The Girl from Baghdad (5 page)

On those occasions, my mother cooked a special dinner and we gave her a hand setting the dining room table. We lit the fragrant candles, which we had carefully placed in every corner of the house. She sent me to buy
liben
, yogurt to be diluted with water, salt and ice and served with dinner. When I got back, the perfume of the spices and rice with raisins and tomato sauce had already taken over the house, even if there were still many hours before Dad would walk through the door. I knew we would have our favourite dessert,
baklawa
, pastry with a super-thin crust dripping with honey, studded with pistachios inside. Mum sang while she cooked, as if the music had the power of transmitting her love into the dishes. She made meatballs with grapes, and chicken cooked in spicy sauces, flavoured with a pinch of cumin. She cooked garbanzo beans in a separate pot, served hot, accompanied by
bamiye
, or
okra, little vegetables similar to zucchini, which were stewed together with the sauce and mutton.

My little sisters helped her, mixing bran grain with parsley, garlic, onion and wheat, to make
tabule
salad. Even if Linda always wound up making a little bit of a mess, cooking together was a great way to while away the time and was our present for Dad.

The sound of the car stopping at the gate was enough to make us shout with joy. My mother let us climb on the mountain of packages he had brought, as they distracted us so she would finally be able to hold tight to my father; her tall, strong, devoted prince. I couldn't believe another man of his calibre could exist.

Among his many arrivals home, one in particular stands out in my mind. Dad had three big packages in his hand, one for each of us. Klara rushed to him immediately. Mum, who was holding baby Linda in her arms, put her down and let her stagger towards Dad with her uneasy steps. We seized the presents and went to the rug in the living room, anxious to open them.

‘Hey! You don't even have a kiss for your baba?' Mum protested. Dad, after having hugged her, came and sat by our side. He helped Linda open her box, which was as tall as her.

‘It's the most beautiful doll in the world!' Klara exclaimed raising her marvellous doll in the air.

Mine was identical and looked like a real baby. It was wearing rompers, had little fisted hands, and cheeks as soft as a newborn's. I turned toward Dad and, without letting the doll go, smothered him with kisses. ‘Thank you, Baba! It's wonderful! Look, Mum, this baby is just like Linda!'

Everyone turned to look at Linda playing with the toy; they were practically the same size. She continued staring at it, puzzled. Then she pointed at her doll and asked, ‘Does it cry?' We all started laughing, even if Linda was right; the three dolls looked so much like real babies that it wouldn't have been a surprise if they had burst into tears.

‘These dolls must be tired,' Dad said seriously. ‘They had a long trip. You should make a nice bed for them and put them to sleep.'

‘Don't they need to have something to eat?' Klara asked thoughtfully.

‘They already ate on the plane,' Dad assured her. I looked at him dubiously, but he winked at me and smiled as he started extracting other packages from a bag. Then he stood up and left us alone, following Mum into the kitchen. While my sisters continued unwrapping their gifts, I looked up at my parents. Dad squeezed Mum tightly to him, glad to have her in his arms again.

After dinner, Dad turned on the television and the expression on his face changed, becoming terribly
pensive. He'd been reacting like that for a while when he saw the stories about the impending war. It seemed like a big, ugly situation.

The mood at the evening parties that our parents attended was changing. When the adults started speaking of politics, soldiers and war, us children knew to stay away. But I was still too young to understand what was really going on.

Two years earlier, in the autumn of 1979, Khomeini's troops in Iran had kidnapped the staff of the American embassy, keeping the entire world on tenterhooks. In 1980, the political situation was worsening and, by the end of the year, the conflict started to directly involve Iraq. One evening around that time, as soon as the news started, Mum and Dad turned up the volume and told us to be quiet so they could hear what the journalist was saying. He spoke of an attack, of a war between Iran and Iraq. He repeated the words ‘war', ‘soldiers' and ‘bombs' frequently. I understood that they were bad words, but they still didn't scare me. I didn't know much about what was going on then, and I wouldn't until the war became the backdrop to the gradual breakdown of our peaceful lives.

We were in the car, all five of us, heading to a barbecue
at Adel's house. He and his wife, Irena, Mum's friend, had purchased a grand villa outside Baghdad where they spent the summer. The property was in the desert, but the green of the parklands surrounding their home made it seem like an oasis. Going to visit them was always a joy. They had a daughter, Silva, whom I had a lot of fun playing with, and my mother spent hours chatting with Irena. Dad spoke of work-related matters with the men the entire time. For us children, that trip to the country was guaranteed fun and we couldn't wait to go swimming in the pool at the grand villa.

Driving to their place, we were clapping our hands to the rhythm of the music on the radio. All of a sudden, we heard a loud explosion. Dad immediately pulled the car over, turned off the engine and the radio. Sitting in the back seat, my sisters and I were shocked into silence. We looked at Dad, waiting for him to say something, but he didn't speak. He sat still for a few minutes, with his hands on the wheel and eyes staring at the road. Then he turned to my mother. She looked frightened. We all stayed quiet. He turned toward us and said, ‘Girls, the war has begun.' Then, after another pause, he started the engine and we took off.

It was June 1981. The war had already broken out more than eight months before, but the battlelines had only now moved to the outskirts of Baghdad. From that day, the noise of the distant explosions became a
constant echo to our lives. Even if we could hear the sound of the bombs nearing the periphery of the city from our house, to us girls the war still seemed like a far-off thing. We were sure that it would never arrive at our house; to us, the war was only on television. The news showed graphic images of gunfights and of the dead. The leader of the Iraqi people, Saddam Hussein, appeared on television, pinning medals of honour on the chests of the bravest soldiers.

At the Didjle (‘Stars') elementary school, we were taught to honour Saddam's image and to consider him the great patriarch of our country. In addition to these lessons, we were all issued with a military uniform, which we stored with great care and wore every week for a training session, where we learnt to march like soldiers. Once a month, a parade in Saddam's name was organised in the streets of Baghdad. We marched proudly with our heads held high. Of course, in our innocent minds, this didn't have anything to do with the war we saw on television.

During the parade, mothers queued in long lines in front of Saddam. He was standing in front of a table that held a series of small cardboard boxes that the women had offered upon their arrival. These boxes were filled with gold and other possessions they had donated to the patriarch. Some, pointing to their child dressed like a soldier at their side, said to Saddam, ‘I beg you, take
my son! He'll fight for you. Let him die in glory, for the patriarch!' Saddam took a medal out of a little box, pinned it on their chest and shook their hand.

At my house, nobody commented on the situation and we never spoke about politics. Everyone had a picture of the Raìs (the term we used for a person in authority, such as Saddam) in their house; it was normal. What Saddam said was obeyed. He had said the war was necessary so we needed to fight it. Nobody protested, even if everyone was scared.

Christmas of 1981 was the same as any other Christmas. Even if we were at war, even if the adults had become more sombre, to us kids it didn't seem any different. It was a sacred occasion for the Christians, but for Baghdad's Muslim families like us, it was simply a big party with the whole family getting together to exchange gifts. The week before Christmas Day, Dad knocked on the door with a surprise: a tree to decorate.

‘It's enormous! It's bigger than me!' I squealed with joy. ‘Do we have enough lights for such a huge tree?'

Dad put it on the floor in the living room. ‘Come on, give me a hand. Klara, get the decorations.'

Linda, who was just two years old, stayed in our mother's arms, watching with wide eyes. In just a few
minutes, the floor was covered in tinsel, decorations and cords full of little lights.

Klara and I, in a frenzy of excitement, passed everything to Dad, who was the only one who could reach the tallest branches.

‘Now for the grand finale!' Dad announced, after we had finished adorning the tree. ‘Klara, turn off all the lights and come sit next to me, Mum and Linda here on the couch. And you, Michelle, are you ready?'

‘Yes, Baba,' I answered from my place.

‘Go!'

I switched on the lights and the tree lit up with a thousand colours. We all applauded our little masterpiece.

The night before Christmas, Dad took us to dine at our favourite restaurant at Hotel Al Rashid. It was a marvellous moment: just us five, gathered around the table, happy together. We went to that restaurant every Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, we gathered at Bibi's house with the rest of the family as usual.

During 1982 the parties at the homes of my parents' friends continued, along with the dinners at big restaurants in the city. Mum and Dad were besotted with each other, like young lovers. At the end of one evening, hugging her closely, Dad covered Mum's shoulders
with his jacket to keep her from shivering in the night air.

When we went to Bibi's or Ahlam's house, Mum didn't dress like she did at the parties. She wore normal clothes, but nothing glamorous, and barely wore makeup. Even Dad behaved differently; he was always nice to her, but I never saw him touch her like he did when they were alone or with their foreign friends.

Despite this, Bibi's house was the place I felt really at home; we spent every weekend there. It was normal to stay even two or three days, in which case the enormous villa transformed into a marvellous campsite of endless fun. When I was ten years old, there were already more than twenty grandchildren, a horde of energetic kids running wild. We loved everything around us: the flashy colours of the rugs and curtains, the scent of the food that wafted from the kitchen. A different world lay behind each door, there was always someone in every room. Our mothers prepared tea, seated in a circle, while bread baked on the little stove. Some rooms held cousins still too little to take part in our adventures. Exhausted from running around, we sidled up to our mothers to steal a little treat or watermelon seed. But the quietness lasted just a few minutes. The flurry immediately started again, only to be interrupted by Aunt Kasside's loud voice announcing it was time to eat.