Read Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation) Online
Authors: Hadiyya Hussein
Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation) (18 page)
We had set forth in a vehicle that was taking us
from al-Zubayr in Basra to release and reenlist us
in Baghdad. This happened at the same time as the
withdrawal from Kuwait. The long convoy had left
the large al-Zubayr Square, and the soldiers walked
dazedly in the mud of defeat. Indeed, there was a lot
of mud, for it hadn't stopped raining for three days.
The soldiers plunged into the mud, away from the
main road, which was always targeted by airplanes.
The continuous chain of hundreds of soldiers hurried with sinking steps to Basra, while fire devoured some
of the vehicles and bodies fell dead from them. It was
absurdly surreal when a dog rushed to a body and
began to devour it just before a passerby hurried to
shoot him dead next to the body!
We quickly crossed to al-Zubayr Bridge, which
had been blown up in the first days by the air raids.
A sandy dam along the bridge was the only way to
cross Shatt al-Basra, which collects the waters of central and southern Iraq and discharges them into the
sea. The mud stretched to that sandy barricade, and
burning vehicles and armored cars blocked the way.
A soldier's body was hanging from a vehicle similar
to ours, left on the side of the road; the tank was wet
with rain, and red drops were falling from it, forming
rosy lines on the mud. The dead man was facing the
ground, so I could make out only a hanging trunk and
swollen limbs.
Our driver skillfully crossed the road around
the steel carcasses, stopping at the end of the line of
vehicles crossing the sandy dam. One of our vehicles
sank into the mud in the middle of the road, making
it impossible for the rest of us to reach the other bank.
We became an ideal target for an air strike.
I jumped from the vehicle; my feet plunged into
the mud as I passed under a low, black cloud that
was rising from a burning oil well. The roar of an
approaching plane meant another fire and explosion
that would obliterate many of the bodies packed here.
A tractor-I don't know where it suddenly came from
or how its driver kept his calm-hooked a chain to our
sunken vehicle and pulled it back to the other bank. I and the other soldiers who had abandoned our vehicle
jumped back into it.
The line of refugees grew longer as we approached
Basra. As we stopped for a wounded person who was
piteously asking for a ride, many other tired soldiers
hurried to the vehicle. When we reached Sa'd's Square,
Basra's landmark for Iraqi soldiers, the extent of the
chaos became clear to us: in the middle of town there
were tanks everywhere, heavy artillery was on the
sidewalks, and soldiers were chewing bread on the
street. I shifted my gaze to the features of the city itself.
Young girls were looking down from an apartment
balcony, witnessing what was going on in the street.
The roof of the Basra television and media headquarters had been blown up by a huge missile, and the
damage to the building seemed extensive. Just ahead
of us, a clamoring tank suddenly stopped and turned
to the right, discharging a heavy shower of bullets at a
huge portrait of the president. I was floored by this act.
"Something is going to happen here," I said to myself.
We arrived at al-Ishar. It was noisy, not because of
its usual daily activity as the lively center of Basra, but
because of the crowd of soldiers moving from sidewalk
to sidewalk, square to square, and bridge to bridge.
The corniche was choked with soldiers who were trying to cross Shatt el-Arab on their way to Tannuma.
We left, heading to the small bridge that leads to the
shrine of Imam Ali. The chaos rose to a fury as soldiers on the sidewalks and between cars crowded into
parallel lines, trying to cross a temporary bridge set
up over Shatt el-Arab. The hundreds of vehicles were
barely moving. What a massacre there would be if an air strike were made against us right then! No sooner
did I think this than the thunder of an approaching
plane incited a panic.
Like terrified worms on the ground, we jumped
from the vehicles to the streets nearby or under the
small bridge; some soldiers threw themselves on
the riverbank. Piled with stones from Basra's Reconstruction Campaign, the bank was paradoxically witnessing the Destruction Campaign against the Iraqi
people. Our fear drove us aimlessly into a bottleneck.
A young woman on one of the balconies, unfolding
her laundry, gazed at our featureless faces.
From three until seven that night, we waited for
the huge line of vehicles to move. I was struck by the
scene. Crowds of soldiers were crossing the bridge,
walking to Shatt el-Arab's other bank. I asked the
pedestrians, "Where to?"
"To my house"... "To Baghdad"..."To al-Hilla"
To Kirkuk" ... "To Ramadi" ... "To
Karbala"... The sunset trailed dark threads, adding more gloom
to the desolation of the cold and the thick mud.
I leaned on one of the walls overlooking the
strange street scenes. Old men emerged, dazed, and
women began to distribute water to the soldiers.
Despite their poverty, some families didn't hesitate to
hand out hot tea and pieces of bread. Then a man in his
thirties came out with his two daughters. They stared
at me, but I could hardly smile. After a few moments,
one of the girls began to cry. (Cry, you little girl. Let
anything come out of you; let something come out to
change this horror, so that the sound of life postpones
the rhythm of death and defeat.)
We eventually crossed to the other bank. On
the road, through orchards of date palms, the driver
called out the number of our unit so that soldiers
could make their way to us and continue their journey.
Many groups showed up-some we knew, and others
we didn't-and for a moment they seemed like horrifying creatures emerging from their tombs. They were
wrapped in blankets, and the darkness added to their
strange, ghostly aspect. We arrived at Tannuma, and
its only street was crowded with vehicles and soldiers.
I thought about spending the night at my aunt's place
there, but I didn't stop.
We took the road to Katiban through groves of
palm trees. Along the way, I saw soldiers walking
barefoot. I didn't know how they would be able to continue or when they would give up. This was the same
road that had taken up a great deal of my life during
the eight-year war with Iran: the battles of East Basra
between 1982 and 1984, Majnun, al-Nashwa, Buhayrat
al-Asmaak, al-Fao with its farms, and the Shalamja ...
and ... and ... And here again were the hands of
death, taking me and thirty other soldiers in a vehicle
through the darkness in silence.
At the crossroad between al-Nashwa and Majnun,
the procession stopped. The vehicles were motionless
in a long line on the road. No one knew the reason
for the halt, but I sensed the smell of death close to
us. I yelled to those who were with me, "Get down
quickly!" From a gap in the clouds obstructing a
bright moon, two planes appeared. I hurried to reach a
small canal and threw myself into the mud. The explosions resounded; shrapnel flew above my head, and four men up the canal were motionless after a slight
rattle. Fire devoured the unmoving line, but our vehicle seemed safe. The planes came back. It was dreadful. I wanted to sleep-yes, to close my eyes and sleep.
Fatigue and weakness overcame my whole body, and
I no longer feared anything. Let it be enough, come
what may.
With ten other soldiers, between one attack
and another, I headed to an abandoned house in the
middle of an orchard of palm trees. The driver of the
vehicle, Talib Halil, the calmest of us in the midst of
horror, had returned to the burning line and brought
back his personal weapon, my bag, and some blankets.
He handed me a blanket and said, "Let's go to sleep;
tomorrow is another day." How could I sleep with this
flying horror that never ceased? I dropped to the cold
earth in exhaustion. I spread half of the blanket on the
ground and covered my body with the other half.
Morning came with the effects of fire all around
us. Bodies drilled with shrapnel were thrown on the
side of the road; the scorched corpses reeked in a day
devoid of life. Some peasants walked on the road,
looking around to see what was happening. We continued walking between burned vehicles, looking at
propaganda portraits and official murals on the facade
of the military road units. They had been sprayed by
bullets from close range.
Burned or destroyed vehicles lay here and there.
Slumberous bodies drenched in blood dangled from
their sides. Other bodies had been abandoned on the
streets. The earth itself seemed to have recoiled, ready
to jump, to join us, another body about to be destroyed.
"Quickly, quickly, take us, Ibn Halil, while the
fog is covering everything-we hope it will be our
umbrella protecting us from the hell swarm of aluminum birds and their wild, rapacious claws. Oh! Morning of our drenched bodies! Shaking, terrified, and
burning, poisoned, starved, yet young. And you, Sun,
take your time, and please delay your threads of light."
This is how I was praying, like a Bedouin playing
his rebec, swaying back and forth. But what kind of
music could there ever be amid burned bodies?
The rubble of machinery and the bodies scattered
around blocked our way. One of the tanks proceeded
to open the road, pushing aside the bodies and piles of
metal, and we quickly crossed through. But the same
scene repeated itself at the Majnun al-Hadidi Dam,
which had recently been attacked before we reached
it. The rubble was still warm. The thick smoke mixed
with the fog and embraced the papyrus plants. The
plants offered us a convenient refuge between their
long stems, which rustled and leaned when the air
was shaken by yet another fierce attack.
The shrapnel flew over my head, and I could hear
someone calling for help not far away. I wanted to
continue my way through the papyrus, following the
streams, along the muddy earth and away from the
dangers of the road, which had become a deadly trap.
There the planes were finding an easy hunt for more
bodies. But once again Talib Halil, our driver, made it
safely from the fire and began to honk, calling us to
jump in again.
I abandoned my original idea and jumped
quickly into the vehicle, accompanied by wounded soldiers from another unit who were able to jump in
as well. The same scene was repeating itself all along
the road. Many fragments of bodies were scattered in
the middle of the road, but I'll never forget the sight
of one young soldier seated on the edge of the road
with blood covering his shoulders and his back. He
was looking toward the horizon and the stretch of
grass and mud, moving his head in a familiar regretful way. He turned his back to us as the last light in his
eyes mixed with the shreds of the dissipating fog. As
we passed him, I looked through the window and followed the slow movement of his trunk back and forth.
Oh. God, just a few minutes ago I had been moving
like that. Was it the rhythm of the body's death? His
hand was still pointing to the horizon, and his back
was turned to the killing.
The sun overcame the fog, and morning came just
when we had given up completely; we set out, but to
where? We were desperate; two airplanes roamed once
more over our heads, wings shining under the sun. I
warned the driver that we needed to stop and get out
of the vehicle. We scattered in small groups between
the folds of the earth, and its green grass embraced
our bodies and welcomed our fear with its freshness.
I stood on a sandy hill as the others moved away
from me and hurried into the depths. I could see
four missiles dropping on our small groups. At that
moment, I found myself reproaching my mother's
soul, which had appeared to me in my dreams two
days earlier. She had told me that I would get back
home safely. I asked her, "Mama, how could you have
foretold my safety when death is here, falling on me, buzzing, with its wings open wide?" I saw the missile
hit four vehicles in the road, where we had split in two
directions. Shrapnel flew, and our vehicle was trapped
between two fires as we stared at it as if it called to us:
"Come on, let's go. The journey is long."
Sudden cries rose up, coming from what remained
of the groups of soldiers. The scene was one of hysteria-soldiers embracing each other, then separating
and covering their faces with their palms. Vehicles
began to stop, and soldiers walked back and forth:
jumping, embracing, crying out. Plucking up my courage, I reassembled my shattered self and tried to walk
but felt unable to move, as if my back were still broken.
I realized how perfect that expression was for describing a fate-stricken person. Indeed, my back was broken, and my country's back was broken too. When I
reached those groups, I learned that a cease-fire would
go into effect at 8:oo a.m.-in just two minutes. How
could they have been killing us only five minutes earlier? Five minutes had separated many young men
from life. I threw myself on the side of a dried stream
and looked for my cigarettes. I took one and caressed
it with my fingers, inhaling its smoke deeply; I could
hardly hold it with my shaking fingers.
I pulled myself together and catapulted my body
forward. Others made it ahead of me to the vehicle
crossing the road. Crying together, we left the fire
behind, along with the remnants of our brothers. We
wailed in mourning; we entered the gates of the small
southern towns, whose people came out at our sudden appearance, inquiring about what had happened,
about a son, a brother, a husband, and about us.
Many women scattered sand on top of their heads, and others beat their chests with their hands in a historical reenactment of the killings that had always taken place there. The towns we entered seemed very strange and bitter. This time, defeat had been declared. As we made our way to one town's center, a young boy welcomed us with the sign of victory, but he purposely put it upside down.
