A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (11 page)

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Authors: Asne Seierstad,Ingrid Christophersen

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #General, #Editors; Journalists; Publishers, #History, #Military, #Iraq War (2003-2011), #Language Arts & Disciplines, #Journalism, #Social Science, #Customs & Traditions, #Sociology

BOOK: A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal
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- You have to understand. He clears his throat and looks coy. - This agreement must be to our mutual benefit.
 
Kadim looks penetratingly at me. Until this moment he has appeared likeable. He often jokes with Aliya and me. I have difficulty in reconciling his mild manner with the cut-throat intelligence service he belongs to.
 
- Mutual benefit. What does that mean?
 
- You have to pay.
 
- How much?
 
- That’s up to you. I don’t know how much money you have. Bring as much as you can in an envelope tomorrow and the matter will be settled, for now, Kadim says, and disappears light-footed down the corridor.
 
It is a risky business he has started. Corruption permeates Iraq, but bribery can be severely punished. But I quite understand that Kadim wants to lay his hands on as much as possible before it all unravels.
 
What is a suitable sum? Not so much that he will think I am a bottomless money bag, not so little that it will irritate him. And I don’t know whether this is only for the next ten days. Eventually I put five hundred dollars in an envelope and hope for the best.
 
Kadim cannot decide alone. He must submit my case to the committee on the eighth floor, whoever they are. At every meeting he has the possibility to promote candidates who will be allowed to evade the ten-day rule. Primarily it concerns large TV companies and newspapers, who pay millions to be allowed to stay. It might complicate matters for Kadim that I come from an insignificant country. He asks me to make a list of who I work for.
 
Luck is with me this time, but at any moment my name might be staring down at me from the list. One journalist after another leaves the country after their allotted ten days. Did my five hundred dollars really make that much difference?
 
 
It is not only Iraq’s inhabitants who fear the regime’s heavy fist; the journalists too are frightened of its knuckles. To call Saddam Hussein a dictator is banned, to mention the torture and ethnic cleansing is equal to issuing one’s own return ticket. Thus the most critical articles are written by colleagues at home. A visa is too valuable to sacrifice for the sake of one crushing report. We walk with open eyes into this self-imposed censorship.
 
Janine rewrites and changes like the true pro she is in order not to be turned out. Nevertheless, she is constantly being chastised by Uday for leaders and commentaries in
The Times
, a paper which has taken a clear stand for the war. Melinda from
Newsweek
often writes snatches of articles which are later reworked by others and printed under a pseudonym.
 
One day Remy from
Le Monde
is ordered to catch the first plane out of the country. The Iraqi embassy in Paris has faxed some articles to Uday. In one of them Remy refers to the remarks of a man in the street: ‘Let the bombs drop, then at last we’ll be rid of the dictator.’
 
- It is impossible anyone would have said this! Uday shouts. - You’ve made it up.
 
- I’m no novelist, Remy says.
 
- Your interpreter will be punished for having translated this. Where is he?
 
- He wasn’t there. I was alone.
 
- You have no right to be out alone. You have broken all the rules. Get out! Your interpreter will be punished for not having looked after you better.
 
- I sneaked out, Remy says, to protect his interpreter.
 
- I choose to believe you have invented it all yourself.
 
- No, I did not.
 
- If anyone said this to you, why did you need to write it? Why?
 
- I . . .
 
-
Vous n’existez plus pour moi!
You no longer exist to me. Out!
 
Remy refuses to leave the office. Then it will all be over. He tries to argue. But Uday is no longer listening.
 
At that moment Giovanna, a gorgeous Italian TV star from RAI, sweeps in through the door. Uday is receptive to the charms of the blonde beauty, and Giovanna likes Remy. She grasps the situation immediately.
 
- But Uday, why Remy? What can Remy have done? He is the kindest man in the world. He’s part of the family. Give him another chance and I’ll make sure he behaves in the future. I guarantee . . .
 
The expression on Uday’s face changes as he looks from Remy to Giovanna.
 
Remy is allowed to stay, for the moment. But he will never again write critically about the regime. There is no way he will risk missing the war.
 
Iraq has no embassy in Norway. I fear the embassy in Sweden, until I am told that hardly anyone speaks English there, let alone Swedish. After a few cautious tests I realise no one is checking up on me. I am at liberty to write what I hear and see.
 
But it is all so tame and bland. I search everywhere for something to write about. I cannot write the garbage issued by the regime, nor read the thoughts of the man in the street.
 
 
One day we are after all allowed to travel to one of Iraq’s most oppositional towns - Karbala, a Shia Muslim holy place. It is
eid
, when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims will be on their way. To look after us we have been allocated Janine’s minder Hassan; Aliya alone is not enough. So far we have split the two minders. Aliya comes into town with us; Hassan attends press conferences and applies for permissions. At the press centre he pursues all the rumours, power-shifts, intrigues and political games among the bureaucrats. He guards his own position and hopes soon to be promoted from the minister’s man with
The Times
, to something on the eighth floor.
 
When he is out with us he keeps mostly in the background and does not condescend to translate our questions. That is Aliya’s job. With his small well-trimmed moustache, eyes that never miss a thing and scheming-like posture, Hassan reminds one of an Iraqi version of Inspector Clouseau.
 
 
We set off before dawn. The permission is valid for one day only. After a couple of hours driving, the car comes to a standstill. Pilgrims are everywhere: on foot, mounted, in cars, buses and on the backs of lorries. Then the car splutters on at a snail’s pace and at last the town rises out of the desert, like a mirage.
 
Karbala is a beautiful town, teeming with palm trees, gardens, sacred monuments and over one hundred mosques. Imam Hussein was killed here during the battle of 680. The mausoleum was built on the spot where his blood mingled with the soil.
 
Pilgrims come here throughout the year and especially during
eid
, the conclusion to the holy month of Ramadan. Karbala is almost entirely inhabited by Shia Muslims and therefore strictly watched over by the regime. Shia Muslims constitute the largest religious group, accounting for around sixty percent of the population, and have been exposed to brutal suppression.
 
Not only Imam Hussein was slain in Karbala. After the first Gulf War the Shia Muslims rose in protest against the regime. For a few days in March 1991 virtually all Shia Muslim areas in Southern Iraq rose up. They expected help from the Americans; after all, their goal was the same, they thought, to topple Saddam Hussein. The help failed to materialise. On the contrary, George Bush Sr allowed his arch enemy to fly helicopters over American forces to quell the revolt. The republican guard’s elite troops made massive use of its arsenal, including chemical weapons.
 
The holy towns were the last to give in. In Karbala fighting continued from house to house and 30,000 people lost their lives in the first two days; twice as many in the surrounding areas. The mausoleum itself was the scene of battle. Several thousand people took refuge there and missiles were sent towards the sacred place. The town changed its appearance after this Shia
intifada.
While as before the Gulf War there was an overflowing bazaar, narrow streets with small teahouses, shops and work places next door to the mausoleum, today a large square surrounds it. Nothing bears witness to the fighting. The golden spires tower proudly over the town, the newly cleaned blue and green mosaic gleams in the sun.
 
We walk inside the walls where the bloodbath took place. Dawn has just arrived. Many of the pilgrims still lie asleep on black woollen blankets. Three women sit in a circle on the shining stones, just waking up. One woman slowly inhales smoke from her cigarette. She shivers. This is her third night on the flagstones outside the mosque, where she has come to praise God and ask for help.
 
- I am sixty and will die soon. My prayers are that I will go to Paradise, she says between leisurely puffs. - I pray for a peaceful death, that I won’t be burnt alive during a bomb attack, or torn to pieces by a missile. My husband died last year of a heart attack, peacefully in bed. I hope my death will be like his. If we are lucky we’ll meet in Paradise.
 
Around us people are starting to assemble. Some sit down on carpets and cushions surrounded by their family and read pieces from the Koran to each other. Others murmur to themselves or wait in the long queue leading to the mosque. The buzzing voices are thought to reach Imam Hussein’s tomb. After a lot of persuasion Aliya agrees to ask people about the 1991 uprisings. But they just shake their heads evasively.
 
A man stands alone and reads from a book, loud and chanting. Said has lived in Karbala all his life. He lives close by and visited the mosque every day during the Gulf War. He says he never saw any sign of an uprising.
 
- But I have heard about it, he admits eventually.
 
- What did you hear?
 
- That unpatriotic and evil forces stood behind it.
 
He fastens his eyes on me and won’t let go.
 
- And the destruction around the mosque?
 
- The American bombs, Said says. Beside him Hassan nods his head.
 
Hassan, who is himself a Shia Muslim, wants to go into the mosque to pray. He commands me to wait until he returns. - Don’t move, otherwise I’ll never find you.
 
A man who has been following the conversation from behind a prayer book, staring intently at the worn pages, suddenly addresses me in English, in a low voice.
 
- No one is telling the truth. You might as well not ask.
 
I stand quietly and watch him.
 
- We don’t even talk to each other about it. We don’t trust anyone. Not even our friends, he says, before disappearing into the throng.
 
The interpreter returns. It is as though I have momentarily visited another reality. For a few seconds the truth flickered. Just as suddenly I am thrown back into the sticky lie.
 
Hassan wants to find another family for me to talk to. I follow him like a sheep without a goal or any sense. But I’ve got what I wanted. Someone who talked! Hassan stops by a family sitting on a rug and reading aloud from the Koran. The little boy is playing with a plastic car.
 
- We pray that Allah might guide George Bush and lead him to the true way, the father says.
 
- Right.
 
- But he is fighting Satan.
 
The man closes the book.
 
- And what does Satan want? I ask.
 
- You know him better than me.
 
 
One day a cardinal arrives in Baghdad with a message from the Pope. No one knows what it is about but there are rumours that he wants to offer Saddam Hussein asylum in the Vatican.
 
Aliya comes with us to Mass in St Joseph’s, where the cardinal is preaching. She has never been inside a church. Beforehand we take a stroll round the Christian suburb of Karada. In a bar called ‘Fruity’ we find Joseph. The blender hisses, the seeds crackle and a pomegranate is turned into red juice. Joseph pours it into a glass, adds straws and serves it to us.
 
- The cardinal is making a peace proposal. The Pope whispered it into his ear and no one will know what he whispered until he tells our President, Joseph explains, who ordinarily is a student at Baghdad technical high school.
 
-
Insh’Allah
, God willing, it will help, Joseph’s boss Hussein says. He is a Muslim but is of the opinion that it can do no harm that the Pope has sent a man to Baghdad.
 
- It depends on how mighty the Pope is. Is he very mighty? Hussein asks.
 
- Very, says Joseph.
 

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