Tag: Saddam

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.