by Jean Sasson
Thoughts of a day now long distant began to crowd out the ugly present. It was 1982, and Dr. Fadil had stopped by Mayada’s home for a brief visit, returning two books he had borrowed from her mother’s extensive library. Soon after he left, Mayada heard the front doorbell ring. Her mother was sitting in the back garden reading a book, so Mayada rose to open the door. She saw with some surprise that their visitor was Um Sami, the mother of a neighboring family.
Although the two families lived near each other, they were not close; earlier contact between the families had been limited to a brief meeting followed by polite nodding in passing. Recently, however, Mayada and her mother had found occasion to discuss Um Sami, because when they first met her, she was overweight, but in a matter of weeks her fat had melted and she was now reed thin. Most noticeably, Um Sami was seen more than once pacing her garden while she ripped at her hair and pulled at her clothes, clear signals that she was in a state of mourning. In fact, only a week before her unexpected appearance at Mayada’s family’s doorstep, Mayada had approached her to ask if a relative had passed away. But Um Sami had gestured for her to go away, and she complied.
Now she hoped to discover the source of the poor woman’s tears.
Um Sami lingered on the doorstep a moment before feverishly asking, “Was that Dr. Fadil I saw? Head of the secret police?”
Mayada nodded, knowing that every Iraqi would recognize Dr. Fadil, because his picture was often in the paper or on the news. Something terrible must have happened to her or her family, Mayada mused. “Yes. That was Dr. Fadil,” she confirmed.
Um Sami threw herself onto Mayada, exclaiming, “I must know the fate of my sons. I have twin boys, Omar and Hassan. They are both only fourteen. They went to the market for a new football, and they never returned.”
Mayada gently led Um Sami into their sitting room. “Come, sit,” she urged.
Um Sami continued to wail. “We have searched Baghdad. We have gone to hospitals. Police stations. Graveyards. We found nothing. Nothing. Nothing! My beautiful sons have disappeared.”
Mayada hurried to pour Um Sami a glass of water, then sat to face her distraught neighbor. Mayada’s gaze wandered across the woman’s face; she took in her neighbor’s sloping shoulders and her hands, which trembled uncontrollably.
Um Sami sipped and carefully placed the glass on the round table to her side. She cleared her throat before continuing with her story. “This morning my husband received an anonymous phone call. The caller was a man who claimed to be a former prisoner of the secret police. He was in a cell with our sons. He said our boys had given him our telephone number. From what he could recall of their story, they had been walking down the street when two men jumped them and began to kick and slap them, claiming they were staring at them. They were members of the Mukhabarat.” She turned her face to Mayada in bewilderment. “Staring? Since when is staring a crime?”
Mayada clutched her hands together. “Go on.”
Um Sami begin to slap her own face and cry out. “My sons are still babies. Still students. They have never gotten into trouble.”
Mayada felt a touch of nausea as she recalled seeing Omar and Hassan playing football in the street. Both boys were polite and attractive, always smiling. The twins never failed to halt their game when they heard Mayada start her car to pull into the street. Those children were in prison? For the “crime” of staring? That was an offense that she would bet was not on the books.
Now she murmured, “What can I do?”
Um Sami had a wavering, uncertain look about her when she touched Mayada’s cheek with her hand. “I know Dr. Fadil can help. Please, call him for me. Ask him to help me find my boys.” With one long, pale finger she began to mechanically thump her chin. “I know they are in prison. That caller described them perfectly. Tall, slim boys with brown hair. Each with a small brown mole on his cheek. How many twins are there with that description in Baghdad?” Her voice went soft, then insistent again. “The caller said they were being tortured. Tortured! I must find my sons.” With that, Um Sami began slapping at her face once more until Mayada grabbed her hands and held them tightly between her own.
Mayada knew that the most prudent course was to do nothing, but it was impossible for her to ignore Um Sami’s grief. The poor woman was so miserable that Mayada recklessly promised, “I will contact Dr. Fadil. Tomorrow. I will ask him to find out where your sons are. If they are in jail, and if he can find them, he will have them released.”
Um Sami jumped to her feet and began to kiss Mayada repeatedly on both cheeks. “I knew you would help me.”
At that moment, both women’s attention was drawn to the noise of a television that had been left on. The evening news had begun. On the television screen, a male figure smiled as images of soldiers and exploding fireworks swirled behind his shoulder. He began to sing a song about Saddam, a tune that was played before every newscast:“Oh Saddam, our victories;
Oh Saddam, our beloved:
You carry the nation’s dawn
Between your eyes.
Oh Saddam, everything is good
With you.
Allah! Allah! We are happy;
Because Saddam lights our days.”
The image of Saddam Hussein flashed on the screen. He was shown first patting the heads of dark-curled schoolgirls in billowy white dresses. Then he was depicted striding onto a balcony to wave at his chanting supporters clamoring approvingly below. The newscaster’s image reappeared, and he continued to praise Saddam’s greatness.
Mayada and Um Sami stared at Saddam’s image on the television screen, and then at each other. Neither woman said what they were thinking, yet Mayada sensed that Um Sami thought Saddam was evil.
Over the years, Iraqis had suffered a cycle of hope and despair from countless coups and attempted coups, leading ordinary citizens to lose touch with their government. In 1968, when the Baath Party seized power from the government in power at the time, Iraqis hoped that the new party would not simply prove to be one tyrant replacing another. And at first, Saddam had charmed and endeared himself to his people. But now, the veil that obscured Saddam from scrutiny was fluttering, and people were catching glimpses of the tyrant beneath.
Um Sami made an attempt to smile, but she could only manage a grimace as she stumbled to the door, repeating, “I told my husband, I knew you would help me. I knew you would help me.”
The following morning Mayada woke early. She dressed and went in to work an hour sooner than usual, so she could call Dr. Fadil at his offices and explain the problem.
At first friendly, Dr. Fadil quickly became irritated, and with a cold, indifferent voice said, “Mayada, I prefer that you mind your own business.”
Mayada persisted, telling him, “I cannot in this case. Um Sami is going mad with grief. These boys are only fourteen years old. I saw their innocence with my own eyes. I know you have the power to help them. Please.”
Dr. Fadil was silent. Mayada could picture him chewing the inside of his cheek while he mulled over what to do. Finally he spoke. “Have Um Sami appear at the police headquarters at Park Al-Sadoon. Tell her to be there at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” He then added, “Mayada, please don’t make a habit of this. Perhaps these boys are murderers or smugglers. All boys are innocent in the eyes of their mothers, you know.”
Mayada hung up the phone without answering and left work so she could rush to tell Um Sami the wonderful news: Dr. Fadil was going to help her find her sons.
A few days passed while Mayada waited for good news about the boys. When Dr. Fadil briefly dropped by to ask Salwa a few questions about one of Sati’s books, Mayada asked him about the charge of “staring.” But Dr. Fadil had a chill in his voice when he asked Mayada, “Do you believe criminals speak the truth?” He added quickly, “I prefer not to discuss business away from my office.” Dr. Fadil then asked for Mayada’s mother and turned his back to examine a set of Sati’s books, stacked nearby on a table. His indifferent manner discoura
ged any further questions.
Mayada was so disappointed in his lack of humanity that she left the room as quickly as proper decorum allowed.
But later, alone in her bedroom, she permitted herself to imagine the happy moment when Um Sami would appear at her door with her sons. Once again Omar and Hassan would play football in the streets, and she would wave at them on her way to work. Mayada was so energized at the thought that the twins would be saved that she decided to bake a cake and present it to the boys on their homecoming, so they could enjoy a small party with their playmates.
Hearing nothing after several days, and impatient to see the boys safe at home with their parents, she finally visited the neighbors’ house. Um Sami came to the door and, catching sight of Mayada’s expectant face, gestured with a finger poised over her lips that it was not safe for the two to speak inside the house, and motioned for Mayada to follow her into the garden.
As Mayada followed Um Sami, she noted that the poor woman was letting herself go badly. Her clothes were horribly wrinkled, as though they had been slept in. Her hair was in disarray, and her shoes were old and badly scuffed.
Mayada sighed and turned her attention to the garden. It was springtime and the trees and bushes were in full bloom. The welcome aroma filled the air. Mayada brushed the white flowers hanging from a low tree branch with her hand and watched as the petals drifted to the ground, dappling the narrow, winding path.
When they reached the garden’s back corner, Um Sami looked anxiously around before she whispered to Mayada, “In addition to the twins, I have two other sons. They are married and live in their own homes. They’ve been threatened if I speak to anyone—even to you, someone who knows Dr. Fadil.”
In tense silence, Mayada stood alongside Um Sami, wishing now that she had not sought news. Mayada forced herself to stand in place, when her greatest desire was instead to run to the sanctuary of her bedroom. She wished nothing greater than to settle into a familiar spot with a beloved book, to forget the cruelty of the world in which she lived. But Mayada moistened her lips with her tongue and steeled herself to listen.
“I went to the reception area, just as instructed,” began Um Sami. “Hundreds of people waited outside the gate, but our names were on a list so we were allowed inside. The guards treated us with grudging respect. Dr. Fadil had intervened in our case. We were led into a square room. At the end of the room, a large door led to a huge cooler, big enough to hold dozens of bodies. I was in shock, because I went to Park Al-Sadoon believing I would find my sons in a cell and bring them home with me. But my stomach began to twist and turn as we were handed a list of names that hung on a wall beside the cooler. We were told to examine the list for our boys’ names. We searched every name, but they were not listed. We were taken to another room where a terrible stench held me back, but I covered my mouth with my abaaya and forced myself to go in. Inside were a great many bodies, but I saw my sons at once. Just as they were bonded in life, they were together in death. They were there in that ghastly place, side by side in a sitting position.” Her lips quivered as she burst into a torrent of speech. “My beautiful sons had been horribly tortured. Blackened blood covered their face and hands and feet. There were visible burn marks.
“I screamed, but a guard shoved me backward cruelly and ordered, ‘You! No shouting!’ So I was forced to stuff my abaaya in my mouth to silence my grief.
“While my husband identified our sons, I couldn’t help but look around the room. Was this the place in which my poor sons had breathed their last? I saw things no mother should ever see. I saw one young man whose chest bore the searing print of an electric iron. I saw a second young man whose chest spilled open, having been dissected from his neck to his stomach. I saw a third young man whose legs had been hacked away. I saw a fourth young man whose eyes had been squeezed out of their sockets. His eyeballs lay on his slack face.
“They told us that we were lucky! Lucky! Can you imagine? They said that a special order had come down so we could take our sons’ bodies. Dr. Fadil gave that order. Those men refused to tell us why our boys were arrested in the first place, although I could not restrain myself and asked if staring was now a death sentence. I was told to shut up, and we were ordered to bury our two children in silence, and to refrain from talking about the manner of their deaths.”
In a sort of fitful spasm Um Sami clutched Mayada. “Without your help, I would still be searching. I thank you for that.” After turning around and studying the shadows in the garden, as though she believed a member of the Mukhabarat might lurk behind a scented tree, Um Sami said to Mayada with vehemence, “Leave Iraq if you can. If my innocent sons were taken, no one is safe.”
Mayada stretched out her arms and hugged Um Sami, then left her without a word. Mayada was so struck by the image of the boys’ deaths that the white-blossomed trees in the garden that had lifted her spirits now oppressed her. The lovely trees now seemed to be forbidding pillars, whose heavy leaves crowded to block the cleansing rays of sunlight. The air she breathed was thinned by grief, and she hurried along the path that now seemed to lead away from the gloomiest place on earth.
Mayada had been so aggrieved by Um Sami’s sad tale that she did not speak to anyone about what she’d heard, not even to her mother, with whom she usually shared everything.
Soon afterward, Um Sami and her husband sold their house and left the neighborhood. Their absence had made it possible for Mayada to successfully repress the memories of that day, until they returned this moment in the cold cell.
Other memories followed the first, and images previously disconnected came together to form a clear pattern of innocent imprisonment and death.
It was 1970, and Mayada’s classmate, Sahar Sirri, was weeping. Mayada’s friend was from a prominent Iraqi family and her father, General Mithat al-Haj Sirri, was a commanding officer in the Iraqi army. He was a popular commander, and Saddam, who was the true ruler of Iraq despite Bakri’s presidential title, had decided he was a threat, so Saddam had him arrested and tortured. Sahar’s father appeared on national television, confessing that he was a spy for Israel, a lie everyone recognized. But he had been hung by his hands and beaten for days, then injected with a variety of drugs. After confessing, he was hanged. Mayada’s friend Sahar no longer had a father. From that point on, Sahar’s entire family was persecuted, banned from travel and, on occasion, arrested and interrogated. Even Sahar was occasionally interrogated and returned to school with eyes red from weeping.
A coworker at the newspaper had once confided to Mayada that Saddam’s security forces were awarded cash bonuses for arresting Iraqis, and that they were given promotions within the party if they displayed extra zeal during torture sessions. After receiving cash for making arrests, those same men extorted money from the families of the prisoners, with the pledge that their loved ones would receive lenient treatment. Poor Iraqi families sold their homes and automobiles and bankrupted themselves in the hope that they could save a loved one. The coworker told Mayada about a family who had sold their home and automobiles to save their innocent son from a fifteen-year prison sentence. Instead, he had received an eight-year sentence.
Now Mayada examined the faces of the women who shared the crowded, filthy cell they all called home. From the first day of her confinement, Mayada had been most shocked by the joy with which the prison guards terrorized innocent women. Could desire for money and advancement alone explain the devoted cruelty of the torturers? It was too much to think about. Mayada’s head turned as she followed the sound of voices. The shadow women were all speaking at once, each suggesting what they might do to help Samara.
Mayada peered over the shoulders of a shadow woman and at Samara’s silhouette. Samara’s legs were twisted sideways and bunched toward her chest. Mayada inched closer and studied Samara’s face. Her eyes were closed, and her thin yet swollen face frowned in pain. Her mouth opened, gasping for breath. Mayada realized that Samara would probably die in Baladiyat, ringed by women who had k
nown nothing of her life until a few months before. And awed by Samara’s goodness, she wondered how anyone could deliberately mutilate this sweet, beautiful woman whose heart overflowed with kindness.
Every shadow woman remained crowded around Samara. Together, all hands reached to gently grasp the wounded woman by her back and shoulders and waist. The women slowly lifted Samara, moving her toward the scant comfort of her bedding. Her feet and legs dragged on the floor behind her. Samara whimpered softly as the women tenderly lowered her into her bunk.
A woman named Dr. Sabah, whom Mayada knew little about other than that she had a Ph.D. in engineering, rushed to the cell’s lone sink to dampen the fabric of her long blue skirt. She returned to moisten Samara’s forehead and lips with the wet clothing. The woman’s gentle voice was at odds with the animation flashing in her eyes. “Habibti [my love], try to think, do you think there’s any internal damage?”
Poor Samara wept without answering.
Wanting to help but unsure what she might do, Mayada walked forward and brushed Samara’s cheek with her hand. She ached to ease her friend’s despair and pain. “Samara,” she whispered, “Samara.”
Dr. Sabah glanced at Mayada and shook her head in sorrow. She whispered, “This dear girl has been tortured too many times—more than all of us put together.”
Dr. Sabah held Samara’s head between her hands and raised her voice. She brushed saliva from Samara’s lips and chin. “Samara, can you hear me?”
The sweet-faced young woman named Muna patted Samara’s hand. “Tell us what we can do, habibti. Just tell us, sweetheart—we want to help you.”
