Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad

by Bee Rowlatt

  Burdened with all kinds of worries, each young soldier would leave with the memory of a special woman spilling water on his trail (a traditional way for wishing the speedy return of a loved one). I was no different from other women. I had a husband at the front and the nine o’clock news was something I wouldn’t miss for the world. I remember waiting to find out where fierce battles had taken place. If the battles were not in Basra, where my husband was, I would try to figure out who of all the people I knew was serving near the battlefield.

  When the ceasefire was finally announced in August 1988 people thought that it was time to pick up the jigsaw pieces of their lives. Therefore when the leadership announced that the people could celebrate in their own way, people spontaneously went out into the streets, dancing and splashing water at one another in extreme joy. At this time Saddam was still genuinely loved by many. No one ever thought that history would repeat itself so soon, but we woke up on 2 August 1990 to discover that the country was at war again, with Kuwait. And now we live in a war zone yet again.

  I know you think I was just being ungrateful and lazy, but the whole truth is that I feel on the verge of collapse. You said that many people have gone through worse times; well, you are right, but each person reacts in a different way. You do not know much about my previous life and how psychologically worn out I have been. Ali’s entry into my life smoothed out some of the creases but not all of them. There are permanent scars, and these scars have made me the woman I am now. Of course, when I come to England Ali and I will face different challenges, and they will be difficult. But I am telling the truth when I say that we are both tired now, and I worry about our strength.

  My love to you as always

  May

  5.11.07

  Fairy tales

  God, May. I am sorry. All those years of war must have sent you and all Iraqis crazy. Do you mind me asking: why were you visiting a psychiatrist back then? Did it help? I love the tradition of pouring water on to the trail of someone who is leaving, so they will return safely. It’s like something from an old fairy tale. I know you have been through so much, and I hate to think your spirit might be squashed. I just want you to know that it isn’t always a fairy tale here in England. But I hope we can find a way for you both to leave soon.

  Love always

  Bee xxxx

  7.11.07

  Return to Baghdad

  Dear Bee

  This must be a short email, but I had to tell you our plans and thoughts. My dearest friend, we are completely fed up here in Damascus. I haven’t been able to extend my visa for another three months and so, my dear, the only choice we have left is to go back home to Baghdad. My leave at the college has also expired, so I must return quickly to take up my teaching job again.

  My love to you, as always

  May

  10.11.07

  A warm hello from Baghdad

  Bumbo Bee, my dearest

  At last I’m back home. Though it is unsafe and the scene is full of destruction everywhere, I still think I will feel more me than when I was in Syria. Bee, you are right in sensing my spirit is all squashed. You see, it felt so dreary and hopeless just sitting in Damascus. Doing nothing all the time is something awful. I tried searching for a teaching job, but there was no hope – and even if there was, the salary would be equivalent to £50 a month in your money. I remember I had high hopes at the beginning, but they just evaporated.

  Oh Bee, I don’t think I can ever describe fully what it was like. The Syrians started to get irritated after Iraqis began to compete with them in everything from jobs to public transport and rents. And the presence of the Iraqis raised prices in a very sick way. For example, if a flat was worth only $3,000, Iraqis would pay $20,000. Even taxi fares were tripled. The Syrians started moaning, then this turned to open anger. Anyway, I wasn’t part of all that, thank God, but that idle life made me so depressed and I am so glad to have left.

  You asked why I saw a psychiatrist. Well, first of all the man I mentioned was a friend but I did consult him at one point. The reason for going to see him was that during that time I was trying to get a divorce. My late husband had convinced me that it was not his drinking that made me unhappy, but rather it was something wrong with me, and so I had to get a professional opinion before filing for a divorce (taboo here). He told me that there was nothing wrong with me, but as the years went by I felt very depressed and went to another doctor who gave me a mild dose of antidepressants to take at night. I do tend to get more depressed when things don’t work out, but these episodes soon pass despite the bad circumstances.

  Did I tell you that most Iraqis depend on the food provided by the ration card, which is issued by the government? It has the basic monthly food requirements – rice, sugar, flour, cooking oil, salt, tea, soap and a small quantity of detergent. Educated Iraqis joke about wanting Valium to be added to the ration-card items. This, I think, will give you a clear picture of how Iraqis feel; many are eaten up by fear, anxiety or depression.

  Anyway, my lovely, I am finally home. Although my destiny is unknown, at least I have a job to go to, and friends and colleagues to speak to. Which, in my opinion, is much better than staring at four walls in a shabby flat in a foreign country.

  Coming back has been a relief, albeit a mixed one. People in our neighbourhood, shop-keepers and others warmly welcomed us; my mother cooked a hearty meal for us and brought us cheese, bread, marmalade, sugar, detergents and coffee. Tomorrow I will be going to the university. I phoned my head of department and she was both happy and relieved that I was back. I also talked to a couple of friends on my mobile and we laughed about our situation and made jokes about our government and things like that. For Ali, however, it is not the same. He is not safe here.

  Must go now, my love. I still have a lot of work to do.

  Love you for ever, my wee sister

  May XXXXXX

  15.11.07

  Hugs from chilly London

  Hello there, dearest! It’s a relief to be back in touch.

  How nice that everyone made a fuss of you on your return. I’m sure you’ll feel much more like yourself now that you’re back with people who know you. How are your students? They must be glad to have you back. I love hearing about all that.

  I’m having a lovely day at work, wearing a new black wool dress. Oh, I look great, hee hee! I can tell you there is nothing like striding to work in a foxy dress to dispel the blues. It’s such a relief to get into the office and think about the rest of the world and have a look at the newspapers etc.

  But I had a bad start. Justin is away filming and I’m still terrible at doing the mornings on my own. I can’t seem to do enough. I end up doing laundry at midnight to keep up with it all. Everyone’s ill apart from Eva, but then she got angry about having to go to school on her own. Off she went, my heartbreakingly lovely, skinny girl – all weighed down with her school bag plus swimming bag plus violin in a tattered case.

  And I’ve had a big fat row with Justin. Can you believe he’s started nagging me to have another baby? Yet he keeps working at weekends and leaving me on my own with them all. I mean, I love babies but another one would just push me over the edge. Already it’s mad trying to do things like public transport with three girls, but with four it’d be in a different league; I wouldn’t even be able to go to people’s houses. So I said he should stop bloody working all the time if he wants more babies so much.

  I have a joke for you (well, it’s Eva’s actually). Why do goats wear bells? Because their horns don’t work.

  OK, I’m off again.

  Catch you later

  B XX

  15.11.07

  HI, MY SWEET

  Dear, dear Bee

  It is so nice to write to you in the privacy of my home. A cigarette, and a cup of tea to go with it.

  I really couldn’t write much in Syria because I was always distracted by other people. Everyone looked at everyone else; and the voices of people talking via the me
ssenger to their relatives, and sometimes crying and sobbing, always made me nervous. Thank God it’s over.

  I went to work last Sunday and, like you, dressed up for it. I wore a black suit and a white shirt with a feminine tie to go with it. They welcomed me very nicely. We joked and laughed and all of them said I looked much better! I will not be teaching third-year English literature this year because I came back too late, so it will only be human rights. Our university regards this as a subsidiary subject so I don’t need to work very hard, and at the same time the salary remains the same.

  As for the Baby 4 project, Bee, I don’t think it is such a bad idea, if you can get Justin to promise to help. I think he seeks an heir because all men do. They say it has become easy to determine the sex of the baby if you go to a specialist clinic, so why take the chance? Just do it right from the start. (I think if your no. 4 is also a girl, he will soon be asking for no. 5.) So if you do it this way, I think you will be a happier mother. People all over the world aim to have both sons and daughters. And they prefer boys to girls for a number of reasons, most of which have to do with their own welfare after they become old and weak. A baby boy is exactly what you need – he will make you both very happy and contented.

  Must go now, dear. The electricity will go off in 15 minutes. See you in another email.

  Love you for ever and a day

  May XXXX

  16.11.07

  Your human rights classes

  MAY!

  You know, you really sound like your old self again. Your emails from Damascus had become sort of paler and paler, but now you are back in glorious technicolour again, with a cup of tea and a ciggy in your hand.

  Just a thought. When you talk about teaching human rights to your students, I can’t quite picture it. What do you say to them? How do they relate to your lessons when they are growing up in a war zone?

  Bee XX

  18.11.07

  RE: Your human rights classes

  Dear Bee

  Teaching young Iraqi females the principles of democracy and human rights has never been an easy task! So I try limiting the topic to basics.

  I will never forget the first lecture I gave. It was the first year after the invasion. I went into the classroom to find that they had turned their backs to the blackboard, facing the window, and when I asked for the reason they said, ‘We are living in a state of democracy.’ I smiled and told them about a little incident with my nephew, who was about 6 when the former regime collapsed and people began to talk about democracy. My nephew wore his underpants back to front and when his mother asked him why he had done that, he simply said, ‘It is democracy and we can do what we want.’ Then I explained that democracy does not mean wearing underpants back to front or turning our backs to the right thing. They laughed and changed their chairs to face the blackboard.

  In class I usually begin by reading an article, then stopping for a moment to check their reaction. But what I usually see is blank expressionless faces staring back at me. I then read again and translate into Arabic, fearing that the language difficulties may pose an obstacle, but the faces of the young women with their covered hair remain expressionless. At first I used to return home irritated, thinking I was a failure, but then it struck me. I realized that it was impossible for these oppressed young females to comprehend that there are freedoms granted to humanity in general. It was like describing colours to the colour-blind, I thought to myself.

  I decided to simplify matters a bit further. So I explained that human rights in their simplest form mean the right to do what you want and say what you think, without harming others. Maybe I can start from this point with a little provocation, I said to myself. I mentioned that family is like a miniature society, being the smallest unit, so it can easily be compared to a country with the father as head of state, the mother as prime minister or cabinet and the children as the people.

  There was a stir and some light shone in their eyes, but they remained silent. It is not easy to get these 18- and 19-year-olds to talk, since they have been trained to say yes and never argue or ask questions. Asking questions here is considered rude and insolent by parents, teachers and society and might get a person into serious trouble. But I feel it my duty to change this old Iraqi discipline.

  Imagining the father as head of state stirred some reaction, when I asked whether the right to argue your case with the head of the family was granted at home. To my surprise the reaction was strong; many of them said that they had no say over the simplest decisions related to their personal lives. Some said that they couldn’t choose what to wear, or how to dress, or what field to choose for study. Three students said they had been forced to study English by their family while a fourth said that her husband had forced her to study English while she preferred law.

  Some of the strongest reactions were stirred when we reached Article 16, tackling marriage and the freedom to choose one’s spouse. Many young women said that either they or another female member of their families had been forced to marry people whom they didn’t want, or actually had been. One student said that her cousin, who was an uneducated outlaw and is currently serving a prison sentence, was named as her bridegroom. I asked her how on earth such a marriage could succeed. The answer came, sad but simple, ‘These are our tribal rules.’ I wasn’t convinced and probed a little further into the matter, asking where her father was. The reply was that he was dead, and the uncle had since taken charge of the family thus naming his outlaw of a son as the young lady’s future husband.

  The right to work was another controversial subject. These young women know for a fact that it is not the rights granted by law that organize their lives, but rather traditions set by their great-great-grandfathers or even the generations preceding them. The right to work is in many cases not a matter for the women to decide. Yes, it is granted by law, but it is in the hands of the husband, the father or the brother. I remember a relative of mine broke her engagement to one of her cousins (our traditions are less strict, by the way) because he insisted that she stay home after graduation. She married a distant cousin who was less suitable but did not mind her getting a job. Years of embargo and invasion finally kept her at home raising her three children.

  As for the free question I gave them on ‘How I would improve society if I were to assume an important post in government’, well, most answers talked about stabilizing security, improving the financial situation and improving education, but what struck me most was that a couple of papers advocated sending young inexperienced teachers abroad for training courses to master the language they are teaching in!

  Have to go now, lovely.

  Hugs

  May XXX

  19.11.07

  Tempestuous weekend

  MAY May-Maybe Baby!

  May, I was most surprised that you advised me to have another baby, but I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe you and Justin are right in the sense of taking a long view rather than thinking of the short-term chaos. But I just can’t help thinking I would be in a bad mood for about three years if it happened. Like today: Justin was doing his new TV presenting thing this morning so I had all three girls on my own. Elsa has a constant stream of snot coming out of her nose and running down over her mouth and chin, no matter how much I clean it. I remember before I had kids seeing children with snotty noses and thinking, ‘How disgusting: what bad parents to let their children go about like that!’ But now I know it’s nothing less than a Sisyphean task.

  But now Elsa is having her nap and the girls are watching TV, so I can tell you my news. Well, I’ve had a funny couple of days. When I last wrote, I was in a huge strop with Justin about his absence due to work, and the fact that he wants another baby. Well, it all came out on Friday; I just had a total attack of hysteria. I was screaming at him at the top of my voice about everything that had annoyed me over the last few weeks. The worst thing for me is him not seeing the kids often enough. They ask for him constantly and it’s hard to know what to say, a
s I don’t always know when he’ll be back. And there was the tedious old stuff of things going wrong at home when I was at work, like the recycling not being put out and so on. (‘And another thing!!!…’)

  Then right in the middle of it he said, ‘Bee, things are much better than you think. We are so lucky; you are lucky in every way.’ And in the middle of my fury I thought, ‘God, he’s right!’ And I nearly lost my track. But why let a small obstacle like the truth put me off? And so I finished my rant, and then we made friends. We went for lunch in a pub nearby and I was exhausted and had a sore throat from crying, but strangely I felt much better. I don’t even have PMT so don’t know where it all came from. Poor Justin, I really am a madwoman at times, especially if it all builds up and I haven’t seen him much.

  Then on Saturday we galloped around with the girls all day and in the evening went to a gig. It was a salsa musician called Larry Harlow – he’s a giant from the 1970s New York Latin scene, which is the music I love and collect (I used to DJ too on obscure student radio stations!). He had a 15-piece band with amazing brass. The crowd was good, lots of Latinos. A friend of mine from Colombia came who is a brilliant dancer, and we danced like crazy.

  Oh May, after reading about your students I’m quite shocked. I’m torn between praising you for your creative efforts, and disbelief that they can’t understand you. I really don’t want to be rude about your society, forgive me, but it sounds like my idea of hell. Why even bother sending them to university, if that is their miserable fate? I have always been brought up to ask questions. I know it’s controversial and I apologize for making generalizations, but I just don’t think Islam is much good for women. Seems to be great for men. But what’s in it for you, May? Really?