Escape from Baghdad! (11 page)

“Yes, yes, I taught basic stuff at first, economics and entry level differential calculus, but then some spaces opened up and I got graduate students and we started working on some molecular mathematics.”

A figure abruptly stepped forward from the dark. He was wild haired and bearded, a sinewy man, skin drawn tight over bones, naked save for a tattered blanket draped like a sarong, a walnut-stocked crossbow cradled in thin fingers, like a child's toy, and it was a boy's face beneath the mane, eyes light and loony. Dagr saw him and felt a shaft of sudden sympathy. He stepped forward deliberately, spreading his arms, blocking the lines of sight behind him.

“My father was a librarian,” the man said, as if that explained everything. He came forward, laying down the crossbow on the barricade. “I am Mikhail Alwari. You can come inside now if you wish.”

Dagr climbed over clumsily, his feet cracking spines, sending volumes A–F of Encyclopedia Britannica 1964 clattering. He followed the strange man in, past the interior of the barricade, which he realized was merely an antechamber of sorts, serving as a terrace to the main body of this habitat, which stretched inward further than he could have imagined. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he found himself in a storage room, stacked high with crates and crates of supplies, pilfered stores from regiments and hospitals, a stockpile of almost epic proportions, the forgotten sustenance of a rebel army. Festooned amid these crates were more irregular pieces of luggage, bags, and cases of all sorts, some of them burst open, revealing a pathetic banality of innards, the dregs of a seemingly countless wave of refugees, now faded away.

Spaces had been carved out here, functional niches for sleeping and eating presumably. Somewhere off to the side, there was the sound of water pouring in fits and starts.

“Mikhail, my friends are outside. Two of them,” Dagr said carefully. “We are sorry to disturb you. We stumbled into this area. Could I invite them in here? They will not harm you. I assure you.”

“Are they teachers, too?” Mikhail asked, a strange wistfulness in his eyes. “I saw your friends, in the shadow. They frightened me.”

“They…are not here to harm you. You have my word.”

Mikhail looked around his room uncertainly and then stared at Dagr's face. A long moment later, he said, “Ok, bring them here. Would you like some tea?”

In a moment, the three of them were seated in various nooks, watching, bemused, as their host started making hot water in a small Japanese kettle on his electric heat pad. His movements were neat, sparing, and he hummed softly under his breath, as if forgetting completely his unwanted guests. In a few minutes, he came with three porcelain cups of hot water, flavored tea bags soaking in each, and a clutch of saccharine sachets in his hand. They sat there in bewildered silence, sipping tea awkwardly, as Mikhail's eyes darted from face to face as if he were some small animal caught in onrushing traffic.

“Mikhail, how did you come to be here?” Dagr asked, finally.

“My father was the librarian,” Mikhail said.

“Yes, you said.”

Mikhail hesitated. “I remember…steel shelves, and small plastic tools to stand on.”

“Those books outside,” Dagr said, flashing a connection. “Are they your father's?”

“Yes,” Mikhail said. “We brought them here. I was small. I remember at night, my father made trips here, all night, bringing books in a truck. Then we came here, and it was nice, like his library, only smaller.”

“What happened to your father, Mikhail?” Dagr asked gently.

“My father was the librarian,” Mikhail replied, his face creasing into a frown.

“Where did your father go?” Dagr asked. “Why did he leave you here?”

“He was a librarian,” Mikhail said. He began to rock back and forth on his stool, humming, the distress roiling off him in waves.

“Why did you bring the books here, Mikhail?” Dagr asked, finally understanding that this man's mind worked only in certain directions.

“The Mukhabarat!” Mikhail bolted upright. “The Mukhabarat were after us. I remember that. They were going to burn the library, I think. We had to protect the books. It was our duty. My father told me that. I remember him clearly saying that. He said ‘Mikhail, my son, we must save the books!'”

“Is that why you came here?”

“Yes,” Mikhail said eagerly. “Yes, that must be right.”

“Do you know where you are, Mikhail?”

“I…no…this house is safe,” Mikhail said. “I know that. The old ladies said so. I remember the Old Lady. She gives me treasures to keep, sometimes. I know her. We are safe here because the Mukhabarat have forgotten about this place. This is the new library. I must preserve the library. If I keep still, I'll be ok.”

He stared up at them with his big eyes, and Dagr could see the emotions flitting across his face, bemusement, worry, gnawing dread, and it occurred to him that this creature possessed no mental defenses, had never learned, perhaps, those mechanisms with which men could hide their thoughts.

“You don't have to worry about them anymore, Mikhail,” Dagr said softly.

“This place is safe,” Mikhail said. “Do you want…you can stay, here if you want.” He glanced uncertainly at Hamid and Kinza.

“No, we have another place to stay,” Dagr said. “But maybe I could come to visit you sometimes. If you're not busy?”

“Visit?” Mikhail looked at him doubtfully. “I have to read every day. And dust the books, you know. They get really dusty sometimes. And I have to take care of the scrolls and the papyrus, and the really old things written on skins. Do you want to see?”

“Well, maybe I'll come during tea time when you're taking a break,” Dagr said. “Just to visit.”

“And I set the mousetrap, just like father said, because mice are the enemy! And I make sure the water doesn't get to the shelves.”

“You take good care of the books,” Dagr said. “I saw that coming in. They are in excellent condition. You are the librarian now.”

“I am the librarian,” Mikhail beamed. “Yes! I am the librarian.”

“Tell me, how old were you when you first came here?” Hamid asked finally.

“I don't know,” Mikhail Alwari said doubtfully. “On my last birthday, I think I was ten. But that was a long, long time ago.”

9: INSIDE THE WATCHMAKER

“IED! IED! D
UCK
!”

The men inside the hummer cringed into fetal positions, screaming instinctively, as the vehicle careened around the street, the wheel freely spinning in Hoffman's hands. IEDs were mostly homemade bombs, the weapon of choice for insurgents in many parts of the country. Up above, his ears plugged with opium and Ravel, Ancelloti lolled in the gun turret, oblivious.

“I! E! D!” Behruse punctuated with a lit cigar and split his sides laughing.

“What the fuck, Behruse?” Hoffman said, righting the vehicle. “What the hell is wrong with you? That shit isn't funny.”

“False alarm,” Behruse said. “Oops. You should have seen your faces.”

“Where the hell are we now? I'm fucking lost.”

“Next two right turns, then hundred yards, then left, then third right, then ask me again after two hundred yards,” Behruse said.

“You're getting us lost deliberately,” Hoffman said. “But I got GPS, so fuck you, Behruse.”

“Fuck your GPS,” Behruse said good-naturedly. “And where we're going, you have to follow certain routes. They tell the neighborhood that you're safe. You want the watchers to start taking shots at us?”

“More of your secret service shit?” Hoffman puffed on a clove. “I thought you guys were all hiding under your grannies' mattresses.”

“Hey, don't disrespect the Mukhabarat,” Behruse said. “We were good. Damned
good
. We fought
wars
, man. And we kept this place running, and we would have kept it running too if you fools had had the sense to use us.”

“Hey, I'm just a foot soldier,” Hoffman said.

“And you think we're just
gone
now?” Behruse scoffed. “What, we just forgot how to do shit? Sold our guns? Let me tell you, my friend, your governors have already started making enquires…taking resumes…
hiring
, you understand?”

“You going back legit, Behruse?” Hoffman asked. “Or just reminiscing?”

“All I'm saying…those faggots growing beards and waving Kalashnikovs had better start remembering how to shave again,” Behruse said, serious all of a sudden, the crinkles in his eyes fading, making Hoffman remember with a shiver what the man had once been and might become again. “Pull over. We walk from here. Sidearms only, just you and me.”

Into a rabbit warren of buildings now, Behruse taking deliberately obtuse routes, which narrowed to a single file of rough, lichen-scrawled bricks, wet to the touch, the sharp ammonia of gutter water making Hoffman's eyes tear up. He lost all sense of direction after a while, retaining only the feeling of being pressed by ancient masonry and people alike, unfriendly eyes watching from above, blue slatted windows blinking in and out of existence in the darkness.

Many minutes of this mind-numbing disorientation, Hoffman barely restraining himself from clutching at Behruse's broad coat tail, like a child seeking reassurance. Some corner of his mind reflected that the Mukhabarat craft was basic and effective, as good as anything they taught in Abu Gharib or Langley. These secret policemen had their own successful techniques in this old, old city. At last, they stopped in a nondescript archway, shielded from sight in front of an unlatched door. Behruse stopped him here.

“Hoffman, listen,” the big man seemed curiously hesitant. “The man we are visiting he is not like us. He is a very learned man. He was unwilling to see you. I had to call in a personal favor. You have to treat him with respect. I don't know what agency you're with or what agendas you have, and to be frank, I don't want to know. I need
your guarantee that this man will be off limits and off any official transcripts.”

“You have my word,” Hoffman said promptly. “And for your information, I am following a brief to locate the bunker of Tarek Aziz at all costs, where I fully expect to find weapons of mass destruction. Now, who is this guy? Some kind of old spook? Will he be of any use?”

“You'll see,” Behruse pushed open the door. “Just remember, after tonight, he doesn't exist for you.”

They entered into a dingy hallway cluttered with canes, umbrellas, shoes, and hats in varying stages of disrepair, as well as other paraphernalia required for negotiating the different climates of Baghdad. Clambering over this junk, they reached a door almost grimed shut.

“He doesn't get out much,” Behruse said apologetically.

It took the full momentum of his weight to effect an opening. Inside was a rectangular room slashed with irregular lighting, permeated with the tang of machine oil strong enough to send Hoffman reeling. He saw a vast jumble of mechanical devices, electric arc welders, precision lathes, milling machines, transistors, dismantled radios, racks of soldering irons and hand borers, and an aged IBM mainframe the size of a sofa, among the things that he could actually recognize. In the far corner in an island of well lit calm, an old man in a dirty smock stood at a long work table covered in green felt, moving his hands lightly over a set of minute tools, seeming, from far away, like an ancient croupier presiding over some insane casino.

As they approached, he looked up and greeted them, showing a thin, aristocratic face, somewhat marred by the jeweler's monocle attached to his left eye, which made his pupil appear horrendously large. On the baize in front of him were six minute gears the size of match heads and a set of jewelers' tongs and calipers.

“Ehm. Welcome, Behruse. Welcome, unknown guest.”

“Thank you, sir.” Behruse did a creditable half bow, the courtliness of the gesture momentarily leaving Hoffman bereft of speech.

“Hoffman, this is, um, you may refer to him as Mr. Avicenna.” Behruse grinned.

“What, is that like some kind of disguise?”

“Forgive our slightly obese friend,” the old man straightened, and put down his tools. “He is merely giving you the Latin version of my name. I imagine he thinks it's funny. For a fat man, his sense of humor is curiously flat.”

Hoffman pulled up into a full parade salute. From the corner of his eye, he saw Behruse hanging his head, strangely crushed. “Sergeant Hoffman at your service, sir!”

“Hoffman, why on earth are you saluting?” Avicenna fixed his enlarged left eye on him.

“Recognizing a superior officer, sir!”

“Don't be ridiculous Hoffman,” Avicenna said. “You appear to be a man of sense. Stop this posturing.”

“Merely noting that you appear to be a gentleman of rank,” Hoffman said. “Old Guard? Mukhabarat?”

“Rank?” Avicenna smiled. “Very sly, soldier. No Hoffman, I hold no command nor any title to lands. Any respect I garner is merely… symbolic.”