Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (27 page)

I said, “The market is this way.”

We walked in a street that resembled Muski Street in Cairo, chock full of people and goods, tiny stores selling clothes and soda pop and cakes and milk and Iraqi-style grilled meats: liver, heart, and other meats which they call mi‘laj. Fahmi Kamil’s voice rose as we were avoiding bumping against people, “This is the dirtiest place on earth. It’s ignorance and backwardness. It’s filthy!”

We didn’t comment on what he was saying. I followed him in silence. He was moving as if he were whirling around, semi-dazed, and it seemed his head was in a different world. He looked around, taking in the details of the scene, seeing the stagnant pools of water on the ground and looked more annoyed. He kept shifting his gaze from face to face and showing extreme disgust, then slowing his steps as if to capture the full picture in his mind. I followed him in shock. I wanted to defend the place I loved, not because of the mosque’s unique architectural style or the artistry displayed in its decorations, but because of its simple people who reminded me of the inhabitants of Sayyida Zaynab, al-Husayn, and all the poor neighborhoods in Cairo. I kept asking myself: Where did the unjustified hate come from?

I followed them from street to street without saying anything until we got back to the hotel. I took my leave to go home and told the bureau director that I’d be going to the session of the conference on my own. I began to think of the act of deception of which I was a victim when I imagined that I could get a clue about his personality. The mental image I had of him was quite different from what I saw up close. I was not enthusiastic about accompanying him anywhere in Baghdad. I told Hilmi Amin how much I resented the opinions of our guest. He said, “A novelist likes to check the details of places as well as people because he needs those details later when he writes.”

I said, “Be that as it may, the image I had of him was the product of my imagination alone.”

I got busy with the guests of the conference and the participants. I wrote short features that I submitted to
al-Mar’a
magazine. I asked myself whether I also would go out to that vast expansive world. There was a Mexican woman editor in chief who had not married and a German woman, happily married with children. All of these women were focused on their goals, successful and selfassured. I wondered when I could bring Yasir over from Egypt and live like normal mothers. My tears welled up.

And here I was coming back to Imam Musa al-Kazim’s final abode, visiting it with the guests as if I were a stranger to the place. That meeting resulted in my not being appointed to
al-Zahra
magazine. When circumstances changed and Fahmi Kamil was forced out of his post as editor in chief, Musa Shafi‘, the new editor in chief, demanded that I leave Baghdad and come back to Egypt to prove my allegiances, as he put it. When I asked him, “Allegiance to whom?” He said, “To Sadat.” I said, “My allegiance is to Egypt and not to Sadat and my husband’s contract in Iraq is not over. I will not divide my family. When he goes back, I’ll go with him.”

I turned to Layla, our escort, who was asking me, “Why are you hiding in the back? Are you tired?”

I said, “No, I wouldn’t miss a visit to al-Kazim.”

We went into the large open space in front of the mosque. We split into several groups to put on the abayas that we borrowed from neighboring stores. I stood with scholars from the Soviet Union and India. Anisa in her Pakistani-style dress came and stood with me. She wrapped her arm around my waist and said, “This style is unique!”

We entered the mosque together. I saw Iraqi women crying as they held on to the gilded bars around the mausoleum. A policeman came and chastised them. One woman fell to the floor, crying for her martyred son. The policeman said, “What are you doing, woman? Go. Go home.”

A girl held the hand of the grieving mother, saying, “Come on home, grandma. Please, let us go.” The mother sat on the floor, oblivious to all that was happening around her, wailing for her son, the apple of her eye.

My tears poured out. Anisa asked me what the woman was saying. I said, “The policeman wants to move her away from the mausoleum. She is crying for her son, the martyr, and complaining to Imam al-Kazim.”

We all cried copious tears. Layla said, “The president does not approve of anyone crying over a martyr or receiving condolences for him. Martyrs belong to the homeland.”

In my heart I cursed all the dictatorships of the world and I went out sobbing, wishing I could disappear. I heard a voice saying, “Nora, aren’t you coming with us?” It was Siham Fathi calling me. Rajaa hugged me, saying, “I didn’t know you were that fragile.”

I remembered Hilmi Amin saying, “The poor look upon these shrines as the abode of leaders for justice.” Where are you, Hilmi? Why did you leave us so soon?

We strolled about and Anisa looked around. Jon came and held her hand. Mona Abed laughed and said, “Look at the love birds!”

Anisa did not understand the Arabic expression but she figured out what it meant and her face lit up with a big smile. We all stopped crying. Jon, the cameraman who came with a television crew from Norway, and who fell in love with Anisa the moment he saw her at the conference, accompanied us to a jewelry store. There he bought a piece of jewelry called chaff al-Abbas, which was a palm of a hand sculpted in the shape of a plant called afs or gall apples with a bead in the middle. He put it on a chain and placed it around her neck as we applauded. A beautiful feeling enveloped all of us even though none of us asked where that relationship would take them. I don’t think they worried about that. They both let their feelings carry them far. I chose a piece of cloth wrapped in gold threads. I wanted to ask the salesman if it were a Shi‘i symbol, but I didn’t ask and wore it around my neck. The night had fallen quickly but it didn’t stop us from
continuing our strolling in that neighborhood overcrowded with people and life. We went back to the buses that took us to the hotel.

I pressed the voicemail button and found a message from Basyuni in which he said he would come and meet me at the Sheraton in Basra. I felt relieved. I also found a message from Maha telling me when she would be at home. I called her right away before getting ready to go to dinner at the home of Fuad al-Tekarli, my friend, the famous Iraqi writer.

Maha said, “Congratulations, Nora. I heard you had a new baby: what did you name him?”

I said, “Haytham. May it be your turn next, or is there a crown prince I didn’t know about?”

She said, “No. It’s on hold. We are postponing having babies until I finish school. Fathallah set our goals a long time ago, as you know. And we are here all by ourselves and no one from my family or his family can come to Iraq to help us. Maybe after the war is over we’d reconsider. Unfortunately I tried to arrange for some time off during the graduation project but I couldn’t. But Fathallah will come and see you, God willing. Did you see what happened to Hilmi Amin?”

“Yes. Where are Abd al-Rahim and Suhayla and Atef? Do you still visit with them?”

“Of course, but circumstances have changed since you left and then there is the war. Sawsan went back to Egypt but Dahlia is still here. I don’t see her much. And Ragya, you know what happened. I’ll call you every day.”

I called my house in Cairo. It rang and rang and no one answered. Where could they have gone? I called again and I got the busy signal. I called the operator and she said, “The line to Cairo is not working for the second day in a row.”

I emptied my breasts and took a bath. Then the telephone rang and a woman with a sweet voice said I had guests, Engineer Atef.

I said, “Please say hello to them for me and tell them I am on my way.”

I found Atef together with Suhayla and Abd al-Rahim with their two sons, Ali and Omar. I said, laughing, “There is not one family in Iraq that would name their sons ‘Ali’ and ‘Omar.’ It is only because the father is an Egyptian Sunni and the mother is an Iraqi Shi‘ite.”

Sunhayla said, “Many of my Shi‘ite women friends are married to Sunni men. There’s also intermarriage involving Kurdish women and Arab men, even though that is more rare, but the phenomenon is on the rise, especially after the education of girls.”

I asked them how things were and Atef said, “Sawsan is thinking of coming back to Baghdad after the end of the school year so she can transfer the two girls to an Iraqi school.”

Abd al-Rahim said, “Iraq has changed a lot, Nora. The pride is gone. They now feel that they have gotten embroiled in a messy situation. And even though development programs are all up and running, the joy of achievement has faded and people are going through a very sad period.”

I said, “This is exactly what I’ve noticed.”

We talked a long time about everyday details and avoided forbidden subjects. We didn’t even mention his name. None of us dared. I saw Fuad al-Tekarli and waved to him. I introduced him to them. They took their leave so I could go with him and promised me another visit. Abd al-Rahim asked me in a soft voice, “Do you know what happened?”

I said, “Yes. Were you with him?”

Atef said, “Until the last minute, the night before he left for France.”

I said, “Do you have any news about Anhar?”

Abd al-Rahim said, “Absolutely nothing.”

I saw them off with the hope that we’d get together one more time before I went back to Cairo. I gave them my schedule as far as I knew it at the time and went with Fuad al-Tekarli.

His wife, the Tunisian translator Rashida, apologized for the tightness of the apartment, saying, “We left the big house to Fuad’s sons from his first wife, God have mercy on her soul.”

It was the first time for me to visit an Iraqi in an apartment. Iraqis were used to living in houses surrounded by gardens so that they would be able to sleep on the roof during the summer. Rashida had translated his famous novel
The Long Way Back
into French; then she married him. It is one of the best Iraqi novels and the one I loved the most. He had told me before that he had written it in eighteen years. But I was puzzled by a question which occurred to me every time I met him: Why was he not arrested even though he made the protagonist of his novel a Ba‘thist who was the embodiment of corruption in the whole work? The novel was a resounding success all over the Arab world and we all feared that he would be detained or at least fired from his post as a distinguished judge. He came and sat by my side. He was gentle and polite as usual. I asked him if he had an explanation.

He said, “I don’t know. All the writers and intellectuals throughout Iraq asked the same question. After the novel came out I realized they were sending a young man to me every day to make sure I was still functioning as a judge. I noticed them without anyone saying anything, of course. I think they preferred silence to publicity, otherwise the novel would be more widely circulated if they arrested me. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Rashida happily hovered around us. She was beautiful, younger, and very much in love with him. A few friends joined the dinner party. After we ate, Jad Ibrahim Jad, the Palestinian author, told me, “Nora, I used your two books about the Egyptian peasants in al-Khalsa in my documentary about the village.”

I asked him, “Did you mention in the credits that the material relied on my books?”

He said, “To tell you the truth: no.”

Then he turned and spoke to the Palestinian artist Latifa Yusuf about something else, as if there was nothing to it. I was so shocked by what he had done to me and my work that I lost that warm feeling of affection that I had felt throughout the evening.

Latifa, laughing said, “Congratulations, Nora, Ustaz Jad admires your work very much.”

I smiled but couldn’t reply. I had told him when I first met him at the Dar al-Salam Hotel that I loved his novel
In Search of Wa’il Mursi
. He asked me, “Are you not the one who writes about Egyptian peasants?”

I said, “Yes. And my book about them will come out soon.”

I presented him with a copy when it came out, then gave him my second book, which chronicled their experiment over four years. I met him in Cairo and in other capitals and I presented him with my stories and novels, and I never thought he could do that to me.

I went into my room on my third night in Baghdad extremely exhausted and feeling very bitter about what Jad Ibrahim Jad, whom I loved and respected, had done to me. I just didn’t understand it. I turned on the television. The president, in uniform as commander in chief, appeared, meeting a Bedouin clan in the desert and thanking their sons for volunteering in the war before their conscription age. He said, “They should finish school and God will provide.”

I changed the channel. I head a singer singing a silly song. I looked for lively Iraqi music with strong brass instruments but could not find any. The news came on, including segments on the conference. I changed the channel looking for Iraqi dabka dance music. I remembered a Kurdish folklore troupe and how I danced with them in the mountains several years ago. Tears came to my eyes. Oh, Baghdad!

Then there was a song listing the ninety-nine good names of the president. I turned the television off and turned on the music channel. A plaintive Iraqi mawwal tugged at my heart:

Woe is me! Woe is me! Woe is me!

I say as a dove was cooing near me,

I beseech you in the name of love

To spare me the calamity of separation!

You’re unjust even when fate wants to be fair.

Please, come!

I don’t like this hotel. There’s something not quite right with it, something uncomfortable. Maybe it is too sharply defined, with obvious lines, with nothing to interrupt the symmetry, lacking a touch, a smudge of art. It represents itself as a luxury waiting for a missing human touch. I don’t find enjoyment in cold beauty. I’ve become quite adept at the quick rhythm of conferences in Baghdad and the care shown the guests. In the evening, friends, male and female, come. Time is never enough to reminisce about our shared memories. But the women did not waste a lot of time. They spilled their guts about loss in a painful session of confessions.