Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (30 page)

I said, “Where is Saddam Hussein in this arrangement?”

Abu Khalid smiled and said nothing. I turned toward Anhar but she also did not say anything, nor did Hilmi Amin. I said, “I imagine that al-Bakr is grooming Saddam to succeed him and that this is about to take place, since Saddam is his nephew and al-Bakr’s health is not at its best, and that is why Saddam does almost everything, which means that all the actual strings of power are in his hands.”

Abu Khalid and Anhar both laughed and Anhar said, “Saddam Hussein is not al-Bakr’s nephew, but rather he is the nephew of Khayrallah Telfah, father of his wife, Sajida. But Saddam and al-Bakr are from the same al-Bejat clan.”

Abu Khalid said, “The question of preparing to transfer authority to Saddam is a matter that nobody knows anything about. Besides, I would like to suggest, Sitt Nora, Umm Yasir, that you slow down a little and keep your opinions and your guesses to yourself, for such an opinion can send you at any time to Abu Ghraib.”

Anhar heaved a long and sad sigh and said, “That is quite true.”

I said, “I am an Egyptian journalist and analyzing the news that I get is very important.”

Hilmi Amin said, “Nora’s work in the bureau is to cover the arts and write features on social matters. I thank you. We understand what you want to tell us and I am sure that Nora now has a clearer picture. My aim behind this conversation was to help her because she has exerted a great effort in writing a report, which was quite sufficient until the talks about unity started and it became necessary to know the rest of the details, because we would like, as a news organization, to cover the region and we did not want to make any mistakes, even by chance.”

I said, “I am optimistic. Iraq is making progress and there is a surplus in the balance of payments. A coalition front is in power and citizens have begun to feel the flow of oil revenue affecting their lives positively. My first observation in the Iraqi street is the disappearance of long lines in Orosdi Bak to buy china or tea glasses. Now I can buy a lot of vegetables and fruits from the market instead of just okra and eggplant in the summer and spinach and cabbage in the winter. I have even found grapes in the market in the dead of winter.”

Abu Khalid said, “This is true and, God willing, all good will come to all of Iraq and also Syria.”

Anhar said, “Yes, if God wills it.”

I said, “If this union works out, the whole region will lift off like a rocket.”

Abu Khalid got up to take his leave on the promise of a meeting soon, after Hilmi Amin comes back from Damascus bringing with him a bottle of Syrian araq. Hilmi Amin closed the door after him
and came back directly to me, saying angrily, “Are you crazy? How could you ask the man such a question?”

I said in alarm, “What question?”

He said, “Anhar, wait in my office until I call you and please close the door.” Then he turned to me, “About Saddam Hussein’s position in the unified party.”

I said, “It occurred to me that this new arrangement would not appeal to Saddam Hussein because it would set him back and place Hafez al-Assad ahead of him.”

He said, “This is obvious to all of us, Sitt Nora, but he cannot say something like that here. It might cost him his life. He is an Iraqi communist, and even though Iraq is ruled by a front of which the Communist Party is a part, this does not mean that communists are safe at all, in a country where a coup and killing can take place in no time at all. And even though Saddam Hussein seems to bless the unity, we don’t know exactly what al-Bakr has promised him and how the party would be restructured. We don’t know anything about the relationship among the Iraq regional command or the relationship between them and members of the national command, nor what the coming days will reveal about those vying for power or about rapprochements that nobody anticipated. Abu Khalid, like any Iraqi, would never talk about such matters even if he trusted us. He would not trust a place in which he is sure Iraqi intelligence has planted bugs whose recordings would be used against him later. Nora, please, I want you to come out of this meeting much more cautious than before and not to ask any Iraqi about power struggles or relationships, ever, ever, so that you would not jeopardize this bureau. Do you understand? This is an order. Understood?”

I hadn’t expected this kind of anger at all. It seems that, unbeknownst to me, I had entered a danger zone. I said, “Yes, understood. I’ll go now. I wish you a happy trip and don’t forget Rana’s jacket and Yasir’s jacket. I would like a red one.”

I told Anhar that I’d see her the following day at the Agency to review our work. I went out to the street. I stopped at the market. I
couldn’t believe my eyes: fruits and vegetables of summer and winter side by side. I went into a narrow street crowded with horse-and mule-drawn carriages. I saw tubers that looked like potatoes but they were thin and not straight. I turned some over with my hands. An Assyrian woman said, “Take it. It’s more tasty than meat.”

I said, “Thank you. We don’t know it in Egypt, but I’ll try it.”

I heard a noise behind me. I saw a car trying to go through the narrow street and another one standing in front of it, not allowing it to pass. The two drivers exchanged insults and one of them got out of his car and grabbed the door of the other one, trying to open it by force.

“What do you want, sister-fucker?”

“Me? Me a sister-fucker, you filthy lowlife? I swear by my family I’ll kill you!”

The exchanged insults grew louder and passersby, men and women, tried to stop the fighting. A man shouted, “The police, the police!” Each of the drivers jumped back in his car. One car backed off quickly and the other car followed as the vegetable carts made way for them and both cars were able to get through. Before the policeman arrived on the scene, men and women had resumed selling and buying. I felt a need for some cold water. A vendor said, “Egyptian oranges, Egyptian lady.”

I said, “Really? Give me five kilos.”

I carried the oranges happily but I was still shaken by Hilmi Amin’s panic. I went home and on my way through the market I was hoping to hear Cairo vendors hawking their merchandise: “Sweet oranges! Baladi oranges! Blood oranges for juice!”

I will never understand the Iraqis, even if I stayed here for years. Even Arabic words had different psychological connotations for them from what they had for someone like me. Words that had something to do with violence were not used for the same meaning in our Egyptian dialect. Several situations came to mind bringing home that difference. I was once sitting with my neighbor Umm Safaa in the garden of my house in al-Shurta neighborhood soon after my
arrival in Iraq. Her daughter was playing nearby. The girl, Safaa, said, “I want to slaughter the apple.” Umm Safaa picked up the knife and cut up the apple. I asked her, “Why does she say ‘slaughter?’”

She said as she pointed to the slices, “She wanted to slaughter it.”

I figured out that that was the common meaning of the word and that she had not invented it. I said, “We say ‘slaughter’ for living things.”

I remembered another scene that took place near the door of my house in Dora. I was opening the garden gate, having come back from the market. Umm Tayih passed by and we stood talking. And while I was playing with her son Mahmoud, she said, “My son was crushed by a car.”

I held on to the gate because of my shock and I asked her, not believing her calm and the matter-of-fact tone of her voice as she told me the news, “How? Where is he now? At home or in the hospital?”

She pointed to the child standing next to her with dirty clothes on and said, “I am not talking about Tayih but Mahmoud, a few minutes ago as I was returning from the bakery. Don’t you see his clothes?”

I looked at the child, who looked safe and sound, playing. I understood from her that a car was passing by and it touched the boy, who then fell to the ground and messed up his clothes. I realized that the meaning of the words was different. I wonder how their daily life acquired these usages. Was it because of the enormity of events in their history? Or was it the other way around?

I went to bed. As I reached for the light switch to turn off the light, I saw Hilmi Amin’s notebook. I looked closely at it, wondering whether I had any right to read it and why it was in my mailbox. Tomorrow I’d decide whether I should go on reading or keep it closed until God decides the matter. Perhaps after visiting the office I will be able to decide one way or another.

Three New Knocks

August, 1977

Rasha Hilmi Amin

As we took a walk through Abu Nuwas Street, Hatim said, commenting on my merry mood, “I didn’t imagine that Hilmi Amin’s daughters’ visit would cheer you up like that.”

I said, “They are girls: one my own age and another as young as Yasir.”

He said, “This is our favorite restaurant. Let’s go.”

I smiled. I knew that he liked it because of its romantic ambience: soft lights, quiet, and situated on the bank of the Tigris. It reminded us both of Gabalaya Street, close to our house in Zamalek; it was a street for lovers, with its restaurants and several dance halls, and we would spend time there during our engagement. Anhar was sitting with a young Iraqi man in what appeared to be an intimate conversation. He was holding her hand. Hatim started to move in her direction. I told him, “She hasn’t seen us. Let’s go in without disturbing her.” We headed for a table inside. Anhar raised her head and saw us. She moved her hand away and looked confused. We greeted her and went to our table. After a few minutes she left, waving to us.

In the morning I told Hilmi Amin, when he asked me casually about Anhar, that I had seen her yesterday at the Umm al-Jarra
Restaurant. He said, “How? She said she couldn’t come to work yesterday because her mother was not feeling well.”

I realized I had made a mistake. I said to him, “Please don’t tell her anything. She knows you’re busy with your family.”

He asked me, “Who was she with?”

I said, “I don’t know. A group of Iraqi friends.”

I began to blame myself for being so hasty. But I was happy she was falling in love and happy that my suspicions about their relationship proved groundless. I remembered that night in Erbil. Thank God it was a passing affair. Tante Fayza did not need to have a younger rival. Hilmi Amin’s family vacation was coming to an end in a few days and they would be off to Egypt. Hilmi Amin arranged a dinner party at the Ramsis Hotel close to the office and invited all those friends who had invited the family on several occasions during their stay. Rasha sat next to her father. Whenever he ordered a bottle of beer, he poured a little in her glass. Mervat and I noticed that her laughter was getting louder. We tried to have her join us but to no avail.

Mervat said, “Rasha is very attached to father. She acquired many of his cranky traits and nothing from my late mother.”

I said, “Late mother? Then who is Fayza then? Is she your stepmother and Rana’s mother?”

She said, “No. Fayza is my aunt. She came to live with us after mama’s death, especially since mother left Rana before she was one month old.”

I said, “You all call her ‘mama?’”

She said, “My aunt refused to marry after her husband was martyred in 1967. She didn’t have any children of her own, therefore we called her ‘mama,’ and also because she is my mother’s only sister and her only close relative.”

I said, “I don’t know anything about that of course, but I imagined Tante Fayza being so formally dressed all the time was because she was living in the office. It never crossed my mind that she was not his wife. But why has he never told me that his wife had died?
He told me a lot about his life, but never mentioned that. May God make it up to you! Now I understand why he always says ‘sorrow is my mate’ for no reason. I always attributed it to his unsafe life and to jail.”

Mervat said, “Please don’t tell him I told you.”

We heard Rasha laughing as she asked her father, “You love
me
, don’t you?”

He said,“Of course, sweetie.”

I noticed Fayza’s anxious gaze. She placed her hand on Rasha’s shoulder and pressed it hard. Rasha withdrew her shoulder and poured some more beer in her glass.

Mervat came close to my ear and said in a whisper, “Nora, I sense there’s something mysterious between my father and Anhar.”

I was taken aback by the remark, but I said, “No, you shouldn’t think that. She is a good journalist and she helps us understand the complexities of Iraqi society. She is also engaged to her cousin.”

Mervat said, “I know. It’s just a feeling. We want him to marry Tante Fayza.”

I said, “Quit feeling and behave.”

Mervat said in a loud voice, which was heard by Anhar, mimicking a famous scene in a classic Egyptian movie, “Ay, my tooth is hurting!”

I said, carrying on the dialogue from the movie, “You should stop eating ice cream and wearing out men’s hearts!”

Anhar said, still playing the game but with an Iraqi accent, “Are you a spiritual doctor, sir?”

I commented on her confusion of accents and Mervat said, “The best thing I can do is extract all my teeth like father and put on dentures. That’s much better than daily pain at the dentist’s office,” mimicking an old man’s pronunciation.

I looked at the bureau director and found him engrossed in a conversation with Tante Violette. I looked closely at Mervat and found a sly, smiling look in her eyes. I said to Anhar, having noticed that her face had acquired a pallid look which I believe Mervat also
noticed: “Thank God, my teeth are good even though my wisdom tooth is reluctant to come out and is giving me a hard time.”

Tante Fayza said, “The wisdom should come first.”

I was surprised when Hatim said, “It is there, in abundance.”

I said in a soft voice to myself, “He should’ve ignored it.”

Mervat said, “Papa, watch out. Rasha is drunk.”

Hilmi said, “Have no fear. The fresh air outside will do her wonders and she’ll be all right. A little mirth does no harm.”

I told him, “You promised to let the girls come with me.”

“Okay, but it is difficult for Rana to leave Fayza.”