Baghdad Central (33 page)

Khafaji folds up the paper and looks around. At the opposite end of the building, he sees the others huddled together against the cold wind. Their clean uniforms stand out against the fading white concrete. He continues reading.
The tribunal will have the authority to investigate crimes against humanity, war crimes and charges of genocide committed in the country between 14 July 1968 and 1 May 2003. 38 of the 55 most wanted leaders of the old regime have already been caught and will soon be facing this tribunal. In addition to these numbers, CPA authorities acknowledge the arrests of over 5,500 people, though not all for war crimes
. Khafaji skims the next article. “Since May, investigators have discovered more than 200 mass graves throughout the country. In Kirkuk, Kurdish officials reported the discovery of a grave containing 2,000 bodies. In the village of Muhammad Sakran, more than a thousand bodies have been unearthed. In al-Mahawil, investigators suspect they will have uncovered in excess of 15,000 bodies when they are done.”

Khafaji feels his head start to spin and he walks back to his room. He lies down and stares at the ceiling. But nothing happens. No sleep. No poetry. No memories.

The sun goes down and the room goes dark. Outside, phosphorous lamps cast long streaks and shadows through the window. Khafaji covers himself with a blanket, but it is not enough.

Sometime after dinner, Olds comes back to the room. The Basran is with him. Olds shakes Khafaji's shoulder. As Khafaji rubs his eyes, Olds apologizes in English. The other man, in
his warm southern accent, invites Khafaji to come out with them. Then they turn on the light and insist: Khafaji must come along. Reluctantly, Khafaji gets out of bed, shivering. He puts on an extra undershirt and two pairs of socks when he dresses. In the parking lot, they find one Suburban still waiting for them. Everyone else already left in the other car. In minutes they are flying down an empty stretch of highway. Khafaji cracks the window open and the wind wakes him up. The dry desert seems to suck the air out of his lungs. He looks out the window and sees nothing for miles. As they speed by, a corral filled with horses suddenly appears under a bright floodlight. Huge, wild horses. The kind that belong in a poem. Khafaji looks again, and they are gone.

When they come to the city, the driver tells them they are heading into the Almas district. Khafaji does not recognize the neighborhood at all. Even when he thinks he sees something familiar, he knows it's only his mind playing tricks on him. They stop at a three-story building where a group of Peshmerga stands at the entrance. The other SUV is already there, parked opposite. The gunmen salute without saying a word. Khafaji notices they carry the same weapons as the men at his building.

A young boy opens the front door. Light and smoke and noise spill across the dark, silent street. Once Khafaji's eyes adjust, he sees men bunched like thick knots around tables. The red curtains and ornate glass chandeliers look garish, then soften. Strains of plucked ouds crash over the room from stereo speakers. Older waiters, dressed like refugees from the Ottoman court, flit around the tables, delivering bottles of clear liquor, replacing full ashtrays with empty ones. They make elaborate, clanking sounds as they work, to show
how attentive they are. Khafaji scans the room, hoping to glimpse others from the group, but sees no one. An elegant older woman floats across the floor. She is wearing enough embroidered fabric to upholster the whole room. She greets them, one by one. “Welcome, welcome, gentlemen. Please come back this way. Your party is in the back.”

Khafaji walks through the room, watching men playing cards so intensely they never look up or notice the table next to them, let alone anyone walking through. Down a corridor, lit by red lights covered in satin, a hand draws back a curtain of smoke. Raucous laughter pours out from behind another door. The Kurds from the group stand up to welcome the arrivals, taking each by the hand and walking them to empty chairs at the tables. “Tonight,” says one of the officers from Kirkuk, “you are our guests. Make yourselves welcome.”

Two waiters are dedicated to the party. One comes over quickly. “What would you like to drink, sir?”

Khafaji looks around and sees only bottles of arak and vodka on the table. “How about whisky?”

“No whisky, unfortunately. May I bring you a bottle of what the others are having?”

Like all who order vodka, Khafaji understands it is a compromise. He reads the label on the bottle slowly. Letter by letter, sounding out the Russian name. But before he can finish, someone grabs the bottle out of his hands and pours a shot. Soon everyone is raising a glass. Small speeches are made. After each, they swallow a small shot of liquid fire. At one point, Salah gets up and clears his throat. By way of introduction he simply says, “Hardi.” Then he begins to recite a long poem. The Kurdish sounds are foreign, but not. Most of the words are foreign, but not. Poetry is a country, Khafaji thinks. When Salah finishes, everyone applauds,
and someone demands a translation. Salah hesitates, then tries to translate:

       
We are the defenders of lowly peasants
,

       
We are the flag of unity hoisted high
,

       
We are the swords in the hands of the broken
,

       
We have risen against tyranny
.

The Basran demands to hear the rest, but Salah insists it's too long and too local. The Kurds grin. Someone raises another toast, to the National Police Force. One of the Kurds shouts, “And to Hardi!
The flag of unity hoisted high!
” Released by alcohol, the tongues in the room finally embark on their journeys. Someone begins to sing, and many in the group stop talking and join in on the chorus. Eyes, clear and sober for days on end, begin to soften and fade into pinker tones. The room is warm. Khafaji looks around at his colleagues.
The rebuilders of free Iraq
. Somehow it comes out as a question.

Soon, the men at both tables start playing cards. Every now and then, the door opens a crack, and the old lady peers in. Sometimes she comes over and rubs the shoulder of one of the loud-mouthed Kurds at the other table. Sometimes she says nothing but leaves the door slightly open and goes off. At Khafaji's table, they begin playing whist. Then someone suggests poker and takes out a stack of hundred-dollar bills. The game is friendly enough, and Khafaji is drunk enough that he antes up with the others. Someone puts a carton of Marlboros on the table next to the bottle. Everyone has been smoking since they sat down. While lighting one, Khafaji notices two young women looking in at the door. The door shuts. At some point, one of the Kurds, Sherko, suggests a game he learned in the US. “Texas Hold 'Em,” he shouts as he begins to deal
and explain the rules. Everyone regurgitates the name with slight variations, until it finally becomes
tiguss kholdoon
– “snip Kholdoon”. They raise a glass to Kholdoon and his circumcision, and laugh hysterically. Khafaji plays a few games, loses a lot of money, and then asks a waiter where the toilets are.

When he stands up, the room starts to spin. The floor catches itself and stops moving. On wobbly legs, he tries walking. A place to wash his face in cold water until he can see straight again. He wants to breathe fresh air. Cold desert air. He holds onto the walls as he walks down the corridor back the way they came in. The front room is now mostly empty. Without the crowds of men the décor seems ridiculous. Twangy mountain music plays somewhere, and while Khafaji can't understand the lyrics, he knows that somewhere a poet has lost his beloved. Khafaji looks around for signs of a washroom. He hears laughter and turns to find a flight of stairs. Another party upstairs, another card game upstairs. He grabs onto the handrail and begins to climb. At the top of the stairs, he finally finds a bathroom. He goes inside, locks the door and runs the tap.

With each handful of water he splashes on his face, he imagines he is waking up from another layer of dream. His cheeks begin to lose their heat, and his head begins to clear. He looks at his face in the mirror, then goes to the toilet. Just as he is flushing, there's a knock on the door. Khafaji mutters, “Just a second,” and washes his face one more time.

Khafaji opens the door and finds himself staring into the face of a girl he recognizes. A girl he has never met. He stares at her and stares again, so startled that she pushes by him before he realizes what has happened.

When he finally gets his bearings, he calls out, “Zahra? Zahra Boustani? I need to talk to you.”

He begins to knock, and calls out her name again. “Zahra? Please come out. I need to talk to you.”

There is no reply. Khafaji knocks again, hesitating, and pleading in a gentle voice. Then he is no longer hesitating. His voice is no longer gentle. Soon he is slamming his fists into the door and shouting. Then he is leaning into the door, trying to force it open. This goes on until he feels thick hands twisting his arms behind his back. Khafaji struggles, but the pain is too intense. He goes limp and falls face-down on the carpet. When he looks up next, he sees the old lady's slippered foot. And the boots of a younger bouncer. As she escorts Khafaji downstairs, the hostess tries to calm him down. “It's going to be fine.”

“I just want to talk to Zahra.”

“You can't talk to her,
habibi.”

“I need to speak with that girl.”

“Zahra's not yours to speak to. Your party is downstairs,
habibi.”

The bouncer's hands are still clutching Khafaji's arm. When Khafaji agrees, the hands let go. He returns to the others, and slumps into his chair. The game has gone on without him. Just as if he never left.

Someone pulls out a new deck and deals. Khafaji picks up his cards and looks at them before realizing what they are. A shit hand. Ten of Clubs: Latif Nusayyif Jasim. Four of Hearts: Humam Abdal-Khaliq Abd. Khafaji looks at the five cards face-up on the table, hoping to build something. The guy to his left picks up one of the cards and starts to laugh out loud. He pokes the next person and hands him the card. Soon the whole table is in on the joke. When they finally show Khafaji the card, he already knows what it is: Three of Diamonds.

Khafaji laughs as much as the others, but inside he's already folded this hand. His thoughts drift upstairs. Toward a closed room where Zahra Boustani sits with another group of men.
Was it her? Does it matter? And even if it was her, what could she tell you that you didn't already know? What do you know?
Suddenly, it's not Zahra he is thinking of, but Zubeida.

Khafaji rubs his eyes and decides to get back into the game. He wins a hand. He loses two hands. No one at his table is taking the game very seriously. But at the other table, the play is serious. At some point, Khafaji's group decides to stop playing and they turn to watch the other game. One of the Kirkukis changes the game to Seven Card Draw. Within a couple of hands, the contest becomes lopsided. Before, the Basran had been on a winning streak. Now he begins to lose hand after hand, and the pile of bills in front of him is redistributed. The dealer is grim. He never smiles, even when he wins two hands in a row. His face makes it all look like business. After thirty minutes of losing, the Basran throws his cards on the table and shouts, “OK! We've played your game long enough. Now let's play another one. Here's an American game.”

“What's it called?”

“52-Card Pick-up. It's easy to play. You play it once, you never forget the rules.”

The others decide to humor the Basran.

“Go ahead and deal!” the Kirkuki mumbles as he passes the deck across the table.

The Basran leans forward and shuffles. Then he asks, “Are you ready?”

“Yes!” the whole table says.

He has a huge stupid smile on his face as he turns to the Kirkuki. “Ready?”

“Just deal.”

At that the Basran shuffles the cards again, then flips them across the table into the other man's face and lap.

Silence reigns.

The Basran points and howls, “Good game!” Then switching into English, he exclaims, “That's 52. Now pick them up!”

The Kirkuki lunges across the table. Other men have to jump in to keep them apart. Even so, fists are thrown and faces bruised. By the time tempers have cooled again, the party is over. The old lady walks the party out. When Khafaji tries to speak to her, the bouncer appears and takes him by the arm.

Driving back to the base, Khafaji presses his face into the window. Outside, it is absolutely black. He looks for horses, but sees only tiny glimmers of light in the distance. Flickers scattered across the wilderness. The black Suburban speeds through the black desert night, slips through emptiness. The only thing that can stop such travel is the fear of one's own thoughts. Khafaji cracks the window, and breathes in the thin air. He looks at the stars, searching for Orion, but it has already set. He looks toward the other horizon, and sees Scorpio beginning to rise. He imagines there is nothing between him and the horizon. Then the horizon melts away and Khafaji imagines he is flying across the heavens. The air is so sweet and cold it hurts. Like inhaling shards of glass. He rolls up the window and closes his eyes, knowing that he will sleep fast. His sleep will be as dreamless as it has been every night since he left Baghdad.

Friday

12 December 2003