Now he wondered how the soldiers in the trucks would be able to defend their land against an army that could see in the dark and navigate effortlessly across the open desert. While in England he had learned that in addition to poison gas the regime had threatened to acquire biological and nuclear weapons and he was terrified at the prospect of his countrymen being involved in such a war.
‘Hey!’ Rashid turned round and saw Hakim Mansour watching him. ‘We’re going to stop at the next town for a minute. Stretch our legs, ok.’ Mansour smiled at him and Rashid nodded and forced a smile in return.
After they had bought some drinks at a café, Mansour lit a cigarette and beckoned Rashid away from the others. ‘Your parents are looking forward to seeing you. Ali told me it’s been eight months since you were home. It’s not good to stay away for so long.’
Rashid nearly said that his father had told him to stay in England until the crisis had passed but instead he declared ‘You’re right. It’ll be good to be home again.’
Mansour nodded. ‘I bet you were surprised when the Yankee colonel told you what was in that package, though, weren’t you?’ Mansour asked.
‘He didn’t tell me anything about it. He just told me I had been chosen as the messenger boy, someone whom you would recognise,’ said Rashid.
‘Oh yes, of course, but when you opened it and found out what was in it, you were probably shocked,’ said Mansour with a grin.
‘No, no,’ cried Rashid, feeling rather scared. ‘Colonel White told me that I was to hand it over to you with the seals intact. Which I’ve done! I’ve really no idea what it’s all about.’ He paused. ‘White said I would be shot if I opened it,’ he added.
Hakim Mansour stared at him for a moment, then smiled, then burst out laughing. ‘Shot! Ha, ha, ha. How ridiculous! Oh dear! These Americans!’ He clapped Rashid on the shoulder and led him back towards the trucks.
Rashid’s parents and his father’s parents were waiting for him at the family home. After they had embraced and exchanged traditional greetings, Ali Hamsin sat his son down. ‘I’m so pleased to see you, but it’s not safe in Baghdad. I really hope you’ll be able to get back to England before the invasion starts. I hope this interruption to your studies will not prove a problem.’
Rashid stared at his father. He had expected him to ask what he was doing here, why he had left England without a word of warning and how he had suddenly arrived in Baghdad as part of a military convoy. Then he noticed the worried frown on his father’s face; how both his parents seemed to have aged since he was last home. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. I expect I’ll be going back in a couple of weeks or so.’
‘Good, good. Now I’m sorry to be leaving so soon, but I do have some work to attend to.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘It’s at the Ministry, so a car will be coming to pick me up in ten minutes.’ He smiled and held Rashid by the shoulders. ‘It is good to see you again. You can tell me about your course, your life in England, when I return. How is Omar?’
‘He’s fine. He’ll be surprised when I tell him I’ve been at home.’
His father frowned. ‘Mansour told me to expect you, but I’ve no idea why you’ve made this strange journey. Maybe you can tell me everything this evening.’
The next day the family had breakfast together. Rashid had stayed up late last night with his parents explaining the extraordinary series of events that had brought him home. Ali’s advice was to never breathe a word about his journey to anyone else, which Rashid readily agreed to. Then they had chatted about life in England, the friends he had made and his university studies. His mother Tabitha had told him about his sister Farrah, now living with their relatives in Amman, and her prospects of marriage with the son of a family friend.
This morning his father was unwilling to tell Rashid about his own work, but he was pleased to discuss his university life in England, Shakespeare and the contrasts between Arabic and English poetry. ‘I have invited Professor Khordi to visit us this evening,’ Ali announced. ‘He wants to hear about his old friend Professor Gilbert, and to learn your latest idioms. He has always been proud of his grasp of vernacular English. I’m sure you’ll confuse him with your student slang and modern idioms,’ he said with a smile. He rose from the table and hunted about for the case of papers he had to take in to the ministry and hurried out of the door.
After breakfast Rashid spent some time looking through the books on his father’s shelves. Besides the collection of dictionaries, thesauri and encyclopaedias, his father had acquired a fair collection of English novels, both classical and modern and as he had hoped he found the novel “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. He was required to hand in an essay to his tutor next month with his critique of the book. He took it off the shelf and began to flick through it to find the place he had reached when there was a bell from the outside gate and a loud knocking. Rashid replaced the book and hurried out the front door and across the front garden and looked through the spy hole. A police car had pulled up outside and two armed officers were standing outside. Rashid unbolted the gate and opened it. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you Rashid Hamsin?’ asked the policeman, looking down at some papers and then at the bewildered young man.
‘Yes I am. Of course.’ He heard some rapid footsteps and Tabitha came up beside him.
‘What’s happening Rashid? Why have they come here?’ she asked in a trembling voice. ‘Has something happened to your father?’
‘We’ve just been told to bring Rashid Hamsin to the Foreign Ministry. There’s someone there who thinks he can help out with some kind of report,’ said the police officer. ‘I can’t tell you anything else.’
‘I’d better go then,’ said Rashid, trying for his mother’s sake to hide his anxiety. ‘I don’t expect I’ll be very long. Tell father where I am if he’s back home before me.’
His mother nodded and watched her son being guided into the back seat of the police car. She gave him a little smile and a wave as the car drove off and then closed and bolted the door. Then she shuffled back towards the house weeping anxiously, hoping that her son would not join the list of mysteriously vanished young men that was murmured about in the bazaars of Baghdad.
Rashid presumed he would be driven to Hakim Mansour’s office at the Foreign Ministry where he would be asked to describe his journey from England to Iraq in greater detail. He was alarmed when the car stopped outside an anonymous five storey office block. If he had known that the building housed a division of the secret police he would have been terrified; as it was he was merely apprehensive as the senior of the two policemen escorted him up the chipped marble stairs and into the building.