Yasmina Khadra - The Sirens of Baghdad

I was still dazed. The explosions and the screams resounded in my head. I couldn’t believe we’d escaped from that deluge of projectiles, running like madmen through a warren of side streets, ducking past more than one murderous cross fire, and now we were safe and sound. Although unable to feel my legs, I was still, somehow, on my feet, but wrung-out, dumbstruck, undone, and I really didn’t need to be subjected to another ordeal. Yaseen’s glare menaced me like a blade.

“Have you made some new friend? Or told somebody something you shouldn’t have?”

“I don’t know anyone.”

“No one? Then how do you explain the shit that just went down? For months, Tariq’s place is a cozy hideout, and then, all of a sudden…Either you’re jinxed or you’ve been careless. My guys are veterans. They look twice before they take a step. You’re the only one who’s not completely up to speed. Who do you hang out with outside our group? Where do you go when you leave the hideout? What do you do with your time?”

His questions landed on me like blows, one after the other, without leaving me time to get a word in or catch my breath. My hands couldn’t stifle them or fend them off. Yaseen was trying to push me to the limit. He was in a fury, he needed someone to take it out on, and I was the weak link in the chain. It was the age-old story: When you can’t make sense of your misfortune, you invent a culprit for it. I strung together denials, trying hard to resist, to defend myself, to keep from getting upset, and then, suddenly, in a cry of outrage, and without realizing what I was doing, I let slip the name of Omar the Corporal. Maybe it was fatigue, or vexation, or just a way of removing myself from Yaseen’s thoroughly vile scrutiny. By the time I recognized my blunder, it was too late. I would have given my soul to have my words back, but Yaseen’s face had already turned crimson.

“What did you say? Omar the Corporal?”

“I see him every now and then, that’s all.”

“Does he know where you live?”

“No. Once he gave me a ride to the square, but only once. He never saw the house — he left me at the gas station.”

I hoped that Yaseen would drop the subject and go back to harassing Hussein or maybe even turn on Hassan. I hoped in vain.

“Am I dreaming, or what? You led that worthless prick to our hiding place?”

“He picked me up along the way and kindly agreed to drop me off at the service station. Where’s the harm in that? The station’s a long way from Tariq’s place. Omar couldn’t possibly have guessed where I was going. And besides, we’re not talking about just anybody; we’re talking about Omar. He’d never give us up.”

“Did he know you were with me?”

“Come on, Yaseen, it doesn’t make any difference.”

“Did he know or not?”

“Yes.”

“You idiot! You moron! You dared to lead that yellow coward to our—”

“He had nothing to do with the raid.”

“How do you know? Baghdad — no, the whole country — is full of snitches and collaborators.”

“Wait, Yaseen, wait. You’re wrong about—”

“Shut up! Not another word! You have nothing to say. Nothing, you understand? Where does that fat fuck live?”

I saw that I’d made a serious mistake; Yaseen wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me down if I didn’t try to redeem myself. He made me guide him to Omar’s place that very night. Along the way, seeing that he seemed to have relaxed somewhat, I begged him not to do anything rash. I felt sick, very sick; I didn’t know where to turn, and I was consumed by remorse and by the fear that I had caused a terrible misunderstanding. Yaseen promised me that if Omar had done nothing wrong, he’d leave him alone.

Hassan was at the wheel. He had a skinning knife hidden under his jacket, and the rigidity of his neck muscles gave me gooseflesh. Yaseen, in the front passenger seat, examined his fingernails, a blank look on his face. I cringed in the rear seat, my hands damp, my guts roiling, my thighs squeezed together to suppress an irresistible need to piss.

Avoiding the roadblocks and the main thoroughfares, we surreptitiously made our way to the poor neighborhood that had been my home for a brief while. The building in question reared up in the darkness like a landmark in the underworld. There was no light in any window and no sign of any living thing outside. It must have been three o’clock in the morning. We parked the car in a small, damaged courtyard and, after a quick look around, slipped into the building. I had a copy of the apartment key, which Yaseen confiscated and inserted into the lock. He slowly opened the door, groped for the light switch, and flicked it on. Omar was lying on the straw mattress on the floor, stark naked, with one leg wrapped around Hany, whose pallid flesh was likewise completely unclothed. At first, the sight threw us into confusion; Yaseen was the first to recover. He drew himself up, hands on his hips, and silently contemplated the two nude bodies at his feet.

“Get a load of this,” he said. “I knew Omar the Drunkard, and here we have Omar the Sodomite, getting off with boys now. A charming sight.”

There was so much contempt in his voice that I gulped.

The lovers were sound asleep, surrounded by empty wine bottles and soiled plates. They stank, the two of them. Hassan prodded Omar with the tip of his shoe. The Corporal shook himself heavily, gurgled, and resumed snoring.

“Go and wait for us in the car,” Yaseen said. It was an order.

I was four or five years younger than he was, and he considered me insufficiently mature to witness such a spectacle, particularly in his presence.

“You promised me you’d leave him alone if he had nothing to do with the raid,” I reminded Yaseen.

“Do what I tell you.”

I obeyed.

A few minutes later, Yaseen and Hassan joined me in the car. Since I’d heard no screams and no shots, I believed the worst had been avoided. Then I saw Hassan wipe his bloodstained hands under the armpits of his shirt, and I understood.

“It was him,” Yaseen announced as he got into the car. “He confessed.”

“You stayed in there less than five minutes. How did you make him talk so fast?”

“Tell him, Hassan.”

Hassan put the car in first gear and drove out of the courtyard. When we reached the end of the street, he turned to me and declared, “It was him all right, cousin. You’ve got nothing to reproach yourself for. That piece of shit didn’t hesitate a second when he saw who we were. He spit at us and said, ‘Go fuck yourselves.’”

“He knew why you were there?”

“He figured it out the second he woke up. He even laughed in our faces. Look, cousin, some things are clear, and this is one of them. We’re talking about a disgusting son of a bitch, a pig and a traitor. His wild nights are over.”

I tried to find out more; I asked exactly what Omar had said and what had happened to Hany. Yaseen pivoted in his seat and growled in my direction: “You want a notarized report, or what? This is war, not lace-making. If you think you’re not ready, then get the hell out, right now. No one has to know.”

I hated him. God, I hated him more than I believed myself capable of hating anyone. For his part, he was fully aware of the hatred he inspired in me. I know because I saw his vaunted stare waver a little before my eyes. At that precise moment, I realized I had just made myself a sworn enemy, and I understood that Yaseen would seize the next occasion to do me wrong.

Shortly after noon, when we were sitting around gnawing our fingernails in our new hideout, Yaseen’s mobile phone rang. It was Salah, who had miraculously made it out of Tariq’s house unscathed. The television news reports declared that the house itself was completely in ruins. It had collapsed under a barrage of artillery shells, and then fire had devastated a good part of the remains. According to the local residents, the pitched battle had lasted all evening, and the reinforcements sent to the scene of the clash had only intensified the confusion; electrical power had long since been cut, and after some of the neighbors were struck by stray bullets or grenade fragments, panic had spread throughout the area.