Baghdad Central (6 page)

Tuesday–Wednesday

25–26 November 2003

“Confirmed. Three of Diamonds!” A voice cuts through the throbbing in Khafaji's head. He's lying on his back, his arms tied, his legs tied. He can hear, but he can't see. There's a soft ache where his eyes used to be, and his sinuses feel like someone set them on fire. His head is wrapped in a wet sack. His clothes are drenched. Hours go by. Every now and then, his body begins to shiver uncontrollably. Sometimes there is nothing to listen to but his heaving breath and pounding pulse. Sometimes there is loud thumping music. Then it starts again. He hears them come in without saying a word. He feels their fingers, but cannot stop them. They tip his feet up. They tip his head down. Slowly, carefully. Suddenly, he is in the Tigris. Suddenly, he is drowning. Water floods his sinuses and fingers probe his stomach and chest. And then he is drowning again. And drowning again. Each time he comes up, he is not sure if he is inhaling or exhaling or even breathing at all. The hood comes off, and it goes back on. He can feel the pain in his head, but he cannot see a thing. Darkness falls.

Hours later, Khafaji wakes to another voice. He is on his side now. On concrete. “We got him, sir. Not a face card, but a
high target. We got the right intel and the right luck. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” More people come and go. Another voice when he drifts off, another voice when he comes to. American voices. He goes to sleep, but the pain never does.

“What's the reward on this bitch? What? Get on it, Sergeant.” It is not the shouting, but the shivering that wakes him up. The floor beneath Khafaji is ice. His clothes are gone, his skin feels warm, even hot. Between his ears, a knife slices through his mind.

“Good morning, you fuck. We know who you are. Mr Chairman, right? I'm gonna call you Chairman Fuckin' PUC, since it's easier to say than your hajji name. You may not be America's Most Wanted. But you're in the deck, Bitch. You belong to us!”

Khafaji feels a shoe by his ear. He feels someone breathing. A hand pulls at the cloth over his eyes. A new voice. “What the hell happened to this PUC's face?” A long pause. The man hums for a moment then shouts to someone else, “Something's not right.” Khafaji listens to the sound of boots crossing the room.

“You don't understand a word I'm saying to you, do you? I'm gonna smoke your PUC ass.” A sudden kick to the kidneys, and Khafaji falls into another dark dream.

At some point, the blindfold comes off, and cold water slaps his face. Only now, gasping for air, does Khafaji feel the tape over his mouth. His screams come out in mute heaves.
There's not enough air in this room to fill my lungs
.

His naked body shakes like it belongs to someone else. His skin twitches each time it remembers the frozen concrete. He tries to control his sobbing, but he can't. Gradually, his tears just stop and things begin to loom out of the fog. A bare room. A metal door. Walls of paint peeling from cracked concrete.
A standard-issue metal desk. Two standard-issue metal chairs and a wooden one. Fluorescent lights that blink and pop at random. Missing ceiling tiles. All somewhat familiar. Even an office man like Khafaji knows this kind of room. He's just never seen it from this angle before.

An American walks up sideways. Like a crab, his arms a pair of ragged claws. He reaches out and snaps something. Khafaji's legs spring free. Then they begin to throb and ache. He unbinds Khafaji's hands then fastens them again in front. When Khafaji begins to roll his shoulders, the blood pours in. A thousand sharp needles turn muscle and skin into meat. Even so, his fingertips are numb. Khafaji looks closely at the man in front of him. A face like a dish that was broken and glued back together again. The American unfastens the gag and smiles intimately. Like they've met before. Khafaji knows the look. Two other men walk up and grab Khafaji by the shoulders. They heave him onto the wooden chair. Beneath his weight, it creaks and settles. Someone throws a dirty blanket over his shoulders, and Khafaji manages to pull it around his body.

Only when Khafaji hears the voice offering him a cigarette does he realize there's someone else in the room. An Iraqi.

“Happy Eid, you son of a whore. You like American cigarettes? Virginia tobacco? I know you do. You say you hate those Americans, but you love their cigarettes more than anything else in the world.” Someone lights a cigarette and sets it on Khafaji's lips. He takes a drag. When the smoke hits his gut, he coughs. The nicotine begins to set in, though not soon enough. The pain, now dulling, recedes to the background.

The voice is familiar, but there's something off. Khafaji can barely make out the short bald man in the corner. From Mosul, by his accent. Italian suit. Spotless shoes. The man
must never have to walk on our streets. A leather smell. Cologne. His face is almost famous.

But there's something puzzling.
Why is he showing his face?
Then it sinks in.
He doesn't care
. To take his mind off the pain, Khafaji studies the man's face. Pink flesh. Hairless, except for eyebrows. Loud blue eyes. Minutes go by before he realizes the Mosuli is talking to him.

“…and this is just the start, you piece of shit. When we find your brother, we'll bring him in. And the rest of your family too. Want to know how we'll treat them? You'll get to see. You'll get to watch.”

“Where's my daughter, you cunt?”

From behind, someone slams Khafaji's face into the desk and shouts, “You need to be more respectful.” Hands tear the blanket off and throw it on the ground.

Khafaji coughs and gags. A plastic cup of water appears on the table in front of Khafaji, and he swallows it in one gulp.

“I will.” When Khafaji speaks, the sound of his own voice stuns him. Weak and distant. Floating in mid-air, like it came from somewhere else. Like a child shouting from a locked room. Suddenly he wants to look at himself in the mirror.

The American nods at the Mosuli, and the two men leave. Khafaji sits alone with his thoughts again. The blanket just beyond his toes.

Nazik appears behind him and whispers in his ear:

       
There is no Mutassim I can call

       
And there is no Saladin among us
.

       
We sleep at night, and wake at dawn wounded
,

       
Stabbed, killed
.

       
How do we make peace with tyranny?

       
How do we shake hands with Satan?

For some reason, it's the Mosuli's face that makes Khafaji think of these lines.

The American comes back in, followed by a man in a black hood. They sit down in the metal chairs opposite Khafaji. Someone places the blanket on his shoulders again, and Khafaji pulls it around his body as tightly as he can.

As the American opens a file, Khafaji stares at the hood. The man will only look at the ceiling.

The American turns to the hood and asks in English, “Is he Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji?”

The voice inside the hood asks, “Inta Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji?”

“Naam.”

The American asks in English, “Can he confirm that he serves as Party chairman and commander in the Qadasiya militia?”

The interpreter begins, “Mino ygool…?”

Khafaji interrupts. “What? No. Police. Not military.”

The American and the interpreter look at one another. Khafaji interrupts them again. First in English. Then again in Arabic: “You're looking for someone else, aren't you?”

They get up and leave in a hurry. When the door cracks open again, Khafaji sees the Mosuli looking in. Standing next to him is a slight man. Another business suit. Two more perfectly polished shoes. The only thing different about him is that he's wearing a hood. The Mosuli speaks to the man then points. At first the hood nods. Then it shrugs. Khafaji imagines another hairless pink face behind the mask. A hand shuts a door somewhere and Khafaji is alone again. The pain in his sinuses and head is unbearable now. He closes his eyes and tries to disappear.

This wasn't the first time it happened. Once, early on,
there was an official notification about a job promotion. It was addressed to him, Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji. A huge promotion. A leap over ranks and pay scales. As soon as Khafaji saw the letter, he rushed home to show it to Suheir. They celebrated by going out to dinner at one of the new restaurants on the river. Suheir's brother Nidal and his wife Maha joined them and they all drank too much arak. That was on 16 July. He could never forget it. Late the next morning, Suheir woke him up and together they listened to the news of the coup. Arif on a plane to London. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the new president. As he straightened his tie in the mirror that morning, he realized that the whole world had changed while they were sleeping.

But that letter was meant for someone else, another Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji. Long after the mistake was corrected, Suheir loved to tease him about how much money they spent on their celebration. For his birthday the next year, Suheir had framed a photograph taken of the four of them at dinner, embossed with the words “Congratulations on your success!” It was one of the few photos from that period Khafaji still possessed. That evening, and that mistake, became one of the brightest moments of their life together.

The second time it happened was just after Kuwait. A boy in a uniform appeared at the door. When Khafaji opened it, the boy rushed to shake his hand and embrace him with genuine tears and compassion. Khafaji was too stunned to interrupt. The boy said little at first, just vague praise for martyrs. Over tea, he launched into a long story about his friendship with Khafaji's son. They were more like brothers than friends. He talked about how their entire unit sent its regrets. By this time, Khafaji was so confused he did not know what to say. Three years before, when Uday was
executed, there had been no visit and no condolences. No body recovered. No burial. No funeral. The news delivered late one night, a rumor passed on by an acquaintance. The only official recognition of Uday's death they ever received was his punishment – the abrupt fall to civilian police.

In 1991, Khafaji knew from the outset what the visit from the soldier was about. It just took him a while to figure out why it was happening. After an hour, they cleared up the misunderstanding. The messenger was supposed to visit another Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji. Still, the scene replayed in his mind for days after. Khafaji allowed himself to imagine that the death of the other man's son meant that somehow his own son had survived. That somehow Uday had managed to eke out a few more years of life somewhere. As if that would have taken away some of the pain.

At that moment, Suheir's doctors had just discovered that her cancer had metastasized. That misaddressed report of someone else's death was news neither of them could stomach. They never talked about it again.

When the other Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji first appeared in his life, it was farce. When he returned a second time, it was tragedy. And now? Khafaji clenches his jaw and tries to ignore the pain.

Minutes later, the American and the Mosuli walk back into the room, brisk and serious. In their hand, a thick Manila folder. This is the only script he knows, so he recognizes it immediately.
File and Dossier
. They don't bother to sit. And now Khafaji recognizes the man. Of course. His picture used to appear in the papers and on the television. Spokesman for the exiles. Anyone would know the face. But it was his Arabic that was so confusing. Until today, Khafaji had never heard the man speak anything but English. It never
occurred to him that the man even spoke Arabic, let alone like an Iraqi.

The man's dream of retribution was now coming true. Now, purity would sit in judgment over corruption; those who left would judge those who remained behind. It's not for nothing they call exile the cheapest form of patriotism.

The man looks at a file in front of him, but directs his words at Khafaji. “You claim you're not Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji?”

“That's my name, but you have the wrong person.”

“You are not Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji of the Qadasiya?”

“That's someone else.” Khafaji hears the words coming out and is once again surprised at how remote his voice sounds. Like a wounded bird.

“You're an officer in the IPS?”

“I am Muhsin Khadr Ali al-Khafaji. Born Karbala, June 6, 1942. Chief Inspector. Iraqi State Police at Baghdad.”

“Party rank?”

“Section Member.”

“Says here you were a Branch Member.”

“No.” Khafaji pauses. “I didn't have much of a choice. It was the same rank anyone else in that position would have. Just look at my file.”

The two men stare at Khafaji, but say nothing. The American scribbles something in his notebook.

“Where is my daughter?” Khafaji asks abruptly.

“Hmm?” The American makes another note. “We'll come back to that later.”

He picks up a photograph and holds it in the air. He squints at it, then at Khafaji, and then at the photograph again. He makes a note. The Mosuli leans over the desk, and gestures for Khafaji to look into his eyes. The light reflecting from his bald head is distracting.