Baghdad Fixer

by Prusher, Ilene

  Sam’s head wavers from side to side. “Something like that.”

  “In fact, many Muslims believe the Mahdi will come along with Jesus.”

  “A double-messiah day!” she says. “Two saviours for the price of one.”

  I smirk. I feel like telling her to watch it: you should never take the piss out of people’s religious beliefs, not in this part of the world. But this, I have learned, is Sam’s language. Even when she isn’t facing a deadline, she remains a journalist with a talent for catchy turns of phrase — and for cynicism.

  In the moments of quiet, Sam seems to read that she may have been too quick to poke fun. “Sorry, Nabil. I don’t mean to sound sarcastic. I told you I’m not a religious person. I think journalism has become my religion.” She smiles so warmly, with such self-deprecation, that I have to smile back. “Are these places holy for you? Do you believe in the Mahdi?”

  I turn on the radio. “No comment.”

  “Nabil!” She turns the radio off. The reception is terrible here anyway. “That’s not fair.”

  “Why not fair?”

  “We were having a serious discussion,” Sam says.

  “Were we? I thought you were finding it quite funny.”

  “I wasn’t, really. I’m sorry,” she says. “Really, please. It’s just, I don’t know, you do this job for long enough, and you start to become cynical about everything: every government, every leader, every system which tries to control people’s lives. I guess I end up just dismissing religion, particularly in the Middle East, as a form of oppression. If you don’t mind me saying.”

  “Say whatever you want.”

  “After what I saw in Afghanistan under the Taliban...”

  “That’s another story,” I say. “Afghanistan’s not even the Middle East.”

  “You’re right.”

  The road has cleared up again, and somehow, this puts me at ease. “To me, it’s complicated. My father doesn’t believe in much of anything but the god of medicine. But he strongly identifies with being a Sunni, whether he admits it or not. My mother doesn’t believe in asserting sectarian identity because she thinks this is bad for the ummah, that is, for the entire community of Muslims around the world. But she is a spiritual person and her beliefs and practices are very Shi’i.”

  “Yeah? Is there a big difference?”

  “There are many differences. I don’t know if any of them are so great. I’ll tell you more about it later, if you want. Shi’ites love to visit tombs and graves of holy men. There is a belief that these visits can help you and protect you. Remember how Mum was on about us stopping in Samarra?”

  “Did you promise her we would?”

  “No, no. There are no promises in anything.”

  I don’t say that it’s not just Mum, that I also have a dream of taking Sam there. In my mind I’ve had an outrageous image for days, with me leading Sam by the hand until we start laughing and running up the wide, sloped stairs of the Malwiya minaret, just like we did in that stairwell but this time flying up instead of down, high above and far away from everything and everyone that could ever hurt us, a little closer to heaven.

  ~ * ~

  58

  Flying

  I must have got lost in the clouds somewhere at the top of the tower, where I have not been since I was perhaps fifteen, for Sam seems to have grown tired of trying to pull my theology out of me.

  She lifts her index finger and pushes the small khamsa swinging from the rearview mirror, a bright blue bead dangling from each of its fingertips. “Why does everyone here hang these things from their rearview mirrors?”

  “Oh that? I don’t know, for good luck.” I take a hand off the wheel to turn the khamsa towards me. “See, it says ‘mashallah’ on it. Literally, it means ‘God has willed it.’ But we also say mashallah when we get good news. And when you hang it in your car, it’s as if to say, ‘May God prevent anything bad from happening here.’ It’s also supposed to stop you from catching the evil eye. A lot for one word, yes? My mother must have hung this here. My father doesn’t believe in these things.”

  Sam swings it again. “It’s cute. What do you mean, believe in it? Because it’s like a good-luck charm?”

  “Yeah, my father thinks these things are superstitious. Mum was always putting one of these things up in his car, and he would take it down, or put it away in the glove compartment. It’s like a joke between them.”

  Sam smiles. “But why is a hand supposed to be good luck?”

  “Well, this is known as Id Fatima, the hand of Fatima, who was the Prophet Mohammed’s youngest daughter from his first wife, Khadijah. There are many beautiful stories about Fatima. She is supposed to symbolize strength and protection, but also abundance and patience. And heroism.” I take a closer look at the hand with its fingers pointing down, realizing that it’s fairly new because I remember there having been an older one here, with some prayer written on it, whereas this one just says mashallah. “People also call it khamsa because of the five fingers. You know, khamis is five.”

  “Right.” Sam slips a hand towards her feet, and comes back with her open notebook. She jots down a few lines without saying anything.

  “Are you interviewing me now?”

  She clicks her tongue no, just like an Iraqi. “It just helps me remember things.”

  “Also, five is a very special number in Islam. We pray five times a day. Well, not me, maybe, but I should. I mean, I would like to.”

  Sam gives me the briefest of smiles and keeps writing.

  “Also, we have the five pillars — starting with the declaration of faith, you probably have heard of this one, the shahada.” I count the remaining ones out on my hand, opening a finger for each one. “Then sallih, prayer, zakat, giving charity, sawm, fasting, and hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.”

  “Do you do any of that?”

  In my mind I see Baba’s doubting face. “Some of them. I would like to make hajj someday. Ah, and also many people, particularly Shi’ites, say the most important figures in Islam are five: the Prophet Mohammed, Fatima, Ali, Hassan, and Hussein.”

  Sam writes this down, too. When she sees me looking at her, she seems amused. “It’s just interesting to me, that’s all. Hey, keep your eyes on the road!”

  I swerve in time to avoid some rubble that could have done a bit of damage to the underbelly of the car. “Sorry. Anyway, I can find out more for you sometime, if you want.”

  She winces. Sometime, as if I can just show up at the Hamra in a few days and find she is still there, waiting for me.

  ~ * ~

  Sam cannot stand the quiet for long, I can see, and I am beginning to wonder: is this typical of women, of Americans, or just Sam? She flips through Baba’s collection of tapes below the dashboard, one plastic clink after another. “Can I put one of these in?”

  “My father has very old-fashioned taste in music. But go ahead.”

  She slides a tape into the deck. Of course, who will my father have in the car but Oum Kalthoum? Along with Munir Bashir and Ahmed Mukhtar, that is, the great oud musicians, who as a threesome make a complete music library, in his opinion.

  “Is that a man or a woman?”

  “You can’t tell? This is Oum Kalthoum. Haven’t you heard of her?”

  Sam looks sheepish. “Uh, no. I don’t think so. Is that the famous Lebanese woman?”

  “No, you’re thinking of Fairuz, maybe. Or a young one like Asala Nasri? Actually she’s Syrian. There’s also a Maya Nasri whom I like very much, and she’s Lebanese. There are so many famous Lebanese singers now. Do you know which one you’re thinking of?”

  Sam’s cheeks round up like two apricots. “I have to admit I really don’t know Arabic music.”

  “Well, I don’t like Oum Kalthoum that much, but she is probably the most famous singer in all of the Arab world. She’s Egyptian. You can hear it in her accent.” I turn it up a little bit. “Can you hear it?”


  “The accent? You mean as opposed to an Iraqi accent?” She shakes her head.

  “Actually, this is one of the few Oum Kalthoum songs I really do like. It’s called ‘Inta Omri’. You are my life. More than life. Omr means the length of a person’s life — the days and years. We use this term to ask how old someone is. But if you say inta omri, it means you are my everything — all of my days are about you. It’s like the way a man will call the woman he loves hayati. It’s saying, you are my life.”

  Sam bends forwards. I suddenly wonder if, when a woman is wearing hejab, her hearing is impaired by her ears being covered by cloth. “What’s she saying?”

  Illi shouftouh qabli ma tshoufak ainaih...Omri dhayea yehsibouh izay a’alaya?

  Whatever I saw before my eyes saw you was a wasted life. How could they consider that part of my life?

  Inta Omri illi ibtada b’nourak sabahouh.

  You are my life which starts its dawn with your light.

  “It’s so...poetic,” Sam offers.

  “It kind of goes on like that. It’s a love song, a very long one.”

  “I wish I’d learned Arabic instead of French.”

  “I don’t understand. Americans only have room in their heads for one foreign language?”

  “Apparently,” she says, laughing at herself and glancing in the side mirror. “Come on,” Sam teases. “Your translating duties aren’t over yet, Mr al-Amari. Tell me some more.”

  “Of this song? Let me listen.”

  Ad eyh min omri qablak ray w a’ada... Ya habibi ad eyh min omri raah.

  How much of my life before you was lost. It is a wasted past, my love.

  Wala shaf el-qalb qablak farhah wahdah...wala dak fi el-dounya ghair ta’am el-jiraah.

  My heart never saw happiness before you.

  My heart never saw anything in life other than the taste of pain and suffering.

  I clear my throat. “It must seem a bit uh, what’s that word, melodramatic, for you.”

  “No, it’s lovely,” Sam says. “It’s like an ode.”

  Ibtadait bilwaqti bas ahib omri. Ibtadait bilwaqti akhafla il-omri yijri.

  I started only now to love my life.

  And started to worry that the love of my life would run away from me.

  Sam closes her eyes and leans back into the headrest.

  “There’s a long instrumental part now,” I explain. “But the lyrics come back again.”

  “Hmm. Nabil, I want to take you to this great restaurant in Irbil,” she says. “It’s actually at a really beautiful hotel called the Chwar Chra. It’s set on this gorgeous rolling lawn like the reception ground of some big banana plantation. You’ve got to see it. The food is amazing. Maybe we could even stay there. Unless you know of another place to stay.”

  I try to imagine what Kurdish food will taste like, but I can’t conjure a flavour for it in my mouth. But in my head I imagine the meat of animals we never eat. Camels. Buffalo. Maybe even horse, which is probably not hallal. What do I know about Kurds anyway? Only that they’re not Arab and that they want their own homeland, and that the goal of every Arab, Turk and Iranian is to stop that from happening. From the month she spent with the Kurds, before the war started, Sam probably understands more about them than I do.

  “I’m not sure if we will go through Irbil,” I say. “We can go through Mosul and then straight on towards Dohuk. It’s shorter, for one thing.” The truth is that I’ve been thinking that if, by chance, we found ourselves ahead of schedule, we could take a detour to Lake Dukan. Baba told me he took us there as children, but I don’t really remember it. It’s very enchanting, Baba said, and winked, while my mother packed in the food we’d nearly forgotten to put into the car. With that, we could have a nice picnic.

  “Really? Oh, I was so excited about going to Irbil once more,” she says.

  “We’ll see,” I say, and realize that I like the feeling of being in charge, the captain of a small but important ship. Safin said going through Mosul is dangerous, but Baba wasn’t so sure. Maybe there’s just a part of me that doesn’t want to go to Irbil, the city that turned on Saddam so many times in an effort to break away from the rest of Iraq. From the real Iraqis — the Arabs. Wouldn’t Sam want to look up Rizgar’s family, and what if the - and Allah! What a stunning pinging whizzing through the car and a crackling and shattering and too much air whipping and I think God, is it possible, mu ma’qul! It can’t be!

  But it can be and it must be. Someone is shooting at Baba’s car and Sam is shouting Jesus! and holding on to the dashboard and what the hell’s happening? and we’re swerving now even though I know my hands are securely on the wheel and we’re all over the road and oh my God help us and Sam is shouting Jesus, Nabil, pull over and I say I think we’re hit and she says pull the fuck over and I can’t tell her that something is pulling us and I can’t control it and then we skid and fly into the air like we’re weightless and then a harsh, metallic jangle and tinkling showers and sliding and Allah Yihmina God protect us in the skid that won’t stop, can’t stop, until slowly, it’s over and we do.

  I think I have been thrown on to Sam’s body.

  I can’t see anything. No one is shouting or screaming anymore. Only the sound of glass falling like the drizzle of rain and Oum Kalthoum.

  ~ * ~

  Hat a’inaik tisrahfi dounyethoum a’ineyyah. Hat eidak tiryah lil-moustahm eidaiyah.

  Bring your eyes close so that my eyes can get lost in the life of your eyes.

  Bring your hands so that my hands will rest in the touch of your hands.

  ~ * ~

  The hands reach inside the car, many of them, pulling me out through the glass of the back window. And they’re carrying me and I’m saying no, I’m fine, you have to get her out, you have to get Sam. And they say they’re trying, and besides that I have a bleeding head and I should let them take me, but I can stand and I move back to the car and I am starting to blubber and telling them to get Sam out. And the men start to lift the car from the side it’s lying on, but it’s so heavy and our old family junk is scattered everywhere and they’re having a hard time, and instead they go into the car through the front windscreen since it’s gone anyway and they work on lifting out Sam. And they’re all shouting and moving and then I hear Sam moan, a sound of pain like I’ve never heard before, and now she’s crying that no one should touch her and I know it’s my job to tell her that we have to, but just the sound of her being hurt has put tears in my own eyes and I’m hoping I won’t lose it completely in front of all these strangers in long robes.

  “Just breathe, Sam. Take in a slow breath like you do when you’re angry and let it out slowly.” I know she’s listening because she tries, but her breathing is short and pained instead, with an occasional uh! like someone who was suddenly surprised, over and over again.

  They pull her out of the car, her body looking like no part of it is moving, and as they do I can hear her taking quick short breaths every few seconds, and I want to help her but the other men are holding me up. Holding me back. As they lift her, the pillow falls towards her feet and then out of the bottom of her jupeh altogether. As they carry her I see her face which is as beautiful as the day I met her, except that when she opens her mouth to try to talk, there’s a film of blood all over her teeth and on her front lip, and then I feel the nausea rising in me like a wave and floating over me, and I won’t now, I can’t let it...

  ~ * ~

  59

  Floating

  The ceiling has a very beautiful lamp hanging from it, swinging by just a few centimetres in either direction. And that’s when I realize that I’ve been out of it, like that first day when I met Sam. I look around and then move to sit up, and see the assembly of men, about ten of them in tribal dress and very similar facial features, staring back at me. One of them sitting next to me leans over me and puts his hand firmly on my shoulder, telling me I should rest. I start to search in a panic and then realize
Sam is here, lying to my right, with pillows surrounding her head.

  “Is she all right?”

  “She’s conscious,” the man above me says. “But having trouble breathing. I think maybe she broke something,” he says, pointing to his stomach and drawing a circle, “inside.”

  My head flies with fear. Internal bleeding? She might be dying. Baba would know what to do. “She has to get to a hospital immediately. In Baghdad—”