Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (14 page)

big chestful of linens, and my plan to embroider pillowcases.

He looked surprised. “Do you know how to embroider?” he

asked.

“Oh of course. I learned when I was seven years old.”

He laughed. “All right,” he said. “Do what you like.”

Then I exploded my bomb. “The sheik wants to meet me.

What do we do?”

He looked really surprised then, and a little puzzled. I told

him how the question had been put to me, and he nodded

thoughtfully.

“We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll have to think about it.”

But I was destined to meet Sheik Hamid far sooner than

either of us expected. Completely unforeseen circumstances

demanded it.

7

Problems of Purdah

News of our residence in El Nahra had spread quickly

throughout the area. Almost every week visitors came to the

sheik’s mudhif to look over the American strangers:

schoolteachers from neighboring villages anxious to practice

their rusty English; rural civil servants who had brothers or

cousins at school in the United States; relatives and tribal

brothers of Sheik Hamid who wanted to talk politics with the

foreigners that Hamid had imported. Often Bob would ask the

visitors down to our garden for tea; they were always men and

I never appeared.

But one afternoon when I was alone in the house I heard a

loud knocking at the gate. Bob had gone hunting with the

sheik’s eldest son, so I knew it could not be he. And

Mohammed always opened the door himself. Who would be

visiting so early after lunch?

I had strict instructions not to let in any man whom I did not

know. For we had, after all, taken great care to avoid my being

seen by the tribal men whose guests we were. If some passing

stranger should be admitted when Bob and Mohammed were

absent, it would make a mockery of our avowed desire to

abide by local custom.

I peeped through a crack in the wooden gate and saw a

brand-new aqua-and-white Buick parked in our alley. A portly

figure was barely distinguishable in the back seat. “I am the

driver of Sheik Hamza, who has come to visit you,” said a

man’s voice.

“I am sorry. My husband is not at home,” I replied.

The driver relayed this message, then I heard the Buick’s

window being rolled down and another voice said, in badly

pronounced English, “Good afternoon. I visit you.”

I swallowed. Hamza was the sheik of a tribe settled about

twenty miles to the west; Bob had spoken of him as a

spendthrift and wastrel who lived most of the year away from

his village, neglecting his tribal duties and leaving his fields in

the care of relatives while he spent the sharecroppers’ money

in Lebanon or Europe.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “My husband would be glad to see

you, but he will not be home before six o’clock.”

A torrent of Arabic followed, in which the sheik and the

driver argued. The driver rattled the gate and said to me in

Arabic, “You do not understand. Haji Hamza wishes to visit

you.”

I repeated the little speech about my husband, somewhat

shakily this time, but not knowing what else to do. There were

more angry words, and I wondered fleetingly whether they

might be so bold as to break the flimsy gate latch, but the

sheik’s voice spoke peremptorily, the car window was rolled

up, the driver backed out the Buick and they drove away.

Five minutes later Mohammed hurried in, breathing hard.

Sheik Hamid had seen Hamza’s car at our gate. Knowing Bob

was not there, he had sent one of his sons to fetch Mohammed

from his afternoon nap in case I needed help. I told

Mohammed the story, and he nodded approvingly. “Hamza is

not a good man,” he said. “You did right not to let him in. He

was not even polite enough to come to the mudhif and greet

Haji Hamid. He just drove away.”

When Bob came I told him of the incident, but he had

already heard it from three other people, including

Mohammed. He too was relieved that nothing had happened,

and then told me that some time ago Sheik Hamza had

conveyed through Jabbar an invitation to us to lunch at his

house on the tribal lands near Suffra. Bob had told Jabbar that

he would be delighted to come, and that I would like to meet

his women. He had heard no more from Hamza. “We have to

be consistent,” he said. “It would be very poor if Hamza, who

has a bad reputation anyway, went around the area boasting

that he had seen you and talked with you, while in El Nahra

we insist we are following local custom.”

“Besides, it might be interesting to see another sheik’s

harem,” I said. “I think I’d rather do that than eat with

Hamza.”

Bob looked at me closely. “You’re in good spirits,” he

grinned. “I never would have thought embroidery could have

such a therapeutic effect.”

I smiled. I
was
feeling better. The embroidery project had

worked out well. I had gone to Laila’s house and she had

traced a pattern onto my length of cloth. After that I took my

pillowcase with me whenever I went visiting. The women all

remarked on it, but after the first few minutes I found I could

sit quietly and stab my needle through the cheap cotton, and

little by little the group would forget my strange presence and

talk on as though I were one of them. I had a place in the

circle and something to do; I didn’t have to make conversation

every single minute and, as my Arabic slowly improved, I

found I was learning a great deal by simply listening.

We forgot about Hamza, but after a week he relayed his

luncheon invitation again. He told Jabbar that I would be

welcome in his harem. So, looking forward to the change, we

set off one pleasant afternoon in Jabbar’s Land-Rover. We

followed the traffic heading up and down the canal bound for

El Nahra or Suffra—women carrying fuel on their backs,

groups of donkeys bearing grain, and men riding horseback.

Suffra was only a tiny clearing in a palm grove, but a sheep

market was in progress near the suq, and we had some

difficulty making our way through the crowds of bleating

animals who ran backward and forward in terror as the car

approached. From Suffra we took a track across the fields, and

after an hour of driving came in sight of a large square three-

storied house with a red tiled roof and yellow stone walls. It

stood at the end of a wide paved driveway lined with date

palms and orange trees, and was set squarely in a fenced

garden.

“Quite a palace,” Bob said. I remembered the modest mud-

brick fortress of Hamid and his guest house of reeds, and

silently agreed.

Jabbar laughed bitterly. “Hamza lives in style,” he said,

“and he takes such a large share of the crops from his fellahin

that they are the poorest in the countryside.”

“Mind you,” he continued, “I can’t say I dislike being

entertained here—he always has good food and lots of liquor,

and life is pretty dull in El Nahra—but when the revolution

comes, men like this must go.” Jabbar was a passionate

believer in the need for Iraqi national reform, like many

young, first-generation educated men and women who knew

from personal experience that conditions were deteriorating in

the rural areas. Bob met many of these young men, and they

all believed firmly that the Nuri Said government would soon

be overthrown. Diplomats and foreigners, seeing only

Baghdad’s economic boom, pooh-poohed such talk when we

met them at parties. The revolution, when it did come one year

later, appeared to surprise almost every embassy in Iraq.

“It will be interesting,” Jabbar was saying, “to find out

whether Hamza has spent any money on his women’s

quarters. You can tell us later.”

The Land-Rover paused at the entrance to the house, and a

servant came out to greet us. Jabbar explained that I was to go

to the harem. Could he drive me there, or would the servant

accompany me? The man looked puzzled.

“The harem?” he said, looking at us, and at me in my

abayah.

“Yes, the harem,” repeated Jabbar somewhat testily. The

servant conferred with another servant who had come up to

the car, then excused himself for a moment and came hurrying

back.

“The women are not here,” he said. “The sheik would like

you all to come in.”

“Not here?” echoed Bob, and forgot his customary

politeness in such matters, he was so annoyed. “Where are

they?”

“They have gone on pilgrimage to Karbala,” the man

replied.

At this point Sheik Hamza emerged, fat and middle-aged, in

well-cut robes, fingering his worry beads and smiling broadly.

“I am so sorry,” he said. “My wives and daughters have

been plaguing me for weeks to let them go to Karbala, and

when they asked this morning, I could not persuade them to

stay.”

We had been tricked. “This is impossible,” Bob said to

Jabbar in English. Jabbar agreed, but said that we really could

not just turn around and go back to El Nahra; Hamza would

already have prepared food for us, and if we were to refuse his

hospitality now, it would be a grave insult.

“We must go in,” he told Bob. “An insult like that would

damage my reputation in the area as well as yours. Hamza

may go to Baghdad and no one will ever hear of it. And if

gossip does get about, explain it yourself to Sheik Hamid. He

knows Hamza and will understand.”

Bob was silent. I could tell he was furious.

Hamza stood by the Land-Rover, still smiling and fingering

his worry beads. “Please do come in and be comfortable, you

and your wife,” he said.

We had no choice but to act as though it were a perfectly

normal occasion. I would take off my abayah when we were

inside the house, and we would lunch as pleasantly as we

could under the circumstances, just praying that news of our

visit didn’t reach El Nahra before we did.

We walked up the neat gravel path between formal gardens,

and into an enormous rectangular living room. Trying to be as

dignified as possible with two menservants, Hamza and his

teenage son standing by goggling, I took off my abayah and

handed it to one of the servants. Then I crossed the room and

sat myself down in an overstuffed sofa slipcovered in

cretonne—orange and yellow dahlias of truly gigantic

proportions on an apple-green ground. Bob sat down beside

me, and Jabbar took an armchair nearby. Hamza just stood

there, staring at me, clicking those worry beads and shifting

from one foot to the other like an adolescent boy at the

burlesque for the first time. I don’t know what he expected,

but I’m sure I was a disappointment, for I was wearing a high-

necked wool dress (it was a cold day) and a brown sweater

and thick-soled walking shoes. Hamza took a deep breath and

came forward, still with his goggling smile.

“You must have a drink,” he said in Arabic.

I smiled too. “No, thank you,” I said.

“Oh, but you must. I have Scotch whisky and gin and beer.”

“Perhaps some tea?” I suggested.

Hamza’s face fell, but he shouted at one of the servants and

then sat down next to Jabbar. Jabbar began talking of local

affairs, but our host only half listened. He kept looking at me,

then looking away and giggling to himself, still fingering his

beads.

I was embarrassed at these covert glances, and tried to talk

to Bob, who was still so annoyed he could barely speak.

Jabbar gradually drew Bob into the conversation and I took

advantage of the redirected attention of the three men to look

around me at our host’s “palace.”

Covering the entire floor of the room was the largest and

most magnificent Persian carpet I had ever seen, woven of

muted blues and reds in a subtle and ancient pattern. I could

not help asking Hamza about it. It had belonged to his

grandfather, and was an antique carpet, costing thousands of

English pounds even at that time. I stared at it, thinking of the

beautiful room that could be built around such a carpet, and

then looked at the gewgaws, odd pieces of bad, expensive

furniture, pictures, posters and cheap statuary that covered the

carpet and competed with it so vulgarly.

All around the room, armchairs, sofas and end tables had

been placed against the walls. The one exception was the far

corner, where stood a radio-record player combination with

many shiny fixtures and luminous dials. The chairs were

upholstered in mustard or scarlet velvet and gilt braid, or in

different patterns of cretonne: birds, leaves and enormous

flowers in a blinding selection of colors. Two layers of lace

curtains screened the windows, which were hung with drapes

of still another cretonne pattern (birds in birdcages as I

remember).

And the walls, mercifully white, were plastered with airline

calendars, beautiful examples of Arabic calligraphy, out-of-

focus photographs in colored frames, whatnot shelves loaded

with knickknacks and reproductions of Landseer-type English