In his emails Ahmed painted a portrait of an avaricious family who had kept him away from his son and prevented him from talking to his ex-wife without their supervision. The word “bigamy” did not enter my head. I waited for Ahmed to return. I dared not ask if he would bring his son.
The day after he came back, we drove up the coast to Tripoli. Ahmed-the-Wahhabi had invited us to lunch with his family at their home. He said that Fatima wanted to meet me.
Beirut fell down the mountain into the blue sea. The Christian suburbs scrolled past, a cubist jumble of dense apartment blocks.
“What is the Lebanese obsession with concrete?” I wondered aloud as Ahmed drove. “It’s as if they have poured a tub of cement over the most beautiful place in the world.”
“Development,” said Ahmed. “Do you know that property prices have never gone down in Beirut. Not even during the civil war?”
Ahmed told me news from Iraq. Things were very bad in Baghdad, it was now a Shia-Sunni civil war mixed up with an insurgency and spiked with Al-Qaeda spectaculars. The Americans had begun to realize that they couldn’t fight everyone, and almost as if they had taken Ahmed’s advice (“War is only money—it’s what I have been saying all along!”), they began a policy of paying Sunni tribes to fight Al-Qaeda.
“They are calling it The Awakening,” Ahmed told me, laughing. “Which sounds like it’s going to gross a million on its opening weekend.”
“What else is going on?”
Ahmed grinned, turned down the volume (he had put in one of his old tapes of N.W.A., left-over teenage rebellion from his Georgetown high school days) and entertained me with hair-raising stories of the airport road. The Americans had decapitated all the palm trees to widen their fields of fire. There was the wreckage of burnt-out Humvees all the way along one stretch. The mercenaries liked to hang out of their bubble helicopters like Magnum, P.I. Checkpoints every ten meters and they had only one question: Are you Sunni or Shia? Ahmed told me that he would answer that he was a Christian because he was clean-shaven and looked the part. All the journalists were still in the Hamra Hotel, but it had been hit again and now the swimming pool was full of rubble.
“How is your mother?
“She is fine. She still refuses to leave. She barely goes out. She has the generator, and old Nawal’s husband brings her gasoline for it so she can watch TV all day long. She told me that they kidnapped the boy next door and his mother went mad because the father refused to pay the ransom so they killed him.”
I did not ask him about his wife. I did not ask him about his son. It was sunny. He kissed me.
“I tell my mother every week to leave, that it is too dangerous. She agrees, but she says: it is my country.” Ahmed shook his head.
“She will never leave,” I said. “She has her sisters.”
“The three witches.”
“She has her home.”
“But there is no one else left. Everyone has gone—to Amman, to Dubai, to Beirut.”
“People have been leaving Iraq since 1958.”
“My father should have left.” This was an old refrain. His father should have defected to Jordan or made some excuse and stayed in America when he was recalled to Baghdad. He should never have trusted Saddam. He should have, should have. When he could have, he wouldn’t, and then it was too late.
“Soon,” said Ahmed, turning up the volume again, “there will be no one left but angry boys with guns.”
I took Ahmed’s pessimism for indulgence, for Iraqi fatalism. I didn’t know how bad it would get, because back then it already seemed worse than anyone had imagined it could be.
“Lebanon is not far enough,” said Ahmed after a while. He had been thinking, I could see. His future was now untangled from his past. “I want to get out of Arabland, I want to get away from all these seething idiots. My father told me once: ‘I did all this so that you could live in the West.’ He didn’t want me to come back to Iraq. He wanted me to stay in America and go to university there. Maybe he knew what was coming—”
“We could go to Paris,” I said. “There is my mother’s apartment. It’s small, but I can give the tenants notice.”
FOUR
Ahmed-the-Wahhabi lived in an ordinary block behind the fish market in Tripoli. We walked up the raw cement stairs and rang the bell. It made an electronic chime. When the door opened, Ahmed made his lopsided smile that said, I am a humble man to be so honored as a guest in your home.
Ahmed-the-Wahhabi introduced us to his wife Fatima, and I gave her the chocolates we had brought and went with her to help prepare lunch in the kitchen. Ahmed and Ahmed-the-Wahhabi sat in the living room and Fatima brought them tea and then after a little while, coffee, and then after another interval, two glasses of sugary orange juice.
Curiously enough, the two Ahmeds got on like a house on fire. They found common currency in their executed fathers. Good men whom they revered and loved and could not live up to. They both, I think, strived for an approval that could never be affirmed. This was their original trauma, the scars that warped their souls and changed them. Ahmed’s father had always told him that to get on in the West he would have to be twice as good as they were. This was the ambition that goaded him. Ahmed-the-Wahhabi had grown up with a lie that could never be expunged and a great and buried guilt; he could not remember his father’s face.
Ahmed and Ahmed talked in Arabic together, and in the kitchen Fatima and I talked in English. Fatima was an intelligent woman. She still worked part-time as a pharmacist. She was proud that she had a husband like Ahmed who allowed her to work outside the home. She felt that this was progressive; her brother, she admitted to me, would not let his wife out of the house, even to visit the mosque. Her two children, Mohammed and Zeinab, ran in and out, between the kitchen and their bedroom. Mohammed had the same slanted eyes of his mother that flashed from side to side and saw everything: his little sister hiding behind the door, an abandoned cookie on the counter. Fatima sternly chased them out of the kitchen, settled them in their room in front of a Disney cartoon, and returned with a wry smile. Kindly, she did not ask why I did not have children or make the usual mock apology about childish interruptions. Instead she seemed to have another agenda.
“You became a Muslim for your husband?” she asked me. Head cocked to one side, fingers moving neatly, precisely slicing onions.
“Yes.”
“But Islam is not in your heart?”
“I respect the ideas of justice,” I said. “I respect the pillars of faith, of charity, of prayer and fasting.” I sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and pulled my hair into a ponytail because I felt a certain opprobrium, as if I should have covered my hair in front of her husband. Fatima waited for me to continue. “I appreciate the wisdom of Mohammed.”
“The wisdom of Mohammed is not something to be appreciated. It is not a flower in a garden that you can pick it up or leave it be. He is the example for us all.”
I tried to redirect the conversation. “Ahmed and I—my Ahmed—often discuss this: is it culture or religion? Because the Koran is one thing, it is the word of God, but the Hadith is the sayings and deeds of Mohammed—”
“Peace Be Upon Him,” Fatima reminded.
“Peace Be Upon Him,” I added mechanically, “—are an interpretation, are a way of doing things, not the fundamental principles of the religion. They are more cultural.”
“There is no difference,” said Fatima authoritatively. “The way of Mohammed is the example for us all. It is difficult for you to understand because you did not grow up with this idea. For guidance you must ask your husband’s imam.”
I had a rule in the Middle East: however tempting it was to dissemble, I tried not to misrepresent myself.
“To be honest,” I said, perhaps with an edge of provocation in my voice, “my husband is not very religious. I am not either.”
“You were a Christian?”
“I was, but I did not go to church. I always found it hard to believe that
Jesus was the son of God.” Fatima said she thought it was a shame that I did not know my own religion. For Muslims, Jesus was a prophet, not a deity. She would have preferred it, I think, if I had been more respectful of him, instead of agnostic. Christians were people of the book, after all, but ambivalence was apostate.
“I am worried for you.” She looked genuinely sad for a moment, but then her bright smile reappeared, “Ah, but that is why it was easy for you to give your Christianity up. You were convinced by the Koran and its message!”
“The Koran—”
I had tried to read parts of it once, in Tora Bora by the torchlight. “It’s a good read, actually,” Zorro had said, tossing his copy to me as the fabric of our tent trembled with the explosions in the caves. “Lots of battles. God and War. More relevant than you would think. It’s all quite progressive and reasonable and wise enough. For the seventh century.”
Fatima looked up from the pot of fatteh she was stirring on the stove. I said, carefully: “I was always impressed with how fair the Koran is. That everyone must be taken care of, daughters as well as sons must have their inheritance, widows and orphans must be provided for. Everything is laid out clearly, how to wage war, how to solve disputes, how to make sure the poor are fed.” Fatima nodded encouragingly. “But there are parts that are difficult for me,” I said. “Because women are counted for less than men.” Fatima nodded again, this was self-evident; she did not hear the “but.”
“Yes, everything is written,” she said, pleased.
“But what do you do when you disagree with something?”
“Ah,” said Fatima, very happy to be able to explain to me. “If you disagree, it is because you have not understood the reason; God is wise and we must respect this.”
“But what about your rights?” I said. “As a woman. You have Ahmed, who is a good and kind husband, but if you were not so lucky—” She turned around with a small paring knife in her hand. I was going to say: because we both know plenty of women who are stuck in terrible situations, whose lives are made miserable, who will lose their children if they try to leave, women whose fathers refuse to support them when they are divorced, whose brothers beat them in the name of honor, women who have to navigate school, university, work, marriage, street, careful to make sure that every strand of hair hidden, under the constant threat and judgment of a society—of a society that is policed, inevitably, by women.
I was going to say something like that, but not in that tone. But then I saw the knife and in the same instant Fatima saw my confusion and rushed to apologize she had not meant—
She had only been slicing tomatoes for the salad. Red pulp stained the chopping board.
“Can I help?” I asked.
A wave of laughter came from the living room. Ahmed and Ahmed had each bent to light the other’s cigarette and discovered that they had the same lighter. A brushed chrome Zippo.
“An American classic,” said my Ahmed.
“My brother told me it saved the life of one of his friends who was shot in Iraq. It stopped an American bullet!” said Ahmed-the-Wahhabi.
The Ahmeds looked up at us, the women, coming into the room bearing plates of food.
“We are reorganizing the world,” said my Ahmed. “My friend here is a political pragmatist. He is willing to give Israel to Israel and move the Palestinians to—to where?”
“To Sinai,” said Ahmed-the-Wahhabi in all seriousness. “It is very unpopulated.”
“The same could be said of Montana.” Ahmed winked at me and whispered, “It’s a very Zionist solution—find another homeland! Genius.” He put his arm around his new friend’s shoulders as they rose from the sofas to come and sit at the table. “What else, what else. You have lots of good ideas!”
“Iraq and Syria must unite,” said Ahmed-the-Wahhabi. “We are one people, one history, divided only by the lines drawn by Europeans.”
“And Ottomans,” reminded Ahmed.
“The capital of the Caliphate should not be in Istanbul,” agreed Ahmed-the-Wahhabi. “It should return to—”
“To Baghdad!”
“To Damascus!”
“You see there is already disagreement between the allies,” said Fatima. “Come, eat. It will be cold.”
“Ah, Um Mohammed, look at this feast!” Ahmed began to spoon it all onto his plate. He was happier and more relaxed than I had seen him for a long time.
We ate and talked about the weather and the fish market and the crusader castle on the hill and the clock tower next to the harbor that had been recently restored.
Fatima, I saw, held back during lunch. Her thinly plucked eyebrows pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You have lived in America,” she said, finally, to Ahmed. “And you are English and have lived in France,” she said, turning towards me. This was not quite true; my mother had lived in France, I hadn’t, but I didn’t correct her. “Can you tell me please why the Denmark government allows to publish those drawings?”
Ahmed took a deep breath and explained the principles of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the independence of the press. The newspaper had printed the drawings; the government had no right to stop it doing so.
“I don’t understand your freedom,” repeated Ahmed-the-Wahhabi, sadly. “They want us to accept blasphemy as a right and this is what they call integration. There is always this word, integration.”
I had the impression that, for Ahmed Mohammed and Fatima, the episode of the Danish cartoons had only reinforced the idea of a Europe that wanted to force Muslims to drink, take drugs, and allow their daughters to sleep with men, using the word “integration” as euphemism for subjugation. I tried to redress the balance. I spoke about the good parts of a multicultural society: intermarriage, social diversity, individualism, people being able to choose for themselves. I don’t think either of them bought what I was saying—I realized as soon as I had said it that intermarriage was like a red flag to them—but they seemed to acknowledge my right as a Westerner to defend my own culture.
“And how is it for Muslim people in France?” Fatima asked. “They make the women take off their hijab.” Ahmed replied that it was not a general ban, it was just that girls were not allowed to wear a headscarf at school because it was a religious symbol and all religious symbols were banned in state institutions, crosses and stars of David as well. But Fatima did not understand this logic. “Christians and the Jews are also people of the book,” she said. “There is no problem in Lebanon for a Christian to wear a cross and for a Muslim to wear a headscarf.” I did not like to point out that there were no Jews in Lebanon anymore and that Muslims and Christians lived in separate neighborhoods in a country still divided by the mistrust of a civil war.
“The idea is that the state should be a place where no religion can interfere,” continued Ahmed. “The Republic is above religion.” But laïcité only sounded like lassitude or licentiousness to our hosts.
“Nothing is above God,” said Ahmed-the-Wahhabi severely.
I did not say anything. It could have been an awkward moment, but actually at the time, in Lebanon, in Damascus, in Aleppo, it was a conversation that Ahmed and I were used to having, with each other, with our friends, with journalists and Arabs, with Seriously Sunni imams, with ordinary people when I did vox pops on the street, interviewing politicians or Hezbollah commanders—it was as if we were all trying to figure it out: what are we and who are you and why do you think that? Our debate around the table that day was in this spirit of inquiry; there was no acrimony to it. Fatima wanted to try to understand a society that seemed to make a virtue out of mocking that which she held precious and reverent. I wanted to understand: why do they mind so much?
Just then little Mohammed came barreling into the room followed by his little sister. He was waving a toy gun around and Zeinab was crying, “Give it back, let me have it, give it back!” He held it high above his head, taunting her, “Girls can’t play with guns anyway!”
Ahmed-the-Wa
hhabi picked his son up by the scruff of his neck and shook him like a bear cub. “What’s all this noisy jihad!” he said, tickling him. “It’s time for you to play jihad of the quiet obedient boy!” Mohammed yelped. Zeinab jumped up onto her mother’s lap.
“It’s time for ice cream!” said Fatima.
_____
When the time came for us to leave, we all said goodbye very warmly and agreed we must meet again in the summer for a picnic at the seaside.
Ahmed gunned the car down the highway. Jay-Z turned up loud. 99 Problems. Everything would be alright now. But a bitch ain’t one. When the song finished, he turned the volume down and said: “My son is with his mother’s family now. They want to bring him up, but I have petitioned the courts for custody. I don’t see how the rights of a father can be refused. So,” he said, looking over at me, “I will bring him to live with us.” He waited for my reaction. In his own way, by not asking, he was asking for my permission.
I leaned over and kissed his cheek and affirmed. “So we will be a family.”
FIVE
Ahmed brought Little Ahmed out of Baghdad on July 4, 2006. (My favorite date, my password to everything.) He was four years old. I went to pick them up at the airport in Beirut and saw him come through the electric gates in the arrivals hall. His father held him by the wrist. He was very small and solemn. When I crouched down to say hello, he put out his hand to shake mine and said, in carefully practiced English, “Yellow my name Ahmed.” Yellow-hello.
“Ahlan wah sahlan,” I replied. Welcome.
Apart from yellow and no, Little Ahmed said nothing for the first week. He watched us silently. He nodded for yes and said “no!”—loudly, clearly, definitely—for no. He was not rude; he was not biddable. His father and I were strangers to him, but he seemed to accept his new surroundings without much complaint. Such was his world apparently different today. He ate, he slept, he watched Teletubbies DVDs, he went round and round on the merry-go-round so fast it made my heart stop. Twice he woke up in the middle of the night crying in his sleep, but he did not remember his dreams. I put food in front of him and he nodded or said “no.” I dressed him to go outside and he nodded or said “no.” I tried to teach him English by repeating words, singsong voice, “You-r name is Ah-med. My-y name is Kit.” He watched me curiously and did not reply. When his father tried to play with him, he made his arms stiff next to his sides and assumed an expression of sufferance. He did not like to be touched. I told Ahmed I thought he had the demeanor of a political prisoner. He was testing us.
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