The Tobacco Keeper (31 page)

Then Amjad got up, took a book from his library and read aloud a text by the Assyrian King Sennacherib: ‘I slaughtered them like sheep and cut their throats with a single strike… And on the battlefield, the entrails and heads of soldiers were covered with dust and the flanks of my horses sank deep in streams of blood.’

Amjad trembled as he read the passage. A patriotic tremor shook his whole being. The passage filled him with ecstasy at the scenes of killing, destruction and devastation produced by war. It was his joy to achieve overwhelming victory over the enemy.

On that day, Kamal felt that cruel, sadistic minds were turning Baghdad into a Spartan society, a city built on the ethics of warfare. The citizen was basically a soldier. He was violent, pompous, impulsive and coarse. Military uniforms were the object of pride, something to boast about among young people, and military jargon was widespread among people. Cruelty became the hallmark of that militarized, Spartan society. Military
uniform was the wedding suit for officers and soldiers getting married. Kamal frequently saw a soldier in battle gear standing beside his bride in her white wedding dress, while the music played in the background.

The execution of deserters from the front also became a familiar sight.

Simple peasant soldiers, who were barely twenty, were driven violently in front of the assembled crowds and placed on top of tall, white columns in public squares. In a short while, other soldiers arrived wearing black masks. They aimed their rifles at them and shot at their heads and chests in an orderly fashion. It was a sacred ceremony of slaughter, where bright red blood streamed from chests and cheeks in full view of the roaring crowds.

All these displays concealed the bitter anger everywhere and the hidden cruelty that came to the surface from time to time. Kamal felt that the population was clearly suffering from schizophrenia, a split between the false claims of grandeur, superiority and uniqueness, on the one hand, and the dismal realities produced by a despotic regime that crushed, marginalized and humiliated every single individual, on the other. He felt that he was living in a rebellious, introverted nation, one that was characterized by fanaticism and other negative qualities, which it had acquired in such abnormal conditions.

At the end of 1983, Maestro Walid Gholmieh would lead the National Symphony Orchestra in playing his Martyr Symphony. Among the musicians were Kamal, Amjad and Widad. More than anyone else, Kamal was aware of the noble and pure spirit of the martyr within him. But for him, this martyr was every martyr to war everywhere. Once, at the end of a practice session, the three of them, Kamal, Widad and Amjad, went to a restaurant near
Al-Maghreb Street. As soon as they settled at a table, Amjad Mustafa began his talk about martyrdom, pointing out that the Iraqi dead were martyrs while the Iranian dead were no more than harmful insects. Amjad’s talk reminded Kamal Medhat of his time in Iran, when the Iranians believed that the Iraqi dead would go straight to hell, while Iranians would be rewarded with heaven. Amjad Mustafa, however, added a philosophical twist by pointing out that the Iraqi martyr had achieved harmony between life and death. Kamal Medhat felt then that discussions with Amjad were utterly fruitless. So he stopped talking and contented himself with drinking his beer. From time to time, he joked and laughed with Widad. Amjad, in contrast, became very tense as he elaborated on his views. Banging the table with his hand, he told them that the Iraqi martyr had became one with the tragedy of Iraq itself, for the country was in an isolation imposed on it by Arabs. So the Iraqi martyr was a kind of tragic hero whose sacrifice was an expression of the national character.

Kamal Medhat wasn’t capable of making fun of these ideas because he was scared. But he realized clearly that the nationalist ideology in Baghdad gave the oppressed people a sense of false grandeur and led them to believe that Iraq stood alone and isolated. Of all its neighbours, it was the only country without a coast. It was also the least dependent on commerce, travel and collaboration. Martyrdom therefore was a necessity. The symphony composed by Walid Gholmieh would, therefore, be played by the Iraqi orchestra and broadcast everywhere on the last day of December. Cars and people would stop in their tracks and car horns would blow continuously. Church bells would ring and mosques would praise God as the Martyr Symphony was played.

Were Iraqis the only martyrs? This was undoubtedly a revolting
question for Kamal. After all, what was the difference between being martyred and being killed? But it was Amjad Mustafa’s opinions that forced the question on him. Amjad used specific epithets in his description of Iranian soldiers: they were mercenaries and harmful insects that deserved to die. The discourse was no different from that of the Iranians, who described the Iraqi dead as apostates. On both sides, there were sadistic, political speeches that concentrated on crushed bodies, broken necks and severed heads. In both Iraq and Iran there was a kind of pathological morbidity that revelled in people’s destruction. Kamal realized that discussions and debates about these matters were utterly futile.

There was another factor in all this: Widad was more attracted to Kamal Medhat’s views than she was to her husband’s. She pushed Kamal Medhat into a brand new area, for she not only introduced him to the National Symphony Orchestra in Baghdad, where he soon became the lead soloist, but she also introduced him to the political elite. Using her wide connections and her wealthy family’s contacts in high places, she put him in touch with influential politicians, who encouraged a limited kind of social and cultural modernity in literature and art. They used modernity as a double-edged sword: on the one hand to mobilize people, and on the other as a movement to counter the medieval political power in Iran.

Widad greatly admired Kamal Medhat. A great intellectual and a peerless musician, this affectionate man in his fifties was a mass of feelings and sensations. Soft-spoken, handsome and impressively tall, with delicate features and attractive, dandyish gestures, he may have inspired more than admiration. She took special care of him and was particularly interested in his welfare. For his part,
he was aware of her feelings and had no wish to stop her. This became known to everyone, even his wife, Nadia al-Amiry, who became suspicious when she saw Widad’s excessive concern. But who was it that introduced Kamal Medhat to Saddam Hussein at that time? All the evidence suggests that he was invited to the presidential palace through Widad Ahmed’s highly connected brothers. It was also through Widad’s good offices that he performed several times in front of Saddam Hussein.

Groups of intellectuals were transported in large coaches to the great presidential palace, which wasn’t easy to reach. With their tinted glass windows, the coaches passed through thick wooded gardens and stopped in front of a towering palace. There were flowerbeds, small artificial ponds, swimming pools and bright green grass. At the various entrances there were armoured vehicles and tanks. In the watchtower were special guards dressed in their uniforms and helmets, holding machine guns. At the entrance to the grand hall there were the latest models of cars, with guards armed to the teeth.

They entered the palace and waited for a very long time until the president appeared. Once he’d arrived, Saddam was received with cheers. He was in his khaki military uniform made of high-quality broadcloth and wore no beret. He advanced cautiously, smiling and waving with his right hand to the people standing around. The artists clapped rhythmically and chanted slogans. The waiters in white jackets served glasses of juice from large trays. Saddam gave a long speech on art and its political function. Kamal Medhat, who wasn’t listening to the speech, was awoken from his reveries by the sound of the clapping. At last, everybody stood up and the president shook the hands of each and every guest. Kamal
Medhat saw the president at close quarters when he approached, accompanied by his secretary, Abd Hamoud, who noted down everything that happened in a little notebook.

It was the first time that Kamal had seen Saddam in person, after having seen his photographs everywhere on the streets. He felt that Saddam exercised his power through those photographs, which deputized in his absence. The photographs filled the spaces and absences with images of Saddam smoking, eating watermelon, mending his daughter’s dress, hunting gazelles or eating grilled meat. He was photographed parading in a military uniform, wearing an American cowboy outfit or dressed as an Arab and riding a horse. Now here was Saddam standing in front of him, placing his hand on Kamal Medhat’s shoulder and bursting out laughing, revealing his white teeth and gold crowns. He ordered his secretary to arrange a special meeting with him.

After the reception, Kamal was called by a man with marked peasant features and a thick Bedouin dialect. The man’s hair fell onto his forehead and his moustache covered his mouth. His head was twice the size of a normal head and he had the profile of a bird of prey. His large, dark eyes looked like two smudges beneath his eyelashes. He spoke slowly, but his hard, stern gaze provoked fear even when he smiled.

The man was sitting in a strange-looking office. Near the door were large rolled-up maps and in the corner stood a stuffed fox, all covered with dust. The place looked more like a shop than an office, for the shelves reached the ceiling and were filled with mysterious boxes. There were also boxes containing foreign books and three cupboards that were filled with archives, records and files. On the wall were paintings by well-known Iraqi artists such as Jawad Selim, Faïq Hassan and Atta Sabri. There were also
original statues and cheap copies as well as an elephant’s tusk and African masks.

‘The president wishes to throw a private party. Give me your phone number and we’ll contact you.’ This was what he’d told him, in a tone between an order and a request. Within a month, Kamal Medhat was playing in front of the president.

Kamal wore his black tuxedo with tails. He stood tall and thin; his face was dark and his eyes sparkled as he held his bow and violin in the spotlight. After a moment of silence, he began, creating out of the melodies a constellation of stars in the air. To his right was Widad holding the tip of her cello. She sat in her chair with the instrument stretched beside her body, like an eternal beloved. Kamal Medhat’s gaze was fixed on the tip of the conductor’s baton and on his eyes. With Kamal Medhat were forty musicians, playing the Opium Concerto. The president sat at the front, surrounded by a cluster of guards.

When the music stopped, Kamal Medhat was jolted back to consciousness by the applause of the president and the sideways smile that appeared from beneath his moustache. He heard the clapping of the ministers ranged in a row and saw the stern looks of the guards. The conductor bowed his head, then stood erect and pointed to the soloist, Kamal Medhat. A beautiful, tall blonde girl carrying a bouquet of flowers advanced and offered it to the conductor. He took the bouquet with a smile and offered it to Kamal Medhat, who moved it to one side and bowed again. He wondered if these politicians and guards appreciated the music and felt its strong rhythm. Did they know that they’d once confiscated and torn up this piece of music? Did they understand its meaning or its dimensions? What was this performance? And what lay behind the thick silence of existence? Chaos?
Nothingness? Or the sap of life, free energy released to engulf everything?

What were these presidential rituals? Did they symbolise something else? Such were Kamal’s thought on that day. He wondered where they came from. From religion, for example? Did they symbolize anything else? Did they hide other things? He often reflected on his doubts and uncertainties, for he didn’t know the truth. He wondered whether presidential ceremonies were as absorbing as music was to him. Years later, he wrote to Farida saying: ‘Throughout my life I’ve never been immersed in anything except music. There has always been an ego that watched me and made fun of everything I did. Don’t those great politicians possess a similar ego that watches them and makes fun of their acting and role-playing?’

Kamal realized that the truth was never granted as a gift. Every time he was required to take a single step towards the point of no return, he hesitated and was afflicted by vertigo and a horrifying sense of disappointment. During this period, rumours circulated of a love affair between him and Widad, Amjad’s wife. But what was the truth of this rumour? Widad was a woman of only average beauty, but she was extremely gentle and delicate. Her dark eyes were full of reflections and insatiable hunger. They were lustful and frank. Her lips were savage and highly sensitive, while her looks were sparkling, contemplative and intense. Her unruly hair flew wildly in the air. Men admired her delicate complexion and her fair-skinned forehead. But why would she fancy Kamal, who was so much older than her?

Widad, in fact, saw in Kamal’s personality a kind of madness, a crazy rebellion. He had an aura of savagery that she adored. She
saw in him a man without inhibitions, a man with a sensitive, elevated soul. He was like a refined animal. But an animal with an ailment, albeit an intangible, obscure ailment. Widad wanted him at any price. She wanted to possess him even though she knew he was not available, for he never gave himself to anyone but himself. She watched his every move, his every gesture. She tried with all her might to claim him. She might desire him but she could never lay hold of him. His phantom haunted her everywhere: in the glass that she drank from, in the music that she played, in the fragments of broken marble and in the wood that fed the fire. When he played one of Bach’s famous pieces in the hall, she felt totally numb. His music was harmonious and highly polished. His performance of the long first movement of Bach’s opus was superb. He crowned the performance with a cadenza that was brilliant and exceptionally fluid, like a spring gushing out of the dryness of desert dunes. Kamal Medhat added lustre and richness to the arid desert. He burnt his fingers with a flame that glowed from the ashes of ovens.

Only with music could he grasp the balance of nature and return to the moment of creation.