Matt Gallagher - Youngblood

“Rana wasn’t allowed at meetings. The sheik made her stay away from Americans. He believed they would go crazy from her beauty and rape her. But after I brought out the apricots and hummus, Rana asked if the new sergeant was handsome. I knew then she was up to something.

“She was always a brave child, but on the third visit of the Horse soldiers, it became something else. She walked through the curtain and into the sitting room, defying her father’s law, wearing a blouse and American-style jeans. With no face cover! She sat between her father and the sergeant, put her hand out and said, ‘Hah-loe,’ like she’d seen in movies.

“How old? She was — sixteen that winter. Beautiful, like only a girl that age can be. Had the same circle mark on her cheek that her mother did. She wasn’t angry like her brother, but had his temper when things didn’t go her way. She thought the young men here were beneath her. Long before Shaba, she wanted to marry a man from Baghdad, maybe Basra, to get away.

“Shaba nodded at Rana, but didn’t take her hand. He knew not to violate the sheik’s law. But when the sheik asked her to leave, she didn’t move. Her father was enraged but didn’t know what to do in front of the guests. So she stayed and listened.

“The eyes of Shaba remained on Rana the rest of the meeting, and she looked back, smiling and twisting her hair. Neither spoke. The lieutenant, Grant, reminded me of a sad cow, he didn’t know what to do. Eventually, even the sheik became silent. The translator talked about the weather until the meeting ended.

“That night, the servants and guards gathered in the courtyard to listen to Rana fight with her father. She said she believed in love at first sight. That she knew she would marry Shaba. He said no; he forbade it. She said she would have many babies with her beautiful soldier. He said she would have many babies with the son of a Ramadi sheik, as he’d planned. She said she would run away to America with Shaba and leave Iraq and the al-Badris forever. He said nothing to that.

“What did the sheik think? Probably that it was just the foolish wishes of a girl. But Shaba felt the same. He came to the gate the next night, no armor or helmet. Only a dishdasha that hid a small pistol. He and Sheik Ahmed talked for many hours.

“I listened at the curtain as much as I could. They spoke of Babylon and caliphs and the empire of the Turks. They spoke of al-Qaeda and Jaish al-Mahdi, of tribes from Anbar to Diyala. Sheik Ahmed said most of the Iraqis who shot guns and planted bombs didn’t hate Americans, but that they’d been hired for that by men from other towns.

“ ‘They need jobs,’ he told Shaba. ‘The key to peace is jobs. Idle hands find the trigger.’

“Shaba agreed. Then he explained to the sheik that he would seek the hand of Rana, but only if he was permitted to. He promised not to dishonor the sheik or his daughter. He said the most important thing was to bring peace to Ashuriyah. The sheik asked many questions — of Shaba’s family, of his life in America. Shaba said he hated where he came from, that he’d never had a home. That was why he wanted peace in Ashuriyah. To make a home here.

“When I heard what he said about Rana, I went to her. She’d been locked away in her room, under guard. Her eyes shone brighter than anything when I told her. ‘Go back,’ she said. ‘Learn more.’

“When I returned to the curtain, the sheik and Shaba had come up with a plan for the Sons of Iraq — the Sahwa. There needed to be checkpoints, they agreed, many checkpoints that gave Iraqi men purpose and means to provide for their families.

“They saved Iraq from chaos while the rest of us slept.

“We learned the next day Sheik Ahmed had given Shaba permission to visit Rana. She wept with happiness and kissed her father’s feet. He seemed happy, too, the happiest he’d been since his wife lived, the older servants said.

“It became a love like you hear in stories. They met in the sitting room twice a week. Sometimes he came with other Horse soldiers for meetings. At first they pretended the other meetings weren’t happening, but that stopped when the sad cow lieutenant made a joke. If other soldiers knew what Shaba knew, the lieutenant said, they would come to the sheik’s home at night, too.

“He was just a sergeant? That’s a stupid thing to say. Everyone listened to Shaba, especially his officers. He knew better than them. Once the Sahwa formed, peace followed. Slowly at first, but after the Americans paid the first time, more men wanted to join. The sheik started having meetings with sheiks from other parts of Iraq. They agreed to bring the idea to their American soldiers.

“One cold night in the sitting room, they told the sheik they wished to marry in the spring. The sheik clapped his hands and praised Allah for their love. He said he’d be proud to call Shaba his son. Shaba smiled like I’d never seen before, and Rana glowed like only a beautiful girl in love can.

“Yes, this was possible. That’s another stupid thing to say. Because our culture is so different than yours? Muslims are like people anywhere, Lieutenant Porter. They fall in love. They get married. They build families. All of that is what Shaba and Rana wanted. All of that is what they would have had. What they should have had.

“The sheik hosted a feast for them. The old mayor came. The old sheiks, the old police chief, the old doctor and his wife. Even the mukhtar from the far villages. The sad cow lieutenant came with Shaba. The sheik’s cousin drove from Karrada to play the cello. There was food and dancing, and Rana and Shaba kissed in the courtyard under stars. After he left, she said it’d been the happiest night of her life.

“Then Haitham ruined everything.

“Days later, when the sheik was away, Karim came home. He said he’d bombed the golden mosque in Samarra, and needed someplace to hide.

“We said his father hadn’t forgiven him, which surprised him. But Rana was so happy to see him, kept holding his face and telling him how skinny he looked.

“I could tell something was wrong, though. He was so quiet. He took her hands off him. ‘Is it true?’ he asked his sister. ‘You’re to marry a dog of the occupiers?’

“She said she was in love and that he’d love Shaba, too. Karim wasn’t listening, though. The battles had changed him. He started cursing and punching the walls, swearing revenge on his father and Shaba for destroying his family’s honor. Then he threw Rana to the ground and said he’d rather have a Shi’a peasant rape and murder her than have her marry an American.

“The guards pulled him off and pushed him out of the house. He was screaming the entire time. We knew then a shaytan had taken him. Haitham was one of those guards, that stupid, stupid man. He said to Karim, ‘Ashuriyah is a peaceful place now. People walk freely. Even American soldiers walk by themselves.’ Karim spat on him and called him a liar. So Haitham told him how Shaba visited at night, by himself, with no armor. That is how Karim knew to set the ambush.

“After — after Shaba was killed, Rana cried and pleaded to Allah to bring him back. She turned crazy, madder than even her brother, and wandered the desert at night, alone. The sheik had his guards lock her inside her room and tie her up, so she could not kill herself with a knife or gun.

“What happened then? Everything fell apart. The peace ended, the war returned. Karim was killed. The sheik sent his daughter away and stopped working with Americans. Most of the servants stayed until he died, but then we had nothing. He gave all his money to the other sheiks, to pay their Sahwa. They were all he had left.”

There were holes in Alia’s story. Little things that lingered at the bottom of my consciousness like coins in a well. Shaba couldn’t have invented the Sahwa. That started in Ramadi with the Sunni Awakening — there were books about it. And a quick Google search showed that snow had turned Baghdad white in 2008, a full two years after First Cav was stationed in Ashuriyah. Little holes that made me think there were bigger holes.