Yasmina Khadra - The Sirens of Baghdad

When Yaseen recognized his lieutenant’s voice on the telephone, he nearly burst into tears. He chided the fortunate survivor, reproaching him for his “radio silence”; then he consented to listen without further interruption. He nodded, running his finger under his collar again and again as we watched him in silence. At last, he raised his chin and spoke into the handset: “You can’t bring him here? Ask Jawad. He knows how to transfer a parcel.”

Yaseen snapped the phone shut and, without a word, hurried into the next room and slammed the door in our faces.

The “parcel” arrived for us that evening, in the trunk of a car driven by a uniformed police officer, a tall, strapping fellow I’d seen two or three times in Sayed’s store, ordering television sets from us. Whenever he’d come in, he’d been wearing civilian clothes. Now, it turned out, he was Jawad — his nom de guerre — and, to my great surprise, he was the deputy superintendent of this police district.

He explained to us that he’d been returning from a routine mission when he discovered that his unit’s assault team had been sent into action. “When the duty officer read me the coordinates of the operation, I couldn’t believe it. The superintendent’s target was your hideout. He wanted to conduct the action on his own and score points on his rivals.”

“You could have warned me immediately,” Yaseen said reproachfully.

“I wasn’t sure. You were in one of the most secure refuges in Baghdad. I didn’t see how they could have gotten close to you, not with all the alarm bells I’d set up all around. Somebody would have warned me. But not wanting to take any chances, I went to the area where the raid was about to take place, and that’s when things became clear.”

He lifted the trunk of his car, which he’d parked in the garage. A half-smothered man was lying curled up inside, wrapped like a sausage in a roll of clear packing tape. His mouth was gagged, and his face looked lumpy and battered.

“It was him. He’s the one who gave you up. He was there before the operation began, showing the superintendent your hideout.”

Yaseen shook his head sadly.

Thrusting his muscular arms into the trunk, Salah violently extracted the prisoner, threw him to the ground, and kicked him away from the car.

Yaseen squatted down beside the stranger and tore off his gag. “If you yell, I’ll poke out your eyes and throw your tongue to the rats.”

The man must have been around forty years old, with a scrawny body, a malnourished face, and graying temples. He wriggled in his bonds like a maggot.

“I’ve seen that face before,” Hussein said.

“He was your neighbor,” the policeman said, strutting a little with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “He lived in the building on the corner next to the grocery, the one with the climbing plants on the front.”

Yaseen stood up. “Why?” he asked the stranger. “Why did you give us up? We’re fighting for you, dammit!”

“I never asked you to,” the informer replied disdainfully. “You think I want to be saved by hoodlums like you? I’d rather die!”

Salah gave the man a brutal kick in the side, knocking the breath out of him. He rolled about, gasping for air. But as soon as he got his wind back, the snitch took up where he’d left off. “You consider yourselves fedayeen,” he panted. “But you’re nothing but murderers. Vandals. Child-killers. I’m not afraid of you. Do what you want with me, you won’t change my mind. I think you’re a pack of mad dogs. Criminals, heathens, head cases. I loathe you!”

He spat at us, one after the other.

Yaseen was astounded. “Is this guy normal?” he asked Jawad.

“Perfectly,” the police officer declared. “He teaches in a primary school.”

Yaseen thought for a while, holding his chin between his thumb and index finger. “How did he spot us? None of us is on any poster anywhere. None of us even has a police record. How did he know what we were?”

“I’d pick that gorilla face out of a million gorilla faces,” the snitch said contemptuously, jerking his head in Salah’s direction. “You bastard, you dog, you son of a whore…”

Salah was ready to take him apart, but Yaseen held him back.

“I was there when you killed Mohammed Sobhi, the union leader,” the informer said, his face crimson with fury. “I was in the car, waiting for him in the basement garage. And I saw you shoot him in the back when he stepped out of the elevator. In the back. Like the cowardly murderer you are. Disgusting pig! If my hands were free, I’d break you in half. That’s all you’re good for, shooting someone from behind and running like a rabbit. And afterward, you think you’re a hero and you swagger around the square. If Iraq has to be defended by spineless cowards like you, I’d rather let it go to the fucking dogs. What a pathetic bunch of wankers. What a—”

Yaseen kicked him in the face, cutting him off. Then Yaseen said, “Did you understand any of that rant, Jawad?”

The police officer twisted his mouth to one side. “Mohammed Sobhi was his brother. This prick recognized Salah when he saw him going into the place where you were holed up. Then he went to the station and informed the superintendent.”

Yaseen pursed his lips and looked circumspect. “Gag him again,” he ordered, “and take him somewhere far from here. I want him to die slowly, bit by bit. I want him to start rotting before he breathes his last.”

Salah and Hassan assured him they’d carry out his orders. They stuffed the “parcel” back in the trunk of Jawad’s car, got in, and drove out of the garage, preceded by Jawad himself, who was behind the wheel of Salah’s car. Hussein closed the garage door.

Yaseen, his neck bent forward, his shoulders sagging, was still standing in the spot where he’d interrogated the prisoner. I stood a few steps behind him, severely tempted to leap onto his back. I had to go to the deepest part of my being to recover my breath and say to him, “You see? Omar had nothing to do with it.”

It was as if I’d opened Pandora’s box. Yaseen shook from head to toe and then whipped around to face me, brandishing his finger like a dagger. His voice gave me a chill when he said, “One more word out of you, just one tiny word, and I’ll tear your throat out with my teeth.” Whereupon he shoved me aside with the back of his hand and went to his room to mistreat the furniture.

I stepped out into the night. In the anemic lights of the boulevards, while the curfew was regaining the upper hand, I measured the incongruity of people and things. Baghdad had turned away everything, even its prayers. And as for me, I no longer recognized myself in mine. I walked along with a heavy heart, hugging the walls like a shadow puppet…. What have I done? Almighty God! How will Omar ever forgive me?

Sleep had become my purgatory. Almost as soon as I dozed off, I started running again, fleeing through labyrinthine corridors with a shadowy shape hot on my heels. It was everywhere, even in my frantic breathing…. I jerked into consciousness, drenched from head to foot, my arms waving in front of me. It was always there — in the bright light of dawn, in the silence of the night, hovering over my bed. I clutched my temples with both hands and made myself so small that I disappeared under the sheets. What have I done? The horrible question penetrated me at full tilt, like a falcon striking a bustard. Omar’s ghost had become my companion animal, my walking grief, my intoxication, and my madness. All I had to do was to lower my eyelids and it would fill my mind, and when I opened my eyes, it hid the rest of the world. There was nothing left in the world except Omar’s ghost and me. We were the world.