over again. “But,” I whispered, “you’re American. And you’re a soldier.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I am. But so what? You’re Iraqi.” He shrugged. “Y’know, I would get into so much trouble if people found out I was here too, but I don’t care. I’m not going to worry about it. I don’t know when we’re going to see each other again. So, let’s forget about it for now. While we’re here, away from everything. Forget I’m American and forget I’m a soldier. And I’ll forget you’re Iraqi. And we’ll just be who we are, with no labels. OK?”

Yes
, I thought to myself.
Yes
.

“I’m Steve,” he said, stretching out his hand towards me. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Lina,” I whispered. I placed my hand in his, and we shook.

But he didn’t let go. And I didn’t pull away.

And in the quiet and calm, for an hour that felt like only five minutes, we whispered about things that were a million miles away from the despair and fear that waited for us both.

And in the back of my mind, I thought about leaving.