Baghdad Central (5 page)

       
On the graveyards

       
I found it in a word

       
That lingered on the lips of those

       
Who mourned their past

       
As they denied it
.

       
They sang for immortality

       
As they passed. Alas!

       
They spoke of immortality

       
And I found all that is

       
Would not last
.

The poetry of Nazik al-Malaika always takes Khafaji back to his childhood. Poetry was everything in the house where he grew up.

“Wine, pure wine!” their father would call out whenever he heard a good line of poetry. It was the only bottle he ever drank from. Poetry was the glass he poured each night when he came home from work. When the brothers were old enough to memorize, Khafaji's father let them drink it too. He taught them the best lines, and then made them pour the poetry back to him while he stretched out on the old sofa. Eyes closed, he corrected his sons until they knew how to pull every pearl to be found in the dusty old books on his shelves. When the aunts visited on Friday, their father would send them into the kitchen to recite the kind of poetry that made women blush. They would shoo the boys back into the men's quarters, but not before stuffing cardamom sugar cookies in their mouths.

“Baba, you're reciting, not reading. I want you to read to me.”

Khafaji opens his eyes and sees his daughter staring at him. He looks at the faint smile on her face and picks up the book from his lap.

“I was reading, my love.”

“No you weren't, Baba. You were reciting from memory. I need you to read, not recite.”

He smiles as he turns page after page to find his place. One day, when he and his brother were still young, their sister Rahma came home from the university clutching a small book of poetry,
Splinters and Ashes
. Their father looked at it that night and shrugged, “That's not poetry.” But the boys raced to memorize whole poems, not just lines. Nazik's poetry took over. New grapes in an old vineyard. Long before Khafaji could grasp what Nazik was talking about, she had become everything.

“Baba, what are you thinking about?”

“I'm just looking to see where I was. You wanted me to read it, right?”

“Yes, Baba. You can start wherever you are. Just read.”

An hour later, when he stops reading, she says, “Thanks, Baba. Which one was Mother's favorite?”

“She loved every line Nazik composed.”

Only when Suheir appeared in his life did Nazik's poetry become living, breathing flesh. Her images taught Khafaji what to desire. Her language became a mother tongue. With Suheir, he began to hear the sadness in Nazik's language, then its anger. As he grew older, he continued to learn from her. How to accept compromises, how to suffer defeats. How to be middle-aged, how to grow old.

In 1995, Suheir died. They packed their books and moved out of the villa. Khafaji continued reading Nazik, but there was no longer any comfort or consolation in her words. Just the opposite. Each line would summon another time gone forever, another past lost for good. He would read Nazik, and for a brief moment Suheir would appear before his eyes. And then, just as fast, she would disappear across a shoreless ocean and leave him stranded again in the past.

“It's different when you read, Baba, isn't it? When the words are in your head, they always say the same thing. But when they're on the page, they begin to live their own lives.”

Khafaji looks at his daughter and smiles, surprised. Her hand rests on his sleeve, the two of them sit still for minutes.

“I'm going to go to sleep now, Baba. Could you turn off the light?”

As the room goes dark, Khafaji whispers from the doorway,
“Eid – in what state have you come, Eid? Have you gone and taken something with you, or do you bring something new? / A desert lies between me and my loved ones while I am with you: how I wish there were deserts…
”

His silhouette fades as the last word trails off.

From the bed, Mrouj's voice is faint. “That's easy. Mutanabbi, ‘and deserts between us'.
A desert lies between me and my loved ones while I am with you. How I wish there were deserts and deserts between us
! What a sad line to choose, Baba! Goodnight.”

Khafaji tucks the book under his arm as he walks out. In the living room, he sets it down softly, then goes to the sideboard. Reaching behind vases and porcelain figurines, his fingers find a bottle of Scotch.

There's a knocking at the front door and he puts the bottle back in its place without making a sound. Looking through the peephole, he sees nothing but the gloom of an empty stairwell. A light crashes on, and the boy from next door comes into view. “Who is it?” he calls out as he opens the door.

“Blessed Eid to you! My father and mother want to know if you and Mrouj would like to watch TV with us. The dish is working again and we're going to watch the last episode of the Syrian soap opera right now.”

“Good evening, Jaafar. Could we do it tomorrow night?”

“On my life, I will not accept it!” a voice booms out. For a moment Khafaji can't tell who the speaker is. “Not tonight, Mr Muhsin! Tonight is the start of Eid, and you're our neighbor! Please come and at least have some sweets. Umm Ali made
kleitcheh
this afternoon. You can't refuse.”

Jaafar's father appears on the landing, and the two men shake hands and smile. Abu Ali is a slight man, not much larger than his skinny kid. His thick glasses make his bulging eyes even bigger than they are already.

“God bless you, Abu Ali! I wouldn't want to impose on you and your family tonight of all nights! Tomorrow, I swear.”

Now, another voice calls out, “No – that won't do. We've already laid out the sweets and heated the kettle for you and Mrouj.”

“Bless you! Mrouj has gone to sleep.” Abu Ali smiles until Khafaji relents.

Khafaji puts his thumb between his fingers and asks Abu Ali to be patient. He goes back inside to check on Mrouj and then comes out, gently closing the door behind him. Jaafar takes Khafaji by the hand and walks him next door.

Khafaji spends more than an hour pretending to enjoy the platter of sweets. He sips syrupy cardamom tea and praises the hand that made it. He watches the soap opera and feigns interest in its twists and turns.

Jaafar cocks up his voice like a television broadcaster. “Tonight is the last episode, all will be revealed!” He is the only one who notices that Khafaji has no idea of what the plot is or who the characters are. When he catches Khafaji's eye, he winks.

Another night of avoiding questions. The neighbors are recent comers. What they know about the building is the only thing squatters ever really know: there are vacancies.
But they must also know from experience that people can step from one life into another. That an entire building can leave in one night. They might even know that those who stay behind have their reasons too. Abu Ali knows not to ask questions, and so does Khafaji.

When Abu Ali curses Saddam, Khafaji nods, but not too much. When they make fun of the cowardice of the generals and officers, Khafaji joins in, his laughter sincere. When they talk about the Republican Guards shot yesterday at the checkpoint on Jamia Street, Khafaji just shakes his head, “Everyone gets what they deserve, don't they?”

From the outset, they accepted Khafaji for who he said he was. A retired librarian living with his daughter. A widower, whose daughter was not always an only child. An old man who preferred the company of books.

When the electricity goes out, Khafaji breathes a sigh of relief. Now he is free to go. Back inside, he lights a candle and finds the bottle of Black Label. The first shot goes down quickly and he pours another. Warm now, he sits in his reading chair and listens to the celebrations outside. Children laugh and call out to each other in the street. The racket of whacking sticks and metal wheels rolling in the broken road. The clanking of gas canisters and the distant calls of fruit sellers, the stomping of feet up and down stairs. Every so often, the crackle and pop of fireworks and gunfire like a hundred weddings across the city. Or another outbreak of fighting.

Khafaji finds the photograph of his niece in his hands. He looks at it again, but regrets it. Once again he finds himself looking at Suheir. The present is never thick enough.

Khafaji puts the image down on the table and rubs his eyes. He strokes his moustache, looks at his hands. In the twilight, the creases of his palms grow sharper and deeper. Across
the darkening room, the shapes of the furniture lengthen and swim. Khafaji sits in a small pool of warm light. Nazik's poems rest on his lap, the book untended, but the words alive in the air. While his eyes stare off into the shadows of the bookcases, a voice reads on:

       
I will hear your voice every evening

       
When light dozes off

       
And worries take refuge in dreams
,

       
When desires and passions slumber, when ambition sleeps

       
When Life sleeps, and Time remains

       
Awake, sleepless

       
Like your voice
.

       
In the drowsy dusk resounds your wakeful voice
,

       
In my deep yearning

       
Your eternal voice that never sleeps

       
Remains awake with me
.

Khafaji falls asleep the way he does every night – letters into words, words into sounds, into images, into dreams and then, nothing.

There is a crash outside, and something like an explosion down below. The electricity is on again. Suddenly, the apartment is naked, exposed. Everything is still in its place, but to Khafaji's startled eye, it seems that every object has just come alive. As if everything in the apartment has been dancing while he slept then jumped back into its place as he woke up.

Heaving himself out of his seat, Khafaji puts the bottle back in its hiding place. The cabinet door shuts like a punctuation mark, and now he can make out the sound of sobbing somewhere nearby. Khafaji closes his eyes and listens.

Suddenly, the lights go out and the front door comes crashing in. Men and flashlights and guns pour in. Khafaji tries to count them, but they seem to fill the living room and hallway and spill out onto the landing and beyond. Lights stab at his eyes, everything becomes a blur. Hands grab at Khafaji and twist his arms. He is on the ground. His cheek presses against the icy marble tiles. His arms cock backwards until his shoulders begin to scream. There are shouts. Guns click and clank, flashlight beams swing around in the blackness. He closes his eyes and imagines the whole street filled with these men. He imagines a line of them stretching down to the river.

Khafaji remembers his sleeping daughter, opens his eyes and shouts her name, “Mrouj!” Boots kick at him, but he looks for eyes. When he finds them, he sees nothing but fear. The man in the black mask orders Khafaji to stay on the ground. Someone pulls plastic zip-ties around his wrists and ankles and his fingers go numb.

Before Khafaji passes out, he thinks,
An old man like you has no business fighting them
.

July 2003

M
EMORANDUM FOR:

Deputy Commander, USASOC HQ

Commander, U.S. Army 75th Regiment

Commander, 10th Special Forces Group

S
UBJECT:
Operation Report, 10 July 2003

Acting on intel (INSCOM 02-003Z2) concerning High-Ranking Target (King of Clubs: Izzat Ibrahim), 75R unit surrounded villa in Tishrin area at 0200. Process of securing perimeter entailed taking possession of adjacent residences. In main domicile, possible explosive materials discovered.

Ibrahim determined not present, whereabouts unknown. Female inhabitants appeared withdrawn. Male residents displayed threatening behavior. Three resisted restraint efforts. Cable ties and hoods employed. Acting on threat, unit called for support at 0225. At 0300 10th SFG unit arrives. 75R unit proceeded to search surrounding residences. At 0315, two male Persons Under Control attempt escape. Despite repeated efforts by members of 75R to constrain their movement, PUCs managed to leave premises. 10th SFG unit posted to building
exterior issues warning for suspects to halt upon exit. Multiple warnings ignored. Suspects counteracted by force of weapons. Medics attempt resuscitation, suspects declared dead at 0330. Melee with family members as bodies secured in transport. Quelled at 0415, number of civilian injuries unknown.

Preliminary review determines residence used as workshop for portable-generator repair. Incident compromised primary objective of operation. HUMINT assets damaged. Advisement requested.