by Jennifer Roy
Shireen walks into the kitchen.
“Mama, I’m hungry,” she says. I look at my sister and shake my head no. Shireen is losing her baby fat. She looks older, less like “the baby.”
“Mama,” Shireen whines. “Mama, is Baba coming back today? I need him to fix my Barbie Dreamhouse elevator.”
She still sounds like the baby.
“I don’t know when Baba will be back,” Mama tells Shireen for the millionth time. “And Barbie can walk up the stairs.”
“I’m hungry,” Shireen whimpers.
“Shireen,” I say. “We’re all hungry. Now leave Mama alone.”
“Ali!” Mama says. “That was rude.”
“Sorry,” I tell Mama. “Sorry,” I tell Shireen. My sister sticks her tongue out at me.
I look into the kitchen garbage pail. There’s nothing in it but a few scraps of plastic wrapper. I add them to my pail.
“Ali,” my mother says. “I need my glasses. I think I may have left them in my office.”
“I’ll get them,” I say, putting down the trash.
My mother’s office is small, with just a desk and a shelf filled mostly with math books.
Ugh . . . I think automatically. But then I see some small framed photos among the books.
There are class photos of each of us. There’s a picture of my mother and father at their wedding and one of our family when Shireen was a baby.
Then I see one I hadn’t really noticed before. There is my father with longish hair and a droopy mustache. My mother is wearing large dark sunglasses and her hair is loose. She is hugging a short, smiling woman. On the far right is a man who . . .
Wait a minute . . .
I look closer. I recognize this man. I saw him yesterday . . .
Before I saw my cousin Gilad . . .
Before I threw up in the street . . .
Before the eight men . . .
Before I got lost . . .
I was with Shirzad at the ration line and saw the professor get taken away.
I leave the papers on the desk and carry Mama’s glasses to the kitchen.
“Mama,” I say. “I saw Professor Abbas yesterday morning. He was being taken away by Saddam’s men.”
Mama stops what she was doing. She looks at me.
“He said to tell you something,” I say. “Tell the math professor, he said.”
“Shireen,” says Mama. “Go find Shirzad and tell him to come here.”
“Yes, Mama,” Shireen says, without an argument. Something in Mama’s voice means business.
I stand in awkward silence as my mother pounds and kneads a small mound of dough. She places it on a baking sheet and opens the oven.
“We will need more wood for the oven soon. Shirzad and Ahmed brought in the last of it this morning,” Mama says quietly. “And there’s still no gas.”
“Yes, Mama,” I reply. I don’t know where to get wood. Papa always filled the wood pile. Would Shirzad let me out to chop down a tree? Do we even have an ax?
Shirzad comes into the kitchen with Shireen.
“Shiri,” Mama says. “Go play in the playroom. I need to speak to Shirzad and Ali now.”
Shireen runs out.
“Boys,” Mama says, “this is very important. Tell me what happened with Professor Abbas.”
We both talk over each other, but the main message is clear.
“He said the two pies are . . . something,” I say.
“. . . he was dragged away,” Shirzad says.
“And then he gave me a thumbs-up,” I add.
“I didn’t see that.” Shirzad looks at me.
“After I nodded that I’d tell Mama, he gave me a thumbs-up,” I explain. “And I did it back.” I make the gesture now.
“And he smiled,” I say. “Mama, the professor smiled at me as they were taking him away.”
Mama turns away, but not before I see a tear run down her cheek.
I look at Shirzad. He is stonefaced.
My mother takes a deep breath. Then she turns back and says, “What I’m about to tell you, you need to keep just between us, you understand?”
I nod.
“Let’s go to the living room,” she says.
Shirzad and I sit on the couch. Mama takes the recliner, where Baba relaxes and watches TV after work. The TV, of course, is off. I miss TV. I miss electricity.
“In the seventies,” Mama says, “your father and I went disco dancing every Saturday night.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. Disco?
“Before you two were born,” Mama continues, “things were very different. People were more open and lighthearted. Every week we would meet friends for dinner and dancing. Afterward, we would stay out quite late, talking over coffee at a café.”
Mama pauses and brushes some stray hairs behind her ear.
“Professor Abbas and his wife were among our group of friends, many of whom still teach at our school. We were all idealists back then, wanting to make Iraq a better place not only for ourselves and our families, but for everyone. The table at the café we sat around was a circle. So we nicknamed our group the Circle.
“Ali, you heard the professor say two pi r, which is a formula for the circumference of a circle, the measurement around a circle. He wanted me to let our friends around the Circle know he was taken away, when I am able to. When school starts again. He knew we would help take care of his wife and children.
“It is sad we have to speak in code.” Mama sighs and closes her eyes. “We used to have such freedoms . . .
“Shirzad. Ali.” Mama opens her eyes. “I want you to know that not long ago, things were different. Life was different. And I believe it can be that way again.”
“Me too, Mama,” Shirzad says.
I am silent with sadness.
Twenty-One
THAT NIGHT, WHILE MY FAMILY SLEEPS AROUND ME IN the safe room, my mind races in all different directions.
Hate Saddam. Wish the Americans would kill him and get this all over with.
Baba has disappeared into smoke-choked air.
Those girls helped me a couple of days ago. There are good people out there.
Bang! Bang! Eight men dead.
A different life. Iraq wasn’t always like this . . .
I have had a glimpse of a different life. It was just a few weeks ago, though it feels longer.
It was New Year’s Eve. To celebrate the start of 1991, the governor of Iraq held a ball. A glamorous, extravagant party at the Governor’s Mansion.
My family was there.
Baba is the governor’s dentist. The governor, one of Saddam’s top men, likes my father because he is smart and professional, and because he takes great care of the governor’s teeth.
We were all invited to the ball.
I close my eyes and remember . . .
“Come on!” I urged Ahmed, who was still sitting in the back seat of the limousine.
Everyone else had gone through the gates already. I grabbed Ahmed’s hand and pulled him out.
“I don’t want to go!” my little brother moaned. “I hate this tie.”
“We all hate wearing ties,” I said. “But that’s the price you pay for being a cool dude,” I told him, making him smile.
Ahmed and I caught up with Shirzad and our parents. My father was carrying Shireen so she wouldn’t dirty her ruffled white dress or white buckled shoes. My father was wearing a tuxedo, and Mama had on a sunset-colored ball gown.
We walked up the stone path that led to the front door. Two men in tuxedos, with assault rifles slung over their shoulders, greeted Mama and Baba and checked their names against the guest list.
“Welcome to the Governor’s New Year’s Ball,” the man with the list said to each of us—even Shireen.
“Happy New Year!” my father replied, and we all passed through the arched doorway.
The room we entered was huge, with white marble floors and gold-patterned walls and a chandelier the size of a car hanging from th
e soaring high ceiling. While I was looking up at it, I stumbled into Shireen.
“Ow!” she said.
“Shh . . .” hissed Mama.
“Don’t worry.” A woman appeared and beckoned us to follow her.
“The ballroom is down this hallway to the right. But first . . . this is Miss Saeid. She’ll take the children upstairs for their own party games.”
“Up those stairs?” Shireen pointed to the white, shining marble staircase with a gold railing.
“Yes!” Miss Saeid exclaimed. “Come with me!” The name Saeid means happy in Arabic, and boy was this woman happy.
Baba put Shireen down, and she skipped over to the smiling woman.
“Go on.” I nudged Ahmed, who rolled his eyes. But he joined Shireen.
“Did you see that Lamborghini behind us?” I said to Shirzad.
“Yes. I wonder who—” My brother was interrupted.
“Boys, you come too!” trilled Miss Happy.
“Go ahead, Ali, Shirzad,” said Mama.
“We’re not little kids,” Shirzad protested.
“Are you under fourteen?” Miss Happy chirped.
Shirzad and I nodded.
“Then come with me!”
I took one last longing look at my parents. Then I walked with my brothers and sister up the fancy staircase.
We were taken to a room that could hold an entire soccer field. It was filled with kids—shrieking, running around, playing tag, making crafts, playing with toys. Ahmed and Shireen eagerly ran in and got lost amid the chaos. Miss Happy went in too.
Shirzad and I hung back in the hallway.
“Walk?” he said.
“Definitely,” I responded. We explored the second floor. There were bedrooms—each one decorated differently. And almost as many bathrooms. Then we opened a door—
“—and it’s an eight of spades! You’re out, Hassan.”
The boy dealing the deck of cards looked at us.
“Shirzad! Ali! How did they let you two in?”
It was Omar.
“Yeah, go get us some food,” Umar said, chuckling. He stood against a wall with two other boys, all smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.
“We’re guests,” I said. “Just like you.”
“Well, if you’ve got money, come join the game,” said Omar.
“No, thank you,” said Shirzad. “See you around.”
My brother turned back into the hallway. I did too. We walked a little ways before I said, “No, thank you? Now you have to be all Mr. Manners with the twins?”
“Ali, their father is high up in the Ba’athist Party,” Shirzad said. “Pretty much everyone here is, except for us and the servants. We need to be polite to everybody.”
“I know. You’re right.” I saw a double door at the end of the corridor. We walked over to it and I pulled it open with two hands.
Sweet! It was a teenage boy’s room. And a boy was in it. He had his hair cut military style and was wearing a suit and tie.
“Hi. You can call me Z,” the boy said. “Want to play?”
Z? What kind of name is that?
He was playing on the latest game console.
“Yes!” Shirzad and I both said. We introduced ourselves. Shirzad flopped down on the second gamer chair. As Z switched over to two-player, I said, “Is this your room?”
“Yes,” he said. “My father travels a lot and brings me books.”
Then I saw it. A whole shelf of comics. Marvel, DC, Looney Tunes, and more. All organized, all in order.
“Great collection,” I told Z. “Can I look at them?”
“Sure,” he said.
I walked over and rifled through them. “You’re missing number 17 and number 18 in Superman.”
“Ali’s obsessed with Superman,” Shirzad said, playing video football.
“I was in New York City when those two comics came out,” Z said. “I’ve been looking for them ever since.”
“I’ve got them,” I said, absently skimming the DC comics.
“You do?” Z paused the game.
“Yes. I have the full set.”
“I’ll pay you good money for those,” said Z, looking straight at me.
“No way,” I responded. “Those are my prized possessions.”
“I respect that,” Z said. “But the offer still stands.”
He and Shirzad resumed their game play.
I watched as Z’s team wiped out my brother’s.
It was my turn to play, but before I got to, one of the twins showed up in the doorway.
“Z! Your father wants you downstairs . . .” Omar’s voice trailed off when he saw us.
“I’ll be right down,” Z said.
“He said right now,” Omar said. “Z, you know these guys?”
“Just met them. Their father cleans my teeth. Go on, O, I’ll be right here.”
Omar left. Z stood up slowly, as if he was in no hurry to comply with his father’s request.
“Your father is a good dentist,” he said loudly, as he walked to the door. He stuck his head out into the hallway and looked left, then right.
Then he came back into the room and said quietly, “Your father has your pictures in his office, That’s how I knew who you are. Your father is a good man. Tell me, are you friends with Omar and Umar?”
“No,” I said.
“They’re our neighbors,” Shirzad said, shooting me a warning look.
“I’d be careful around them,” Z said. “They like to make trouble.”
Z patted his hair down and turned back to the door.
“Play games as long as you like,” he said. And he left us in his room.
I looked at Shirzad and shrugged. Well, all right. I sat down in the gamer chair that Z had occupied and started playing football.
“Z seems like a good guy,” I said, maneuvering my players into position.
“His father is the governor,” Shirzad said.
“I know,” I replied as the game started.
“We need to keep our guard up,” my brother said.
“I know that, too,” I said. “I was just saying he’s nice. I’m not going to say anything stupid.”
My players were battling hard onscreen and Shirzad’s were fighting hard too.
“Gooooooal!” my brother shouted.
Zero to one. Not for long.
We played all three periods and finished 4–4.
“Good game,” Shirzad said. We stood and began to look around the room. I hadn’t noticed that Z had his own mini fridge and microwave in one corner.
I had always thought we were born with a silver spoon in our mouth, but this kid was born with a golden spoon.
“Fooood!” some little kids screamed as they ran by in the hallway.
I was hungry, so I left the room and followed them down the hall and back downstairs to the main room.
Tables were set up with food and drinks. I grabbed a plate and filled it with delicious breads and cheeses and desserts.
I looked around to see where I could sit. A group of boys were off in a corner eating and laughing. I saw Omar and Umar and Z with other kids I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I wouldn’t be hanging out with them. They were Saddam’s people. I was not.
I found Ahmed and Shireen and ate with them.
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
It was the countdown to the new year.
“Seven . . . six . . . five . . .” The voices of the adults downstairs were so loud we could hear them, too. Shirzad joined us.
“Four . . . three . . .” I shouted along with my brothers and sister.
“Two . . . one . . . Happy New Year!”
It was 1991. I made a wish. Please let this be a really good year!
And then I joined the little kids who were playing tag, and I ran and laughed and enjoyed.
Twenty-Two
Wednesday, January 30, 1991—Day 15,
to Friday, February 22, 1991—Day
38
EVERY DAY FEELS THE SAME LATELY.
Wake up to a gray haze that coats the morning sun.
Try to fill my l-o-n-g morning stuck around the house.
Eat a colorless lunch too small to fill my rumbling stomach.
Help clean the dust and ash off the floor and furniture.
Fall asleep from boredom.
Eat a bland dinner of grains and weak coffee.
Bunker down in the safe room as darkness falls over our city.
Hear bombs.
Be afraid.
Survive.
Repeat.
For two and a half weeks.
One night I can’t sleep.
I imagine myself in a video game, Yar’s Revenge. The objective is to destroy the evil Quotile, which exists on the other side of a barrier. My player, the Yar, must eat or shoot through the barrier in order to fire a cannon into the breach.
But the Quotile shoots at me with missiles so intense and fast that I must dodge and hide and retreat.
And when the Quotile turns into the Swirl, he is so dangerous and powerful that my Yar is no match for him.
Suddenly, the Swirl has Saddam’s face, and I am moving and shooting and scoring points . . . but there seems to be no endgame. The Saddam Swirl is indestructible.
I wake up, covered in sweat. I am in Basra, not in a video game. It was just a nightmare.
I turn over to go to back to sleep.
Then I wake up in the morning to hear a fighter jet overhead.
My heart starts to race. What if he just dropped a bomb? What if more are coming? What if we are here one instant and gone the next?
Nothing happens.
I’m still alive, I think. Enough feeling sorry for myself, for being lazy.
I get up, step around my sleeping brother, and go to my own bedroom.
Twenty-Three
Saturday, February 23, 1991—Day 39
I LOOK AT MY ROW OF SUPERMAN COMICS. Clark Kent is a regular guy until there’s a problem . . . and then he becomes a superhero.
I wish I could talk to the American soldiers. Tell them to bomb Saddam’s palaces—not us.
If I were Superman, I could fly to the planes and push them up to Baghdad and find Saddam and his henchmen and . . .
