When the Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad

by Mona Yahia

  Is it only in films that after being in prison, a man becomes more of a man?

  —His wife’s determined to leave the country. Their passports are ready, but they’re still waiting for their visas for England.

  I decide to heed mother’s signals at last, and go and brew Turkish coffee in the kitchen.

  When the coffee foams, I spoon out some froth and distribute it among the finjans. Then I let the coffee simmer for as long as possible. Only at the last minute, before it boils over, I remove the pot from the fire. I repeat this three times. The first for unity. The second for liberty. And the third for socialism. Wahda, hurryiah, ishtirakiyah, always in the same order.

  Spies

  Muddy drops of rain pitter-patter on the windscreen just as mother turns the ignition key.

  —The washing! My God, all our washing’s on the roof!

  She opens the door, about to step out of the car. But she continues to sit, undecided whether to save the washing or to proceed with our schedule.

  —It wouldn’t occur to your father to bring it inside, would it?

  —I don’t know, I reply, lying for father’s sake.

  A woman walks past us, a small child skipping along at her side. The child looks up and thrusts out his tongue to savour the water falling from the sky. Lacking the words for his first rain, he jumps about, clapping his hands, and letting out cries of wonder and excitement.

  —To hell with the washing, mother decides and slams the door of the car.

  The drizzle soon magnifies into a heavy rainfall. We cross the city in the direction of the Rashid Camp. Grocers are hastily dragging their goods inside while pedestrians are seeking shelter in shops, or else jumping into buses and taxis. Mother turns the windscreen-wipers on full. I switch on the radio. Najat al-Saghira is singing la takthubi, “Don’t Lie”.

  —I’m so glad you’re with me. I hate to trouble Zeki each time. He’s already done so much for us.

  Does she really prefer my company to Zeki’s, or is she saying this to cover up her true feelings?

  —I always have to be on my guard with him, she goes on. Always keep my mouth shut when he criticises the government. Because even his own words, coming from me, would sound different.

  La la la la, la takthubi, inni raeitukuma ma’an. Don’t don’t don’t don’t, don’t lie, for I have seen you two together …

  Mother switches off the radio.

  —Why don’t we just listen to the rain? I love the force with which the first rain comes down.

  Who else does she love apart from Shuli and the rain, I am dying to ask. If she had tried to dissuade me last week when I expressed my wish to visit Shuli in detention, my suspicions would have been confirmed, and I would have been positive at last about her secret romance with Zeki. But my mother’s reactions are elusive. Although taken by surprise, she did not betray any sign of annoyance or discomfort at my request to accompany her to prison.

  Was she putting on a show of innocence or have I been reading too many Nous-Deux magazines lately?

  —Your brother will be delighted. It’s over a year now that you haven’t seen each other!

  Delighted? After one year? I would not blame him if he refuses to look at me. Mother steers to the right and lets a military lorry overtake us. I haven’t noticed that we have joined the motorway.

  —By the way, Mama, is Shuli dressed in that … that pyjama-like … what do they call it, prisoner’s clothes?

  Mother shakes her head, annoyed at my image.

  —No! Not at all. He wears his own clothes. Didn’t we pack his clean shirts and trousers yesterday?

  —And his head? Is it shaved like prisoners in … in films?

  —Believe me, he looks just the same as when you last saw him. A bit thinner perhaps. A bit paler for sure. He has been alone in this cell too long, and it’s doing him no good.

  The squeaking of the windscreen-wipers fills the silence that follows. Left, right, left, right, like a prisoner pacing his cell.

  —Will you tell him about the new arrests and all the recent developments?

  Mother purses her lips.

  —We can’t keep it back from him forever. At some time he’ll have to be informed. So he’d better hear it from us than from a warder. Who knows what they might tell him.

  —I can’t imagine anything more monstrous than reality.

  We take an exit, at the end of which the military camp comes into view. Mother pulls up at the gate. A soldier springs out of the sentry-box. He seems to have recognised our car for he lifts the barrier and, without asking for identification or an entry permit, motions us to pass rapidly. Mother rolls down the window and hands him a dirhem. Wet already, the sentry inspects the coin and nods, as though acknowledging a parking fee.

  —See! Even soldiers don’t like to stand long in the rain. I told you there’s no need to worry.

  We drive along a dirt road inside the camp. I try to figure out how to turn the dreary landscape into the vivid account my classmates will be expecting tomorrow. Rows of barracks spread without any apparent order over a flat wasteland. A few date palms are dispersed at random, bearing no connection to the barracks. Military jeeps and lorries are speeding in all directions. A line of soldiers, overloaded with rifles and kit bags, is marching towards a muddy horizon.

  Mother parks in front of a long white building. We unload the two baskets and the bundle of laundry from the backseat and run in the rain towards the barracks. She pushes the door marked Enquiries, and we enter a small empty hall. A wall-to-wall wooden counter separates the reception desk from the oblong waiting space. Mother drops the baskets to the floor.

  —It might take a while, she warns me, crosses her arms, and leans against the wall in the posture of someone who is expecting nothing to happen in the next twenty-four hours.

  Too restless to stand still, I pace up and down the reception area. The wind constantly slams the entrance door, and although the noise soon gets on my nerves, I dare not interfere with any military order or disorder around me. To entertain myself, I try to imagine the soldier who occupies the rusty iron chair behind the counter, who never dusts his windows, who has stuck the pin-ups of belly dancers on his padlocked filing cabinet, and who has left his khaki beret on the desk. A telephone rings in the adjacent room. A gruff voice answers.

  —So the telephone isn’t entirely extinct in this country!

  Mother ignores my remark.

  —Aren’t you cold, Mama? Has your headache gone? Don’t you feel like a cigarette?

  —I’m dying for one! But I’d rather not smoke here. They might take it the wrong way, you understand?

  The voice stops talking. The adjutant should be coming out any minute to organise our visit. After he has blown his nose boisteroustly. After he has opened a bottle of fizzy drink. After he has finished burping. After he has punched holes in who-knows-what documents. After he has rubber-stamped them. After he has torn masses of paper, pulled out dozens of drawers, swatted hordes of flies on the desk.

  After he has snapped his lighter, he starts talking and guffawing again. I missed his dialling.

  —Mama, are you sure it’s the right place? Who are we waiting for? Perhaps you should go and announce us to him?

  —Relax, daughter. This isn’t a grocery with opening hours at our convenience. It takes time. Didn’t I tell you to bring something to read?

  Her stoicism reminds me that she has been going through this procedure every month. Ashamed of my fussiness all of a sudden, I stop complaining and squat on the bundle of laundry beside her legs, sinking down into the familiar smell of her damp nylon stockings. According to my watch, my class must be attending the chemistry lesson right now, and my classmates counting down to break time.

  At the thousand and first slam of the door, a Sergeant appears. I jump to my feet, almost standing to attention. He greets mother like an old acquaintance, and inquires after her health.

  —Waiting for the Major? he asks and points with his thum
b to the next room.

  Mother nods. The Sergeant knocks on the Major’s door. The gruff voice barks out permission. The Sergeant opens the door, shouts two syllables which I fail to catch, clicks his heels, salutes, and only then does he enter. Soldier and officer exchange information. The Sergeant returns and takes us to his commander. His small proportions strike me as inconsistent with his harsh voice and his discordant noises. Surrounded by dusty folders, the officer slurs a greeting, hands mother a form to sign, glances past me, and fumbles at the books, the fresh laundry, and the items of food in the baskets. When the search is over, he dismisses us with a sweep of his hand.

  —No, that wasn’t the notorious Major, mother whispers as we squat on our baskets in front of the reception desk, unattended again.

  After what seems like hours, the Sergent re-appears and gestures us to follow him outside. The rain has stopped, the sky has turned blue.

  —Alone this time? he asks mother – as if my presence did not count – and offers to carry her basket.

  She delicately turns him down, and explains that “our good friend” could not make it this time. Proudly, the Sergeant tells her that he is learning English. As we zigzag between the puddles of mud, he starts to count in English from a hundred backwards. His descending numbers make me feel as if we were receding from Shuli. We walk past a kiosk around which a group of recruits have gathered. Cat-calls and whistles shoot in our direction. The Sergeant stops and hurls abuse at them, insulting their sisters, their mothers, and their grandmothers. The soldiers shrink under their khaki caps. The Sergeant apologises as we go on – whether for the soldiers’ behaviour or for his own foul language, I cannot say. Then he jumps from sixty straight to forty, but mother does not correct him. When we draw near a double-storeyed barrack, he whistles for the guard, who immediately comes out of the building, a rifle slung over his shoulder. The Sergeant orders him to take us to the student. That’s right, the Jew. He thanks mother for the green banknote and takes leave, floating on air, like a schoolboy who has just received his Purim gift.

  At the end of the corridor, the keys clank.

  The smell of stale air and static time creeps into my nose. The cell is larger and dimmer than I had imagined. I step slowly inside, hiding behind mother. Shuli is leaning against the wall behind the door, arms folded, wearing his ironic smile. It takes me a fraction of a second to recognise him. He has grown a thick moustache, similar to Zeki’s.

  The keys jingle behind us. As Shuli moves towards me, I hold out the basket of food, trying to conceal my embarrassment. Shuli flings the basket to the ground, pulls me into his arms, and lifts me up in the air.

  —You’re still as light as a feather! No intention of growing up, Lina?

  Apparently, mother has kept her promise and said nothing about my menstruation.

  —Your face’s prickly. I swear I wouldn’t have recognised you with this moustache.

  Mother and son hug each other for a long time. Bdalek, may all the misfortunes meant for you fall upon me, she repeats. I survey the cell and Shuli’s reduced possessions: a mattress, a small travelling bag, a stack of books arranged like a night table, a family-size bottle of Coca-Cola filled with water. Shuli’s familiar blue bedspread lends the place a painful illusion of domesticity. The unplastered brick walls are covered with names, scratched by former inmates. The calendar above the mattress is two months out of date. In the corner lie a raffia broom and an old sheet of newspaper on which a heap of dust is piled. Shuli must have just swept the floor in anticipation of our visit.

  Mother manages to control herself. They squat down on the mattress, while I use the pile of books facing them for a seat.

  —Raining outside? he asks, pointing at our wet hair.

  Then he showers questions on us, concerning father, Zeki, friends, neighbours and acquaintances for whom he has never cared before. He inquires about my subjects at school, my marks, my classmates, my teachers, greedy for news, as if it were the very fresh air his cell is lacking.

  When he pauses to catch his breath, mother remarks,

  —There are dark rings around your eyes, my son … You look so pale. Don’t you …

  —No, as you can imagine, I don’t get to sunbathe!

  Mother’s attempt to shift the focus of the conversation to Shuli has been untimely. Anxious to rectify her mistake and win back his favour, she urges her son to examine the contents of the baskets which she packed meticulously the day before.

  —Our time’s too short to be wasted on such trifles!

  Mother wears a face of tisha’ bab, the day of mourning for the destruction of the Second Temple. Shuli does not look too happy with himself either. In a conciliatory tone, he asks whether she has remembered to bring him candles. Whether real or contrived, his interest immediately breaks the ice. Radiating pride, she takes out the package of white candles from the basket, and displays it as evidence of her devotion. Shuli concedes a smile.

  —They switch off the light at eight in the evening. I told them I can’t get to sleep so early, but they act deaf. Last week, the light went out twice in the middle of the day. Fuse, I reckon, but it lasted hours. You should have seen the fuss I made. I went on a hunger strike. No, I’m not joking. They were so helpless, they didn’t know what to do with me.

  —Shuli, please, be sensible. Don’t be rude to them. Don’t provoke them, they might …

  —They might what? What else can they do to me? Beat me up? Keep me here forever? They can’t hurt me any more. Not these degenerates. I’ve become so immune, you can’t imagine.

  The noise of crackling paper irritates me. I lift my eyes to its source. A shiny brown cockroach is crawling over the calendar on the wall, its feelers exploring the month of August in the Swiss Alps. Goose pimples spread all over my body. Cockroach feelers used to scare me out of my wits as a child, as I took their swaying for a display of defiance, a battle dance of sorts.

  I pull myself together and return to the conversation. Mother has managed to poke a cheese sambousak in Shuli’s mouth.

  —Anybody released? he asks, chewing.

  In short bursts of speech, she tells him about the new arrests, about the alleged Zionist spy-ring, and about the wireless set which the authorities claim to have found in one of the houses.

  —They’re accusing them of sending military information to Zionist and CIA agents in Iran. Top secret information which caused Iraq to lose the war last year.

  Shuli wrinkles his brows.

  —So what the warders are saying is true! The poor bastards, they must be really in the shit. But who’s going to swallow this rubbish? Iraqis never believe the tales their governments fabricate. They don’t take their rulers seriously. Remember all the jokes they used to crack about the Thief of Baghdad?

  He quietly mouths the nickname of our former Prime Minister and giggles.

  —You’re wrong Shuli, the spies are working wonders, like a pain killer!

  —Remember ustad Juad, our history teacher? He tried to convince us they’re spies! I add.

  —Pain’s pain, whether you’re a peasant or an intellectual, mother goes on. Whatever has gone wrong in the country over the past years, they’ve got the spies to blame now. The government must be up to something – I dare not think what – otherwise the press wouldn’t be harping on this subject. Last week, the radio was warning the public against Jewish agents, saying they were about to commit acts of sabotage all over the country and urging citizens to be vigilant and to notify the police of anybody acting suspiciously. It’s a wonder, I must say, that so far only a few people have exploited this situation and in fact informed against Jews. But the air is charged, and I’m afraid that eventually something will burst.

  Although no footsteps are heard outside, mother has lowered her voice to the extent that I must bend towards her in order to hear every word.

  —A Jewish kitchenware merchant from Basra is supposed to be the leader of the network and the mastermind behind it. An old man in his sixtie
s. They’re accusing him of having illegally sent young Jews across the border to Iran, where they were trained by Israeli agents to commit acts of sabotage in Iraq. Can you imagine what’s awaiting these young men? Most of them are school boys and university students.

  Shuli’s already pallid lips turn deathly. His teeth are chattering.

  —What’s the matter, Shuli?

  He fails to utter a single word. Mother persists.

  —Did anyone tell you anything? Speak to me. Speak up! Say something!

  Shuli breaks off a piece of plaster protruding from the wall and uses it to draw a pale Star of David on the floor, on the tile between his foot and hers. His legs are shaking. Mother considers the drawing for a moment then dusts it down with her shoe.

  —Nonsense! They won’t implicate you. They wouldn’t want to share the honours with the former regime, don’t you understand? Besides, you don’t fit in their plot. Your story belongs to another era. They won’t touch you, my son, believe me, you’re safe here, safer than all the men outside!

  Shuli buries his face in his arms. Mother’s hand ventures towards him and touches his head. As he does not rebuff her gesture, she begins to stroke his hair. She looks so happy you’d think she had won the national lottery. The cockroach has climbed up to the top of the calendar. Its feelers move up and down, back and forth, like the arms of a conductor celebrating the drama of human life.

  The warder suddenly shoves the door open. Shuli starts up. Not even he has heard the keys. The thirty minutes have elapsed already. The three of us stand up. Mother hugs her son and starts talking fast, as if to fill the last seconds with as many words as possible.