Mothballs (23 page)

Alone, he dripped with sweat. No one came near him, neither Sergeant Jasim or Master Sergeant Sadiq. He was like a little star, alone and twinkling, which had slipped from the horizon and landed on a waistcoat.

Suddenly he began to scream. A long cry, a frightening snarl, and drawn-out sob. Alone, he ran, smiting his head with his hand, not seeing the wall in front of him. The walls had all been here. The prisoners had been here with him. Where had everyone gone? 

He runs to the big faraway store room. He kicks in its door and lifts up the jerry cans of gasoline. He walks with them and puts them in front of him in the middle of the yard. He opens them, and a carnelianred cataract gushes out. Within seconds, it vanishes into the ground, digging little holes that subdue the surrounding earth.

He dipped the 
sidara 
into the can and ignited it. He was working like a gravedigger. His hands went to work, undressing himself. His trousers were on the ground, in flames, and he laughed.

“That's for Adil.”

The fire blazed and flared up into a fountain of light. His jacket was in his hand.

“This is for Iqbal.”

He grasped the three stars in his hand. His hand was in flames. His fingers went into the fire as he pulled the stars from the shoulder of the jacket. He put them in his mouth. His wounds became unintelligible as the fire entered his mouth and burned his cheeks. He threw the gold stars high into the air, one after the other, and screamed: 

“Take them! Give them to someone else! Take them and sell them at the public market. Take them and free me from their colour, shape, and weight. Take them, aren't you listening?”

He put his hand inside the can and stirred up the clothes with the 
sidara
.

“They were too heavy on my shoulder. They were ugly in my neighbours' eyes. They were— ”

He pulled his boots off and threw them into the rising flames: “And that is for the head of police.”

The flames spread from the neck area down to the blazing sleeves. His undershirt was on the ground, but by the time he began to take off his long linen drawers, columns of men were running toward him. The staff sergeant and policemen clasped him from every side. They took off their clothes and covered him with them. They brought thick blankets and water hoses, and started to put out the flames burning his fingers and his hair. He laughed loudly and rhythmically and wept: 

“I want the star. My mother lied. The captain lied. The star li— ” 

He wailed and wept. The men encircled him with their arms. They folded him as they would a garment, firmly grasping his arms, legs and body up to the neck.

He laughed as he was bundled off to Baghdad in a government car. Sergeant Jasim stood by his head, with Nuriya and her mother at his side. In their hands was a letter from the department:
dismissed from government service for health reasons
.

As we rode in the truck it seemed to me my father was driving. My aunt was in the new house. My grandmother sat beside the driver, and we swayed in the back. The sofa poked us with its wooden legs, and the new bride's boxes jostled us. We piled together, our feet seeking some footing among all the odds and ends. Our bodies cowered inside our clothes. Adil did not look back. I did not know anyone to wave to. Between the new house to which you moved and the ancient government hospital, the trail made by our blood stretched out like a ribbon that had just been unfurled.

Alia Mamdouh

Alia Mamdouh was born in Baghdad in 1944. She graduated in 1971 from the al-Mustansiriya University and has been chief editor of
Al-Rasid 
[The Register] magazine and
al Fikr al-Mu‘asir 
[Contemporary Thought]. She is still a regular contributor to the main newspapers and journals of the Arab World. Her first novel was published in 1973 and was followed by a collection of short stories. 
Mothballs 
was her second novel. Her third novel 
al-Wala' 
has just been published in Arabic. She currently lives in Paris.

Fadia Faqir

Fadia Faqir was born in Jordan in 1956. She gained her BA in English Literature, MA in creative writing, and doctorate in critical and creative writing at Jordan University, Lancaster University and East Anglia University respectively. Her first novel,
Nisanit
, was published by Penguin in 1988 and her second novel, 
Pillars of Salt
, is published in 1996. Fadia Faqir is Lecturer in Arabic langauge and literature at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Durham University. She is at present working on her third novel, 
The Black Iris Crossing
.

Peter Theroux

Peter Theroux was born in Boston in 1956 and educated at Harvard and the American University in Cairo. He has lived and travelled in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. He is the author of 
The Strange Disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr, Sandstorms
, and
Translating LA
, and the translator of several Arab novels. He currently lives and works in California.