Baghdad Central (10 page)

“I live in that building. Third floor.” Khafaji points to his balcony.

“Are you OK, brother? You look…”

“Open it. This is my street.” Khafaji stares back at the man holding the gate.

“Go in God's safety.” He finally relents and lets Khafaji pass through.

Khafaji enters the foyer of his building and sees chairs lining the wall next to the door. There's new life in the building, somehow. The electric lines are everywhere, following the stairway up to the roof. Lights shine, their brightness almost obscene. The halls reverberate with the echoes of television and conversation. A gentle hum of generators rises from the basement. As he steps in, he thinks he sees Abu Ali's silhouette on the landing above. On the second floor, the lights are on in both apartments for the first time in months. New neighbors. Still in the process of moving in. Their belongings still on the landing. A typical overstuffed
couch and well-worn dining-room chairs. The laughter of young children inside makes Khafaji smile. Families.

As he reaches the third floor, Abu Ali's door clicks shut. Khafaji reaches for his keys, only to remember he's still wearing someone else's suit. Someone else's pockets. Then he notices that he doesn't need a key to open his front door. It's not locked. It's not even shut. He steps inside to turn on the light, and feels broken glass crunching beneath his plastic sandals.

Every room except Mrouj's has been ransacked. Some things are merely upside down. Other things are ripped, torn, or strewn across the floor. Others are just gone: the old television, the wedding china, pots and pans, a favorite electric razor. The dining room is empty – someone has taken the table and all the chairs. Now he begins to understand why the furniture on the first floor looked so familiar.

They have thrown books in heaps across the carpet in both rooms. Khafaji picks up one or two, but gives up. Only then does he notice the smooth, smoky odor hanging in the air. A case of Black Label in shards. The carpet is soaked with the stuff. If someone threw a match on the floor, the whole place would go up.

Desperate, he digs through the jumble. To his amazement, he is rewarded. In the debris four bottles have survived. Khafaji goes to take a shower, but there's no water. His second meal in five days consists of stale bread and cracked green olives, washed down with two shots of warm Scotch. By the time he falls into the unmade bed, he has forgotten his headache.

GREEN ZONE

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with Babylon, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, “Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come.”

B
OOK OF
R
EVELATION
18:9–10

Sunday

30 November 2003

The pounding in Khafaji's head wakes him up. The water is back on, and he soaks his head under the cold tap until it stops hurting. He looks at his face in the mirror. Some of the swelling has gone down, but he looks like someone else. He shaves carefully and slowly until his scalp is as bare as his chin and lip. He takes a quick shower and fills as many bottles as he can find. He fills the tub as well, just in case.

Khafaji walks back to Mrouj's room and quietly, slowly opens the door. When he sees the empty room, it all comes back to him. Including the deal he made. He goes to the kitchen and puts the kettle on. While he waits for the water to boil, he notices the balcony doors wide open. He looks out over the homes around him. Even more satellite dishes have attached themselves to balconies and walls and roofs since last time he looked, each dish bowing toward the same Mecca. The rising sun fills each with the same crescent shadow.

He brings the tea tray into the living room, and looks at the papers the Americans gave him. Checkpoint Three. He decides to clean up the mess instead of going out. For forty-five minutes Khafaji stacks books into piles against the bookcases, then decides to leave the rest for later. He finishes
the last cup of tea before going back into the kitchen to get the broom. He brushes splinters and glass off the carpet and then sweeps the floor tiles until everything is relatively neat. He takes the broom and the dustpan back into the kitchen and suddenly realizes he's hungry.

Khafaji hears a knock on the door just as he is spooning olives out of the jar. He wipes his hand, and walks back to the front room. The smell of woody cologne fills his nostrils even before he opens the door. A young man is standing there on the landing. His features are soft, his cheeks are rosy, his forehead is bright, his beard soft and neatly trimmed. His heavy green jacket is the kind they issue during winter, with a
kuffiyyeh
twisted around his shoulders. Khafaji's headache returns, and he can do nothing but grimace. The man's voice is as gentle as his face. “God's grace, brother. Peace be upon you.”

“Good morning.”

“Brother Muhsin? I'm Ali.” Ali extends a hand that is not soft at all.

“Ah!” Khafaji tries to smile. “Welcome, Ali! Welcome. I'm glad you're home safe!”

Somewhere below, Khafaji hears young men talking together in gentle voices. It sounds like Persian.

“Thank you, Brother Muhsin! You have been kind to my family. I am grateful for that. They've told me such nice things about you. Thank God you're home safe too!” But Khafaji notices that Ali's eyes are rock hard. Like pieces of onyx. Khafaji looks into them and sees nothing but his own reflection in black. The pause is heavy, so Khafaji tries to smile some more. Ali's grip turns iron. Khafaji hears the sound of boots on stairs.

“When the Americans came, they told my parents who you were. We don't think it's true what they said.”

“No. It's not true. They were looking for —”

Ali interrupts him, “What they said couldn't be true, because here you are, back safe and sound. Still. We can't have any problems. I hope you can understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Brother Muhsin, after everything that's happened, you need to leave.”

“God's grace! Peace upon you!” a voice sings out from the stairs. Khafaji turns to see two young men with soft beards and army fatigues. Ali calls out, “And upon you peace,” and waves at them. They disappear downstairs.

Ali begins to speak again in his gentle voice. “The point is, Brother Muhsin, we don't know who you are. And we can't afford trouble in this building.”

“By what right do you —” Khafaji begins, but the throbbing in his head stops him short.

Ali's voice softens. “Just look at yourself. You're a mess, Brother. Anyway, it's not my decision. This is best for all of us.”

Khafaji tries to pull his hand away. “How dare you, this is my home! You are the guests here, not me.” Ali's hand won't let him go.

“Yes, that may have been true. But look around you. In this country, who can tell hosts and guests apart any more?”

Khafaji tries to look strong, but the pain in his head finally gets the better of him. He clenches his jaw, and stands there for what must be minutes – although he knows he's lost. Before he surrenders, Khafaji remembers that every defeat is a negotiation.

“Could I ask one favor, then?”

“Of course, Brother.”

“It would be inhumane to kick me out on the street. I need to find a place. One week.”

“We'll give you till Sunday.” The answer is so quick that Khafaji realizes that he's up against a plan. Ali continues, “But when you go, you'll leave everything in the apartment as it is.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Don't talk like that, Brother Muhsin. My parents say you are a polite man, a cultured man. You can take your clothes, but that's all. Agreed?”

The phone rings, and Khafaji says, “I'm going to get that.”

The phone rings again.

“Agreed?” Khafaji feels his fingers begin to crack.

The phone rings again.

“Agreed.” Ali finally lets go of Khafaji's hand.

Khafaji hears Nidal's voice on the line just as the door shuts. The first minute of the conversation is devoted to frustration and disappointment. It even gets loud. But then Nidal finally hears what Khafaji has to say.

“They busted down the door and came in. They detained me, and then they realized they made a mistake.”

“They just let you go?”

“After giving me a haircut. And destroying the place.”

“What?! Are you OK? What about Mrouj?”

“They took her to Ibn Sina.”

“Why?”

“For treatment.”

“No, I mean, why would they do that?”

Khafaji says nothing.

“Can we visit?”

“No, I don't think so. It's in Tashree. In the American Zone.”

“What about you?”

“They gave me a pass so I can go see her. I'm going right now.”

“We'll send something to her when we see you. So are you OK?”

“I'll be fine. I've got to shave more often now is all.”

“Huh?”

“I'll tell you when I see you. Any word about Sawsan?”

“No.”

“By the way, I went to see that professor…”

“And?”

“Nothing. Did Sawsan ever say what she was doing?”

“No.”

“I'm supposed to talk to the driver. I haven't found anything. You'll tell me if you hear…”

“Of course. We've decided, you know. Maha's agreed. As soon as…” His voice trails off. “So let's not wait. To see each other, huh?”

“Give me a day to rest.”

“Can Maha send you something to eat?”

“I'm fine. I'll call.”

He hangs up, and puts his face under the faucet again. Eventually, the cold water dulls the throbbing in his head. He finds the papers they gave him, puts on his shoes, and goes out. In the foyer below, he hears the soft voices again, and wonders again if they're speaking Persian. When he reaches the ground floor, they stop talking.

“God's grace. Peace upon you!” someone calls out in a friendly tone.

“Good morning,” Khafaji manages to answer as he finds himself walking through a picket of young men. All in the same uniforms. All with the same neat beards. All sipping from cups of tea. Two sit at the front door, cradling AK-47s in their laps. As he walks past, they get up and almost salute. At the end of his street he nods when the young soldiers greet
him at the gate. As Khafaji goes by, he watches them wave back toward the entrance of his building.

He turns the corner and starts to walk faster through garbage. It is everywhere. Piling up in vacant lots. Heaped around gates and entrances and walls. Spilling across streets, filling up alleys. Concrete and broken brick. Plaster, metal, paper and rubbish. Piles of white cement. Dry bread, tin cans, empty bottles, and broken glass. Fish bones and chicken bones. Mounds of soggy stuff, wet matter, rotting meat. Khafaji stumbles over the carcass of a dog. He covers his face with a handkerchief, but the stench cuts through. His toe catches on something, and a thick curtain of flies draws back to reveal more dogs. Khafaji jumps over them and runs as fast as he can. He stops to light a cigarette. The old tobacco smells and tastes like cardboard. He gags for a moment, then forces himself to finish the cigarette.

Khafaji tries to wipe off his shoes with a piece of newspaper. He looks around and decides to give up. The whole city – every street, every heap of trash, every square foot – is covered in a sea of plastic soda bottles. Each filled with two liters of nothing. Thin plastic shopping bags collect around every corner and hang on every tree branch. Khafaji smokes the rest of his cigarette.

Things move heavier than they used to. Lorries move so heavily you can feel them in your feet before they appear. Somewhere downtown helicopters thump over city streets. Whenever he hears the sound of a patrol, Khafaji puts himself behind one of the concrete pillars of the covered sidewalk, or behind a parked car. He continues walking, through one checkpoint, then another, with no apparent direction. Every few yards, he squeezes between cars, some parked, some long abandoned. Once, as he reaches down to remove a plastic
bag caught on his shoe, he realizes where his feet are taking him. Home.

Occasionally, Khafaji sees a face he recognizes. Or imagines he recognizes. As he walks across Andalus Square, he imagines he sees more and more. He says hello to old neighbors he sees on the street, but no one replies. No one recognizes him. He turns the last corner and, for the first time in years, he stands in front of the house that once belonged to them.

The house still belongs to them. Khafaji admits that even if they hadn't lived there in years, it is still their home. He buried Suheir and moved away. He locked the doors behind him. But he never sold the place. And it never stopped being their home.

Nothing has changed. It's the same home. The same jagged brown bricks. The same black iron gate leading to the same interior garden. The same tinted glass windows. The same jasmine vines and bougainvillea Uday and Mrouj planted. Khafaji smiles to himself. He avoided it for so long. He never went back because he knew how much of a cliché it would be. Was he really supposed to stand here and cry like the old poets did?