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Book of Accounts (Installment #5)

Abdul Rahman’s marriage ceremony had been morose. During his childhood his father had bankrupted the family through his uncontrollable gambling. In the early days his lust for money had motivated him, but like all gamesters he quickly became a complete and hopeless slave to his passion. For weeks without end he gambled borrowed cash, or his rare winnings, in some secret location away from the home village, Khazamiyah. From a young age Abdul Rahman had been left alone with his mother and paralysed brother to manage the family’s small shop, which sold matches, rice, candles, soap boxes and string; the kind of cheap items villagers could afford.

Angry strangers and desperate men came to the house at every hour of the night and day demanding to see his father, who, if he was inside, would send Abdul Rahman to the door to placate them while he hid under the bed. The strangers would not leave the house until they had fed their own greed with something which did not belong to them. His mother’s plea, ‘We have nothing to give you, sir. If only you can wait until Abdul Karim returns, perhaps any day, I’m sure he will be able to satisfy your claims’,was inevitably ignored. Their raging, angry desire for payment would only soften if they went away with something in their hands; a chair was as good as a piece of lace or a picture frame.

One time, just before the end of Ramadan, a vicious looking man from Ba’qubah with yellow teeth and a head of curling, violent hair, insisted upon removing the green silk cover embroidered with golden threads, which covered the Koran Abdul Rahman’s grandmother had passed on to her daughter. His mother pleaded. She hugged the man’s knees and wailed, but his only response was to become even more greedy. As he rushed from the house he grabbed a small Japanese transistor as if he were a hungry frog and the radio a fly. The loss of the radio was bearable — was there time in a day to enjoy such a thing? — but the Koran cover was a loss too great for his mother to bear. And during the holy month! The rest of her days she passed in unrelenting supplication to God for his forgiveness. Abdul Rahman vowed on the day of his marriage that he would never leave Abida with her needs unmet. He would give to his children that of which his father, the foul shyster, had been incapable. Love.

Under such circumstances Abdul Rahman had no expectation that his wedding would be happy. Hiring the traditional wedding band was out the question; a neighbour boy banged an irritating beat on a leather drum but after fifteen minutes Abdul Rahman paid him with a handful of sweets to keep quiet. Even the qazi who performed the ceremony complained to uncle Habib that it had been many years since he’d received such a poor feed. The man of God found it sinful that the pieces of meat were so small and so few. He burrowed into his plate of rice and asked rhetorically if this was a piece of meat or a raisin. What few relatives and guests attended the ceremony in the back of the shop came out of pitiful curiosity. The shame on the house was unbearable. The ceremony over, Abdul Rahman sold the shop to one of the guests and, with the money, paid his father’s most impatient creditors, settled his mother with uncle Habib’s family, and three days later, with his chubby new bride Abida by his side, caught a bus to Baghdad. Being away from the small town of his unhappy childhood was a great relief, and within two weeks he was employed as a filing clerk in the Ministry of Transport.

‘Ooh what luck!’ Abida squealed when Abdul Rahman came home that afternoon with a small cardboard box of sweets. ‘So many others have been waiting and begging for work for months, even years, but you have found a position so quickly.’ She clapped her hands. ‘I have married a lucky man. Oh, thank God!’

Naturally, Abdul Rahman shared Abida’s joy, and together they celebrated by eating the box of baklava. But his wife’s belief in luck was something Abdul Rahman definitely did not share.

From his earliest years, throughout his entire life in fact, Abdul Rahman had been eaten inside by a restlessness. He called it a fever. His body temperature did increase when it was most persistent, but sometimes it was nothing more than an overpowering feeling of anxiety. Whatever its manifestation, the feeling was the earliest indication that he shared an unnatural (maybe supernatural) bond with unknown persons and that his life was a part of a larger force and purpose. When his fever came he would lie awake at night, unable to rest. In the morning his legs would feel weak. It stole his desire for food and he dreaded the heat it generated in his arms and head. For long stretches the fever would be absent, but then, like an unexpected shadow across the sun, it would darken his mood. He had tried to ignore it, to subdue it, especially as a youth, but as the years passed he understood that it was to be as constant a reality as any in his life. And he came to appreciate his ‘fever’ as a rare gift that would some day carry him to his ultimate destiny. What words could explain this sensation? Even Abida knew nothing of this. Abdul Rahman’s ‘fever’ was his most hidden secret, but in time he learned to nurture the heat and to welcome its wisdom. It was to this restless anxiety that he attributed his success in finding employment so quickly. Nothing to do with luck.

Although the fever had oppressed him for many years, his meeting with Faris Fadhal Wathban was the first time Abdul Rahman appreciated the value of keeping records of such encounters. He had heard of an office in Souq al Quadimiyah that was accepting applications for labourers to build a bridge across the Tigris. As Abdul Rahman stood waiting for the bus, quite by chance, because he knew no one in Baghdad, he was approached by Faris. The man came to stand next to Abdul Rahman and, without introducing himself, asked for directions to the Ministry of Transport. Abdul Rahman apologised and told him that he was new to the city himself. ‘Then you must be looking for a position just as I am.’ Abdul Rahman replied that he had already approached several companies but none had offered any hope.

‘Then let’s find the Ministry together. My brother-in-law is an official there and he said to meet him as soon as I arrived in Baghdad. He swore that he is able to employ me with no difficulties. The salary is not much but it is secure employment. Perhaps if he is able to find me a position he can do the same for you. What do you say?’

Abdul Rahman agreed. Together, by asking several people and walking a great deal through the wide streets, they found the Ministry. Along the way, Faris told Abdul Rahman how he had come to Baghdad. As he spoke, Abdul Rahman sensed the heat in his arms and stomach increasing. He heard Faris’s words but did not comprehend the sentences, or the story he was telling. Abdul Rahman grew agitated but managed to hide this from Faris. When they met the brother-in-law at a big building near the Martyr’s Monument, Abdul Rahman was struggling to keep his hands from shaking, so much energy was pulsing down and up his arms and to his head. Faris chattered away with his relative: ‘I have come as you said and here is my new friend, if you help me you must help him, I insist. No. Who can drink coffee on a day as hot as today, but a juice I will accept, what do you say, eh, Abdul Rahman?’ Abdul Rahman was observing them from a great height. He was a bird on the sill, or a gecko on the wall near the ceiling, frightened and wide-eyed; they spoke in foreign whispers far below him. He wanted desperately to leave the building but would his legs not collapse if he stood up? Faris turned at last and winked, ‘All arranged. Come tomorrow at nine a.m. to begin your work. Do you know about files? I know nothing of such things, but my brother-in-law assures me that the work is light and easy to understand. Agree?’

Outside in the shady boulevard the pressure in Abdul Rahman’s head decreased somewhat. He breathed deeply with the realisation that his fingers no longer twitched and tingled; the ringing between his ears was silent. ‘Thank you for your assistance, Faris,’ he said. ‘I will definitely be here tomorrow morning.’ Abdul Rahman turned to leave but Faris pulled his shoulder.

‘You can’t hide your tongue. You are from the north is that right? My family are northerners as well. What’s your village?’ Faris demanded.

Abdul Rahman told him.

‘Do you know Habib Nasruddin? He is a prominent man there.’

Abdul Rahman replied, ‘He is my uncle. Of course I know him.’

Faris laughed and clapped Abdul Rahman on both shoulders as if he were a big pair of brass cymbals. ‘Wallahi! He is also my mother’s cousin, Samiha’s, relative. You are my relation!’

That was the first time his fever, call it his spiritual anxiety, directly benefited Abdul Rahman. It brought Faris to him on the street that morning and it, not luck, as Abida squealed, led to his employment, in his freshly married state. Soon after that day Abdul Rahman bought the book of accounts. And since that time, a consciousness was born in Abdul Rahman that an event of great significance in his life was often signalled by the rising heat in his body and the mental disquiet that accompanied it. He liked to tell himself that his fever was the breath of others’ good fortune passing close by.

*

Abdul Rahman closed the ledger and tucked it away in its blue cloth. Sweat rolled off his face and beaded in dirty black drops on his hairy arms; oil seemed to be seeping into him as surely as if he were one of the discarded rags littering the shed floor. A swig of warm, no hot, water from the jerrycan made his stomach jump in protest. He spat on the ground. Who knows how long he’d be caged like a strange jungle animal in this dingy space? In case it was a long wait, Abdul Rahman didn’t dare deplete his most precious resource so early on. Not water. They’d give him more of that. But the luxurious feeling which came over him each time he opened the heavy green cover of the ledger: that was precious.

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Pulling on Threads

Trying to untangle my family’s German Russian roots

What I know or thought I knew about my father’s family line was the following.  Dad’s dad’s arrived in America as a very young boy in the company of his mother and older brother, Uncle Julius, around 1906.  They somehow ended up in the flatlands of North Dakota where grandpa grew up, became an itinerant preacher, a sort of Methodist circuit rider, raised a large family of nine children, with Dad stuck in the middle at number 4, moved to the suburbs of Los Angeles where some of his children had settled, got cancer and in 1955 passed away two years before I wandered onto the stage.

Grandpa was German and had come from that vague geography known as Prussia. ‘Around Danzig,’ I would tell people. That’s it.  The history of the Rudolph Rabe line was a concise one. It began somewhere in the eastern German lands, beyond which stretched a vast, silent horizon of Nothing.

There are cousins who have done some research and who have known more than this for a long time. But as I have lived in distant lands, far from the continental USA, for most of my adult life I have not been privy to family gatherings where such tales and faded photographs are shared.  To be honest, the thumbnail history I’ve just retold was sufficient for my purposes. I never met grandpa Rabe and had little curiosity about exact details.

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It’s inevitable that a day would come when I would want to know more. I’ve spent a lot of time throughout my life thinking about the sort of family I was raised in.  At various times I’ve tried to write about being raised in India as a missionary kid. Or being raised as an evangelical preacher’s kid.  Having studied history at university I am always interested in the ‘but why did that happen?’ questions. Once I make sense of one part of the story, I like to zoom out a couple layers and see the wider view and understand the context.

When Dad died in 2018, I did a bit of reading on the Holiness movement, the cultural pond he was spawned and swam around in as a child. Camp meetings ‘down by the riverside’ featured bigly in this history; both dad and mom talked about the Watson Camp Meeting in southern Minnesota where they met and where Dad was inspired to pursue a career as a missionary in India. 

Dad and Mom jointly wrote a memoir of their life together in which grandpa Rabe’s history was covered off in the first two paragraphs.  Grandpa was born in Poland of German parents wrote my dad, which helps to explain why Danzig always popped into my head, as that city’s name in Polish is Gdansk, which everyone got to know through the Solidarity movement in the early 80s.

Grandpa had kept a diary for some years in which he talked about his life as a poor Methodist preacher in the Dakotas, Montana and Minnesota. I read it but don’t remember him shedding any light on his childhood, family or history in Europe.  What was interesting about his diary was his obvious total commitment to his Christian faith. That fit in well with my own experience. His son, my dad, who shared his name, Rudolph, was also a barnacled believer in Jesus.  Like father, like son.  Senior and Junior.

Together the memoir and diary added a lot of color to my imaginary family portrait. I got a glimpse of how financially unstable grandpa’s upbringing had been. And how that continued for most of my dad’s childhood.  The diary revealed grandpa to be a man tormented by regular and frequent emotional highs and lows. He was, it seems, a manic depressive.  Many of my immediate family, including myself, have also battled with the Big D and other mental illness avatars.  I was starting to feel more connected to this guy. 

As for his religion, I began to understand just how specific a world it really was.  The Holiness Methodist churches in which he preached were small, rural and probably quite marginal as far as the broader German community went. Most parishioners were farm folk who clung to their German lifestyle and language, mainline Lutheran mainly but also some Catholics. Grandad’s family appears to have come out a Pietist dissident movement whose adherents migrated from Germany to the Black Sea regions of southern Russia in the early 19th century.

Here was a thread that tied together my own strong evangelical upbringing back into a history of a particular religious group who espoused many of the same principles that both Rudolphs held dear.

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There was this guy named George Rapp who lived in the German-speaking state of Württemberg. Rapp believed he was a prophet and when he said as much in front of the Lutheran church hierarchy he was jailed and quickly thereafter, gathered some followers, who like him believed that Christ’s second coming would take place in the United States, fled Württemberg for Pennsylvania.  There, he established a community–the Harmony Society–that emphasised separation from the world of non-believers (enemies number 1 and 2 being other Christians), personal holiness, celibacy and communal ownership of community assets. 

Influential in his time as a radical Pietist [1] among similar ‘evangelical’ sects, denominations and communities but also with some important early figures of the Methodist movement in the US in the early 1800s, he once met the President, Thomas Jefferson, who personally interceded with Congress to allocate 40,000 acres of land for Rapp to establish his spiritual colony.

George Rapp

If he lived today, he would be called a cult leader and be the subject of a Netflix documentary. In addition to believing in the second coming, personal sanctification and wealth accumulation (which Rapp somehow believed was essential to winning Jesus’ favour upon his return), the Rappists as they were sometimes called, believed in alchemy, direct communication with God and submitted themselves to complete domination by Father Rapp.  In the words of a journalist at the time, “The laws and rules of the society were made by George Rapp according to his own arbitrary will and command. The members were never consulted as to what rules should be adopted; they had no voice in making the laws.”[2]

What does this have to do with the European phase of my family history? Maybe nothing, as I’ve not read much on Rapp and the whole Pietist movement that came out of the Lutheran church in Württemberg. But the link between this radical evangelical, holiness-focused cult with the growth of Methodism, especially among German speaking immigrants in the States, is interesting. To what extent (if any) was the Holiness Methodist denomination, in which grandpa preached and in which my Dad and his siblings, as well as Mom’s family were raised, influenced by Rapp and his teaching? 

Even more interesting is that the surname Rapp is closely connected with the surname Rabe. They both trace their origins to the Middle High German[3] word ‘raven’, hence a nickname for someone with black hair or some other supposed resemblance to the bird.[4] Though Rapp has become its own family name, it was originally an abbreviated form of Rabe (Raabe).

The third thin but interesting thread of this tapestry is that our step Great-Grandfather, husband of Grandpa Rabe’s mother at the time of their arrival in the States, Frederick Kenzle (Kingsley) a.k.a. “Grandpa Fritz”, according to family conversation, was born in a village called Hoffnungstal, in the Bessarabian region abutting the Black Sea.

Hoffnungstal Colony, Bessarbia

So what?

Here’s what.

George Rapp was not the only religious radical dissident to take leave of Württemberg in the early 19th century. The Holy Roman Empire State of Württemberg, in the southwestern corner of modern Germany, was one of the first States to embrace Luther’s Reformation. The kingdom became a power center of the Evangelical Lutheran Church but also threw up several important ‘Pietist’ movements in the 18th century that positioned themselves against the formality and rituals of what was in essence the State religion.

Pietists were Lutheran dissidents who reacted against Big Church. They emphasised personal piety and purity, social separation, small worship circles often in houses and often a communal approach to property and wealth.[5]  They also expected the second coming of Christ to happen ‘soon’ but had different opinions on where in fact Jesus and his white horse would land.  Rapp thought the new country of the United States was the site.  Others believed it would be Jerusalem.  This group, led by another evangelical leader, J. Lutz,  looked eastwards, towards the vast plains of Russia, as a place to move to, since it was quite a bit closer to the Holy Land. Come the Day, they would be able to get to Jerusalem quicker than if they stayed in Germany or moved to Pennsylvania, like the Rappists.

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Germans, with their reputation as good farmers, were invited by Catherine the Great to move to Russia where she promised them attractive special privileges[6] especially freedom of religion. First settled in the Volga River region, the response was so positive that in 1803 the newly acquired territories of the Crimea and southern Ukraine surrounding the Black Sea were opened up to German and German-speaking settlers.  These allotments too quickly filled up with Mennonites, Lutherans and Pietists migrants, a lot from Württemberg, setting up German colonies and villages where they were free to do things in their German way, including speaking German and practicing their own version of Christianity.  Germans had over the centuries settled elsewhere in Eastern Europe, including Prussia, Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Soon after Rapp moved to America, another group of Pietist Württembergers headed towards Odessa where a large number of Germans were settled.  They settled and moved around the Odessa area for a couple of decades but didn’t always have friendly relations with other settler colonies. In fact, a feature of many German settlements was their physical and social isolation from other villages, especially Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and even other Germans. Economically they were self-sufficient, selling their produce in regional markets and giving birth to smaller ‘colonies’ close to the ‘mother colony’. 

In 1819, the Pietists established a colony they named Hoffnungstal (Valley of Hope) near Odessa (Ukraine)  but in 1842 moved their colony to what was then Bessarabia and over the next century was to be found on maps as part of Romania, Ukraine and Russia, depending on the political configurations of the time.  Germans who had settled in Poland earlier also flowed into this final bit of land set aside for German immigrants. Today the site of Hoffnungstal is in the Ukrainian town of Nadezhdivka, about 20 km south of the Moldovan border.

The unstable political situation naturally made it difficult for lots of Black Sea Germans to identify precisely the country of their birth.  Grandpa Rabe’s birthplace in the 1930 Federal Census lists his birthplace as Russia. And that of his father and mother as Germany.  Dad wrote in Our Life Together, that his dad had been born in Poland. We know that Grandpa Fritz was born in Hoffnungstal (in Bessarabia, Romania, Ukraine or Russia, take your pick) and that Grandpa Rabe’s mother, Karolina, is listed as being born in Ukraine in 1858. 

For what it’s worth, here is my take on our garbled family heritage.

Karolina Schieve/Schultz/Raabe/Kingsley

Karolina Schieve (mother of Rudolph Rabe Snr.; grandmother of Dad; my great grandmother) was probably born into a German speaking Lutheran evangelical community settled in the areas around the Black Sea, near Odessa, in 1858. Maybe Hoffnungstal, maybe a similar colony.  She married Adolph Schulz whom it seems already had some children, namely Amelia (Mollie), William and Mary all of whom settled in Guelph, North Dakota a tiny, unincorporated village on the plains in the early 20th century. The Schultz’s had lived for some time (if not permanently) in a small town, Lemnitz, not too far from the border with the modern Czech Republic.

Adolph, it seems was a widower and probably quite a bit older than Karolina.  One characteristic of the German speaking settlements across Eastern Europe was they moved around a lot. If things weren’t working out in Poland then they would try somewhere else, perhaps around the Black Sea or the Caucasus region.  They were double and triple migrants. Maybe Adolph, after the death of his first wife, found himself near Odessa/Bessarabia and married Karolina (or she was compelled to marry him for economic or social reasons; often the case).   In any case, Adolph and Karolina had no children together. Perhaps the old (er) man passed away but in February 1885, Karolina married Karl Wilhelm Raabe. She was 27 years old. Raabe was perhaps a couple years older but far closer in age to her than Adolph. 

With this liaison, and the entrance into the drama of my Great-Grandfather, Karl Wilhelm Raabe, our family’s deep religious roots once again break the surface. Karl Raabe was born in Leipsig. Not the large, historically famous city and home of Johann Sebastian Bach, Richard Wagner and Richard Schumann. No. But the small German enclave of Leipsig, far away on the eastern steppes of the Ural Mountains and spitting distance from the border with the modern country, Kazakhstan.  The bulk of German-speaking immigrants to Imperial Russia had settled in the Volga River basin and around the Black Sea with smaller communities in the northern Caucasus region.  But Leipsig, where Great Grandpa Karl was born, was truly ‘in the middle of nowhere’.  Podunk, Russia. 

Given that social and physical isolation was valued among Pietist/evangelical/non-conformist Christian sects, all the more so they could remain pious as they awaited the second coming of Christ, it’s not stretching it too far to suggest that the Germans in this far outback of Russia, were particularly devout & committed to removing themselves from the world and creating a holy society on earth. Given the small size of the town (never more than a few hundred souls) it seems fair to conclude that the Raabe’s adhered to this strain of spiritual living. Interestingly, the commune of Leipsig was established in 1842, the same year that Hoffnungstal Colony, 3000 kilometers to the south, and from where Karolina and her children emigrated to North Dakota, found its ultimate home in Bessarabia.

Transportation and communication in late 19th century Russia were neither easy nor frequent. But historians have shown that there was considerable movement of Germans across the Russian lands as they sought better opportunities. As many of the communities shared a theology, worldview and lifestyle and came from similar regions back in ‘Germany’[7], it is not at all inconceivable that the Raabe clan way out in the boonies were in touch with the Schieves and or Schultz’s down in Hoffnungstal. Especially when they were searching for suitable mates for their children.

In any case, Karl Wilhelm and Karolina were joined in holy matrimony in February 1885 and enjoyed 15 years of married life together.  Edward was born 18 months later in 1886, followed by Wanda (1887), Olga (1890), Julius (1891) with Rudolph, my grandfather, bringing up the rear in 1894. By the time Karolina was 36, she had been married twice and given birth to five children. All on the cold Russian steppes!

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In 1897, Karl and Karolina and their five young Rabe[8] children were among nearly 2 million Germans living in Russia.  They had been drawn by promises of land, non-interference in matters of religion, language and education, exemption from military service and despite the tough environment (blizzards, floods, droughts, armed conflict, hostility from locals) had thrived. Few were outright wealthy but Germans in Russia did enjoy a privileged status. In 1926, 95% of German Russians spoke German at home and few spoke the local languages. We can assume the same about Karl and Karolina.

In the 1870s however, Tsar Alexander II introduced a ‘modernization’ agenda which broadly cancelled all the privileges the Germans had enjoyed for nearly a century. In effect, Germans were now Russian citizens and subject to all the laws and obligations of every other Russian, including military service (6 years upon reaching the age of 20). For Mennonites and other pacifist groups, this presented a crisis. Even if they had no ideological, theological or moral position against military service, few Germans relished sending their sons to war in far away parts of the Empire.

In 1891-92 a major famine (largely man made, as most famines are) ravaged the Volga River basin, and even extended south into Bessarabia, southern Ukraine and even parts of Chelyabinsk region where the Raabe clan had settled in Leipsig.  

In 1862, over in the United States, Congress passed the Homestead Act which granted 160 acres of surveyed public land to any adult male who had not borne arms against the American government if they agreed to stay on it for a full five years. Ten years later, in 1872, our dear northern neighbours, the Canadians, enacted the Dominion Lands Act with a similar hope of attracting immigrants to settle their vast prairie lands. And, to ensure America did not encroach on the land and claim it as part of American Territory. Oh, how history repeats itself!

And thus, began another massive wave of German immigration. This time across the oceans to the New World.

In 1874, Germans across Russia began immediately looking for opportunities to move elsewhere. Emissaries were sent from colonies in Bessarabia to investigate migrating to nearby Dobrudscha, in what is now Bulgaria and Romania, and, at the time, a part of the Ottoman Empire. They found it a suitable place to move and left Russia to settle in both existing and newly founded villages. Others migrated to recently opened areas in Central Asia and Siberia, where, although still a part of Russia, there was plenty of land and the laws weren’t strictly enforced yet.[9] 

Karl and Karolina must have discussed all these developments as they watched their children grow.  In 1900 Karl passed away aged just forty-five leaving Karolina with five young children to manage and take care of.  Resilient as she had proven herself to be already, I’m sure the death of Karl increased dramatically her sense of vulnerability and anxiety, especially as Edward her eldest son approached his later teen years.  Pretty soon after Karl’s passing Karolina married again, this time to Frederick Kenzle (later Kingsley) who Dad and his siblings referred to Grandpa Fritz. Born in 1860 in Hoffnungstal Colony, it seems possible he and Karolina knew each other at the time they joined forces. Both had children from previous marriages and in 1902 they dispatched Edward Raabe and all three of Fred’s children, Mollie, Mary and William, to North America. To Guelph, North Dakota to be exact.  Edward was only 16 but “being happy with what they found America to be, made arrangements for the rest of the family to join them”,[10] which they did the following year, 1903.

Karolina was remembered in her obituary as a ‘good Christian woman’ but I suspect life had caught up with her. 3 marriages. 5 children. Who knows how many significant relocations in ‘Russia’ before arriving in a country where she did not know the language. According to Dad’s memoir, “Fritz Kingsley was a kind man, but unfortunately an alcoholic who at times made life miserable for his family.”

Karolina (mother) and Olga (daughter) headstones, Ellendale, North Dakota

Karolina, the matriarch of the Rudolph Rabe family, passed away in 1908, just fifty years old.

[1] Radical Pietism has been defined by Chauncy David Ensign as ”That branch of the pietisitic movement in Germany, which emphasized separatistic, sectarian and mystical elements”. Quoted in Scott Kisker, Radical Pietism and Early German Methodism:  John Seybert and The Evangelical Association, Methodist History, 37:3 (April 1999): 175-188

[2] James Towney, “Divine Economy:  George Rapp, The Harmony Society and Jacksonian Democracy” (Masters Thesis, Liberty University, 2014), pg. 6.

[3] 1000-1350 C.E.

[4] Ancestry.com RAPP and Ancestry.com RABE

[5] John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was strongly influenced by the Pietists and adopted the principles of the centrality of the Bible, personal spiritual transformation and spiritual disciplines such as Bible study and devotions.

[6] 1) free transportation to Russia; 2) freedom to settle anywhere in the country; 3) freedom to practice any trade or profession; 4) generous allotments of land to those who chose agriculture; 5) free transportation to the site of settlement; 6) interest-free loans for ten years to establish themselves; 7) freedom from custom duties for property brought in; 9) freedom from taxes for from five to thirty years, depending on the site of the settlement; 9) freedom from custom or excise duties for ten years for those who set up new industries; 10) local self-government for those who established themselves in colonies; 11) full freedom to practice their religion; 12) freedom from military service; 13) all privileges to be applicable to their descendants; 14) freedom to leave if they found Russia unsuitable.

[7] Modern Germany was not established until 1871. Prior to this it was a crazy quilt of independent regional kingdoms, and duchys such as and including, Württemberg.

[8] Raabe, Robey, Robie or Robbie, as per your preference.

[9] Sandy Schilling Payne, “16 June 1871—Tsar Alexander II Revokes German Colonists’ Privileges”, Germans from Russia Settlement Locations (Blog) 16 June 2021

[10] No author credited, “Guelph North Dakota: Granary of the Plains 1883-1983”, Guelph Centennial Committee, 1983, pg. 279

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Book of Accounts (Installment #4)

‘Shhhhhht. Shhhhhht. Hey! Iraqi. Shht.’ It was the tea man with the billowy turban and the long shirt below his knees, and he was agitated. His face was pressed between the bars of the window as if for some incredible reason he actually wanted to join Abdul Rahman inside. He whispered loudly but Abdul Rahman seemed dead to the world. A tiny pebble sailed through the thick air and hit the Iraqi’s cheek. ‘Shhht. Iraqi. Refugee. Wake up!’

Abdul Rahman turned towards the window to see the tea man beckoning frantically with the same floppy hand that had called him out of the sun the day before. He stood up and walked to the window. The tea man started to put words together, some Arabic, some Persian and the little ones in between in a language that Abdul Rahman had no idea what to call.

‘Refugee. You.’ The giant pointed at Abdul Rahman who nodded. ‘Allah.’ Pointing to the sky this time, ‘Allah.’ Something. ‘Refugee.’ Another strange word, followed by ‘help.’ And did he say ‘duty’? The tea man beat his chest. ‘Duty. Holy duty.’

‘Allah says it is your duty to help refugees,’ Abdul Rahman put what he thought the tea man was trying to say together.

‘Yes. Yes. Me,’ he beat his chest again, ‘help refugees. Allah say good action.’

Now that he had decoded the man’s message Abdul Rahman didn’t know what to say next. He waited. The tea man smiled and bobbed his head as if he were a servant. He looked back across the road and then, quickly, as if he were handing over a kilo of heroin, lifted up a bundle wrapped in a faded piece of blue cotton. Abdul Rahman’s heart stopped. He searched the man’s face for an explanation.

‘Holy Koran,’ said the tea man as he pushed the bundle through the bars of the window. As if he were giving a blessing, he pulled Abdul Rahman’s face forward, planted a kiss on his forehead, and walked back in the direction of his teashop on the other side of the village.

He thinks it’s the Koran! Abdul Rahman laughed to himself. It’s enough to make me believe. Abdul Rahman cradled the bundle in his arms as if it were his first born, and stared at the dirty cloth with the sort of love others would give an infant who has smiled for the very first time.

II

Swaddled in the blue cloth was a book. Not the Koran, but just as holy. Abdul Rahman’s scriptures. Covered in deep green leather, worn but not yet cracked. Heavy. It would take a strong man to lift the book with one hand. Perfectly etched in lush gold print as if by the hand of an angel, a third of the way down from the top edge, was the

word al Hisab. Accounts. The edges of the each page were delicately gilded and not a one was dog-eared. Inside, the pale-yellow pages were ruled by thin spartan lines: Balance Brought Forward. Transaction. Cash Payment. Credit Billed. New Balance. For thirty years or more Abdul Rahman had kept the Accounts Ledger, but it showed nothing of income or cash outflows, debits or credits. The debits he recorded and transactions he credited referred not to financial matters but to the balance sheet of his life.

Delicately, he removed the cloth that covered the ledger. They would think me mad if they knew I carry such a heavy thing. With exaggerated tenderness Abdul Rahman opened the book and let his eyes run over the photos and newspaper clippings and diagrams and notations as if he was reassuring them that all would be fine now that they were reunited and rescued from the hands of strangers. The photographs were of his relatives. Not his wife and children, but of more distant relations: the outer and upper branches of the great family tree that hid him in its shade. Some of them were insignificant. But most were very high officials. Famous people in Iraq. In the early years he had felt he was doing something morally wrong by keeping non-fiscal records such as photographs and bio-data of prominent persons in a ledger made specifically for charting the flow of money. He had never liked to mix such things up; it always struck him as contrary to the will of fate. But he had spent considerable time searching the bookshops and paper markets of Baghdad for a volume large enough to house his dreams and in the end the accounts ledger was the only book available.

Over many years Abdul Rahman had developed a philosophy which demanded that he keep abreast of the lives of prominent members of his family. Between sleep and work, most of his time had been given

over to the practice of his own personal faith. Abdul Rahman was not a religious man. He could not remember ever visiting a mosque, even as a child, and certainly he refused to believe in God. But he possessed a sensitive nature, acutely aware of the tuggings and yearnings of the spirit, and it was from his ledger that the invisible fingers of destiny caressed Abdul Rahman’s heart and soul. Here in the accounts ledger were details of Generals, Directors, Vice-chancellors and diplomats. All his relations. Beside each photograph or clipping he noted in a meticulous script their names, the significant dates of their lives (marriage, births, deaths, promotions, prizes), the schools which educated them and the departments which employed them. And most important of all, by way of simple diagram (or not so simple depending on the person), he demonstrated the nature of each person’s relationship to himself.

There was Mustafa Badawi, Mayor of Kifri (1979–1984) and third cousin to Abdul Rahman’s wife. Mustafa had served in the airforce before becoming mayor. From his birth he had led a blessed life. Success was all around him. Unfortunately, several years after his appointment as mayor, Mustafa’s progress slowed. His wife, (her name, Salwa, was noted next to her husband’s) operated a hair salon and restaurant in Kifri. She was prominent in the town and began to take an active role in Mustafa’s political affairs. He appointed her chairman of the Education Council and eventually Deputy Mayor. The Governor cautioned Mustafa that he could be seen as favouring his family and that his career could suffer, but Mustafa paid no attention. A brother of Mustafa’s, Rasul, became Director of the Agricultural Co-operative Bank’s regional office. Nobody minded that he had no qualifications for the post but the Party had not recommended him and that was a problem. Mustafa then awarded the contract for expanding the sports complex to a cousin, Mu’aza. One night, Mustafa

was found dead in his office. Traces of poison were discovered in the tea leaves. The sports complex was given to another contractor and Salwa left the country within six weeks. She now lived in Jordan.

In the margin of Mustafa’s page there was a notation that one of Abdul Rahman’s back teeth had caused so much trouble around the time of Mustafa’s murder that he had been admitted to the hospital for three days. Root canal procedure not done properly. A week of non-stop pain, was the neatly written note.

And here on another page was Rahim Bazzaz, brother-in-law to some cousin, who had decided it would be advisable to say his prayers in the office. On the same page, Uncle Lutfi, who questioned the appropriateness of banning the import of certain literature from abroad, peered up in a scholarly manner towards the camera, in a badly reproduced news clipping. As he revisited the pages of the ledger, Abdul Rahman could not help but feel cheated by these members of his family. My stupid relations. You have let me down. Most definitely. They had come to their inevitable early end because they lacked control. They had been unable to understand that the secret of success is to be found, not in the indulgence of whims, but by maintaining mastery over one’s fancies and inclinations. Opinions and rights may all be valid. Abdul Rahman, too, had these; but the difference between his opinions and those of his ‘stupid relations’ was that he had always understood the place of things. Chaos and confusion flow when one is unable to keep separate the various parts of life. These men, now forgotten or unaccounted for, had led uncontrolled lives. God is in the mosque, Abdul Rahman would tell himself. Only fools such as cousin Bazzaz insist that the Almighty must accompany them to the office.

But though he had no religious feeling, Abdul Rahman gained sustenance from reflecting upon the lives of his relations. Even the stupid ones were able to teach a lesson. His account ledger was his Koran: holy and true. It showed him the path of right living, as well as the consequences of an uncontrolled, mixed-up life. His spirit received strength not from Friday prayers or recitations but from following the trajectory of the stars of his relations. These were the sextants by which he had divined his own path for over thirty years. Whenever he could he sought asylum in his fantasies. Hours would pass like seconds when Abdul Rahman gazed into the photographs and re-read the articles and made notes. Peace and clarity of mind came to him from these pages; between the images and newsprint he was assured of a refuge, protected and removed from the everyday persecutions of life. And always, without fail, his relatives talked with him and encouraged him, or warned him, as surely as if they were sitting right by his side. When his relatives succeeded, he too became hopeful. But when their lives become troubled, Abdul Rahman prepared himself for a jolt in his own affairs. That not one of these prominent men knew of his existence didn’t bother him; it was not necessary that they know him. Families are large in Iraq. It was not a strange thing to have many unmet or unknown relatives.

A faith worn on the sleeve is no good for anything. Matters of the heart, believed Abdul Rahman, were best kept secret, and so he shared his accounts ledger with no one. Only Abida, his wife, knew of the ledger, and she disapproved. But hers was a principled disapproval; the principle being that everything done in life should produce some tangible, and hopefully material, benefit.

‘If you approached these big shots and got them to do some tricks for us, fine. But what’s the point of only watching? It’s just

shopping.’ She always curled her nose distastefully when he mentioned one of his relatives. ‘It may look very nice being General So and So’s fifth cousin by marriage and Professor Bighead’s step-nephew, but has our situation improved because of them? Don’t even bother to answer!’

She was right to a degree. Not once had his important relatives gifted Abdul Rahman with a car, or granted him a plot on which to build a shop or house. But this was not the point. Abdul Rahman had never cared for the material things his wife so craved. What he received from his ledger was not material, but it was just as real. Just as essential for existence.

‘Everything is connected,’ Abdul Rahman would try to explain to his plump wife. ‘Fate, perhaps what you call God, has established connections, hundreds and thousands of unseen links, like those of a spider’s web, between each of us. And not just links of blood, such as the connections in this ledger, but between our doubts and desires as well. My own desires are a part of the yearnings of many others. They are not my own private, individual affair. So too, my failures have been committed by others: those to whom fate has connected me so mysteriously. Others’ failures and triumphs are drops in my own cup, which in turn overflows into the cups of others. I am alone neither in victory, nor in disaster. I cannot, and have never sought credit or praise for my achievements. And by the same token, why should I assume responsibility for my mistakes? This is what my ledger provides: eternal principles.’ But Abida detested spiders and webs and always turned off her ears when Abdul Rahman spoke this way.

*

Abdul Rahman settled himself as comfortably as he could on the grass mat and, with care not to let even a hint of the filth of the shed fall on the pages, opened the ledger to the very first entry: Faris Fadhal Wathban, whom he had met soon after his marriage to Abida.

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The Book of Accounts (Instalment #3)

The others were jealous of the little space they shared, and stared at the newcomer with resentment. I want to sleep but my mind won’t be still. Is this Quetta? Am I a criminal to be kept with these rats? Abdul

Rahman surveyed his companions. Two or three were sleeping but the others averted their cold eyes whenever the newcomer looked in their direction. Iranians. But that one over there scratching his balls, he’s no Persian. Too dark and hairy. Pakistani? Afghani probably.

The itchy Afghan seemed separated from the Iranians by an invisible glass wall. No one spoke to him. He ignored everyone. Was he mute? Someone patted Abdul Rahman’s arm and broke his examination of the Afghan. The Arab turned irritably to see a thin boy with oversized round frames on his nose holding up a cigarette as if it were a major discovery. He made it clear he wanted a match. Abdul Rahman stared at the boy for a few seconds with slowly narrowing eyes then turned his attention back to the Afghan, who yawned and scratched his armpit before shifting his shoulders against the wall as if he believed it was made of silk cushions and not hard hot cement.

‘Marhaba. You’re an Arab isn’t it?’ The kid with glasses had put the cigarette behind his ear. ‘I can tell.’

Abdul Rahman muttered, ‘Leave me alone.’

‘A difficult request to fulfil,’ said the kid glancing around the lockup. ‘How is my Arabic?’

Abdul Rahman said nothing. Refused to look at the squirt. He put his head on to his knees and closed his eyes.

‘I lived in Najaf for three years. Studying the traditions. After Imam Khomeini of course, but still, there were many other wise teachers in the madrassa. Are you from Najaf?’

Lifting his head Abdul Rahman planned to tell the boy his conversation was of no interest. Words started to form but just before reaching his tongue they sank deep within him again, like anchors heading for the ocean floor. Each word carried the weight of years. Who had the strength to pull them up? He closed his eyes and placed his head against the concrete wall and muttered, ‘So tired.’

Then he fell asleep.

*

The light and heat bored into the room like a magnifying glass burning dry leaves.

Though he had been asleep, he thought, for hours, his mind was just as wobbly as before. The sun was a long time away from setting. The green door had been opened slightly to allow some air, but the turbans and carbines were still on the other side. The kid next to him had found a match. He was sharing a smoke with a middle-aged man whose purple shirt was ruined by the dry whitish stains of sweat that hung in rings under each arm. The fag passed languidly from one set of fingers to the other. Wisps of smoke moving like a belly dancer in slow motion twisted towards the door. A game of Three Two Five played by the guards was the only sound. Thup. A card slapped the floor. Thup. Thup. The others threw their cards down like gauntlets. Thup.

Abdul Rahman considered his situation. He wanted to select his next move but until he understood where he was, how could he? Who were these others? Must be like me. Crossing into Pakistan without papers. For what? The idea that others might be in the same boat as he, that these men and boys were also running for their lives, seemed ludicrous. Indeed, he had never considered that he was running from anything. More like towards something. But what he couldn’t say. At least not out loud. Or even to himself. The one thing he sought was an impossibility. Don’t be ridiculous, he scolded the part of him which insisted upon whispering her name. But now that his forward motion had been stopped and he found himself under arrest in an airless desert lockup in the middle of nowhere he admitted that he had been running to save his life. He shivered involuntarily.

The feeling of relief, almost joy, which had washed over him when the fat man’s soldiers had pulled him up the hillock to the lockup had been displaced by a stronger feeling of humiliation. How could I have done a deal with that black bastard? Knew he was a snake. And then he saw Bashir’s gaudy hat and his only money disappearing under it and the shame soaked deeper. Such a ridiculous team. But they took me. He would have laughed but it required too much.

The lethargic strings of cigarette smoke caught his eye again. As he followed the swaying movement Abida came into view. His wife had fallen asleep in front of the television; she still clutched the remote control. Her cheeks were pudgy. Abdul Rahman liked them that way. Healthy and baby-like. Suddenly, the Pakistani doctor was rocking his head back and forth telling him about the saint’s tomb but then mid-sentence he disappeared, making way for Zubeida. She was singing his favourite song. And with his head resting against the concrete wall, Abdul Rahman let the song be his lullaby and he nearly return

to sleep, but the ugly dark face of Fu’ad popped into view. He rubbed his eyes as if they were the dials of a radio and tried to recover his daughter’s voice, but as much as he cursed and threatened his mind its power to grasp any idea for longer than a few seconds was gone. His inability to hold the reins of his ideas worried him. Haven’t been thinking properly for weeks. How else could he explain giving money to that black bastard, Fu’ad? And letting those grease monkeys deprive him of the last of his cash without so much as a bleat?

*

The sun set, and with it disappeared the warmth. Sleeves were rolled down and collars buttoned. Some men rubbed their arms because they wore only T-shirts. Abdul Rahman zipped up his leather jacket. The cool evening had everyone talking. The Afghan (obviously not a mute) was arguing loudly with the turbans on the other side; Abdul Rahman thought he understood the Persian word for piss. Iranians chatted in groups of twos or threes, their teeth lighting up slightly as the darkness grew. Fag ends glowed and dimmed like June bugs on a summer’s night.

The kid with glasses smiled and remarked that Abdul Rahman seemed to be very tired and did he feel better now. Abdul Rahman grunted an indistinct and uninformative response but the boy didn’t mind. He appeared satisfied that Abdul Rahman had responded at all. He was about to say something more when the green door rattled open and a dim electric light, lonely under the dust and hanging from the middle

of the ceiling, flickered on. The fat man who had arrested Abdul Rahman earlier in the day stood before the men like a Mexican warlord surrounded by granite-faced, turbaned bandeleros. He was still in bedclothes as far as Abdul Rahman could see, but they were pressed stiffer and whiter than paper.

He spoke. Every time he hesitated or took a breath the Iranians bombarded him with questions and shook their fists. A few minutes passed and then the fat man in white pyjamas turned and waddled away like a ghost receding into the night. Abdul Rahman had understood nothing. The boy scooted closer to Abdul Rahman and said, ‘An official from the UN is coming. Here to Nuskhi.’

‘Nushki?’ mumbled Abdul Rahman. ‘This is not Quetta?’

The boy giggled. ‘Oh no! Quetta is a big city with airport and trains and hotels. And a UN office. They are sending an officer to interview us. That is what the fat man says.’

‘Interview? Why interview? Have we committed crimes? I have never broken the law. Who has the right to interview me?’ Fu’ad had failed to mention the UN was interested in asking questions. Abdul Rahman cursed the African another time.

‘Oh, don’t worry, sir. The UN is not police. The questions they ask are for purposes of helping us.’ Abdul Rahman was dubious. ‘Believe me. Truly. Simple questions: your name and why you left your country and your job. On that basis you will receive assistance.’

‘You know quite a bit.’

‘My cousin told me. He came this way two years back. Now he is in Norway!’

‘Norway?’ The concept was laughable. The boy could have said his cousin was on the moon and it would have been more believable.

‘Yes! Sent by the UN!’ The boy beamed in the dim light. ‘I intend to join him there.’

Abdul Rahman asked who the fat man was.

‘The District Commissioner, sir. A big shot in this country. He’s the king of this desert. All the way from the border to Quetta, his word is better than Allah’s.’ The boy lowered his eyes as if he had just blasphemed.

‘I must have him release me. When will he return?’

‘Without an interview, no one is to be released. That is what he said,’ the lad rubbed his feet vigorously against the night that was becoming colder each minute. ‘How is my Arabic, sir? You have not said. I don’t like to keep asking but I believe it isn’t bad, eh?’

The boy’s presumption that he could just keep on addressing Abdul Rahman like he was his uncle rubbed him the wrong way. But he needed the punk’s information. ‘Your plurals need work. What else did the fat Commissioner say?’ Abdul Rahman asked. ‘Must speak with him,’ he added but more to himself than to the boy.

‘No one is to be released until the UN interviews us. Then, he said, the UN will decide everything. If they agree, we will be released and

taken to Quetta and given refugee cards. If they, the UN, do not agree he, the fat one, will send us back to Iran. Pakistan has, he said, plenty of refugees already. More than three million. There is no more room for you fellows. That was his phrase exactly. You fellows.’

‘What will he do with me? I am not from your country.’ Something to be grateful for. Abdul Rahman sensed relief creeping back. The fat man thought he was an Iranian asylum seeker like the rest of these brooms in the closet. What he said was for them, not Abdul Rahman.

‘He will send you to your country.’ The boy’s attitude was matter of fact. He spoke as if he were already in a queue waiting to board a plane for Norway, not shivering on the floor of a Pakistani jail. Abdul Rahman did not share the boy’s exuberant naiveté. Iran was a dangerous place to return to. Iraq, certain death. Must get out of here. Must find that fat man again and tell him I am not like these others.

‘I do not want to go to Norway,’ Abdul Rahman was thinking aloud.

‘Oh, don’t worry, sir. Norway is my destination. You can choose Australia or England or Germany or even America. Everyone is eager to go there. I too, but my cousin, he’s in Norway, and he said he will find me work and I can carry on my studies. After learning Norway language, of course.’

‘No country. I do not want to go to any country. Norway, America, England. Nowhere. I want to speak to the Commissioner. That is what I want.’

Unbelievable! The boy could not trust what he heard coming from the Arab’s mouth. ‘If you do not want to go to any country,’ he stopped and scratched his ear, ‘why then are you here?’

‘They will kill me,’ was all Abdul Rahman said. He turned towards the wall, lost in thought. The boy’s question was reasonable, at least part of it. Why am I here? Until he confessed that he feared for his life he had not thought through his decision to flee Iraq. Certainly the idea of ending up in such a place as Norway had never even suggested itself. I am here because, he started to put the thoughts together, they would have killed me if I had stayed. Where am I headed? He stopped. No answer to that. I had no plan to come even to Pakistan. It was the next place to go and Iran was dangerous. They too, would have killed me. Just for fun. Fu’ad said UN would give me papers and money. But this news about interviews and settling in Europe… I want the papers. Papers are good to have for protection. And I need money. The fat man. He will understand if I tell him I want to stay here. Not here, exactly, in this place. But in Pakistan. I’ll go to Peshawar, that saint’s tomb. Need rest and quiet. I need the fat man. He can save me.

Jumping up as if he had been administered a jolt of electricity Abdul Rahman stumbled over the shoulders of the Iranians and shouted in Arabic, ‘Open the door. I want to see the Commissioner. Open the door!’

The Iranians laughed. The guards on the other side of the door banged loudly and yelled something. From the far wall the young kid called out: ‘They are telling you to keep quiet. Food is coming. Then we will piss!’

‘I am not hungry. Tell them to open. I need to see the fat man.’ Abdul Rahman banged the door again and yelled, ‘Open! Open! Open!’

The Afghan with the itchy balls tugged Abdul Rahman’s jacket and tried to pull him to the floor as he was standing on the Afghan’s foot. Abdul Rahman slapped his hand away and continued to bang on the door.

‘Hey! Saudi donkey,’ the Afghan growled. ‘Get it off or I’ll break it off.’ A second more violent pull of the jacket brought Abdul Rahman to the floor and on to an Iranian who had been watching the show with a grin. Abdul Rahman reached out without thinking to steady himself and pulled the Afghan’s thick black beard. From beneath him the squashed Iranian no longer was grinning; he was struggling into a position from which he could push Abdul Rahman off, which he did. Abdul Rahman sailed into the arms of the Afghan. The bundle which Abdul Rahman had not let go of since his ejection from the lorry fell to the floor. He scrambled and reached for it, but the aggrieved Afghan grabbed him by his neck as if he were a lamb and said, ‘I would give my mother to the communists to fuck before I let you cause any more trouble. Go back to your little boy and let him lick your wound.’ The Iranians let loose a chorus of whoops and laughter at this but the Afghan didn’t release the Arab. He enjoyed humiliating the man and took the smiles and catcalls of the others as if he had masterfully recited one of Hafiz’s more humorous poems. He was thinking of another thing or two to say when Abdul Rahman’s elbow caught his open chuckling mouth and cracked his teeth together. The Afghan’s grip loosened, allowing Abdul Rahman time to twist around and grab the man’s hair in one hand and, with the other hand, press the blade of a red pocket knife, drawn from no one saw where, against a huge throbbing blue jugular.

‘Time for a shave, hairy monster.’ Abdul Rahman breathed heavily, but his fatigue had left him and his grip was like iron. The blade moved up towards the Afghan’s nose and into one nostril. ‘Moustache a bit bushy too.’ As he withdrew the blade the slightest trickle of blood appeared on the Afghan’s nose. ‘Mother’s cunt,’ Abdul Rahman spat. The room was silent. ‘Tell them out there I want to see the Commissioner.’ Abdul Rahman was looking for the young boy who spoke Arabic with bad plurals. ‘Or else this heap of Afghani shit will never live to see his mother buggered by Gorbachev.’

The boy’s voice quivered, but he did what Abdul Rahman said. The guards opened the door and immediately grabbed Abdul Rahman and pulled him off the startled Afghan. On the way out Abdul Rahman scooped his bundle from the floor, and as the doors shut again he smiled. Especially for the Afghan.

*

Another building and into a room. Abdul Rahman looked at the bed with a sheet and pillow, and at the chair. They beckoned like a naked woman. For an instant he actually thought they were for him. Two candles, one nearly burned completely, and a box of matches. Under the bed a small tin suitcase. Two windows, both without glass, made of warped wood painted green just like the door of the lockup.

One of the guards pushed him with unnecessary roughness to the floor and positioned his rifle near his forehead. The second guard ran into the darkness. The man with the rifle muttered under his breath at Abdul Rahman, who could sense the man’s nervousness and that the rifle was probably empty. But he had no plans to keep up his show. They got the message. The fat man will be here soon. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over the bundle in his lap.

The bundle was heavy and covered with a faded blue cloth. It was rectangular and appeared to the nervous guard to be a large book of some sort. Like a really nice Koran, the type you buy for 300 rupees and that has gold flowers printed along the edge of each page. Or like the book in the District Commissioner’s office where all the criminals’ names and particulars are registered. None of the Iranians or this man had been registered. They must be special. This one sure is. The guard poked the rifle at Abdul Rahman as a menace but the Arab didn’t flinch.

‘Arabi?’ the second guard had returned with the fat man who wasn’t speaking. He had the expression of someone whose amorous intentions had been thwarted with a slap. The guard asked Abdul Rahman the question again. ‘Arabi?’

Abdul Rahman nodded.

‘Mujrim!’ This was the fat man. Spitting the Arabic word for criminal.

‘La. Ana mohajir.’ Abdul Rahman answered in Arabic, pleased to discover the fat man understood his language.

‘A refugee, huh? That’s what you told me this morning.’ The fat man pulled his white pyjamas up and sat on the string bed. The guard with the rifle jumped away as if he had been singed by the shadow of the Almighty.

‘Exactly,’ said Abdul Rahman. ‘I am a refugee. You must help me. I do not…’

‘You have no manners. Fucking Arabs. Don’t know how to address your betters, huh? The same as this morning. Very rude you were. Where are you from? Saudi? Don’t think so. Too much money in Saudi for anyone to want to escape. Syria?’

‘Iraq.’ Abdul Rahman snapped.

‘Ah! Of course. That explains your poor behaviour. How civilisation began in such a place is a deep mystery. Look at you. Without the faintest notion of civilisation.’ For a few seconds he watched Abdul Rahman as a falcon would a small sand mouse. ‘They tell me you are a troublemaker. A real Iraqi rabbler, huh? Did you hope to kill that Afghan? Huh? Killings can be arranged.’ The fat man had eyes like dull black buttons.

Abdul Rahman said nothing. His hopes of persuading the Commissioner to sympathy were nearly crushed. But the sand mouse feared nothing and returned the falcon’s stare.

‘What do you want me for? I am just about to make my evening prayers. It will not be good for you if you irritate the Creator as well as me.’

‘I am a refugee. I apologise for my behaviour but I am not in the same class as those boys and…animal, I may say in one case. They are seeking flights to Europe. To join their brothers and cousins in Sweden and such places.’

‘They are also refugees,’ the fat man growled. ‘Or asylum seekers hoping to become refugees. Chrysalises bursting to be butterflies.’ His laugh was dry like the air.

‘They are tourists. I am a refugee. I will be killed if you return me.’

‘That is not for me to judge. Perhaps you will be killed. Perhaps you deserve to be killed. I do not know. These are matters for the UN to decide. They are expert. I am not. In such matters at least.’

‘I do not need the UN. If an interview is essential I will tell you. You can ask me what you will.’

‘No interest. None at all.’ The fat man flicked a tiny fleck of snot from his fingers. ‘Your life bores me. UN in Quetta has agreed to send an officer to interview all of you as soon as possible. They will decide who is on holiday and who is a refugee. For your sake I hope they find you not to be a tourist as you so confidently accuse others.’

The fat man stood up. His belly was huge but didn’t quiver as Abdul Rahman expected. How he was able to touch his forehead to the mat during prayers was hard to imagine. ‘Tomorrow we will find a more suitable location for an anti-social Arab. One more thing. The UN will not be here for a few days. Should I even hear your name mentioned…what is it by the way?’

‘Abdul Rahman.’

‘Mr Abdul Rahman. If I even hear that name between now and the time the UN makes its esteemed decision on your fate, I will personally drive you to Karachi and hand you to the Iraqi chargé d’affaires. Do not doubt me. God bless you, huh. Mr Iraqi refugee.’ The fat man left to pray.

The second guard went out and when he came back he carried a leg iron which he fastened to Abdul Rahman’s left ankle. A steel bar connected the iron ankle ring to a heavy set of chain handcuffs. Then he clanked like a mechanical man and was marched across the sand, back to the lockup. All night he sat on the floor with his leg extended in front of him and his hands chained together. His bundle was kept on the desk where the guards sat. Around ten o’clock he was given a dry chapati, half an onion and a cup of sweet milk tea.

In the morning with the iron still wrapped around like ceremonial garments, he was led down the main road he had walked up the previous morning. Except in the other direction. Camels opened their eyes but didn’t stop chewing their cud as he clanked clumsily along. Buses slowed to let passengers stick their heads out the window to gawk and two boys pushing home-made cars made out of bent wire and beaten tin giggled just behind his heels until the guards stopped behind a petrol pump. A door to a dark storeroom stacked almost to the ceiling with leaking drums of oil and wet rags and reeking with the fumes of benzene and rubber was kicked open and he was pushed inside. A small space had been cleared and a grass mat placed on the dirt floor, which glinted a silvery grey from years of sucking in oil. Thank God, there’s a window. And so there was. It was barred, and towers of oil filters and other auto parts in cardboard boxes blocked

out most of the light. But air would circulate if a breeze bothered to blow. The temperature in the hole was higher than outside, but next to the grass mat, like valets awaiting their master’s orders, stood a plastic five litre jerry can and an enamel mug with an orange rose-like flower painted on one side. The water was lukewarm and the mug was grimy. There was no light and no candle. No matches. Too much oil to risk that.

The guards removed the leg iron and locked the door behind them.

All the comforts of Baghdad. Abdul Rahman forced an ironic smile, but then panicked. His bundle. It was still with the guards. Immediately, he kicked the door and shouted. Nothing in particular just lots of noise and loud.

‘Sisterfucker!’ The door flung open and the turbans stepped in. One grabbed Abdul Rahman’s arms and the other slapped him, first once and then twice more in quick succession. Then again and again. Each time saying, ‘Sisterfucker.’ Slap. ‘Sis’ slap ‘ter’ slap ‘fuck’ slap ‘er’ slap. Abdul Rahman waited until it was over then said hoping they would understand, ‘Kitab. Kitab. Book. My book.’ He carved a squarish shape about the size of his bundle in the air and repeated the word again. ‘Kitab.’

Some more slaps. ‘Low dog.’ Slap. ‘Motherfucker.’ Slap slap. ‘No. No. No. No book!’ Another tight one for good measure. The man holding Abdul Rahman grew tired and asked his friend to stop. They pushed Abdul Rahman to the ground and locked up again. This time they refused to open the door no matter how loud he shouted, and after more than ten minutes Abdul Rahman fell to the ground, more alone and frightened than he had felt since the day he’d left Baghdad. All

day he paced the small space of the oily shed. The heat had no effect and the darkness and lack of wind he hardly noticed. The book. This is hell. What are you doing, you fool? Have you lost your mind to leave it? They will burn it or shred it and laugh. Animals have no way to value such things. He strained to see if he could find a way out of the hole. The window was impossible: three armed turbans sat slurping tea just waiting to greet him if he should try something stupid. The door was weak. Pop that thing open in a blink, but they’ll shoot me this time. Let them shoot me. I must have it. Never has it been without me. Ever. Not until now. Oh God. What hell have you dropped me in? My mind is going. Unable to keep the simplest things in line.

The day crept by like a snake shedding its skin. Abdul Rahman was in torment. He returned to the window every few minutes, hoping that not only the guards but the bars too would have disappeared. He paced the less than two-metre space, cursing himself and the fat man and the Afghan and that Sudani bandit and the day Zubeida had disappeared. It was from that day, years ago now, that fate seemed to have washed her hands of Abdul Rahman and left him to dangle. Several times he smashed his fist into the brick wall and when he closed his eyes he could see the bundle where he had left it the night before, on the desk in the lockup.

In the evening a guard handed him his chapati and tea. No onion this time. Just a wilted piece of radish lying shamelessly exposed in the bread’s lap. He swallowed the radish and gulped the tea after he had soaked the bread. The jerrycan was nearly out of water. His feet and hands were black from the grease that covered everything in the shed. Inside, he raged at himself. Cursed his name. Spat on his existence and stomped his thoughts into the black dirt below him. At last, a few hours after nightfall, the sound of rattling outside the door

had Abdul Rahman up on his feet again. He knew they were back with the leg iron but he didn’t care. They’re taking me back to the lockup. I’ll recover it now! He was like a child waiting on the night before his birthday party. He nearly jumped with excitement.

Three men with guns greeted him. The slapping-addict stepped forward with a threatening grunt and got to work putting the leg iron and chains on Abdul Rahman’s ankle and wrists. Time for a piss. He was led slightly away from the door then made to stop. He pissed on to the sand next to some old tires. Before he had shaken himself dry, the guards were pulling him back towards the lockup. The fat man was already speaking to the other prisoners, who smiled grimly when they saw Abdul Rahman in his shackles. The Afghan glared like a wolf.

The fat man turned to Abdul Rahman and said, ‘The UN is very busy. No one will be able to come here for at least a week. If there is no remedy within that time, I will take my own action. How long will I be expected to feed you and water you? Costs money these things, huh. This is Pakistan. Not UN-istan. Huh!’ As he retreated he squeezed Abdul Rahman’s cheeks as if he were a newly arrived baby. ‘Don’t forget, huh! I hear your name and…’

Abdul Rahman was not listening. I’ll piss on your grave. His panicked eyes were focused on the desk where his bundle had lain the night before. It was gone. His eyes tore the room apart but could find it nowhere. The turbans closed the green door again. Was it inside? Does that Afghan have it? I’ll rip his tongue out. He stumbled as the guards pulled and twisted him around. The iron rod poked into his stomach as if it had its own point to make, and for a second he couldn’t breathe. Across the sand to the road and back to the shed.

Off with the iron and chains. No slap for good night. Just a shove this time. The door slammed behind him and that was the end of the day.

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Jim Gordon (drums)

JG(D)

Remember listening to music back in the day? Settle down in a bean bag or stretch out on the couch and read the back of the album cover. You do this enough and over time you’ve developed a mental map of world of rock ‘n’ roll.  The studios. The producers. Even the fricking engineers’ names became familiar. Even if there were no lyrics to read this minutiae seemed to be as revelatory as the Dead Sea scrolls. I devoured it as part of the ‘experience’ of music and over time these names lodged in my brain.

One such name that seemed to pop up all the time was Jim Gordon (drums). My initial rock ‘n’ roll dream was to be a drummer. So, I paid attention to these guys. Steve Gadd. Jim Keltner. Jim Gordon. Levon. Keith ‘Fucking’ Moon, man!

Jim Gordon’s name came up most often so I figured he must be good (duh!). But I knew nothing about him. He didn’t have the lifestyle of Keith ‘Fucking’ Moon nor feature in Rolling Stone in any way that would make his name register for anything other than his prolific credits.

A couple months ago I read Drugs and Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon by Joel Selvin. (Highly recommended if you’re into this sort of stuff.) Many of you will know the story and I’m not going to retell it here. I was not only stupefied to learn just how prolific, adored (by his peers and fans) and influential (‘he invented rock ‘n’ roll drumming’) he was but I was shocked to learn he murdered his mother with a kitchen knife. And that he spent the rest of his years in prison where he died just two years ago in 2023.

Surfing through the internet after that I learned that I’m a late comer to this story. There are dozens of interviews with fellow drummers on YT and other places which both praise the drummer and condemn the man.  And it’s that latter attitude that has left me unsettled.  I’m not an apologist for murder. He got what the law says was coming to him.  But to simply condemn one of the great geniuses of popular music, a man who dominated the session culture of the 60’s and 70’s, who could always be relied on to deliver exactly the sound and beat the producer or the artist needed, even when they didn’t know it, who was by all accounts a quiet, gentle giant—though these qualities worn off when the drugs really kicked in—but a man who was tortured for years by disembodied voices in his head that drove him to murder, seems unfair.

I personally don’t know what that’s like. But I know people who do. I do have experience with torturous mental health and know of the despair and the desperation this brings.  To summarize Jim Gordon’s life as that of a drug-addled murderer is a complete misreading of the man’s life.   It seems he was relieved to be put away, where he was unable to harm anyone else.  I get that; and I’m glad he found some safety and peace before he died.  RIP Jim. You deserve it.

Here is a just the thinnest of thin scraping of Jim Gordon’s work. He started out drumming for the Everly Brothers in the early 60s and then went on to be nearly every group’s and producer’s go-to sticks man for twenty years. He mostly worked alone, as a session drummer but did join Delaney and Bonnie and Derek & the Dominos for a while in the early 70s. And you know that beautiful elegiac piano outro on Layla? Well, that was Jim’s idea. And him playing.

Hope you enjoy.