- Everyone got a visa, except for you, he says accusingly. - They said you are a journalist. Are you?
- No, not at all. It must be a mistake, I say, and disappear out of the door and down the road to my waiting driver. The game is up. The Iraqi Embassy can’t be fooled. I am in their archives.
I pass my days in front of the TV. The Security Council negotiations are like a thriller that keep me glued to the screen. I switch from BBC to CNN or Sky News. In Baghdad they demolish al-Samoud missiles but the Americans say ‘too little, too late’.
I try everything to get back - via humanitarian visa, cultural visa, business visa. Soon there is no employee left in the Iraqi Embassy that I have not tried to bribe. Well, not me personally, but Muhammed, the driver who drove Jorunn, Bǻrd and me to Baghdad one January morning long ago. He says he needs five thousand dollars to sort it all out, OK, I say, but to no avail. The Iraqi Embassy is quite simply not issuing visas these nervous March days.
One evening I meet Tim in the hotel bar. His speciality is the Balkans, and we have both written books about Serbia. After September 11 he realised he would have to find new hunting grounds, and some weeks later we met by chance on a plane to Dushanbe. Once in Afghanistan we collected stories together, about the donkey smuggler, the child commandant, the veiled TV star. Like then he is working for The Economist and the New York Review of Books.
- I wrote a whole article about Afghan donkeys when I got home, he laughs. - That’s the article I’ve received most praise for ever!
He is off to Baghdad, having waited ten months for a visa. We agree to meet in the swimming pool before his departure next morning. What a life!
Tim’s travelling companion is none other than Bob. Actually, that is not his real name. We know each other from Afghanistan; I remember him as a persistent reporter, always on the lookout for ‘serious fighting’ or a scoop. I have not seen him since leaving Kabul. He asks me how the book I was writing got on, where he features in the chapter about Khost. I tell him that I changed his name.
- Bob! Bob! You called me Bob?
- What’s wrong with that?
- When I’ve turned into a chap called Bob, I know exactly how you’ve described me. Bob, bob. You could have given me another name.
- What? Maximilian? Alexander? Bob suits you.
We all oversleep for the swimming pool meeting and the next time I hear from Tim and Bob I am standing outside the Iraqi Embassy waiting for my bribes to bear fruit. They phone as they cross the border, before the mobile phone signal disappears.
- Dinner at Nabil’s tomorrow, they tempt me
- Shut up! I’ll be there before you know.
Nearly every day I phone Kadim at the press centre. On the rare occasions when he answers, he says: Patient. You must be patient.
- Then I’ll phone again tomorrow, I persist each time.
- No, not tomorrow. Phone in a week.
When I phone a few days later he again asks me to contact him in a week. I realise he is never going to get me a visa.
A French photographer gets a tourist visa. Iraqi Airways is the tour operator. There must be a group of a minimum of five and you have to pay for a week-long trip. During the mornings there is compulsory sightseeing, the afternoons are leisure time. The programme takes in Ur, Babylon, Mosul, and Baghdad.
It is unbelievable. But several journalist colleagues go as tourists. A few of us decide to try the same tactic.
Most people just laugh.
- A week? And when that’s over? Can you book a two-week excursion too?
Others think we are mad.
- What happens when they find your cameras? Holiday in Hell. Get serious. The Iraqi regime is not to play with.
Eventually there are enough of us to make up a group. Iraqi Airways makes us fill in some forms, curiously simple by Iraqi standards: name, address, occupation. One of us writes architect, another nurse, a third teacher, a fourth firefighter, ballet dancer, model, factory owner - the choice is yours. Strangely enough, we are not required to sign papers saying we enter Iraq at our own risk. I venture to ask who issues the visas.
- The Ministry for Culture, the man behind the counter answers.
- So it is not handled by the Foreign Ministry?
- No, that’s not necessary. After all, you’re only going on holiday.
The situation is absurd. The world’s press is kicking its heels, but the tourist visa is issued in a couple of hours. While we sit in the offices of Iraqi Airways, the fax with our permissions clatters in from Baghdad. The next hurdle is the embassy in Amman. Wonders of wonders, the applications are passed. It appears this tourist office operates independently of the war, as if they have not taken in the fact that the attack will most probably start during the tour’s first days. While we’re shuffling around Ur, for instance. When one of the Americans asks what will happen to us if the war starts, I stamp on his foot and hiss with my eyes: Let’s not start making problems.
The mild one behind the counter just says: - If it gets that bad, why not just leave.
The bus departs the following evening. The kind man even makes a list of our hotels so the driver can pick everyone up individually. He gives us some brochures on sights to visit. At the bottom of the brochures are the words ‘Have a Nice Trip!’ ‘Trap’ might be better.
As I leave Iraqi Airways Muhammed phones.
- Your visa is here!
A real journalist’s visa, with the right to work, write, transmit and photograph. The group is large enough to go without me.
- Five thousand dollars, Muhammed says when I meet him.
- Five thousand!
- Wasn’t that the sum we agreed on?
- Yes, but that was two weeks ago. Now I’ve spent half of that on hotel bills.
- You don’t want to pay?
- That was the sum we agreed on when you said you could get a visa the same day. Two weeks ago! Now you’re only getting half.
Muhammed looks at me sadly, as if I have cheated him.
- If you don’t pay, I’ll have to, he says, eyes fixed on the ground. - These men are dangerous.
I pay it all, of course. My travelling funds suddenly shrink. Back at the hotel I wave my visa at all those still waiting.
An email winks at me when I turn the computer on. ‘Dear Friend’, it says. I shudder as I read:don’t come asne, this is a death trap and we are all
prepared down to the last man.
you won’t be prepared for it.
i would stay put and safe.
but if you want to come DO IT FAST.
i can’t advise you - it is your life. be careful
love
janine
ps - i am in room 1301 or 330 of palestine hotel
now
It is pitch black when the jeep pulls up in front of the hotel. A bell boy carries my suitcase. Muhammed puts it in the boot. We leave the well-lit streets and turn towards Baghdad. In time.
During
- My uncle lives in Baghdad. If it gets dangerous he’ll come and fetch you. He lives in one of the safest areas of town, just phone him if you’re frightened.
Muhammed is staring fixedly at the road ahead. Dawn is approaching. The desert is rushing past us, its colours changing from greyish black to shimmering brown, from blue to violet, until it crackles into golden as the sun sends its first rays over the sand. The hard-won visa burns in my pocket.
- He has a large family.
- Good.
- He has stored food and water for months.
I lose the thread of Muhammed’s conversation. Exhausted after sleepless nights, I try to sort out my thoughts but they are all tangled up. If I had been able to draw them I might have got them into some sort of perspective: straight thoughts, crooked thoughts, crumpled thoughts, stuttering thoughts, stabbing thoughts, hurtful thoughts, raw thoughts, fearful thoughts. But if I had scribbled them down one by one they would have ended up one black lump. They lie on top of each other, with no air in
between. It is impossible to pry them apart and think of them individually, in spite of the simple question: Is it right to go back to Baghdad now?
Until I got the visa, I didn’t think about the danger of returning. I had never really considered whether I actually had the guts; I just wanted it so badly.
My visa had been delivered by the embassy’s afternoon shift. That same night Muhammed was driving an empty car to Baghdad to fetch some of the Reuters team. He would leave Amman at three in the morning to be at the border by daybreak. Then he would get to Baghdad by noon and be back at the border before dark.
- I’ll pick you up at three, Muhammed said when I got the visa.
- I don’t know, I said.
- You don’t know?
- No. Maybe I don’t want to go to Baghdad.
- But you’ve just paid five thousand dollars for a visa!
- But I’m not sure I’ve got the guts.
- You should have thought of that before.
I took a walk around the hotel to find someone to talk to. Someone who could make up my mind. Of all people, I bumped into Bob.
- I thought you’d gone! I exclaimed.
- Yes, but they pulled me out. Security reasons. Damn. They are thinking of pulling out Melinda too. Do you care for a drink in my room?
- I have to pack.
- Where are you going?
- I got a visa.
- When are you going?
- I don’t know if I am.
- Come and have a drink when you’ve made up your mind.
A few hours later I was sitting in his suite. The table was covered with glasses of gin, ice cubes and a small bottle of tonic. The television was showing pictures from the Azores, where Bush, Blair and Aznar were holding their last meeting. It was clear that war was unavoidable.
Three frustrated people sat watching: Bob, who once again was missing out on ‘some serious fighting’, the Magnum agency photographer, Alex, and me. One of the world’s most famous war photographers, Alex was depressed because he had no visa. Every hour that passed his grief increased as he thought about the photos he would never take. Myself, I was not only frustrated but falling apart with doubt. I knew that if I went to Iraq now, I would not be able to get out until the war was over.
My two colleagues on the sofa were of no help. In my situation they would not have hesitated. I needed to talk to a rational being, not someone sitting beside me drinking gin and tonic.
I couldn’t phone my parents, if I spoke to them I could never go. I couldn’t phone my sister, brother, friends. They had already asked me not to go.
It was around midnight. Bob replenished the glasses and zapped the remote control. All the channels showed the same: the run-up to war.
Suddenly I thought of someone I could phone. I dialled the number and heard shouting and the clatter of glasses through the receiver.
- I’m at the London Book Fair.
- Do you have two minutes?
I outlined the pros and cons as succinctly as possible.
- I just don’t know if I dare risk it, I said finally.
There was a long pause.
- The question is: Do you dare risk not going?
The sun is beating down. It hurts my eyes and burns its way into my head. I rummage around for my sunglasses, roll down the window and watch the desert hurtling towards me, pale brown sand everywhere. I sit half asleep behind the dark glasses. Muhammed too has strayed into his own meditation, and tears along the straight road at 100 miles per hour.
- Iraq, he suddenly says, and points towards a building on the horizon. I force myself to wake up, straighten the seat back. Ready.
On the border we meet the first journalists. On their way out.
- Nothing in the world could make me stay in Baghdad now, a colleague says, clearly relieved to have reached the Jordanian border. - The attack might start at any moment. Three thousand cruise missiles day and night. Saddam could retaliate with chemical weapons - he might take us hostage, bring us down with him.
Impatiently, he waits for the exit papers, as if he cannot leave Iraqi soil soon enough. I have handed over my entry visa to be stamped. I feel stupid, like a complete idiot who does not understand what danger is; so dense that I cannot see death when it comes. My papers are stamped first.
The customs officers search the jeep then give it the OK. Muhammed jumps in, describes an elegant turn on the gravel, stops in front of me, leans over the seat and opens the door with a click. I jump in and wave to my colleagues at the border station. Have a nice trip to Amman!
From the bench by the sunny wall they wave back lazily, shake their heads and continue their conversation.
I glance up at the familiar portrait that welcomes us to Iraq. There are not many to greet this Monday morning. Muhammed and I are driving almost alone against the tide. Not only journalists are leaving the country. Cars laden with carpets, bags, pots, clothes and people flee Baghdad.
In the middle of the desert there is a petrol station and a crossroad. This is where the motorway from Baghdad splits in two. One road continues to Jordan, the other to Syria. There is a huge queue for petrol. Three Persian carpets are tightly rolled up on the roof of the car in front. On top of them several cardboard boxes have been tied down. Inside the car five people sit squeezed together between suitcases, crates and boxes. A suit hangs from the window and a bag of lemons lies squashed under the seat. I ask Muhammed to translate.
- We’re going to Syria to stay with some relatives until this is all over. My wife is about to give birth so Baghdad is no place for us, Jasir says.
The mother, an older woman, draws heavily on a cigarette, all the while fingering the packet. - Whatever happens, Allah decides our destiny, but sometimes we have to give him a hand, she sighs.
The queue moves slowly, the cars several rows deep. Some have come to hoard, others to fill up and get away.
- The petrol price is the only thing that hasn’t changed in the last days, says Muhammed. It still stands at under ten pence a litre but it is harder to get hold of.
- I have four hundred litres in my garden, in a large tank. I dare not hoard more - what if it explodes?
Muhammed is chuffed that his driver service has increased in value. - Now it costs seven hundred dollars per person to get to Amman from Baghdad, he says. - Tomorrow it will go up again, and during the war the price will rocket up.
He laughs and gives a convincing impersonation of someone shooting into the air. - Fighting, he says. - Big fighting.
I turn away. A couple of buses carrying Jordanian youths with Iraqi scholarships are on their way out. Like other countries, the Jordanian authorities have asked their citizens to leave Iraq.
In yet another crammed car is a family that has come the same way as us - from the Jordanian border. The family was denied entry. - We are without visa, but I have papers showing that I have business in Akaba, in Jordan, look, here they are, the father tells us. - They wouldn’t accept them and turned us back. Now we’re going to try Syria.
The majority who flee Baghdad go there. It is the only one of Iraq’s neighbours which will allow entry without a visa. The borders to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran are closed. In the border areas, the no-man’s-land between Iraq and Jordan, refugee camps are being planned. The Iraqis might come here but no further. When Muhammed and I passed by in the early morning hours, the desert was still naked. All we saw were a couple of men measuring the ground.
- The majority have decided to stay. But many will panic when the bombs start falling, and then it might be too late, a lady on her way to Damascus says. - Yesterday I said goodbye to my relatives. We just sat and cried. No one has a clue what will happen. Do you know, on the way out of Baghdad I saw two collisions. People can’t even concentrate on driving. That’s how it is to live under the threat of bombs, she sighs, still a hundred or so cars away from the pumps.
The afternoon is drowsy and hot when we finally arrive in Baghdad. The familiar cacophony of horns, b
ells and car engines wakes me up. At the Ministry of Information total chaos reigns. A long queue of journalists try to settle their accounts. If their bills haven’t been signed they get no exit stamp. Mister Jamal, a thin, toothless man, who always walks around with a suitcase full of money, is stressed. He counts and lisps and bickers and counts. The queue moves at a snail’s pace. No one knows Jamal’s background, but we are certain he guards a secret. He has no fingernails. He counts notes with soft fingertips. Has he been tortured? Has he spoken against the regime? Or been punished for pilfering the funds?