- Only Allah knows the hundredth name.
Then she trots after the others.
What did it feel like to be bombed, George asks when we catch him up. Aliya opens her mouth for the first time.
- We are used to it.
- I see, says George. - I mean, I understand.
He has stopped on one of the balconies and is looking out over an orange grove.
- What do the Iraqis really think about us? Are they pleased to be rid of Saddam Hussein?
Aliya does not answer. She stares straight ahead.
Even George is quiet.
After some brooding, he says:
- Well, I understand that you don’t like us. I would not have liked us if I were you. I mean if I were an Iraqi. I would fight us. For sure.
On a stretcher in an American base lies Paul from Reuters. He is covered in wounds and bandages, has gashes on cheeks, nose, arms, chest, side, hips, and down to his legs.
- My testicles are still intact, he jokes to a colleague who is visiting.
Samia, a Reuters’ correspondent, lies in the same base. Her face is cut. Shrapnel penetrated her head and still sits there. The surgeon tried to remove it but failed.
Josh has resigned. He is exhausted and tired of the war. His feet are suffering from suppurating blisters, and his back has second degree burns from sweating in the bulletproof vest while running at full speed up and down from the roof, carrying petrol cans to fill the generator.
But the greatest wounds are inside him. He has had enough. New Sky personnel have taken over. Four of them live in his room.
- I’m moving to Australia, he says when I meet him in the noisy reception area.
- To Australia?
- Yes, I have had enough of this madness for now. Come and see me there. We are leaving tomorrow morning.
David rushes past and bids farewell on the run.
- See you next time, he calls, as if we were to meet at a golf tournament.
Antonia leaves. And Giovanna and Stefan. Aliya is still quiet. Amir is increasingly sad, while Abbas has more energy every time we meet. I drag myself around.
One evening the ‘martyrs’ by the live points get on my nerves to such a degree that I ask the Americans to do something.
- They lie around on the grass among us all, I moan. - Who are they? What are they doing here?
- That’s what we were wondering, says the NCO with whom I am talking.
- They look like suicide bombers.
- They surely do.
The next evening they have disappeared. A raid was conducted in the hotel to find out whether ‘undesirable elements’ were hiding there. It had been planned by the highest authority and had nothing to do with my complaints.
The foreign warriors had been let down by everyone who had welcomed them. By Saddam who had promised to award them, by his sons who had disappeared without a trace, by the republican guard who had changed into civilian clothes, by their own government who wanted nothing to do with them. And lastly by me, who had always been terrified of them.
September 11th. Always uttered as a matter of course, as if it explained everything. Every time I speak to a soldier, without fail he mentions that date. In spite of their doubts about the war, their argument in the end comes down to: You know, September 11th.
Most of them want to return home, after months in the desert. The soldiers I meet are possibly naïve, with a strong belief that Americans can do what they want, but they are a more diverse group than I had expected.
Outside the hotel in the dark between the tanks I meet a young soldier. He shines his torch on me.
- Where are you from?
- Norway. And you?
- Massachusetts.
The generators hum around us. People hasten past with cameras. Some privates sit on a concrete block and smoke. We make small talk; this soldier is also not as simple as I, in my European arrogance, had assumed. After a while he manoeuvres himself into existential waters.
- I do not know whether this war is right, he says. - I was thinking, out there in the desert, about what we are doing. I am against terrorism, but what have these Iraqis to do with terrorism?
The soldier glances over to his friends on the concrete.
- I think it’s all because of the oil. Have you seen? Chaos. The only ministry we are protecting is the Oil Ministry. The others are looted and torched. When we are out on patrol I notice that the Iraqis are hostile towards us, their faces bitter. We are no longer welcome. What do you think?
- Well, what people tell me is that they hope you won’t stay long.
- That’s what I hope too, the soldier sighs. - I want to go home. I want to leave the army. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.
- What will you do?
- I want to be an opera singer.
- Wow.
- I have a good voice. My parents have always been sceptical, but I think they would prefer that to my staying in the army. I want to take lessons in Italy. Do you know what my dream is?
I shake my head. The boy regards me determinedly, but his eyes are worried.
- To sing Otello. At La Scala in Milan.
- Fruit cocktail or pineapple?
Timothy holds two tins in the air. My last dessert with Channel 4.
- Do you know, Kadim was the boss, the producer Paul tells us. Paul speaks fluent Arabic and has all the latest news about the press centre’s evaporated heroes. Uday was only allegedly the boss, while Kadim actually belonged to the inner core of intelligence. - He was put there to keep an eye on Uday, Paul says. - It was always like that, the boss was never the top man. Sometimes the accountant was boss, sometimes the secretary. All were assessed and watched, to make sure no one got too much personal power. Power was with the regime. Kadim could get Uday sacked, not vice versa.
Now they are all gone anyway.
- We leave in a few days, Lindsay says. - There’s room in the car if you want to come.
I jump at the offer without hesitation. A dozen cars will make up a convoy, with an escort from former soldiers of the British Special Forces. Some of the TV companies have engaged them to protect personnel between Amman and Baghdad.
Out!
I must just do one thing before I leave.
Visit some of Baghdad’s families.
The newsreels might show looting and demonstrations, but that is only a small part of the truth. The majority sit at home wondering what is happening.
The doorbell hardly stops ringing in Muayad’s house. Small cups of strong coffee and endless cigarettes are consumed in the family’s overfurnished sitting room. It is a room which bears the hallmarks of war. The tape which protected the windows against bombing has still not been taken off. The sheets that covered the furniture when the family left town are still there. Valuables which were packed in suitcases and hidden have not yet been taken out.
What has changed most is the conversation. - We have not spoken freely since 1967, says the neighbour Ahmed, a flight engineer. - We have feared our neighbours, our friends, even our own thoughts, he says. Fear has been part of my body, always crushing, always present.
- It still lies in wait, says his wife, Iman. - I won’t feel safe until I see Saddam Hussein’s corpse.
Ahmed and Iman stayed at home during the bombing. - When the first bombs fell we cheered. Every night we went to bed, praying for more bombs, bigger bombs, they laugh. - We thought they were taking too long and despaired when it dragged out, Ahmed says. - But now at last the Americans are here and I hope they stay. If they leave us there’ll be civil war. They need to stay for a couple of years. If we choose our own leader it will be the same old story: Bloodbath.
Muayad removed his family from Baghdad during the bombing, to his mother in the country. - I have three daughters and this side of town was not safe, he says about the Adamiya district. The professor of political science is not quite as happy about the American presence as his friends in the house next door. - I am a nationalist, a p
an-Arab. They have saved us from dictatorship and thank God for that. But we do not wish to become the fifty-first state. We want to rule ourselves, choose our own leaders.
- The Americans have killed so many civilians. They have shot Iraqis in the face, his daughter Dora remarks. - What sort of liberation is that? I’m frightened of the Americans.
Dora lost one of her best friends during the bombing, when shrapnel flew in through his bedroom window. She didn’t hear about it until the war was over and now she has been mourning for several days.
- It felt like being on the Titanic. Everyone made their farewells in the days before the bombing started. Our hearts were black with fear.
- My roof has twelve bullet holes, says Muayad, and we follow him out to have a look. - There were several fedain forces in the area; they were Saddam’s most loyal soldiers, and fierce fighting developed. When we returned, dead soldiers were lying in the streets.
Muayad thinks that only a limited number of Iraqis really welcome the Americans. - They smile when they come face to face, but spit when they turn their backs, the professor says about the Iraqi attitude to the soldiers. Like many, he thinks the Americans desired the chaos which now reigns in Baghdad. - After a week of looting and unrest we will scream for law and order and they can suppress us, brutally.
Iman thinks Muayad is exaggerating. - Of course it matters when people are killed, but that is the price we must pay and it is not too high. Remember the fear that has disappeared and the fact that we can sit here and disagree, that is important.
The group of friends know many who were imprisoned or disappeared during Saddam Hussein’s reign. A third neighbour, Yasser, who has just qualified as a computer engineer, tells the story of a school friend who made a joke about Saddam Hussein during break.
- The next day he failed to turn up at school, and the day after. After a week we went to his house to check up and the whole family had gone. Mukhabarat had come in the evening and taken them. They never returned, says Yasser. He still remembers the fateful joke.
One day Saddam Hussein decided that anyone who wanted could leave Iraq and settle abroad. Large queues formed outside the passport office. The president got to hear about it and decided to go and have a look for himself. He put on an old tunic and a false beard. He queued up and when he got to the front of the queue he asked for a passport. Then he tore off his beard so everyone could see who he was.
- ‘I want to leave too,’ he said, and the civil servant issued him with a passport. When he turned round to leave he realised that the entire queue had evaporated. ‘Where are they all?’ he asked.
- ‘When they saw that you were leaving they decided to stay in Iraq,’ said the man.
Iman too has a story about how little was needed to get reported.
- A journalist who worked for a ladies’ magazine once passed a non-flattering remark about Saddam Hussein’s wife’s dress sense. Two of her colleagues overheard the remark. A few hours later the police came and took her. The next morning her parents found her outside their front door. Her body was black and blue from being beaten and she had been burnt with cigarettes; her tongue had been cut out, Iman says.
- Do you understand? The two women who overheard the comment were themselves terrified. Both were frightened that the other would inform on them if they did not report what they had heard. Maybe they were being tested? We could trust no one. We had to be careful what we said to our own children. They might denounce us at school. Teachers were obliged to inform on children who said anything suspicious and the headmaster had to convey it further down the line.
- Every school day started thus: Long live our President Saddam Hussein, Maha, a primary school teacher, says.
- What will we do now, and how will we spend all those hours we used to teach the children about Saddam’s life, his virtues and achievements?
No one answers Maha. The discussion continues about the past. It is too early to give much thought to the future.
- What I’m most ashamed of, says Walid, a businessman - is that we lost our courage. After thirty-five years of oppression we have turned into a race of wimps. We should have got rid of the dictator ourselves, not waited for the Americans to do it, he sighs. - I myself was never imprisoned, but we were tortured mentally by the all-pervading fear. We could only whisper, one to the other, and even that was dangerous.
Walid’s crime was to install a satellite TV at his home. - Everything was permissible if one only paid for it, he says. - The Baath Party official who supervised our road would appear at regular intervals. He needed to be blackmailed to keep his mouth shut. Two days ago he was there again. He asked for protection and wanted to live with me, a return favour for not having informed on me. What a cheek! I declined. - I owe you nothing, I said, and asked him to leave.
Walid rises up in anger and tears some dinar notes from his pocket. - Look, he’s even in my pocket, he snorts, and points to the picture of Saddam Hussein on the bank note. He reaches out for a pen and scribbles black crosses over the fallen leader’s face. - I’m trying to rid myself of a ghost, a dark cloud, a gruesome reminder of the past, he says, then folds the notes and stuffs them back into his pocket. - The fear must leave my body.
Amir and Abbas talk to others rather than to each other. They even stand alone rather than talk to each other. One is sad, the other euphoric.
Every time they meet, Abbas asks: And how’s your Saddam?
Every time Amir answers: Fine, thank you, and how are your Americans?
The exchange of words is increasingly hostile. One day Amir is leaning against the bonnet of his car when Abbas passes by. Abbas throws his head back and exclaims:
- One day he will have to answer for what he did to us. And his errand boys too.
- One day we will rid ourselves of the Americans and their flunkies.
They glare at each other. Abbas turns on his heel and walks away. Those are the last words they exchange.
On the one hundred and first night Aliya wants to sleep in my room. We have not really talked properly since the statue of Saddam was toppled. The wind plays gently through the open window. We each lie under a dirty grey blanket. I am off the next morning.
I glance over at Aliya. Ten days ago her world was turned on its head and her old illusions crushed. These ten days she has not eaten, not slept. She has worked mechanically but avoided personal conversations. She has passed on the joy felt over the dictator’s fall, but has not expressed what she felt. She has translated the desperation of relatives in the empty prisons, but has never revealed her own. She has overcome her fear of Americans, but has never shown her contempt. She has interpreted the wounded children’s prayers but has never shed a tear. She has accepted derision and insult against the country she loves, against the president she believed in and admired, but she has never railed back. She has listened when people have said she is wrong, but she has never responded.
Then it is the one hundred and first night. Aliya curls up in my bed.
- Do you know, she says, mostly to herself, looking up at the ceiling. The palm trees are rustling outside the window. A rush of cold air makes her pull the blanket around her body. She closes her mouth and lies still, staring into the dark room. The Americans’ searchlights ensure that the room is never really dark. She draws her breath and forces herself to continue.
- People say he never cared about us.
Just that. No more.
The breeze outside the window picks up.
Aliya coughs, a dry cough, as though she has more to say but the words are pushed back. She is still for a long time before continuing.
- They say he only cared about himself, she says, in wonder.
The white floodlight shines through the wispy tulle and makes thin shadows. A sudden breeze over the Tigris forms a tiny whirlwind. It floats through the balcony doors and makes the curtains dance.
I’m profoundly convinced that the only antidote that can make the reader forget the perpetual I’s the au
thor will be writing, is a perfect sincerity
Stendhal, Souvenirs d’Egotisme, 1832
Discussion Questions for Reading Groups
1. In the first part of the author’s stay in Iraq, before the war has started, Åsne can’t get people to talk to her openly. It’s just too dangerous for anyone to reveal their real opinions. As Åsne says, “the problem was elementary: no one said anything.” (p.1) “I am here to find dissidents, a secret uprising, gagged intellectuals, Saddam’s opponents. I am here to point out human rights violations, expose oppression. And I’m reduced to being a tourist.” (p.26) How does Åsne get around this seemingly insurmountable problem? Discuss whether you agree that Åsne is correct in feeling that she is performing a service by getting these stories out. Is her quest an essential one?