Hassan Blasim - The Corpse Exhibition - And Other Stories of Iraq

“I was a prisoner in the house for three months. The streets were full of military police and all the security agencies. My father decided I shouldn’t work by day in case the neighbors noticed me. At night I would slip out into the yard like a thief, with a lantern in my hand. I would sit next to the sacks of eggplants, cucumbers, and peppers, busy with my work and thinking about my life. I would mix arak with water in an empty milk can so as not to get caught by my father, then get drunk and snack on the many varieties of pickle this tank driver had to offer. The alcohol would flow in my blood, and I would crawl like a baby toward the septic tank, press my ear against the concrete cover, and listen. I could hear him laughing. I would shut my eyes and imagine the feel of his bare shoulder. His skin was hot from all the playing and exertion. I no longer remembered his face. My mother had the only photograph of him, and she wouldn’t let anyone else go near it. She hid it in the wardrobe. She put the picture in a small wooden box decorated with a peacock.

“At the crack of dawn my father would get up. He would usually find me asleep in my place. He would put his hand on my forehead and I would wake up to his touch. ‘Go inside, son. Perform your prayers. May God prosper you.’ He was well aware I was drinking arak, but religion to him didn’t mean the words of any prophet, any holy law or prohibitions. Religion meant love of virtue, as he would put it to anyone with whom he was discussing questions of Islamic law.

“I will never forget the day he broke down in tears at the soccer field. He frightened the children, and I was embarrassed and disturbed that he was crying. The Baath party members had executed three young Kurds close to the soccer field. They tied them to wooden stakes and shot them dead in full view of the local people. Before they did it, they announced over loudspeakers, ‘These people are traitors and terrorists who do not deserve to eat from the bounty of this land or drink its water or breathe its air.’ As usual, the Baathists took the bodies and left the stakes in place to remind everyone of what had happened. My father had come to the square to take me to the cinema. He was crazy about Indian films. When he saw that one goal was missing an upright he realized we had taken the stakes to make the goals. Traces of blood had dried on the wood. My father broke down when one of the children said, ‘We’re still missing one goalpost. Maybe they’ll execute another one and we can have the stake.’

“One summer evening we were invaded again. My uncle knocked frantically on the door. My mother was counting money and putting it in an empty tomato paste jar. My father and I were playing chess. He could beat me easily, but first he enjoyed giving me the pleasure of taking his pawns. He would sacrifice them and his other pieces without taking anything in return, keeping only his king and queen. Then he would start to destroy my pieces with his black queen until he had me in checkmate.

“My father went out to the yard to greet my uncle. My mother threw on her shawl and followed. They all stood near the septic tank in anxious discussion, but in low voices. I watched them from behind the windowpane. I was still dizzy from drinking the day before. I was waiting for night to come to get drunk again. My mother rushed to fetch something from under the stairs. My father and my uncle worked together to empty a barrel full of pickled cauliflower. My mother came back with a hammer and a nail. My father laid the barrel flat on the ground and started to punch holes in it at random with the nail. He didn’t have his artificial leg on. He was hopping around the barrel on one leg as if he were playing or dancing. My uncle parked the pickup outside the front door and loaded it with the barrels of pickles. Then my father came into the living room sweating.

“‘Listen, son,’ he said, ‘there’s no time. Your uncle has information that the police and the party are going to search all the houses at dawn. Your uncle has loyal friends in the village of Awran. Stay there a few days till things calm down.’ I climbed into the empty barrel and my mother closed the lid tight. My father and my uncle lifted me onto the pickup.

“My father was right. They were brothers, after all, and they could read each other’s minds. My uncle drove through the streets like a madman to save my life. He managed to reach the outskirts of the city safely, but all the roads to the provincial towns and villages had military checkpoints. His only option was to take the back roads. He chose a road through the wheat fields to the east of the city. Maybe in his panic he mistook the road. Even the city children knew the chain of rugged and rocky hills that lay beyond the wheat fields. Maybe images of the people tortured in his department had unhinged his brain. Maybe he imagined his colleagues dissolving him in tanks of sulphuric acid and the headline SECURITY OFFICER HELPS NEPHEW ESCAPE IN PICKLE BARREL. As he drove through the wheat fields, he was barely in control of the steering wheel. The bumps were about to break my ribs, and only dust kicked up by the truck crept in through the holes in the barrel. The barrel stank like the dead cats on the neighborhood trash heap. Did my uncle pull out fingernails, gouge out people’s eyes, and singe their skin with branding irons in the vaults of the security department? Maybe it was the souls of his victims that drove him into the ravine, maybe it was my own evil soul, or maybe it was the soul that preordained everything that is ephemeral and mysterious in this transitory world.

“Seven barrels lay in the darkness at the bottom of the cliff like sleeping animals. The pickup had overturned after my uncle tried to take a second rocky bend in the hill. The barrels rolled down into the ravine with the truck. I spent the night unconscious inside the barrel. In the first hours of morning the rays of sunlight pierced the holes in the barrel, like lifelines extended to a drowning man. My mouth was full of blood and my hands were trembling. I was in pain and frightened. I started to observe the rays of the sun as they crisscrossed confusingly in the barrel. I wanted to escape the chaos that had played havoc with my consciousness. I felt as if I had smoked a ton of marijuana: a fish coming to its senses in a sardine tin, a dead worm in an abandoned well, a putrid fetus with crushed bones in a womb the shape of a barrel. Then my mind fixed on another image: my brother sinking to the bottom of the septic tank and me diving after him.

“The bleating sounded faint at first, as though a choir was practicing. One goat started and then another joined in, then all the goats together, as if they had found the right key. The rays of the sun moved and fell right in my eye. I pissed in my pants inside that barrel, appalled at the cruelty of the world to which I was returning. The goatherd called out to his flock, and one of the goats butted the barrel.”

EVERYONE STAYING AT THE REFUGEE RECEPTION center has two stories — the real one and the one for the record. The stories for the record are the ones the new refugees tell to obtain the right to humanitarian asylum, written down in the immigration department and preserved in their private files. The real stories remain locked in the hearts of the refugees, for them to mull over in complete secrecy. That’s not to say it’s easy to tell the two stories apart. They merge and it becomes impossible to distinguish between them. Two days ago a new Iraqi refugee arrived in Malmö, in southern Sweden. He was in his late thirties. They took him to the reception center and did some medical tests on him. Then they gave him a room, a bed, a towel, a bedsheet, a bar of soap, a knife, fork, and spoon, and a cooking pot. Today the man is sitting in front of the immigration officer telling his story at amazing speed, while the immigration officer asks him to slow down as much as possible.