Pieces of Me

by Hart, Natalie

  “Great! I’m good too,” she says.

  We start to catch up. We talk about her dinner with her parents, where she’s been on vacation recently, how everyone at the office is doing. Each time I think she may ask me a question, I ask her something else. But I can tell that she is holding back too. Eventually she says it.

  “Actually, I have some quite big news, Em.”

  “Oh my god, are you pregnant? Engaged?” That seems to be everyone’s big news at our age.

  “Haha, no, Emma! Is that all you think is important these days?! I am seeing someone, but that’s not the news. I’ll tell you about him afterwards.”

  “So…?” I say, trying to work out what she might want to tell me.

  “I’ve got a new job,” she says.

  “Oh, congratulations! Are you finally returning to the real world?”

  Real world? Am I calling it that now too?

  “Not yet,” she says. “It’s still with our lot, but in Afghanistan. They’ve asked me to head up the Kabul office.”

  I wasn’t prepared for this. It is difficult to hear. I take a sip of tea and hope that the cup over my face gives me long enough to compose myself. I silently wish the internet would cut out, the way it does in Iraq.

  “That’s brilliant news, Anna,” I say, hoping I sound sincere. It is brilliant. She deserves it. We both know that the organisation was lining me up to become a country lead before I left, but it is not her fault that I am not there and she was chosen.

  “Thanks. I know it’s a bit of a step up, but I’m ready for the challenge. And I think the change of scenery will do me good.”

  “Yeah, definitely. It’s really exciting. So how long before you start?”

  “Two months. I’ve got one more month in Baggers, then I’m taking a month out in between positions to sort things out and maybe sit by a pool somewhere.”

  “That sounds like a good plan.”

  “Yeah, I’m ready for a bit of a longer break.”

  That silence again. There never used to be silences between us.

  “So, Em, there’s something else.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, what are you doing at the moment?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Workwise.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m still at the art shop.”

  “Do you enjoy it? I mean, is it enough for you?”

  “Yeah. I do. It’s… Well, it’s not ideal, but it’s fine for now.”

  “Okay…” I can tell there is more.

  “What?” It comes out sounding more defensive than I intended.

  “No, nothing. It’s just that when I get to Kabul, I have to hire a deputy. I wondered if you would be interested.”

  “In being your deputy in Kabul?”

  “Yeah. It’s a good operation out there, Em. Great people and a decent amount of funding. I think we could really do something.”

  My mind is whirring. Kabul. Anna. The old version of me. It’s all we ever wanted to do – something good. But do we end up helping at all, or just make things worse – for others and ourselves?

  “I’m not sure the timing’s right, Anna.”

  She pauses.

  “Can I at least send you the job description? Just take a look. It would be the two of us again, Emma. It could be amazing.”

  It could be.

  “Okay, send it over,” I say.

  An hour later she has sent me the job description and I have read it twenty or thirty times. The role and requirements look like they were written for me. Knowing Anna, they probably were. It feel it stir in me again, that desire for adventure. But maybe it is something else too. The desire to flee.

  I finally reply.

  Subject: Re: Skype!!

  Thanks for sending that, Anna. It was so good to talk to you and, once again, CONGRATULATIONS! I’ll have a read through the job description as soon as I get a chance and let you know what I think. One more thing, I have a favour to ask. While you’re still in the Baghdad office, can you look someone up for me? Ameena Sabah. She’s the cousin of Adam’s ’terp who got killed and she relocated to the States while I was still out there. I just want some kind of contact details – a phone number or email address or anything. I’ll understand if you can’t, but honestly, Anna, I’ll be eternally grateful.

  Miss you,

  Emma

  She replies the next day with Ameena’s email address and one line.

  Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Emma? Is everything really okay?

  Even after this long, from so far away, she knows me.

  56

  The phone rings and rings and no one answers. As it rings, I sit and look at the painting opposite me. The summer day and the grass and the pond and the flowers. I focus on the colours, try to let them ground me. The phone keeps ringing and I am about to hang up, but then I hear a voice.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Mum, it’s me.”

  “Oh hello, darling. Sorry, I was out in the garden. I wasn’t expecting you to call.”

  We have been in contact more recently and it has been a comfort. Nothing major, just occasional texts about the weather in England and how the conkers look like they will be late in falling this year. It has made me feel less alone. Last week she sent me a photo of a painting she is working on and I saw my mother as a happier version of herself.

  “That’s okay, Mum, I was just calling for a chat.”

  “Of course, dear. Rebecca and Sophie are popping in for a cup of tea soon. I’m sure your sister would love to talk to you.”

  “Yes. That would be nice.”

  My throat tightens. There is something that I need to say, but the words are stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth. I force myself to breathe. There’s something I have to do.

  “Mum? I need to talk.”

  “Oh, Ems, thank goodness. Will you finally tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “You’re sorry? For what, Emma?”

  “I’m sorry for leaving after Dad died. For leaving you and Rebecca. I knew it hurt you, but I just… I thought I was being strong. But maybe I wasn’t and I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “Gosh, you don’t need to be sorry about that, my darling. Your father would have wanted you to go off on your adventures. You’re so much like him, you see, so much more than Rebecca. That’s why we always miss you desperately. Because you are a little piece of him that we have left.”

  I cover the mouthpiece of the phone as I cry.

  “Emma, that can’t be all. What’s really going on over there?”

  I take a breath and finally let the words come out.

  “It’s Adam. I feel like I’m losing him, slowly. I’m losing myself too, Mum. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t even know who I am.”

  She talks and asks questions and for once I let her words soothe me. I let myself be comforted. This woman who survived the loss of her husband is a different version of the mother I remember. Calm. Reassuring. The empty hole left by my father is still there, but she has pieced herself together around it. She is stronger than I knew.

  57

  They call it hyper-vigilance. It is “enhanced sensory sensitivity”. It is a heightened awareness of threats. It is being on edge often, always. It is a feeling that I know.

  After Sampath’s death, the scrape of a chair in the office was the tremor of a rocket making contact. Each song on the radio carried the wail of the incoming alarm.

  When Adam was away, it was the obsessive refreshing of my emails. The panic if I went out without my phone. The way the word “Iraq” or “explosion” or “casualties” jumped out from any news report.

  But now I am hyper-vigilant of him.

  I tread lightly as I move around the house. I do not wash up when he is watching the television. I do not make plans for us or suggestions to socialise. I keep my phone on silent and go out to make calls.

  I try to make myself sma
ller, lighter, quieter. But still the invisible eggshells crack and fracture under my feet.

  It is an exercise in trigger avoidance. But I do not know which one of us is holding the gun.

  58

  I did not email Ameena straight away. I wrote messages, but I did not send them. The tone never sounded right. Too familiar or too formal or just too out of the blue.

  Sometimes I considered telling Adam that I wanted to see her, but it was too much to talk about. To unpick. We could barely get through a chat about our day without arguing.

  More than once, I deleted her email address. I told myself that contacting her was unethical. I was doing it for me, not her, and who was I to drag her into my turmoil after everything she had been through? But even after I deleted Anna’s email from my inbox and Ameena’s address from my contacts, it was still etched in my memory.

  My desire to see her turned into an obsession. Eventually I pressed send. I needed to know whether everything we were going through was worth it.

  Hi Ameena,

  I don’t know if you remember me, but my name is Emma. I interviewed you for your asylum application. I live in the US myself now. I just wanted to say hi and see how you’re doing – don’t worry, nothing work-related! I hope you and your family are well.

  Best,

  Emma

  At first there was no reply. I wondered whether she had changed her email address. Then I wondered whether she just wanted to leave memories of Iraq behind her. Mostly I wondered whether she blamed me for what happened to Ali.

  Almost two weeks later a response came. Polite but guarded. She said she was fine and living with her mother and son in Houston, Texas. She said it had been a hot summer, but they were used to that, and that there were lots of other Iraqis around.

  Houston was a popular location for Iraqis relocating to the States and was already home to a sizeable immigrant community. As the first waves of interpreters and those associated with the US Forces claimed asylum, the state of Texas became a popular destination. Many Iraqis simply chose somewhere they had heard of from American soldiers and there were a large number of troops from Texas deployed in Iraq.

  Later in the war it became a matter of connections. Everyone knew someone who knew someone else who had moved to Texas – a third cousin or in-law or distant relative. Gradually an Iraqi community developed and new arrivals were understandably attracted to a home away from home.

  The emails between us continued. Talking to Ameena made me nostalgic for Baghdad – the Baghdad of drinking tea with Iraqi colleagues and watching the latest Nancy Ajram music video on YouTube and debating which stuffed vegetable in the pot of dolma was tastiest. I knew I had no right to miss the city in the way Ameena did. I had barely been outside the compound walls and I had no claim to the place, but sometimes I still felt an ache of longing for the city I never truly knew.

  In my emails to Ameena I told her things I had never told anyone. I talked about how strange I found life in America and how much I missed my family. I tried to reach out to her, find common ground in our shared experiences. The irony of this is not lost on me.

  After a few weeks of emailing, I asked if I could see her. I said that I would be visiting a friend in Houston, so perhaps I could stop by. Yes, she replied. My mother will be happy for you to visit.

  I told Adam the same lie. If he heard the falsehood, he said nothing.

  I am in a taxi now, on the ride from the airport to Ameena’s apartment. It is my first time in Houston and it feels strange to be in a city after so long in Colorado Springs.

  At the airport, I stood and watched people pass through the X-ray machine. I imagined they showed the real insides of those walking through them. What would Adam look like? Fragments. His insides are shattered, held together only by a sack of skin and sinew. As he walks, the fragments bump and knock against each other, gaining new chips and sharper edges. How do you begin to heal insides like that?

  I can see the skyscrapers of downtown Houston in the distance now, but the address Ameena has given me is outside of the city centre. The taxi stops in a neighbourhood of identical apartment blocks which surround a gravel play area where two Arab-looking children play on the swings. Nearby, their mothers sit on a bench and talk. They watch me with interest as I get out of the taxi. One of them adjusts her hijab.

  I find Ameena’s apartment block and ring the buzzer. A voice comes over the telecom.

  “Second floor.”

  The lock clicks open and I climb the stairs. The stairwell could do with a clean and a coat of paint. From behind closed doors, I can hear children, other families.

  When I get to the second floor, Ameena is there waiting. With the passing of time, her face had become blurry in my memory, but now the lines of her features reappear in high definition before me. She has the same style and co-ordination I remember. She is wearing white trousers and a sapphire blue tunic, with a white scarf draped around her shoulders. Her eyeshadow is metallic blue. I am in jeans and a loose cotton shirt. Once again I feel underdressed in front of Ameena, but this time I do not have the excuse of living in the IZ.

  Behind Ameena a child runs up the hallway and hugs the back of her legs, peering out at me warily with large dark eyes. For a moment I am not in Houston, but back in Colorado Springs with Noah appearing in the doorway behind Kate the first time I visited her house.

  “Hi Emma,” says Ameena. The “I” is drawn out and from just two words I can tell that her English has already taken on the faintest Texan drawl. “Welcome.”

  “Hi. It’s good to see you, Ameena,” I say. I am unsure exactly how to greet her, but she holds out a hand, which I shake. “Hi Yusuf,” I say, crouching down. “You’ve grown up a lot.” How old must he be now? Three? Four?

  “You remember his name,” she says and I register a flicker of surprise in her eyes before her face returns to its previous composure. “You must come in. My mother is waiting for you.”

  Ameena leads me down a narrow hallway. The walls are dotted with the family photographs she must have managed to bring with them. In one picture, Ameena is a child, standing in front of the Tigris with a taller boy I guess is her brother. In another, a much younger version of Ameena’s mother smiles shyly next to a smartly dressed man who rests a hand on her shoulder.

  I try hard not to react when I get to the photo of Ali. It can’t have been taken long before he died because he looks exactly how I remember him, with his thin face and easy smile and thick dark hair. He is leaning against a wall, perhaps in one of the Baghdad palace complexes, a cigarette hanging down by his side. I want to stand and look at it for longer but Ameena keeps walking, so I follow her along the hallway, past a small kitchen and a bedroom to the living room.

  It is a tiny apartment, especially by American standards. There are no other obvious rooms, so the three of them must share a bedroom. Ameena would have received financial support for the family when they arrived, but it only lasts a few months. I have not asked how she supports them now.

  We step into the living room and I am greeted by a strange fusion of Iraq and America. There is a La-Z-Boy chair which looks like it has barely been used and a low L-shaped sofa that is more what you might find in a Baghdad home. The material is a deep purple velour that I have only ever seen popular in Iraq. Next to the sofa is a coffee table and in the middle of the room is a large rug. I wonder whether they eat cross-legged on the rug or crowd around the tiny two-person table I glimpsed in the kitchen as I passed.

  Ameena’s mother is sat on the sofa when I enter the room and pushes herself up to greet me. She looks older and frailer than I remember, although perhaps it’s just the oversized American furniture that appears to swallow her up.

  “Ahlan wa sahlan,” she says, greeting me with a smile. Her face creases and folds in a way that leaves her tiny dark eyes barely visible and she reveals teeth that are stained brown from many years of drinking sweet Arabic coffee. She must not have smiled at all the first time we met. She clasps
one of my hands between both of hers and kisses my cheeks. Her lips suck loud noises out of the air and I am touched by the familiarity of the gesture.

  “Ahlan bikum,” I reply. “How are you?” I tried to practise my Arabic with Zainab, but it’s been a month since I last saw her and now my tongue feels heavy and uncertain as it wraps around the words. I have asked Noor how the family are many times and she says “fine”. I have asked Noor whether there has been news on Hassan’s university applications and she says “nothing”.

  “I am very well, alhamdulillah,” says Ameena’s mother. “I am just sorry to receive you like this. We do not have a room here for our guests, not like back home.”

  I realise how strange this must be for her. Many Iraqis have a special guest room where visitors are received, rather than having them traipse into the intimacy of family areas.

  “Don’t apologise, please,” I say. “I understand that things here are different. I am still becoming accustomed to them myself.”

  The language I use is strained and overly formal as I scrape it from the recesses of my mind. Changing the conversation, I produce a box of chocolates for them that I bought hastily at Colorado Springs airport. I hand the box over with both hands. The packaging is squashed and battered after the journey, but Ameena’s mother feigns delight with the skill of a seasoned hostess.

  “Really, you are so kind,” she says. “They look wonderful. I will tell Ameena we must eat them with our tea.”

  Ameena returns, as if on cue, with a tray of drinks. We do not drink the tea from delicate glasses but, rather, large mugs bearing the emblems of American sports teams, which she has filled up halfway. In a small dish next to the tea is a pile of American candy. She sees me looking at them and offers me one, but I decline. I cannot tell her that Tootsie Rolls make me think of Ali and the PX and the day I drove past the reed beds. What is Adam doing while I am here?

  We sit and talk for a while about the family’s new life in America. Ameena’s mother seems particularly keen to reassure me that they have settled in well, wringing her hands together in the way I remember her doing during the interview in Baghdad. I gently remind her that I am visiting as a friend and not an official. She relaxes a bit, but not much. She must still worry that they could be sent back.