The Sirens of Baghdad (14 page)

He brought the coffee cup to his lips, drank a mouthful, and invited me to do the same. His face was quivering, and his nostrils made me think of a fish suffocating in the open air. “I came here to join the fedayeen,” he said. “It was all I thought about. Even the Yaseen thing was deferred until later. I’d settle his account when the time came. But first, I had to come to terms with the deserter in me. I had to find the weapons I’d left on the battlefield when the enemy approached; I had to deserve the country I couldn’t defend when I was supposed to be ready to die for it…. But, hell, you don’t make war on your own people just to piss off the world.”

He awaited my reaction—which did not come—and then rummaged in his hair with a discouraged look. My silence embarrassed him. He understood that I didn’t share his emotions, and that I was solidly camped on my own. That’s the way we are, we Bedouin. When we keep quiet, that means that everything’s been said and there’s nothing more to add. He saw the mess on the bridge again; I saw nothing, not even my father falling over backward. I was in the postshock, postoffense period; it was my duty to wash away the insult, my sacred duty and my absolute right. I didn’t know myself what that represented or how it was constructed in my mind; I knew only that an obligation I couldn’t ignore was mobilizing me. I was neither anxious nor galvanized; I was in another dimension, where the only reference point I had was the certainty that I would carry out to the fullest extent the oath my ancestors had sealed in blood and sorrow when they placed honor above their own lives.

“You listening to me, cousin?”

“Yes.”

“The actions of the fedayeen are lowering us in the eyes of the world. We’re Iraqis, cousin. We have eleven thousand years of history behind us. We’re the ones who taught men to dream.”

He drained his cup in a single swallow and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I’m not trying to influence you.”

“You know very well that’s impossible.”

Night had fallen. A hot wind hugged the walls. The sky was covered with dust. On an esplanade, some kids, not at all bothered by the darkness, were playing soccer. Omar trudged alongside me, his heavy feet scraping the ground. When we reached a streetlight, he stopped to look me over.

“Do you think I’m putting my nose in something that’s none of my business, cousin?”

“No.”

“I wasn’t trying to put anything over on you. I’m not on anybody’s side.”

“That didn’t even occur to me.”

I looked him over in turn. “Life has rules, Omar, and without some of them, humanity would return to the Stone Age. Sure, they don’t all suit us, and they aren’t infallible or even always reasonable, but they help us hold a certain course. You know what I’d like to be doing right now? I’d like to be home in my room on the roof, listening to my tinny radio and dreaming about a piece of bread and some cool water. But I don’t have a radio anymore, and I couldn’t go back home without dying of shame before I crossed the threshold.”

12

Omar worked as a deliveryman for a furniture dealer, a former warrant officer he’d known in the army. They’d met by chance in a woodworker’s shop. Omar had recently landed in Baghdad, and he was looking for some comrades from his unit, but the addresses he had were no longer current; many of the men had moved away or disappeared. Omar was about to offer his services to the woodworker, when the warrant officer came in to order some tables and cupboards. The two of them, Omar and the warrant officer, had flung themselves into each other’s arms. After the embraces and the customary questions, Omar revealed his situation to his former superior. The warrant officer wasn’t exactly flush with money and didn’t really have enough business to afford new hires, but team spirit won out over bottom-line considerations, and the deserting Corporal was engaged on the spot. His employer provided Omar with the blue van he drove and devotedly maintained and also found him the studio flat in Salman Pak. The salary Omar received was modest and sometimes several weeks late, but the warrant officer didn’t cheat. Omar knew from the beginning that he was going to work hard for peanuts, but he had a roof, and he wasn’t starving. When he compared his situation with what he saw around him, he could only praise his saints and marvel at his luck.

Omar took me to see his employer, with the idea of angling for a job. He warned me beforehand that this was going to be a complete waste of effort. Business was in general decline, and even the people with the deepest pockets were having trouble feeding their families. Everyone had too many other priorities, too many pressing concerns, to think about buying a new sideboard or changing armchairs. The warrant officer, a long-limbed personage who resembled a wading bird, received me with great respect. Omar introduced me as his cousin and spoke highly of merits that were not necessarily mine. The warrant officer nodded and raised admiring eyebrows, his smile suspended on his face. When Omar came to the reasons for my presence in the warehouse, the warrant officer’s smile went away. Without saying a word, he disappeared through a concealed door and returned with a register, which he displayed under our noses. The lines of writing, in blue ink, went on and on, but not the lines of figures, which were underlined in red. The payments received were almost nonexistent, and as for the section in green ink with the heading “Orders,” it was as succinct as an official bulletin.

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “We’re high and dry.”

Omar didn’t insist.

He called a few friends on his mobile phone and dragged me from one end of the city to the other; no potential employer we spoke to would so much as promise to let us know if an opening should occur. Our failures depressed Omar; as for me, I had the feeling that I was overburdening him. After the fifth day of not being able to get a foot in any door, I decided not to bother him further and said so.

Omar’s response was to call me an idiot. “You’re staying with me until you can stand on your own two feet. What would our family think if they learned I’d dropped you just like that? They already find my foul language and my reputation as a drunkard impossible to bear; I’m not going to let them say I’m two-faced, as well. I have a lot of faults, I surely do—no way I’m getting into paradise—but I have my pride, cousin, and I’m holding on to it.”

One afternoon, while Omar and I were twiddling our thumbs in a corner of the apartment, a young man, practically a boy, knocked on the door. He was thin-shouldered and frightened, with a girlish face and eyes of crystalline limpidity. He must have been my age, about twenty or so. He was wearing a tropical shirt—open at the neck, revealing his pink chest—tight jeans, and shoes that were new but scuffed on the sides. Chagrined at finding me there, he fixed the Corporal with an insistent stare that dismissed me out of hand.

Omar hastened to introduce us. He, too, had been caught unprepared; his voice trembled oddly as he said, “Cousin, this is Hany, my associate and roommate.”

Hany held out a fragile hand that almost dissolved in mine, and then, without showing much interest in me, signaled to Omar to follow him out onto the landing. They closed the door behind them. A few minutes later, Omar came back to say that he and his associate had some problems to deal with in the apartment; he wondered if I would mind waiting for him in the café on the corner.

“Just in time. I was starting to go numb in here,” I said.

Trying to make sure that I wasn’t taking it badly, Omar accompanied me to the bottom of the stairs. “Order whatever you want; it’s on me.”

His eyes were glinting with a strange jubilation.

“Sounds like good news,” I said.

He said, “Ah,” and trailed off in confusion. “Who knows? Heaven doesn’t always send bad luck.”

I brought my hand to my temple in a salute and went to the café. An hour later, Omar joined me. The discussion with his associate seemed to have been satisfactory.

Hany paid us several more visits. Each time, Omar asked me to go to the café and wait for him. Eventually, his roommate, who still couldn’t bring himself to share any sort of friendly exchange with me, came over one evening and declared that he’d been very patient and that now it was time for him to return to his normal daily life; in short, he wanted to reclaim his share of the apartment. Omar tried to reason with him. Hany persisted. He declared that he wasn’t comfortable with the people who’d taken him in; he was fed up with being subjected to their hypocrisy when he didn’t have to be. Hany had made up his mind. His set face and fixed stare allowed no possibility of negotiations.

“He’s right,” I said to Omar. “This is his place, after all. He’s been very patient.”

Hany’s eyes were still fixed on his associate. He didn’t even see the hand I put out to bid him farewell.

Omar’s irritation was audible as he stepped between me and his roommate and said to him, “Fine. You want to come back? The door is open. But this guy is my cousin, and I’m not about to kick him out. If I don’t find him a place this evening, I’ll sleep with him on a bench, tonight and every night until he’s got a roof over his head.”

I tried to protest. Omar pushed me onto the landing and slammed the door behind us.

First, we went to an acquaintance of Omar to see if there was any chance she might accommodate me for two or three days, but the two of them were unable to reach an agreement; then he fell back on his employer, who suggested I could sleep in his warehouse. Omar accepted the offer as a possible last resort and continued knocking on other doors. When they all rang hollow, we went back to the warehouse and acted like night watchmen.

By the end of the week, Omar had grown less and less talkative. He retreated inside himself and stopped paying attention to what I said to him. He was unhappy. The precariousness of our situation hollowed his cheeks and left its traces deep in his eyes. I felt responsible for his listlessness.

One morning, he asked me, “What do you think of Sayed, the Falcon’s son?”

“Nothing much, one way or the other. Why?”

“I’ve never been able to figure out that boy. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s got a household-appliances shop in the city center. Would you be willing to go and see if he’s in a position to give you a hand?”

“Of course. Why do you seem bothered?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to get rid of you.”

“If I had such a thought, I wouldn’t forgive myself.” I patted him on the wrist to reassure him. “Let’s go see him, Omar. Right away.”

We took the van and headed for the center of Baghdad. An attack on a district police station caused us to turn back and drive around a large part of the city in order to reach a wide and very lively avenue. Sayed’s store stood on a corner next to a pharmacy, in the extension of a small, still-intact public garden. Omar parked about a hundred meters away. He was uneasy.

“Well, we’re lucky,” he said. “Sayed’s at the cash register. We won’t have to hang around the premises. You go and see him. Pretend you happened to be walking by and you thought you recognized him through the window. He’s sure to ask what brings you to Baghdad. Just tell him the truth: You’ve been living in the street for weeks, you don’t have anywhere to go, and your money’s all gone. Then, he’ll either come up with something for you or make up a bunch of crap to fend you off. If you get situated, don’t even think about visiting me at the warehouse. Not anytime soon, in any case. Let a week or two pass. I don’t want Sayed to know where I stay or what I do. I’d appreciate it if you never said my name in his presence. Me, I’m going back to the warehouse. If you don’t come back this evening, I’ll know you’ve been taken on.”

Rather eagerly, he pushed me out of the van, showed me his thumb, and quickly rejoined the vehicles slaloming around pedestrians.

Sayed was making entries in a register. He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves, and beside him, a little fan whirled its noisy blades. When he noticed my indecisive silhouette in the doorway, he pushed his glasses up on his forehead and squinted. We’d never been very close, and it took him a little while to situate me in his memory. My heart started racing. Then his face lit up in a broad smile.

“I don’t believe it,” the Falcon’s son cried, spreading his arms in welcome.

He folded me in a long embrace. Then he asked, “What brings you to Baghdad?”

I told my story almost exactly the way Omar had suggested. Sayed listened to me with interest, but otherwise his face was expressionless. It was hard for me to tell whether my distress touched him or not. When he raised his hand to interrupt me, I thought he was about to kick me out. To my great relief, he put it on my shoulder and declared to me that my cares were his from that moment on; should I care to, he said, I could work in his store and live in a little storeroom on the upper floor.

“I sell television sets here, parabolic antennas, microwave ovens, et cetera. Naturally, everything that comes in and everything that goes out must be recorded. Your job would be to keep those records up-to-date. If memory serves, you attended the university, right?”

“I was a first-year humanities student.”

“Excellent! Bookkeeping’s nothing more than a question of honesty, and you’re an honest boy. For the rest, you’ll learn it as you go along. As you’ll see, it’s not all that difficult. I’m really very happy to welcome you here.”

He led me upstairs to show me my room. It was occupied by a young night watchman, who was relieved to be assigned to other duties, which meant he’d be able to go home after the store closed for the day. I liked the accommodations: There was a camp bed, a TV set, a table, and a wardrobe where I’d be able to keep my things. Sayed advanced me some money so I could go have a bath and buy myself a toilet kit and some clothes. He also invited me to a meal in a real restaurant.

That night, I slept like a stone.

At 8:30 the next morning, I raised the store’s rolling shutter. The first employees—there were three of them—were already waiting on the sidewalk outside. A few minutes later, Sayed joined us and performed the introductions. His workers shook my hand without displaying much enthusiasm. These were young city dwellers, mistrustful and little inclined to conversation. The tallest of them, Rashid, worked in the rear of the store, an area to which he had sole access. His job was to supervise deliveries of incoming merchandise and store it properly. The eldest of the three, Amr, was the deliveryman, and the third, Ismail, an electronics engineer, was in charge of after-sale service and repair.

Sayed’s office served as the reception area. He sat as though enthroned, facing the large shop window, and ceded the rest of the store to product display. Metal shelving ran the length of the walls. Small-or large-screen television sets with Asian brand names, accompanied by satellite dishes and every kind of sophisticated accessory, took up most of the available surface area. There were also electric coffee machines, food processors, grills, and other cooking appliances. Unlike the furniture dealer’s enterprise, Sayed’s store, located on an important commercial avenue, was constantly filled with shoppers, who jostled one another on the display floor all day long. Of course, the majority of them were there just for the sake of gawking; nonetheless, a steady stream of customers carrying purchases exited the store.

I was fine until the afternoon, when I returned to the store after a cheap lunch and Sayed informed me that some “very dear friends” were waiting for me in my room on the upper floor. Sayed led the way. When he opened the door, I saw Yaseen and the twins, Hassan and Hussein, sitting on my camp bed. A shiver went through me. The twins were overjoyed to see me again. They jumped on me and pounded me affectionately, laughing all the while. As for Yaseen, he didn’t get up. He remained seated on the bed, unmoving, his spine erect, like a cobra. He cleared his throat, a signal to the two brothers to cut out the hilarity, and fixed me with the gaze that no one in Kafr Karam dared to withstand.

“It took you a while to wake up,” he said to me.

I failed to grasp what he meant by that.

The twins leaned against the wall and left me in the center of the little room, facing Yaseen. “So how are things?” he asked.