“They saved Iraq from chaos while the rest of us slept.
“We learned the next day Sheik Ahmed had given Shaba permission to visit Rana. She wept with happiness and kissed her father’s feet. He seemed happy, too, the happiest he’d been since his wife lived, the older servants said.
“It became a love like you hear in stories. They met in the sitting room twice a week. Sometimes he came with other Horse soldiers for meetings. At first they pretended the other meetings weren’t happening, but that stopped when the sad cow lieutenant made a joke. If other soldiers knew what Shaba knew, the lieutenant said, they would come to the sheik’s home at night, too.
“He was just a sergeant? That’s a stupid thing to say. Everyone listened to Shaba, especially his officers. He knew better than them. Once the Sahwa formed, peace followed. Slowly at first, but after the Americans paid the first time, more men wanted to join. The sheik started having meetings with sheiks from other parts of Iraq. They agreed to bring the idea to their American soldiers.
“One cold night in the sitting room, they told the sheik they wished to marry in the spring. The sheik clapped his hands and praised Allah for their love. He said he’d be proud to call Shaba his son. Shaba smiled like I’d never seen before, and Rana glowed like only a beautiful girl in love can.
“Yes, this was possible. That’s another stupid thing to say. Because our culture is so different than yours? Muslims are like people anywhere, Lieutenant Porter. They fall in love. They get married. They build families. All of that is what Shaba and Rana wanted. All of that is what they would have had. What they should have had.
“The sheik hosted a feast for them. The old mayor came. The old sheiks, the old police chief, the old doctor and his wife. Even the mukhtar from the far villages. The sad cow lieutenant came with Shaba. The sheik’s cousin drove from Karrada to play the cello. There was food and dancing, and Rana and Shaba kissed in the courtyard under stars. After he left, she said it’d been the happiest night of her life.
“Then Haitham ruined everything.
“Days later, when the sheik was away, Karim came home. He said he’d bombed the golden mosque in Samarra, and needed someplace to hide.
“We said his father hadn’t forgiven him, which surprised him. But Rana was so happy to see him, kept holding his face and telling him how skinny he looked.
“I could tell something was wrong, though. He was so quiet. He took her hands off him. ‘Is it true?’ he asked his sister. ‘You’re to marry a dog of the occupiers?’
“She said she was in love and that he’d love Shaba, too. Karim wasn’t listening, though. The battles had changed him. He started cursing and punching the walls, swearing revenge on his father and Shaba for destroying his family’s honor. Then he threw Rana to the ground and said he’d rather have a Shi’a peasant rape and murder her than have her marry an American.
“The guards pulled him off and pushed him out of the house. He was screaming the entire time. We knew then a shaytan had taken him. Haitham was one of those guards, that stupid, stupid man. He said to Karim, ‘Ashuriyah is a peaceful place now. People walk freely. Even American soldiers walk by themselves.’ Karim spat on him and called him a liar. So Haitham told him how Shaba visited at night, by himself, with no armor. That is how Karim knew to set the ambush.
“After — after Shaba was killed, Rana cried and pleaded to Allah to bring him back. She turned crazy, madder than even her brother, and wandered the desert at night, alone. The sheik had his guards lock her inside her room and tie her up, so she could not kill herself with a knife or gun.
“What happened then? Everything fell apart. The peace ended, the war returned. Karim was killed. The sheik sent his daughter away and stopped working with Americans. Most of the servants stayed until he died, but then we had nothing. He gave all his money to the other sheiks, to pay their Sahwa. They were all he had left.”
27
There were holes in Alia’s story. Little things that lingered at the bottom of my consciousness like coins in a well. Shaba couldn’t have invented the Sahwa. That started in Ramadi with the Sunni Awakening — there were books about it. And a quick Google search showed that snow had turned Baghdad white in 2008, a full two years after First Cav was stationed in Ashuriyah. Little holes that made me think there were bigger holes.
And yet.
“That’s too crazy to make up,” Snoop said.
He had a point. I kept thinking about our grandpa telling Will and me that the truest war stories made the least sense. He’d been talking about World War II, but maybe this was something our little brushfire war had in common with his.
I ate a turkey sandwich and drank coffee for lunch and thought about star-crossed love. I could see an American soldier making a play for a good-looking Iraqi girl. Even a sixteen-year-old. But I couldn’t see it as the kind of grand romance Alia told. I wondered what the real story was.
Even though my hands were already shaking from too much caffeine, I chugged a Rip It and walked downstairs, following the sound of a low roar.
It was Sahwa payday. Dozens upon dozens of Iraqi men twisted around the foyer in a coiling line that extended out the front door. The Sahwa were separated by clothing and grouped accordingly: some wore khaki-brown shirts with matching baseball caps; others navy-blue armbands with Iraqi flags; while still others bore black vests and jeans. Glossy orange dust pervaded the air like dirt beaten from a rug, and sweat and moisture clung to my skin. I swung my rifle to my front and waded in.
“Molazim Porter!”
I heard Fat Mukhtar’s deep voice to my right, remembering that I’d promised to push his group to the front of the line. Whoops, I thought.
The large man bumped into me, leading with his stomach. The sneer on his face suggested it wasn’t a conversation I could avoid, so I waved up Snoop from the payment table and faced the angry tribal leader.
I feigned understanding as Snoop asked why he was upset, nodding through the accusation that I’d lied about payment order. Spit danced around my head. After a minute, I tapped my watch and spoke over him.
“First, you ever touch me with that flab again, we’ll take you up to the canal and see if you can float.” I didn’t think Snoop’s English was good enough to effectively convey the threat, so I poked the mukhtar’s stomach rolls with my index and middle fingers. He took a small step back. Every Sahwa guard in Ashuriyah was watching — I needed to be the scorpion. “Second, why honor a man who knew about Shaba’s grave? Third — there is no third. Just don’t ever fucking touch me like that again.”
That seemed to bury Fat Mukhtar’s wrath. “It was him?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Dental records and DNA samples confirmed it last week.”
He bowed his head and mumbled a short prayer. He looked up with earnestness. “He swears he didn’t know,” Snoop translated.
“What’s done is done,” I said, grinning at my own little lie. “They’ll be first next time.” It was unofficially officiaclass="underline" that next time would be the last time we’d pay the Sahwa. Then it’d be the Iraqi military’s responsibility. “A hallmark of progress,” the PowerPoint presentation had called it. Even Captain Vrettos hadn’t been able to keep a straight face.
Fat Mukhtar rubbed his hands together. I expected an Arabic idiom that resembled “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” He didn’t say that, though. Instead he said something I didn’t understand. Snoop made him repeat it. When he did, the terp blinked and blinked before turning to me, aghast.