The old man burst out laughing so hard the young Kurd was afraid his laughter would be audible outside the cellar. “What are you saying, man? All the names you’ve mentioned are real poets whom I know personally. Comrade Fahd has more than once commended the poet al-Jawahiri to our attention, and two years ago I shook hands with him with this very hand. But he’s a mercurial man. You can’t depend on him. Al-Sayyab’s a skinny young man from Basra, weak-willed; he was a member of our party but we threw him out after we discovered his link to the police. And everyone knows who Nizar al-Qabbani and Husayn Mardan are. They are licentious, existentialist poets who represent the decadent values of the bourgeoisie. What relation does all that have with your nephew, whose name I don’t know?”
Hameed Nylon lit a cigarette and gazed at the young woman, who was recording the minutes of the meeting. Placing a pack of cigarettes in front of her, he said, “I don’t want to call you a liar, but perhaps you’ve been the victim of swindlers, who attribute the glories of other people’s efforts to themselves.”
The young Kurd said, “Thank God that Abdallah Goran spent four years with me in the same cell in the Ba‘quba prison; otherwise I’d believe he was a con artist too.”
Hameed Nylon raised his hands in the air and said, “It’s not about any particular individual; it’s a general problem. Once the lie becomes a universal system, nothing’s left but ghosts. I apologize for borrowing this aphorism from my relative Burhan Abdallah, who also writes occasionally under the name of Kafka, which sounds like a Kurdish name to me.”
The young Kurd corrected him, “I don’t think so. Perhaps your nephew was writing under the name of Kaka and you got mixed up.”
The old man, who was irritated, intervened, “We mustn’t waste precious time discussing tangential affairs. What concerns us is learning the truth of the next step you are planning, Comrade Hameed.”
Rising to leave, Hameed Nylon said, “The revolution has remained on hold for a long time. It won’t hurt it to wait a bit longer. I’ll think the matter over for a time and perhaps we’ll meet again.”
The old man said flatteringly, “That’s a must. We’ll definitely learn a lot from each other.”
Hameed was agitated when he left the secret bunker. On his way out he startled the dove perched outside the door when he almost crushed it with his foot in the dark. It fluttered its wings a little before settling back on its nest. The startled viper had raised her head, but when she found that everything was copasetic, she stretched out again over the screen door, sound asleep.
On the way back, Hameed Nylon did not exchange many words with Faruq Shamil, who asked him when they reached the street, “Curiosity’s almost killing me. Tell me: how was the meeting?”
“It seems the Communists believe it’s impossible to do anything without them, but as soon as you try to cooperate with them they place impossible obstacles in your way.”
Faruq Shamil answered regretfully, “I knew they would refuse. You know that what counts for struggle in their view is withstanding prison. Up till now they’ve not even been training for a revolution.”
Hameed Nylon said sorrowfully, “Right. I once heard some Communist workers happily singing, ‘Oh prison darkness, reign. / We love the dark.’ I don’t see how it’s possible for a man to court prison and love the dark. Faruq, this is the ultimate form of despair of life.”
Silence enveloped them again. Faruq Shamil was certain that Hameed Nylon was not the sort of man who would easily renounce what he had decided to do, no matter how unwise or difficult it appeared. He also knew that Hameed did not have the power to persuade the Communists to wade into these hazardous adventures. Moreover, Hameed Nylon did not even have a gang with which to impose himself on the others. If the men in the bunker had listened to him, that had been merely from curiosity or a desire to know what was happening in the outside world. They longed to understand its workings from inside their secret cellars. He did not want to tell his friend that, because he was confident that Hameed Nylon would end up like many others—disillusioned even before he took the first step on the journey of a thousand miles. Faruq Shamil was wrong this time, however, because Hameed Nylon believed that there was always a way out—even when a man was trapped in a circle—and that true skill lay in finding this escape route, which might be invisible. It was also not difficult for Hameed Nylon to devise his exit strategy now.
After another sleepless night, while he ran back over his plan time after time, stretched out in bed beside his wife, he rose before dawn and slipped outside without waking her, so that he would not be forced to resort to lying when confronted by her many questions. He climbed into his vehicle, which he normally parked near his home, and started the engine. Then, filled with a new spirit stirred by the chill morning breezes coming to him through the open window, he headed off to the place where he thought the revolution was waiting for his arrival. He began to sing out loud, like someone who had suddenly found happiness. He was driving along a dirt road lined by meadows.
Although his wife Fatima was somewhat rattled by his sudden disappearance, she did not pay much attention to the matter because Hameed Nylon frequently disappeared for days and occasionally for weeks, only to reappear without ever providing much by way of explanation. She had become accustomed to this, as had his two daughters, Nadya and Su‘ad. They would ask their mother once and then not ask again because they always received the same answer: “Papa’s gone on a trip and will return.” No one in the Chuqor community paid any attention to the absence of Hameed Nylon except for Khidir Musa, who asked after him. Fatima told him, “You know Hameed. He disappears and appears like the devil. Three days ago, when I awoke I found he had left the house. No doubt he’s traveled to Baghdad or some other city.”
The community was preoccupied with following the struggle raging between Qara Qul’s widow and Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri over ownership of the gifts presented to the mausoleum. The situation became considerably tenser when Qara Qul’s widow, whose black cloak was open and trailing behind her and who was followed by her four children, who were brandishing sticks, headed for the home of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri. She stood before its door, surrounded by women of the community along with its children and men, and cursed the mullah, who—she said—was living on the wages of sin, since he had taken what rightfully belonged to her orphaned children. When Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri did not appear, her children began throwing stones at the closed door, screaming, “Come out here, Mullah Dinar!” People’s attempts to calm the widow failed, and her screams were heard throughout the community.
Matters became even worse when the wife of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri peered down from the roof. This sixty-year-old woman began exchanging insults with Qara Qul’s widow: “Whore, go to your black lovers and stop attacking us!” She threatened, “If you don’t go away, I’ll come down and put your filthy face in the sewer.”
Qara Qul’s widow replied, “Come down here, whore, and bring that pimp of a mullah with you!”
People protested, “Shame! This is no way to talk. What will people say about you?”
The widow’s children then began pelting the mullah’s wife with stones, but the men grabbed hold of them and stopped that. The mullah’s wife disappeared for some moments and then returned with a jerry can filled with dirty water, which she poured over the head of Qara Qul’s widow, who was standing in front of the door, cursing. Qara Qul’s widow was startled by this, and began attacking the door, kicking it with her feet. “I’ll kill this mullah!” When the door would not open, she called to one of her sons, “Go call your uncles. Blood must flow today!”
Women from the community dragged her aside. “This isn’t right. You’re a saint’s widow. Leave the matter to God.”
The woman, who was foaming at the mouth, cast herself on the ground, however, striking her fists against her head and thus revealing her short, curly hair. “If Qara Qul had any sanctity he would slay this sinner. Where are you, Qara Qul
? Defend your faithful wife! Where are you, Qara, you saint of all saints?”
Three semi-naked black men suddenly appeared, wearing only white shorts. Their dark black skins glistened in the last rays of the setting sun. They brandished axes with sharp blades and shouldered bows and arrows. They were preceded by Qara Qul’s son who had slain his father’s killer with a razor several months before in the community of al-Musalla. No one in the Chuqor community had seen these men before. They clearly were foreigners and from Africa or some such place. The community’s children, who had seen them before at the cinema, appeared to recognize them and began shouting and howling, “Savages! Savages!”
Qara Qul’s widow, who was sitting on the ground, pointed out the home of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri and said something that none of those in the circle around her understood, because the words were strange to them. They believed that the woman was perhaps raving, but one of the three black men said something back to her and she replied with strange words. At that point, the men of the community—and the women too—were convinced that these people were speaking another language, which was clearly a black language. At this moment, the mullah’s wife appeared again on the roof and began meting out insults to Qara Qul’s widow, who raised her hand toward the roof and said—in the black language—“Dushan.” The children, who had seen many American films about savages, said that this word meant “enemy.”
In the blink of an eye, one of the black men took out his bow and shot an arrow at the mullah’s wife, but she had noticed the danger threatening her and had retreated, howling. The arrow passed over her head, hissing through the empty space. This was more than the residents of the Chuqor community could stand. They felt that these black men had infringed on their own honor and had meddled in affairs that did not concern them. Since Qara Qul’s widow was one of them, she had a right to fuss, but these foreigners—savages at that—had no right to shoot arrows at the mullah’s wife.
First off, the community’s women reacted explosively to these strangers, screaming insults at them. Then the children joined in, throwing stones and Namlet bottles at the black men. Instead of withdrawing, however, the black men began to dance in a circle, swinging their axes over their heads while emitting savage cries. The children said it was a war dance. Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi arrived then, having heard the news of the fight on their way home from the shrine. One of the black men leapt high, threatening the crowd and waving his axe in a way that terrified the women and children, who were caught off guard by this gesture and retreated, falling over one another.
Qara Qul’s widow, who was still seated on the ground, leaning against a wall, called out at the top of her lungs, “Lying Mullah, if you’re a man, come out of your house, where you’re hiding.” Then she muttered some words in the language of the blacks, and the three men attacked—as she had done—the door of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri’s house. They began to strike it with their axes, attempting to smash it. This caused Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi to dart out of the crowd. Each of them held a meat cleaver taken from the community’s butchers, who were watching the spectacle.
Abbas Bahlawan called out to the three black men as loudly as possible, “Savages, you’re going to be slaughtered like ewes today.” These words had no impact on the black men, whose eyes glinted with malice. One of them attacked Abbas Bahlawan with an axe, even before he completed his sentence. Abbas Bahlawan, however, ducked to one side at just the right moment, and the other man lost his balance. At that time Abbas Bahlawan directed a kick to the nape of his neck, causing him to fall on his face on the ground and his nose to bleed. Loud applause resounded from the crowd. Mixed with it were laughter and calls: “Come on! Finish off the savage!”
Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi were joined by the oil worker Abdallah Ali, who held a spear that had once belonged to his ancestor Hanzal, who had fought countless battles in Arab raids against merchants’ caravans in the nineteenth century and who had lost his left hand in a battle with the Turks on the banks of the Tigris. One of the women shouted, “Now, the fight will be fair: three against three.”
Abbas Bahlawan threw himself on the black man who had fallen to the ground and pulled his arms back and beat him between the shoulders until he almost passed out. Then he dragged him to the young men with whom he deposited the prisoner to have his hands and feet tied with rope. He returned again to the square, where Mahmud al-Arabi and Abdallah Ali were locked in a fierce battle with the two remaining men.
Mahmud al-Arabi was now engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one of them, after surprising him with a blow that had knocked the axe from his hand. Then he himself had thrown the meat cleaver to the ground, thus demonstrating even in this rough situation his lofty morals. The two rolled around on the ground and then rose once more. Then the black man leapt in the air, attempting to land a kick on Mahmud al-Arabi’s chest. He missed his target, however, struck a wall, and fell to the ground, unconscious. Meanwhile, with his grandfather’s spear, Abdallah Ali had cornered the third man and forced him to throw his axe to the ground, thereby announcing his surrender.
The Chuqor community went wild with applause and cries of, “O God, praise to our master Muhammad.” The young men led the three captives to the nearby ruin, where the athletes normally trained. They tied them to three stakes they set in the ground. Then they brought a huge cauldron, which the community normally used for boiling grain, which was eaten during the winter, filled it with water, and lit a fire beneath it. Then some other young men smeared their faces with red oil and started dancing around the three black men, leaving them with the impression that they wanted to eat them. The children who had crowded in roared and the women watching this scene from the far side of the ruin’s low wall laughed. This did not last for long, however, because an armored Jeep arrived and three policemen got out. They laughed along with the crowd but then released the captives from their bonds and handcuffed them. They took them off to a nearby police station located in the Jewish neighborhood.
Nobody had noticed the disappearance of Qara Qul’s widow, who had slipped away with her four children to avoid being taken prisoner on discovering that she had underestimated her foe’s strength. She was, however, mistaken in this belief, because no one in the Chuqor community could have harmed her and her four black children, despite the impudence of her tongue, because in their eyes she was still the widow of Qara Qul, the greatest saint the city of Kirkuk had witnessed in its entire history, and it would not be easy for them to forget this fact.
People did not realize that Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri was absent until the end of that rowdy day experienced by the Chuqor community. It would certainly not have been appropriate for the mullah to exchange insults with Qara Qul’s widow, but his absence—even after the battle ended and Qara Qul’s widow withdrew—excited people’s curiosity and questions. He ought to come out and thank the three men who had risked their lives to defend the honor of his home. Indeed, some people said that the mullah ought to increase the salaries of Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi, who were employees of his agency, or should at least award them a compensatory bonus in view of the heroism with which they had confronted the three black savages, who would have broken into the mullah’s home and torn him limb from limb—had it not been for these two men.
Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi informed the men—who had spread a carpet in the street in front of the mosque to sit there and enjoy a recital of the battle’s details—that the mullah had not been seen at the agency for three days. The mullah had also ceased going to his mosque to perform the evening prayer, a rare occurrence. Suddenly the men realized that something must have happened to the mullah to cause him to sequester himself. A visit to Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri in his home now appeared a must.
When the men knocked on the door of the house, his wife opened it, her eyes swollen from weeping. She said, “I don’t know what’s happened to the mullah. For three days he’s not uttered a single word. I
believe he’s lost the ability to speak.” The men sat down in the long room where the mullah squatted in a corner, gazing at the void. He did not seem to be sick, but his eyes roamed around, as though he had departed from the world. In fact, he did not even respond to his visitors’ greeting. He seemed not to recognize them. Khidir Musa said, “A doctor’s got to examine him. We can’t simply rely on destiny.”
Half an hour later, a doctor came to examine the mullah. He did not find any cause for alarm, except for the muteness, which he could not explain. He opened the mullah’s mouth and felt his tongue and larynx with a wooden tongue depressor, and found everything there in good shape. Then he turned to Bakr, the mullah’s oldest son, and told him, “I believe your father has had a shock, and this has nothing to do with medicine and prescriptions.”
The mullah opened his mouth as though he had been waiting for the sentence the doctor uttered. “I saw him. He was there.”
The doctor said cockily, “This problem has been resolved too. You see: the mullah is talking.” Then with a gentle smile he asked, “Who did you see?”
The mullah gazed at his face for a time before replying, “I saw everything.”
Then he stood up, put on his jacket, which had been hanging over his head, donned his shoes, and slipped outside, repeating time and again like a tape recorder, “I saw everything.”
The men with him at his house followed him all the way to Qara Qul’s mausoleum, where the policemen at the guardhouse greeted him warmly. The guard opened the locked door of the directorate and he entered. The crowd that had been walking behind followed, and he headed for his desk, casting a thoughtful glance at the coffin that sat in the center of the space. His eyes were bathed in tears as he embraced each of the men on taking leave of them: “I want to spend the night here, close to Qara Qul.”
The Last of the Angels Page 21
