Yasmina Khadra: The Sirens of Baghdad

“How’s that boy doing?”

“He’s as good as gold,” the blacksmith said. “He’s been good for weeks. You’d think he was completely cured. And how’s your father?”

“Still under his tree…I have to buy a new pair of shoes. Is anyone going to town today?”

The blacksmith scratched the top of his head. “I thought I saw a van on the trail an hour ago, but I couldn’t say if the driver was going to town or not. You have to wait until after the prayer. In any case, it’s getting harder and harder to move around, what with all these checkpoints and the hassles that go with them. Have you talked to the cobbler?”

“My shoes are beyond repair. I need new ones.”

“But the cobbler’s got more to sell than just soles and glue.”

“His merchandise is old-fashioned. The shoes I want have to be soft and stylish.”

“You think they’ll be a hit with your audience here?”

“That’s not a reason not to get them. I wish someone could give me a ride to town. I want to get a nice shirt, too.”

“In my opinion, you’re going to wait a long time. Khaled’s taxi’s out of commission, and the bus stopped coming here a month ago, after a helicopter nearly wasted it.”

The kids had got their ball back and were returning in triumph.

“Our practical joker didn’t get very far,” the blacksmith observed.

“He’s too big to outrun them.”

The two teams reoccupied the pitch, lined up as before, and continued the game at the point where it had been interrupted. Right away, the shrieking began again.

I took a seat on a piece of cinder block and followed the match with interest. When it was over, I noticed that the blacksmith and his apprentice had disappeared and the workshop had closed. By now, the sun was beating down with both fists. I got to my feet and walked up the street in the direction of the mosque.

There was a crowd in the barbershop. As a rule, on Fridays, after the Great Prayer, the old men of Kafr Karam met there. They came to watch one of their number submit to the clippers wielded by the barber, an elephantine individual draped in a calf butcher’s apron. Before, when discussing things, they used to avoid certain subjects. Saddam’s spies were always on the alert. One inappropriate word, and your whole family would be deported; mass graves and gallows appeared everywhere. But ever since the tyrant had been caught in one rat hole and shut up in another, tongues had loosened, and the men of Kafr Karam — at least those with nothing to do — had discovered in themselves a stunning volubility. That morning, all the village sages were gathered in the barbershop, and since the discussion promised to be a lively one, there were also several young men standing outside. I identified Jabir, known as “Doc,” a grouchy septuagenarian who had taught philosophy in a prep school in Basra two decades ago and then spent three years languishing in Baathist prisons because of some obscure etymological controversy. When he left the dungeons, the Party informed him that he was forbidden to work as a teacher anywhere in Iraq and that the Mukhabarat had him in their sights. Realizing that his life was in danger, Doc returned to his natal village and played dead until the statues of the Rais were removed from the public squares. Doc was tall and looked rather lordly, even hieratic, in his immaculately clean blue djellaba. Next to him, hunched on a bench, Bashir the Falcon was holding forth at some length. He was a former highway robber who had scoured the region at the head of an elusive band before taking refuge in Kafr Karam, where his booty made him respectable. He wasn’t a member of the tribe, but the elders preferred giving him hospitality to suffering his raids. Facing him were the Issam brothers, two formidable old fellows, who were trying to destroy everyone else’s arguments; they had contradiction in their blood and were capable of totally rejecting an idea they’d advanced twenty-four hours previously should an undesirable ally adopt it. Beyond them, immovable in his corner, sat the eldest of the tribe; his distance from the others was a demonstration of his prominence. The wicker chair he occupied was carried by his supporters wherever he went, while he fingered his imposing beads with one hand and with the other grasped the pipe of his narghile. He never intervened in debates, preferring to voice his opinions only at the end, unwilling to let anyone usurp his right to the last word.

“They got rid of Saddam for us, all the same,” protested Issam two.

“We never asked them to,” the Falcon grumbled.

“Who could have done that?” asked Issam one.

“Exactly right,” his brother added. “Who could even spit without risking his hide? Without being arrested on the spot for an affront to the Rais and hanged from a crane?”

“If Saddam tyrannized us, it was because of our cowardice, large and small,” the Falcon insisted contemptuously. “People have the kings they deserve.”

“I can’t agree with you,” said a quavering voice. The speaker was an old man sitting on the Falcon’s right.

“You can’t even agree with yourself.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s the truth. One day you’re on one side, and the next day you’re on the other. Always. I’ve never heard you defend the same opinion two days in a row. The truth is, you don’t have an opinion. You climb on the bandwagon, and when another bandwagon shows up, you jump on that one without knowing where it’s going.”

The old man took refuge behind a look of grim outrage.

“I don’t mean to offend you, my friend,” the Falcon said in a conciliatory tone. “If I were disrespectful to you, I wouldn’t forgive myself. But I can’t let you unload our faults onto Saddam’s shoulders. He was a monster, yes, but he was our monster. He came from among us, he shared our blood, and we all contributed to consolidating his megalomania. Do you prefer infidels from the other side of the world, troops sent here to roll over us? The GIs are nothing but brutes and wild beasts; they drive their big machines past our widows and orphans and have no qualms about dropping their bombs on our health clinics. Look at what they’ve made of our country: hell on earth.”

“Saddam made it a mass grave,” Issam two reminded him.

“It wasn’t Saddam; it was our fear. If we had shown a minimum of courage and solidarity, that cur would never have dared become such a tyrant.”

“You’re right,” said the man under the barber’s clippers, addressing the Falcon in the mirror. “We let ourselves be pushed around, and he took advantage of the situation. But you won’t make me change my mind: The Americans freed us from an ogre who threatened to devour us raw, all of us, one after the other.”

“Why do you think they’re here, the Americans?” the Falcon went on obstinately. “Is it Christian charity? They’re businessmen, we’re commodities, and they’re ready to trade. Yesterday, it was oil for food. Today, it’s Saddam for oil. And what do we get out of all this? If the Americans had an ounce of human kindness, they wouldn’t treat their blacks and their Latinos like subhumans. Instead of crossing oceans to come to the aid of some poor, emasculated ragheads, they’d do better to put their own house in order. They could do something about the Indians they’ve got rotting away on their reservations, kept out of sight like people with some shameful disease.”

“Absolutely!” the quavering old man cried out. “Can you imagine American GIs getting themselves blown up thousands of kilometers from home out of Christian charity? Not very likely.”

Eventually, Jabir’s voice made itself heard. “May I say a word?” he asked.

A respectful silence filled the shop. When Doc Jabir prepared to speak, it was always a solemn moment. The former philosophy professor, whom Saddam’s jails had elevated to the status of a hero, seldom joined the debates, but his rare interventions always served to put things in their proper place. His voice was loud, his gestures precise, and his arguments irrefutable.