The Last of the Angels (30 page)

Hameed Nylon returned to the table, where he sat near the governor. The armed villagers who had accompanied him sat in a circle on the grass beneath some trees, surrounding plates filled with all the most delicious and appetizing dishes. The villagers, who consumed everything placed before them and then stretched out to rest in the grass, all suddenly felt acute indigestion and rushed, one after the other, toward the washrooms located on the far side of the garden. They were grasping their quaking bellies and paid no attention to the policemen who were lying in ambush for them behind the trees and who captured them silently, handcuffing them and shoving them inside trucks hidden behind curtains of oilcloth.

Hameed Nylon had himself received a letter from the prime minister inviting him to enter into negotiations with the government instead of resorting to combat. Even though Hameed Nylon placed absolutely no trust in the government or its promises, he did not believe that the offer constituted a deliberate conspiracy. A blanket pardon had been issued for the rebels, but other secret documents had reached the city's responsible officials, requesting them to arrest Hameed Nylon and his men, without making any fuss about it. The director of public safety himself had devised the plan, and the governor and police chief had approved it. They nearly choked because they laughed so hard when they heard about it. It would be necessary to relieve the rebels of their weapons before they were seized, for fear they would try to resist. The director of public safety could think of no simpler way to achieve this objective than to mix into the food served to the armed villagers a large quantity of a powerful laxative that would make them writhe in pain.

Hameed Nylon did not notice that his men had disappeared until three plainclothes detectives approached from behind and put their revolvers to his head and back. Then one of them said rather politely, “The party's over. Come with us.”

The governor pretended to be amazed: “Young men, what are you doing? That's not right. He's our guest.”

One of the three replied calmly, “Orders from above, Your Excellency.”

The police chief rubbed his hands together, saying, “Since you have orders from above, there's nothing any of us can do.”

They withdrew Hameed Nylon's revolver from his belt and dragged him by his shirt collar to a gray Ford parked in front of a flowerbed. It shot off the moment Hameed Nylon was inside. The surprise had deprived him of the power to speak, but his mind was still alert. Crammed inside the car between two men who had their revolvers trained on him, he thought, “The dove should not have trusted the fox's promises.” He was sad but not afraid because he knew that everything would end in some fashion and that it was his duty to be what he had always wanted to be.

That same evening, the government issued a statement saying that Hameed Nylon, who called himself Lieutenant Colonel Anwar Mustafa, had violated the rules of Arab hospitality by ordering the rebels with him to open fire on the government dignitaries entertaining him, so that three guards had been seriously wounded and taken to the hospital. The government claimed that divine intervention had shielded the dignitaries none of whom had been harmed, pointing out that the vigilant security men protecting the citizens' lives had been able to strip the rebels of their weapons and to capture these men, who would receive the punishment reserved for all who are ungrateful.

The lies the government published about Hameed Nylon did not deceive anyone in the city. People had discovered the truth even before the government issued its statement, which it broadcast time and again. Along the length of the Khasa Su River, which split the city in two, battles broke out between young men from the old quarter and Bedouin policemen, who had occupied the streets. The young athletes from Chuqor launched abortive attacks on the location of the barracks where Hameed Nylon and his followers were being held, leaving behind them three wounded men, who also disappeared into the locked building. Overnight, the village of Tawuq, together with other nearby villages, marched against the city from the east. The army was compelled to bar the advance of the attackers, who found tanks blockading the roads that led into the city. Once dawn came, airplanes made raids against the rebels and forced them to pull back. They also bombed the village of Tawuq and the woods where the revolutionaries were hiding, terrorizing the villagers, who fled to the ravines of the nearby mountains.

After three days of running battles, the government forces broke the back of the resistance, which continued to fight on without any objective. There were just a few isolated snipers who shot at policemen and security officers from the cover of the tall minarets scattered throughout the city. This forced the government forces to bombard them with cannons, which frequently missed their targets. Then neighboring houses were struck, reducing them to rubble and ashes. Some people rushed to the shrine of Qara Qul to seek his protection, while others wandered through the open countryside, fleeing from the soldiers and policemen, who broke into random houses and arrested everyone they encountered—after beating him with the butts of their rifles. Anyone who resisted them was slammed against the nearest wall and shot. Fear caused women to stand in front of their homes, holding up pictures of the king and cheering the government forces.

Everything was lost, but Burhan Abdallah had not lost hope because falsehood could not triumph over the truth, no matter how many weapons it possessed. He had spent three days and nights with the insurgents, whose cohesion was shattered. He did not want to return defeated and vanquished like the others, who would continue with their lives as if nothing had happened. He had suddenly grown up and felt that the resistance must continue. He closed his eyes to search for his three angels, the old men who were proceeding from eternity to eternity, but they had disappeared. He found only the expansive desert, deep footprints in the sand, and the cries of jackals—nothing else. He told himself, “They've vanished too. What sage advice could these old men provide me in a city flowing with blood?”

Evening had fallen over the city and he began to move from one alley to another, avoiding the black watchmen who were bristling with weapons—killers looking for victims. “Hope lies in freeing Hameed Nylon. That's the only thing that could free the city from fear.” Everyone had been defeated, but Ta'us Malak and his little angels that knew everything could never be routed. Burhan Abdallah did not know whether his friends the angels would be able to intercede in a matter like this. All he wanted from them was to rescue Hameed Nylon, nothing more than that. In some sense they had been part of the revolution. Without them, he would not have discovered Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri's treasure, with which Hameed Nylon had financed his blood-stained revolution. He repeated to himself, “They're as responsible as I am. We're all complicit.”

He gradually drew nearer to the house that was filled with secrets, passing through the Piryadi community to the alley that led to the Chuqor community. Then he turned left into the alley where, opposite the ruin, the house was located. He wiped his eyes with his hand, staring again into the gloom. “This can't all be true.” He walked closer and stood looking for a long time. There was no trace to indicate that any house had been there. There was nothing but a void submerged in the gloom of the night, which was illuminated by pale starlight. Burhan Abdallah leaned against the wall and started weeping. “All this fantasy! All this truth!”

M
ore than two years passed after the disappearance of Hameed Nylon, who was banished to the Naqrat al-Salman Prison, which is a large fortress erected in the middle of the western desert, where it stands like a dreadful sign, planted in the sand and surrounded by camel's thorn and Indian figs. At night all a person hears is the yipping of jackals circling the walls, attracted there by the scent of human beings. Everything had ended. The insurgents whom the revolution had attracted fled farther into the mountains or took refuge with their tribes, which were beyond government control. The city's young men who had been captured during the battles had been released after a month or two of instructive beatings while confined in leg vises and after being made to cheer three times a day for the king's long life. Joy returned once more to the city, which obeyed the governor's call as men, women, and children came into the street to applaud the victory processions that bore aloft the Iraqi flag and pictures of the king in celebration of the city officials' deliverance from the conspiracy hatched by the insurgents and their defeat. The procession was led by flag bearers, who were followed by the desert police on camels, the mounted police on horseback, and the mountain police, who pulled mules behind them. Next came a procession of secret agents, who had covered their faces with masks. The people applauded at length for the statesmen, led by the governor, who was seated in the gold wheelchair that Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri had used to visit the coffeehouse. Right behind the statesmen's procession came the dervishes, each of whom carried in his right hand a broken bottle, which he was happily munching and crunching. Then came the delegations of athletes who performed entertaining Swedish calisthenics, metalsmiths who banged on their copper vessels, and gravediggers who carried on their shoulders a red bier labeled with white letters in decorative Thuluth script: “The Revolution.”

The anarchy prevailing in the city had ended and there was even a diminution of the feverish visitation of Qara Qul Mansur's mausoleum, which the government had returned to his wife, who mismanaged its affairs. After some months it turned into just another saint's tomb like all the other forgotten ones in the wilderness of al-Musalla. In the city center, where the Second Army Division's fortress was located, summer cafés that stayed open until midnight appeared as well as winter coffeehouses that filled with billiard players waiting for their turn at the green tables. Shops selling lottery tickets proliferated under the auspices of the Red Crescent Society. There were two drawings—the weekly and the monthly. A sheet with the winning numbers was fastened to boards placed on the sidewalk, where passersby could read it. Tailors and seamstresses imported styles from Paris, London, Beirut, and Istanbul, and trousers with tapered legs became popular. Assyrian girls who came out for an afternoon stroll along Texas Street wore short skirts that rose above the knee. A man from al-A‘zamiya in Baghdad opened a restaurant consisting of a single small room on al-Alamein Street. It resembled a dry-goods shop with its long, glass display case, which he used as a buffet. He began selling sandwiches, which were consumed by patrons, standing, with Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola. Kirkuk had never experienced anything like this before. Many kebab restaurants were forced to close their doors, after the young people hankering for modern life deserted them.

Khidir Musa had vanished from sight even before Hameed Nylon had left for the mountain from which he had directed his abortive revolution. People no longer saw him except by chance, when he was walking along the street alone, looking grave and lost in thought, or when he was out in the countryside for an evening stroll with his two friends Dada Hijri and Dervish Bahlul, who looked like ghosts divorced from any place or time. They always walked single file and gazed at the flocks of sand grouse arriving from the west, or gathered bouquets of colorful wild roses and then sat on boulders and discussed the sunset. At night, they returned to the tower Khidir Musa had built atop the Sufi house to which he had once retreated, years before, and where he had heard the voices of his two captive brothers calling to him from Russia. This time too Khidir Musa had to contend with the outbursts of his wife Nazira and her mother the sorceress, who from time to time attacked the monastery over which the tower rose. They would start by cursing Dada Hijri and Dervish Bahlul, who—they would say—had enticed Khidir Musa to withdraw to this high tower, where they were unable to climb the stairs, because they were so obese. They stayed there below, cursing the three men in a loud voice, deliberately involving other people who usually counseled them to stop this ruckus. None of the three men would respond. They kept silent as though the matter did not concern them.

People believed that the former shepherd had come down with another bout of Sufi fever and withdrawn from life. This was a frequent occurrence with ageing men in Kirkuk. They were, however, mistaken this time because the tower that Khidir Musa had built over the monastery was actually the secret headquarters for a conspiracy that the army was organizing. No one could have detected that this was the case. Dervish Bahlul had proposed its construction after Khidir Musa confided to him what had been suggested by the Commander of the Second Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Adnan al-Dabbagh, for whom he had felt a special affection since meeting him at the Officers' Club. When Khidir Musa had visited him subsequently at his office and then at his residence, all the inhibitions separating these two men had fallen away and the lieutenant colonel had begun to ask his advice on military matters. On the day Hameed Nylon was arrested, an enraged Khidir Musa sought out the lieutenant colonel to ask his intervention to stop the killing of peaceful civilians. The lieutenant colonel, however, took his hand, sat him down beside him, and said, “Not now. The time hasn't come yet. We must wait a bit longer.” Then, after hesitating, he added, “We need you. I hope you won't disappoint me.”

Life returned suddenly to the face of Khidir Musa, who rose and embraced the lieutenant colonel. “I'll gladly sacrifice my trivial life for my country. Tell me what must be done. I can accomplish a lot.”

Lieutenant Colonel Adnan Dabbagh smiled: “I am confident of that, Khidir.”

There was not much for the three men to do in their tower, from which they flew a green Islamic flag, except to safeguard the secret documents containing the names of the officers participating in the conspiracy and the two plans: one operational plan and another for emergencies. There was also a short list of names of people who would need to be arrested the first day. Khidir Musa handed all these documents to Dervish Bahlul, who placed them on the shelf with the Preserved Book he consulted each day before leaving for his work, which was endless. The small printing press that Hameed Nylon had obtained from Baghdad during his visit to the king was placed in a corner of the tower. It had sat neglected at the entrance of the house until Dada Hijri saw it and asked for it so that he could print his many poetry collections, for which he could not find a publisher in Kirkuk. Thus the first manifestos that rocked the government and made it tremble were released from the tower and signed by the Free Officers. Dada Hijri himself carried these to a house in the citadel, where he left them. Lieutenant Colonel Adnan entrusted civilian leadership on the day of the revolution to Khidir Musa, who felt confident that the entire city would follow him when the zero hour arrived.

The night before the revolution, which took almost everyone by surprise, Dervish Bahlul descended from the tower, carrying in his right hand the bag that contained all his belongings. On the stairs, he met Khidir Musa, who was returning from his evening excursion, and told him joyfully, “Praise God you've returned in the nick of time.”

In the half-light that enveloped the stairwell, Khidir Musa asked, “Why are you carrying a bag? I wouldn't think you would desert me on a day like this.”

Dervish Bahlul placed his hand on Khidir Musa's shoulder affectionately and said, “No, I must leave you on a day like this. There is much work awaiting me in Baghdad tomorrow.” Then, with a smile, he added, “You know I'll return in the end.”

Khidir Musa realized that a lot of blood would flow the next day. All night long he thought about what might happen on the morrow.

That night, the soldiers descended on the city of Baghdad, where King Faisal II and the government officials lived. They slipped like thieves from their distant base and then occupied every corner of the city, even before anyone noticed that something had happened. At dawn, a detachment of soldiers stormed the king's palace, where he was snoring in his sleep. They stood in the reception chamber, waiting for the king to emerge, overwhelmed by anxiety. A few minutes later a door opened, and Dervish Bahlul peered out. He cast a silent glance at the soldiers, who aimed their rifles at his face, their fingers on the trigger. Then, as he disappeared down a hallway with red carpets, he told the officer in charge, “I'll go and wake the king.”

Dervish Bahlul opened the door to the bedroom of the king, who was sleeping in his pajamas. Stepping forward, he placed a hand on the king's head, whispering, “The time has come. Here I visit you a second time, Your Majesty.”

The king opened his eyes and shook with surprise. “What are you doing in my room?”

Dervish Bahlul answered regretfully, “Rise, Your Majesty. I've come to take you with me.”

The king said thoughtfully, “Welcome, Dervish Bahlul. How did you reach me?”

Dervish Bahlul replied politely, “I'm Death, Your Majesty. I've come to lead you to your slayers, who await you in the reception hall.”

The king said sadly, “So, the hour has arrived, Dervish Bahlul. Isn't that so?”

Dervish Bahlul replied somewhat emotionally “Yes, Your Majesty. It is the inescapable hour.”

The king pulled a dressing gown over his pajamas and then went out, leaning on Dervish Bahlul's shoulder, hoping that this was all a dream from which he would eventually awaken.

That morning, which people remembered for many years, the soldiers opened fire on the king, who was twenty-one. He fell to his knees, mumbling. He gazed at Dervish Bahlul, who supported him on his shoulder to the stable, which was attached to the palace. In front of it, as always, stood the royal carriage, which was ornamented with gold. He placed the king, whose many wounds were bleeding, inside the carriage, where the seat's fabric became stained with blood. The king opened his eyes for a last time and said in a feeble voice, “Farewell, brief, beautiful life.”

Dervish Bahlul smiled as he looked at a watch he took from his pocket, saying, “You still have another minute, Your Majesty.”

The king extended his blood-stained hand to take Dervish Bahlul's, saying, “Be compassionate to me, Mr. Death,” and squeezed his hand.

Dervish Bahlul waited briefly until the alarm on his watch rang. Then he took a ledger from his pocket and crossed off the king's name. Next he brought two stallions from the stable, hitched them to the carriage, in which he shot off through the open gate to the city, which was still slumbering, sunk in a stillness interrupted from time to time by rattles of gunfire.

Dervish Bahlul passed three days without savoring sleep for a single moment because the city had been seized by madness on hearing the statements that a lieutenant colonel, of whom no one had ever heard before, delivered by radio broadcast like bolts from the sky. These were interspersed by military marches that rattled inside the heads of people suddenly facing death. The people's dejection ended and they poured into the streets as if to a giant party that encompassed the whole world. They emerged from ash-gray alleys in al-Fadl, al-Shawaka, and al-A‘zamiya, from Christian strongholds, from New Baghdad, al-Taji, and Madinat al-Sara'if—beating large drums and clay hand-drums, while government employees, who had left their agencies and descended to the streets, danced. Villagers, who had brought black flags from their many commemorations of the martyrdom of al-Husayn, danced the dabke in the middle of the streets and public squares and sang for the revolution, about which they actually knew nothing at all.

The city filled with monkeys, bears, lions, cheetahs, and tigers that their trainers brought from an Indian circus that was performing every evening at a venue outside the city. Nightclub dancers gave free recitals of Oriental dance for the exhausted soldiers. The excitement became so great that the dancers stripped off their costumes and engaged in sexual acts on the scorching grass amid the screams of the people who rushed to see these thrilling scenes. Some women spectators, however, turned their eyes away in embarrassment. Others observed, “Finally we've been liberated.” Zeal got the better of people, who became so agitated that they attacked anyone they considered an enemy. They stormed the magnificent palaces and killed the inhabitants with blows from sticks and feet, plundering everything they could carry. A human wave poured forth and flooded the Rihab and al-Zuhur palaces, which filled with corpses that they bound with ropes and began to drag—naked—through the streets. They hanged them on light poles at the Eastern Gate, crying out, “There'll be no conspiracy as long as there are ropes.” Three days later only the bones were left. A butcher climbed up and severed Crown Prince Abdul'ilah's penis, which was dangling between his thighs, and shoved it up his asshole as the crowd applauded and roared with laughter. Other men carrying axes climbed up and began to hack off the corpses' hands and feet, throwing these down to the villagers, who fought for a piece of them.