Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation) (5 page)

She put down her cup with some tea still in it. Without allowing me to comment, she continued. "One of the traders washed his hands of his own crime and instead pushed Nadir into hell. Nadir was unemployed after he finished his military service-you know how it is. He used to spend most of his time in the coffeehouse or praying in the mosque with his friends. After the police raids started targeting the mosques, he listened to my mother when she begged him, 'My son, God alone will protect you from their evil. He knows the secrets of all things. You can pray at home; you don't need collective prayer in these circumstances.' Then after a while Nadir worked as a truck driver with Hamid Kalla, one of the merchants of Shourja Market."

She leaned against the wall, tears suspended behind her eyelids. "Nadir didn't know what fate had in store. Between the cartons of merchandise, Hamid was smuggling banned packs of foreign cigarettes. At that time, as
you know, the country was not stable. People were escaping military service and the militia's forced training;
there were conspiracies and feuds among the speculators
to dominate some or all of the market of smuggled oil.
There were suspicious brokers and middlemen, pamphlets posted on walls everywhere, and weapons and
students could cross the borders for the right price. Nadir
was stopped at the checkpoint between Baghdad and
Basra and the contraband cigarettes were discovered.

"Nadir was condemned to fifteen years in prison
for committing an economic crime during a state of
emergency. We didn't know if this incident was part of
a conspiracy to get rid of the youth who were attending
mosques or if Hamid was just a cigarette smuggler who
in order to protect himself denied any involvement in the
crime when it was discovered."

She swallowed as if parched. I gave her some water
and suggested that she rest, but she continued. "The last
thing my mother said on her deathbed-she had become
a heap of ashes inside her clothes-was, 'If only my belly
had kept having miscarriages and had dried out and
decayed."'

Nadia was overcome by distraction. After a moment,
she emerged from her thoughts and asked, "How is it
possible to die like this? The world is moved by the death
of a child here or there but is deaf and blind to our gratuitous deaths."

She looked at me. "Do you know, Huda, what hurts
us in being away from our country is not just the exile,
but our bleeding memory. Even though that memory was once beautiful, it digs deeply now and reshapes the
past like an enemy laying an ambush. The few happy
moments that we witnessed have buried themselves in
deep domes within our memory, and we can't find them
without suffering still more wounds-as though we're
eager to torture ourselves and whip our souls for reasons
we don't understand. Tragedy wears us like clothing."

I asked her how the prison penalty became a death
penalty.

She was absorbed; thousands of sharp blades seemed
to pierce her heart, and her eyes remained full of tears.
She looked away. "Once a month my mother and I used
to visit him in prison. At every visit, his body was thinner, but his determination to take revenge on Hamid
Kalla remained strong. We tried to find a way to calm his
excitement, but in vain; it was like looking for a needle on
a floor filled with straw. His eyes lost their sparkle, and
the veins of his hands stood out as if he'd aged twenty
years. Meanwhile, the president forgot all about issuing
any pardon for the prisoners."

I said to her, "He has no time. He is always busy planning wars."

She sighed and said, "Ah, Huda, every time I want
to get away from these tragedies, I get drawn back to
them. The past that we buried has left us with no present
through which to reach another life. The irony is that we
all recount the same stories even though we know that
every Iraqi has been burned by this fire."

I poured some more tea, saying, "These stories are
all that we have. We ought to repeat them again and
again in order to bear witness to the age of butcheries. You have to speak, Nadia. Tell me why they put Nadir
to death."

A cloud passed over her eyes, and she looked absentminded, as if her soul had been pulled out of her body.
Then she seemed to wake up suddenly, as if from an
oppressive nightmare. "Although the political prisoners
were put into individual cells, they were able to reach
other prisoners and to organize a cell that was called the
Delivery Cell. It was a small cell in the beginning, but it
grew bigger because the prisoners' pain brought them to
the brink. Then one day, in the last shadows of the night,
they exploded. The truth is some of the guards helped
them-otherwise, the guns would not have made their
way to them-and after dawn prayer call the prison was
in flames. The prisoners almost prevailed, but four and a
half hours were enough for the regime to send in the necessary support to regain control of the prison. Some fled,
some were killed, and the rest were put to death without
trial. Nadir was among those who had joined the Delivery Cell."

I mourned with her, but I pulled myself together
sharply and said with regret, "We must have committed
major errors in order to arrive at so wrong a place. I sometimes despair because I see that our weak silence about
those big wrongs is what stole our confidence and held
us back. The consequence was that we assumed unconsciously the guilt both for those crimes and for not fighting them."

Nadia didn't comment; my words echoed in my
ears, and I was struck by the triviality of what I'd said. I
abruptly broke into convulsive laughter. She put her hand on my forehead and said, "Laugh, Huda. Some laughter is like tears."

We fell silent for a little while as we tried to escape the painful memories. Then she asked, "When is your interview with the Refugee Office?"

"I don't know. I don't even know about the format of the interview."

"They will ask for the circumstances of your flight from Iraq and the possibility of your return. You have to answer carefully because if you have any chance of returning, they will cross your name out."

"Oh, Nadia, how can I return after what I did?"

"What did you do?"

The long, painful memories of my journey descended upon me, and I said, "I fled because of a foolish thing I should not have done."

I started telling her about that unfortunate day when they made us crawl to the polls to write just one word, "Yes." We were to write it in support of a president who had no rival. Because I wanted to overcome the fear that was rooted in me, I decided to say "No," despite all the warnings from my cousin Youssef. When I told him my idea, he assured me that even if the entire people said "No," the result would indisputably be "Yes." Nevertheless, I was stubborn, and I wrote "No."

My neighbor was responsible for the party's masquerades in our quarter.3
Although my neighbor and I had never openly clashed, our relationship was unfriendly.
She was unable to drag me into the party, and I hated the regime that brought wars and woes upon the country. I used to avoid her and strove to bite my tongue whenever I met her in the street. On celebration days, I used to leave home so that she couldnt oblige me to participate. I would take my grandmother to my aunt Umm Youssef's place in Kadhimiya until the clamor of the celebrations calmed down4

The most important thing is that I said "No." I wrote
it stubbornly, as though extinguishing the dictator's last
breath. Then I left the polling center, which was decorated
with portraits of him. The numerous poor were strung
out in long lines. Some of them were shouting with joy,
thinking they were going to get an increase in rations,
as had been promised them. When I came back home, I
felt better and more energetic than I ever had before, so
much so that I didnt complain about my grandmother's
many requests on that day. Rather, I put my head next to
her hands, asking her to caress my hair as she used to do
when I was a child.

The following morning someone knocked on the
door. I found myself standing toe-to-toe with my neighbor, looking at her sad, inflexible face that usually never
knew smiles. On this occasion, though, she displayed
a big smile that ill-suited her sharp features. She asked
to come in. I showed her a deference she didn't deserve,
despite already knowing why she was there. Feigning
nonchalance, I asked her if she preferred tea or coffee, but
she refused and immediately said, "I have no time. I'm tired. We sorted out the votes until late yesterday, and we
found five ballots from our region with the word 'No."'

I said unconcernedly, "I wonder who are the stupid
ones who would dare to do such a thing?"

She looked at me with a glance both wily and threatening and said, "It will not be difficult for us to find outthe voter's name and address are secretly printed on the
voting cards. Electronic machines will find the traitors.
The punishment will be stronger than they imagine."

I don't know how I contained myself enough to reply,
"Human life cannot be determined by machines; they
might be wrong."

Her cunning glance penetrated me. She spoke with a
deep desire to torture me. "Although the machines cannot be wrong because they are imported from a highly
developed country, experts in handwriting will also go
over the names."

She was belching between her sentences and frightening me more and more. She asked, "Are you one of
them?"

My heart sank, but I controlled my emotions. Holding tenaciously to my calm, I said, "What would push me
to do such a scandalous thing?" I was avoiding her questions with other questions that pulled the danger away
from me, if only for an instant.

She replied, staring at me, "Because you stubbornly
refuse to join the party and don't participate in any patriotic activity. For us, these things demonstrate a negative
attitude."

I smiled faintly. "That's not enough to accuse me. Is it
possible that the one who did it is a member of the party in
name only?" Not giving her the opportunity to respond, I continued questioning her. "Didn't the president say that
all Iraqis are Baathist even if they are not affiliated?"

"But, for us, all citizens are guilty until they are
proven innocent."

"Of what are they accused?"

"Disloyalty to the leader and therefore failure to contribute to the march of the revolution."

"Who distinguishes loyalty from disloyalty?"

"We, the protectors of the principles, we do."

I was furious, but I held back, saying, "So if there are
secret ink and experts in handwriting, why do you waste
your time with me?"

She looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "Listen, before it is too late, confess to me, and I will see what
I can do. You are a woman like me, and we are neighbors.
That is the only way-after this, things will be out of my
hands."

I said with the same faint smile on my face, "I have
nothing else to discuss."

Her face was flushed. "I assert that what you declare
here is not the truth. You have had a chance that might
not be offered again. I fear an ill-fated end for you." She
belched again and left.

One hour later I woke up my grandmother, gathered
her belongings, and told her that I had seen my mother
in a dream, so I had to go to Najaf to visit her tomb. I told
my grandmother she had to stay with my aunt until my
return. I had believed the story about the handwriting
experts and the secret ink and fearfully started making
up scenarios about what was going to happen to me.

Only Youssef knew about my fears. He was angry and
kept asking, "What did you do to yourself? Didn't I warn you?" That very day he took me to his friend's house, and
before twenty-four hours had passed, he had arranged a
passport with a false identity for me. This was how I fled,
leaving behind my belongings, my grandmother, and the
beautiful memory of my past.

I STACKED NADIA'S BOOKS on a small table, hung up
the handbag, and picked up the notebook. On the first
page was some poetry by George Saidah. It was written
with big letters as if it were the title for what followed:

How can you leave?

How can I not go with you?

I started reading what Nadia had written on the next
page:

I thank exile, for it gives me time to reorganize my
papers and catch the fleeting details. I reshape them
and blow the spirit into them, and here I'm starting
from those forgotten days, from that womb that used
to have miscarriages.

On a long night, in a cold month in 1963, during
a winter with endless rain that steeped the wretched
houses, Juri was in labor. This was just one day after
the lifting of the curfew after the coup d'etat of February S.

Outside the muddy house in that nameless village, the wind was howling, and the thunder muffled
the cries of the woman in labor while Mazloom alSa'idi sat with shaking fingers and dry lips, smoking
a rolled cigarette. Between him and Juri there was a
dying fireplace where, from time to time throughout the unbearably long night, he stirred the burning
coals to life. His cigarette fell when Juri let out a cry
that made him think the baby had finally slipped out.

But the baby hadn't slipped out. Juri kept moaning
and gripping the bed with her fingers, while Mazloom
al-Sa'idi tried to comfort her, hoping for the morning.

She gnashed her teeth, calling, "I can't! You have
to do something lest I die!"

The thunderstorm didn't stop. Darkness reigned
heavily over the houses, the lamp hanging from the
low roof of the room shaking, its light flickering.

Mazloom put on his woolen coat, rolled his koufiya
around his head, and courageously waded through
the flooded streets. The wind's sounds brought desolation to his heart, and the shaking branches produced
strange voices like the muttering of devils.

It was one hour after midnight, and the darkness
hid the street's features. The houses' closed doors were
clothed in deep shadow. Mazloom held fast to the wet
fences, and the lightning showed him where to put
his feet. He entered a narrow, twisted alley and then
arrived at the door of the midwife, Lami'a's door. He
knocked a few times, and the echo faded in the night.
He continued knocking with cold, rigid hands until he
heard a rough voice asking him, "Who's there?"