A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (38 page)

Read A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal Online

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
3.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
- The army has fled to Tikrit!
 
- Most of them have deserted!
 
-
Mammamia, sono stanchissimo!
 
Lorenzo is even sweatier than he normally is following his spell on the stairs. He tears off his bulletproof vest.
 
- What’s happening? I ask
 
-
Hai fame? Ti dirò tutto
.
 
Lorenzo pulls me with him and dishes up both pasta and his stories.
 
-
Finito! Lo spettacolo e finito!
What would you like?
 
In his room on the ninth floor he looks helplessly around his food store. A few seconds later he chops cucumber, an onion, opens a tin of tuna fish, garnishes with pepper and arranges the meal on a plate.
 
- Antipasti?
 
A tin of artichokes, God only knows from where, is divided between our plates.
 
- Where have you been today? he asks.
 
- Nowhere.
 
- Haven’t you been out? But this is where history is being made! Today!
 
- I am too frightened.
 
- Madonna!
 
- Well, tell me then!
 
Lorenzo has been to Saddam City. He recounts how people embraced both him and the Americans. - First they were all clapping. Then they realised their hands could be used for other things. Looting exploded. They grabbed anything they could find. From shops, restaurants, houses, kiosks and public buildings. Nothing was too small to leave behind. Electric cables, paper baskets, fans, pots and pans, lamps. A weapons’ depot was emptied. I saw children carrying five to six Kalashnikovs all at once. Eventually nearly everyone was carrying a weapon with which they danced around. Then the mood changed. There we were, with our cameras, belts stuffed with dollars, nice cars, helmets and bulletproof vests. And no weapons. Suddenly my interpreter says: ‘Let’s go.’ Not a second too soon.
 
- Was there no fighting?
 
- No, it appears that Saddam’s soldiers have deserted the city. The Baath Party offices are being plundered. Any party members left will be beaten up.
 
- And the Americans?
 
- They’ll no doubt come this way. Hopefully before the looters! Lorenzo laughs. - No one can predict the Americans’ moves. They do what they like. To win the war!
 
How could I have been such a coward? On this important day I sat in my bedroom, biting my nails, while the drama was being played out all over town. Amir and Aliya were happy that I stayed at home, but I am cross with myself. As if that was not enough, I am still frightened. I feel like a wimp, while Lorenzo delivers numerous reports to Italian radio and TV - in crescendo.
 
A strange sound enters our world. It sounds like thunder. Like an approaching storm. Pealing, rumbling, scraping. It grows, snorting, angry.
 
We steal out onto the balcony.
 
- The Americans!
 
A column of tanks rumbles down one of the main streets. Huge, they occupy the whole area. Slowly, reverently, the first Abrams roll into Paradise Square. One after another they follow on. Roaring, they circle around inside the square.
 
It is like watching an opera from the upper circle. An opera nearing
il gran finale
. We watch spellbound, bewitched by the drama unfolding before our eyes, until we awake from the spell and wish to be part of the scene. We leave our vantage points, abandon the balconies and rush down the stairs, Lorenzo at a gallop, me waltzing on his heels. Down on Paradise Square we stand, gaping. An extraordinary sight, these Americans, like extras in a war film. All the safety equipment makes them look enormous. Stiff and concentrated, they roll over the rotunda, weapons pointing in all directions, ready to shoot, ready to attack. This is unknown territory; no one knows where the enemy might hide.
 
It is not in Paradise Square. When the first tank has circled the whole roundabout it stops. All the tanks follow suit. In no time they are in control of the entire square.
 
The faces of the soldiers are unmistakably American. Big, broad, well-fed. Some blond, some dark, some black. The American look.
 
- It’s over. The war is over, I think.
 
A knot dissolves and something flows inside me. I call out to one of the passing tanks.
 
- Thank you for coming!
 
I want to swallow the words as they escape my mouth.
 
But I have been so afraid . . .
 
 
Aliya has come down. She stares stiffly ahead. Her lips are tightly squeezed, her shoulders hunched. Distrust shines from her eyes. Without looking at me she comes and stands by my side.
 
After a while some young men gather around the statue in the centre of the square. Someone with a large sledgehammer tries to knock it down. Others pull themselves up and place a rope round its neck. They push and pull. But it stands firm; the granite plinth alone is several metres high.
 
- Down with Saddam. Thank you Bush!
 
Actually I have never given the statue much thought. Never looked at it closely. It has always been there, in the background, when I deliver my TV reports, and I have passed it on my way out to town and on my return. Only today, as it is being attacked, do I really see it. It is like a statue of Stalin, unapproachable, cold and paternal all at once, with a hand pointing, leading towards the future.
 
The statue, raised a year earlier on 28 April 2002 to celebrate Saddam’s sixty-fifth birthday, stands firm. The hammering reminds me of the Lilliputs in Gulliver’s travels. The marines from
Charlie
company come to the rescue, eager for destruction. A chain is placed around the dictator’s head. One end of the chain is fastened to an American tank which rolls backwards. The statue doesn’t move. The tank pulls harder. The statue stands firm. The soldiers try again. The statue moves forwards slightly, but remains erect.
 
The tank takes a run, we hear a creak, but Saddam remains standing. A few marines climb up and fasten an American flag to his head. The mob near the statue shout jubilantly. Those outside the crowd freeze slightly. Saddam is blindfolded and gagged.
 
- We are in Iraq, not America, one man standing beside me says. He stares fixedly at the drama in front of him.
 
- We are the ones who should have got rid of Saddam. But look, we let them do it, another sighs. - We are cowards; we should have voiced our opinions, face to face, not pull down statues now that he has fallen.
 
- At last we can say what we want, a third intervenes. - That man has blood on his hands; he is a tyrant, he strangled us.
 
They disagree. At last a political discussion is being heard in the streets of Baghdad. Some applaud, others resist.
 
- This is an insult, the first man says. - The American flag must not fly in Baghdad.
 
As though
Charlie
company have heard the voices at the far end of the square, an Iraqi flag appears and is placed on the statue’s head, the Stars and Stripes is removed. Many heave a sigh of relief; the men around the statue perform a dance.
 
- Shias, one of the men snorts. - They are all Shias. Listen how they invoke Imam Hussein.
 
An elderly man watches the drama developing in the square. A little boy is standing beside him on a concrete wall. The man’s face is pitted with scars and he looks on, as if petrified.
 
- I never thought the regime would fall this quickly, he says when woken from his reverie. - It has ruined my life. Now it has gone.
 
The man puts his arms around the boy. He looks like his grandfather, but the boy is his son, the man is only forty.
 
- The war has aged me, he says, as though reading my thoughts. - It has sucked the vigour out of me. All these wars started by our president. When I was seventeen I was sent to fight Iran, eight years of hell. Three years later the Gulf War started. I was nearly killed when a missile struck a few yards away. That’s how I got these scars. He touches the cuts by his lips, over his eyes, on his cheek. He pulls up his shirt and exposes many more.
 
- But the deepest wounds are here, he says, and points to his heart. - My two youngest brothers were killed in the Gulf War. One was mown down by bullets from an American tank, another died during one of the big battles in the desert. I escaped and walked on foot from Kuwait to Baghdad. When I got home I had nothing, no money, no shoes, my clothes were hanging in shreds. I was alive but my life had been taken from me. I gave twenty years to the Iraqi army. Years that gave me nothing but pain.
 
The Abrams revs up, pulls hard. The statue groans; the tank pulls, Saddam roars and creaks and moans, then falls over and lies horizontal next to the plinth. The group around the statue explode in wild jubilation.
 
When the man she has revered as virtually divine pitches forwards and falls to the ground, Aliya turns away. It is disgraceful the way the statue falls, broken in two by the brutal forces of an American tank.
 
The war-weary soldier smiles a wan smile. The lustreless eyes shine for a short moment. Then he pulls the little boy closer.
 
Amir has witnessed the drama from the bonnet of his car. Tears flow down his cheeks. He regards the fallen Saddam indignantly.
 
- This is my country, he says. - Iraq is my country! It shall not be ruled by Americans.
 
Abbas stands beside him. He too is crying. Tears of joy. - I am so happy. At last! At last we are free! At last we can start living! I love America.
 
- What right have they? Aliya whispers. What right have they?
 
After
 
Baghdad is shrouded in a fog of words. The words break out, are snapped up and burrow into people’s minds. They churn around and force other words out, which in turn flutter into other ears. These words turn into sentences that have not been spoken for decades. They form hateful declarations and embittered conversations, exclamations of happiness and thanksgiving. They turn into embraces, maybe even kisses.
 
In this giddy new existence words are spoken that could once have sent you to prison. Words that could have seen you tortured. Words that could have put a bullet in your neck. Words that could have robbed you of everything.
 
Now they crash into each other like waves. Elated. Surprised. Hesitant. Bitter. They are shouted out loud or sobbed through tears.
 
One word is
liberated
, another is
freedom
. One word is
invaded
, another is
occupied
. Hatred. Revenge. Dictatorship. Saddam. Devil. Finally.
 
- We are free! Thank you Mister Bush! A young boy shouts in Saddam City.
 
-
Allahu Akbar!
God is Great! chants a mullah in the mosque.
 
- We will drive the infidel occupiers out; this from a sinister type with a ragged beard.
 
What Saddam Hussein thinks few get to hear. But George Bush’s words fly over the Atlantic: Our victory in Iraq is certain.
 
 
Once upon a time there were two friends. They lived under the governance of Saddam Hussein. Brothers, they called themselves, and they mumbled when they spoke. Dictatorship reigned in Baghdad, fear ruled.
 
Then came a war.
 
The friends stood side by side when the statue fell. They both cried. One’s cheek was wet with sadness, the other’s shone with tears of gladness.
 
Then followed the words. One insisted the country was invaded, the other that it was liberated.
 
- We do not deserve this humiliation, Amir said through clenched teeth.
 
- This is the happiest day of my life, Abbas shouted with joy.
 
The two friends looked at each other through their tears.
 
They were the two sides of the face of Baghdad. Amir was a Sunni. His brothers had enrolled in the Baath Party and in the militia designed to defend Baghdad against intruders. Abbas was a Shia. Many of his relatives had not yet been released from the dungeons. They might never be found.

Other books

The Wicked Kiss by Trina M. Lee
The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma
Beloved by Robin Lee Hatcher
When a Man Loves a Woman (Indigo) by Taylor-Jones, LaConnie
Moonshine by Bartley, Regina
Mr. Eternity by Aaron Thier