A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (28 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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Supper with Channel 4 is not to be sneezed at. Every evening, round about 10pm, when the last reports have been sent, they settle down with their guests. Lindsay and Timothy’s kitchen is well-equipped as far as pots and pans and raw materials are concerned.
 
They also have four microwave ovens, none of which are used for cooking. They are earthed to the electricity supply and never turned on. Every night, before going to bed, Lindsay and Timothy place all their computers, satellite telephones and sensitive editing equipment in the microwaves. The tenor of Timothy’s theory, who had served in Rhodesia under Ian Smith, was that the microwave would protect against the dreaded e-bombs. According to Timothy the electromagnetic rays cannot penetrate the microwave ovens. Channel 4 would be the only channel left transmitting.
 
On the balcony are generators which supply power to the computers and editing units. They have several satellite telephones, some legal, some hidden. In addition Timothy has three Thuraya telephones. These are forbidden as the Iraqis believe they are capable of guiding missiles from the ground. In addition they are also more difficult to detect than the satellite telephones which are huge and take time to erect. The Thuraya phones are no larger than mobile phones and work almost as well as satellite phones. Timothy had trawled the hotel to find clever hiding places. One phone was hidden in a shaft between the ninth and tenth floors. The shaft was full of plastering and dust and the phone was lying in a plastic bag underneath some rubbish. The second was squeezed under a tile in the bathroom and the third glued to the wall behind a wardrobe.
 
 
Every morning a trail of sweat leads from the basement of Hotel Palestine up to the roof. Over seventeen stories the sweat mixes with the smell of sand, dirt and garbage. Walking up the stairs, someone will breathe heavily behind you, or tear past you on his way down: a dripping man in a Puma T-shirt, shorts and sweatband, he will deposit a kiss on each cheek while crying ‘
Ciao Bella!
’ This is Lorenzo, the
Corriere della Sera
correspondent, training for his next Mount Everest expedition. Every morning, for two hours, he runs up and down the Hotel Palestine stairs, bombs or no bombs.
 
After that he is the happiest man in the world. ‘
Vuoi un cappuccino?
’
 
Lorenzo has an enormous stash of cappuccino powder in little sachets, which he serves
caldo
or
freddo
.
 
This morning he is fretting over having missed a marathon. - I had booked everything, flight, hotel, registration. I never thought this war would drag out so. It should have started in January, which would have suited me better. Now I’m worried the Mount Everest expedition will leave without me. They’re off at the beginning of May, so if the war’s over by Easter I’ll make it, he muses.
 
- But my basic fitness is not brilliant. Rushing up and down stairs is rather monotonous. Just imagine if the war had been in Afghanistan . . . Then I could have run up and down the mountains. D’you like my cappuccino?
 
It is difficult to take in every word Lorenzo utters; he speaks as he lives -
allegro
.
 
We sit in the two easy chairs in his room, our backs to one of the beds Lorenzo has pushed up against the window. There is food everywhere - cans of tomatoes, vegetables, cheese and pasta. People’s food preferences are transported into the war. Lorenzo maintains normality by cooking pasta all’Arrabbiata. Stefan’s room is packed with boxes of wurst. Remy hoarded red wine and cigarettes, while Janine’s cupboard was full of chocolate. Josh disposes of every conceivable type of compo rations - chicken curry, vegetable stew or Christmas pudding. I myself boast a huge selection of dates, pistachio nuts and raisins.
 
 
One day I hear something which makes me shudder. Five journalists have disappeared without a trace. Armed men from the security service forced their way into their rooms at five in the morning. With guns at their heads they were ordered to pack up and leave. I am told what happened by a reporter who shared a room with one of them. It gives me a fright when I realise who they are. Three are from the tourist group with which I would have re-entered Iraq had I not been issued with a journalist’s visa at the last moment. The two others entered the country on human shield visas. They were all living in Hotel Palestine and worked as journalists.
 
I ask Kadim where they are.
 
- They hid under the pretext of journalism, but really they are spies, he says.
 
- But where are they?
 
- I have no knowledge of that. They are now in the hands of the security service.
 
- But you must tell us where they are!
 
- Do not ask about them again, Kadim hisses. I have no knowledge whatsoever about them.
 
The journalists at Hotel Palestine decide to refer the matter to the International Red Cross. They still maintain a presence in Baghdad and have a better chance than us of making some headway. I call on the Swiss head of the Red Cross office on several occasions to ask how the investigation is going; he never has any news.
 
- To be honest, I just don’t have a clue, he whispers. - We have no idea of where they might be.
 
Melinda phones me from the third floor. - No one should sleep alone following these disappearances. And as you know, I’m closer to the ground, she says. Melinda phones at intervals to find out how I am. - Push one of your beds up against the balcony door, she admonishes. - That’ll protect you from shrapnel. And remember to keep the bath full of water. Keep money and safety equipment close. Put a stool in front of the door and use the padlock.
 
Once again, the women excel at looking after each other.
 
 
- Go, go! Get a car and go!
 
Kadim is down in reception directing us. It is already dark.
 
- But what about an interpreter? And a minder?
 
- Just go!
 
Dumbfounded, we stare at the gesticulating Kadim. We had been hanging around in reception to glean the latest news when he suddenly orders us to leave. This is the first time we have been given permission to drive at night. Luckily my notebook is in my pocket; I am prepared. Aliya is spending the night at home, Amir is nowhere to be seen.
 
- Jump in, Pascal calls.
 
It is spooky convoy-driving at night. If the Americans spot us from the air they might mistake us for something else. An Iraqi Minister, maybe, with his bodyguards. But where are we going and why?
 
- To al-Nasser, in the north of Baghdad. A missile has hit the market, Abbas says.
 
We fall silent while Abbas finds his way in the deserted streets.
 
Before we get out of the car we hear the screams; heart-rending howls reach our ears. The drivers leave the headlights on to act as floodlights; some of us have flashlights. Torches have been attached to a house. Otherwise it is dark.
 
We stumble across the market square. Distorted iron bars and smashed crates lie around. The stalls and most of the wares lie spoilt on the ground. Someone is shining a torch into the missile crater.
 
We are surrounded by residents and stall-holders. Some beat their chests. Others calm down the chest-beaters. Many appear to be in shock. I lose Abbas and Pascal in the melee and latch on to another interpreter.
 
- A lot of children were sitting over there on the pavement. Now they’re all dead, a man moans. A little shoe is all that remains. The pavement is covered in blood, as is the wall of the house. Broken glass and bits of metal are everywhere. The children were carried away, dead or dying, a few hours ago.
 
- The planes flew low overhead. Suddenly we heard a whining sound. Then all we saw was smoke and bodies. Bodies without heads, without arms, without legs, a man relates. - The wounded lay writhing among the dead. People started to carry them off, blood everywhere.
 
- How many were killed?
 
- I counted fifty, an elderly man says. He cries and turns away, lowers his head, then makes his way through the crowd.
 
- Massacre, massacre, a woman intones. - Massacre.
 
Many of the coffins are already in the mosque. Outside, the relatives of the dead gather. One talks about a cousin, another about a nephew, a third about an aunt.
 
- Where is your democracy? Where is your humanity? an elderly man cries. He has lost his grandchild.
 
I spot Abbas and Pascal in the crowd. They are leaving for the hospital to survey the extent of the damage. Abbas finds his way through the blacked-out streets.
 
- I have admitted about sixty, the doctor says. - To many I can issue death certificates on the spot.
 
- Go and see for yourselves, he says, and points to a small greyish building.
 
Pascal and Abbas enter the hospital, while I walk through the courtyard, on a narrow path behind the hospital. The building’s door is open. The room is packed. They lie in three-storey bunkbeds. A boy wearing an Adidas tracksuit and a white T-shirt has had the top part of his body smashed. His face is covered in blood.
 
Another boy, he might be a teenager, has a crushed skull. He lies on his side. His head is a gaping cavity. Fibres of skin and hair, stiff with blood, cling to him.
 
Two children share a bed. Their eyes and mouths are wide open and they appear to be grabbing at each other. Their splayed fingers touch each other. The clothes are bloody and ripped to pieces, their bodies full of deep cuts.
 
A chubby woman wearing an
abaya
and a black shawl lies on her back. Blood from her nose and mouth has coagulated. The wide tunic is open, an arm exposed. Broken bone shafts protrude from the arm.
 
Another young woman appears to be sleeping; her eyes are closed and her chin raised. One feels like placing a pillow under her head, so she will be more comfortable on the cold bunkbed.
 
A boy wearing a chequered shirt has got one side of his body cut off. His leg lies beside him on the metal plate, ripped away. He’s only fourteen, maybe fifteen. His face is narrow, refined.
 
I cannot move, I cannot walk away. If I leave, reality will devour me. Then they will all really be dead.
 
It’s as if I have seen them before. The boy in the Adidas tracksuit, the children who must have been killed in the same instant. The woman, who might have been carrying a bag full of fruit away from the stalls.
 
In this room of death, like the bodies in their beds, I too have stiffened. Why don’t I go? Why don’t I leave the dead to themselves?
 
How vulnerable humans are! How easily a skull can be crushed. So suddenly life can be wrestled from a living soul.
 
I am woken from my trance by a man and a boy who hurry into the room. Their eyes are wide-open, desperate, searching the bodies in the beds. Their shoulders droop, dispirited, their faces are dark. The man gives a tormented cry. It escapes from deep inside him, as though it is many hundreds of years old. He stiffens, then rushes over to the boy in the chequered shirt. He sinks to his knees and embraces the bloody bundle. The boy with him kneels by the dead body. Both sob.
 
Two men enter with a coffin. The man and the boy, maybe father and son, get up from the floor. They lift what might be a little brother off the metal bunk and place him in the coffin. Then they put the leg in with him and close the lid. He will be taken to the mosque to be washed. Tomorrow he will be buried. The man and the boy carry the coffin away down the path.
 
Left on the bunkbed is a pool of dried blood, nearly black. Some drops are redder, fresher; the blood that just ran out of the boy’s body.
 
 
This is what the reader and the television viewer do not see. Nor the politicians and the generals. It is too gruesome to publish. But those who are in the morgue this evening will carry the pictures with them for ever.
 
 
In addition to the dead, around one hundred wounded are brought to Noor hospital this night. Children and adults share beds. Infants wrapped in bandages howl and moan; others are unconscious, have flesh wounds all over the body.
 
When a missile explodes, shrapnel, at a temperature of many hundred degrees, is ejected. The pieces can be as small as a nail or large as an axe head. Glowing hot and sharp they easily bore their way into a human body - or cut it in two.
 
A doctor rushes past. - They said they would not kill civilians, he cries.

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