Barefoot in Baghdad (20 page)

He would chat with two types of girls. He called them horizons and potentials. The horizons were girls from different countries who expanded his horizons. Potentials were Iraqi girls whom he would consider marrying. A true romantic, Mais spent most of his time chatting with potentials, often girls just a few blocks down the road.

“My lips are sealed,” I promised.

His face was scrunched together as he concentrated on peeling the potatoes.

“Manal,” he nonchalantly asked, “how do you know if you meet Mr. Right?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Mais was a six-foot-two, 250-pound, thirty-year-old man who always managed to come across as a love-struck adolescent.

Seeing as I didn’t have much insight on the issue of love, I just shrugged my shoulders. “They say you know when you know,” I offered unhelpfully. “Why don’t you just meet a girl in a coffee shop?” I was not fully convinced of Mais’s wooing activities on the Web.

Six months ago I would not have dared to ask such a question. As liberal as my family was on some issues, when it came to dating, the line was drawn at romantic relationships outside of marriage (a line drawn in most Muslim households). Yet I knew of many Iraqis who were dating or who had dated at one time or another. In fact, many of them were deeply intertwined in some love drama. As one Iraqi colleague put it, “In the midst of sanctions and war, our only pastime was falling in and out of love.”

Mais shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about what would happen if we were to get caught. I wouldn’t even risk talking to her by phone. I am not that irresponsible. Anyway, it’s over.”

I said nothing.

A few minutes later Mais continued. “Her parents are Sunni, and they would never consider a Shia like me.” He shrugged his shoulders, and I got the impression he was trying to pretend he didn’t care.

He was remarkably efficient at his task of peeling the potatoes, and he was already a quarter of the way through the bag. He sliced the potatoes and slid them into the frying pan, stepping back as the hot oil spat at him.

“A year ago these sectarian differences wouldn’t have been an issue,” Mais said, commenting more to the pan than to me.

I knew he was right, but I could not think of anything helpful to say.

Lucky for me, I didn’t have to think of anything to fill what was becoming an uncomfortable silence, because Yusuf burst into the kitchen.

“What the hell are you doing?” Yusuf asked Mais.

“Frying fingers,” Mais answered.

“Its 11 p.m. Are you trying to kill us from a heart attack?” Yusuf asked. Like me, our pig-out parties were taking a physical toll on Yusuf. He was slowly developing a potbelly, which he patted proudly. The rest of his body still remained remarkably lean, and I reluctantly admitted to myself how handsome Yusuf was.

My ideal man had always been tall and dark, a look that was a dime a dozen in Iraq. Yusuf was a noticeable exception, about my height and on the fair side. His dirty blond hair and hazel eyes made him a heartthrob to Iraqi women. He sported a marine haircut and had a preppie fashion sense that other men seemed to copy. Yusuf could easily pass for an American. In fact, on many occasions when we came to a checkpoint, soldiers would wave him through and stop me and ask for my ID.

It wasn’t just his good looks that made him popular with the opposite sex. He had a certain charm about him. Although aware of his good looks, he still possessed a bashful charisma that made him endearing. I had seen his interaction with the female staff, and it was clear Yusuf was aware of his impact on women. For this reason, I had gone out of my way to emphasize my preference for darker men in front of him.

When he smiled at me in the kitchen, I realized I had been staring at him. I tried to refocus on Mais and prayed that I was not blushing.

Mais slid more peeled potatoes into the frying pan, which were now crackling loudly. Yusuf was not even waiting for an answer. He headed toward the refrigerator to pull out a bottle of Heinz catsup. He lifted it proudly with a grin and said, “The catsup that nearly cost me my life.”

Yusuf had a special gift for exaggeration. He could retell the most mundane event with such spunk that it would become legendary within twenty-four hours. From the grin on his face I knew he was going to launch into his account of valiantly picking up the catsup for me from the Green Zone.

“Do you mind if we use your catsup? Seeing as I spent two hours at the security check point just to pick it up?” Yusuf asked.

“Yes, of course,” I groaned.

“I mean, this has to be special catsup. Although I have to admit that if I knew at the time the reason I was putting my life in harm’s way was to pick up a bottle of catsup, I would have definitely told you to jump off a bridge. At first I thought this was a code word for something else, that it was infused with hashish, but lo and behold—it really is only catsup.” Yusuf turned to Mais and asked, “Did I tell you I spent two hours at the checkpoint?”

“Yes, you did. I think this is the one hundredth time,” Fadi answered as he waltzed into the kitchen and started picking the cooked fries directly from the fry pan. Unlike Yusuf and me, nothing Fadi ate showed on him. And Lord knows he ate. Fadi could win a southern pie-eating contest any day. Yet he was all skin and bones.

“I am almost done with the first batch,” Mais said and protectively swatted Fadi away.

“Just for the record, I did not know it was catsup either,” I jumped in, feeling guilty. Anne Murphy had mentioned to Yusuf that she had a gift for me. He had volunteered to pick it up from the Green Zone the next time he was there. Aiming to please, he made a special visit just to pick up my gift. He was not too thrilled when he realized the gift was a bottle of catsup.

It was actually a very kind gift. The previous month I had mentioned how different Iraqi catsup tasted from the catsups back home. I had joked the one thing I missed was Heinz. Anne had thoughtfully remembered to ask for it to be included in one of her care packages. I was really touched she had remembered such a fleeting comment. It was just another indication of how thoughtful Captain Murphy was.

Mais placed a hot plate of steaming french fries on the kitchen table, and Yusuf squirted a generous amount of catsup over them. Within minutes the plate was empty.

“So what movie is it tonight?” asked Mais. Since Mais’s English was the strongest, he enjoyed my movie collection the most. Yusuf and Fadi enjoyed the board games better.

In the end the exchange was pretty fair. They offered me around-the-clock protection and in return I introduced them to
The Godfather
movies and microwave popcorn.

***

Early the next morning Salah stopped by with his wife, Nagham, and his two children. I had spoken several times with Nagham on the phone, and sometimes she would drop by for a short visit. I groaned when I realized she had brought more food with her, although from the savory smell I knew we would be pigging out as soon as she left.

Salah introduced his two children—eight-year-old Ali and six-year-old Zahra. “See, even we Sunnis name our sons Ali,” he teased, casting a look at Mais and Yusuf.

“Of course they do.” Yusuf jumped in. “After all, it’s the nephew of the Prophet, peace be upon him.”

“Thanks so much for letting Salah come over so often. I really appreciate it,” I interjected, turning toward Nagham to change the topic. The five of us had had this conversation about the differences and similarities between Sunnis and Shias in different shapes and sizes at least a thousand times over the past few weeks. I couldn’t bear it if they were going to launch into that topic again.

“Please don’t mention it,” she replied. “You are our guest, and if our house was big enough, I would insist you stay with us. Anyway, Salah is not here nearly as often as he would like. He is very jealous that you are all bonding without him.”

Speaking with Nagham was so pleasant that it came as a surprise when Salah slapped his thighs a few hours later, the Iraqi gesture that time has run out. He looked toward Nagham. “Are you planning on spending the night as well?”

We had been so engrossed in conversation that we hadn’t realized a few hours had slipped by. It was the first time Salah’s family had stayed so long. I really enjoyed the chance to get to know Nagham better. She had been so pleasant to speak with, and her children were so well behaved. The entire time we were talking, they had sat quietly watching television and allowed the two of us to engage each other. It was funny. I could not remember how our conversation had begun, but I had felt so comfortable with her that we were exchanging our life stories with each other. I shared with her my experiences of growing up in America, and she probed about life in America while wearing the
hijab.
She was curious about my personal struggles to be a practicing Muslim in a secular country.

Nagham also shared with me her love for school, and although she married Salah when she was only eighteen, she was still adamant about finding a way to continue her education. For now she was content to pour her love for school into her children, but she believed, when they were old enough, she would have a chance to go back to school. She felt lucky that Salah, unlike her brothers, was so open-minded and did not want more than two children. Her other siblings had a minimum of six children each.

Meanwhile, she shared with me her stories of the four men who were now my self-appointed bodyguards. I was always aware of the camaraderie between the four friends, but I never realized how deep their relationship was with one another.

Yusuf, Mais, and Fadi had been by Salah’s side the first time Salah had come to ask for Nagham’s hand in marriage. Nagham described how intimidated she was when she saw four young men coming through the door. The three of them had been by his side the day of his wedding. Each of the young men had come in their own car to make the most of the
zafah
(the wedding procession), driving side by side with the wedding vehicle carrying the bride and groom, music blasting, horns honking, and occasionally shooting their revolvers into the sky. At the end of the wedding, the four friends shot their AK47s into the sky—the Iraqi version of firecrackers—to mark the wedding celebration.

Nagham told me the three of them were also standing with Salah in the waiting room when Ali was born. She described them as neighbors who became friends, friends who became brothers.

The whole time Nagham sat with me I could not help but stare in awe at her. I was stunned at how beautiful she was. Salah was a lot of things, but handsome was not one of them. In fact, he was far from it. But Nagham’s tall, slim body concealed the fact that she was a mother of two. Her long black ebony hair hung down to her waist and stood in sharp contrast to her porcelain white skin. I was amazed at the length of her eyelashes, and I could have sworn I felt a small breeze every time she blinked. She had a Bedouin beauty about her that I had imagined when I read classical Arabic poetry. I could easily picture her as the muse of many of Iraq’s poets.

After Salah and Nagham had driven off with their children, I stood staring out the front door for minutes. I was still struck by Nagham’s beauty, or rather, more bluntly, at Salah’s lack thereof. “How did that happen?” I asked Yusuf as I closed the door.

Yusuf laughed, knowing exactly what I meant. “She is his cousin,” he said.

I laughed, pleased that the two of us understood each other so easily.

“This is listed among our unsolved mysteries, our Iraqi version of beauty and the beast,” he added.

As Yusuf gently poked fun at his friend, I was struck once more with the compassion in his voice. I recalled Nagham’s description of the way the four men had grown up together, sharing the most precious memories with one another.

Their friendship stood in defiance of talk of the inevitability of a segregated Iraq. As the situation inside Iraq disintegrated around me, I had the privilege of watching these four interact. They loved each other in a way Western culture reserved for blood brothers. Each one was quite literally prepared to take a bullet for the other.

And somehow I had been allowed into their circle.

***

Our bubble burst one afternoon when I received a call from Rayyan, the Iraqi manager of the Democracy and Transparency Institute (DTI), an American nonprofit organization. Part of my organization’s new security guidelines was that if the situation were to deteriorate, I would be evacuated with the DTI team, and Rayyan had agreed to include me on all DTI security updates. By this point, though, I had read and ignored all his emails about the “Red Zone” and “emergency evacuation.” I knew this was bad, but in my mind, although the situation had deteriorated, it was still controllable. Plus I had a Monopoly championship to hold on to.

Apparently, Rayyan and his team didn’t believe the situation was safe anymore. He was calling from the Baghdad airport, where he had evacuated his team, chartered a plane, and planned to fly out in the next thirty minutes. He apologized profusely for not calling me sooner, but their security procedures stipulated that nobody was to be informed of evacuation plans until the last moment. Nobody. I didn’t see the benefit of pointing out that we had a verbal agreement and that I was supposed to be a part of any evacuation plan. Dumbfounded, I just hung up the phone.

I told the news to the guys.

We had been in the middle of an intense game of Risk. The five of us were sitting around the living room table, playing the game by our own set of ad hoc rules. It was the third day of a headquarters-declared house arrest.

“Bastard! That selfish bastard!” Yusuf responded.

“What are you going to do?” Mais the pragmatist asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I am going to finish our game.” I wanted to pretend like the phone call had never happened. I could not think of what could have prompted such a full evacuation. At the same time, I did not want to think about the fact that, given DTI’s actions, the time for my evacuation had probably finally come.

“You have to go. They must have some information that you do not. We have to think of a way to get you to the airport.”