Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (52 page)

I ask you anxiously, “What’s wrong, Anhar?”

You take off the angry mask instantly and smile, saying, “It’s just work.”

I say, “Can I help?”

Niran says, “Would you agree to start all over again?”

Yas says as he walks away, “These two are inseparable like two peas in a pod.”

I hold your hand and take you outside, I try to understand the words you are whispering, “These are just punks! What can I say?”

I want to take you into my arms and protect you, but I can’t. I hear you saying decisively, “This is Baghdad and we know it best: you can’t trust what you see at the moment.”

I say, “Go home now. Tomorrow you’ll explain it all to me.”

Of course you don’t broach the subject again, Anhar, and I don’t pressure you. I go back to my apartment confused and frustrated. I thought life and prison had given me enough experience to understand people. I remember Nora hesitantly telling me, “Ustaz Hilmi, even though you’ve had a vast experience in life, your experience of people is still shaky. I always picture you sitting behind a desk as if you had never been involved in matters of this world!”

On the wall of my bedroom stands Anhar’s shadow twisting in lust before a young man without features. The shadow grows bigger; it fills the ceiling, the glass window, and the walls. I cannot sleep. I feel helpless before her burning youth. My years become a burden bending my back. I feel even more crushed. The hours of the night flee away from the vexation whose sparks fill the room. I come face to face with the new day with my eyes bloodshot and my features clumsy. I cannot look at the mirror to shave, so I ask Nora to go alone to our appointments, then go back to bed. I try to sleep but I discover that I am lying in a heap, recalling Anhar’s towering live figure, and I beseech myself to be saved from this love as I suffer a relapse into fever. When she comes I burst out in her face, cursing the day I saw her entering this door.

She rushes into my bosom. She pulls my arms and kisses me on my cheeks, screaming from the thorns scratching her face as I push her away. This mad woman runs outside after failing to calm me down. She runs away leaving me to face my need for her.

*

I went down to the restaurant. Gone were the cheerful noises and laughter of the women in the conference. I didn’t hear the clicking of the spoons, forks, and knives, nor the gentle sound of tea being poured into small glasses. It was as if I were looking at a placid lake under the glow of a hot sun. I walked into this still-life painting and broke the stillness. The waiter said, “Hello, Sitt Nora. What can I get you to drink?”

I said, “Orange juice.”

I got some food on my tray and sat down and ate quickly. Then I went out and took a taxi to Bab Sharqi, then to Mashjar Street, until it stopped in front of the Sheikhaly Building. I saw Abu Ghayib sitting on his bench as usual. He looked closely at me as I got out of the cab, then ran toward me, “Welcome, Sitt Nora. I can’t believe you’re in Baghdad!”

“Yes, thank God. How are you? And how are Umm Ghayib, Dia, and our friends and neighbors?”

“They’re all well, thank God. Did you see Hilmi and what happened? How are Sitt Fayza and the girls?”

“They’re all well and they send their greetings.”

“Are you going upstairs to Abdallah or to Dr. Michael? He and his family left a while ago. Dr. Ali Abu Dahlia is upstairs and so is Abuna Hydra.”

“Good. Thank you, Abu Ghayib.”

I knocked on the door of the office. A young man, about thirty years old, came to the door. I said, “I’m Nora Suleiman. I used to work for
al-Zahra
magazine. The owner of the apartment has sent me to look at some of what she has left behind as the two of you had agreed.”

He walked ahead of me after introducing himself, “Abdallah al-Sharbatli. Please come in.”

I sat on the first chair I could find. The room had not changed. The lighting and the desks were the same even though the owner of the desk was gone. I looked at the half-empty bookcase and said,
“Sorry to arrive without an appointment. I left you a message but you did not call.”

He said, “I am sorry. I was out of town and came back only today. I understood from your message that you’d come back from Basra at a late hour.”

“Tante Fayza told me that she had shipped most papers except for a few files that she didn’t know what to do with. She asked me to go through them and to keep important ones and dispose of the rest.”

“I kept everything safely as I promised her. Please, feel free to open the drawers and feel at home. What would you like to drink?”

“Tea, please.”

I found an archive of information, including photos of Egyptian and Iraqi artists, thinkers, and politicians. It seemed that Tante Fayza took only Hilmi Amin’s writings and left the rest behind. I found copies of my three books about women, al-Khalsa village, and Egyptian peasants, and some folders of material that we had prepared for publication, some official releases put out by different Iraqi ministries, and some Iraqi and Egyptian magazines. There were various books on history, art, and politics. It seemed that Tante Fayza took some books at random.

He brought the tea and asked me, “What are all these folders? I wondered why you focused on certain artists, the Kurds, Egyptian peasants, the October War and Sadat and poetry and novels. Do you need all of that?”

I said, “Suad Hosni was shooting a movie here called
al-Qadisiya
, directed by Salah Abu Seif. Karam Mutawi‘ and Suhair al-Murshidi were teaching here in the Art Academy in Baghdad. They and many journalists came to us to help them find Egyptian material. As for the Kurds, we were preparing a book about them. And Baqir al-Sadr was the founder of an Islamic political party, an important subject here. This book about Egyptian peasants has actually been published. If you would like to keep the books, they are yours, or you can ask Dr. Michael to take them to the church. Disagreement with Sadat about the October War, the Corrective Revolution that
came before it, and then Camp David after that meant many people wrote their points of view and their memoirs about these issues and published them outside Egypt. Hence their importance.”

He said, “Please leave them. I’ll decide what I want to keep and give the rest myself to Dr. Michael.”

I said, “I’ll take the folders to the hotel and stay up sorting the papers. I’ll ship what we need and leave the rest for our Iraqi colleagues. As for copies of my book, I’ll take them all.”

I opened one of the books. It was a copy signed by me for Hilmi Amin. Tante Fayza had left all my books that I had signed for him. My tears flowed against my will. The man was taken aback and said, “God grant you strength.”

I asked him permission to wash my face. I went into the bathroom and found that nothing in it had changed one bit. I could even hear Hilmi Amin coughing and clearing his throat. I almost believed it was the same towel that used to be in the bathroom. Then I realized it was just another Egyptian towel made in Mehalla. I knew that I was going to start crying hysterically. I began to drink water directly from the bathroom faucet and wash my tear-covered face. I calmed down and went back to the room where the man was. I called Abu Ghayib, who brought me large cardboard boxes and twine, expressing sadness for the good old days. I gathered the folders and tied the boxes, thanked him, and took them back to the hotel.

In the hotel I emptied the boxes on my bed and began to open the folders. Memories of writing the material assailed me: there were Iraqi women talking to me, photos of us in the north, Kurds returning home after the defeat of Mullah Mustafa Barzani, the house of Jamal, pictures of Sulafa, copies of my Kurdish-language articles in
Hokari
newspaper, pictures of the airport explosions and Father Hydra, the visits of Fathi Ghanim, Salah Abd al-Subur, and Naguib al-Mistikawi, the Egyptian soccer team, the visit to Habbaniya with Hafez Abd al-Rahman, an interview with General Saad al-Shazli, economic conferences, art festivals, an interview with Vanessa Redgrave, a whole album of photographs of Anhar;
by herself everywhere we went together, then pictures with me or with Hilmi Amin or with the girls and Tante Fayza. The pictures made me laugh, then cry. I got up and walked away from the papers then went back to them. There were records of interviews with the peasants, their pictures with Iraqi women agricultural experts, women in the factories, Bedouin women at their prettiest, the shanashil window lattices of Basra that I loved, the Iraqi historical fashion shows that I adored, our pictures in Kufa and Najaf, the photos of our Egyptian friends in comic poses in the office, Hilmi Amin and Tante Fayza next to Rasha riding a donkey in al-Khalsa, Mimi leaning on my shoulder on Mount Saffayn, Hilmi sitting at his desk or on the sofa with his daughters, and Abd al-Rahim and Suhayla. Then there was a picture of Vladimir.

I remembered the day I went into the office as usual and found Vladimir drinking coffee with Hilmi Amin. I was surprised he was there so early. Ustaz Hilmi said, “Nora, please wait a little bit in your office.”

I took out my papers and began to arrange the news items and placed them into a folder. I heard some movement, then the door to the office opened and Hilmi Amin dashed out like a stray arrow to the door of the apartment and opened it. He then stood aside to let the correspondent Vladimir out. I noticed that both of them were frowning and totally silent. I looked at Ustaz Hilmi’s totally pale face and the cigarette, burning on its own on the corner of his lips. I didn’t utter a syllable. Hilmi Amin closed the door calmly and returned to his desk and said to me, “Come. The son of a bitch thinks he can recruit me and milk me for information.”

“What?”

“Stupid intelligence services that understand nothing. He thinks that just because I am an Egyptian communist he can … I kicked the bastard out. When this bureau opened, before you joined it, I was subjected to very strict surveillance by the Iraqis who, of course, planted some eavesdropping bugs. I think they came back
and removed them later. They were within their right to check what sort of activity the bureau was engaged in. I know they realized the bureau was on the up-and-up. But this jackass thought that he could use the bureau’s respectable reputation and start some kind of relationship that he assumed was possible. The only way to deal with his offer was to kick him out.”

“That’s unbelievable! Are you sure? What kind of information was he after? Why us?”

“It doesn’t matter what kind of information. The most important thing is to nip his efforts in the bud and make him understand exactly where he stands.”

“Do we need more problems with correspondents?”

“This all comes with the territory. The main thing is to know how to deal with it.”

I put the photograph aside. Why did we keep it even though the man never came back and avoided us in public gatherings afterward? Then I sighed deeply when I saw the photos of Chen and Yang, the Chinese correspondent couple who invited me to visit their country. I told myself when I received the invitation that I wouldn’t have the patience to wait until Hatim came back from work to tell him that the Chinese invitation had arrived. I ran downstairs and kept running until I got to the Ramses Hotel telephone service desk. I called Hatim at work and said to him, “Hatim, I am going to China.”

He said, “Wait until I come back to talk about it.”

I said, “Are you so busy we can’t talk now? I am sorry but I couldn’t wait to tell you.”

He said, “See you in the evening. Bye.”

I said, “Bye.”

Then I wondered why was he so cold?

In the evening I was surprised when he said, “Nora, we never agreed that you’d travel outside Iraq by yourself. I am very busy right now and can’t leave the factory while we are setting up a new production line.”

“But the trip is for me alone. It’s a work trip and there is no need for you to travel with me.”

“Postpone it until I can go with you.”

“That’s impossible. It’s an invitation to a conference about the Chinese media and their relationship with the Middle East. You know how austere the Chinese are and the fact that Yang was able to get this invitation for me meant that he exerted an extraordinary effort, and that it won’t happen again. He and Chen will conclude that I am not serious and they will not think of dealing with me ever again.”

“I’d be worried sick if you travel alone. I also need you here these days.”

“I don’t understand your position.”

So, the trip was gone. I shuffled the photos. I really liked Chen. Later on I told my father in passing that I had declined an invitation to travel to China. He asked me, “Do you think such an opportunity will come your way again? I doubt very much that you’ll ever see China. You decline an invitation because Mister Hatim did not approve? Are you crazy? Why didn’t you put up a fight and insist on going?”

“It wasn’t worth all the trouble, and he really was busy.”

“You tie your movements to his? You’re a journalist. Is this the daughter I raised?”

“It wasn’t all that bad. I also was very busy covering conferences in Baghdad.”

“I don’t want to interfere in your life, Nora, and you know how much I love and respect Hatim, but there are rules you should observe in your work just as you observe rules in your house.”

“Hatim agreed to my traveling alone to other countries afterward. He realized how much I needed to go on those trips. Maybe also he felt guilty. I don’t know.”

I wondered where Chen and Yang were now. I said to myself that perhaps I should correspond with them when I got back to Cairo.

I gathered all the important papers about Iraq in a box to take with me. I put the rest in other boxes that I asked the front desk to keep until a colleague from the Iraqi News Agency came to collect them.

And, now: what should I do with Anhar’s notebook? I had tried since arriving in Baghdad to call her house or find out anything about her to no avail. Of course I wasn’t going to give her diaries to her colleagues. I also couldn’t leave them in the post office box. Imad al-Bazzaz was still trying to find her brother’s address. I wished I had an address for her, anywhere to send the notebook to her. The only solution was to take it with me. As for Hilmi Amin’s notebook, I knew that he had left it up to me what to do with his memoirs. I opened a folded sheet of paper taken from a school notebook. I read: