The White Zone

by Carolyn Marsden

  He polished until the little black car mirrored the branches of the nabog tree arching overhead.

  When Mama rang a tiny bell announcing afternoon tea and sesame cookies, Nouri noticed that Talib was no longer there. He wasn’t in the orchard. Nor were he or his mama in the big room.

  They’d taken the hint, Nouri decided.

  NO BREAD TONIGHT

  Talib led the way across the courtyard, past the tiny black car. He went out through the gate to the broken sidewalk.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” Mama said as they walked toward home.

  “I hoped that was what you wanted.”

  “I was so uncomfortable. . . .”

  “They’re upset about Nouri’s uncle.”

  Mama tugged at her head scarf. “But that had nothing to do with us. . . .”

  As they walked, Talib ran his fingertip along a wall of graffiti. At the far end, Saddam Hussein had been drawn with devil horns. Someone had thrown red paint across one side of his face.

  “My cousins weren’t friendly either,” Talib mumbled. He still felt wounded by their words, words that had felt like the bougainvillea thorns that had scratched his hands during the game of war.

  . . .

  Mama cooked dinner while Talib did his mathematics homework at the kitchen table. The water had been shut off again and Mama dipped into the extra jug she kept in the corner for emergencies.

  She wore a jacket since kerosene had become scarce. So much had changed with the war. Even though Talib had been very young when the fighting had started, he remembered the days when food had been plentiful, water ran freely from the taps, and the house had been bright with electric lights.

  Mama tucked her head scarf around her neck. By the way she paused and listened, Talib sensed her waiting for Baba’s approach.

  Although his hands were stiff with cold, Talib penciled his fractions on crinkled yellow paper. He wrote very small in order to fit all the problems on the sheet that his teacher, al-Khaldoun, had allotted him.

  He erased, and the paper tore.

  Mama sucked in her breath.

  In the upstairs apartment where the Korashi family lived, Talib heard loud words, footsteps running across the ceiling, then a door slamming. It seemed as though everyone was scared or angry lately.

  Talib bit his lip. With each equation, he too began to listen for Baba’s return.

  He listened to mortar shells flying and bursting. The city was divided into zones: the main one was the Green Zone where the American and Iraqi government buildings were located, and the area just outside it was called the Red Zone. Talib lived farther out, beyond the Red Zone. Tonight shells crossed the Tigris River, shelling the Red and Green zones and sometimes, probably, areas beyond.

  Just as Talib had finished the last column, he heard his father wipe his boots on the mat. The doorknob jiggled and Baba entered, his footsteps loud on the stone floor. He unwound a red scarf from around his shoulders and laid it over the back of a chair.

  Then Baba reached into a bag. “For you,” he said to Talib, placing a book on the table beside the page of numbers. “You’ll like it.”

  “Thank you, Baba.” Talib flipped through the pages of Daoud the Camel Boy. It looked all right. There were even ink drawings. But really, Talib thought, no book could ever be as exciting as playing outside. A page was just black words on white paper.

  While Baba washed up, scooping water from the jug, Mama brought yabsa, white beans cooked with tomatoes, and a plate of eggplant to the table. “There’s no bread tonight,” she said. “The bakery shelves were empty.”

  “And I didn’t sell a single book today,” Baba said, drying his hands. He sat down to spoon yabsa onto his plate. “No one has money, but people still come. They love to browse. Reading is one of the only pleasures left to us in this city.” He sighed.

  Talib noticed Mama biting her bottom lip.

  “But instead of buying books,” Baba went on, “people are bringing their collections to sell to us booksellers. People don’t need books when there’s so little food.”

  Suddenly, Mama lifted her face, her cheekbones illuminated by the single bulb, saying, “Maysoon and Hiba have been avoiding me at the Friday gatherings. They don’t make a place for me. In the kitchen, they don’t talk to me. They say unkind things about Sunnis.”

  “It’s true,” said Talib.

  Baba reached out to touch her shoulder. “I’ll speak with them,” he said. “You’re my wife and they have no right . . .”

  “The hate that’s spreading everywhere has infected even them. . . .” Mama went on, a tear wandering down her face.

  “I’m sorry, Fatima,” said Baba, rubbing his thin cheeks with his hands. “Things are changing in confusing ways.”

  “I’ve decided not to go there anymore,” said Mama.

  “Me neither,” said Talib, scooting his chair closer to Mama’s.

  Baba was silent, looking down at his lap.

  Talib looked toward the window, black with night. Was his father angry with Mama? Was he angry with him?

  But then Baba raised his face. “Next Friday, we can all go to Mutanabbi Street instead,” he said. “We can pray at the mosque in Etafiea.”

  Mama shook her head. “I’d rather pray here in peace and quiet.”

  That didn’t surprise Talib. Mama liked to roll fresh jasmine flowers into her prayer mat. In the afternoons, when Talib returned from school, he found the flowers strewn on the floor, the air infused with their sweet scent.

  “When I hang the laundry,” Mama went on, “Batool always used to hang hers at the same time, so we could chat. But today Batool didn’t come outside to see me.”

  “Maybe she’s ill,” said Baba.

  “No,” Mama hesitated. “Later she and Adiba bought tangerines from the street vendor. When I came out, both of them pretended not to see me.”

  “Things are changing,” Baba repeated.

  Talib helped himself to the circles of eggplant like big soft coins. His arm felt heavy.

  After dinner, Mama made a pot of spicy chai tea. When she took the tea glasses down from the shelf, her hands shook—as they always did these days— and the glasses clattered.

  Talib went back to his numbers, working toward just one precise answer, pretending not to listen to Mama and Baba’s talk of changing times.

  “The Ibrahims are leaving.” Baba lowered his voice. “Going to Syria.”

  Mama’s eyes widened.

  Talib’s pencil hovered over his paper.

  The Ibrahims were Sunnis. They owned a car and were always giving people rides in case of emergencies. Once they’d taken Nouri’s Shiite grandmother to the hospital.

  “A time may come. . . .” said Baba.

  “We don’t need to move away,” Talib said, anticipating Baba’s words. “While you’re at Mutanabbi Street, Baba, I’ll take care of Mama.”

  Baba smiled. “And when you’re in school? Who will take care of her then?”

  “Allah,” Talib replied with a smile.

  PIGEONS

  As Nouri threw a stone at a flock of pigeons, Anwar and Jalal leaned down to gather more ammunition. The birds moved from the wall to the overhead wires, then to a rooftop.

  Across the street, Talib picked up a rock and hurled it. The pigeons took off into the sky.

  “Now they’re gone,” complained Nouri, calling to Talib. “You chased them off.”

  “They’ll come back,” said Talib.

  “After we’re gone,” Anwar muttered.

  “Mama and I aren’t going to your stupid Friday gatherings anymore,” said Talib angrily. Then he hurried off to school without them.

  “Wait up, Talib!” shouted Jalal. “We don’t care that much about the pigeons. . . .”

  Nouri elbowed Jalal in the ribs, muttering, “I care.” He took a small strip of cloth from his pocket and used it to flick a stone in Talib’s direction.

  . . .

  The school was made up of a group
of low brick buildings surrounded by walls. Rows of palm trees grew close by. A doorkeeper stood watch.

  As Nouri joined the students milling about the courtyard in their blue and white uniforms, he overheard snatches of conversation: “. . . an American soldier shot a blind man . . .” “. . . my uncle’s getting work as a policeman . . .” “. . . I danced all night at my brother’s wedding.”

  When the hand bell was rung, Nouri went to his mathematics class. Jalal and Anwar, being two years younger, had different teachers. Nouri wished it were one of them and not Talib who was his age.

  The teacher, al-Khaldoun, had appointed Nouri to be the Moraqib, the watcher of the class. Whenever anyone did anything wrong, Nouri told al-Khaldoun. But in spite of his offering this information, the teacher never gave him high mathematics marks.

  Nouri watched Talib cross the cement floor of the classroom. He laid his yellowed sheet of figures on the teacher’s desk.

  Would al-Khaldoun, a good Shiite, be thinking of the bombing of the market? Might he refuse to accept Talib’s homework?

  When Talib took his seat, instead of putting his book satchel on the floor, he held it against his chest like a shield.

  Nouri heard the sound of al-Khaldoun’s shiny black shoes coming down the hallway. At the moment the teacher stood in the doorway, Nouri issued the command: “Stand up, class!”

  With a clatter of chairs, everyone stood.

  Al-Khaldoun signaled for them to sit down again, flashing a smile with his white teeth. He smiled, Nouri noticed, even at Talib.

  Nouri stared at the dark rectangle on the wall where the portrait of Saddam Hussein had once hung. It was good that the dictator was gone, good that his stupid Sunni government had been taken out too.

  But some said that at least the face of Hussein had been clear for all to see. The dangers had been known. Now the perils were shadowy, revealing themselves slowly. Who knew what strange alliances would form? Or whose uncle would be killed. Some dangers were still as blank as the rectangle left by Hussein’s portrait.

  So how could al-Khaldoun smile at Talib? A Sunni like Saddam.

  After the lesson, Nouri approached al-Khaldoun. “Did you know, sir, that Talib Jassim isn’t completely Shiite? Did you know his mother is Sunni?”

  Al-Khaldoun nodded gravely. “I did know, Nouri. But thank you.”

  Nouri turned so quickly that his satchel almost slid off his shoulder. Al-Khaldoun should care. At the very least, he shouldn’t reward a Sunni with smiles.

  BASKETBALL

  A basketball team was forming on the far end of the court. Nouri, as usual, was the captain. As Talib approached, Nouri whispered and nodded in his direction. The others drew in tighter.

  Talib stopped. He turned to look at the opposing basketball team. It was a motley collection of Shiites and a few Sunnis like Salaam Abdullah with his thick glasses. It wasn’t made up of family.

  Talib had never played with those boys. He’d always sided with his cousins.

  He walked toward Nouri’s team. He wanted to stand in that circle with his cousins. He needed to be one of them, to be no different.

  This time, when Anwar whispered, Jalal and Nouri laughed.

  Talib put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sky, acting as though he didn’t care. A breeze carried a swirl of leaves, papery bougainvillea petals, and candy wrappers across the court. He felt as though that little bit of wind blew right through him. As though he were becoming transparent.

  Several girls, one wearing a head scarf, were studying at the tables. Maybe he should join them and begin his homework. If he came home with his Arabic lesson done, Mama would be happy.

  But he wanted to feel the familiar dust of the basketball on his hands.

  Talib moved toward his cousins.

  They didn’t say a thing but when the game started, no one passed Talib the ball. He darted back and forth at the sidelines feeling as though he’d been blown away after all, as though he wasn’t really there.

  THE GAME WHIZ

  Nouri sat on the floor of the balcony, pressing his forehead against the railing. Mama and Baba were arguing in the courtyard below.

  Baba had just gotten off work. He still wore his dark blue uniform with the wide belt cinching his waist tight.

  “Last Friday you and your sisters were ignoring Fatima,” Baba was saying. His hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it.

  Mama put her hands on her hips, yet turned away, her pale face reflected in the car’s black surface. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Fatima chose to sit away from us.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know.” Baba took Mama’s arm and spun her around to face him.

  Nouri pulled his jacket tighter. Even from this far away, he could see Mama’s lower lip trembling.

  “I like Fatima well enough, but things are changing, Mohammed,” Mama said slowly. She tucked a bit of hair under her head scarf. “I’m afraid that we—our children—will no longer be safe if a Sunni is welcome in our home. . . .”

  Baba’s voice grew louder. “This is my brother’s wife. She must not be treated that way. To help heal matters between us, I will go with him to pray. And I shall take Nouri.”

  He stepped quickly across the flagstones, toward the door into the house.

  At the sound of the door slamming, Nouri scrambled up. He listened for Baba’s footsteps on the stairs.

  Moments later, Baba stood in the doorway, his hair still rumpled. “I’m going to Buratha today, and you’re coming with me,” he announced.

  “But I don’t want to go,” said Nouri. He’d miss Mama’s Friday feast. The sesame cookies would be gone when he got back. He lifted his chin, saying, “Why are you being so nice to someone who went and married a Sunni? A’mma Fatima is probably related to Saddam Hussein or to the martyr who killed A’mmo Hakim.”

  Baba took two steps forward and slapped Nouri smartly on the cheek. “Don’t you dare speak like that. That is my brother’s family you’re talking about.”

  Clenching his teeth, Nouri put his hand to his hot face. A’mmo Hakim would never have struck him.

  . . .

  Baba turned the key in the black car. The engine sputtered and died. Baba tried again and the car roared, shooting gray smoke from the tailpipe.

  The air was so cold that Nouri could see his breath but the spot on his cheek still burned.

  Baba banged the bumper against the gate as he reversed. As he pulled forward and backed up again, Nouri held his breath. He would never drive so carelessly.

  When they arrived at the tiny market, closed due to the war, A’mmo Nazar and Talib rounded the corner.

  Nouri noticed that, at their approach, Talib slowed his steps.

  Baba rolled down the window and called out: “Nazar! Let me drive you to Buratha.”

  “A fine idea,” called back A’mmo Nazar.

  “Get out of the front seat,” Baba said to Nouri, gesturing as if to flick a spot of lint from his coat.

  A’mmo Nazar climbed in the front, while Talib got in the back with Nouri.

  “We haven’t prayed at Buratha in a long time,” Baba said as he headed down the road.

  They passed a picture of an American flag with a big red slash across it.

  In the seat ahead, A’mmo and Baba began to talk in low tones. Nouri wanted to listen, but Talib kept talking.

  “Look at the Tigris—it’s so low,” Talib chatted. “I wonder if the war is making it so low. What if it dries up?”

  Meanwhile, Nouri overheard Baba ask A’mmo why Fatima had sent word to Maysoon that she wouldn’t be attending the Friday gatherings. A’mmo Nazar was explaining that she felt unwelcome. He said there were new tensions.

  Baba said that those tensions shouldn’t interfere with family ties.

  A’mmo countered that obviously the tensions had already interfered with the family. “Do you think that’s the tank that came to your street the other day?” Talib pointed, drowning out Baba’s
response.

  “I’ve counted eleven buildings with holes blown in them. And look!” They passed a blackened car with a pair of legs poking out from underneath.

  “That’s nothing,” said Nouri. “I see that every day.”

  Men hawked newspapers by the side of the road. As the car idled at the traffic light, Nouri caught a headline: Six Injured in Blast

  That was only fair, he thought to himself, after the bombing at the market. After the senseless death of A’mmo Hakim.

  “See, Mohammed,” said A’mmo, pointing out the window, “what happens in the city, happens in your home.”

  “Fatima has been imagining things.”

  Nouri wondered why Baba would say that. Baba himself had just berated Mama for treating A’mma Fatima badly.

  Nouri shifted on the seat. If Baba found out that he’d been mean to Talib, he’d be angry.

  When the tall minaret of the Buratha Mosque was visible out the window, Baba pulled into a parking spot, and shut off A’mmo’s car.

  PRAYERS AND BOOKS

  Talib shaded his eyes with his hand and gazed up at the reddish stone building of the house of Allah, at the white dome like a gigantic half onion. He’d been coming here for as long as he could recall.

  “It’s not just a recording here,” he said to Nouri as the muezzin called. “See—up there—a man in the minaret.”

  Two security guards stood at the entry to the courtyard. They looked over each person who came in, alert for martyrs. There was no way they could tell the difference between Sunnis and Shiites since they all looked alike.

  In the cold courtyard shaded by the tall walls, Talib and Baba, Nouri and A’mmo lined up behind the other men and boys to use the water tap.

  When it was Talib’s turn, he washed his right hand, then his left. He poured water into his mouth, tipped back his head, and gargled so his voice would be clean for Allah. He washed his wrists, his forearms. He wiped water quickly over his face and head, then washed his ears, the better to hear Allah. Finally, he bathed his feet and ankles.