Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad
Page 24
I remember my late husband telling me of a similar incident that took place back in the 1970s. The government established a school in one of the poor areas in Baghdad, and the inauguration was attended by the mayor and some prominent state officials of the time. Towards the end of the ceremony a crowd of residents marched towards the school with stones in their hands and started throwing them, breaking the school windows and shouting, ‘We don’t want schools. You can’t force this on us.’ I guess these were the parents of the present militias.
OK, lovely, there is a gorgeous Turkish series on TV so I’ll finish off by saying I love you and hope you are feeling much better.
May XXX
20.06.08
Memories
Dearest Bee
I think we will eventually lose our minds. I noticed that while we were watching a film we’ve seen before, Ali and I had tears streaming down our cheeks. We have become so fragile I don’t know what has come over us. But we are very happy because things are moving and we will hopefully be getting out of here in a matter of weeks. Plus my salary has doubled and things have been calm over the past two days.
But there still is something that is troubling me. I haven’t talked to Ali about it but I’ve been turning it over in my mind. Maybe leaving a place and a country we have lived in, and loved, was the hidden reason for our tears. The UK has always been my dream of peaceful living, getting away from all the violence, harassment and annoyance. But aren’t we still part of all that? Aren’t the people killed over all these years our friends, relatives and fellow citizens?
How I will miss my things. They are not worth much if you add it all up, but they mean a lot to me. I looked at my Encyclopaedia Britannica. Oh Bee, I have the 1967 version, which was originally my father’s. Every volume has his signature on it. I have cherished it and it has accompanied me throughout the years of my study. I also have a couple of mugs with my name inscribed on them. One was from my late husband while he was in Italy in the late 1970s, and the second is from Ali. There are two bottles among the things that I hold dear. One is 150 years old and belonged to my great-grandfather. The design painted on it has been done with gold water. The second is bohemian crimson and gold, and it belonged to my father. I’ve just remembered something. During the difficult years of the economic sanctions, previously well-off families tried to ease the economic hardship by selling the antiques inherited from their ancestors. The antiques trade flourished. It was common for the nouveau riche (embargo merchants) to buy portraits of Iraqi Ottoman Empire officials and place them in their homes as their own ancestors. I wonder who will appropriate my simple things if my house is taken over by the future nouveau-riche? Will my father’s encyclopedia become somebody else’s? But I think such people are never interested in books.
I guess all these things will be part of the past, like everything in this country. If you manage to become invisible and listen to a conversation between any two Iraqis, you will hear a great nostaligia for the past. I’ve always thought that if a person dwells too much on the past then that person can never move forward, but in this particular case I can’t blame them, because the present is much worse.
Would you believe that I wasn’t very happy when my salary was doubled? I don’t really know why, but the first thing I thought about was that our bellies are being stuffed, while millions are displaced and others are starving. We deserve the pay rise, but others also deserve to live decently. The authorities should regard it as their duty to give all the unfortunate people in this country a decent salary. Oil is our national wealth, which belongs to each and every person holding this country’s nationality, so what is the difference between government employees and other Iraqis?
My feelings are not yet clear because everything is still vague, but what I know for a fact is that I can’t go on living like this, no matter how dear my career, furniture, books, china and house are to me.
Do write, Bumbo Bee. I miss you.
Love and lots of hugs to you all
May XX
25.06.08
Back again
May, so sorry I’ve been away for so long. Are you OK? Hope you didn’t think I’d forgotten you. Each day flies by more quickly and I feel I’m doing everything at 100 miles an hour. Last week, after two days ill in bed, it was like stepping back into a river with the strong current pulling me along. I had a load of school Summer Fair stuff to chase and catch up on; the girls had class teas and assemblies; Elsa got ill and has been off nursery; my sister and her boyfriend came to stay; it was Eva’s birthday; Justin was working on Sunday AGAIN. Even now I’m in the office but my colleagues are getting their appraisals done, so I’m single-handedly chasing annoying little stories interspersed with big miserable stuff about Zimbabwe.
There was a meeting this afternoon with the head of World Service and he announced the death of yet another language service. This time it was the Romanians. I made my point about losing regional expertise – you never get it back – and he said it’s a shame but we have to make savings. I think the best bits of the BBC aren’t quantifiable by market forces, because knowledge is priceless. I feel sad; I nearly had tears in my eyes as he rambled on about cost-cutting. World Service is an old-fashioned thing, and no one seems to know what to do with it.
I’m guessing you haven’t heard back yet from Jordan about your visa applications. It should be this week, shouldn’t it?
Better go.
Love to you, as always
Bee XX
27.06.08
Friday’s motto is ‘laziness’
Dearest
Thinking of you all the time. I hope you are well. The exams will be over soon. I have also asked for a two-month break from the news agency, starting on 1 July.
Driving to college today was awful. The 10- or 15-minute drive took almost 90 minutes. There was a traffic jam and many of the old cars overheated and made it worse. The reason behind this is that the secondary school examinations have started. There were these huge buses bringing the male students to the university complex (females sit their exams in their local schools). The government have announced that this is for security reasons. It was past 9.30 and the students were still trying to cross the bridge to get to the university complex. They were coming from various suburbs and the outskirts of Baghdad to sit their exams (equivalent to ‘A’ Levels).
You should see the poor kids, all hot and tired before the exams had even started. Then on the news we heard that another group had been taken to a deserted college, in another area of the capital, only to find that the place wasn’t prepared for them. There was no water or electricity. When the minister of education visited them to inspect the process, the students tried to protest BUT his security guards shot at them and the exam was cancelled. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?
Laziness is my motto today. I’ve just washed some dishes, fried ready-made rolls filled with minced meat and vegetables, made salad and then sat and chatted with Ali. The examinations and my second job have made me so tired that I rarely have the energy or am in the mood to exchange ideas and chat with him. This makes him very lonely, and so today is dedicated to him. I am sneaking this email because he is having a nap.
Will make some tea and wake him up.
Hugs to you all
May XX
30.06.08
Some overdue news items!
May, dearest May
Does life get faster and faster? When we’re kids we wait for ever for Christmas and birthdays to come. Part of the magic of youth is that constant yearning, and the feeling that life is happening somewhere else or sometime soon. But now it’s the opposite; I just try to keep up with it all. (I don’t mind much really, apart from when that means doing five laundries having just got back from the Glastonbury Festival last night).
Anyway, to fill you in on news from here: we’ve just got back from Glastonbury. You’ll remember we went last year and it was mired in deep mud, like a scene from the First World War. This time it was sun
ny. Glastonbury is like a small city spread out over a very English valley. The scale is mad: 135,000 people camp there. Our part was very child-friendly; the kids made a bird box and did yoga. Further afield, a man in very small glittering underpants rode a bike through a sheet of flames. Lots of fat men in tutus looked like they’d been up all night. There were women dressed in Sellotape and sequins, and every kind of music possible. The girls all ran about in complete joy.
I was itching to go off on my own and explore, so after his presentation thing I told Justin I’d be gone for an hour, and left him looking grumpy. Got a beer, found some good music and pushed through the crowds. Suddenly my phone rang: Zola had got lost, could I come to collect her? (The person put her on the phone and she was crying. I’d labelled the kids with my phone number, so of course the call came to me.) By the time I’d sprinted all the way back to the other side of the festival, Justin had already found her and she was OK. But that gave me time to get myself into a state of towering indignation about how women never get a break, and men can make these mistakes because we ALWAYS pick up the slack for them.
I’m not just saying that Justin’s selfish or that men are necessarily lazy, it’s just that in almost all couples I know who have kids, the woman has the ultimate responsibility. But who is the woman’s safety net? Maybe I overreacted because hearing Zola crying got me all upset. I gave Justin a row, then we ate some banana fritters at the Brixton Tea Party tent and everything was OK again.
Well anyway, this week it’s the Summer Fair on Saturday and also my father is visiting until tomorrow.
LOVE YOU
Bee XX
02.07.08
Largest available suitcase
Dearest
It was so sweet of Eva and Zola to send some e-cards, we were really overjoyed to see them. I sometimes wish that I had never grown up. Life was so nice and simple. At Eva’s age I used to travel in the summer holidays with my grandmother (God bless her soul). She used to wait till my exams were over, and we would go by tourist bus to Lebanon where she owned a small villa in the mountains.
I had friends there who waited for my arrival and we would go roaming around, climbing mountains and picking fruit. She never said no to anything I wanted or any amount of money I asked for. I felt like a princess. She was very religious and this was reflected when I used to fall ill; she would hold my hands and read from the Holy Quran and keep asking if I was any better. I realized how great she was when I finally lost her at the age of 15. All of a sudden I became an ordinary citizen. My mother is not like her. She is a very practical person who has mastered the art of hiding her feelings, and showing the exact opposite.
I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Let me cheer you up a bit. I’ve bought the largest suitcase to be found in our shops. I’ve packed our winter clothes in it because of your cold weather. So half the packing is already done. I also need to pack some sheets and towels and put our summer clothes in another suitcase, for Jordan or Lebanon. I’ve put the car up for sale and a man called this afternoon asking about it. He can’t come to our area (he is probably a Shi’ite) so we have to arrange to meet in a neutral place. I will take someone with me because it’s not safe to meet someone you don’t really know.
You are a busy Bee these days.
Love
May XX
04.07.08
Mad 24 hours
May, I’ve just had the weirdest experience.
On Wednesday I was riding my bike with Amy to go for a swim, when suddenly my right arm went all floppy. It was a bit disorientating but we went for our swim anyway. It didn’t improve, so when I got back I had a hot bath, but it was still floppy like a rubber arm. It was as if it didn’t belong to my body and it kept bumping into me. I mentioned it to Justin on the phone and he said I should go to the hospital. I went to Accident and Emergency (A&E) thinking they’d look at me and send me away again. But they kept me in; I was waiting and wondering for hours and hours. They did reflex and nerve tests on me and it became clear that they thought I’d had some kind of stroke, or ‘vascular event’.
In the end, they kept me in overnight, but I had to stay in A&E. People were screaming and moaning; the person in the next bed shat himself; there was a guy with a thing stuck up his nose and blood everywhere. Imagine strip lighting, chemical smells, beds on wheels. Patients were hobbling around in those hospital robes which make you look demented. I was fully dressed and compos mentis, and felt like screaming, ‘I’m innocent, let me out!’ Justin was working late and couldn’t get to me until 11 p.m., by which time I was really frightened. He brought me some food and clothes for the night. Thank God I had a book to read, otherwise I’d have gone up the wall (I also used it to hide behind when the neighbouring patients started exchanging illness banter).
After a mostly sleepless night they came and did more tests. The hospital staff were wonderful, and my friend Talia works there and kept popping by. They sent me for an MRI scan of my brain to see if there was a blood clot or ‘deviant’ vein. I was strapped into a huge machine that made roaring and drilling noises, and was not allowed to move for 30 minutes. I tried to pretend that the noises were music and looked for repetitions in the sequences, then I recited some poetry in my head (thanks to that teacher who made me learn ‘Spring and Fall: To a Young Child’ off by heart, if she only knew), then I did some yoga breathing and pretended it was a nice excuse for a relaxing lie-down.
Hours passed as I waited in A&E for the results: they said the results would determine whether I’d have to stay another night or go home. I was anxious as I’d previously promised Zola that I’d take her to the cinema to see Indiana Jones (Justin had taken Eva on a work trip, and Zo felt left out). As the hours ticked by I got more and more distressed about not getting out of there, and letting Zola down. Finally, at 5 p.m. the results came back clear: no evidence of a blood clot or stroke, so I was allowed to go. But they still want to do more tests on me to find out why it happened.
I RAN home and was there in time to change my smelly hospitaly clothes and squirt on some perfume. I swept Zola up, we walked in the light rain and I marvelled at everything, sniffing the fresh air and dripping leaves and clean sky as though I’d just been let out of prison – after only 24 hours ‘inside’! The precious, ordinary world was there all along.
Aren’t bodies mysterious, all the things that are happening inside that you never think of? Really there is so much to be grateful for in any given moment. Hope I haven’t worried you with my mad story; I’m sure I’ll be fine now. They’ve asked me to take aspirin, and my arm stopped being floppy yesterday.
All my love
Bee XX
04.07.08
Slower pace
Oh dear, lovely sister
I never thought that I had so much love for you inside. I just never realized how strongly attached I’ve become to you. Reading your email had me in tears. I got so worried. I also had a strange feeling yesterday (which I kept dismissing) that something was not quite right. I kept opening and closing my email, and I so wanted to send you a message, but I kept telling myself that I was just being selfish and you were really busy.
Thank God you are OK now. I do think you have to slow down a bit. The beauty of life cannot really be captured without moving at a slower pace. There is always tomorrow to catch up and do things that need to be done.
Lovely Bee, I just don’t know what to say in this particular case. I am at a loss for words, which is rather unusual.
Ali is also very sad and asks you to take care of yourself.
Love you always.
Hugs
MAY XX
11.07.08
Finally about to slow down
May, I’m back at last.
The Summer Fair was good. It rained in the morning, and fewer people came along, but in the end we made £3,500, which is more than I expected. Running the PA is all over now – it’s someone else’s two-year nightmare! You can feel glad now that you will never, e
ver get an email from me about school fairs again.
My mum was down for a visit and she came with me to the hospital for my next tests. They still don’t know why my arm went floppy. They scanned my neck and took loads of blood. The nurse looked at my notes and said, ‘Oh, we’re going to leave you dried out, my dear.’ After some lunch my mum and I went into town, but it was rainy and Oxford Street was a spiky mass of jostling umbrellas. That was a daft thing to do.
Very nervously I gave my mum the printout of our book so far. She read the whole thing and didn’t seem to mind anything in it; in fact she kept laughing and exclaiming over parts of it. I found that reassuring. She left yesterday and I was sad; she enjoys the kids so much and it helped me to think about slowing down. For example, we collected Elsa from nursery and usually I’m hurrying her along exasperatedly, saying, ‘Come on, come on!’ But my mum was popping out from behind trees at Elsa and chasing her around lamp posts, both of them screaming with laughter. It took ages to get home, but it was so sweet.
All my love
Bee XXX
11.07.08
49-year-old toddler
Dearest Bee
Today I discovered that I am a 48.8-year-old baby. Or ‘toddler’ is more correct, I suppose (I can’t bring myself to say 49). I will be competing with Elsa next thing I know. This afternoon Ali, seeing me so exhausted, asked me to lie down and close my eyes, and so I did. He started stroking my hair and singing nursery tunes but altering words to include my name. Then he started telling me a story about Father Christmas and how he came and took May on a ride with his sleigh and reindeer to the moon. Imagine, I really enjoyed the songs and found myself crying without even realizing it. After that I felt much better. Am I retreating to childhood? I don’t know, but I felt good. So maybe Elsa and I will be attending nursery together when I get to the UK (hehee).