by Ali Bader
In the same year as Gladys’ scandals, he met the famous Russian violinist, Michel Boricenco, in front of whom he gave his first solo violin performance. In a small auditorium at the English Club in Baghdad he played Bach, Paganini and Ysaÿe. As a tribute to his virtuosity, Boricenco presented him with a fine violin and bow. That May, the Iraqi-British war broke out, accompanied by a national uprising inspired by Nazism. There was wholesale anarchy throughout the country. The Jewish community were victims of assaults, looting and murder. Massouda Dalal – Yousef Sami Saleh’s aunt and Gladys’ mother – was burnt alive before his very eyes and her property looted.
Letters
In writing Yousef Sami Saleh’s biography, or at least in documenting him by means of his era, his life, his thoughts and his youth, which were all similar or to a great extent comparable to the character of the keeper of flocks in the poetry collection Tobacco Shop, I have referred to the two phases of his life in Baghdad as outlined in his letters to Farida Reuben. The first extended from his childhood in Baghdad up to the Farhoud Incident in May 1941, which followed the rise of the Nazi organizations in Iraq and which saw the death of hundreds of Jewish victims in Baghdad. The second covered his life from the time they moved into their new home in the Hassan Pasha neighbourhood until his emigration to Israel in 1950. The Farhoud Incident, following the May 1941 revolution, occurred at the same time that everybody was busy talking about Gladys’s adventures. The burning of Massouda Dalal, Gladys’ mother, during the incident had a devastating effect on Yousef’s life and destroyed Gladys completely.
The incident changed the life of everyone in Baghdad. It can be described as a real turning point in the history of this society, being the first attack of its kind against its own citizens, and opening the door to civil conflict. Although historians have devoted little attention to it and have done nothing to address our collective amnesia, we can safely say that all the subsequent civil strife in Baghdad may be traced back to what happened on that fateful day in 1941.
Was this incident like any other in Yousef Sami Saleh’s life? Can it be considered as just one of those things that happen to people, whether or not they are violinists, whether they’re like the hero of Tobacco Shop, and whether or not they’re Jewish? But this was no ordinary incident. It instilled terror and humiliation in Yousef’s heart and marked the end of the family’s evening rituals, when Yousef had listened to the stories of Gladys while eating cakes and drinking tea. The beautiful stories of love and infidelity that had so captivated the family were now replaced by the news of Hitler’s victories and the voice of the Iraqi Younis Bahri, whose ‘Hail to the Arabs’, broadcast on the Nazi radio from the Italian city of Bari, incited the people against the Jews. Instead of the accounts of Gladys’ amorous pursuits, Yousef heard Younis Bahri’s voice speaking enthusiastically about the victories of the Axis on all fronts and predicting an all-out defeat for the Allies at El-Alamein in North Africa. In those early days, Yousef had no interest in this kind of news, the news of things happening elsewhere in a very remote place. He was far more interested in what Gladys was doing with her three lovers: the husband, the driver and the third man who followed her like a shadow. What he wanted most of all was simply to recreate her in his wet dreams. He was more eager to imagine her desires, moans and lustings than to hear about Hitler’s offensive, or any other, for that matter. That is, until the zero hour, the moment when the massacre happened before his very eyes. It was an incident that induced horrific images in his dreams instead of Gladys’ naked body. He began to see figures that seemed to come out of a Breughel or Bosch painting, with huge noses, deformed bodies, frightening smiles and cloven feet.
How did he witness the Farhoud Incident?
When Yousef woke up that morning, he tried out a tune or two on his violin as usual. He then placed the violin on the table and went to wash his face. With his hands still slightly wet, he dressed his lean, dark body in white shorts and a large shirt. He flattened his hair with his hands, gazing into the mirror with thoughtful eyes and a bleak face. Suddenly he heard a high-pitched scream. He turned towards the window, but there were only the carriages going down the street, the sunbeams coming through the glass and the sounds of nightingales echoing in the house. Then there was another scream from next door. He emerged from his reveries and went to open the window.
At that precise moment, Yousef saw the fire starting in the house opposite, his aunt Massouda’s other home. She had left her larger house in the Muslim neighbourhood of Al-Karradah because she believed that the Al-Torah area, being a closed ghetto, was much safer than a mixed neighbourhood. Al-Torah was an old area that was completely off-limits to non-Jews. She had no idea that this area would be now be swarming with strange, angry faces or that their houses would be looted by young men wearing caps and belts, whose bare and muscular arms held palm branches, wooden canes and iron rods that they waved in the faces of the terrified Jews.
From where he stood, Yousef watched the scene unfold in front of his eyes without forming any thoughts about it. He gazed as coldly at the scene as Alberto Caeiro, the keeper of flocks in Tobacco Shop, would have done. Standing by the open window, Yousef stared and watched cart drivers and coachmen with whips indicating their willingness to deliver the loot to the homes of the thieves. From his position, Yousef watched the crowds running in the pale and hazy light and heard the hoarse screams of Jews suffocating and dying, but still he formed no clear ideas, just like Alberto Caeiro in Tobacco Shop.
He saw men brandishing swords and knives as they ran after Sabreya, the daughter of Daoud Effendi. She ran with her hair flying loose, pursued by a group of assailants who managed to catch her by the hair before she could enter her house. He watched them as they punched her on the ground, watched them as they stripped her of her clothing, as she screamed. He watched them place their feet on her head and stamp on it with full force. He watched two handsome men remove her bracelets and saw the angry mob break down the doors and enter the houses of the terrified, trembling Jews huddled together in the corners. The looters fled, carrying the furniture on their backs. He saw them emerge with linen and quilts, having thrown the occupants of the beds onto the ground. He saw them enter kitchens and remove all the cooking utensils, even the pots on the stove. They snatched the ladle from the hand of the gaping, terror-stricken Jewish woman. They went into rooms and took everything they could lay their hands on: bundles of clothes, carpets, rugs, children’s clothes and even books.
‘What will you do with those books? Can you read English?’
‘We’ll sell them at the market. There is nothing from Jewish homes that cannot be sold.’
Coldly and dispassionately, Yousef observed the scene of death that was all around.
What he would never be able to forget, however, was the burning of Rabbi Shmuel’s books and the burning of his aunt.
He was looking at the books curling in the fire, shifting and hissing. At first there was a popping sound, then he heard the stirring of the embers. The flames rose higher and higher, consuming clothes and wooden objects. He saw the covers of the books twist and twirl like rolls of cloth. When the fire began to die out, he saw his aunt on the ground, on her bare knees. Her skin was burning, peeling and blackening. Her facial muscles were contracted and her bones cracked, while the flames consumed her hair. The crackling sounds of his aunt’s body burning stifled his screams, which emerged only as quavering, incomprehensible sounds. The flames flickered around her body before reducing it to charred dust that lay scattered on the ground.
He collapsed, unconscious.
When he opened his eyes, he felt as though it had all been a dream. His aunt lay a couple of metres away from him, her skin charred and her skull fractured. Her body had shrunk in size so much that it had become no heavier than her beautiful long black hair.
Did Yousef consider the move to the Hassan Pasha neighbourhood a significant change in his life? Certainly. Did it represent a departure from the terror that had domin
ated his life for so long? Certainly. But after drinking five glasses of wine in a row, he wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and told his friends that his feeble former life had gone for good. He was no longer dominated by fear as he had been in the past. Instead, his life and his character had been totally transformed. What had at root caused this change was going swimming with his friends in the river. At first he’d been hesitant, timid, holding back. From a safe distance, he’d watched the waves as they broke against the shore. Then he went alone to conquer the water, braving the waves with his chest. He felt the lapping of the gentle water against his body, as he moved his arms and swam towards the bridge. At that moment, Yousef felt an invisible force overtake him, body and soul, a kind of tyrannical joy that engulfed him until he began to laugh and breathe freely.
That year he also visited Al-Adhamiyah during the Prophet’s birthday celebrations. He took part in the great festivities in front of the mosque. He drank juice and ate with his friends from the food that was spread out on long tables, enjoying the chaotic mixture of eating and talking as their hands reached for the stuffed roasted sheep. That year he also wrote a long poem in Arabic, glorifying the Iraqi army during the 1948 war against Israel. He described the valour of the Iraqi soldiers and how they were only defeated by betrayal. Then he delivered a long monologue in rhyming couplets in praise of the Arab Nation.
(In one of his letters to Farida, Yousef had pointed out how swimming in the river had erased the humiliating fear that had always dominated his life in Al-Torah. He felt then as though an earthquake had pushed him into action, forcing him to jump and leap in. Fear had vanished completely from his heart because he had been strong enough to overcome it.)
But did his fear really and truly disappear? Did it vanish for good with the splash of the water? Could the water wash away the terror that had made him tremble for days on end at the sight of the slogans and swastikas written on the city walls? Those slogans, cheering the victories of the Axis, had been on the lips of the young and old alike. Did his fear disappear when he read statements venerating Hitler and proclaiming ‘Hitler, the protector of the Arabs’? Did he lose his fear of the sons of high-ranking army officers who wore uniforms with wide sashes and decorated their shoulders with the emblems of their ranks? Was he no longer afraid of the ‘Boy Scouts’ or the ‘Youth Brigade’ who paraded in their uniforms and searched Jews for wireless equipment and mirrors on the allegation of sending signals to British aircraft, and who, while searching the alleged culprits, would scream out, ‘Exterminate the germs!’
In fact, fear never entirely left Yousef’s heart, for as soon as he found himself facing any of them, his eyes would fill with tears and he couldn’t utter a word. He wished he could hide away in a deep, empty well. He would try hard to collect his courage but could only stutter, his power of speech gone. When he went out walking, he would look the other way, avoiding all eye contact.
But we have to admit, however, that little by little, after moving to his new house, Yousef assuaged his fears. He gradually got rid of his fear of Muslims. He found himself more and more in the wider world, part of life itself, and not trapped in a musty fear behind walls. He no longer shut himself up at home with a book, as he used to, but was now captivated by the lights reflected in the waters of the Tigris. He revelled in the humidity of summer by the bank of the river. He paraded in a white outfit, throwing pebbles into the water as he walked along the bank, beside the cafés and bars, feeling completely weightless. He now felt that he truly existed in this life, in Abu Dudu, the Hanoun market, Al-Adhamiyah and even in Al-Karradah itself. In Al-Hindiya, the most exotic of Baghdad’s neighbourhoods, which he had never gone near in the past, he felt liberated. He began to visit the countryside and other areas that Jews never ventured into.
In a letter to Farida, he wrote the following telling lines: ‘To live in a Jewish area, like Al-Torah for example, was to live like a Jew among Jews, to live afraid and uncertain. But there was a much wider circle out there. That’s why I wished to break into that new circle and destroy the old shackles that kept me chained. I could do this only by living among people, like everyone else.’
This meant that Yousef had now adopted the lifestyle of other Muslim and Christian young men and had become one of them. He had managed to conquer his fears for good. He acquired a new look that I saw in one of the photographs that I found inside Boris’s envelope: a handsome, clean-shaven young man of twenty, wearing a black cap and a very elegant white suit. With his broad chest, beaming smile and formidable build, he looked perfectly happy. He had placed his large hands on the shoulders of friends who were standing to his right and left, laughing. Behind them was a new, white Chevrolet.
During those years, Yousef was in the habit of going out in the evening with friends to the bars in Abi Nawwas on the Tigris and to the nightclubs that had just opened in the square or in Bab al-Agha. He would stay out almost all night with his Muslim friends. There were times when his mother had to bail him out of the police station at dawn, for he was often involved in bar brawls or in exchanges of blows with broken bottles over some prostitute. With downcast eyes, he would walk home with his mother, noticing the wrinkles in her face and the hard look in her eyes, as though she were trying to conceal the feelings of tenderness and compassion she felt for him. In the evening when he left the house once again, she was seized by a renewed bout of severe depression.
His love story with the dancer Munira attracted much attention at that time. He described in one of his letters how two dancers had come to the Hilal nightclub in the square near Bab al-Muazzam. It was the same club where Umm Kulthoum had sung in 1933. Munira was a little shorter than her older sister Jamila, but much prettier. Originally from Aleppo, the two young women had inflamed young men’s desires with their beauty, particularly Munira with her blonde hair and sexy clothes. When she rode with her sister in the black carriage from their lovely house in Hafiz al-Qaddi to the Hilal nightclub in Bab al-Muazzam, all the shopkeepers would leave their shops. They wanted to have a look at the two beautiful Aleppan dancers sitting under the hood of the black carriage, with its gold lamp at the front and its tall coachman standing with his slim whip, as they moved slowly along Al-Rashid Street.
When Yousef attended one of Munira’s performances, he sat in a trance in front of the wooden stage, watching as she gyrated sexily and moved her facial features in time with the music. She bent her body and vibrated her waist more daringly than any other nightclub girl at that time. Munira seemed like a blazing fire at the mercy of the wind. She danced with a quick rhythm and unparalleled gracefulness. Her tall, graceful body shook from head to toe as she danced in front of the audience, smiling, singing softly, her arms raised, her knees exposed, lewdly shaking her waist and shoulders.
(Yousef didn’t explain in his letters how he had got to know her, but he did mention in five of them that she was a real influence on his life and art. Furthermore, after my subsequent trip with Faris Hassan to Baghdad and our many meetings with some of Yousef’s contemporaries, they all confirmed the truth of this relationship. They’d seen them together three times: once at a Friday matinee at the Roxy cinema, the second at a New Year’s party at the English Club and the third time during a Muslim Eid in the late forties, eating ice-cream on Abi Nawwas Street. That was before the expulsion of the Jews, the withdrawal of their Iraqi nationality and the confiscation of their liquid and fixed assets. Everybody affirmed that they had acted like lovers.)
A lot of people saw Munira walking by his side, looking gorgeous with her knowing black eyes and her luscious full-lipped mouth. In one of his letters, he pointed out that what he loved most about her was her Syrian dialect, which was so different from that of Baghdadi women, not only in its intonation and rhythm but also in its expressions, words and proverbs. He was not only charmed by her flirtatiousness, but was also utterly captivated by the Aleppan vocabulary that he didn’t understand.
I tried long and hard to investigate the secret of
this relationship and what became of it in 1950, the year of the expulsion. His illness at that time might have had something to do with the end of the relationship, when he was sent to recuperate at one of his aunts who lived on a farm in the suburb of Al-Karkh.
In that unusual place Yousef had got used to seeing grey skies and high buildings. He was charmed by the pure colour and fragrance of the flowers. The West Baghdad Railway Station, with its rails stretching across the fields, seemed a fantasy. He also travelled to Basra, boarding the train with his luggage at the tiny station that was surrounded by tall trees and that gleamed with a rosy hue in the sunlight.
The memory of those days formed an image of paradise. Al-Karkh was spacious and beautiful. Its wide streets were lined with trees and surrounded by green woods. In the spring the muddy roads of winter became sunny and picturesque. Yousef felt that the place represented the birth of a new world, one that was lush, beautiful and wide open. It was here that Yousef was introduced to Farida, who was later to became his wife. One day he picked up his violin and went to visit her family’s house, which was next door to his aunt’s. He played some pieces for them. At that time Farida was studying music at the Laura Khedouri School, and when he played a bar in a completely wrong key, she pointed out his mistake. For him this was as unexpected as it was shocking.
She smiled and indicated to him to stop.
So he stopped and looked at her silently for a few moments. ‘Would you play that again?’ she asked him.
So he repeated it. And in doing so, his fingers repeated the error.
‘That’s not right!’ she told him.
‘What?’ he asked her in astonishment.
