Baghdad Central (19 page)

He walks down the long hall on the fourth floor, from the American side to the Iraqi civilian side, and the guarded rooms in the middle to keep them apart.

Mrouj's room is dark when Khafaji enters. He coughs, but no one answers. It takes a few moments for his eyes to adjust. She lies propped up in bed, her eyes closed, and her arms stretched out by her sides. Khafaji walks toward the chair beside her bed and sits down. The quiet in the room is only interrupted by the blips and ticks of the medical equipment. Khafaji looks at the wires and tubes in Mrouj's arms and closes his eyes. Immediately, he falls asleep.

An hour later, he awakens to the sounds of moaning and a sudden rush of movement. He blinks and watches as two nurses attend to the other patient in the room. When he turns back, Mrouj is looking into his face. They both smile and Khafaji unconsciously reaches for her hand. They sit silently as the nurses speak in hushed tones and give the other woman something that calms her. When they leave, Mrouj speaks up and breaks the spell. “Hi, Baba. I wasn't sure you'd come. I still almost don't recognize you.”

Without thinking, Khafaji runs his fingers over his upper lip. “Of course I'm here. I'll come every day.” His headache is still there, but not as bad as it was.

“Did you bring me some poetry?” Mrouj closes her eyes and Khafaji's panic returns.

When she opens her eyes again, she notices the pained look on his face. “What's wrong, Baba?”

“Nothing, Mrouji. Nothing. A little headache is all. I left the book I'd brought for you back in my office.”

“We can just talk then. It's not a big deal.”

“Yes, we can just talk.”

A heavy silence falls over them as they listen to the labored breathing of the other patient.

“We're in Ibn Sina, I know that. Is your office nearby?”

Khafaji looks at her, but can't speak.

“Baba, what's wrong?”

“I'm sorry, Mrouj. It's just that I can't talk about it. I'm feeling overwhelmed.”

“Of course. We don't have to talk about anything.”

They sit there, hand in hand for minutes until Khafaji finally relents. “It's just hard, that's all.”

Mrouj doesn't answer. Khafaji continues speaking. “They're asking the impossible of me. But I didn't have a choice.”

Mrouj squeezes his hand and says, “We don't have to talk about it, Baba.”

The pain in his head returns, and despite his intentions Khafaji starts talking. In his state, he imagines that if he can limit himself to talking about the easy stuff, he might just get through without saying anything about the hard stuff. He begins by telling her about the office work and the files.

“All they want me to do is read dossiers. Thousands of them.”

“Sounds like your idea of heaven, Baba!” She manages half a smile.

“Lucky me. My own dream job, with the greatest employers you can imagine. They're not so bad, they're only deluded. Who the hell do they think is going to come work for their police force?”

After a pause, Mrouj says, “Someone with a sick daughter, I guess.”

Khafaji looks at her, but she smiles before he can say anything. “You can laugh, Baba. It won't hurt you.”

“It's all going to work out fine, Mrouj. Other than showing up for work, they're not asking me to do anything that would compromise me.”

Now Mrouj laughs. “I'm glad, Baba. I'm just worried now that you're a real collaborator.”

“Worry about yourself,” he laughs back. “I spend my days in a room protected by an army.”

“My room is protected by an army, too.”

Khafaji falls quiet again, and Mrouj asks, “Really? All they're asking you to do is look at files?”

“For now, yes. Later on, I guess we'll approach the ones they want to take back. Who's going to say yes?”

Mrouj is sitting up alert now. “Why would someone join the Americans, Baba?”

“That's exactly the problem. People who are compromised, who can be blackmailed. People with scores to settle. People with ambitions. You might even find a couple who actually believe in the new cause. And then, some will join because they want to sabotage the whole thing.”

“So the problem won't be about finding people.”

“I guess so. The problem will be identifying their motivation.” Khafaji pauses. “Motivation, and identity. How will we even know if they are who they say they are any more?”

They sit holding each other's hands for a few minutes before Khafaji murmurs, “
Time will reveal to you those things of which you were ignorant. /And the man who delivers such news may well be he toward whom you were once…
”

“You don't always have to give me such easy ones, Baba. ‘Stingy'. Tarafa's ode.
And the man who delivers such news may well be he toward whom you were once stingy
. You should have
given me the next line, it's better:
Time is only ever but borrowed, so take as much of its goodness as you can.”

Khafaji kisses her and promises to return the next day.

When he walks back, a guard outside the middle corridor rooms greets him. Khafaji decides to try his luck and flashes his ID. “Citrone sent me over to talk to the men we picked up yesterday. This is where they are, right?”

The man looks at Khafaji's ID, and then again at Khafaji.

“I work for Citrone. You can go ahead and check if you like.”

The man rifles through a clipboard, then inspects Khafaji's ID again.

Finally, he writes down a number and steps aside. “OK. They're yours. By the way, the doctors were trying to get a hold of you this morning to find out how long they're being held. These beds are in demand.”

“I should know when I'm through with them.”

Khafaji walks in and sees one old and one young. The man on the left is at least sixty years old. Maybe older. His arm is set in a heavy cast, but other than that, he seems to be in one piece. His other arm is handcuffed to the metal rail of the bed. The man's eyes are tired, though Khafaji doesn't miss the look of scorn in his eyes. Suddenly self-conscious, Khafaji's hands try to smooth out his baggy uniform.

The other man is much younger. Maybe twenty-five. It's nearly impossible to tell. The part of his face that isn't hidden by the oxygen mask is bruised and swollen. His breathing makes a muffled hissing sound. The only other sound in the room is the hum of the machines connected to him. His eyelids flutter slightly as Khafaji approaches. Then they close again. Each of his wrists is cuffed to the bed.

These men aren't jihadis. That much is clear. Their
moustaches and haircuts give them away. Tattered and dirty. Probably Fedayeen Saddam. The kind of gunslinging assholes everyone had to watch out for, especially cops.

Minutes go by as Khafaji sits down and stares at them. He hesitates. This was something he was never very good at. Give him a desk, give him files, and he could make the whole world talk. Give him a script, maybe he could improvise. But getting information talking face to face? That was for someone else to do.

“Comrades, I need to ask you a few questions about yesterday.”

Silence.

“It's fine by me if you don't want to talk.” Khafaji remembers hearing that timing is everything. He holds his tongue and goes back to silent mode. Things get heavy and weird. Khafaji lights a cigarette, and notices the glint in the young man's black eyes.
A smoker
.

Khafaji turns toward the older man, and says, “Father, how about one?” The man stares at Khafaji, but says nothing. “I only have Rothmans on me. Hope that's OK.” Khafaji lights a cigarette and puts it on his lips. The old man never takes his eyes off Khafaji as he tries to lift his broken arm. He winces from the pain and his hand falls back on his lap. His eyes are glued to Khafaji's, then finally break. With all his might, he spits the cigarette out of his mouth. It almost clears the bed to land on the floor. Almost. Instead, it falls and rolls back onto his lap. The cigarette begins to smolder on the sheet.

Khafaji now has a script, even if it's rough. He leaves the cigarette burning and turns to the younger man. “You want one too? Let me get this out of the way so you can have one.”

Khafaji removes the oxygen mask and puts it on the man's lap.

“Comfortable?” Khafaji makes a show of smoothing over the pillows and sheets on the man's bed. Then slowly he takes out another cigarette, lights it, then rests it on the young man's lips. The panic in his eyes makes Khafaji turn. He reaches over and switches off the oxygen machine. This whole time, Khafaji looks at the old man.

When the first smell of burning cloth hits his nostrils, Khafaji doesn't bother turning around. “How are you doing over there, Father?”

The young man tries to peer around Khafaji, but Khafaji grabs his face. “Is that better? You relaxing now? How about a glass of water?”

Khafaji lets go and they sit for a few more minutes. Finally Khafaji turns around to see small flames flickering on the old man's crotch. Khafaji grabs a plastic clipboard and begins beating at the man's legs and stomach. With the sheet fabric burnt and torn away, Khafaji notices that the flames have burned through the bandages on the man's legs and licked at his bloodied skin. Khafaji looks at the man and he stares back. He never once flinches. By now, Khafaji realizes how out of his depth he is.

Khafaji turns to the younger man and says, “Look, I really don't care who you are. I don't care what you may have done to the Americans. I just want to know about the crime you committed. Why the hell did you kill those girls?”

Again, a long, awkward pause. Khafaji decides to change his tack. “You know these guys are going to throw you in Abu Ghraib as soon as I'm done. If you think by not talking, I'll tell them to keep you longer, you've got it all backwards. You clam up, I'll say, ‘Fuck you. Go to Hell.' And you know what? You will. They say you're criminals, so that makes you criminals.

“If on the other hand, you decide to answer my questions, I'll have them go easy on you. I'll have them put some televisions in here or something.”

Finally, the old man breaks the silence. “Fuck you, you puppet. What crime is it to defend our home? What shame is there in standing up like a man? You should be the one answering questions.”

Khafaji wishes he were back at his desk. Somehow paper could never get to you that way. Before he knows it, Khafaji feels his fist driving into the man's face. Blood gushes out of the man's nose and across his chest and lap.

Khafaji wipes his hand on the sheets before taking out another cigarette. He smokes without saying a word, then opens the window and flicks the butt into the sky. “I'm not talking about that – I'm talking about what you did to those girls. Who kidnapped them? Whichever of you talks first, I help.”

Silence. “Who killed them?”

Silence. “Who raped them?”

The younger man tries to talk, but winces in pain. It takes him a minute before he can whisper, “What are you talking about? What girls are you talking about?”

Khafaji stares out the window. “The girls upstairs. There were four of them. It'd be pretty hard to forget them.”

The younger one looks nervously at the old man, and then back at Khafaji. The older man closes his eyes, and the younger man talks. “We don't know anything about any girls. We arrived at the house. We were told to stay downstairs. They told us not to go upstairs.”

“Go on.”

“When they delivered us, they told us, ‘Stay on the ground floor.' Who knows why we weren't supposed to go upstairs?
All I know is that there are reasons why people tell you to follow instructions. I followed them.”

“You never saw people on the second floor? Never heard anything? Four women were shot while you were there and you didn't even hear it?”

“We knew people were upstairs. It was a separate apartment. They were having a party. We heard music. But no gunshots. And we didn't go up there. Most of us were so tired we just ate dinner and went to sleep. We weren't going to be there for more than one night anyway.”

“But you went upstairs when the raid started?”

“There was no time.”

“I mean, when the fighting broke out, some of you went upstairs to escape or…? There were four of you. One of you might have gone upstairs during the chaos.”

The younger man doubles forward in distress. “Not possible,” he manages to blurt out before he loses his voice in a bout of wheezing. Khafaji reaches over and turns on the oxygen machine again, then places the mask over the man's face.

The older man speaks now. “All of us were out when the door burst in. I was supposed to be sentry, but I'd dozed off. There was no warning. None of us heard a thing. They were sound asleep and their guns were in the next room. There was no gunfight.”

Khafaji leans forward. “So what was all the shooting about?”

“There was shooting, but no gunfight.”