The Last of the Angels (5 page)

There was no protest against the police's rude intervention this time, for the matter was too big for anyone to fuss about. In only a few moments, everyone had learned the story. They shook their heads, saying, “We expected this.” Whether or not they had, someone had been killed by Abbas Bahlawan, who was a regular at the Bliss Cabaret, where he admired the dancer Kawakib, whom he adored and upon whom he showered everything he had gained by working during the day. It seems that, on this night, two of his friends had accompanied him and that he had boasted to them that she loved only him. Unfortunately, that very night, she had chanced upon a better catch. At first he invited her to their table very politely, but she refused, since she was busy with some Kurdish dignitaries. He returned and sat down but avoided the eyes of his two companions, who started to joke and laugh about his claims. He drank and drank and grew increasingly sorrowful and tipsy. His two friends laughed mockingly while they stared at his sweetheart Kawakib, who roamed from the embrace of one dignitary to the next.

It was impossible for Abbas Bahlawan to endure the pain of his suffering any longer. He rose, headed for the dignitaries' table, and stood there staring at Kawakib. One of the three gents asked in Kurdish, “What's this man want?”

A friend replied, “Leave him alone; he seems to be infatuated with the whore.”

The dancer Kawakib noticed him as he stood staring angrily at her. “Don't be an ass!” she snapped at him. “Get out of my face!” He forced his mouth open: “You're nothing but a whore!”

Instead of trying to calm or cajole him, however, she spat in his face: “Your mother's the whore!”

That was more than he could bear, for he was cocky to the point of conceit. All at once he noticed that his hand had reached for his small revolver—which he had purchased four years earlier from a Polish soldier whose English unit had been garrisoned for a period of time in tents near the Kirkuk Railroad Station—and had raised it toward Kawakib, who was aghast by this act and gazed at him in consternation. He pressed the trigger, and the gun fired once, twice, three times. Then he came to his senses, perhaps because of the blood that gushed forth. When he felt it sprinkling on his hand, he threw the revolver to the ground and dashed out, forgetting even his two comrades.

The death of the dancer Kawakib meant the cabaret's death as well because Ahmad Sulayman, the governor, who had only quite recently obtained his post, issued orders to keep the doors of the cabaret closed, at least temporarily. A week later, when the owners of the cabaret—after paying bribes to the police chief and after the cabaret's artistes had exerted themselves with city officials—reached an understanding to open the cabaret's doors once more, Abbas Bahlawan's aging mother, who thought it unjust that her son should be imprisoned for killing some whore, marshaled the women of the Chuqor neighborhood who rallied many other women—even from distant communities like the Citadel, al-Qurya, Shatirlu, Imam Qasim, and Sari Kahiya—and all these women poured into the streets, wailing and shouting, “The prostitutes' cabaret has destroyed our homes!”

Some boys, who were skipping back and forth in front of them like demons, showed them where the cabaret was located on al-Awqaf Street. On the way there, many dervishes joined the band of women. They carried placards that read, “Jerusalem Belongs to the Muslims,” “Down with Communism,” and “There's No Place for Jews in Our Country.” This outraged the Communists, who were caught off guard by the demonstration, which they considered a provocation organized by the government. This belief seemed confirmed when the policemen stood idly by, watching women throw stones at the cabaret and break its windows. Some of the artistes who lived in the cabaret itself, because there was no hotel that would accept them, were terrified and forced to flee via the roofs of neighboring buildings, even though they were half-naked.

Apparently the governor took advantage not only of these disturbances, which he had been expecting, but also of the danger to public safety, which he exaggerated in the report that he sent up to the minister of the interior, to cast all the blame on the shoulders of the previous governor, who had not given a moment's thought to the disasters that opening a cabaret in this city would shower on its innocent inhabitants.

Thus the cabaret was closed once and for all and its doors were sealed with red wax, and the female dancers and singers were forced to move to Baghdad again to look for whatever work was available at short notice under difficult circumstances. The Egyptians among them returned to Cairo. One, however, succeeded in staying in Kirkuk, and—with the patronage of the police chief—set up a clandestine brothel frequented by prominent figures, near the Government Guest House. She brought in some second-rate whores from al-Maydan in Baghdad and others from a whorehouse in Mosul.

At the same time, the police chief earned a sterling reputation for himself in the city by ordering, a few days after the attack on the cabaret, the release of Abbas Bahlawan. In fact, no charges were brought against him after everyone, on the advice of the governor, refused to testify against him. Thus the incident was recorded as unsolved, and his widowed mother as well as the Chuqor community welcomed Abbas Bahlawan back with drums and tambourines as if he were a pilgrim returning from Mecca. She was so carried away by patriotic fervor that she began yelling, “Long Live King Ghazi!” as though he had tired of lying dead in his tomb, which was situated in al-A‘zamiya in Baghdad.

If this affair had ended in a way that pleased the Chuqor community—after an anxious period that fortunately did not last long—there were, however, other incidents that occurred during this season as well to upset and distress the neighborhood and even disconcert it, for despite the fact that the thief Mahmud al-Arabi was responsible in a general way for protecting the neighborhood against break-ins by night, there had been a number of evening robberies that he was unable to explain, even though everyone knew that Mahmud al-Arabi was closely linked to the other thieves of Kirkuk. Because of his status as a professional thief, it was inconceivable that he would violate the maxim, which was almost a religious conviction, that a thief's home turf was off-limits for theft. So a theft in his community threatened the thief's honor and prestige. Indeed, some thieves took it upon themselves to make restitution for any loss, even if they were required to pay from their own pockets, if they could not track down the culprits and force them to return what had been stolen. Something like this would happen—and then only rarely—if the solidarity among the thieves was threatened and disagreement and conflict arose between them or when new, inexperienced robbers who lacked savoir-faire or who did not acknowledge the geographical division of the city between different thieves began to steal. Far-sightedness and wisdom would occasionally force this thief or that to buy back stolen items from these thieves to return, with a word of apology and the assurance that this would never happen again, to their owners in his home district.

Many houses in the Chuqor community were broken into that summer while people lay sleeping securely on their rooftops. One of these was the home of al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji, who was famous for his wealth. These houses were completely rifled, as if a magic broom had swept them clean. That embarrassed the thief Mahmud al-Arabi, who swore to the outraged citizens of the community, placing his hand on the holy Qur'an, that he would track down the perpetrators who had treated his presence in the community so disrespectfully and then settle accounts with them one by one, no matter how much protection the police provided them. He actually left the neighborhood, after he had thrust his revolver into his belt, and no one doubted that he would be as good as his word.

He was gone for three days, during which time he apparently did not sleep a wink. When he returned, he was stressed to the breaking point. He announced hopelessly, “There is no connection between these robberies and the thieves of the city.” The Chuqor community learned that the thieves of Kirkuk, most of whom were Arabs and Kurds, had declared, with the holy Qur'an before them, that they could never commit an outrage of this kind and moreover that they had announced a general alarm to confront this vicious challenge. The thief Mahmud al-Arabi proclaimed to a private assembly, which was held in the courtyard of the home of al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji and which was attended by headman Salman Hanash, Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, and other elders and notables of the community, that he was not rich enough to compensate the victims and that for this reason he would consent to any decision the community would take with reference to him, even if that meant moving to a different area. He affirmed that given the time and opportunity he would catch the robbers, even if they came from some other city, and that no further thefts would occur in the Chuqor community.

Everyone was convinced by what he said and therefore they declared that they needed him now more than ever before. At that, the thief Mahmud al-Arabi stood up and said, “This will be my responsibility. You all should go home and sleep with confidence about your possessions and your lives.”

Afterwards, a strange rumor spread through the neighborhood. At first senior citizens confided it to one another but then it spread to other people like fire through chaff. Neighborhood residents were telling each other that the thieves were not human beings, but the jinn.

Some people became so alarmed that they headed for the home of the madman Dalli Ihsan to entreat him to intervene to put an end to the nightly raids on their community by the jinn and the afreets. Dalli Ihsan did nothing more than look into their eyes and then stand up to begin roaming aimlessly through the city, leaving them with his mother, who said, “He's gone to muster the angelic armies against the Satanic ones.” The matter grew even worse when some boys, who lacked a proper upbringing, began to jump out of corners suddenly at night—while cloaked in their mothers' wraps and standing on wooden stilts like legendary giants—to surprise women out alone. Many women collapsed from fear and terror, falling to the ground where they lay kicking and choking on foam that filled their mouths and mixed with the dirt of the alley. Some pregnant women among them suffered miscarriages. Then strict fathers felt compelled to tie these boys up with ropes at home. Finally, the community discovered a foolproof way to control the jinn, afreets, and demons and to drive them from the Chuqor neighborhood. People began to attach copies of the Throne Verse from the Qur'an to the doors of their homes at the suggestion of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri and also in response to a plea from the thief Mahmud al-Arabi, who said candidly, “Spare me the evil of the jinn, and I'll spare you human evil.” Some people got carried away and attached horseshoes and circles of blue beads over the entrances to their homes. Some expectant mothers also placed knives of all types under their pillows and those of small children to ward off evil spirits, especially a certain spirit that was fond of pregnant women. Called Ayyi, she assumed the shape of a kindly old lady but kidnapped women to serve as food for bears or to drown in the river. Men, occasionally, noticed the abduction of a spouse and followed the evil spirit, rescuing the victim from certain death, sometimes at the very last moment.

Thus, when the Chuqor community took steps to clamp down on the jinn and evil spirits and to drive them away, the thief Mahmud al-Arabi fulfilled his pledge. Every night more than twenty masked men came, sporting revolvers in their belts, to stand at the points of entry and the alleyways leading into the Chuqor community, while others patrolled the neighborhood all night long, till morning.

The Chuqor residents went all out to honor these thieves and to show them respect. Many left the doors of their homes open to them, allowing them to come in if they needed a drink of water or to respond to a call of nature. Some households took turns offering them food and tea. Even more important than all this was the community's desire to show its total confidence in them, and they certainly did not err in this. The arrival of these masked men brought universal security and peace to the community to an unprecedented degree. Indeed, one of the thieves befriended the young men of the neighborhood and joined in their zurkhaneh exercises. Another fell in love with a girl, who—apparently—for her part, encouraged him. A new spirit entered the Chuqor community, a powerful, engaging spirit that the other neighborhoods began to envy. Jealousy in these other neighborhoods blinded some weak souls, who secretly contacted the thief Mahmud al-Arabi to propose that he move in exchange for free lodging and a monthly stipend to be paid by that community. Mahmud al-Arabi, however, rejected them decisively, saying that he possessed first and foremost a profession that rained gold on him and that he would never stoop so low as to take a bribe from his fellow countrymen, fleece them, or beg from them in return for doing his duty. Over and beyond that, a man should not betray his fatherland merely for a scrap of bread, and by “fatherland” he meant the Chuqor community.

T
he summer that thieves violated the Chuqor community, a deep friendship developed between Hameed Nylon, Abdallah Ali, and Gulbahar's husband, Faruq Shamil, who worked in the municipality of Kirkuk's print shop located on Queen Aliya Street. In the course of time, a young Turkmen with a delicate, calm face—Najat Salim—joined their group. He was studying in the vocational training program sponsored by the Iraq Petroleum Company in New Kirkuk. Usually they met in the neighborhood or went to a nearby coffee shop to play backgammon or dominoes. Although their meetings seemed innocent to most people in the Chuqor community, where people thought of themselves as each others' friends even without any declaration of friendship, the matter was much more than that this time. A destiny stronger than friendship united these men, for they had begun to savor new ideas that were not common knowledge among most residents of the Chuqor neighborhood. They would curse the English, mock them, and dub them imperialists who exploited their workers. The son of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri—Fathallah—who owned a bottling plant for Namlet, laughed when talking with Hameed Nylon: “I can barely understand you, Hameed. Why curse the English? Don't you know they benefit this city? How can you say they exploit their workers when the oil company pays a worker many times more than he could earn working for the state?”

As a matter of fact, the position adopted in discussions by Hameed Nylon and the others was weak, and they had trouble convincing people, for even bakers, butchers, and chauffeurs acknowledged the benefits the English bestowed on the city and envied the well-off employees of the oil company. Moreover, the company compensated employees it forced to retire on account of age with hundreds of dinars and a gold medal for those who had served a long time. This English compassion had made an impression on people's hearts. Even Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri himself once proclaimed in a Friday sermon that the English were more compassionate than many Muslims. In response to this, Hameed Nylon and his friends spread a rumor that Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri received each month a fat envelope filled with cash from the English, and women began to speak contemptuously of the mullah, asserting that he drank arak, too, normally concealing the glass under his turban. The workers earned their money by the sweat of their brows, the mullah by propaganda for the English. The image of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri became so tarnished in the community that many people boycotted his mosque and frequented a nearby one, which had a zealous young imam, who called for war against the Jews in Palestine and the defense of Jerusalem. Thus Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri felt compelled to deliver a fiery sermon in which he cursed the English, for no reason at all, and announced a jihad against them throughout the Islamic world. The following morning, slogans scrawled in red paint appeared on the walls: “Down with English Imperialism,” “Down with Zionism,” “Long Live the Oil Workers' Union,” and “Long Live the Iraqi Communist Party.”

These slogans excited a great commotion among the people, who did not understand the meaning of the words “Union” or “Communist Party,” although they grasped, after a fashion, the danger of these terms when around noon they saw a Jeep enter the community. Policemen wearing khaki Bermuda shorts leapt from it. They carried a bucket filled with white paint and some brushes and proceeded to cover the red slogans with their paint. Because they could not read, they also smeared paint over insults that kids had recorded on the walls against each other. The children, who were delighted by the serious interest the police displayed in their handiwork, began to show the police all the slogans written on the walls. Once they realized that the policemen's goal was to obliterate only the Communist slogans, they filled the neighborhood's walls—out of sight of the police—with the slogans “Long Live the Communist Party” and “The Oil Workers' Union Lives.” Then they would return to show these to the policemen. The children's mischief-making exhausted the police, who never caught on to this deceit and worked until evening, when they were forced to withdraw even though they had not obliterated all the slogans because they had run out of paint. They promised to return the next day but did not keep their promise, although the children covered the community's walls with more slogans than had been effaced and actually created some new slogans that were even more damaging and critical attacks on the state's honor.

The policemen who came the next day were in plain clothes. The women who normally sat in front of their houses noticed three strangers entering the mosque, as if to pray there, only to leave in a few minutes with Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, who appeared terrified. He raised his hands toward the heavens, protesting almost in a scream. The women learned from the children, who had also left the mosque, following the group, that the three men were secret government agents who were taking Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri away with them to lock him up on charges of nationalist agitation. The women then rose, leaving behind their small children, who began to crawl across the ground between people's feet. The women started cursing the security agents, who refrained from responding to them for fear of scandal but who urged the mullah, since he was dragging his feet, to step lively. Some of the women known for their boldness and insolence, however, allowing their wraps to flutter open in the breeze, caught up with the group and cursed the government and the English all the way to the little souk, where it became impossible to stay abreast of the men. At that point, one of the security agents turned to his two comrades to say, “Praise God who has delivered us from those women.” Then, directing his words to Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, he asked provocatively, “If you're such a scaredy-cat that you crap in your pants, why ask for trouble by cursing the government?” The mullah swore that he had always supported the government and Nuri al-Sa‘id in particular and had attacked Rashid Ali al-Gaylani in his Friday sermon after that leader's movement collapsed, holding him responsible for Muslim blood that was shed in the battle of Sin al-Dhubban in al-Habaniya against the British. The security agent laughingly told him, “These are old stories that no longer concern anyone.”

In the barracks, which were on the other side of the city, overlooking the river, they sat the mullah down on a wooden chair before an old desk, behind which sat a man he recognized as Deputy Lieutenant Husayn al-Nasiri, who told Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, “Fine, mullah; given that you are one of the religious men we respect, you should not have become a Communist.”

The mullah's face blanched and he was unable to keep from shaking: “God's forgiveness, my son; God's forgiveness!”

Noting how frightened he was, the deputy lieutenant procured a glass of water for him along with a tumbler of tea with sugar, to calm him. Then he asked him critically, “If you're not a Communist, why do you attack the government?”

Since the mullah thought it pointless to explain his real reasons, to excuse himself he said, “I won't deny that I attacked the English, but that was because they fired Hameed Nylon, and this matter has nothing to do with our government, may God preserve it. I am known throughout Kirkuk for my support for His Excellency Nuri al-Sa‘id.”

Then the public security deputy lieutenant laughed to lighten the atmosphere: “This doesn't matter; you can even support the Socialist Salih Jabr, since I myself am an enthusiastic Socialist. My concern is stamping out Communism and clandestine unions that advocate disbelief and atheism.”

Mullah Zayn al-Abidin agreed: “God's curse on Stalin and all the Reds in the world!”

At that point, the deputy lieutenant, who did not hide his affection for the mullah, proposed that he should act as a security representative in his neighborhood in return for seven dinars a month. He would only need to keep an eye on the Communists and enemies of the government and to inform on them. He reminded the cleric that the walls of the Chuqor community had been covered with Communist slogans, a fact that indicated that Communists lived there. Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri thanked him for the government's expression of confidence, but denied that there were any Communists in his community. He suggested that those who had written the slogans had perhaps come from other neighborhoods. Then he added that God had bestowed His goodness on him, so that his family owned a bottling plant for the soft drink Namlet and another for making ice, in addition to an up-to-date flour mill. He concluded his apology by saying, “My station does not permit me to serve as a spy, but I'll talk with the student who lives with me in the mosque. He's poor and needy and one of God's people. He might be willing to act as a secret agent for you.”

Smiling, the deputy lieutenant said, “Never mind about your student; it's not that big a deal.” Then he apologized for upsetting the mullah and, escorting him to the door, said, “I hope you won't meddle in politics from now on. If you feel you need to say something, curse Communism; that's the only party a person is allowed to curse in this country.”

Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, however, after being humiliated in this fashion, definitely did not meddle in politics again, not even to curse Communism, for if the commissioner himself was a Socialist, who could guarantee that the police chief was not a secret supporter of Communism? As a matter of fact, Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri was wrong about certain points, especially about his student Aziz Shirwan, whom he had proposed to the deputy lieutenant as a secret agent. The mullah knew that this young Kurd, who had come from Sulaymaniya to study Islamic jurisprudence with the mullah, lived in the mosque and knocked on doors each afternoon in hopes of receiving a loaf of flat bread or a section of one—since people deemed it a religious duty to feed him. He did not know that he was not merely a Communist but had transformed the mosque itself into a secret drop point for Party mail. He had thought about fleeing when the security men led the mullah away but had returned and decided against it when he learned the truth. He reassured the distraught mullah by telling him that security men often try to exert pressure on religious figures to frighten them.

From that day forward, Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri enjoyed unprecedented respect, for people began to speak of him as a stalwart nationalist who held firm to the principles of his faith. Indeed, some people spread a rumor that he had slapped the police chief himself and had proceeded to open the prison gate and set the prisoners free without anyone daring to stop him. Mullah Zayn al-Abidin actually felt proud when he heard these rumors, which he greeted with a crafty smile. He declined to comment on them, although he became more cautious and adhered to the deputy lieutenant's advice to avoid wading into politics. Instead, he turned his attention to the gender of angels: were they male or female? His opinion—which differed from that of many Muslim religious scholars—was that angels are female and that there are no male angels. He supported this opinion by reference to the fact that a male inevitably possesses a penis, which would not be something an angel would need, since they naturally do not copulate. If they are not males, then logically they must be females. At any rate, a sound intellect would reach this conclusion. Hameed Nylon—once during a discussion overheard by men in the coffeehouse—replied, “If we follow your logic, we should conclude that the angels are eunuchs, for what need would a female angel have for genitals if there are no male angels?” His view was convincing, although all the men present rejected it, since they scorned eunuchs. Then Hameed Nylon smiled and told the mullah, “I agree with you, mullah, for God's taste is too refined to create male angels resembling us ugly men when He could make them like the heavenly maidens who delight the heart.” The men guffawed, but the mullah said, “Damn you, Hameed. You turn everything into a joke.” All the same, Hameed Nylon's argument made an impact on Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, who began to search for irrefutable arguments for his position.

Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri's assertion to Deputy Lieutenant Husayn al-Nasiri that there were no Communists in the Chuqor community was credible, for there were no Kakaiyeen with the thick mustaches that were considered a sure sign of Communism. People were right to believe this, for Communists in the city during World War II had deliberately adopted Stalin's mustache as a symbol of their nationalist struggle. That made the job easier for security agents, who recognized and pursued them. Of course, law student Aziz Shirwan, Hameed Nylon, and all the other men in the community had mustaches, since a man would not be considered manly without one. Thus the worst insult exchanged in a quarrel was for one man to threaten another, “I'll shave off your mustache!” Their mustaches, however, were thin, not thick, and more like two strokes under the nose from a draughtsman's brush than anything else. Indeed, the mustache of the oil worker Abdallah Ali, who was thin, brown, and lanky, was trimmed on both sides to look almost like Hitler's. Thus it was impossible for anyone to imagine that these men were connected to politics in any way.

Except for the law student Aziz Shirwan, who was already a Communist when he moved to the neighborhood, and for Faruq Shamil, who met Communists in the print shop where he worked—and in any case he had moved into the Chuqor community from elsewhere—there were no dyed-in-the-wool Communists in the neighborhood. The others—including Hameed Nylon, who had begun to transport passengers between Kirkuk and al-Hawija in an old, wood-sided vehicle that belonged to a Jew named Shamu'il, who had a shop selling watches in al-Awqaf Street and who was the sole agent for Swiss Felca and Nivada watches—were preoccupied with a single thought: a union that would defend the rights of its members. The police considered unions to be simply another face of Communism and pursued them mercilessly. Hameed Nylon, however, believed firmly that had there been a public union for oil workers, Mr. McNeely and his prostitute-wife, Helen, would not have been able to toss him out on the street like a rat. Indeed, he was so touched when he learned that the clandestine union had issued a flyer defending him that his eyes were bathed in tears. When Najat Salim showed him the flyer, he read it again and again. Then he hid it carefully in a bag at home. That same day, he asked Najat Salim to introduce him to these folks. Najat Salim asked him, “Why should I introduce you? They are closer than you think.” Hameed Nylon was perplexed. So Najat Salim said, “Let's go have tea at the union.” He led Hameed to the room where Faruq Shamil lived with his wife Gulbahar, right next to his own house. Hameed Nylon burst out laughing and ruffled the evening calm of the Chuqor neighborhood, exclaiming, “What an ass I am!”