by Saad Hossain
“People who pay?”
“Maybe,” Behruse said.
“The right people might find Kinza in return for the watch,” Hoffman said. “Might get him out of Baghdad safely. Him and his friends.”
“It is possible.”
“I can’t interfere directly in this, you understand.”
“Something can be worked out, perhaps,” Behruse said.
“I would be very grateful.”
“Detergent grateful or something actually useful?”
“Ha ha,” Hoffman got up to leave. “What exactly are we thinking about here?”
“An Apache,” Behruse said. “I want a gunship.”
8: HOUSE OF MANY DOORS
THIS PLACE IS A MAD HOUSE,” HAMID SAID FINALLY. “WE NEED TO get out of here.”
They were lost, stranded in corridors. Doors hung in abundance, leading nowhere, sometimes into impossibly shaped rooms or closets or into dark air; painted doors and fine polished teak ones, plain and carved, crazily hinged, sometimes boarded shut from the outside, or the inside, keeping back unimaginable prey within and without. The corridors extended far beyond the outward bounds of the building, inclining and declining at will, at places smartly dressed, and then cobwebbed and musty, sections pocked with shrapnel, until it seemed to Dagr that they were roaming the entire block with impunity, passing unseen through neighboring buildings, catching snatches of their day to day lives, the smell of couscous, a tea kettle wailing against Al Jazeera, some stifled murmurs of illicit sex.
“We should have gone left from the Jar Room,” Dagr said. “I thought I heard the old ladies. I’m sure the living room was just below.”
“Damn your Jar Room,” Hamid said. “What the hell were in those jars, eh? Those women are damned witches. This is a damn witch house.”
The Jar Room was a fixed point of reference, a large ornate door with a tasseled key in the lock, a room that they had found twice in the same place during their wandering, a phenomenon not to be taken for granted in this labyrinth of a house. They had gone inside. The room had been cold, the air heavy and muffled, pressured peculiarly like the graveled bed of some ancient, dank sea. The blue tiled floor was covered in amphorae of different heights, each sealed carefully with red wax and ornate signet, the seal of some magnificent king, the outer clay skins sweating with a ghostly condensate, each jar vibrating minutely, a susurration of wasp wings growing louder, ever louder. The decision to retreat had been unanimous. In their power-walking haste, they had lost what few bearings they retained.
“I’m telling you,” Hamid said, “I have a peerless sense of direction. I am a trained scout. These corridors have taken us far away from the house. We are going through parallel buildings. And still there are doors. What the hell is behind this locked door? It should be a solid boundary wall. But look below—there is light.”
“It’s a safehouse,” Kinza said. “They are supposed to have ways in and out. The whole neighborhood was rebel. They probably built all these damn passages and then forgot about them.”
“Shh,” Dagr held out his hand. “I can hear footsteps. Do you hear that?”
“Damn footsteps. We’re being followed,” Hamid said. “I’ve been telling you it smells of cats. Does it smell of cats? It’s that damned Druze. He’s come to finish us off.”
“But how can he follow us here? Is he invisible now?” Dagr asked, his voice breaking, for in this dim light, such a thing seemed entirely possible.
“How did he convince those cats do to his bidding, eh?” Hamid asked. “Those were man eating cats, don’t forget.”
“Back to the Jar Room, boys!” Dagr turned tail again, leading the route, back again in the direction they had initially retreated from in the first place.
A few more wrong turns and they were somehow on a different level, a floor below the Jar Room, which could be still easily identified, however, by the angry wasping sound rapping out in syncopated volume. Hamid, his gums bleeding from the rhythmic assault, drew his gun, imagining, in his fevered state, a coordinated attack of cats and jars, anticipating how many of each he would shoot down before, inevitably, turning the last bullet on himself.
“Put that away, idiot,” Dagr shouted, taking cover all the same.
The first shot took the ceiling, punching a hole through rotten cement, straight into the Jar Room, the bullet lodging into a great fat clay vessel that instantly went still, a baritone drone disappearing noticeably from the susurration. The three of them froze.
The section of wall Dagr was leaning on gave way suddenly. Multiple layers of wallpaper tore open, as an ancient, forgotten door caved in on rotted hinges, depositing the hapless professor into an island of calm. He looked around, stunned. He was sprawled over a huge pile of rotting books. On either side of him were haphazard stacks, tottering toward the ceiling like crooked fingers. More stacks behind them, onward for several rows. Through the irregular gaps in the books, Dagr could see that the library had originally been shelved floor to ceiling and stocked in a civilized manner, but the obvious influx of books had long outstripped any attempt to maintain aesthetics. The smell of damp paper was overpowering.
He got up quickly to make room for the others, afraid their entry would set off an avalanche. He glanced behind, saw that Hamid had put his gun away finally. The central isle had shrunk to barely two feet, room enough for them to sidle on, single file, sucking their stomachs in. Dagr studied the books as they shuffled forward. Myriad languages and subjects, jumbled together, old and new. Here and there, he spied attempts at order, some small hand trying to sort by topic or alphabet or author. Futile, of course, for no order was possible in this literary deluge. Forty-watt bulbs guttered from the ceiling every few meters, adding their rotten yellow to the general fug of dust, mildew, and neglect.
The room appeared to be long and careless, winding slightly, as if the architect had not bothered to draw a straight line. Or it might have been the books themselves enforcing this curvature, for the walls were barely visible and it was impossible to tell.
“What the hell is this place?” Hamid asked. “No one’s been here for years.”
“Shhh,” Dagr said. “I can hear something ahead.”
They arrived a few seconds later at a makeshift alcove, where the books had been shoveled around to make room for an antique rocking chair. A stable pile of hardbacks served as a side table. Upon the broad back of a 1957 Encyclopedia Atlas, there rested a faded porcelain cup and saucer.
“Tea,” Hamid said, his gun out again. “Still warm.” He drank it all. “Not bad. Peppermint.”
“Keep going,” Kinza motioned. “Hamid, get your finger off the trigger. We don’t need to shoot up a tea party.”
A few meters on and the path narrowed into a barricade, about five feet high and at least eight books wide. Peering over in the dim light, Dagr saw varied signs of domesticity. A rolled up tatami rested neatly against the inner wall of the barricade, topped by a small pillow, and a woolen camouflage army blanket. In the other corner, there was a small electric stove, a Swiss army knife, a tin pot, a tin cup, assorted tin cutlery, and a stack of ceramic plates inlaid with gold floral designs.
Beyond this line, the blockade faded into near darkness, although Dagr could make out some vague emanations of light some distance away, which made him think the interior of this cave was larger than he had supposed. Close by, too, were other signs of life: an indistinct hard cover turned spine up, a cushion with the posterior indentation slowly fading, the faint smell of some kind of canned stew, the burn of kerosene, or lighter fluid, and almost subliminally, a faint tweet tweet of bird chatter.
Hamid, identifying some obscure threat, began to push forward, his gun out in his mangled fist, face swinging side to side in the twilight like a hammerhead shark. He got two steps forward before Kinza clamped a steely hand on his shoulder, yanking him away.
“Professor, if you please.”
Dagr leaned over the barricade, resting his weight on a pile o
f hardcover Sandman graphic novels.
“Excuse me…Anyone home?”
“Stand ba-ba-back. Away from the wall please.” A hollow male voice, followed by the unmistakable click of a large bore firearm, and Dagr felt the familiar rush of sweat and fear, realizing that no matter how many times he had bullets trained on him, he would never ever get accustomed to that first rush of chemical terror.
Dagr raised his hands and then retreated a foot slowly, fighting down the knowledge that even now, Kinza and Hamid were slinking back into shadows behind him, their own guns out and about, ready to answer in kind, with only Dagr’s flesh standing hesitant between this metallic conversation.
“Sorry for intruding,” he said quickly. “Sorry. We came here accidentally. Saw the tea. We can leave if you like.”
“No one knows this place,” the voice in the barricade said. “You are the police. How did you find me? After all this time. Are you the Mukhabarat?”
“Mukhabarat? You mean the Ba’athist secret police?” Dagr peered into the gloom uncertainly. “No, no, the Intelligence Service is disbanded I think. Or working for the Americans these days.”
“You are lying,” the voice said. “Who has the power to disband the Mukhabarat? The president would never allow it.”
“My friend, Saddam is dead.”
“What?”
“Saddam is dead. The whole country saw it on the Internet. We are ruled by American sheikhs now.”
“Impossible. You’re lying. You’re with them.”
The voice was wild, fevered. Another click, the sound of a bullet being chambered or the hammer being cocked, although the room echoed strangely, and Dagr was not sure whether the sound was in front or behind him, only that the situation was not getting any better.
“I’m not Mukhabarat. I’m not,” Dagr said, sweat on his forehead, more afraid of the men behind him than the one in front. “I’m a professor, I teach at the…I taught at the Abu Bakr university, I taught higher mathematics, in room 208, there were two windows next to my desk, and a lemon tree outside, I could smell it everyday, that smell and coffee, and sometimes students would play the guitar outside, and I loved that room, I met my wife in that room…”
“You were a teacher?” the voice was hesitant, the pressure releasing a bit.
“Yes, yes, I taught basic stuff at first, economics and entry level differential calculus, but then some spaces opened up and I got graduate students and we started working on some molecular mathematics.”
A figure abruptly stepped forward from the dark. He was wild haired and bearded, a sinewy man, skin drawn tight over bones, naked save for a tattered blanket draped like a sarong, a walnut-stocked crossbow cradled in thin fingers, like a child’s toy, and it was a boy’s face beneath the mane, eyes light and loony. Dagr saw him and felt a shaft of sudden sympathy. He stepped forward deliberately, spreading his arms, blocking the lines of sight behind him.
“My father was a librarian,” the man said, as if that explained everything. He came forward, laying down the crossbow on the barricade. “I am Mikhail Alwari. You can come inside now if you wish.”
Dagr climbed over clumsily, his feet cracking spines, sending volumes A–F of Encyclopedia Britannica 1964 clattering. He followed the strange man in, past the interior of the barricade, which he realized was merely an antechamber of sorts, serving as a terrace to the main body of this habitat, which stretched inward further than he could have imagined. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he found himself in a storage room, stacked high with crates and crates of supplies, pilfered stores from regiments and hospitals, a stockpile of almost epic proportions, the forgotten sustenance of a rebel army. Festooned amid these crates were more irregular pieces of luggage, bags, and cases of all sorts, some of them burst open, revealing a pathetic banality of innards, the dregs of a seemingly countless wave of refugees, now faded away.
Spaces had been carved out here, functional niches for sleeping and eating presumably. Somewhere off to the side, there was the sound of water pouring in fits and starts.
“Mikhail, my friends are outside. Two of them,” Dagr said carefully. “We are sorry to disturb you. We stumbled into this area. Could I invite them in here? They will not harm you. I assure you.”
“Are they teachers, too?” Mikhail asked, a strange wistfulness in his eyes. “I saw your friends, in the shadow. They frightened me.”
“They…are not here to harm you. You have my word.”
Mikhail looked around his room uncertainly and then stared at Dagr’s face. A long moment later, he said, “Ok, bring them here. Would you like some tea?”
In a moment, the three of them were seated in various nooks, watching, bemused, as their host started making hot water in a small Japanese kettle on his electric heat pad. His movements were neat, sparing, and he hummed softly under his breath, as if forgetting completely his unwanted guests. In a few minutes, he came with three porcelain cups of hot water, flavored tea bags soaking in each, and a clutch of saccharine sachets in his hand. They sat there in bewildered silence, sipping tea awkwardly, as Mikhail’s eyes darted from face to face as if he were some small animal caught in onrushing traffic.
“Mikhail, how did you come to be here?” Dagr asked, finally.
“My father was the librarian,” Mikhail said.
“Yes, you said.”
Mikhail hesitated. “I remember…steel shelves, and small plastic tools to stand on.”
“Those books outside,” Dagr said, flashing a connection. “Are they your father’s?”
“Yes,” Mikhail said. “We brought them here. I was small. I remember at night, my father made trips here, all night, bringing books in a truck. Then we came here, and it was nice, like his library, only smaller.”
“What happened to your father, Mikhail?” Dagr asked gently.
“My father was the librarian,” Mikhail replied, his face creasing into a frown.
“Where did your father go?” Dagr asked. “Why did he leave you here?”
“He was a librarian,” Mikhail said. He began to rock back and forth on his stool, humming, the distress roiling off him in waves.
“Why did you bring the books here, Mikhail?” Dagr asked, finally understanding that this man’s mind worked only in certain directions.
“The Mukhabarat!” Mikhail bolted upright. “The Mukhabarat were after us. I remember that. They were going to burn the library, I think. We had to protect the books. It was our duty. My father told me that. I remember him clearly saying that. He said ‘Mikhail, my son, we must save the books!’”
“Is that why you came here?”
“Yes,” Mikhail said eagerly. “Yes, that must be right.”
“Do you know where you are, Mikhail?”
“I…no…this house is safe,” Mikhail said. “I know that. The old ladies said so. I remember the Old Lady. She gives me treasures to keep, sometimes. I know her. We are safe here because the Mukhabarat have forgotten about this place. This is the new library. I must preserve the library. If I keep still, I’ll be ok.”
He stared up at them with his big eyes, and Dagr could see the emotions flitting across his face, bemusement, worry, gnawing dread, and it occurred to him that this creature possessed no mental defenses, had never learned, perhaps, those mechanisms with which men could hide their thoughts.
“You don’t have to worry about them anymore, Mikhail,” Dagr said softly.
“This place is safe,” Mikhail said. “Do you want…you can stay, here if you want.” He glanced uncertainly at Hamid and Kinza.
“No, we have another place to stay,” Dagr said. “But maybe I could come to visit you sometimes. If you’re not busy?”
“Visit?” Mikhail looked at him doubtfully. “I have to read every day. And dust the books, you know. They get really dusty sometimes. And I have to take care of the scrolls and the papyrus, and the really old things written on skins. Do you want to see?”
“Well, maybe I’ll come during tea time when
you’re taking a break,” Dagr said. “Just to visit.”
“And I set the mousetrap, just like father said, because mice are the enemy! And I make sure the water doesn’t get to the shelves.”
“You take good care of the books,” Dagr said. “I saw that coming in. They are in excellent condition. You are the librarian now.”
“I am the librarian,” Mikhail beamed. “Yes! I am the librarian.”
“Tell me, how old were you when you first came here?” Hamid asked finally.
“I don’t know,” Mikhail Alwari said doubtfully. “On my last birthday, I think I was ten. But that was a long, long time ago.”
9: INSIDE THE WATCHMAKER
“IED! IED! DUCK!”
The men inside the hummer cringed into fetal positions, screaming instinctively, as the vehicle careened around the street, the wheel freely spinning in Hoffman’s hands. IEDs were mostly homemade bombs, the weapon of choice for insurgents in many parts of the country. Up above, his ears plugged with opium and Ravel, Ancelloti lolled in the gun turret, oblivious.
“I! E! D!” Behruse punctuated with a lit cigar and split his sides laughing.
“What the fuck, Behruse?” Hoffman said, righting the vehicle. “What the hell is wrong with you? That shit isn’t funny.”
“False alarm,” Behruse said. “Oops. You should have seen your faces.”
“Where the hell are we now? I’m fucking lost.”
“Next two right turns, then hundred yards, then left, then third right, then ask me again after two hundred yards,” Behruse said.
“You’re getting us lost deliberately,” Hoffman said. “But I got GPS, so fuck you, Behruse.”
“Fuck your GPS,” Behruse said good-naturedly. “And where we’re going, you have to follow certain routes. They tell the neighborhood that you’re safe. You want the watchers to start taking shots at us?”
“More of your secret service shit?” Hoffman puffed on a clove. “I thought you guys were all hiding under your grannies’ mattresses.”
