Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (24 page)

“Shh,” said Sherifa sternly, “mind what you say,” but the

lady continued to cackle.

Minutes went by and the crowd grew quieter. The drum roll

continued.

There was a loud cry within, and in a few moments the

bridegroom emerged smiling. After a triumphant volley of

rifle shots, the groom’s friends and relatives pressed forward

to shake his hand. The women surged into the compound to

congratulate the bride, who would remain in her room, and to

see the bloody sheet displayed by the bride’s mother and the

groom’s mother, incontrovertible evidence that the girl was a

virgin and a worthy bride. The drums ceased.

Sherifa sighed and Laila laughed with relief.

“It’s all right, everything is fine,” she said.

The groom’s smiles meant that indeed everything was all

right; the girl was a virgin, the man and his mother were

satisfied. If they had not been, the groom had the right to

demand that one of her relatives kill the bride on the spot. The

right was not often exercised but it had happened within the

memory of Laila. In that case the girl had not been killed, but

sent home in disgrace. Her life was ruined; she might better

have been dead, Laila told me.

The mullah was already at the next house, and we heard

another volley of shots in the distance. Another wedding had

been consummated. In a quarter of an hour, another. By this

time, we had moved back to the square, where dancing had

resumed. Tea was being passed around again and I could see

Bob shaking hands with one of the grooms. The groom

offered Bob a cigarette, Bob countered and offered him one,

and the usual “after you, my dear Alphonse” shadow play

began. Bob won, I noticed, by almost pushing his cigarette

case in the poor groom’s face. It wouldn’t have been fitting

for the groom, the guest of honor, to give a guest a cigarette.

The groom accepted a light, then, magnanimous with the flush

of his wedding night, threw a large coin to the dancers. I

pressed forward, eager to see more, but Laila pulled at my

abayah.

“It is very late,” she said. “Samira and I must go.” We bade

goodbye to Sherifa and her mother and started home. At the

main road Samira turned into another alley so that she might

slip unobserved through the sheik’s back door. Laila said good

night at my door. I latched the gate behind me and sat down in

the garden to wait for Bob; the moon was high in the sky and

the stars paled beside it. I could still hear the drums.

13

Salima

Laila and I were planning a formidable journey across the

canal and around the suq to visit Salima. Laila’s best friend

from school, who had been married the year before and had a

new baby. The visit, promised for many weeks, had been

postponed again and again for reasons of etiquette.

First Salima’s mother bore a son and Laila and her mother

were unable to call because of sickness in their own house;

then Laila’s grandfather’s sister died and Salima and her

mother did not come to offer condolences. At this point the

social omissions were equal, and either friend could make the

first move. Salima had done so, and thus Laila felt secure in

the knowledge that she had won the round and it was expected

that she should return Salima’s call.

Salima, according to Laila, was the most beautiful girl in El

Nahra. She had a magnificent double bed in her house and

many books and beautiful clothes. Her father was a cloth

merchant, but Laila’s family did not buy from him because his

prices were too high. Salima’s husband Khalil was the Arabic

teacher in the boys’ elementary school. Khalil’s mother was

the village wise woman. Bob had mentioned Khalil as an

upstanding man possessing all the traditional virtues. He was

intelligent and a good scholar, respected his elders, did not

drink or spend money foolishly, and was saved from utter

dreary respectability by a subtle and extremely sharp wit. I

was looking forward to meeting his beautiful sixteen-year-old

bride Salima.

It was five o’clock on a hot June afternoon when Laila

knocked at my door. I adjusted my abayah and went down the

path to meet her, still exhausted from two hours of steamy

half-sleep in the 100-degree heat. Even Laila was complaining

about the heat, and when we had been out less than ten

minutes I could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down my

neck and the backs of my legs. The sun was going down on

our right, but no wind stirred the palms and cottonwoods

along the canal. It would be a hot still night, I realized

unhappily, for the lengthening shadows of the trees reflected

in the water did not even shimmer. Empty when we started,

the street was filling with people emerging from their

afternoon naps. The coffee shop near the bridge was opening,

and the yawning proprietor scratched his head and adjusted his

agal and kaffiyeh as we passed. We cast down our eyes

modestly as we walked, but when we mounted the bridge, the

sight of a long camel caravan coming slowly toward the

village on the opposite side of the canal made me temporarily

lose all discretion and pause to stare.

“It is only the salt caravan from the south,” Laila said,

plucking at my abayah. “It comes every spring and every

winter. The salt isn’t as good as what we buy in Diwaniya;

don’t stop.”

But I slowed my steps to watch as the score or more camels

ambled along the road, setting down one padded foot and then

another, jogging their heavy tasseled saddlebags and striped

trappings as they walked. Three drivers-Bedouin, I assumed,

although they wore robes like the El Eshadda—walked beside

them, tapping a bony camel with a stout stick when it looked

as though it might turn aside, whopping the scrawny backsides

of the beasts when they balked. An image of the camels in the

gay trappings and the three robed men moving under the

palms formed, broke and re-formed in the still bright water of

the canal. Laila was plucking at my sleeve again, whispering,

“Shame, don’t stop, come on!” I dutifully dropped my eyes

again and followed her.

Salima’s house was near her father’s cloth shop, only a few

steps from the suq, but Laila would not have dreamed of

walking through the market. Instead we made a wide detour

around the suq, turning left into the maze of tiny alleys behind

the main street where most of the merchant families in El

Nahra lived. The blind fronts of the houses, with their tightly

closed wooden shutters and mud-Wrick walls plastered with

mud and dry grass, were set close together along the alleys

where we picked our way, avoiding the gutter in the middle.

Occasionally the doors would open and women would

emerge, carrying children on their shoulders, on their heads a

pile of pots, or laundry or a water can, bound for the canal.

They stopped and stared at us, and Laila, who had discarded

her face veil as soon as we left the main street, answered their

greetings, delighted to be out and delighted also, it seemed, to

be seen traveling with me, the village curiosity!

“Ah,” they said, “so this is the Amerikiya,” and Laila

smiled in a proprietary fashion as they surveyed me from top

to toe, not unkindly.

“Ahlan wusahlan,”
they said, and I responded, and if the

pots on their heads were not too heavy or the children weren’t

wailing to be off, they would begin questioning.

Why does she cut off her hair in front like that (referring to

my bangs) and does she have any children inside her and why

does she wear man’s shoes (referring to my heavy walking

shoes) and did she get her abayah in America, and always,

where are you going? Greetings to Leila’s mother followed,

inquiries as to the health of her sisters, and admonitions not to

trip on the uneven cobblestones. Then the women would be

off, clop-clopping down the stones in their wooden clogs,

children riding on their mothers’ shoulders and holding on to

the black-covered heads for support. So adroit were the

children at clinging, the cans, piles of laundry or pots on their

mothers’ heads did not waver an inch.

By the time we had reached Salima’s house, Laila was

beaming happily, and I realized that this roundabout journey

was half the fun of the visit. We had chatted with many

women, whom she knew but seldom saw, and had gathered

enough village gossip to regale the harem for the next three

days.

A tiny girl with round black eyes and long dark braids,

dressed in a short cotton shift and wooden clogs, opened the

door of Salima’s house, a door like all the others along the

alley, made of wood slats and set into the mud-brick wall,

closed with bolts and an old-fashioned iron latch.

“Salima’s sister,” whispered Laila.

The door swung to behind us and we were in a large, fairly

neat courtyard, where a cow mooed in one corner and several

chickens scratched. Reed matting had been laid along the

shady side of the court from the door to the entrance of the

house. Near the house stood a bedraggled tree, its leaves thick

with dust, and under the tree, supported by pillows, an

enormously fat woman sat, fanning herself desultorily with a

broken reed fan. A mound of flesh, draped in black, her head

wound in white, she did not indicate that she had heard us

come in. The little sister escorted us across the court, and as

we approached, the white-coifed head turned toward us,

showing a lined face with pendulous cheeks, passive except

for a pair of tiny piercing eyes. Laila bent down to kiss one of

the woman’s flabby hands and murmur a greeting; I, too,

muttered something and the woman waved her hand that I

might not kiss it, a mark of courtesy to me.

“How are you, Um Khalil?” asked Laila. The woman

smiled, causing all the pouches and lines in her face to change

position, but it was not a pleasant smile. She had stopped

fanning herself for a moment to recognize us and now began

to fan again, a signal for us to pass on. Salima, standing just

inside the door of the narrow whitewashed room which was

her home, embraced Laila as she entered. Then she

remembered her manners and greeted me, reached for our

abayahs (Laila stubbornly kept hers on) and indicated a sofa

where we were to sit.

“Ahlan wusahlan,”
she kept repeating.

“How are you?” asked Laila, beaming.

“Well, thanks be to God.”

“And your baby?”

“Well, thanks be to God. How is your mother?”

“Well, thanks be to God,” replied Laila.

“And your sisters?”

“Very well, thanks be to God.”

After a moment of silence the process would start all over

again.

“How are you?” Laila would repeat delightedly.

Salima, sitting at our feet, would smile with pleasure,

“Well, thanks be to God. We have not seen you for so long.”

“We are all well, thank God. But I am afraid,” Laila would

offer, “that our visit causes much difficulty for you.”

“No, no, no, you honor us by coming and bringing your

guest,” all eyes turning to me.

Thus the friends, in the formal phrases of their mothers and

grandmothers, re-established the social bond broken by long

separations, before turning to conversation of personal

interest.

Khalil’s mother had been sick. As the village wise woman,

she had dealings with many people, and the house had been

filled with visitors day and night. This had meant much extra

work for Salima, serving the guests with tea and coffee as well

as preparing special dishes for her mother-in-law. To make

matters more difficult, her baby girl, asleep in a wooden

cradle, was cutting a tooth, and cried at night so Salima could

not sleep. However, Khalil had brought her some perfume

from Baghdad (it was produced and smelled all round) and

had brought back many books for himself. Laila expressed

astonishment at the amount of money spent on books.

“But Khalil is a scholar,” said Salima, in tones of awe.

“Yes,” nodded Laila, and paused politely before launching

into an account of the wake for her grandfather’s sister and the

enormous boil which her little sister Amal had had on the back

of her neck.

The bookcase standing against the opposite wall of the

narrow whitewashed room did contain many books, the only

books I had seen in El Nahra except in the mayor’s house and

the girls’ school. The bookcase shared honors with the bed as

the most impressive piece of furniture in the house, but where

the bookcase was austere with its dark polished wood and

glass-paned doors, the bed was a magnificent creation in pink

satin; a canopy festooned with ruffles cascaded down in

billows to the bedspread, which dusted the floor with more

ruffles.

Looking at Salima herself, sitting on the floor cracking

pumpkin seeds with her teeth, I had to agree with Laila: the

girl was a beauty, the true nut-brown maiden of whose