Baghdad Central (8 page)

Terrified, Khafaji wakes up. He stares up at the fluorescent bulbs until the floating sensation becomes a dull throbbing
again. He rolls over and feels the vomit on his face and chest. His stomach is a wolf gnawing at the rest of his body. He can't remember the last time he ate. The others tell him that food arrived while he was sleeping and they saved him some. They see his face and tell him to eat. He crawls over and sits in front of the food. He drags a piece of dry bread through cold, viscous soup, and puts it in his mouth. Bite by bite, he finishes the plate.

As soon as he finishes the last bite, his body seizes up. In a second, he is heaving and convulsing, and everything comes out again. The more he vomits, the clearer his head feels.

He can't stop the tears when they begin to well up. He turns his shaking body to face the wall, and tries to do what he has always done whenever he is sick or tired or sad. He tries to escape into the music he knows by heart. Poetry, the same liquor that his father poured whenever he wanted to drink himself into oblivion. Khafaji wants to drink it too. He wants to drink until he can't see straight any more. His father used to say that Arabs called poetic meters “seas” because you could sail on them, and because you could drown in them.

Khafaji tries to recall lines from the book he was reading to Mrouj yesterday.
Where is Mrouj?
he wonders.
Was it yesterday?
No. He thinks about the poems, hoping that something might float up from his memory. A line or fragment. These are poems he's known his whole life. They are who he is.

But, tonight, nothing. As if someone had erased the diwan of his life. For the first time in years, there's not even a poem to keep him company. He cries hot torrents of tears, but they're not enough to wash away the dirt and blood on his cheeks.

At some point, he finds a hand gently resting on his arm and looks up to see the young Egyptian boy sitting next to him. They look at each other until, suddenly, the lights turn off again.

September 2003

My boy, Munadil! God protect him! Here is his picture. Look, here is his identification card. Here is his certificate of citizenship. I have all his papers. I have all of them.

Last year, they told me he might be in Abu Ghraib. But he didn't come home when Saddam released everybody, so I don't think he was. That's why I'm here, that's why I come every day. I'm hoping that God willing – God willing – the Americans will help me find him. Who else is going to help us, if not the Americans?

He was a good boy. He didn't mean any harm. He made a mistake, but God forbid, my boy was not a criminal. He did not steal, he did not kill. Since when does changing money hurt someone? Since when is it a crime? Where in the Quran does it say that the punishment for changing money is chopping off a hand? Where?

You want to know what is criminal? Hunger. Poverty. Murder. Those things are criminal. If Saddam really wanted to fight crime, he would have locked up those things, not my Munadil.

Can you help me? Do you know anyone inside? I know that the Americans are here to help. And I know that if they heard my son's story, they would help.

Tell me – where else can I go? If they don't let me in to meet with someone today, I'll come back again tomorrow morning. I'll keep coming back until I find my son.

Friday

28 November 2003

Some time, the metal door opens and someone calls out, “Mossen El Koffeggie!”

Khafaji comes to the door and two American soldiers, one short and white, the other tall and copper-skinned, take him by the arms. With their haircuts, they could pass for Ottoman janissaries. Without speaking, they walk him down long wordless corridors. Eventually they come to a large, cold, concrete bathroom. They close the door and let him go.

Khafaji walks over to a mirror. Through a film of grime, defeat stares back at Khafaji. He fingers the ugly patch of moustache left by his captors. He rubs his palms over his head, feeling the tufts of hair on the back of his skull. The white soldier stands next to Khafaji as he studies the plastic razor and bar of soap. For the first time in forty years, Khafaji's moustache comes off in a series of sharp, painful tugs. He scrapes at his lips until they are clean and smooth, then rinses the blade under the cold water. He shaves his chin and cheeks and looks at himself. The cheap blade is dull; it has left thin red threads of blood across his neck. He washes his face and his head, and looks again. He wipes at the mirror for a minute, but the image he sees still belongs to someone else. Something else.

Khafaji asks for a toothbrush and the white soldier shakes his head. Khafaji turns toward the wall as he removes the
underwear. The copper-skinned soldier looks away as he showers. After Khafaji towels off, he hands him a bag with a suit and underclothes. Khafaji puts on the jacket. It's two sizes too large, and still smells like the last man who wore it, and the one before him too. Khafaji finds a pair of plastic sandals in the corner of the shower and puts them on.

They walk down another concrete hallway, and then open a pair of doors to step outside. The noon sun is blinding. Khafaji tries to shield his eyes. The world blazes in then fades away into fog. When Khafaji's legs give out, the two soldiers carry him by the arms across a yard to a cluster of bright white trailers. They walk beneath a snapping sound, and Khafaji looks up to see an American flag. A metal door opens then springs shut with a flimsy smack. Khafaji finds himself inside a wood-paneled room filled with file cabinets and wooden desks. The hum of air-conditioners fills the air. Even so, it is stuffy and warm.

An American voice booms, “That's all for now, gentlemen. You can wait outside.” A huge man in crisp military fatigues rises to his feet. His face is a piece of dough, his smile, honey on cream.

“Good morning, Mr Khadr. I'm sorry for all this. It looks like you've had time to shower, so I hope you feel better. Please sit down. I want to speak with you.”

The man smiles sugar. His gaze never lifts from Khafaji's. He waves toward an empty chair. When Khafaji sits, the man starts to shuffle through a pile of paper on his desk. A minute later, he begins to speak. His words come out very slowly. He enunciates each syllable very carefully. “You understand some English, huh? Very good, Mr Khadr. Would you like something to drink while we talk? I drink coffee. Would you like coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”

At first, Khafaji doesn't mean anything by his silence. A minute goes by with Khafaji looking around the office and then at the man. The smile finally fades from the American's face. “You do speak English, don't you, Mr Khadr? It is very important that we speak. I would like us to communicate with one another.”

“…”

“Pardon?”

Another minute goes by before Khafaji breaks down. When the words come out, it's that distant voice again. “Sorry. I speak English. I would like tea.”

The man speaks into a phone and orders tea and biscuits. Khafaji looks around the room again. The man said his name too quickly, but Khafaji does not ask him to repeat it. There is a forest of pictures on the desk. The frames are tilted the other way, but Khafaji imagines a woman and children. On the wall, a large, familiar picture of an American city skyline. Underneath, a screaming eagle and words. Khafaji sounds out “Never Forget” twice before he stops himself. The only other decoration in the room is a floating cluster of metallic balloons, covered with festive pictures of confetti and flowers and the words “Happy birthday”.

The man wipes his brow as he begins speaking. “Let's get straight to business. We know who you are. We know your rank and where you work. This isn't a whole lot, but it's enough for us to get started. You see, we need you right now. This country needs its police. We need you to go back to work.”

Khafaji shrugs. “Too late. I retired.”

“That's not what this says,” the American says. He looks again at a paper on his desk, and says, “Nothing here about you retiring. According to this, you are still on the force. No
flashing sirens, just lots of experience. Says you managed the archives.”

Khafaji leans back and says nothing.

“Look, I understand there may be some confusion, so let me clear something up. We dissolved the Army, but there was apparently some misunderstanding about how that was going to be applied to the police. Of course, the decision was meant to apply to the Military Police. And the National Police. But it wasn't meant for the Iraqi Police Service. Except at the highest levels, and I don't think that fits in your case. There are obviously some gray areas, but…”

He pauses, and wipes his mouth with a tissue.

“The IPS disappeared when the country was liberated. Where'd they go? I don't need to ask you – you know better than I do where they went. Just as your country began to need you for the first time, you guys vanished. That was a mistake. And now we're all paying for it.”

Khafaji looks at the man and vaguely nods. He goes on. “Let me tell you how I see it. The original message probably wasn't clear enough for people in your situation. And then there's the Interim Governing Council with all their talk of settling scores. You were right to wonder what was going to happen. If I were you, I would have disappeared too.”

He pauses and wipes his brow. “How does that sound? Sounds reasonable to me. But you don't have that luxury any more, do you?”

He looks intensely at Khafaji and pauses again. Khafaji looks down at the paper cup in his hand. He swallows the warm tea in a single gulp. The sugary taste dissolves, leaving behind a film of cotton in his mouth.

“Would you like another?” Before Khafaji says a word, the man is on the phone asking for two more cups of tea. Khafaji
stares at the balloons, puzzled.
Do Americans really decorate their offices with balloons?
The man's voice brings them back to the moment.

“We are aware of the sensitivities of the situation, Mr Khadr. But we also have our security needs. And these are growing, not shrinking. Iraq has no army. No police. No order. And that means chaos.”

The man wipes his brow and leans forward across the desk. “And so, we're forced to make some difficult decisions. Don't get me wrong. No one has any interest in turning back the clock. At the same time, we did not liberate Iraq, Mr Khadr, to watch it fall into ruin. And that means we've got to march forward and see this through.”

Khafaji nods and wonders where all this is going.

“Mr Khadr, I studied history in college. And that inclines me to look at this situation in its proper historical light. This is what I see. I see a group of thugs that took a whole country hostage. I see a few men with blood on their hands. And the rest terrorized into submission. Did any of you really believe that Baathist crap?”

He rubs his temples with thick thumbs, then goes on. “We came here to swat at ghosts and phantoms, it turns out. We came to stamp out an ideology that doesn't really exist. I look at you, and I don't see a ghost.

“Your file describes a real person, Mr Khadr. Reading it, I see someone who had very few choices. A solid career in the General Security Directorate. Regular promotions. Up and up – until one day in 1988, you're out. That particular memo is missing from your file, for some reason. After years of loyal service, you're sent down to civilian police. What did you do? Who did you piss off? Then you spend your last years running around after thieves and smugglers and rounding
up beggars. I see here you play a role in an anti-drug campaign, then a stint in vice. Then you're shunted over to the records office. Says you're the archivist.”

Only Khafaji's hand moves. His numb fingers reach for his upper lip as if drawn there. The skin is soft, like a woman's.

“You didn't have many real options, Khadr, did you? It must be next to impossible to pursue a career in law enforcement in this part of the world.”

The American laughs again. “This is where you're supposed to talk.”

Khafaji shrugs and disappears into the folds of his suit.

“Let me put it differently then. We're in a hurry here. I'm not trying to be your friend. And I don't want to hear your life story. All I want is for you to go back to work.”

Two minutes go by as Khafaji stares at the desk. A man enters with a tray of paper teacups. Khafaji's shaking fingers rip at tiny packets of white sugar. Finally, the American interrupts the silence. “Maybe you weren't the one they were looking for. But that doesn't matter much any more. You made a big impression with someone in the IGC. Normally they couldn't be bothered with the details of a case like yours. But now they're coming to look into the files. You can appreciate that, can't you? They have everything. The North Iraq Archives, for starters. The HRW reports. You and your friends in the Central Security Directorate took lots of notes and drafted lots of memos. If you spent any time up there, they know about it.”

The American pauses, unsure whether he has Khafaji's attention.

“If they get their hands on you, they won't have any time to hear all about your difficult life choices. You'll be lucky if your case falls through the cracks. But even then, you are not going free, you know.”

When Khafaji looks up, the man's smile is long gone. Khafaji's eyes begin to swim in the tea. The paper cup rips in his trembling hands. Warm liquid spills onto his crotch, but he says nothing.