Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (43 page)

an illness, my friends in El Nahra believed just the opposite.

When a person is sick, they reasoned, he needs support from

his friends and relatives even more.

I was touched by Laila and Rajat’s concern, but when they

told me, in finally departing, that Sherifa and Samira would sit

with me tomorrow, I did not feel I could face it. I asked Bob

to have Mohammed pass the word in the settlement that he,

Bob, was going to stay home with me until I was well,

knowing that this was the only way I could decently prevent

the women from coming without hurting their feelings. Two

days later I was ready to come out into society again.

About this time, through conversation in the mudhif, Bob

became aware of a neighbor of ours whom we did not know, a

blind man who seldom stirred from his house. His wife was

dead and he had two sons, one nearly blind like himself.

“How,” Bob asked, “does he support himself?”

“It is very cold today,” answered a man, moving closer to

the small brazier of burning charcoal in the center of the

mudhif.

“Yes, indeed,” said another. “Thank God we have a fire and

food and good company.”

Bob told me he was at first totally mystified by the

conversation, but with a little help from Mohammed he began

to understand. The man, said Mohammed, was very poor. Haji

gave him food, many people gave him food; as a matter of

fact, this was the time of year when people gave him food or

money.

Bob decided that it would be nice to “do something” for the

man and said so.

A murmur went around the mudhif.

“Ah, but it is not necessary, as a guest, that you should do

so,” said Haji’s brother Abdulla.

“Not necessary,” echoed the men.

“But I insist,” said Bob.

“Mr. Bob insists,” repeated Abdulla.

“Ahhhh,” commented the men.

“Yes,” said Bob, stating his intention to buy a sack of wheat

for the man, the most practical gift he could think of. The

tribesmen seemed to pay no attention, and Bob was puzzled.

Later that day he gave the money to Mohammed. “Go buy

the grain and get a porter to deliver it,” he said.

Mohammed looked uncomfortable. “This is a pound and a

half,” he said.

“Yes,” said Bob. “What’s the matter? Isn’t that enough?”

“Let’s just give him the money,” suggested Mohammed.

“But why? He’ll just spend it on cigarettes or something,”

Bob said, in a rush of annoyance, “and then starve the rest of

the winter.”

Mohammed looked carefully at the ground, then at Bob,

then at the ground again.

“He is a man,” he said. “Let him choose.”

Poor Bob stared at Mohammed. “Take the money,” he got

out, “and give it to him and for heaven’s sake don’t say where

it came from.”

For a long time after Mohammed had gone, Bob sat at the

kitchen table. I poured some coffee and we drank it slowly.

Finally he said, a little wryly, that he wished he could have

paid the money minus the personal embarrassment to learn

what he had learned.

“To discuss a gift publicly here,” he said, “is obviously in

the worst possible taste. I knew that before. And a recipient of

charity has just as many if not more rights than the donor. I

knew that too. What’s the matter with me?”

He was very annoyed at himself. “It’s amazing how many

ways we seek to gratify ourselves,” he said.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I answered. “You felt sorry

for the man, you wanted to do something and you have. That

old man is probably enjoying his first cigarette in months,

even if he is cold.”

“I hope so,” said Bob. “I really hope so.”

Winter was hard on us all in El Nahra.

Our winter depression was broken by word from the two

American engineers in Diwaniya, who called Bob at the

mudhif to say they would be out for dinner. This was cheering

news. John Priest and his colleague. Tim Maestas, maintained

a headquarters house which had often been a refuge for us in

an emergency, when we missed the train to Baghdad or were

stalled in Diwaniya awaiting a taxi to El Nahra. But we

seldom saw the boys themselves, for they were out in the field

for weeks at a time.

In anticipation of their arrival, Mohammed bought quite a

fat chicken, and I baked a cake and some cinnamon rolls. But

after lunch the rain began and at dusk we knew the road would

be so bad the boys would never make it. The next day,

however, it cleared slightly and that evening, as we were

finishing supper, we heard the roar of a truck outside our wall.

Mohammed ran to open the gate, and five minutes later John

and Tim tramped up the path, bearing a case of beer! Tim

produced a pack of cards. We were immediately jubilant at the

prospect of a change of routine, which was even more

welcome after our disappointment of the night before.

I brought glasses and the men opened beer cans with great

gusto and hilarity. Bob fiddled with the radio, looking for gay

music, but all we got was the Arabic news broadcast from

Moscow.

“May khallif,”
said Tim in execrable Arabic, “never mind,

we’ll sing for you. Didn’t I ever tell you I was a boy soprano

years ago in Oakland, California?” He began to warble, “O, a

little bit of heaven fell from out—” and on the high note we

dissolved into laughter.

“We’ve been out in the boondocks for ten whole days,”

announced John. “Truck bogged down, sunk to the axle in the

thickest, gooiest damned mud I ever saw. And then of course

it had to rain again and we holed up in the wet tent for two

days; couldn’t even try to get her out.”

“The driver went to the nearest village for help,” Tim put

in. “And you know it took twenty, yes, twenty guys to budge

her. The home office will never believe how much baksheesh

it cost.” He and John exchanged glances.

“Have another beer, boy,” suggested John.

“I’ll have another myself,” said Bob.

The flame was burning merrily in our kerosene heater. We

settled into chairs around the table and Tim had already dealt

cards when the doorbell sounded.

Bob and I looked at each other questioningly. Who could be

calling at this hour? He went to see and returned to summon

me.

“Women,” he announced.

There at the gate stood a little cluster of women. I greeted

them, puzzled to know the reason for this visit, since the

women seldom went out of their houses after dark except

during Ramadan and Muharram. They reached the house and

paused by the lighted window of the living room. I rushed

after them to warn against the presence of the men inside but a

roar of raucous male laughter went before me. By the time I

let them into the kitchen, the women were suppressing excited

giggles behind their abayahs.

“We came to keep you company,” explained Laila, her eyes

bright. “My father heard the truck with the American men

drive up, so he agreed we could come and sit with you so you

wouldn’t have to be alone all evening.”

The women, exchanging smiles of virtuous complicity, now

pulled chairs into a circle. At the full realization of what their

visit meant on this particular evening, my face must have

shown my disappointment.

“Why, what’s the matter, Beeja?” cried Laila, starting up.

“It’s nothing,” I said. I lit our other kerosene heater and the

women gathered around it. “I think,” I added, “I think I—hear

my husband calling,” I finished, on inspiration.

“Now, don’t go in the room,” teased Laila. “Talk to Mr.

Bob through the door so those men won’t be able to see you.”

Everyone laughed heartily.

And there I was, trapped by my own hand, so to speak. I

stood out in the cold by the living-room window and called in

to Bob, telling him of my predicament. And he laughed.

Actually laughed. All three of them guffawed. I felt positively

murderous.

“Bring us another ash tray, dear,” he said, and I stomped off

furiously, hearing the glasses clink and the cards slap down on

the table.

“At least they can’t play bridge,” I thought nastily.

But before the kitchen door I paused.

“Laila and Sherifa and Basima have come on an errand of

mercy, they think,” I told myself. “They feel sorry for me.

How can I tell them to leave? I can’t.”

In another vein, I considered. “How could I possibly

disillusion them? Could I tell them I’m going to sit in there

with three men, two not even relatives, and drink beer and

play cards?” I shocked myself at the vision of what that would

have done to my carefully maintained image in the

community.

At the sound of another roar of laughter from the living

room, my resolution faltered. “Perhaps the women won’t stay

long,” I thought unkindly, and opened the kitchen door.

But the ladies stayed and stayed—and stayed. They did

everything in their power to amuse me. We sang songs, they

wrote out poems, and Basima composed a couplet for the

occasion which had a wonderful double play on the word

“visitor”. I made three pots of tea. When the men pounded on

the wall, demanding glasses, clean ash trays, coffee, the

women would pause in their merrymaking, look at me

sympathetically and shake their heads in a “we know what it is

to be a woman and suffer” look.

At eleven o’clock the women rose, apologizing profusely

for leaving me while
they
(jerk of the head toward the wall

behind which could be heard male voices) were still there.

“We’ve stayed out much later than we should anyway,”

explained Sherifa, “but we were enjoying ourselves so much

the time seemed short.”

She was right. It had been a good evening, though

somewhat different from what it had begun to be.

The living room was thick with smoke.

“Have your friends gone home, dear?” Bob inquired

sweetly. He was smoking a cigar.

“Did you say your wife was living in purdah?” asked John

of Bob.

“Yes, and a good thing too,” put in Tim. “Best way to start

a marriage. Train ’em up early.”

“Of course, of course,” said Bob, as though he had planned

it all.

Naturally there was no beer left.

22

Jabbar Becomes Engaged

Jabbar had become one of Bob’s best friends in El Nahra. In

the beginning it had been understandable that Bob should see

a lot of him, since Jabbar was the irrigation engineer and Bob

was interested in the local irrigation system. But as the months

passed, their relationship, despite certain very real obstacles,

developed into a deeper friendship. Jabbar held violently anti-

Western political views and hence for a long time was highly

suspicious of Bob’s motives in settling in El Nahra. But he

was also a naturally friendly person with a lively mind and a

good deal of intellectual curiosity. Like most Iraqis, he had the

gift of separating his political views from his personal

judgments about people, and gradually he came to realize that

Bob’s work in El Nahra was truly that of a graduate student

doing research for a degree, and had no ulterior political basis.

I, too, saw Jabbar fairly often, for he continued to attempt to

bring his sister Khadija out of seclusion; to go on short

excursions with us or to eat with us was a good way of

accomplishing this. I had always liked Jabbar. He was kind, he

was gay and amusing, he had the clean-cut boyish good looks

(dark curly hair, regular features) that are attractive to almost

everyone. He was much admired and respected in El Nahra, a

real achievement in an area where the representatives of the

central government were always viewed with some distrust

and suspicion. The ancient enmity between town and country

still prevailed throughout most of Iraq, and El Nahra was no

exception.

True, the tribesmen disapproved of Jabbar’s card playing

and drinking, but they respected the way in which he

administered the irrigation office. Water, quite simply, was

life in El Nahra, and the irrigation engineer, in accordance

with instructions from Baghdad, decreed when the sluice gates

were opened and shut, allowing or stopping the flow of water

from the Euphrates into the El Nahra canal. The times of flow

were generally set in Baghdad, but there were many day-to-

day situations (one farmer complains he is not receiving water

because his neighbor upstream is illegally damming a canal)

in which Jabbar had to exercise his own personal judgment. In

a lesser man this judgment would usually have been used for

personal gain, but Jabbar was not that sort of man. He listened

to all complaints and adjudicated disputes, often calling on

Haji or the mayor to help him in making a decision. In this

way he bowed in both directions: to the mayor, who like

himself represented the new control of the area by the central

government; and to the sheik, the traditional adjudicator of

such disputes before the central government had taken over.