Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad

by Bee Rowlatt

  Well anyway, I thought I would just drop you a line and say hello. Let me know how you are!

  Very best wishes

  Bee

  13.03.06

  A loud Hiiiiiii from Iraq

  Dear Bee

  It’s been a very long time since we emailed but, believe me, I do want to continue our acquaintance. The reason for my long absence is due to various reasons such as the continued electricity failure in the country, the horrible and bloody daily events we have to live through, mid-term examinations and the marking of tons of students’ papers and, last but not least, the collapse of my old and crazy computer.

  Do you want to know what I did to overcome some of the depressive circumstances? I got married. Our families objected from the very beginning, so no one came to the wedding. It was all over very quickly; a friend took us to the marriage office and was a witness to the marriage contract, and that’s all. On the way back we bought a chocolate cake and some cans of Pepsi. I wore cream slacks and a leopard-print T-shirt with an Islamic cloak and head cover, he wore a pair of jeans and a shirt. The friend dropped us at my house, we went in and that was that. (It was so unlike my first wedding, although that wasn’t all that much better. I’ve been married before, and then widowed. There is so much more to tell you, but it makes me unhappy so, for now, that is all I will say.)

  We are really on our own. At least now I have someone to talk to during the long evenings of the curfew, a man to hide behind when the sound of bombs wakes me in the middle of the night, and to protect me when I have to face the horrors of the daily drive to work.

  Please do get in touch. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

  May

  14.03.06

  A big cheer from London

  MAY, I’m so delighted to hear from you! Thanks for writing; it really is a relief. Even though it’s been such a long time, every bomb made me think of you, and I wondered if you were OK. It makes listening to the news from Iraq a very different experience.

  Congratulations on your marriage! I’m sorry your family didn’t agree and you couldn’t celebrate it in the usual way. I imagine a traditional Iraqi wedding is quite something. But then the important part is who you choose, not how you do it. So I wish you both the very best.

  I also have some news: I’m only going to be working for another month or so as I’m expecting another baby, due on 25th May. I’m getting quite nervous actually. I haven’t found out if it’s a girl or a boy, but because I already have two girls everyone keeps saying that I must be hoping for a boy. It’s irritating, and makes me automatic-ally reply that I want another girl. But the truth is, I really don’t mind either way. I just wish it would hurry up as I absolutely hate being pregnant.

  Yesterday the withdrawal of some British troops from Iraq sparked a wide debate here. Some are saying that the Iraqis want the troops to leave, but other people (including the government) argue that since the troops are there, they should at least try to finish the job before they leave – whatever the ‘job’ is. Should all the troops leave? Has anything got better since the invasion?

  Well, I’d better go and get started on the day’s work, digging around for stories and news angles and chasing things up. But again I must tell you how happy I am to hear that you are OK despite the circumstances. And CONGRATULATIONS on your marriage!

  All the best

  Bee

  14.03.06

  Daily life (with no hairdryer)

  Dear Bee

  You can’t believe how thrilled I am to hear from you. It is a nice thing to talk to someone who is not actually living in the inferno.

  I’ll tell you something from our daily experiences and you can judge how it is. This morning I woke up at 4 a.m., not because I’m an early riser but because I want to take a shower and dry my hair before going to work. As I got out of the bathroom the electricity went off, and so did my dreams of washing and drying my hair. So I wore it in a ponytail, though it is quite short.

  At nine my husband started the car and we discovered that we had very little petrol (enough if everything goes well – but in the current atmosphere you can’t take any chances). And so we went looking for petrol (black market, of course). We filled the car up and headed for work. But the bridge was closed and no one was allowed to cross, so after all the rushing and waking up early I still couldn’t get to work.

  Do you know that I haven’t been to a petrol station since the early days of the invasion? Since then, the black market has flourished everywhere and in every business. People openly stand on the high-street pavements selling the kerosene and gas bottles that we need but can’t normally find anywhere else. These people are merely dealers for the ones we call ‘whales’, who are usually influential people with prominent posts. They keep themselves in the background but take all the cash. They use bribes (or other means) to take the kerosene and gas bottles supplied to the petrol stations and pass them to their dealers, who sell them. I buy the black market petrol sold on the street for two reasons. The first is that petrol stations are not safe; they are an easy target. Many people waiting in the long queues have been killed or injured. The second reason is that some of these stations mix water with the fuel to compensate for the quantity stolen and sold on the black market, and this of course ruins the engine.

  Food shopping has also changed, and maybe for the better. Residential areas like ours usually lack sufficient shopping facilities but since the invasion and the arrival of so many displaced people, shops have sprung up out of nowhere and they are everywhere now. We have more than we really need, but we try to remain in the neighbourhood because it is much safer. On the days when there is a curfew we have no choice but to buy from them, no matter how bad the produce may be. I remember buying bread that turned out to be stale, crushed tomatoes etc., and all for the same price as fresh. However, I sometimes stop on my way back from college to buy bread and vegetables, because they are fresher in a nearby neighbourhood that I pass through when driving home.

  As for college, I am teaching first-year students the subjects of human rights(!) and democracy (!!!). Not topics to which they relate naturally, as you may imagine. It is hard to know how best to teach them. I also teach third-year students the novels The Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice and Hard Times.

  You asked what will happen if all the troops pull out? Well, I think it is so unpredictable. What I think is that they shouldn’t have come in the first place and shouldn’t have listened to the opposition. Yeah the Old Man had his faults, but we were better off then than we are now. Iraq is now a land drowned in blood and chaos. At least before we were a fully sovereign and independent country. If the troops pull out, I suppose there will be more bloodshed. And we never know what Iran will do.

  But, Bee, I tell you this. The Americans say Iraq needs them to mediate between our warring groups. I really do not agree. Iraqi society is mostly tribal and governed by tribal rules. Actually, my family is not really governed by them. This is partly because of my father dying young and my mother being an only child – we are, to some extent, on our own, without aunts and uncles to interfere in our lives and our beliefs. It is also because Baghdad is like a mosaic of different cultures and beliefs with Sunnis, Shi’ites and all the different types of Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turcoman Armenians and others living in one city. All these groups seemed to live peacefully together until the US ‘democracy’ ignited all the differences that we see today…

  I’m so glad that you are expecting your baby soon, and I wish you an easy and quick labour – and good health for you and the baby, which is more important than its sex.

  Please write as often as you can.

  Love

  May

  28.03.06

  A poem

  Hello there, May

  I hope things haven’t been too spoilt by the daily madness today. I thought of you last week as I was trying to contact a Baghdad-based poet; he’d written very poignantly about poetry and his hopes for the ne
w Iraq. I finally got him on the phone, hoping to get an interview, but he was so upset, he wept and seemed half crazy. He kept changing his name and acting terrified. In the end I couldn’t bear to ask him to do an interview. I just tried to make sympathetic comments as I listened, then felt dreadful and useless afterwards.

  He made me think about your literature students: don’t they find it hard to relate to literature when their lives are a daily struggle? How can you teach Jane Austen in Baghdad? How can they make sense of it? I imagine it could be a kind of escape for them. When I was at school I had a wonderful English teacher. One day she set us a task: we all had to learn a poem off by heart, to recite in front of the class. It could be any poem but a minimum of fourteen lines. The reason, she said, was in case any of us went to prison. We all laughed but I remember her reasoning: a poem can sustain you. I’ve never been to prison but I can still remember my poem.

  It was ‘Spring and Fall: To a Young Child’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I enjoyed the sounds, especially ‘worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie’. At the time the meaning was a bit obscure, but now I’m older I think I get more from it. You may know it but I’m sending you it anyway:

  Margaret, are you grieving

  Over Goldengrove unleaving?

  Leaves, like the things of man, you

  With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

  Ah! As the heart grows older

  It will come to such sights colder

  By and by, nor spare a sigh

  Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

  And yet you will weep and know why.

  Now no matter, child, the name:

  Sorrow’s springs are the same.

  Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

  What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

  It is the blight man was born for,

  It is Margaret you mourn for.

  Other news: I have only one more week of work before I go off on maternity leave. I am a little (= extremely) scared of giving birth, but looking forward to the baby.

  A funny thing: I told you my husband Justin is a journalist too, well his programme, Newsnight, has asked him to do an experiment, to be their ‘Ethical Man’. This means we’ll have to live an environmentally friendly lifestyle for a year while they film us trying to do it. I am quite good at environmental stuff like recycling, but Justin is terrible. The idea is to change each aspect of our family life: the way we travel, eat, run the house. They’ll take away our family car etc. and film the whole thing. I don’t know if you can watch films on your computer, but if you fancy a silly distraction we’re on the Newsnight website. My friends are already teasing me a lot about it, as you can imagine.

  Well, May, I’ll drop you another line before I finish work next week. In the meantime, I hope it’s going well for you and your new husband. I hope you are both very well.

  Take care!

  Bee

  22.04.06

  Before the baby comes

  Hi, Bee

  I read the poem and I applaud your memory of your schooldays. By the way, I saw your photo and your husband’s Mr Ethical project on the internet and I think you look very nice.

  I expect you are taking your leave now, and I wish you a safe delivery and good health for you and the baby.

  I hope to hear from you soon. Wish you all the luck and happiness.

  Love

  May

  11.05.06

  Quick hello

  Hi there, May – no baby news to report (due in two weeks; wish it would hurry up) but I just wanted to say that it’s nice to be in touch with you and I hope we can continue to email while I’m on maternity leave.

  Just a quick hello, and hope that you are well and taking care.

  Bee

  06.06.06

  Elsa is here!

  Another girl! Elsa Rowlatt arrived at 5.10 p.m. on Sunday 28th May.

  We’re doing fine; and getting lots of rest.

  Love to everyone

  Bee

  04.07.06

  RE: Elsa is here!

  CONGRATULATIONS. SO HAPPY FOR YOU. SORRY COULDN’T WRITE SOONER. THE PHONE THAT MY EMAIL IS CONNECTED TO IS OUT OF ORDER. THESE ARE POST-WAR LUXURIES.

  LOTS OF LOVE FOR YOU AND THE BABY.

  MAY

  16.07.06

  RE: Elsa is here!

  Dear Bee

  Congratulations once again on the arrival of Elsa. You must be very happy but also exhausted. Raising three children must be very time and health-consuming, but still, children give life its meaning. I wish things on my side were like in ‘the good old bad old days’, then I would have been able to send you a little gift. But, I’m sorry, it is quite impossible at present.

  Life is different here now. People have stopped socializing and visits are kept as scarce as possible. Neighbours can spend time together, but going out of the area to visit is only done when absolutely necessary. I suppose this is true of us all, because at the end of each holiday I ask students about what they did in their free time. Answers are usually the same: they weren’t even able to visit their grandparents on special feast days, and had to keep it to phone calls.

  My nearest friend is about half an hour’s walk away. We used to meet frequently until the concrete walls and barbed wire prevented easy access. Now we talk on our mobile phones only when necessary, just to make sure that she and her family are OK when a roadside bomb or car bomb goes off near their home, and vice versa. Mobile phones tend to be costly and our landlines were cut off shortly after the post-invasion government was established.

  The only people I get to gossip with are my close colleagues at the university where we sit and discuss current issues over coffee. My mother, however, gossips with the neighbours who come to her pharmacy and we get all the news through her. So you see, Bee, you are my major outlet when I feel the need to talk. Other friends have emigrated and we have lost touch, although we are trying to reconnect via the internet. You can’t imagine how many friends and families have separated since the invasion, and those remaining are mostly depressed or have lost their trust in other people.

  Everything has changed here. Even weddings. Before the invasion weddings in Iraq were celebrated in the evenings. The celebration usually began when the couple arrived and the music and dancing would follow. If the people were modern in their outlook, the party would be mixed and men and women would dance together. If the families were conservative, the hall would be reserved for women only, and the bridegroom would be allowed in at the end.

  Couples usually started their honeymoon at around midnight or later. They’d get into a decorated car and guests would follow them for as long as possible. I remember seeing people get out at the traffic lights and dance around from sheer joy while the light was red, then hurry back into their car when it turned green. Others would fire gunshots in the air (though prohibited by law) and people, including the married couple, would end up at the police station (but they were usually only fined and then set free).

  Now the wedding parties begin early, and end just before dusk. The other day I saw a young woman wearing a party outfit and jewellery, about to attend a wedding. She looked ridiculous in the daytime, but I couldn’t blame her. We all have to live with the fear of what might happen at any moment, and night-time is not safe. But it makes me sad that people cannot celebrate like they used to, or even mourn for that matter. Even burials and the times for accepting condolences have changed. Do you know that sometimes the family of the deceased have to take the corpse back home and then return the next day, or even bury their dead in a different cemetery, because of road closures and security alerts? I’ve heard that some even had to bury their dead temporarily near their homes until conditions relaxed.

  As for us, things aren’t getting any better. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. We are not rich enough to emigrate, nor can we find a substitute. It is a stalemate.

  Anyway, we are still breathing and I’m trying to write a paper on A Tale of Two
Cities. This makes me even more depressed but I need to finish it as one of three papers to be promoted to Assistant Professor.

  Please write; I miss civilization and peace.

  LOVE

  25.07.06

  Tale of two cities

  Oh May, I LOVED A Tale of Two Cities! It is full of horror, but love wins in the end! I read it as a young teenager and fell in love with Sidney Carton. I thought Lucy should have loved him and not the other guy.

  You have your own reign of terror. If Dickens could only know that someone in your circumstances is studying that book, while we correspond between our own two cities.

  I hope you get the promotion. I would love to be able to send you some books. Do you need anything? One of the programmes I work for occasionally sends a correspondent into Baghdad and I could try to get something brought in for you. It would take a while, though. Is there anything you would like, something that would cheer you up in these difficult times?

  It’s proper summer now. We had a break in France with the entire Rowlatt clan (my husband Justin’s family is huge) and there was a heatwave; it was mad. Eva and Zola are on school holidays, and Elsa the new baby is very sweet. In fact I keep forgetting I’ve got a baby, she’s so quiet. So this is a lovely summer for me even though the rest of the world seems to be boiling into a fury. Lebanon is horrible and I’m glad I’m not at work having to think about it.

  OK, May, sending you lots of love, keep your spirits up and good luck with A Tale of Two Cities.

  Bee XX