Baghdad Central (2 page)
The third time he tells it, Nidal's story is still threadbare. A few broken strands tied in a knot. Sawsan graduated in August from Mustansiriyya University. Institute of Management and Administration. Wanted to study programing but ended up studying finance. The family had met a few of her friends from the university but didn't know much about who they were, or how to contact them. After graduation, Sawsan started working. As a consultant, she said. Helped out with the household expenses, especially since Nidal's job vanished. She worked for a professor at the university.
“It is a good job. Sawsan even had a driver to pick her up every morning and drop her every evening.”
“Write down any of the names you know. Classmates. Teachers. Anything. I'll see what I can find.”
Nidal pulls out a piece of paper and starts to write.
An argument erupts at the card table in the back. The entire café goes silent. Cups are spilled. Glass splinters on the ground. Hands and fists lunge out at piles of bills. A scrappy old man with a week's beard grabs the edge of his
dishdasha
and hobbles off toward the door, yelling something about mothers and cunts. The rest of the men call after him, taunting him and laughing at the mess. A waiter arrives with a broom and wet rag. Nidal and Khafaji look at one another again.
“How are things in the new apartment?” Khafaji asks. Like so many Palestinians, they'd been driven from their homes during the first weeks of the invasion.
“Baladiyat was our home. Our friends were there. Our life was there. Thank God we had Mikhail and the rest of the family. But Saadun will never be home.”
“You're managing?”
“You'll see how we're managing Tuesday when you and Mrouj come over. We're crammed â nine of us in two rooms. It's bad enough when there's water and electricity. But when there isn't⦔ Nidal's voice trails off. “But that's not the issue any more,” he says. “It's the attacks. They're not random. They know who to go after and when. We're lucky we left when we did. Remember the Jabrawis? They tried to stay on. The rest of us got the message.”
For a moment, Nidal tries to smile. Then his face collapses.
“Look, Muhsin. We lost everything and thought we could adapt. But this is different. As soon as Sawsan comes back, we're leaving. Have you heard about what's happening at the stadium? There are thousands of people living in tents there. Most of our building is there, I think. And then there are tens of thousands of others stuck on the border now. We're getting out before that happens to us.”
He pauses and sips his tea. His eyes remain locked on Khafaji's. “We're eligible for a Canadian visa, but we have to apply in Jordan. We're going to stay with cousins in Amman while we wait.”
“Amman? Really?”
Nidal knocks Khafaji's shoulder playfully. “Lighten up, Muhsin. We're Palestinians. We're good at getting expelled.” Khafaji sees his wife's emerald eyes again in the eyes of her brother. And also Suheir's kindness and beauty.
Nidal is a man whose entire life has been spent here in this city. Suddenly a foreign army invades and he becomes a foreigner. This city belongs to him more than it does to me, Khafaji thinks. Suheir and Nidal's parents were driven out of Jaffa. When they arrived in Baghdad in 1949, they decided to raise their children as if they had always lived here. Typical cosmopolitans, making a good life out of catastrophes. And as
the years went by, Baghdad really was home. Over time they came to realize it mostly belonged to the clans from Tikrit. But still, those Tikritis were kind enough to leave scraps for everyone else. And they could never fence in all of the river. Maybe that's why people never left.
When Suheir died, Khafaji told Nidal to get out while they could. The sanctions were just beginning to hurt, but most people figured out how to adapt and survive. It didn't occur to Khafaji to leave until it was too late. He would have left with Suheir if he had known how sick she was. Like everyone else, he thought that things couldn't get any worse. “Patience and strength,” everyone said. “Steadfastness and resistance.” Like most slogans, they taste bitter when you put them back in your mouth later.
Ten years ago they could have gone. Khafaji could have left with Suheir and Mrouj and started over, maybe in Sweden. But somehow they believed that oranges and carrot juice could cure cancer. They needed real medicine, but there was no chance of getting that.
Khafaji looks up and tries to sound strong. “Nidal, we all should have left long ago.”
They order another round and sit in silence. The men in the room continue drinking tea, talking to one another, reading papers, and rolling dice.
When Khafaji looks up, he sees Nidal pulling out crisp 1,000-dinar notes to pay the
chaichi
. Khafaji starts to argue about paying the bill, but it's too late.
Khafaji continues to protest until Nidal hugs him. “Next one's on you, brother. We'll see you Tuesday for lunch? Maha's already started cooking. Come as early as you can and spend the whole day with us. Thanks for agreeing to help.”
“It might just be me for Eid.”
Nidal pauses. “How's Mrouj?”
“Still the same. No better, no worse.”
“God protect her.”
“What's God got to do with it?”
“It's just how we speak, Muhsin. You know that.”
Khafaji scowls as he looks at the scrap of paper in his hand. He sees only one name.
“Zubeida Rashid? Who's this?”
Nidal shrugs. “Sawsan's professor. The one she works for.”
“A picture of Sawsan might help jog people's memory.”
Nidal reaches into his wallet. “I've got one from graduation.”
He hands Khafaji a photograph of Sawsan in black robes, holding roses and a diploma. Khafaji stares at it. A beautiful girl of twenty-two. Olive-skinned, with a long, straight nose, raven-black hair and stone-green eyes. A conspicuous beauty mark to the right of her mouth.
The spitting image of her aunt Suheir when she was that age.
The morning air was already hot when he burst in the door. He threw the bundle of clothes and papers on the floor and walked past me without saying a word. I followed him upstairs into the bedroom and watched him rifle through the wardrobe. He never said a word. He pulled out every bit of clothing he could find. Shirts. Ties. Slacks. Jackets. Caps. His jaw was clenched so hard I thought his teeth might break.
Finally, he turned to look at me like he just noticed I was there. “I'm sorry. I'm in a hurry.”
“Can I help?”
“Check through the pockets and make sure there's nothing in them.”
“What are you doing?”
He grimaced. “We need to get rid of it all.”
For the next hour, we collected everything. Tie clips, medals, belts and shoes. Then we went through desks and cabinets, collecting scraps of paper. Identity cards. Passports. Birth certificates. Diplomas. Commendations. We heaped everything onto the bed.
He told me to get a suitcase and as many bags as I could find. When I came back, I saw that he had made two piles. He put one into the suitcase. He stuffed the other into plastic bags. He went to the kitchen and got the kerosene.
“I'll be right back,” is all he said when he went out. He looked so strange with all those bags.
When he came back later, he did not look at all relieved. He walked past me again and went upstairs. When I walked into the room, I saw him staring at the fire. Thick plumes of acrid smoke flew up in the wind. I thought the little date palm might catch fire, but the flames died as quickly as they had started. Finally, he turned toward me and tried to smile for the first time that day.
“What's happening?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don't know.”
“We can wait.”
“Yes. We'll stay put until things become clearer.”
I had never seen him cry before.
Khafaji wakes up and walks down the hall to Mrouj's room. He quietly opens the door. She hasn't moved at all from where she was when he peeked in on her late last night.
He puts the kettle on, and goes searching for cigarettes.
Khafaji never fasted during Ramadan, and this year was no exception. He never wanted to be counted among those who fasted in order to feast. And he certainly never wanted to be someone who fasted because a book or old men told him to.
Ramadan meant a month of drinking morning tea in complete silence. A month of swallowing the smoke of his first cigarette and hoping his neighbors didn't notice. A month of stealing through the kitchen so that no one would hear. Only a fast-breaker knows the racket a pot of tea can make during daylight hours. The whole building can hear you if you don't do it right. You rest the kettle gently on the stove and cringe when the gas flame begins to hiss. You wince every time the spoon clinks against the glass as you stir the sugar. And still, no one's ever fooled. The neighbors never say anything, but they know.
All Khafaji can find is an empty pack of Royales, and a stale old pack of Sumer 100s. He lights a cigarette and waits.
With the teapot, cups and sugar bowl on a tray, he shuffles through the sitting room and over to the balcony as he does every morning.
As he does every morning, he stares at the disaster, at the charred mess of the balcony. And he remembers the August morning when the whole block shook. Windows shattered up and down the entire side of the building. Even the paint on the walls seemed to catch fire. As he does every morning, Khafaji imagines what would have happened if he had been sitting on the balcony drinking tea on that morning.
The villa across the street bore the brunt of the attack. It is now nothing but a concrete shell. Its gardens, buried under piles of debris, are a local garbage dump. Cement dust turned every tree on the street snowy white. The green won't return again until the first rains. Things are quieter now. Since that day, the windows have been shuttered with cardboard and tape and wood. Since that day, the balcony has been abandoned.
Khafaji puts down the tray in the sitting room, lights a cigarette and has his first sip of tea for the day. He picks up the photograph Nidal gave him. Khafaji is looking at Sawsan's picture, but remembering another girl. Another time. Suheir at the university. Final exams. Holding all those books. Not textbooks, but books. Old books. Books she insisted on buying from dusty shops on Mutanabbi Street. She waves her hands wildly whenever she talks, and the books teeter back and forth.
I am listening to her words but looking at the books, hanging in the air. I am looking at the skin on her arms. Her bare shoulders. I can't help staring. She notices me and stops speaking. She smiles, then runs over to her friends. Time stops. Suheir stops. She turns back to look at me. Smiling with her whole body
.
Khafaji lights another cigarette and looks at the photograph one more time. It is always so difficult to remain in
the present. Now more than ever. He looks at his niece and tries not to see Suheir. He looks at the present and tries not to see the past. Eventually he succeeds.
When he finishes the pot, he puts it back inside and spends a couple minutes cleaning up boards and sticks. Last week, he cleaned up most of the broken glass. At this rate, the balcony might be ready for rehabitation by the time the American occupation comes to an end. Whenever that will be.
Khafaji starts to wash his face in the sink just as the water goes out. He dresses slowly, then cleans the kitchen slowly, hoping that if he takes long enough Mrouj will wake up. Eventually, he gives up and goes outside. Before he leaves, he rifles through the drawers in the back of his wardrobe. He picks up his Glock 19 and checks the clip, then thinks again. He picks up his badge and puts it in his jacket pocket. Less trouble. He smokes one last cigarette before going out the door, knowing it'll be his last until he gets home.
Khafaji listens to his neighbors as he climbs down the stairs. In May, the building emptied out. Everyone else left. But now, somehow, it is full again. A complete change of residents. Terrifying, the process was also slow and surprisingly orderly.
Khafaji was at home the day they tried the lock. They were almost in before he stopped them. He never saw their faces. He only talked to them through the thick door. What he said made them go away, but probably not forever. It was enough to make him want to stay at home all the time, which was something he wanted to do anyway these days. There were so few reasons for leaving the house, and so many for staying.
Khafaji walks over to Kahramana Square to catch a taxi. As he waits, he studies the bronze statue of the heroine pouring boiling oil over the forty thieves. In this new version, he
thinks, it's the oil that the thieves came for. So how will you rescue us now, Kahramana?
A taxi stops and he gets in. Khafaji tells the driver to take him to the main gates of Mustansiriyya University. Khafaji takes the paper from his coat pocket and studies the name Nidal handed him. Zubeida Rashid. It sounds familiar. He thinks back to his years in the General Security Directorate. But there's so little to remember if there's no desire to remember.