Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq (22 page)

Several times during the sessions I sneaked off to the bathroom, carrying an empty cup, which I had added to my handbag, anticipating the constricting stall where I would have to pump the milk out. I followed a regular regimen of emptying my breasts every three hours. I felt awkward leaving the sessions so regularly, especially since my name was placed in front of my seat with the Egyptian delegation.

I hadn’t gone to the
al-Zahra
office yet. Talking to myself I said, “Nora, this is only the first day.” Tante Fayza had told me that she had sold the apartment with its contents to a young Egyptian man to use as a residence. When I asked her about our papers and books and whether she had shipped everything, she said, “I shipped most personal effects and some papers. I didn’t ship most of the books.
I left them for him with the furniture, telling him that I’d send a colleague to check the papers and books again, for maybe some of what I left behind was important.”

I decided to ask the driver of the car on our way back from any activity outside the hotel to pass by the Sheikhaly apartment building and to leave a note to Abu Ghayib with my name and telephone number at the hotel so that the new owner of the apartment might call me and arrange for a time for me to visit.

They took us immediately after lunch to al-Rashid Street to look at a stately apartment building that had been blown up during a bombardment raid. They fixed everything around it and left it in ruins as a testimonial of the destruction perpetrated by Iran. On the road we could see the white Toyota taxis, the latest car models and luxury passenger cars, mostly Volvos which the Iraqis loved, and a few Mercedes Benzes, whose numbers increased when President al-Bakr allowed them to enter the country duty-free with their owners if they held advanced degrees as an encouragement for Ph.D. holders to return to their homeland. The small and old model cars that had been present in great numbers before had now disappeared from Baghdad streets. The red buses with upper decks reminded me of how Hatim and I used to run to the upper deck when we first arrived in Baghdad, early in the morning on a Friday before the burning sun of July began to do its worst.

I awoke from my reverie when I heard the voice of my escort, Layla, as she explained the raid that destroyed part of the bridge and some buildings. I got depressed and quite angry as I recited that Arabic proverb to myself: “He beat me up and cried and ran ahead of me to complain.” I couldn’t hold Iraq innocent in this stupid war. Maybe I was wrong, but how do I reconcile the present with all of Iraq’s attempts to pick a fight with Iran in the past? The car stopped and they set a time for us to return to it, leaving us to wander freely in the area. Siham and behind her several friends came up to me and she said, “We won’t leave you. You know every nook and cranny in Baghdad. What should we buy?”

I said, “The lower value of the Iraqi dinar vis-à-vis the dollar and even the Egyptian pound makes anything here cheaper. Buy Iraqi kilims, pure wool blankets, and hand-knotted Persian rugs if you can carry them. But I, of course, will buy books published by al-Ma’mun publishing house. You can’t beat the price: one Egyptian pound and sometimes half a pound a book.”

She said, “You hit it on the head: books.”

We started to move. I pointed to al-Sahah Building, saying, “Saddam, his wife Sajida, and their infant son Uday were living here in November 1963. The forces of Abd al-Salam Arif stormed the place to arrest him but luckily he had fled the building a few minutes earlier. Then he was arrested a long time after that.”

Sarah Badr said, “He escaped to Egypt. Didn’t he?”

I said, “He escaped more than once. What you’re talking about was in October 1959 after taking part in the attempt to assassinate Abd al-Karim Qasim. Then half an hour before the raid on his house he escaped from the house of his uncle, Khayrallah Telfah, whose daughter he had married. They didn’t find him, but arrested his cousin Adnan. He moved from place to place until he crossed the Syrian borders, and from there he made his way to Egypt.”

Salma said, “They told me there was an inexpensive duty-free shop.”

I said, “There it is, the duty-free shop, then a store for small appliances, then the largest store in Baghdad, Orosdi Bak, and on the opposite sidewalk the Murabba‘ Café.”

Kamilia said, “They say the Egyptians have turned it into an Egyptian haven.”

I said, “There’s everything here. A contractor can come here to hire men of all crafts. The alleys opening to the street have turned into an Egyptian quarter. Here you’ll find prostitutes and dancers, some of them Lebanese who claim to be Egyptian, since Egyptian dancers are better known. There are unbelievably underage prostitutes. As for the ‘official’ red light district which gained fame in the thirties, it is in al-Bab al-Mu‘azzam neighborhood. It was known as the Alley
of Rogina Murad, named after a courtesan who became famous during the British Occupation. She is the sister of the most famous female singer in Iraq, Salima Murad, wife of Nazim al-Ghazali. An interesting story is told of another Iraqi courtesan whose name is Hasana Malas. The story’s incidents take place during al-Shawwaf’s coup attempt against Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1959, which was supported by the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria). The Egyptian embassy was inundated with leaflets denouncing the government of Qasim and saluting the struggle of Hasana Malas and Abbas Bizo. The fiery announcer Ahmad Said read the report on
Sawt al-Arab
(Voice of the Arabs) radio, describing the pair’s fantastic heroism. It was a big scandal throughout Iraq because she was the most famous courtesan and he was the biggest pimp in the city. That was a big blow to the media of Abdel Nasser, who was in a propaganda war with Abd al-Karim Qasim. This main street extends until al-Shurja, an Arabian bazaar where spices abound. You can buy cardamom, which they call ‘hail’ here. From this street is al-Nahr Street, parallel to the River Tigris, where they sell fashionable clothes, and it extends to the gold market.”

Then I laughed and said, “You can buy a gold lion.”

Mona said, “An official picture of the lion eating a man.”

I said, “Yes, in a sense, eating him.” We all laughed. Then I continued, “The surrounding streets have numerous markets: Safafir Market, where they sell copperware and woolen kilims. It resembles Cairo’s Khan al-Khalili. Then there are other markets in side streets: the Sabonjiya for soap and related products, the Aba Khanah which is a market for upholsterers, al-Bazzazin where they sell cages for pigeons, although the Iraqis don’t eat them, and pet birds and rabbits, which they also don’t eat because they menstruate. The Shia don’t eat catfish, which they call ‘gray.’”

Kamilia said, “Why?”

I said, “One day a Shi‘i worker from the Marshes asked my husband whether the Egyptians ate gray. And Hatim said yes and the man said, ‘Even dogs won’t eat it.’ We asked our Shi‘i friends about
the reason and they said it had muddied the water while Sayyidna Ali performed his ablutions. I said, ‘Bravo, it saved its whole kind from being fished in Iraq and other places where the Shia are.’”

I pointed to a large building and said, “This is the central post office. You can call Cairo if you wish. I’ll go in to see if I have any letters in my mailbox.”

We went in together. I found Abu Wisam in his usual place behind the glass window.

He said, “How are you, Sitt Nora? Long time no see.”

I said, “I’ve been away. These are my friends from Egypt and they want to call home.”

“With great pleasure.”

I said, “I also want to open my mailbox to see if I’ve received any letters.”

He said, “Please, go ahead. Abu Mervat has paid the rent for two years in advance. Where’s he? Is he out of town?”

His questions revived a painful memory but I got a grip on myself and went to the mailbox while nodding. I found various papers mostly in Hilmi Amin’s handwriting which I knew quite well, some letters with a tape saying “Opened by the censorship,” a small brown notebook belonging to Anhar Khayun. I put everything quickly in my bag so as not to draw the attention of the man who was now speaking with a colleague of his while pointing in my direction. I saw the man’s hand raised in greeting. I called my house. No one answered. I called my neighbor Salwa Mandur and I told her that the situation in Baghdad was reassuring and that I hadn’t contacted her brother Tariq yet and that I would try calling my family the following day.

Siham asked me as we left the building, “Did you find anything in the mailbox?”

I said, “Old invitations, too late of course, and some promotional material.”

I began to describe to my friends the different places and what they had to offer, but I was thinking about the papers I had found.
We visited some bookstores and bought many valuable books at very inexpensive prices, and we tied them with twine and wondered how we were going to carry them back to Cairo.

So, the letters had been opened by the censors. That made some sense, but what about Hilmi’s and Anhar’s papers? Had they also been opened? And why did Hilmi Amin put them in my mailbox? Did he want to keep them out of the office or did he intend for them to come to me? And why? Did he want me to read them or just preserve them? Did he want to save them when he felt that he was dying and did not want Tante Fayza to see them and dispose of them? Did he want to spare her the hurt? And why did he place this responsibility on my shoulders? My God. Could these be the memoirs he was recording with me? I remembered what he said when he talked about Hemingway’s
The Old Man and the Sea
: “You are the boy in that novel. You are the crutch on which I lean. Don’t let me down.”

Do the papers have any indication where Anhar might be, whether she is alive or detained somewhere? Did he put these papers in a place so obvious, within the sights of the censors, so that they would miss them, thinking they had already censored them? Nora, stop all of that until you’ve found out what they were first.

I came to as Mona was asking me, “What do you think of this leather?”

I said, “It is typical Iraqi design and you can hang it on the wall. Buy it.”

We bought some inexpensive gifts. I let them take the bus but I walked to our old office, passing the Ministry of Information, Tahrir Square, and Batawain Market up to Mashjar Street. Baghdad had witnessed speedy development, riding the winning rocket of oil wealth. What happened to it? Why are we Arabs unlucky? Could petroleum be our curse? I didn’t find Abu Ghayib downstairs. I climbed the stairs which I knew quite well. The third stair after the landing on the first floor was still broken. My eyes welled up with tears. I rang the bell. No one opened. I wrote a note of my schedule and telephone numbers at the hotel and pushed it under the door. I
looked at the closed wooden doors of the apartments of Karima and Engineer Ali and Tante Violette and Dr. Michael. I couldn’t bring myself to knock on any door and I ran away from the whole scene. I don’t know why I remembered the Egyptian humorist Mahmoud al-Saadani’s first visit to us in the office. Maybe I needed a smile.

I heard the noise and recognized his voice. Hilmi Amin had told me they had met the night before at the Baghdad Hotel and that he had promised to visit us. He had left
al-Khalij
(The Gulf) newspaper after having a disagreement with them. They couldn’t tolerate his acerbic humor. He stood in the middle of the office, scrutinizing it as Hilmi Amin was saying to him as he pointed at me, “My colleague, Nora.”

He said, “Bravo, bravo, old chap. A real office, heh? How did you manage to do it so fast? Heh?” Then he turned toward me and said, “Is working for an Egyptian magazine better than working for your Iraqi magazines?”

I realized that he didn’t recognize me. We had met at
al-Zahra
offices in Cairo once a long time ago. I loved his articles and his humor. I decided to play a game on him by using the Iraqi dialect, so I said, “Ustaz Hilmi is a good man. You have free press, not like these wooden newspapers.”

He said, guffawing, “Wooden newspapers? Good man. What kind of wooden dialect is this? Hilmi has been harassing you, of course. I know him well. Quite a playboy on the sly.”

I said, taking on a very dignified tone, “No, I swear. He treats me exactly as if he were my father.”

“How disappointing! Listen, Hilmi, I want one like her, you hear me? Just like her!” he said.

“If you like, I can get you my friend to work with you. She is a good girl.”

Hilmi Amin couldn’t continue to play along and we both burst out laughing as he looked at us in amazement. Then Hilmi said, “Don’t you remember Nora, Mahmoud? Our colleague from
al-Zahra
? The athlete?”

I said, “Hello, Ustaz Mahmoud. We miss your words and your laughter around here. We are all so pleased you’re in Baghdad and we hope your presence will change the city completely. Maybe you’ll teach them to laugh.”

I came into the conference hall as the delegates began to be seated. I went to my seat and placed my bag next to me, feeling as if it radiated with an invisible energy. I gathered my strength to concentrate on what was going on.

We changed our clothes quickly at the hotel after a quick dinner to go to the theater to attend a prestigious fashion show presented by the Iraqi House of Fashion. In that show women graduates of the ballet institute presented a review of the history of Iraqi fashions accompanied by dance music. The designer Feryal al-Kilidar used the latest colors and muslin, georgette, and silk to demonstrate the succession of civilizations in the land of Ishtar. I loved the show since I saw it for the first time in the mid-seventies and wrote about it fondly. The designer transformed the models into butterflies moving lightly from the Sumerian to the Akkadian and the Assyrian civilizations, going across different eras clad in soft delicate fabrics or hand-woven ones and embroidered with motifs from each civilization. I go gaga whenever I see her embroidery of al-Wasiti’s illustrations of the maqamat of al-Hariri on muslin fabric using the latest fashion colors; every year I’ve seen the show. Her fashions would say that the region had a Roman influence, so we see fabric skipping one shoulder, leaving it bare, and that the Persians were here leaving their imprint on the turquoise colors and the form of stylized simple flowers. From bedouin clothes with their loose fitting Arabian abayas to the black garments of peasant women on tall, slim figures, the models looked like goddesses alighting gracefully from heaven to soft, rhythmic Iraqi music and the verses of Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Wahid captivating every spectator. The show’s message announced to the world that the civilizations that came one after the other on this land were fighting to survive.