Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (47 page)

“Please, Ma’am.”

“Nora! What’s wrong? The man is talking to you. Do you want some tea?”

“Yes, please.”

The officer was saying, “Our land. We want nothing but our land. But Iran doesn’t want peace.”

I went back in my mind’s eye to the garden in our house in Dora.

Assembled with us were Adel, Nahid, Titi, and Mahmoud. Hatim gestured to their children, who were playing nearby, to be quiet, as Radio Monte Carlo was broadcasting important news.

Nahid said, “What’s with Monte Carlo all the time? Get us another station.”

“Ten-thirty in Monte Carlo. A sudden storm disabled the American helicopters that had come at a late hour today to Tehran to rescue the hostages.”

We all shouted, “Hooray, praise God. The planes fell down! The planes fell down!”

Nahid asked, “What are you cheering about? What planes?”

Hatim said, “Wait. I’ll look for another station.”

We spent two hours arguing and shouting, then we retired to get ready for the following day. Early the following morning I was getting ready to go to Habbaniya Lake with Hilmi Amin and Anhar and the Egyptian screenplay writer Hafez Abd al-Rahman, who was visiting Baghdad and who wanted to meet the director Samir Abu Tayf, who was shooting the movie
al-Qadisiyun
around the lake.

I went into the office still filled with last night’s joyous news. I rushed to congratulate Hilmi Amin, and asked him about Anhar. He said, “Let’s go wait for her outside the building. The car from the Ministry of Information will bring Hafez. We should get there early.”

She arrived. I said, “What a great occasion! A trip to the desert.”

Laughing she said, “Rather a trip to Susan Hilmi, Omar Awni, and Samir Abu Tayf.”

The car arrived. The escort got out and said, “We are too many for this car. We have to get another one.”

Hilmi Amin said, “It’s big enough. You sit in front and the back seat will be enough for us.”

The escort waited until we sat in the back. He didn’t seem convinced of the arrangement. Baghdad sun was shining and everything looked promising for a pleasant trip. Hafez asked how far it was to Habbaniya. The driver said, “About a hundred and twenty kilometers.”

Hafez said, “Congratulations on the fallen American planes!”

I said, “They are cowboys. What were they thinking? Did they think there are no laws? They want to do whatever they want to do and they don’t like it when people defend themselves?”

Anhar said, “They must understand that this time it is serious: The Iran of the shah is different from Khomeini’s Iran.”

Hafez said, “America has lost its mind. They have now lost Iran, from which they used to spy on the Soviet Union.”

I said, “God will punish the extravagant oppressors!”

Hilmi Amin laughed loudly and said, “Women will be women!”

The atmosphere in the car grew warmer. Hafez was an old friend of Hilmi Amin’s. We exchanged the news that each of us got from different broadcasts. We spoke quite freely. We noticed that our public relations escort and the driver, as usual, never took part in the conversation except with a polite word here and there or to answer very direct questions. But we didn’t care. We were full of the spirit of adventure and felt patriotic pride that the USA was a loser against one of our countries.

Hilmi said, “The Iranians will teach them a lesson they won’t forget!”

The car stopped suddenly, causing us to hit the front seat. We looked at the driver, before whom the road was clear, and there was no traffic in the middle of the desert. We didn’t understand what happened. The escort said, “We took a wrong turn. We’ll back up.”

For the first time we noticed that the driver had indeed turned on a small side road in the midst of the sand. We wondered why he had done that but we didn’t say anything. The main road was quite straight and clear and there was no sign indicating any right or left turn or pointing to any other direction to Habbaniya. He returned to the main wide road.

My eyes met the driver’s eyes. He fixed me with a steady, hostile glance in which I read defiance and arrogance that I was at a loss to understand. I didn’t like the glances of drivers of official Iraqi cars, especially the younger ones. They conveyed some sort of accusatorial attitude that I got right away. Maybe they were just suspicions that had accumulated over the long time that I had spent as an Arab correspondent in Baghdad. But that was the first time that I saw an Iraqi government driver who couldn’t control his angry feelings, even though he did not speak a word.

The main road took us toward a sign that said, “Habbaniya: 80 kilometers.” We started talking about the movie and the Egyptian artists and the huge sums allocated by the Iraqi Cinema and Theater Organization for the production of the movie. We also talked about Susan Hilmi’s recent cinematic activities. Baghdad at the time was a haven for Arab intellectuals and artists. Some settled there as professors at the universities and the arts academy. Some formed theatrical troupes or worked as experts for Iraqi troupes. Baghdad was rising like a great, beautiful, albeit arrogant, giant.

We spent the whole day with the movie crew, who warmly welcomed us. I discovered that some other Arab artists had roles in the movie, as did many younger Iraqi artists whom I had seen on the stage performing in wonderful plays. They took us to Saha where they were shooting the war scenes. We were introduced to the Italian expert who was brought over to oversee the production at the highest technical level. We sat to watch the tumult of war as if we were in the midst of real battles that had just come out of history books with shouts and cries and the clanging of swords. The scenes were shot several times, tiring the extras to exhaustion. I saw Hilmi Amin taking out a white handkerchief and giving it to Anhar to dry her sweat instead of using a facial tissue. His face was filled with indescribable kindness and affection. Anhar took the handkerchief gratefully and thanked him with a long loving glance. The scene needed to end with a long kiss in which these two lovers would forget that we were there with them. But they returned to a more formal mode.

We went back to Baghdad at night after the movie crew promised to visit us in the
al-Zahra
magazine office. In the morning I learned from Hilmi Amin that the driver’s behavior the day before was not random or a coincidence.

He said, “The driver wanted to send us a message. He didn’t like what we said about Iran.”

I said in disbelief, “What did we say that he took such offense at, that he acted so threateningly?”

“We said what we actually felt. They live in a world different from ours. They are not used to our kind of freedom,” he said.

I said, “I noticed that Anhar did not talk much in the car. She knows her people better.”

Hesitantly he said, “To some extent. Sometimes I fear for her because of our outspokenness.”

I said, “But it is not an Iraqi concern.”

He laughed for a long time, then said, “Who said that? It is at the heart of Iraqi concerns.”

I broke out of my reverie as the Iraqi officer, using a pointing stick to draw a large circle, was saying, “This is the Arabian Gulf, not the Persian Gulf. Thank you.”

The Iraqi Women’s Union cars took us to a desert road that had no greenery. Then there appeared green shrubs that had thorns, and tumbleweeds were blowing in the wind, flying here and there in front of us. I noticed that there were tents opened on all sides as if they were desert hats for playful women. Under the tents were long, thin tables at which sat many soldiers and Bedouins eating together. There were huge pots of food cooking on basic woodstoves and dozens of bread rolls heaped on the tables. There were long lines of these tents along the road. I asked Layla about them, and she said they were open around the clock to feed the soldiers and offered free meals to any Bedouins or travelers who happened to pass by.

We stopped at one of the tents. They prepared for us dishes of tharid, which is bread sopped in broth topped with rice, and
young lamb meat on very large trays, and hot bread. In front of us were pitchers of yogurt drink and teapots that they passed around. Zulaykha, the Russian woman, said to me, “I can’t believe I ate all this food!”

Anisa, the Pakistani woman, said, “I am so stuffed, I’ll die.”

Jon said, “You’re a glutton!”

I said, “It’s the desert climate and the company. Both quite appetizing!”

Layla said, “Enjoy it in good health!”

Tea glasses and Arab coffee pots made the rounds. Bedouin men danced a beautiful dabka to salute the president commander. Some foreign women journalists got up and danced with them, mimicking their shouts and patriotic songs in shrill voices that made us laugh.

I went into the hotel, eager for a hot bath. My breasts were almost jumping in pain in front of me, even though I had gone to the bathroom twice on the road to empty them, but I did not have enough time to finish the job. I didn’t think of Haytham all day long. Oh, my God. What was happening to me?

Yasir’s face came to me as he did from time to time, with his calm eyes that radiated serenity and confidence. I think he got that from Hatim, either through genes or mimicking. I began to prepare a real bath that might be the only one possible before tomorrow night at the earliest. I turned the television on and watched the president commander meeting workers at a factory. Then there were many shots of him taking a car ride through the streets in Baghdad with people cheering. Then there were some meetings with cabinet ministers and Ba‘th Party meetings, all interspersed with patriotic songs by various choirs. I kept looking for a channel that might have songs or dabka dances, but the best I could do was an Egyptian movie starring Farid Shawqi and Mahmoud al-Meligi. I remembered my Iraqi women neighbors asking me innocently if I knew Farid Shawqi or whether Naglaa Fathi lived in our neighborhood. I also remembered how Iraqis were fond of hearing the Egyptian dialect. I changed channels and came across one that featured
classical Arabic music. I gave in to the water and held my nipples and massaged them with cream as milk flowed from them, little by little. My muscles began to relax and I calmed down, almost dozing off, still half awake. I suddenly noticed the steam permeating the whole room. I wrapped bath towels securely around my body and succumbed to deep sleep. I came to as the alarm clock rang and the president commander peered from the screen, wearing his military uniform, tall and extremely self-confident, with all that old charisma that made the masses fall so madly in love with him. But this time there was something different about him, something that I couldn’t quite figure out, perhaps because, for the first time, I was hearing him talk about his desire for peace, without the old rhetoric of power. I wasn’t quite sure. Then I found myself wondering: was he really a lady-killer as rumors would have us believe? Or was it the old habit of turning leaders into legends, even when it came to sex? There came to my mind many stories about his love affairs. I laughed. They were all crazy.

I was quite surprised by how energetic the various delegation members were: younger and older women chatting merrily or poring over papers or books, reading or looking up things. Some were also looking at items that they had purchased: woolen kilims and popular costumes. They showed no trace of fatigue after the long trip. I told Sajida, “Go visit your mother. You don’t have to attend the panel discussions today. I’ll do the work on your behalf.”

She laughed and said, “Thanks, sweetie. My younger brother will come to the train station and tell me how mom is doing. I’ll be coming back next week, God willing.”

“Why? It doesn’t make sense!”

“Well, please. Work is work.”

We gathered at the door of the hotel holding our small bags, like fragile beings afraid of getting our clothes wet in Basra’s torrential rains. We ran to the buses that took us to the theater to meet leaders of the Women’s Union and some local leaders. During the panel we found out that families were afraid to let their children go to
school because of Iranian artillery shelling, and that the city had severe shortages of foodstuffs.

The Basra musical ensemble appeared on stage and I gave myself over to the Iraqi maqam, to take me into its heart and bring me closer to the Iraqi people whom I had come to know over a long time, and who had not revealed themselves to me right away but began to open up to me very cautiously, like a flower shying away from the dew, opening its petals only in the full light of day. Knowing Iraqis fully still seemed to me to be somewhat fantastical. The distance between us and them was still great and barriers all too real. Many of the ideas formed by a twenty-year-old woman still fell short of true understanding, no matter how much of a cultured woman she imagined herself to be and no matter how much history and politics she tried to immerse herself in every day. Such a person would still fall short of grasping the keys to the Iraqi character. Now, seven years later, I still felt at the threshold, still not understanding that character despite my many sincere attempts. All I knew and all I cared about really was that I loved the Iraqi people. All these musings came to my mind accompanied by fragments of popular Iraqi music and songs.

It was now midnight when we sneaked on to the train in a manner and mood quite different from yesterday morning. Was it only yesterday that we took the train from Baghdad to Basra? We settled in our seats to a long interrupted sleep. I felt thirsty and saw Layla’s hand extended to me with water, as if she was attached to me by an umbilical cord. I was awakened several times by the discomfort of the wooden seat and the monotonous clanking sound of the train’s wheels as they hit the ties on the railroad tracks. Before me, on an imaginary screen, I saw a picture of women, some wide awake and some fast asleep, different in age, nationality, and garb, all gathered under one roof and unified by one feeling: an ability to love life. Trips like this one have taught me that we, cultured, intellectual women (and men, for that matter), represented one class throughout the whole world, regardless of nationality, environment, or even political
identity, preoccupied with the whole of humanity, constantly seeking human freedom and social justice. The fellow women travelers on this train and other trains and planes that I took to any part of the world have always been ready to catch the spark of friendship. As soon as we caught glimpses of each other we knew that we shared a common history, one that we did not put into words but carried on our shoulders even if we did not speak about it. We could broach any subject, at any point, and come to know it and each other intimately.