Escape from Saddam (16 page)

Saad remained silent.

At that point, the interrogation was handed over to somebody else. The two officers who had apprehended Saad had seen him in his home environment, with his parents and his sister. Perhaps they would have been inclined to treat him with undue lenience—to treat him like a human being—if it had been their job to take the questioning to the next stage, so a specialist was brought in to complete the job. Someone who could complete the job without emotion or mercy. Someone who did this kind of thing day in, day out.

My uncle was brutally beaten across the face and chest with a thick iron bar. The fact that he had suffered so much on account of his country meant nothing to his assailant. Whether he asked for pity, I don’t know, but I doubt it: his pride was too great for that. His skin was then branded with a hot iron—a common way of reminding people of the pain they had undergone. Then he was released, but not without the demands of the intelligence officers being reiterated: I was to return within six months; otherwise the consequences for my family would be dire.

I found out the details of what had happened to them only later, but through my coded conversations with Saad on the phone, I deduced that I was being pressured to return, and I knew such pressure would be far from lenient. I fell to pieces. I suppose I had always known it was possible that my family would be questioned in some way, but I didn’t really expect it to go to that extreme. Saad had filled me with his confidence, and I had felt sure that he would be able to protect everyone from the most extreme of the security forces’ predilections. It seemed I had been wrong. The treatment that Saad had undergone did not bear thinking about, and it was all because of me. There was only one thing that I could ethically do: turn back, return to my unit and hope that I was afforded the leniency that Saad had been promised. But when I made my thoughts known to my uncle, I was shot down in coded flames. “Forget my studies over here,” I had told him. “I’m going to come back. I’ll finish them another time.”

“No,” Saad told me sharply. “Think of all the money we’ve spent sending you abroad to study. Just remember what I told you when you left.”

I wanted to ask him how he would deal with this situation, but of course I couldn’t. I knew the answer to my unspoken question in any case. It would come down to money. A few dinars in the pockets of the right people, and perhaps he would keep the military police away from my family, for a while, at least. It wasn’t foolproof—after all, there was no record of whom he had bribed—so he might have to grease the palms of different people in the future. But for now he sounded confident despite his horrible experiences: “You just concentrate on what it is you have to do,” he told me, “on behalf of your family.”

With terrible misgivings, I gave up all thoughts of returning; but the terrible prospect of my mother and siblings being harmed did not leave my mind for a single waking moment.

I stayed with Wissam for a couple of weeks, but I soon had the impression that he considered his debt to Saad to be repaid. Nothing was spoken; there was just a vague subtext. I certainly did not want to outstay my welcome, so I asked if I could sleep at the company offices for a while, and arrangements were made for me to do so. After a couple of months I discovered that the company owned an apartment in the prime area of Amman, and I was offered the opportunity to stay there. Excited by the prospect, and expecting the apartment to be something rather special, I made my way to the place, only to find that what awaited me was quite different from the picture I had in my mind.

The apartment was occupied by
ishroog,
backward and illiterate itinerants from the south of Iraq. It was a three-bedroom apartment with about twenty of them living there. The floor was covered with tattered cushions gathered into makeshift beds, and the occupants seemed to keep their few belongings in old nylon bags. The apartment was not too clean, and as I stepped inside I became aware of the musty smell of too many people living in too cramped a space. Everyone eyed me suspiciously before asking me a barrage of questions. Who was I? Where did I work? Who had given me permission to stay there? I answered the questions honestly and in good humor, not wanting to fall out with these people, who were clearly going to be my roommates, on the first meeting; but they didn’t make it easy, closing ranks like a group of frightened criminals. They worked at the head office of the company, it transpired, and because I wasn’t working there and wasn’t a threat to their jobs, they grudgingly welcomed me into the fold.

As part of my job, however, I occasionally made trips to the head office, running errands for Bakir, and it was there that I started to learn even more about the company’s business. It was a large building—eight stories high and owned by the company—and in the reception area was a large picture of Saddam Hussein meeting with King Hussein of Jordan. The company wore its Iraqi origins firmly and even proudly on its sleeve. I had learned from chatting with people in the office where I worked that the driving force behind the company was an Iraqi, a member of the Al-Bu-Nimer—the Tiger tribe from the Sunni Al-Anbar region near the Jordanian border. Although Al-Anbar was a long way from Saddam’s power center, the members of this tribe were very loyal to him and received favors as a result. The main man was called Mushtaq, and he had something of a reputation as a flamboyant character. Occasionally I saw him at the head office—from time to time he came to work in a football shirt, but usually he wore brightly colored yellow or pink suits and a wide smile. Even from a distance he had a magnetic personality—good-looking, confident, and suave—and I was keen to meet him.

One day I got my chance. Running an errand of some sort, I was sent to Mushtaq’s office. He was friendly enough, gregarious, but clearly supremely busy and without much time to devote to a lowly secretary from one of his other offices. His own office was huge and richly appointed, but as I stood there answering his half-interested questions, my attention was not focused on the furniture. My eyes fell on something that to me seemed much more sinister. On Mushtaq’s desk, in pride of place, was a picture of Mushtaq himself shaking the hand of Uday Hussein, and another picture of him with Saddam. I found myself transfixed. They looked so easy in each other’s company—clearly theirs was a relationship that went a long way back. What would Mushtaq do if he knew that one of his employees was here on a fake passport with fake entry stamps, having gone through everything I had gone through in order to leave Iraq? I felt my skin prickle underneath my clothes and realized that I had not taken in a word of what Mushtaq had been saying to me. I made my excuses and left.

That night, back in the apartment, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there listening to the heavy breathing and snores of my roommates, unable to get the image of those pictures out of my head. By this time, my bullet wound had largely healed up. It still bled from time to time, but it had crusted over and grown much smaller. It should still have served as a reminder for me to be constantly wary. But in the weeks since starting at the company, I had allowed my guard to drop a little. I hadn’t been careless, but I found that I had slipped into this new life with surprising ease. The picture I saw in Mushtaq’s office, however, brought home to me the fact that I could never forget I was on the run. I was grateful to the company for giving me a job, but I knew without question that the business interests of my employers would always come before their charity to me, so I could never let them know the truth about my situation. Part of me wondered if I should look for other work, but I soon dismissed that idea. Having started to make acquaintances with other Iraqis who congregated around Hashemite Square, who had to make do with filthy jobs for scant wages, I knew that I was lucky to be in my position. I was able to put money aside for my ultimate escape from Jordan, and even send a little back home to my family. I would just have to be on my guard.

As I lay there that night, I felt sick. Then I felt scared. Then I steeled myself to continue working hard to earn the money that would buy me my passage out of Jordan.

CHAPTER
9

CAUGHT

T
he weeks turned into months. I procrastinated, putting off making any calls to my family and feeling terrified whenever I did call because I dreaded hearing terrible things. As the six-month anniversary of Saad’s beating by the military police arrived, I was even more full of foreboding. But the anniversary came and went, and I heard no bad news from home. It seemed as though they had decided to forget about me, for now at least.

I moved out of the company flat and used some of my earnings to rent a place of my own, deep in the Palestinian quarter of Amman. Here, years before, on the side of one of the hills on which Amman is built, Palestinian refugees had set up camp and formed what can only be described as a ghetto. Back then the hillside was covered in tents; now the buildings were more permanent, and the area was perfect for me: generally cheap and a place where I could melt into the background whenever necessary. The room was nothing to speak of: situated by itself on the roof of a high-rise building, it was a former laundry room with little in the way of amenities, and it was disproportionately highly priced; but it was my own space, where I could disappear whenever I wanted or needed to.

One morning I woke up to the sound of rain. The rainy season had arrived and such downpours were not uncommon. I lay in bed for a while, mustering the enthusiasm and the energy to get up. It had been a restless night, but that was nothing unusual for me these days—my dreams were filled with gunshots and wild animals and Republican Guards around every insubstantial, shadowy corner, and I awoke several times every night wide-eyed and sweating. Occasionally my dreams were accompanied by the same sinister and excruciating stomach pains that I had experienced the day I ran from the UN, and I lay there in darkness that multiplied my fears tenfold.

But just as the sun dispels shadows, so the daylight banished my nighttime anxieties into a far corner of my mind. I woke up, ate some breakfast, put on my suit, grabbed my umbrella, and left for another day at work. The rain was still heavy, and I was glad of the umbrella as I trod the familiar road to work. Just then, someone walked up from behind me and strode ahead. She was about my height and had long brown hair. As she passed, I caught a glimpse of her face, with its dark skin and the most stunning green eyes I had ever seen. Hers was the kind of beauty that made me catch my breath a little. Almost without thinking I stepped ahead and fell in beside her. “Would you like to share my umbrella?” I asked. My invitation was uncharacteristically forward.

She smiled a modest and appealing smile; I held the umbrella over her head, allowing it to protect her from the rain far more effectively than it did me, and we fell into slightly awkward conversation. Her name was Shireen, and she was perhaps a couple of years older than I. She was studying to be a fitness instructor. I told her that I had a job at a large company and tried to make it sound rather grander than it was. By the time we had made our brief introductions, we arrived at my work building. I handed her the umbrella. “Take it,” I told her.

She smiled that smile again. “But when will I be able to give it back to you?” she asked.

I waved my hand nonchalantly. “It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “I’ll see you around. Give it to me then.” She started to protest, but I wouldn’t allow her to, and I stood in the pouring rain watching her walk away. Just before she disappeared around the corner, she turned her head and smiled at me.

“You’re soaking wet,” Bakir barked when I got into the office.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bakir,” I muttered.

“You’re also late. I don’t pay you to be late. Fetch me tea with honey.”

But even Bakir’s reprimand couldn’t dampen my spirit that day. The picture in my mind of Shireen’s smile was enough to ease my other worries, at least for a little while. As the day wore on, I began to curse myself for playing it cool and not arranging to meet her again, so I determined that the following day I would leave my flat at exactly the same time in order to try to run in to her again.

I woke earlier than normal the next day and spent a little longer getting dressed. Stepping out into the street wearing an expression of confidence that I did not really feel, I looked around, trying to see the adorable sight of Shireen walking along the road. She wasn’t there. I kept my eyes peeled all the way to work, and by the time I arrived I was crestfallen. It looked as though I had blown it.

I went about my business, making Bakir his tea, shuffling papers without much enthusiasm. It wasn’t until midmorning that someone called out to me: “Sarmed, you have a visitor!” There was a slightly mocking, singsong quality to his voice, and as I looked up I saw why.

There was Shireen, holding the umbrella. “I thought you’d like this back.” She smiled at me.

I did my best to keep cool, thanking Allah that she couldn’t feel the beads of sweat forming on my palms or taste the sudden dryness of my mouth. “I looked out for you this morning,” I told her noncommittally.

She nodded mysteriously. “I went a different route.”

“Do you always go a different route?”

“Not always,” she told me. “Perhaps I’ll see you another day.”

“Perhaps,” I grinned and spent the rest of the day walking on air.

A couple of times a week I saw Shireen on my way to work. Sometimes she was with a friend, sometimes alone; but each time we met we fell into easy conversation, and it took no time at all for me to become besotted by my new friend. I learned more about her. She had been born in Jordan, but her family was of Palestinian origin and she still considered herself to be a refugee. Somehow I felt that brought us closer. On the mornings that I saw her, I was happy for the rest of the day; when I missed her, my day was ruined. I even found myself writing poems to her that I knew she would never read. It was an entirely innocent relationship, and looking back I have no doubt that the obsession I felt for this woman was not reciprocated, but to me it was more than just a teenage crush. It was something that made me feel as if I belonged. Now and then I asked her out; she always turned me down with a smile that made me want to redouble my efforts. In a perverse kind of way, her rejections gave me confidence, the impression that I had something to work toward—I was sure that one day she would accept my invitation. Who knows, perhaps when the time came she would join me in leaving the country. But somehow that time seemed a long way off. I had started to feel a sense of community, with my work mates, with the Iraqis in Hashemite Square whom I befriended, and even elsewhere.

One afternoon after work I was walking aimlessly around a section of Amman with which I was not familiar when I passed a run-down building that clearly had been a block of apartments. On the roof was a billboard announcing that the building was newly converted into a gym, and impulsively I went in to investigate. The staircase leading up to the gym was horribly shabby—I almost turned back on the assumption that I had made a mistake and people couldn’t possibly be working and training there—but I persisted and eventually found myself in a hot, humid room. Mirrors were on the wall, music was blaring, and bodybuilders were working out. No doubt with my mind on the fact that Shireen wanted to be a fitness instructor, I joined there and then.

Gradually the gym became a home away from home. I went there to work out every day after finishing at work, and I started to become friendly with the gym owner, a former Olympic bodybuilder who seemed to take a shine to me. I think he was impressed with the enthusiasm with which I threw myself into this new hobby, so when I decided that I was spending so much time at the place that I might as well be working there, he was sympathetic to my request.

“You have the right to work here?” he asked perfunctorily.

“I already have a job at a respectable company,” I reminded him.

“Very well,” he said. “I could use someone to help me clean the gym up at night. I can’t give you much, though. Free membership, and a few extra dinars in your pocket…” But that was all I wanted—I still had my job at the company, and as I was earning more than most of my fellow Iraqis in any case, I wasn’t about to start being greedy.

Gradually, I found myself becoming settled. When the time allowed me by my fake Jordanian entry stamps passed without comment from my employers or anybody else, I suppose I even began to feel blasé. At the back of my mind I knew that this was going to make things difficult for me when the moment came, as it surely would, to leave; but for the first time ever, I was beginning to enjoy myself a little bit, earning my own money and living my own life free of any interference. And even though I knew I had to be careful, to keep a low profile so that my passport was never requested by the Jordanian police who patrolled the streets, nevertheless I was experiencing the kind of freedom that people in the West took for granted, and it was a genuine liberation. I found that I didn’t especially want to leave the life that I had started to make for myself in Amman; I didn’t want to leave my friends at the gym; I didn’t want to miss out on my morning walks with Shireen.

Despite everything, however, I was illegal, as were many of my acquaintances; as such I could not help but become schooled in the underground business of people-smuggling. Whenever I met with the Iraqis in Hashemite Square, more often than not the conversation would take that direction: voices would become hushed, and people would tell the latest rumors about forged passports and large sums of money changing hands to facilitate border crossings that sometimes were successful and sometimes weren’t. I would feel something approaching a sense of peace when I heard of contemporaries who had made it to a safer place; but for every good-news story there was one to go with it of a deportation back to Iraq. It didn’t bear thinking of what had happened to the poor souls who were unlucky.

It was a shady, illegal business but not uncommon, and it attracted its fair share of dishonest characters. I had acquaintances who were so run down by the life they were living in Amman—working in bakeries for twelve hours a day in the burning heat for a third of the wage that I was fortunate enough to have—that they threw caution to the wind and listened to the honeyed tones of crooked smugglers who promised them the world. Sometimes you could spot the con men a mile off—young Iraqis who were laboring every waking hour in poorly paid jobs were clearly unlikely to be the high-flying smugglers that they sometimes claimed to be. Others played the game more subtly. “I can get you to Canada in three weeks,” they would state confidently. “It will cost you a thousand Jordanian dinars, but you have to give me the money up front now.” They talked a good talk, but anyone foolish enough to pay in advance seldom saw the smugglers—or their money—ever again. Very early on I realized that in such matters it was important to avoid the flashy, confident braggers, the people who spent their time partying and drinking and smoking. As I watched my contemporaries trying to leave, it became obvious that the ones who had the greatest success were those who put their faith in more sober members of the community—religious people, professional people, people who were doing what they did because they truly wanted to help others break free of the political shackles that kept them in that part of the world rather than out of a desire to make a few easy and dishonest dinars.

I learned to be patient. I knew it would take some time for me to be able to amass enough money and find the right person to help me, so I could fulfill my dream and get to England. In the meantime, I determined to make good use of my time—although there wasn’t much of that. I finished one job at two in the afternoon, then started my second at four. When I wasn’t working at the company or at the gym, though, I spent time at the British Council, learning what I could about English culture and history. They had VHS tapes, magazines, and newspapers that enabled me to learn about the country I wanted to make my home, as well as a large community of pro-Western Arabs: I threw myself wholeheartedly into that environment. While I was there, I made inquiries about the possibility of taking some basic exams with a UK college—I was still determined to study to become a doctor if and when I managed to get to England. “No problem,” I was told. “Just write to the college whose course you want to follow, they’ll advise you what books to read, and you can do your exams here. If you pass you’ll get your degree.” I couldn’t believe it was that simple—if I did well, I’d make the grade, unlike in Iraq, where my exam results were compromised by the fact that my parents had no military connections.

I bought the books, I studied hard, and I passed the examination.

The sense of elation and achievement was something I had never experienced before. I had done this on my own, without the need for subterfuge, and I had succeeded. I wanted to celebrate, so the day I received my results I met up with a few friends. Jolly Bee was one of the places where the young people of Amman hung out—a burger joint with MTV screens blaring loudly and a special play area for young children. I spent some time there with Duraid, a new Iraqi friend, and with Muafaq, a Jordanian who worked as an administrator for Mushtaq at the head office of the company. We had a good time, laughing, joking, and feeding ourselves the fast-food treats Jolly Bee had to offer, toasting my recent academic achievement with a succession of milkshakes. When we left, we were in high spirits, boisterous even. I had always made a point of trying to be inconspicuous when I was out and about, but today that caution seemed uncalled for. Duraid, Muafaq, and I ran down the street chasing and shouting at one another, and laughing a bit too loudly. I don’t remember what it was that caused such hilarity—perhaps I said something about Shireen to my friends, or perhaps it really was nothing more than high spirits. Whatever it was, for a few moments it caused me to forget myself, to forget that the main focus of my life should have been to keep a low profile.

Suddenly Muafaq and I sprinted around the corner into a much smaller side street. As we did so, we practically ran into a policeman, unmistakable in the summer uniform of the Amman police force. It was as if he had materialized out of nowhere. He had just bought himself an ice-cream cone and was in the process of raising the cone to his mouth when we almost knocked him flat by running into him.