Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (31 page)

Rasha shouted as she jumped up and held her father’s neck, “Thank you. You are the best daddy in the world.”

It was midnight when we left the hotel heading home. We started singing as the car took us through the dark streets. It was a famous Egyptian song in which a young woman was saying to a young man:

Who told you to live in our alley

Capturing my heart and disturbing my peace of mind?

You either find a resolution to our situation

Or move out and leave our alley.

“What do you think, Mimi: should he move out?”

“No, by no means.”

Then we began to sing another funny song, about a woman as she came out of the bath, with cheeks as delicious as peaches, except now someone was saying “oranges” and “watermelons” in addition to peaches.

As the car turned onto our street, Hatim said, “Lower your voices.”

Rasha raised her voice saying, “Peaches, peaches, peaches.”

Mervat said, “We are causing quite a racket.”

We placed our palms on our mouths as we finished the song and sneaked quietly into the house so as not to awaken the neighbors. We helped Rasha climb the stairs since she looked exhausted. Hatim opened the door and turned on the light. Rasha slipped out
of our hands and ran to the balcony door, stretched her braids as far as she could, and screamed, “Aieeee.”

We were dumbfounded, then we came to and ran after her. I held her in my arms, saying, “What’s wrong, darling?”

She stood as if in a daze looking at me with anxious eyes, “Nothing. I am very good. I am better than you all.”

Hatim said, “Take her to change and give her a cup of hot milk.”

She walked between me and Mervat without resistance. Then she placed her hand on my face and stroked it, saying, “I love you, Nora.”

I said, “Of course, darling, and I love you too.”

Then once again she dashed off to the balcony, holding her braids and screaming, “Aieee.”

Mervat cried and said, “What’s wrong, darling? Do you have pain anywhere?”

Rasha looked at her in amazement and asked her sister, “Why are you crying, darling? Are you tired?”

We went to the bedroom and changed her clothes. I went to get the milk. Hatim said, “She drank a lot of beer. He should’ve paid attention to how much he was giving her.”

“I thought she was used to it with him. I think she was taking more from his bottle when he was busy with his guests.”

“The Iraqi beer is much stronger than Egyptian beer. She’ll sleep right away.”

“My God, her voice travels far in the quiet night and the neighbors can hear it even though our house is surrounded with gardens on all sides.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll think you are having labor pains.”

“What labor! They see me every day and know I’m not pregnant.”

“They’re used to it. Iraqi women give birth every day.”

“Don’t be unfair to them. Your own mother has kept giving birth until the day before yesterday.”

“Because my father was quite a man! Don’t you want a baby in nine months?”

“No. In seven months. Let’s hope the morning comes in peace.”

I carried the milk to Rasha. I heard her telling Mervat, “Tomorrow we buy the red blouse from the store near the office.”

Mervat said, “What red blouse?”

Rasha said, “The red blouse. I told you.”

I offered her the milk. She said, “I don’t like it.”

“Drink it for our sake.”

She took a sip, then jumped out of the bed, shouting, “May God ruin you, government.” She jumped in the air. The glass of milk flew out of her hand. She shouted, “Ruin you, government!” She kept jumping and shouting the same thing with every jump. We jumped after her trying to catch up with her. Hatim came. He held her close to his chest and patted her. Mervat cried hard, saying, “Shasha, sober up. Sober up, please, in God’s name.”

She left Hatim’s hand and ran, then came back to Mervat and embraced her, looking at me, then asked me, “Do you know Aunt Fayza?”

I said, “Yes, of course, Rasha.”

She said, “No. You don’t know what she really is. She is a drug dealer. She evades the police and hides the drugs in our house. Shall I tell you a secret?”

I said as I patted her on the back, “Yes, go ahead. Tell me.”

She said, “She used to do that with mama, mama Fawqiya. Haven’t you noticed that she is a carbon copy of her? But the real boss is Fayza. She’s the ringleader.”

I said, “Calm down, Rasha. Let’s go drink the milk and take a hot shower so you can go to sleep and in the morning you’ll tell me everything.”

She screamed, “The government! The government is behind the door. Fayza has brought the government here. Shut the doors. They came for me instead of Fayza. Fayza is the ringleader!”

Mervat started sobbing and saying, “I can’t see her in this condition. I just can’t, Uncle Hatim, please call a doctor or let’s call my father.”

Hatim said, “No. She’ll sleep it off and nothing will happen to her. She’s just a little excited. She’ll be okay.”

Mervat said, “Rasha, darling.”

Rasha said, “Who’s this Rasha? Rasha is ugly and a bitch. Don’t speak to her. Keep your arms away from me. Go away. Aieee.”

I hugged her hard and pulled her to the couch I was sitting on. She went to sleep meekly on the spot, as if nothing had happened. I sat motionless, afraid to take her to bed lest she should wake up again. I was also afraid to get up and leave the couch lest she should wake up and fly into a rage again. I felt her whole body shaking and from time to time she would say, while still asleep, “The government, the government, daddy. The gang.” Then she would fall totally silent. Hatim came after about an hour and helped me get up without disturbing her. He also placed a pillow in place of my thigh where she was leaning her head. I straightened her legs and took off the slippers from her feet and covered her with a blanket. I noticed that Mervat had assumed a fetal position. I helped her straighten up and covered her. Hatim and I left on tiptoe. Hatim took me to bed and wiped my tears, saying, “May God be with you.” I cried.

At five in the morning Hatim made breakfast and came in sounding his usual reveille. He kept doing it, but to no avail. I opened my eyes and said, “Have a heart, it’s our day off. We’ll go in the afternoon, after lunch. Have mercy.”

He kissed me, laughing and saying, “You’ll get used to laziness, Umm Yasir, and you’ll grow fat. I have made a royal breakfast for us and our guests. I hope you appreciate it. The weather is wonderful. Get up.”

I said, “Please, let us sleep some more.”

He said, “If you can help me go back to sleep, I’ll leave them alone.”

Our limbs scattered in space, then joined, then scattered again. I lost track of everything until I heard the mu’ezzin calling the Friday prayer at noon. Then I heard Hatim’s singsong voice chanting in the living room, “Lunch, lazy bones!”

The three of us came out to the living room in our nightgowns. We discovered that the mu’ezzin was calling the sunset prayer and that it was five-thirty.

Rasha said in all innocence, “How could we have slept for so long?”

Mervat said, “May God ruin your house, government!”

Rasha said, “Which government? The Egyptian or the Iraqi?”

Mervat said, “The gang government. Don’t you know the gang?”

Rasha said, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Please tell me.”

Hatim said, “The meat is almost done on the grill. Please make the salad, Mervat, and please wash your pretty faces.”

We laughed and stood in line in front of the bathroom door. I went up to the bathroom on the roof. Hatim came after me and said, “Don’t press the poor girl. She doesn’t remember anything.”

I said, “No, we are just playing with her.”

He said, “How about me? Don’t you want to play with me?”

I said, “The girls are downstairs.”

He said, “Today is a holiday.” Then, quoting Gibran via Fairouz, “Have you slept on the grass one day and used the sky as your comforter?”

Mervat called out, “The meat is done, Uncle Hatim.”

We sat to eat in the balcony. Mervat said, “A gang? How unfair of you! And mama Fayza is the ringleader? I’ll tell her what you said.”

Rasha laughed and begged us to tell her the whole story, now that she had heard bits and pieces about it. Mervat kept teasing her. I noticed that Rasha’s laughter was not carefree, that her smiles were beginning to dissipate as we continued our mocking comments until her face turned into a rubbery mask, not that of an innocent, eleven-year-old child. Sadness started to find its way to my mood and I became quite dejected: I wondered, daughter, why you are in pain and what’s going on in your little head, leading you to this state? Are you afraid that Tante Fayza will take your mother’s place? But Fayza was doing them a great service: raising an orphan
girl and looking after the girls in Cairo after refusing to get married after her husband was martyred. So, why does Rasha refer to her as the ringleader and why is she confusing her with the police, the government, and her mother? And why does she call herself ugly?

Mervat said, “Where’ve you gone, Nora? Uncle Hatim is speaking to you.”

I said, “It seems I didn’t get enough sleep.” We all laughed and Hatim said, “Again? Don’t be so greedy.”

Hilmi Amin called after a little while. We asked him to give us another day. He said he would pass by us tomorrow afternoon to pick up the girls. We were overjoyed.

We started making plans for the next day. We decided to go to the Assyrian quarter and to the market to buy what we needed for a picnic on the banks of the Tigris, not far from the house, then go back home to make dinner.

I let them sleep in after Hatim left for work. I sat down to write my article until they woke up and came to my study. Mervat leafed through my papers and Rasha stood in front of the bookcases looking for a book of adventure. Mervat said, “Have pity on your eyes and your complexion! God help Uncle Hatim! I will not be like my father. For me it is marriage and the comfortable luxuries of life.”

Rasha said, “I want to be exactly like my father.”

We prepared a quick breakfast. I said, “Life here begins at dawn, lazy girls. I wanted to feed you some headcheese, some pacheh, as they call it here.”

They both screamed in dismay, “Oh God, no way.”

“This is a great Iraqi breakfast dish. Or turnips in molasses, which they call shalgham.”

Mervat said, “You want to kill us?”

“No, feed you, you skinny girls. There’s no market now. We’ll go in mid-afternoon because they take an hour for rest at noon, an English system.”

I went down to the garden to water the plants. I pulled up the hose to the second floor to wash the vines and the trees from above.
Rasha came into the balcony. She wanted to water the plants with me. I began to sing some popular tunes, placing the hose in front of my mouth as if it were a microphone. The water got into my mouth. Mervat took the hose and sang as the water gushed all over her face. When I said, “Encore!” Rasha made fun of her sisters singing and said, “Give me the hose.”

They started fighting over the hose and both got wet. I extracted the hose from their hands and in the process they sprayed me. I took it by force and sprayed them until they fell to the floor and made quite a racket in the balcony. My next-door neighbor Sabah came to the garden under the balcony and asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, we’re just playing. Come up and play with us.”

“You seem to be in a good mood. Did you have company last night? Did you have a dog?”

We laughed and Mervat said, “Yes, a dog. No. A cat.”

I said, “A snake.”

July 1979

Treason

Baghdad felt different these days. There was something unusual about it. There were indications and manifestations of joy without any reason that was known to us. The media were broadcasting songs to the accompaniment of brass bands. They frequently played a song glorifying the Ba‘th Party that went something like: “Hooray for the rising Ba‘th, hooray!” as if an important event was going to be announced soon. The female television announcers wore the latest fashions and they looked more cheerful than usual. Vice President Saddam Hussein’s movements during the last few months gave rise to many questions among the people, who expected to see him suddenly at their places of work in the factories, schools, and government departments. When he appeared he would either reward them, causing trills of joy to ring out, or he would fire them or transfer their boss. Sometimes he would demote someone from his position as the head of an organization to an ordinary worker’s job without uttering a single word, all as the television cameras rolled. Saddam became a legend throughout the entire country, from Baghdad to Basra to Suleimaniya to Amara, as if he stood atop the entire map of Iraq. People talked of nothing except what he did, either in fear or joyfully.

When I conveyed to Hilmi Amin the impression that Saddam resembled Abu Khatwa he said to me, “Haven’t you figured out what’s behind all of this?”

I said, “I feel they want to tell us something. Is he really about to assume power? I’ve noticed how elated Manal al-Alousy, head of the Women’s Union, looks these days. I know that she and the members of the Union are staunch supporters of his and I know that she is very close to him. But I cannot ask her,” then I laughed, “after the famous incident with Abu Khalid.”

He said, “Ask me about anything you want to know, but do not ask a single Iraqi before I know what you want to ask them about, especially in politics. Yes, I expect him to assume power sometime soon. And why not? All the circumstances are ripe for that now, and they are actually objective circumstances. The old man’s health is failing and he no longer appears on most occasions. The Shi‘i Iranian threat now has clear, specific names, from al-Da‘wa Party to the Organization of Islamic Action which, as far as I understand, has a strong military wing, at least strong enough to cause anxiety to Iraq.

“The Iranian revolution considers Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf region to be fertile soil that is ready for Iran to export the revolution. Saddam has also begun to open up toward France, from which he is buying the nuclear reactor and which is helping him develop rockets, and weapons agreements, some of which we’ve heard about. There is also some movement toward Japan, which means curbing reliance on the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.”