Lion of Babylon (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

A
s Sameh was leaving the literary café, his cellphone rang. Aisha, her voice low, said, “I must ask you to come back to the office, sir.”

“Not now, Aisha. I'm tired, and the American is coming for dinner.” The American. As though there was only one of them in all of Baghdad.

“Leyla says she will take your car and pick up Marc. You need to return here. Now.”

Sameh went, mostly because Aisha was not one for histrionics. If she indicated there was an emergency, she had reason for it. Sameh flagged a passing taxi and seated himself beside the driver. For once, the center of Baghdad was not a massive parking lot. They made good time.

The street in front of his office was empty of police and newspeople and distraught parents. Even so, the entry hall and cracked marble stairs seemed to echo with all that had come before. Sameh imagined the old building had somehow managed to absorb the day's heavy burden and was releasing it now in silent wisps of grief.

Four families were seated in his outer office. Cups of tea sat untouched before each of them. Sameh recognized one of the men from the bad old days, and instantly the situation snapped into focus.

One of the first empire builders in recorded history, Sargon, ruled Iraq around 2300 BC. As his armies conquered the fertile crescent and his reach expanded to include parts of what today is Syria, India, Iran, and Egypt, Sargon filled his top positions with members of his own village clan. These tribesmen made up his innermost circle and were appointed to rule over the far-flung provinces.

This same ruling structure had been adopted by a more recent dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Saddam's ruling council were all selected from the
Tikriti
, the name of both his tribe and his home village. After the Americans arrived, Tikrit and the surrounding region acquired a different name, as it was the haven for extremists seeking to undermine the American-led war effort. The Americans called that region the Triangle of Death.

For the other distraught parents who had recently departed Sameh's office, these Tikriti families represented the horror of Saddam's regime. Two of them had held senior positions. They were at least indirectly responsible for the chaos. And, by tragic reasoning, they would also have been held responsible for the missing children.

The distraught parents might well have torn them apart.

But Sameh forced himself to look beyond past crimes. He had no choice. Because all four families held photographs from his office wall.

———

Marc arrived back at his hotel with just enough time to shower and change and return downstairs. He had scarcely arrived on the front veranda when Leyla pulled up in Sameh's dusty Peugeot. As he sat down in the passenger seat, Leyla said, “Uncle has been called to a meeting at the office. Aisha says it is about the rescued children. He will meet us at home.”

“Fine. Thank you.” But as Leyla reinserted herself into the Baghdad traffic, Marc decided he had spoken too soon.

Leyla's driving was as bad as the traffic. She scooted around a corner, almost taking a cluster of pedestrians off at the knees. A man shouted a high-pitched bark and a woman swung her purse, but they were already long past. Marc would have thought there was no space in the traffic circle for a scooter, much less a car. But somehow Leyla wedged herself into the flow, pushing impatiently on the horn.

Marc asked, “Are we in a hurry?”

“This is the only way to get anywhere in Baghdad.” She pulled two wheels over the curb and eased around a pair of cement mixers, who blared their horns in outrage. “People ignore the traffic lights which still work. Cars drive against the flow and on the wrong side of the road, even when the road is divided. The bus stops have been taken over by street vendors, so the buses only halt for passengers when they feel like it. Which means if people see that a bus is pausing, they run through the traffic because buses never stop for long.”

Marc fit his foot into a well-worn indentation in the floorboard as they approached an intersection. When he realized Leyla had no intention of either slowing or checking for oncoming vehicles, Marc decided he had two choices. Holler with fear, or shut his eyes. He did both.

Gut-wrenching eons later, they turned into a residential section. Guards drew back a portable barrier and saluted Leyla as she passed. She offered a soft greeting in reply.

They turned down a quiet lane and halted before another pair of metal gates. Leyla beeped her horn, and a grizzled veteran of Baghdad life peered through a face-high portal, then unlocked the gates and pulled them back. He waved them through, shut and locked the gates, and offered Leyla a quiet salaam. When he saw Marc climb unsteadily out the passenger side, he gave a low chuckle.

Bisan, Leyla's daughter, was there to greet them at the front door. “Did Mama frighten you?”

“Almost to death,” Marc admitted.

“Uncle hates to go anywhere with her. Even the seven blocks to the market.” Bisan closed the door behind them, enduring her mother's hug. “Uncle called. He is on his way home now.”

Leyla asked, “Where is Aunt Miriam?”

“In the kitchen, naturally.”

“Can I leave you to see to our guest while I prepare for supper?”

“Of course, Mama. I'm not a child.”

Leyla shot a glance at Marc over Bisan's head. “I won't be long.”

The girl led him into the living room. “Please, will you take a seat?”

“Thank you.”

“Will you have tea?”

“Should I wait for the others?”

“You are our guest of honor. You may do whatever pleases you.”

“Tea will be nice, thank you.”

“Mint or regular?”

Before he could respond, Miriam appeared in the second doorway, wiping her hands on an apron she wore over a floor-length green dress with long sleeves. “Do not play twenty questions with this one. She will always win.”

“Aunt Miriam, I was just asking—”

“I heard you and your askings. Now come into the kitchen and give our guest a chance to breathe.” Dark eyes glimmered with warm humor. “Did you enjoy Leyla's tour of Baghdad?”

“I didn't see a thing,” Marc replied. “I kept my eyes shut.”

“Believe it or not, Bisan actually enjoys going places with her mother.”

From the kitchen a young voice called, “I tell her to go faster.”

“She does, you know.”

Sameh's wife returned to the kitchen. Marc gave the living room a careful inspection. Sliding glass doors faced a paved inner courtyard. The outdoor living area was perhaps thirty feet across and encircled by other rooms. The roof angled out and shaded much of the patio. Where the roof ended, raised concrete boxes the size of watering troughs held flowers.

The living room walls held many photographs, starting in color to his left and moving to faded black-and-white by the entry. The older photos showed men wearing peaked Ottoman-style caps and curving mustaches and women in dark head coverings.

The room's furnishings were modest. Two Turkish carpets covered the tile floor. A coffee table with a round brass top stood between a well-worn calfskin sofa and matching chairs. Beneath the photographs, bookshelves stretched along two walls. Marc inspected the titles. The books looked well used, some quite old. Dickens and Thackeray stood next to Trollope and Melville and Hemingway.

Two shelves were given over to works in Arabic. Another was filled with CDs. Most of them were classical, but there was also some Arabic music and jazz from the big-band era. A small stereo had been placed beside the divider between the living room and the dining area. Across the room stood a television and bookshelves containing DVDs. The films were mostly remastered black-and-white classics. Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, John Huston. Marc also spotted a few newer films, mainly dramas.

Bisan entered the room carrying a steaming tulip glass on a saucer. “Here is your tea.”

“Thank you.” Marc seated himself on the divan, clasped the tulip glass between thumb and forefinger, and blew carefully.

Bisan sat down across from him, the picture of a miniature adult in a pale blue ankle-length frock with matching headscarf. She folded her hands in her lap and said, “You are still looking worried.”

In truth, Marc had been wondering if he should interrupt a family gathering with the ambassador's offer of green cards. “Sorry.”

“Uncle Sameh has nights when his forehead looks like this.” She used both hands to pinch her forehead into deep furrows. “Uncle Sameh says there is only one thing that makes him feel better when he is like that.”

“Which is?”

“I sing to him. Would you like . . .?”

Marc figured Bisan hesitated because Leyla appeared in the doorway. She and her daughter exchanged one of those woman-to-woman looks that said a lot more than any ordinary male could ever comprehend. And then Miriam appeared in the other doorway, and she and Leyla started to tell him something.

When it happened.

The boom was soft, a single rolling thunder that compressed the air and rattled the windows. The looks between the three females tightened.

They waited. Silent. Unmoving.

The phone rang.

All three women breathed as one. Miriam rushed over and answered in a voice scarcely above a whisper. She listened for a moment, then hung up and said, “Sameh is three blocks away. The police are driving him. He is safe.”

The words spoke volumes to Marc. About these three striving to knit a life of normalcy amid the chaos of Baghdad. Of hearing countless explosions, and waiting in silent agony for confirmation that all the members of their little family were safe. Of worrying over a man they held in deep respect and even deeper love. A man who lived for honor and integrity in the face of impossible risk. Who above all was their protector.

In the distance, a siren wailed.

Bisan said, “One.”

The two women smiled, but their eyes were ever so sad.

Another siren joined in. Bisan said, “Two.”

Leyla said, “Even when she was little, Bisan always counted the sirens.”

Bisan said, “The most was twenty-two. Do you remember, Mama?”

Leyla was saved from answering by a sound at the door. Sameh entered. “I am sorry I am late.”

The three females moved as one. Whatever protocol might have normally governed such moments was brushed aside. They enveloped Sameh in one giant embrace. The man stood at their center, his face given over to weary relief. And something more. Marc felt a lump grow at the base of his throat. Not so much in memory of what he had once known, as in what was for him no more.

Marc waited until his glass was refilled and Sameh had washed his face and the ladies had brought in plates of finger-sized delicacies to announce, “I am sorry to interrupt our time together, but I have news that can't wait.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
he last thing Sameh expected was what happened next.

The young American talked as he worked his way through the array of appetizers Miriam and Leyla set upon the coffee table. He continued as they moved to the dining table. He spoke through the main course of lamb and pilaf rice and Miriam's famous coriander salad. Marc ate like a starving man, which endeared him to the ladies. Several times Marc apologized for discussing such matters over the splendid meal. Leyla explained how, in this family, there was a code of not merely honesty but openness. And that Bisan had been included in this openness since before she was old enough to talk.

Marc described events in the direct manner of an American, with a professional's ability to recount the important issues without an overlay of personal reactions. He started with the call that came while he was working with the families lining Sameh's stairwell. He then described the unexpected appearance of the man he called the leopard in the square, the conversation in the café, the phone call to Duboe, the Rhino, the embassy, Boswell, the meeting with the ambassador.

When he had finished recounting the most important piece of information, there was a unified silence. Leyla spoke first. “Green cards.”

Sameh was increasingly concerned with how events were overtaking him. It was not just what had happened to Marc. It was the entire day. He was an expert at drawing together seemingly disconnected strands and weaving a tapestry that could be presented to a jury. But this present situation confounded him.

Miriam asked, “How many green cards is the ambassador offering us?”

“Four.”

“All of us would receive a green card? You are sure?” From Leyla.

“He mentioned each of you specifically. Sameh, his wife, his niece, her daughter. He had all the pertinent facts.”

Bisan, the child who had been made an adult far too early, asked, “Can we trust this man?”

Marc wisely responded to her as he would another adult. “I do not know for sure. But if you want my opinion, I would say yes. He made this offer in the presence of Barry Duboe. Sameh has worked with Duboe. This suggests the ambassador was using Barry Duboe to confirm his offer was real.”

Leyla said, “My daughter meant no offense.”

“None taken, I assure you. If I were in your position, I would be asking the same thing.”

Leyla said, “And we must give our response by tomorrow afternoon.”

“By five.” Marc glanced at Sameh. “Unless we can perform the impossible before then.”

When he had recounted his request for additional time and the ambassador's response, Miriam asked, “Why is he doing this?”

“If you will please excuse me, that is not the question you need to be asking.”

Sameh huffed a humorless chuckle. Despite the fact that the American was still in his first week in Iraq, he had given the proper Arab answer. “Marc speaks the truth.”

Marc went on, “What you first need to decide is, do you want the green cards?”

Those two words were never translated. They needed no explanation, not even in the smallest village in the most backward portion of this battered land. Everyone knew they represented a permanent residency in the United States. A first step toward U.S. citizenship. The liberty to come and go without restriction or fear. The freedom to take any job, go anywhere, live a life without bombs and terror and nights concealing deadly shadows.

“Of course we want them,” Sameh heard himself say. Though the words squeezed his heart until he could not take a breath.

Miriam responded in English, “You would do this thing? Leave Iraq?”

“For Leyla? For Bisan? For you? How could I not?”

It was Bisan, his jewel and joy, who said, “Can you live with this, Uncle?”

“No,” Leyla said. “He could not.”

Miriam went on, “Abandon your work for justice? Give up on finding these four missing people? Sacrifice their chance of survival? It would kill you, my husband.”

The silence was a fabric of love and sorrow that knit them together. Sameh breathed deeply, taking it in. These women held him in such esteem, they would give up a hope so intense none had ever spoken the words. Because of him.

Marc said, “We're not sacrificing anyone.”

All eyes turned his way.

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“You said it yourself,” Miriam said. “They will attack you just as they would Sameh.”

“This threat is real,” Leyla said. “I feel it in my bones.”

Marc took his time responding. He ran his hands along the damask tablecloth, smoothing the crease between his plate and the table's edge. “Maybe this is why God hasn't spoken to me when I've asked him what I should be doing with my life.”

“No,” Leyla said, shaking her head. “No.”

“I know I'm not the same man I was before my wife died. Some days, it pretty much feels like I'm just treading water. Counting out hours that don't mean anything.” He stroked the tablecloth with a steady cadence. “You four should go to America. Start your new lives. I will continue here—”

“No,” Sameh echoed.

“Major Lahm hasn't been threatened. He could be my connection—”

“No,” Miriam added her own response. “How could we do this thing and live with ourselves?”

Marc looked at her. Even from this angle, Sameh knew the young man's gaze carried an ancient's grief. “Think of Bisan. Give her a future. Go. Let me . . .”

Bisan slipped from her chair and walked around the table. When she stood beside Marc, she was tall enough to look him in the eye. She spoke scarcely above a whisper, “No.”

Sameh thought of all Bisan had endured, of the father who went out and never returned. Of the friends she had lost. The families destroyed or banished to a multitude of lands. He saw all this in the young one's face, and found his throat had become so tight he could not speak.

Miriam asked, “What if God has not spoken to you because he does not need to?”

Marc stared from one woman to the next.

Leyla nodded slowly in agreement. “What if you are already doing his will? Here, in this room, with us?”

Marc breathed in, but said nothing. Sameh understood all too well. These women held a force strong enough to silence him.

Miriam went on, “God does not want you to sacrifice yourself. God wants you to
live
.”

Sameh forced himself to ask the question for them all, his voice hoarse with emotion. “What of the missing four?”

Leyla said, “They are in God's hands.”

Miriam nodded slowly, her eyes on Marc. “Just like us.”