“I was given to believe that Kuwait has been generous in their support of their Arab brothers,” I put in.
“Oh, you mean the Palestinians? Yes, Kuwait pledges its support of their cause and donates money to help the refugees. They bring Palestinians into Kuwait to work and make money to send home, where they find out how well the Kuwaitis live and how cheaply they pay. This creates envy and resentments. It is no accident that Palestinians take our side, not the Kuwaiti’s. You are going to also point out that they supported us in the war against Iran? Save your breath. We sacrificed a million of our sons, and how many Kuwaiti sons died in that war? As for money, it’s true that Kuwait supplied money to us, billions of dinars—but it was loans. Iraq lies in financial ruin from ten years of war with the Iranian devils, which we fought on behalf of our Arab brothers to keep the Iranians’ vile notions of Islamic Fundamentalism from spreading to our own lands, and now Kuwait wants us to repay it, while they invest their billions of stolen oil wealth in infidel businesses? Some generosity!
“We are doing our little brothers, the Kuwaitis, a great service. We are bringing them under the protection of a stronger nation. As part of Iraq their ports will expand, enjoy greater trade and make more money. Poor, jobless Arab brothers will go to do the work that foreigners from Asia now do, whom we will return to their own lands where they belong. Kuwait’s northern oil fields will become part of Basrah, and Kuwait City itself will be a separate province of Iraq. It is tragic that the Kuwaitis do not see the blessing of our coming in its true light. Instead they put up a resistance such that we had to cause pain and suffering to overcome it. It is necessary for us to obliterate all vestiges of the corruption, greed and profligacy of the former ruling family, the Al Sabah. Atop the rubble we will build a new and better place for our little brothers. In time they will come to appreciate the gift we give them.”
It seemed the wrong time to mention wholesale destruction, rape, murder and looting. “As I said, I didn’t see much of the actual fighting. The U.S. Embassy issued a warning for Americans to stay indoors and I followed their instructions, pending finding some way to return to America.”
“Of course, of course. The Arab robe we found in your luggage, the black garments and the beard you have grown, had nothing whatsoever to do with clandestine activities, I am certain. And your work with the Kuwaiti resistance was of no account at all. I have my people in Kuwait getting to the bottom of all that. One thing that puzzles me, though. Why are the Americans massing troops along the southern border? We aren’t going to invade Saudi Arabia. “
“I think the U.S. objects to your invasion of a country to seize control of such a large oil reserve. We have an interest in keeping petroleum flowing freely from this region.”
“That is absurd! Do they think we would not sell them as much oil as Kuwait did? We have no quarrel with the U.S., and I thought when your ambassador gave us the go-ahead they had no quarrel with us. And now the Germans and Japanese, and even some of our Arab brothers have taken their side! “
“Our ambassador gave you the go-ahead? I hadn’t heard about that.”
“Certainly,” Saddam said. “It was public and is well-known. In a meeting, face-to-face, Ambassador Glaspie assured me that the U.S. wouldn’t take sides in our border disputes. And now they’re massing troops in Saudi Arabia because of our border dispute. Not very trustworthy on her part, I’d say, but what can one expect from a woman in a position of power? And your president Bush has frozen all the money Iraq had deposited in American banks. What right has he to do that with our sovereign money?”
“I haven’t read Ambassador Glaspie’s statement. I imagine President Bush thinks that the recent invasion amounts to more than just a border dispute.”
“If there’s a misunderstanding I’m sure we can straighten it out diplomatically. Fears of an invasion of Saudi Arabia are misplaced, I can assure you from the bottom of my heart. Our only intention is to restore Kuwait into its rightful place in the Arab scheme of things. Well, Mr. Fonko, I have enjoyed our chat, and I look forward to future meetings. Though I must say that I am a little disappointed. From what I had heard of you, I was expecting to meet a more formidable adversary. But they say that still waters run deep, so we shall see, we shall see. Now if you will excuse me, I must see to a number of weighty and urgent matters, as you may understand…” There was a harsh knock on the door. “Come in,” he said.
Did I mention that Saddam was large and imposing? The man who strode in was taller by half a head and just as bulky. He resembled Saddam facially but looked in much better shape.
“Mr. Fonko, this is my son, Uday,” Saddam said. I couldn’t help but think that his name sounded like pig-latin for something your neighbor’s dog would leave on your lawn. From the look of him he’d have a promising future as a bouncer in a biker bar. The dudes would behave themselves, for sure. He swaggered in with the sneering arrogance of a spoiled brat who had more money than he could spend and could get away with any mischief that caught his fancy. “I hope you won’t mind,” said Saddam, “but it wouldn’t do to have you running around Baghdad unsecured. We’ll be housing you at Abu Ghraib Prison for the time being. Uday will escort you there. Do not worry. Whatever you may have heard about Abu Ghraib, I can assure you that you will be treated with all due respect. Should we want to use you as a bargaining chip with your CIA we would want to have you in tip-top condition, after all. Uday, please see him out. Be gentle. Mr. Fonko is an honored guest. As well as money in the bank.”
Uday looked me over like a cat looks over a cornered mouse. I hoped he was an obedient son. He took a firm grip on my left arm above the elbow and wrenched me toward the door.
A Long Stretch of Days in October and November, 1990
Were I to take up penning reviews of the world’s dungeons for TripAdvisor, I’d award Abu Ghraib a high mark. On a scale of 1 to 5 they all rate 0, of course, but I’d give Abu Ghraib five 0’s compared to others I’ve spent time in—The Maze in Belfast, Gasr Prison in Tehran, Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh, and assorted pestholes in India. Of course that stellar rating reflects the red carpet hospitality Abu Ghraib accorded me. I had a cell all to myself in a ground-level block. It featured an actual mattress pad, a chair and even a ceramic crapper. They fed me the same food the guards ate (and a miserable life those bastards led), they let me wear my own clothes, and they even helped me live up to Muslim standards of hygiene (somewhat short of Malibu’s). I had American money, good for coaxing favors, goodies and laundry service from my guards. The guards were a piss-poor lot, so it went a long way.
Saddam lived up to his word about keeping me in good condition as a bargaining chip, and about keeping his sadistic son, Uday, at a distance. Judging from the screams and groans I heard coming through the floor from the basement cell blocks, not everyone enjoyed the same Club Med Baghdad experience that I did. On his visits, Uday eyed me as though he’d be happy to make me their equal in every way but behaved himself, under protest.
As I mentioned, jail stays are boring, and the longer you’re there, the boringer they get. Rehabilitation and job training not having a high priority—no priority at all, in fact—Abu Ghraib lacked a prison library. The only reading matter at hand was a collection of grimy, tattered porn mags hoarded by the prison staff, which they lent out for a consideration. Dutch and Scandinavian porn outdid our own offerings graphically by a long way, but they contained no readable content. Over the weeks I read everything those estimable American journals, Hustler and Playboy, had to offer. By the time my sojourn ended, I felt all primed for oral exams on “The Playboy Philosophy” (umm… I probably could come up with better wording there). Some of the interviews actually were interesting—Jimmy Carter “lusted in his heart”? What a jerk that man was. The interviews whose continuity wasn’t interrupted by torn-out pages were interesting, at least.
They let me out for exercise occasionally, and the climate in Baghdad was marginall
y more conducive to physical exertion than Kuwait’s. In my cell I did calisthenics and isometrics. Fellow prisoners kept their distance, knowing that whatever they said to me could and would be used against them. One day the guards installed a fresh inmate into an adjoining cell (the previous occupant having been taken out and shot). He was Iraqi, a lively old fellow with a gleam in his eye. He wore a once-white robe that had spent a lot of time on the streets and sported a soiled Haji topper.
The guards roughly threw him into his cell. After they locked the door and left he gathered himself up and got his bearings. He explored the cell and then beyond it. When his gaze found me, he looked me up and down with curiosity. Finally he spoke up. “I’ll take a wild guess. You’re an American.”
“What makes you think that?” I said.
“Your manner, your mien, your modus operandi. Dauntless, optimistic, ambitious, adventurous. Typical Yankee.”
“You could tell all that in ten minutes?”
“That and much, much more. What is your name, if I may ask?”
“Jake Fonko.”
He put his chin in his hand and pondered the floor, muttering, “Fonko… Fonko… that’s a poser…” Then he brightened up. “I have it! Entrust the job to Fonko / How far could anything wrong go? But Jake! Now there’s a glittering gold mine, a poetic plentitude, a coruscating cornucopia of rhyme. Jake: rhymes with ache, awake, bake, break, betake, cake, daybreak, drake, fake, flake, lake, make, mistake, opaque, quake, rake, sake, shake, snake, steak, take, wake. Make no mistake / Jake / Took the cake / At the clambake / By the lake. That’s just off the top of my head, you understand. I could do ten times better had I pen and paper.”
“I take it that you are a poet?”
“Ah, I see you are an observant man. Yes, I am Haj the poet, and I know it. Ha ha ha.”
“They put poets in jail in Baghdad?”
“There is more to it than that, but it’s a long story.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world. Tell me.”
“If you insist.”
“Oh, I do, I do.”
“Very well,” he said as he settled back on his bunk. “It started when my daughter, Marsinah, and I came to Baghdad in quest of a better life. She fell under the spell of Baghdad’s glamor and excitement…”
“Are you talking about the same Baghdad we’re in right now?”
“Compared to the impoverished dung heap of a village from which we emanated, it’s the bright lights and the Great White Way, let me assure you. Well, she soon was coveting baubles, bangles and beads. To realize her dreams I needed money, so I took to selling rhymes on the street…”
“I can’t imagine you’d get much for Jake/Flake/Snake.”
“No, not for those. But my top-of-the-line rhymes command premium prices. How about Rhinoceros/Prepocerous? Or Platinum/Flatten ‘em? Parsley/Gharsley, no need to discount that one. Pinafore/Din Afore, another top shelf item. Nantucket/Bucket… whatever a ‘Nantucket’ is.”
“And those are rhymes you made up yourself?”
“Not precisely by myself, no, not exactly. In addition to originally-composed rhymes I also deal in previously-owned rhymes. With guarantees that they not only rhyme, they scan. And for a further consideration I also offer instruction on expressing them to best advantage. Gesticulate! That’s the ticket! Arms in the air, fingers here and there, hands flying everywhere. But to continue, so my daughter, Marsinah, happened to fall in love with the Caliph and he with her…”
“They have a Caliph in Baghdad?”
“In a manner of speaking. If they had Caliphs the lad would definitely be one. A man of Caliph-like caliber, there’s no denying. In the meantime I had, owing to a case of mistaken identity, inadvertently acquired a reputation as a seer who could bestow and remove curses. So a bandit chief had me kidnapped to relieve him of a curse he thought I had put on him years ago. Truthfully I have no such power and feared for my life, but through the fortunate intercession of Allah the curse was lifted, and he rewarded me with 100 pieces of gold. So I hurried back to the bazaar to find Marsinah. However, I fell afoul of the local Wazir…”
“They have Wazirs in Baghdad?”
“He was very Wazir-ish, a black-hearted devil of the finest water, you bet he was. He identified my gold as having been stolen, so he had me thrown into this wretched cell, as you see. Now my daughter is adrift and at the mercy of this wicked city, and I am helpless to save her.”
“Do you have any idea what to do?”
“I can only place my trust in all-seeing, all-powerful Allah. Fate, Jake my friend, Kismet. We fight it in vain. What will happen, will happen according to Allah’s will. All is written. I feel confident that something has been written in my favor and it will turn up soon. One thing I’ll say, that Wazir has one hot wife, and when I get free I’d happily make her a widow to get her off to a secluded desert oasis.”
“I wish you the best of luck,’ I said.
We had more conversations like this during the next couple weeks, and then the guards came and took him away. To a lunatic asylum, most likely.
*
The days passed grudgingly. Uday dropped in occasionally to check on me but didn’t do more than shove me around a little, much as he’d have liked to crank it up. Word reached me that Saddam had decreed foreigners were now permitted to leave Kuwait. If only I’d been able to hang around. Screams and moans continued filtering up from the basement dungeons, but I’d gotten used to it so slept through most nights. Then in early November I had another visitor. Imagine my surprise when the guards took me from my cell to an interrogation room. There he sat behind a beaten deal table, stocky with straw-colored hair and a plain European face, looking older and a little subdued compared to the last time I’d seen him.
“Grotesqcu! What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“This is Mr. Fonko?” he asked the guards. Their senior man nodded. “Good. Leave me alone with him.” They left the room and closed the door. “The room’s bugged,” he said under his breath. “Sit down,” he said gruffly. I did so. “As you know, your President Bush has announced an immediate, large increase in his troop deployments to Saudi Arabia, obviously much more extensive than needed for simple border defense. President Hussein is very concerned about this development. Inasmuch as you were on an American espionage mission to Kuwait, he needs to find out what you know about Kuwaiti defense strategy and any looming invasion plans. I am an espionage specialist with the Russian KGB, brought here to interrogate you. I will tell you truthfully right now that if you simply disclose everything you know, things will go much better for you”
“That’s easy,” I said. “I don’t know anything about defense strategies or any forthcoming invasion plans. I went to Kuwait on a consulting job having to do with suspected international financial irregularities. The morning I was scheduled to leave, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, leaving me stuck there. I’ve never had any involvement with American force deployments.”
“So you say. As a trained CIA spy it’s expected that you would deny any knowledge. I’ve been through this sort of thing many, many times before, and I’ve seen it all. We could talk and talk, and go around and around, but President Hussein is anxious to find out what you know, and he wants it in a hurry. I am authorized to use any methods I see fit to get the information, and I should warn you that my methods range from unpleasant to ruinous. Really, it’s best for all concerned if you just say what you know.”
“Honestly, I know nothing.”
“I respect your dedication and forbearance, but you have been warned.” He got up, opened the door, leaned out and said something in Arabic. The guards came in and escorted me out, Grotesqcu right behind me. He said something to the leader and they took us to the exercise area and left us there.
“Good to see you again, Jake,” said Emil Grotesqcu, crack KGB agent and sometime sidekick. “I to
ld the guards I need to assess your physical condition to see how much torture you can survive. Walk around briskly with me for a while. They can’t listen to us out here. You’re looking good, all things considered.”
“Hard as it is to believe, they’ve treated me well,” I said. “Not that I ever wanted to spend a month in an Iraqi prison. I haven’t even had a chance to call home. Nobody in California has any idea what happened to me.”
“I can place a call to Miss Wehrli, if that would help.”
“Indeed it would, and I’d be grateful. What are you doing here, Emil?”
“I’ve been greatly concerned ever since I learned you’d been captured by the Iraqis, knowing what they’re capable of. Apparently Saddam considers you some kind of solid gold prize, giving him a lot of bargaining power with the U.S. government if need be. He was going to keep you until deals could be made, spy swaps, concessions, whatever. But this troop deployment has him beside himself—he never in a million years thought Saudi Arabia would allow American troops on Muslim soil and certainly not so many. He bought your superspy reputation to the extent that he’s sure you went to Kuwait to carry out George Bush’s plans, and he wants to know what they are. Usually he turns interrogations of this level over to Uday and his aides. Their methods not only get prisoners to tell everything they know, but before they expire even to squeak out things they didn’t know they knew. Needless to say, having them do that to you is not in my best interests. I’d lose my meal ticket, and with the shaky state of things in Russia these days I can’t afford to take any chances of that happening.
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6 Page 55
