Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (20 page)

I met Fahmi Kamil on my way out. I extended my hand to shake his. He extended his with unmistakable coldness. Sabri Hanafi said, “This is Nora. Don’t you recognize her?”

He said, “Yes.”

I went home and called Mahmoud Muwafi and asked to meet him since I didn’t find him at the magazine in the morning. He invited me to his house. I called Tante Fayza and told her that I was carrying gifts for them sent by Ustaz Hilmi Amin and I conveyed to her Hilmi’s apprehensions and my coming visit to Mahmoud Muwafi. She told me that she’d go with me. I found her in front of the apartment building, getting out of a cab. I noticed a deceptive, classy beauty that made her look in her late thirties rather than in her mid-forties. She looked very Egyptian with her big, honey-colored eyes and her light brown hair that cascaded smoothly onto her shoulders. She was well dressed in a simple manner that was pronouncedly different from Hilmi’s appearance. Her style told me she had been keeping up with fashions for a long time. I compared her attire with that of Hilmi and asked myself, “Why hadn’t her taste rubbed off on him?”

A young maid ushered us into the salon and after a short while Mahmoud Muwafi, very tall and jovial, came in. He greeted Tante Fayza warmly, an indication that the two of them had known each other for a long time. Then he said, “We did not expect all this success so fast. It seems you have spread very widely in Iraqi newspapers and that is why we are investigating the possibility of expanding our bureau outside Egypt and opening new ones.”

He added, “I told Hilmi Amin when he asked me about you that all those you’ve worked with encouraged your joining the bureau and that you’re a good journalist.”

I said, “Ustaz Hilmi Amin has mentored several generations and he is taking good care of me. He is working around the clock. I leave him in the afternoon and the following morning I find that he’s finished other tasks, which means that the bureau is open twenty-four hours a day, as if it were a news agency and not a press bureau.”

He said, “That’s the Hilmi Amin I know. He wants to transform the bureau into a central bureau for the whole Middle East, and he is right, the region needs and can support such an expansion and
the Iraqi experience deserves close coverage. What you are doing is indeed extremely important.”

I asked him directly, “Can Hilmi Amin come to Cairo without risk of being arrested or banned from traveling?”

He was astonished. “Why would he be arrested?”

I said, “In Baghdad there is a rumor about interrogating communists on trumped-up charges.”

Mahmoud’s wife, Buthayna Amer, came in carrying glasses of juice. Before serving us she called out to her son angrily and asked him, “Where did this briefcase come from?”

The boy said, “It belongs to our neighbor.”

“Take it to them,” she said. I saw it there. It was the same black leather Samsonite briefcase. I didn’t understand why Buthayna was asking about it.

She went on to say, “I am sorry. A state security officer is living next door and I am always suspicious of their things.”

Mahmoud said, “Reassure Hilmi that there are no problems with his coming to visit Cairo.”

Tante Fayza said, “His coming here is a lot easier than our going to him in Baghdad. The tickets are costly and the girls are in school and the trip is hard. At least when he comes to Cairo, he can get some fresh air and get out of Baghdad’s stifling atmosphere and get some rest. Besides, as a journalist he gets fifty percent discount on his airfare.”

Mahmoud said, “He should come to Cairo so we can see him.”

I thanked him and we left. When we got into the taxi, Tante Fayza said to me, “I was uncomfortable about that briefcase.”

I said, “What briefcase?”

“The one that belongs to the neighbors,” she said.

I said, “I don’t believe it. Mahmoud Muwafi is one of the most important patriotic journalists.”

“He may have been forced to do it. Tell Hilmi to wait a little. Tell him everything that took place. He’ll understand. He must get his information some other way.”

I tried to make sense of the whole situation but got lost. I said to Tante Fayza, “I don’t understand anything. What has Hilmi Amin done against the Egyptian government while he is working abroad to get him arrested?”

She said, “When the roundup begins, they won’t care whether he is in Egypt or India. They have a list which they go through indiscriminately. They call them protective campaigns. And sometimes they make up charges of belonging to organizations working to topple the regime. But, on the whole, Sadat has not opened the door to detentions.”

I said, “God preserve us!”

She said, “Take care of yourself, Nora. Stick to your journalistic work only.”

I said, “I defend my opinion any way I can and working in journalism gives me an opportunity.”

She said, “He never settled down in his life, always under threat, no matter which government. Baghdad came as a respite, where he can get some peace of mind and a little increase in his income to help in Mervat’s marriage expenses.”

I got out of the taxi in Tahrir Square to buy a few things from downtown and left Tante Fayza to continue on to her house after she promised me a visit with the girls. I said to myself as I crossed the road in front of Issaivitch Café, where the intellectuals sat, that Tante Fayza had learned caution from Ustaz Hilmi. They are both a little crazy, right? Why all this fear? What is this strange world I find myself in? But, as the Egyptians say, “One who is burned by the soup blows on his yogurt.” The specter of prison was still too vivid before their eyes, and raising children in the absence of the breadwinner was an experience they would never forget.

I spent my time between the magazine and home. I tried to spend most of the time with my son, cursing the world and the circumstances that made me leave him. I took him to the doctor. He was suffering a severe skin allergy. He changed his medication but refused to let him go back with me to Baghdad.

I went out of the doctor’s office crying. I booked a return ticket, asking myself about the losses we were both incurring because of my work in Baghdad and my inability to take him there or stay with him. On the eve of my return, I took him back to his grandmother in Maghagha. I said to him, “Papa Hatim and I love you very much.”

He said, “I know.”

I ran outside, into the street. I spent a sleepless night as my mother tried to ask me in jest about my neighbor in Dora in Baghdad, Sabah, saying, “You’ve finally found someone to teach you to be careful and cautious.”

I went back to Baghdad, to the city that I loved and knew perhaps better than Cairo where I was born. I returned with a wound in my heart that I knew only work would keep my mind from dwelling on: being away from my son, Yasir. I found that Hatim had hidden little, tender gifts for me everywhere: in flower vases, with the toothbrush, and in the sugar container. In the morning I took the food that Tante Fayza and the girls had sent with me to the office. I found that in my absence Hilmi Amin had been very active, that he had put together an exhibition for three Iraqi painters in al-Khalsa village in collaboration with
Sawt al-Fallah
(Voice of the Peasant). Now we had a home in Iraq to which we could invite Iraqis.

Hilmi Amin was surprised at Sabri Hanafi’s opinion, saying, “Sabri has always been wrong in his assessments. How did you leave things with the chairman of the board?”

I said, “I asked his secretary to set up an appointment with him. A week later she asked me to call him at home because he was sick. When I explained to him my circumstance and the way I’ve been appointed in the magazine, which was not yet official, he said, ‘Go back to Baghdad and the matter will be brought up before the editorial board next week.’”

Hilmi Amin said, “And why didn’t you wait until next week?”

I said, “My leave was finished and I didn’t want to appear irresponsible to you. My presence or absence would not influence their decision, anyway. Besides, the material on the al-Khalsa book is
almost complete and I want to go to the village tomorrow to meet the movie crew members.”

He said, “What’s the latest news from Cairo?”

I put a cassette tape of Ahmad Adawiya in the recorder, letting him judge for himself. The recording was a song everyone agreed was vulgar and in poor taste but which was playing everywhere.

December 1977

Ustaz Gamal

I sat down writing a piece after Ustaz Hilmi went out with Anhar and Abu Ghayib finished cleaning the place. I heard the bell ring. I didn’t expect them back so soon. I found an extremely tall young Egyptian man. He said, “Is Ustaz Gamal there?”

I thought I had seen him before but I didn’t know where. I said, “Who’s Gamal? We don’t have anyone by that name.”

He said, “Hilmi. Hilmi Amin?”

I said, “No, he’s not here. Who’s this Gamal you were asking about?” He said, “Nobody. When does he come back?”

I said, “In the afternoon, after five. And who are you, sir?”

He said, “I am Fawzi al-Meligi. He knows me.”

I said, “Would you like to leave a telephone number?”

He said, “No. I’ll pass by.”

When Hilmi Amin came back, I told him about Fawzi al-Meligi’s visit and asked him, “Who was this Gamal?”

He fell silent and started lighting a cigarette and said, “This was my code name in HADITU, before July 1952. Give me a detailed description.”

I said, “He had black hair, and a fair complexion. I didn’t feel comfortable looking at his face and he was extremely tall.”

Hilmi Amin’s voice suddenly got louder and spoke very fast and angrily, “I don’t know anyone fitting that description. Did you let him into the office? I told you before: it is forbidden for anyone to enter the offices in my absence. Where was Abu Ghayib? Did he see him?”

I said, “I told you I did not let him in. Abu Ghayib was running errands for the tenants. I also said that I didn’t feel comfortable with his being there. I don’t understand why you are angry, even though I haven’t given you cause.”

I went back to my desk and sat to write my feature without saying anything more. Anhar sat, silent, her face pallid, pretending to read a magazine.

Hilmi Amin left the room. I heard some noise in the kitchen. He came back a little later holding a glass of coffee. I noticed a change in his tone when he said, “I am sorry, Nora. You know that Sadat has decided to finish us off. Wherever we are, we are targeted for assassination.”

I said, “I don’t know. I don’t understand why Sadat would assassinate the Egyptian left. He might put them in jail. Yes. But, assassinate them? Why? Does the left represent such a threat to the Egyptian government that he would send an agent to assassinate a journalist, admittedly a communist journalist, working in another country? Or is there something I don’t know that would make this action seem natural?”

He said, “You know everything about me. These rulers are power crazy. They don’t understand the meaning of patriotic opposition. They have become so vain and arrogant that they don’t accept the existence of a single opposition figure objecting to what they do. And, as you know, the man has gone crazy.”

I said, “He is not Idi Amin and Egypt is not Uganda. Up till now he has been applying the law. There are no more political detainees or detention centers in Egypt. There are people charged with political crimes. He is just a weak ruler who cannot compete with Abdel Nasser’s charisma or people’s love of him, and he cannot fill
the vacuum after him. So, he has had to take a different path, perhaps the opposite path to get people’s attention, because he cannot play the same role. He figured it out his own way and came to the conclusion that the United States was the winning horse; so, why not ally himself with it and carry out its plans in the region? As for assassinations, I don’t think so, because he can change the region with his cunning underhanded methods without appearing before the world as someone who kills the opposition, but as a man of peace instead.”

He said, “Your experience with this secret world and with relations with third-world dictatorships is very weak. I hope I am wrong and that you are right.”

I said, “Maybe you should rest a little and we can discuss this tomorrow.”

Anhar said suddenly, “I don’t trust rulers. All Arab rulers. They can liquidate anyone with a dead heart, drag him to death if they want to, or dissolve him in acid to make him vanish forever.”

I said, “Egypt is not Iraq.”

Hilmi said, “True. Egypt is not Iraq, but times are different now and conflict has become unavoidable.”

I said, “That’s not necessary in your case, because you don’t represent a real or great threat. I’m not going to repeat it; when things calm down we can talk matters over together.”

Anhar said, “If the bureau stopped working, as you tell us from time to time, and you end up in exile and pursued even here in Baghdad, would you think of leaving for Europe? And which would be safer for you?”

Hilmi said, “If the circumstances here are good, I’ll open a press agency and get an unpaid leave from the magazine. In that case we can expand, because we would be a private agency and Iraq would welcome such a set-up. And here the situation will be more secure because it is close to Beirut and Yemen and is part of the homeland. My life here is not a real exile.” Then he went on to say, “To be perfectly honest, I would not be able to bear being in a country
which speaks a different language and has different customs and traditions. Europe, for me, would be another prison.”

I said, “And if you ascertain that here is not safe?”

He said, “I’ll take my chances. I might go to Yemen, but not to Europe, because if Sadat decides to assassinate the opposition, he’ll get us no matter what.”

Anhar said coquettishly, “I’d prefer to go to Paris. More freedom there.”

I said, “Paris or Brazil?”

She said, “Brazil has to do with work. I have a friend who works at a news agency there and he tells me that jobs are available. It is also far away from the whole Arab world, but Paris, that’s where intellectuals go.”

Anhar stopped speaking suddenly and gave Hilmi Amin a long look full of questions and hope. I felt I was out of place, so I said, “Time to go. See you tomorrow.”