The Tobacco Keeper

by Ali Bader

  Jacqueline was an enlightened intellectual with mastery of both English and French and a law degree from the Sorbonne. Her views were totally communist. While in Paris, until her return to Damascus, she’d continued to work closely with French communists. For reasons unknown to me, she had no close ties with Syrian communists, but did sympathize a great deal with Iraqi communists, perhaps because, unlike other Arab communists, they had created armed militias to overthrow the regime. Jacqueline firmly believed in the culture of the coup and was convinced that change would never happen without armed struggle. This was how she came to look after a huge number of Iraqi communists, especially artists and journalists.

  At her house I always met a bunch of correspondents. Some of them had been working in Baghdad and had fled, while others were based abroad but visited Damascus from time to time. Another group regularly seen at her house comprised film directors, painters, poets and political writers. But the most favoured group of all, one that was never absent from these meetings, consisted of guerrilla fighters or members of Al-Ansar, the communist forces that had taken refuge in the mountains of Kurdistan, where they fought against the Baathist and government forces with the aim of toppling the regime. The narrative of this period of history is certainly interesting.

  The truth is Jacqueline didn’t see me as a great journalist or literary star. But she, and her husband, believed that what I was doing was far greater than anything that those useless foreign journalists with little understanding of the region could ever achieve. Neither Jacqueline nor her husband had much confidence in the West or in Westerners, least of all in journalists in general and American journalists in particular. Their suspicions probably originated in the old communist ethic that they sustained for so long. Nevertheless, this never really affected them and they were not at all fanatical, especially Jacqueline, who was completely different from anyone I knew. She was never depressed, pessimistic or venomous, and was always kind and amiable. Moreover, she never got involved in the intrigues that some journalists engaged in.

  In that modest apartment on the upper floor, where Jacqueline and her husband lived, you could always find a crowd of journalists, correspondents, actors and directors, Arab and foreign, of all races and creeds, including Americans. Both Jacqueline and her husband were friendly with everyone and offered them all possible assistance. The apartment, which I visited regularly, was so crowded that sometimes you couldn’t find a place to sit. Within this amazing social melange, projects, reports and films would be negotiated. Foreign journalists lived almost exclusively in Beirut, Damascus or Amman, and sometimes in Iraqi Kurdistan. They might want to write news reports on kidnappings, sectarian conflicts, violence against women, anonymous murders, urban warfare or the US Army. So on their way to the Middle East, they might spend an evening or two at Jacqueline and Hanna Mugharib’s apartment. It was there that I met journalists looking for a ghost writer. After concluding a deal, I’d be sent to carry out what was required for the report: taking photographs, conducting interviews, gauging public opinion and even meeting politicians. I was recompensed handsomely for my pains. For me, it didn’t matter that the report would appear under the name of some other journalist, newspaper or news agency. Jacqueline, however, didn’t like this one bit.

  Nevertheless, it was Jacqueline who introduced me to them and it was thanks to her that I received many such assignments and became well known for doing a good job. The biggest news agencies and television networks would commission me to write features and short analytical pieces. They didn’t want me to provide news stories or reports, as most correspondents did, which they had their own stringers for. They needed more than that, and started giving me serious assignments that greatly increased my income. I dressed elegantly and drank beer at the most lavish restaurants. I also had numerous male and female friends. And from time to time, foreign newspapers and news agencies sent me on assignments to Baghdad.

  Whenever my news reporting assignments dried up, Jacqueline would give me various jobs. These were mostly handling the affairs of Iraqi intellectuals who’d fled their country, finding them housing with friends, solving their other problems or, for those who so desired, smuggling them to Europe to become citizens and residents.

  Jacqueline had vast experience in such matters. In the past, especially after Saddam’s clampdown on leftist movements at the end of the seventies, she used to help fugitive communists, either by finding them refuge in Damascus or Beirut or, with the militants among them, by preparing for the revolution that would make Iraq the first communist country in the region. She helped many of them flee the hell of Baghdad, using two methods. Firstly, she would secure them regular jobs and salaries at Palestinian liberation organizations in Beirut. The Palestinian media in particular absorbed large numbers of them. Secondly, she would help some of them receive military training to go to northern Iraq, to hide out in the mountains and join the Al-Ansar communists’ fight against the government forces.

  Although Jacqueline had been jailed in Syria several times for her underground, conspiratorial activities, she never divulged even a single piece of information that might harm any of her Iraqi communist comrades or Al-Ansar fighters. During that period, the communists were at loggerheads with the Baathists, a conflict that had reached its peak during the Iran–Iraq war. As the communist movement became more militant, it was clear that its various wings were following the Syrian line in their struggle against Saddam. When Iraqi fugitives were unable to take immediate refuge in the mountains on account of the strict siege imposed by Saddam on Kurdistan, they would flee to Syria as a permanent transit point. They often carried a special card that enabled Jacqueline to identify them as communists. Only then would she be willing to offer them housing assistance. In the absence of a card, she would be suspicious that the newcomer was a spy planted by Saddam’s secret service apparatus. She often spoke about contacts who later turned out to be spies.

  After 2003 Jacqueline’s programme underwent drastic changes. She turned from being the protector and supporter of communists to being the protector and supporter of journalists and writers, especially a year after the US invasion of Iraq, when they began to feel the brunt of the violence themselves. She disclosed to me some of her intricate plans involving Iraqis and asked me to help her carry them out. So I helped her by booking rooms in miserable hotels where we would cram journalists and photographers two or three to a room, according to the requirements of the situation. We once convinced a hotel receptionist to allow us to squeeze ten journalists into a single room. If the receptionist was Egyptian, our task would be much easier, because Egyptians were always sympathetic to the poor and needy and were constantly willing to facilitate humanitarian missions. We sometimes ran out of money or couldn’t find places for them to stay, so Jacqueline would welcome them into her own apartment. Sometimes, when there were too many people staying in her apartment, she would go somewhere else with her husband, until lodgings were arranged for the newcomers.

  The lifestyle at Katania House was so Western that you even forgot you were in the Middle East. There were young Iraqi and Western intellectuals, both men and women, living under the same roof. Music blared from the courtyard of the house: pop and rap, old and new, as well as classical music such as Wagner, Chopin and Verdi. In their rooms you’d find the latest publications in Arabic and other languages. There were new paintings signed by young artists and films whose directors and casts sat and laughed with you while lounging in bed. Almost every evening, everyone would bring a favourite drink and a dance party would begin to the music. Katania House was the destination of many young Iraqi intellectuals, the second generation of fugitives from the hell of Baghdad. While the first generation had fled Saddam’s hell and the dictatorship that was now over, the second generation was fleeing terrorism, militias, occupation and religious censorship. Where the first generation had danced to the music of the Beatles, Cliff Richard, the Shadows and the Doors, and talked about armed revolution and the socialist
state, the second generation danced to rap and hip hop, the songs of 50 Cent, Eminem and Fergie, while debating democracy and human rights. There were also plans to emigrate to Europe, with Iraqis moving, wave after wave, to join their friends there. But they remained attached to those who stayed behind, especially in Damascus. So Jacqueline tried hard to make life easy for those who loved Western culture, music and a life of liberty.

  Many Islamist journalists and intellectuals also arrived from Baghdad. Some of them rapidly became caught up in pop music, mixed society, strange clothing and accessories of every kind. Before long they would shave their beards and let their hair grow, dazzled by the freedom of life in the West and embracing Western values. Others did not. They stayed true to their principles but learned a new type of collective rejection of bourgeois ethics. But this was a peaceful tendency that inclined towards sensual gratification, a domesticated anarchy that loved nature and animals and rejected conventional morality.

  Almost every day witnessed endless cultural discussions. You would find Arabic novels in people’s bags. On their beds and on their bedside tables you’d find music by Léo Ferré or Georges Brassens. You would sometimes find them going to elegant movie houses to attend French or American film week. They were no different from rebellious youths throughout history. They stayed up late in bars and parks and read Tariq Ali’s books against war and terrorism. They attended cultural events and, in the midst of crowds, danced to the music of well-known cult figures. Or they went to discos where their mere presence represented a rejection of traditional culture. You might also find them in theatres, captivated by the words of the Iraqi playwright Jawad al-Asadi or Salah al-Qasab, whose great plays challenged their minds and whose latest stage productions became engraved in their memories.

  III

  Journalists at the tobacconist’s

  One lively summer evening, I was at Jacqueline and her husband’s apartment. It was noisy and animated. There were discussions of every type, loud laughter and the clinking of glasses. The place was so enchanting that it made me feel more preoccupied with others than with myself. Suddenly Jacqueline’s voice rose above the din, telling me that Nancy was on the phone for me. I took the receiver and spoke as loudly as I could, while motioning at everyone to keep quiet. The noise was truly deafening, so I screamed into the receiver, ‘Nancy, how are you?’

  Her voice sounded calm as she said, ‘I called Jacqueline to ask for you. I’ve got some work for you. Come quickly to Amman. I’ve got an important job. I have to see you.’

  ‘Now?’ I said in astonishment, while trying to silence the noise around me.

  ‘Yes, now,’ she said in her gentle voice.

  ‘Can’t it wait till the morning?’ I asked.

  ‘No, now.’ Her voice was confident and enthusiastic. ‘Now means right now.’

  I went back to Katania House. It was as rowdy as ever and the music was very loud. I knocked hard on the door, which was opened by a drunken girl. I went quickly upstairs and into my room. I took my photographs out of their frames and put them in my bag. I also took some of the books I always have with me, and a few films. I placed the camera in a leather bag and packed a few of my favourite possessions, insignificant objects that were worthless but which brought me good luck, or so I believed. These included a cup made of sandalwood, an empty ink bottle that smelt of cheap ink, and a very old silver ring with a stone that twinkled in the dark. I felt that at the end of a hard day’s work, one needed the soothing warmth of concrete objects, even when they were silly and insignificant. Because I was heartened by its blue colour, I then bought a blue shawl and put it in the bag. I carried the laptop over my shoulder, hung the camera round my neck, put the small recorder in the side pocket of my trousers and rushed to the garage. At the border, I had to wait for hours and endure the cross-examination of the border guards in order to reach Amman where Nancy Awdeh was expecting me.

  When I arrived in Amman, I took a cab and went straight to a lovely small hotel, the Select, a three-storey stone building with a glass door. Above the door was a sign where ‘Select’ was written in both Arabic and English. The hotel was located on Jabal al-Weibdeh. I dropped off my bags and went directly to a nearby bar, the Negresco. It was a small bar in a quiet, exclusive suburb, close to Amman’s lively and noisy main square. This bar was a favourite spot for foreign journalists, correspondents and commentators. It was, in fact, the meeting point of foreign correspondents working for the international press, television, radio and news agencies. All of them had been stationed in Iraq during the outbreak of the war, before and after the early months of 2003. The bar was not distinctive, but with its wooden tables, paintings that reflected a taste for the primitive, its loud jazz, smell of alcohol and dim lights, it had a definite American character.

  When I entered the bar, it was swarming with drunken, unruly journalists, and filled with the sounds of laughter, the chinking of glasses, shouting and discussions. The lights were dim and the place reeked of cigarette smoke and odd smells from the ashtrays that were full of butts and burnt matchsticks. Food and plates of mezzas littered the place, telling the story of what was going on. Waiters rushed from one side to another. There was nowhere to sit, but when I looked around, I saw Nancy sitting with a group of Arab correspondents who worked, I believed, for a foreign station. Next to her sat an Iraqi journalist called Faris Hassan, a man whom I totally detested. He was talking in a very loud voice and the sound of his laughter was deafening.

  My very first impressions of this journalist had been negative and I never wished to have any dealings with him. He was a big mouth and always spoke as though he were an expert on Middle Eastern affairs. His reports on Iraq, which he sold to foreign newspapers, were mostly fabricated and exaggerated. We had no work connections and I couldn’t bear the sight of him. The only time I’d talked to him in a friendly manner had been at Jacqueline Mugharib’s apartment, where he’d gone in the company of Salina Quraishi, the Afghan journalist who wrote a famous report on the Taliban after the US invasion. At a later date, about two years previously, he’d said hello to me at the Box Café in downtown Amman.

  Before Faris or Nancy could spot me, I made an exit by ducking behind the screen and heading out of the door. I stood in the street for a minute before deciding to go to the Piccadilly Restaurant. This was a small, English-style place located a short distance from the Negresco. It was also a minor meeting point for journalists and correspondents who couldn’t find room at the Negresco. I pushed the door and went in. Two foreign correspondents I knew well were inside: a tall American journalist with blond hair, who worked for the Christian Science Monitor, and a German woman journalist, whom I believed to be of Syrian origin and who worked for Swiss television.

  I sat with them as they spoke about the very same thing. They couldn’t go to Baghdad because of the many risks involved, particularly after the spate of kidnappings and murders of foreign journalists since 2004. When the waiter began to remove the empty plates and glasses from the tables, they reordered. I had nothing to say, so I gazed instead at the evening outside, charmed by the mysterious view from the restaurant onto the wide street. As I sat there, I could see the light of the moon on the craggy hills that ran parallel to the great houses and buildings. The horizon was obscured by the fog while the lamps lit up the amazing tenderness of the night.

  Nancy came suddenly into the restaurant. She was wearing a short denim skirt and a pink blouse, the top button of which was undone. She was accompanied by Faris Hassan, who was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing last time: a light brown linen jacket and a pair of khaki trousers with lots of pockets. They came over and embraced me. After the waiter had managed to bring some chairs, they sat down at our table. Nancy sat next to me, while Faris Hassan sat opposite. She smiled at me with her green eyes and her fair-skinned, rosy face. She pushed the hair away from her eyes and said abruptly, ‘You have work, black writer!’

  ‘So, what is it?’ I asked. I also asked her in
a whisper if that idiot, referring to Faris Hassan, was in the know.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘a major Iraqi composer has been killed in mysterious circumstances in Al-Mansour in Baghdad. We want a full report on his murder for US Today News. We also want a book for the Press Cooperation Agency.’

  ‘Kamal Medhat?’ I asked.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘As a violinist he’s very famous. As for his murder, I just read about it in the papers. Give me some information and tell me what you need exactly, and I’ll do the report.’

  ‘There’s something else I need to tell you …’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This idiot that you hate so much will be going with you.’

  ‘Out of the question. I won’t do it, no way!’ I said.

  ‘It won’t be possible otherwise. I know what you’ve always thought of him, but …’

  ‘Believe me, I can’t work with that ass. Impossible!’

  ‘But he was the one who turned up important information.’

  ‘What kind of information could that numbskull have that nobody else knows about?’

  ‘It’s a long story. The three of us will meet tomorrow to discuss the whole thing.’

  ‘You discuss it with him. Please leave me out of it.’

  ‘Please listen to me and don’t let your thick head get in the way!’

  ‘Work with that donkey?’ I said, while the donkey guffawed and talked to the American in his sickening English accent.

  Nancy worked for a news analysis agency, or what is usually referred to as a press cooperation agency. On this occasion, she was looking for a short newspaper feature, to be followed by a book, about an intriguing personality. We started talking about various other things, without mentioning the important topic I’d come to Amman to discuss. Instead, she spoke to me in the way that other journalists did in those days, starting with a question to which she knew the answer, before getting to the crux of the matter: