Instead he finds something else. In one of the buildings he enters a bare room. Some stairs ascend to a concrete plateau which covers half the floor space. Two lengths of rope are suspended from the roof, two nooses lie on the floor. Under the bits of rope is an opening. On each side of the opening are two trap-doors, and between them a bolt which can be pushed down in order to open them. Anyone with a noose around their neck will hang.
Najib hurries out into the sun. He glances into another passage of small cells: the death row. Here prisoners waited for their execution.
- I must find the secret entrance. Abbas is there, I am absolutely sure, says Najib, and walks on.
We leave Najib and Abu Ghraib prison, reading the inscription over the doorway on our way out:
There is no life without the sun.
There is no dignity without Saddam Hussein.
In a puddle outside the gate I tread on a rope. Hiding in the wet sand are some photographs, a toothbrush, a flaky tube. The rope is coiled up. It is the same type of rope as those that dangled from the roof in the execution room; the only room where there was no portrait of Saddam Hussein.
We can hardly get into the hotel. The Americans have erected so many checkpoints that it takes an eternity to pass through them. First there is an outside barrier. Behind this is a sea of Iraqi men - seeking work, demonstrating, or simply curious. We force our way through the crowd by means of our press card, the yellow one I paid thousands of dollars to renew just a few days before the war. Thereafter we stand in a queue to be frisked and have our bags and pockets checked.
The last barrier is immediately in front of the hotel. The press card is produced again. We are frisked again. Aliya stiffens when a large American man checks her waist for explosives. Anger surges inside me.
- Should you not have female soldiers to search women? I ask.
- We do.
- I can’t see any.
- They’re on the other side.
So the female entrance is on the other side. I tell Aliya we will use that next time.
In the lobby a smiling American welcomes us. He wants to talk. We don’t. The reception area is packed. The hotel is overflowing with journalists from Amman and Kuwait who waited for the fall of Saddam. Janine is among them. She approaches us in flowing desert robes and embraces us.
The women’s team is united again.
The five missing journalists were found, after eight days in Abu Ghraib prison. They had been interrogated, threatened, accused of spying. At night they heard the other prisoners being beaten.
They were freed and sent to Jordan.
On the way back from Abu Ghraib we had passed several corpses. Uniformed, half-naked, civilian. Some were already black with decay. Somewhere, someone was waiting for them.
In the car I had thought about Ali’s face, soft and beautiful, like the face of a fairy. Like Fatima on the cold bench in the mosque.
Towards evening I descend from my room to make my TV reports. I wear the bulletproof vest. In spite of the rumbling tanks outside the situation is more dangerous than ever. Anyone might be in possession of weapons. In the floodlight in front of the cameras we are sitting ducks.
I exit through the back door in the basement to avoid the steaming reception. Cameras and mobile transmission cars take up every available space in front of the hotel. I zigzag my way to my position in the garden. A few bearded types lie coiled in the grass: the warriors from reception! The ones with the martyr missions! Extraordinary. They are spreading themselves under the noses of the Americans. I speculate about what they might be hiding under their ample shirts.
I mount the stand in front of the camera and report looting, torture chambers, and the inhabitants’ growing opposition to the invasion army.
On my return I scowl at the men in the grass. They take no notice of me. I’ll bring Aliya down and have a talk to them, I think. Find out what they are doing here, why they did not flee with Saddam’s soldiers. Perhaps they want to continue fighting, as guerrilla soldiers or suicide bombers? What better place than Hotel Palestine, not so much for a couple of hundred western journalists, but for an equally large number of American soldiers. I wonder how the guys in the garden got through the barriers. Maybe they have just never left.
En route to my room I pop up to Lorenzo to borrow a cable. He is in a radiant mood. Proudly he displays the day’s loot: blindfolds in an orange material, others in leather, and a rope.
- Picked up at the prison, he says.
I look at him, appalled.
- From the torture chambers?
- Si, bella.
I feel I have been shipwrecked, washed up on a rotting beach. I can hardly stand up. Nauseous, I turn and walk to the door.
Nabil has opened his restaurant again and has put tables out in the garden. He tells me he was not in time to send his wife and twins away. When he at last made up his mind to do so there were no longer any planes flying, and his wife refused to take the babies on a fourteen-hour drive to Syria.
- There are queues, chaos, bandits, she said.
Instead they ensconced themselves in their 400-metre square luxury home and sat tight.
All the tables are taken and we ask if we can order something.
- No food, only beer, Nabil laughs. Earlier there was food and no beer.
- We have no power, so no food. No fridge, no heat.
Behind Nabil’s happy countenance, bitterness lurks in his eyes. He sits down beside us.
- Was it necessary to kill so many? Was it necessary to bomb residential areas? Shoot people in the street?
He lifts a lukewarm beer to his mouth but does not drink.
- Oh yes, the dictator has fallen. Oh yes, as a restaurateur and businessman it will be possible to enter into good contracts. Maybe the economy will blossom after so many years of isolation. But it was a dirty war. In spite of the American army’s superiority, they behaved like savages. My heart bleeds for Iraq, Nabil sighs. - And I also fear the Shias. I understand they are picking themselves up now, they suffered a lot under Saddam. But I do not want to live in a fundamentalist country. I hated Saddam but between you and me, he protected us Christians. Thanks to Saddam Hussein our life in Iraq was a good one, thanks to him I’m a rich man. Now I’m frightened, says Nabil, and finally takes a deep gulp of the beer.
The artists’ café Shahbendar has also reopened. I look for Isam, the candid literature critic, but cannot find him. Instead I spot my artist friends, Haidar and Rafik, who discuss passionately. Samir is still in Syria. The painters agree on two things: That Iraq has been liberated and that they do not like the Americans. They smile. Sip their lemon tea and look reasonably happy and unconcerned.
- When I was seven I went on a boat on the Tigris with my parents, Haidar says. - I pointed at the Presidential palace and asked what it was. My parents regarded each other with horror and told me severely that I must never again point at that building. A bit later I protested when we learnt something at school about Iraq’s history. My teacher was horrified and demanded that I never again open my mouth in class. So when I was seven I understood that we were not free, that we lived in danger. I learnt how to behave like a good Iraqi - in other words, to lie. Always and everywhere. I have been a liar ever since.
Haidar drinks his tea and purses his lips as if the tea no longer tastes good. He pulls on his cigarette. Even this appears to taste bitter.
- The tyrant has gone and I need lie no longer. But for thirty years I have lived under the skin of a liar. Now I must free myself.
- He talked on the radio today, Aliya says one morning.
- Someone has seen him in town, she says in the evening.
- He’ll be back on his birthday to kill all Americans, she continues the next day.
- He’s only hiding, the revenge will be sweet, she assures me.
But the days pass and Saddam does not return.
Before leaving Baghdad I want to see it, the palace on the opposite bank. I have stared at it
so often; it was where the first bombs over Baghdad fell, where the hardest battles were fought, where the republican guard and the volunteers stood their ground the longest, and where I spotted the first American tanks. I have pondered over the building at daybreak, at night, during the sandstorms. It is the first thing I see every morning. The Presidential palace.
- Aren’t you excited? I ask Aliya.
She shakes her head.
- Don’t you wonder how your president lived?
- He lived many places.
We stop well short of the barbed wire by the entrance; we do not want to be mistaken for suicide bombers. Soldiers aim their guns at us, the tank cannons point in our direction. Amir parks the car, while Janine, Aliya and I wave our hands in the air and carefully approach the first barrier. The soldier who moves towards us does not lower his gun before we show him our press passes.
- Those are no good, the soldier says, pointing to my and Aliya’s yellow cards. - You need a press card from HQ.
- But that’s in Qatar, I protest.
- You can get them in Kuwait too, the soldier answers.
- But we have not been in the Gulf, we have been here, I stutter.
- Sorry guys, turn back.
- But . . .
- Turn back!
- I was here before you, I shout, and realise how idiotic I sound. We have survived their bombs and missiles, fought Iraqi bureaucracy, censure, fear and stress. We have lived without power and water, and then some pipsqueak from the American marines tells us what we can and cannot do.
I glance over at Aliya. Her face betrays nothing. Yet she must be cross, denied access in her own city by an American pimple-face.
Janine tries a soft voice. She has the correct card from Kuwait.
- Can’t you let them in on my pass? she tries, ingratiatingly.
- Those two, never, says the soldier.
One of his superiors comes to our rescue, a large American I had spoken to at the hotel the night before.
- Come with me, he says, and asks us to jump into his Humvee.
Aliya refuses.
It appears the limit has been reached: an American vehicle.
- Well, we don’t really need you in there, I say. - Everyone speaks English in Saddam’s palace these days.
The insult could hardly have been worse.
Aliya stands still. She struggles with her conscience, her anger, the humiliation, her curiosity. The latter wins and she jumps in behind the driver.
The destruction is total. Some buildings have been virtually pulverised; trees have been uprooted. Bombs, missiles, tanks, grenades, cannons, bullets of every calibre were used in the battle for the palace.
- The battle lasted eight hours, says the officer. - It was a long day.
We drive past an American tank; a small black pennant with a skull flies in the wind, the platoon’s emblem.
- Not all the bodies have been removed, he warns.
The officer points to some corpses by the road. Civilians. - Several arrived when the battle was as good as over. They hid rocket launchers behind their backs, aimed and shot. None of us were hit. But they were. We were prepared for street battles and our young soldiers went through tough training. But the Iraqis just ran and hid.
He stops by the next gate and hands us over to George, a black American from Harlem, New York. George smiles broadly and shakes our hands with a strong fist.
- Would you care for some sightseeing?
We follow the soldier over a carpet of cartridge cases. Past orange groves, fields and scorched gardens. It seems nobody has taken care of the place in a while. This spring, only the soldiers have kept house. The area, which covers several square kilometres, was the strategic heart of Saddam Hussein’s system. The palace was like a town - the presidential town - with an HQ, elite forces’ barracks, buildings belonging to the secret services, reception halls, and last but not least, the president’s private apartments.
- There are 258 rooms, says George.
We step into the hall. It is a Babylonian version of Louis XIV’s Versailles: hall upon hall, marbled floors and brocaded walls. Our footsteps echo. Most of the furniture has been removed, and what remains can only be described as imitation baroque, gilded plastic. The bedrooms have different types of beds - mahogany, white painted chipboard, gilded décor, ornate patterns or carvings.
In Uday’s palaces the Americans found pornographic films, crates of champagne, whisky and rum, designer clothing, billiard tables, a Jacuzzi and a mass of private photographs and weapons. Saddam’s cupboards are empty. Most of his belongings were moved long before the war.
Some of the halls have been transformed into HQs for the new rulers. On the tables are satellite telephones, computers and coffee cups. Generators have been erected to provide power. A notice on a partition wall says: ‘Freedom is never for free. The price must be paid in blood. Give me freedom or give me death. We will never forget September 11th’.
George points and explains, opens doors, shines the torch up stairs. All the while he tries to strike up a conversation with Aliya.
- Look how your president wallowed in luxury while you lived in shit, he says.
- Hm, says Aliya.
- It’s crazy, George continues.
- Hm.
- Your president waltzed around under crystal chandeliers while you guys didn’t even have clean water!
- Hm.
- He spent your money.
- Hm.
- Your money. He stole from his people. This palace should have belonged to the people. It was built with your money!
- Hm.
- You had no freedom. He tortured prisoners, gassed his own people, while at the same time sitting on a golden throne. Aren’t you mad? George asks.
Now not even a hm escapes from Aliya. She falls behind and lets the wiry Harlem boy walk on. She stops and asks if we want her to translate the plaques on the walls.
- They commemorate all the wars Iraq has won, from the time of Babylon up to the present day.
When she has translated the plaque that represents the victory over the Americans in the Gulf War of 1991, she continues to read from the ceiling. There Allah’s ninety-nine names are inscribed in black on gold. Aliya reads - The Beneficent, the Merciful, the Gracious, the King, the Holy, He Who Gives Peace, He Who Gives Faith, the Protector, the Mighty, the Compeller, the Majestic, the Creator.
George and Janine continue on. I stay and listen to Aliya, who is chanting softly.
- The Maker, The Bestower of Form, the Forgiver, the Subduer, the Bestower, the Provider, the Opener, the All-Knowing, the Withholder, the Expander, the Abaser, the Exalter, the Bestower of Honour, the Humiliator, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, the Judge, the Just, the Gentle, the All-Aware, the Forbearing, the Incomparably Great, the Forgiving, the Appreciative, the Most High, the Most Great, the Preserver, the Sustainer, the Reckoner, the Revered, the Generous, the Watchful, the Responsive, the All-Encompassing, the Wise, the Loving One, the Most Glorious, the Resurrector, the Witness, the Truth, the Ultimate Trustee, the Most Strong, the Firm One, the Protector, the All-Praised, the Reckoner, the Originator, the Restorer to Life, the Giver of Life, the Causer of Death, the Ever-Living, the Self-Existing by Whom all Subsists, the Self-Sufficient, the Glorified, the One, the Eternally Besought, the Omnipotent, the Powerful, the Expediter, the Delayer, the First, the Last, the Manifest, the Hidden, the Governor, the Most Exalted, the Benign, the Granter and Accepter of Repentance, the Lord of Retribution, the Pardoner, the Most Kind, the Owner of the Kingdom, the Possessor of Majesty and Honour, the Just, the Gatherer, the All-Sufficient, the Enricher, the Preventer of Harm, the Afflicter, the Benefiter, the Light, the Guide, the Originator, the Everlasting, the Ultimate Inheritor, the Guide, the Patient One . . .
Allah’s ninety ninth name is the Patient One.
When Aliya has finished she looks at me.