Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (19 page)

I asked a hospital official about the total casualty number, as people usually greatly exaggerated the numbers. He said, “Why don’t you speak to the hospital director?” The director was not there, according to officials. I thought that didn’t make any sense in such an emergency. Other officials were afraid to give me any figures. By coincidence I saw the journalist Imad al-Bazzaz in front of me and I asked him. He said, “The news has been published by the Agency and this is what you’ll get, Nora. So don’t try anything.”

I said, “It’s my right to verify the data, not just take the Agency’s figures without support.”

He said, “You’re obstinate. The director of the hospital won’t take responsibility for telling you before clearing it up with security.”

I looked again for the director until I found him in his office, which I had visited several times before. I asked him. He looked at the paper in front of him and said, “I can give you a list of the names of the Egyptian casualties. The number of the Iraqi casualties are exactly as announced.”

I went to the injured to ask them if there was anything I could do for them. Some gave me telephone numbers to inform their next
of kin where they were. I met by chance our neighbors Dr. Michael and Tante Violette, from whom I found out that most of the Egyptian Copts in Iraq had been there en masse, waiting for an Egyptian priest they had asked the Coptic Church to send because they had difficulties with priests from other denominations. I found the priest, Father Hydra Abadir, with massive burns on his face as if his skin had been completely stripped off. He lay in his bed surrounded by people, but he seemed to be holding his own. I said to him, “Praise God for your safety, Abuna. Welcome to Baghdad.”

He said, “May it be God’s will.”

Dr. Michael stood up to introduce me and my husband to him. I asked if there was something I could do.

Father Hydra said, “Thanks, my daughter. The doctors are all around us and God is the Healer.”

Tante Violette said, “Are you going to the office now?”

I said, “Yes. I have to send the news to Egypt right away.”

She said, addressing Hatim, “You’ll let her go just like that? You’re a man with a strong heart!”

Hatim said, “People in Egypt are very worried now. Publishing the names of the casualties will calm their anxiety. This is her job and her mission.”

We left quickly. Hatim went home and I went to the office accompanied by Dr. Michael and his wife. I found Hilmi Amin waiting. I asked him, “Should I tell the Egyptian News Agency the news as I have verified it or send it to
al-Zahra
and have the scoop?”

He said, “Humanitarian considerations are more important than a scoop, Nora. I contacted the ambassador a short while ago and told him you’d get the information. He has a representative from the embassy who’s on his way to the hospital right now. Come, let’s dictate the story to the embassy and the Egyptian News Agency, then send our detailed report to the magazine by ticker, and afterward I’ll take you home.”

In the morning I found him sitting with Dr. Michael and his family and some youth next to the bed of Father Hydra, who was
cutting up a round bread roll and distributing the pieces to those around him. I sat on a chair in front of him. He gave each of those present a piece of bread until only the heart of it was left. He gave it to me smiling in joy, saying, “Here, daughter, you deserve the heart. We found out that you’ve sent the names to Egypt and reassured them about us.”

I took it from his hand, then returned it to him saying, “Thank you very much, but I am fasting today.”

He said, “Take it and keep it until iftar.”

I said, “Where would I keep it? Here, Amani.”

I was surprised when Tante Violette jumped up in front of her nine-year-old daughter, saying, “You got the heart, Amani! You got the heart!”

The girl smiled and put the piece of bread in her mouth and moved her feet happily as if she were savoring a piece of chocolate. I didn’t understand what was happening. Dr. Michael said, “You’ve won it, Amani. You’ve won it.”

I asked myself, “What exactly have I given up?” I looked at Abuna, whose face grew redder despite all the layers of shining ointments, and said, “Thank you very much.”

“You’re a good Egyptian girl.”

“When will you be discharged, God willing?”

“When the doctors decide. I’d like to get out soon to meet the congregation.”

I said them, “Did you have difficulty worshiping before?”

One of those present said, “The presence of a Coptic priest is important. And it’s happening for the first time here. It is true that the incident has spoiled our joy, but Abuna is now with us here in Baghdad to shepherd his flock and take care of the church, get to know the problems of his parishioners and help them.”

I said, “Here they have Chaldeans, Syriacs, and Assyrians. I think they are somewhat different denominations.”

Abuna said, “The Lord looks after all of us. When the Holy Pope found out the desire of the flock for a priest to come and shepherd
them, he welcomed the idea greatly and his request was granted by the Iraqis.”

I didn’t like what happened and realized that the large crowd that welcomed him at the airport would attract the attention of security and that it wouldn’t end well. The Christian Egyptian situation was different from the Christian Iraqi one, as I understood from their discussions that sometimes took on a mysterious character when I mentioned the relationship between Christians and Muslims in Egypt. I wondered why that was so, because all my life I never felt there was religion-based discrimination in Egypt. We were once sitting at Dr. Michael’s house with a group of friends, most of whom were Christian university professors. The invitation was on the occasion of Tante Fayza’s visit to Baghdad, and for one reason or another someone brought up an incident of a Christian being persecuted in Baghdad. I said, “Thank God we don’t have Muslim persecution of Christians in Egypt. And, as my Iraqi friends tell me, religion is not a big issue here. Perhaps there are more problems between Sunnis and Shia than between Muslims and Christians.”

Amani replied sharply, “And the killing of the Christians in the era of the martyrs, wasn’t that killing by Muslims?”

We all burst out laughing but when the laughter stopped, a gloomy silence took over. The anecdote, joke really, that the girl said, attributed to the Muslims what the Romans did to the Egyptian Christians, several centuries before Islam came on the scene. But it revealed the amount of misinformation that the girl was absorbing, creating a sense of persecution by Muslims of Christians before Islam.

Hilmi Amin said, laughing, “What’s this, Professor? Correct your daughter’s history.”

Dr. Michael said, “Yes. She’s just a child and things got mixed up.”

I left the hospital with Hilmi Amin. I told him about my apprehensions concerning the Christian Egyptians gathering in this manner and what Iraqi security might make of it. He said, “So long as it is a normal religious celebration of an Egyptian priest coming
to Baghdad on religious business, it would be acceptable. But that doesn’t mean that security will be indifferent to it. This is a security state that is extremely sensitive. The important thing for the community is to tread carefully and not get into any trouble.”

I asked, “What kind of trouble?”

“If they just keep to themselves, things will pass. But if they move one step toward Iraqi Christians, security will not let them advance one centimeter.”

I said, “Even in the religious realm?”

He said, “They’ll need to move extremely carefully, with balance and wisdom.”

I said, “What are all these secret spider webs in different societies?”

“In all societies there are different sets of secret webs. One of them is religion. Learn how to observe and analyze what you see so that your journalistic assessments will be correct.”

I said to him, “Sometimes I feel they are hiding something.”

He said, “This is the nature of minorities. They need to stick together to acquire and strengthen group solidarity.”

I said, “But in Egypt they are in the millions. How can they be a minority?”

He said, “Relative to the total population they are.”

I met Father Hydra several times after that, sometimes at Dr. Michael’s house and at other times in our office. We gave him donations of clothes we no longer needed to distribute to the needy in the church. He accepted them happily and told us whenever someone in the congregation needed money or to solve their problems with different branches of the Iraqi state. He was a wise, cultured, and meek man who recognized the humanitarianism of the atheist Hilmi Amin and respected that in him and always prayed for him. He recognized my understanding that all religions were equal. I liked his flexibility. This was my idea of a man of religion.

Iraq announced that the perpetrator of the Baghdad airport explosion was Muhammad Hasan Sheltagh, a man of Syrian origin, and that he had placed an explosive device in a suitcase.
The perpetrator appeared on Iraqi television exhibiting signs of fear and confusion and confessed to all details of the operation. He said that he was put up to it by the Syrian regime and that they had planned it to coincide with the hajj season to guarantee the highest number of casualties. Both television and radio kept broadcasting the confession, and interrupted different programs and movies to rebroadcast it.

April 1977

A Visit

We received news of mass roundups of leftists in Egypt. Hilmi Amin was afraid of being prevented from leaving Egypt on his return or that he would be arrested if he took the bureau press material to Cairo as usual. Large clouds of uncertainty hung over the office, dispelling its usual optimistic atmosphere. I was suffering from being separated from Yasir, but tried to hide my pain so that Hatim would not remember that he forced me to leave my son behind or remind Hilmi Amin of his inability to go to Cairo. I woke up filled with anxiety and preferred not to speak. Hatim asked me what the matter was and I said, “Nothing.” I went to work, moving around in silence. And even though it’s been months since I came back from Egypt, I still had not adjusted to my separation from my son. I was surprised to see Hilmi Amin standing before me while my tears were running freely down my cheeks and I held a picture of Yasir. He said, “Go to Cairo.”

“It’s been only a few months since I returned. I cannot ask Hatim to pay for a ticket so soon.”

“Go on a business trip for the bureau. I usually carried our features, reports, and ads to submit to the bosses at the magazine. The bureau will pay your fare to do that for me.”

He fell silent as I impatiently awaited his next sentence. He said, “Ask Mahmoud Muwafi about the circumstances of arrest of journalists or leftists. At least we would understand the news we’ve been getting.”

I said anxiously, “Is this true? Do you really agree to my going to Cairo?”

He said, “Of course it is true. When have I ever told you something that wasn’t true?”

I said, “You are the sweetest Hilmi Amin in the whole the world. When do I leave?”

He said, “Tomorrow, if you like.”

I went home in a totally different mood, jumping for joy and singing songs of happy return and warm and affectionate reunions. I told Hatim and he said that I was lucky, going back to Yasir and leaving poor Hatim behind, all alone. I said, “I’d only be gone for one week. I’ll book a ticket tomorrow on the first flight.”

As soon as I arrived in Cairo I traveled to Yasir in Maghagha. On the way I was assailed by apprehensions: What if he didn’t recognize me? I had left him several months ago, still a baby. He would have gotten used to his grandmother and his aunts. That would be too much to bear.

I saw in front of me a small child, with a brown complexion, smiling. He looked closely at me with mischievous eyes as I embraced his grandmother, eager to hold him tightly close to my heart. I was afraid to scare him away. I kissed him. He laughed. I carried him. He looked at me with inquisitive but unafraid eyes. I sat, still carrying him, and took out of my bag a toy space ship. I placed it on the floor and moved it. Its top was lit and projected a picture of moons and stars making crackling sounds. I let him get off my lap and stop in front of the toy until it stopped moving completely. He turned it on again as he moved the rug away from its path. He had figured out that it would turn quicker on the tiles. He called out to his aunt to watch his new toy.

I took a fire truck from the bag and placed it in front of the spaceship. I extended the moving ladder and took down the water hoses and asked his aunt to fill the reservoir with water.

He stood, puzzled and asked me, “I tate it?”

“Yes.”

“I tate one.”

His aunt asked him, “What’s your name? What does your father do?”

He said, “Yasil Hatim. Daddy chanic gineer.”

She said, “What does mama do?”

He said, “Ja nist, ha ha ha.”

He bowed his head as he played with the fire truck hose and looked at me slyly.

His aunt said, “Where are they?”

“Badad,” he said.

I carried him and took him back to Cairo. We took with us his young nanny, Nadia, with whom he played at his grandparents’ house. He didn’t object. He got into the car with me, telling me about his friends, and then slept in my arms the whole way to Cairo. When we arrived, he ran toward his grandmother, into her open arms. He played in the house, which he seemed to know quite well. My mother told me that she brought him to Cairo every so often to see the doctor. He ate while playing until nightfall. Suddenly he seemed to remember something and began looking for his aunt. I told him that she would come after two days. He went back to playing, then he looked at me with an unspoken question in his eyes and shouted in a soft voice that hit me right in the stomach: “Natia, Naaatia.”

I carried him. He began taking turns looking at me and at Nadia. Then he kept moving from my arms to her arms then mine again saying, “Mama,” then “Natia,” his tears flowing down his face until he fell asleep.

In the morning I went to the magazine offices. I turned in the material to Sabri Hanafi and told him about Hilmi Amin’s suspicions and apprehensions. He said, “These are very strange ideas. Where does Hilmi always get these suspicions from?”