Fives and Twenty-Fives (16 page)

We reached the expressway a little after noon and turned north toward Taji. We began the long crawl through the center of Baghdad, where turning off the highway anywhere meant checkpoints manned by government troops or Shia militiamen. The trip north took us deep into the afternoon. As dusk approached, we were committed to the Highway One bridge over the Tigris. Too far north to reach Ramadi before dark.

“We will need to find a place to camp,” Hani said. “There is nothing up there. And I do not know where we can find petrol. The Abu Ghraib Expressway on the other hand . . .”

“If I admit you were right, Hani, will you feel better?” I rolled down the window and felt the cooling afternoon air on my face.

“No. But you can say it anyway.”

Mundhir perked up. “There is a good road that runs west along the Grand Canal, past farms and little market towns. You can get petrol there. I drove it once with my uncle all the way to Lake Thar Thar.”

“You see?” I exclaimed. “It has all worked out.”

Hani fumed.

We reached the river, and, after waiting for an hour at the checkpoint, crossed the bridge. A lorry bomb some months earlier had reduced the eastbound span to one lane, with soldiers and highway patrolmen in blue shirts now directing cars around the charred blast hole one at a time.

To save petrol, we coasted down the back side in neutral. I looked south into the expanse of the city. Columns of smoke rose from Mansour, Dora, and Adhamiya.

I thought of Professor Al-Rawi, and the day I told him of my father’s plan to flee west into Anbar. I would have to go with my father, I told my professor, not aware that I was crying, having only come to tell him that work on my thesis would have to be postponed. While I flailed about with my apologies to him, seeking to make myself understood, Professor Al-Rawi moved about his office silently. By the time my embarrassing speech had ended, his couch had become a bed. My bed. I did not return home that night.

I thought about the Baghdad University campuses near each column of smoke on the horizon and wondered which had seen death that day. How many students. How many professors. I said good-bye to my city.

Mundhir’s road, the one he remembered from childhood, ran parallel to Saddam’s Grand Canal. Saddam had commanded that the canal be constructed on a line exactly east-west and not one degree off. My father had talked about this absurd requirement while the canal was being dug and how very difficult it became as work progressed.

We passed dry farms. Homesteads the canal had promised to irrigate before the pumps rusted and the water grew putrid. Dusk fell into night, and for the first time Mundhir acknowledged the petrol gauge.

“We have to stop. Twenty kilometers left. Maybe.”

“Then it is simple,” I said. “We stop at a market or a house, whichever we see first, and ask if they will sell to us.”

“Right,” Hani snorted. “Simple.”

“
Or
we park and wait for an American patrol. Let them think the car is a bomb and watch them blow it up. Which would you rather, Hani?”

Hani said nothing and merely waved his hand. His new favorite thing to do.

Mundhir stiffened in his seat. “Look.” He gestured with his great chin.

Green sodium lights spilled into the road from a cluster of buildings on the left, half a kilometer ahead. At least one, a squat building with a fixed awning, looked like it had been a petrol station at some point in the recent past. A regular souk with all the commerce and danger three young men could want.

“This is it,” I said. “Get ready.”

“Shia or Sunni?” Mundhir asked.

I had not considered our identification since crossing the bridge. We were well west of Baghdad, firmly into Anbar Province. Still, we were far enough from Fallujah and Ramadi for doubt. Serious doubt. A run-down market could be a net. A place to catch Sunni fighters fleeing west. Or it could be a gateway manned by Sunni loyalists meant to keep Shia out of Anbar. Who could say?

“Sunni,” I said quickly, because there was no good choice. We fumbled with our papers, hands diving into our underpants, as Mundhir coasted into the market and turned off the lights. There was no one walking, no signs of trade. But lights meant a generator. A generator meant petrol and possibly men willing to sell it.

“Who goes?” Mundhir asked.

“We all go,” Hani answered. I was tempted to argue, just for the sake of it. Just to frustrate him. But I could not. He was right.

“Yes,” I said. “We all go. On the count of three.”

Mundhir stepped from the car and closed his door without waiting for the count.

“Or now,” I said as Hani and I followed him.

“Hello?” Mundhir called out, fearless. “Are you selling petrol?”

“We have money,” Hani echoed, his voice too high. A voice that sought to appease. I wanted to choke him.

I heard movement in a building nearby. Footsteps on broken glass. Men whispering to each other. Then the sound that made my stomach turn. A Kalashnikov bolt snapping rounds into a chamber. Then another, and another.

“We are not armed,” I called out in a panic. “We only wish to buy petrol!”

Men emerged from the darkness carrying rifles. Men with new beards. Shia men. Men of a militia looking to kill Sunni boys just like us.

I put up my hands. “Just looking to trade, cousins. Please.”

A fat man with the thickest beard among them stepped forward and pointed his rifle at me. “Your papers, dog.”

“We left them in the car.” I said. “Apologies. We did not know this was a checkpoint, commander. Please, let me go and get them.” I turned around and pointed at the car. Mundhir and Hani had their hands up, too. “Mundhir,” I said, as calmly as I could, “go and get our papers.” So calm. So innocent and harmless that it would not occur to me that I should not talk to my Shia friend.

Maybe, in the darkness of the car, he could sneak the Shia papers from his pants.

“Shut your filthy mouth. And you.” The fat man pointed his rifle at Mundhir. “Remain still.” The militia leader did not believe. He turned his rifle back to me. “You. Talker. Tell me where you are coming from and where you go.”

Mundhir’s face held a look of despair only I would recognize, his eyes grown a little wider, his shoulders uncharacteristically sloped. He neither moved nor spoke. Meanwhile, Hani shook with fear, his jaw hanging slack.

I heard a man laugh like a demon in the shadows. “Mansour, I bet. Rich Baathist kids.”

So this was it, then. And we had only just started to run. All our plans snuffed out. I considered sprinting into the desert if only to receive a quick death from the bullets and thereby avoid the pliers, the nail guns. But with Mundhir and Hani standing there, I could not. I swallowed hard and resolved not to say another word.

Then I heard chickens, and the sound of cages bouncing on a rickety cart as it turned from the pavement onto the dirt.

“Ali?” an old man’s voice called out.

Though I sensed he was speaking to me, I did not turn around.

“What are you
doing
?” he continued. “I told you come directly to my house on the lake. No stopping. Why did you stop here?” The old man walked up behind me and patted my back. “Foolish nephew,” he spoke into my cheek. “And I’ll bet you ran out of petrol, too.”

The militia leader lowered his rifle. “You know these boys, Haji Fasil?”

“Yes, commander. This is my nephew, Ali. From Sadr City. He is coming to visit me on the lake. And these are his friends. Very convenient for us. Their car saves Abu Abdul and me the dark walk home. Still, foolish of you, Nephew.”

I took a chance and lowered my arms. The man with the rifle did not object, so I took another chance and turned my head. I saw the old man for the first time. Shorter than me, with cheeks shaved close. He wore the clean white robes of a bedouin. An elder, judging from his checkered kaffiyeh, a man who had made the hajj. He planted a hand in the small of my back, speaking to me with the pressure of his palm.
Play along, boy,
he told me with his fingertips.
Save your life.

“I am sorry, Uncle,” I said. “So foolish. Yes, I ran out of petrol.”

He smiled warmly and nodded.

Another old man, older and shorter with an unkempt beard, shuffled past us, carrying two live chickens, wings tightly bound. He handed the chickens to the militia leader, who slung his rifle over his shoulder to accept them.

“Thank you, Abu Abdul,” the militia leader said to the old man in a loud, slow voice, raising the chickens up with one hand while placing the other hand over his heart in thanks.

The little man, Abu Abdul, grinned, bowed his head, waving his palms as if to say,
Take them, take them; you are my friend.
I understood from this Abu Abdul’s silence, from his grin and the motion of his hands, that he could not speak. Just as surely, I understood from the militia leader’s oddly abiding patience with Abu Abdul that he was simple, or at least widely considered so.

“We have your rice, as well,” Haji Fasil said, removing his hand from my back and walking over to his cart. He took two corners of a rice sack. “Nephew”—he laughed—“what is wrong with you? Come here and help me.”

I walked over to Haji Fasil’s cart, floating. My legs had disappeared. I grabbed two corners of the heavy sack and lifted.

Abu Abdul walked over to Mundhir and hugged him, like he had known the great big youngster forever. Mundhir hugged back, game if stiff. Hani let his hands drop, but kept his mouth shut.

Haji Fasil pulled me along at the other end of the rice sack. We stopped at the militia leader’s feet.

“Well,” Haji Fasil asked, “where should we put this?”

“You can drop it there. Your nephew needs petrol?”

“Yes,” I said as we dropped the rice. “Just enough to get to the lake.” The words tumbled over my dry tongue. Haji Fasil took my hand, like an uncle would his nephew’s.

“Five liters for the taxi,” the militia leader shouted to one of his company.

“We will be back next week,” Haji Fasil said cheerfully, pulling me by the hand toward our taxi.
Time to go,
he told me with his grip.

“Good. Next week then, God willing,” the militia leader replied, stepping back into the shadows. Two of his men bounded over to take the rice.

Meanwhile, Abu Abdul dragged Mundhir by the arm and motioned for him to lift the pushcart. Mundhir lifted it easily and followed Abu Abdul around to the trunk. Mundhir gave me a pleading look with his eyes. Open the trunk. Hurry.

A militiaman with a jerrican casually poured the precious fuel into the tank, yawning.

I opened the driver’s door and groped for the trunk release. Then, not knowing what to do next, I stepped in and closed the door behind me. I put my hands on the wheel.

The passenger door opened and Haji Fasil got in. “Home then, Nephew?”

I nodded while looking straight ahead.

“You remember the way—half a kilometer to the empty farmhouse and then a right turn on the dirt road.”

Mundhir and Hani piled into the backseat, with tiny, old Abu Abdul peaking out from between them, looking amused. I studied his face in the rearview mirror. A thick, ugly scar ran from his right ear, down his neck and boiled to a stop just above his sternum. He had few teeth left.

I had only driven a few times before. I pressed the clutch and turned the key.

“Easy left foot,” Mundhir said. “First gear is the most difficult.”

A force occupied me. A champion race-car driver from Germany. A taxidriver from Dora. I sent dirt and gravel flying as we bounced onto the road, free and alive.

Haji Fasil wasted no time. “You boys are very stupid.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” Hani echoed. The words carried from him like leaves on a stream.

“Just drive normal,” Haji Fasil said.

“Thank God for you,” Hani said, suddenly religious. “God bless you. May the peace of the Prophet be upon you.” A good Muslim boy.

I glanced again into the rearview, wondering why Mundhir, always so polite, had remained quiet. It was because he was looking at Abu Abdul, trying to understand the old man’s gestures. Abu Abdul patted Mundhir’s cheek and opened his toothless mouth in a silent laugh. He poked at Mundhir’s arms and, pantomiming a strongman, scrunched his face tight. Mundhir smiled.

“We can give you money, Haji,” I said. “We have a little.”

Haji Fasil chuckled. “No. It is not your money we wanted. Had they killed you, you see, they would have left that safe house. We would have lost a customer. So no need to thank us. Just good business.”

“You sell them rice and chickens?”

“And cooking oil when we get it.”

“To Sadrists?”

“Of course. And to Ansar al-Sunna. And to Al Qaeda. That little market changes hands quite often.”

I remembered my Matthew Arnold and smiled.
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Then I considered questions for a time before deciding on the simplest: “Who
are
you?”