Thirst: A Novel of the Iran-Iraq War (12 page)

They don’t believe it. But I did it, I will do it. My old man turned into a dove, father, father, father, father, again my father, father, father, when he was released from his blood-drenched body … they don’t believe it. They don’t believe in taking off one’s boots, wrapping one’s feet in sheets, becoming light and flying. Jamoo … Jamoo … Jamoo … I want you to remain behind the shelter of this machine gun, don’t blink, keep your eyes glued to that spot from where bullets were fired through the slit between the sandbags. Five shots were fired, and all five of our men were hit. All those men who went down there, one by one, craving water, and intending to bring some water back for you and me and this captive too. Concentrate on that very spot! Answer me by nodding your head if you understand what I’m saying!’

‘Jamoo!’

Now he will pray for me, I know. I didn’t ask him to, but I know that he will. By force of habit, under his breath. This is an innate habit, a sign of the loneliness of the children of
Adam. I become lighter, very light. Lighter than the soul, I fly into the half-light of dawn. I will not advance directly towards the enemy. I will outflank them. I will manoeuvre from Hill Zero and make for the wisps of smoke still rising from the ruins of their gun emplacements. Against a backdrop of heavy and light smoke, I lose colour and I take on colour. I move up the base of the hill. I have transformed myself. For a moment, the noise of a shot petrifies me. Then I recognize the sound as friendly machine-gun fire. Is it Jamoo? Why? I turn into a serpent and hold my head high. A serpent! Yes, I was correct, Jamoo has fired in the direction of the enemy trench. Maybe he saw a movement? That must be the case. Someone’s head has peeked out from behind the trench and Jamoo has opened fire. But why should anyone have raised their head? Water. Yes, of course, water. Now a piece of cloth, off-white in colour, rises up from behind the shelter of the trench. Slowly, a piece of cloth on a stick appears and Jamoo gives no quarter. I hear a voice speaking in my language: ‘Don’t shoot!’ And suddenly I catch sight of the back of a naked torso in the enemy trench. What a low trick! A prisoner from our side has been turned into a human shield against our fire. Blood fills my eyes and I pray to God that the teenager I’ve left behind the machine gun has come to his senses and will recognize one of our own men! But no! His sole focus is on obeying my order to the letter. But as long as our soldier is not pushed out of the trench, this in itself provides me with the ideal opportunity to act. I have to make it over to the trench instantly, which I manage. At this, the enemy soldier who has killed my five men starts spitting and cursing at
us. And in that frenzied state, he shoves the muzzle of his gun between the naked shoulder-blades of his captive and announces ‘I’ll count to ten and your mother will mourn you if you don’t step out of the trench immediately and order that machine gun on the opposite hill to cease fire’. But when he comes to
saba’a
,
^c
he suddenly feels the tip of my bayonet on his spine and the steel muzzle of the sidearm which I have jammed behind his ear. I order the prisoner: ‘Take his gun and obey my commands, soldier!’ He turns around and takes the gun. Neither of us has the strength to fight and grapple in the trench. Nor, in the current circumstances, would it be to the enemy sergeant’s – or is he a corporal? – advantage to challenge my position. My bayonet is already out of its scabbard, while his knife isn’t. There are two of us and one of him. Of course, he is burlier and stronger, but he’s also more tired. Hunger and thirst haven’t treated him any better than us. I have no wish to humiliate him. I withdraw a step. I take the confiscated gun from the enemy soldier, toss a wire at our captive and order him to tie our prisoner’s thumbs together. ‘Tightly, boy, tightly! Now his wrists.’ I think about saying something facetious to the enemy soldier, but I’m in no mood for jesting. I’ve exhausted all my energy in rushing this position and now he – whoever he is – is my captive, our captive. I call out and step out of the trench. Jamoo has seen my signal and recognized it. A mirror reflecting the light. Now the sun has risen in the east.

‘VERY WELL, KATIB
. So you said you are the son of the son of the son of … that child whose seed was created around a thousand years ago in Baghdad, at the house of the vizier’s mother, in secret, and who was born in Mecca and entrusted, in infancy, to special wet nurses beyond the reach of the caliph, the child’s uncle, until he was taken to Yemen so as to be out of reach of the caliph’s wrath, which could result in nothing but death? So you are the fruit of Ajam seed in the womb of an Arab woman, the seed of Barmak’s son, Barmak! Which means that you must be a child of the children of Barmakids and Abbasids. How come there’s no mention of this family tree in your dossier? You were educated in Cairo, and then for a spell in Beirut … before leaving to go to Europe. You studied French and history … anyway, after studying you returned to your homeland … and you are still alive! It says here in your dossier that you wrote articles in French under a pseudonym, which were translated under another pseudonym into English and published in Ireland! This is not incorrect, is it? I’m asking if this is true?’

‘Yes, it is true. But it was a metaphor. I meant that my inner child has not yet suffocated in smoke and fire and hatred and gunpowder. But that doesn’t mean that I am literally a child of that child!’

‘I wonder! And what a night tonight is, Katib!’

‘Hasn’t it finished yet, then, Major?’

‘And we’re in your house again. In your room? And the good thing about the morning breeze is that it dispels drunkenness from your head. But drunkenness does have some advantages, even so; one says things one would not have said in a normal state. Perhaps you do not recall how the Barmak clan made a puppet out of the caliph? And that they dressed him in the garb of enemy princes and celebrated the Norouz ceremony in imitation of Iranian kings? There’s no note in your dossier that you can speak the Ajam tongue! Where did you learn it? In Beirut or at Middle Eastern language classes?’

‘What are you driving at, Major? Are you trying to connect me to the enemy through my kin, blood and tongue?’

‘Everything I’m saying I’ve deduced from your own words,
seyedi
! I haven’t added anything of my own.’

‘I just told you a story, Major, that’s all.’

‘So you distracted me on purpose with a story to try and sidestep my accredited and documented report?’

‘That document of yours will result in nothing but the humiliation of mankind!’

‘It isn’t supposed to result in anything of the kind. The be-all and end-all is the enemy’s humiliation!’

‘We have prisoners in the enemy’s camps, too. How would you like it if the enemy started publishing similar reports targeted at our prisoners?’

‘They have had no reservations in that regard! I’m interested to hear you call Iranians your enemies, though!’

‘I’ve never claimed anything else. Haven’t you read the
article I published on the morning after their missiles hit our university dormitories? Didn’t you read that?’

‘I have it right here; in it, you suggest we find a way to make peace!’

‘I am a writer, Major, and writers cannot supply fuel to wars. Especially a war whose meaning and purpose I haven’t yet fully grasped.’

‘More, tell me more, go on!’

‘I have nothing more to say. The sun has been up for some time now. Of course, you are a guest in this house. One should not set the time of a guest’s departure. But didn’t you intend to go back to your base? Don’t you have a morning roll-call to attend to?’

‘Yes, we do! According to you we probably borrowed the custom of the morning inspection ceremony from the Iranians, too!’

‘I never said any such thing! Modern Middle Eastern armies copied such military ceremonies from the West, as did we. Its history is modern, not ancient. You can add that to my dossier! I’m speaking plainly now – it’s high time you were gone, you’re late for work, Major!’

‘I
am
at work, right now, right here!’

‘In my house?’

‘Yes, sir! At work, on a special mission. I would like to know once and for all whether or not you intend to write a piece that faithfully records the information in that folder which has been placed on your desk!’

‘So you’ve come here to browbeat me! I’m very tired, Major!’

‘Surely no more tired than I am?’

‘Yes, mental exhaustion, my brain is tired of absorbing and storing crimes! I intended to raise a white flag and at least in my own mind, call a temporary truce. But you wouldn’t allow it, the enemy acted faster and the corporal of my mind was captured, just at the moment when the idea of peace had occurred to me. So he was taken captive, because utter thirst and fatigue had crushed his soul and forced him to surrender. You wouldn’t let me do my own work!’

‘Actually, that’s not true. Your work is precisely what we want you to do: write, that is! The corporal has been captured, so what? He’ll have to answer for that in person at his court martial. The subject I’ve suggested to you covers imprisonment as well. But you think the enemy is treating our prisoners with kid gloves!’

‘Why do you insist on thinking for me, voicing your own thoughts and then attributing them to me? I didn’t say, nor am I saying now, that the enemy is treating our prisoners leniently. I’m not talking about whether the enemy is kinder than us or not. My concern is the very concepts of kindness and cruelty. I am against the notion of cruelty, Major, and animosity. Please … before you leave put that book back in its proper place on the shelf of antique volumes. It took a lot of work to arrange those shelves!’

‘How fortunate, then, that an Ajam missile hasn’t landed in the vicinity of your house. If it had, you would become one with your precious books. The order in your library in an extension of the order in our republic. Now … before I say my final word, I’d like you to read a chapter of this
book to me. I studied maths at school. I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of you by reading an old Iranian text! It seems terribly convoluted to me. Even just skimming through it. Am I wrong? Here … read this page. I’ve just found out that Iranians predict the future from books. Among the volumes that we’ve confiscated after overrunning their trenches, aside from the holy book there were also copies of Hafez’s poetry. The book I want you to read for me is not Hafez. But … no doubt any book has something to teach. So teach me something from this book, Katib! Read to me. Read this page, Katib. This writer was a servant of Baghdad too, correct?’

‘Yes, it was written by that same vizier, the servant of Baghdad, and it contains a level and degree of fanaticism and hatred that compares with yours, concerning the enmity that arose among those people, and the hostility towards his sultan, and towards the caliph of his time as well!’

‘Please read! From the beginning, from the part where Abu Muslim is killed!’

‘But you asked me to read this page, Major.’

‘And now I’m asking you to turn the page and read the passage about Abu Ja’far Budavaniq, dear friend!’

‘… And so it was that Khorammeh, daughter to Faezeh, fled Madaen …’

‘Further on! I want to hear about Abu Muslim’s assassination!’

‘… when Abu Ja’far Budavaniq, in Baghdad, assassinated Abu Muslim in the year of one hundred and thirty seven after the Hijra of Muhammad – Peace Be Upon Him – a
chief there was in the city of Neishabur, his name Sunpadh, who with Abu Muslim had of old the right to converse and serve, and Abu Muslim had raised him and helped him advance to the level of commandership. After Abu Muslim was murdered, he departed and from Neishabur, with an army, descended upon Rey and stayed in Rey and as his forces became stronger he demanded vengeance for Abu Muslim’s blood and proclaimed thus that he was Abu Muslim’s envoy to the people of Iraq and Khorasan, bearing the message that “Abu Muslim is not dead …” ’

‘That’s the passage! I wanted to show you the sort of people we’re fighting against. These are the real children of the same Zoroastrians who have stolen our clothes and proclaimed themselves Muslims, while all the time trying to depose us!’

‘But this is just a short account of a brief moment of history that has been turned into a story, and even this story clearly departs from the historic aspects of the wider narrative in this text. Imagination, this is pure imagination. The conclusion of this story is even more interesting than what you just heard. Our neighbours are imaginative people, listen! That man of Neishabur starts a rumour that Abu Muslim has not been killed and spreads it among the people. Listen to this!’

‘I have to go, Katib! Didn’t you hear the sound of the jeep’s engine? This folder contains the dossier of those three prisoners. An appalling and tragic accident has taken place in the prison camp I’m commander of, and it’s crying out for you to write a report about it, which will be much more interesting to read than the tales of our storytelling enemy!
Write your report on the basis of those documents if you like; if not, feel free to content yourself with the fabrications of our enemies. I am a soldier, Katib. When I put on this uniform, I swore an oath beneath the flag of our Arab homeland to remain steadfast to certain principles.’