The Repentant Demon Trilogy Book 1: The Demon Calumnius (12 page)

The family prepared for night, saying evening prayers together by forming a circle in the living area.  If in public, they would face Mecca and try to say their words in their heads in a way that anyone looking would think they were praying to Allah.

The women carried water to a large basin in a small private bathing room for this purpose and took turns washing their bodies with soapy water and a large sponge.  Without appearing immodest, Abigail tried to see if the women had experienced the common Muslim tradition of female genital mutilation.  She wanted to ask, but didn't know how.  If this had happened to them, it was not as drastic as she had seen depicted in texts covering the subject.  Some women had been completely sewn closed except for a small opening for urine.  They would then be cut on or near their marriage date so that their husband could have his pleasure.  But this was not a typical Arab family.

“I am curious about the practice of circumcision of females in your culture,” Abigail asked, finally.  “Is that something you can talk about?”

“Oh, yes,” said Noora, “it is done.  But mostly with the Kurds and the tribes up north.  Around Iraq, the custom was never of the drastic type other Muslim women have had to endure. Years ago it was commonly done only by removing a slice of foreskin from the little penis, much like it is done for a male.  Many older women have endured this procedure.  Thankfully, it was never practiced much in this area.  None of us know of any who have endured this.”

Abigail was relieved, not only at the news, but that it hadn't been so uncomfortable to talk about as she had feared. 

“We are very curious about you, too,” said Kasi, hoping to have her many questions answered.

“You do not need to answer anything you do not wish to,” warned Noora, apparently anticipating her daughter's realm of curiosity.

First Kasi wanted to know about her hair—how she cared for it, how she wore it on a daily basis, and if men tried to attack her because of its beauty.  All the females stopped dillydallying about the room, preparing it for the night, and sat down to hear Abigail tell her secrets.

Abigail tried to explain that it was just so common to see hair exposed in America that men did not seem to notice it.  She wanted to say that having legs and breasts flaunted in front of them just superseded the effect of hair, no matter how sensual.  But she knew they would probably not believe the sights she had seen on the streets and in the malls of Saint Louis.  They wanted to touch her hair, and she gladly permitted them.  She explained the kind of shampoo and conditioners she used, then told them all the different brands and types of hair products on the market.  When she told them about coloring hair—especially blond, they squealed with excitement.

“You mean anyone could have hair the color of Doug's?” They marveled.  “His hair and eyes are so beautiful.  How is it that all Americans do not make their hair into this color?!”

“They pretty much do,” admitted Abigail. “You would not believe all the blonds in my world.”

“What other colors are there,” teased little Malik, “red and blue and green?”

“Actually, yes,” said Abigail, knowing they would squeal again. “The young teenagers like to dye their hair shocking colors like the rock stars.”

Their father's voice could be heard calling from the room where he was waiting for Noora to come to bed. “Quiet down, and go to sleep in there,” he ordered. “You will all need to be up early in the morning.”

“All right, Father,” answered Kasi, then she whispered, “What are rock stars?”

“That will have to wait until tomorrow,” she whispered back. “There's no way I'll be able to explain that without you girls screaming.”

Finally, the girls settled down, turning off the single remaining bulb that had still remained lit.  The rooms were close together, divided for the most part by hanging curtains.  In such surroundings, respect for privacy was paramount.  It was a life so foreign to her.

They had given Abigail a bed by the window—the coolest location in the room with the breeze from the nighttime desert sky.  She gazed out at the landscape, pondering its serene purple shadows and the striated bands of ocher, umber, and sienna hues of the sand hills billowing in the distance.  From afar, everything looked pleasing to the eye, but it was a land full of danger.  Yet these people who lived here would be horrified to know the kind of dangers that existed in her world.

She sat up for a better view of the landscape, and Kasi snuck over to the foot of her bed.  Malik seemed to already be sleeping, her arm resting on the box of art supplies beside her bed.

“Are you homesick?” whispered Kasi, noticing her wistful stare out into space.

“No, not really,” answered Abigail, “I have no relatives to miss, so I feel at home wherever I am.”

“No one?” asked Kasi. “That is hard to imagine.  Did they die?”

“Yes,” was her simple answer, and she didn't feel like talking more about her family tragedies in any greater detail, not with a sixteen-year-old girl, especially.  Then she asked, “There is something you could explain to me, if you wouldn't mind.”

Kasi nodded “yes,” and urged her to ask anything.

“It's about Doug,” she said.  “How is it that you have become such good friends?  How did you meet him?”

“I do not think he wants you to know,” she said, “but it is due to a modesty which I cannot understand.  He should be proud.  I will tell you if you keep it a secret that you know.  Perhaps he would never tell you, and I think you should know.”

“I promise,” she whispered, crossing her heart and getting a strange look from Kasi.  “That means
cross my heart
,” she answered without being asked.  “It's an extra-special promise that cannot be broken.”

Kasi nodded that she understood, and began the story.

“You know of the battle at Mosul, the really big one in November 2004?”

“No, sorry,” said Abigail, “I really didn't follow the war much.  I only noticed a few headlines here and there.  I seldom watch the news.”

“It was the one where the insurgents took over the whole city, including several police stations.  Over one hundred civilian Iraqi people were killed, and the battle went on with shooting and bombing for weeks.  I know this because we could hear it all right from our house.  I was only a little girl, but I still have bad dreams about it all.  What we hear now from there, gunfire and a few explosions—it is nothing compared to then.  My brother and sister and I were huddled together in fear.  We felt sure that bombs were going to fall on our house.”

“How frightening for you,” she said, reaching out to touch Kasi's shoulder.  Abigail thought how lucky Americans were to not have had to deal with war as people have had to do in other countries all over the world—until 9-11, at least.  These people deal with the effects of war often for their entire lifetimes—sometimes for generations.

“I know all of this,” Kasi continued, “because I sit at the foot of my father as he tells the story over and over.  So the legend began of Lieutenant Corporal Douglas MacArthur Anderson and how he got his Distinguished Service Cross for his actions to help the Iraqi people.  This is why everyone knows him everywhere in Iraq.”

She continued, “That day, of all days—my mother was in labor to give birth to my little brother, Jahmir.”

That explains a lot, Abigail realized, thinking of the special way Jahmir and Doug had connected.  The boy had obviously been told about his birth, in which somehow Doug had been involved.

“She had been in terrible pain and knew that something was wrong because she had always had an easy and quick time giving birth.  The baby was not coming out, and this had been going on for the whole day and night before.  So my father headed to the city.  It was a crazy idea, since the city was in flames, bombs were going off, and gunfire never ceased day and night.  But he knew there was a doctor there.  It was all he could think of—all he knew to do.  He rode a camel to Mosul, hoping to bring the doctor back with him—if he could find him, if he was alive, and if he would come, considering the dying and wounded in the streets.”

“So he left you children alone here?  With your mother in labor?” Abigail asked. “You must have been nine then, and Jamal seven.  Malik was only about four years old.  How horrible for you.”

“We prayed,” said Kasi.  “That was all we knew to do.  We took out our rosaries, in spite of the fact that we might be killed if they were found in our possession.  We took them from their hiding place and prayed together, Malik with her head in my lap and her hands covering her ears.  It seemed to help.  We noticed a ceasing of the bombs, and then we heard the roar of helicopters overhead.  We knew it was the Americans heading back to Mosul.  You see, they had just left to go fight in Fallujah.  But all the insurgents in Fallujah had headed toward Mosul, joining up with the Syrian mercenaries coming across the border to join them.  The Americans and the Iraqi forces had been tricked into heading toward Fallujah—it was all a plan.  And they were very outnumbered.”

“And your father was out there in the midst of it.” Abigail gasped.  Now she hugged the girl, so moved by the terror she must have suffered as a small child—that all of them had suffered.  What must Noora have been going through, about to perhaps die in childbirth and have her children orphaned in the same day.

“Yes, he was in the middle,” Kasi continued.  “He said that he was almost hit by bullets many times as he crept alongside the walls of buildings.  He saw a tank blown up, an American tank, and soldiers rushing inside it to bring out the men amidst bullets flying all around them.  Then my father heard the helicopters overhead, the same ones we heard, and they fired huge guns from them—I don't know what they are called.  And when the shooting stopped, the insurgents ran away, and the helicopters began taking wounded away to hospitals.

“My father ran to where he knew there had been a doctor's office, but before he could even get there, he saw the doctor’s body in the street.  He moaned and cried in the street for one second.  Then he ran toward a helicopter that was on the ground as soldiers hauled their wounded inside it.  My father went up to them and begged them to come and get his wife who might be dying in childbirth.

“One of the soldiers said, ‘So what?  One less Iraqi in this world to shoot at us!’

“‘No need to be cruel,’ the pilot, who was Doug, yelled at him.  Then my father looked into the eyes of Doug for the first time when he turned away from the controls and helped get the last victim inside the helicopter.

“Doug asked my father where his wife was.  My father told him about our house just five minutes away by helicopter.  Doug told my father to get inside.  Even though the other man, the cruel one, protested that they did not have time, Doug said it was on the way.

“The cruel man argued, saying that the men needed to get to the hospital immediately, that they could not afford any delay, and that my father did not have a right to be in the helicopter.  Doug pointed to the patches on his arm, the ones sewed to his uniform—I don't know what they are, but they signify rank.  I hope I am telling this in an understandable way.  My English may not be so good.”

“You are doing fine, Kasi,” Abigail assured her. “I understand every word of what you're saying.”

“Doug helped pull my father into the helicopter and put him next to him on the floor between the two pilot seats.  They took off into the air, and my father felt that he would die then, but he didn't care if they could get to my mother and help her.

“The helicopter landed right out there,” she said, pointing out the window.  “My little brother Jamal ran to the window, then to the door, then back to the window, yelling, ‘
Americans, Americans are here, Momma
!’

“I stayed holding my mother's hand until Doug came to us, and I saw his blue eyes looking at me for the first time.  He took her into his arms and carried her out to the helicopter.  All three of us kids were crying.  We followed after them, and Doug told my father to stay with us and that he would take my mother to the hospital in Baghdad.  He told my father to get there if he could, but if it wasn't possible, he would find a way to get her back to us.  My father did not want to leave her, but she insisted that he stay with us children.  She said, ‘
Please, take care of the children, Abdul, please
.’

“My father came inside with us, and we huddled there, all of us crying—even my father.  But he doesn't tell that part.  I, myself, remember, though.”

“So your brother was born safely at the hospital, then,” said Abigail, deeply moved.

“No, no,” said Kasi, “he was born in the helicopter.  Doug delivered him while the other pilot drove.  Then during the time that all the soldiers were being taken from the helicopter into the hospital, my mother recovered completely.  She says that lifting and pulling her body seemed to cause something inside her to change, like something untwisted or came unstuck.  And the baby plopped out as if nothing was ever wrong.  He cried vigorously; my mother felt tired, but well, and she did not want to go into the hospital when it was her turn to come out of the helicopter.  This confused the pilots, and they discussed what to do.

“Doug took a surgical clamp from the medical kit on the helicopter and cut the baby's cord.  My mother could not understand them, or perhaps they spoke so she could not hear—I do not know.  Then she held the baby close to her, and she attempted to get out of the helicopter although it was very high for her to jump. 

“Doug asked her where she was going, and she said
home. 
He asked how, and she said that she did not know.  She heard Doug say that they were going back anyway, to see if there were not more injured soldiers.  So they brought my mother back here—arriving with little Jahmir—all in about an hour from when they had departed.

“My father insisted on knowing his name, and hugged him.  He also insisted that he come back to the house when he was not so busy to share a meal and see the baby he had brought into the world.  Doug promised, and he must have crossed his heart because he came back about a month later—only in a jeep.”