torture – Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits

August 6, 2025

Book of Accounts (Installment #7)

From the early days of the Ba’ath, the existence of al Amn al Khas, the Special Security, was known to the public. Of course, al Amn, was secret; secrecy is the blood of power. How can there exist any security or order without silence and hiding? Society would fall into anarchy. But even within secrets there lie hidden parts. An Iraqi family not touched by Ba’ath secret organs was rarer than bird’s milk, but no one knew all the various secret divisions and groups within Iraq. Even Abdul Rahman could not give a description of the responsibilities or activities of every secret department. And at the same time, other secret divisions would have found the activities of the unit Abdul Rahman had joined surprising. Jihaz Haneen was the fruit of the almond hidden beneath many outer skins. The public, of course, knew nothing of Jihaz Haneen but neither did countless others who themselves served the Ba’ath State in the countless secret organs.

For many years, until Zubeida was seven years old, Abdul Rahman remained officially assigned to the Finance Control Division of the Ministry of the Interior. His salary was paid by that division, and if anyone consulted the Ministry directory they would find him listed as a Senior Clerk. However, in actuality, three months after the meeting in the Party office, Abdul Rahman received an invitation from a man he’d never seen before. He used the name Latif and spoke with a stutter. In a shop next to the gate of the Ministry, he spoke for just two minutes but Abdul Rahman smelled sweet rum on his tongue. ‘On Thursday evening you will report to the P-p-p-party office at four p.m.. N-n-notify your family that you are being requested to undertake a special tr-tr-tr-tr-tr-training session in the south for three weeks. Your chief in the Financial C-c-c-control Section has been notified not to inquire into your absence. On Thursday you will file an of-f-f-f-ficial request for leave due to family emerg-g-g-g-ency. Understand?’ The moment Abdul Rahman nodded Latif disappeared into the street. This was the way of Haneen.

For the briefest of moments Abdul Rahman was stung by fear, but then he thought: Why should I fear the State? I have been selected for this task, not by Faris but by fate. Who would negotiate with Fate?

As instructed by Latif he arrived at the Party office on Thursday. Before he climbed the steps a soldier beckoned him to a bus and barked, ‘Sit. Wait.’ Abdul Rahman recognised some faces from the previous meeting, months before, but said nothing to any of them. Neither did they acknowledge him. They sat in the bus for three hours. Only after dark did they start making their way through the streets, past the university in the south, then, an hour later, by the racecourse and through al Azamiyah just near Abdul Rahman’s small flat in the north. Wathaba Square, near the centre of town where the journey had begun, was full of late-night shoppers. When the bus turned north at Rutbah early in the morning, Abdul Rahman knew the Syrian border was close by. Wherever they were, for the next three weeks he slept, ate and bathed with the thirty others from Tikrit and Samarra. Workers mostly. Only one or two had more education than Abdul Rahman. Major Walid and other army officers with starchy expressions and wrinkled green uniforms stayed with them throughout the three weeks. And near the end, Saddam’s half-brother Barazan visited and congratulated everyone for completing the training.

What a strange training! Not an eye was laid on a book or sheet of paper. Early the first morning they were shown to a room; everyone slept together on the floor with only a thin goat’s wool blanket over a grass mat. Immediately afterwards they were led to another room: no chairs, no tables, just more grass mats, where they were lectured for two days. For hours without rest, Major Walid spoke about the duty of the people of Tikrit to support the Revolution and the urgency of pledging their ‘superior’ loyalty to Iraq, the Ba’ath Party, and above all else, to Saddam Hussein.

Abdul Rahman signed the application for membership in the Ba’ath Party, but he never attended more than a half dozen meetings in his life. Membership was a formality. To refuse would have been not only foolish, but unthinkable. He had been brought to this place not to exercise his freedom of choice, but to learn and to be moulded. Major Walid and the man whom Faris had mentioned, Petros Zalil, told them a history of the Ba’ath Party and of Saddam’s role in making the Revolution a success. Petros Zalil explained the work of Jihaz Haneen, and by the second day the recruits had vowed upon their death never to betray its existence; they signed a document, each in front of the other, and photos were taken of the occasion. Abdul Rahman felt proud.

After the signing ceremony Petros Zalil explained that, ‘Jihaz Haneen is the most sequestered and precious organ of the state. The Ba’ath party is the head, Saddam Hussein the heart, but you, Jihaz Haneen, are the eyes. It is to you, the vision of the Iraqi nation, that responsibility for the ultimate and ongoing success of the Ba’ath revolution and society falls. Within the nation and all of its multifarious institutions, the military, the diplomatic corps, the universities and the courts, even within the Party, there are those who wish to sabotage the aims of Comrade Michel Aflaq and the Ba’ath. But in those same institutions are core cadres and persons similar to yourselves, selected for their loyalty, and perspicacity, and Arabness, who have been charged with vigilantly uprooting these weeds.’

Petros Zalil impressed Abdul Rahman by the strong, unusual, and long words he used. So long, in fact, that at times Abdul Rahman didn’t follow the speech. But though his words were unique, Zalil was a man of unremarkable appearance except for a hawkish nose and a small black mole just below his right temple. Not a Muslim, his family had migrated from Lebanon during the Turkish times and settled in Tikrit.

‘Within the secret organisations we are constructing secret organisations.’ He was young but his words would have perplexed even the most experienced man. ‘Of these, the most clandestine and most covert is Jihaz Haneen, the Instrument of Yearning. From today you will have but one yearning and one aspiration: the protection of the heart of Iraq, Saddam Hussein al Tikriti. The revolutionary role of Jihaz Haneen is to observe without blinking, across the horizon and beyond, those closest, and therefore most dangerous to the eminent leader of the redoubtable Arab nation, Comrade Saddam Hussein. No one, no matter how beloved can be shown mercy. And no event, however trifling, can be connived at if it threatens our dear nation’s heart.’

Early on the third morning, while it was still dark, Abdul Rahman and four others were taken from their sleeping mats to an unknown place in the desert. There was no moon, and the clouds covered even the stars. They wore only their bedclothes; the sharpness of the cold air numbed their toes and fingers. Some unseen men dragged them from the jeep and without warning began beating them with sticks and heavy rubber pipes. Kicking and slapping and beating. For more than one hour. So intense was their fury, that Abdul Rahman’s face was black and bloody. While beating them, the men, Abdul Rahman didn’t know who they were, called them ‘dogs’ and ‘pigs’ and so on. Naturally, Abdul Rahman tried to fight back, but this only heated their anger. Two of them held him in the sand as another man — Abdul Rahman could see his crooked farmer’s fingers — was dragged in front of him. The man’s right eye was closed with blood. He shivered like the rest of the men. ‘Kick the dog!’ one of the men holding him yelled. The bleeding man didn’t respond. He was frozen in fear. Someone kicked him from behind and he fell on to Abdul Rahman like he was trying to catch a frog. Abruptly, he was yanked to his feet. ‘Kick the dog, shithead!’

This time he did.

He landed a heavy boot in Abdul Rahman’s side. Again and again. Then he stopped.

‘Who told you to stop, swine? Eh? Speak up! A donkey that doesn’t like to kick? Kick the fucking dog!’

They were screaming at him, but the man stood like wood. He was weak. Abdul Rahman felt his own anger grow against the man. No one expected to be attacked like this, but Abdul Rahman understood quickly that the real training had begun. He wanted this weakling to kick him with all his energy and to not stop, but instead the farmer fell to his knees and wept.

Whoever was holding Abdul Rahman let go, and pounced on the crying man. From behind, a thick bamboo stick struck Abdul Rahman’s head. ‘Get up, mangy dog. On your feet!’ He did so.

‘Give the donkey a drink. He must be thirsty. Is that why the donkey has stopped kicking, eh?’ Abdul Rahman didn’t understand the order. Four burly men took turns slapping the weak farmer who was no longer shameful of his tears and sobbed like a woman. Abdul Rahman looked around. He, too, was slapped.

‘Go on! Piss! Donkey’s crying for a drink.’ The man who had been kicking Abdul Rahman was now lying with his eyes closed and the terror beneath his skin made his hairs stiffen. Abdul Rahman pulled aside his nightclothes and urinated on to the teary face.

The men laughed. ‘Good doggie!’

Abdul Rahman’s body, in pain until he pulled out his dick, turned numb. He fell into the sand, someone tied his hands behind his back and he watched as his three companions were made to do similar things as he had just done to the crying farmer. His bedclothes were torn and bloody. The attackers left as the sun rose, but before they sped off in the jeep, a man Abdul Rahman had seen in the Party office (he remembered his limp) addressed them calmly, ‘You are dogs of the Republic. Nothing more worthless exists on this earth. Only Saddam and the Ba’ath will give you food to eat and treat your wounds.’

Without transport, they sat on the desert floor blinking at each other like starving vultures, but unable to speak or move. The fellow with the crooked fingers died soon after the jeep left. The others discussed whether to dig a grave for him, but in the end they just threw some sand over his wet, bloody face. Who had strength to dig? To find the camp was no difficult task, although their bodies, especially their feet and heads, hurt with each step. The tracks of the jeep were visible in the sand so they hobbled along, a disgusting sight, until the tracks came to a dirt road. The camp was only a few kilometres away, but because of their wounds, the day was nearly over by the time they returned. They were given a bowl of rice with salt and one glass of water for their meal.

For the remainder of the training this type of behaviour was alternated with luxury. The following day they were left alone. Food, plentiful with meat and fruit, was abundant. They listened to the radio and read magazines. Then followed two or three days of deprivation and abuse. From early morning to late in the evening Abdul Rahman and his fellows were shouted at, insulted, and beaten like toy drums. By the time he returned to Baghdad he hardly knew his name; he had become accustomed to ‘fool’, ‘dirty villager’, ‘cock-lover’, ‘mother’s cunt’. Some nights they were not permitted to sleep more than fifteen minutes. Each time the torment stopped they were shown a photo of Saddam and made to bow. Or they were forced to recite a passage from Aflaq’s books about Arab national character over and over again, out loud, as if they were cheering on their favourite football team. At last on the twentieth day, all mistreatment ended. Saddam’s half-brother, younger than Abdul Rahman, ‘rescued’ them from their tormentors. He congratulated them on their loyalty and Arab strength. ‘Saddam is not only your brother and leader he is your father and mother. He has sent his personal best wishes and congratulations to each of you.’

Before they returned to Baghdad Abdul Rahman was given his new assignment: Interrogator with an office at Qasr al Nihayah, the Palace of the End. It is closed now, but in those days it was the worst dungeon in Iraq. Abdul Rahman never returned to the Finance Control Division.

VII

The shed was a vacuum. It seemed as if wind had never blown across this desert, which stretched to a horizon of tired hills near Afghanistan. Abdul Rahman hadn’t seen the fat man for five days. A guard with a moustache that covered nearly half his face filled the water container once a day and twice a day handed Abdul Rahman his rations. Things had improved in that way. Three chapatis, half an onion, potato curry most nights, but with the heat Abdul Rahman’s appetite had disappeared. He hadn’t slept for three nights but his mind was irritatingly active.

He wondered of the others in the lockup. Still there? At least I have this place to myself. He thought of the boy with glasses and of him being in Norway. Abdul Rahman could not recall ever having seen a picture of Norway, and the idea of the boy in a land full of white people, some place strange as another planet, made him smile.

He had a narrow view of the world beyond the bars of his window. Two buses pointed in opposite directions, like lumps of sugar covered with ants; people pushed big round bedding rolls, brass pots, and string beds through the windows. After storing their belongings men clambered on to the roof and waited for the journey to begin. Where were they going? A vague feeling of wanting to move on passed through Abdul Rahman. Where will I go?

His mind settled on a memory of her again. But it was a feeble hope. Why then do I stare into every woman’s face as if it were hers? He hadn’t stopped his search even now. Two years had passed, but his eyes still rose involuntarily to gaze with anxious trepidation into the faces of strangers.

Just a few weeks ago he’d been at the gardens around the big tomb in Isfahan. What a fool I was. It was just like her. Exactly her height, and the way she walked was perfect, even though the chador interfered with the movement. He saw her, alone. No Islamic beard and jacket around. She carried a bag, which he thought he recognised, and under her arm was a book. That was so typical of her. Never without something to read. She moved away into the sun which was setting against the minaret. He followed slightly behind on the path to the right of the rosebushes that ran in straight pink lines all around the geometric garden. I should not have hesitated but I was sure that man coming towards me wanted to ask me something. He was a Republican Guard in plainclothes. I was sure. But the man passed by without even a glance. She was too far ahead then. I should not have run after her. Indeed, he should not have. That was what caught the attention of the boy. Abdul Rahman had made an awkward jump over the rose hedge and was reaching out to grab the woman’s arm, when a boy with strong arms and thick weightlifter legs ran between them and gave Abdul Rahman a threatening shove. When she turned around I felt a fool. It wasn’t her and she quickened her steps. She thought I was after her purse.He turned away from the boy, who watched Abdul Rahman until he was sure that he had left the tomb’s garden.

The buses were gone. Abdul Rahman watched the moustachioed guard sitting on a bench against the wall of the petrol station. Bank notes flicked in his fingers. A good wad. The man put them into a tattered envelope and then reached beneath his uniform to deposit the envelope in an inner pocket. Three goats, a mother and two bleating kids, marched stiffly across the road and into the sand in search of scrubs. Heat waves made the middle distance seem watery and unstable. The hairy guard was nodding his head in conversation with someone else who was hidden from Abdul Rahman’s view.

The UN will decide who is a refugee and who is on holiday.

UN are not the police. They will ask you simple questions. To help you.

The UN will give you papers. And money. For you the UN is freedom to breathe free.

The UN was a concept as strange as Norway. Like that country, it existed on the edges of Abdul Rahman’s consciousness but only as a word. The UN had offices in Baghdad. The UN made statements against Iraq. Saddam distrusted the UN. And as he sat praying for a breeze to diminish the heat, so did Abdul Rahman. Why should I wait like the goat on Eid, for the knife to slit my throat? Maybe for the boy who wants to go to Norway the UN is not dangerous. For me it is poison. Who is UN to demand answers from me? I am not a criminal.

But he needed protection. He needed the card Fu’ad had mentioned. Why? I have travelled from Baghdad to this place without any such card. Only my wits have kept me alive.

That was true but then he had also had money. Not much but enough to keep the wheels turning and the buses moving forward. But now he was stuck. Even if he was out of the shed and a free man with his wits in top condition, without some money he’d be dead within days. I can’t deny it. I need some notes. But is UN the only source of money? There must be others.

Outside the shed door, the guard called out Abdul Rahman’s name as if he was a tiger who needed to be reassured that a human was approaching. Keys jangled against the lock. The mountains were just becoming visible in the early morning light. Breakfast time.

The door creaked open and the guard called out again into the darkness, ‘Abdul Rahman. Get up! Take your food.’

Bread, sliced tomato, and radish fell to the ground with a dull sound. The guard’s head twisted up, and in his confusion he lost his footing. Abdul Rahman’s hand covered the guard’s mouth. His unruly growth of facial hair tickled Abdul Rahman’s palm. The guard watched the Arab with wide frightened eyes. He was taking out a knife. Abdul Rahman removed his hand from the guard’s mouth and clutched the knife. With his other hand he groped inside the guard’s uniform until he felt the wad of notes, which he yanked out as if he were uprooting nasty weeds. The guard started to say something but he reconsidered when he felt the sharpness of the blade against his neck.

Abdul Rahman pulled up the guard’s shirt and cut a long piece of cloth. Then another. One piece of cloth went into the man’s mouth and the other tightly around his wrists. It wasn’t much of a fix, Abdul Rahman knew that. But maybe just enough to do the trick. Fifteen minutes is all I need. And some good fortune. Another cut of the dark blue shirt and the guard’s mouth was covered. Abdul Rahman removed the man’s belt and trussed his legs together.

Within three minutes the tiger was out and the cage locked.

Abdul Rahman ran across the road after an early morning bus that had been parked outside all night. With the bundle under one arm he couldn’t run as quickly as he had hoped, but he managed to jump up on to the back steps of the bus just as it was picking up speed. The conductor looked at him without any surprise and asked where he was going. But of course Abdul Rahman couldn’t say. He tried to remember the town where there was a saint’s tomb. ‘Peshawar,’ he said to the conductor who was shouting at the passengers and shoving them aside as he made his way towards the front of the bus.

The conductor stopped and turned towards Abdul Rahman. Then he laughed. ‘Peshawar?’ He laughed again. He disappeared into the forest of turbans and guns. Where are the women?Only men and odd shaped belongings that didn’t fit under the seats. The conductor’s voice could still be heard, but Abdul Rahman had lost sight of the man.

Two heavily bearded men who didn’t seem to be travelling companions sat on the back bench; Abdul Rahman squeezed into a tiny space between them. After twenty minutes the conductor was back with a grin. ‘Peshawar? No. No.’ His head was shaking back and forth. ‘Quetta.’

Abdul Rahman nodded in recognition and reached for the wad of money in his pocket. Ten dinars in Iraq is enough for most journeys. He peeled off two tenners and handed them to the conductor. The man held up five fingers. Does he want fifty or just five? Abdul Rahman hesitated and looked around for help but the conductor reached in and plucked out one more note. A fiver. He scrawled on a bright pink piece of paper and threw it at Abdul Rahman. ‘Peshawar!’ He still found it funny.

The terrain was rocky and dry. The bus barely crawled as it made its way through hilly passes. Nothing green. Only white heat and brown dirty earth. Camels and rock lizards frozen against the boulders were the only sign of life.

10.15 a.m. Abdul Rahman read the time on the thick, dirty-faced watch of one of the turbans who had fallen asleep next to him. The man snored energetically but the sound was buried under the desperate whine of the bus engine as it moved bitterly up a dry valley wall.

Suddenly, a checkpoint. Three vehicles and a tent and lots of men in blue uniforms with guns. Some sat on a string bed picking their teeth. Others jumped into the bus and began pushing their fingers into the passengers’ belongings. One of the blue uniforms tapped Abdul Rahman’s knee to make way. Abdul Rahman ignored the man and continued to look out into the desert. The man tapped again and gave the knee a slight push. Abdul Rahman stiffened his leg in resistance. The policeman grunted at Abdul Rahman and told him to stand up and when he didn’t, he pulled Abdul Rahman up by his jacket and dragged him from the bus.

Another blue shirt sauntered over and reached for the bundle under Abdul Rahman’s arm but he refused to relinquish the ledger. The bus had jumped into gear and was pulling away. Abdul Rahman stepped forward to get on but the blue shirts held him back and signalled for the bus to keep moving. The one who had pulled him off led him to a rickety table outside a faded white canvas tent and indicated that Abdul Rahman should sit on the ground. Abdul Rahman stayed standing. The bus was out of sight. He was alone with the police. Again.

Hours passed. With only his handkerchief on his head he squatted in the sun like a rock lizard. The police took turns checking all the vehicles going either way. When it wasn’t their turn to check they sat in the tent on the string bed paging through Abdul Rahman’s ledger as if it were a saucy magazine. Their friends came over and together they giggled at some of the pictures; they turned the pages quickly this way and that looking for something more interesting. But it soon bored them and after an hour one of the men wanted to sleep, and tossed the ledger into the dust below the bed. Abdul Rahman felt an urge to jump up and rescue the book, but they had already beaten him. Not much, but who knows what they would do next? Anyway, the sun had sucked every ounce of energy from him. If he couldn’t hold the ledger, at least he wouldn’t let his eyes stray from it and so he stayed where he could see it. Passengers on the other buses thought the man squatting there with a hanky on his head staring intensely into the tent was a complete madman.

More hours passed. The blue shirts had lost all interest in the ledger and in their strange Arab. Abdul Rahman had not spoken a word since being pulled off the bus and this irritated the police. They had discussed him among themselves and concluded he was a criminal but then, when he didn’t move, they decided that maybe he was just a mental case. His book proved it. All those newspapers clippings and writings. The collection of a deluded mind. As he sat in the sun, refusing to eat the oranges they offered him and hardly blinking, their attitude changed. They felt sympathy and one of the policemen tried to convince the others that he should take the Arab to the mental ward at Quetta Hospital himself. But while they were inclined to treat him more humanely they still believed someone with more authority should be told about this strange fish. Messages were passed by every means possible. Lorry drivers and conductors on vehicles going in both directions were given instructions to tell either the DC in Nushki or the Superintendent of Police in Quetta about the Arab, and to ask that someone send further instructions on how to proceed. Or better yet, send someone personally to handle the situation. Now it was just a matter of waiting. Who would respond first? Quetta or Nushki?

Around five in the evening a white jeep pulled up at the checkpoint. Abdul Rahman lay sleeping on the string bed. The blue shirts had taken him in as if he were a wounded and stray dog. His book was wrapped up and lay next to him. In his sleep Abdul Rahman had the feeling that his feet were made of iron and that he would never be able to get up to walk. He opened his eyes to see a man with a red beret shaking his foot. And behind the red beret, smiling like a fox, was the fat man in the baggy pyjamas.

The drive back to Nushki in the fat man’s jeep took no more than two hours. The sun was still bright when they pulled into the gates. But the sun had set and disappeared for many hours and was starting to rise again when Abdul Rahman was pushed back into the shed from which he’d escaped just twenty-four hours before. This time the leg irons were not removed. His hands were free, but for what reason he didn’t know because there was no water or jerry can to lift. The ledger had been taken from him the moment the fat man’s men had started to beat him. With thick bamboo poles. For an hour at a time. The man with the big moustache was especially vigorous, whirling the bamboo high over his head before landing it on the Arab’s back and stomach. The fat man disappeared. What did he care? If the UN asked what had become of the Arab asylum seeker, who would question that he had escaped and run back into Iran? This is the desert after all. You can’t patrol every square metre of it every minute of the day.

At the end of the first day, Abdul Rahman was given two cups of water and a soft black banana. One guard held the cup to Abdul Rahman’s swollen lips but left the rotting banana for him to figure out. All the while another guard held his rifle in Abdul Rahman’s face. The following morning he received the same ration, but no banana. The guards held their noses because the smell of urine was all over Abdul Rahman, but they still didn’t take him out to piss. He barely opened his mouth to take in the water, but the guards knew he was hungry. Why was his stomach growling so loudly then, if it didn’t crave food? When they locked him in for another night they twisted their moustaches and smirked.

If they had stayed in the shed with Abdul Rahman, the guards would have thought he was dead. His eyes lay partially open but showed no light. Flies buzzed around his head and sat on his lips, but he made no move to bat them away. In fact, the only sign of life was the irregular, ever-so-slight movements of the Arab’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed and gasped for moisture. But the body is only the outward manifestation of life. Inside, Abdul Rahman’s mind had become alive with the beatings and deprivation. Years of maintaining his ledger, hours of reading and memorising the pages, absorbing each detail of his relatives’ lives as if he were studying the lives of the saints, had sharpened and fired his imagination. Lying on the oily floor his body seemed to belong to another. His mind watched the broken man on the floor for a time, without any pity, and then soared into another realm.

July 23, 2025

Book of Accounts (Installment #6)

Only one thing had given Abdul Rahman more pleasure than the accounts ledger. Zubeida. Darling Zubi. His daughter — sweet canary — on whom he had doted from the minute of her birth. But since fleeing Baghdad — was it truly two full years now? — Abdul Rahman had not permitted himself more than a sliver of reminiscence. Probably because the memories which swirled up inside of him, like black windy currents, were too painful to control. And Abdul Rahman was a man who prided himself on self-control. Since being on the run he could not allow anything, not even a few moments with his beloved Zubeida, to distract him from the task of staying alive. But here he was trapped. I am in the hands of others. For the moment. And he was glad. Now there was no good reason why for just a few minutes he could not visit his angel, Zubi. There was no photo of Zubeida. Not in the accounts ledger or in any other album. In fact, he had only ever kept one photograph of his daughter, but that, like the rest of his life, seemed lost and beyond recovery. The photograph, like a buried treasure, had lain hidden in the top right drawer of his desk under lock and key. For weeks on end he had drawn pleasure from the fundamental assurance that it was there. The mere knowledge of its existence gladdened him. No need to ogle it every day. But every so often, maybe once in a month, he’d unlock the drawer to admire the features it revealed. The image of a smiling, pretty young woman seemed slightly adrift inside the oversized brass frame. Though it had been made in a studio, how relaxed and candid was Zubeida’s pose. In fact, it was not a pose at all. Her natural confidence and modesty were irrepressible. She was the true lost treasure of his life. She had given the photograph to Abdul Rahman on the day she had been admitted to the university: the same day as his fiftieth birthday. My birthday was of no importance but you insisted on creating a fuss.

For weeks prior to the day, she had made arrangements with the kitchen of a new foreign hotel to prepare a feast of kishmish rice and Greek lamb. A baker in the same hotel constructed a bulky cake in two pieces, one a number five and the other, slightly larger, slightly lopsided, a zero. Her mother had paid over forty dinars without Abdul Rahman’s knowledge, and by some miracle, or threat, had succeeded in keeping the boys’ mouths shut until everyone broke into laughter and screamed, Happy Birthday! over and over again until Abdul Rahman begged them to be quiet.

‘Father, Happy Birthday,’ Zubi kissed his cheek.

‘The greater occasion is your successful entrance into university, Zubi. That achievement means, and will always remain, more significant than any milestone I will ever pass. Especially one as inevitable as a birthday,’ he said.

Zubeida, still not eighteen, smiled. Her eyes were sparkling fountain-spray. ‘Without your encouragement I would never have entered university. You are the source of my success, father.’

Zubi’s modesty was a trait Abdul Rahman had nurtured from her youngest days. That day as she stood on the edge of womanhood, modesty enhanced her physical beauty. She had felt shy in presenting her father with a framed portrait of herself. Such silliness. Self-centred indulgence. Being the centre of attention had always made Zubeida anxious. Her mother had had an argument with Zubi over what sort of frame to put around the gift; she had suggested a simple wood frame painted black, but Zubeida’s natural reluctance to be noticed forced her to choose a wide brass frame painted with a gaudy enamelled paisley pattern instead.

Abdul Rahman and Zubeida shared the sort of understanding only found between a father and daughter: his strength and love guarded her from danger; she protected him from sadness. Since the day of her birth, Abdul Rahman had regarded Zubi as more than his first born. More than even a princess. She was an angel sent to earth especially for him. And as she grew, Abdul Rahman’s fundamental purpose became to serve her. Never had he felt such an urge toward God or religion. Her accomplishments encouraged him as much as her exquisite features cheered him: skin as pale and smooth as milk, eyes the colour of young dates.

Whenever he found a few empty moments or hours, they would sit together and she would tell him about school or her friends. She recited children’s poems; he taught her songs in return. Folk songs, which somehow through the miserable soundtrack of his village youth, he’d managed to retain like the odd coin from a collection long ago abandoned. But his favourite, and Zubi’s as well, were songs from the Indian ‘dance and fight’ films which played in every town’s cinema from Mashad to Moscow. He taught her how to sound the words and she repeated them slowly, deliberately and accurately. Even as a young girl she insisted that her father explain what each song meant. If he refused or hesitated, she pouted and pretended to be angry. ‘You are a cheater, Father. Why do you not do as I request? A big cheater! She would repeat this over and over until he surrendered and explained what the words meant. Abdul Rahman himself cared nothing for the words. Melodies were what he craved. The tunes which came from her bird-like throat entranced him in the same way a cobra is spellbound by the charmer’s gourd pipe.

Zubedia sought her father’s advice on everything: which subjects should I study when I complete high school? Is this a sweet name for the dove? (He had had the bird shipped especially for her from Mosul.) Whatever he requested — sing a song for guests, or bring him coffee in his room — she did gladly.

It was through his little canary that Abdul Rahman discovered colour in

the world. Each pair of her shoes, all her frocks, and the ribbons she tied in her hair, were bright. Yellows and oranges and purples, deep blues and greens. Abdul Rahman made sure she had a new frock for any and every occasion, but one time she pouted after he gave her a billowy dress of pink lace.

‘Pink is for dolls, not dresses. I don’t like pink.’ She threw the dress at him as if it were a rag. Abdul Rahman could see her point but he had to tell her that he disapproved of her attitude.

‘You must never refuse a gift. Especially a gift from your father, someone who loves you more than any other.’ He made a mental note that day to avoid the colour pink in all future gifts, but Zubi never again objected to anything her father gave her. In this way they both were satisfied, and found joy and pleasure in each other’s happiness.

By the time she turned eleven, Zubi understood that she was, to him, the most important person in the world. This pleased her. Who would not feel special if they received such affection as he lavished on her? But he did notice, only occasionally, but very clearly, that his darling angel, in the midst of all his generosity, did feel disturbed as well. It was if she felt that such powerful love was somehow undeserved, and in her modesty she tried to deflect some of the attention she received on to her mother and her two younger brothers.

After Zubeida’s birth Abdul Rahman would have been content to have had no more children. His life’s entire ambition was met in her. Most of his relatives were driven to near madness to produce a son, but for him the idea had no substance whatsoever. They suffered an illness he had never understood. Sons, or even a second daughter, he considered, would be mere accessories. Superfluous to his needs and life, not part of them. Barnacles clinging for dear life to the ship. But his wife, Abida, was like everyone else, and to give birth to a son was of supreme importance. ‘Perhaps she detects that I love her less than Zubeida,’ he once confided in his friend Aziz.

‘Do you?’ Aziz asked.

‘It is true, I confess. Perhaps not less, but differently. Abida has been ignored by her mother and as an adult she has grown sensitive to such things. To give birth to another child is the only way she can diminish her resentment.’

But until Zubeida was six she remained the only child. Two boys, Haroun and Hassan, followed but Abdul Rahman hardly took notice. There was not much left over to give the boys after a day’s doting on his little canary. Of course, there were reasons why they lagged behind their sister when it came to their father’s affection. Neither of the boys liked to study very much; the very word ‘university’ turned their stomachs. Football or comics. That’s what they wanted, and as much as he tried to get them to think straight and to think about the future, (‘how are you ever going to support your family by reading cartoons?’ was his desperate appeal), their attitude only got worse. Somewhere in their young years, Abdul Rahman abandoned his sons to the care of Abida in the hope that she would have better luck than he.

As far as Zubeida was concerned, all he demanded in return for his love was that she study diligently and enter the university. They sometimes talked of her qualifying as an engineer or perhaps a doctor, but he refused to impose his preferences on her. His only demand was that she succeed in her studies. And by the time she entered secondary school it was obvious that the angel would never fail. On more than one occasion Abida passed on to her husband comments from Zubi’s teachers. ‘Mr Nabil was full of praise for Zubeida in the most recent reports. He came personally to the house yesterday to tell us that he believes she has the potential to be a scientist.’ Such comments pleased Abdul Rahman, but not unduly. He considered that he himself had struggled hard and for many years, to mould Zubi into what she was; not to have received such praise would have alarmed him.

‘Zubi, I want only that you enter university. Whatever subject you choose, whichever path your heart leads you to follow, that is the one you must follow. You will succeed in anything you do. Of that I am certain. But you must train yourself now and study hard.’ Zubeida knew her father was right. She appreciated his sincerity.

Although it was through Faris’s intervention that Abdul Rahman attained his first professional position in the Ministry of Transport, he did not become friendly with Faris. Not because Faris was an unpleasant man. No. Simply because Abdul Rahman had little interest in or time for friends. Between work’s end and the beginning of another day most of his attention was devoted to maintaining the accounts ledger. A garden could not have been tended more lovingly. He dug and trimmed. He clipped and pasted. Each day he visited his relatives and each day the connection between them grew stronger. Encountering Faris was something for which he would be forever grateful, but Faris was soon transferred to another division and the two men lost contact.

Several years later, Abdul Rahman himself was transferred to the Interior Ministry as Senior Clerk. Not much of a move but the salary was slightly more and his duties were slightly more interesting. For the first time Abdul Rahman was working with people, and was given the task of training and supervising new clerical workers. It was a job that appealed to him because he was able to organise the recruits to do things in an orderly fashion. The way he believed things should be. The head of the Financial Control Division praised Abdul Rahman’s combination of discipline and kindness; Abdul Rahman, the head of Division said, seemed to know how to get the most out of people.

In those days, between the first failed Ba’athist uprising and 1968, when they finally got what they wanted, blood washed the streets of Iraq. The army supported the Ba’athists the first time round but then got fed up with their unsubtle tactics. Within nine months the Ba’athists were put out like a cat into the night. For a while things improved. But by the end of the Six Day War the grand Iraqi army, which had squashed the Ba’athists so decisively just a few years before, now looked weak to everybody. The Zionist humiliation (all Arab armies wiped out in less than one week!) was too much to bear. Which Iraqi can say he wasn’t baying for military blood? A strong government, that’s what we want. And we want it now. No more excuses and delays. So the cat bided its time, and in the morning the door was left open and in marched the Ba’athists once more. This time they refused to budge for anyone.

A month later Faris made an unexpected appearance, with another proposition for Abdul Rahman to consider. Again, Abdul Rahman was waiting for a bus when Faris strolled up acting as if he was just passing by. ‘Oh! Abdul Rahman, brother. How long its been,’ he said. ‘Come, let me buy you a coffee.’

Around the corner a Palestinian named Mazin, famous for serving his coffee with fresh almonds, ran a filthy parlour. The cafe was always full, morning till night, but the two old acquaintances managed to find two seats against the front window.

‘Brother, how is the Finance Division?’ Faris always called Abdul Rahman brother. As his own brother had died as a lad, Abdul Rahman appreciated this.

They chatted about Abdul Rahman’s work and Faris’s own affairs for several minutes. Then very directly Faris looked into Abdul Rahman’s cave-like eyes and said, ‘Brother. Would you like to play an important role in helping to maintain the Revolution? Very good salary. You know,’ he went on without allowing Abdul Rahman to respond, ‘behind President al Bakr is one of our own countrymen. Number two in the Ba’ath set up and he’s from Tikrit. Like you. And my family as well. Al Bakr is President but people are saying that this Tikriti is the true revolutionary leader.’

That was the first time Abdul Rahman had heard the name of Saddam Hussein. Politics, revolutions and parties, even the Ba’ath Party, were to him like the stars and moon. They provided protection and could be lovely to observe, but who has ever visited a star? The place of stars is the skies. The place for humans is in their homes, with their families. On earth. But on the other hand, who could ignore the chaos and uncertainty of the last few years? Every day, the roads of Baghdad seemed to be filled with angry mobs shouting for this and that. Family life had been disrupted by all the strikes. And during the war the price of all essential commodities — sugar, olive oil, tomato paste, flour — left everyone hungry most nights. Abdul Rahman hoped those days were over. Who did not? Everybody knew that the Ba’athists were tough bastards. Things were bound to get better now.

But unlike Faris, who became more excited as he talked of the Ba’ath party — ‘this man from Tikrit’, ‘the people’s Revolution’, ‘Arab brotherhood’ — politics bored Abdul Rahman. His relative’s talk of politics and revolution did not interest him at all. But Faris’s proposition was quite attractive: the chance to leave clerical matters behind. And to be paid more. Zubeida was just two years old and Abdul Rahman knew that he would not be able to provide for her the things a young girl needs on his low ministry salary.

‘Listen, brother,’ said Faris. ‘This man Saddam Hussein has made it known in Tikrit that the fate of the Ba’ath Revolution ultimately lies with those from that area. Many affairs can be given to those from other regions, but finally this is a Revolution of and for those who live in the areas surrounding Tikrit and Sammara. And it is to us that the Ba’athis have entrusted the most sensitive tasks of the State.’ Faris used such phrases and words as if he had invented them himself, but Abdul Rahman sensed that he hardly knew their meaning. Abdul Rahman had only studied to the eighth class and he knew that Faris had even less education.

Abdul Rahman strained forward to hear Faris because his voice had fallen to a frantic whisper. ‘Under the direct orders of Saddam, a secret department has been established within the Party, Jihaz Haneen, which is responsible directly to one of Saddam’s trusted fellows. When I visited home last week I was approached by a Colonel Petros — or was it Paulus? — who told me all about this new division. And that loyal and committed brothers from the area are required. I immediately thought of you, brother Abdul Rahman. Your village is al Khazimiyah, no? No more than fifty kilometres from Tikrit, no? Perhaps you know of this man already, eh? You know more than I? Is that it?’

He looked at Abdul Rahman, who imagined that Faris’s eyes would pop out of his face at any moment.

‘No, I am sorry. I have never heard of this man, Hussein. In fact, I have never set foot in Tikrit, except that the bus from my village passes that way. Perhaps I am not who you are searching for.’ Abdul Rahman prepared to leave, thinking Faris had nothing to offer except his excitement about the political changes. ‘Excuse me brother Faris, thank you very much for the coffee. I must leave now.’

‘No wait, brother! Why so eager to leave? Drink another cup. Here, boy!’ He shouted loudly at the gloomy child rubbing the tabletop next to theirs with an oily cloth. ‘Bring two more coffees, quickly! Before I slap you.’ He turned to Abdul Rahman again.

‘I am not mistaken. You are like my brother, Abdul Rahman. This is an opportunity for you as well as me. You see, this man, Petros, he told me — that is a Christian name, no, Petros? — that al Jihaz Haneen is seeking one hundred persons. Immediately. In the future more will be needed. But now he is eager to recruit one hundred people from the districts surrounding Tikrit and Samarra. All directions. Up to Jebel Hamrin. No further. Beyond those mountains the people are untrustworthy. That is what the man…Petros…said.’

‘What are these one hundred persons to do?’ Abdul Rahman asked.

‘Research. That much I know. But what of that? He told me that the salary is to be seventy-five dinars a month! I know you brother. You will work in the ministry for seventy-five years before you make such a salary!’ Faris smiled and bobbed his head as if he had made a subtle philosophical point. He slurped his coffee.

‘Of course, that is a fine salary. But what is research?’

‘No idea! Surely it means investigation of some kind. After all, the division is secret, like al Amn: those boys are always watching and collecting information aren’t they? We will do the same, I’m sure. Whatever it is,’ and once again he was whispering, ‘it is very important. Only reliable and loyal Tikritis are to be recruited.’ He gave Abdul Rahman’s shoulder a poke. ‘Like you and me. Those who believe in the Revolution. The division will be very important and responsible to Saddam, that man I told you of just now. Next in line to the President himself.’

Abdul Rahman wasn’t sure. The salary was excellent but the rest of Faris’s talk was vague.

‘I am not Tikriti. And what do I care of the Revolution?’ He pushed back his chair.

‘Shh…h…h.!’ The sound Faris made was like air rushing from a tire. ‘Brother! Don’t ever say that again. By Tikrit I mean the area surrounding the city, not only the town itself. I have explained this already. Your native district.’ He was becoming exasperated. ‘The Ba’ath Revolution is our mother and father. Are you not Arab? This Revolution is more important than your parents. They eventually die and become useless. But the Ba’ath Revolution will be the eternal mother and father of all Arabs, and will realise our destiny. I too, know little about the Party, but brother, never say you don’t care. Promise me, brother.’ He looked over his shoulder like a thief. ‘We Arabs have never had such a friend as the Ba’ath Party. Look around us. Arab society is trampled on by foreigners: Jews, Persians, Europeans, and even in this country, Kurds. Under the Ba’ath, society will be based on Arab principles. There will be order and structure, not like when Aref was around, throwing Iraq before anyone who happened along. Even Communists!’

President Aref. The idiot responsible for the recent upheavals. One of the military’s pawns. Thank heavens al Bakr and the Ba’ath had tossed him out like a squatter from the palace. Abdul Rahman’s flagging attention revived. He appreciated stability and an orderly society. Hadn’t his father created havoc and left only turmoil for his mother and him?

‘What am I to do if I say I may be interested in your proposition?’ he asked.

‘Excellent! Abdul Rahman you are a true revolutionary. I will notify you soon about the next stage.’ Suddenly, Faris jumped up, threw some fils on the table and ran from the cafe.

For a month, maybe more, Abdul Rahman did not see Faris. He began to think of his talk as that of a fool. Abdul Rahman continued on in the Finance division at the Interior until October, (Zubeida had been admitted to the hospital with appendicitis and Abdul Rahman had spent two nights by her side) when Faris came to his office, wobbly as if he was intoxicated. He told Abdul Rahman that he should report to a certain room at the Ba’ath Party office next to the GPO the following day. At home, during the night, Abdul Rahman decided not to go, but in the morning his head and arms vibrated with the fever. He had no choice.

When he arrived at the Party office Abdul Rahman’s head was lighter than cotton. The small room was filled with nearly thirty men. He picked a chair against the wall away from the others. He didn’t dare let them observe his shaking hands. But though his anxious state caused him discomfort, a certainty of something momentous about to transpire excited him. Like the day he’d first met Faris.

Faris was not present and after twenty minutes Abdul Rahman had determined to leave, when a man dressed in a military uniform introduced himself as Major Walid al Sammara’i. He began speaking about revolution, enemies, the Party, Arab fraternity. All things which Abdul Rahman knew or cared nothing for. The men were congratulated for stepping forward to play a crucial role in the revolution of the Ba’ath Party; a repetition of what Faris had bumbled that day in the coffee parlour. Then the Major informed the men that Saddam Hussein was personally interested in each of them. At last! The first point of interest. That such a senior and important personage as Saddam would be interested in Abdul Rahman made him weak with gratitude; a curtain had been pulled back in his mind. Light poured in, and for the first time he understood exactly what Faris and the Major were talking about. It was true. Certain tasks of the State could only be entrusted to those from Tikrit. They were too precious and delicate to hand over to strangers. That day, Abdul Rahman became a Tikriti, and by joining Jihaz Haneen, he became wedded to the future President of the Republic.

At the end of the meeting Major Walid instructed the men to return to their departments and ministries. ‘You will continue to work until you are contacted again.’ He threatened them that they were not to mention the meeting or Jihaz Haneen to anyone. ‘Even your heart should not be aware of Haneen.’ Weeks passed but still Abdul Rahman received no further information. No one contacted him. Not even Faris. In fact, he never saw his relative again. Of course, he obeyed Major Walid’s command and did not speak of the meeting or Haneen to Abida or anyone else.

In later years, Abdul Rahman loved to reflect on those events, even though he could not say precisely what steps he had taken to arrive at his destination within Party Intelligence. Indeed, it hadn’t been a destination he had been conscious of wanting to reach at all. But in retrospect there was no doubt that it was the fortuitous hand of fate which had selected him and put him on the path.

July 15, 2025

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.

July 6, 2025

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.

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.

July 3, 2025

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.

June 25, 2025

The Book of Accounts: a novel

My first novel was published in London in 2000. It was nominated for a couple of awards including the Guardian First Novel Award. I will be serialising it here as it is out of print.

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

The Book of Accounts is a work of fiction and imagination. The inspiration comes from the many Iraqi friends and refugees with whom I have worked, who have endured the hell of torture.

Although this novel is fictional many of the events described — including the gassing of Halabja, the hostage-taking incident and the Muhyi-Ayash conspiracy — are historical facts. The organisations mentioned: al Amn al Khas, Mukhabarat, Estikhbarat and Jihaz Haneen are real. In the case of Jihaz Haneen very little is known of the organisation even within Iraq, and therefore any description of its structure in the Book of Accounts is based largely (but not entirely) on speculation. These organisations are integral to maintaining Saddam Hussein’s and the Ba’ath Party’s grip on the Iraqi people.

Other than Saddam Hussein, Muhyi Rashid, Mohammad Ayash and ‘Chemical’ Ali, and one or two very minor personalities, all characters in the book are fictional, though some have been based on historical personalities. All revolutionary parties, including the People’s League, are also fictional.

The historical context of the novel is the recent past of Iraqi history from the late 1950s to the late 1980s. Unlike the characters almost all locations in the book are actual villages, towns and neighborhoods. I have provided a historical timeline of the major events referred to in the novel as well as a glossary at the end of the novel.

For the reader who knows Iraq and who may find some of the liberties have taken for the sake of the story irksome, I beg your indulgence.

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PROLOGUE

He lay shivering on the stone floor in a cell in Baghdad that had become colder as the storm outside built in intensity. He hugged himself tightly and let out a sharp sneeze.

‘Oh! Lucky boy. Someone is thinking of you!’ laughed the guard.

For two nights no one had bothered him. But on night number three as he lay sleeping, pushed up against the stone wall, they called his name. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘it is very cold,’ but the words were lost somewhere between his mouth and the wall. Two men in grimy uniforms pulled him from the cell; one of them held him tightly while the other tied a band around his eyes then reached down to secure the young man’s hands behind his back. When he was pushed forward into the corridor, a lady guard stepped towards him and whispered, ‘This way. Your time has come.’

The small party made its way through the building. He tried to imagine the surroundings. When they didn’t leave the building he thought, Executions must be carried out inside. I only wish I could see. Why stop me from seeing if I am to be killed? I am glad they didn’t give me any warning. I wonder if this is how everyone feels. He felt calm. He did not feel self-pity. Thoughts of his family, and of picnics and parties, of books unread and questions unasked, seemed tiny and hard to pick up. He remembered the soft fullness of his lover’s breasts, and for a moment he even thought he caught her scent.

The lady guard pressed the prisoner’s shoulder as a signal to stop. A door opened and the prisoner was nudged forward. He thought he

saw a room with no back wall. A line of men with rifles stared straight ahead with dull eyes. White billowy clouds and a blue sky. He felt the wind on his neck as he took up his position against the openness. Each man raised his rifle but he saw only one; an eye squinting, a finger resting against the trigger. An arm wavered slightly as the marksman took aim. The bound man stared directly into the one open eye and for a second the executioner hesitated, then a bullet shot forward. The prisoner watched as it spun through the air. The woman guard wore a crooked smile. Suddenly the prisoner felt warm.

‘Sit down here and wait. Do not try to see anything.’ It was the voice of the lady guard, who pushed him firmly into a chair and removed his blindfold; a cloth hood fell over his head as a substitute. She squeezed the prisoner’s shoulder then left him alone in the room.

The hood over his head was damp and stank of fear. He stared at his feet on the floor until the opening of the door diverted his attention. Footsteps on one side of the room. A chair scraped against the concrete. Must be the man with the gun.

As the newcomer came in, did he even notice the shivering figure tied like a rabbit to the chair? Or did he see him and feel only scorn? What was he thinking? This is him. Disgusting dog. His mind was already familiar with the territory ahead. The map was drawn.

The newcomer, the invisible one, was eager to proceed. He lifted his head and stared at the hooded prisoner in front of him. He sized him up like a chicken in the market. They shared the silence and the relief an actor feels when the curtain goes up on the last night.

The chair scraped across the floor again and the hooded prisoner’s muscles tensed involuntarily. His saliva tasted sweet and cool. He sensed the other behind him and waited. But for what?

A blow?

A shot?

He was lost without a compass. Is he still behind me or has he moved to my right? The hood was hot and suffocating. He was being stalked by a lion and prepared his body for the pounce. But nothing happened. The beast was examining its catch. Admiring another fish in the net. The big one at last? But after what seemed an hour, the hunter still had not slapped or even clawed his captive. Slowly — he was back behind the boy again — the invisible man lifted the bloodstained woollen hood from the prisoner’s head and let it drop to the floor.

He had decided that his prey deserved to see his tormentor from the beginning. And he was determined to enjoy the young man’s fright