Baghdad Central (3 page)

Khafaji looks at his watch, and thinks about last night's story. A fool's errand, with checkpoints.

He looks out the window. At the first checkpoint, the traffic is not too bad. Hidden behind concrete blocks, bulletproof vests and thick helmets, American soldiers wave them through.

The streets are more crowded than before these days. More traffic. There are the old Brazilian Jettas, the Mercedes, the Audis and Peugeots. But there are new ones too. The driver sees the expression on Khafaji's face and guesses. “That's an Opel.”

“They have other names, don't they?”

“Of course. That's a Jimsy.” He points to a huge GMC. “Bikab, you know. There's a Monika. A Duck. That was an Alligator that just passed by.”

“Too many to count.”

“They flooded the country with them. Lucky for us, we get to name them however we want.”

As they sit in traffic, the driver continues with his list: Hyundais. Land Rovers. Explorers. Suburbans. Khafaji remembers another time when Baghdad was flooded with new cars that were used cars. It was late August 1990, when suddenly American sedans began to appear everywhere. Their license plates were stripped, but everyone knew they were from Kuwait. Those cars didn't last long.

At each petrol station, massive queues turn roads inside out. Khafaji looks at his watch again.

The driver adjusts the mirror and says, “God willing, we'll be there in an hour.” The driver decides to put an end to the conversation with a tape of Quranic recitation. At first Khalil al-Husari's voice is faint. Khafaji cannot make out what they are listening to. The driver turns up the volume. The Sura of the Merciful fills their ears. And eyes, to Khafaji's annoyance.

“Quite a stereo.”

“A sound system,” the driver smiles back.

Dashboard lights flash and dance with each verse, with each change of pitch. Khafaji closes his eyes and tries to forget the visuals.
Which is it, of the favors of your Lord, that ye deny?

The third checkpoint delays them twenty minutes, and the interpreter makes both Khafaji and the driver get out of the car before they can go.

At the front gates of the university, Khafaji pays the driver and hands him two cigarettes as a tip. The man nods and puts them in the glove compartment for after sunset.

At first, the guardhouse looks empty. As Khafaji walks through, a voice from inside calls out, “Where are you going?”

Khafaji walks over and flashes his badge. The other man turns around without saying another word. Khafaji looks around at the courtyard inside. What he sees makes him wonder whether he wasted his time. Not a campus, but a grove of burnt eucalyptus trees, a field of dead grass and acres of broken tile and concrete. As he walks inside, he spies a group of workmen filling sacks with dirt and bricks. Khafaji walks over and asks, “Excuse me, where is the Institute of Management and Administration?”

Only one man appears to have heard him. He looks up at Khafaji's knees and shakes his head. Then, with his pickaxe, he points at a small path. Khafaji thanks him and walks until he finds himself along a row of identical concrete buildings, each suffering an acute case of .50 caliber acne. On one building, marked “Fine Arts”, each empty window is framed by black and gray smudges. Five floors that, one day, went up in flames. The building looks like a monumental composition, a giant, conceptualist sculpture.

Khafaji walks over and steps inside. He looks up, through a web of broken concrete and twisted rebar. A sheet of frozen plastic spills out from somewhere above. Like a cascade of iridescent lava. Not a window remains, not a door – only shell guts. Khafaji looks down to see a floor cracked and cratered.

Beyond a long reflecting pool, Khafaji sees another building that might be the one he is looking for. The dead date palms and the abandoned pickup in the water suggest the pond is not ornamental. Khafaji walks around the water toward the building. By the main entrance, water gushes from a broken pipe. White froth rushes over broken marble steps, across the walkway, and into the dirty pond. Khafaji tries to step over the water and curses when his leather shoes get soaked.

With its ordinary concrete walls, the Institute does not stand out from other buildings. On the outside, it's pockmarked like everything else.

But when Khafaji walks inside, he sees a different world. Freshly mopped marble floors. People coming in and out, even though classes are not in session. Some clutching folders. Others briefcases. And everyone with a cellphone. The sight of pressed suits makes him hesitate. He stares at shiny shoes. He stares at the workers in boiler suits and plastic
sandals. At coils of wire unspooled. He stares at the busyness. He stares too long.

Khafaji feels a heavy hand on his arm. “Excuse me, Uncle. Can I help you?”

Khafaji turns to see a tall man dressed in a familiar way. Wearing the usual cheap suit. The usual scowl. The usual thick neck and bad tie. Regimes change, but plain clothes never do.

Somehow, Khafaji manages to smile down while looking up at the man. “This is the Institute of Management and Administration, isn't it?”

The man's hand is a heavy iron shovel and now it's digging into Khafaji's shoulder.

“That's right, Uncle. This is a place of business. I'm going to have to ask you to come outside. Go to the front gate if you need directions.”

“I don't think you understand,” Khafaji says, flashing the badge in his pocket.

The man attempts to grab it, but Khafaji pulls it away. “You can look. But you're going to have to wash your hands if you want to touch it.”

Years ago, it had taken Khafaji months to figure out what exactly a cop's authority could be in a police state. Compared to Military Intelligence, General Security had been second-class. But compared to both, civilian police were much lower. The only way to make up for this, Khafaji learned, was never to let on you were merely civilian. And it wasn't that hard to fool thick-necked country boys from the north.

Khafaji looks up, and sees the man staring in disbelief. Or anger.

Khafaji wastes no time. “I'm here to see Professor Zubeida Rashid.”

“Then you should make an appointment, Uncle.”

“Appointment, sir.”

“Don't overdo it, old man. I don't know who you are, but I know your better days are behind you. You should check the expiration date on that badge before you try to use it again.”

Khafaji doesn't move. The man goes on. “Prof. Zubeida is a busy woman. Call her secretary. Maybe she'll make time to see you, but I doubt it.” Before he finishes his sentence, the man's already signaled to other guards to come over and help him.

“Listen, she'll want to see me. It's about someone who works for her. A girl.”

The man laughs. “It's always about a girl, isn't it? Tell me something I don't know, old man.”

“Her name's Sawsan Faraj. It won't take much time.”

The grin on the man's face turns sour. “Wait outside on the steps.”

The guard at the door pretends not to watch Khafaji. The man returns minutes later. He makes Khafaji go first as they climb the marble staircase. Each individual step has been carefully mopped.

A young secretary opens the office door and Khafaji finds himself alone on an overstuffed couch. Half an hour goes by, but no one comes. Khafaji wishes he had brought his cigarettes, then thinks again. A buzzer sounds and the secretary takes Khafaji into a luxury office. This might be the only room in Iraq with no trace of concrete. Everything is wood and silk and glass. The walls, the desk, and even the floor and ceiling are oak, the edges softened by silk curtains and carpets. Crystal trinkets decorate a coffee table in the middle of the room.

A raspy voice calls out from behind the desk, “Yes?”

“I'm here to see Professor Zubeida Rashid.”

“Yes, that's me. Who are you?” A laugh sits on her lips in the shape of a smirk.

“I'm… It's about…” Khafaji stumbles. “Is there something funny?”

Her smile begins to crack around the edges. “You look like someone I know. Or used to know. I'm sorry.”

“My name's Muhsin Khafaji. As I told the fellow at the entrance, I am here regarding someone who works for you. My niece, Sawsan.”

“Sawsan…?”

“Sawsan Faraj. I think she was a student of yours at the Institute. She has been working for you since…”

“Of, course. Sawsan is your niece? She's like a daughter to me. What would you like to know?”

“Well, anything really. Her family is worried. They haven't seen her in a number of days. She hasn't called. I was hoping I would walk in here and find her.”

Her fingers tremble as they reach for a pack of cigarettes. “It upsets me to hear this. I didn't know. I don't know…” Her eyes catch Khafaji's again, then flicker away.

“You're Hassan's brother, aren't you?”

Now it's Khafaji's fingers that tremble. “You know Hassan?”

They spent so much of their lives apart that Khafaji is always surprised to remember he has a brother. Not so much an actual brother, but a memory usually buried deep. Until someone else digs it up again, like this woman right now. Khafaji stares absently at the crystal figurines on the table in front of him. A ballerina. An elephant. A lion. A horse. A poodle. A giraffe. A clown holding balloons. A whole crystal circus. Ready to break.

Khafaji looks up again. When he catches her eye, he wishes he hadn't. Golden eyes, like almonds. Arched eyebrows and
long dark lashes. Dark skin and wine-red lips. She smiles and pearls flash in coral settings. A minute goes by as they sit looking at each other.

The professor finally lights her cigarette. She inhales and turns toward the window.

“People have always told us that we look alike…” Khafaji's voice trails off.

She puts down her cigarette. She reaches into her purse and takes out a handkerchief. She wipes her nose so gracefully that Khafaji wishes she'd do it again.

Khafaji looks at the ceiling, then the walls of the office. For the first time since he set foot in the room, he notices the portrait of Abd al-Karim Qasim. “Mercy on him,” he murmurs to himself.

She squints at Khafaji for a moment, then leans forward. “Would you like a cup of tea, Muhsin? You're not fasting, are you? You don't look hungry.”

Without waiting, she is speaking into an intercom. They wait silently until the secretary enters with a porcelain tea service. Not a word. She hands a cup of tea to Khafaji and points to the sugar bowl.

“I met Hassan at Exeter. I was just a grad student in civil engineering. He was the famous professor in the English department. The great Iraqi genius. The brilliant scholar of T.S. Eliot. He had an English wife, but it was me he was in love with. When his first son was born, he said he would leave her. But then he changed his mind. ‘We have to be modern about these things,' is how he used to put it. ‘We have to be modern.' Being modern with him dragged on for years. I only began to wake up to how awful it was much later. He wasn't going to leave his wife. At least, not for me. By that time, I wasn't the only other woman in his life. He
rather enjoyed being modern with everyone around him. But I didn't. Being modern hurt too much.”

Khafaji looks down at his old clothes and wishes he'd worn something nicer.

“I finished my degree and left England for good. I would have stayed. I wanted to. But I didn't want to live anywhere near him. I didn't want to run into him. I didn't want to hear about him from friends. So I came home. To the one place where I could be certain I'd never see him.”

She lights another cigarette and looks at Khafaji. She tosses the pack onto her desk, and the lighter beside it.

“Go ahead, you've already broken your fast for today.”

Khafaji laughs. “You'd have to meet me earlier in the day if you want to help me break my fast.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You know, Hassan used to talk about you, ‘my brother Muhsin'. You and I should have met long ago. You were the person I wanted to see most when I first came back. I don't know why, since I didn't know you. Still, I wanted to see for myself if Hassan really had a brother. The poet, right?”

Khafaji turns red. “Failed poet. It's been years since I wrote anything that rhymed.”

“I'm glad you found me, Mr Muhsin. So, you're here. And now finally we meet. You do look like him.”

Her smile evaporates in another cloud of smoke and she looks out the window.

“About my niece. Sawsan. She's not here, is she?”

“No. Suzy is usually working somewhere else.”

“Suzy?”

“Sawsan. Sometimes days go by without us meeting in person. We talk all the time on the phone, so I don't even think about it.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

She thinks for a minute before answering, “Last week. Thursday maybe.”

“Have you spoken since?”

“I'm not sure. No.”