A Brighter Fear (11 page)

He said it again as I reached home, as I handed back the scarf and the glasses, and as I looked around for somewhere to change out of the trousers once he had left. “I don’t know when I can see you again,” he said. “But I’ll try.”

I believed him.

And before he could ride away, before we could be seen, I pulled my sketchbook from my bag and tore out my drawing of the lake. I handed it to him, my name scrawled in the corner, the year, 2004, written next to it. “Keep it,” I said.

He stared at it for a moment. “Thank you,” he whispered at last. Then he rolled it up and hid it inside his jacket. “I’ll look after it.”

And as he said goodbye to me with just a look, but a look that meant so much, my decision was forming in my head. Whether it was that time spent with Steve, that I knew may never happen again, or the argument with Hana before, or the explosions and gunfire that sounded out across the city again. Or the twenty minutes we had that evening with electricity where we watched news of yet another suicide bomb, yet more bloodied children, and yet more crying mothers. Or Aziz returning home late with yet more stories of roadblocks and street closures, trigger-happy soldiers that looked like school children.

I was becoming numb to it.

Life was passing me by in dream.

And that hour I’d spent with Steve had reminded me so much of what I, what we all, were missing. It reminded me of living.

I decided I was leaving.

I would get the money. I would talk to people. I would find out how to get out of the country. I didn’t know where to start, where to head for. Would Syria still let Iraqis in? If not, where else? Iran wasn’t an option, Turkey meant heading north through the mountains, countless checkpoints and no doubt terrorists. Kuwait? Saudi Arabia? How would I find out? Who should I talk to? If I was a refugee would I be allowed to work? To study? What rights would I have? Where would I live? I hoped Steve would find out for me.

A million questions whirred in my head, and while doubt still flowed, and while the guilt of leaving Mama, not finding out about her, lingered, it all led back to the certainty that I must leave. That if I did not, I would eventually be killed, or I would go insane. That I would lose my life one way or another.

Weeks passed and I waited and hoped to see Steve again. The thought of him stayed in my head, although I tried so hard for it not to.
Does he still have my address?
I wondered.
Will he turn up one day? Will he come back to the gas station? Will I see him on patrol?

There were no knocks at the door or rumours or stories about me, for now at least, and for that I was grateful. Still, every day I would go out selling chai, wishing he would be there, trying to stop the hope inside me, trying to tell myself it was futile. I wanted to ask the other soldiers, but daren’t, and so many had changed there seemed little chance that they knew him.

I had been given the smallest glimpse of something that felt like happiness only to feel it being pulled away from me.

I felt lonely.

I was tired of the war, the occupation. I doubted if peace would ever find us, and I doubted still further that Mama would ever return. I could feel the threat of acceptance that she was dead. I was at a loss what to do.

Again, I thought about the money. I thought about leaving the country, beginning afresh somewhere else. But what future would I have? What about when the money ran out? What could I do? And I remembered Papa, how he waited and waited for Mama. Would he want me to do the same?

I felt autumn approaching, the change in the air, the chance of rain and in the distance another Christmas threatened far too quickly. It stuck in my head like a reminder of everything that had passed. It would be the second Christmas without Papa. Sixth without Mama. Two since that trepidation rose in me like fire as war approached. Tanks tearing through our city, soldiers marching through my home; I thought by now we would be at peace, or at least on our way towards it, but if anything it seemed further away. Now there was lawlessness.

I heard of so many people leaving. A family who had come home to a noose hanging from a light fitting, a photo of their daughter taped inside it. What had she done? A woman who found a death threat wrapped around a bullet on her doorstep. A couple whose shop was bombed by insurgents who then threatened to kill them both.

And stories of torture; men and women and children abducted, their fingernails removed, or their teeth or eyelids; holes drilled in their bodies with power tools. How could anyone protect themselves when everyone was someone else’s enemy? Be they Sunni or Shia, Christian or Arab. If you were gay, if you sold alcohol, if you didn’t cover your head, if you danced.

I was living a horror film with no end credits in sight. But this wasn’t a film, or a dream, or a story. This was life. And I couldn’t just press the off button, or wake up, or slam the pages shut.

I had to live it.

But I couldn’t any longer.

Christmas came around again too soon.

Aziz and Hana usually decorated their house with lights, as me and Papa had done ours, outside and in, a plastic tree sparkling in the corner, presents underneath. But this year as with the last there was nothing. How could we? With electricity intermittent and erratic, we daren’t use it on Christmas lights. And we couldn’t risk advertising our religion with a smiling Santa and a swaddled baby Jesus. And midnight mass? I doubt even the vicar would make it there alive.

It was glum. The excitement was lost.

Then, as I stared across the room, the candlelight flickering on the boys’ faces, there was the tiniest knock on the door.

The very air in the room seemed to freeze.

We stopped still in time, waiting, dread and fear seeping in through every gap; under doors, through windows, from behind cupboards and around corners. I looked up, as did we all, and all eyes rested on Aziz. None of us breathed, and it seemed a mist of fear was spreading out across the floor, growing around our ankles, pulling up our legs, holding us motionless and useless, while every sound but the droning of the generators stopped. Aziz’s brow furrowed and he exhaled as if trying to blow his worries away from him.

“Stay where you are,” he whispered as he stood up. But we didn’t need telling.

I knew most houses kept a gun for protection, an AK-47 usually, and often the boys in the house were taught how to use it, how to defend themselves and their families, but I didn’t think Aziz would own one. I couldn’t imagine one in the hands of a man so mild, so peace-loving, so friendly; couldn’t imagine him pointing it at anyone, looking down the sights, shooting.

But what if someone broke in, if troops came searching for someone, something, as they often did, or militia, or burglars even? Our imaginations conjured up images of soldiers, insurgents, faceless, nameless enemies who had finally come for us.

What if someone saw me with Steve?

What if someone had come to punish me?

Then Aziz came back into the room with an AK-47 in his hands and I felt my mouth fall open with shock. The eldest boy followed him, passing him a loaded magazine, and across the silence I heard grinding, the sickening noise as he prepared the gun. The whole scene in front of me was so wrong. What had this war turned my family into?

And it hit me, what was happening to our country and our lives, that Aziz
could
kill someone,
could
squeeze that trigger and send that bullet out, and actually cause someone’s death. Because I knew he would, if he needed to. For his family, for himself.

Had we all turned into killers?

The knock sounded again, and with a brief look back, with fear so visible in his eyes, his family’s safety seeming to drag and pull at him, slowing him down, I watched him walk towards the door.

I thought back to the bombing, back to the day Papa died, the knock on the door, that terrible, terrible feeling inside, knowing I couldn’t escape whatever looked for me.

And we waited. For what seemed an eternity. For shouts or screams, gunfire or explosions.

My eyes closed, my ears craned through the silence. What was that I could hear? Aziz’s voice. And another. Female. Quiet. Soft. I felt my body relax, felt my face smooth and my eyes open, and there in front of me was Layla.

“You gave us a fright,” said Aziz, strolling away, the gun uncomfortable in his hands.

And although I felt relief fill me, it brought with it fear and dread that something had happened to her family. Why else would she be here? But I looked into her eyes, and I could see the love of my friend smiling back at me.

We sat together in my room and as she tried to explain and apologise, and as I tried to understand, the awkwardness that had been between us for nearly two years lifted.

For half an hour we laughed and chatted like schoolgirls, and I felt the worry and anxiety lift from me with each smile and each giggle. We touched on nothing serious, not a word of war or politics, or the lack of food and water and electricity. I didn’t mention how much I missed uni, even with the haphazard classes, and the worrying journey there, and the phone calls made to loved ones on your arrival every day.

And we didn’t mention Papa.

After that half an hour, she stood to leave and pulled something from her pocket.

“Merry Christmas,” she said, and I felt pinpricks on my skin, and my eyes well with tears. She placed a small package in my hands, wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper.

Gently I pulled at the newspaper that would normally bring nothing but gloom, and stared down at the postcard in a tattered wooden frame in my hand. It was beautiful.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, marvelling at the gift.

She was beaming now. “I was lucky,” she replied.

I traced my finger along the postcard of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. She knew this was one of my favourite buildings, a place I’d love to go, but knew I never would, or could. I was mesmerised by it. I remembered Papa’s story of it – his visit there with Mama. And I marvelled over how special something so far away could feel, how it could hold so many feelings for me, so many memories, of Papa, of Mama, their time in London, their love for each other, and that special time I had with Papa as he shared his memories with me.

I love Iraqi architecture too: the turquoise of the Martyrs Monument, the strangeness of its fat teardrop shape; the ancient walls of Babylon, crumbling away in places but still the raised outline of the God of Marduk visible in the stonework; the beauty and colour of the Ramadan Mosque, the minute tiles, blues and greens and purples, reflecting the sunlight, its elaborateness contrasting the dark abayas, the dishdashas of those entering it.

Those buildings are why I wanted to be an architect.

I had seen so much destroyed in my city, to be part of it being built back up again would be a dream. And although some days I felt desperate to leave Iraq so I could study and learn, travel and see new things – visit Paris, climb the Eiffel Tower; see the Spanish Steps in Rome; Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona; the Acropolis in Athens; Red Square in Moscow – that had been replaced by an urgent need to leave Iraq purely to survive.

I looked up to Layla, stunned by the thoughtfulness of this gift, yet its simplicity. It was the kind of gift it is only possible to receive from a friend who truly knows and loves you. I moved forward and hugged her, and we held each other tight for so long that all those months of not speaking, of avoiding each other, melted away.

“I wish I’d got you something,” I muttered into her hair.

I felt her shake her head. She moved away and looked at me. “Christmas isn’t for me,” she replied. She sighed and turned away. “I have to go,” she said. “My family are visiting someone close by, I promised I wouldn’t be long.” And as I walked back through the house with her, as we reached the door, we paused.

“I miss being your friend,” she said.

I watched the tears slipping down her face, took her hand and kissed it. “We’ll always be friends,” I replied, and I hoped it was true.

And I watched from the door as Aziz escorted her back to her family, to the friends they were visiting. As they moved further away, they became silhouettes, the sun setting in front of them and I only knew who the shapes were because my eyes had followed them.

The day was drawing in. The sky was darkening, edged with deep red and oranges and purple hues. I wished I could lose myself in it.

Because above me it was peaceful.

Above me it was beautiful.

And I wished I could fly up there. If only for a few minutes.

As I sat back down in my room, the postcard next to me on the bed, I felt guilt claw at me.
I should feel happy,
I thought.
My friend, my best friend, has visited me, has been so thoughtful as to bring me a wonderful gift.

But I didn’t. Instead I felt all I had lost. Felt it heavy on my shoulders. And I felt angry. I wanted to be back in my house, with my papa, with Layla across the road from me, with university to go to, with friends to visit, places to go to in safety. With a life to live.

As we tried to celebrate Christmas, I realised how few Christians were left in the city. I mentioned it to Aziz and his response was brief: “We are rats leaving a sinking ship.”

I did not wish to be the only rat left.