The Book of Collateral Damage

by Sinan Antoon

  Endings

  An Ending

  At the beginning of the fall term in 2006 I received an email from the dean telling me about a course, or a workshop, that the manuscript department in the university library was organizing, with grants for those who wanted to work on restoring manuscripts and valuable books from war-torn regions. “Do you know anyone in Iraq who would find this course useful and would be ready to come here in the spring semester?” she asked. I immediately thought of Wadood. I realized that he didn’t have a degree or speak English fluently, and I didn’t think he would understand enough to handle the course. Never mind. I could write a letter of recommendation, stressing the importance of his project. This would be an opportunity for him to get out of Baghdad, and he could use the time here for writing. And it would be an opportunity for us to meet again. Would he agree? I was enthusiastic about the idea, but then doubts started to trouble me when I remembered his mood swings, his psychological problems, and the bureaucratic difficulties he would face in trying to get out of Iraq. But I figured that the pros outweighed the cons. I wrote back to the dean to tell her that I wanted to nominate an extraordinary book dealer I had met in Baghdad. Exaggerating, I added that he was interested in restoring old books. She answered eagerly, agreeing to support the request. I had to act fast, and I realized that the best way would be to speak to him directly. I called Midhat and asked him to go to Wadood’s shop and call me from there so that I could speak to Wadood myself. Midhat called the next day and gave the phone to Wadood. It was the first time I had heard his voice on the phone. I put the idea to him and assured him that the university would cover his travel and housing expenses and would send the U.S. embassy in Baghdad a letter to facilitate the visa process. All he had to do was get a passport. “Thank you, doctor, but you know I’m not into academic things,” Wadood said.

  “The course is at the university but it’s not academic at all. It’s training on how to deal with manuscripts and old books. It’s down your alley,” I replied.

  After a brief pause, he said, “Okay, very well, but how can I leave all the files and the catalog?”

  “The files can stay where they are and you can lock the door on the catalog, and it will stay just as it is. It’s just a visit for a few months and then you can go back to them.”

  “But my English is terrible,” he continued.

  “No problem, try to improve it in the months you have left, and they’ll get a student here to translate for you.”

  “Thank you, doctor, but let me think about it a while.”

  “Of course, I don’t want to put pressure on you, but I do hope you’ll agree. I’d very much like to see you and spend some time with you. You could have fun here and have a little break from Baghdad and its troubles. But you have to give me an answer within a month because of all the formalities and the bureaucracy.”

  “Okay, but give me two or three days to think,” Wadood said.

  I felt disheartened after the conversation and was prepared to accept the possibility that he wouldn’t come. But two days later Midhat called to tell me that Wadood had called him on a landline and asked him to tell me that he agreed. Two months later Midhat told me that Wadood had done the paperwork and he sent me an email with Wadood’s Iraqi passport number and the spelling of his name in English. The university sent a letter to the U.S. embassy confirming that it was inviting Wadood to take part in the course and requesting that he be given a visa. He obtained it after three months and they sent him a ticket to fly from Amman to New York.

  I was elated and started thinking about all the places I could take him. MOMA and Central Park, definitely. The New York Public Library and the Strand to see the thousands of books on the walls and the shelves. Mariah was pleased with the news. “You can finally see for yourself that he’s a real flesh-and-blood human being and not just a character in my imagination,” I said.

  “I’ll believe that when I meet him,” she replied.

  On the day he was arriving, I took the A train from West 4th Street and got to JFK Airport half an hour before his plane from Amman was due to land, in the knowledge that they might hold him up at passport control and customs because of his Iraqi passport. I stood by the arrivals gate, and Wadood appeared half an hour after his plane landed, pulling a small black suitcase behind him. His hair was slightly grayer, and he gave a broad smile when he saw me. We hugged warmly and I took his suitcase from him, though he resisted at first. Before I had finished welcoming him and asking him about the flight, he took a bag out of his hand luggage and said, “This is for you, doctor. Mannasama, from Baghdad, pastries from Abu Afif’s,” he said.

  “Thanks, Wadood. Why did you go to all the trouble?” I replied.

  I had intended to ask him about his catalog and where he was and whether he had brought any new chapters with him, besides those he had left for me in Baghdad, but …

  I should describe his meeting Mariah and his impressions of New York …

  but I’m not satisfied with this ending and I don’t think it works.

  I have to write another ending.

  Another Ending

  After Wadood inundated me with more than ten letters that he sent to my address at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, but which I received after I moved to New York, I heard nothing from him for more than a year. I sent him several letters but he didn’t reply. I asked Midhat to drop in on him to reassure me that he was well. He did that several times, and he told me that Wadood was rude to him the last time, saying, “Leave me alone, man, and tell Dr. Nameer to get off my back. Give me a break. I’ve had enough of interrogations and harassment. We have enough here already, and now those living abroad are harassing us too.” I felt that these assignments were beginning to annoy Midhat. I was reluctant to ask him to do anything related to Wadood. I busied myself with teaching and the bustle of everyday life until I received Wadood’s last letter, addressed to me at the university. I opened the envelope impatiently when I saw his name written on the back. I found a handwritten letter:

  Dear Dr. Nameer,

  How are you?

  This might be my last letter to you. My mental state has deteriorated in recent months and I’ve entered a dark tunnel and I see no way out. Since you’re one of the very few people who are interested in me and my catalog, and since you’re not part of the majority who are conspiring to thwart the project and undermine the morale of the person behind it, I feel compelled to tell you, more than anyone else, what I intend to do. For the last few years, however hopeless it seemed, I have clung to an eternal ray of hope (I don’t know where it comes from), and I have felt solace and consolation in my little kingdom and in my catalog. But this ray has disappeared from my life and I can no longer find it. Even my relationship with everything I have written and collected all these years has radically changed. I now feel a painful damage deep inside, and I have decided to write the end myself. We don’t choose much in this life. We have no choice in where and when we are born, or in the genes through which we inherit our diseases, our talents, and the burdens we have to bear. We don’t choose our mother tongue or our religion. We don’t choose our paths in life. Don’t we deserve to choose the end, if we can? This is what I have decided. Instead of being an actor performing his monotonous role in this theater of the absurd and awaiting an end whose form and timing is decided by others, I will be the master of my ending. I will write and direct the last act myself and I will be free for one moment in my life. I will take revenge on everyone in my own way. My birthday is a month away and I will celebrate it in an unusual way. I’m going to throw all my files into a barrel and watch them turn into ashes. Yes, I am going to burn the catalog. And since it is an important project and a unique text, it would be unbecoming for it to march to its demise alone. What am I after the catalog? Why should I even exist and for whom? The ideal ending would be for me to burn too. The ecstasy of utter annihilation, leaving this form of existence and going to absolute nothingness. But it would be a cruel en
ding and I don’t think I have the courage to self-immolate. I have to find a less painful way. I’m fully aware that it wouldn’t be the first time a writer has burned his writings or stipulated in his will that they should be burned after his death. No doubt you know about Kafka, and al-Tawhidi before him, and many others after. I cannot deny that I was inspired by the letter that al-Tawhidi wrote in reply to one from Judge Abu Sahl Ali ibn Muhammad, who rebuked him for burning his books. Read it—it is my response to your rebuke, and al-Tawhidi is more eloquent.

  Yours always

  Wadood

  When I told Mariah about the letter she said that maybe it was a call for help in some way. Perhaps he was looking for someone to dissuade him and take him by the hand. Suicidal people do hesitate and can be saved. But how could I help him? I could call Midhat or other friends and ask them to look after him and keep an eye on him.

  Wadood sent three pages with his letter, three yellowish pieces of paper cut out of some book:

  Your letter reached me unexpectedly, although I was impatient to receive it. I thanked God Almighty for blessing me with it, and asked Him for more letters like this one, in which, after saying how ardently you miss me, you describe the anguish you felt when you heard reports that I have set fire to my precious books and doused them with water. I was surprised that my rationale escaped you, as if you had not read the words of God (to whom power and majesty belong), when He says: “All things perish except His face, His is the judgment, and unto Him shall you return,” or when He says: “Everything on earth is transient.” You seem to have forgotten that nothing is permanent in this life, even if it is of noble substance and glorious essence, as long as it has been subjected to the changes of night and day and has been exposed to the mishaps of fate and the passage of time … And I will now willingly explain to you my rationale if you ask for it, or offer my excuse if you seek clarification, so that you might trust me in what I have done and understand the grace of God Almighty in suggesting that I do it. Learning is intended to be acted on, and deeds are intended for salvation. And so, if our deeds do not match our knowledge, knowledge turns out to be a waste of effort on the part of the scholar. I seek refuge in God from knowledge that is wasted effort, that is unworthy, and that becomes a chain around its master’s neck. This is a kind of argument that is mixed with apology. You must understand—may God teach you good things—that these books contained many forms of knowledge, some of it secret and some of it publicly known. As for the secret knowledge, I have not found anyone who would willingly adopt the truth of it. And as for what was publicly known, I have not come across anyone who cared to seek it out. Yet I have compiled most of these books in order that people might see me as superior, as a leader among them, and to acquire status in their estimation. But I have been deprived of all that and there is no doubt that God chose well when He decided what would happen to me. For this and other reasons, I hated the fact that my books counted against me and not in my favor. Among the factors which strengthened my resolve to act and removed any disincentive was that I have lost a noble son, a beloved friend, a close companion, an erudite follower, and my principal lieutenant. It would have been hard for me to leave my books to people who would tamper with them, impugn my honor when they examined them, make fun of my errors and mistakes when they browsed through them, or share the view that I am inadequate and at fault because of them. If you ask, “Why do you brand these people as distrustful and rebuke them all for this fault?” my answer is that what I have seen of them in life confirms my distrust of them after my death. How could I leave my books to people who have been my neighbors for twenty years, when none of them has shown me true affection or been protective? Among them on many occasions, after my renown was past, I was forced to eat green plants in the desert, to beg ignominiously from both the elite and from commoners, to sell religion and valor, to engage in hypocrisy, and to do things that it is not good for a free man to describe in writing and that are hurtful to a man’s feelings. The current state of the world is obvious to your eyes and evident by both day and night. What I have said is no secret to you, given your knowledge, your intelligence, and the fact that you are so well informed and have few distractions. You should not have doubted that what I did was right, both what I described earlier and what I have withheld and concealed, either to avoid writing at length or for fear of gossip. Anyway, I have become an owl, today or tomorrow: I am in my ninth decade and, after old age and infirmity, can I have any hope of a pleasant life or any wish that things will change? Am I not one of those of whom someone said: “We come and go every day and night / And shortly we will do so no longer.” Or as someone else said, “I drank the pearly milk of youth in his shadow until old age came and weaned me.” This verse is by al-Ward al-Jadi, but there is not enough space here to quote it in full. By God, sir, if I had listened to the advice only of those brothers and friends—strangers, men of letters, and loved ones—that I have lost in this part of the world, it would have sufficed. So how much more so if I had listened to those who were close at hand and through whose closeness I found enlightenment? I lost them in Iraq, al-Hijaz, al-Jabal, Rayy, and other nearby places. Their death notices have constantly arrived, and my memory is clogged with them. Am I not made of the same stuff? Is there any way I can avoid their fate? I ask Almighty God, the lord of the ancients, to take my admission of what I know in conjunction with the fact that I have avoided committing any offenses, for He is near at hand and responsive. Besides, in burning these books, I had the example of imams who are widely emulated, whose guidance is sought and who are seen as sources of enlightenment. These include Abu Amr ibn al-Alaa’, one of the greatest scholars and a man of obvious asceticism and well-known piety. He buried his books in the ground and no trace of them was found. There is also Daoud al-Ta’i, who was one of the best of men in his asceticism, his knowledge of religious law and his commitment to worship. He was called the crown of the umma. He threw his books in the sea and said to them in a whisper: “You were a great guide, but to stay with one’s guide once one has arrived is stupid, lazy, and annoying.” Then there was Youssef bin Asbat, who carried his books to a cave in a mountain, threw them inside, and then blocked up the entrance. When he was criticized for this, he said, “Knowledge guided us at first, but later it almost misled us. So we abandoned it for the sake of the One whom we had reached, and we detested it because of the things we had wanted.” There was Abu Suleiman al-Darani, who put his books together in an oven, heated it up, and then said, “By God, I did not burn you until I was about to be burned by you.” There was Sufyan al-Thawri, who tore up a thousand books, let the wind blow them away, and said, “I wish that my hand had been cut off right here and that I had not written one word.” There was also Abu Said al-Sayrafi, our sheikh and the master of scholars, who said to his son Muhammad: “I have left these books to you so that you may eventually benefit from them. But if you think they are betraying you, turn them into food for the fire.” What can I say, when the person listening to me believes that the times compelled the likes of me to do what you heard I had done—times that bring tears to one’s eyes for sadness and sorrow and that wrench one’s heart for anger, passion, and grief? What is to be done with what has been, what has happened and what is now in the distant past? If I should need any knowledge deep inside me, then it would be very little that I needed, for Almighty God is a healer and a protector. But if I should need knowledge for other people, I have enough inside me to fill scroll upon scroll of paper until breath after breath runs out: “That is God’s grace to us and to people, but most people do not know.”

  I think this ending is slightly better than the first, but it isn’t the end. I was about to put the the in quotation marks but I changed my mind. Isn’t it strange how the “real” ending is usually superior to all the imaginary endings? Wadood wasn’t destined to have his ending written exactly as he wanted it, nor as I wanted it. We have to admit that the endings we imagine and hope for are only suggestions. Sometimes
, when it is kind to us, which is rare, life adopts them. Or life’s own endings resemble or are identical to the ones we imagine, and then we are overjoyed.

  But our endings do not belong to us.

  THE COLLOQUY OF THE LAST BIRD

  Here I am approaching the sky over Baghdad. The river wavers and zigzags in fear as it approaches, but it can’t avoid coming into the city. Is it afraid of the rising plumes of black smoke? I’m afraid of the flocks of massive metal birds. They might come back, as they have done in the past. To hover over us and pursue us. Their roar is deafening. I don’t know how they can fly when they’re blind. And why do they excrete fire everywhere?

  The last thing my father said before we parted was that he had never seen so many of them or such big ones.

  Where did my father go?

  Where’s my mother?

  And where are my siblings?

  I’m still flying.

  …

  But I’m tired

  The End of the Novel … and Its Beginning

  The sound of the trash collectors woke me up as they emptied the large dumpsters outside my building in the morning. Mariah wasn’t beside me, as she was visiting her aunt in Philadelphia. It took me a while to go back to sleep, and then I dreamed that I could hear al-Mutanabbi speaking English in a British accent. When I woke up later, WNYC was carrying the BBC news, as usual at that time. “The United States and North Korea are preparing to start talks in New York on establishing diplomatic relations after North Korea abandons its nuclear program. China is increasing its defense budget by 17.8 percent and reducing its deficit by 1.1 percent of GDP. The former prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, who led the Kosovo Liberation Army, appears before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The Reform Party in Estonia wins 27 percent of the votes in parliamentary elections, raising the number of seats it holds to thirty-one. A suicide bomber blows himself up at a shopping mall in Baghdad close to al-Mutanabbi Street, killing at least thirty people.”