by Sinan Antoon
Yes, I would apologize to him, even though I’m convinced that he’s living in the past. Despite his forays into the present, he is still cloistered in his own circumscribed world. Even though he read widely and follows the news closely, he has no idea what I go through every day. Of course, he goes out to buy the papers and groceries, and to visit his friend once in a while, although his friend also lives in his own world, just like him. He spends most of his time at home, listening to old songs and reading, or sitting outside and taking care of his garden. The beautiful courtyard is like a desert island—it is completely cut off from the ocean of ugliness surrounding it. You can’t even see the street when you’re sitting there.
He doesn’t have to deal with all the people I have to interact with on a daily basis. He doesn’t hear the things I hear or see what I see every day. He can’t imagine what it’s like for a woman to be looked at the way they look at me. It feels as if they’re looking through me, as if they’re X-raying me to determine the extent of my disease, of my defilement, just because I’m not like them and don’t belong with them. And it’s not just men who look at me that way but also women; they stare and make me feel I’m a whore for not wearing a hijab. I catch my fellow classmates looking at me sideways and whispering among themselves. I know that’s what they’re talking about. I held out for two years, but then I caved in and started covering my head, using the scarf that I wear to church. I wear it everywhere now just so people stop looking at me in that way.
All I want is to live in a place where I’m like other people, where I can come and go as I please without anyone pointing at me or reminding me that I am different.
I was filling in a form once at a government office, and the guy processing my papers said, “Your father’s name is George? That’s a foreign name, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not foreign, it’s Iraqi,” I told him.
“Oh, really? George isn’t foreign? You know, like George Bush?”
“No, like George Wassouf. And George Qurdahi.”
He stamped the form and handed it back to me, but I could feel his contempt. His eyes were filled with loathing as he asked petulantly, “Why don’t you people go and find yourselves some good Arabic names? There’s no shortage of names is there?”
I didn’t say anything. There was no point in arguing with a despicable bigot. And that was neither the first nor the last time. When I told my father, he recounted a story about Abdel-Salam Arif, one of the presidents long before I was even born. In one of his speeches to a large crowd, he apparently said, “No more Johnnys and Georges from now on. Only Hamads and Hmuds!”
Abdel-Salam Arif was a lunatic, Father added. Once he was giving a speech and was so exasperated with their cheering that he blurted, “Stop so I can finish this shit!”
One time, I had taken a bag of klaicha to school with me and when I took them out to eat them before the lecture, one of the other students who knew I was a Christian expressed surprise. “You guys also eat klaicha?” he asked. I was so annoyed I couldn’t hide it.
“Yes, we eat klaicha and we drink tea—and water—just like you do.
What do you think we are, Martians?”
But the guy just kept on. “I’ve heard that when midnight strikes on New Year’s Eve, your priests switch off the lights and tell every guy to turn around and kiss the girl next to him. Is that true?”
I picked up the cookies, my book bag, and my purse and stormed away. I never spoke to him again, and he hasn’t apologized for his crassness to this day.
I roil with anger when I occasionally see posts on Facebook accusing Christians of collaborating and helping the occupation forces, just because some of them work with the American army. I write back furious responses reminding the other person that plenty of Muslims work for the occupation army, and that Iraqi politicians who welcomed the invasion and called for the Americans to intervene in the country, and then worked closely with the occupation authorities for many years, were all Muslims.
My posts are full of exclamation points and question marks, and always formulated as questions. Hadn’t the current ruling elite come in on the heels of the occupation? Hadn’t all the religious and sectarian parties and groups cooperated with the occupiers?
Weren’t Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia all supporting this or that group, while no one championed us Christians? I’ve unfriended several people who had allowed others to post vitriolic comments about Christians on their walls.
I was exhausted, because everything and everyone, with or without reason, reminded me that I was just a ‘minority.’ Things got so bad that I even stopped wearing the gold cross around my neck that my grandmother had given me on my First Communion. Before, I would tuck it under my clothes in order to avoid prying eyes.
When the fine gold chain from which it hung broke, I didn’t take it to the goldsmith to have it fixed. Instead I put it back in the small box it came in and carried it around in my purse like a lucky charm. Sometimes when I’m home, I take it out and press it to my lips, and I get tearful remembering my grandmother.
I want to live freely, and wear whatever I please around my neck, whatever length of dress I choose. Youssef cautioned me many a time that emigrating to countries where the majority of people are Christian is not without its own hardships and difficulties, and it wouldn’t mean that I won’t also feel like a minority there. He says I will face racism by virtue of being Arab. He speaks as if he’d been living abroad for years, even though he hasn’t set foot outside the country for ages. And even when he did travel, it was only ever on short trips, as a member of official delegations to foreign countries. I’d tell him that I was ready to put up with and accept anything in exchange for living without car bombs, terror, and sectarianism.
“Alright, my dear, please yourself,” he’d mutter back.
4
Youssef is always talking about how stable everything used to be, but I have no clear image of that word in my mind or my memory.
The narrator of my past isn’t stability but its very opposite—
even going back to before the fall of the regime and the American invasion. When I recall my childhood, I don’t see the types of scenes that are portrayed in films, at least in traditional
‘happy’ films: blowing out candles on a birthday cake, surrounded by loved ones singing happy birthday who then shower you with presents. Of course, we had celebrations and presents and there were the odd moments of happiness here and there, but to me, these are like tiny islands bobbing on a deep ocean of sorrow that has swallowed up my loved ones and taken them from me.
How can I forget the disappearance of Uncle Mukhlis, my amazingly tall uncle who spoiled me like no one else? Whenever he visited his greeting to me was always, “Hi there, my Maha! Shall we go flying, just like the birds?” Drawn in by his laughing eyes and mischievous dimples, I could never resist the fanciful offer.
There were strings attached, however, and he was unrelenting about them: I had to kiss him four times and hug him very tight
—“Tighter, tighter,” he would say. I loved hugging him, his
cologne smelled so good. Like fruit and the flavored gum I liked.
Once all the kissing and hugging were done, his strong arms would gather me up and hold me aloft as we twirled around the courtyard, and Uncle Mukhlis would tell me that when I grew up I would sprout wings and be able to flit between the trees and land on their branches. Then, he would stand still and throw me up into the air, and catch me as I came down. I would squeal with a mixture of fear and delight and ask him to do it again. He always agreed and would throw me up in the air over and over again until my mother came out and said, “Enough, Mukhlis. Come on inside, the two of you.”
Mukhlis was my only uncle. One day, he disappeared, and there were no more visits or aerial circling lessons.
“Where is Uncle Mukhlis?” I’d ask. “Isn’t it time he came over?”
and they would tell me that he had traveled somewhere far away and
would be back soon.
After he disappeared, my mother became sad and would cry inconsolably. It was then that I learned a new word, which I’d hear the adults using when they spoke to each other and when neighbors and relatives came over. In between her tears, my mother would recount what had happened, and use the word kidnapping . And there was also ransom , which often went with it
“What does kidnapping mean?” I’d ask my mother but she’d shoo me away and say it was none of my business. “Go and play outside!”
she’d exclaim.
Later I learned that kidnapping meant that someone you loved didn’t come back because the bad men (whom I imagined looked like movie villains) took him somewhere far away and asked for huge sums of money in order to release him. I noticed the heated arguments and the phone calls and the hours of suspense. I would stand behind the living room door and eavesdrop on the adults going back and forth about the best course of action to follow. I found out that Father had managed to collect the sum required for the ransom and that the meeting with the kidnappers would take place behind the amusement park, on al-Qanat Highway. I was so happy that my uncle was coming back! He was sure to bring me lots of sweets, the way he always did when he visited.
When I asked my mother if he was coming over, she didn’t yell at me. Instead, she replied, “God willing, Maha. He’ll be back by the grace of the Almighty.”
But only more sorrow followed. When Father came back from the much-anticipated meeting two days later, he wrapped his arms around her and uttered, “Mukhlis is gone.” Just that one sentence. My mother screamed and wailed and slapped her head, beside herself with grief. She wept for weeks afterward.
The women of the family put on their mourning black and for three days the house was filled with visitors. Some of them were relatives whom I knew and recognized, but many were strangers.
The men sat in the reception lounge and the women in the family room. I asked everyone about Uncle Mukhlis and all the answers I got were a variant on the statement that he’d gone somewhere far away. I knew that people who traveled came back, but this was a one-way journey, they said. The only thing that made it back was his smiling face in black and white inside a frame that my mother hugged to her chest as she wept. She eventually hung it up on the wall in the family room. The only cheer in all the misery came from the man my father hired to make coffee for the mourners during the three days of the aza mourning ceremony. The coffee man was extremely kind to me, he would come in early in the morning and set up his gear in the small alcove off the vestibule that led to the reception lounge. I would watch as he placed the coffee pot over the charcoal embers to boil the coffee. And I noticed how he’d slide his hand into a paper bag and pull out little green pods that he dropped into the coffee, keeping one for himself. When he popped it into his mouth, I wondered if he was going to chew it.
“Is it gum?” I asked.
“No, sweetie,” he replied, laughing. “It’s hayl. Would you like some?” I nodded and he gave me one. Holding it between my fingers, I examined the cardamom pod.
“So why do you put it in your mouth?”
“Because it sweetens the breath,” he replied. I began chewing on it but the seeds were bitter on my tongue. I was going to give them back to the coffee man, but when I spat them out into my palm along with a thread of saliva, he gently wiped my hand and mouth with a tissue and told me to go and get a drink of water.
My mouth was still bitter afterward. The disappearance of my uncle was the other seed of bitterness that was sown in that sad time—but it just grew and multiplied, and water was no remedy for it.
During the condolence period, my grandmother kept repeating between her tears that he had been kidnapped and killed because he was a Christian. When we talked about my uncle’s disappearance a month ago, Youssef, as usual, provided a more ‘objective’
explanation. He said that Mukhlis had been kidnapped because he owned a clothing store and the kidnappers assumed his family would come up with the ransom money. He said abductions had become a scourge that affected everyone equally, irrespective of religion or denomination. Kidnappers preferred kidnapping people without tribal ties because they were afraid of retribution. It’s strange that I don’t remember Youssef being at the aza but he recalls the details well.
5
In the mid-nineties, when I was in elementary school, my father sank into depression and was laid up for many months. I would come home from school, which was close to our house, and find him sitting alone on a chair in our little garden. He’d sit there smoking one cigarette after the other staring into the void that now filled his days. I would greet him exuberantly and he would answer with a broad grin, a few endearments and a “Hello, there,”
after I had kissed his cheek, which was rough and prickly because he’d stopped shaving regularly. He wouldn’t ask me much about my day and what we’d learned at school the way he used to. The Faith Campaign launched by Saddam had forced my father to close the bar that he owned with his business partner. Our primary source of income had dried up, the losses grew, and with them our worries, because my mother’s salary as a secretary in a doctor’s office wasn’t sufficient to cover our expenses.
One day, I came home to find him standing outside the house next to a small pile of broken bricks, instructing two workmen with shovels in their hands. They had just demolished part of the exterior wall and were digging up a small patch of earth in a corner of the garden. “What’s going on, Baba?” I asked. “What are the men doing?”
He told me they were building a little store where he would sell whatever he could to improve our situation. “I’ve got to keep you fed, girl,” he said.
I had overheard my mother saying, “A store, why not? Better than sitting at home all day twiddling your thumbs.”
At first, the news made me happy because it meant that I could have all the good stuff like candy and lollipops that my father would sell at the store. I’d be able to show off in front of my friends and the girls next door. While it was true that I was able to have whatever I wanted for free, I paid a terrible price for it. The structure took up one-third of our small garden, and with all the boxes and cartons of merchandise piled up outside, there was almost no room left to play. My little sister, Shadha, and I no longer had a garden in which to run around and be free as the birds.
As it turned out, the store wasn’t much help in alleviating Father’s despondency. The sighs of weariness, the cigarette puffing, the head hung low, and all the other signs of depression were back. The only thing that cheered him up and helped smooth the furrow of his brow was the fact that I was smart and excelled in school. He smiled when one day I used the word ‘median.’ I had heard the adults using it in conversation and had seized on it even though it was beyond my years. “Well, look at that! And you’re just in elementary school!” he said, giving me a kiss.
6
I’m trying to remember a time when I haven’t felt alienated, smothered, or, as now, destitute. To me, our exodus from the house in al-Dawra didn’t take place all at once in the summer of 2007. Rather, it was one of an unbroken sequence of events that spanned many years. It’s as if chunks of me were lopped off or stolen bit by bit, until nothing was left. First, they kidnapped my uncle and killed him. Even though he didn’t live with us under the same roof, he was, for me, such an intimate part of the family that his absence left a gaping hole in our house. After my uncle’s abduction, my father’s eyes lost their sparkle and our little garden was ripped up for the sake of the store. And that wasn’t the end of it. Perhaps Youssef was right on one count, when he said that nothing prior to 2003 bore any resemblance to the savagery that came afterward.
All of us rejoiced at the fall of Saddam, especially Father, even though he didn’t trust the Americans or their motives. But he was taken in, like so many others, and really believed it when they said on the news that Iraq was destined to become another Hong Kong, never imagining that it would end up looking far more lik
e Somalia. But he made a smart move: two months after the fall of the regime, he turned the corner store into a shop that sold satellite dishes. They’d been banned before the occupation and now demand for them skyrocketed. Everybody, including us, hurried to buy one and get a vista on the outside world that we’d been deprived of for so many years.
Financially, our situation improved to the point that Father began looking into shutting down the corner store and opening a bar with a new business partner, but as his plan matured and he continued to scout for a suitable location, the security situation deteriorated rapidly. Explosions and car bombs blasted through the air and the language of death proliferated, obliterating the peace we thought would be ours. Father’s potential partner backed out because he didn’t think the situation bode well for a bar or any other kind of business venture. Father was devastated—a year or so after the Americans’
arrival, demand for satellite dishes dwindled and the profits dried up.
Early on, this language of death had been aimed at those who worked with the Americans and cooperated with them or with the new government. With time, however, the deadly messages proliferated, going to select recipients and destinations, and the once verbal onslaught became physical, engulfing us in a blaze of fire and destruction we could never have imagined. For years, the voice of the preacher had reverberated from the mosque loudspeaker urging the faithful to godliness and piety and against irreligion. I hadn’t paid it much heed because I didn’t feel targeted by his discourse; the messages hadn’t seemed aimed at me, as a Christian. But in the chaos that resulted from the occupation, what we had deemed to be a temporary clamor grew shrill. Unfamiliar words like ‘dhimmi’—protected citizen—and
‘jizya’—poll tax—began circulating. Words which Hatam al-Razzaq,
the imam of al-Noor Mosque in our neighborhood, repeated loudly after conferring on himself the title of ‘amir’ in 2007. He began to rant into the loudspeakers, calling for so-called dhimmis to pay a monthly jizya of $25,000 or else openly convert to Islam at the mosque. Whenever he heard him ranting like that, Father would slap his hand across his forehead.
