Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (47 page)

garden cottage in the southern residential area of Baghdad.

Since the mushtamal was two stories high, we were able to

divide space fairly well and sharing rent and food expenses

was a saving for all of us.

Mohammed did not stay after all. For the first two or three

days in Baghdad he walked around in a constant state of

contained excitement. Everything was new and wonderful to

him. He went twice to pray at the shrine of Khadhimain. But

gradually he became more and more glum. We knew he was

lonely without friends or relations, but there was nothing we

could do about it. When we sent him shopping, he would

come back without the things we wanted, complaining he

didn’t know the suq and couldn’t be sure which merchants

were honest. He got lost several times trying to find our house.

After living all his life in a place where he was related to

many of the residents and knew everyone else, to be cast adrift

in a strange place where no one recognized or cared about him

was a frightening experience for Mohammed.

At the end of the second week he asked if he might go

home. Bob gave him a month’s wages, helped arrange for him

to get an official work permit for future use, and wrote a letter

to Jabbar asking him to remember Mohammed if any jobs

arose in the near future within the bureaucracy of El Nahra.

The morning he left, Mohammed was a new man. He had

bathed and wore a clean aba and kaffiyeh; I had seen him

ironing the kaffiyeh the night before. “I don’t know where the

ironing man’s shop is,” he had said defensively. Now his few

belongings were tied in a bundle and he could hardly wait to

go. El Nahra had little to offer him economically, but there at

least he knew who and where he was.

Abdulla’s son Ahmed was finishing college in Baghdad, as

was Hadhi, Sheik Hamid’s son. Hadhi and Sheik Hamid had

quarreled over politics and were barely on speaking terms;

Hadhi’s mother Bahiga, like Ahmed’s mother Khariya, sent

him money. Perhaps this common bad experience with their

fathers had drawn the boys together. At any rate they were

close friends, and they took Bob to dinner one night. Bob

came home in a bemused state.

“The two boys were really going at it politically,” he told

me. “Hadhi sounds as if he has been given the treatment by

the local Commies. A bright boy. I wonder what will happen

to him. Ahmed is bright too but not so interested in politics.

He knows he’s being considered for the sheikship, but he has

rather mixed feelings about the position. Says he’s going to

get a job teaching and stay in Baghdad. On the other hand he

talks about getting married to one of Sheik Hamid’s

daughters—Sabiha, I think he said her name was. Which one

is she?”

“Not Sabiha,” I said immediately. “He must mean Samira.”

“Samira, Samira,” repeated Bob. “No, that wasn’t the name,

I’m sure.”

“It must be, because Samira is the really beautiful daughter,

the one with the two marvelous braids of black hair. Without

her head scarf and chin scarf, with her ruddy skin and those

black braids, she looks like the daughter of Pocahontas. But

Sabiha—Sabiha is silly.”

Bob thought a moment. “Who has the lighter skin?” he

asked.

“Sabiha, but—”

“Ah-ha,” said Bob. “That’s the reason. A matter of

prestige.”

I exploded. “That’s ridiculous, Bob. Samira has everything:

beauty, a warm heart, intelligence. Sabiha may be light-

skinned but she certainly has nothing else to offer.”

“Well, that’s the most important thing to Ahmed,

apparently.”

“But if this system of marriage weren’t operating, if Ahmed

could meet both girls, I’m sure he’d—”

“He’d do exactly the same thing,” finished Bob. “You

forget he grew up with the sheik’s children, and knew both

Samira and Sabiha very well until they were eleven or twelve.

He knows what he wants and that’s that.”

I still felt annoyed at Ahmed, but I knew it was mostly for

Samira’s sake. If Ahmed did marry Sabiha, this eliminated

one of the best marriage possibilities for Samira, who, as a

sheik’s daughter, had a very narrow range of acceptable

husbands.

Jabbar came to Baghdad whenever he could to see his

fiancée Suheir. The couple was allowed to see each other and

enjoy a brief period of courtship, for the official betrothal

ceremony, the “signing of the book,” had already taken place.

Although the consummation of the marriage was yet to come,

Jabbar and Suheir were now legally man and wife, as only

under extremely unusual circumstances was a marriage

contract broken after the signing of the book.

One weekend he brought his sister Khadija to Baghdad and

we lunched together at a fairly secluded upstairs restaurant.

Neither girl wore the abayah and Khadija was very nervous.

She sat self-consciously at the table, picking at the buttons on

her coat, and every so often casting sidelong glances at Suheir

or me to see how we were handling the food.

Over kebab and
tikka
, flat bread and pickles, Jabbar and

Bob discussed politics. Suheir displayed a gold bracelet, a gift

from Jabbar, which they had bought together that morning in

the gold market on River Street.

A plump, pretty girl well aware of her charms, Suheir

teased Jabbar constantly and unmercifully. Occasionally he

would actually blush and Khadija would clap her hands in

amusement. Khadija seemed fascinated by Suheir, and Suheir

was working hard to ingratiate herself with Khadija—wisely

enough, since the two women would be living in the same

house before long. Khadija apparently was won over, but

knowing the moods of this unhappy, uncertain girl, I

wondered.

Suheir, by a single gesture, commanded the conversation.

“Shall we tell them, Jabbar?” she asked.

“Tell them what?”

“About our plan.” She blinked her eyes coquettishly.

“Oh yes,” replied Jabbar. He looked suddenly delighted.

“Suheir is going to educate the women of El Nahra away from

the abayah.” He laughed aloud.

Khadija looked shocked. “You mean she is not going to

wear the abayah?”

“That’s right, I’m not,” answered her future sister-in-law.

“And you can take it off too. We’ll show those villagers,

won’t we, Jabbar?” She leaned forward and almost, but not

quite, touched his hand.

Jabbar sat back in his chair and pulled hard on his cigarette.

“You see, Bob,” he said, “here is a true daughter of modern

Iraq. Together we will destroy these outmoded customs.”

Bob and I glanced at each other. We seemed to be thinking

the same thing, that this, at last, was the dramatic gesture

Jabbar had been seeking, the gesture of defiance and pride

which had been lacking in the traditional marriage

arrangements.

Jabbar had eyes only for Suheir, who was leaning forward

whispering something to him. He laughed again. I smiled to

myself, thinking that probably he would be happy with Suheir,

and then I caught sight of Khadija, who was eyeing the

couple, a stricken and unpleasant look on her face, the look of

a frightened rabbit. At that moment I hoped fervently that

Jabbar would not insist on his shrinking little sister’s assuming

the freedom he was willing to give her. Khadija’s daughter

perhaps might be comfortable without the abayah, but I

doubted that Khadija ever would be.

Sayid Muhsen also came to Baghdad. One of Bob’s close

friends, he was the leader of a clan settlement an hour or more

away from El Nahra. It was Sayid Muhsen who had built the

school in his settlement and personally petitioned the Ministry

of Education for a teacher. It was in Sayid Muhsen’s school

that boys and girls attended classes together.

Sayid Muhsen had other modern ideas. He had had four

children in four years and felt it was time to stop, or he would

be unable to provide a decent living for his family.

Accordingly, he had taken his wife to a Diwaniya doctor and

asked for contraceptives; the doctor had given his wife a

device to wear, he told Bob, but it had not worked, since she

had had a fifth child recently. Besides, his wife complained

that the device was very painful to wear. Also it had been

expensive, five Iraqi pounds.

At this Bob had become very angry at the cavalier way his

friend had been treated, and told Sayid Muhsen that if he came

to Baghdad with his wife, Bob and I would personally take

them to the American Hospital to see the resident woman

doctor.

Accordingly, one sunny April day we went trooping to the

hospital. Bob and Sayid Muhsen and five of his male relatives

sat on one side of the long, white-walled waiting room. I sat

on the other side with his wife, who was heavily veiled from

head to foot. Whether the five male relatives were there for

Sayid Muhsen’s moral support, or whether they came as an

honor guard for his wife, we never knew.

Fortunately the woman doctor at the American Mission

Hospital was a sympathetic and understanding person as well

as a competent physician. She spoke very little Arabic and had

an Iraqi nurse to interpret. I explained the situation first and

she asked to see the expensive device. When Sayid Muhsen’s

wife produced it from some inner fold of her voluminous

abayah, the doctor’s eyes widened and she, too, began to look

very angry.

“That is an instrument for examination purposes only,” she

said. “You mean you actually wore this thing?” she asked,

turning directly to Sayid Muhsen’s wife and forgetting she

knew no English. The Iraqi nurse hurried to translate.

“I wore it for several months,” answered Muhsen’s wife.

“The doctor told me to. But it didn’t help, because I had

another baby anyway.”

After this had been translated, the doctor opened
and
shut

her mouth. She cleared her throat and began a little talk about

the principle of contraceptives, the nurse interpreting as she

went along. “Now,” she said to me, “would you mind

leaving?” I explained to Sayid Muhsen’s wife that I would be

outside the door.

I waited for a good quarter of an hour, while the men

opposite shifted uneasily in their seats and I, watching them,

grew restless myself. Eventually the doctor came out and

asked me to have the husband come in. I signaled to Bob and

he brought Sayid Muhsen over. Sayid Muhsen disappeared

into the doctor’s office. In another quarter of an hour the

couple reappeared and we left together.

At the door we parted in some confusion and without a

word. The male relatives went ahead, Sayid Muhsen shook

Bob’s hand, was uncertain what to do about me since we had

never spoken before, did nothing therefore but turn on his

heel, say goodbye to Bob and indicate that his wife was to

follow. She turned her heavily veiled person vaguely in my

direction, as though she were about to say something but

thought better of it since Bob stood beside me and there was

no uncertainty at all in her mind about him. She turned and

fled. Later Bob told me that Sayid Muhsen had been

impressed with the efficiency and politeness with which the

affair had been conducted, as well as with the reasonable size

of the bill. He had paid only two pounds for everything.

When Sheik Hamid came to town for the spring session of

Parliament, Bob went to see him in his hotel. He returned with

an invitation. Haji had expressed a desire to take us to dinner

at the Auberge, a fancy and expensive Baghdad night club.

“I’ve inquired,” he told Bob, “and I’ve been told that this is

a very reputable place. You don’t need to worry about taking

your wife there.”

Sheik Hamid would never have taken any of his own wives

or daughters to a night club or to any public gathering. He

would take me, but only if the place was respectable. I was

touched by the sheik’s consideration, and relieved to find that

he would accept our foreign ways in this new setting.

That evening the sheik’s driver called for us in the

Oldsmobile. When we climbed the steps of the Auberge, we

found the sheik and his oldest son Nour already present in the

small, well-appointed but still empty bar.

Sheik Hamid was in good spirits. Having spent his summers

in Lebanon, he was, I think, pleased to be able to show us that

he was conversant in many of the ways of the West. He

ordered fresh lemonade all around, and afterward a dinner of

soup, roast beef, potatoes, green beans and salad. He took a

table on a slightly raised platform which was somewhat

removed from the big dance floor and its surrounding tables.

This way we were not inordinately conspicuous to the rest of

the clientele, which at that early hour was still small. A trio

played softly in the background and I had settled down to

enjoy our meal when I became aware of how excruciatingly

embarrassed Nour was. It occurred to me that not only had