Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (42 page)

recognize our responsibility when, on our account, other

people were exposed to blame or shame or worse.

How little I really knew about the society in which I was

living! During the year I had made friends, I had listened and

talked and learned, I thought, a great deal, but the pattern of

custom and tradition which governed the lives of my friends

was far more subtle and complex than I had imagined. It was

like the old image of the iceberg, the small, easily

recognizable face on the surface of the water giving no idea of

the size or shape or texture of what lies beneath.

PART V

21

Winter

Winter came down upon us with a sudden rainstorm. All day

clouds had been gathering in the skies, the first time for

months and months, and at sunset the rain poured onto the

land. Everyone rejoiced, for an early heavy rain was good for

the crops. We went to sleep that night lulled by the refreshing

sound of rain beating on our roof after the dry heat of the

summer.

At the end of the third day it was still raining. By now the

road was a morass of mud, and I did not leave the house. Even

at home it was difficult enough. Every time we went from one

room to another or across the garden to the bathroom or the

garbage pit, we would slip and slide on the mucky ground.

Mohammed was not so lucky. He still had to haul our water

several times a day and bring food from the market, and he

finally stopped wearing shoes altogether. He would hoist his

dishdasha up and double his aba over his head against the rain,

but his legs were always splashed with mud up to the knees

when he finally arrived.

Our roof began to leak and we would wake in the middle of

the night to feel the splash of rain on our faces, on the floor,

the chairs and table. Until the sun shone again the mud roof

could not be repaired, so I set pots and pans in strategic places

on the floor and we covered our bed with a tarpaulin and our

heads with raincoats when we slept.

By the fourth day, even Bob decided to stay indoors and

work on his notes. Our diet had become very monotonous, for

none of the farmers were bringing produce to market. The

taxis from Diwaniya had stopped running, so no canned foods

or jam or cigarettes came into El Nahra, and the supplies in

the shops dwindled steadily. The post office was closed and

the telephone line was out of order.

The Biblical story of the deluge, which is supposed to have

taken place very near El Nahra, seemed very real. We were

quite cut off. Who would have thought that rain would be a

problem in the middle of the desert? But it was. Horses could

make very little headway in the thick, deep mud, the cattle

could barely walk, and everyone who could stayed indoors

and tended the eroding mud walls and roofs. The men were

worried about the crops, said Mohammed. The water table had

been high to begin with, and too much rain at one time could

easily drown the young shoots of grain. We knew now why

Haji had built our little house on a slight rise in the garden.

Mohammed, our only link with the other people in the

settlement, reported that the floors in some houses were

already wet. If the rain didn’t stop soon, many people would

be flooded out.

Fortunately, on the sixth morning, it did stop. We woke to

bright sunshine and an unexpected amount of noise. At first

we could not account for the burst of noise, and then we

realized that the settlement, which had become quieter and

quieter during the rain, was merely emerging from its

enforced retreat. Children were running up and down the road

again, servants were setting out for the suq, and the livestock,

driven out of their enclosures for the first time in days, were

mooing and braying with joy.

Mohammed came to say that Haji had invited us to lunch.

To celebrate the end of the rains, Selma was making

faisanjan
, or Persian chicken, and Sheik Hamid wanted us to

sample the special dish. At noon I put on my abayah and tried

to pick my way up the road through the slimy mud and the

deep puddles. Through Saleh the weaver’s open door I could

see Hathaya, his daughter, and his old mother laying reed mats

over the muddy ground, to protect the wool which Saleh was

stringing back and forth from the loom to the pegs at the end

of the court. All the houses along the road had rows of fresh

dung cakes spread out to dry for fuel on the wall tops; the

housewives had been busy that morning.

Laundry was underway in Haji’s house. The daughters were

hanging up clothes, children’s dishdashas, sheets, towels and

dresses on lines stretching all around the big central court. A

pot of white clothes still boiled over an open fire and Amina,

stirring with a long reed stick, nodded to me cheerfully as I

came in.

From Selma’s own apartment drifted an odor strong enough

to drown the smells of wet dung, mud and laundry, a lovely

odor which came from the kitchen. Here the chicken

simmered on a Primus stove while Selma stirred and tasted.

Faisanjan was a worthy delicacy to celebrate our release

from the rain. The preparation took hours. First walnuts were

pounded and pounded in a mortar until nothing was left but

the oil. The chicken was jointed and browned in the oil and

then a little salt was added and water in which dried

pomegranate seeds had been soaking. In this fragrant broth the

chicken cooked slowly until the broth thickened to a nut-

brown sauce and the chicken fell from its bones. Walnuts and

dried pomegranate seeds and salt proved to be an

unexpectedly delicious combination of flavors. I told Selma

that it was excellent and she smiled.

“No one in El Nahra can make faisanjan like Selma,” said

Samira.

Selma did not protest.

Three days later, when no more rain had fallen, Mohammed

said he thought it safe to repair our roof. Two men came from

the suq with buckets and ladders. I watched from behind a

half-closed shutter while they hauled up buckets of mud. I

heard the sound of the mud being slapped on the roof and

smoothed by hand. A few drops of mud plopped down past

the window. The men climbed down and took away the

ladders. Our roof repair (which would last for five years, they

said stoutly) cost exactly $1.25, and had taken about an hour.

Sherifa, Mohammed’s sister, had been ill for several days.

Mohammed described her symptoms as fever, chills, coughing

and vomiting. I asked whether I could visit her.

“After a day or two, when she is better,” he suggested.

“Has she been sick like this before?”

“Oh yes, many times,” answered Mohammed, “but it is

worse in winter, the cough especially.”

The day he came to announce that Sherifa was well enough

to see me, I took some aspirins and fruit and went to her. But

if today she was supposed to be better, I wondered what her

illness had been before. The normally cheerful and always

polite Sherifa made little attempt to greet me. From the mat,

where she lay covered with a blanket, she raised a limp hand.

“I’m very sick,” she said.

Her mother Medina was making tea over the tiny charcoal

fire. I asked whether I could bring the doctor for Sherifa.

“No, no, I don’t want him here,” said Sherifa, raising

herself slightly on one elbow. Then she was seized by a fit of

hard, dry coughing and lay back on the mat and turned her

head away from us.

Medina offered me tea, and Fadhila, who was mixing bread

dough for the noon meal, came in to sit for a moment. Fadhila

asked me to stay and watch her bake the bread; she seemed

unmoved by the sight of Sherifa, who was now moaning

continually.

“Poor Sherifa,” I said. “What a pity.”

“Oh yes,” said Fadhila matter-of-factly. “She is always like

this in winter, poor thing. But what can one do?”

“Bring the doctor.”

Fadhila raised her hands.

“Why?” she asked. “If he came, which is quite unlikely, he

would charge a great deal of money, which we don’t have.

And even if we could pay him, then he would prescribe many

expensive medicines, which we can’t afford to buy. God wills

that poor Sherifa be ill, and he grants me, thank God, good

health.”

I still felt that, if necessary, we could bring the doctor for

Sherifa, and asked Bob to discuss it with Mohammed.

Mohammed said he did not want the ill-famed doctor in El

Nahra to come, but that perhaps we could take Sherifa with us

when we went to Diwaniya the next time. He had heard that

the new woman doctor at the free government hospital was

running a good clinic.

“Of course we will take her,” said Bob. To me he added in

English, “She probably has tuberculosis, you know, and what

can we do about that?”

We had already heard of a death from tuberculosis that

winter, a young woman from the market people. The

incidence of tuberculosis was very high in El Nahra, the

doctor had told Bob, but they did not know the exact figures,

for the disease remained more or less quiescent through the

hot summers, but flared up again when the cold rains began.

If anyone had reminded me, in the heat of September, that

soon I would be shivering with the penetrating cold and that

ice would form on the mud puddles outside our door each

night, I would have laughed. Yet here we were again, wearing

four or five layers of clothes all day long in the rooms where

just two months ago we had sweltered in 120-degree heat.

That year we were grateful for our two Aladdin kerosene

heaters, bought secondhand from friends in Baghdad. They

made the rooms fairly comfortable and were a great

improvement over our charcoal brazier, which had smoked so

much that the fumes gave us headaches.

Everywhere I went to visit now, some member of the family

was sick. The women put on heavy black sweaters or imitation

black caracul jackets under their abayahs. Over their

dishdashas the children put on sweaters and wrapped their

heads up in wool scarves and caps.

“If one’s head and neck are warm, all is well,” Mohammed

pronounced. He himself wore a wool tweed sport coat over his

dishdasha, under his aba. It was secondhand but in good

condition, bought from a big bundle of coats and sweaters

which had arrived in the suq, Bob said, when the cold started.

Some enterprising Lebanese businessman, we discovered, had

begun buying up lots of used European and American coats in

New York and London and selling them by the bundle in the

small cities and towns of the Middle East.

But many people in the settlement could not afford such

luxuries. They added another layer of cotton garments,

warmed themselves on good days in the morning sun, drank

glass after glass of hot tea and huddled around small charcoal

braziers at night.

The cold deepened, and the price of charcoal rose higher

and higher in the market. For us this was of minor importance,

but I lay in bed at night listening to the rain and wondering

about the families who went to bed at nightfall simply to keep

warm. At least they would be warm there, I thought,

remembering the pile of blankets that seemed to be the only

major possession I had seen in many houses.

One morning I woke feeling very poorly indeed. By noon I

had a high fever and by nightfall all the symptoms of severe

bronchitis and flu had descended on me. Bob put me to bed

and Mohammed brewed meat broth and mint tea. I could not

remember when I had been so sick.

The next day Laila and Rajat came to visit. Laila had

brought me four eggs; she and Rajat clasped my hand and

murmured words of encouragement. They sat by my bed and

watched me anxiously. When I coughed, Laila coughed; when

I blew my nose, Rajat sniffed in sympathy. By noon I was

exhausted from trying to talk to the girls, and wanted only to

be left alone. When lunchtime came they left, promising to

come back as soon as they could.

“Oh, it’s not necessary, thank you very much,” I said

weakly.

“Beeja,” Laila answered, “how can we leave you alone

when you are sick?”

My protests were useless, and promptly after eating the two

girls returned and sat down by my bed again. The rest of the

day passed in a haze of fever. I finally could not even manage

social pleasantries, and would doze off periodically and

through my half sleep hear Laila and Rajat discussing my

illness. I remembered the scene at Feisal’s bedside when the

crowds of women and children had assembled to keep him

company while he fought typhoid fever. Someone had once

told me that in this society loneliness was one of the greatest

of misfortunes, for it meant that your family had deserted you,

and you had no one sufficiently concerned for your welfare to

stay with you. Where I felt I needed solitude to recover from