Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (4 page)

We spent the rest of the morning trying to bring some order

out of the chaos in the living room.

Mohammed asked only one favor of me the first day. Half

in sign language and half in simple Arabic, repeated over and

over again, he asked me please not to tell anyone he washed

our dishes or he would be shamed among men for doing

women’s work. I said of course I would not tell anyone. He

brought a copper jug of water to fill our barrel canteen, he beat

the rug, and swept the floors with a tool not much bigger than

a whisk broom. I indicated I wanted a reed mat for the other

room. He nodded, but said it would be a week before it could

be made. He strung a clothesline in the garden, hammered

nails for pictures, and announced he was going home to eat

lunch. Lunch—I had almost forgotten lunch.

“Will you come and eat with my mother?” asked

Mohammed.

“No—no, thank you very much,” I said hastily. “There is

food here.” I suspected Mohammed had asked me out of token

politeness, and that his mother would hardly have been

prepared for a guest, but even if she had, I didn’t feel I wanted

to face any more new situations at the moment.

Mohammed left and I bent over to rummage for a can of

soup in the boxes around me. My back was to the door and I

heard no footsteps, but suddenly I was aware that someone

else was nearby. I turned around to find a grizzled old man in

a shabby aba standing just behind me at the open door. I

jumped up, knocking over my chair, and the poor old man, as

startled as I was, gestured wildly toward the round tin tray on

his head, which he lowered carefully to the floor. It was

food—hot lunch, in fact. He seemed to be struck dumb at the

sight of me, or perhaps he was dumb to begin with, for he did

not utter a sound but pointed toward the door, then toward the

tray and to me, and backed out of the door. I heard him

hurrying down the path, apparently upset by the encounter. He

was no more so than I.

In a minute or two I managed to laugh at my fright and sat

down to eat the chicken and rice, mashed greens and bread

which someone (Mohammed told me later it had been the

women of the sheik’s house) had so thoughtfully provided for

me. There was more than twice as much food as I could

possibly eat, so I scraped the leftovers into storage jars,

washed the plates and put them back on the tray. When the old

man returned, presumably for the tray, almost creeping to the

door this time, he stared in astonishment at the empty plates

and then at me. With a heavy sigh, he shouldered the tray and

left. It was not until many days later that I learned the Arab

custom of serving much more food than they expect you to

eat. The leftovers go to women, children, family servants and

to the poor. In my jars I had probably saved several people’s

lunch, including the old man’s. And he—I learned from

Mohammed that it was Ali, servant and gardener of the

sheik—thought I had eaten it all! So the first tale that went

round the settlement about the American lady was that,

although she was thin, she had a fantastic appetite!

After lunch the sun came out briefly, and then it rained.

Mohammed warned me that if the rain continued, Bob might

not be able to return that night. The clouds in the sky seemed

to be shifting, and I looked to Mohammed for confirmation.

“Enshallah
[God willing] he will come,” he said.

Mohammed pumped up the camp stove and I peeled

potatoes and tomatoes. Darkness fell, the electricity came on,

and Mohammed indicated he would wait for Bob near the taxi

stand in town. There was nothing else to do, so I sat down in

the living room and pretended to look through my Arabic-

English dictionary. We had cleared away most of the boxes

and litter and had moved the table to the side of the room. I

had scrubbed the green oilcloth with a brush, and a colored

geometric pattern was now visible in the rug, thanks to

Mohammed’s sweeping.

From the tree outside my shuttered window many birds

called, and the few who nested in our beams answered. Will

he come or not? I looked outside again. It was not raining, but

the sky was overcast. Back in the room the radio emitted

static, bits of Arabic music and the deadening hum.

After eight o’clock I heard rain on the roof and my heart

sank. But then there were thumps and the sound of an

automobile revving near the wall. I ran down the path to open

the gate.

“Go back in the house and stay there,” called Bob. “There

are a whole lot of men to help with the stuff and you shouldn’t

be seen.”

I did as I was told, crouching by the living-room shutter,

where, through the cracks, I could see boxes and more boxes

and finally the refrigerator being carried into the other room.

An English-speaking voice, not Bob’s, was giving orders; that

must be John, the American engineer. Would we have

company for dinner?

“Put on your abayah now and come out,” Bob shouted, “so

the men can put the wardrobe into the living room.”

Again I did as I was told, slipping on my muddy shoes as I

went out the door. With much grunting, the men edged the big

wardrobe through the narrow door. Bob paid them off and

they left.

John said he would be delighted to stay for dinner.

Originally from Cincinnati, he was on an exploratory water-

drilling trip for an American firm under contract to the Iraqi

Government. It was his first job since graduation from

engineering school.

“A small contribution,” he said and produced a bottle of

beer, which we split three ways and drank while we looked

over the loot. The refrigerator was small, but enough for our

needs. The folding table and chairs would be ideal for both

eating and working.

“I asked Abu Saad to have a screened cupboard built for the

kitchen,” said Bob. “And what do you think of that?”

Gleaming against the dark earth floor and mud-gray walls was

a white enamel two-burner kerosene stove. “The oven is

portable. You can use it on top of the stove or not, depending

on what you want to cook,” said Bob, demonstrating.

“Where’s Mohammed?”

We found him standing in rapt admiration before his own

image in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door. He was

adjusting his agal and kaffiyeh.

Mohammed smiled.
“Kullish zein
[very good],” he said,

indicating the wardrobe. Of heavy oak, it occupied at least a

third of the wall space on one side of our room, boasted two

lower drawers and two full-length mirrors in addition to the

double closet space.

“It’s awfully big, and it was a little expensive,” confessed

Bob, “but it was the best buy I could find. Let’s eat. We’re

starved.”

After a meal of boiled potatoes, sliced tomatoes and canned

corned-beef hash with fried eggs, I brought out the remains of

the angel-food cake. Mohammed said good night and John,

Bob and I were left around our oilcloth-covered table,

drinking Nescafé while the charcoal brazier smoked and

glowed.

“Did you get along all right with Mohammed?” asked Bob.

“Oh yes, he seems a very nice boy,” I answered, and then

told them about my lunch tray. They howled with laughter.

“Poor Ali,” Bob said. “You’ve probably given him such a

fright he won’t come to the garden for days, even to cut grass

for his sheep.”

John stood up. “I’d better go,” he said. “It’ll take me at least

an hour to get back to Diwaniya on that damned mud road.

But thanks for dinner. I can’t remember when I’ve had angel-

food cake.”

“Thank you for all your help,” we answered, practically in

unison. “Come see us any time.”

He nodded and looked around him, at the beamed ceiling,

the worn but bright rug, the outsized elegant wardrobe. “You

know, I didn’t believe it when Bob told me,” he confided.

“Mud hut, earth floors and all that jazz. But you’ve really got

quite a nice little place here.”

Bob saw him to the gate and I collected the empty coffee

cups and carried them into the kitchen. The rain had stopped

and a cold wind had come up, clearing the sky so that a few

stars were visible. Shivering, I stepped back into the living

room, which was still warm from the dying charcoal fire.

Well, I thought, I suppose we could build a bookcase of

boards and bricks and cover up the sofa and chairs with

something. The mattress really does make the bed bigger. It

won’t be bad, I decided, and realized to my surprise that I was

actually looking forward to fixing up our first home.

2

The Sheik’s Harem

An invitation to lunch with the sheik was delivered early next

morning. This meant that Bob would eat with the men in the

sheik’s
mudhif
or guest house and I would lunch in the
harem
,

or women’s quarters. The harem. What would it be like? What

would the women be wearing? What should I wear?

“Something attractive,” said Bob promptly.

I stared at him.

“And try to be natural,” he counseled.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly planning to be unnatural,” I

retorted.

He had not even heard me. “And keep your eyes open and

try to remember everything you do and see.”

“Yes, dear.”

“You might write everything down as soon as you get home

if I’m not here.”

“Really, Bob, stop fussing so. I’m nervous enough as it is.”

“I’m not fussing,” he said, and then he looked at me.

“Well,” he explained, “I’ve been here for two months and the

sheik’s family, which is the word they use to refer to the

womenfolk, hasn’t even been mentioned in my presence. So I

can’t help but wonder about them. And it’s a rather important

occasion for you, too—your debut into local society.”

Mohammed came with a jug of water and announced that

Ali had been commissioned to fetch us.

“Hmmmm,” said Bob. “It’s just up the road, but of course

we walk right through the center of the settlement from our

house to the sheik’s mudhif. Sheik Hamid is probably sending

Ali to make sure the children don’t bother you.”

“Bother me? Even in the abayah?”

“Well, you’ve been here two days without anyone’s having

a look at you except Mohammed and Ali. If you’re curious

about the sheik’s women, think how curious they must be

about you!”

By the time Ali came for us, I couldn’t decide whether I felt

like a debutante being presented at court or Joan of Arc going

to the stake. And since it had been dark when I arrived, I

really had no idea of what lay beyond our gate. The sun was

shining and the mud on our path was drying fast. As Ali

opened the latch a group of small boys in dishdashas jumped

away from the gate and stared and giggled until Ali shouted

and flourished his stick at them, whereupon they ran ahead,

turning back at every other step to look at us again.

“Ali says he is sorry for the boys’ rudeness,” Bob said.

“Actually, the women probably sent them out as scouts and

they’re running back to the harem to tell them you’re on the

way.”

No one else seemed to be on the mud-rutted road, however,

which was bare of trees or greenery of any sort and was lined

on both sides with mud houses set close together. Only high

walls and blind fronts of mud brick faced the street; I was to

learn later that the doors were usually on the side or in back,

to allow the family more privacy in their comings and goings.

All the walls, like mine, were topped with several inches of

prickly camel-thorn.

“Why isn’t anyone else out?” I whispered to Bob, and, as if

in answer, a woman emerged suddenly from one of the alleys

between the houses, balancing on her head a tray of what

looked like round gray pancakes. Seeing us, she uttered an

exclamation and pulled her abayah over her face.

“Why did she do that?” I asked. “Does she think I have the

Evil Eye or something?”

“Oh, no,” said Bob. “The women always seem to cover

their faces quickly when caught unawares by strange men.