Baghdad Central (23 page)

In the Directorate, they had wanted him to read files quickly. But he showed them that he also knew how to read closely. Creatively. He could make an autopsy look like a birth certificate. If he had enough reports, he could make dead informants talk for years.

Read them like a poem, he used to say. Study them. Learn to see their rhythms. Look for the deeper structures. If you weren't reading for the patterns underneath, you weren't reading at all.

When he first arrived in the police, they wanted him to write reports, not read them. They knew what he did before, but they wanted to put him through the hoops just the same. They sent him out to arrest men selling black-market DVDs, then made him compose an arrest report. They sent him out to bust an unwanted brothel, then made him transcribe the initial interrogation.

But he showed them that it was no use writing dossiers if no one was going to read them. Read them properly. After two months on the streets, they decided he was more useful inside the station. He was not only good behind a desk, he was happiest there. Looking for missing feet and broken rhymes. Looking for poetry.

Khafaji looks up as he stamps out his cigarette. The coffee cup is full of butts, so he walks over to empty them in the waste bin.
What did ideology do for you?
He stares at the ashes as they fall.
They won. You lost. Today, the patriot is the one who holds the fork while the stranger carves up his country. Today, the terrorist is the one who dares to complain while strangers devour his limbs
.

Khafaji reaches into his drawer and opens another pack of Rothmans before going back to the dossier on his desk.
Why so defensive? You're not the one on trial here. Not today at least…
He smokes two more before he can admit that the scene with the Mosuli threw him.

Khafaji thumbs through the dossier and stands up. He opens up drawers and looks through papers on desks, searching for the file – the dossier on him – the Mosuli had handed him. When he can't find it, he lights another cigarette, then looks at his watch. By the time he stamps out this cigarette, he has decided he needs to read his own dossier.

It takes an hour to find it. Or, rather, to find the place where it should have been. The hanging folder is there. His name is on it. But the dossier is missing. Khafaji closes the door, then sits down on a desk. Citrone's desk. Curious, he tries the drawers, but none open.

He lights another cigarette and thinks. He flicks the ashes then tosses the butt on the floor before stepping on it and losing his balance. His hand comes down on a computer keyboard and the screen blinks to life. Khafaji looks at it, then plays with the keys. When nothing happens, he gives up. He looks over at the computer on the assistant's desk and walks over. His hand brushes the mouse, and the screen turns on. Again, this one is locked. Khafaji goes over to each of the other computers in the room. Each turns on. To Khafaji's relief, one monitor is accessible. He sits down and begins to play with the cursor. He scrolls up and down, clicking on folders. He comes across lists of documents. He recognizes nothing.

When he hears voices outside in the corridor, he imagines the Mosuli again. Slowly, Khafaji locks the door and turns off the light. A moment later, someone is knocking at the door
and jiggling the handle. Then silence. Khafaji waits at the door, making no sound. Someone knocks again, and then there's a shuffling sound next to the door. Khafaji hears footsteps in the corridor, and imagines the same voice again. He leans over, and sees the silhouette of someone trying to peer through the crack beneath the door. A few minutes later, there are knocks once more. Khafaji's heart pounds so loud he is sure they can hear it outside. Eventually, the person walks away.

In the darkness, Khafaji goes back to the computer, and opens a document that contains another list. He begins to recognize the names of people with dossiers in the cabinets. Khafaji opens another list, then sees the same names on another list. He opens one and sees it contains an electronic copy of a file he read two days ago. He opens another and sees the same. The minutes go by and he slowly begins to glimpse a system. He works backwards through lists, now paying attention to the titles. As in the cabinets, there is no sharp line between agencies. Military. Civilian. Foreign Intelligence. Domestic Intelligence. General Security. Special Security. Party Intelligence. They bleed into one another without rhyme, without order. Khafaji experiments opening and closing windows and documents in the hopes of uncovering other designs in the catalog. He clicks further up the chain and finds the two largest files, “Former Structure” and “Reorganization”.

He opens Reorganization and begins working through files quickly. In one, he finds a document labeled “Payments”. It lists pages of what might be addresses and also phone numbers. One appears to be account sheets. On another page, he reads through a long list of Iraqi names. He skims over hundreds, but recognizes none. He looks through it
twice before noticing that no men's names are included in it. Another file, entitled “Clearance”, contains dozens of completed applications. Scrolling over it twice, Khafaji finally recognizes the name of one applicant, Candy Firdawsi.

Khafaji walks over and turns on the lights. He blinks for a moment, grabs his notebook and returns to the computer. He scrolls to the top of the file, going back over the addresses on the list. Most are located nearby. In the American Zone, in fact. Others are located in other parts of the city. One address stands out. Khafaji lights a cigarette and struggles to understand. Minutes later, it dawns on him:
it's the same street as the murder scene
. Khafaji looks at it again closely, then flips through his notebook.
Same house, actually
. Khafaji begins to underline as many of the other addresses as he can: 126 Salhia. 44 Sheikh Maarouf. 19 Shawaka. 77 Fatih.
Why are they grouped together here?

Khafaji turns to the sheets of numbers. He stares, trying to figure out what they refer to. Each seems to be a dated triple entry, but the numbers in the columns do not add up in any pattern. Like fragments of lines. On a separate sheet, Khafaji finds a single entry list with large numbers and dates. He jots down a few, then looks again. He reads these files closely, as if they were lines of poetry. He looks for meter and rhyme, then for missing feet and broken sounds.

Khafaji sits on the edge of the desk. On one page, he draws a chart of the database as best he can. He lights another cigarette and decides to go back to the files again. Without knowing their system, the individual points of information mean nothing.

As he touches the keyboard, the screen changes. Suddenly, a half-played game of solitaire appears and fills the screen.
Khafaji throws the butt on the ground, and then tries pressing various keys. But he cannot make the game disappear. And he cannot return to the previous screen. He begins to punch the keys, then ends up throwing the whole keyboard on the ground. Khafaji hears the faint rattle of the door after the crashing sounds subside. He freezes, then hears the voice of the assistant calling out, “Hey, Khafaji! Are you in there?” Khafaji looks at the smashed keyboard on the ground and the monitors around the room, their screens brightly lit. The assistant knocks and calls out again, “Khafaji! Are you in mere?”

At last, Khafaji yells, “Yes!” Unsure what to do, he scrambles under the desks and unplugs each computer. One by one, the screens go dead. He gathers up the keyboard as best he can, and throws it into the back of a filing-cabinet drawer.

Khafaji takes a deep breath and opens the door, rubbing his eyes and mumbling, “Sorry. I must have drifted off.” Khafaji slumps back into his usual chair and picks up the file on the desk. He looks at the Basran Police Chief again. After a few minutes of silence, Khafaji asks, “When is Citrone coming in?” His eyes never lift from the page.

The assistant doesn't look up when he answers. “Huh? He's in meetings all day. He'll be in tomorrow morning. By the by, Citrone wants to know where things stand with the list.”

“What list?”

“Our list of cops we're going to approach.”

Khafaji says nothing. The assistant finally looks up. “The IPS recruits.”

“I am working on it. I'll have it by Friday.”

“Is that what you agreed on?”

“Yes.” Khafaji shrugs. As the words come out, he becomes conscious of what he knew in his gut all along: they know nothing except what he tells them.

“And I talked to him about your idea of setting up a coordination meeting with the HR task force. He's on board.”

Khafaji finally looks over at the assistant.

“Good,” he lies, then says, “I need to know about my housing situation. It's dangerous for me to be out there, you know.”

The assistant is now on his computer. He curses, then looks up. “What? Oh, right. Hank's been on that, I'm pretty sure.”

As Khafaji exits, the assistant asks, “Do you know what happened to my computer?”

Khafaji shrugs again. “Sorry.”

Khafaji is halfway down the hall when he remembers the book for Mrouj. When he walks back into the room, he sees the assistant on his hands and knees looking at keyboard letters in the palm of his hand. He calls out from beneath the desk. “Hey, Khafaji! Did the cleaning people come in this morning?”

Thursday Afternoon

4 December 2003

For the first time Khafaji is happy to sign in at the reception desk. For the first time he also comes bearing gifts. In one of the corridors of the palace, he found fresh roses in a vase. He looked around quickly before grabbing the stems. Then he went back for the vase and took that too.

Mrouj sits up in bed when she sees Khafaji walk into the room. Even her eyes smile. “Good afternoon, Baba. Are all those for me?”

“Just don't ask where I got them,” Khafaji laughs. He looks around the room for an empty place, then sets the flowers on the windowsill. Mrouj grins the whole time.

“And what's that, Baba?”

“This is the book I've been forgetting all week. I finally remembered to bring it today.”

“Will you read?”

“That's why I'm here, Mrouji. Where shall I start?” He pauses, then adds, “But before I do, I have bad news. I can't find Nazik anywhere.”

Mrouj begins to speak, then hesitates.

“But I will find it, and when I do, I'll bring it here and read as much as you like.”

“So what did you bring?”

Khafaji opens to the title page. “Poetry Primer. Volume 2. The Moderns.”

“You brought a textbook, Baba?!”

Khafaji attempts to make her laugh. “Don't interrupt, me, Mrouj. Let me read the rest of what it says here: ‘Ninth Edition. Approved by the Ministry of Education, 1978.'”

“That's not mine. Let me see that, Baba.” And Khafaji hands it to Mrouj. She opens it and looks at something. The book falls out of her hands. She closes her eyes.

When Khafaji looks at the page, he sees the handwriting in the margins. He looks more closely, and sees it's not Mrouj's. It's not his either, or Suheir's. He flips the pages until he sees Uday's signature. Tamim Middle School, 1982. This was not Mrouj's copy. He reaches out for her hand and holds it. He closes his eyes and listens to her as she sobs. Finally, she takes a deep breath and then another and wipes her eyes. Then she whispers, “It's OK, Baba. Read.”

“What would you like?” Khafaji begins reading the names from the table of contents. “Mahmoud Sami al-Baroudi. Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi. Hafez Ibrahim. Ahmad Shawqi.”

Mrouj moans, “No mummies please!”

“Khalil Mutran. Abu Shadi. Abu Shabaka.”

Mrouj groans, “If I wanted poems about trees, I'd read French.”

“You don't even know French…”

“That's what I mean!”

He keeps reading names, and Mrouj keeps dismissing them. When he calls out, “Abul-Qasim al-Shabbi,” she finally relents.

“Just the first stanza or two. The rest is just tree poetry.”

Khafaji closes the book. As he starts, Mrouj recites the lines with him:

       
“If, one day, a people wills to live, then fate will answer the call
.

       
And their night will then begin to fade, and their chains break and fall
.

       
For he who is not embraced by a passion for life will dissipate into thin air
,

       
At least that is what all creation has told me, and what its hidden spirits declare…
”

After the first stanza Mrouj scowls at Khafaji, but doesn't stop him from reading. In the last stanza, she finally objects. “I told you I only wanted the first stanza. But now that you recited it, I want you to start over and read it. And read with more passion please.”

Khafaji begins again, this time dutifully only reading from the page. After a few stanzas, Mrouj interrupts him again. “You skipped something, Baba.”

He looks down at the page and rereads the same stanza. She nods. He rereads the stanza just before it, and then she shakes her head. “No. That's wrong.”