Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (39 page)

“Oh, they’ll find their way back,” she answered.

We plodded along in silence.

“You must be tired,” she finally said. “Let’s have some tea

when we get home.” When we sat at last on the mat in her

own courtyard, drinking hot tea, she spoke. She did not refer

to the incident, nor to the furious pace at which we had

traveled.

“It was much better to come home that way, don’t you

think?” she asked. “Not so many people.” That was all she

ever said.

I never saw the tomb of the martyr Hussein. No one

suggested that I go, and after the evening incident with the

taaziyas I lost my interest in going into the mosque altogether.

In the days that followed I went out again each morning and

afternoon with Fatima and the other women from El Nahra,

who came to Sitt Najat’s to call for me. We would watch the

taaziyas, still performing, though their fervor was somewhat

spent, or we would stroll toward the outskirts of the city, away

from the crowds. We would stop at some strange house,

Fatima would ask the women politely for water, and, after

satisfying our thirst, we would sit under a tree and talk. We

went to the maternity clinic where Najat worked. We walked

to the hospital where Yehia was stationed. He came out, in his

white coat, and talked to us as we sat in the garden, like

hundreds of other relatives and patients waiting for a doctor or

a nurse or simply resting from the heat and the crowds. One

day I insisted that we ride in a horse-drawn carriage. The

women were shy about getting into it, and insisted that the

driver would not let us off where we wanted to go and would

then overcharge us, but I insisted and promised to pay if we

were overcharged. Once we got into the carriage and jostled

along the dusty streets behind the old horse, the women were

enchanted. They laughed and sang and did not want to get out

when the ride ended.

I asked them if we might go to the bazaar, for before

leaving Bob had suggested I look around and see what

treasures might have been brought in by pilgrims to sell in

exchange for food, lodging or travel home. The days passed,

and we did not go. Finally I insisted that I must go to the

bazaar, because it would be great shame not to bring a present

to Bob. This seemed to impress Fatima, and on the last day

she came to call for me in the morning accompanied by

Ibrahim, her young cousin, who she said would take us to the

bazaar. So I hurriedly donned my abayah, reminding Fatima

again that I wanted to go to the old bazaar, where we could

find copper and silver and rugs. She nodded and said that

Ibrahim knew where everything was and would take us

wherever we wanted to go.

Ibrahim was fifteen. Fatima treated him like a brother (he

was more than ten years younger than she and hence not a

possible marriage partner for her) and I did the same. In his

striped dishdasha he stood nearly a head taller than everyone

on the street, and was easy to follow as he led us along a

circuitous route, up one small street and down another, “to

escape the crowds,” he explained. It was a bright clear day

with a cool breeze. Many of the peddlers were packing up

their wares, workmen were beginning to remove the strings of

colored lights from store fronts and, as we turned onto the

main street, families were rolling up their mats and bedding,

preparing to leave for home.

Fatima chattered gaily all the way, though I noticed dark

circles under her eyes and asked if she were ill.

“No, just tired,” she replied. “But I can sleep in El Nahra. I

won’t be in Karbala for another year and maybe not then, for

it’s Sanaa’s turn to come next time.”

We were close to the shrine, walking along the outer court

where a row of fancy shops displayed Western goods to attract

the rich pilgrims. I knew the old bazaar was on the other side

of the court, and was just then thinking smugly how much

more beautiful the indigenous copper and silver work was

than these cheap, flashy Western imports, when suddenly

Ibrahim stopped, announced grandly that this was the place

and ushered us into the largest and shiniest of the shops.

My face must have shown my dismay, for Ibrahim hastened

to explain that he knew Bob would not want any of the old

things in the native bazaar. These were the places where rich

foreigners shopped, and he assured me that the one we were in

was the very best. My heart sank. I looked around at the

colored nylon blouses, the Ronson lighters and printed scarves

and perfumes and had a fleeting vision of gleaming old copper

and brass. Fatima was wandering happily about, looking

carefully at everything and commenting on the beauty of the

merchandise. Rajat stood at the door, her eyes very large and

round above the abayah which she was shyly holding over the

lower half of her face. At the end of the counter Ibrahim

lounged, obviously quite pleased with himself, waiting for my

approval.

I pulled myself together, trying to see the humor of the

situation, and said yes, it was a fine shop.

“It’s a wonderful shop,” answered Fatima, touching the cut-

glass stoppers of the French perfume bottles and looking at the

transparent, lace-edged nylon blouses. There was nothing like

this in El Nahra or Diwaniya.

Fatima bought a small scarf for her mother. I realized

somehow as she was buying it that she had not counted on the

price being so high, but she would not have dreamed of saying

so, and thus she now had no more money to spend.

But I plunged on anyway. First some Evening in Paris

cologne for Laila, and for Fatima herself. A black elasticized

belt for Rajat. Handkerchiefs for Ibrahim. A large painted tin

box of toffee for Sitt Najat. Elizabeth Arden night cream in

gold-lettered jars for Sanaa and Nejla. A ball-point pen for

Mohammed. And for Bob, after much discussion and

bargaining among Ibrahim, the proprietor and myself, a polka-

dotted maroon wool tie; the label said Regent Street, London.

The proprietor felt that a small music box which held

cigarettes and also played the Blue Danube would have been

more fitting. I held my ground. Finally the tie was wrapped

and all the other packages as well, except for the belt, which

Rajat insisted on wearing.

When we left the shop, it was noon and very hot. Ibrahim

bought Coca-Cola at a kiosk and we sat on the curb near the

shrine to drink it, watching the thinning stream of people

passing in and out to pray. Pilgrims with bright bedrolls were

heading out of the city.

“I hope my mother is all right,” said Fatima suddenly, and I

found myself wondering about Bob and our mud house. The

pilgrimage was over. We were already thinking of home.

PART IV

19

Autumn

The date palms in our garden, like all the date palms in El

Nahra, were heavy with ripe fruit. For the past three days we

had seen above our wall the neighbor boys high in their trees,

and heard their shouts as they called to the men and women

below that dates were cut and coming down. Like enormous

bunches of heavy yellow grapes, the dates would break

through the crackling palm fronds and fall with a thud to the

ground. One morning Bob opened the gate to a group of

strangers—two men, three women and several children—who

identified themselves as the part owners of our date trees, and

said they had come to harvest their crop. “Haji owns the land,”

explained one of the men to Bob, “but the trees are owned

partly by him and partly by the descendants of one of Haji’s

uncles. My wife is one of the descendants, and we collect the

dates every fall and give Haji part of them.”

They began to work, and by midmorning the garden was

covered with mounds of golden dates and with dried stalks

and fronds pruned off by the boys after cutting down the fruit.

The women and girls plucked the dates from their stalks and

sorted them into piles. The dead fronds and empty stalks were

also sorted to be stored for eventual use as fuel.

In the afternoon the women paused to rest, and I invited

them in for tea. “I have heard about you,” the oldest one said,

“and we wanted to come and see what you looked like, but we

live on the other side of the canal, near the suq, and it is a long

way to come.”

“You’re related to Haji, but you live on the other side of the

canal?” I had not met anyone with tribal affiliation who lived

with the market people.

“Yes, Haji’s great-grandfather was my great-grandfather,”

said the woman. “But my husband was from another clan of

the tribe, and he took up sheep trading when his land salted

up. So we live near the suq, where he works.” Then she

hastened to explain, “But we are not really of the ahl-es-suq

[market people] because we still own our tribal land.”

The tribe, Bob had said to me only yesterday, considered

itself superior to the market people. He had found, he said,

that the social divisions in the village were clear: the tribal

people living in the clan settlements, the people of the market

who lived near the market, and the government servants or

muwadhifin
, who lived in the government houses. Each of

these groups kept apart from the others, seldom intermarried,

and each considered itself superior. The woman’s quick

explanation that she was not of the market people only

verified Bob’s observations; though she had lived near the

market all her life, she was still of the tribe and proud of it.

I invited her and her sister to drink tea with me every

afternoon while they were harvesting, and during those

afternoons I learned how thoroughly useful the date was to the

local housewife. Dates of the best quality were sold to a date

merchant in Diwaniya. Damaged dates were fed to livestock.

Dates were eaten with bread and watered yogurt, as a

nutritious and filling meal. They were boiled up into a heavy

syrup, almost like sorghum, which was a substitute for jam

(we had discovered it was excellent on pancakes) and good for

cooking purposes. My friend also made her yearly supply of

vinegar from dates. “But I never have enough bottles for the

vinegar,” she said, casting her eye around the room. I followed

her train of thought easily enough, and that day when the little

girls filed out of the garden, each carried an armload of empty

bottles from my kitchen.

The mounds of dates grew higher and higher in the garden;

the children tied the stalks into bundles and the men came

with sacks to carry away the fruit. The harvesters departed and

we saw no more of them until a child appeared at the gate one

morning with two bottles of date vinegar, a gift from the old

woman. I peered at the muiky gray liquid, and the child

advised, “Let it settle and then it will be all right.”

I thanked her, but she did not go.

“Grandma says if you have any more bottles, she can give

you more vinegar.” I produced some more bottles but told her

the vinegar she had brought would be enough.

The beginning of the new school term brought earth-

shaking news. Sitt Aliyah, principal of the girls’ school for

thirteen years, had been transferred. She had been given a

teaching job in Diwaniya and had settled down with her

mother in a comfortable modern house. Selma, Laila and her

sisters, Um Saad, Jabbar’s sister Khadija, all the women were

stunned. Sitt Aliyah had become so much a part of the

community that it did not seem possible that school could

continue without her.

Although the women rejoiced in Sitt Aliyah’s promotion,

they could not quite believe that she had gone from El Nahra

forever. So many people had depended on her for so many

things; she educated their girls, of course, but she also knew

how to make excellent mosquito nets that fitted exactly over

one’s bed and kept out the myriads of insects that plagued

one’s summer sleep. Her mother made sherbet from fresh

lemons and knew how to store it for months so that it would

not spoil. Sitt Aliyah was never too busy to write a letter if

one wanted. She would even advise about tonics for thin

children and eyewashes for the infected trachoma eyes. She

would read the Koran for a woman in trouble.

Hind, her younger sister, was to become principal of the

school; the women said, “Hind is a good girl, but she is young

and wants to get away and go to Baghdad. Aliyah was like

us.”

New rumors flew: Aliyah would stay, Hind would go, Um

Saad would be principal, a new schoolteacher was to arrive. A

new schoolteacher, it turned out, was really going to arrive,

any day, to fill the vacancy left by Aliyah’s departure. And

now the speculation turned to the new teacher. Her arrival was

breathlessly anticipated, not only by the tribal women and

girls, to whom she was a symbol of the world outside the