The Tobacco Keeper (2 page)

21 October 1946
: The ninth government of Nuri al-Said was formed. That year also coincided with the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthoum’s arrival in Baghdad in May, where she’d stayed at the Tigris Palace Hotel. She gave a few performances on the occasion of King Faisal II’s birthday. That same year saw the opening of Studio Baghdad, which marked the effective beginning of the history of Iraqi cinema.

1948
: The Portsmouth Treaty was signed between Iraqi Prime Minister Salih Jabr and British Foreign Secretary Bevin. Students declared a general strike and peaceful demonstrations for three days. They shouted slogans calling for the dissolution of parliament and the Cabinet. In response, the Deputy Prime Minister issued a statement that infuriated the demonstrators, and then ordered the police to open fire on them. Many students were killed and injured on the bridge. The following day, during the delivery of the bodies, police vehicles stormed the Royal Hospital Building at Bab al-Muazzam, opening fire and killing more students from the Faculty of Pharmacy.

The 1948 war began and the State of Israel was declared, the Arab
nakba
.

In that same year, Yousef Sami Saleh was awarded the King Faisal Prize for the violin. He embarked on a series of concerts at the English Club, attended by the most distinguished families of Baghdad. His fingers had mastered the violin, especially Bach’s solo Sonata. In that same year, he married Farida Reuben.

1949
: The founding members of the Iraqi Communist Party, Yousef Salman (Fahd), Hussein Mohammad al-Shebibi (Hazem) and Zaki Baseem (Sarim) were publicly executed in the streets of Baghdad. At the end of that year, Meir, Yousef Sami Saleh’s only son by Farida Reuben, was born.

21 March 1950
: The Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah arrived in Baghdad on his way to Europe.

Al-Rowwad, a grouping of a few plastic artists, was established in Baghdad. A law was passed depriving Jews of their Iraqi nationality. Yousef Sami Saleh left for Israel during Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, which allowed large numbers of Jewish families to emigrate. Their property and assets were confiscated.

1952
: Yousef Sami Saleh moved to Kibbutz Kfar in Tel Aviv.

1953
: He travelled to Moscow to attend a concert and to visit the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. There he met the well-known violinist Sergei Oistrakh, who helped him escape to Iran during the reign of Shah Reza Pahlavi. On the way, he stopped off in Prague where he met the famous violinist Karl Baruch and began a friendship that lasted until the latter’s death. That same year, he began a new life in Tehran under the name of Haidar Salman and was embraced by the wealthy Iraqi family of Ismail
al-Tabtabaei, whose daughter Tahira he married. He gave a series of concerts at the Tehran Opera House and became acquainted with the most renowned Iranian musicians.

1955
: The inaugural meeting of the Baghdad Pact countries was held on 21–22 November in Baghdad. It comprised Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. On 25 November, Israeli newspapers reported Yousef Sami Saleh’s death, based on a notice published by his former wife, Farida Reuben.

1956
: The Tripartite Aggression was launched against Egypt following the nationalization of the Suez Canal. Vocal demonstrations took place in Baghdad and in most Arab capitals.

3 September 1957
: Haidar Salman gave a solo performance of Henri Vieuxtemps’ Op. 4 in D Minor, which he played before the aristocrats of Iran with absolute genius and exquisite musicianship.

14 July 1958
: A military coup d’état, led by Abdel Karim Qasim, was declared in Baghdad. The monarchy was overthrown and a republic proclaimed. Qasim became both Prime Minister and Defence Minister. The Rihab Palace witnessed the massacre of the whole royal family, including women and children.

Yousef Sami Saleh entered Iraq under the name of Haidar Salman, who had been born in Baghdad in 1924, who had studied music in Moscow and Tehran and whose family was made up of merchants from Al-Isterbadi market in Al-Kazemeya.

In the same year his son Hussein was born.

1959
: Haidar Salman became acquainted with the great
sculptor Jawad Salim and joined the cultural milieu, particularly the Baghdad Modern Art Society. During that same year, he gave several concerts in which he charmingly and masterfully performed Paganini and Bach.

During that period, rumours circulated that he was having an affair with the well-known painter Nahida al-Said.

1960
: He started composing and departed for Moscow where he spent a year studying the arts of conducting and composition at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

5 August 1961
: He won an award bestowed by Elizabeth, the former Queen of Belgium, which he received at an event held by the queen to honour the winners.

8 February 1963
: A coup d’état initiated by the Baath and nationalist leadership overthrew the regime of Abdel Karim Qasim. Fierce popular resistance led by the communists continued for several days. Abdel Salam Arif became President of the Republic, while Abdel Karim Qasim, together with Fadhel Abbas al-Mehdawi and Taha al-Sheikh Ahmed, were executed. There followed mass killings of communists, including the leader of the Communist Party, Salam Adel, who died under torture.

At the end of February, Haidar Salman was smuggled into Tehran and from there to Moscow, where his wife Tahira was waiting for him. The painter Nahida al-Said was executed by hanging.

25 August 1964
: Haidar Salman began teaching violin at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he became acquainted with leading Russian musicians. Rumours
circulated concerning an affair with the Russian pianist Ada Brunstein.

1965
: He took part in the Jacques Thibaud competition in Paris.

1966
: He participated in the Leventritt Competition held at the Carnegie Hall in New York.

5 June 1967
: Start of the Six Day War, which resulted in the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, the Golan Heights in Syria and the Palestinian West Bank. Haidar Salman stopped performing with the New York Symphony Orchestra in protest against this aggression and returned to Iraq, thereby ending his affair with Ada Brunstein.

17 July 1968
: A Baathist coup d’état in Baghdad installed Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as President of the Republic and Saddam Hussein as his Deputy. The ousted President, Abdel Rahman Arif, was exiled to Turkey.

In May 1968 the communists declared an armed struggle and led the revolution of the marshlands in southern Iraq. The uprising failed, however, and the Head of the Central Leadership of the Iraqi Communist Party, Aziz al-Hajj, was detained. He gave a detailed confession that led to the arrest of all members of the Politburo. During that same year, the Baath Party executed large numbers of politicians on charges of conspiracy. A group of merchants was publicly executed in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square on charges of espionage, amid the shouting and clamouring of the crowd.

1 February 1974
: Haidar Salman’s son Meir emigrated from Israel to the United States. He became a naturalized American citizen and joined the Marines.

1979
: The year of the Iranian Revolution. On 1 February, Khomeini returned to Qom while the Shah left Iran for good. During that same year, Saddam Hussein led a secret coup and seized the reins of power after Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr had relinquished all his posts. This was followed by a Baathist massacre of all leaders that had no allegiance to Saddam Hussein.

4 September 1980
: The Iran–Iraq war began. Iraqi citizenship was withdrawn from all citizens with Iranian affiliations, who were deported to Iran after having their property confiscated, while many young men were killed. Haidar Salman was deported with his wife Tahira after his assets, his house and his property had all been confiscated. The Iraqi authorities deposited him and his wife by truck close to the Iranian border. His wife Tahira, who was in poor health, died at the border, while his son Hussein was detained in jail in Baghdad as part of the operation to detain all Iraqi young men of Iranian origin. Some of these men were killed while others were deported to Iran.

1981
: Haidar Salman was witness to the repercussions of the Iranian Revolution especially the conflict between the liberals and the radicals. Rumours circulated that he had an affair with Pari, the daughter of his host in Tehran, Mohammad Taqi. On 3 November, Haidar Salman travelled to Damascus on a forged passport in the name of Kamal Medhat. The name belonged to an Iraqi merchant who had died in a car crash in Tehran and who was the second husband of a wealthy Iraqi woman living in Damascus, called Nadia al-Amiry. Her
first husband, who was Syrian, had been killed during the civil war between the Baathists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

1982
: He entered Baghdad under the identity of Kamal Medhat Mustafa, born in 1933 in Mosul to a merchant family that traded between Mosul and Aleppo.

5 March 1983
: His wife Nadia al-Amiry gave birth to their son, Omar. In that same year, Kamal Medhat joined the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, which turned him into a star. He became particularly famous after playing ‘The Martyr’ symphony with Walid Gholmieh. He developed into a well-known and well-liked artistic figure in political circles, particularly to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Gossip had it that he had an affair with a cellist in the National Symphony Orchestra, Widad Ahmed, who was responsible for strengthening his ties with the regime at that time. He was also rumoured to have had an affair with a woman with a reputation, a failed pianist called Janet.

26 November 1986
: Kamal Medhat played a fantasia, including a beautifully performed cadenza, at the presidential palace in front of Saddam Hussein and a number of political figures.

8 August 1988
: The Iran–Iraq war ended. A year after this, his son Omar went to live with his maternal aunt in Egypt.

2 August 1990
: The Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and declared the establishment of a transitional government. On the eighth of the same month, Iraq issued a decree annexing Kuwait as its nineteenth province.

17 January 1991
: The second Gulf War began. The US-led coalition forces began to expel the Iraqi military from Kuwait. On 24 January, the land campaign began.

On 26 February, Saddam Hussein accepted UN Resolution 660 and withdrew from the city of Kuwait, which coalition forces then entered.

Nadia al-Amiry, who had been ill, died. There was talk of an affair between Kamal Medhat and a rural servant girl called Fawzeya.

1991–2003:
Kamal Medhat lived in Baghdad under the embargo imposed on the country. He witnessed poverty, disease, war and the decline of the arts. Although he withdrew completely from public life, he continued to compose.

20 March 2003
: The US launched the third Gulf War to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. On 9 April, US forces entered Baghdad. In a dramatic scene, the statue of Saddam was toppled. Kamal Medhat’s son Meir, now a major-general, arrived in Baghdad with the allied forces.

2004
: His son Hussein returned to Baghdad from Tehran, along with Shia political forces and joined the political system. His son Omar also returned to Baghdad from Cairo in opposition to the US occupation and to the whole political process in Iraq.

5 March 2006
: Kamal Medhat was kidnapped by an armed group in mysterious circumstances. On 3 April, his body was found near the Jumhuriya Bridge in Baghdad.

This is the brief biography that I prepared before leaving for Baghdad to write his story. I prepared it for one character, although
I could have created it for three. A complete report on his life was published under the name of John Barr, the well-known journalist at
US Today News
, which I had ghost-written. With the escalation of the conflict from 2004 onwards, it became impossible for foreign reporters to get into Baghdad. Newspapers, news agencies and TV and radio stations therefore decided to remove their crews to nearby Arab capitals, such as Amman, Damascus and Beirut. There, an Iraqi reporter would be commissioned to prepare reports that would not be published under his own name but under the name of one of the well-known reporters at the newspaper, news agency or TV station. This was intended to give readers the impression that the agency had a presence in Baghdad despite the dangers and hazards. The ghost writer, who undertook the whole assignment, simply got the money.

At this point we return once more to the game of assumed names and blurred identities. The person who changes his name is that of the tobacconist as he appears in Pessoa’s poem. As for the ghost writer, his existence becomes dependent on that of another. There is, therefore, a basic difference between the ghost writer and the tobacconist, for while the latter assumes three or more personalities, the former lends his identity to another, in all likelihood a Westerner. Here we find what may be termed colonial textuality, which is a kind of absorption or extraction based on the total erasure of another being’s existence and the creation of a vacuum. In order to explain how I constructed my report, I would like first to explain how I came to work as a ghost writer for those agencies.

In the early nineties, right after the ceasefire that ended the second Gulf War, I was demobbed from the army. I spent the whole summer unemployed, living with my family in our old house in Al-Karradah. I translated various poems from English and French that were never published. During that time I also tried and failed to write a long novel about my experience as a soldier and the dangers I’d faced during the war. In spite of the many drafts and manuscripts that I produced, they all seemed so worthless that I couldn’t find it in myself to continue.

During that period, the orange trees in our garden were in bloom and the olive trees were laden with fruit. From time to time, I went to the Al-Hindiya Club where I swam in the clear water beneath the trellised roof. The blue water under the bright summer sun of Baghdad took my breath away. In those months following the war I didn’t leave Baghdad at all. To make up for this, I used to visit a very rich friend of mine who was in the habit of throwing wild parties in his little house, with dozens of young women and men, and plenty of foreigners, all partying till the morning. I would go home at dawn, tottering drunkenly
through the narrow alleys, and climb my stairs high on fun and summer.