by Jean Sasson
“Then she spoke her son’s complete name: Sabah Al-Ani. I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. I knew that her son was Dr. Fadil’s best friend. I blurted without thinking, ‘Do you know anything of the fate of Dr. Fadil?’
“Um Sabah [the mother of Sabah] immediately grew cold and withdrawn. She questioned me, ‘Who are you?’
“I told her that Salwa Al-Husri was my mother and that she was a good friend of Dr. Fadil’s. I told her my family had been frantic over Dr. Fadil’s whereabouts since he disappeared. We had no knowledge of her son’s arrest.
“At my words, that mother broke down completely. She told me that Dr. Fadil had been killed along with her son.
“When I arrived in Amman, I rushed to tell my mother the story. Then she told me that she had just met with the former Egyptian ambassador to Iraq and that he had provided her with even more details of the story. He claimed he had credible information that Dr. Fadil had been framed, accused of spying and treason and all sorts of serious crimes. He added that someone high up in Saddam’s inner circle had wanted Dr. Fadil out of the way. This person had the connections to set up a Swiss bank account in Dr. Fadil’s name before telling Saddam that Dr. Fadil was working for the Germans as a spy and that the Germans had paid him a large sum of money. My mother and I knew it was all a lie, because we knew that Fadil Al-Barrak loved Iraq more than his own life. But Saddam was so paranoid that when he uncovered a Swiss bank account in Dr. Fadil’s name, nothing could save Dr. Fadil.
“But still, we knew very little about his arrest and imprisonment. Those details would come later.
“After I returned to Baghdad, I uncovered another piece of the puzzle. There is an art gallery behind our home in Baghdad. One day the doorbell rang and I answered it to find the owner of the gallery standing there. He asked me if I would sell him the two giant trees we have in our garden. I told him no, that my mother liked those trees very much. Then he asked if he could just come into the garden and look at the trees. Ali, still a small child, told me he recognized the man because his best friend lived next door to the gallery. So I invited the gallery owner in for a cup of coffee.
“We sat and conversed and stared at the trees. I discovered that the gallery owner had graduated from law school and become a member of the Mukhabarat. I quickly asked him if he knew what had happened to Dr. Fadil. Since he still hoped to convince me to let him have the trees, he opened up and confided that Dr. Fadil had been accused of some very serious charges, that he was accused of being a spy. He told me Dr. Fadil was detained for over a year in the Al-Hakimiya detention center, just as Sabah Al-Ani’s mother had told me on our bus ride.
“Samara, I was truly sad when that man told me that the favorite pastime of the detention center’s junior officers was to seek out Dr. Fadil so they could kick him or pull his hair or yank at his ears. He said that some of the men made it a daily ritual to spit in Dr. Fadil’s face.
“Hearing such stories burdened me with sadness. I sat in my home, remembering Dr. Fadil the human being, the man who always smiled and who loved to speak of Iraq’s greatness. I remembered Dr. Fadil the father, who beamed at his new baby daughter in his arms while she bit his fingers. I remembered him chiefly as a kind human being who loved his wife and children, and as a man who always helped me when I tried to right some injustice. Yet I was told later that Dr. Fadil boasted of killing thousands of Shiites from the Hizb Al-Dawa Al-Islamiya [the Islamic Convocation Party].
“Then in 1993, I received the final two pieces of the puzzle of Dr. Fadil’s fate.
“A man by the name of Usama Al-Tikriti came into my offices in Baghdad to inquire about my mother. I knew she had no plans to return to Iraq, but I didn’t tell him that. He said she was needed to give lessons in protocol at the National Security College. I assured him I would pass the message to my mother. As we chatted, our conversation led to Dr. Fadil, because this man had been one of Dr. Fadil’s aides. The man felt bad about what had happened: He told me that after Dr. Fadil was arrested, he was tortured until he confessed to all kinds of ridiculous crimes against Saddam. The confessions were taped. The torturers then made Dr. Fadil wear a dog collar and a leash, put him in the back of a pickup truck, and drove him to his tribe in Tikrit. His confession was read before the elders of the tribe, who all insisted that they would kill him on the spot if that is what the government wanted. But Saddam was not finished with Dr. Fadil. He was taken back to prison for more torture.
“Only later did I acquire the final bit of information about Dr. Fadil’s end. It was the summer of 1994 or 1995, and I was once again visiting my mother in Amman. She had invited a lot of friends for lunch, and I had volunteered to cook all of my specialties. I had prepared a number of salads and some cooked vegetables stuffed with rice and meat, along with a roast, pasta, eggplants with minced-meat tomato sauce and cheese, and some Biryani [hot spicy rice with nuts and chicken]. For dessert I baked a Black Forest cake and Mahalabi [milk pudding], and also served some fresh fruits and tea.
“Everyone ate their fill and was having a jolly time. But I noticed one man in particular because he was so quiet and withdrawn, with the saddest face I’d seen. His name was Dr. Mohammed. When the group finished drinking their tea, almost everyone went to the television room to watch the news. This one man, however, stayed behind to help me with the dishes.
“It was a scorching hot day, but Dr. Mohammed was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. When he reached to put away some dishes, his sleeve pulled back. I saw a deep red scar on his wrist.
“My curiosity was piqued, so I asked the doctor for his medical specialty. He told me he was a surgeon. One thing led to another and he told me his story.
“Dr. Mohammed’s father was a high-ranking army officer during the Iraqi-Iranian war. He was a fair man, and very popular with his soldiers. Because of his great popularity, many generals did not like him. He was accused of being too soft with his soldiers, too lenient in attacking Iranians. He was further accused of being a leader in a conspiracy against Saddam, which was a tired charge that people around Saddam always trotted out when they wanted to get rid of someone. But when Saddam heard the accusations, he turned on Dr. Mohammed’s father and ordered his arrest.
“Because Dr. Mohammed’s father, the head of the household, was under arrest, the Mukhabarat bugged Dr. Mohammed’s home, although he and his mother did not know this.
“Because of that security bug, more trouble came their way. It was 1988 and the war was still raging. Dr. Mohammed and his mother were watching television when they saw a news report about Saddam and his family. Saddam had been visiting his wife, Sajida, and his youngest daughter, Hala, at the palace in Tikrit when an Iranian Scud missile hit the palace. The palace was almost destroyed, but the family escaped with their lives. Saddam was obviously emotional, because he kissed his wife on the cheek, and as you know, Arabs don’t kiss their wives in public, no matter what has happened.
“This young doctor looked at his mother and casually commented that, ‘He should know better than to kiss his wife in public.’
“Two days later, the Mukhabarat arrived. The doctor and his mother were arrested. They were taken to Al-Hakimiya, one of the worst prisons in Iraq. The doctor was put into a tiny cell with his mother. They were left there for a month. They were given barely enough food to survive. Then the prison guards began to take Dr. Mohammed out every day for torture. He told me the torture he went through was unbearable. He was made to stand in water while they shot electricity into him. His fingernails were ripped out, and electric prods shocked the raw flesh under those torn nails. This happened every day. Dr. Mohammed told me that in his years of imprisonment, there was not a single day he wasn’t tortured. When they finished with their daily torture, the guards would throw Dr. Mohammed, barely alive, back into the cell with his mother. Her wails of anguish would wake him—and steel him to live—for her.
“Dr. Mohammed and his mother existed in this cruel regimen for several years.
“But
he claimed that one of the worst things was the waiting to be tortured. In that prison, the guards had devised an especially cruel habit. Each morning, they gathered all the prisoners they planned to torture that day. Then they would handcuff them all in a line to a long metal pipe attached horizontally to the corridor. Each prisoner could see nothing but the back of the prisoner in front of him. Sometimes they had to wait for eight or ten hours to be tortured.
“Then one day Dr. Mohammed snapped. He went hysterical. He had been handcuffed to the pipe for over eight hours, and he had had no water for that entire time. He screamed that he was a doctor and the son of an army commander. No one had the right to treat human beings in such a manner, he shouted. One of the torturers, a man by the name of Abu Faisal, began kicking Dr. Mohammed, screaming at him, ‘You are nothing but a piece of shit.’ Then the torturer ran forward to pull a prisoner off the line. He dragged the prisoner in front of this young doctor and shrieked, ‘You think you are too good to be tortured? Do you know who this is?’ Then the guard yanked up the head of the prisoner by the hair. This prisoner had been so badly tortured that he could barely open his eyes. The young doctor nearly fainted when he recognized Dr. Fadil Al-Barrak, a man he knew to hold some of the highest positions in the entire government.
“Dr. Mohammed knew then that no Iraqi was safe. After seeing Dr. Fadil’s face, he lost all hope. He told me he couldn’t take another day in that place. He decided to commit suicide. So after he was tortured and returned to his prison cell, he waited for his mother to go to sleep and he began to chew through his flesh, into the veins on his right wrist, the wrist that bore the scar that I saw beneath his shirt that day in Amman.
“Dr. Mohammed was serious about wanting to die. The following day when the guards came to take him to torture, they discovered him near death. They rushed him to the prison hospital and saved his life. They then held his trial, at which he was given a prison sentence of twenty years for talking badly about Saddam. His mother received the same sentence for hearing her son talk badly about Saddam. Thankfully, Dr. Mohammed’s mother was soon pardoned.
“By this time, Dr. Mohammed’s father had been executed. One of his father’s friends, a high-ranking officer in the Iraqi army, General Al-Dulaimi, went to visit Dr. Mohammed’s mother to convey his condolences. When General Al-Dulaimi discovered that her son was in prison, he told her of a certain jail warden who took bribes through a well-known gypsy dancer named Dollarat [meaning dollars]. This contact was immediately established and the warden accepted five thousand dollars to arrange Dr. Mohammed’s escape from prison.
“Dr. Mohammed was smuggled out of the prison in one of the sacks normally used to transport dead bodies. With the help of smugglers, he crossed the border into Syria, where he met with some free Iraqi officers who had defected. Those men got him to Amman.
“So it was from this Dr. Mohammed that I received the third confirmation of Dr. Fadil’s arrest, imprisonment and torture. I don’t know the exact date of his execution. All I know is that he died a horrible death. And, to add insult to injury, Dr. Fadil’s beautiful wife was forced to marry Saddam’s half-brother, Barzan. This was the man who was married to Sajida’s sister. But after Sajida’s sister died of cancer in 1998, the first thing Barzan did was take the beautiful Jinan for his very own.”
Samara opened her mouth to respond but the cell door flew open at that moment.
Mayada heard a thump and peered around Samara’s shoulder.
Sara lay crumpled face down on the floor. Despite their own recent torture and injuries, Samara and Mayada both moved quickly and gathered with the other shadow women at Sara’s side.
Iman carefully turned Sara over. Smoke billowed from Sara’s mouth.
Mayada gasped and drew back. “What is that smoke?”
“Did they set her insides afire?” Muna cried out.
Samara shook her head. “I think they have killed the poor girl this time.”
“What shall we do?” Dr. Sabah asked Samara.
Samara examined Sara’s body. Her dress was ripped down the front. “Look, they put the current to her from many places.”
Mayada looked, as well. The telltale indentations marked Sara’s ears, lips, the nipples of each of her beasts, her wrists and her ankles. Remembering how jolting and painful it had been to receive current only to her toe and her ear, Mayada shook her head in disbelief. She doubted that Sara would survive the pain of her interrogation.
Samara gave brisk orders. “She’s smoking from her insides. We’ve got to get water on her. Let’s get her to the shower to cool her down.”
Carefully following Samara’s instructions, Dr. Sabah, Muna and Aliya lifted Sara from the floor and carried her under the single shower head, located next to the toilet.
Samara told them, “Use only the cool water.”
With Sara held upright, Dr. Sabah sprayed her face and body with the cool water. Out of modesty, they kept her torn dress on her body, although it was parted and open in the front.
Under the spray, Sara began to gain consciousness. She opened her eyes and looked into the faces surrounding her, slowly realizing where she was and what had happened. When the full force of her memories hit her, she sobbed and called for her mother and father in the most pitiful manner, “Youma! [Mama] Yabba! [Father] Come and see what has happened to your daughter! Come and see what has happened to your daughter! Youma! Yabba!” Sara took her right hand and began striking herself in the face and on the body. “Youma! Yabba! Help your poor daughter! Save your poor daughter!” She sobbed so hard that she doubled over. “Youma, Youma, help me! Help me!”
Not knowing what else to do, Mayada began to recite verses of the Fatiha, comforting verses from the Quran, in hopes of calming the dear girl. “In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All the praises and thanks be to Allah, the Lord of Alamin, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful. The Only Owner of the Day of Recompense. You we worship and you we ask for help on each and everything. Guide us to the straight way. The way of those on whom you have bestowed your grace, not of those who earned your anger, nor of those who went astray.”
Sara continued to cry, calling for her mother and her father, although he had been dead for many years.
Every shadow woman wept with Sara, a young innocent woman, unmarried, terrified and without the protection of her parents. Together, their sobs grew into a loud roar of women’s wails that would have struck pity into even the hardest heart.
Samara gained control of her emotions first and told the shadow women to take Sara to her bed. There she was gently covered with a light blanket. The shadow women then took turns dabbing Sara’s face and head with a damp cloth.
“Truly, this is the saddest story in the world,” Samara confessed to Mayada.
Sara had talked little since the day of Mayada’s arrest. So Mayada knew very few details of her background or the reason for her detention. “What brought this young woman here?” Mayada asked in a quiet voice.
“Sara is from a middle-class family. Although her father died when she was only eight, her mother was educated, an agricultural engineer. The mother dedicated her entire life to Sara and to Sara’s younger brothers, Hadi and Adel. The mother refused to remarry, so the family was limited to only the mother and her three children.”
Since her divorce and her mother’s move from Iraq, Mayada’s family was restricted to her two children and herself. She and Fay and Ali often jokingly called themselves “The Three Musketeers.” So she understood completely the closeness of that mother and her children.
Samara told Mayada more of Sara’s story. “Sara’s mother sacrificed everything. She had big dreams for her children. She retained a plot of land left to her by her husband, telling the children that after their educations were complete, she would sell it and set them each up in business.
“Then disaster struck. Last year, Sara was in her final year of pharmacology school, dreaming of opening her own pharmacy. Her two brothers had beg
un medical school. Then one day Hadi ran home without his brother. He tearfully reported that members of the secret police had come to the medical college and taken his brother Adel away. When Hadi saw what was happening to Adel, he rushed to follow his brother. The secret police told Hadi that they were taking Adel for questioning, but that he would return within a couple of hours. Adel was the trusting brother, the one who believed everything, so he told Hadi not to worry. Adel assured his brother that he would likely be home for supper. Hadi was more cynical about the world, however, and didn’t believe the men. Hadi began to yell in the school hallway, shouting that they couldn’t take his brother. One of the secret service men grabbed Hadi’s wrist and almost broke it, hissing at him cruelly, ‘You mind your own business, you son of a prostitute, or you’ll get it right here.’
“The next few days were a nightmare, with the family looking in every prison for Adel. They never found him.
“Then late one night the following week, the secret police came to their home. It was after midnight and everyone was in bed. Hadi ran to the door, hoping it was Adel, finally back home safe. But no, their late-night visitors were those same three secret service men who had taken Adel away. They pushed Hadi aside and stomped into the house, ordering Sara and her mother to stay in the kitchen. They then bullied Hadi into his room. When Sara and her mother began to hear loud knocking and banging, they ran out to see the three men running out the front door.
“Sara and her mother ran to Hadi’s room. The room had been completely torn to pieces, as though someone were looking for something in particular. Hadi had been thrown to the floor between the bed and the wall. He had been murdered.
“Of course, Sara and her mother were beyond grief. Two boys gone in a single week.
“After the traditional seven days of mourning, Sara was still frightened to leave her home and return to college, though her mother insisted. The poor girl was fraught with nightmares that her brother’s murderers were looking for her.
