War Porn (14 page)

The bite was deep, jagged, inflamed. He couldn't find any antibiotic cream, so he just put some cotton pads in the wound and wrapped it up. It was unwieldy work, but he managed to cover the gashes. Thurayya stood in the living room glowering. His cousins sulked at their chores, well aware who'd caused their misfortune.

“I won't be having dinner,” Qasim said, taking a piece of flatbread in his good hand. “I need to work.”

Upstairs, he sat at his desk and looked out the window. His mind had gone remarkably clear, and though his hand ached wretchedly, he felt crisp, even refreshed. He munched his flatbread, for a few minutes blessedly free of thought, enjoying the brilliant coruscations of the streetlights through the palms.

When he'd finished eating, he put on his headphones and pulled out his dissertation. Against a background of chirps and beeps, riding a delicate synthesized wave, David Bowie moaned out, “Nothing remains . . .” Qasim let the music ease him into the pure spaces, the gently shimmering universe of thought called mathematics. He flipped through his notes with his good hand, recovering lines and curves, weaving arcane connections, coming back after an exile too long to his comfort, his true home, his love.

Salman drove up over the Al-Jumariyah Bridge, catching the outdoor fires from the masgouf restaurants along Abu Nuwas Park flickering orange in the black waters of the Dijlah, and descended into the subdued hustle of Yafa Street, passing the Parliament building and the Assassins' Gate. Aziz liked Salman to meet him in a particular shisha café in Mansour, to which he was now driving in an unusual mood, enjoying the easy feel of nighttime Baghdad yet planning, calmly and just below conscious thought, his tactics for dealing with Aziz. He was almost certain he was going to have do something unsavory and probably dangerous, but he just hoped it didn't involve his notional status as a reservist.

Salman couldn't remember the last time he went to drill, but even he knew the situation was bleak. Maintenance didn't happen, training was a joke, and morale wretched. The Sunni officers despised the almost wholly Shi'a ranks, and vice versa, and everything was infiltrated by the Mukhabarat. No camaraderie, no sense of unity: each man looking out for himself, which means you're always looking over your own shoulder. Not that it would have mattered much even if they did all work together. The armored corps were still devastated from the last war, the air force nonexistent, the artillery bombed to pieces—even after Iran, things had been better. The troops were digging in as they'd been told, but no one had any illusions about what would happen when the shooting started.

As he turned along Zawra Park and passed the Baghdad Zoo, noting soldiers setting up antiaircraft guns under the lights of the Dream Park's Ferris wheel, Salman realized he couldn't care less who won. Someone would always be on top, and the guy on top has to step on everyone else in order to stay there, so what's the point in getting worked up over who it is? There has to be a sheikh. Sheikh Hussein or Sheikh Bush, it didn't matter. Power flowed the same no matter who wielded it. And if you weren't on the side of power, you got out of the way.

He parked around the corner from the café and walked up. Rubbing misbaha beads between his fingers, he wished he'd changed from shirt and slacks to a dishdasha. The robe would have been so much more comfortable. Most important, he had to keep from being put in a fight Iraq was bound to lose. Salman definitely didn't want to ride around Baghdad in the back of a Toyota pointing a machine gun at curfew breakers. Maybe if he told Aziz he was investigating somebody—something vague and hard to check up on. He could say he needed to collect evidence, do some surveillance.

The café had a grand entrance that always pleased Sal
man's eye: high and wide, dark wood hung with scimitars, shelves and tables busy with archaic-seeming bronze lamps and ornate, multicolored shishas. Peer too hard and you'd see how chintzy it all was, but in the dim light and thick, fruit-scented smoke you could pretend, imagining yourself in some Abbasid harem—sticky dates and slippery olives, the lingering odor of spiced tobacco, veils and low-lit lamps
half-concealing firm and youthful flesh. Salman found Aziz sitting alone in a corner in the back, drinking chai and smoking—not a shisha, but a Marlboro. The red and white pack lay ostentatiously on the table. The two men exchanged greetings, shaking hands softly and touching their hearts, and when the server came, Salman ordered chai.

“Still they haven't voted on the resolution,” said Aziz, flicking ash. Salman noticed, as he always did, that the two smallest fingers on Aziz's left hand were missing. They'd been lost to shrapnel in the Iran War, but even crippled, the man's hands were powerful, brutal hands that knew a lot about killing, and Salman watched them to keep from getting caught in the operator's deep, hooded eyes. “There's talk of a veto, Russia, China, France. The world may yet stand with us against the Zionist aggression.”

“The Americans won't be happy until they've got all Islam under the lash. It's always been that way, they're just using their own guns now. We'll have to fight them sooner or later.”

“We've struggled a long time against the Zionists.”

“God willing, we'll destroy their armies on the field of battle.”

“Insha'Allah,” Aziz said flatly. “How is your mother, Salman?”

“She's preparing to celebrate Ashura. Privately, of course.”

“Ashura.” Aziz took a drag from his Marlboro. “I'm wondering, Salman, if you've thought much about what happens after the war.”

Aziz was a hard man, a shadowed man, and although Salman didn't know exactly where he stood in the Mukhabarat hierarchy or what he did, he suspected Aziz would have no compunctions at all about cutting Salman's balls off with a dull knife and stuffing them down his throat. He might even enjoy it, if the man ever felt joy. Either way, Salman was confident that in the clandestine webs sure to be spun in the postwar chaos, Aziz would remain one of the nastier and more important spiders.

“I am your servant,” he said. “And a soldier of the Revolution.”

“We expect the war to be a long one. We expect the Zionists to make great gains, initially. But there are plans for what comes after. Salman, you have always served us very well.”

“I'm honored to do so.”

“But not everyone is so loyal. We expect many Shi'a to collude with the Zionists.”

His father gunned down by helicopter, his brothers dragged off to be shot like dogs, the mass graves and burning bodies, his tunnel that was almost a tomb—Salman imagined a boot stamping the images out. “You will need information,” he said.

“Yes. The Saddam Fedayeen and Mukhabarat are prepared, in the event of the Zionists' temporary success, to fade into the desert and carry on the fight. We are Arabs, after all. We shall scatter like the Bedu and strike at the Zionists from the dunes, as we once fought the Turk and the British. We'll raise a jihad against the Americans and bleed them the way the Afghans did the Russians. We'll
cut them four thousand times for every time they cut us. It may take years, of course, but patience makes all things possible.”

Salman saw where this was going. “The Americans will need collaborators. Translators.”

“Your English is good, no?”

“Fair. Mostly economics terms. But it's passable.”

“Work on it. Here,” Aziz said, putting a satellite phone on the table. “This is how you maintain contact. The phone has two preprogrammed numbers. The first is to
call me. I may or may not answer, and if I do, I may not have time to speak. Use it only when it's most urgent for you to pass on information. The second is strictly for
emergencies. Strictly.
But if you need it, don't hesitate. You will be all but on your own. We will call when we need you. Keep the phone close by. You understand?”

That all sounded fine, so far as it went. A bit like planning your own funeral. “Yes.”

“Good. Now we must come to a more urgent topic.”

Salman raised his eyebrows. Here it is, he thought, and struck first: “If I may, sir, I have something to tell you.” Aziz showed no response. Salman went on. “I've heard Munir Muhanned may be selling information to the Americans, via an agent in Kuwait.”

“You have evidence?”

“Not yet. But
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I have a line. I think one of my colleagues is working with Muhanned's men to encode the messages.”

“What's his name?”

“His name?”

“Yes.”

“His name.”

“Yes, Salman.”

“Of course. Qasim al-Zabadi.”

“I see. Well, we'll take care of it. For now, I need you to deliver a package.” He slid a folded piece of paper across the table. “Go here and ask for Naguib. He'll have instructions for you.”

Salman palmed the paper. “Is that all, sir?”

“Yes, for now. You have university work, don't you, that exempts you from emergency mobilization?”

“Of course.”

“Good. You'll be well placed, if you manage to make it through the next few weeks. Don't do anything stupid.”

“Yes, sir,” Salman said, and left as calmly as he could, elated to have been exempted from reserve service. He'd needlessly used up his “suspicions” about that weed al-Zabadi, but that was fine. There would always be another Qasim.

Ashura had come and gone, unobserved, the Lament of Husayn forbidden on state radio. Qasim got up early all the same and prayed, irritated and guilty, thinking of his mother and Lateefah. Of more interest to the rest of the family—mostly Sunni—was the impending UN vote and the threat of veto, the worldwide protests, and the upcoming deadline. Indeed, the house buzzed like a newsroom. All day long, Al Jazeera and BBC ran on the TV in the living room and Iraqi radio played in the kitchen, while the family talked constantly. The chatter eased and obscured the fear behind their preparations.

The generator had benzine and the lines were hooked up. Extra propane tanks had been bought for the kitchen gas, since no one knew when the filling stations would reopen. The windows were taped. Mohammed had drilled a well, but the foot valve was leaking, so Mohammed's son-in-law Ratib was out in the front garden trying to fix it. Ratib's eldest, Siraj, worked in the garden with him, digging a hole for the benzine cans and propane tanks, and little Abdul-Majid, barely out of diapers, pretended to help, poking at the dirt with a stick till Siraj sent him running with a smack. The little one ran in the house wailing, snot-faced, crying for his mother, Warda, who was rifling through the living-room closet collecting candles—citronella candles, scented candles, beeswax candles, all jumbled together in a box.

Warda knelt and wiped Abdul-Majid's face while he cried and told on his brother Siraj. She kissed his head and gave him some candles to carry, picked up her box, and led him into the kitchen, where Thurayya's widowed sister, Khalida, was preparing the midday meal: chicken with red rice, salad and pickles, shineena, with golden vermicelli for dessert.

It had been a year since Khalida had come to stay with her sister. She'd once been an editor at a respected publishing house specializing in trade books, and her husband had been a policy coordinator for the National Progressive Front. About four years ago, he'd disappeared, but she kept working, living alone, waiting for him to come home, until one day her spirit just gave out. By the time Thurayya and Mohammed took her in, she was a scarecrow: withered to a stick, hair unbrushed, nails chewed to ragged nubs, darting eyes flashing out at a world full of hidden enemies. She was a bit better now, but the run-up to the war was wearing on her nerves.

“Hello, Auntie,” Warda said.

“God bless,” said Khalida, wiping her hands on a towel. “And what have you got there, little man?”

“Some candles,” Abdul-Majid said, sniffling.

“And what are you going to do with them?”

“We'll light them with matches.”

“That's right,” Khalida said. “We'll light them with matches.”

“And they'll make light,” he said.

“That's right! They'll make light! So that your auntie can see your beautiful face!”

Thurayya turned from her shopping list, warmed by the joy in her sister's shy voice. She smiled at Khalida, Warda, and Abdul-Majid, her daughter Nazahah sitting next to her slicing cabbage, her precious family, her beautiful home—then scowled as she remembered the snake upstairs.

“Nazahah,” she said, “pay attention to what you're doing.”

She still couldn't believe Mohammed had refused to turn his back to the ingrate, brother's son or no. After all his shiftlessness, all his laziness, and finally this, this disrespect—Thurayya had given up on him. She never thought her sister-in-law Nashwa had been hard enough on the boy anyway, especially after Faruq's death, and now
. . . 
staying in Baghdad, leaving his wife in Baqubah, during a war
. . . 
unimaginable. Then, to talk to her as if she was a child! What did you expect from such a one? Those who haven't learned from their parents will learn their lessons from the days and nights. And for her own husband to nurse this viper
. . . 
Mohammed left her no choice but to snub him at every turn, to cast a pall of tension over the house so thick, they'd suffocate till she got her way.