“God willing, we’ll destroy their armies on the field of battle.”
“Insha’Allah,” Aziz said flatly. “How is your mother, Salman?”
“She’s preparing to celebrate Ashura. Privately, of course.”
“Ashura.” Aziz took a drag from his Marlboro. “I’m wondering, Salman, if you’ve thought much about what happens after the war.”
Aziz was a hard man, a shadowed man, and although Salman didn’t know exactly where he stood in the Mukhabarat hierarchy or what he did, he suspected Aziz would have no compunctions at all about cutting Salman’s balls off with a dull knife and stuffing them down his throat. He might even enjoy it, if the man ever felt joy. Either way, Salman was confident that in the clandestine webs sure to be spun in the postwar chaos, Aziz would remain one of the nastier and more important spiders.
“I am your servant,” he said. “And a soldier of the Revolution.”
“We expect the war to be a long one. We expect the Zionists to make great gains, initially. But there are plans for what comes after. Salman, you have always served us very well.”
“I’m honored to do so.”
“But not everyone is so loyal. We expect many Shi’a to collude with the Zionists.”
His father gunned down by helicopter, his brothers dragged off to be shot like dogs, the mass graves and burning bodies, his tunnel that was almost a tomb—Salman imagined a boot stamping the images out. “You will need information,” he said.
“Yes. The Saddam Fedayeen and Mukhabarat are prepared, in the event of the Zionists’ temporary success, to fade into the desert and carry on the fight. We are Arabs, after all. We shall scatter like the Bedu and strike at the Zionists from the dunes, as we once fought the Turk and the British. We’ll raise a jihad against the Americans and bleed them the way the Afghans did the Russians. We’ll cut them four thousand times for every time they cut us. It may take years, of course, but patience makes all things possible.”
Salman saw where this was going. “The Americans will need collaborators. Translators.”
“Your English is good, no?”
“Fair. Mostly economics terms. But it’s passable.”
“Work on it. Here,” Aziz said, putting a satellite phone on the table. “This is how you maintain contact. The phone has two preprogrammed numbers. The first is to call me. I may or may not answer, and if I do, I may not have time to speak. Use it only when it’s most urgent for you to pass on information. The second is strictly for emergencies. Strictly. But if you need it, don’t hesitate. You will be all but on your own. We will call when we need you. Keep the phone close by. You understand?”
That all sounded fine, so far as it went. A bit like planning your own funeral. “Yes.”
“Good. Now we must come to a more urgent topic.”
Salman raised his eyebrows. Here it is, he thought, and struck first: “If I may, sir, I have something to tell you.” Aziz showed no response. Salman went on. “I’ve heard Munir Muhanned may be selling information to the Americans, via an agent in Kuwait.”
“You have evidence?”
“Not yet. But… I have a line. I think one of my colleagues is working with Muhanned’s men to encode the messages.”
“What’s his name?”
“His name?”
“Yes.”
“His name.”
“Yes, Salman.”
“Of course. Qasim al-Zabadi.”
“I see. Well, we’ll take care of it. For now, I need you to deliver a package.” He slid a folded piece of paper across the table. “Go here and ask for Naguib. He’ll have instructions for you.”
Salman palmed the paper. “Is that all, sir?”
“Yes, for now. You have university work, don’t you, that exempts you from emergency mobilization?”
“Of course.”
“Good. You’ll be well placed, if you manage to make it through the next few weeks. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Yes, sir,” Salman said, and left as calmly as he could, elated to have been exempted from reserve service. He’d needlessly used up his “suspicions” about that weed al-Zabadi, but that was fine. There would always be another Qasim.
Ashura had come and gone, unobserved, the Lament of Husayn forbidden on state radio. Qasim got up early all the same and prayed, irritated and guilty, thinking of his mother and Lateefah. Of more interest to the rest of the family—mostly Sunni—was the impending UN vote and the threat of veto, the worldwide protests, and the upcoming deadline. Indeed, the house buzzed like a newsroom. All day long, Al Jazeera and BBC ran on the TV in the living room and Iraqi radio played in the kitchen, while the family talked constantly. The chatter eased and obscured the fear behind their preparations.
The generator had benzine and the lines were hooked up. Extra propane tanks had been bought for the kitchen gas, since no one knew when the filling stations would reopen. The windows were taped. Mohammed had drilled a well, but the foot valve was leaking, so Mohammed’s son-in-law Ratib was out in the front garden trying to fix it. Ratib’s eldest, Siraj, worked in the garden with him, digging a hole for the benzine cans and propane tanks, and little Abdul-Majid, barely out of diapers, pretended to help, poking at the dirt with a stick till Siraj sent him running with a smack. The little one ran in the house wailing, snot-faced, crying for his mother, Warda, who was rifling through the living-room closet collecting candles—citronella candles, scented candles, beeswax candles, all jumbled together in a box.
Warda knelt and wiped Abdul-Majid’s face while he cried and told on his brother Siraj. She kissed his head and gave him some candles to carry, picked up her box, and led him into the kitchen, where Thurayya’s widowed sister, Khalida, was preparing the midday meaclass="underline" chicken with red rice, salad and pickles, shineena, with golden vermicelli for dessert.
It had been a year since Khalida had come to stay with her sister. She’d once been an editor at a respected publishing house specializing in trade books, and her husband had been a policy coordinator for the National Progressive Front. About four years ago, he’d disappeared, but she kept working, living alone, waiting for him to come home, until one day her spirit just gave out. By the time Thurayya and Mohammed took her in, she was a scarecrow: withered to a stick, hair unbrushed, nails chewed to ragged nubs, darting eyes flashing out at a world full of hidden enemies. She was a bit better now, but the run-up to the war was wearing on her nerves.
“Hello, Auntie,” Warda said.
“God bless,” said Khalida, wiping her hands on a towel. “And what have you got there, little man?”
“Some candles,” Abdul-Majid said, sniffling.
“And what are you going to do with them?”
“We’ll light them with matches.”
“That’s right,” Khalida said. “We’ll light them with matches.”
“And they’ll make light,” he said.
“That’s right! They’ll make light! So that your auntie can see your beautiful face!”
Thurayya turned from her shopping list, warmed by the joy in her sister’s shy voice. She smiled at Khalida, Warda, and Abdul-Majid, her daughter Nazahah sitting next to her slicing cabbage, her precious family, her beautiful home—then scowled as she remembered the snake upstairs.
“Nazahah,” she said, “pay attention to what you’re doing.”
She still couldn’t believe Mohammed had refused to turn his back to the ingrate, brother’s son or no. After all his shiftlessness, all his laziness, and finally this, this disrespect—Thurayya had given up on him. She never thought her sister-in-law Nashwa had been hard enough on the boy anyway, especially after Faruq’s death, and now… staying in Baghdad, leaving his wife in Baqubah, during a war… unimaginable. Then, to talk to her as if she was a child! What did you expect from such a one? Those who haven’t learned from their parents will learn their lessons from the days and nights. And for her own husband to nurse this viper… Mohammed left her no choice but to snub him at every turn, to cast a pall of tension over the house so thick, they’d suffocate till she got her way.