Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (10 page)

even—indirectly, by silent example (as did the teachers)—

men they never saw or met. Not only did the women

influence, but in many cases they helped to determine events:

whom their sons would marry, whom their daughters would

marry, whether or not a child would go on to school and

university. And they did this without coercion, without

publicity, and above all without reproach.

5

Gypsies

Gypsies! I had heard the word several times in the houses of

the women recently. “Do they dance?” I asked. “Tell

fortunes?”

“Of course,” said the women. “They are gypsies.”

“Have you ever seen them?” I asked. They looked at me.

“No,” they said.

Bob reported that a troupe of traveling gypsy entertainers

was camped somewhere in Diwaniya province and, one sunny

winter day, out for a drive with Jabbar and Khadija, we saw

them on the move, thirty people or more in a caravan of

donkeys and camels.

They were unmistakable, distinguished from all other

nomads on the road, not only by their bright clothing and gaily

saddled animals but by the arrangement of the caravan. The

men were in front, as is usually the case, but these men were

on foot rather than on horseback, and instead of kaffiyehs and

abas and heavy rifles, they wore tight black trousers and

gaudy silk shirts and carried drums and pipes and batons. Next

came the younger women on donkeys, but again there was a

difference. The gypsy girls rode astride and their abayahs

were tucked artfully around them to good effect, showing here

a décolleté flowered dress, there a printed silk petticoat or a

gold-braceleted ankle. On the camels at the end of the

procession rode the old women and men and children. The

pots and pans and striped blankets were tied to the camel

saddles. But even the children were different, the boys in tight

pants and silk shirts like their fathers, the little girls in shiny

silky flowered dresses.

Almost as soon as we saw them, the caravan moved over to

the side of the road and stopped. The young men turhed to

prance toward us and two children jumped down from the

camels and proceeded to turn somersaults and cartwheels on

the road, directly in front of our oncoming car.

“Stop, Jabbar, please,” said Khadija, “so Beeja and I can

see,” and when Jabbar put on his brakes, the men snapped into

formation. The children wove, tumbling, among the
oud

players, the drummers, the men with pipes and nose flutes,

occasionally even upstaging the leader, who had produced a

handful of small balls from his pocket and was now twirling

and tossing his baton and juggling the balls, all at the same

time. The camels stayed by the side of the road, but the girls

brought the donkeys round to serve as a backdrop for the

performers and musicians, and, like bareback riders in a

circus, reined in the beasts with one hand and gestured

coquettishly toward us with the other. They shouted and called

to us, but we could not understand what they were saying.

Slowly the little tableau moved toward us on the empty

road, until the gypsies were so close we could see the flashing

gold teeth of the men, their embroidered skullcaps and the

single gold earrings in their ears, the gold pendants about the

slender necks of the children. Smiling and calling to us still,

the girls turned the donkeys slowly around, jingling their gold

bracelets and switching their black abayahs like the trains of

ball dresses. I had already begun to think of the abayah as a

sheltering cloak, a symbol of modesty. It was a shock to see it

used in this way, at one moment framing the girls’ pointed

faces and tightly laced bosoms, and then flipped toward us

provocatively as they turned in time to the music.

Now the music increased its tempo, the children twisted

their narrow bodies in a frenzy of backbends and somersaults,

and to the accompaniment of a long roll on the skin drums, the

leader flung his baton high into the desert air. While it twisted

and turned in a dazzling series of circumlocutions, he deftly

juggled the balls, caught the baton, then the balls, tossed his

black head triumphantly and sank to his knees in a sweeping

bow. He landed almost directly beneath the car window, and

while we clapped, Jabbar produced some coins, and the

leader, with a brilliant smile, peered into the car where

Khadija and I sat, in our abayahs, in the back seat.

Would we like one of the girls to dance? he asked.

“Oh yes,” said Khadija, who had stared fixedly at the gypsy

girls during the entire act.

“Not today,” said Jabbar. “That’s enough.”

He waved off the leader and we drove on, while Khadija

sank back against the seat and proceeded to sulk.

“See, Khadija, they are still waving after us,” I said, looking

myself at the group which receded quickly into the distance

until finally only a few tiny sticklike figures and animals stood

on the empty road under the wide blue sky. Khadija did not

turn her head, and though even Jabbar tried to tease her, she

did not respond. We rode home in silence and spoke no more

about the caravan.

A few days later Bob reported that the gypsies had camped

again, this time near El Nahra and we had been invited to visit

them by Abdul Razzak, a friend of Jabbar’s who was

irrigation engineer in a neighboring village. Abdul Razzak

was going to take presents to one of the dancing girls, who,

Jabbar claimed, was Abdul Razzak’s mistress and very

beautiful.

Khadija did not go with us, for reasons which remained

unexplained, and I was alone with the three men. It was a cold

day, the sun darkened by a thick cloud which looked

ominously like an impending sandstorm. As we left El Nahra,

the wind whipped up the silt in clouds around us.

The dust was worse farther out, blowing so hard that we

almost passed the gypsy camp before seeing it. I had looked

forward to entering a low black camel-hair tent, like those the

Bedouin pitch on the plains in their seasonal wanderings

through the Euphrates Valley. But I was disappointed, for

these were old army tents, tattered and faded and stained,

arranged in a small semicircle around a larger central tent with

a cross of wood at its peak.

“Does the cross mean the gypsies are Christians?” asked

Bob.

Abdul Razzak said no. “I think it is just their radio aerial.”

Even before we stopped, the watchdogs had set up a fierce

barking; they jumped on the car with teeth bared, scratching

and growling. It was hardly an auspicious welcome, and we

decided to stay where we were until someone came to greet

us. At least five minutes went by, with the dogs snarling and

jumping at the windows; finally a man, wrapped in an aba

against the cold and wearing only a skullcap on his head,

looked out of the central tent. Through the fog of dust he

recognized Abdul Razzak and called off the dogs. He was full

of apologies for not coming sooner; he had been asleep, he

said. They had entertained all of the provincial police officers

the night before, and everyone was very tired. Abdul Razzak

said we would come another time, but the man brushed aside

this suggestion. He ushered us into a side tent, which was

higher than it looked from the outside, but was dark and cold.

No one was up and about, but at a sharp word from our host,

two women in abayahs arose from mats and padded silently

out in bare feet to prepare our tea. We were seated on boxes

covered with old blankets and rugs; Abdul Razzak offered

cigarettes and the host made an effort at polite conversation,

but he looked exhausted and even talking seemed a strain.

I looked around me in the gloom. From the entrance flap,

which had been staked back, a thin stream of light illuminated

the bare earth in the center of the tent. This was empty. But

the edges and corners of the tent, shrouded in darkness,

seemed full of bundles and boxes, and people lying on pallets.

When one of the bundles moved and a child emerged, I began

to wonder how many men and women lay around us in the

darkness, too weary and cold to bother about visitors.

Only the women who had been summoned by our host were

moving about. One placed a small charcoal brazier at our feet

and sat down beside it to warm herself; the other was making

tea near the entrance. The child who had awakened wandered

over, tousle-haired and dirty and thin, and crouched near the

brazier. The rest of the company slept.

“I am sorry,” said the man. “Everyone is tired and it is so

cold.”

Abdul Razzak tried to be gay and Jabbar laughed helpfully

at his jokes. Bob joined in the conversation occasionally, but I

sat in silence clutching my abayah under my chin. Finally

Abdul Razzak could not stand it any longer. “Where is

Fatima?” he asked. “I have brought her some presents.” The

man called out and one of the bundles answered back; in a few

minutes a girl came over, yawning and smoothing her hair

down under her abayah. Even in the gloom of that miserable

tent she moved beautifully, drawing her abayah about her with

ease and grace. Without a glance at us, she bent over Abdul

Razzak’s hand, kissed it perfunctorily and sat down at his feet,

one arm resting on his knee. He produced the presents, a bottle

of perfume, a scarf, and some English biscuits in a painted tin

box. She thanked him, not very graciously, and muttered

something at which both Jabbar and Abdul Razzak guffawed.

Jabbar translated into English. “She is asking Abdul Razzak

why he didn’t bring her some hashish so she can forget her

troubles,” he said, and proceeded to stare at her admiringly.

Fatima sank back into a cross-legged position and asked for

a cigarette. While she smoked she looked us over, apparently

decided that we were not worth her while, and looked away.

She was young, with enormous black eyes and fine high

cheekbones, but her face was wasted and pinched by illness.

Her eyes were dull and had dark circles beneath them, her skin

was yellowed like the skin of malaria patients, and she was so

weary she seemed to have difficulty even stubbing out her

cigarette. Abdul Razzak was teasing her; she responded with a

faint smile, rested her elbow on one knee and began to pick

her teeth. The host spoke sharply to her, but she continued to

pick her teeth. “You must forgive her, Abdul Razzak,” said

the host. “You know how sick she is, and she was such a

success last night the officers didn’t let her stop dancing until

nearly five o’clock this morning.”

Another girl had joined our circle; she looked much like

Fatima, and Abdul Razzak said she was her older sister. The

sister nodded at Jabbar and Abdul Razzak and Bob, and jerked

her head in my direction. “Who is that?” she asked. Jabbar

explained. She stared, came over and sat down nearer to me,

and stared harder, then stared at Bob. Then she laughed, a

short dry laugh and whispered something to Fatima. Fatima

repeated this to Abdul Razzak, who looked slightly

embarrassed.

“What does she want?” I could not help inquiring.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Abdul Razzak, but I insisted.

“She says she will dance for you if you like, but it will be

very expensive since she does not usually dance for women.”

“Tell her I didn’t come to see her dance, just to visit,” I

said. The sister stared at me again, a shrewd hard glance, then

looked away indifferently. Fatima was seized by a fit of

coughing, and when she had finished, she rested her head in

her hands. Her shoulders were trembling.

The tea, in a china teapot with a bit of aluminum wound

around its broken spout, had been brewing in the charcoal at

our feet. Now the older woman poured it out into glasses,

served it, and sat down, looking at us with her one good eye;

the other was whitened and sightless with trachoma. After we

had drunk tea, the girls had some, and Abdul Razzak passed

around cigarettes again. Fatima declined, punched Abdul

Razzak playfully on the knee and asked for something else.

He smiled, produced another cigarette and gave it to her.

“Hashish,” explained Jabbar, laughing. “She will become

more jolly after she has smoked it.”

Gradually, as the clink of tea glasses signaled refreshments

and warmth, more and more people had risen and come over

to join the group. Men, women, children, they were all thin,

and after glancing at us fleetingly, they would turn to

conversing with each other in low-pitched tones. The one

object in the room that seemed to interest them was a child of

about two. She was very plump, fatter than anyone else in the

tent, with the deceptive milk fat which is the ominous and

ironic sign of serious malnutrition and almost certain death.

Her hair was matted around crusted sores, which covered her

head and face and disappeared down into the neck of her filthy