A Brighter Fear (17 page)

The following days seeped into weeks and it turned into February again. Although every time I looked at Aziz I was reminded of how lucky we were to have him back, when I looked closer I realised, as we all did, that he was not the same man as the one who was taken. His eyesight had gone, his personality had changed. Nerves, worry and fear had replaced his sense of humour, his booming laugh and his wide smile.

I missed the man he had been. We all did.

Silence from him had become normality. He refused to speak of what had happened and we tiptoed around him, and each other, scared of saying or doing the wrong thing, all of us lost in our own worlds of frustration, hoping that time would ease him from his shell, dim the memories and help him become Aziz again.

I thought about the money, thought about how it could’ve changed things, where I could be, what I could be doing, and although I knew I had made the right decision, I was angry. Angry at everything and everyone. My thoughts spun in the same decreasing circles every day. Mama, Papa, Steve, Aziz too, I missed them all. My home, my family, my friends, and my education. My life. Everyone’s life here. Broken and bleeding.

A promise of freedom and democracy, lost in war.

The beginning of spring came. Two years since the war had begun, two months since our first election, my first vote, yet things were no better. Casualties and deaths increased. Lawlessness. I was scared. We all were. Again, fear was our constant. More American troops poured in and I would look at their faces in hope, their names across their chests, praying to see again the man who had offered me hope, the man whom I missed so much.

It was a Saturday afternoon when I found the photo. I was trying to fit yet more of the boys’ drawings in the cupboard, when I noticed it wedged down the side. I pulled it out and felt a smile creep on to my face. There we were, all of us, captured. A birthday, maybe, or Christmas, a paper hat balanced on Papa’s head, me laughing at him. Hana and Mama sitting together on the floor – one of the boys, a toddler, grabbed for the camera, the other, a baby in Hana’s arms. Aziz stood at the back, his arms outstretched, his customary smile across his face.

I loved them all.

“Christmas 1998,” Hana said from behind me. “The last Christmas with your Mama.”

“I would’ve been twelve,” I replied. “I don’t remember it.”

She peered at the photo from over my shoulder. “That’s a shame.” She paused and looked at me and I saw the sadness in her eyes. She pulled open the cupboard door and lifted out some photo albums. “Come on,” she said.

And we sat together at the table, poring over photos of aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins, photos of Hana and Mama’s sisters and brother, photos of their friends from childhood, of their husbands as they met them. I could see how they’d changed, how my home had changed, how Baghdad had changed. And I wondered what was left to come for us all.

We paused on one of Mama. “That must’ve been before I was born,” I said. “She’s not wearing her necklace.”

Hana nodded.

“Papa told me the story,” I replied.

We fell into an awkward silence, then Hana turned to me. “Lina, it’s going to be very difficult, finding the money to live and to eat. Aziz can’t work. I have no savings any more.”

“I know, Auntie Hana,” I replied. “I’ll do what I can, I’ll work and bring some money in.”

She nodded. “We’ll need you to. But perhaps, when you’re not working, if you’ve got the time, you might like to think about going back to your studies.”

I froze, staring at her. Was this really the woman I had hated so much? Who forbade me to go to university? Who believed education would only bring trouble?

“I couldn’t bear to lose you,” she whispered, “but I know there is no sense here any more. I know you could be killed going out to get bread, coming home from work, here in this house, in your own bed.” She took a deep breath. “Aziz tried to talk me into letting you go,” she said. “And I think that’s what they would’ve wanted, your Mama and Papa.”

I threw my arms around her and cried. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I pulled away from her. “And Mama will thank you too when she comes home, I’m sure.”

She rested her hand on mine and stared at me. “Lina, I really don’t think…”

And I knew what she was going to say, but I didn’t want to hear it, not at that moment. While I didn’t know, while we didn’t say it, I could still hope.

“I think I’d like to go down to the house,” I said. “The old house, if that’s all right. Pick up some things. Maybe get the photos from there before they’re ruined.”

Her frown meant no, but I didn’t wait for her reply.

Whatever happened to Sacha? The final part.

The necklace burned in his pocket as he drove into Baghdad and across the city, the piece of paper resting on the passenger seat, though he knew it by heart, knew which direction to go, which streets to take. Knew their names, Lina and Joe, the words that had echoed in his head for years.

Over and over he played out the conversation in his head. How he would tell them, the words he would choose, and he knew that he must tell them the truth, exactly how it happened. He owed them that much. He owed that much to himself.

He had seen pictures of Baghdad on the television, watched news reports, seen the explosions, the carnage, seen it to a lesser degree in his own nearby town, but still he felt the shock hit him as he drove down the battered streets, saw the dejection on people’s faces, the houses falling down, piles of rubble that were homes, rubbish piled at corners. He wound down the window and the heat seared through his air-conditioned car.

He heard the growl of the generators, the roar of a tank coming up behind him, heard the quick shots of a machine gun some distance away, but he ducked his head and still his fingers clenched on to the steering wheel.

Nothing, no pictures, no videos, no news reports, no stories, could’ve prepared him.

He drove across the city, past troops and guards, sweat covering him as with each checkpoint he feared being searched, the necklace being found, taken off him for whatever reason they decided.

“What are you doing in Baghdad?” they might ask. “What is your business here?” But what could be his reply? A made-up story of visiting some friend, some relative? He knew no one in Baghdad. His mind pictured the necklace in his pocket, pictured handing it back, and he kept going, driving, hoping to reach the house.

He turned into the street, following the car in front of him. His stomach flipped, nerves attacked him, his hands shook. He glanced across to the piece of paper, checking he had the right place, but he knew already that he had. His attention drifted from the road and he braked quickly as he looked up, too close to the car in front.

But his thoughts and worries stayed with the necklace, with the family; they had since he’d left his house that morning and throughout his whole journey. What if they wouldn’t speak to him? What if they didn’t live there any more?

What if they were dead?

His eyes searched along the houses. Looking for the right one. Still following the car in front.

Then he saw it, his eyes rested on it.

He sighed.

But in front of him and around him, with no warning, everything flashed white.

Again I was out walking alone and again I questioned why, as I walked down the dusty streets, with the broken-down cars, the blown-out shop fronts, the dark marks on the paths where someone had been hurt, and the buildings falling down, why I was still alive.

I was covered at least, I thought, and as always, it seemed all females I saw were. I walked the usual way back home, down the usual streets, with the faces of some shopkeepers I still recognised. For so long I had lived with what-ifs and if-onlys; what if Mama hadn’t gone missing, what if Papa hadn’t got that job, what if I hadn’t given that money for Aziz’s ransom; if only I could be with my soldier again, if only I could’ve left the country, if only we could find peace. But now at least, I could see a sliver of hope; the prospect of university, of changing my life, of a different future.

I thought of the future I wanted. To see Layla and her family, for Aziz to recover, Hana and the boys to be happy, visit friends from school and uni, talk to my teachers. To study, to learn, to aspire.

To walk along the banks of the Tigris with the sun on my back, to watch its rays dancing on the surface of the water. To see the monuments and the mosques and the churches in peace time. To see Tahrir Square free from soldiers. Karada Street with no more tanks. The skies no longer filled with the moaning of generators, instead flowing with sounds of the muezzin reciting the call to prayer, cars and trucks busying along the roads, making their way to work.

I wanted to hear birdsong not bombs, laughter not gunfire.

See smiles not fear.

Simple things, because everything else was beyond dreams, beyond imagination. Everything else rested beyond hope.

I closed my eyes and thought of a dream I had. In my dream I see Papa and me, walking down the street. I’m dressed in trousers and a shirt, nothing covering my hair. We stop at a bookshop and peer through the window. Papa spots some history book and begins telling me about it. He tells me stories of Nebuchadnezzar as we stroll along. We stop for a drink. We sit outside and watch people going about their business.

We chat, we drink, we smile.

We see someone we know and they smile and throw us a wave. We talk about the trials of Iraq, its history, its architecture, its kings and rulers.

And their demise.

In my dream there are no troops, no soldiers, no planes overhead, no tanks, no guns. No regime.

We chat, we drink, we smile. We walk home.

In my dream.

But I know that will never happen. No matter how much I dream it. No matter how much I wish it.

And I know I will never again see Steve, that we had no way forward, but what we did have, what we shared for that short time, helped me through the worst of times. And for that I will always be grateful. For that I will always remember him.

I turned the corner into my street with my head down, watching my feet, trying not to trip. I thought about going to see Layla.

I looked up. In front of me the landscape was different. My head started to spin; I was confused, I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. Still my feet kept moving me forwards.

There was space. Space that shouldn’t be there. I looked for my house, my home; the painted walls, the bougainvillea in the garden that Papa had planted, the blinds at the window, the rotting wooden gateposts, I could see them all in my head, in my memory.

I closed my eyes and opened them again, but still the scene was the same.

A car burning, flames leaping and roaring into the sky. Next to it, was that my house, my home? As my eyes tried to make sense of what they could see, I made out one gatepost sticking up in the air, marking the spot; the rest a ruin, a bomb-site. And I ran, pulled up my skirt and ran, to this pile of broken walls, a cemetery of rubble headstones marking my belongings below, a reminder of the lives that had gone on there. Our lives.

I pulled off my niqab, sat on the rubble and cried. One side of my house missing, in a pile at my feet, the rest threatening to fall, all the insides on display to whoever strolled past. A car bomb, I guessed.

My home was gone. And I didn’t care who saw me, or what I looked like. I didn’t care if the American troops, or the fundamentalists, or Al-Qaeda, or the militants, the insurgents, the terrorists, Sunnis, Shias, Christians, Clerics, Ba’athists, or anyone saw me, shot me, tortured me. I didn’t care who had done it, who had destroyed my house, my childhood and my memories, the place where Mama still lived in my head, where I had last seen Papa.

Who did it? What the hell did it matter?

I hated the war. I hated them all.

I used to know what I thought of it. At the beginning I felt hope for a better life, grateful that Iraq would finally be freed. Its people would be safe. Things that happened to Mama wouldn’t happen again to anyone else.

I cried and cried as I sat on that rubble.
It’s only a house,
I told myself.
It’s only a house. Thank God no one was in it.

I scrabbled around in the remnants of my broken home, pulling up lumps of concrete and rubble, old walls, smashed furniture, throwing them to one side.
It was only a house,
I repeated in my head.

I looked through my blurred eyes, down the street empty of people, the sun at its highest, beating down, and I looked back, turning around to see what remained of my home. I wondered where Layla was, and her family. Why they hadn’t come out to see what had happened. And as I turned around, squinting against the sun, I saw the silhouette of a man standing close by.

I wiped my face and lifted a hand to shade my eyes.

A man was walking towards me.

Dust and dirt covered him, scratches on his face, his fingers bleeding, one hand in his pocket, his eyes flitting this way and that, glancing to the house, to me, to the car, down the street.

“Were you in that car?” I asked, amazed that anyone could’ve survived.

But he shook his head and pointed across the road to a different one, the windscreen blown out, bits of metal, lumps of earth across the bonnet and roof.

I didn’t move. I just watched him edge towards me. And I didn’t move away as he neared, I didn’t shout, I didn’t try to run. I just sat and waited for him. And he sat down next to me.

“I’m looking for Joseph,” he said. “Joe?”

My thoughts paused for a second, then a million thoughts and questions flooded in. What was he, this man? Police? Soldier? Colleague? Friend? Didn’t everyone know Papa was dead?

I knew I should be scared of him, but the more I watched him, the more nervous he seemed. And I thought of how I looked, sat on the floor; my legs on view, my head uncovered, my hair flying around, my face streaked with dirt and tears.

“Was this his house?” he asked.

Despite myself, I nodded, drawing the dark cloth over my bare legs.

He sighed. “Is he dead?”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I have something for him. Something I was asked to pass on. For Joseph Rassam, lives down this street, has a daughter called Lina.”

I caught my breath and felt my face flush. I struggled to my feet, shocked, wanting to escape now, run away, back to my Auntie Hana, scared of what was to come.

“Are you Lina?” He followed me as I moved away.

I didn’t answer.

He looked around nervously, then drew his hand from his pocket, his palm cupped around something. I saw it catch the light, saw a gold chain drip from his fingers.

“I was asked to give him this.” He lifted it by the chain, and the green stone with the filigreed gold hung in the air, the sunlight glinting off it.