Mahmoud thought of the Orouba Hotel, which was near the site of the explosion. Maybe something had happened to his photographer friend, Hazem Abboud, or to Abu Anmar and others he knew in the area. He called Hazem, who told him he was not in Baghdad but was embedded with the U.S. Army, taking pictures of combat operations for an American news agency. He said Abu Anmar had left Baghdad, having sold the hotel and gone back to his family in Qalat Sukkar.
This came as a surprise to Mahmoud, but it was a relief that no one he knew had died, he told himself, and went out into the street and hailed a taxi to the office.
On the short trip he ran through the situation at the magazine. The deadline for the next edition was fast approaching. He hadn’t paid the salaries of some of the staff. Saidi hadn’t sent him anything. The accountant with the grim face hadn’t answered Mahmoud’s calls in two days. Saidi had to come back to relieve him of this anxiety. When he saw him, he would tell him he wanted to go back to his old job as just a subeditor.
When he reached the offices, he saw some government vehicles parked in the lane. Maybe they were checking the National Bank of Iraq nearby. But when he went through the front door, which was wide open, he was sure they had come to see him. Armed guards in plain clothes stopped him and asked for his identity card. When they found out he was the editor of the magazine, they let him in. The old janitor looked at him in bafflement but didn’t say anything, just continued to wipe the tables and move around as though it were an ordinary day. Everyone seemed to have fled the magazine, or else they knew something he didn’t know and preferred not to be involved.
When Mahmoud went into Saidi’s office, he saw four men with mustaches, dressed in suits. They were about the same age as Saidi. When he introduced himself, they asked him to sit, then told him they were shutting down the magazine and confiscating all its assets.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
Mahmoud felt his stomach starting to twist. One of the men looked at him intently, raised a finger in his face, and said, “Your friend has stolen thirteen million dollars of U.S. aid money.”
“Thirteen million dollars?! How did he steal it? He’s a well-known writer, a well-known person.”
“Ask him how. And now give us the keys to this safe.”
Mahmoud gave them the key, and the strange men acted fast, confiscating everything—but Saidi never left any money at the magazine. They had turned the offices upside down, moving the furniture around and even pulling up the carpet in the conference room, looking for places where Saidi might have hidden his stolen money.
“How could Saidi do this? Has he really done this to me?” Mahmoud asked himself. It all seemed like a big misunderstanding, and that these men would apologize, give him back the keys, and ask him to forgive them.
The man with the biggest mustache, who seemed to be in charge of the group, came up to Mahmoud.
“Call your boss, and if he answers, give me the phone.”
Mahmoud hurriedly called Saidi, though he was well aware that there would be no answer. He called him again from another phone, but the result was the same.
“The number is out of service,” Mahmoud said apologetically. The man with the thick mustache looked at him in disbelief.
Everything was over in forty-five minutes. Abu Jouni put his wet mop over his shoulder and just left the building, not even looking at Mahmoud as he walked past. Mahmoud didn’t know what he was going to do. He had been waiting for his back salary to pay off his debts to the hotel. He called the accountant on his cell phone and then his friends and colleagues at the magazine. Some numbers just kept ringing; some people answered to say they were sorry but couldn’t do anything. In the end the man with the thick mustache turned to Mahmoud, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “Let’s go, my friend. You’re coming with us for questioning.”
“Questioning?”
“Yes, did you think it would be easy?”
Mahmoud got into one of their vehicles. He knew, from the way Saidi joked with his friend Brigadier Majid, that being questioned by the Iraqi security agencies would be “physically painful,” as Saidi described it. He was in shock. Everything had collapsed. He had lost his sense of self, and in order to save himself he decided he wouldn’t hide anything, because he was innocent. Thirteen million dollars! He struggled to take it all in, as the government vehicle tore off down the road toward an unknown destination.
5
The interrogation of Brigadier Majid seemed endless. The panel, composed of Iraqi intelligence officers and liaison officers from the U.S. military police, decided to wait for more material evidence before making a formal accusation against the brigadier and his office. In the meantime, through his friends who were senior officers, the brigadier managed to postpone his interrogation and defer further humiliation for a while.
He called in the senior astrologer, the junior astrologer, and the other lower-level astrologers for a quick meeting. He had discovered that a secret struggle had been under way for some time among his staff and was now rebounding on him personally, threatening to get him fired and maybe put on trial.
“You’re all fired,” he told them, and waited for their expressions of disbelief. But instead they stood up and didn’t say a word. “Why don’t you say something?” he shouted at the senior astrologer.
“I already knew,” he replied. “It’s all because of my stupid assistant. He’s my enemy, and he’s destroyed me. This has nothing to do with you, sir. It’s not your fault.”
Brigadier Majid was puzzled. Of course they had consulted their cards and mirrors and prayer beads made of beans before coming to the meeting, so they knew about his decision. But he had expected them to fight back or ask for forgiveness or say they would try to help him fix the situation, not just to abandon him. He didn’t have it in him to go back on his decision—they would see him as weak. The department had collapsed from within, and now he was all on his own.
The senior astrologer went back to his room. He calmly packed his bag, then went into the bathroom and rubbed his beard with soap and water to get rid of the hair gel. He took out a small pair of scissors, cut off half his beard, and trimmed it to suit the appearance of a religious man. That was to be his new image.
He took off his flamboyant clothes and threw them into a large trash can in the bathroom, then put on a white cotton shirt with thin vertical blue stripes, dark cotton trousers, and summer shoes. He picked up his bag and was about to leave the department for his home in the Zaafaraniya district, south of the capital, when he noticed fine grains of red sand on the floor, on his bed, and everywhere. He noticed the junior astrologer coming in, and he thought, What gall. He wanted to shout in his face, “You’ve destroyed everything, you idiot,” and maybe for a moment he thought of pouncing on him and strangling him with his aging hands, but that was no use now. He could keep an eye on him and do things to him by his own methods, even kill him on the spot, although he had never done that with anyone else.
The junior astrologer was also changing his clothes, but he was putting on pajamas. He looked at his master, in his new guise, with a certain disdain, as if he wanted to remember this moment well—the moment when the senior astrologer fell off his perch and became just an ordinary person.
They didn’t exchange a word, only glances, and then the senior astrologer left the department, angry and bitter, throwing his small bag over his shoulder.
Getting into a taxi, the senior astrologer told the old driver the address, and they agreed on a price. The astrologer tossed his bag into the backseat and stretched out in the front. He looked like a cleric disguised in civilian clothes. A few minutes later he noticed they were driving down a street with no other cars and no pedestrians. The taxi slowed down, and the driver cleared his throat and said, “I think I’m lost.”
The driver turned back the way he had come, but then discovered that the Americans had blocked the roa
d. One of the soldiers was pointing a powerful flashlight at drivers and asking them to go down a side street. At the end of the street the driver found he didn’t know which direction to take. He pulled up against the curb and said, “Forgive me, brother. My house is behind these buildings. Don’t worry about the fare, just get out here, please, and find yourself another taxi. This street is safe.”
The astrologer protested, but the driver refused to relent. Once the astrologer got out, the driver drove off in haste, leaving the astrologer waiting, with his bag, in the street for another taxi.
After two minutes, the astrologer decided to head to a street with more traffic. He proceeded down a side street, then realized it was long and unlit. He knew, or thought he knew, what was going to happen that night, so he didn’t see any reason to be frightened. Feeling exhausted, he remembered he hadn’t had lunch, and now it was past dinnertime. And apart from all that, he was a frail old man—even his small bag seemed heavy. He continued down the dark side street, and through his round glasses he could see the vague shape of a man standing in the middle of the street.
The astrologer’s throat was dry, so he swallowed some saliva, then stopped two yards from the man in the street. Should he speak to him? Why not walk past and keep walking till the end of the street? He wasn’t so naive as to do that. He knew, or had an inkling, that the meeting he had long awaited was about to come about, and he didn’t want to show any sign of fear or weakness. He was too old for that, and his dignity wouldn’t allow him to beg for mercy from his executioner.
“This is the long wall of two girls’ schools—a primary school and a secondary school,” said the stranger, whose face was shrouded in darkness. “And these are stores and car repair shops with offices on top that they lock up an hour before sunset. There’s no one else on this street right now. A car might come by, or maybe one won’t.”
“Do you think I’m frightened or that I want to call for help?” said the old astrologer, lowering his bag softly onto the surface of the road. He might need both hands while talking to the apparition of the dangerous criminal he had waited to see for so long. That was why he had gone to Lane 7 in Bataween. He didn’t know how long the conversation would last, but he wanted to see the man’s face before the final moment came. Why had he failed to work out what he looked like, and why was the man now standing in such a position that the distant streetlights did not light up his face?
“You should know, before you do anything, that this was all planned by my disciple. He failed to kill you that day with the car bomb, and now he’s using you to kill me. It’s a battle between me and him, and he’s using you against me,” said the astrologer.
“Are you saying you saved me that morning?”
“No. I won’t lie to you. I wanted to arrest you—so I could at least see your face. I want to know what you look like.”
“And I want the playing cards you were using to search for me. And I want those hands of yours as well.”
“I threw the cards in the trash. I’m not looking for you any longer. I’ve retired.”
“Yes, the cards don’t matter. What’s important are the hands that dealt them.”
“I’d like to see your face, if I may.”
“What’s the point of that? It changes. I don’t have a permanent face.”
“Let me see.”
“Yes,” said the Criminal Who Has No Name, turning on the astrologer and grabbing hold of his hands. He squeezed them tight, and the astrologer felt his strength ebbing away. He fell to his knees, and the criminal kept pushing him down and squeezing his hands.
“This isn’t your battle. You don’t understand. This isn’t your battle,” the astrologer said, his voice shaky. Then, as he stared straight at the criminal’s dark face, the headlights of a distant car lit it up for him. By the light of the car he finally saw it. Even he, with his cards and magic tricks, hadn’t believed he would get to see it. Some voice from his past told him that everything he had lived through was nonsense and lies, and that he was so immersed in these lies that he had come to believe them.
This face he had just seen for the first and last time was also from his past. He recognized it, but whose was it?
During his slow death throes on the desolate street, he would be wholly convinced that it was a composite face, made up of faces from his distant past. It was the face of his own personal past, which he had thought had no face or features. And now it had appeared to him clearly, caught for a moment in the headlights of a passing car.
The driver of the car had seen something suspicious halfway down the street and changed his mind about turning onto it. What he failed to see from a distance was someone taking an ax to the arms of a man laid out on the asphalt.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE WRITER
1
I MET MAHMOUD Riyadh al-Sawadi in the Baghdadi Café. The place was crowded with intellectuals, writers, actors, directors, and artists. The long metal benches outside, on the sidewalk, couldn’t fit everyone, especially after sunset, when the scorching summer heat relented.
I was sipping my tea, when I saw him selling his Rolex and his laptop. He looked as if he hadn’t showered or changed his clothes in days.
From his pocket he took a small gadget attached to a long silver cord that you could hang around your neck. I figured out that it was a digital recorder. He was talking to his friends about the device, and some of them started laughing. One of his friends pointed to the metal chairs near the table where I was sitting. He came over, and our eyes met.
He said it was a Panasonic digital recorder and that he wanted four hundred dollars for it—a hundred for the recorder itself and three hundred for the story that was recorded on it. It was the strangest story that had ever come his way, he said, and a writer like me could use it to write a great novel.
Even before he spoke I had made up my mind to buy the recorder, not because I needed it but as a kind of charity. I was even more resolved when I heard he had large debts and needed to pay them off before going back to his family in Maysan Province. But I didn’t expect to buy a story or pay four hundred dollars. I couldn’t pay such an amount on short notice.
I was curious about him. He wasn’t disturbed, someone with psychological problems, or a swindler. He was intelligent and well spoken. But he was in a difficult position. I felt he deserved help, so I said, “I’ll pay three hundred dollars. That’s all I can afford. Two hundred dollars now, and the third hundred I’ll have to borrow from the owner of the hotel where I’m staying.”
“But I want it now. I want four hundred dollars or else I won’t be able to pay the layout woman.”
“The what woman?”
“The woman who does the layouts at the magazine. She’s still trying to collect her salary.”
He spoke at length about what had happened at the magazine. The staff had found out he was living at the Dilshad Hotel, and they had made a scene at reception, demanding their salaries.
I paid for the tea and walked with him to a nearby restaurant. I ordered takeout, and we went to the Fanar Hotel on Abu Nuwas Street, where I was staying. Together we drank two glasses of the whisky I keep in my room and ate our dinner.
“Why don’t you just skip town?” I asked him. “Aren’t you going back to Maysan? Just go. You’re not responsible for the problem.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I feel sorry for them, and I earned masses of money at the magazine. In salary and allowances, I mean. I feel responsible. I don’t want them to speak badly of me and put me in the same category as Saidi and his accountant.”
It was a strange attitude, with a large dose of idealism. But it won my admiration. During dinner I put on my headphones to listen to a little of what was on the recorder, which Mahmoud said amounted to more than ten hours. I was really excited.
I gave him the four hundred dollars, and we agreed to meet the next day
. I wanted to drive him back to his hotel, but he said he could walk. Part of me knew he would never show up again. He played his part well and in the end extracted the amount that he wanted from me. He fooled me. But don’t we always do that? Today he deceived me and tomorrow I will deceive someone else, also with good intentions, and so on.
I was busy writing a novel called The Uncertain and Last Journey and didn’t want to abandon it to pursue the incomplete story told in the recordings. But then one morning I received an e-mail from someone who called himself the “second assistant” and who said he knew me through friends we had in common and that he trusted me but at the same time didn’t want to reveal his identity to me, in order to protect both of us.
This “second assistant” sent me numerous documents over several days, saying he thought they should be made public. They were about the activities of a government agency called the Tracking and Pursuit Department, and it was very exciting when I found that the documents referred to aspects of the story that Mahmoud had told me.
With my bottle of Black Label on the plastic table on the balcony, I sat down and drank slowly and with pleasure. I forgot about my novel and breathed in the smell of the trees that the moist night breeze carried from the river, and listened again, through the speaker on the digital recorder, to Mahmoud al-Sawadi’s confessions and the tales of the Criminal Who Has No Name.
2
On his first day in detention, Mahmoud al-Sawadi was interrogated for many hours. They didn’t manage to get much out of him.
“I’m just a member of staff. Saidi pays me a salary,” Mahmoud said repeatedly, and they felt like he was telling the truth. They didn’t beat him, as he had expected—they didn’t harm him in any way. He spent the night with other detainees, and early in the morning he was summoned to sign a statement. They gave him back his wallet, his cell phone, and his other belongings, then took him to the door, saying he must cooperate and inform the authorities of any new information he came across about Saidi.
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