Yasmina Khadra: The Sirens of Baghdad

An announcement comes over the public-address system: The flight for London is now boarding. Nervous bustling begins all around me. Already two lines of passengers have formed, one on each side of the counter. The elderly woman on my right doesn’t stand up. For the umpteenth time, she pulls out her mobile phone and stares at it dolefully.

With a heavy heart, she places herself at the end of the line. A young woman checks her passport and hands her a piece of her ticket. She turns around one last time and then disappears into a corridor.

I’m the only one left.

The ladies behind the counter laugh as they exchange pleasantries with a gentleman. He leaves through a glass door and comes back a few minutes later. A last-minute passenger arrives on the run, amid the squealing of his wheeled suitcase. He apologizes effusively. The ladies smile upon him and show him the corridor; he hastens toward it.

With a look of annoyance, the gentleman at the counter checks his watch. One of his colleagues leans toward a microphone and makes a final call for a missing passenger. The passenger she’s talking to is me. She repeats the call a few times over the course of the next several minutes. Finally, she shrugs, puts things in order behind the counter, and runs after her two colleagues, who have preceded her into the corridor.

My airplane rolls to the middle of the tarmac. I watch it turn slowly and reach the runway.

The screen above the counter goes black.

It’s long past nightfall. Other passengers joined me in the seating area before disappearing into the corridor. Now another flight is announced, and the seats around me are occupied for the third time.

A small gentleman, highly excited, takes the seat beside me. “Are you going to Paris?” he asks.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Is this the flight to Paris?”

“Yes,” someone says reassuringly.

The airbus for Paris takes off, majestic, impregnable. The great halls of the airport grow quiet and sleepy. Most of the waiting areas are empty. In one, however, there are about sixty passengers, patiently waiting in what seems like religious silence.

An airport security agent comes up to me, walkie-talkie in hand. He’s already made two or three passes through this section, apparently intrigued by my presence. He plants himself in front of me and asks me if everything’s all right.

“I missed my flight,” I say.

“I thought as much. What was your destination?”

“London.”

“There aren’t any more flights for London tonight. Show me your tickets, please…. British Airways. All the offices are closed at this hour. There’s nothing I can do for you. You’re going to have to come back tomorrow and explain what happened to the company concerned. I warn you, they’re pretty inflexible. I don’t think they’ll let you use today’s ticket tomorrow. Do you have a place to stay? You’re not allowed to spend the night here. In any case, you’re going to have to talk to the airline. I’ll show you where their office is. Come on, follow me.”

I head for the exit. My mind’s a blank, and I let my feet carry me. I have no choice. A great hush has fallen over the airport. There’s nothing for me here. An airport worker pushes a long caterpillar of carts ahead of him. Another applies rags to the floor. A few shadows still haunt the remoter corners. The bars and shops are closed. I have to leave.

A car pulls up beside me as I wander away from the terminal in a daze. A door opens. The driver is Shakir. He says, “Get in.” I sit in the passenger’s seat. Shakir skirts a parking lot and comes to a halt at a stop sign before turning onto the road, which is lined with streetlights. We roll along for an eternity without speaking or looking at each other. Shakir doesn’t head for Beirut; he takes an outer ring road. His labored breathing matches the rhythm of the car’s engine.

“I was sure you were going to chicken out,” he says in a colorless voice. There’s no reproach in his words, but, rather, a distant joy, as when a person determines that he hasn’t been wrong. “When I heard them announce your name, I understood.” Suddenly, he strikes the steering wheel with his fist. “Why, for God’s sake? Why put us through all this trouble, only to pull out at the last minute?”

He calms down and unclenches his fist; then he notices that he’s driving like a madman and eases off the gas pedal. Below us, the city evokes a giant jewelry case, open to reveal its treasures. After a while, he asks, “What happened?”

“I have no idea.”

“What do you mean, you have no idea?”

“I was at the gate. I watched the passengers boarding the plane and I didn’t follow them.”

“Why not?”

“I told you: I have no idea.”

Shakir ponders this response for a moment before he loses patience. “That’s just nuts!”

When we reach the top of a hill, I ask him to stop. I want to look at the lights of the city.

Shakir parks on the side of the road. He thinks I’m going to throw up and asks me not to do it on his floor. I tell him I want to get out, I need some fresh air. Mechanically, he moves his hand to his belt and grasps the butt of his handgun. “Don’t try anything cute,” he warns me. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you down like a dog.”

“Where do you think I’m going to go with this stinking virus inside me?”

I search in the darkness for a place to sit down, find a rock, and occupy it. The breeze makes me shiver. My teeth chatter, and gooseflesh rises on my arms. Very far off, on the horizon, some ocean liners traverse the pitch-black sea, like fireflies carried away on a flood. The sigh of the waves fills the silence of a hectic night. Lower down, set back from the shore to escape the marauding waves, Beirut counts its treasures under a waxing moon.

Shakir crouches down next to me, one arm between his legs. “I’ve called the boys. They’re going to meet us at the farm, a little higher up from here. They are not at all happy, not at all.”

I pull my jacket tight around me, hoping for warmth. “I’m not moving from this spot,” I say.

“Don’t force me to drag you away by your feet.”

“You do what you want, Shakir. Me, I’m not moving from here.”

“Very well. I’m going to tell them where we are.”

He pulls out his mobile phone and calls “the boys,” who, it turns out, are indeed in a rage. Shakir stays cool, explaining that I categorically refuse to follow him. He rings off and announces that they’re coming, that they’re going to be here soon.

I gather myself around my thighs and, with my chin wedged between my knees, I contemplate the city. My eyes blur; my tears mutiny. I feel sad. Why? I couldn’t say. My anxieties merge with my memories. My whole life passes through my mind: Kafr Karam, my family, my dead, my living, the people I miss, the ones who haunt me…. Nevertheless, of all my memories, the most recent are the most distinct: that woman in the airport, hopefully examining the screen of her cell phone; that father-to-be who was so happy, he didn’t know which way to turn; that young European couple kissing each other…. They deserved to live for a thousand years. I have no right to challenge their kisses, scuttle their dreams, dash their hopes. What have I done with my own destiny? I’m only twenty-one years old, and all I have is the certainty that I’ve wrecked my life twenty-one times over.

“Nobody was forcing you,” Shakir mutters. “What made you change your mind?”