Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (36 page)

Hatim stood up, saying, “Where have you gone in Baghdad? Have you seen Abu Nuwas Street?”

He said, “No.”

We took him to Abu Nuwas. It was a marvelously sunny day. We had a lovely time and ate masgouf, a large river fish whose body is quite fatty. Iraqis call it benni and they roast it over a slow wood fire. It’s a purely Iraqi dish.

We took Tariq back to his hotel, assuring him that we would be there to help at any time. We told him about the Murabba‘ Café on Rashid Street. He laughed and said, “I know it. I went there in the evening and met some Egyptians.”

Hatim said, “That’s where it starts.”

On our way back home, I didn’t feel sure that Tariq would make it in Baghdad. I asked Hatim about the possibility for working in hotels here. He said, “What hotels? Four-star hotels are already overstaffed and the rest you know. As for companies that build world-class hotels, they take specially trained workers. His English is good. We can find some training for him in tourism. Why don’t you talk to Engineer Ali? He might find something for him in an airline company. Besides, you shouldn’t worry about him. True, he has had a sheltered life so far but he is not a softy. The best in him will come out when he is put to the test.”

We got home. I took off my street clothes quickly, feeling happy and energetic because of our talk with Tariq. I turned on the radio to the Monte Carlo station and the playful voice of Hayam said, “This is Radio Monte Carlo news bulletin. An Egyptian judge has issued a historic verdict acquitting defendants in the recent riots in Egypt which Sadat called a thieves’ uprising. The judge faulted the Egyptian government, which has starved the people who demonstrated for their right to eat. There was a state of general relief at the verdict and at this proof of the well-known integrity of the Egyptian judiciary. It is worth mentioning that this is one of three state security cases in the aftermath of the uprising.”

I let out a shout that brought Hatim, naked, out of the shower. I found him in the middle of the living room still dripping with water. I was dancing and shouting, “Long live Egypt! Sadat will drop dead of vexation! What a coup! They acquitted the people!”

I started singing joyously, holding Hatim’s hand, and we began dancing like little monkeys happy with the sunshine.

“You’re crazy. I love you.”

We heard knocks at the door. Titi was outside, asking, “What happened!”

We discovered we weren’t dressed. I said, laughing, “One minute.”

I put a robe on and Hatim ran to the bathroom to get dressed. I told Titi the story and she said, “I’ll tell Mahmoud Isam and we’ll come and drink tea with you.” Then she paused a little and said, “Are we interrupting anything?”

“You couldn’t interrupt anything, could you?”

We both laughed and we stayed up talking about the recent events and the impact of the verdict on the Egyptians who were going through hard times.

Hayam came on again with the news from Monte Carlo: “Counselor [Chief Judge] Ibrahim Fahmi of the State Security Court in Egypt handed down a verdict that shall remain a bright spot in the Egyptian judicial system forever. The chief judge used the famous
saying of Abu Dharr al-Ghafari: ‘I am surprised that a man who, not finding sustenance in his house for his family, does not go out brandishing his sword.’ The government has made a deliberate policy of keeping the people hungry. It must reverse its decisions and must look after its people who have sacrificed life and livelihood in many wars and spared no effort for the advancement of their homeland.”

Hatim and I screamed, “Father!”

Titi and Mahmoud shouted, “Your father! Your father!”

We kept screaming and shouting that this was my father’s work, it was his wonderful style and courage.

Our guests left and I rushed into Hatim’s arms and we had a quickie.

Back at the office, Hilmi Amin opened the door for me with open arms and seemed ready to go out at once.

I said, “What’s the hurry?”

He said, “We have errands and then we have appointments here at twelve. What has your father done!”

The news had reached everyone, including, of course, the leading figures of the Egyptian national movement living in exile here. We finished our urgent errands and returned to the office, where many of these expatriates had started arriving. They spoke to me as if I were the one who handed down the verdict. They began to relate incidents in Egypt’s judiciary system and the names of certain outstanding judges. They knew by heart the names of judges who took courageous stands. Most of the visitors had themselves been either detained without trial or had received prison sentences. The long list of visitors that day included Saad al-Tayih, Saad Zaghloul Fuad, Fathi Khalil, Abd al-Ghani Abu al-Aynayn, Galal al-Sayyid, and Ahmad Abbas Salih. Then Abd al-Rahim, Suhayla, Atef, Sawsan, Mahmoud Rashid, Samia, and Hala El Badry also came.

On that day the sentiments of most women of the political movement toward me changed. They used to think of me as part of the decadent bourgeoisie who hadn’t paid a price for her opinions, hadn’t been jailed, and didn’t have the right to speak about Egypt
or the student movement or the future. They felt that they were the ones to make the future and not the students, or the uncaring and unorganized youth. Sometimes they would be surprised at how educated and well-read I was. But we always clashed violently when they, both men and women, said that all the rich were thieves or that a rich merchant or a rich farmer was an enemy of the people, or that the rich were authoritarian and exploitive and that peasants were of no value, that the workers were the ones with organized minds and sound opinions because they dealt with machines. That picture was the opposite of what I had seen and experienced all my life in my family. And despite my love for Abdel Nasser I could never accept these views from Nasserists and, more violently and profoundly, from the communists. One evening I told Sawsan, “No dictatorship of any kind, even the dictatorship of the proletariat. I love Abdel Nasser but I hate his dictatorship. Freedom and democracy are not antithetical to socialism or social justice. If Karl Marx was right in pushing the working class to govern itself, he did not have the right to give it the same rights by which the aristocracy exploited it.”

The situation got out of hand. Sawsan said, “You are tearing things down without knowing the history.”

Hilmi Amin intervened, “Karl Marx was not thinking of dictatorship in the sense that you, Nora, understood, when he said that. The question here applies to the ruling of the whole class and not an exploitation of another class, in the sense that the interests of the working class, which by nature are in contradiction with the interests of feudalism, once socialism is applied across the board, would be identical with the interests of society as a whole.”

I thought of the big difference between older communists and my generation and the older generation’s realization that other modes of thinking existed. Was it difficult for the younger generation to understand that they didn’t have a monopoly over patriotism? I thought it must be foolishness of youth, enthusiasm, and the obstinacy of a sheltered young woman, and perhaps some female
jealousy that I could never understand. Mervat drew my attention to it one evening when Ragya was being unpleasant. She whispered to me, “You intuitively dress with a style that would take years to learn, even if they had the money.”

The conversation led to a discussion of what had come to be known as the “the massacre of the judiciary” and of Yehya al-Rafi‘i and my father. I said, “My father never forgave Abdel Nasser for the massacre of the judiciary or his lack of respect for the law, which he never acknowledged. It was my father, as public attorney, who cross-examined President Muhammad Naguib. And because my father was a dyed-in-the-wool Wafdist, we always disagreed because of my love for Abdel Nasser.”

Saad Zaghloul Fuad said, “The Wafd was a patriotic party and its members were brought up as liberals.”

Saad al-Tayih said, “A liberal judge giving people the right to a life of dignity. This is Egypt.”

I said, “Someone like my father could not understand the reconciliation between Egyptian communists and Abdel Nasser.”

Hilmi Amin said, “This is case number three. The two other cases are still before the courts and they involve instigation to overthrow the government. Leftist lawyers are taking care of these cases. This ruling will help them a lot. Among the lawyers are Nabil al-Hilaly and Ismat Sayf al-Dawla, who got out of jail and joined the defense team.”

Abu al-Aynayn said, “All the syndicates and unions in Egypt are holding rallies and following up on the political prisoners, because the roundup detained anyone who was politically active.”

Sawsan, laughing, said, “I’ve fallen in love with your father. Why don’t you lend him to me? He would teach me how to be free and make me wear a bathing suit and defend the downtrodden.”

We laughed a lot and it seemed to me that a new page in my relationship with the generation that I came to really know only lately was opened to me. It was my father who gave me the gift of that page.

*

I came to when I heard the applause. I thanked God that I was not paying attention. I couldn’t stand listening to propaganda any more. Anisa, the Pakistani woman, spoke about illiteracy in her country. I was quite impressed by the precision of her data and the amount of research she had put into it, even though her appearance, her coquettishness, and the love story she was living with Jon, the camera man, left one with the impression that she was not a serious woman. I chided myself for this thought, saying that she didn’t have to look ugly and tough. I liked surprises of that kind. I also came to the conclusion that work was work and play, play. Anisa explained the experiment of combating illiteracy in the fields among poor peasant women, under simple canopies of bamboo with the help of a basic movie projector that Jon helped operate. We saw a comprehensive summary of the results of her experiment. But, oh my God! All that poverty! I looked at the sari she was wearing, natural Indian silk. I noticed how Jon was moving as he caught her movements on his video camera. We all smiled when he applauded enthusiastically. All our hearts blessed the love story that started with the first glance. Shahira said loudly, “Bravo, Anisa, bravo!”

The lights were turned back on and we moved to an adjacent hall to have tea in a short break. I ran to the bathroom to empty my breasts, which had filled and were hurting. I had forgotten the milk completely and in spite of squeezing the last drop out, I felt dejected and left for the hall feeling miserable. Such swings of mood. I saw my friend, the journalist Imad al-Bazzaz, and I headed for him right away.

He said, “Before ‘good morning,’ I’d like to tell you that Anhar’s mother, together with her son Abd al-Razzaq, have moved to a new house on Filastin Street. She does not have a telephone at present, but I asked how to get in touch with Abd al-Razzaq at work and I’ll find that out this evening. There is information, almost certain, that Anhar is in Brazil. God is generous.”

I said, “Thank you, Abu Nasir. I put you through so much trouble, but I wanted to make sure that Anhar was all right.”

He said, “I know, sister Sitt Nora. I think the session is about to begin.”

From a distance I saw a lady who visited us frequently at the
al-Zahra
office and caused us many problems. She was embracing Siham Fathi and Mona Abed. She looked happy and cheerful. It seemed she had finally settled down in Baghdad and maybe had grown a little wiser.

Dahlia entered our life one midafternoon with Ragya, the doctor. She had a fair complexion, was short and somewhat plump. She was looking for a job. She had friends in Baghdad who prompted her to come. She had a college degree in science and was one of the close followers of Ismail Fikri, the well-known leftist. They laughingly referred to their party as the party of missiles. She found work quickly in a hotel and rented a house with an Egyptian bride who had come by herself to make the arrangements for her groom to join her. I found out that Dahlia was married to a colleague of hers from the same college and political group and that they divorced after less than a year. She wasn’t thinking of marrying again. Life for her after work meant parties and trips with groups of friends. We all agreed that she loved to argue, obstinately but in a calm voice, and she spoke all the time about how men were trying to seduce her.

In Dahlia’s eyes there was an absent glance that represented for me a challenge and psychological burden for some unknown reason. I told myself, “Why can’t you unlock that absent glance, even though you keep saying that a writer is a good reader of character and can go deeper than the invisible crumbs that come to the surface?” Perhaps because it was a complex glance, a mix of extreme recklessness, indifference, and coldness, and a muffled vexation with life. But usually a person who felt vexed was someone impetuous and excitable, not a slab of ice like her. She was not beautiful but talked a lot about the effect her beauty had on others. Was it one
of those women’s mysteries that nobody had bothered to explain to me? Was it the result of a certain upbringing? That glance left me uncomfortable.

Whenever she came into the office, moving in a suggestive manner, several questions came to my mind: how could she, within three months of arriving in Baghdad, get acquainted with all those families whose members were active politically in Egypt? Why was she anxious to work in a hotel despite the risks that an Egyptian woman in her twenties would be exposed to in a city like Baghdad, which looked suspiciously at Egyptian women? Why insist on continuing to work at the hotel even after Hilmi Amin got her a job, after great efforts, at the Ministry of Health, a natural career path for a College of Science graduate? If the reason for Dahlia’s migration from Egypt was not political, then it must be economic. Why then was she still living in Baghdad if her income there barely met her expectations? I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer except that Dahlia wanted freedom of movement. I shared my questions with Hilmi Amin, who said, “No, this is the network she knew partially in Egypt. She is a type of personality that you haven’t met before.”