Daughters of Iraq (6 page)

“Ugh, adults always say that,” Ruthie complained. “‘When you grow up, you’ll understand,’” she said, mimicking her grandmother’s voice.

“Do you want to be angry, or do you want me to go on?”

“Oh, fine, go on, Grandmother.” Ruthie rolled her eyes and exhaled loudly.

“At home, I remember, we spent weeks preparing for the party, which would take place in the winter, right before Chanukah.”

“What?” Ruthie asked, stunned. “You had Chanukah in Iraq, too?”

“Of course!” Farida laughed loudly, then quieted as she remembered Sigal and Shai napping in the next room. “People celebrate holidays all over the world, even in Iraq. Chanukah has been around for a long time,” she said, stroking Ruthie’s face.

“The party was going to be in our house. We had to prepare weeks in advance. We had winter curtains and summer curtains—can you believe it? The summer curtains were white with the most gorgeous embroidery. We took them down and put up the winter curtains, which were also beautiful. They were velvet, like the dress I bought you before your birthday—remember?”

“Which dress, Grandmother? The red one?”

“Yes,” said Farida, “the red dress I bought you. It’s made from the exact same material as the curtains. You know something? Now that I think about it, every year, before Chanukah, we’d put away our regular menorah, which was the light source for everyday, and replace it with a special one. We did it every year, including the year of the Bar Mitzvah,
allah yirchamu
.”
She pointed toward the heavens. “And Eddie’s Bar Mitzvah fell right on Chanukah.”

Ruthie’s eyes shimmered, and her mouth hung open, slack in anticipation. Farida continued: “This menorah, the one we put out for Chanukah and Eddie’s Bar Mitzvah, was made of real silver.” With her hands, she formed the shape of a candelabrum. “It had nine branches. Ach,
what a gorgeous menorah.” Longing infused her voice. “I’m telling you, never in my life have I seen a lamp that beautiful. It was truly one-of-a-kind. And the servants had to polish it every year—it took them hours.”

“Why?” asked Ruthie.

“Because silver tarnishes over time. If you really want it to shine, you have to scour it with a special solution. When they finished, you could see your face in the menorah—that’s how much it sparkled.” Farida laughed.

“Wow,” said Ruthie. “But where is it now?”

“Ach,” Farida muttered. “Who knows? Maybe they sold it in Iraq; maybe someone took it. It didn’t come with us; it stayed there. They wouldn’t let us bring anything, those Iraqi bastards—they should all go to hell. They barely let us take the clothes on our backs.”

“Too bad,” Ruthie said, “because the menorah you have now isn’t nice at all—”

“Well, that’s another matter entirely,” Farida snapped. “Do you want me to go on?”

“Of course, Grandmother. Tell me what else you had there.”

“I remember . . .” Farida thought back over the span of many years. “I remember that, for Eddie’s Bar Mitzvah, we took out the good rugs we had rolled up and stored for the summer. Every year we took the rugs out during summer and packed them up for winter. Do you know why they brought out the rugs?”

“Why?” asked Ruthie, her little eyes wide.

“Because it was very hot in Iraq. Do you remember when we went to Eilat? How hot it was?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “In Iraq, it was even hotter. And there were sandstorms that blotted out everything. And my mother didn’t want the rugs ruined. But before the Bar Mitzvah, and before Chanukah, she took them out of storage and unfurled them. Ach,”
she inhaled deeply, “I will never forget those cleaning smells as long as I live. To this day, they’re still somewhere inside my nose.”

“Where, Grandmother? Show me!” laughed Ruthie, reaching out to press her grandmother’s nose.

“Right here!” Farida gently honked her granddaughter’s nose. “You know, cleaning the house, that was really something. And the wonderful smells drifting out of the kitchen . . . wow.”
Again she inhaled, breathing in sweet memories.

“Go on!” Ruthie tugged on her grandmother’s shirt. Farida shivered, and her demeanor turned serious.

“There must have been ten servants working in our house, maybe more, just to prepare the feast we needed. And to ready the house for the party.” Farida coughed, and the flesh of her large shoulders jiggled. “Most times, we had several servants: one to clean, one to cook, and one to look after me and Violet, and my brothers’ children, too . . . She used to play with us, poor thing. Imagine, a girl just a little bit older than you, taking care of so many children, and every one of them driving her crazy. Sometimes she even had to watch Anwar’s children, my sister Habiba’s children, and my sister Farcha’s children. Everyone had little kids, about your age, even younger, and when the grown-ups went out, she looked after us all.” Farida put her arms around Ruthie’s neck and hugged. After planting several loud, wet kisses on the girl’s forehead, she continued. “We even had one servant, a man, who worked for my mother: he shopped, drove the carriage, ran errands . . .”

Ruthie sat, mesmerized. She tried to imagine such a display of wealth and grandeur; in her little mind, the scene was lifted straight out of Cinderella’s ball. She looked into her grandmother’s eyes, sighed, and said, “If only I lived in Iraq.”

These words cut at Farida’s heart. “God forbid!” she shouted, warding off the evil eye. “There’s more to life than money, Ruthie,” she said. “When you grow up, you’ll understand. Sure, money’s nice, but we didn’t want to stay in Baghdad, Ruthie. We wanted to come to the Holy Land. What don’t we have here? Gold? Believe me, things are good here. The people in Baghdad are miserable. There’s a tyrant over there by the name of Saddam; he kills people right and left, for no reason at all. If he thinks a person said bad things about him, he’ll kill him. Do you see, Ruthie? Democracy is more important. It’s hard for you to understand, so let me explain it. Democracy is being able to walk through the streets and say whatever you want, without being afraid. Now do you understand? Money isn’t everything. This is where we belong. Here, nobody calls you
stinking Jew
when they pass you on the street. Do you understand what this means?”

Ruthie sat, mute, gazing at Farida’s impassioned face, listening.

“Ruthie, nothing’s like our country, because it’s our country. Remember what I’m telling you,” she concluded in a decisive voice, “even when you’re a big girl.”

After a long silence, Farida resumed. “Now, let me tell you about the ball. But just remember: I have never missed Iraq, not once. Deal?”

Although Ruthie didn’t really understand what her grandmother meant, she said, “Deal.”

“Good. Now I can go on. So, for this party . . .” Once again, Farida’s face was calm, with no trace of her recent outburst. “We needed even more help. Everyone sent their servants to our house for several days. You’re going to laugh when I tell you which was the hardest job of all.”

“Which?” Ruthie was relieved to hear her grandmother’s voice return to normal.

“Cleaning the gigantic fish.
Shevit
they were called. Turbot.”

“What kind of fish are those?” asked Ruthie. “I’ve heard of carp. Once, at Grandmother Rosa’s house, I saw some carp in the bathtub. We ate them on Rosh Hashanah.”

“They’re not exactly the same,” laughed Farida. She stroked her granddaughter’s hair. “
Shevit
are giant fish that live in the rivers of Baghdad. They don’t have them here. Should I go on?” She arched her eyebrows.

“Yes, Grandmother,” Ruthie said. “Tell me more.”

“First, we had to clean the fish; then we had to fry them. And you know why we needed so many?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Because eating fish is a
mitzvah
—a good deed. And do you know why it’s a
mitzvah
?”

 “No.” Ruthie’s stared at her grandmother.

“Because fish are a good sign. They bring good luck—the more fish, the better. Also, whenever there was a Bar Mitzvah or a wedding, all the Jews were invited. The poor people would get a hot meal, which is also a
mitzvah
. There were a lot of people to feed.”

“But Grandmother, wait a minute.” Creases furrowed Ruthie’s brow. “Why didn’t your mother take care of you?”

“Ah, that’s a good question,” Farida said. “We were very rich and well-respected in our community. You’re right, even though our mother was in charge of the household, it was a servant who bathed and fed us. That’s how things were over there. My mother supervised everyone: the kids, the servants, my father.” She gave a bitter smile. “My father was in charge of discipline. He was like your school principal. Can you imagine that?”

“My father and mother aren’t like that, are they?” Ruthie asked.

“No,” Farida smiled. “Definitely not. But things were different in those days. My father was one of the most important men in the community; people trembled in his presence. As for my mother, well, my mother was always busy, going to tea parties, visiting her neighbors, someone was born, someone died… she was hardly ever at home. She also liked to entertain. Anyone lucky enough to receive an invitation to our house was considered important, because he had been hosted by
Um Anwar
.
That’s what they used to call my mother. It means ‘Mother of Anwar’—Anwar was her first-born son. My sister Farcha, who was already married with children of her own, also rarely took care of her kids. She was busy going with my grandmother, Samira, to many different parties.”

“And your mother never missed you?” Ruthie had a puzzled look on her face. “When my mother comes home from work, she always tells me how much she missed me. But my mother has to work, she says. So why did your mother leave you all the time?”

“A blessing on your head—what a smart girl you are,” said Farida in amazement. “You’re right; your mother does miss you all the time. But that’s how it was when I was a girl. In Iraq it was all about social status. The more servants you had, the more respected you were. My mother almost never hugged and kissed us; she was too preoccupied with her own affairs. But you know what? Even though she wasn’t with us, it felt like her eyes followed us everywhere. She always knew exactly what we were up to, and if, God forbid, someone was sick, she always took care of that child herself. But raising children? I just don’t think it interested her. Okay, enough of that, Ruthie. That’s the way things were. Do you still want to live in Iraq?”

“No,” Ruthie said. “Absolutely not. But go on about the party. What was it like?”

“Wait a minute—what’s the rush? Before I talk about the party itself, I want to tell you some other important things. You know that the winters in Iraq are so cold that water freezes in the faucets?”

“No, you never told me that before.”

“The winters were brutal. Iraq is a desert, but it was so cold come wintertime that water froze in the pipes, and everything came to a halt.”

“Why?” Ruthie asked. “Didn’t you like to chew on ice when you were a kid?”

“Of course I did. I still like it to this day. But you’re a smart girl—tell me, how can you get water from a faucet if it’s frozen inside the pipes? You can’t, right? And if you can’t get it from the tap, you have to get it from outside, which is very hard work. So the week before the party we prayed the water wouldn’t freeze, because if it did, we wouldn’t be able to cook anything. And really, we were very lucky it didn’t freeze. And another thing. The night before the party, we were so excited. We were waiting for our grandmother, my father’s mother, and for Aunt Madeline, my father’s sister. They were coming on the train from Basra, another city a long way from Baghdad. The ride took hours, and then, to get to our house, they had to travel by carriage.”

“Carriages with horses, like the ones we went on in Netanya?” said Ruthie.

“Yes, a lot like the ones in Netanya. That’s how people traveled from one place to another; they used them all the time, like we use cars today. Every evening, at exactly the same time, the train arrived at the station, which was near our house. We heard the whistle when it pulled into the station, And then the sound of whips as the horses pulled the carriages.”

“Wow!”

“You know, our house was always open to guests. All the carriage drivers knew that if a Jew came from far away and didn’t have a place to sleep, he’d be able to stay with us. My mother, while a terrible snob toward people in our community, welcomed strangers graciously. You know what a snob is, right?”

“I think so, Grandmother,” Ruthie said. “A snob is someone with her nose in the air—that’s what my friend Noga says. Like this.” Ruthie lifted her nose and laughed.

“That looks like a pig’s nose!” Farida laughed, too. She gave her granddaughter a wet kiss on the cheek. “Should we go on?”

“Of course, Grandmother. This is a great story.”

“Okay. So,” Farida said, “there were nights when we heard the horsewhips coming closer. That’s when we knew someone was coming to stay with us. But that evening, we knew who was coming: not just any old guests, but Grandmother and Aunt Madeline. So we sat there and waited, and every time we thought we heard the horsewhips, we jumped from our seats. I remember I missed my grandmother fiercely. I hadn’t seen her for half a year—a long, long time.”

Farida looked at the sweet, small face staring at her, enraptured. For a moment, she felt like she herself was a child talking to her sister Violet. She vividly remembered that night, the night before Eddie’s Bar Mitzvah. She was almost eleven, and she missed her grandmother terribly. She hadn’t thought about her grandmother in years. To Farida’s dismay, the feeling disappeared as quickly as it had come. She went back to her story.

“You have to understand, Ruthie,” she explained solemnly. “Our lives in Iraq were nothing like our lives today. Here, we get into a car and drive for five minutes. There, if you didn’t live very close to people, you hardly ever saw them. You’d see them at weddings, maybe, and
brits
,
sometimes on holidays. Once a year, more or less. That’s how it was. My father’s family lived in a different city: Basra. Like I said, it was far away. That’s why I was so excited about my grandmother’s visit.”