Faraj would later find out that some of these people had been coming to the area individually and had visited Elishva to try to persuade her to sell her house to the state, with the concession that she could remain there, for as long as she lived, without paying any rent. The state would automatically acquire unrestricted ownership of the house when she died or vacated it.
What if she accepted this offer? It would be a disaster for Faraj. But the old woman had apparently turned it down. She had told them she couldn’t make any decisions about the house in the absence of her son. The more they heard what she had to say, the more confused and mystified they became. Because they were dealing with several similar houses in various parts of central Baghdad, they didn’t stay with her too long. In their notebooks they wrote a few things about the house and who owned it, and perhaps they set a date for checking what Elishva said more carefully. Unlike the people from the charity, Faraj understood what Elishva meant when she talked about her son, but he hadn’t yet seen him for himself. Elishva had been standing outside the bakery and the cheese shop and talking about the meals she was making for her son. The same thing happened in the courtyard of Umm Salim’s house when they were breaking walnuts open with a hammer and eating them with hot tea. The old women were sad at first, because poor, crazy Elishva with that strange red scarf on her head had finally lost her mind. But late at night some people did see a young man coming out through her front door, wrapped in the darkness.
When the news spread, some of the young men lay in ambush at a corner of the lane in the hope that the strange visitor might come out again, but he didn’t appear. Within a week they had forgotten, but then by chance they did see a man come out of the house. When they ran after him, the man ran off faster than they did and disappeared.
Umm Salim told her neighbors that her husband knew the true story. He spent most of his time sitting by the balcony window on the upper floor, reading old newspapers and looking up from time to time to monitor people coming and going down the lane and in and out of the houses. That was his only pleasure. The taciturn old man confidently asserted that this visitor was a thief or some other kind of criminal who had tricked Elishva into believing that he was her son and was using her house as a hiding place. A young woman who came to Umm Salim’s gatherings heard this version from Umm Salim and shouted that Faraj the realtor must be behind it. Umm Salim gasped in surprise. The young woman said spitefully that Faraj was behind everything bad that happened in the area. And why not? He had evicted her one dark night, she said, without pity for her or her children. During other sessions in Umm Salim’s courtyard, the story became more coherent.
As if she had forgotten what she had said earlier, the spiteful neighbor said the young man had climbed the low wall of Hadi’s house and jumped up to the open area where the two rooms had collapsed on the upper floor of Elishva’s house. He had intended to go downstairs and strangle her in her bed. No one would bother to ask why such an old woman had died. They would say that God had snatched her soul as she slept, and then forget all about it. The young criminal came down the stairs and saw her sitting with her oil lamp in the big room next to the street, praying and talking to Saint George. What she said struck a chord in his heart, even though he didn’t understand the language. She was speaking Syriac to the large picture hanging on the wall, and the young man felt that someone was answering her. He moved closer to the door and listened more carefully. It definitely sounded like a conversation between two people. He looked into the room. In the dim light, all he could see was the old woman clasping the metal cross on her rosary and lifting it to her lips. She turned toward him and saw him standing in front of her. An emaciated cat rubbed against his legs, then walked on and sat at Elishva’s feet. The young criminal was motionless, as if the old woman had pinned him to the spot with her tender, maternal glances. “Come on, my boy,” she said. He stepped forward obediently and submissively, walking like a child, then threw himself into her arms, weeping.
Of course Umm Salim and the other old women didn’t believe this story, but in quick succession they all said, “Bless the Prophet and the Prophet’s family.” The story sent shivers down their spines. That spiteful woman had won people over with her story. It didn’t matter that it was made up; it was moving, and the reason they spent part of the day in the courtyard of Umm Salim’s house was to escape Bataween and its daily routines and float in another world. This damned woman with a grudge against Faraj was doing her duty as well as she could, and they were grateful to her.
“God curse you this evening, Faraj. God take you,” cried Umm Salim. The other women repeated the curse and brought down on his head various other curses and insults. The woman with a grudge felt a great sense of relief because of their reaction, and suddenly she didn’t hate Faraj so much.
2
The weather was warm, so Elishva took off the dark sweater she had been wearing. Instead, she put on a dark-blue summer dress. She didn’t take off the red headscarf with the white flowers, which had become a symbol of her transformation. She hadn’t gone to her church for the past week. Instead, she preferred to go to the Saint Qardagh Church in Akad al-Nasara in Sheikh Omar, to fulfill some of her overdue “Islamic” vows. She put a handful of henna paste on the metal knocker of the large wooden door of the Anglican Church of Saint George in Bab al-Sharqi. She sprinkled water on the small rose garden in the Syriac Orthodox church. These complicated tasks took her the whole week. She put another handful of henna on the wall of the abandoned Jewish synagogue and a third handful on the door of the Orfali Mosque near the start of Saadoun Street, the only mosque in Bataween.
In the Church of Saint Odisho, she lit sticks of Indian incense at the altar of the Virgin Mary before Father Josiah arrived. Now all her vows had been fulfilled. In the past week Father Josiah had received on his cell phone two calls for Elishva from her younger daughter, and he had been planning to send the old deacon, Nader Shamouni, to Elishva’s house if she didn’t turn up the following Sunday either.
Before starting the church service, Father Josiah went up to Elishva with a smile and told her that her daughters had been asking after her and that Matilda would call her at midday. Elishva beamed contentedly and thanked Father Josiah. Then she followed the Mass, mouthing her favorite prayer silently: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” But her mind was on the phone call that was three weeks late.
After Mass, Elishva helped give out the food that the women in the congregation had brought from home and laid out on big tables in the church hall. She ate with them, and when the food was finished, everyone said good-bye to Father Josiah, the young sacristans, the janitor, and the policemen who were parked in their government vehicle at the gate to protect the church. Most people went out, but Elishva stayed behind, sitting and waiting for her daughters to call. When she felt the place falling quiet, she began to despair. Father Josiah’s phone rang two or three times with calls from his house and from other priests and friends. Eventually, the call Elishva had been waiting for came through. Father Josiah heard the voice on the other end, smiled, and handed Elishva the phone.
“Hilda’s been ill. We didn’t want to tell you. Mentally unwell. She’s in the hospital, but she’s better now,” said Matilda.
“Daniel’s come back, Matilda,” said Elishva. “My son’s come back.”
“Hilda’s upset, to tell the truth. She says she’ll never speak to you again. She’s not here with me now. She’s not listening to what I’m telling you, and she’d be upset if she found out I’d spoken to you.”
“He’s with me now,” Elishva continued. “He refuses to go out when people can see him. He goes out at night. From the roof. He disappears for days, but then he comes back.”
“Are you in good health? I call a hundred times a day but can’t get through. I was going crazy. Sometimes I get strange people answering. I don’t know what the problem is,” said Matilda.
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“I’m well. How are Hilda and her children? How are your children? Have they grown? Let me speak to them.”
“Hilda’s in the hospital. She’s better now. Her elder son looks just like Daniel. He wants to start studying medicine this year.”
“Daniel’s the apple of my eye. My lovely boy. My dear.”
“We’ve sent you five hundred dollars. I sent it myself to the office of Ayad al-Hadidi, the money changer in Karrada. In Father Josiah’s name. He can withdraw it and give it to you. Do you need anything?”
“I need you to come back and bring some life to the house.”
“We won’t come back. You need to come here. You’ll be more comfortable here,” said Matilda. “Here in Melbourne there’s an Assyrian church called Saint George’s. Does that mean anything to you? I’ve told the priest, Father Antoon Mikhail, and he would welcome you coming.”
“I’m not going. I’m here with Daniel.”
“Tell this Daniel that your daughters need you. He’ll understand.”
“You understand, Matilda.”
“The country’s in flames around you. My God! Okay, from now on I’m going to train myself not to be sad and not to cry. You’re going to kill us here. You love to torment us.”
“Don’t torment yourself and don’t be sad,” replied Elishva. “And don’t call until you’ve calmed down.”
“What do you mean, don’t call?” shouted Matilda. Elishva gave the phone back to Father Josiah. Her feet felt stiff from standing for so long, because she always stood during these phone calls. She felt a little swirl of anger stirring in her chest. She sat down, still listening to what Father Josiah was saying as Matilda told him about the money transfer and Elishva’s material needs. She had questions about the pension Elishva received every three months and about the assistance to the needy according to the register that was in the church. Matilda kept complaining that they weren’t well off but were planning to visit to take Elishva out before things got worse.
“We’ll have to take her by force if necessary. She can’t keep torturing us like this,” Matilda told the priest.
Father Josiah tried to calm her down. He wouldn’t support Matilda’s plan. His religious vocation didn’t allow him to encourage members of the congregation to emigrate. But he wouldn’t stop anyone from emigrating, and he would normally certify religious documents related to marriages, births, and so on that people who were emigrating might need in order to simplify the process of joining an Assyrian church wherever they went.
The phone call ended, and Elishva looked dissatisfied. The priest escorted her to the church gate and offered to have one of the sacristans drive her home, but she said she would take the bus. Before she left, she turned to Father Josiah, took off her large glasses, and, with eyes flashing, announced firmly that she didn’t want any more phone calls. She wouldn’t answer calls from her daughters, and she wouldn’t ask to call them. Father Josiah laughed and tried to pat her on her skinny shoulder, but she replied that if he didn’t comply with her request, then next week she would go to the Saint Qardagh Church and would never go back to his.
3
The weather had turned surprisingly warm, and Mahmoud tossed and turned on his bed in his room at the Orouba Hotel. It was dark, and the electricity had been off for many hours. He guessed that the approaching summer would be very hot, but it wasn’t clear what plans Abu Anmar had for installing air-conditioning in the rooms.
He knew that some of the hotels in Bataween, Saadoun Street, and Karrada had started to make preparations for the intense summer heat, especially the ones that had regular guests. They had set about buying diesel generators that could be commissioned from private workshops. The generators combined a Kia bus engine with a generator head and were much cheaper than similar, imported generators. But Abu Anmar wasn’t like the owners of those hotels. He didn’t have enough money to buy a generator of that kind and pay for the fuel it would need. There were now only four guests left in the hotel, each of them paying the equivalent of only ten dollars a day.
Mahmoud had experience from previous summers of scorching nights that made sleep impossible and left you feeling exhausted and hopelessly lethargic all day long. He didn’t need complications like that right now, especially when he was trying hard to improve his position at the magazine and to keep winning the confidence of the editor.
Saidi dragged Mahmoud off on various outings, besides the journalistic assignments and trips to check the page layout. When Saidi was out, Mahmoud would sit in Saidi’s office and answer phone calls from the printers or advertisers. Saidi always left one of his cell phones charging in the office, and when it rang no one but Mahmoud dared to take the call. Once he took a call from an official in a large parliamentary bloc, who was accusing the magazine of publishing what he said was a fabricated story about an armed group loyal to this official assassinating some of his rivals. Frightened, Mahmoud apologized and explained that the editor wasn’t in the office and that the magazine had taken the story from Agence France-Presse, the French news agency.
“Aren’t you on our side?” the man said. “Why do you do things to upset us?”
Mahmoud was profusely apologetic, but he silently cursed the turn of events that had put him in this embarrassing situation. He made up his mind to call Saidi and tell him about it, but Saidi took it coolly and told Mahmoud not to pay too much attention.
Once Mahmoud answered a call from a private number. On the screen it showed up as 666, and he knew from an American film that this was the number of the “beast from the sea” in the book of Revelation.
What did the beast want? Had the magazine published something hostile to beasts, or what? “Hello . . .”
It was Nawal al-Wazir, but she didn’t seem to have noticed that it wasn’t Saidi who had picked up. Her words came out in a tirade and struck Mahmoud like a thunderbolt, but he didn’t want to say anything, or else he would have had to reveal his identity.
“Why don’t you answer?” she said.
She grew increasingly angry, and in his embarrassment Mahmoud decided to hang up on her. What would happen if Saidi heard about the call? Why had he left his phone there? Why didn’t he get a phone just for the magazine? Nawal would think it was Saidi who had cut her off. Apparently they weren’t on good terms, and apparently she really was his “fuck buddy,” as Farid Shawwaf had said that day.
Mahmoud finished his work at noon. Farid Shawwaf and the other editors left the building. The janitor brought him lunch from the restaurant next door. Mahmoud felt numbed and exhausted. The cold air from the air conditioner hit his face and made him feel sleepy. He didn’t want to meet his friends in a coffee shop or go back to the Orouba Hotel, so he lay down on the red leather sofa in Saidi’s office, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. In an attempt to relax, he imagined Nawal al-Wazir coming into the office, throwing off her clothes, stretching out alongside him on the sofa, and wrapping her soft, plump arms around his waist.
4
Saidi woke Mahmoud up at sunset. He had called on his cell phone several times. He was in an ecstatic mood, so he didn’t question Mahmoud about why he hadn’t picked up his calls. Mahmoud followed Saidi as he moved around the office. Saidi opened some of the drawers in his vast desk, took some papers out, and put them in his briefcase. He told Mahmoud he had made an excellent deal that day.
“What Brigadier Majid said was true,” he said, without explaining what part of what the brigadier had said he was referring to. Saidi then went into the toilet for a few minutes, and Mahmoud took the opportunity to pull himself together. He washed his face at the basin outside and rearranged his hair and clothes. When Saidi came out of the toilet, he told Mahmoud to come along with him on an errand and then they would go celebrate.
Mahmoud left with Saidi in his fancy car. First they went to a realty office in Karrada, and Saidi negotiated with the realtor over a piece of land
overlooking the Tigris. They were held up in the office and drank four cups of tea. Mahmoud watched television while Saidi was busy negotiating. By the time they left, Mahmoud was hungry and didn’t know what plans Saidi had for the night or what kind of celebration he intended.
They set off into the darkness in the black Mercedes, heading to somewhere in the Arasat area. Every now and then the river was visible through gaps in the walls, sparkling with dancing spots of light that were the reflections of lights on the other bank. Mahmoud expected they were going out to some exclusive place. They went into a tall building with guards at the gate and then more guards at the end of a long corridor. They were searched for weapons, and then they heard Iraqi pop songs in the distance and smelled a mixture of alcoholic drinks, shisha pipe tobacco, and cigarette smoke. Saidi had booked a table close to the dance floor in the main hall. He usually did that by phone, spending money liberally. Money was the key to everything; it was the magic lamp in this life, Mahmoud thought, as he sat in the noisy hall. The sound level was unbelievable, and yet Saidi had no problem leaning toward the young journalist to talk to him. Mahmoud couldn’t hear anything but nodded as if he could. Saidi looked at the band with a smile. There wasn’t anything to stop him from smiling, and Mahmoud didn’t hide from himself his feelings of envy toward this man.
Frankenstein in Baghdad Page 9
