by Jean Sasson
“The strangest part of the entire affair was that few people even knew it was happening. Saddam’s enforcers quietly went from family to family, kicking them out of Iraq. Although this practice started slowly, it gained momentum. By 1981, horrified whispers murmured in the streets about what was happening. Then, another great crime was instigated against people I knew.
“I was in my office at the Arab Labor Organization when one of the department heads came in. Right behind him was a man by the name of Jaweed, one of the organization’s drivers. Jaweed was a nervous wreck. He told me he had just received a frantic telephone call from home; his family told him a truck filled with people was nosing through the neighborhood, with soldiers checking documents to demand that anyone with an Iranian background marked on their papers immediately vacate their home. He was told to go home and join his family. They were being deported. To where? Jaweed didn’t know.
“We took him in to see the Director General of the organization, who told Jaweed he could do nothing. But feeling sorry for the fellow, the Director General asked the personnel department to give Jaweed a year’s salary. The accountant was away from his desk, however, so the personnel head went person to person among the employees, urging us to empty our pockets for Jaweed. Jaweed left our offices with a year’s salary. He was not seen again.
“No newspapers wrote about it. No one outside of Iraq seemed to even know about it.
“Then the war started, which made Saddam even more determined to deport anyone with an Iranian connection. Any Iraqi with the words ‘Tabaeya Iraniya’ on their documents Saddam considered an enemy spy.
“Then in December 1982, this persecution struck members of my husband’s family.
“Once, after a business trip, I went to visit Salam’s parents. Salam is one of four brothers and five sisters. At his parents’ home, I found his entire family in desperate conference. Nibal, one of Salam’s sisters, was there, along with Nibal’s small sons, three-year-old Wissam and the baby, Bassam. The three looked as forlorn as refugees. I asked the problem, and Nibal began weeping. She told me that her husband, Dr. Kareem Al-Saadi, had been taken into detention.
“Dr. Kareem was fifteen or sixteen years older than Nibal, but she had chosen to marry this man above all suitors because he was educated, having earned a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry in the United States. Nibal had explained to her family that an educated man accustomed to Western ways was bound to treat his wife better than an uneducated Iraqi who had never been out of the country. So they let her make the decision.
“Nibal’s home was in Hai Al-Jamia, the University District, and early that morning three men had rung the family’s doorbell. They said they were taking Dr. Kareem for detention because ‘Tabaeya Iraniya’ was marked on his nationality papers.
“Now, Dr. Kareem was no more an Iranian than Saddam Hussein was. But because both of his parents died young and left him four younger siblings to support, he had written ‘Tabaeya Iraniya’ on his nationality papers. Saddled with adult responsibilities, he couldn’t leave his family to serve in the military. Before the revolution and the war with Iran, Iraqis thought nothing of marking their papers so.
“This Dr. Kareem was the hardest-working Iraqi I’ve ever known. He had worked his life away, studying nights and working days and winning such good grades that he was sent on a scholarship to America. There he worked equally hard, obtaining a master’s and a Ph.D. Then he came back to Iraq and supported his family, insisting that his siblings gain good educations. He accomplished this feat amazingly well: Two sisters earned medical degrees; one brother became a dentist and another a civil engineer.
“Dr. Kareem postponed marriage and a family so that he could educate his siblings. But now he was paying for having avoided the army.
“Nibal said the men who arrested Dr. Kareem were unnecessarily brutal—they forced her husband out of the house in his pajamas. They then ordered Nibal to take her two boys and vacate the home. They wouldn’t allow her to take a single item. They even took the house key from her. Nibal was put onto the street in shock, with two babies in her arms. She watched as those men locked her home and stamped the outer door with red wax.
“She was terrified that she was going to be arrested with her two babies, but instead, the men informed her that she had the right to divorce Dr. Kareem in any court of law. He was an Iranian, they told her.
“Dr. Kareem argued with the men, explaining he had changed his papers after his parents died so that he could support his younger siblings.
“Nothing Dr. Kareem said mattered to the men. The last Nibal saw of Kareem was his face through a car window as he was driven away, leaving Nibal and the boys standing on the side of the road like refugees.
“Well, I knew I had to do something, but wasn’t sure who could help with this situation. I thought of Dr. Fadil and decided that it couldn’t hurt to ask him. He had asked me to bring him back some books from the Iraqi Embassy in Khartoum. I had also bought him some ebony statues as a small gift. This gave me a good excuse to see him and bring up Nibal’s situation.
“I called Dr. Fadil the next day and told him that I had some things for him. He said he would pass by our home after work.
“As soon as he arrived, I gave him the books and gifts and then told him that there was an urgent matter. I related the whole story—that Dr. Kareem was not an Iranian nor was he of Iranian origin. He was caught in a terrible situation only because he had changed his documents years before so he could provide for his younger brothers and sisters.
“Dr. Fadil was not moved. He shook his head and muttered, ‘Too bad. He shouldn’t have done that.’
“When he saw my look of dismay, Dr. Fadil added, ‘Besides, by now he is deported and there is nothing I can do.’
“I told Dr. Fadil I had good news. It wasn’t too late. Nibal had learned that her husband, because of his stature as an esteemed scientist, had not yet been deported. He was still held in detention.
“Dr. Fadil didn’t look so pleased to hear that the situation was still open. He paused and agreed to look into the matter.
“I called him the next day and he said he was too busy.
“I called him the day after, and he gave me the same excuse.
“I called every day, for nine days. During this time, Nibal was going crazy with fear. She couldn’t return home. Her boys cried all the time. By now, the secret police had started arresting Dr. Kareem’s younger brothers. Although their papers were marked to indicate Ottoman descent, they would suffer the same fate as their relative—deportation. Then the husbands of Dr. Kareem’s sisters were told they had to divorce their wives.
“Nibal was a high school teacher. The school’s principal was told that if Nibal didn’t divorce Kareem, he must fire her.
“The lives of everyone in that family were being destroyed. For nothing!
“Dr. Fadil was avoiding me. He didn’t return to our home again for over a week. But I was persistent. The tenth time I telephoned Dr. Fadil, the tone of his voice made it clear he was displeased at my perseverance. I told him I was not calling about Dr. Kareem, so he relaxed and we talked for a few minutes. At the end of our conversation, I asked him, ‘Dr. Fadil, if I have a baby boy in the future, will he be allowed to enter an Iraqi military academy?’ ‘Of course, Mayada,’ he countered in his smooth voice, ‘why do you ask?’ I told Dr. Fadil I was concerned that if my son’s uncle was deported, the boy’s future would be somehow stunted.
“Dr. Fadil didn’t speak for a long time. Finally he drew a deep breath and said, ‘I’ll call you back later.’
“I didn’t expect to hear back from him for a few days, but he called back before lunch. Dr. Fadil spoke rapidly, saying, ‘Dr. Kareem will be released within the hour. Tell his wife to go to the reception area of the secret police to get her house keys.’
“I started to thank him and he said, ‘Mayada, don’t bring this subject up with me again.’ And he hung up. He was irritated with me, but he solved the prob
lem.
“Sure enough, Dr. Kareem returned from prison. Samara, never have I seen a man who had aged so rapidly. He had lost fifty pounds. His hair had turned completely white. He refused to speak about his detention—he was terrified to do so, in fact.
“Dr. Fadil saved members of my husband’s family, but thousands of Iraqis died in this manner,” Mayada said angrily. “For absolutely nothing.”
“Did Dr. Fadil ever ask you or your mother to spy on people?” Samara asked curiously.
“Not me. Not ever. I was foolishly bold in those days.” She smiled. “My youth pushed me to correct injustices, you know. Anytime I heard a tragic story, I called Dr. Fadil and harassed him until he helped. He understood that I used his friendship to help others—never to spy or to hurt others—so he was a bit wary around me. He was careful never to tell me anything of real importance. But my mother was a different story.
“As you know, since Saddam came to power, Iraqis haven’t been allowed friendships with foreign diplomats. But they made an exception to this rule when it came to my mother. She was probably the sole exclusion in all of Iraq. It was a highly irregular arrangement.
“Mother was so cosmopolitan that she gave the foreign diplomats a good impression of Iraq. She spoke fluent English, French, Italian and Turkish. She was so skilled as a hostess that she could entertain fifty people with only an hour’s notice. Saddam and Dr. Fadil admired this in her and encouraged her to lend Iraq a good name with her foreign friendships.
“But Dr. Fadil grew so confident in his relationship with my mother that he made a mistake: He asked her to report on people. She turned him down flat; she told him she was not an agent and never would be. Once Dr. Fadil asked my mother to plant a bug at our home so when foreign diplomats came to visit, there would be an automatic record of every conversation, but she reacted angrily and he quickly dropped the subject. My mother was all for Iraq—not for the government of Iraq. Saddam’s government thought it was a feather in their cap that Sati’s daughter chose to live in Iraq under the Baathist rule. They didn’t want to anger her; they didn’t want to lose the Al-Husri name. And more than one good thing came from this reciprocal arrangement. Because Saddam and Dr. Fadil trusted Mother, she played a role in saving one British woman’s life.”
Samara hunched her back and leaned forward, asking in a startled whisper, “A Brit? How?”
“Well, the story made international headlines. One man was hanged and one woman received a long prison sentence.”
Samara shook her head. “I do not remember this.”
“Yes, you do. Don’t you recall the Bazoft incident in 1989? The British journalist, Farzad Bazoft, who worked for The British Observer? The one convicted of spying for Israel while he was working on a story about an explosion at the weapons complex? He was tried, convicted and hanged. But lots of people forget that there was also an innocent woman involved in the story.”
A light of memory came into Samara’s eyes. “Yes, I remember now. That was a big scandal. It made all the papers.”
“That’s the one. When the incident took place, the Iraqi government had little doubt about Bazoft’s guilt. But they were less certain about the woman who drove him to the complex, a British nurse by the name of Daphne Parish. During this same time, my mother was a good friend of the British ambassador’s wife, Lady Terence Clark. In conversations with Lady Clark, my mother came to realize that Daphne Parish was innocent of all wrongdoing. The British nurse, who was familiar with Iraq, had simply offered to give Bazoft a ride. Mother knew that Saddam was furious about the incident and that more than likely the man was going to hang. Mother was concerned that Saddam would order the woman hanged, as well. So she called Dr. Fadil and, for the first time, told him about her personal conversations with Liz Clark. Mother pressured Dr. Fadil to protect the British nurse. Dr. Fadil believed Mother, and after a flurry of meetings in which her conversations with Liz Clark played a major role, it was decided that Daphne Parish would receive a prison sentence, rather than a death sentence. This course left the option open to Saddam and his officials to pardon the nurse at a later date.
“So when Bazoft was tried, found guilty and put to death in March 1990, Daphne Parish was given a fifteen-year sentence. During the subsequent investigation, it was discovered that Miss Parish was indeed innocent, just as Mother had said. She was pardoned in six months, in July 1990, and allowed to leave the country.
“Mother was shocked when, for alerting his government about her conversations with the British ambassador’s wife, Saddam presented her with a beautiful two-story house in a residential area called Al-Sullaikh, which overlooks the Tigris. When my mother left Iraq for good, she gave me the ownership documents. So I put the house up for sale. Before selling the house, the broker asked me to come by to discuss the previous owners of the house. He asked me if I knew them. I didn’t. He told me that the house had belonged to a family of ‘Tabaeya Iraniyas.’ The broker said that the entire family had been taken away in the middle of the night, imprisoned and killed, even before they could be deported.
“I rushed home to call my mother in England. I explained as well as I could what had happened to the true owners of the house. Mother is not a highly religious person, but she has high morals and ethics, and she insisted that she couldn’t profit from such a gift. She said it would be like holding a piece of burning coal in her hands. She asked me to search for relatives of the now-dead family. I tried, but couldn’t locate anyone.
“After a few weeks, I told her that there were no relatives that I could find. So she told me to sell the house and to donate the proceeds to the poor, saying such a gift would honor the souls of the home’s rightful owners, who were robbed of their house and their lives. I did what she asked. I distributed the money from the sale of that house to the poorest people I knew.”
“That’s a beautiful story,” Samara said in a quiet voice, clasping Mayada’s hand and giving it a squeeze.
“We are not a family who could take something in such a manner.”
“Take me back to Dr. Fadil. Didn’t I hear that Saddam had him killed?”
“Indeed. And that was the start of everything bad, at least for me. In 1989, everything changed. My mother decided to move to England. Dr. Fadil was transferred from the Intelligence Service to the palace, where he was made an advisor to Saddam. I remember the last time we saw him. He came by the house to say goodbye to Mother, and he talked about his new job at the palace. He told my mother that he already felt retired, that his work was empty.” Mayada looked past Samara’s shoulder. “Knowing what I know now, I question what it was that he missed about his old job.”
“We will never know all of his deeds, Mayada, good or bad. But it is enough to know that he did some good. Now go back to your story: Dr. Fadil was saying goodbye to your mother.”
“Yes. And my mother was so happy to be leaving Iraq. That surprised me, but Saddam’s government had grown to throw a great shadow over all of our lives. Mother looked forward to living in London or in Beirut, her favorite cities. As for me, I just hoped everything would be all right. I was finally divorced from Salam. The Iranian war was over. Iraqis could travel freely again, so I knew I would be able to travel, to visit my mother in England when I felt like it. Dr. Fadil still held a powerful position in the palace. Or at least I thought he did.”
Mayada edged a little closer to Samara, choosing her words carefully.
“Then one day, Dr. Fadil just disappeared. I called his home. I got a busy signal. I kept calling. For days I called, and I got nothing but a busy signal. Then I called Fatin, his sister-in-law. There was no answer. Rumors began to swirl that Dr. Fadil had been arrested. His entire family was missing, even his beautiful wife Jinan and their five children. It was as though he and his entire family had been shipped off to the moon.” Mayada paused. “For more than a year, I heard nothing about any of them. Then, over the following years, I slowly pieced together the puzzle that was the truth of Dr. Fadil Al-Barra
k’s disappearance.
“In June 1991, after the first Gulf War was over, my mother purchased a home in Amman. She asked my children and me to come for a visit, and we got tickets to Amman on the Businessman’s Bus Line, which is so much better than the regular buses.
“The bus was filled with people, but I particularly noticed one interesting woman—an elderly lady in black clothes. She had such a dignified look. Her skin was snow white against her black clothing. She looked out of the ordinary to me.
“But I said nothing to her. After we passed the Iraqi border, Fay and Ali fell asleep and I sat thinking about our lives, pondering what we were going to do next. The bus driver then played a tape of a very old Iraqi song, a sad melody about a woman who had lost her son. The elderly lady I had earlier noticed began to weep quietly, covering her face with parts of her head scarf. She was so anguished that just watching her brought tears to my eyes.
“I wanted to help her in some way, so I offered her a cup of water. She drank a bit, but her tears continued to flow. She finally asked the driver to turn off that song. I knew she must have lost a son. So I asked her what was wrong.
“We were no longer in Iraq and she felt safe, so she poured her heart out to me. She said that she once had a wonderful son named Sabah, a son who treasured his elderly mother. She added that he had been detained for two years in Al-Hakimiya, a prison known for its harsh brutality. Two weeks before her trip to Amman, she was informed by government authorities that her son was finally going to be released, and that she should come to collect him and take him home. She was further ordered to bring a music band with her so that she and her son could celebrate his homecoming. The woman was ecstatic. She hired a special band and appeared at the prison, as instructed, to bring her son Sabah home.
“Imagine her horror when, instead of seeing her son walk out of the prison, she is presented with a casket that houses her son’s body. After this, the woman grew so miserable in Iraq that she decided to live in Amman for a while.
