Mayada, Daughter of Iraq: One Woman's Survival Under Saddam Hussein

by Jean Sasson

  Mayada sat quietly, amazed at the idea of such pitiless revenge. Her own husband had disappointed her time and again, but she would never plot for his harm. She scanned the woman’s face. A spark of anger built in Mayada. How could a woman do that to the father of her children?

  The poor man burst into tears and could not be comforted, although Ali tried to soothe the man by telling him he would be well compensated for the torture brought on by a fake charge, that he had already signed the documents awarding him a substantial sum of money.

  Then Ali flared when he turned to the woman, who by now was visibly shaking. “What did you do, whore, to your husband?”

  The woman was too terrified to speak, although she opened and shut her mouth two or three times in succession.

  Ali reported the circumstances of her crime. “This,” he spit on the floor for emphasis, “is an Iranian whore. She lives in Kerbala.” He gestured toward the bony man. “She had three children with her husband. When he was called to the front to perform his patriotic duty, defending our holy motherland against Iranian aggression, this whore received men at their home. Even with three young children inside, she turned her home into a bordello.

  “Our Iraqi hero returned from the front and was told what had been happening. He confronts this whore, and of course, she is a liar as well, so she denies it. When he returns to the front, she writes an anonymous letter, accusing him of being a traitor. He is arrested, interrogated and punished. Then we discover that she is an Iranian whore and we bring her in. What do we discover? The whole sordid story comes out. She has been lying the entire time. She wanted her husband dead so she could continue her whoring habits.”

  Ali frowned menacingly at the woman and said, “Listen, whore. Today you will be thrown into the no-man’s-land between the Iraqi army and the Iranian army. Your children will be thrown there with you. The artillery shelling is so heavy that eventually you will all be killed. And that will be a good thing for Iraq.”

  Ali al-Majid suddenly burst out laughing, just like a child. He shouted, “I am a kind man. I am a good man. I seek justice for this poor man.” He continued to bray his strange laugh and gazed at the audience with glittering eyes.

  Mayada shivered. The audience tittered with Ali, before beginning to clap. The applause slowly built into a loud commotion of approval.

  Mayada struggled for breath while staring at the poor man whose burned legs had finally given way. He had buckled to the floor. He was now going to lose his children. She wanted to cry out to Ali al-Majid not to do this thing. Yes, the woman should be punished with a prison sentence, but the children were innocent.

  But Ali al-Majid looked well-pleased with his verdict, and Mayada knew she had no way of reversing his decision. She gripped the sides of her chair, fighting an overwhelming desire to jump up and run as far away as her legs would take her.

  Two men rushed onto the stage and took the struggling woman away. Two nurses came and led the injured husband to the back of the stage.

  The six-hour-long nightmare ended at 3:00 in the afternoon, when Ali Hassan al-Majid thanked them all for coming, adding that he would have such events on a monthly basis. “By God, I am a fair man, and in my position as head of the secret police, I will notify Iraqis of the fate of their loved ones.”

  Mayada forced herself to smile, fighting through the crowd to the exit. Just as she reached the door, one of Ali’s assistants ran toward her and reported that his boss requested that she remain behind to discuss the success of the democratic session.

  Mayada had always lived honestly, but now she lied without pause. “Thank him for his kindness in inviting me. Tell him my baby daughter needs me. I will speak with him later.”

  And then she fled that auditorium as though she had been pulled out of it by force. Fleeing from Ali Hassan al-Majid, a man she now knew was mentally unbalanced, one moment ordering the death of an only son and the next moment awarding that same son’s mother a life pension, Mayada drove her car as fast as the speed limit allowed. She rushed home and ripped her sailor dress over her head and jumped into the shower. Even standing under the warm water, cold shivers ran down her spine.

  When she returned to her office the following morning, Mayada brushed past Kamil and went to request a meeting with Suhail Sami Nadir, a wonderfully sweet man who was in charge of the entire magazine. Mayada and Suhail were not personal friends, but she had always sensed that he liked her. She put her life into his hands by confiding her feelings about the events of the previous day.

  Mayada told Suhail, “I cannot see that man again. Ever. I cannot write this piece about him. I am going to resign. I cannot be a reporter in Iraq any longer.”

  Suhail looked at Mayada closely. He agreed at once, as though he had already thought it over. He said, “Listen to me. If you want to withdraw, Mayada, I understand. But do it gradually. Once I had a similar experience. I refused to do a piece. And what happened to me? I spent three years imprisoned by the Mukhabarat. This piece can be published without your name. Then step by step, you may pull away from political pieces. It is best that way.”

  Mayada suddenly understood why Suhail always appeared so quiet and withdrawn. Now she remembered he had a limp, and an arm that hung at an angle. He held many memories in his body.

  For a few months, Mayada received frequent telephone calls from Ali Hassan al-Majid’s offices, advising her about one event after another that he urged her to cover. But as a mother, she had a believable excuse with her baby, who had the usual childhood fevers and colds and could not be left alone. Before long, calls from al-Majid’s offices ceased. She hoped she had been forgotten.

  But her life was cut in half on that day of the democratic exercise, creating two parts, both belonging to the same woman. It was on that day that she began to feel a mysterious call to change her life. Mayada, once a chic Baghdadi, dressing in the latest fashion, slowly evolved into a devout Muslim. She took comfort in wearing the veil. She drew consolation from veiling despite her mother’s angry accusations that she was embracing their primitive past.

  After the birth of her second child, Mayada divorced her husband. Soon her only joys came from her children, Fay and Ali, and from the pages of the Quran. Her life had changed forever.

  But now a loud pounding on her cell door at Baladiyat brought Mayada back to the present. The door was flung open. Mayada jumped aside as two burly wardens burst into the cell.

  “Out! Out! All of you!”

  Dr. Sabah moved quickly in the direction of Samara, stammering. “This woman cannot move. She has been injured.”

  “Out! Everyone!”

  Knowing it was useless to expect mercy, Dr. Sabah and Muna reached for Samara and held her between them, Samara’s feet barely touching the floor. The other shadow women quickly crowded to the door, and Mayada was pulled into the jostling crowd.

  The head warden waited outside their cell. He was a tall, heavyset man with a powerful chest. He glared at them with his fierce face and shouted at the top of his voice. “Stand in line! Make a straight line!”

  Mayada’s entire body was shaking with fear.

  “Make a straight line!” He looked at them, one by one. “Now! Walk to the end of the corridor. Now!”

  The shadow women were so close that each woman was touching the woman in front and the woman in back, a train of terrified women.

  Mayada was standing behind Roula, and Iman was standing behind Mayada.

  “Straight ahead!”

  They quickly arrived at the end of the corridor and were herded like sheep through the narrow door. As they entered the room, a collective gasp swept through the line. The strange room was a cave. The walls were pitted and dark. Buckets lined the floors, containers filled to the top with urine. Human excrement was piled high.

  Samara called out, “This is where they execute the prisoners!”

  A terrible roar of fear radiated from the shadow women.

  Every mother began to call the names of her children
. The shadow women without children began to call for their mothers.

  More burly guards rushed through the open door, striking them with truncheons and wooden sticks, forcing them against the wall.

  Several shadow women were shouting, “We are going to die!”

  Mayada prepared herself for death. She prayed aloud, “Please God forgive me for whatever bad deeds I might have done in my life. Please keep my two children safe. Please get them out of Iraq so they can live a decent life.”

  Wails and grief filled the air.

  Out of the darkness Samara began to sing, her voice low and feeble. She sang to the tune of a sad old Iraqi lullaby, hundreds of years old, altering the words to fit the moment:“I lost my mother,

  When I was only a child,

  But I remember how she held me,

  Loving me in her arms.

  Now I beg you,

  Walk softly on this soil.

  Perhaps they buried her in this place,

  So walk softly on this soil.”

  Other voices began softly to hum, learning the new words as they went along. As the women continued singing, five additional guards stalked into the room. They held rifles at their sides.

  The warden shouted, “Face the wall! Prepare to die!”

  The shadow women moved together into a crowded circle, weeping and clinging to each other. Two of the oldest women fainted.

  Three or four guards rushed at those women and began to pull their hair and strike them in their faces with balled fists. Their groans of pain mingled with the sounds of women’s screams and men’s laughter.

  Mayada felt herself shutting down. It was God’s will that these were her last moments on earth. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. She prepared herself for the end, because she had no choice.

  She heard the warden hoarsely call bitter and sarcastic words, “Pray to your God, if you will. But He will not hear you. I am your God today!”

  The warden couldn’t stop laughing. “I am your God!”

  The men laughed with him.

  Loud laughter echoed around and around the room.

  The laughter was driving Mayada mad. She held her breath, waiting for the bullets to strike her body.

  Then she heard a number of clicks.

  The guards were preparing their weapons.

  Sara cried out, “Mother! Mother!”

  A guard batted her in the face.

  Muna was sobbing and clinging to Mayada’s neck. “I cannot die. I have a baby who needs his mother. I am too young to die!”

  Mayada’s mind was racing. Would she feel the bullets as they entered her body? Would she feel pain? Would she black out?

  The men continued laughing.

  The shadow women waited for death.

  No gunshots rang out.

  The shadow women waited longer.

  Finally Mayada opened her eyes and cautiously turned her head without moving her body.

  The men’s guns were pointed to the floor.

  The only thing raised in their direction was a camera.

  The other women began opening their eyes to look at the guards.

  “Turn around,” the man with the camera ordered. “Face forward.”

  Mayada froze. Perhaps the cameraman was there to record their deaths by gunfire. She knew that the government often took photographs of executions. Would her execution be shown on television? Is that how her children would discover she was dead? Through a television show?

  The warden shouted, “You are a mighty bunch, I must say.” He spat on the ground in disgust at their fear and terror. “I praise Allah that I have a wife and sisters and daughters at home that do not even know how to buy groceries at the market,” meaning that they were so pious they did not go out of the home. “And look at you, a bunch of filthy criminals. You are a disgrace to your families. And cowards, too.”

  He spat once again.

  The warden informed them, “You are here to have your pictures taken.” Then he began laughing so hard that he doubled over and slapped his thigh.

  The rest of the guards laughed loudly. One guard began to imitate their fear. He hovered in a corner and mimicked Sara, yelling, “Mother! Mother!”

  The guards laughed even louder.

  Mayada suddenly realized what had happened. The guards at Baladiyat had grown bored and someone thought of a new sport to terrify the women.

  Several of the women were still weeping. Mayada saw three of them lying unconscious on the floor.

  Mayada was numb. She could barely move when ordered to stand in a certain place to pose for her prison picture.

  After her photograph was made, she stumbled to a corner and huddled, watching as the other women had their pictures taken.

  After an hour, the women were led back to their cell, but no one spoke.

  Mayada lay in her bunk and turned her face to the wall and cried. For the first time, her weeping was a solace. She had not died tonight. Perhaps God was going to allow her to see her children again.

  7

  Torture

  The feigned execution only whetted the men’s appetite for cruelty that evening. Baladiyat’s walls echoed with agonized wails throughout the long night.

  The torture room lay only a few doors from cell 52, and Mayada could hear every sob. Years earlier, she had read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel The Gulag Archipelago, in which he said it was more painful to hear the torture of fellow prisoners than it was to be tortured. Now Mayada understood what he meant.

  The long night crawled by. The prisoners listened as boots stomped up and down the concrete corridors. They listened to the beatings. They listened as the guards’ words were quickly followed by the inmates’ shrieks.

  With each thunderous boot step, the shadow women feared the sound of a key unlocking their cell door.

  At dawn Mayada heard the crier’s musical call to prayer, “God is great, there are no other Gods, but God; and Mohammed was His Prophet. Come to prayer. Come to Prayer. God is great. There is no God, but God.”

  The women welcomed the morning. And the dawn’s call to prayer brought the shadow women some hope. After the stillness of morning prayers, the stuffy cell bustled as twenty women readied for a new day. They straightened their dresses, twisted their long hair into knots and took turns at the toilet before sitting quietly to await breakfast. Mayada returned to her bunk after her morning prayers and sat in silence. She crossed her arms and patted each upper arm nervously as she peered at the women who shared her cell.

  Samara was still too sore to move. So when breakfast arrived, Muna adopted Samara’s usual role and distributed the bland food. Mayada accepted the single piece of bread and small cup of water offered to her. The small cell didn’t enable all its prisoners to sit comfortably, so some shadow women chose to pad around the tiny room as they ate their breakfast of lentils, moldy bread and tepid water.

  A few hours after breakfast was served, the cell door boomed with a sudden pounding. Guards banged on the portal as a key turned in the lock. The three men crowded into the doorway, stirring anxious commotion and whimpering among the twenty women.

  The guard bellowed, “Jamila! We are waiting!”

  Mayada’s eyes turned toward the cluster of women sitting at the back of the cell. Jamila had been imprisoned at Baladiyat three months before Mayada, and only Samara had been more frequently tortured than she. In the confines of the small cell, Jamila could not be ignored; she writhed, continually contorting her shoulders up and down in a manner that seemed disturbingly purposeless.

  Mayada saw Jamila on the floor among the other women in the cell, her face filled with fear. Her mouth hung open with half-eaten lentils and bread. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman resumed chewing and swallowed.

  “Jamila!” The guard shouted a second time. His heavy black eyebrows twitched as he glared from one woman to another.

  Sighing heavily, Jamila stared at the guard. She was a forty-eight-year-old mother to many daughte
rs and one son. The year before, her husband and son had been accused of being Islamic activists. When the secret police broke into their home in the middle of the night to arrest them, the police discovered that the two men of the house had escaped from Iraq into Turkey. The police had taken Jamila as hostage, insisting she would be held in her men’s place until the husband and son returned to Iraq to face execution. Since Jamila’s first day of imprisonment, she had wept almost continuously. She explained that her tears were for her beautiful girls, daughters who now lived without a father or mother. But thinking about her girls had not strengthened Jamila’s resolve, and the woman had sunk into the blackest depression.

  Like all the women, Mayada watched Jamila as the guard fumed in the doorway. Only the day before, Mayada had heard Jamila ask Muna to help layer clothes on her back with a thick pad, so that she might move more comfortably. When Jamila dropped her pajama top to accept the cloth, Mayada saw that her back was badly disfigured by deep purple scars, encrusted by freshly scabbed wounds. Mayada finally understood why Jamila continually writhed her shoulders, lowering them in one direction and then raising them in another. She explained that one moment her sores hurt and the next moment they itched.

  Slowly, Jamila bent forward and laid her plate of lentils on the floor. She placed her piece of half-eaten bread atop the lentils. Carefully she pushed her glass of water to the wall. Then she stood up.

  She was dressed in the same rose-colored pajamas that she had been wearing at the time of her arrest. After three months they were grimy with prison dirt, baggy in the seat and torn in several places. The waistband elastic was so slack that the pants constantly threatened to fall down, so Jamila kept the pants pulled high to her chest. Her pajama top now was gaping open, so she took a moment to button the top button and smoothed the front of her pajamas with her hands.

  As presentable as she could be under the circumstances, Jamila looked at the guards. Her forehead was tightly stretched, and her dark eyes were sunk deep into her head. She took a small step forward. Then she took a step back. She stared at the three men, who glared back at her. She stumbled forward, then backward again, like an invisible cord was pulling her back and forth against her will.