Playing Atari with Saddam Hussein

by Jennifer Roy

  “Baba and I became friends,” she says. “And then after some time, he went to my father and asked him for my hand in marriage.”

  I yawn. This story is putting me to sleep.

  “Your grandfather said no,” says Mama.

  I wake up a little.

  “So he went back and asked again to marry me,” Mama says. “And again my father said no.”

  “Why?” Shireen and Ahmed both ask.

  “Because Papa’s Kurdish,” Mama says. “My family was a respected Arab family. They did not want me to marry a Kurd.”

  My father is Kurdish.

  “The Kurds are people with their own language and culture but without a nation to call their own,” my fifth grade teacher said one day during a class on Iraq’s history.

  And that was all she said. Just one sentence to describe millions of people who live in the Middle East, many in our own country.

  And then after school, some boys in my class taunted me. “Dirty Kurd! Stupid half-breed!”

  “Ignorant jerks,” I muttered, trying to dismiss them.

  Until I got hit by a rock. I turned and charged one of them, knocking him down. Another jumped on my back. We were in a three-person punch fest when we got pulled apart by a couple of lower-grade teachers.

  “To the principal,” one of them ordered.

  “But . . . but that’s not . . .” I was going to say “fair,” but stopped when I saw the crowd of students that had formed to watch. The last thing I wanted was to sound like a whiner. A half-breed whiner.

  I got three days’ detention. After I explained the circumstances to my parents, they didn’t punish me. My father was proud to be Kurdish. He was also quite aware that others looked down on his people.

  Throughout history, Kurds, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have lived in Iraq. Sometimes different religions have gotten along, but not in my lifetime. In fact there are big problems within the religion of Islam.

  There’s one group called Sunni Muslims and another group called Shia Muslims. From what I can tell there’s not much difference in their faith, but they disagree about who gets to lead the Muslim nation.

  The Sunnis believe that the new caliph, or leader, should be elected from among those whose who are capable of the job. Shias believe that leaders should be directly related to the Prophet Muhammed. His descendants become leaders called imams.

  Saddam Hussein is Sunni Muslim. He has ordered the deaths of Shia and Sunni Muslims—​whoever gets in his way.

  And he treats the Kurds the worst of all.

  “So.” Baba is still telling his tale. “It was not until the third try that I convinced your grandfather that I was worthy of marrying your mother. And so we became engaged, were married, and had the four of you.”

  “And you lived happily ever after!” says Shireen. Then my little sister adds, “Well, not exactly.”

  Even a six-year-old knows better than to believe a fairy tale during war.

  What my little sister doesn’t know is what happened to my father’s people, the Kurds. Before I was born, my father’s father—​my jiddo—​moved Baba’s immediate family from northern Iraq down to Baghdad. They left their friends and family behind in the Kurdish region.

  When I was nine, Saddam sent his cousin, General Ali Hassan al-Majid, to launch chemical attacks on the Iraqi Kurds. Chemical weapons. On his own people.

  Saddam called the attacks “Anfal,” the “spoils of war.” That basically means, Go ahead, soldiers. Kill everyone and take their stuff afterward. The Anfal attacked and murdered one hundred and fifty thousand innocent people and injured thousands more.

  Saddam rewarded his cousin, now known as Chemical Ali, by making him governor of Kuwait. So the president of my country? Saddam Hussein. The governor of the newly invaded Kuwait? Chemical Ali.

  “Stupid, stupid Saddam Hussein,” I say under my breath, clenching my fists. I want to shout it, scream it at the top of my lungs. I want to yell curse words that carry through the airwaves all the way to Saddam’s palace and drop like bombs on top of him.

  Fourteen

  Monday, January 28, 1991—Day 13

  “UP!” MY MOTHER’S VOICE IS SHARP. “BOYS! SHIREEN! Wake up!”

  Five more minutes, I think while rolling over. I land on tile. I forgot I’m not in my bed. I really miss my bed.

  “You need to go get our rations.”

  That gets us up. After twelve days of war, our food and drink supplies are pretty much gone. We now have to rely on government handouts.

  And we need to get in line to do it. The earlier we reach the authorized ration supplier, a store in a strip mall, the better chance we have to get the full allotment of rations that are assigned to us.

  “Ali and I will go, Mama,” Shirzad says.

  “What about me?” Ahmed whines.

  “Ahmed,” Shirzad says. “You stay here and be the man of the house while we’re gone.”

  Baba has already left for work.

  Ahmed takes the bait.

  “You hear that, Shireen?” Ahmed boasts. Shireen looks up from her puzzle, spread out on the floor. She makes a sour face but nods.

  Shirzad and I head to the front door.

  “Good thinking about Ahmed,” I say, tossing on my sneakers.

  “I feel bad for the little guy,” my brother says. Huh. I realize I do too. Before the war my little brother was always clowning around, pulling pranks. But now he is whiny and needy.

  War has sucked the fun out of the little kids.

  I shake off my thoughts, open the door, and stop.

  “Do you smell that?” I ask Shirzad.

  Shirzad shuts the door behind him and joins me on the front porch.

  “Yes.” He sniffs the air. “It smells like . . .” He thinks for a minute. It comes to him. “Baba’s card games!”

  “Right. Cigars,” I say.

  There is a light gray haze in the air. The scent sends my mind back to a memory of sitting on the stairs that lead to our basement, where my father and his friends held weekly card games.

  “Come on,” Shirzad says. “We need to get there fast.”

  We begin jogging down our street. A few streets later, we pick up the pace. As I run, I jump over bricks. And crumbling stone. And things that might—​or might not—​be parts of bombs. I stop, lean over, and pick up a piece of twisted metal.

  I feel like Pitfall Harry, the Atari character who runs through a mazelike jungle, jumping over pits and rolling logs and scorpions and crocodiles while grabbing treasures along the way. I am the war version of Pitfall Harry, dodging detritus and bomb parts.

  I grab another piece of metal. This one has English letters and numbers on it!

  “Yes!” I say. This is a real prize, something that can be traded for food or something else to help our family.

  I am Harry again. I begin running, avoiding pitfalls. Hoping to make it to the end before time runs out. Shirzad runs too, to keep up with me.

  And then we are there.

  “Victory!” I exclaim, making a final leap and landing at the end of the line.

  Shirzad looks at me sideways.

  “We made it here in good time,” I say quickly. No need to share my Pitfall Harry persona. Shirzad really doesn’t have much of an imagination.

  The ration line is pretty short, I think. Good news. There is hope we’ll get our full share today.

  Over the next few minutes, more and more people show up.

  “I can’t see the end of the line anymore,” I say, casting a glance behind us.

  The sun rises in the sky, shining a sickly grayish yellow light on account of the smog. The line does not move. To kill time, I entertain myself by translating other people’s chatter into English. Well, I try to anyway.

  Baby cries. No one sleeps. More spice. Not good taste. Face run hard.

  All right. That last one does not translate so well.

  Soldiers fire oil Kuwait City radio . . .

  “Did you hear that?”
I say in a low voice to Shirzad.

  “Yes,” says my brother, his face blank.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask.

  “Baba is supposed to be working in Kuwait City today,” he answers.

  The soldiers are setting fire to the oil wells in Kuwait City, a woman had said. I heard it on the radio.

  “Baba will be okay,” I say. “He won’t be near the oil wells. He’ll be with the medical unit.”

  “Right,” says Shirzad. “But they have hundreds, maybe thousands of oil wells down there. That smoke we smell? It’s got to be coming from there. If we can smell it half a mile away, it’s got to be thick down there.”

  Oh. Saddam is destroying the oil because he can’t have it. Typical Saddam. If he can’t have what he wants, nobody can.

  The city must seem like it’s on fire.

  “Baba will be okay,” I repeat. But my voice isn’t nearly as strong this time.

  Shirzad just frowns.

  “Finally!” An old woman shouts from the front of the line.

  Shirzad and I step forward.

  And then it’s our turn.

  “Fadhil,” says Shirzad. “Fadhil.”

  The soldier in charge asks questions. “What is your address? How many in your household? Any infants?”

  Another soldier listens to Shirzad’s responses and dumps things into a cardboard box. He hands Shirzad the box.

  “Next!” the soldier calls out.

  “Thank you,” my brother and I say, because we have to stay in the good graces of the ration police.

  “Let me see what we’ve got,” I say after we’ve moved a bit away. I’d recognized some of the items going in, but some were in bags or a smaller box that I couldn’t see through.

  “Not here,” Shirzad says, holding the box away from my grasp.

  “Just a look,” I say. If there was one good thing, one treat even, Pitfall Harry’s treasure would stack and ramp up the points in my “game.”

  A deep voice booms over the noise of the crowd.

  “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? This is preposterous! I have done nothing wrong!”

  Two Ba’athist soldiers are pulling a man out of the line.

  “It’s that professor!” I whisper to my brother. “Mother’s friend from school!”

  “Stay quiet!” Shirzad advises. “Ignore it.”

  But I can’t help looking.

  “Boy!” the professor suddenly shouts. “Teacher’s son!”

  I freeze. The professor’s eyes are looking directly at me.

  “Boy!” the professor calls. “Tell her . . . two pi r!”

  One of the soldiers carrying the old man yanks a baton out of his belt and begins beating his captive. The professor flinches but does not cry out. His eyes are still locked on mine.

  My head starts nodding, almost on its own. I nod and then very slowly form a thumbs-up, holding it for a moment before unclenching my fist and lowering my hand.

  The professor smiles. The soldiers are handcuffing him and beating him, and he is smiling. As the soldiers drag him away, I see his hand. It is in a thumbs-up.

  My mind is swirling. The professor is being taken away. When a person is taken away by Saddam’s Ba’athist Party, he rarely comes back. And if he does, he’s missing an arm or a tongue or his mind. Torture is just one tool in Saddam’s toolbox.

  Fifteen

  “DO YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT’S IN THIS BOX OR WHAT?” Shirzad cuts into my thoughts.

  “Yes,” I say. I follow my brother to a spot far enough away from the line that people won’t bother us or see what we got. It’s none of their business if we happened to get something really good.

  “Chickpeas, lentils, salt, coffee . . .” Shirzad peruses the contents.

  I open the other box inside the bigger one to see what’s inside.

  “A shriveled eggplant, a loaf of bread that looks like a brick and feels like a brick.”

  “Good eating at the Fadhil table tonight,” Shirzad says with a fake enthusiasm.

  “Yum, yum.” I rub my stomach, playing along.

  “Shirzad! Hey!” A tall boy with a scraggly mustache jogs up to us.

  “Yusef!” Shirzad grins. “Ali, I’m going to talk to Yusef for a couple minutes. I haven’t seen this guy since the last day of school.”

  “Okay,” I say. They walk away, Shirzad carefully guarding our rations box. Now what am I supposed to do?

  “I’m going to start walking home!” I call to Shirzad’s back. “You can catch up with me!”

  I see the back of my brother’s head nod. I start off in the direction of home.

  I haven’t gone far when I see the sun’s glint bounce off a piece of shiny metal. I turn down a side street to see what it is. I jump over piles of stone to reach down and grab a nearly perfect rectangle of steel with the English “P-3” painted on it.

  Pitfall Harry—​back in the game! I think. When I’m done admiring the piece of metal, I look up to see three boys about my age. One of them has a large bandage over his eye.

  “What have you got there?” says Eye Patch.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Junk.”

  I turn to walk away.

  “Thief!” one of the boys says. I try to ignore him and keep walking, but then I hear shouts.

  “Dirty Kurd!”

  “Stinking Kurd thief!”

  “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”

  And . . . I turn back around, the hand not holding the metal scrap balling into a fist. Almost immediately, I realize that my reaction—​to fight—​is stupid. First, I’m not that great a fighter. Second, this is three against one.

  “Hey,” I say. I look closer at Eye Patch. “Kalif . . . Haram!” I try to keep my voice calm. I recognize the boys from my school.

  “Is your eye okay?”

  “Hand over the goods,” Kalif says in a cold, hard voice. Kalif was in my class at school but we were in different sections. I don’t know him really, and I don’t remember him being mean. But war changes people.

  “I’m leaving,” I say. But when I turn to go, the boys move fast. They surround me.

  “Give it. Now,” Kalif growls. But I’m not about to hand it over.

  I fake a move toward Kalif and then run between the two boys I don’t know. It is one of my signature football moves, and it’s much easier without dribbling a ball between my feet.

  “Kurd!” Kalif shouts. “Ali!”

  “Why are you boys out there staring at your navels?” a woman calls out from a window. “Get back in here and help me clean up this mess!”

  “Yes, Mama,” all three boys say in unison. I take a quick look back and instead of attackers, I see chastened sons. Another win for Pitfall Harry!

  I start running again. Down an unfamiliar lane and onto another side street. I keep running in the direction I think will bring me around to the main road that leads home.

  But the streets get narrower, more like lanes; the apartment buildings get older and dirtier, with garbage lying on the road. The buildings are closing in on me. I make my way down a narrow lane crowded with people. I push my way past old people and women in housedresses and head wraps. Little kids are everywhere.

  All the people. The smell of garbage and smoke. The unfamiliar street. I start to feel dizzy, overwhelmed.

  I stop and lean over, hands on my knees, panting heavily. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck. Around me, people have stopped too. They are staring at something. I slip between some tall people to take a look.

  Sixteen

  THERE ARE MEN IN THE STREET. I COUNT EIGHT OF THEM. Spread out in a line, facing my way. And then I see them. Three Ba’ath soldiers. With guns, pointed at the men in the street.

  I realize what this is. It’s a public execution.

  No, no, NO! I whirl around to get out of there, when Bam! I hit a hard wall. I look up. It isn’t a wall. It’s a policeman. A very large Ba’athist policeman.

  “Where do you think you
’re going?” he growls. He grabs the collar of my shirt and lifts me up so I’m forced to see him face to face.

  “H-home?” I say.

  He drops me and turns me around, still holding on to my shirt, then forces me through the crowd until we are right at the front. The eight men are still standing.

  The three soldiers face them and raise their guns. Two of the men, wearing civilian clothes, drop to their knees.

  “No!” I say, squirming to get away. But the policeman’s hand stays clenched on my collar.

  “Learn, boy,” he says. “Tell your family. Tell your friends. This is what happens when you—​”

  Bang! The first man drops.

  I flinch.

  Bang! The next falls to the ground.

  I turn my head. The policeman lets go of my collar and puts his hands on both sides of my head and twists it back so I have to watch.

  Bang! A kneeling man falls forward.

  Bang! The next guy . . . down.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Three more men go down in quick succession.

  One is left standing. Not really a man; he looks more like a teenager. Standing alone, shaking.

  Time seems to slow . . . down . . .

  Bang! The young man cries out, “Oh!” and crumples to the ground. The red, blood-soaked ground.

  “Remember,” the policeman hisses in my ear. He drops his hold on my head.

  I spin away and run, shoving my way past people, running, running out of the crowd, away from the people, finally reaching a quiet street. I stumble over to a garbage can with no lid and vomit.

  Seventeen

  I AM GASPING AND SPITTING WHEN I HEAR A GIRL’S VOICE.

  “Are you sick? Do you need help? My name is Shirah.”

  I turn around, and wipe my mouth on my sleeve.

  She is about Shireen’s age, but with blond hair tied in a ponytail. She is barefoot.

  “I’m all right,” I tell her.

  “Shirah! You know what Mama says! Don’t talk to strangers!” an older girl yells, running up to us.

  “His tummy is upset,” the little girl says. “Are we supposed to just let him throw up on our street?”