The Girl in Green (2 page)

Arwood had become chatty with the POWs when they flowed to his location in late February. That was much farther south, and before they were deployed here. There was a certain affability to the Iraqi conscripts. Sure, they were the enemy and all that, but their accent was endearing, every one of them had a Groucho Marx moustache, and they were incredibly sincere about their desire to give up. There was very little not to like about them once they stopped shooting at you.

‘There's nothing happening now, though,' Arwood said.

‘Not here. But there is over there. And the world would like to know what it is. Or at least I'd like to think they would.'

‘Is being English the same as being British?' Arwood asked.

‘No. England is part of Britain. Which is also made up of Wales and—'

‘So who banned all that music?'

It didn't connect until now, because Arwood had never met anyone British before, but word had gotten down to the troops that their allies — the British — were banning anti-war music back home, and so a good deal of time was spent ragging on them about it in their absence. On the BBC's blackout list were:

‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place', by The Animals;

‘Walk Like an Egyptian', by The Bangles;

‘Killing Me Softly', by Roberta Flack;

‘Two Tribes', by Frankie Goes to Hollywood;

‘War', by Edwin Starr; and

‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World', by Tears for Fears.

‘That was you, right?' Arwood said.

‘It was the BBC.'

‘They really thought a bunch of straight dudes were gonna sing Roberta Flack in the desert?'

‘What you have to understand about the BBC—'

‘So you're sitting here with me because you want this civil war thing to get started, and you want a front-row seat?'

‘Well, no. That's not fair,' Benton said. ‘I do have questions, though. The kind that can only be answered over there,' he said, pointing to Samawah. ‘Right now, no one knows anything. We're getting our news from radio broadcasts coming out of Iran and Syria. It's all ignorance, rumour, and frustration. I'd like to ask them some questions of my own.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like what? Really? Well, like … Did you plan this revolution? Are you getting support from Iran? Who is in charge? What are your aspirations? Do you want to see a whole and stable Iraq, or do you want a new state and to see it carved up along religious and ethnic lines? Or no state at all? Is this the return of the Islamic
umma
? Can you work with the Sunni after the way you were treated by Saddam? Are you prepared to cooperate with the West? Under what conditions? Are you coordinating with the Kurdish resistance up north? If so, how? Is there a unified command structure? Do you see yourself forming one? How well armed are you? What kind of training—'

‘Yeah, OK, political stuff. I got it.'

‘It's the future of the Middle East. In fact, it's the future of the post-Cold War order. In that town, in the ideas of those people, are the first clues about whether this brave new world of ours will maintain the colonially imposed and Cold War–sustained state system, or—'

‘Do Arabs eat ice-cream?'

‘That's the question burning a hole in your mind?'

‘I have a follow-up.'

‘Yes. They do.'

‘What kind of ice-cream?'

‘The usual stuff. Why?'

‘I want one.'

‘OK,' said Benton.

‘And I've got an idea that I was thinking up while you were talking. You want to report on all that political stuff from that town, right?'

‘I suppose I do, yes.'

‘I want an ice-cream, and you said they probably have one there.'

‘You think it's a good idea for me to go to the town and get you an ice-cream?'

‘You sort of implied you might be going.'

Benton sat in the sand. He dug grooves in the earth with the heels of his boots. He'd been in the region since 28 February, the day President Bush declared this ‘a victory for the United Nations, for all mankind, for the rule of law, and for what is right'. Benton's wife, Vanessa, had argued it was not a good day to leave her or their ten-year-old daughter, Charlotte, behind. Given that the war was over, she'd said, there was no good reason to be there, and it was dangerous. He'd said questions remained that no one was asking, because victory is always exciting and therefore wasn't when people probed for details. He'd said he'd be back in a few weeks. A visit into a rebel-held city — even for a few hours — could justify the cost.

Benton looked across the windless landscape to the listless Shiite flag. Something significant had already happened there, and something else was going to. He was sure of it. Saddam had forbidden journalists to enter the country, but so what? He was shy of his fortieth birthday and hadn't won any prizes. It was impressive to be at the
Times
, but he was among the rank and file, and he'd never distinguished himself. A visit to Samawah could change all that.

It was an interesting idea.

There was a downside to the plan, though, and being almost forty rather than in his early twenties, like Arwood, Benton still had some reverence for the wider systems of authority and power that made his journalism possible. You fall out with those, and you're out. He was talking to Arwood to manipulate the situation, yes, but he was still on the edge about whether to walk the literal mile.

‘I was told not to wander off base, or I'd lose my press credentials,' he said.

Arwood field-stripped his spent cigarette and flicked the pieces into what should have been wind.

‘If you follow the rules all the time, you don't really have any press credentials, do you?'

‘Huh,' said Benton.

‘It is my experience — and I learned this the hard way, believe me — that the trick to getting what you want without getting caught — and this is the important part — is not getting caught.'

‘And how do you do that?' Benton asked.

‘I just told you. Don't get caught.'

‘That feels a bit circular.'

Arwood never took his eyes off the distant buildings and the absolute nothing that was happening over in the town. Now that he had the idea of an ice-cream firmly planted in his mind — which was seeping down into his very soul and filling it with strawberries — he could picture swarms of ten-year-olds suddenly bursting into the corner store and tearing open every remaining popsicle, leaving nothing for him but sticky wrappers. It was a dark image.

‘I have this theory that everything you truly need to know,' Arwood said, ‘I mean, deep down and for the duration, can be learned from
Ferris Bueller
'
s Day Off
. The fact that there was no sequel only proves that there was nothing left to say. To me, the army is Principal Ed Rooney, and you need to be Ferris.'

‘If I go, you won't tell anyone?'

‘I'm not paid to keep you in. I'm paid to keep them out.'

‘They don't have Ben and Jerry's. Mostly popsicles. Also they might not have any. There were economic sanctions after Kuwait was invaded, and there's been a war since. And it could melt by the time I'm back.'

‘I'm prepared for you to take that risk.'

‘Are you sure you'll be there when I return? I don't want to get shot as I approach the checkpoint. How's your eyesight?'

‘Come back the way you came. I'll be here all day. Same bat time, same bat channel.'

‘I don't have any money,' Benton said.

‘No charge, dude.'

‘No, for the ice-cream. I need to buy it. I'm not going to steal an ice-cream, am I?'

‘I … hadn't considered that,' said Arwood. ‘You don't think he'll be friendly, and give you one?'

‘He might, but it's presumptuous. I think it's inappropriate to ask, and if he gives me a gift it's customary practice that I return the gesture with a gift of my own.'

‘It really is like a whole different place over here, isn't it?' Arwood was no longer leaning on the gun. He had perked up like a flower exposed to sunlight at the thought of an ice-cream. ‘I don't have any money either. What kind of gift?'

‘Something of the same value and significance as an ice-cream, otherwise he'll feel further in my debt and want to even things out, which is not what we want here,' Benton said.

‘OK …' Arwood bent down and pulled a comic book from his rucksack. ‘How about this Amazing Spider-Man #312, Green Goblin versus the Hobgoblin? It's from 1989, and I paid a buck. It isn't current, but the trade is only for an ice-cream, so I think it's fair. There's got to be some kid over there who hasn't read it yet.'

‘I don't know if they read comic books.'

‘Jesus. How foreign are they?'

‘Fine, give it to me,' said Benton, who stood up, dusted himself off, and put the comic book in his own rucksack, beside his camera and incidentals.

‘So you're going?'

‘It's half-twelve now …'

‘Huh?'

‘It's twelve-thirty now,' Benton translated, ‘and I figure I can walk there in half an hour, spend about three hours or so interviewing, and be back by four o'clock, which is well before dark. You're sure you'll still be here?'

‘I'm on until eighteen hundred.'

‘I really don't want to get shot coming back.'

‘I will not let anything happen to you. I promise.'

‘All right then.
Audaces fortuna iuvat
, right?' said Benton.

‘I don't know about that, but Ferris got Mia Sara.'

2

Benton drank from a bottle of water as he walked toward Samawah under the blue dome of heaven. His feet were hot. He wore cheap socks that were woven with nylon and polyester. He knew better, but had still done nothing about it when it came time to pack. They couldn't breathe as he stepped from rock to rock across the broken earth toward the squat city and its muted people. This always put him in a mood.

Closer, he found the small city unremarkable. He might have been in Jordan, or the West Bank, or Bahrain as he looked at the flat roofs and the canopy of satellite dishes made dirty from the sand and the winds and the absence of rain or the social pressure to clean them. Around the city was its litter — the discarded refrigerators and tyres, the bed frames and canvas bags. There was no topsoil. There was surely a proper reason for this, but Benton imagined that too many feet had walked here for too long in search of too much.

He approached a derelict oil truck in a wide and unused parking zone. Someone had painted, in giant white letters, ‘We want Fredum. Bleads help Iraq peple.'

Benton put the empty bottle of water back into his satchel, intending to throw it in a bin later.

He checked his watch.
Dhuhr
prayer was around 11.30 a.m., and
Asr
prayer shouldn't be until around three-ish. He figured he had a workable window to get oriented and at least conduct a few discussions.

Towns have eyes in the Middle East. This one, however, felt blind — as though it were resting in the midday sun in preparation for a long stretch of work in the cooling night yet to come.

A boy appeared. He was thin, about twelve years old, and carrying a platter of glasses of tea over his shoulder like a French waiter. The boy wore sandals and had thick black hair. He was unhurried, and focussed on his task of delivering tea and lunch to the shopkeepers.

When the boy saw Benton, he stopped and fixed himself to the earth, paralysed. Eyes wide, he was motionless until an inner force shot into his limbs, making him jerk erratically. He twitched his head right and left and back to Benton, as though Benton might issue instructions that would end his indecision. Benton could hear the glasses rattle on the thin, silver platter as they amplified the boy's vibrations and started dancing to the arrhythmia of his heart. Soon enough, the cups could not keep up. One by one, the cups fell, smashing themselves on the hard earth, and the sweet water poured from the platter onto the boy's feet, scalding his exposed toes and forcing the boy to join in the dance he had inadvertently started.

Hopping in pain, the boy dropped the platter, and he turned and ran as fast as he could, back the way he had come.

Not loudly enough, not by a long shot, Benton called out, ‘I'm not going to hurt you. I promise.'

But the promise never reached the boy's ears, and in a moment he was gone.

Alone again, Benton trudged toward the first buildings and into a narrow alley between them. It was shadier between the buildings, and cooler. He paused to scratch one foot with the other through his leather boots. It was unsatisfying. He'd have to take the boot off, and perhaps the sock as well.

Kneeling with his shoe untied, Benton heard a rumbling ahead of him, through the mouth of the light and narrow alley. It sounded like water. It was an impossible notion, but he half expected a tidal wave to come bursting into the passageway, a crest of salty white foam gushing around him to his waist, to flood his boots and cool his feet.