“The prison?” The others, walking at the double, turn the corner on the way to the lift, but Sam stops in the middle of the corridor.
“Yes,” I say. “When people go missing it often means they’ve been arrested, and I’ve heard that there are people there who can provide information from inside. You’d do well to offer tips when you look for him.”
“Baksheesh?” Sam grins, presumably trying to show off whatever Arabic she’s picked up.
“You can call it that. No one likes to work for free, to take risks, especially now in this situation. People are afraid. Otherwise, I mean, normally, we are generous people. Anyone would like to help you. We want everyone, even Americans, to feel welcome in our country.” I am surprised by this commentary tripping off my lips, by my sudden keenness to promote Iraqi hospitality.
Sam nods. She moves to walk away, then turns back. “I can see that,” she says. And she blinks at me again with both eyes, in a nice way that feels almost like a wink, and then heads towards the lift.
I stand there and wait, and listen to the people and the machines, and decide I will ask around downstairs for an imam or some other religious person who will know which prayer to say for Noor. I think it should be Ya Latif which one is supposed to recite in situations of great distress, or when praying for someone who is gravely ill. I think it’s also supposed to be repeated more than a hundred times. Could that be? But then my father turns the corner, and I see his face and stand still. He gestures for me to go back into his office, but I’m stuck here with the corridor narrowing on me, the floor moving all on its own.
~ * ~
3
Narrowing
We are burying Noor in the cemetery in Sheikh Maroof, not far from her family’s house in Hurriyah. The sun is still low, a time of the morning when I would normally be teaching my first class of the day, watching the usual stragglers trying to slip towards their seats without my noticing that they’re late. Only a few of Noor’s relatives and friends, the ones who live nearby, have arrived. Her family wasn’t able to call people to let them know. Some relatives who did get word sent food and apologized for their absence. No one who lives on the other side of the river, in Karada, is here — they say it’s impossible to cross any of the bridges. Baba says it isn’t safe to go out now at all, when it isn’t a life or death reason. That includes a funeral, doesn’t it?
Many people, honest people, are afraid to go out, because other people are on the streets, taking and destroying everything, even killing each other over things, things that are supposed to be valuable but are really nothing. Hawasim, people are whispering at Noor’s funeral. Everywhere there is hawasim. Looting, that’s the word one uses in English.
Around me, some faces are contorted, some sad, some blank. But most are dry-eyed. In Arabic, we have our own phrase for keeping a stiff upper lip. Jamrafil qalb wala damafil ayn. A fire in the heart but no tear in the eye. Dr Mahmoud, when he was lucid enough to speak, made a decision that the women in the family should stay at home, as if home were any safer than anywhere else. Home, where Noor got hit by a stray bullet.
Now and then, Dr Mahmoud tries to say something but very little sound actually comes out, his voice stripped with shock. He stands at the edge of the grave, his arms held by other men, and slips to his knees before they pull him up again. “Why?” he moans. “Why did you take my beautiful little girl?” I wonder if he means the Americans or God.
I find myself imagining how Noor would have looked in a white gown as my bride and everything feels wrong, because even if I didn’t love her, I might have learned to love her. She seemed marriageable enough. The truth is, just in that moment when she was serving the tea and fruit, I found her quite elegant. She only wanted to help people — she was studying psychology. And she was quite pretty, really, with her dark, cat-like eyes that dominated her round face.
Instead of an urs, a wedding, a genaze, a funeral.
I listen to the sound of the soil falling over Noor’s white sheath mixing with the clatter of helicopters coming from the south of the city and the rapid gunfire, which could be coming from anywhere.
We fold ourselves back into the car, Baba and myself and two of my cousins from around the block who agreed to come along with us, because they are young and look intimidating in comparison to us. The graveyard where we left Noor gets smaller, until its new damp mounds, each brown knoll a mark of someone else who has just been buried without warning, without time to prepare, are like little molehills.
We turn towards the 14th of Ramadan Street, a shopping high street, because we are going to pick up Mum and Amal before going back to Noor’s neighbourhood. But as we move closer we see a world convulsing. Waves of people running, stealing, destroying. They are shouting and laughing and carrying outside things that belong inside, moving about a whole animal kingdom of stolen goods. We see them circling wider like a slow-moving swarm, fleeing as beasts of burden in different directions, and when we realize the scope of what is happening, Baba curses and says we have to turn around. While he makes the U-turn, through the rear window the rest of us watch an airborne bazaar — men with televisions and stereos and ovens and typewriters and pots, moving through the atmosphere as though it were perfectly natural. Air conditioners are hoisted high with their wires trailing like tails. Coloured office chairs fly down the street like fish in a stream. Filing cabinets spit out fluttering papers like the feathers of a dying chicken. Clusters of men are carrying desks and water coolers, refrigerators and vases, computer screens and paintings. A man falls as the crowd passes him by without anyone stopping to help him.
Cousin Khaled is twisting and lurching in his seat and he says we should go back to see what’s happening, but Baba clucks no so Khaled says, “Just to watch!” And then my father slams on his brakes and pulls over and turns around and asks Khaled if he wants to get out. And Munib, who is two years older, which puts him at about twenty and who has been silent the whole morning, glares at his younger brother like he might smack him and says, Y’alla, go ahead, get out and get yourself something. And Khaled says no, forget it, and turns his head away from us, either ashamed or annoyed.
~ * ~
At Noor’s house, Baba pulls up and parks behind the other cars waiting outside. One of the neighbours points to Adnan’s house next door, indicating that the mourners are gathered there. I suppose Adnan’s house might be bigger but it just now occurs to me that this might be purposeful, an attempt at relief. To sit in the place where we sat only yesterday? I’m not sure how they can ever have a normal day in their own home again.
I look at Baba, overweight and close to sixty, a time in his life when things should be getting easier. He sits behind the steering wheel with eyes shut. He puts his hand over his glasses as if to shield his sight, although we’re not even in the sun.
Baba rubs his eyes beneath his glasses. “She might have been our daughter-in-law, right, Nabil? She might have been the mother of your children. What a waste.”
I open the car door without answering him.
We settle in to mourn with Noor’s family, and there is a lot of food on the tables put out by the women, though no one eats it. Soon after we arrive, my mother and Amal walk in, and my father is a little bit angry with them for taking a chance and travelling by taxi. My mother shakes her head at him and hisses, “What else could we do? Sit at home because you didn’t come back for us? We came for Noor, Allah yarhamha.”
I sit on the floor of the salon with all the other men while the women sit in an inner room behind us, closer to the kitchen. I listen to the crying and I know it would be good if I could cry, too. It would please Noor’s family to see me cry, offer a tearful tribute to my would-be bride. But inside I feel only sad waves of verse, a poem that I am writing in my head. No matter how sad I look, I can feel Dr Mahmoud sneaking glances at me, to check if I am upset the way a man who lost his love would be. He says nothing, but I can read the words in his eyes, running like subti
tles in a foreign film. Why didn’t you agree to marry her straight away? What was taking so long? As if it’s my fault. As if that would stop a war, or a bullet. As if, had I already said yes and married her, she would be alive now and ready to present him with a grandchild.
Still, I should be ashamed. If I knew I didn’t want to marry her, what business did I have allowing my parents to drag me to a second meeting with her and her parents? If I hadn’t agreed to the date, maybe Noor would have been lying in bed reading a book. Lying, not standing at the front window. Maybe she would have been here at her brother Adnan’s house, close to the floor, playing with his baby son, her nephew. Maybe she would have been safe.
The recording of an imam bleats through the house, churning out hadith, holy sayings of the Prophet. Al-mu’minima ft kulli halin bi-kheir. Believers are blessed in all circumstances. Is that meant to be comforting? But the gloomy melodies sound beautiful, a lilt so melancholy they might help me cry, help me prove that even if I failed to love Noor, I can still mourn for her.
I go through the motions, the bowing and the turning and the mouthing of words, with a feeling of emptiness. I try to say a qunut for her in my own words, to wish her peace in the next world, but I cannot take to heart what I am saying. From the corner of my eye, I see her photograph on the wall, a professional picture taken when she was graduating from university. Her hair looks carefully styled, a lush swirl of black against the photographer’s red backdrop, and she is wearing too much makeup.
One of the neighbourhood elders, presumably a sheikh judging from his long black robe, rises to offer traditional words of sympathy before leaving. Inna lil-lahi wa inna il-lahi raji’oon, he intones. We belong to God, and to Him we return. However trite, these are the only comforting words I have heard in the last twenty-four hours. When he has gone, one of Noor’s young cousins wants to turn on the radio to hear the news about the chaos and the Americans, the things people are whispering about in corners but never mentioning aloud. Dr Mahmoud signals no. It would be disrespectful, I suppose. And so we sit and listen to the mourning verses on the portable tape recorder, Adnan flipping the same cassette over and over until I have the urge to grab the tape and rip the dark ribbon to shreds.
The young boys of the family periodically go out to open the door for new visitors and show them inside. So naturally, I’m expecting a few more neighbours when I look up and see the boys standing with a heavily bearded man, most likely from the south, and her. Her fire-hair stands out in the room full of darkhaired men, like a burning ember amid black coals, and I can’t even remember her name.
“Nabil,” she says, and produces a smile that manages to convey sympathy. Hearing her voice helps me remember. Sam. Samara Katchens.
“This is my driver, Rizgar. We wanted to come to offer our condolences.” So I am wrong about the bearded man, because Rizgar is a Kurdish name and not an Arab one, and therefore he’s probably from the north, not the south. I offer my hand to him and he takes it and he draws me to him and kisses my cheek several times and says Ila Rahmetu Allah, God’s mercy be upon her. And then he adds another: God avenge her blood. The words make me shudder. But I know that it’s an appropriate thing to say, and that it will please Noor’s relatives.
Rizgar asks me which one is Noor’s father and I signal to Dr Mahmoud, and Rizgar offers more of the same. Allah yarhamha. God protect her soul. Dr Mahmoud nods and opens a hand in the direction of an empty chair.
But what to do with this woman? This Sam, who does not belong in this room full of men but will not manage with the women, because she won’t find anyone there who can speak English.
Sam smiles uncomfortably, apparently noticing that there are no other women in the room. She holds up a large basket of food, what appears to be fruit and vegetables and canned goods, plus boxes of biscuits and chocolates. “This is something for your family from the three of us. We are so sorry for your loss. We wanted to thank you for your help yesterday.”
At another time, this gift could have been awkward. Neither Noor’s family nor mine is poor, Al-Hamdulilah. Thank God. We are not the type of people who have to go to the UN offices in search of handouts. But since the war started, it’s been getting more dangerous to go out for food. These days, there isn’t a family who would not appreciate such a delivery.
Noor’s grandfather picks up the carved cane at his side and thumps it on the floor. He looks ancient and wears a black sheikh’s robe, even though I’m sure he’s not a sheikh. He repeatedly clears his throat with great effort, and I can see his fleshy throat flapping as he grumbles to the man next to him. “Nabil,” Baba says. “Perhaps you should tell your new friend to bring the gift to Noor’s mother in the next room.”
My new friend. In the feminine form, because in Arabic we have no choice but to distinguish male friends and female friends. What could sound worse? I stand with my eyes on the floor. “Come, please,” I say in English.
“Nabil,” Baba repeats my name, as if I’m a small boy who’s just learning his manners. “Why don’t you first tell them who she is.” I introduce her to the room full of men, Noor’s relatives, other men who are friends of the family or who have come from the neighbourhood. When I say her name, without realizing, I pronounce it like the city in our country, Samarra, with a shadda on the r, which acts like the damper pedal on a piano. Even though this is different from the way I’ve heard Sam pronounce her name, I can already feel that this is a good thing, and that maybe I have even done it deliberately. They’ll say, oh, yes, Samarra, beautiful name, good Sunni tribes there. Maybe they’ll behave like she isn’t a foreigner and an occupier after all, isn’t a brash American woman who can’t speak a word of Arabic who has rudely dropped in on a house of mourning.
“Salaam aleikum,” she says to them, pronouncing the greeting perfectly.
“W-aleikum is-salaam,” they answer and nod. The older men look away, but the young cousins stare as if a film star has arrived. I take the heavy basket from her and gesture for her to come with me to the women’s room, as if she would not have already known where it was from the weeping.
I lead the way into the corridor and turn right to bring her to Noor’s mother, wondering what on earth the women are going to think of me for bringing an attractive American woman into the house of mourning. Sam touches my elbow, and it makes all the muscles in my back lock.
“Sorry, Nabil, I won’t stay long,” she whispers. “I hope it was okay for me to come. I need to talk to you.” I turn back to her with my mouth open, but no words come out.
Aunts and sisters and girlfriends fall silent and gaze at me with confusion when I enter with the big basket in my arms and this Sam standing next to me. A little girl of four or five points with a chubby finger. “Like my Ginny doll!” she says, and they start to laugh a bit, and note that it’s true, this woman looks a bit like a bootleg Barbie women buy for their girls. Sam smiles with them but I can tell she doesn’t know why. I explain that Sam is a foreign journalist who was at the hospital last night looking for a friend while we were praying for Noor, and that Sam prayed for her too, and that she came here today to express her condolences. The women smile and say Sam must sit down and have tea with them, except for Noor’s mother, who sways with her eyes closed and says nothing.
A young woman rises to her feet, patting her chest. “This is Shireen. I can very well English. I can to help her, please.” She takes Sam’s hand, and though I suspect Shireen’s English isn’t going to get anyone through a real conversation, it’s a better solution than any other.
Sam stares at me, and her eyes seem to grow wider, like the child’s. “I’ll be fine,” she says, and so I leave, only turning back to tell her she can come and find me when she is ready to go.
It may be fifteen minutes or forty-five; I can’t tell how much time passes while I wait for her to emerge. I am only happy that the men are not asking questions about her.
And then she is standing there, her eyes fixed on the flo
or near my feet. “Please tell everyone that I am so, so sorry for your loss,” she says.
My father translates this into Arabic. Noor’s father looks at Sam and nods once. Baba stands. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for lunch?”
My stomach zigzags. I’m afraid Sam won’t know this is only a formality.
“Oh, thank you so much,” she says. “But I really must get back to the hotel.”
I can read the thoughts surely filtering through the minds of the men who caught the word “hotel”. Such a pretty foreign lady, living in a hotel. Doesn’t she have a husband? Is she a prostitute?
“Well, thank you for coming, Miss Samara,” Baba says cordially. “You must come to visit us again sometime.”
Rizgar takes a brisk look around and gets up.
I try to pretend they’re not watching our every step as the three of us walk towards the door. The moment I close the front door behind me, Sam speaks quickly.
“I hope it’s all right I came and I’m so sorry if this is the wrong time to be asking this, but the truth is, I need someone. I mean, I would really like you to work with me.” She turns to Rizgar. “Can you start the car?” Her hand turns an imaginary ignition key. “I’ll be there in a minute.” The Kurdish man turns silently, then looks back at me and mumbles a word of goodbye. We stop at the front gate.
Baghdad Fixer Page 3
