Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (51 page)

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “What’s the matter? Do you need money?”

I said, “No, thank you. It’s just a little crisis that will pass.”

He said, “We should help each other. If you have a problem, yours truly is at your service.”

I said, “I heard some bad news from a friend. I just need to rest for a little while until the time of my appointment comes.”

He said, “Just as you wish. I am ready to help. My name is Ahmad Abd al-Mawla. You can ask about me anytime. We are all good Egyptians ready to help at any time. Do you work?”

“I am a journalist.”

“Well, in that case, we are the ones who need you. You know all the problems about money transfers and the like.”

“Sure. Any time.”

He let me drink the tea, then brought me another glass, saying, “This one is on me, a gift.”

I sat for a whole hour looking at the clock and at the increasing traffic on the street, as people scurried during rush hour and engines roared. Then I noticed that the crowds were beginning to thin and the hubbub to subside. The waiter Ahmad Abd al-Mawla placed another glass of tea for me on the table. I drank the tea, then hailed a taxi and gave the driver Atef’s address.

Sawsan opened the door for me. I heard loud laughter coming from inside.

“Hello, Nora. What a nice surprise! Come on in. Where are you coming from? We hardly ever see you. Whenever I ask Ustaz Hilmi, he says you rush home in the evening to Yasir. Ever since Yasir came to Baghdad, we no longer see you. Hello, my darling. I miss you very much.”

She introduced me to a middle-aged Egyptian man, Hagg Abd al-Mawgud, “My cousin who came from Egypt especially to visit us. We’ve been trying to convince him to stay here and look for a job anywhere so we would be a big tribe here. What do you think? Can Engineer Hatim get him a job?”

I said, “We’ll try. Just get him to stay here by any means.”

The man welcomed me warmly. Atef came and was equally demonstrative in his welcome. I gave them a few minutes to finish the hospitality routine and then asked Atef to speak to him alone. I told him the story and that we had to go back to Hilmi. Atef explained the situation briefly to his wife and asked her permission to take me to Abd al-Rahim. Sawsan tried to come with us to make sure that Hilmi was okay, but both of us refused. When we got to Abd al-Rahim’s place he was still in his work clothes. Before leaving the apartment building’s main door we found Sawsan in front of us, still insisting on coming with us. I pleaded with her, “Please, he does not want anyone to see him in this condition. You know how proud he is. I only want Abd al-Rahim alone to come with me. You, Atef, and Sawsan, join us after an hour.”

Sawsan gave in and said, “You go with them, Atef. She’s right.”

We arrived at Sheikhaly Street. When he saw me getting out of the car, Abu Ghayib said, “Abu Mervat is not in the office. I knocked on the door to give him the bread, but he didn’t answer.”

I said, “Maybe he was asleep. Thank you, Abu Ghayib.”

I opened the door with my key. We found him sitting on the chair at the desk. All the lights in the apartment were turned off and the mess was exactly as I had left it. He welcomed us very calmly and gave me a long reproachful glance.

He said, “You inconvenienced people for no reason. Why did you do that?”

I said, “I was worried about you.”

“No need to worry. It was just a passing crisis, and now it’s over. What would you like to drink?”

His speech was slurred and his eyes unfocused as he tried to speak with us, then his head would fall forward. Abd al-Rahim said, “Nora, come with me.”

He took me to Hilmi Amin’s bedroom, opened the armoire, took out a large bath towel and clean clothes, and took them to the bathroom. He made sure the water heater was working, then we went back to the office and he said, “Please, Ustaz Hilmi. Will you come with me?”

Atef got up and he and Abd al-Rahim helped him up, as he presented a feeble attempt to resist, saying, “Where to? I am all right. Let me go.”

I went to fix some food for him. I thought of calling Abu Ghayib to help tidy up the place, but I quickly changed my mind. Atef came out of the bathroom and started helping me to put the chairs in their place and pick up the broken glass. Then Abd al-Rahim came out of the bathroom with Ustaz Hilmi and took him to the bedroom and helped him to lie down on the bed. Then he began to feed him like a young child. Hilmi was responsive in a manner that I hadn’t expected. Then he fell asleep. Abd al-Rahim joined us in the office, which we had tidied up. He said, “Thank God. What happened?”

I said, “I don’t know anything. Obviously he has heard or received some news. Maybe a letter from his daughters aggravated his sense of exile. It must be that, because I was at the newspaper today delivering his article. I was also at the ministry and everything was normal there
also. To my mind, it is something personal and the Iraqi authorities have nothing to do with it. I don’t think he was facing a termination of contract or an order to leave the country or anything major.”

I left to call Hatim and make sure Yasir was all right. Two hours later I left with Atef, he to go back to his guest and I to my house, and we left Abd al-Rahim to stay with him overnight. When was that? It was the day that Yehya al-Mashad was killed. I will never forget that day nor the events accompanying it and their fallout for as long as I live. The temperature in Baghdad that day, June 13, 1980, had reached its cruelest peak. The French police announced that they had found the respected Egyptian scientist Yehya al-Mashad, who was working at the time on the construction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, murdered in his apartment in Paris where he had been spending his vacation. The newspapers claimed that the murderer was most likely a woman with whom he was spending the night, a prostitute who robbed him, then killed him. We were all incensed by the news. All indications pointed at the Israeli Mossad that could not tolerate the fact that an Egyptian nuclear scientist was using his expertise to build an Arab reactor. But the police couldn’t prove anything. It was one of the strangest coincidences that he was killed in France, which had exported the nuclear reactor to Iraq; in other words, it was a French reactor employing French, Iraqi, and Egyptian experts. What a black comedy! The murder investigation, according to the police report, concluded that it was committed by a person or persons unknown. The investigation was not reopened, even though Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor the same month, one year after the murder of Yehya al-Mashad. The F-16 dropped tons of explosives on the site and returned safely to its base in Tel Aviv.

A few days later, Hilmi Amin had the breakdown. Was that the only reason? Of course not.

I gestured to the waiter to get me the check.

He said, “You haven’t eaten.”

I left.

At the hotel I checked for messages but there were none. I was waiting especially for a message from the man who bought the office. I decided to go to the old apartment first thing in the morning before he left, since it would be Friday. I took the room key and wondered why everything was so eerily quiet and for a moment I felt dejected, lonely, and at a loss. Then I quickly shook off the creeping depression and swept the lobby with my eyes, and I saw Layla and some of her coworkers sitting not far away. They were busy, poring over some papers. Layla saw me and beckoned. When I got to where she was, she asked me, “Where’ve you been? The other women wanted to say goodbye before leaving for the airport.”

I said, “I thought they had some time. I thought they’d leave from the guesthouse.”

“Well, no. This is wartime. But you’ll all meet in Cairo,” she said.

“You think it’s that easy? Everyone is busy,” I said.

“So, what are you going to do tomorrow?” she asked.

“Tomorrow, all of it, is for my friends, near the hotel. The day after tomorrow I’ll go to al-Khalsa village,” I told her.

“I’ll send a car to pick you up.”

“There’s no need. I know the way quite well. I’ll hop in a car at the Uqba ibn Nafi‘ Square,” I said.

“No, no. First of all, you’re our guest and second, I’d like to come with you because I haven’t visited the village,” she said.

I went up to my room, totally exhausted, but I decided to resist my fatigue. I turned on the hot water in the bathtub, then walked over to the radio and turned it on, letting the music fill the room. George Zamfir was playing one of his famous pieces. I liked the smell of my clean underwear as I followed the white bubbles when I stirred the gel with my hand. Then I slipped into the tub and let the pump do its task, emptying my breasts. I missed Hatim’s fingers to recharge my love of life. I’ve always wondered about the magic that the hands of a man can make in the body of a woman in love. Would the result be different if the woman didn’t love the man? I
thought it would, despite the tyranny of the body’s needs. I decided that love is the most important ingredient for lasting pleasure.

I made a mental to-do list. I still had many things I had to do even though I extended my visit by two days. I decided I had to look for Hilmi Amin’s remaining articles that Tante Fayza had not collected. I needed to visit the office and the
Alif Baa
magazine office,
al-Jumhuriya
newspaper, and the village al-Khalsa, and meet some friends. How? When?

Haytham’s voice woke me up at five in the morning. I turned in the bed, fighting off laziness, leaving the tingling sensation free to tickle my breasts. Then I was fully awake and alert. I jumped out of bed, drew the curtains, and turned on the radio. Dalida was singing “Helwa Ya Baladi”:

Memories of all the past,

My sweet country!

My heart is full of stories,

Remember, my country?

My first love was in my country.

I can never forget it,

My country.

I finished my morning routines quickly, then I arranged my papers and notes and sat down to write my first article about the war. I finished it quickly. The fresh material I had gathered in Basra helped. I looked through Hilmi Amin’s papers. One title gave me pause and I started reading.

Thresholds of Love and Jealousy

Before your overpowering beauty I feel old. I feel the unevenness of love between us. I rejoice in your beauty even as I see the envy in the eyes of friends and lifelong companions encircling me. They think you are nothing but a beautiful body that I use to awaken my old, cold body. They don’t know that I am content with just an
approving smile that might light a spark of hope in my life hastening to start its final voyage.

     O single spark

     In the dark of a night awaiting a distant dawn.

     I tirelessly try to kiss the spark,

     But I never get my chance as the spark keeps flying away.

     My breaths race, eager

     Like a man on death row, waiting for reprieve,

     One last stroke of luck before it is too late.

     Hold me long and close in your embrace,

     The sadness at my core can be dispelled only in your loving arms.

     A mountain vast, extending from Cairo to Baghdad, lies heavy on my being that alone I can see while the world expects a smile every morning from me.

     Be my smile, then.

I take delight in your youth, in the fresh vitality that your presence imparts to the place when you come into my house and throw yourself into my embrace, or when you prance before me, showing off your new haircut or a dress or a shawl or even a pair of shoes. I stand transfixed before the expressions in your eyes and the smile on your face as you talk to people in the middle of a party where I cannot get too close to you. I watch you from afar as your eyes tell me: be strong and patient. I am with you and I love you despite all the distance, the people, and the repression. We have our own heaven.

I give in, losing myself in your gaze. My old eyes relentlessly keep you in sight until I see you giving in to a friend’s hand inviting you to dance, and you, smiling in joy accepting his invitation. You stand there in the midst of those young people, swaying with the music. I can read your body calling out to him, getting close then slipping away, turning with him with intimate familiarity, leaving me nothing but the echoes of brazen laughter, an invitation to intercourse that stabs my inner core, makes my gray world
even darker, uncovering hidden fires. I try my utmost to put out the shooting, constant flames as your angelic looks change in front of me into the features of concubines of light that only blood will sate. Then in the midst of this dissipation you send me a glance of approval that feels like a cold drink that puts out my flames. And before I realize how heavy is the burden of being crushed under your fickleness, I see you coming, having picked up from the table of drinks a glass of whiskey which you offer me, saying, “Hello, Abu Mervat. A thousand welcomes.”

I realize the enormity of the sacrifice you are making as you hold the glass. I have never seen an Iraqi woman intellectual holding a glass of liquor in a public place before. You fix me with a long stare in defiance of the world. I ask you, trying to hide my anger, “What are you doing?” You say in a whispering voice, using the Iraqi dialect that you seldom use with me, “What? I can’t do anything without an order from his majesty the king?”

You sit before me following what is going on in the party, your whole body transfixed, mesmerized by the dance and the youth. I follow your eyes as they rest on the face of that young man with the thick black mustache, stealthily seeking communication with him as that puzzling smile transforms your face. The waiter serves me one drink after another. Then you excuse yourself and go back to your gathered friends Saadun, Yas, Niran, and Qays. I figure out that something must be going on. Emboldened and made reckless by the drinks I go over to you. I hear you saying in that Iraqi dialect, “What a mess! I don’t know how it will end!”

Qays says, “Come on, Anhar! What’s bothering you? It’s not that bad! Look on the bright side.”

You are surprised to see me after you tell them or one of them, “I won’t stand for it, even if a palm tree grows on the top of your heads!”