When Khafaji wakes up, his headache is back, even worse. When they mess with your body, they mess with your head. That’s the whole point – even he knew that and he was only a desk man.
Khafaji holds his head under the cold water until the pain goes away. Then he shaves in the dark. He spends half an hour looking for the book for Mrouj before giving up. He grabs a poetry anthology and walks out the door and fixes it shut. Two new young men are sitting at the front door, sipping tea, AK-47s resting next to them.
“God’s grace! Peace upon you!”
They invite Khafaji to share their tea, and he forgets to scowl at them. They’re as polite and friendly as the other details.
As his foot hits the curb, Khafaji feels a tap on his shoulder. One of the men smiles apologetically and hands him a note. “Sorry, Brother. I was supposed to give this when you came down.”
As Khafaji walks to Abu Nuwas, he reads: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Brother Muhsin, Greetings. Please stop by the apartment today. I’d like to have a word with you about what we discussed the other day. May God keep you safe. Yours, Ali.
Khafaji puts the note into his pocket and walks to the corner. In the cab he ignores the young driver who tries to engage him in conversation. When the kid realizes Khafaji’s not going to talk, he turns up the music on the stereo. His fingers tap along as an Egyptian pop singer belts out a love song. Khafaji’s head is about to explode.
“Who’re we listening to?” Khafaji frowns.
The driver mumbles a name Khafaji has never heard before. Then he turns up the volume.
Khafaji spends an hour at the gate shuffling through the book in his hands. He can’t read because of his head.
Everyone in line is quiet today. They keep to themselves. And so Khafaji begins to see how nervous they are. They look over the concertina wire, as if they were waiting for someone to come over it. They stare at approaching cars, as if they were waiting for one to drive into them. By the time Khafaji takes off his jacket and his belt, he is relieved to be leaving the line behind. As he walks through the first gate, guards shout at someone to move away from the wall outside.
One of the guards recognizes Khafaji’s face, looks at his badge and tries to pronounce his name. She gives up and asks, “Can I just call you Moe?”
Khafaji can only laugh. “Moe? OK. What should I call you?”
“You’re talking to the Florida National Guard,” she grins.
“OK, Florida!” He laughs back.
Citrone is in the office when Khafaji walks in and hands him a plastic bag.
“Peace be upon you, Inspector! Before I congratulate you, I want you to put these on.”
Khafaji looks inside and sees a camouflage uniform. He takes it out and holds it over his body. It’s a size too large. Or two.
“That’s the closest they had. Go change in the bathroom, Inspector. We didn’t know your shoe size, otherwise we would have got you the whole thing. I can take you down later to pick the boots that go along with it.”
Khafaji returns to the room, looking like a scarecrow in uniform.
Citrone laughs. “Mashallah! You won’t have to wear it for very long. The new IPS uniforms should be delivered in a couple weeks. Did I show you what they look like? We’re pretty happy with how they turned out.”
Citrone shows Khafaji a picture of a white man wearing an American baseball cap, black pants, and a neat blue shirt, with the words “Iraq Police” inscribed in both Arabic and English. In a second picture there is a woman modeling a feminine version of the uniform, complete with hijab.
Citrone smiles proudly and asks, “What do you think? We worked with the designers to make sure they were culturally sensitive.”
Khafaji nods. “They are… um, very sensitive.”
“You’re supposed to wear those from now on when you’re on duty.” He fixes the collar on Khafaji’s shirt before adding, “I’ve got a meeting upstairs. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Alone, Khafaji looks over at the filing cabinets. He starts to open drawers, looking for any pattern in the tabs and labels. Anything that will tell him about how the thing is supposed to work as a set. For two hours, he makes lists of names, divisions and sections. By now, Khafaji has wandered halfway across the room opening the drawers.
“Not those files. Citrone wants you to start with those back there.” Khafaji turns around to see the same clerk from yesterday, pointing at the cabinets Khafaji looked at the day before. He must have come in at some point.
“Thank you.” Khafaji notices the game of solitaire on the man’s computer screen.
Khafaji takes out a stack of dossiers and begins reading them. Every so often, the pain in Khafaji’s mind makes him close his eyes. When he does, all he can see is Sawsan’s cold smile. Khafaji opens his eyes and looks over at the man playing cards. All by himself, so far from home.
At some point, the assistant walks into the office, leading a group of other young men behind him. All of them are wearing ties, sports jackets, and combat boots. Playfully, the assistant grabs Khafaji’s arm and shouts, “Hey, everybody! Tell Bremer I’m the one who found Tariq Aziz, and he was working right here! I want my million dollars now! Where do I pick it up?” He slaps Khafaji on the back.
Everyone laughs. Khafaji closes his eyes, and finds Sawsan’s frozen eyes staring back at him.
“No, seriously, this guy’s the new star of our team. He’s going to help us make quota. But it almost wasn’t so.”
One by one, Khafaji shakes their hands while the assistant recounts how Khafaji was arrested as one of the most wanted. “That’s an amazing story. I love telling it,” he adds.
“Listen, we’ve got a thing over at Prosperity. I’ll be back in the office after lunch.”
“OK, see you then.”
Right before he walks out the door, he stops. “Listen, Citrone told me about what happened yesterday. Amazing work. Did you talk to the guys they captured?”
“Umm?” Khafaji squints and tries to forget the pain in his head.
“They’re over in Ibn Sina. Citrone got them admitted there so we could talk to them.”
“Should I go talk to them?”
“Yeah. You and Citrone. That’s what he said.”
“All right, I’ll wait till I see him then.” Khafaji goes back to the files on his desk. Out of habit, he reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes, but realizes they’re in his jacket. He pulls out a pack of Rothmans and also the picture of Zahra Boustani. The soldier at the computer doesn’t say anything. Khafaji finds a coffee cup on the assistant’s desk and uses it as an ashtray. He smokes and closes his eyes and finds that Sawsan is still there, looking straight at him. He blinks and starts staring at the picture of Zahra Boustani instead. He stares until his cigarette is done. His headache is almost gone.
“Is there an office for the interpreters?” Khafaji wonders out loud.
Without looking up from the screen, the soldier calls back, “I’ll check for you.” He picks up the phone and a moment later calls out, “The linguist pool has an office trailer over in the West Villas. If you go there and ask, shouldn’t be hard to find.”
Khafaji looks at his watch. He stuffs the Rothmans in his shirt pocket and announces that he’ll be back in an hour or so. As he walks down the stairs, he looks at his cracked leather shoes and imagines how odd they look with his uniform.
Lighting a cigarette, he wanders around the side of the palace until he arrives at the back, then he starts walking. When he gets there, he finds a dozen white trailers sitting behind a cluster of eucalyptus and jojobe. It takes some work and a cigarette before Khafaji finds the right one.
Maybe because the only image he had of interpreters was the black hood, when he opens the door Khafaji is surprised to find humans at desks and in cubicles. No one wears a mask. Khafaji shows his ID to the American at the front desk, and asks if there are any interpreters he can talk to. The man points to a small group sitting in a cubicle, sipping tea in the back.
Khafaji greets them, and they shake his hand. There are five of them – three men and two women – and they are all in their early twenties.
“I’m Muhsin Khafaji. I’m here to ask about one of your co-workers. Zahra Boustani.”
“Yes?”
Khafaji decides to start from the beginning. “One of the people you work with is apparently missing. Did you know that?”
Two of them shake their heads. One answers, “No one is missing from our group.”
“Not that we’ve heard, at least.”
Khafaji shows them Zahra’s picture, and at first no one says anything.
“I recognize her,” one of the women says. “She used to work with us, I think. But that was before my time. I’m pretty sure she works for the Army now.”
The others nod and Khafaji asks, “Who do you work for?”
“This is the CPA group.”
Khafaji frowns, and one of the men explains, “The Army has its own pool of interpreters. And so do the Marines. And the other countries. And security companies.”
“Where are their offices?”
“On the bases, mostly. Some are probably over at Prosperity.”
Khafaji asks, “Where’s that?”
“Al-Salam Palace. Army HQ. But they keep us separate.”
The other girl looks directly at Khafaji and adds, “Sometimes we end up working with interpreters from the other pools, and so we meet them. But they keep us all separate.” The others nod.
“They’re pretty strict about security,” the man adds.
“Of course it’s impossible to keep us totally apart. Once in a while, we run into them eating at the cafeteria or en route. When that happens, we talk.”
“But not too much.”
“Yes. Anyway, I might recognize translators from other groups, but that doesn’t mean I could tell you what name they use, let alone what their real name might be.”
When he sees the look on Khafaji’s face, one of the young men explains, “Look, you don’t use your actual name, do you? So why should we?”
A woman says, “Look, our work is dangerous, isn’t it? Who is the first target they go after? Us, that’s who.”
Another one continues, “There are two ways to eliminate interpreters. The first is at the checkpoints.”
One of the women gets up and walks back with a bulletproof vest and a black mask. “That’s why interpreters get to wear the latest fashions even before the Americans do.”
“What’s the second way?”
“Infiltrate. Stick one or two in with the rest of us and wait for someone to talk.”
“Like you’re talking to me right now?”
“No. This doesn’t mean anything. You don’t know anything about me. Nothing dangerous about this.”
“So, you assume they’re already here and whatever you say goes straight to them.”
“Everything. Or at least the things they want to know: who you are, where you live, who your family is.”
“Of course, it’s hard to not talk,” a young man with long hair and glasses adds. “You work with someone for months, you’re going to want to talk about your real life.”
Khafaji takes out a cigarette and taps it on his knee while he looks at his notes. “So let me get this right,” he finally says. He turns to the first woman. “You recognize this girl. She’s an interpreter, you think, maybe for the Army? And you’re sure she doesn’t work for the CPA?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And now for the hard part. If I told you her name was Zahra Boustani it might not mean anything even if you knew her?”
“Right,” two others answer at the same time. Another adds, “None of us use our real names. Ever.”
Khafaji looks at his notes, and then writes down some questions: What is Zahra Boustani’s real name? Who knows their actual names? Does somebody actually know these things? Does Citrone? If Zahra Boustani doesn’t work for the CPA, what am I doing asking about her?
When Khafaji looks up, he sees five young faces anxiously studying him.
Suddenly, they all laugh at once, even Khafaji. Nervous laughter, the kind that happens spontaneously when you’re talking to someone about your problems and you realize their life is even more screwed up than yours. They’re laughing together, but the way they look at Khafaji makes him squirm.
The throbbing in Khafaji’s head is back. He decides to end the conversation as quickly as he can. “Would you mind me reading a list of names? Could you tell me if you recognize any?”
He flips the pages of his notepad and reads: “Sally Riyadi.” Silence. “Candy Firdawsi.” Nothing. “Sawsan Faraj.” Nothing again.
Desperate, Khafaji digs into his pocket and takes out Sawsan’s picture. He passes it around the group. One girl draws her breath and sighs, “This one I do know. Her name’s Suzy.”
The other girl nods her head. “Yes. She works for the Army.”
“The Army prefers girl ’terps,” one of the men jokes, but no one laughs.
Khafaji asks again, “Are you sure you know this girl?”
They both nod. “Pretty sure,” one of them murmurs.
“How do you know?”
“Like I said, once in a while you end up meeting each other by accident. I met her a few times at an Army base. She always talked to us, always. I am pretty sure she worked there with the Army group.”
Khafaji digs around his pockets before he remembers he’d left the other girls’ IDs back in his apartment. He makes a note to return to this office with those pictures.