by Salar Abdoh
“No. It took awhile. First the divorce. Then the man’s former wife creating some kind of trouble. Something about custody and things of that nature. All the little things that can make life unbearable. But in the end, it all worked out. I put my life in order. I quit the monotonous reporting job. I did my research about where to go. And, well, here I am tonight speaking to you.”
I wanted to ask him about his child. For a second I even resented him for his child’s sake. But it wasn’t my business to push him. Plenty of the men who came here to die were fathers and even grandfathers. I had known more than my share of them. I’d just never thought I would see a man so far from our world wanting the same exact thing. Never considered it a possibility. Abu Faranci may not have been typical in that way, but he wasn’t an impossible character either. His road to the Eye of the Horse was just a bit different than the other men out here. And I understood that anything I said to him now would be preposterous. Therefore I kept my mouth shut. And together we headed out into the evening.
12
The next morning we went south. A caravan of usual suspects, plus Abu Faranci, heading first to Tal Abta. There was a gas station there where Cleric J had business. After which I assumed I’d be passed on to another Hashd convoy heading to the capital on my way to link up with Miss Homa and Proust. The countryside was a flat nothingness. Occasionally on parallel dirt roads a dot moved and we didn’t know if the thing was ours or not. Nothing was taken for granted in victory. Because victory had been here before. And it always managed to slip away. Like fish. Or happiness.
We drove in three trucks, hardened men who breathed retribution and the diesel stench of war and loved it. I sat in front next to the cleric, taking in the murderous smoke of cigarettes that only he and I seemed to not care for, the vehicles putrid with a staleness that is indescribable. If I survived, I would live out my life remembering hours such as this, when breathing seemed pointless. My eyes tried, and failed, to catch the distances where a drone, a plane, a gunship, an enemy suicide truck, a friendly, or really any motherfucker at all who could spook you out of your melancholy might suddenly emerge. But my eyes were lemons, God-given failures that mostly just guessed at the things men spoke of when they pointed into distances and felt for the placement of their weapons.
Names. Everywhere there were names, so many combatants and hangers-on and lost souls treading the dying misfortune of Mesopotamia that one got lost in the maze of titles and martyrs and those waiting in line. I had developed a fear of returning to the places where war was at a respite or nonexistent. Though dangerous, Tal Abta was still a few kilometers too far away from the action; I would rather go back to our mokeb and wait for the enemy to strike again. It would have been suicide on their part to hit us once more, but suicide was their stuff of life. And somehow I held the unreasonable faith that if only I stayed at the mokeb long enough, all the dead would return as if they were ghosts on a catwalk.
* * *
In the designated gas station just south of Tal Abta, a row of men sat looking like they had just been refused their mothers’ milk.
Cleric J said to me in Persian, “Saleh, today is another day of justice.”
I faltered. “But I have that ride to catch to Baghdad.” I reminded Cleric J that the roads were clogged with refugees. I had been assuming that my new ride would be another Hashd truck with its flags, bullhorns, and general mania. But now I was told I’d be going with a “civilian” vehicle. This meant long waits at roadblocks where any car ahead or behind might turn out to be a final call.
“Turn on your camera,” Cleric J commanded. “Record everything.”
Maysam and Haji Yusuf and the rest of the men fanned out through the gas station. When a car tried to enter one of the platforms, they directed the driver away. I sat in a corner and trained the lens on the men who had been sitting there before we arrived.
Cleric J went into a lengthy monologue about the nature of justice. After a while I lost the thread of the words, as the convoluted Arabic became enmeshed with my own thoughts of home and my mother and Atia and more martyrdom.
Cleric J stopped talking. There was a long, awkward pause, and then one of the men began his turn. He was a big man, maybe as big as Maysam, and spoke with the deference and I-eat-dirt voice of someone who has known shame. It became apparent he was the oldest brother among the men sitting with him. He spoke of the blight in their family, the disgrace, and that whatever Cleric J decided, his word would be law.
“Your brother took ten thousand American dollars to buy sheep for a brother of ours in Samarra. Instead, well, you already know what happened. In times like this, when we all should be as one, is this the correct path or the path of the devil?”
The man’s voice shook. “I wish I could kill him myself.”
“No need for that. When does he get out of prison?”
The man looked at his brothers. He knew. But didn’t have the heart to say. And his saying that he wished he could kill the jailed sibling with his own hands was not true. The pain in his face was shame multiplied, threatening a heart attack. I had stopped wearing diapers after Syria, but now I wished I had one. The camera shook in my hand, the cell vibrated (Atia from Tehran). And now I glimpsed the man who had confided in me last night, Abu Faranci, standing at the edge of the road from the gas station looking south. Again I wondered if he at least missed his son, if not his marriage.
Cleric J, seeming to be a whole other man than what I’d known these months and years in and out of combat, spoke in a low voice and gazed at the floor somewhere between us and the four brothers. “I will tell you when he will be out. He will be out tomorrow morning. At eleven, to be precise.”
None of the brothers spoke.
“Now then—”
The man interrupted him with a loud clearing of his throat. “We disown him. We haven’t a brother. He is yours to do as you deem just.”
“I know I speak with honorable men here,” Cleric J offered, “or we would not be talking.”
There was a loud murmur and one of the brothers began uttering a salawat which the others and Cleric J and even I immediately picked up.
We grew silent again. The air remained heavy. We had done the salawat and dutifully remembered the Prophet and the family of the Prophet and somehow that absolved us of . . . what? I didn’t know. My mind was wandering some more. Now I thought of Atia and Mafiha having a child together someday. It did not bother me, this image, not as much as I thought it would. Maybe there was truth to the words from Abu Faranci—getting to the point where even your wife’s or husband’s faithlessness becomes a nonissue. I felt for him, for Abu Faranci. As I felt for the men in front of us about to give up their thieving brother to the take-no-prisoners justice of Mesopotamia.
“We are indeed honorable men,” big brother said forcefully, willing himself to believe his own sacrifice and the sacrifice of his tribe.
Cleric J cleared his throat. “He must die. You understand?”
All said it together: “Understood.”
“But, brothers, countrymen—yours is a tribe known for its courage and its respectability. It is not our intention to bring disrespect or shame to your history. This is not the way of the men of Iraq.”
The more he spoke, the more his Arabic fell into a classical baroque that I could not understand. I felt dislodged, as if standing on air.
Big brother said, “The men of Iraq must stand together, after all that we have been through.”
“Then you understand that what your brother has done, his betrayal, calls for it.”
“Death!”
“Death.”
“So be it.”
“But, my fellow Arabs, if tomorrow or the next day someone in the tribe should waken and feel that retribution should be meted to those who meted retribution, then—”
Big brother cut in: “No such thing will take place.”
“The human heart is willful and unpredictable.”
“Our tribe is at your
command. What do you wish from us?”
“Your word, on your honor and the honor of your tribe and your ancestors, that the matter will end upon the justice handed to your brother and that there will not be an extension of this feud.”
“Allah! There is no feud. This will end with the end of a man who is no longer our brother. He is disowned for his infamy.”
The stillness was the quiet of the sater on nights when you imagined you could feel the hot breath of the enemy upon you. All these months I had thought Cleric J was doing me favors. And he was. But favors have a price. I had been brought here for a reason.
The men stood up. Kisses on the right side of the cheek and shoulders followed. They walked quietly to their trucks and drove away. The gas station was ours.
Cleric J turned to me. “Be that as it may, Saleh, I cannot allow any of my men to do the deed. This tribe is strong. Some young hothead might take upon himself the thought of revenge. Then there will be no ending to this blood on blood. You understand, yes?”
“What are you telling me, sayedina?”
“You have a chance to redeem yourself for not exacting justice on the North African. You do recall the North African, yes?”
“Allah is my witness, yes.”
“You are not from here. If you were to carry out the punishment, it would end with you. It would finish here tomorrow when the man gets out of prison.”
I put the camera down. “Tehran is not Sweden, sayedina.”
“Explain!”
“They can get to me easily over in Tehran.”
“What then? What do you suggest I do? Have one of my own men draw blood?”
As soon as he’d said it, his attention went to the window and outside. I followed that gaze until both of us were staring at Abu Faranci.
Cleric J said, “That man came here to die. He told me so.”
I nodded. “Is that why you brought him along today?”
“I was not sure you would take the call, Saleh.”
“Why were you not sure?”
“You are not the kind of man who takes the call. You only want to be near the men who do. There is a difference. Your commitment is to something other than commitment itself.”
It was a mild affront and I accepted it because it was true. I looked again at Abu Faranci, Claude. What was he staring at so intently on the horizon? There was nothing out there. Emptiness. Death. Dirt. Sand. Wind. Rolling scrub and bullet-ridden concrete walls.
“But is this justice, sayedina?”
“It is not injustice.”
He walked past me. It was as if Abu Faranci had expected him to come his way at this exact moment. Men stood rooted to their designated spots, weapons in hand, looking on; it was not unlike watching a gangster film unfolding in the last place on earth. From where I stood all I could see with my half-good eye was Cleric J’s bobbing turban and Abu Faranci’s stone face. Then Abu Faranci reached to take Cleric J’s hand, then pulled him forward and pecked him on the right cheek twice.
* * *
Jasim asked, “And what did Abu Faranci say to that?”
Jasim and I sat across the table at a new café that had cropped up by Ridha Alwan’s in the Karada District. Before leaving for Baghdad, my last words to Abu Faranci had been to tell him he didn’t have to do what was being asked of him.
“Abu Faranci said I was wrong. He said he had to do it.”
Jasim grimaced. “And you said . . . ?”
“I just repeated to him that he hadn’t signed up for this sort of thing.” Oh, but you are wrong, Saleh, I did sign up. For all of it. There was never a choice.
On the road, Jasim stayed silent for too long. It was unlike him to be so subdued. He meant to put me on one of the buses near Baghdad Airport heading for Najaf. We drove and after a while the sea of people walking, sitting, eating, crying, beating their chests, mourning and celebrating and loving Imam Husayn, got to be overwhelming. They were all heading in the same general direction so they could get on with their walking pilgrimage. There is something beautiful and unlikely about the “walking pilgrim,” the kind who just walks and walks—the entirety of her purpose to prove to herself, through pain, a love of the martyr. I had come across walkers as far north as Samarra who were lost and searching for the Askari shrine while there were still reports of enemy snipers two kilometers away. A busload of Iranians had gone up in smoke in a suicide attack just the other day on the way to Karbala and still they came. They came no matter what. They walked like there was no tomorrow. And truly, that was the point; there may not be a tomorrow because our Messiah, the Mahdi, might suddenly appear after all. One had to do the walking while there was still time. I’d been to two previous Arbaeen pilgrimages, but all of a sudden this sea of humanity—which would only become a thousand times worse as I got closer to Karbala—appeared impossible to wade through.
“I can’t do it, my friend.”
“You cannot do what?”
“Go to Karbala. I’m sure Imam Husayn understands. I cannot face these crowds. I’m no good. I have been no good for a while now.”
I reached over and held Jasim’s wrist as it went to shift gears.
He looked at me. “Are you all right, Saleh?”
“I’m not. I’ve been seeing things lately. I was in the metro in Tehran and I imagined the train pulling into the station. It was a tank. I was sure of it. I had to run out of that station. I haven’t been able to go inside the metro ever since. Have you ever stared down at the barrel of an American tank, my brother?”
“Saleh, you know I have. More than once.”
As if on cue, the phone buzzed and there was another call from Atia.
When I still didn’t answer, she wrote: You must call me. Much news.
Bad? I replied.
She did not answer. I turned the phone off. Thought about it, then turned it back on.
When I looked up, Jasim had pulled over. An old woman, hands outstretched, came to his side of the car and he gave her a couple of bills. Crowds were milling in the street. It was impossible to drive. A group of wailing Iranians walked a few meters ahead of us singing about martyrdom completely off-key. The lead singer was a burly Azeri Turk who slid between Turkish and Persian with songs about the valor of Imam Husayn and his companions. A boy ran to the car from a makeshift mokeb and handed me a sherbet. All the loving of the world was in that little boy’s face. He’d been taught that during Arbaeen you had to be generous and serve. I took the sherbet and turned to see that Jasim was crying.
“Why are you crying, my brother?”
“This land. It kills me.”
“I know. Me too. All of it. The bad and the good. The evil and the saintly. It’s all killing. Killing and killing!”
“That woman . . . that woman you left with me, Saleh.”
“Zahra,” I said, and then reluctantly added, “the Beheader?”
“Her, yes. I am sorry I was not more careful. You put her in my care and she’s dead for no good reason.”
“Many people are dead, my friend. We can’t let it destroy us.”
“Some dead hurt more than others. She was no one to me. But she was my charge. She had eaten of my salt and rested her head in my home. She was my guest. Do you know what it means to lose a guest?”
I was feeling awful enough, but Jasim was taking us to a far more existential place. I had a feeling we’d both have a mental breakdown right here if we were not careful.
“You have a beautiful family, my friend. You’ve lived through hell. Everyone in this country has. You don’t need to make yourself more crazy with things that can’t be helped. Zahra the Beheader probably wanted the end she received.”
“Do not be cruel like that, Saleh. You know no one wants that.”
“I’m just trying to let you know it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was. Many things are my fault, Saleh. Many things. I have endangered my family. I am ashamed.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve done nothing but
provide for a whole tribe, not just your wife and children, your whole big extended clan. I’m witness. I know. Who has been bringing in the bread if not Jasim? Everyone knows this.”
“That is the trouble. Everyone knows.”
“Everyone knows what?”
“That I worked for the Americans for a while.”
“So? It’s not a crime. A lot of people did.”
“Yes, and they’re dead.”
“Those were informants. It’s different.”
“They were not. They were men like me. Translators. Fixers. You know my type. Why do you think I’ve had so little competition these past years? My competition died!”
“Stop this foolishness, Jasim. No one’s going to kill you. Those days of revenge are long over. The Americans are mostly gone.”
“You think so?” He snorted. “A time of peace gives people more unoccupied hours. They have more time to think and make themselves crazy.”
“Well, we don’t quite have peace yet. So you are all right.”
He smacked himself hard on top of the head. “I’m a fool. I should have never worked for the Americans. I should not have translated even one sentence for them.”
I was getting irritated and concerned. I’d never seen Jasim like this. “So what do you want to do?”
“I must leave this country.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Saleh!” he pleaded. “Don’t you understand? They have put the word out. I’ve been threatened, marked. It happened last week. You already know what that means.”
The phone vibrated. It was Proust. I patted Jasim’s shoulder as he cried quietly to himself. Somewhere in the past minute, with him falling apart like that, I realized I had to pull myself together. Between my own troubles and now Jasim’s, I was even more certain I could not face the crowds down south. There were easily tens of thousands of mokebs like the one I had been serving at down there. But they were not resting stations for war; they were for peace and love. The difference was in size. I was comfortable up there in the north where there was war, my world circumscribed, my schedule neatly fitting into the dawn-to-dusk timetable of soldiers and killers. I knew who the enemy was and generally where he was. And I knew there was no salvation for any of us. It was just the fighting and, yes, the revenge, and the occasional dying. I could handle that. This, the goodness of people, their hopes, their prayers and perambulations, their carrying themselves by the boots of their souls to get to the shrines of Imam Husayn and his brother Abu al-Fazl in Karbala to pray and revitalize their faith, this I could not handle. It was beyond me. It was too big in scope.
