Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (32 page)

“Beautiful, wasn’t it?” the women said to each other and

several reached up under their veils to mop their sweaty faces.

“Did you see Ali’s son, Beeja?” asked Laila. “He was in the

second group.”

“He has been doing it since he was eighteen,” Fadhila

pointed out, “because his mother promised him, you know.”

“Why?”

“Well, Sheddir had two stillborn babies, and she went on

pilgrimage to Karbala and at the tomb of Hussein in the

mosque she prayed and promised that if she had a healthy son,

she would dedicate him to the taaziya during Muharram.”

“And he does it?”

“Of course. He is proud to do it, it is a great honor,” Fadhila

said. “A great honor for anyone,” she added with a look at me,

“but even better if your mother had promised you, because

then you are fulfilling a holy vow.”

Laila interrupted. “Beeja, if Mr. Bob gets a taxi to go to

Suffra, who else will go? Will there be room for Basima?”

Several women turned at these words and looked at me

expectantly.

“Well,” I temporized, “I don’t even know if he has gotten a

taxi, but if he has, then anyone can come who wants to,

provided there is room.”

When we saw the size of the crowd which had gathered

outside our gate to go to Suffra, Bob decided to let the driver

decide when the taxi was full. He was certain, I think, that this

would cut down on the load, but women piled into the back

seat and children crawled in and sat on the floor. Mohammed

and Bob and the driver were in front, and the driver seemed

quite unconcerned despite the fact the car was so tail-heavy

we hit bottom whenever we went over a rut. The windows

were wide open, otherwise I felt we might have come close to

suffocation from the heat and the pressure of the crowd. Also,

it appeared, some of the women were unaccustomed to motor

travel, and they retched quietly and constantly into their

handkerchiefs. Nausea and discomfort did not seem to detract

from the delights of the day’s excursion, however, and I

noticed that even the carsick ladies managed to smile when, at

each bump in the dirt road, the women in the back seat clung

together and dissolved into whoops of muffled laughter.

I had seen the square of Suffra only once before, when we

had driven through with Jabbar on our way to visit Sheik

Hamza. It had been the day of the weekly sheep market, and

the square had been crowded with lambs and full-grown

sheep, bleating loudly and pressed so tightly together Jabbar

had had difficulty getting his Land-Rover through.

Now, completely cleared, the square looked like a playing

field, and this impression was strengthened by the sight of a

small reviewing stand, four or five tiers of seats behind a

bunting-draped wall which had been erected along one side of

the arena. To this canopied stand Mohammed and the taxi

driver led Bob, pushing ahead of him through the crowds of

villagers and tribesmen who had come to town to see the

annual enactment of their
shabih
, or passion play.

With the women I trooped down to the far end of the

playing field, where a group of eucalyptus trees offered shade.

As we walked, four costumed men on horseback cantered by,

wheeled and cantered toward the center of the playing field

again. Completely covered with yellow trappings, the horses

could have been the mounts of medieval knights waiting for

the jousting to begin. Their yellow covers were bound and

decorated in black, and from the black-rimmed eyeholes, the

horses looked out, their eyes seeming bigger than life, as

though they wore eye make-up. The men’s costumes were

green and red, of some silky material which shone in the sun

and billowed out from their shoulders as they swept by. They

wore sashes and high cardboard hats, cut like war helmets of

some indeterminate historical period. Swords, curved and

painted, were brandished high.

In front of the reviewing stand a small group of horsemen

waited; green and black flags, like the flags of the taaziya,

were held up and outward. All that was needed, I felt, was a

brass band or at least a trumpeter to herald the opening of the

drama.

“When does it begin?” I whispered to Laila.

“It has begun,” she replied, and the four costumed

horsemen trotted by us, stopped near the tree, and waited.

“Oh,” I said lamely. What was going on? I looked at the

horsemen, but their costumes told me little.

“The swords aren’t real,” Fadhila confided in me.

“Of course they are real,” replied Laila.

“They are not real,” retorted Fadhila. “Mohammed says the

government has forbidden it.”

“Well, when we had the play in El Nahra, we had real

swords,” Laila returned, in some contempt, and this began a

spirited argument between Laila, Fadhila and some women

from Suffra, near whom we had found a seat on a hard, sandy

hummock under one of the eucalyptus trees.

“What is happening now?” I asked.

Laila turned, abstracted, from her conversation. “What?”

I repeated my question.

“Oh, well, the battle is beginning.”

The horsemen near us spurred their mounts and galloped to

the center, thundered back, wheeled and rode into the center

of the arena again, where they were met by other horsemen, in

different costumes. The flag-bearers moved toward the center

and moved away again, and both sets of horsemen returned to

their corners.

I turned to Hathaya, the weaver’s daughter. “Now what is

going on?” I asked.

“Now?” she said, looking briefly at the arena. “The battle

has started,” and she moved closer to one of the women and

they resumed their conversation.

Rebuffed, I sat back on my hummock and peered across the

square. I could barely make out the figure of Bob in the

reviewing stand and at that particular moment I wished

mightily I were with him. I could not see him clearly, but I

was sure that, as an honored guest, he was sitting on a chair

drinking Pepsi-Cola and having the play explained to him in

detail by the village elders. It’s hardly fair, I thought

peevishly; I’ve come all this way too and I can’t even find out

what I’m supposed to be seeing. My friends were no help at

all. And besides, I was thirsty.

Laila introduced me to several of the women, who were

relatives or friends of friends, but they did not offer any

explanation of the play either. They were far more interested

in family news from down the canal. I shifted around, trying

to find a more comfortable place on the hummock. There was

none.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Laila.

“Yes,” I said, noting the crowds of colorful horsemen in the

square.

“It’s a war, Beeja,” explained Laila, “between the good men

of Hussein’s family and the evil men of Muawiya.” I nodded.

“The costumes are very beautiful, don’t you think?” I

nodded again.

“What’s the matter, Beeja? Are you sick?”

“No,” I said, “I’m very very thirsty. Let us find a man

selling Pepsi-Cola.”

Laila demurred. “Don’t waste your money, Beeja. Why,

today I am sure the Pepsi-Cola will cost four fils instead of

two.”

“I don’t care. I—”

“Soon the play will be over and then we will go to the

house of Hathaya’s aunt. She brought up Hathaya after her

mother died and Hathaya loves her very much. This is the first

time she has seen her in four years.”

I looked at Hathaya, her puny baby asleep in her lap, deep

in conversation with her aunt, and suddenly felt a little

ashamed of myself for my pique. If I had not been an outsider,

I would have enjoyed the social aspect of the occasion as

much as they, and, I realized, I would have appreciated the

play too, for I would have seen it so many times I would not

have needed an explanation. But I was still very thirsty and

found myself thinking longingly of water and Coca-Cola and

iced lemonade and a whole succession of cool drinks, despite

the colorful and ancient drama being enacted in front of me.

The forces of good, on green-caparisoned horses, and

wearing cardboard helmets, fought with the forces of evil in

turbans and on yellow-caparisoned horses. Neutral elements,

represented by the flag-bearers, tried to make peace and failed.

Everyone knew what the outcome would be, but the battle was

still worth the seeing. By this time fifty or sixty horsemen

filled the square, and the two groups of warriors galloped

toward each other, met briefly in the center in a clash of

wooden swords, then regrouped at each end in preparation for

another assault. In between rounds, several small boys would

run into the arena and rescue from the dust objects which Bob

later told me were papier-mâché arms and legs carried by the

horsemen and thrown up into the air after each assault to give

an air of reality to the proceedings. With shouts and cries the

women and men urged on the forces of Hussein and hissed the

forces of Muawiya. I wanted to cry out too, but what I felt like

shouting at the top of my lungs was, “I’m so thirsty.”

Then came rifles, passed up to the horsemen from the

audience, and the battle started anew. The knowledge that the

bullets the men fired over each other’s heads were real bullets

added danger and a certain awe to the affair. Even the

gossiping women were silent.

My view was less superb than Bob’s, I was sure, but at least

I had a sense of participation, for as the battle raged faster, the

horsemen drew up closer and closer, until I could taste in my

parched throat the dust raised by the panting horses, who were

brought up short only a few feet from us and then turned to

gallop back into battle. The legs of the horses ran with sweat,

the cardboard helmets were wilting, and the silken tunics

stuck to the backs of the horsemen. But the riders, at full

gallop, continued to fire their rifles, and the smell of

gunpowder was added to the odors of sweat and manure that

drifted toward us from the arena. I tried to moisten my lips,

but my tongue was dry too. I tried to forget my thirst by

concentrating on the spectacle. I found that half closing my

eyes filtered the spectacle quite effectively, reducing the glare

of the sun and the density of the dust clouds until the ancient

play became a fine kaleidoscopic whirl of odor and shining

blurs and flying sand.

Without any particular concluding action that I could see,

the battle ceased. I looked at my watch. We had been

onlookers in the hot sun for more than three hours. No wonder

I was thirsty. In a few minutes the crowds filled the square,

and the horses, still in their brilliant trappings, were led off to

the canal to drink. The costumes and horses’ coverings would

be saved for next year’s performance, Laila told me. The

reviewing stand was hidden in the throngs of people who

pushed on, back to houses or shops or to the long road home

to their clan settlements on the plain. Where was Bob? I saw a

pail of Coca-Cola pass by, carried by a man, and I rushed after

it, but Laila pulled me back so fiercely that I turned to her, and

saw Bob and Mohammed and the taxi driver walking near us,

but not with us. We headed up a narrow street leading off the

square to a wooden door in a mud-brick wall. Once inside the

door, we separated again. The men disappeared into one room

and we were led into another, where in coolness and darkness

(such a relief from the dust and heat outside) several women

were seated in a circle on reed mats. We sank down also, and

loosened our abayahs.

“Ahlan wusahlan,”
said a large, square woman seated near

the door.

“Shlonich
[how are you]?” asked Fadhila, and we repeated

her greeting.

“I am afraid we cause trouble by our presence,” said

Fadhila.

“On the contrary, you honor us.”

Using the phrases traditional between host and guest, the

square-faced woman and Fadhila set about building a polite

relationship for the short period of time we would be together.

Could I interrupt the dialogue to ask for water? In a moment

they were discussing mutual friends and near-relatives in El

Nahra, and after this, Fadhila felt the moment had arrived

when she might appropriately make a request.

“Good aunt, may we trouble you for some water? We are so

parched from the heat.”

At a word from the square-faced woman, a young girl

slipped out and came back with a tray of glasses.

“Water is a gift from God,” said Fadhila fervently, setting

her empty glass on a tray.

“The Koran says that water is the source of all life,” quoted

the square-faced woman.

If, at that moment, I could have remembered any proverbs

about water, I would have quoted them, that water tasted so

good to me. It had obviously been drawn from the depths of a

porous clay jar, for chips of the clay were visible in the bottom

of the glass. But in my great thirst, the flat earthy taste of the