Thirst: A Novel of the Iran-Iraq War (3 page)

‘Water, water … all this prisoner of ours says when he opens his mouth is
“al-atash”
. Come tomorrow we’ll all roast in the sun from thirst.’

‘There’s still a long time to go till tomorrow … what time is it?’

‘One in the morning.’

‘Good morning to you, then!’

‘And to you … let me untie my hand, sir, and go and check on the others in the other trenches.’

‘Wait until it’s light. As you can hear, nobody’s making a sound. Keep your ears to the ground.’

‘You’re right. I can’t hear a thing.’

‘Can you count how many of us are left?’

‘You’re not joking, are you? We were seven to start with, but now … we’re just one and a half!’

‘What’s the deal with the half-a-person?’

‘That’s me! I’m half-a-person, aren’t I, when one of my hands is bound … What are you thinking of? Please find a solution, or let me tie his hands and feet and throw him in a corner, or simply put him out of his misery … it’d only take one bullet. It’s not like they haven’t killed enough of our troops.’

‘No! No! No! I’ve been told not to kill prisoners. Ordered by someone who’d give up his life for each and every one of us. Maybe what he told me was a sentence from the will he never wrote. He never wrote anything, ever. Not even a letter to his wife. He said this to me before his first and last leave of absence. My only hope, now that I’m teetering on a knife edge between death and life, and the only thing that’s keeping me alive, is this short sentence that I heard during the brief time I was able to be at his side. A fleeting moment on a night like this very night. He had come to inspect us. I’d been told that was something he always did, without fail. He came quickly, he stayed briefly, and moved swiftly from trench to trench, inspecting everyone and everything, and I’m certain he didn’t sleep more than three hours in
an entire day. Who was he and what was he? I only wish I could see him one more time and ask him “Who
are
you?” But it didn’t come to pass. I never had the chance again. Anyway, I suspect he wouldn’t respond to such a question. I could see he wasn’t one for talking much. His whole being was action. He expressed himself through deeds rather than words. Are you listening to me? He was a man of action, pure and simple. Prisoners must not be killed, he said! I’ll leave you to make of that what you will. I know what I understand by it. This is a war, I’m well aware of that. They don’t go round handing out cookies in war. They kill us and we kill them, sure. At least one enemy battalion was wiped out in our last counterattack and we chalked it up as revenge for their previous attacks. But a prisoner of war … you know, I thought a lot about that sentence. It’s partly because a captive is a defenceless and submissive creature, but as far as I’m concerned that’s just scratching the surface. Beneath it all there is another issue, that is, when a person is captured everything that makes up the way he appears to the world suddenly falls apart. His military honours, his uniform, his weapon and everything that he was carrying in his pockets or knapsack is taken away from him and suddenly you’re looking at an ordinary man who’s just the same as you, just like you were before you were called up. How can you fight a person who reminds you of yourself? What sort of argument can you have with him? He isn’t even armed! He’s not a soldier anymore …’

‘What am I supposed to do with him then? Untie my hand, will you! At least grant me the same rights as you do to an enemy prisoner!’

‘Okay, then, have it your way. Tie his hands together. But be careful, an enemy is an enemy no matter what.’

‘What about his mouth?’

‘Gag it so he can’t scream, and put him in that corner where we can see him!’

‘What did you say that commander’s name was?’

‘I didn’t mention his name, did I?’

‘No, actually, I don’t think you did.’

‘He wouldn’t want his name to be repeated. He was a flame that was extinguished. He wanted to become like the ones who’ve already passed on.’

‘Are you being poetic?’

‘It’s the absolute truth, I swear.’

‘So, did you ever stop to think how a man like that could order an assault when he was sure hundreds would be killed?’

‘No, I didn’t. But I’m sure he believed in our right to defend ourselves.’

‘It looks like this night will never end. Do you think we’re under siege?’

‘How long have you been in the army now?’

‘Six months and seven days.’

‘Let me give you a piece of advice. Maybe even a final parting word!’

‘What?’

‘Don’t count the days. Even if you think you’re in mortal danger, don’t count them. And don’t count them now. The night can’t last forever. It’s in its nature to be replaced by day. It can’t stay in one place. It must pass. But if you tie yourself up in knots counting the passage of moments,
you’ll only make their passing slower and heavier. Just let night move at its own pace.’

‘I’m thirsty … and hungry.’

‘Saying that over and over again won’t fill your stomach or quench your thirst, either. Patience is the name of the game, patience! Let’s be patient together. I’m your superior, so I could simply order you to be quiet, but I won’t do that. Let’s talk like friends or brothers instead, because this might be the last night of our lives. Let’s stay calm.’

‘Last night? The last night of … if a person knows he’s going to live for only one more night, what should he do?’

‘That all depends on where he is.’

‘I’m talking about here, where we are right now!’

‘Here … his most important task would be to grow four eyes, and to keep two glued to the front, fixed on that hill, and two at the back so we can’t be taken by surprise from the rear.’

‘But you … you do something else as well as all that – you think! I bet you’ve been to university …’

‘It would be easy for you to think too, you don’t need a university education. After all, all human beings think, but not all of them have been to university. Each person thinks to the extent of his knowledge.’

‘But I … when I think, I get to bad places; like how did I end up in this shitty situation? I keep turning that thought over in my mind.’

‘Then stop turning it over, break the vicious circle! It won’t solve the problem.’

‘How can I do that?’

‘It’s quite simple. Imagine you’re not alone. During the
first half of the night at least three or four individuals like you and me were slain in front of our eyes while trying to fetch some water to save us from dying of thirst. But it’s still night, so how can we be sure? Maybe they aren’t dead yet? What if they’re lying down there, thirsty and wounded? Can you imagine how they’re suffering right now? But if you apply your mind to it, you can break out of that vicious circle of thought, because it won’t make any difference to the situation. Like it or not, here is where we are. And you can put any thoughts of deserting out of your mind too, because I have permission to shoot you in the back if you do. Even if I only shoot you below the knee you’ll be crippled for life. If I’m feeling merciful, I’ll fire into the ground behind you, and you’ll succeed in your escape attempt and run directly into the enemy lines. In which case you’ll end up being shot in the chest; you can be certain they won’t bother with any “below the knee” niceties. But even if we assume none of these things happen and by chance you manage to survive, that’s when the real problems begin for you: the desert, the sun, the thirst and the loneliness. Haven’t you ever heard of how people who are lost in a desert are brought to their knees by thirst and fatigue? Then it will be the turn of pitiless vultures who will start by digging your eyes out of their sockets!’

‘How do you know all this stuff? Did you read it in books?’

‘Look, just don’t think about it too much. You’ll start imagining things. We’ll be rescued tomorrow. We’ll look at the weather, the light, weigh up the situation, and then act. So we’ll be free. Free to rescue ourselves in any way we can.
Keep your spirits up! I told you the story of that lioness, didn’t I? She’ll find us tomorrow, I promise. We’re not supposed to stay hunkered down on this hillside forever. Our next task is to find a way of breaking out of their pincer movement. Let me see what the opposite hill is up to. There’s firing going on behind them as well. What we’re engaged in now is a war of patience. Let’s see which side will yield to impatience first, us or them? So think about good things!’

ON THE OTHER SIDE
of the Shatt al-Arab, two tropical flies keep skimming over the heads of the author’s wife and children. Their buzzing is constantly audible to the man, and he finds himself distracted by them in a most irritating manner; he becomes transfixed by the flies’ restless gyrations and falls to wondering whether they might be a male and female engaged in a courtship ritual. They land on the little girl’s purple cheek, grapple with each other and flit off again. The next place they alight is on his wife’s toes, which are peeking out from under the sheet. He decides to get up and kill the flies … but at the same time he permits himself a wry smile, as if to say, look, I can’t even manage to find an effective way of shooing away a couple of flies. Worse still, I’ve wasted precious moments watching them, and neglected the fact that my publisher is waiting for what I am writing, and what I’m obliged to write is a piece that recalls the Battle of Qadisiyyah.
^*
The flies and I, the night and the candle, the Lamy fountain pen and Saad Waqqas; bombers and floodlights; a machine gun that in a blink
of an eye can raze an enemy column to the ground the instant it comes into view; bulldozers, tanks and armoured cars; military aircraft in supersonic flight, buttons … red and green buttons … alarms; the blood-drenched sword of Saad. How many times should I mention the fact that he ordered a palace to be built in whose entrance the gates of the seven cities of Kasra could fit? Or note that the gates and the palace were burnt down by order of the caliph at the time because, as the caliph said to Saad, you are following the ways of Persian kings, so I command you to live in a house made of reeds like the common people or soldiers! My Lamy fountain pen writes fluently, but it cannot locate Saad. Instead it is trapped amid the fire and smoke on Hill Zero, and again writes: ‘Prisoners must not be killed!’ But at the same time it is clear that this universal humanitarian principle will not be deemed acceptable and that, instead, the author will be expected to write: ‘We do not kill captives – it is our enemies who show no mercy, even to prisoners; mercy they show not!’

They took him and showed him the prisoner-of-war camp. During this visit, as it turned out, the author – the owner of the fountain pen, which was a gift – witnessed a strange and incredible sight. The PoWs were badly shaven, with unkempt and bloody faces and eyes bloodshot from suffering. There were twenty-six alive, and one corpse: two convicts, with their hands tied back-to-back, were being paraded in front of a row of their fellow inmates because during the night they had smothered their cellmate to death. One of them had sat on the victim’s legs and gripped
his ankles tight while the other held a folded blanket over his mouth and sat on top of it until he suffocated. There they stood, two young men shackled together, beards just sprouting on their smooth, unscarred faces. They had not been forced to dry-shave their light stubble. On reflection, ‘dry-shaving’ isn’t quite the right term; at nightfall, together with the pair of barber’s razors that were allotted to the prison wing, two empty buckets were provided. These were to be used as chamber pots, and the urine was then used to wet the soldiers’ faces for shaving. There was no escaping this unpleasant ordeal; a directive was issued to the effect that ‘any beard that has not been properly shaved or is only partly shaved will be dry-shaved by your own hands in the morning, after which you’ll be placed in solitary confinement!’

Afterwards the author was invited to the prison camp’s office for a cup of Yemenite coffee and treated to a lecture about the atrocities committed by the enemy, hot from the front. He was also promised a full account of what had happened in the prison the previous night, as well as other incidents that ‘are bound to be of interest to you … do you take sugar?’

‘Yes, just a little, thanks.’

‘When we’ve finished our coffee, I’ll take you to the other detention centres to give you a good idea of our magian enemy’s wickedness! We keep young men under the age of eighteen and older civilians in separate quarters to prevent such crimes from recurring. But even so …’

The author interrupted to say how he had read in history books that the Sassanids had once used to refer to their
enemies as magi, or ‘sorcerers’; those people who were conquered in Iran, and by our swords, converted to Islam. I’m amazed to hear that you still call them magi!

‘You are naïve, my dear Katib.
^†
The magi never converted. That’s the official version, certainly, so that’s the line we’re obliged to take. But if they are not magi, then what are they? There’s no insult too bad for the enemy, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s walk over there and I’ll show them to you, and describe what they have done, case by case. I’ll also present you with credible reports of atrocities like the mass murder of prisoners.’

The nonplussed author made a mental note to go back to his history books and dictionaries and look up the exact etymology of such words, and as he walked out into the desert beside the prison camp’s officer, he focused his attention on two points: first, the meanings of words, and second, Hill Zero and what fate befell the characters in his story. He always obeyed the writer’s rule of thumb that you should read through the final passage of what you had written the previous night to get yourself properly steeped in the atmosphere of your tale, and when you got up from your desk at the end of the day, you should leave something hanging so you could pick up the thread the next day. Lost in his own thoughts, despite himself, all he could remember from last night’s writing was this phrase ‘prisoners must not be killed.’ Yet he was still not sure what he should write after that sentence; possibly something referring to a basic principle of international law on human
rights. At the same time, he was worried about an injured captive lodged somewhere in the ditches of that hill. For he was certain that, contrary to his intentions, the healthy PoW in the trench on the hillside had been shot dead by the soldier, who wasn’t obeying an order from the corporal, but simply punishing the prisoner’s ‘crime’ of expressing his delight during an airstrike against the back-up battalion. And now that the bilingual captive had taken such a hold on his imagination, how might it be possible to save him from death? So as he walked beside the prison camp officer, his mind was elsewhere. He was preoccupied with the trenches below Hill Zero, and with how many of the soldiers had ultimately survived, what their condition was and whether they had received any orders from headquarters. He was confused, and those two flies would not desist from their lovemaking, and the children … Ah, another candle; the last one has burnt out. By now, the cigarette packet is half-empty and here he is, still caught in the grip of a phrase that is both self-evident and aesthetically unappealing. Yes, of course, it stands to reason that prisoners must not be killed!