Baghdad Fixer

by Prusher, Ilene

  I stand, holding out my hand to pull her up off Ziad’s low-lying bed. “You’ll have to come back some time and find out.”

  ~ * ~

  Sam and I force ourselves to eat the eggs and gemar cream and samoun Mum laid out for us, more than either of us would want. Amal helps Sam pin her headscarf so that she looks authentic. In the past, whenever Sam wanted to look local, she would just wrap the scarf lightly and let it slip backwards on her head, which didn’t achieve much. But Amal picked out her favourite dambab, a scarf pin that I think was Grandma Zahra’s, and placed it perfectly along the right side of Sam’s face. Now that she is done, Sam almost looks like she could pass unnoticed.

  Then we wait, ready to go, feeling impatient. Safin isn’t on time. We discuss the possibility of leaving now, leaving it to Baba to explain to Safin, and then decide against it. We hover near the window, watching out for the jeep.

  Mum sighs. “You could have gone to the Imam Kadhum shrine for prayers by now.”

  “Stop that,” Baba orders. He then looks at her sympathetically, like he wishes he hadn’t answered by trying to shut her up so quickly. He puts his hand on her back. “Ayouni,” he says more softly. “They’ll leave soon.”

  “Maybe you’ll go to the shrines in Samarra,” Mum says. “She’ll like that. You can go to the al-Askari Shrine and then take her to the Malwiya Minaret. Yes!” She talks excitedly, tapping my shoulder. “You must!”

  “Zeinab, this isn’t a honeymoon trip!” When Baba says that, I feel my heart sink, and I avoid Amal’s stare.

  “What’s your Mom saying?”

  I turn to Sam, who is beginning to look like a fundamentalist’s wife, and find myself unable to hold in a laugh.

  “She says I should give you a tour of Samarra.”

  Sam smiles at Mum. “I certainly would have loved that.”

  I turn back to the window. “So let’s do it. A quick stop for you to take pictures,” I say, without turning around to look at her. “It’s kind of a religious thing. People make pilgrimages there.”

  “Tell her that if you pay a visit to the Hidden Imam, he will protect you,” Mum says.

  Baba exhales loudly, losing patience with Mum’s otherworldly beliefs, and goes to check on the car again.

  “Mum thinks visiting there can protect us.”

  “Oh really?” Sam tucks an invisible hair into the scarf; it’s clear the snugness of it makes her uncomfortable. “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way,” I say. I look at Sam, so much more conservatively dressed than my mother or Amal, sitting in their sleeveless housedresses, and am struck by the oddness of it all. Me escaping from my own city with a red-headed American girl.

  ~ * ~

  56

  Escaping

  When Safin pulls up outside our house close to 6.45, he immediately begins to apologize for arriving later than he should have done. The jeep looks more conspicuous than ever, gleaming in the early morning sun. He must have had it washed for the trip.

  Baba invites him inside, treating him with a certain warmth - with arm around the back, words of welcome in his mouth.

  “Your family has been so helpful to my son and Miss Samara. Rizgar worked so hard to protect them,” Baba says.

  Safin looks worried, as if he knows bad news is coming. He swallows and shifts his glance from my father to me.

  Baba smiles. “But this is the situation. Some things you can’t control.” My father sighs, and I feel as if I am breathing in what he’s exhaled, taking in some of his confidence. “Safin, brother, they must go without you. You know it will be safer for them. And you.”

  Safin’s cheeks elongate with surprise. “Will it?”

  “Well, of course. We really don’t know who killed Rizgar, Allah yarhamo. Maybe these awful people Nabil and Miss Samara got mixed up with are still looking for three people: an Arab man and a foreign lady — with their Kurdish driver.”

  Safin’s head lolls to one side, a motion that acknowledges Baba has a point. He nods without looking at us.

  “Also, that car you’re driving,” Baba says. “It is a car only foreigners or VIPs would have.”

  Safin’s eyes dip with some hint of agreement. “I see,” he says. “But what happens when they get to Kurdistan?”

  “Habib,” my father smiles, putting his arm on Safin’s, “that’s where you can help them. Perhaps you could write them a letter saying they are under the special protection of some tribe which nobody will want to have to contend with later. Maybe your tribe?”

  “Baba,” I look at my watch. “It’s late.” Yesterday he had suggested we leave as soon as the curfew lifts, at 6.00 a.m. In that case, we should have left three-quarters of an hour ago.

  Baba glares at me. In our eyes a whole argument erupts without a word being spoken.

  This is holding us up, Baba.

  Don’t question me on this, Nabil.

  You said you didn’t trust him.

  I said wait.

  “Nabil?” I can hear a nervous vibration in Sam’s voice. “What’s going on?”

  “My father wants Safin to write us a letter to protect us when we drive up north.”

  Sam’s arms are crossed. “Uh-huh. Okay.”

  “Please,” Baba says, gesturing for Safin to follow him. My father goes to the old wooden chest and slides open a drawer in which I know he keeps better paper for formal letters, as well as small gifts in case of a last-minute occasion.

  He comes to the table with a fine sheet of paper, and offers a seat to Safin. Baba sighs and makes a writing motion with an almost pleading look in his eyes. Safin nods, sits down, and reaches inside his jacket pocket, retrieving a ball-point pen.

  “I will mention the Barzani family and the Dizayee family,” he says. “That should help.”

  Baba nods. “I’m sure. I’m sure it will.” Baba stands over him and watches, while we wait at the other end of the table. I feel slightly uncomfortable with this whole scenario, this gentle yet explicit forcing of Safin to do what we ask. To write a letter on our behalf, like a couple of fugitives trying to gain entry to some ancient kingdom.

  To produce for us a largely false document.

  “So...which tribe is your family from?”

  Safin answers my question with a glare.

  “Just in case we get asked by someone.”

  “You don’t need to mention me directly. That won’t do you any good,” Safin says, “But since you ask, Barzani. And the Dizayee are also our friends — almost as good as brothers.”

  When Safin is finished with the letter, he puts a second sheet of paper behind it, folds it in three and hands it to Baba. Realizing his mistake, Safin smiles and hands the letter to me.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I am so sorry that we couldn’t travel together, but I do hope we will have a chance to meet again, or to work together some other time.”

  “Indeed,” Baba says. “You must come back to visit us.”

  “Of course,” he says, blinking fast, as though still trying to absorb whether we are genuine, whether he had any choice but to give in to our modified plans.

  Sam lifts a finger as if to excuse her interruption. “Uh, did... did you get the map he made?”

  “The map!” I exclaim. Baba’s eyes close. In all our worrying about how we would break the news to Safin, we completely forgot.

  Safin excuses himself and runs out to his car.

  ~ * ~

  Mum has stuffed enough food for three days into shopping bags, unnecessary since I know Sam will want to eat in restaurants, and she places them by the door. “Tell her to remember all the food’s here,” Mum says. “Don’t forget.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Safin rushes back inside and spreads a hand-drawn map on the table, plus a list of directions. “It’s very easy,” he says. “You take the highway past Al-Kadhumiya all the way north. When it breaks off to the west, you drive on until yo
u get to Samarra. It should be quiet there, so make a stop there if you need a bathroom or water or anything.”

  “We have enough provisions to last us a week,” I say. I wink at Mum, who smiles back.

  “Fine. So then you continue on to Tikrit — don’t stop there - and then to Al Baygi, and after that you want to turn right towards Kirkuk to avoid Mosul, because it’s very dangerous there. And so maybe it’s a bit longer, but I say go to Kirkuk, then Irbil, and stay in Irbil overnight if you like, where it’s safe, and where my family is.”

  “He says we should stay overnight in Irbil. You said you liked it there, right?”

  “Yeah,” Sam brightens. “Irbil’s great. There are some good hotels there, too.”

  “Okay,” says Safin, pulling the conversation back to Arabic. “From there you can drive to Dahuk, and that’s also a very safe place to stay overnight, if necessary. And then from there it’s only another hour or so to Zakho, where the border crossing is.”

  I wonder if Baba is thinking what I’m thinking. Mosul is dangerous to a Kurd, but not for an Arab. The itinerary he has outlined could add a whole extra day to our trip.

  More time to be with Sam. More time for someone to catch up with us.

  Sam pulls up the too-long sleeve of the jupeh to glance at her new watch. “Do you know it’s nearly seven now?”

  “Yes,” I say. “We really should—”

  “I will leave you, then,” Safin says, moving away from the table and glancing from face to face.

  “Wait,” Sam says. She reaches into her bag and pulls out an envelope. She takes it in two hands and presents it to Safin, a curtain of sincerity pulled across her pale face. “Please take this.”

  “What?” He looks at me and Baba. “What’s this?”

  “She wants you to have it,” I say.

  “It’s what I would have paid you for the trip up north, plus something extra that I would like you to give to Rizgar’s family.”

  “I can’t accept it,” Safin tells me. “I can’t be paid for work I didn’t do.”

  Sam gazes at Safin like she thinks he’s a hero. Perhaps he is, but I feel that this is a predictable response — the way any man of dignity would answer without thinking.

  “Please,” she says. “Give it to his family then. And could you write down their address for us, too? Or telephone number, or some other way we can contact them?”

  Safin scribbles out the information on one of the remaining sheets. He hands it to Sam, and she takes it and folds it, then holds it close to her heart. “Please,” she says, her eyes glossy again. “Please tell them how sorry I am — how sad I am about Rizgar. He was one of the most wonderful people I ever worked with.”

  Safin nods as I translate this for him, and he offers a response in kind.

  “He says Rizgar said the same about you. He said ‘the most’. Not one of the most.”

  Sam smiles a sad smile, and looks at Safin with such warmth in her eyes that I almost think she will embrace him but of course she realizes this would be inappropriate, so she wraps her arms around herself instead.

  As soon as Safin is gone, Baba and I open the letter to read it. It makes specific reference to Sam being an American journalist who is travelling through Kurdistan in expectation of writing articles in support of the cause of an independent Kurdish homeland in Iraq. The letter asks the reader to facilitate Sam’s passage so as to ease the process of decentralized power, leading to permanent Kurdish national and political rights.

  When he’s done skimming, Baba’s eyes bulge.

  “You asked him to write the letter,” I say.

  “I didn’t know he’d write a letter like that.”

  “Is there a problem?” Sam asks. She always seems to know when something is wrong.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “We should go.”

  “Wait,” Sam says. “The letter’s in Arabic?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Why of course? The letter’s written from one Kurd to another, intended for Kurdish officials in Kurdistan. Why wouldn’t he write it in Kurdish?”

  Baba shrugs. “There are many different Kurdish,” he says in his broken English. “Maybe he speak one and the other man speak the another. Arabic is the language that unites all Iraqis,” says my didactic father. “It does not matter if you are Arab, Kurdish, Sunni, Shi’ite, Christian or Jew.”

  Sam smiles at him widely. He smiles back and holds out his hand for her to shake. When she puts her hand in it, he pulls her closer and gives her small kisses on each cheek, the way you would a relative. “You are like a daughter now,” he says. “So you must take good care of our Nabil.”

  Sam laughs out loud. “He usually insists on taking care of me.”

  Mum approaches and treats her like someone we’ve known for a hundred years, putting her lips on Sam’s cheeks so many times that I think she has spent more time kissing Sam than I have. And then it is Amal’s turn. She approaches Sam and quickly throws her arms around her. In her hand is a gift the size of a book. When they let go of each other, Amal presents it to Sam, and suddenly I recognize it: a box of fancy stationery that Ziad gave Amal, part of a big package of presents he sent last Ramadan. It was delivered by a Baghdadi friend of his also living in France, who’d come back to visit.

  Sam opens it up and holds up a page trimmed in pretty blue flowers that tell of a simpler life elsewhere, where people binge on rich food and wine all day and then tsk about how terrible it is in places like this. “It’s beautiful,” Sam nearly sings. “Thank you.”

  “So you will write me from America. You will tell me about all the things there and about your life and the movie stars.”

  “Amal.” Mum’s face admonishes her not to pressure Sam to write.

  They walk us to the car and Sam gets in. I turn to her and notice she looks like a real bint hallal, innocent and proper as a religious teenager still under her father’s roof.

  “Now you look like a Samira,” I say.

  Sam smirks at herself in the rearview mirror. “Good. You can call me that.”

  I put the car in gear and inch forwards. Amal stands on the path while Baba pulls open the metal gate for us. Mum hurries up to my window and pokes her head inside. She whispers a prayer in my ear, and then part of a sura from the Koran, I think from Al-Nisa: the part that pertains to women. “God bids you to deliver all that you have been entrusted with to those who are entitled to receive it.” My translation: get Sam home safely to the people who love her. Even if now, we love her too.

  “Fi m’Allah,” Mum says, kissing my cheek in little pecks. “Ayouni! Fi m’Allah. Bye-bye, Sam,” Mum calls in funny staccato syllables, as if even these simple words force her to stretch facial muscles she has not exercised in a long time. We drive out and pass the three of them, each smiling. When I glance at them again in the rearview mirror, the smile is gone from my father’s face and my mother is waving eagerly, the palm of her hand stained bright by the orange-red henna from Friday’s visit to the mosque. The image of that holy sunburst in her hand is still in front of me as we start rolling down the street.

  ~ * ~

  57

  Rolling

  By the time we’re really on the road, it’s much later than we had planned last night, when Baba and I worked out the final details.

  “Your parents are so sweet,” Sam says as we are passing by Mustansiriyah. Thoughts of Subhi, of the eager young Shi’ites doing the Hawza’s bidding, of Ibrahim something-or-other over at the Showja Market. All of that seems a whole epoch ago, before all of the trouble started. Before Akram and Mustapha and Ali, back when the most threatening people in Baghdad were faceless looters and criminals and over-eager American soldiers. Back when all I had to worry about was getting the words right. Interpreting — fixing, maybe — but not protecting. Certainly not escaping.

  “Your sister, especially. She has such grace for a young girl. I think she gets it from your Mom.” She
pauses. “Your Dad’s a total charmer, too.” Sam opens the mirror on the visor in front of her and looks at her face, drawn into a purposeful and serious pose. “You’d probably pass me on the street and think I was Iraqi, wouldn’t you?”

  I grin. “Probably.” I wonder if she has any idea how worried my parents are. How, underneath all their impeccable hospitality, they have probably come to resent her. If she had never walked into my father’s hospital, into Noor’s mourning house, into all our lives, I would be safe at home with them now, waiting to go back to my quiet little teaching job.