The White Zone (9 page)

As Talib reached the broom high into the corner, searching out spider webs, the radio made an announcement. The man's voice clearly stated that the noontime attack on Mutanabbi Street had been carried out by an
irhabi
Sunni. The
irhabi
Sunni had driven the car with the bomb inside. Like little soldiers, his words marched into the air.

Talib beat at a mat of webs. So a Sunni had finally avenged those marauding Shiites. The ones who'd broken the neighbors' windows and stolen refrigerators. The ones who'd shunned him and Mama.

But then he set his broom against the wall and sat down on a stool. A Sunni like him had set off the car bomb. A Sunni had destroyed great beauty. A Sunni had injured and killed innocent people, including al-Nakash.

Without a word, al-Shatri brought Talib a cup of tea.

The radio announcer went on to talk about growing strife in the neighborhoods of Baladiyat, Saidiyah, Doura, Hurriyah, Ghazaliya. . . .

Now even Mutanabbi Street was no longer a haven. In all of Baghdad, no safety remained.

. . .

“They say Mutanabbi Street will be closed for months,” said Baba that afternoon. “If I can't sell books, what are we going to do here?”

Talib looked up from his book. He was reading about the dancers, Nasirulla and Salma, who'd stolen their master's gold and escaped. He put a marker in the page. “Can't we just go home?”

Mama began to cry.

Baba laid his hand over Talib's, saying, “Yes, someday. But not yet.”

They had no home. They had nothing but damaged books. Still, the books were everything. Talib gestured toward the boxes. “Should we try to fix those?”

Baba nodded. “Might as well.” He stood and gathered a roll of tape, a bottle of glue, and a small soft brush. He pulled up a chair at the worktable, saying, “With the war, we have no cookies or baklava. Books have to be our sweets.”

When Talib brought over the first book, and Baba flipped it open, a small cloud of dust fanned into the room.

Talib sneezed.

As the two of them made their way through a short stack, cleaning some, fixing others, their fingers grew black. The soot, Talib thought, was the sorrow of Mutanabbi Street. How could something so broken be fixed? Why had he suggested such a thing?

Al-Shatri came into the room, rubbing his hands together in their fingerless mittens. He took up a book and read: “When the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, the Tigris ran red one day, black the next. The red was the blood of the victims. The black the ink of the books.”

“See, Talib,” said Baba, “it's worth our time to repair these. Iraq has a great tradition of literacy.”

Talib smiled. Books were the bread of Baba's soul.

“Let me help,” said al-Shatri, pulling up a stool.

The three of them worked in silence, handing the books back and forth. In the end, none was perfect, but all could be read.

When it came time to light the kerosene lamp, Mama set out their little blue bowls, and then brought out the lentil soup, steaming from the stove.

After they'd washed the soot from their hands and pulled the clattering stools to the table, Talib realized he'd worked for hours without thinking of anything but books. Mama's lentils tasted good and he ate up his bowlful quickly. The kerosene lamp threw a halo of light onto the small blue flowers of the tablecloth.

Just as they finished eating, the muezzin's evening call sounded—holy words floating into the sky. Mama went to the corner and unrolled her prayer mat.

But Talib stayed seated, tapping his fingertips on the edge of the table.

“You never pray anymore,” commented Baba.

“I can't,” Talib responded.

“Allah can be a refuge in hard times,” said al-Shatri softly.

Talib nodded, noticing that al-Shatri wasn't praying either.

“This war is not Allah's fault,” al-Shatri added.

Talib nodded again. But Allah was still supposed to be all-powerful.

“Pray with me, Talib,” Mama urged, preparing for her ritual washing.

Talib shook his head. No.

CAR GREASE

In the morning, a crowd had gathered in front of Zaid al-Najeeb's garage.

When Nouri went over, he saw al-Najeeb stretched out, blood flowing from a bullet hole in his head, his hands still black with car grease. Someone had stepped in the blood and tracked it up and down the sidewalk.

Nouri looked up at a row of pigeons balancing on the electric wire.

ME?

One scorching afternoon, Talib and Nouri lay side by side on the floor, the coolest place. They had positioned themselves in the line of the fan, so that it blew straight on them, stirring the hot air.

“There,” Talib pointed to the ceiling. “I see marching camels. And a cave filled with treasure. Or there,” he gestured toward the wall, “Arabs battling Persians.”

“I don't see any of that.”

“Nothing? Not even the camels?”

“Maybe a woman with long hair.”

The fan rattled and Talib leaned up on one elbow to take a sip of water.

Pushing his hair off his damp forehead, Nouri said, “Shiites are moving into Karada. Into the abandoned Sunni homes.”

Talib drained his glass. “The ones who came to fight?”

“Probably not. These don't look like fighters. Just ordinary people. Families. Maybe Shiites who got kicked out of their Sunni neighborhoods.”

“What about
our
house?”

“Someone's in yours too.”

Talib tried to imagine a Shiite mother in Mama's kitchen, a strange father wiping his shoes on the mat, a strange kid in his bed.

Someday Baba would reclaim the house and they'd move back in. In triumph, they'd kick out those Shiites.

With a slow clatter, the fan stopped turning.

“Darn,” said Talib. “The electricity's gone off.”

The air now pressed around them like warm bread dough. Talib considered getting up, soaking cloths to drape across their foreheads, but even that effort felt like too much.

Talib half imagined, half dreamed that one of the camels on the ceiling came to life. He was riding it across burning dunes. . . .

“You know I . . .” Nouri began. “I . . .”

“You what?” Talib prompted, his eyes wide, his body thrumming, wondering if, finally, his cousin would admit what he had done.

“Nothing.”

Talib sat up. “Were
you
the one who threw the rock through my window?”

Still on his back, Nouri spread both hands, as if showing he held nothing. “Me? How could you think that? I was asleep at home that night. It wasn't me. I'd never do that to you.”

“Liar,” Talib muttered, lying back down.

ROOFTOP

In spite of the nightly bombings, Nouri helped Baba maneuver the cotton mattresses up the narrow stairway to the roof when it got too hot to sleep inside. “I'd rather die of a bomb than perish in this heat,” Mama had said.

Baba swore mightily whenever the mattresses got stuck.

Lifting from the bottom, Nouri bore the weight, his fingers pinched.

When they emerged on the rooftop, the sun burned like a giant kerosene flame, searing the sky, turning it the palest of blues. Even the stiff fronds of the palm trees drooped, weighted down with heat and dust.

Nouri gazed down at the street below where Talib had stolen the soldier's helmet. Where Sunnis and Shiites had fought.

If there was another gun battle, they'd at least have a good view from the rooftop.

And there, looking like a toy, sat A'mmo's black car. One of the tires was flat now. Just that morning, in spite of the heat, Nouri had washed it using a small pail of water. No one ever drove the car anymore— gasoline was too expensive.

Baba stared down too. “Time to sell that car. I'll talk to that dealer over where the bus makes the turn toward Buratha.”

Nouri turned away.

. . .

“This is like a party!” Shatha exclaimed.

It
was
like a party, Nouri had to admit as they gathered around bowls of dates and pitchers of yogurt. He could hear neighboring families laughing and talking on their rooftops. The sound of a reed flute wound its way through the pink air.

As the sky darkened, music floated from a distant cabaret. Mama sang along to the recording of the Egyptian singer, Umm Kalthoom, so famous she was called Star of the East.

When Shatha leapt up and pretended to sing into a microphone, Jalal and Anwar laughed.

“She's just showing off,” muttered Nouri.

Baba stood up and turned his back on Shatha. “I wonder how my brother's family is doing,” he said over the top of Shatha's singing. “I wonder if they're partying.”

Shatha dropped the hand that held the imaginary microphone. Everyone stopped talking. No one looked at anyone else.

Nouri stared down at the red roof tiles.

Finally, everyone lay down and examined the night sky. There weren't as many stars as in the countryside, but a few glittered through the branches of the
nabog
tree. The night sky revealed omens: would the future be full of health and bounty or did danger lurk?

Talib had always been the best at the game of seeing things in the sky. Playing at being a fortune-teller, he'd predicted:
You will marry a woman with dark eyes. . . . Beware of an overly friendly man. . . . Large amounts of gold await you. . . .

“I see a monster,” said Jalal. “That star is the eye and the little group there makes the body. . . .”

“A shooting star!” shouted Anwar.

“That was tracer fire,” corrected Nouri.

“Was not.”

Nouri struggled to stay awake as long as possible. Whenever he closed his eyes, he thought of A'mmo Hakim.

One spring day, A'mmo had taken him to Mosul. Although the car had air-conditioning, they'd rolled down the windows. With the warm wind blowing through, A'mmo had driven fast, barely missing the donkey carts and the slow buses, while Nouri had laughed with nervous excitement.

But he mustn't think of such things anymore. A'mmo Hakim had been dead nearly a year now. Nouri forced his eyes wide open.

Suddenly he saw three stars lined up like a sword. He covered his heart with both hands. It was the sword of destiny. The stars were about to make him pay for what he'd done. The sword plunged straight downward, aimed at his very center.

RAMADAN

During the holy month of Ramadan when the veils of illusion parted, it was said that a person could perceive Allah most clearly.

Talib fasted, not out of devotion, but because there was little to eat. He thought not of Allah, but of his empty stomach.

How could he think of
Allah
? Allah had betrayed him. Thoughts of all that had happened hurtled through his mind. How could Allah have permitted those things?

. . .

The ban on foot traffic on Mutanabbi Street had been lifted, though there were still barricades against vehicles.

“Why don't you open your bookstall again?” Talib asked Baba.

“No one will come,” he replied. “They're still afraid.”

“If there are books, people will come,” said al-Shatri from across the room. “Someone has to make a move. Someone has to be brave.”

Baba lifted his hands, but then just dropped them back onto his knees.

“Yes, Baba, why don't you?” said Talib. He gestured toward the books that he and Baba had repaired.

“Books are Iraq's only hope,” pressed al-Shatri.

“That's true,” Baba said, nodding. “I will go down tomorrow.” He looked at Talib, his eyebrows raised in a question.

“I'll go too,” Talib said quickly.

. . .

The next morning, Baba and Talib rose early and carried books to the street.

“Take this too,” Mama said, tucking a small broom under Talib's arm.

When they emerged from the stairwell, the tea maker was boiling water in spite of the heat. The silver bracelet seller nodded in greeting.

The men who'd once gathered in the Shabandar Café now sat at cafés on the sidewalk, dressed in white shirts, sheltered by striped awnings.