The Corpse Washer (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (9 page)

After obtaining the death certificate from the Office of Forensic Medicine, we took his body to the washhouse. Baghdad looked sad. Its streets were barren. Hammoudy had the keys to the place. We opened the door and put the body on the washing bench, but I told him I was going to wait outside. I asked him to call me should he need anything. He was surprised and asked me, “Don’t you want to stay?”

I shook my head: “I can’t.”

The washhouse was dark, like a huge grave, except for a faint ray of light filtering in from the tiny window. I went out to the garden and squatted in front of my father’s beloved pomegranate tree. It had drunk the water of death for decades, and now it was about to drink the water flowing off his body through the runnel around the washing bench. My father and I were strangers, but I had never realized it until now.

The deep red pomegranate blossoms were beginning to breathe.
When I was young, I ate the fruit of this tree that my father would pluck and bring home. But I stopped eating it when I realized that it had drunk of the waters of death. I heard the sound of water being poured inside. Seconds later I saw it rush through the runnel and flow around the roots of the tree.

I had heard on the radio the night before that the Americans were close to Najaf. I thought about the difficulties and dangers that we would encounter on our way there to bury my father.

After about forty minutes, Hammoudy called to me and I went back inside. I smelled the camphor he was sprinkling all over the shroud that covered my father’s body, leaving only his face exposed. Hammoudy asked me to carry Father’s body to the coffin which he had prepared and placed on the floor three meters away. He went over to the cupboard and brought out one of those special shrouds which had supplications written on it and placed it over my father’s chest, tucking it right under his chin. Then he went out to the garden and I heard branches being broken. He came back with a branch of pomegranate, which he snapped in two, placing both pieces along the arms inside the coffin.

I remembered asking my father why branches of palm trees or pomegranates were placed next to the dead. He said that they lessen the pain of the grave and recited,
“In both gardens are fruit, palm trees, and pomegranates.”

Father’s relatives were not able to accompany the coffin. Tradition dictated that the dead must be buried as soon as possible. The war and the bombing made it difficult to inform his relatives since all the phones were dead. Even if they had been informed, the car trip on the road to Najaf was very risky—and provided an acceptable excuse that would save them from reproach. Only a mad person would want to be inside a moving car while bombers and fighter jets were hovering overhead, ready to spit fire at any moving object. Thus it was that the only people to accompany Father on his final journey were Hammoudy, who drove his brother’s car, Abu Layth, our neighbor and a longstanding friend of my father’s who insisted on coming, and myself.

We carried the coffin to the car, put it on the rack on top, and secured it with ropes. The trip to Najaf usually took two hours. Baghdad’s streets were empty that morning except for a few cars rushing to escape the city. Columns of black smoke billowed through the sky. I sat in the back. Nothing was said. The radio was crackling with patriotic songs and the news reported incessant bombings and battles around al-Basra and al-Nasiriyya. The Americans had reached the outskirts of Najaf, but the military spokesman stressed that our valiant soldiers and the heroes of the Fida’iyyin Saddam militias were inflicting heavy losses on the enemy and that “victory was surely ours in this final battle.” And that “the enemy would be defeated at Baghdad’s walls.” Abu Layth made the sarcastic observation: “We keep racking up victories and keep falling behind.”

The road was deserted except for the odd speeding car on the opposite side on its way to Baghdad. We were stopped near Hilla by a group of armed men wearing civilian clothes who looked like they were Fida’iyyin Saddam. One of them approached Hammoudy and asked him where we were heading. When Hammoudy told him that we had a coffin we were taking to Najaf, he said, “You won’t be able to make it there. The road is very dangerous.”

Hammoudy said: “But we have to bury him in Najaf.”

The man replied: “Whatever. God be with you.” He tapped the roof of the car with his hand.

Half an hour outside of Najaf, we saw an American platoon heading our way. Hammoudy slowed down the car and moved to the shoulder of the highway. Abu Layth advised him to stop the car, so he turned off the engine, saying, “God help us.”

The platoon stopped—except for one Humvee which kept approaching. When it was about a hundred meters away it slowed down. The soldier standing on top of it pointed the gun toward us. Somewhat fearful, Hammoudy asked, “What are we going to do?”

“If we move, they will shoot us. Let’s just stay still and do nothing,” I told him.

The Humvee continued to approach, looking like a mythical animal intent on devouring us. Silence fell, but we could hear the
whoosh of fighter jets in the distance. When the Humvee was about thirty or forty meters away, it stopped. The soldier on top shouted a number of times in English, “Get out of the car now!”

“What is he saying?” asked Hammoudy.

“He wants us to get out of the car,” I said.

We opened the doors and got out of the car slowly. We left the doors open. Abu Layth and I stood to the right of the car, and Hammoudy circled around and stood in front of us.

The soldier shouted, “Put your hands up! Now! Put your hands up, now!”

I put them up and told Hammoudy and Abu Layth to do so as well. The soldier shouted again, gesturing for us to move away from the car. “Step away from the vehicle!”

Abu Layth understood and said, “Away from the car.”

We moved farther away with our hands still up. Three soldiers got out of the Humvee and ran toward us screaming and pointing downward with their hands. “Down. Down. Get down on the ground.”

We got down on our knees. Two of them headed toward us, pointing their guns at our heads, and stopped about five meters away. The third one circled around the car to check it out. One of them pointed to the coffin and shouted: “What’s on the car?”

Hammoudy answered him, “Dead man, for Najaf.”

My answer overlapped with Hammoudy’s, so I repeated: “My father. Dead. Dead man.”

The third soldier removed the cover of the coffin with the barrel of his machine gun and got up on the driver’s side to take a look and then said, “It’s a fucking coffin. Clear. Clear.” He got down and circled the car, looking under it, and then came behind us. One of the two soldiers standing in front of us screamed “Don’t move!” The third soldier searched us one by one with the two machine guns still pointed at us. After he finished searching Hammoudy, he dangled the car keys in front of him and jangled them, then pointed to the trunk, screaming, “You! Open the trunk.”

When I translated for Hammoudy, one of the two soldiers yelled at me, “Shut the fuck up.”

Hammoudy got up slowly and went back to the trunk and opened it while the third soldier followed him with the gun. He ordered him to go back where he had been so he did and got back down on his knees.

The third soldier searched the trunk. He didn’t find anything and screamed “All clear! Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The Humvee approached and got out of the highway and stopped in front of our car. The barrel on top of it was still pointed at us. The third soldier got back inside the Humvee. The other two retreated, but kept their gun barrels pointed at us. The Humvee stayed there. The vehicles in the battalion began to drive by fast. After the last vehicle in the convoy drove by, the Humvee that had kept watch moved away and joined the rear, leaving a storm of dust behind.

We stood up and shook off the dirt from our clothes. I realized that we’d just survived death. A slight move in the wrong direction would have resulted in a shower of bullets.

Hammoudy said, “Man, we could’ve all died. God saved us.”

Abu Layth agreed and teased me, saying, “Wow. Your English is fluent. You should work with them as a translator.”

“Nah, it’s just a few sentences I learned from films and TV shows,” I said.

As we got our car back on the road, Hammoudy said, “Looks like these liberators want to humiliate us.”

After that incident we encountered no more trouble. An hour later, we unloaded my father’s body at the cemetery and buried him next to his favorite son, Ammoury. The gravedigger approached the hole which had been dug and said in a loud voice, “O God, make this one of paradise’s gardens and not a pit of fire.” When he was down in the grave he said, “In the name of God, by his power and for his sake, and according to the traditions of his messenger. O God, believing in you and your book. This is what God and his messenger promised us. Verily they have told the truth. God grant us more faith and peace.”

We helped one another carry my father. The gravedigger took him and laid him in the grave on his right side so that he would be facing Mecca. Then he untied the shroud and placed my father’s cheek on a pillow of dirt and said: “O God. Your worshiper, the son of your worshipers, is now your guest and you are a most worthy host. God make his grave spacious, teach him his proof, join him with his prophet and protect him from the evil of Munkar and Nukayr.” Then he put his hands under my father’s shoulders and shook him saying: “Kazim, son of Hasan. God is your lord. Muhammad is your prophet. Islam is your religion. Ali is your imam and guardian.” Then he recited the names of the twelve imams—“all righteous imams of guidance”—whereupon he began to throw dirt on him until little by little he disappeared.

Hammoudy broke down crying and covered his eyes with his hands. His tears recalled all my buried sadness and I started to cry. After a layer of dirt, the digger started to put mud on the grave. Someone said: “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger. God is great. O God, your worshiper and the son of your worshipers is now your guest and you are the best host. O God, of his deeds we only know good ones, but you know him best. O God, if he was kind, be kind to him. If he has committed bad deeds, forgive him. O God, take him to your side in the uppermost chambers and let him follow his people who have long since departed this world. Bestow your mercy on him, O most merciful one. God is great. O God, be merciful to him in his estrangement, accompany him in his loneliness and calm his fears and bestow such mercy of yours so that he need not any other’s. Unite him with his loved ones.”

Then we started to sprinkle dirt on him and repeated with the man who led the prayer, “We are God’s and to him we return.”

Hammoudy hugged me and offered his condolences.

I told him, “You were like a son to him.”

Then Abu Layth hugged us both and said, “He is in peace now. He was truly a good man.”

We had to spend the night in Najaf. The next day we were told to
fly a white flag on the car and so we did. As we approached Baghdad from the south, we passed by what resembled a graveyard of burning and destroyed vehicles and tanks near al-Rashid Military Base. There were people digging makeshift graves and burying the abandoned corpses.

After Baghdad fell and the Americans occupied it there was mayhem for days. There was no electricity so we couldn’t see anything on TV. It crouched there with a blind screen unable to show what was taking place. But the news on the radio spoke of mobs looting public property, ministries, the national library, and the national museum. It also said that Saddam had vanished. A few weeks before the war, the regime had released thousands of thieves and criminals from prison, but I was surprised that the Americans made no effort to protect public institutions since even occupiers were required to do so by international conventions.

I went out to get some fresh air and saw Abu Layth. We exchanged greetings, then he asked me: “Didn’t you study at the Academy of Fine Arts?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“The Americans bombed it.”

“The academy? Are you serious? What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I heard.”

It was strange to learn that the academy had become a strategic target. I decided to go and check it out myself. I put on my clothes in a hurry. My mother tried to persuade me to stay home. Although the past few days had been quiet, she was still afraid of the dangers. I told her I absolutely had to go and would be back in a couple of hours. She asked me to be very careful and saw me off with supplications for my safety.

I got into a Kia bus to Bab al-Mu’azzam, walking distance from the academy. There were mounds of garbage in the streets and an
awful stench. Traffic lights were not working and drivers negotiated with signals and gestures, but there wasn’t a lot of traffic. When we approached the Sarrafiyya Bridge, the driver veered to the left and slowed down, as did other cars. I turned to look back. A group of American armored vehicles were speeding toward the bridge to cross to the other side of Baghdad. The soldier standing on top of the last one had sunglasses on and pointed his gun toward us, ready to fire.

The driver was visibly annoyed by the scene and said, “What’s all this about? Take it easy, man.”

An old man sitting behind me proclaimed loudly, “The student is gone and the teacher is here. The student is gone and the teacher is here.”

I didn’t fully appreciate this sentence then, but its genius became more apparent as time passed and tragedies piled up on our chests. I found myself repeating it whenever we were slapped silly by an event.

Saddam’s mural at Bab al-Mu’azzam was smeared with paint. His features had all disappeared except for part of his moustache and half of his smile. I wondered where he was, but did it even matter anymore?

Even though I had graduated many years ago, I kept visiting the academy to meet Reem throughout her graduate studies and visited her later when she became a lecturer. Even after Reem’s sudden departure to Jordan, I still went there to see Professor al-Janabi. When I approached the academy that morning, I saw that part of the wall of the department of audiovisual arts had been destroyed.
So it’s true!
I crossed the street and approached the main gate. The administration building had not been hit. I saw Abu Samir, the doorman, sitting on the bench and smoking as usual. I greeted him and reminded him of my name. I asked about the audiovisual building. He said: “The Americans hit it with a missile.”