“You’ll find everything the Whatsitsname recorded on this,” he said.
The brigadier summoned the muscular young man who had brought their tea and told him to make a copy of the recordings. After ten minutes, the young man returned and handed the recorder back to the brigadier, who held it by the plaited cloth strap and swung it back and forth for a while, looking distracted and uninterested.
The brigadier said nothing more to answer the questions that were swirling inside Mahmoud’s head. It was the brigadier who asked all the questions, so Mahmoud was none the wiser. Mahmoud began to lose interest in the brigadier’s preoccupation with the Whatsitsname, and he wasn’t even concerned about the fate of the junk dealer he had just implicated. He just wanted to get out of this fancy office. Even when the brigadier changed the subject to talk about other matters at the magazine, the general situation in the streets, and so on, it didn’t seem to improve the dynamic between them, even though it seemed the brigadier was intent on repairing the damage he had done half an hour earlier.
The brigadier was an evil man, Mahmoud was thinking, and it would be impossible to trust him again. He hoped this meeting, which had soured his stomach, would be their last.
The brigadier stood up, took the dark shaft of the cigar off the table, stroked it with his fingers, and stuck it in his mouth. He went behind the vast desk, opened one of the drawers, took out a silver lighter, busied himself with lighting the cigar, and took a deep drag until the end of the cigar glowed red and thick smoke came out of his mouth. He took a few steps toward Mahmoud, who, concluding the meeting was over, rose too and noticed that he was taller than the brigadier. He noticed also that the brigadier’s eyes, screwed up at the time because of the sting from the smoke, were light brown, which made him handsome and gave his face a bourgeois touch. Together, they walked toward the door.
“I was lucky when I was a smoker,” said the brigadier with a smoky sigh. “Everything turned bad when I gave up smoking. Now I take a few puffs every so often, just to get my luck back.”
It was the kind of friendly exchange close friends might have. At least that’s the feeling Brigadier Majid wanted to leave Mahmoud with, thinking as he was about what Mahmoud might say about the meeting to Saidi, his childhood friend.
They stood at the door, and the recorder stopped swinging back and forth. The brigadier gave it to Mahmoud. “By the way,” he said. “I was joking with you. There’s no such thing as a tongue loosener. That was just weak tea in which we dissolve a chemical compound that prevents heart attacks. Because people sometimes have heart attacks when they’re being questioned. We protect them with this drink and protect ourselves from being accused of killing suspects.”
They laughed like real friends, and Mahmoud went out to find the four young men waiting for him. On the way back through the pitch-black streets he thought about everything that had transpired between him and the brigadier. He was struck by the brigadier’s final remark, in which he confirmed he was treating Mahmoud as a suspect. As for the story of the drink that prevented heart attacks, no doubt that was just another bad joke.
3
What stayed with Mahmoud from that interview with the brigadier were his anxieties about the incident at Balda Police Station in Amara and the complaint against him by the criminal Mahmoud called the Mantis because of his unusual height.
The Mantis’s brother had led a small gang that terrorized the locals until he was arrested and detained. The news of his arrest was greeted with great joy by many, including Mahmoud, who then wrote a newspaper article about the need to enforce the law against this criminal. He philosophized a little in the article, saying there were three types of justice—legal justice, divine justice, and street justice—and that however long it takes, criminals must face one of them.
Publishing the article won Mahmoud points for courage and for embodying the journalistic ideal of enlightenment in service of the public interest. He generally wasn’t so reckless as to condemn criminals who were free, lest he find himself face-to-face with a pistol, but he was confident in the legal process so he gave himself free rein. Two or three days later, though, the criminal was released, and he drove around town in his pickup to celebrate his acquittal. Mahmoud was shocked. A day later two masked men on a motorbike, one at the handlebars and the other with a rifle, went to the criminal’s house. As the criminal came out of the house, the man with the rifle aimed at his forehead. The criminal took one bullet and collapsed among his friends, while the masked men escaped on the motorbike.
Mahmoud was delighted with the news. He quickly wrote a new article, repeating his theory about the three types of justice and saying that this time it was street justice that had been served. He submitted the article, but the editor, a man with leftist roots who was well known in society, tore it up and summoned Mahmoud.
“This theory of yours is no use to me. I’m looking for advertisers. I want the paper to succeed; you want to play Tarzan,” said the editor.
Mahmoud was angry. He exchanged words with the editor and threatened to leave the paper, but the editor wouldn’t back down. A few days later Mahmoud heard something that persuaded him to leave the paper and stay home for several months.
The Mantis had taken on the role of gang leader after the murder of his brother, and at a memorial service for the brother a member of the gang had given the Mantis a clipping of Mahmoud’s article.
The criminal’s family was looking desperately for any leads to the killers. It wouldn’t do any harm, they reasoned, to accuse the journalist of incitement to murder, since he had openly called on people to take up arms against a good man who had helped protect the city from thieves when the police and army and other means of law enforcement had disappeared.
At first they didn’t know who Mahmoud was, but it didn’t take them long to find out his original tribal name and where he lived and who his brothers and uncles were. The case immediately became a dispute between clans, with demands for blood money for the dead man and the Mantis making several threats, but the dispute was later resolved to the satisfaction of Mahmoud and his family. In the presence of his brothers and uncles, Mahmoud swore he would never work again as a journalist in that province. But the dispute did not stop there, as some of the Mantis’s friends continued to pass on threats from the Mantis, who kept Mahmoud’s article in his pocket and sat in coffee shops brooding about the three forms of justice. He would take the article, now rather tattered, out of his pocket and read aloud excerpts about divine justice, legal justice, and street justice. Since he thought that legal justice, in this case through tribal customs, had failed, he was going to enforce divine justice on Mahmoud by himself.
Some time later Mahmoud’s friends told him that the Mantis was accusing him of being a Baathist and was saying that his father, an Arabic teacher, was an atheist. Mahmoud lay low at home, fearing what this madman might do, until his friend Farid Shawwaf called him to say there was a job at the newspaper al-Hadaf in Baghdad. When Mahmoud discussed the job with his brothers, they were convinced it was the ideal solution—because maybe Mahmoud leaving Maysan Province would help them solve the problem more calmly and persuade the Mantis to tone down his insults against Mahmoud’s family.
Mahmoud now recalled all these details with great reluctance, because they weakened his self-confidence and reminded him that he had done stupid things. Whereas in Baghdad, at least until the annoying interrogation in Brigadier Majid’s office, he felt confident and hopeful: he was gaining strength, especially with the support that Saidi was giving him and the doors he was opening for him.
Mahmoud went out to a nearby restaurant and had a magnificent breakfast: clotted cream with hot bread and strong, sweet tea. He added minutes to his phone with a new phone card and called his elder brother Abdullah. In recent months Mahmoud had been calling intermittently to check up on his mother’s health, but he never mentioned the Mantis: he and his brothers seemed to
have an unspoken agreement to avoid the subject. Mahmoud thought that the three forms of justice might have done their job and resolved the problem with the Mantis. It didn’t make sense that such a criminal would still be free.
Mahmoud heard his brother’s voice on the line, and they spoke for several minutes. Mahmoud told him he was going to transfer part of his salary to a money changer in the main market in Amara. After a short silence, Mahmoud dared to ask about the Mantis.
“What’s he up to? What’s become of him?”
“That guy has all the luck,” his brother answered.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s looking good these days. He’s started wearing a suit and tie. He’s a senior official in the provincial headquarters.”
“How can that be? You mean he hasn’t been killed or jailed? And the crimes he committed?”
“Crimes? No one can say anything about him now. It’s a travesty, and it came out of the blue.”
“But he’s forgotten the story of his brother, hasn’t he?”
“What are you talking about, bro? He wants to erect a statue of him.”
“I miss Mother. I want to come home. It wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”
“Don’t come. Don’t show your face. Stay where you are, for God’s sake, unless you want the three forms of justice applied to you. Now the Mantis often talks about them, even on the radio. He’s stolen your idea.”
4
Saidi smiled as he listened to Mahmoud recount what happened to him the previous day in Brigadier Majid’s office. When he got to the part about the weak tea, Saidi burst out laughing. He took it lightly as usual: there wasn’t a disaster in the world that could change his mood. There he was, as well dressed as ever, clean-shaven and scented with expensive perfume, sitting behind his massive desk as if he were about to appear on a television program.
Farid Shawwaf came in with the first proofs of the magazine’s political news section, which he was responsible for. He put them in front of Saidi, who asked him to show them to Mahmoud. Farid sensed the change that had come over his old friend Mahmoud, and yet he didn’t want to submit to him as he would to a real editor in chief. Or he was trying to head off any chance of that happening. He spread the pages in front of Mahmoud and waited for him to comment. Mahmoud said the layout was good. He said this with difficulty, because he, too, didn’t want to seem condescending. Farid went out, and some other young men came in, then the old janitor entered with two cups of Nescafé. A certain silence reigned in Saidi’s office after they all had left. Saidi stood up, went to the window, pulled aside the curtain, and looked out onto the street. He turned to Mahmoud and said, “Brigadier Majid is one of the people you’ll have to get used to dealing with.”
Mahmoud said nothing but waited for further explanation because he didn’t plan to see Brigadier Majid and would try as far as possible to make sure that kind of meeting didn’t happen again.
“There are people like him in our world,” said Saidi, “and we have to learn how to deal with them tactfully, how to get along with them, how to accept that they exist.”
Saidi went back to looking out from behind the curtains, as if he was expecting someone. He stayed like that for some moments, then came and sat on the sofa opposite Mahmoud. He picked up his cup of Nescafé and started to drink, enjoying its bitterness. Then he looked at Mahmoud and made a dramatic revelation: “In fact, Brigadier Majid doesn’t pursue weird crimes. He’s employed by the Americans’ Coalition Provisional Authority to lead an assassination squad.”
“Assassination squad?”
“Yes, for a year or more he’s been carrying out the policy of the American ambassador to create an equilibrium of violence on the streets between the Sunni and Shiite militias, so there’ll be a balance later at the negotiating table to make new political arrangements in Iraq. The American army is unable or unwilling to stop the violence, so at least a balance or an equivalence of violence has to be created. Without it, there won’t be a successful political process.”
“Why don’t you tell your political friends about this?” asked Mahmoud.
“They all know, but no one has definitive proof. Or they look at the Tracking and Pursuit Department that Brigadier Majid heads as if they’re looking at a text—each party interprets it according to its own interests.”
“Could Brigadier Majid really be so brutal? He seems like a pleasant man.”
“Just a minute ago you were calling him cruel and evil. How come he’s suddenly pleasant?”
“What I mean is he doesn’t seem like a criminal in the way you’ve just described him, as the head of an assassination squad. That’s hard to believe.”
“Anyway, the best way to protect yourself from evil is to keep close to it. I humor him so he doesn’t stand in the way of my political ambitions, and so he doesn’t put a bullet in the back of my head, fired by one of those fat guys with shaved heads, in response to an order from the Americans.”
“My God, it’s serious business.”
“As long as he’s our friend, there’s nothing to fear from him. Didn’t you say he was laughing with you and talking about smoking? Don’t worry about him. He’s a nice guy.”
“A while back I said he’s a nice guy and you got upset.”
“Yeah. Never mind. Nice, pleasant, funny. That tea story!”
Saidi kept laughing, and Mahmoud smiled, but inside Mahmoud felt a growing sense of unease and fear. An unknown enemy loomed large. It was an enemy he thought he had left in Amara, but now it was active in Baghdad. Although he trusted Saidi, he couldn’t believe everything he said. Maybe Saidi wanted to frighten him or tease him, or place him in hypothetical situations in order to get him thinking, to create a kind of challenge to bring out his hidden talents or achieve some other clever, calculated outcome.
A few minutes later the janitor knocked on the door and told the editor he had a visitor. A dark, slim young woman with dyed hair came in, wearing jeans and lots of accessories. Her exotic perfume filled the room. It wasn’t Nawal al-Wazir; she was more flamboyant than Nawal, livelier and younger. She shook hands with Saidi, and they exchanged kisses on both cheeks. Saidi didn’t bother to introduce her to Mahmoud, but she shook Mahmoud’s hand anyway and enthusiastically kissed him, too, on both cheeks. Saidi and the woman had an appointment, so Saidi picked up his leather briefcase, and they prepared to leave together. Saidi looked at Mahmoud and reminded him of what to do with the magazine. “Be a hero, my friend, okay?” he said with a smile and a wave good-bye.
5
A week later Saidi traveled to Beirut, maybe with the thin dark woman or some other thin woman, leaving Mahmoud swamped, not just with editing forty-five pages of the magazine but also with an endless succession of administrative details—signing receipts, giving the staff their pay, and meeting people who suddenly turned up at nine o’clock in the morning looking for Saidi to ask for a job or for some other reason. He took the calls that came in on the cell phone connected to the charger—announcing themselves with numbers and abbreviated names in English and sometimes just two or three letters, such as TY, who was Taleb Yahya, the manager of Ansam Printing, which printed the magazine and which Saidi had once thought of buying. “See” was a woman who gave Saidi the title of haji; Mahmoud didn’t know what kind of relationship she had with Saidi. There were many “doctors”—Dr. Adnan, Dr. Saber, Dr. Fawzi—all of them officials in parliament or the office managers of parliamentarians or spokesmen for political groups. “SM” was an easy abbreviation: that was Sorour Majid, the brigadier, who called from time to time. Mahmoud guessed there was another level to the relationship between the two men that Saidi hadn’t spoken about yet. They had common business or financial interests, and all the talk of astrologers and fortune-tellers, and then the story of the assassination squads, was just camouflage.
But none of these things affected the way Mahmoud saw S
aidi. He always found excuses for him. He admired him. Saidi was a real superman, albeit without supernatural powers but with his own human talents. Mahmoud made excuses for the mysterious aspects of Saidi’s personality because no one knew whether Saidi’s mystique stemmed from a need to protect himself or whether it was derived from myths others had created about him.
Like Saidi, Mahmoud wasn’t immune to the seductions of illusion. He had assumed many of the traits of the man who inspired and mentored him. He had put on weight. He shaved every day. He wore suits and ties and colored shirts, though he and his friends Farid Shawwaf and Adnan al-Anwar used to make fun of such men, associating suits with politicians and civil servants, as well as with the militiamen in natty suits who would jump out of their vehicles in the middle of the street to drag people out of their shops or cars and beat them up or abduct them. But everything changes, and those who don’t wear suits don’t appreciate the advantages.
Farid Shawwaf made fun of the transformation of his old friend and thought that Mahmoud had started to cross to the other side. When Mahmoud laughed off such talk, Farid admonished, “You’re getting more and more like them. You’re trying to be one of them. Anyone who puts on a crown, even if only as an experiment, will end up looking for a kingdom.”
Mahmoud now very much resembled Saidi. One day, sitting behind Saidi’s desk and talking to his colleagues, he noticed he was even holding a cigar the same way Saidi did, as if it were a thick pen. He also peppered his speech with “my dear” and “my friend” just like Saidi.
But he wasn’t really like Saidi, said a voice in his head, not very much like him at all. Saidi had a fortune, though no one knew how big it was, and multiple sources of income, and this magazine was just a front, whereas Mahmoud was dependent on his salary, without which everything would fall in on his head.
Frankenstein in Baghdad Page 16
