The Last of the Angels (23 page)

Another side door opened and two men entered. One was plainly Kurdish and the other Arab. They shook hands with him first and then embraced him, kissed him, and invited him to have a seat. The girl, who had also taken a seat, placing before her a pen and a stack of onion-skin paper, which they used for recording reports to make it easier to conceal them, introduced them to Hameed Nylon, who kept looking back and forth from the bald young Kurd to the elderly Arab, who was so fat he could scarcely move his legs. The young Kurd thanked the girl, whom he referred to as “Comrade Intisar,” asking her to take comprehensive minutes for the meeting. Then he turned to Hameed Nylon, saying, “I've heard a lot about you and have thought more than once about inviting you to visit me in this cellar of mine. But I was afraid you might be someone who is uncomfortable in cellars.”

Hameed Nylon smiled, focusing his eyes on him: “Your cellar's not as bad as you think. It's better even than the governor's office itself: this beautiful construction, these enchanting chandeliers, and this elegant office.”

The elderly man interjected, “This demonstrates the force of Communist ideas. Everything you see here is a gift from the people. The design of the cellar was undertaken by the great patriotic, democratic engineer Rif‘at Chadirchi, whose design won the first prize in the Berlin competition for young architects. The crystal chandeliers that you see were given to us by the great Czechoslovak people. As you know, crystal in Prague is as cheap as dirt, and for that reason the central committee has proposed in the five-year plan a program to pave all the roads with it. The wood products were donated to the headquarters, as you know, by a famous furniture-making establishment in the city.”

The young Kurd volunteered, “It's a gift from the shop of Shukr the woodworker.”

Hameed Nylon said, “I know him. He built a bedroom for me when I got married.”

The elderly man interjected again, “We must affirm to the bourgeoisie that Communists have a right to a decent life too. Do you know about the vicious torture to which our comrade Salim was subjected in the Ba‘quba prison? He has a right to enjoy life now that he's escaped.”

Hameed Nylon said, “I've heard that. People refer to him as the hero of the torture chamber.”

These emotional words deeply affected the young man, who removed the shirt he had been wearing without any undershirt to show Hameed Nylon his chest and back, where the scars of beatings with sticks, whips, and electric cords, as well as cigarette burns were clearly visible. Hameed Nylon took out his pack of cigarettes and offered each of them one, but they declined.

The young Kurd observed, “Anyone who's imprisoned is forced to give up smoking. This is actually one of the benefits of imprisonment.”

Intisar raised her head to look at Hameed, “But you could offer me a cigarette. I haven't been to prison yet.”

Hameed Nylon apologized as he offered her one, which she lit herself. Then she started blowing smoke rings in the air. Hameed Nylon's heart was pounding vigorously and he almost forgot why he had come. The old man interrupted his tender dream: “Comrades have informed us that you are thinking of organizing an armed revolution in the countryside. What makes you think that such a dangerous operation will succeed?”

Hameed Nylon noticed for the first time that Faruq Shamil had not entered the room with him, but did not ask where he was. It was obvious that the two men wanted to discuss the matter with him, in person. Hameed Nylon replied with the calmness he had learned from Khidir Musa, “Success hinges on the people themselves. The question concerns rights. Do we have the right to revolt or not?”

The young Kurd raised his hand as he said, “Look. I know the Kurds very well. The time has not come to start a Kurdish revolution. You know that General Mulla Mustafa al-Barzani headed for the Soviet Union many years ago to train in guerrilla war tactics. It seems that he has not yet completed his training. The Kurds are waiting for him and will not accept a revolution he does not lead.”

Hameed Nylon, who found this logic absurd, was exasperated: “It never occurred to me to undertake a Kurdish revolution. As you know I am half Arab and half Turkmen. I certainly would not object if my daughter wished to marry a Kurd. I'm an Iraqi, first and foremost. The revolution will be Iraqi.”

The young Kurd shook his head disapprovingly: “These are fantasies. The revolution can only be Kurdish. Nationalist sentiments trump class sentiments. This means recruiting the shaykhs of the Kurdish tribes and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan for our side. But who can accept that?”

Hameed Nylon observed, “It seems that our goals differ. I don't believe that the Arabs or Turkmen are any less patriotic than the Kurds. All that Iraq needs now is for someone to fire the first shot of the revolution.”

Pushing for a compromise, the elderly man interjected, “Our comrade's intention was consideration of the practical side of the revolution. No revolution that is detached from a nationalist movement can succeed. Comrade Fahd said, ‘Strengthen the organization of your party. Strengthen the organization of the nationalist movement. For this reason I ask you to join the Patriotic Democratic Party or the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, if you don't have enough class consciousness to join the Communist Party.'”

Angry, Hameed Nylon lit another cigarette: “What are these strange parties that you ask people to join? I'm not here to join any party. I have come to ask you a single question: Can I count on your support if I begin the armed revolution in the countryside?”

Attempting to sweeten the bitter tone of the discussion, the elderly man replied, “The matter's not as easy as you believe. We've investigated the matter more than once in the central committee after seeing that the idea of revolution was spreading even to Arab countries. Indeed, we even sent one of our comrades to our brothers in China and the Soviet Union to obtain their consent for a revolution, in tandem with other nationalist forces. Do you know what they told him? You won't believe this. They said the world situation does not permit the occurrence of any revolution inside the Baghdad Pact because the Pact might use this revolution as a pretext for a nuclear attack on the mighty Soviet Union. And they're right.”

Hameed Nylon shook his head scornfully, “Such convoluted matters don't concern me. I don't believe, however, that Mao Tse-tung would ask us to refrain from revolution, especially if he knew that the revolution would burst forth from the countryside—just like the Chinese Revolution that he himself led.”

The young Kurd intervened: “A revolution requires rifles and money. Where are you going to get those?”

Hameed Nylon, who was assailed by doubts about the two men's intentions, replied, “God is generous. Iraq is filled with good things. We'll eat dirt if we must.”

“These vague phrases mean nothing,” said the Kurdish youth.

Hameed Nylon was disconcerted by the way the two men spoke: “If you're not thinking about the revolution, then why do you lead people along to the point that they lose their jobs and go to prison? These sacrifices are meaningless then.”

The young Kurd replied, “We are faced with historical necessity. Only the petite bourgeoisie hesitates to make sacrifices.”

Hameed Nylon felt obliged to tell the two men, “You use words without knowing the people. The important question is: Are you with the revolution or against it?”

The old man looked at empty space for a time before saying, “Comrade Stalin said, ‘Dialectics require a person to be for a thing and against it at the same time.' This is our position regarding any revolution that might flare up in Iraq.”

Hameed Nylon was not able to comprehend what the man had said but got the gist of it. “Does this mean that I should love Nuri al-Sa‘id and hate him at the same time?”

The old man laughed. “You're trying to embarrass me. Dialectics do not apply to traitors. How can a man think of revolution without memorizing the greatest number of Marxist texts possible, especially those important text digests published by Novosti Agency? How can a person consider revolution without first learning by heart the poems of the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmat, who divorced his Turkish wife and married a Russian woman because he loved the Russian revolution so much? Have you read anything by our new nationally known poet Comrade Abd al-Rahman al-Qalqali? Do you know that his poems have been translated into Korean and American as part of a campaign of solidarity with the poor people of the world? This is the real revolution, Comrade Hameed. As you can see, we don't waste our time in the cellars for nothing, contrary to the rumor that our classist adversaries spread.”

It was difficult for Hameed Nylon to follow this way of speaking. For this reason, he felt obliged to object, “I believe that there's not a poet in the whole world who can compare with Dada Hijri. It's not a good thing for a man to praise himself, and you Communists do that night and day. As a matter of fact, I like love poetry better than anything else. By the way, what do you think of the poetry of Burhan Abdallah? In my opinion, he's more important than any of the poets you've mentioned.”

The old man asked, “Burhan Abdallah? I've never even heard his name.”

Hameed Nylon replied with the calmness of a victor, “Of course you don't know him. He's my relative and publishes his poems under pseudonyms to avoid angering his mother, who considers poets beggars who lack self-respect. As a matter of fact he disguises his identity by using many different pennames, like Nizar Qabbani, Badr Shaker al-Sayyab, Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri, and Husayn Mardan. He's even published many poems in English, naturally under assumed names. He shares all his secrets with me; I'm family, after all.”

The old man burst out laughing so hard the young Kurd was afraid his laughter would be audible outside the cellar. “What are you saying, man? All the names you've mentioned are real poets whom I know personally. Comrade Fahd has more than once commended the poet al-Jawahiri to our attention, and two years ago I shook hands with him with this very hand. But he's a mercurial man. You can't depend on him. Al-Sayyab's a skinny young man from Basra, weak-willed; he was a member of our party but we threw him out after we discovered his link to the police. And everyone knows who Nizar al-Qabbani and Husayn Mardan are. They are licentious, existentialist poets who represent the decadent values of the bourgeoisie. What relation does all that have with your nephew, whose name I don't know?”

Hameed Nylon lit a cigarette and gazed at the young woman, who was recording the minutes of the meeting. Placing a pack of cigarettes in front of her, he said, “I don't want to call you a liar, but perhaps you've been the victim of swindlers, who attribute the glories of other people's efforts to themselves.”

The young Kurd said, “Thank God that Abdallah Goran spent four years with me in the same cell in the Ba‘quba prison; otherwise I'd believe he was a con artist too.”

Hameed Nylon raised his hands in the air and said, “It's not about any particular individual; it's a general problem. Once the lie becomes a universal system, nothing's left but ghosts. I apologize for borrowing this aphorism from my relative Burhan Abdallah, who also writes occasionally under the name of Kafka, which sounds like a Kurdish name to me.”

The young Kurd corrected him, “I don't think so. Perhaps your nephew was writing under the name of Kaka and you got mixed up.”

The old man, who was irritated, intervened, “We mustn't waste precious time discussing tangential affairs. What concerns us is learning the truth of the next step you are planning, Comrade Hameed.”

Rising to leave, Hameed Nylon said, “The revolution has remained on hold for a long time. It won't hurt it to wait a bit longer. I'll think the matter over for a time and perhaps we'll meet again.”

The old man said flatteringly, “That's a must. We'll definitely learn a lot from each other.”

Hameed was agitated when he left the secret bunker. On his way out he startled the dove perched outside the door when he almost crushed it with his foot in the dark. It fluttered its wings a little before settling back on its nest. The startled viper had raised her head, but when she found that everything was copasetic, she stretched out again over the screen door, sound asleep.

On the way back, Hameed Nylon did not exchange many words with Faruq Shamil, who asked him when they reached the street, “Curiosity's almost killing me. Tell me: how was the meeting?”

“It seems the Communists believe it's impossible to do anything without them, but as soon as you try to cooperate with them they place impossible obstacles in your way.”

Faruq Shamil answered regretfully, “I knew they would refuse. You know that what counts for struggle in their view is withstanding prison. Up till now they've not even been training for a revolution.”

Hameed Nylon said sorrowfully, “Right. I once heard some Communist workers happily singing, ‘Oh prison darkness, reign. / We love the dark.' I don't see how it's possible for a man to court prison and love the dark. Faruq, this is the ultimate form of despair of life.”

Silence enveloped them again. Faruq Shamil was certain that Hameed Nylon was not the sort of man who would easily renounce what he had decided to do, no matter how unwise or difficult it appeared. He also knew that Hameed did not have the power to persuade the Communists to wade into these hazardous adventures. Moreover, Hameed Nylon did not even have a gang with which to impose himself on the others. If the men in the bunker had listened to him, that had been merely from curiosity or a desire to know what was happening in the outside world. They longed to understand its workings from inside their secret cellars. He did not want to tell his friend that, because he was confident that Hameed Nylon would end up like many others—disillusioned even before he took the first step on the journey of a thousand miles. Faruq Shamil was wrong this time, however, because Hameed Nylon believed that there was always a way out—even when a man was trapped in a circle—and that true skill lay in finding this escape route, which might be invisible. It was also not difficult for Hameed Nylon to devise his exit strategy now.