The Sweetness of Tears (32 page)

After the first procession that morning, the women in our group gathered together in the dining room of our hotel to do a special prayer. Deena said, “This is the prayer of Ashura. It’s like a regular prayer, but with some extra movements.”

At the end of the prayer, we stepped forward as we said,
Innalillahi, wa inaa ilayhi rajiuna bi-qaz’aa-ihee, wa tasleeman li-amrihee
. Which means, “We belong to God and unto God we will return; we are happy with the will of God and carry out the command of God
.
” Then we walked backward again, back to where we started. We did this, back and forth, seven times.

“That is what Imam Husain said, over and over again, on that day when he lost his sons, his nephews, his brother. The last one he lost, before his own death, was his baby, Ali Asghar, who he carried, backwards and forwards, like this, already dead in his arms, unable to face the child’s mother,” Deena whispered to me.

The father of the boy pulled himself together, all of a sudden, and picked up his boy in his arms. He started walking back into the front gate of his house, then stopped, touched his forehead to his boy’s, and shook his head, crying softly. The woman, the doctor, was still beside him, her hand on his shoulder. He took another few steps. And then stopped again. More steps. More stops. I didn’t have to understand Arabic to know what was happening. He didn’t know how he was going to do it. How was he going to take the boy back inside the house to show to his mother?

We stayed there, outside of the home of that dead boy, for a few hours. The captain came, he went in and talked to the family. When the captain came back out, the doctor woman from across the street was with him. She’d been translating between him and the family, which was a good thing, because we didn’t have a translator with us. She told the captain that the boy’s father wanted us all to come for the funeral the next day.

The captain didn’t know what to say. Nobody did. This whole time, Foley was sitting on the side of the road. At first, he had his head in his hands. I’d gone over and sat down beside him for a while. Later, someone gave him a pack of cigarettes, which he smoked, one after another, until he made himself puke. Now, he looked up and around, but his eyes were dead. Like he wasn’t with us anymore. The doctor lady said the father appreciated that it was an accident. He saw how we’d tried to help. And that we hadn’t run away from what had happened. He wanted us to come to the funeral.

Our next stop was Najaf. We stayed there for three days, following much the same routine of prayers and shrine-hopping that we’d done in Karbala. In Karbala and in Najaf, in between visits to shrines, some people in the group went shopping, buying things like prayer beads and prayer rugs. There were food stalls running up and down every street. Business was booming in Najaf, as it had been in Karbala. The sheer number of pilgrims had a lot to do with that. We stopped in at a kabab restaurant a couple of times, for dinner, just me and Deena and Sadiq. It was a place recommended by one of the translators. His name was Qasim. The food was delicious.

Foley didn’t go to the funeral. I did, with the captain and Sgt. Dixon. Some of the guys thought it was a bad idea. That the people there would be too hostile and that it could be a trap. But they were wrong. It was just a funeral. There were only men in the front room of the house. But we could hear the women in the back, crying. We figured the loudest of those cries must be coming from the mother of the dead boy. We’d tried to get a translator, but no one was available.

After a little while, the doctor lady who lived across the street came out from the back to translate for us. Through her, the captain told the family how sorry we were for what had happened. When we got up to leave, the doctor came outside with us, along with two men, one older, who I guessed was her husband, and another one who looked like he might be eighteen or nineteen, Foley’s age. With them there was also a little girl, who hid her face in the doctor’s skirt, and another boy, about the same age as the boy Foley’d killed.

The doctor told us her name was Sana and introduced us to her husband, Ali, whose English wasn’t as good as hers. “My husband owns a kabab restaurant in Mansur. The Khalil Restaurant. This is our son, Ali Asghar. Our younger son, Uthman. And our daughter, Ayesha.”

We all shook hands. Then Sana said, “Your friend didn’t come? The other soldier? The one responsible?”

I waited for the captain to say something. But he was looking at me. I said, “He was unfortunately unable to come.”

The woman sighed and shook her head, her ponytail swinging side to side. “What a pity. The boy is dead. Nothing can bring him back. But your friend was given a rare gift by the boy’s father. To be invited to the funeral of someone he is responsible for killing. I am not sure I could have done the same in his place. Could you? He should have come. And shed a tear for the boy and his family. He should have come to say sorry. For his own good. Now, instead, he will carry the pain he caused home with him, a stain on his soul that he will bear for the rest of his life.”

We all shuffled our feet, not knowing what to say.

Before we left, the captain said, “Again. We are very sorry for what happened. We’ll be here again. To help the family fill out an application for some kind of compensation.”

Most of the people in our group didn’t stay for the last leg of our trip, in Baghdad. We would be staying in the Kadhimiya suburb of Baghdad, around the shrines of the seventh and ninth imams. Sadiq had spent a lot of time planning for this part of the trip, the end of it, which we had agreed would be the best time to pursue what I had specifically come for in connection with Chris. To do that, he had enlisted the help of the translator we’d spent the most time with, Qasim, who lived in Kadhimiya, near the hotel we would stay in. Qasim arranged for the car that would take us to the neighborhood of Mansur, where I wanted to go, where I hoped to find the address I needed.

“The neighborhood where we are going has become a dangerous one,” Qasim said. “All of Baghdad is dangerous. Who you are can get you killed. Mansur is where the big shots live. And all the foreigners and journalists.” Qasim shook his head. “I used to live in another area before. Until they drove us out, threatening to kill us. Because we are Shia. The same is true for Sunnis living in Shia neighborhoods. It’s jungle law, now, in the great city of Baghdad.”

We’re scared all the time, now, when we go out on patrol. Especially after we lost Phillips. He always sang along with me whenever I did. His favorite was “Amazing Grace,” but he liked “Onward Christian Soldiers,” too, the Christian March version. He was from Missouri and used to joke about moving to San Diego and joining the band when we got home. He said he was really good on bass.

We don’t go to the orphanage anymore. No one does. We feel too much like sitting ducks.

Every day, we hear about more guys getting blown up. Car bombs and IEDs planted by insurgents, there’s no way to fight against them.

At night, we go on house raids. I hate it. Breaking down doors in the middle of the night, sometimes blowing them open with explosives, we burst in on people in their pajamas. Everyone screams. We round up the men. At first, it didn’t feel so bad, ’cause we thought we were going after the guys who’re trying to blow us up. That was when we still trusted the intel. But I don’t anymore. We’ve torn up hundreds of houses and we never find anything. The men get treated rough, especially if they try to argue with us. Then we arrest all the men in the house and leave the women and kids behind, screaming and crying and begging us, on their knees, to let their sons, their husbands, their brothers, go.

The other night, Sgt. Dixon went too far. Not that anyone seems to give a crap. He beat up this old man with the butt of his rifle, because he wouldn’t let go of his grandson, who we were arresting. I’ll never forget the look in the old man’s eyes. From the moment we entered his house. Terror. I looked at us from his point of view. A bunch of men in armored uniforms, with M-16s waving, busting in his door, terrifying his family. And him, helpless to save anybody. From us. We found out it wasn’t even the house we were looking for. But there was a gun in the house and Sgt. Dixon wasn’t in a good mood. So we took the grandson. I don’t even think he was fourteen. We’re not supposed to take kids younger than fourteen.

In the day, on patrol, the few people who come up to us only do it to complain. On the days we go out with a translator—our favorite is an Iraqi we call Slick Sam—we get an earful. About all the stuff that doesn’t work. Power, water, sewage. We don’t see any women anymore. When we first got to Baghdad, they were everywhere, a lot of them dressed in regular clothes, not like the ones we’d seen in the small towns and villages on the way into Baghdad. Now, the women in the city are all covered up, too. Slick Sam says it’s ’cause it’s not safe for women anymore. He says his sister used to go out shopping in jeans and skirts, but now he won’t let her.

Things here are going crazy. Getting much, much worse. For the Iraqis. And for us, too. I can’t wait to go home.

The Khalil Restaurant was still open. When we went in, we asked to see the owner. The waiters shook their heads and shrugged. Then, the cook came out from the back and asked us what we wanted. I spoke through Qasim. For some reason, Sadiq wanted me to keep my Arabic a secret. He said it might draw unnecessary attention. I told Qasim to ask about the owner named Ali.

The cook shook his head and said, “No, the owner’s name is Abu Muhammad.”

One week left to go! Can’t wait to see Mom and Dad and Jo.

In Baghdad, life sucks, as usual. I just can’t wait to get the heck out of here.

Every time we go by a restaurant, I remember the doctor. Sana. Truth is, I think of her and what she said every time I look into Foley’s eyes. I see what she meant. He’s messed up. Not just scared, like the rest of us. His eyes are still dead, even when he laughs or jokes around. After the boy’s funeral, I heard the captain tell Foley not to worry about what happened. That it was a stupid mistake, but a mistake all the same. He told him to just brush it off, and get on with doing his job.

“The lady is asking about the old owner, whose name was Ali,” Qasim explained again, patiently, for the third time.

“The old owner? I only just started working here. What do I know about the old owner?” the cook demanded.

I waited impatiently for Qasim to translate back to me, the pretense of not already having understood grating on my nerves.

“Ask him if there’s anybody here who
did
know the old owner.”

After a few minutes of this exasperation, an older man, someone sitting and eating in the restaurant, shuffled up to us. “Why do you want to know about Ali?”

I could barely stop from speaking to him myself, in Arabic. But I remembered not to, turning to let Qasim speak instead.

“Ask him if
he
knows him.”

“Of course I knew him. You don’t know that he’s dead?”

TCP tonight. I hate Traffic Control Points even more than going on raids. Especially the kind we’ve been doing lately. Flash. Set up suddenly, so no one’s expecting us. Hard Ass Platoon shot up a pregnant woman the other night. She was in labor and the husband was driving her to the hospital, driving too fast.

Just a few more days.

“Yes, the lady knows that he’s dead,” said Qasim. “She wants to know where he lived. She’s an old friend of Ali’s wife. Sana. She is trying to find her. Do you know where the family lives?”

“Of course! They live in Dora.”

“Yes, yes. But
where
? She needs the address.”

Bad night. The Hard Ass Platoon had a suicide car bomb hit them at the TCP. Couple of bad injuries. And Kirp’s dead. Two more days and I am out of here.

We followed the old man’s directions carefully. We passed through a militia checkpoint on the way into Dora. Qasim had said to let him do all the talking. After a few minutes of him explaining who we were—Shias on pilgrimage, from Pakistan, here to visit a friend—they let us in.

When we got to the street we were looking for, we knocked on what we thought was the right gate. A young man answered. Qasim told him we were looking for Sana.

The man frowned. “There’s no Sana here. Who are you?”

Qasim said, “These people—this young woman—is an old friend of Sana. She wanted to visit her. Is this the wrong house?”

“I don’t know any Sana!” the man shouted, looking around to see if anyone was watching before slamming the gate of his home shut.

We knocked on the gates on either side of the first one. No luck. Only more gates slammed in our faces. I glanced across the street, wondering which house could be the one of the boy Foley had killed.

After a few more minutes, we were starting to attract attention. A group of people gathered around us. Some among them were young men wearing black headbands, like the militiamen who’d greeted us at the checkpoint into the neighborhood. Someone said, very suggestively, “Oh, Sana, eh? The doctor? With two little children named Uthman and Ayesha?”

Qasim shot me a look. I nodded. After that, Qasim stopped asking the people around us questions, asking me, instead, in a whisper, “Is this woman a Sunni? The one you’re asking about?”

I shrugged.

Qasim frowned. “If she is, you have put us in a bad position. This is a Shia neighborhood.”

Then, someone in the group that had gathered around us, referred us to one of the houses across the street, saying softly, “Those people. They’ll know.”

I’m still shaking. I can’t believe it. We set up a flash checkpoint tonight. A car was approaching, slowing down and still pretty far, no reason to worry. Then we heard a bang. It must have backfired. But that’s not what it sounded like. Someone, one of us, yelled and fired and then we all joined in, round after round, until the car came to a stop, red mist coming out of its windows. In the silence that finally returned, I heard the sound of children crying. No one moved.