Authors: Hiner Saleem

My Father's Rifle (13 page)

BOOK: My Father's Rifle

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I climbed into a car heading straight for the Turkish frontier; it was inconceivable to go to Baathist Syria, I thought. Six hours later I was at the border between Iraq and Turkey After a great many checkpoints, I finally reached the last one, the checkpoint of the secret police. There were no travelers; it was strictly a trade route. A security officer asked me for my papers. I handed him my passport. “Where are you planning to go?” he asked me with a mocking smile. He was face to face with a kid. “To Turkey, for a week of tourism.” “During the school term?” “I've been given permission.” He shut the passport and spoke to me as to a child: “If you're giving me lip, I hear you.” “I don't understand what you're saying; the government gave me this passport,” I replied fearlessly The officer called a soldier over and turned back to me, dead serious. “I don't want you turning up at the frontier ever again. If you do, you're dead.” He handed me my passport and asked the soldier to take me back to the car station. I climbed into the security jeep, preparing myself for the worst. I didn't think he'd take me to the station. We set off but, after eight checkpoints, to my surprise the man dropped me off at the station without a word.

My first attempt had failed, but I was relieved. The wolves hadn't devoured me yet. Wasting no time, I took the road to Mosul; from there cars left for Syria. Two and a half hours later I was at the Mosul station, trying to find a car to Syria. I saw my cousin Cheto, who was a student at Mosul University He had spruced himself up and was going to his sister's wedding, like my mother and father. We greeted each other; he assumed I was also going to the wedding. “Go
ahead, I'll be coming soon,” I said to him. He was already at university, whereas I hadn't even finished school. To him, I was a failure, a reckless and undisciplined person. He looked at me and left. I resumed my search for a car to take me to the border. A driver standing next to an old station wagon was crying out, “Syria! Syria!” I signaled to him and got into the back of the car. Three Arab villagers climbed in as well, with their bags and baskets. There was some space left next to the driver for a young boy who said a few words to him in Kurdish. I understood they were Kurds from Syria. This made me happy, but I said nothing. I didn't want anyone to know anything about me.

The car drove out of Mosul in the direction of the frontier. At five in the morning we arrived at Rabia, on the Iraq-Syria border. We were the only car in the desert. We stopped in front of a tiny checkpoint, and I became anxious. A soldier with a Kalashnikov collected all the passengers' passports and went into the checkpoint office. I made myself inconspicuous and tried to calm my nerves with the thoughts that the place didn't look like a border checkpoint and that the young soldier looked pitiful. I waited. The driver got out and went to pee behind a wall. The soldier returned and handed papers to everyone except me. He made me step out and follow him. I obeyed, very worried. Inside the checkpoint office, I saw a fat, swarthy man with a drooping mustache and sleepy eyes. “What are you doing here?” he asked me. “I'd likeâ” “Shut up, you piece of dog shit.” He ordered the soldier to lock me in a cagelike cellâme, the piece of dog shitâso he could show me a wild time later, after he'd woken up. And he told the soldier to warn the secret police. Then he took my passport and went into his room.

I was alone with the young soldier, who was getting ready to put me in the cell. I asked him to let me go outside to pay
the driver my fare. He consented and walked me back to the car.' All the passengers were waiting for me, calm and discreet. I stuck my head through the car window and put my mouth close to the driver's ear. “I can't continue, they've arrested me,” I said in Kurdish. The driver's mouth gaped open. “You're a Kurd?” he said. “Yes,” I answered, with a bitter smile. He swooped out of the car like an eagle, signaled me to stay put, and asked the soldier to follow him. They went into the office. Ten minutes later the driver came out, alone, with my passport in his hands. “Get in, we're off,” he said. My heart soared with joy

The driver made me change places with an Arab sitting in the front, and placed me between himself and the other young Kurdish boy The car crossed the border. I could not believe my eyes. The driver looked at me, smiling. “You've been with us for five hours. Why didn't you tell us you were a Kurd right away?” “We weren't alone.” I got to know the driver and the young boy “My name is Azad.” “Heso,” said the driver. “My name is Shivan, but for official purposes I have an Arabic name, Mohammed,” said the young boy, smiling. “How did you persuade the officer to give me my papers and let me go?” “I traffic with him. I know his secrets.”

I took out some money to pay my fare. He refused to accept at first, but then he said, “Because you're a tourist, which means you have money Otherwise â¦”

The young boy kept looking at me and repeating, “We're Kurds, right? We're brothers, right? We'll be free, right?”

I still had my little bag on my lap with the Kurdish suit, the cassette of Kurdish music, and the book of Kurdish poetry. The driver opened the glove compartment and took out a cassette, which he slipped into the player. It was the voice of Mahmad Shekho, the tall, skinny Kurd from Syria. It was the same song I'd heard in the refugee camp in Iran in
1974. The car swung onto a road that cut far into the distance through an immense plain.

“The more time goes by, the more my heart beats slowly, my beloved â¦”

As for me, Azad, I was no longer a kid.

AZAD lived in Italy for many years, but couldn't obtain a residency card because Italy did not recognize Kurds as having official refugee status. He settled in France.

SHERO SELIM MALAY, his father, died on December 18, 1996. His son couldn't attend his funeral because it was impossible for him to return to Kurdistan.

GENERAL BARZANI died of cancer in New Jersey in 1978.

HAYBET, Azad's mother, became blind in her left eye. She lives in Aqra in their fortress-house, alone.

ROSTAM, Azad's brother, fled in 1997. He is presently a refugee in Germany

DILOVAN, Azad's other brother and Zilan's father, fought with the resistance groups in the mountains of Kurdistan. He is the father of eleven children. The parents of his wife, DIJLA, were killed by the chemicals used during the Anfal, Saddam Hussein's campaign to exterminate the Kurds between February 1987 and September 1988.

TAMAN, Azad's sister, lived in the concentration camps.

RAMO, Azad's cousin, studied architecture in Baghdad and died under torture in 1982.

CHETO, the cousin with the stunt pigeons, became an agricultural engineer and looks after his orchard.

JACOB, the math teacher, was executed by firing squad in 1981 in Mosul.

SAMI, the painter, was never seen again after he was taken away by the secret police. His parents believe his body was dissolved in sulfuric acid.

SADDAM HUSSEIN was president of Iraq and lived in his palace in Baghdad until 2003.

IMAD, the musician, became an excellent violinist. He fell in love with a woman he wasn't supposed to marry; they ran away, but were murdered by their families when they returned two years later.

GALAVEJ, Azad's cousin who got married on the day of Azad's departure, had a daughter. Galavej's husband vanished in 1980 during the Iran-Iraq War.

The father of Jian, the girl who gave Azad a flashlight, was executed by firing squad. The rest of her family was deported to the concentration camps in southern Iraq.

On April 9, 2003, the coalition forces that had entered Iraq on March 19 conquered Baghdad, and Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled.

Notes

Mullah Mustafa Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party, who had been military leader of the Kurdish Republic in Iran in 1946.âTranslator's note

Literally “he who looks death straight in the face.”âTranslator's note

Baggy trousers.âTranslator's note

Cracked wheat.âTranslator's note

Goodbye.âTranslator's note

In March 1970 the Kurds obtained an agreement that accorded them partial autonomy and allowed Barzani to keep 15,000 armed Kurdish troops.

This assassination attempt occurred in March 1974.âTranslator's note

March 6, 1975, in Algiers.

Literally, “fallen back into line.”âTranslator's note

The Disappointed Female.âTranshtor's note

Iraqi secret police.âTranslator's note

The PUK, founded in 1975 and led by Jalal Talabani, and the KDP, led by Barzani, were feuding Kurdish forces throughout this period.

Literally, “Live little, live hot.”âTranslator's note