The Last of the Angels (2 page)

One day, after the Friday prayer, a procession that included women and children set forth. Athletes from the Chuqor neighborhood, along with those from other communities, carried signs written in a variety of scripts—Ruq‘a, Farsi, and Kufic—“There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God,” “In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate,” “Traitor, Your Time's Up,” “Hameed Nylon's Innocent,” “Hameed Nylon Has a Family to Support,” and “Long Live Hameed Nylon!” Raised alongside these were green flags brought from the mosques. Thus the tops of their standards read, “God,” “Muhammad,” and “Ali.” When the children saw these, they rushed home and returned with any scraps of cloth they could find. They tied these to sticks, which they began to wave as they hopped about inside the crush of people or at the front. The neighborhood's dervishes brought their swords and lances, which they brandished, striking in time to the ululations of the women or whenever anyone cried, “God is Most Great!” There were also three or four—among them the thief Mahmud al-Arabi, who broke into houses by night (outside of the Chuqor neighborhood, naturally)—who brought their revolvers, since they felt responsible for their community's inhabitants. They fired into the air until the mosque's imam forbade them from doing that. They stopped firing but kept their revolvers in their hands. Many children had stained their faces black with soot so that they resembled Africans or afreets. Others, who wore goat heads attached to skins that reached down to their feet, butted the air with their horns. At the same time some shaykhs sprinkled rose water from small bronze vessels with long necks over the assembled people. Others carried pictures of al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the dragon-slaying saint, the child king Faisal II, King Ghazi, and Kemal Atatürk. Indeed, there was even a framed portrait of the renowned artiste Samanchi Qizzi—taken from the coffeehouse in the great souk.

Finally the demonstration set off, but where was it heading? No one knew. It traversed the Chuqor neighborhood, back and forth, entering alleyways and bursting out of them. When they saw the soot-stained faces and the goat heads, women watching from rooftops thought the procession was a prayer for rain and started pouring water over the heads of the demonstrators for good luck. After they had crisscrossed the neighborhood, someone shouted, “Let's go to the company and present our complaints!” Another person cried, “No, let's go to the barracks and present the matter to the government!” Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, the mosque's imam, who was marching in the lead with the neighborhood's shaykhs beside him, stopped to deliver a speech that everyone remembered for a long time. He said, “It is unreasonable to think we can march from here to the company in Baba Gurgur to present our petition to the Englishman and his wanton wife, who is a Christian. We would die of fatigue before we reached there. Moreover, God and His Messenger have forbidden Muslims from bowing their heads before infidels. If we go there, we will be forced to act in a submissive and subservient way when we appeal for merciful treatment from a harlot and her procurer husband. This approach would ill befit the honor of the Chuqor neighborhood. I have heard others demand that we head for the barracks or the palace, but how is the government involved in Hameed Nylon's firing? It's the English who fired him, and they're not our fellow countrymen. Only red Communists pick fights with the police and the government, and praise God we're not Communists or Muscovites.”

When the Imam Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri reached this point in his speech, voices from enthusiastic members of the crowd asked, “What should we do then?” A profound silence reigned while the imam responded. His answer was decisive and dumbfounding this time: “We will turn toward God.” The multitude did not quite comprehend the meaning of this lofty phrase. Therefore, he added, “It's true that Hameed Nylon was sacked, but the affliction is even greater than that, for we are all threatened by the drought, since not a single drop of rain has fallen. If God does not show compassion by sending His clouds over the city of Kirkuk, we shall starve to death. So let's all go to the open area in al-Musalla to pray to God and His Messenger for the advent of rain and the diffusion of goodness and blessings to everyone.”

Thus, to the beating of drums and the rattle of tambourines, people carrying their green flags and their placards demanding justice for Hameed Nylon headed to al-Musalla Square, which they crossed to the open cemetery, which concealed among its gravestones hoopoes and larks that took flight and soared into the air, until the human throng reached the open space that Turkmen called Yeddi Qizlar, where remains of abandoned stone grist mills could be found. Everyone stood facing God with dignified submission, raising their hands to the sky in common prayer and tearful, heartfelt entreaty for rain to fall and for Hameed Nylon to be reinstated to his job. They remained there more than an hour, asking God to cleanse their soot-stained faces with copious amounts of rain. Suddenly the sky darkened as black clouds approached from the east. Then affirmative cries glorifying God's compassion and might resounded in thanks to Him for hearing the appeal of the inhabitants of the Chuqor neighborhood. In fact, there was thunder and lightning; the prayerful demonstrators were caught in the rain and only reached home by the skin of their teeth, soaked and nearly drowned in the torrents that swept through all the neighborhoods. The miracle that had occurred made them forget the story of Hameed Nylon, who could now joke with the others about his escapades with Mrs. Helen McNeely.

This miracle left an indelible impression on people's memories. They debated and quarreled for a long time about who deserved credit for it. Had God answered the plea of anyone in particular, or simply their joint appeal?

They reached a degree of consensus on the notion that God would not have answered the prayer of one of the few Arabs participating in the procession, for they never washed off their butts and would be regarded as traitors for ever and a day because they had assisted the infidel English in the war against the Muslim Ottomans, fighting against their Turkish brethren without any consideration whatsoever for the religion uniting them. Since the Turkmen disparaged the Arabs in any quarrel that erupted between them with references to “traitorous Arabs” or “those shit-assed Arabs,” many Arab children began to wish that God had created them Turkmen. Some Arab children even joined with Turkmen children in their enthusiasm and support for Turkish political parties, of which many Turkmen youth considered themselves members. The portrait of Kemal Atatürk, recognizable by his lengthy face, military uniform, and medals, was displayed on the walls of most homes, whereas only Arabs dared hang a picture of the king, the prince regent, or even of Queen Aliya, who was loved by many, especially women, perhaps because she was a widow or possibly because it was the English who according to widespread rumors had killed her husband, King Ghazi, in revenge for his campaign to slay the Assyrians who had wanted to establish an independent state for themselves in Iraq under the leadership of Mar Sham‘un, who escaped with his life, fleeing to America. Women told their children with pride how the people of Kirkuk had once gone out to welcome the return of the victorious soldiers and armed men of some northern tribes, each of whom carried the head of an infidel Assyrian in his hands. The women said that the eyes in these heads were impudent and kept staring at them, casting impertinent glances their way, so that many women had been forced to pull their headscarves around their faces as they cursed Satan and the Assyrians.

Similarly, if the Arabs were ruled out as deserving any credit for this miracle, there was naturally no cause for the Kurds to claim such a favor. The truth was that the Kurds themselves, the two or three families that had settled in the Chuqor neighborhood, denied playing any role in this case, which was God's doing alone.

It would not have been possible, in any event, for them to claim the opposite, since they were not very bright and could not even distinguish black raisins from dung beetles. (Everyone in the Chuqor neighborhood knew that a group of Kurds who were served a platter of raisins mixed with dung beetles had begun capturing fugitive beetles to devour, telling each other, “Eat the runaway raisins first; the others will stay where they are.”) Would it have been conceivable for God to answer the prayer of such ignoramuses? The matter deserved no debate or reflection.

It was clear that God had answered the Turkmen's prayer and not anyone else's, but had He answered their communal prayer, or that of one or two of them only? It was admittedly difficult to be sure about a complicated matter like this, for opinions were totally irreconcilable.

Some claimed that this miracle should be credited to the madman Dalli Ihsan, who had raised his head to the sky, as he always did, and ordered the clouds to give rain, so that it rained. These people had an irrefutable argument, namely that Dalli Ihsan was not a human being but a jinni, one of the Muslim faction of the jinn. This was no secret, since everyone said so every day. He would walk through the Chuqor neighborhood, stroll through the great souk, and stop repeatedly to scream in the faces of jinn who apparently were trying to pick a fight with him or to upset him. Then he would continue on his way only to turn round once more and curse the void. He was allowed to stop at any stall and take whatever he wanted without anyone asking him to pay, although to tell the truth he never took more than he needed for himself: an orange from here and an apple from there. At times he would sit in a deserted corner of a coffeehouse and drink a tumbler of tea—without paying for it, naturally—and listen attentively to the coffeehouse's rhapsodist as he recited the story of Antara ibn Shaddad or Sayf ibn Dhi Yazzan or the choice exploits of Mullah Nasr al-Din. He would smile, shake his head, and leave. Then some patrons of the coffeehouse would mutter, “What a lucky fellow! The queen of the jinn has summoned him.”

The story of his relationship with the jinn had come to light many years before, and even the children of the Chuqor neighborhood knew it. What actually happened was that al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji, a wholesale cereals merchant and the community's richest man, was awakened one night by a voice, which did not sound human, outside his bedroom. He pretended to be asleep while sharpening all of his senses. Someone whispered in the dark, “Harun, Harun, are you ready?” The query came from a cat he had never seen before. Then he saw Harun, the household cat, join the other cat, which he greeted. He said, “I've borrowed some of my master's clothes for us.” The second cat replied, “I was afraid you'd forgotten or succumbed to fatigue and fallen asleep.” Harun replied, “No other night's like this one. How could I forget our annual party?” They leapt quietly onto the wall and from there descended to the street.

Curiosity got the better of al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji, who also went out to the street and followed the pair from a distance. The two cats, each carrying a bag by the neck, set off in the direction of the souk. Then they turned right, slunk down a side alley, and ended up on the public street parallel to the citadel. Slowly and calmly they continued on their way to the women's baths. He saw his cat Harun and the other one change into men in front of the side door to the baths, open their sacks, and then put on the jilbabs they had brought. Next they shoved open the door and disappeared inside. For a time, al-Hajj Ahmad heard heady, inebriating music coming from within, from the courtyard of the baths. His heart pounded fiercely, for he had recognized one of the two men as none other than Dalli Ihsan.

Al-Hajj Ahmad hesitated for a few moments, not knowing what to do. Should he enter too or not? He was terrified but recited, “In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful” and then the Throne Verse from the Qur'an. After that, he thrust open the door and entered, surrendering his fate to destiny. There he beheld a sight no human eye had ever seen before—nor would al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji ever see anything comparable for the rest of his life.

The courtyard of the baths, which his wife visited once a week with the children, taking along her bundle of clothes, had been transformed into an astonishing chamber of colored glass. Hanging from the ceiling were huge chandeliers of pearls. Around the sides were solid gold benches on which were engraved magical inscriptions he could not decipher, not a word. Green, blue, red, yellow, and white birds soared through the higher reaches of the chamber, making music like jinn singing. Al-Hajj Ahmad inhaled the fragrance of intoxicating incense that made him forget he was in the Kirkuk baths. In fact, he forgot he was in this world at all. He was especially incredulous when he discovered something he could in no way explain: the chamber opened onto the shore of a vast ocean traversed by ships arriving from afar in the command of cats of every variety. These leaped to shore the moment the ships and vessels reached it and then changed into young men and women of ravishing appearance. He knew, since he had spent his entire life in the city, that there is no ocean in Kirkuk and that the Khasa Su, which runs through town, is an unusual type of river, since it dries up completely in the summer but turns into a torrential, raging river in the winter, flooding its banks at times and threatening to drown the Chay neighborhood. The many people present wore the most splendid clothes. At the center of the hall sat the king and queen on a throne studded with pearls and rubies. Surrounded by their ministers and courtiers, they were served by comely youths and maidens, who were clad in silk and who carried around platters of pure gold containing finger foods and fruit. Al-Hajj Ahmad realized that these were Muslim jinn and that the names of their king and queen, respectively, were Hardhob and Murjana.

Dazzled by the lights and the elegance of the place, al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji mingled with the guests without anyone noticing him. When he saw people singing and doing line dances, he joined them so that no one would realize that a human being had crashed their party. They were all singing in unison to a beat like a magical incantation: