The Corpse Washer (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

by Antoon, Sinan

  In that taxi ride that my mother and I took from our house to my sister’s, I felt for the hundredth time what a stranger I’d become in my hometown and how my alienation had intensified in these last years. I recalled a line of verse I liked: “One is not a stranger in Syria or Yemen, but is truly a stranger in his shroud and grave.” But the stranger today was whoever lived in Rusafah and Karkh, Baghdad’s two halves. Everyone in Baghdad felt like a stranger in his own country. Most people were drained, and the fatigue was clearly drawn on their faces.

  I wondered how they went on despite everything. How did they manage to wake up every morning and try? But was there any other choice? Was I just too weak? Thousands of others were running away from this civil war whose end no one can predict.

  When would this war tire of slaughtering people and just quit? Not just stop to catch its breath before continuing to tear away at the country, but really quit. I always used to say that Baghdad in Saddam’s time was a prison of mythic dimensions. Now the prison had fragmented into many cells with sectarian dimensions, separated by high concrete walls and bloodied by barbed wires.

  We were approaching al-Firdaws Square, where Saddam’s gigantic statue used to stand. I remembered how I saw them years earlier taking down the old monument of the Unknown Soldier, which used to occupy this square and was much more beautiful than the new Unknown Soldier monument. Now, propelled by the illusion of erasing the past and forcibly disfiguring the present, the new Saddams were taking down statues left and right. As if there was a giant axe snatched by each new regime from its predecessor to continue the destruction and deepen the grave. What good are all these metaphors, I wondered.

  My sister and her husband, Sattar, had moved to a new house he’d bought in Karrada. It was the fruit of his agility in riding the new wave, just as he had ridden the previous one under Saddam. Her husband was a “comrade” in the past, and he had kept defending the ancien régime and its policies vigorously even in its last few years. Sattar and my father once had a terrible argument. Sattar left our house and swore never to set foot in it again. He only did so after my father’s death. Although he had forced my sister to stay away from the family, she would still visit from time to time. My father’s death finally patched things up. I’d never liked Sattar and had had doubts about him during their engagement, but she loved him and he treated her well.

  We got lost in al-Karrada’s streets with its big houses. I called my sister on the cell phone to get directions, repeating everything she said to the taxi driver. She said she was going to stand outside to wave when she saw us. I spotted her in a side street ten minutes later and told the driver to back up to that street. I asked him to wait for me while I said goodbye, but my mother objected: “Why are you in such a hurry?” My sister also chastised me for not having visited her new house or seen her kids in months. I hesitated and looked at the garage. Her husband’s car was not there. As if sensing what I was thinking, she reassured me, “Come on. Come on in. Let’s get enough of you before you leave. Sattar isn’t home and won’t be back until later tonight, and the kids are in school.” I paid the taxi driver and we all went in.

  Their house had a big garden. The lawn was neatly trimmed and framed by flowers on all sides. I spotted some carnations. The palm tree’s fronds in the far right corner were touching a window on the second floor. Its bunches were full of dates. A white metal table, surrounded by four chairs, sat on the white and yellow marble of the walkway in front of the house. We went in through the kitchen door. My sister had put plenty of flowerpots by the window and filled them with the cactus plants she loved. The house had been recently built. It had five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a huge living room. My sister had prepared one of the bedrooms on the ground floor close to the bathroom for my mother to sleep in. That way she wouldn’t have to strain her knees going up and down the stairs.

  “Look how beautiful your room is,” my sister said proudly, and I felt she was addressing me as well. My mother kissed her on the cheek and thanked her. I put Mom’s suitcase next to her new bed. The room had a medium-sized cupboard and a huge mirror and two red chairs, one in front of the mirror and the other next to a TV table. Above the TV, the room’s only window overlooked the neighbor’s garden.

  “I’m making okra stew. I know you love it. Why don’t you stay?” my sister said. “It’ll be ready in an hour.”

  “I have a few appointments and have to be somewhere. I’ll have tea.”

  “Tea it shall be.”

  She took us to the living room and I sat down. The TV was turned to one of the local satellite channels and was showing the gory aftermath of a suicide bombing in al-Karkh that had taken place half an hour before. We had left Mother in her room unpacking. Minutes later she came and sat next to me and said she would finish settling in later. “I want to get enough of you.”

  My sister came back with a tray full of cookies and some plates and forks, putting it on the big table in the middle. She pulled a smaller table from under it and put it in front of me. She put two cookies on a plate and put it on the table in front of me. She looked at the TV screen and said, “Ah, when will these suicide bombers leave us alone? Haven’t they had enough?” Mom invoked God and put her hand on her cheek.

  The images of scattered body parts and pools of blood reminded me of what I was escaping, but I couldn’t avoid thinking of the fate of these corpses. Who would wash them and shroud them? I asked my sister to change the channel. She handed me the remote and went to the kitchen to check on the tea. I kept turning the channels until I found one showing a nature documentary with birds. I bit into one of the cookies.

  The TV was on the middle shelf of a huge entertainment center made of Indian oak. On some of the shelves were china and crystal. Another bore some books, but I couldn’t see their titles. The shelf right above the TV had framed pictures of my nephew and niece, Maysam and Muthanna, a family photo, and then a photo of the head of the household, wearing a suit and a tie, shaking hands and smiling with one of the ministers. I remembered their old house, with a much smaller TV, and on top a framed photo of Sattar and some of his comrades with Saddam. Saddam had rewarded him for his loyalty during his years of service to the Ba’th Party. I wondered what Sattar had done with that photo. Had it been fed to the fire, or was it hiding in a box somewhere in case a new strategic change might be needed in the future?

  My sister brought in the teapot. I was about to ask her about this new loyalty, but why say goodbye with an argument? It was strange that the de-Ba’thification Law didn’t apply to Sattar, even though it had affected so many others. My sister poured the tea and put one spoon of sugar in the cup for me. I could smell the cardamom.

  My mother asked her about Sattar and his health.

  She answered that he was well, but always busy and coming home late. He was traveling to Turkey for work and she and the kids had been sleeping at his family’s house for safety, but the new house was in a very safe area.

  My sister asked me about the mghaysil and what I’d decided to do with it.

  I told her I had agreed to lease it to al-Fartusi, who would hire someone to work there.

  Mom put down her cup and started to wipe away tears. She repeated what had become a mantra in these recent weeks: “But where will you go, son?”

  When she started sobbing, I decided that it was time to leave. My heart almost stopped when she held on to me as if she knew it would be the last time she would see me.

  “You all went away and left me. I’m gonna die before I see you again,” she said, her words soaked in tears.

  My sister was offended: “What’s this, Mom? Don’t I count? God forgive you.” My sister hugged and kissed me. She shed a few tears, but reassured me, saying, “Don’t worry about her at all.”

  My mother insisted on sprinkling water as I was leaving, a charm supposed to guarantee my return. She kept repeating, “Call us when you get there.” I waved to them both and had a feeling that maybe she was right: I might no
t see her again for a long time, maybe ever.

  I couldn’t identify the feelings that overtook me after I left. After the sadness I felt as I was saying goodbye to them, I was overtaken by guilt toward my mother, but I also thought of the dead. Who would wash them now?

  When we arrived at the Traybeel Center on the Iraqi side of the border, we joined a long line of parked cars. Many passengers had gotten out and sat or squatted nearby. As our convoy took its place, the driver said that the line was normal; it might take a few hours, especially since there had been explosions in Jordan recently. He got out of the car and went to chat with other drivers who had gathered. I got out to stretch. The last time we’d stopped was five hours before. The man in the back seat got out and started walking on the shoulder of the road, holding his worry beads. His beads had kept ticking throughout the trip, reminding me of my father.

  I noticed that every now and then a few cars headed back in the opposite direction, toward Baghdad. After about half an hour the line started to move. Our driver got in and inched forward. He motioned to me to get in, but I told him that I was going to walk. The line stopped after a few minutes. I told the driver that I was going to keep walking ahead. He took a drag on his cigarette and said, “Sure, just don’t get lost.”

  “How can I? It’s all desert!” I said.

  I walked for fifteen minutes. A man asked me for a light for his cigarette. I apologized, saying that I didn’t smoke.

  He laughed and seemed astonished, as if I were the only non-smoker in the world. “How can you bear living without smoking?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. Then: “How I can bear living?”

  He smiled and asked, “Leaving alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re saying that single men aren’t allowed in. Only families.”

  “Why?”

  “I dunno, man. They’re saying they’re afraid of Shiite militias. I mean, we’re running away from the militias and terrorism.”

  I had included not being allowed into Jordan on my list of contingencies, but I had allowed myself to imagine my escape from the hell I was shackled with. The man’s words reminded me that my plan might fail.

  I went back and got into the car. It took us two hours to get through. Before we arrived at the al-Ruwayshid border point on the Jordanian side, dozens of tents with ropes and clothes hanging between them appeared on the side of the road. The United Nations’ blue flag flew over the camp. The driver noticed me turning back to look. “It’s a camp for the Palestinians who were kicked out of their homes in Baladiyyat,” he said. “A lot of them were killed. They’ve been here for more than a couple of years now.”

  The woman in the back seat chimed in: “They flourished under Saddam and now they’ll get a taste of the torture we got for so many years.”

  Her comment brought her husband back from his snooze, and he scolded her. “God Almighty. They didn’t get any more than many others did. Poor people. Have some mercy in your heart, woman.”

  “I don’t have a heart anymore,” she answered.

  I thought of what she said. Most hearts were so fatigued, they ran away from their bodies, leaving behind caves in which beasts sleep.

  After we waited an hour at al-Ruwayshid, the Jordanian officer eyeballed me with tired eyes and asked me rather coarsely: “Anyone with you?”

  “No, just me.”

  He threw aside my passport, saying:

  “No single men. Only families get in.”

  “But why?”

  “These are the orders.” He motioned for me to leave and yelled “Next!”

  Abu Hadi, the driver, brought down my suitcase from the trunk and gave me back half of the fee. He patted me on the shoulder saying, “Try to go to Syria. It’s much easier. Or just wait until things calm down a bit and give it another try.” We said goodbye and the man who was waiting with his family in the car waved to me. I waved back. Abu Hadi drove away. I tried to send a text message to al-Janabi, but there was no network. I would have to write to my uncle.

  The number of those who weren’t allowed into Jordan was enough to start a service from the border back to Baghdad’s stabbed heart. I saw a driver yelling from the window of his car “One passenger to Baghdad. One to Baghdad.” I walked over carrying my suitcase, heavy with disappointment. I would have to write to both my uncle and al-Janabi about this. Would Ghayda’ believe me?

  FIFTY-THREE

  One of the old Mesopotamian creation myths says that for a long time the gods used to do their work and fulfill their tasks. Some planted, some harvested, and others made things. But they were tired, so they complained to An-ki, the god of water and wisdom, and asked him to lighten their burden. But he was in the depths of the water and did not hear their complaints. So the gods resorted to his mother, Nammu.

  She went and called out to him, “Rise up, son, and create slaves for the gods.”

  An-ki thought about it, then summoned the crafts gods to make humans out of clay. He told his mother: “The creatures I have decided to make will be in the image of the gods. Scoop some mud from the deep waters and give it to the crafts gods to knead and thicken into clay, then you make the body parts with the help of Mother Earth.”

  Thus humans were created to carry the burden of the gods and their toil. An-ki said to the great gods, “I will prepare a pure place and one of the gods shall be slaughtered there. Let the other gods be baptized with his blood. We will mix his flesh and blood with the clay and he shall be both god and human, eternally united in clay.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  We finished washing and shrouding a nine-year-old boy. He needed only wings to look like an angel. He was killed with his father in an explosion next to the National Theater. I felt my ribs stabbing me from within and strangling my every breath. I told Mahdi that I was going outside to sit next to the pomegranate tree. I’d been sitting the last few months on the chair I’d put in front of it to converse with it. It has become my only companion in the world. Its red blossoms had opened like wounds on the branches, breathing and calling out. I’d been humming a song I heard a few weeks before and replaced “Sweet Basil” with “Pomegranate” in its lyrics.

  Pity me, pity me

  O Pomegranate tree

  I’ve become skin and bones

  And nobody knows

  My malady

  And nobody knows

  My remedy

  Pity me, pity me

  O Pomegranate tree

  I looked at its dark soil, wet with the washing water it had just drunk. It’s a wondrous tree, I thought. Drinking the water of death for decades now, but always budding, blossoming, and bearing fruit every spring. Is that why my father loved it so much? He used to tell me that the Prophet Muhammad said there is a seed from paradise in every pomegranate fruit. But paradise is always somewhere else.

  And hell, all of it, is here and grows bigger every day. Like me, this pomegranate’s roots were here in the depths of hell.

  Do the roots reveal everything to the branches, or do they keep what is painful to themselves? Its branches rise up and when the wind toys with them, they look like they are fluttering and about to fly. But it’s a tree. Its fate is to be a tree and to remain here. I keep saying that I don’t believe in fate. So why am I saying this? I should say its history, not its fate. History is what people call fate. And history is random and violent, storming and uprooting everything and everyone without ever turning back.

  A beautiful nightingale perched on one of the pomegranate’s high branches. The nightingale turned its black head and gazed at me with its black eyes. Its head was adorned with a white triangular crown. It turned its head again and I saw its cheek was the same white as its tail feathers.

  It started singing with a gentle sweetness—as if it knew I had complained that paradise was far away, so it had brought its sound right here. Are you thinking of building a nest here? Does my presence worry you? Don’t be afraid. I’m not an enemy. I remembered the nightingale we
had in a cage at home when I was a child. My father used to feed it pieces of dates, apples, grapes, and pomegranate.

  The living die or depart, and the dead always come. I had thought that life and death were two separate worlds with clearly marked boundaries. But now I know they are conjoined, sculpting each other. My father knew that, and the pomegranate tree knows it as well.

  Mahdi opened the door and said: “Jawad, they brought one.”

  The nightingale fled. I sighed and said, “Okay, I’m coming. Just give me another minute.”

  I am like the pomegranate tree, but all my branches have been cut, broken, and buried with the dead. My heart has become a shriveled pomegranate beating with death and falling every second into a bottomless pit.

  But no one knows. No one. The pomegranate alone knows.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  John Donatich for his elegant edits and suggestions.

  Richard Sieburth, my cornerman, for his friendship and support, and for carefully and gracefully editing the text.

  Ibtisam Azem, my love, my first and best reader, for her critical suggestions, advice, and support. And for being in my life.

  1. A tiny piece of the soil from the holy city of Karbala where the shrine of Hussein is. Shiites use it in their prayers.

  2. Al-Thawra (Revolution City) is Baghdad’s Shiite ghetto, where 1.5 million poor working-class families live. Its name was changed to Saddam City in the 1980s. After the 2003 war, it was renamed al-Sadr City in honor of the cleric who was opposed to Saddam and was assassinated under his rule.

  3. A traditional Iraqi meal of barbequed fish from the Tigris, prepared with spices and slowly cooked over coal.