by Sinan Antoon
you can feel her spirit is still there.”
I went to the window and drew open the curtains as I had done exactly seven years earlier. A gray dove perching on the far side of the brick ledge flew off toward the neighbors’ house. The sun poured in, blanketing part of the floor and two-thirds of the bed, which was covered by a white sheet that Maha had placed over the eiderdown. I took three steps toward the window closest to the bed and drew open those curtains too. Morning enveloped the room.
I turned around and stood by the bed, looking at the picture of the Virgin Mary above it. To the left was a photo of my brother, Jamil, who fled Iraq in 1969 after his friend was condemned to death on charges of being a Freemason. Even though Jamil wasn’t a Mason, his Lebanese wife feared he would suffer a similar fate and they moved to Lebanon. They had three children, and there were five grandchildren so far. They lived in an area of Beirut called Sinn al-Fil to start with but after their house was destroyed during the civil war, they moved to Bikfaya, close to her parents. He was still in his prime in that photograph. Even
though she denied it, Hinna loved him best of all, more than me and all our other siblings. The rest of the room was given over to icons and statuettes and other small votive figurines of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, which Hinna collected. Some of them she had brought back from her last trip with the church to Rome in 1989, after the ban on foreign travel was lifted. I would sometimes needle her and say that her room was a miniature church, but for the lack of incense and an altar.
“With you officiating, no doubt!” she’d retort.
She even had a replica of the small glass filled with holy water that worshippers dipped their forefinger in before crossing themselves and stepping inside the church. The glass stood on a little shelf under the light switch to the right of the door.
About half a meter below sat the old Singer treadle sewing machine that she labored on as a seamstress for years until the rest of us began to earn our livings. She’d insisted on keeping it even though it no longer worked and she hadn’t used it in decades. The machine’s table was another space on which to place small statuary. A wooden wardrobe stood in the corner closest to the Singer and, alongside it, was a dressing table with a large mirror. Except for the medium-sized hairbrush with a tuft of white hair still in it, and a few combs, there was nothing relating to Hinna’s physical appearance on the dressing table. It was entirely given over to her spiritual pursuits—a stack of prayer books, which accompanied her throughout her life, and an assortment of small pictures distributed by the church. The size of a greeting card, or slightly smaller, some depicted the Virgin Mary alone, while others were of the Madonna and child, St.
Joseph, Mary Magdalene, or other saints. There were also photos marking her loved ones’ religious milestones—the christenings and First Communions of nephews and nieces—which she placed among the pictures of saints for their protective powers.
A small wooden coffer in the middle of the dressing table, which I knew she had bought in Italy, contained an assortment of rosaries, and her ‘live’ gold cross. She wore it around her neck, convinced that it contained a miniscule fragment of the original cross. To the left of the dressing table was a wall covered with photographs of religious potentates: one of a smiling Pope John Paul II in his white papal gowns; below that, a picture of Patriarch Boulos Sheikho II, the head of the world Chaldean congregation, whom she had placed beneath the Roman pontiff even though they were ranked equally; and further down, was Sheikho’s successor, whose photo was inscribed with the words, “His Eminence Raphael I Bidawid, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon.”
Underneath the pictures of the pope and the patriarchs, there was a smaller photo of her in a heavy black coat standing in front of the Holy See. She was forever recalling her pilgrimage to the Vatican. She liked Rome very much but always bemoaned the fate of Jerusalem, which she had visited in 1966. Whenever the subject of
Palestine came up in discussions or on television, she would say,
“And when will Jerusalem be ours again so we can go to the Holy Sepulcher?”
In addition to countless mementos and pictures, Hinna had come back from Jerusalem bearing two crucifixes. A small one that was tattooed on the underside of her forearm, along with 1966, the year she made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land. That little crucifix went with her to the grave where she rests. The larger one, made of olive wood, still hung on the wall facing the bed, alone and unadorned.
I opened a window to let in some fresh air and decided to leave it open in spite of the cold. As I left the room and closed the door, it occurred to me that Hinna’s spirit might be pining for her room and come by for a visit. I would close the window at dusk before heading to the church.
5
As I made the tea, I remembered the heat of my argument with Maha. While she had clearly crossed the limits of mutual respect by the tone she used in her aggressive disparagement of my views, I didn’t want her to feel anything but ease at being here, especially as these were the last few months before she and her husband were due to leave the country. Despite my love of solitude and the reclusiveness to which I was accustomed, their presence had restored vitality and a sweet feeling to the vast, stiff-jointed house. Maha and her husband had taken on so many of the burdens associated with running a household: Luay was always ready to offer a helping hand and Maha’s cooking was truly excellent. It wasn’t comparable to Hinna’s of course, but I relished everything she made—I had grown so tired of sandwiches and salads and my limited repertoire of simple dishes.
I sat at the kitchen table sipping my tea and thinking about the best way to ease the tense atmosphere and the bitter taste left by the previous night’s argument. I chuckled to myself when it hit me that even from the gloom of their prisons, the Baathists could still cause trouble. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about the fact that this was the second time that Tariq Aziz had provoked family friction. The first time was in the late 1980s when Hinna and I had had a similarly heated argument after she’d told me that she’d seen Aziz’s wife crying in church on Sunday.
She attended regularly, my sister said, and she cried throughout the service. It was no doubt because she knew what her husband was up to, I had retorted. To which she objected virulently by saying that he was a God-fearing man who had nothing to do with what the rest of the government was up to. He made generous donations to the church, and had footed the bill for the magnificent new chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. I could see for myself, she chided, if only I would deign to set foot in church. His contributions did not absolve him of responsibility for his history and his actions, I told her, adding that they
were paltry in light of the brutal treatment being meted out.
And, anyhow, why didn’t he go to church to pray and do penance for his sins, I asked? I told her that this was a confirmation of the widely circulated rumor that he had converted to Islam, along with Michel Aflaq.
“Oh, really? So why don’t you go to church and atone for your sins?” she protested indignantly.
“Because I don’t have any. At least not ones that cause people any harm.”
“What are you saying? That simply not harming people is enough?
What about your religious duties?”
I went to church only on special occasions and on holidays. Over the decades, Hinna had given up hope that I would do as enjoined by the Ten Commandments and observe the day of the Lord, and she took advantage of every opportunity to remind me that I was a renegade. I couldn’t plead or convince her, albeit in jest, that she was my churchgoing proxy.
“You’re praying enough for seven people by going to church every day,” I would tell her, “so why not pick another six on whose behalf you could consider yourself to have prayed?”
Whenever I spoke like that, she’d look at me sideways, shake her head, and just clam up.
And now, two decades on, Tariq Aziz, along with several others, had been sentenced to death for his role in execut
ions, purges, and forced displacements. This had happened five days earlier and the airwaves and newspaper columns were full of loud and fierce arguments about the merits of the judgment, given the man’s frailty and advanced age and his self-proclaimed innocence. Aziz denied any involvement in the massacres of Kurds and Shiites, and claimed he was a diplomat whose sole responsibility was the conduct of foreign affairs.
The first time I had an argument with Maha and Luay, it hadn’t led to a confrontation. She had derided the trial as a mockery of justice—instead of busying themselves with sentencing innocent old men to death, she’d said, they should be giving redress to ordinary people for all the problems they faced. Luay had asked for my opinion, and I’d said that besides the procedural flaws, the courts involved were unconstitutional since they had been set up under the occupation; it would’ve been better to wait and not act so hastily, I added. Even Saddam shouldn’t have been executed, but been left to rot in prison for the rest of his days, I told him. And Tariq Aziz was complicit insofar as he knew what the Baathists were up to.
“But aren’t they sentencing him to death because he’s a Christian?” Maha had shot back, her tone petulant.
“My dear, it’s more complicated than who’s a Christian and who’s a Muslim. The issue is a political one, it has to do with powerful interests, not with religion,” I’d replied. Maha hadn’t said anything more, but she’d clearly indicated that she didn’t like what she’d heard when she slapped her own cheek and covered her mouth as if to suggest that she’d had to stop herself from speaking.
Yesterday, however, she had shown no such restraint. We had revisited the subject after hearing a new development in the story, as we were having tea. The announcer had said that President Jalal Talabani had issued a statement announcing that he would not approve the death sentence and that he respected Tariq Aziz as a Christian. The Vatican had stepped in and was trying to intervene to have him released, added the announcer.
“But isn’t it the exact same Dawa Party people who carried out the grenade attack and tried to assassinate him in Mustansiriya in 1979 that are trying to kill him now because he’s a Christian?” Maha responded, shaking her head. “Aren’t they terrorists too? Is it him or them who should be condemned to death? Under the pretext of the rule of law, these terrorists can now sit in judgment of a public figure of his stature!”
“What rule of law, my dear? They’re of a piece, all of them, just criminals and thieves! The ‘rule of straw’ is what they should call it, not the rule of law.”
Then we heard the voice of Tariq Aziz’s son in conversation with the announcer over the phone. He said the death sentence was politically motivated and he called for the intervention of the international community to free his father who was innocent and in poor health.
Listening to him, I remembered Aziz’s haughty demeanor during press conferences when he’d blow on a Cuban cigar in emulation of his master and leader; I recalled too how he had once threatened a British journalist with death. However, I didn’t say anything in order to keep the peace; it was enough, I thought, that the man would spend the rest of his days in jail. But Maha had escalated the argument.
“If he were one of them they’d never have handed down a death sentence, but the blood of Christians is cheap!” she exclaimed.
I answered her calmly, “And what about those that were condemned to death before him? Weren’t they Muslims? He’s the first, and the only, Christian to get a death sentence.”
“Don’t you see how they’re killing us everywhere, without due process, or a word of protest? Churches are being torched, we’re being killed right, left, and center, and we are slowly but surely being driven out.”
“Maha dear, it’s not only churches. Far more mosques have been burned to the ground, and Muslims have perished in the tens of thousands.”
“May they go on killing each other ‘til kingdom come, and leave us alone! What have we done to them?”
“It’s not a matter of guilt or innocence. It’s about the state, don’t you see? Minorities can only be protected if there is a strong state. We have neither parties nor militias—or much else to show for ourselves.”
Maha was obdurate. Or maybe she just didn’t want to abandon the argument on my terms.
“It’s not as if it’s just here, in Iraq. Look at Egypt. There’s a strong state there—and they’re still killing Christians and burning down churches! They’re going to keep at it until we all leave, just like they did with the Jews. Why did the Jews leave?
Who made them go?”
“My dear, what happened with the Jews is entirely different, and it’s complicated. Israel had come into the picture, and the Jews were stripped of their nationality with the collusion of the old regime. After that, it just became one huge tangled mess.”
Luay had said nothing until now, but not because he had no feelings about the subject.
“It’s not just us, Uncle,” he said, breaking his silence. “What about the poor Mandaeans and the Yazidis up north? Look at what happened to them. The Muslims aren’t going to leave anyone be.”
“It’s a religion which was spread by the sword. What do you expect?” Maha chimed in.
“And can you tell me how the Christian faith was spread?” I asked her. “By making nice and whispering sweet nothings into people’s ears? If it weren’t for that Roman emperor—his name escapes me right now—who converted, Christianity wouldn’t have spread at the pace it did. Wasn’t it the practice of conquering Christian armies to behead people for no other reason than their refusal to convert? And how about the Crusades and the conquest of the Americas which, with the blessing of the church, involved the slaughter of an estimated twenty million people?”
“Well, I don’t know about those details, Uncle. And that was all in the past. Our problems are right now, in the present. The Muslims want to get rid of us, quite simply, so that the country can become theirs alone.”
“What do you mean ‘theirs’? The country belongs to everybody, and if it’s anyone’s, it’s ours, before anyone else, all the way back to the time of the Chaldeans and from there on down to the
Abbasids, the Ottomans, and the creation of the modern nation-state. The evidence is there, in all of our museums. We’ve been here from the very beginning. If it isn’t our country, I’d like to know whose it is!”
She sighed, and sounded pained as she answered. “I guess that’s where we’ll end up, in museums. It may have been our country once, Uncle, a long time ago, in the past. But that’s all over.
Today, we are all infidels and second-class citizens.”
“Infidels, shminfidels! As soon as things settle down, life will be good again. It’s just a matter of time. Things are far better now than they were three or four years ago.”
“How so, Uncle? What is it that’s going to be better after all the killing, the slaughter, and displacement?”
“Maha, my dear, many countries and peoples have gone through far worse, and then things have settled down. That’s the cycle of history.”
“Please, Uncle, what are you saying? Go outside and see how they’re treating people in the streets, and at their jobs, and then come and tell me that it’ll all go back to normal. It won’t!”
She was red-hot with anger and waved her right hand in the air for emphasis, and although her husband placed his left hand on her arm to get her to tone it down, she carried right on.
“I’d like to know when you think our situation was perfectly stable. When was it that there was no discrimination or racism?”
“With all due respect, dear you’re still very young. What’s going on now is out of the ordinary. In the old days . . . .”
“Uncle, I know nothing about the old days! Nor do I want to know.
All I want is to live with dignity and be treated like a human being!”
“Yes, that is your right. But history . . . .”
She interrupted me again. “What history, for God’s sake! You’re just
living in the past, Uncle!”
6
She was still in bed and hadn’t got up yet to get ready for school. I remembered how it was the Gulf War in 1991 that had brought us together, Maha and me. And now, after another war, or rather the devastation and calamities resulting from it, she and her husband had ended up living under the same roof with me. I would never have imagined such a thing. But, honestly, could anyone have ever imagined any of the things that have occurred in recent decades?
During the bombing of Baghdad in 1991, I had wanted to stay in the house, but Hinna was so terrified by the sound of the bombs that she insisted we should go to the shelter where we had relatives. The air force command base was close to where we lived and as she kept repeating to people afterward, the shelling was
“right over our heads.” When we had argued about going to the shelter, I’d said to her, “If we are meant to die, does it make any difference where we are?”
“In that case,” she replied, “let’s go and die with our family, then. Surely, that’s better than dying alone?”
“What do you think this is? A party?” I told her. “I want to die in my own home.”
It wasn’t a proper bomb shelter but the basement of the Amira supermarket, which belonged to a relative in the district of Karrada Kharij. Still, it was large enough to accommodate the owner’s relatives as well as a few other families who lived close by and had decided to stay put. Many people had left the capital for the provinces a day or two earlier to escape the bombing that had just begun.
The first time I’d met Maha as a little girl, she was sobbing, just as she had been last night, and I had been quite upset by the sight of the fat tears streaming down her face. I’d seen her before that of course, at various family gatherings, but my first clear memory of her was that gloomy night in the shelter when she sobbed in her mother’s lap as American jet fighters pounded Baghdad so hard that the earth shook. Other than her mother, Nawal, I’d been the only person who’d been able calm her.
