Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (20 page)

were making progress in their efforts to prepare good patcha.

Amina burst in to announce that the men were bringing

back the dishes; the coffeemaker was brewing tea in the

mudhif, she said, and the men were talking quietly and

belching politely to indicate their appreciation of the feast.

Clean plates were filled with leftovers from the big trays and

we began to eat. The children had been fed before, piecemeal,

from the steaming pots, but they joined us anyway, nibbling

bits of everything that was offered, sitting happily in their now

somewhat wrinkled and dusty new clothes. The wives and

daughters and servant girls ate and talked together

congenially. Petty jealousies were banished today; from the

look of the trays, things had gone well and the party was a

success. Now the women were entitled to good food and tea in

the shade. The dishes would have to be done after eating, but

after that entertainment was scheduled. Sheik Hamid had sent

word that the young boys were to dance for us as they had

done for the men at the end of the meal in the mudhif. Laila

told me this was a special treat in my honor, and the women

smiled at me and touched my shoulder and nodded as we ate

together.

First the dishes. Amina and the other servants brought soap

and sand into the center of the court; hundreds of plates and

bowls and spoons and pots and trays were piled high around

the water tap, a seemingly endless task. Everyone helped,

except the two old ladies, who had eased their bones down

onto clean reed mats set out by Amina and were now snoring

peacefully in Kulthum’s open court. Twenty-two women can

wash a lot of dishes in half an hour. The clean utensils were

put away, hands and faces washed, black garments rearranged,

and mats and pillows laid out against the far wall of the

compound in the widening patch of shade. We sat down in

two expectant rows, far from the kitchen and its smoky smells

and memories.

Kulthum looked exhausted as she picked her teeth carefully

with a straw. She also looked triumphant. With lunch

successfully over, she could rest momentarily on the

realization that it was her organization that had produced the

meal. Even the thought that she would have to do it again

tomorrow, for six or seven or eight hundred, and the day after

that as well, did not dim the glow of self-satisfaction that

brightened her lined and tired face. She was past forty and no

longer bearing children for Hamid; her oldest son was in

disfavor with his father; her personal fulfillment had to come

from other sources.

Soon a line of little boys trooped into the court, headed by

Selman, the butcher’s son, who played the reed pipe to

accompany the dancing. Crowds of children surrounded the

boys, sons of the women in the court, or their sisters’ and

brothers’ offspring. Selman picked out a song on his pipe; he

had learned his skill by listening to an old nomad who earned

his tea and meals by playing in the mudhifs and coffee shops

in the valley. As Selman’s song gained volume, the little boys

formed a long line and put their arms about each other’s

shoulders. They moved in an offbeat shuffle, singing as they

moved, back and forth, now jumping slightly, now bending

down for a concentrated jump in the steps of the line dance or

dabka
. Kulthum’s youngest son, the leader, was gesturing

with a handkerchief and leading the line around and inside

itself, shouting to indicate the jumps and imitating very well

the professional dabka leaders I had seen in Baghdad and

Diwaniya.

The coffeemaker’s daughter dashed off and returned with

an empty kerosene can, turned it upside down and picked up

the beat. The women joined in, clapping in time. The plaintive

notes of the reed pipe blended with the childish voices as they

sang of death by violence, of love and betrayal, smiling at

their mothers and aunts and moving together, now slowly,

now quickly, now jumping high, now stamping to the beat of

the kerosene drum. The bright dishdashas and the white tennis

shoes of the little boys were covered with dust that spurted up

in clouds as they jumped, but they kept on as the women

urged them to one more, just one more song. A wail that

nearly split my eardrum was greeted by shouts of laughter.

Selman stopped briefly to shake the saliva out of his pipe and

the little boys giggled, for the wail had originated with

Kulthum, dignified, middle-aged Kulthum, who had drawn

her abayah over her face and let forth a truly momentous cry

to indicate her pleasure in the occasion.

The ice was broken; several women began to wail joyously

as they clapped. Kulthum asked for “Samra, Samra,” and the

tired little boys, jumping more slowly now and not quite

together, started the old song of the beauty of the brown-

skinned maiden. They did not finish it, for the sheik came

striding across the courtyard on his way to his afternoon nap.

Selma scurried ahead of him to turn back his sheets, but he

made his way over to us, patted Selman on the head and spoke

to me. His daughters and sons rose to give their father formal

feast-day greetings. He bowed, they bowed and kissed his

hand and stole away. Soon only Selma and I and the sheik and

a few of the little boys stood by, and I made my excuses and

said what a fine Iid it had been. Sheik Hamid, after another

bow, headed for his bed, and I started home, ready for a nap

myself after the excitement of the day’s activities. As I passed

the mudhif, I had a brief glimpse of many men resting on mats

inside, while their horses munched grass in the growing

shadows of the afternoon.

11

Moussa’s House

The houses closest to the tribal mudhif were occupied by the

sheik’s brothers and uncles. Abdulla, the sheik’s older brother

and second in command, and his two favorite younger

brothers lived in houses connected to the sheik’s own by

common walls and passageways. Brothers with whom he was

not so intimate had built separate dwellings not far away.

Moussa, Laila’s father, was one of these.

Moussa lived in a big square mud-brick house at the end of

the road that stretched in a straight line from the canal to the

clearing around the mudhif. An excellent location, one would

have thought, for here all the public activity of the settlement

took place. Sheik Hamid’s car, a four-year-old Oldsmobile,

was driven into the clearing with a flourish when he returned

from his parliamentary duties in Baghdad. All visitors

disembarked here—tribesmen from outlying settlements,

nomad Bedouin, parking their cars or tethering camels, horses

or donkeys before going into the mudhif to do business. On

religious holidays the villagers would gather in the clearing to

greet the sheik ceremonially, to watch the hosas. Here the

processions of Muharram, Shiite month of mourning, would

terminate, after a march through the village. It was, in fact, the

village green, the taxi stop and parking lot all rolled into one.

However, the occupants of Moussa’s house had, apparently,

no glimpse of the comings and goings around the mudhif, no

view of the green palm groves beyond, for the front of the

house was without windows. This, Laila told me proudly, was

to insure complete privacy for the women, yet the ladies’ pride

in their privacy did not seem at all compromised by a

succession of peepholes which had been carefully chipped out

of the mud-brick wall at convenient eye levels.

There seemed to be no view through the public entrance,

either—a side door facing the road—but here, too, I found

peepholes. The ladies inside knew as soon as visitors had

arrived in the clearing; the little girls told the neighbors in the

rear, and if it was important, those neighbors also passed it on.

Thus news traveled with lightning speed through the closed

doors and windowless walls.

Whenever I came to visit Laila, I would pound on the heavy

wooden side door with both fists to attract attention. I would

hear the running of many feet, a whispered consultation

behind the door, and would realize that two or three of the

sisters were stationed along the wall, peering out to see who

the visitor might be. For Moussa’s house, consisting entirely

of women except for Moussa himself, had no male guards

near the entrance like Sheik Hamid’s. The girls had to be sure

of the identity of their visitors. After calling out and being

satisfied by sight and sound that it was I, two heavy bolts

would be drawn, the iron latch lifted, and the door opened a

crack just wide enough for me to slip into the shadowy

entrance passage. As many times as I visited the sisters, I

never penetrated behind two mysterious closed doors giving

on the passage; once one of the doors was ajar and I could see

rugs and pillows and bolsters set out neatly along the walls,

and in the center a smoking charcoal brazier. This was

Moussa’s private
diwan
or reception room; the other door led,

Laila told me, to his bedroom.

I was always hurried along the passage to the end where it

opened onto the court, a huge open space as big as an ordinary

house, where most of the affairs of the household were

conducted. Fatima or Sanaa or Nejla, Laila’s older sisters,

wending their way across the court with water or laundry or a

broom, would see me and call out.

“Ahlan
, Beeja,
ahlan, ahlan wusahlan
, Beeja!” Gradually

women and girls (there were nine sisters, after all) would

emerge from rooms opening on two sides of the court, or from

the kitchen in the corner. Or they would raise themselves from

their places along the far wall, where they would be squatting

peeling vegetables, pounding spices or cleaning rice and flour.

The older sisters came forward, adjusting the everyday black

garments—chin scarf
(foota)
, head scarf
(asha)
and abayah

over a black dress—which flowed behind them gracefully as

they walked; we would shake hands in the sunny court as

though we had not met for years. Laila was always among

them, but as a member of the younger generation, she no

longer wore the traditional garments, only an abayah and veil

when she left the house. Indoors she sported a house dress, of

cotton print in summer, flannelette in winter; it always seemed

a bit outgrown and short for her, and her hair was always

escaping from the scarf she used to tie it back. She seemed

shorter than she actually was because she was round-

shouldered from stooping over a sewing machine day after

day; her collars were stuck with pins and threaded needles.

Only eighteen, she already had lines around her small, close-

set eyes from squinting in the sun or in the bad light of the

sewing room. But when she smiled in welcome, her face

became a child’s again, gay, mischievous, hopeful. She would

take my arm and escort me into the sewing room. One of the

little girls took my abayah and hung it on a nail, and I settled,

cross-legged, on a rug-covered mat while the sisters and

visitors gathered to chat and Laila, smiling still with pleasure,

went on with her sewing.

Because Moussa was away almost all day, neighborhood

women tended to drop by, for water, for gossip, for advice,

perhaps to bring Laila sewing or embroidery. I joined this

throng, knowing that I was not causing any extra problem by

my presence. The house had a central water tap, one of five or

six in the settlement which was connected to the village’s

chlorinated water system; Um Fatima had said that anyone

might draw clean water from this tap, and the women flocked

to take advantage of her offer. They always crossed the court

to speak to Laila and greet the Amerikiya in passing, so I saw

many women informally this way whom I might not have met

otherwise. Sometimes they would set down their water jugs

and their children and gossip.

Very seldom was this malicious gossip, for these women

knew that idle conversation about a woman’s reputation might

have tragic results. Occasionally, I felt, they simply couldn’t

resist, and a village widow of nonexistent income was usually

their target.

“Where does she get her money?” one would say. “She had

a fine new abayah on the Iid and her children had new clothes

too.”

“Her relatives probably gave it to her,” Fatima would

suggest.

“Humph. She has no relatives in El Nahra. But she must get

the money from somebody; she certainly doesn’t dig it out of

the canal.”

The malicious laughter would be cut short by Fatima or

Nejla and the conversation turned to other subjects: children,

illness, the weather, the crops.

Moussa’s family, with nine daughters and no sons, was

something of a phenomenon in the settlement. Bob had told