Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (56 page)

The hall I was in was now quiet. No new planes had landed in a long while. Two hours had passed and the officer who went to inquire had not come back. I didn’t want to go back to the first passport control officer who had been adamant. I preferred to wait for the other one. Finally he came and signaled to me, saying, “I regret to say that you have to enter Jordan and to check with intelligence tomorrow, because you won’t be able to enter this airport without checking with them.”

I said, “Why?”

“The picture is quite faded and the officer has every right to doubt the authenticity of this passport.”

I said, “My ticket is from Baghdad to Cairo. I have nothing to do with Jordan. The law gives me the right to be in transit whether you, sir, like that or not. If you kept me here for ten days, I wouldn’t enter Jordan. I am a journalist and I’ll raise hell. If you want me to wake up officials at the Egyptian embassy, I can do that by using this telephone here.” I pointed to a public telephone attached to the wall. “So, there’s no need for this obstinacy.”

He said, “Order is order and it will apply to you just as it applies to others.”

He pointed to the new lines of passengers that had begun to form in front of passport control.

I said, “You exploit Egyptian workers by charging them fees. This is your order that you are trying to apply to me. This is also the fault of those passengers who did not object to an illegal order and did not refuse to enter. The fact that there might be a problem with my passport, that has nothing to do with you. So there’s no need to apply this order to me for a few lousy dollars.”

“Why are you shouting?”

“Because you know full well that I am in the right and you don’t want to understand.”

“This will do you no good. Your passport is not valid.”

“Okay. Do what you like. This is not your concern. This is an Egyptian matter. My country will hold me to account.”

A number of officers gathered around the line of Egyptian and other Arab passengers. Many said emphatically after they heard the story: “Do not give in. They can’t do anything to you. Do not enter Jordan.” They spoke loudly in defiance of the officers. Some one said, “These are humorless people. A Jordanian would not show happiness even over a hot loaf of bread. This is a young woman. What do you want from her? She’s said she doesn’t have money.”

The officer left after I refused to stand in the passport control line. Another hour passed. I went to the public telephone and tried
to inset an Iraqi coin but it did not fit. One of the passengers gave me a Jordanian coin. I inquired about the Egyptian embassy number and called it. A recorded voice said to leave a message. I left a brief description of the situation and hung up. I went back to the wall to lean on it. Another hour passed that exhausted my attention span. Another officer arrived and asked me about the story. I told him. He said, “Come with me. Come here. Do you have your passport?”

“Yes.”

He opened a side door and from it I could see another hall facing the runway directly. I saw the exit gates. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I followed him like a blind person. Then I looked at my watch and asked him, “Has my plane departed?”

“Yes.”

“Did it depart on time?”

He laughed, saying, “Yes, regrettably. Please accept my apology.”

I said, “For God’s sake! Why all of this?”

“Well, he’s within his rights to resolve any doubt. For what newspaper do you write?”

“For
al-Zahra
and
Rose al-Yusuf
magazines.”

“Great publications: with Salah Jahin, Salah Hafez, and Ahmad Bahaeddin.”

“You’re quite knowledgeable about the Egyptian press. But most of those writers are now writing for other publications.”

“We’ve all been raised on Egyptian culture.”

“Please, for God’s sake, what would become of me if I entered Jordan with a passport I cannot use to leave Jordan?”

“You should be thankful to God that you are here now. Do you have enough money?”

“Unfortunately, just some change.”

He ordered some sandwiches and tea for me, then left saying, “A plane will depart for Egypt at three in the afternoon. We’ll get you on it, God willing.”

Then he added, laughing, “I hope it also departs on time. Good bye. If you need anything, I am at your service. I’ll be around.”

“Thank you.”

The food came and I sat down to eat, rearranging in my mind what happened, not believing that I got out of it by a miracle. Jordanian prisons? My God! Drops of milk flowed from my breasts. I just let them trickle down my body, tickling me. I could smell the fresh milk but I didn’t care what was happening to me. I said to myself. “I’ll soon have a cold; thank God my carry-on bag has lots of underwear, towels, and cleaning supplies. I will deal with the place as if it were a hotel and may everyone go to hell.” Jordanian prisons! I remembered the story of my friend, the poet Hilmi Salim, who entered Jordan in 1981 and they told him to check with Jordanian intelligence. From there they took him to jail for no reason that he knew of. His ordeal lasted for fifteen days until they deported him to Syria with several other detainees. That was last year, and to this day he hasn’t found out why. But why prison? Shouldn’t the embassy intervene in cases like this and give me a new passport? But who said it was a matter of passports? The man said: check with intelligence because of suspicions about the name. Could one of them come now and say: “We’ve changed our mind, you have to enter Jordan now”? Why? It’s finished now, Nora, daughter of Fahmi. You shouldn’t worry about it. I wondered how my son was doing. We didn’t need such events to separate me from him even longer. Why didn’t I return with the official delegation? The country is at war and my younger son is only six months and the older is five years. You’re a mother, and in charge of a family. I hope that what happened has taught you a lesson you won’t forget.

I carried my bag and went into the bathroom. I was met by an attendant other than the one who had helped me before, on my way to Baghdad. I didn’t bother to explain my behavior to her. She was looking at me from afar with inquisitive eyes, so I figured out she had heard about my story with passport control. I placed my things on the sink counter and went into a stall, leaving the door ajar so that I could extend my feet. I sat, exhausted, and tried to pump the milk remaining in my breasts slowly. Then I buttoned my blouse
and went out of the stall. The attendant was still sitting on her seat. I told her, “Good morning. Would you kindly close the door for five minutes so I can wash, because I am nursing. Things are quiet now.”

She said, “Pregnancy, mothering, and nursing! That’s our life, daughter. Where’s your baby?”

I said, “In Egypt.”

She said, “I’ll be outside if you need anything.”

The hot water made me feel human again. I changed my clothes, then went out to the lounge. I chose a seat away from other passengers and the television. I was overtaken by sleep for a few minutes during which I quickly lost touch with everything as I slipped into a black pit. Then I awoke fully aware of every movement around me: footsteps, clanking of cups, sips of coffee, the incessant announcements of planes departing or boarding, children crying, and passengers chit-chatting. Waking up usually came to me like a sudden flash after which my mind became fully alert, as if I had not been deprived of sleep for the third day in a row. Then the whole trip would come to my mind arranged neatly as if it were offered to me on a tray, or I would remember Hilmi Amin and Baghdad, where upon my tears would flow uninvited. I could smell espresso, so I got up to get a double shot. The server asked me, “Anything else? A sandwich, cookies?”

“Cookies.”

I said to myself, it should be a bar of chocolate to make it as it should really be! I smiled as I realized that I was regaining my sense of humor. I sat on the high stool at the bar for a change. I remembered Basyuni. I wondered where he would be by now. The night hours would not be enough to get to the border before they would discover his disappearance with the car in the morning. He must have chosen a car under repair in the garage, so the officers would not notice it was gone. Would such absence easily escape the notice of Amm Sayyid? He must have delayed reporting it for some time to give Basyuni a chance to cover the longest distance away from the unit. But it was a war and any mistake would result
in the poor man being accused of collusion and all kinds of problems with the military police. He must have protected himself, on paper at least. Would Basyuni hide somewhere until security quit looking for him? Would security quit? Why don’t I call Fathallah and ask him if he had new information? No. His telephone would be wiretapped and my question would bring upon him problems he didn’t need. Why should I give them the chance to seize upon a sentence that might be straightforward and innocent for me but have a different meaning for them? I was still under the authority of Jordanian security, which of course had strong ties with Iraqi security. All this time everybody believed I was in Egypt. Okay, now are you convinced that Iraqi intelligence had made a connection between your meeting Basyuni and his escape? Have James Bond movies twisted your brain? Buthayna, the woman in charge of the logistics of the trip, must have reported the meeting, as would be expected. Besides, it was only natural for Basyuni to have told his fellow unit members that he was going to meet an Egyptian journalist who had a letter for him from his family. Maybe he had also disclosed to Amm Sayyid or to one of his Kurdish friends his intention to escape. His words to me hinted at something like that but I was not paying attention to that at the time. No need to call Fathallah today. All the trouble with the passport in Jordan was quite enough. You are still under the thumb of Jordanian intelligence. One intelligence service is quite enough—I smiled—one here, let alone the one there.

Song of the Falcon

I took out Hilmi Amin’s papers. I found a carefully folded sheet with the title: “Song of the Falcon.” I started reading:

Today I finished reading Gorky’s collection
The Birth of a Man
, even though I had read it many times before in Egypt. The shrieks of the falcon resounded throughout my apartment in Baghdad, combining the agony of pain, the strength of the will, and the lust
for life and triumph. I went to bed as the falcon hovered in the ceiling of the room, shouting at the snake: if only I could ascend to the sky one last time, I would squeeze an enemy on my wounded chest, making it choke on my blood. Oh, how sweet fighting is!

High up in the mountain a snake had ascended and curled up and began to stare at the sea. Suddenly, in the crevice where it curled, there fell a falcon with a broken chest and feathers stained with blood, emitting a piercing cry, crushing its chest against a rock, in impotent anger. The snake was frightened and crawled backward, but soon realized that the bird was dying. It thought that life in the sky must be so comfortable, judging by the falcon’s laments. The snake suggested to the falcon to move to the edge of the cliff and throw itself downward, so that its wings might lift it upward to live for a little while in the air it loved so much.

Gorky said, “The falcon shuddered and with a loud, proud cry, proceeded to the edge, its talons slipping on the slippery rocks. It made it to the edge, spread its wings, inhaled deeply. It looked with its flaming glare, then fell downward. It rolled on the rocks, tumbling down and quickly breaking its wings and losing its feathers. The waves swept it away, washing off its bleeding and, foaming, rushed back to the sea. The sea waves crushed the stones with a melancholic roar. The corpse of the bird was never seen in the vastness of the sea.

“The snake contemplated the death of the bird, its eagerness to fly in the sky. It curled into the shape of a coil and flung itself, falling onto the rocks. But it didn’t die.”

I said to myself, “The artist has intervened here to give life meaning when he made the waves crash and crush the rocks and the sky shake and roar like a lion singing of a proud bird!

“We sing the praises of the glory of the brave dreamers! “

O falcon! Come and talk to me. We are all alone now: what crossed your mind as you lay dying? Were you afraid?”

The falcon said, “The sky knows nothing except thirst for freedom and light.”

I said, “What did you feel as you were flying for the last time? Are those few moments of flight worth a whole life? Didn’t you think of a truce, even if that meant being deprived of flying high in the sky?”

The falcon said, “What good is an impotent life? Death is preferable to terrible times. It is a longing for revolution. Dreams shorten distances and transcend the boundaries of time.”

I said, “O falcon, don’t condemn your lips to impossible silence. Crying would lighten your burden greatly now. We are all alone, together. Even the snake has disappeared. There’s no one besides you and me and an old man that I have summoned from the novel by Hemingway who was merciful enough to invent the boy who was taking pity on the old man. Life frequently forgets to give a touch of beauty and warmth.”

The falcon said, “We’ve loved freedom to death!”

I said to the old man, “You and I, what have we reaped? Our adversary is the same: tempests, waves, whales, and bloody sharks, monsters of land and sky.”

The old man said, “The snake did not see what the dying falcon saw in that bottomless and endless desolation as Gorky described it. Nor did it find out why those like the falcon are so puzzling to the soul as they die for love of flying in the sky. What do they see so clearly there? People gathered around my skiff, watching the backbone of the huge fish, did not understand why I fought the monsters of the deep.”

I said, “Fate defeated you but did not kill you. There’s still some time left for you to go back to the sea, just as the falcon did by flying in the sky even if only for a short while.”

The old man said, “Who has just come in?”

I looked at him for a long time. Then I heard him saying, “Don’t you recognize me? I am Saroyan, companion of your youth. I am the one who made those difficult Latin lessons bearable. It was I who made it possible for you to cope with Aristotle, al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd, and Sheikh Ibn Sina. It was I who helped you when life was
not so easy. I demanded that you take the first right step, because if you did, no force on earth could stop you. All you had to do after that was just to live.”