Baghdad Central (21 page)
Khafaji doesn't know what to think. He makes a show of looking at his watch and decides to leave. He stands up and tells Nidal, “I swear to you, Nidal, the body I saw was your daughter's. It makes no sense, I know. Maybe I was wrong. I promise I'll find out.”
As Khafaji walks downstairs and into the street, he begins to consider the possibility there was a mistake.
But you saw her with your own eyes
. He rubs his bleary eyes and lets the exhaustion pour across his body. When the headache returns, it comes on fast.
The children swarm around Khafaji as he walks down the street. Their laughter suddenly annoys him. A ball hits a pothole and bounces over to Khafaji. He tries to kick it back, but misses. They scream and take off running after it while he curses under his breath.
To: Iraq Intelligence Service, D4
R
E:
Uday Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji
This formal clarification is prompted by interviews with officers from D4 (Date: July 30) and the Directorate of Military Intelligence (Date: July 22) concerning the desertion of my nephew, Uday Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji. Let it be known that I have only met my nephew a handful of times and that my relations with his family were distant long before he committed his crime. It is true that my nephew had, for many months, attempted to contact me via post. It needs to be emphasized that this gesture on his part was uninvited and ceased more than three years ago. I believe he was motivated more by a desire to practice his English than by any particular sense of familial connection to me.
It will not be difficult for you to prove that, as instructed, I have maintained nothing more than cordial relations with my relatives in Iraq since my appointment at Exeter. I believe that a fair consideration of my actions will absolve me of all responsibility and connection to this case, and have refrained from contacting my brother since I was notified of my nephew's execution.
At the risk of overstepping, I would be remiss if I did not enter a plea on behalf of my brother, Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji. I understood from my interviews that he has been relieved of the post he has held for more than a decade, and this would appear to me to be a mistake. I admit that I am not so estranged as to have lost all fraternal sentiment, yet my reasoning remains objective and my motive professional. My brother's reputation in the service is exemplary. He is known to be a diligent investigator and a talented handler of networks and information systems. If you find that his commitment to our Glorious Party remains unwavering, and that his loyalty to the Great Leader (May God protect Him) remains steadfast in the wake of this incident, I would recommend that he be rehabilitated. One might even consider him for a post in the Office of Information and Records. As they say, an archive is only as good as its minder.
May you live to continue the struggle,
H
ASSAN
K
HADR AL-
K
HAFAJI
By the time Khafaji goes to the American Zone, the sun is sitting high in the sky. And so is the pain in his head. The air is unseasonably warm, even hot. The wait at the gate looks daunting, so Khafaji retreats to the Dijla Café. He drinks a cup of coffee and looks across the road, glad that he is not standing there.
At first he thinks of sitting outside in the air. But his head forces him to move into the shadows. At this hour, the square is cluttered with people and traffic. Hundreds of automobiles and trucks. Most driving west, out of town. A few pulling over to wait in line to enter. Pedestrians cross the melee in all directions. It looks like a parking lot. From a distance, the people standing in line look no different than the fluttering plastic bags caught in the spools of razor wire. Khafaji picks up some discarded newspapers and begins to read. The front pages are filled with conjecture about the seven Spaniards killed outside al-Hilla. Spanish military intelligence? CIA? Mossad? Inside, Khafaji reads about the killing of two police sergeants in Mosul. He folds the papers and throws them back on the table. His head hurts too much to keep reading. He stands and decides to try his luck at the gate.
Khafaji is most of the way across the intersection before the chaos erupts. The first sign there's something wrong are the gunshots. Then all at once everyone ducks onto the ground. Pedestrians dash behind large vehicles. At first, car passengers try to lean under dashboards and seats. Then they open car doors and flee. The shots stop, but now there is commotion at the gate. Sirens explode and soldiers appear on the ramparts. A loudspeaker barks commands, too garbled to make out. But it doesn't take long for the simple message to travel: leave the area now.
Khafaji jogs back to the café, and orders a tea. Within a minute, the tables around him fill with people anxiously watching the street. Pedestrians stream away from the gate. Cars and trucks and buses back up and then speed off. Twenty minutes later, the street is empty except for a dozen abandoned cars. Periodically, the garbled announcement issues from a distant loudspeaker. Khafaji hears words, but their meaning dissolves in the wind. He notices that the line at the gate has vanished, and decides to seize the opportunity.
As Khafaji approaches, he sees a large water truck parked directly in front of the gate. The doors to the cab are wide open. A man in a thick armored suit slowly walks around, periodically inspecting pieces of the vehicle. To Khafaji's right, a voice begins to shout, “Imshi minna! Imshi minna!”
Khafaji turns and sees one of the regular guards at the gate. Khafaji smiles and holds his hands over his head. “Hi there, Florida! It's me â Moe!” He walks over slowly. “I am sorry, Florida. I could not understand what they say. Is everything OK?”
The woman studies Khafaji's face for a moment and then notices the ID hanging around his neck. Finally she nods in recognition.
“What is going on?”
“We've got a situation. Probable bomb in that truck. It's huge. Come over here.” She speaks into a radio and then waves Khafaji to come over. From this angle, they are separated from the truck by one hundred meters and a shoulder-high concrete slab. The minutes tick by slowly as they watch the bomb squad inspect the truck. The man in the suit runs his fingers along the shiny metal of the tank, feeling, listening, walking a few steps, then feeling and listening again. It takes a quarter of an hour of watching this before Khafaji notices the crumpled human form on the ground near the cab. One of its legs quivers and kicks. Khafaji turns and catches the eye of the soldier. She explains. “This guy cuts in at the front of the line, believe it or not, and the cars start honking. That gets everyone's attention. Then, when somebody goes out to see what's going on, the driver bolts. He leaves the keys in the ignition, and takes off running. Didn't get very far.”
Khafaji watches as the man in the suit takes off the thick metal helmet. He waves with both arms a few times and walks away. A few minutes later, the soldier's radio crackles. All clear. Not a bomb. A couple of medics exit the gate, and rush toward the man on the ground. But by then his body has stopped moving. Khafaji follows twenty meters or so behind the soldier, curious, but not sure what he's supposed to do. One of the other soldiers nods when Khafaji waves. Khafaji sees two interpreters among them, now wearing fatigues and thick body armor. Curious, Khafaji walks over to where they're standing. Within a few minutes, there's a crowd of men and women in fatigues around the tanker. Among them is the soldier who first confronted the driver. “FODA! He was suicide!” The man is trembling with fear and excitement.
His comrades attempt to calm him down, but he just paces back and forth yelling, “Fuckin' A!”
When they open the seals on the tank, the escaping air makes a hiss. A soldier puts his face into the hole and peers into the darkness. The heat makes him come out and wait for a moment before putting his face in again. He frowns and rubs his nose and asks for a flashlight. Someone tosses one up to him. He aims it down into the tank and looks again. He looks for a long time, then shouts something into the hole. Finally, he shouts, “Sergeant, you better come up here and look at this. There are men down in there. It's an oven. You better get the medics.”
One of the interpreters climbs onto the tank and begins to call out into the darkness. He calls and calls, his voice frantic, then weak. The soldier waves him off and sits down on the top of the tank. The interpreter slides back down the side, murmuring, “There are twenty of them in there. Like they're sleeping. Twenty sleeping men.”
Khafaji decides to get away as fast as possible. He turns and walks up to the outer gate. No one is there, and he walks through without stopping. When he gets to the inside gate, they stop him and ask him to wait by the side until they receive orders to reopen the gate. Khafaji sits down next to a metal box with a hole in the side. A strong smell of cordite wafts out from inside. Khafaji lights a cigarette and reads the weapons clearing procedures on the side of the box.
Fifteen minutes later, they let him and some others through the second gate. He doesn't break pace until he walks through the metal detector at the DFAC.
Khafaji picks up a paper cup of tea from the cafeteria and offers the man a cigarette in exchange. Speaking in halting Arabic, the man introduces himself as Noman. Khafaji
follows him through the kitchen to a door that opens onto a loading deck. Noman mentions that he learned some Arabic in Riyadh.
“Ten years. I did Omra twice and Hajj once.”
“What was it like?” Khafaji asks.
“What?”
“Riyadh? What was it like?”
“Highways and mosques. Highways and malls,” he laughs. “I don't know. We worked a lot and we weren't allowed in.” He pauses and then adds, “Ten years driving a Cadillac equals one apartment in Delhi. That's what it was like.”
They smoke in silence, then Noman whispers, “It was not so bad until the war came. My boss went to Europe for six months and fired everyone except me. Fired the gardeners, the cooks, the maids. God knows why they kept me on and left me behind to take care of everything until they got back. Gardening, maintenance, cleaning, car repair. Everything! I did the jobs of ten people. And when he got back and saw what I did, my boss decided he could save money. He cut back permanently. Only me after that. I never had a moment of rest after the war! No offence, but I wish Saddam knew how to aim better. Maybe the boss would never have come back!”
“Maybe you would have gotten to keep the villa!”
Noman laughs and insists on shaking Khafaji's hand. Khafaji gives him two more cigarettes. At first Noman tries to put them both behind his ear. Then he slips them into his shirt pocket.
Khafaji feels a headache coming back on when he finally walks into the office. The first thing that catches his eye is the book of poetry sitting on the desk. Right where he left it. The second thing he sees is the pair of thick-necked men in their shiny suits. Khafaji notices their barrel chests and pauses. By the time he notices their arms, he's being pushed into a chair. One of them disappears into the hallway. For five minutes, Khafaji sits in Citrone's chair with a stranger's hand on his chest. He nods and asks, “Looking for Citrone?” No answer.
Khafaji adds, “Well, he's not here. Let me go get him for you.”
The man pushes hard then leans forward into Khafaji's face. His whisper is almost imperceptible: “Shut up.”
Khafaji and his guest sit face to face, their knees kissing. Khafaji tries to look away from the man's eyes without being too obvious. Khafaji looks left and right, then his eyes settle on the window. Shutters closed like every day. He studies the filing cabinets instead, then closes his eyes and goes looking for Sawsan.
At some point, the other man returns from his errand. He pivots as he walks though the door. By now Khafaji has
considered the scene and guessed his options. He is not surprised when the Mosuli strolls through the door, looking as serious as a popular referendum. The other man flashes a shoulder holster as he straightens his jacket. If he were quick, Khafaji could almost grab the man's gun. The Mosuli sits down. He straightens his suit with smooth, soft hands. Khafaji looks at his shoes. Still new, still shiny. Like he still hasn't set foot on Iraqi soil.
He doesn't say a word, he just snorts like a horse. Khafaji starts to fidget and looks at the ceiling then out the door. In the hallway, everything continues as normal. Young Americans in suits walk by with paper cups and cellphones. No one looks in. No one looks around. The man by the door carefully shuts it. Suddenly, the Mosuli leans over and throws a Manila envelope on Khafaji's lap. I know this script:
File and Dossier
. Khafaji smiles.
“Open it.”
Khafaji's fingers uncoil the red thread and pull out a small sheaf of paper. Two photographs slide out onto the floor. When Khafaji leans over to pick them up, he realizes that he does not remember this script at all. When his fingers touch the photos, he begins to wish he was sitting somewhere else in some other room. One is an image of a group of men in uniform, sitting in an office, dated 1988. It takes Khafaji a second to remember. The regional HQ in Sulaimaniya. You can tell they're laughing even though they are all wearing the old Soviet gas masks. Some are holding up small glasses of tea. Like they were raising a toast.
