The Sirens of Baghdad (23 page)

The writer claps his hands together. “You’re out of your mind, Jalal. For God’s sake, come back to earth! Your place isn’t with people who kill and massacre and terrorize. And you know it! I know you know it. I listened to you closely the day before yesterday. Your lecture was pathetic, and I never caught so much as a glimpse of the sincerity you used to display back when you were fighting for the triumph of restraint over anger. Back when you wanted violence, terrorism, and the misery they bring to be banished from the earth—”

“Enough!” The doctor explodes. “If you like being a doormat for worthless cretins, that’s your business. But don’t come and tell me how delightful it is. You’re living on a manure pile, goddamn it! I can tell shit when I smell it! It stinks, and so do you, you and your simpering recommendations! Let me tell you what’s clear. The West doesn’t love us. It will never love you, not even you. It will never carry you in its heart, because it doesn’t have one, and it will never exalt you, because it looks down on you. Do you want to remain a miserable bootlicker, a servile Arab, a raghead with privileges? Do you want to keep hoping for what they’re incapable of giving you? Okay. Suffer in silence and wait. Who knows? Maybe a scrap will fall out of one of their trash bags. But don’t bore me with your shoeshineboy theories,
ya waled.
I know perfectly well what I want and where I’m going.”

Mohammed Seen raises his arms in surrender, gathers up his overcoat, and stands up. I hastily withdraw.

As I go down the stairs, I can hear the two of them coming down after me. Jalal’s hollering at the writer. “‘I offer them the moon on a silver tray. All they see is a flyspeck on the tray. How can you expect them to take a bite of the moon?’ You wrote that.”

“Leave my work out of it, Jalal.”

“Why so bitter, Mr. Seen? Is that an admission of defeat? Why does a magnanimous man like you have to suffer? It’s because they refuse to recognize your true value. They call your rhetoric ‘bombastic’ and reduce your dazzling flights to imprudent ‘stylistic liberties.’ That’s the injustice I’m fighting against, that dismissive glance they deign to bend upon our magnificence—that’s what has me up in arms. Those people must realize the wrong they do us. They must understand that if they persist in spitting on the best we have, they’ll have to make do with the worst. It’s as simple as that.”

“The intellectual world’s the same everywhere: shady and deceitful. It’s a sort of underworld, but without scruples and without a code of honor. It spares neither its own nor others. If it’s any consolation to you, I’m more controversial and hated among my own people than I am anywhere else. It’s said that no one’s a prophet in his own country. I would add, ‘And no one’s a master in foreign lands.’ No one is honored as a prophet in his own country or as a master anywhere else. My salvation comes from that revelation: I want to be neither a master nor a prophet. I’m only a writer who tries to put some of his spirit into his novels for those who may wish to receive it.”

“Which means you’re satisfied with crumbs.”

“I am, Jalal. Completely. I’d rather be satisfied with nothing than mess up everything. As long as my sorrow doesn’t impoverish anyone, it enriches me. There’s no wretch like the wretch who chooses to bring misfortune where he should bring life. I could lie awake dwelling on my bad luck or my friends’ grief, but the darkness makes me dream.”

They catch up with me in the corridor on the ground floor. I pretend to have just come out of the men’s room. They’re so absorbed by their intellectuals’ squabble that they walk past without noticing me.

“You’re caught between two worlds, Mohammed. It’s a very uncomfortable position to be in. We’re in the midst of a clash of civilizations. You’re going to have to decide which camp you’re in.”

“I’m my own camp.”

“That’s so pretentious! You can’t be your own camp; all you can do is isolate yourself.”

“You’re never alone if you’re moving toward the light.”

“Like Icarus, you mean, or maybe like a moth? What light?”

“The light of my conscience. No shadow can obscure it.”

Jalal stops short and watches the novelist walk away. When Seen pushes open the double doors that lead to the lobby, the doctor starts after him but then changes his mind and lets his hands fall to his sides. “You’re still in the anal stage of awareness, Mohammed,” Jalal cries out. “A world’s on the march and you’re cross-examining yourself. They won’t give you a thing, not a thing! Those crumbs they let you have? One day, they’ll take them back! You’ll get nothing, I tell you, nothing, nothing….”

The swinging doors close with a squeak. The sound of the writer’s footsteps fades and then disappears, absorbed by the carpet in the lobby.

Dr. Jalal grabs his head with both hands and mutters an unintelligible curse.

“Do you want me to blow his brains out?” I ask.

He glares at me savagely. “Leave him alone!” he says. “There’s more to life than that.”

21

Dr. Jalal hasn’t emerged unscathed from his encounter with the writer. He seldom rises before noon, and at night I can hear him pacing in his room. According to Shakir, Jalal has called off the lecture he’d been scheduled to give at the University of Beirut, canceled several interviews with the press, and made no further progress on the book he was about to finish.

I don’t see how a scholar of his stature could be flustered by a servile scribbler. Dr. Jalal’s an eloquent man, a man with great rhetorical powers. The thought of such a genius allowing himself to be caught off guard by a vulgar hack disgusts me.

This afternoon, he’s slouched like a sack in an armchair, his back to the reception desk. His cigarette’s dying a slow death, leaving behind a little stick of ash. Staring at the blank television screen, his legs outspread, his arms hanging down over the arms of his chair, he looks like a battered boxer slumping on a stool.

He doesn’t glance over at me. On the table beside him, some empty beer bottles accompany a glass of whiskey. The ashtray is brimming with butts.

I leave the lobby. In the hotel restaurant, I order a grilled steak, fried potatoes, and a green salad. The doctor fails to appear. I wait for him, my eyes riveted on the door. My coffee gets cold. The waiter clears my dishes and takes down my room number. No one comes through the restaurant door.

I return to the lobby. The doctor’s in the same place as before, but now he’s leaning his head on the back of his chair and staring at the ceiling. I don’t dare approach him. And I don’t dare go up to my room. I step out into the street and lose myself in the crowd.

Shakir slaps his hands together forcefully when he sees me come in. He’s sitting on the sofa in my suite, as white as a candle. “I looked everywhere for you,” he says.

“I went for a walk on the esplanade and lost track of the time.”

“You could have called, dammit. One more hour and I was going to raise the alarm. We were supposed to meet here at five o’clock.”

“I told you: I lost track of the time.”

Shakir restrains himself from jumping on me. My composure exasperates him, and my lack of concern fills him with rage. He raises his hands and tries to calm himself. Then he reaches down to the floor, picks up a little cardboard folder, and hands it to me. “Your airplane tickets, your passport, and your university documents. Your flight to London leaves the day after tomorrow, at ten past six in the evening.”

Without opening the folder, I place it on the night table.

“Something wrong?” he inquires.

“Why do you always ask me the same question?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Have I complained about anything?”

Shakir puts his hands on his thighs and stands up. He looks red-eyed and sleep-deprived. “We’re both tired,” he says, still furious. “Try to rest. I’ll come by tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. We’re going to the clinic. Don’t eat or drink anything beforehand.”

He wants to add something but then decides it’s not necessary. He asks, “May I go?”

“Of course,” I say.

He wags his head, gives the cardboard folder one last glance, and leaves. I don’t hear any steps fading away in the corridor. He must be standing guard at the door, stroking his chin and wondering I don’t know what.

I lie down on the bed, clasp my hands on the back of my neck, contemplate the chandelier above me, and wait for Shakir to go away. I’ve come to know him; when he can’t figure something out, he’s incapable of making any decision before the matter is settled. Finally, I hear him go. I sit up and reach for the folder. Along with the passport, the university papers, and the British Airways tickets, it contains a student identification card, a bank card, and two hundred pounds.

I take one of the pills that usually help me to sleep, but it has no effect. It’s as though I’ve drunk a whole thermos of coffee. Lying on my back, fully dressed, with my shoes still tied, I stare at the ceiling, which a neon sign outside splashes with bloodred light. The traffic noise has diminished. Occasional vehicles pass with a muffled swish, taunting the silence that’s taken hold of the city.

In the next room, Dr. Jalal’s awake, too. I hear him walking in circles. His condition has worsened.

I wonder why I didn’t mention the writer’s visit to Shakir.

Shakir’s here on time. He waits in the suite while I finish my shower. I get dressed and follow him to his car, which is parked in front of a large store. Despite a chilly breeze, the sky is clear. The sun ricochets off windows, as sharp as a razor blade.

Shakir doesn’t drive into the clinic’s inner courtyard. He goes around the building and down a ramp to a small underground parking area. We leave the car, enter a hidden door, and climb a few flights of stairs. Professor Ghany and Sayed meet us at the entrance to a large room that looks like a laboratory. The doors leading to the aboveground floors of the clinic are reinforced and padlocked. At the end of a corridor illuminated by a series of recessed ceiling lights, there’s a gleaming room entirely covered with ceramic tiles. A large glass panel divides it in two. On the other side of the glass, I see a kind of dentist’s office with an armchair under a sophisticated light projector. There are metal shelves loaded with chrome-plated containers all around the room.

The professor dismisses Shakir.

Sayed avoids looking at me. He feigns interest in the professor. Both of them are tense. I’m nervous, too. My calves are tingling. My pulse pounds in my temples. I feel like vomiting.

The professor reassures me. “Everything’s fine,” he says, pointing me to a chair.

Sayed sits beside me; that way, he doesn’t have to turn away from me. His hands are red from kneading.

The professor remains on his feet. With his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, he informs me that the moment of truth has come. “We’re going to proceed to the injection shortly,” he says, his voice choked with emotion. “And I want to explain to you what’s going to happen. Clinically, your body is fit to receive the…the
foreign
body. In the beginning, there will be some side effects, but nothing serious. Probably some dizziness in the first few hours, maybe a touch of nausea, but then everything will return to normal. I want to put your mind at rest immediately. Before today, with the help of volunteers, we’ve carried out several tests, and all along adjustments have been made as required, based on whatever complications arose. The…
vaccine
you’re going to receive is a total success. You have nothing to worry about on that score. After the injection, we’re going to keep you under observation all day—a simple security measure. When you leave the clinic, you’ll be in perfect physical condition. Forget about all the medications I prescribed for you earlier—they’re no longer necessary. I’ve replaced them with two different pills, each of which must be taken three times a day for a week. You leave for London tomorrow. A physician will assist you once you’re there. In the course of the first week, things will go along normally. The incubation period won’t cause you any major undesirable effects. It varies from ten to fifteen days. The first symptoms to appear will be a high fever and convulsions; your medicine will be at your side. After this phase, your urine will gradually turn red. From that moment, the contagion is operational. Your mission then will consist in riding the subway and going to train stations, stadiums, and supermarkets, with the goal of contaminating the maximum number of people. Particularly in train stations, so the epidemic will spread to the other regions of the kingdom. The phenomenon propagates with lightning speed. The people you contaminate will transmit the virus to others less than six hours before they themselves are struck down. It acts somewhat like the Spanish flu, but the catastrophe will have decimated a good part of the population before people realize that the two epidemics aren’t really alike at all. This new one is unique, and we alone have the knowledge that will be required to stop its further spread. And our intervention will require compliance with certain conditions. This is an unstoppable mutating virus. A great revolution. It is
our
ultimate weapon…. The physician in London will explain whatever you’d like to know. You can confide in him; he’s my closest collaborator…. After the onset, you’ll have three to five days to visit all the most frequented public places.”

Sayed takes out a handkerchief and pats his forehead and his temples. He’s on the point of passing out.

“I’m ready, professor.” I don’t recognize my voice. I have the feeling I’m slipping into a trance. I pray for the strength to get up and walk without collapsing to the air lock that leads to the room behind the glass panel. My sight blurs for a few seconds. I breathe deeply, struggling for a little air. Then I come to my senses and heave myself to my feet. My calves are still tingling and my legs wobble, but the floor remains firm. The professor puts on a silver HAZMAT suit, complete with mask and gloves, so that he’s entirely covered. Sayed helps me get my own suit on and then watches us go through the air lock to the other side of the glass panel.

I place myself in the chair, which immediately starts rising and reclining with a mechanical hiss. The professor opens a small aluminum box and extracts a futuristic syringe. I close my eyes and hold my breath. When the needle enters my flesh, every cell in my body, with a single unified movement, seems to rush to the perforated spot. I feel as though I’ve fallen through a crack in the surface of a frozen lake, which pulls me down into its depths.

Sayed invites me to dinner in a restaurant not far from my hotel. It’s a farewell meal, with all that such an occasion entails for him in terms of embarrassment and awkwardness. You’d think he’d lost the power of speech. He can’t bring himself to say a word or look me in the face.

He won’t drive me to the airport tomorrow. Neither will Shakir. A taxi’s going to pick me up at 4:00
P.M
. sharp.

I spent the whole day in Professor Ghany’s subterranean clinic. He came in to examine me with his stethoscope from time to time. His satisfaction grew with every visit. Then I had four uninterrupted hours of a deep, dreamless sleep, followed after I woke up by only two dizzy spells. I was as thirsty as a castaway on the sea. They brought me some soup and crudités, which I couldn’t finish. I didn’t feel sick, but I was groggy and pasty-mouthed, and I had an incessant hum in my ears. When I got out of bed, I staggered several times; then, little by little, I was able to coordinate my movements and walk properly.