Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family

by Tamara Chalabi

  Nevertheless, London seemed the logical place in which to seek refuge. His son Hazem was here, training at a merchant bank, and in London he would be far enough from Iraq not to jeopardize the safety of his imprisoned eldest child, Rushdi, by inflaming the situation with his presence. He also had some Iraqi acquaintances there, including friends who had been stranded in Britain because, like him, they could not return home.

  As he walked out of customs with Shamsa’s son Issam, he spotted Hazem waiting by the barrier for him. His son embraced him. ‘It’s good to have you here,’ he said, his voice wavering with emotion. Hadi could see that there were many questions Hazem wanted to ask, but he suspected that he would not have the answers he wanted to hear. He smiled wearily; he felt so very tired. But at least he could now focus on the present and establish some order in his life.

  Travelling into the city from the airport, London seemed different to Hadi; perhaps because so much else had changed in his life. At first he thought the taxi was taking them by the wrong route, for he had forgotten that this time he would not be staying in his usual quarters, the Athenaeum Club near Hyde Park Corner. Instead he would be living with Hazem in his small rented flat. Watching the pedestrians in the streets, he wondered whether he would ever really understand the British and what made them tick; he had believed they were his country’s friends. He compared the importance they placed on order, discipline and manners in their own society with, as he saw it, their outright double-dealing over the coup in Iraq. They had let their friends down badly. They let us be slaughtered, he thought, without so much as the bat of an eye.

  When the taxi finally pulled up to the kerb, Hadi looked at the enormous complex of flats and sighed. As they walked towards Hazem’s building he noticed that on the wall outside each block was a wooden board that listed all the flats beside the words IN and OUT, which were covered by a small slide made of brass depending on whether the occupants were in residence or not. Hazem explained that Dolphin Square was a base for many British families who lived abroad. The flats were serviced, but to Hadi’s eye there was an air of impermanence about them. Going up in the old brass lift to the sixth floor, he reflected that he could have owned all this.

  Each of the many blocks in Dolphin Square was named after a British naval hero: Hazem’s flat was in the Hood block. Hood 202 was small, dark and drab, its floors carpeted in a nondescript taupe. Hadi inspected the place without betraying his emotions: there were two untidy bedrooms, a bathroom, a small kitchen and a bland sitting room with slightly tired red-and-white sofas.

  Hadi shook his head brusquely, dismissing his thoughts; he could not afford the luxury of self-pity. He turned to his son disapprovingly and told him that the place needed a proper clean. Finding that the fridge was empty, he announced that they should go and get some groceries before the shops closed. His mood lightened fractionally when he learned that Dolphin Square had its own small supermarket, a novelty for the Chalabi family.

  Six weeks after Proclamation No. 1, the first law passed by the new Qassim government, came Law No. 30. Under it, all the large land-holdings in Iraq were to be sequestered by the state. Being among the largest, Latifiyyah was the first to go. With a sweep of an anonymous official’s pen, Hadi lost his most prized possession. In fact the government impounded all of Hadi’s properties, which included more than 400 square kilometres of prime real estate near and around Baghdad. There was no financial compensation, nor was any of the land redistributed to the peasants. Instead, Iraq’s agriculture was left to die.

  The news that he had lost Latifiyyah came as a terrible blow to Hadi. As he sat in the flat in London with his nephew Issam, he indulged himself in a rare outburst during which he recalled the many years of hard work he had put into his career. He told Issam stories about his early adventures with desert marauders, when he had ridden out into the countryside with Ni’mati. He described every piece of land he had cultivated, every project he had undertaken, every enterprise and business venture, until he came to the subject of Latifiyyah. Then he stopped.

  ‘With Latifiyyah, my entire life’s work is gone,’ he said numbly. He did not reveal that he had lost the equivalent of US$1 billion. Instead, he rubbed his brow and continued, ‘But it’s not the end of everything. And I thank God every day that your cousins weren’t physically harmed in what happened.’ He told his nephew that they had to trust to the infinite wisdom of God that all would be well.

  Centuries of family roots were being ripped up from the country Hadi loved. He knew he could never live in Iraq again. That had become clear to him with the murders of the royal family and Nuri Said. The thought of never again setting foot in Kazimiya – of never entering the shrine, visiting his grandfather Ali’s grave, greeting his old friends – pained him greatly. He remembered how his father Abdul Hussein had suffered when, in 1922, Sheikh Mahdi had prohibited him from entering the shrine and effectively ostracized him from Kazimiya.

  As an exile in Britain, Hadi would be less able to effect change and help his country. Moreover, Iraq was his identity; the country meant everything to him. He didn’t know who he would be without it. He thought of his family, and of how proudly he had helped his country set out on the path of progress. Was it really all gone?

  29

  Migration

  Precious Cargo

  (1958)

  HASSAN WAS SUMMONED to the Law Faculty two weeks after the coup had taken place. Never having served in politics, he did not face the same risk of arrest and imprisonment as his brother Rushdi. Even so, his situation was extremely precarious.

  There had been serious opposition to Hassan’s return to the university, particularly from the Dean, Abdul Rahman Bazzaz. Hassan’s family was closely associated with the old regime – his brother, father and grandfather had all served in the Cabinet – and many people could not forgive these connections. However, several faculty members were his friends, despite their political differences, and they lobbied for Hassan when he risked losing his position. What ultimately saved him was that he was a well-regarded professor with a good teaching record. Now more than ever, Hassan needed to keep his position in the faculty and earn his living. It was a question of survival.

  On his return, Hassan had to attend a lecture given by the Dean that emphasized the need for professors to educate students about the revolution, and to promote an understanding of revolutions in general, including the concepts of nationalism, anti-colonialism and freedom. Most members of staff already supported the coup, and were supporters of either Nasser’s Arabism or the Communist Party. Although fundamentally different in their beliefs, for the time being the two groups were united in their anti-British and anti-monarchy sentiments. The memory of Iraq under the Hashemite monarchy was already tarnished, and had acquired the label of the ‘expired epoch’. A new language was developing, inspired by the spirit of the revolution, in which the most popular words included the labels ‘agent’, ‘traitor’ and ‘thief’.

  In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) had emerged as the most organized of the political groups, with followers nationwide. There was a mood of revolutionary euphoria amongst them. Many left-wing intellectuals and artists celebrated the new era, and the women’s movement, which had started humbly in the 1940s in the field of education, was adopted by the ICP (indeed, in 1959 the first female minister in the Arab world was appointed in Baghdad). A campaign was relaunched to eradicate illiteracy, particularly among rural women.

  It seemed that there was still a surfeit of energy available for demonstrations. When Qassim officially withdrew from the union with Jordan and the Baghdad Pact, street demonstrations followed in support of his decisions, and the statues of the old regime were destroyed amidst large celebrations. Everything belonging to the old order was deemed evil and repulsive. The names of bridges, roads and public buildings that related to the old regime, such as the Royal Hospital, were changed to commemorate the revolution.

  Marches and p
rotests frequently impinged on the campus, and several of Hassan’s students started to agitate about their right to join them. During term time, Jamila fearlessly protected Hassan from potential student attacks and faculty antipathy. By now the precise nature of their relationship had become increasingly unclear even to the couple themselves. Jamila was much more than Hassan’s secretary, yet she was not his wife. She was resolute in the face of the hostility towards him, ignoring verbal assaults and dismissing students who disrupted the rest of the class. Her protective efforts were much needed: Communist students had formed groups aimed at ‘protecting the revolution’, and outperformed the police in reporting on individuals’ political and revolutionary transgressions.

  Throughout this time Rushdi remained in prison, where he was surrounded by former ministers such as Tawfiq Suwaidi, Fadhil Jamali, Abdul Rasul Khalisi and Abdul Wahab Murjan. Conversations among the inmates were held in low voices for fear that the guards might be eavesdropping, but they continued to receive food and letters from home.

  Rushdi never wrote to his family, preferring to pass on messages via Ni’mati, who delivered his food to him, rather than risk the guards opening his letters. Ni’mati was very worried about Rushdi. When he was allowed to see him he seemed pensive and withdrawn, resigned to his fate, and he grew paler and more emaciated with each passing day. Rushdi told him that he hated the toilet facilities, and found washing a nightmare as the bathrooms were so dirty. But small victories such as when Ni’mati managed to smuggle in some clean towels distracted him from his circumstances temporarily, and he always asked Ni’mati about his children.

  Ni’mati tried to keep Rushdi up to date about what was going on in the government, but there was little that he wanted to know apart from whether he and his fellow prisoners were going to be charged, tried and executed in the near future. He didn’t know what crime the authorities would concoct to charge him with, but he was aware that the newspapers delighted in slandering members of the former government without levelling any specific accusations against them.

  Meanwhile, the family was struggling to cope with diminished funds and fewer contacts. The new secret police had been instructed to keep a close eye on members of the old regime and their families. They were forbidden from travelling, and risked being searched at home without prior notice if the police felt like it. They didn’t know who they could trust. While most of the country embraced the new era with revolutionary zeal, the Chalabis and many others like them lived in terror.

  Bibi continued her visits to the shrine, praying for godly intervention in the family’s circumstances. Perhaps her prayers were heeded. In spite of the authorities’ overt hostility towards the Chalabi family, Hadi’s office in Samaou’al Street remained open as Jawad attempted to keep the firm afloat and salvage what he could of the family’s business interests.

  One morning, about a month after the coup had taken place, an innocuous man with deep-set eyes walked into the office. He asked about the family and about a flour mill that Hadi owned, and explained that he had grain for sale. It took Jawad a few moments to realize that his visitor was none other than Hamed Qassim, the brother of the leader of the coup, President Abdul Karim Qassim; he was a grain supplier from whom Hadi had bought stock in the past, and with whom Rushdi had enjoyed a good rapport.

  Hamed was a simple man whose brother’s sudden rise to power had left him unsure of how to react to his own newly elevated status. Having re-established contact, he developed the habit of dropping in at the office during the afternoon, when Jawad and Hassan were often to be found there. Making himself comfortable in one of the leather chairs, Hamed would praise his brother, reading out fawning articles in the press about him. He began to push to sell ever larger quantities of grain to the mill, even though it was no longer in the family’s hands, as Hadi’s assets had been frozen. Hamed clearly wished to benefit from his new status, and to make as much profit as he could from his grain, but it became apparent to Jawad that he also wanted to assist the family, and that he might even be able to help Rushdi.

  By October, Jawad had succeeded in getting the travel ban lifted from his thirteen-year-old brother Ahmad with Hamed’s help. It was no longer safe for Ahmad to attend Baghdad College, where he was being viciously bullied by other students. Getting him out of Iraq had become a priority for the family, and as soon as the ban was lifted arrangements were made for him to join his father in London.

  A week before Ahmad was due to leave, Ghazi, the son of his older sister Raifa, got wind of the arrangements. The same age as Ahmad, and having also endured months of taunting at school, he was completely distraught. He ran into the kitchen and found a sharp knife, which he put to his uncle Jawad’s throat. ‘Ahmad can’t leave without me!’ he screamed. ‘If I don’t leave with him, I’ll kill you! I have to leave with him!’

  Motioning to Bibi and the other women to stay back, Raifa, her voice shaking, told Ghazi to let her brother go, and said that they had enough enemies without fighting amongst themselves. From the other side of the room, Bibi added, ‘If Ahmad can go, then there may be a way for you too.’ Ghazi collapsed into a chair, sobbing. Nursing his throat, Jawad agreed to help him. Through Jawad’s efforts, Ghazi’s travel ban was also lifted so he could travel with Ahmad.

  Before setting out for England, Ahmad went to say goodbye to Saeeda, who was living with friends in Kazimiya. Her angina was wearing her down. She looked at Ahmad for a long time and then hugged him to her as tears flowed down their faces. Theirs had been a very strong bond ever since Saeeda had first set eyes on Ahmad on the day he was born. They both knew it was the last time they would see each other.

  When the time finally came for Ahmad and Ghazi to leave, everything was rushed and fraught. They were lectured on the qualities of fortitude, courage, good behaviour and hard work, first by Hassan and then by Jawad. Bibi, in tears, whispered travel prayers in their ears and circled their heads three times with the Quran, then made them kiss the book, hoping that in doing so she would be shielding them from the dangers of their forthcoming flight. She was also frightened that the guards would stop Ahmad at the airport and confiscate any messages or valuable items that were being given to him to carry, although in the event this did not happen. She did not know when they would see each other again.

  The boys flew from Baghdad via Istanbul and Frankfurt to London. Ahmad carried with him on the plane a Leica camera that had been given to him as a birthday present. Sitting next to them was a well-known poet from Najaf, whose face they recognized from the newspapers. When they landed in Istanbul, Ahmad noticed his camera was missing. He and Ghazi started searching for it, until Ghazi spotted the distinctive camera string dangling from the bag of the poet, who had already passed through Turkish immigration. The two boys watched in outrage as the man walked out of the airport with the stolen camera. The theft was like a continuation of their recent experiences in Baghdad, where people seemed to think they could take what they wanted from the family.

  On the day Ahmad and Ghazi landed at London’s Heathrow Airport the sky was dark, and dense fog stripped the colour and life from the landscape. The contrast with the golden warmth of Baghdad was stark. It was like landing in Limbo. On their previous few trips to Britain on holiday, they had never noticed the shabbiness of the airport. The terminal was a shack-like building where they were welcomed by two large signs: ‘UK Citizens’ and ‘Aliens’. It was obvious which one they had to pass under.

  After they had passed through customs and immigration they were greeted by Hadi, who hugged his youngest son close with tears in his eyes. On the way to Dolphin Square Hadi asked the boys about their flight, and for news of the family in Baghdad. Only when they entered the flat did Ahmad and Ghazi realize how much things had changed. The contrast with the large spaces they were used to in Baghdad could not have been more striking. They were equally surprised when Hadi opened their suitcases and started unpacking for them. They had never seen him perform a domestic chore before. Until that mo
ment he had always been the very symbol of everything powerful and strong in their lives; he had been, in Ni’mati’s words, Little God.

  Despite his surroundings, Hadi seemed cheerful. He had already prepared them a meal, which he reheated in the tiny kitchen and served to them. By now Ahmad and Ghazi were on the verge of panicky anger; having witnessed the mighty head of their family prepare their supper, they couldn’t imagine what other humiliations might lie in store for them. Seemingly oblivious to their mood, Hadi warned them that the rice wasn’t quite as tasty as the basmati rice they were used to back home. He explained that an old acquaintance of his, Naji Ibrahim, an Iraqi Jew who had served in an RAF bomber squad during World War II, had introduced him to the Hellenic Stores, a Greek shop in Charlotte Street near Soho, where he could buy Middle Eastern food. Such provisions were hard to come by in London, so the shop was an important find. However, the ingredients were not quite the same, and many were not available. Although he had never cooked for his family before, Hadi was determined to do his best and to try to recreate the simpler dishes they loved.

  With Hamed Qassim’s help, it became possible for the family to send more of the children to Britain on visitors’ visas. A month after Ghazi had left, his brother Ali found himself in London the guardian of his younger cousin Hussein. Ali tried to take his comic books with him, but there were too many for him to carry. He had to content himself with two albums of his stamp collection instead. Ali had the added burden of having to take a long message to Hadi, which he was made to memorize verbatim by his uncle Hassan: