The helicopter takes off vertically into the night, then widens into flat zigzags out of the city. Two long rows of men, strapped to the ribs of the aircraft, each looking at the man facing him. The man opposite Khafaji goes to sleep as soon as he sits down and doesn’t wake up until they land in Kirkuk.
Fifteen years since Khafaji rode in a helicopter. Fifteen years and a lifetime since he was in the north. Khafaji closes his eyes but is wide awake throughout. The vibrations of the machine shake his bones. For the first time in months, you are where you are because you chose to be. Fate dealt you a good hand this time. One so good you made Nidal take it and leave the game. Deal yourself a new hand and play again.
It is early morning when they arrive. Everyone but Khafaji carries a large green backpack. Khafaji walks behind them, dragging his old suitcase across the tarmac. There is nothing beyond the wide fields of cracked concrete. Only now does it dawn on him that “Kirkuk” means a base somewhere nowhere. Olds taps his shoulder and he turns to see a black Suburban pulling up. They drive to a cluster of white trailers.
“Welcome to Chooville, folks.” An officer comes out to greet them in the middle of the night.
Olds looks over at Khafaji and explains. “Customized Housing Units.”
“That’s right, CHUs. We choose only the best when it comes to our guests. I’ll show you yours.”
The man takes them to one end of a trailer, opens the flimsy plastic door and turns on the light. Khafaji looks at the plastic floor tiles.
“Well, not so lucky, yours don’t come with toilets. Gents, you’ll find your cans over there,” he says as he points behind another trailer. Olds claims one bed, and Khafaji throws his suitcase on the other and begins to unpack. He hangs his suit up in the closet, then his shirts and his ridiculous uniform. When he finishes, he realizes that he must have forgotten to put al-Maarri’s diwan into the suitcase. He goes outside and eventually finds the latrine. He washes his face in icy water. He walks back to the room, breathing night air so cold and dry it burns. Khafaji looks up and sees a canopy of stars he hasn’t seen in years. Stars stretching out forever. He begins to name his favorites. Yedelgeuse, the hand of Gemini. The Warrior. Rigel. Saiph. Nairalsaiph. Alnitak. Alnizam. Mantaka. Almisan. He looks at the Bull, at Aldebaran. Althuraya. The brightest part of the sky. The hunter’s arrow that never flies and never strikes its target. And the enemy that only ever appears on the opposite horizon.
Khafaji says goodnight to Olds and climbs into a skinny bed. He turns out the small reading light on the nightstand and tries to wrap the blankets around him. He gets out of bed a few minutes later to search for more blankets. When he can’t find any, he puts on a second pair of socks, then pulls the covers over himself again.
He wakes up in the early morning to find that the blankets have fallen onto the floor. He pulls them over his body again, but cannot go back to sleep. He looks at the glass of water on the nightstand. He stares at the metal lamp one foot from his pillow. He looks at his wristwatch and listens to the ticking. Outside the blankets, the air feels like ice. It almost hurts to breathe. He stares at the condensation around the window. Olds turns over, his mouth-breathing a roar. Khafaji is now wide awake, his thoughts like lines connecting dots, making constellations out of the dark sky. He lies thinking about Sawsan, then Nidal. Then Citrone, then Zubeida. He tries to steer the lines back to Suheir, but they do not go in that direction. Each time he tries to imagine Suheir, her eyes, her lips fade into Zubeida. Even though they look nothing alike. The more Khafaji thinks, the hazier Suheir’s silhouette becomes, the clearer Zubeida’s becomes. Khafaji tries to think about anything else. About Mrouj, and then about Uday, but always he arrives back at the villa in the cane fields.
And then it gets worse. Suddenly, he is in Kirkuk. Then in Sulaimaniya. Then empty mountain villages. Empty green hills. Greener than anything Khafaji ever knew. He dreams of thick carpets of wildflowers. And fields of freshly-turned dirt. So much dirt. The dirt of trenches dug by engineers. The dirt of graves turned in the night. Of flowers and grass, and dull roots stirring with the late rains. Cruel spring bred from a forgetful winter. The ground churning with hunger.
Khafaji opens his eyes and tries to think of poetry. To remember anything. Another word. A phrase. An image. A sound. An association. One line that might open up the flood. Poetry to bury memory. Poetry to soften the past. Poetry to turn corpses into fields of flowers.
Nothing comes. Not a line. Not a phrase. Khafaji’s mind feels like a long trench of dirt packed cold and hard. Barren earth, with no flowers, no roots. Hours go by as Khafaji stares at his water glass and reading lamp and wristwatch. He falls asleep again only after dawn begins to crawl out of the bloody eastern hills.
They spend the morning in meetings. As Khafaji walks into the meeting room, a man with a thin moustache hands him a small folder filled with pamphlets, and a small envelope. When Khafaji opens it later in his room, he finds crisp hundred dollar bills.
Besides Khafaji, there are three other Iraqis, one from Basra, one from Hilla, and one from Karbala. Their fatigues are as ill-fitting as Khafaji’s. The British and American liaison officers in the room make a show of how eager they are to meet their Iraqi counterparts. Khafaji doesn’t catch their names. A contingent of Kurdish officers sit on the opposite side of the table, all dressed in other uniforms.
“I will be candid with you. We are facing setbacks and challenges across the country,” one British officer begins in English. “CPA leadership has decided to regroup and focus our efforts on establishing the police force in Kirkuk. So we have brought you from around the country for a workshop, a summit if you will.” As he speaks, the words become slower, more deliberate. Khafaji notices a young man frantically scribbling notes. More than once, he leans forward as if to interrupt the speaker.
“Out of this, we hope to create a nationwide network of working relationships and, more importantly, the sense of trust and confidence that comes from knowing that you are not alone, but part of a team. Look around you – this is your team. We are your team.” When he finishes, he looks at the young man and nods. The young man takes a deep breath and begins to translate, mixing formal Arabic and colloquial Baghdadi. His eyes never leave the page of notes he holds in his hands.
The British officer continues talking, and as he does, he makes a point of looking in each man’s eyes for a moment before pausing and moving to the next. The interpreter comes in again, and hurries again through his notes. Next, Olds stands up and begins to talk about the need to identify problems, create solutions and set realizable goals. Each time the interpreter comes to the word “benchmark” he stumbles. At first he translates it as “the sign of the bench”, then “trace of the long seat”, then “imprint of the work table”, and so on. Other words like “synergy” and “entrepreneurism” wreak even more havoc. Olds talks for a half hour, and when he finishes, his audience is thoroughly confused. Olds hands out a work schedule, and for the first time Khafaji learns that he’ll be staying in Kirkuk for a month. His heart sinks. He’d told Mrouj he’d only be away for a few days.
Besides ten British and American officials, the Iraq Police Reconstruction Working Group includes eight Iraqis, none from Kirkuk. “Paradoxically, this will be an asset to our work in Kirkuk,” a British officer tells the group. “Because neither you nor we are from here, we will all be more objective. We will be in a better position to see the reality of Kirkuk than a policeman who comes from here or an official who is too caught up in details to see the bigger picture. Any questions so far?”
No one asks a question.
During breaks, Khafaji talks with one of the Kurdish policemen, Salah. They vaguely recognize each other from the academy. Was it really forty years ago? They share cigarettes, and ask about others from their class. Salah remembers names and faces Khafaji forgot long ago. As he goes through the list, Khafaji is struck by the fact that so many are gone.
For the most part, the other Kurdish officers keep to themselves. They are friendlier with the foreign liaison officers, as if they already knew each other.
In theory, they attend sessions designed to brainstorm. That word also poses problems for the interpreter. When he tries “tempest of the mind”, two people laugh out loud and the first British officer asks what is so funny. At some point, everyone switches to using English phrases.
Sunday and Monday are spent in meetings like this. In one morning session, a Ukrainian police chief lectures on civilian administration. After the coffee break, a British naval officer uses slides and graphs to discuss asymmetrical force. After lunch, there is more of the same. The interpreter begins to slip more and more. He starts cutting and editing out material, prompting one of the Kurds to interrupt constantly and ask for the deleted material to be added back in. “Not for my sake,” he insists. “But for those in the audience who might not speak English so well.”
Khafaji listens to it all and is struck by the fact that it makes no real difference if the interpreter adds or subtracts from the lectures. The message is always the same: things have to get better.
Each presentation unloads large amounts of data. Each presenter seems to have an enormous capacity for collecting and commanding data. One American MP cites census records from the Mandate Period. He occasionally uses Arabic phrases, and calls the Basran “habibi”. There is nothing to do but smile. Another presenter refers to figures indicating rising levels of primary education. Among girls. In the Kurdish region. For the period 1991–2002. Everyone smiles again. After the first day, the group is taken around the base to meet various officials. The Americans drink coffee. The British drink tea. The Iraqis drink the tea and wish it were stronger. Conversation is light, polite and positive. Everyone practices their English. Everyone practices their Arabic. Khafaji keeps his mouth shut, except when someone asks him a direct question.
On Tuesday morning, without notice or explanation, the foreign liaison officers do not come to the morning meetings. Nor do the Kurdish participants, and the Basran says he saw them leave early in the morning. After the first session passes, someone shows up to say that the Americans and British were called back to Baghdad temporarily. The man from Hilla puts a motley pile of newspapers on the table, and the workshop transforms into a tea-fueled reading session. Al-Bashira. Al-Dawa. Al-Hawza. Al-Mutamar. Al-Sabaah. Azzaman. Sawtaliraq. Tareeq al-Shaab. The Basran calls the group “The Central Coordination Committee for Information Gathering, Processing, and Recapitulation” and the name sticks. Everyone laughs at the acronym, the CCCIGPR, even though it’s not that funny.
On the first day, Khafaji doesn’t read a word of print. He paces down the corridors and smokes his Rothmans until they run out. When he rejoins the others in the conference room, he leans back and thinks. But on the second day, he relents. For the first time since 1968, Khafaji looks at a local newspaper. He looks at stacks of newspapers. He enters the world of print and begins to read the local opinions, as well as those appointed in Tehran and Washington and Riyadh. Each morning, the Basran gets a fresh stack from someone who got them in the city. An hour after breakfast, he comes in with a fat pile of the day’s papers.
Khafaji is astounded by what he reads. Everybody – from the Communists to the Wahhabis – has a daily now. There are newspapers and magazines from all over the Arab world. Some have today’s news. Some yesterday’s. Some are a week old or older. The editorials are no more sincere than the ones that used to appear in Babel. After skimming the opinion pages for a day, Khafaji gives up on them and reads only news items. As he reads, it is easy to imagine that they all have something to do with him. Every day, the Resistance reports, more heroes are martyred. They report that another imperialist agent has died. Every day more puppet policemen are killed or kidnapped. Every day more disappear. Every day is one day closer to the end of the occupation.
Khafaji reads that a Resistance fighter sacrificed his life when he drove a car into the gates of the US barracks in Tala‘far, thirty miles west of Mosul. The blast injured fifty-nine American occupiers and six Iraqi agents. He reads that the attack occurred at 4.45 a.m. and that guards at the gate opened fire on the vehicle, which exploded instantly. He reads that an American military spokesman claimed that the injuries were not serious. Other sources said that there were many severe injuries, and that the foreign oppressors were forced to transport casualties out of the country for more serious medical attention. He reads the next item. It describes how, at 2.30 p.m., surface-to-air rockets brought down an OH-58 Kiowa surveillance helicopter.
In another newspaper, Khafaji reads that hundreds of Shiites demonstrated in Baghdad yesterday. They were protesting the death of a cleric at the hands of the Americans on Friday. The demonstrators gathered in front of the Palestine Hotel and waved black flags. They carried pictures of the Imam Shaykh Abd al-Razzaq al-Lami and pictures of the wreckage of a car. Khafaji learns that the sixty-four-year-old cleric was inside when it was crushed under an American tank. He reads that on the same day in al-Khalidiyah, west of Falluja, three hundred people demonstrated against crusader provocations. They were demanding the release of their neighbors and relatives who had been taken into custody by the crusader army. Demonstrators marched from al-Khalidiyah mosque, waving Iraqi flags. Some carried placards denouncing the local municipal council as collaborators. They also demanded that the council be ousted. Demonstrators stopped at the crossroads leading to al-Habbaniyah airbase. Khafaji reads that the demonstrators sent a five-man delegation there that presented a petition of demands. These included the release of citizens held without charge, and a halt to American provocations. Khafaji reads a small item about the downing of an American military transport plane at Baghdad airport.
The next day, Khafaji keeps drinking tea and keeps reading. He reads that imperialist Department of Defense officials acknowledged a major disappointment on Wednesday in their plans to set up a puppet army in Iraq. He reads that Pentagon officials admitted that one-third of Iraqi trainees have quit the puppet army. “We are aware that a third have apparently resigned and we are looking into that in order to ensure that we can recruit and retain high-quality people for a new Iraqi army,” said Lieutenant Colonel James Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman. In the same report Khafaji reads that this battalion was highly celebrated when the newly retrained soldiers, marching to the beat of a US Army band, completed a nine-week basic training course in early October, and passed in review before America’s Proconsul in occupied Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. He reads that officials worked for weeks to speed up the training of Iraqi puppet soldiers and police in the face of the accelerating pace of Resistance attacks. He reads that the private American defense contractor Vinnell Corporation had done most of the training, using “civilian instructors”, mostly ex-US military. He reads about the Titan Corporation and another called CACI, and their ties to the corrupt puppet regime.
In a Jordanian newspaper from a few days ago, Khafaji reads about how the American army had delivered seven unidentified bodies to the puppet police of Fallujah. He reads that an American military spokesman in Baghdad promised to investigate the matter. He reads that Ahmad Alwan, a police officer in Fallujah, is quoted as saying, “The American forces contacted us and told us to pick up seven bodies left outside their base in Fallujah.” Khafaji reads that the corpses were wrapped in the plastic body bags regularly used by American forces. Khafaji reads that there was no explanation regarding the circumstances of the deaths of these persons, nor any information on their identity. He reads about Ali Khamis Sirhan, a physician in Fallujah Hospital where the bodies were taken, who explained that many residents of the city, including relatives of missing persons, have been prevented from identifying the bodies.
Khafaji puts the paper down and stops reading. He walks outside and wishes he had a cigarette.
These are the benchmarks Khafaji and his colleagues hit on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday. They spend the day together in the conference room, but say little to one another. They are friendly together. They eat together. Those who have cigarettes share them with the others. But they are not together.
When they talk it is only about news items. One man finishes a newspaper, and folds it. The next man picks it up and reads it. When they discuss and argue, it is as if it were about fantastical stories from a distant planet. No one speaks of themselves. No one speaks of families. Or pasts. Khafaji does not wonder why.
The only break in the routine comes when an American officer enters the room on Tuesday and asks for Khafaji. He hands Khafaji a note: “Break in case. Need to talk re Zubeida Rashid. Call ASAP. Parodi.” It takes Khafaji some time to find a phone, and even more to dial the number, and then to be redirected, God willing, to the right extension. It rings and rings. No one answers. Khafaji waits by the phone, wondering what to do. He pulls out Karl Abdelghaffar’s phone number and tries it. A young man answers in an anxious tone.
When Khafaji asks for Karl, he demands, “Who is this?”
“This is his friend Muhsin.”
“My father just got back from a trip, and he’s very tired.”
“Did he say…?”
“Who’s calling?”
“My name is Muhsin. I’m the one who hired him to —”
“He said to tell you everyone is safe.”
“Great. Thank you. Please thank your father for me. I’m away right now, but will call him when I get back to town.”
Khafaji tries to reach Parodi again. Once, he is redirected to another office in the American zone. The other times, the phone rings but no one answers. He dials Karl’s number again, but hangs up before it begins to ring. Then he rings Ibn Sina Hospital. The nurse at the fourth floor reception promises to transfer his call, and he begins to lose hope. When Mrouj comes on the line, Khafaji apologizes. “I must have woken you up, Mrouji. I’m sorry.”
“Not at all, Baba. How are you?”
“It’s you I’m worried about. How are you doing?”
“I’m sleeping a lot.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“They say I should sleep a lot, so I guess I’m doing something right.”
“Any improvement?”
“They changed the treatment a couple days ago. Since then the pain is less.”
“That’s good.”
“Baba, do we have to talk about my kidneys all the time?”
“What else do you want to talk about?”
“How about those files you gave me?”
“I didn’t give you…” Khafaji pauses. “I didn’t mean to leave them there.”
Mrouj doesn’t say anything.
“Did you read them?”
“What else am I going to do? You give me a bunch of files about brothels, of course I’m going to read them.”
Khafaji doesn’t say anything.
“Baba, you still there?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Don’t you want to know what I think?”
“I’m not sure, Mrouj.” Khafaji listens to the crackle on the phone line before he surrenders. “Fine. Tell me what you think, Mrouj.”
“It isn’t about sex, Baba.”
“What are you saying?!” Khafaji cannot help shouting at the phone.
“Calm down and tell me who this woman is.”
“Which woman?”
“Zubeida Rashid. Why didn’t you tell me about her before?”
Khafaji feels his cheeks begin to burn. He says nothing.
“That’s irrelevant,” Khafaji says before he realizes his mistake.
“So she is pretty, Baba?”
Khafaji doesn’t answer the question. “Let’s talk about something else before we hang up, Mrouj.”
“OK. Here’s a line for you then, Baba: As we prepare sword and spike, death slays us without a fight / Tethering our steeds at hand but still, they cannot rescue us from…”
Khafaji thinks for a moment, but says nothing.
“I stumped you? My God, that’s a first!”
“No, you didn’t, Mrouj. I’m just tired. Go to sleep, I’ll call you again as soon as I can.”
On Tuesday and again on Wednesday everyone in the group decides to go to bed early. They also decide to sleep late. Khafaji sleeps so deeply, he does not even dream. He closes his eyes and then nothing. When each day comes to an end, it is over. It does not bleed into the next. Like a newspaper, he folds up each day and puts it aside for good. For the first time in weeks, Khafaji begins to rest. His breath becomes slow and measured and deep. On the third morning, he looks in the mirror and decides not to shave his upper lip.
On Thursday, Khafaji wakes up expecting another day of newspapers. When he sees the Kurds outside the conference room, he realizes the program has changed again. He steps inside and sees Olds and the other liaison officers have also come back. The meeting starts as if there had been no interruption. Khafaji sees the same look of surprise on the others as they come in late. During a coffee break, the Basran asks for the working group to be provided with newspapers every day. The chief liaison officer asks for a list of titles, and hands them to an assistant. By the afternoon break, a stack of newspapers awaits each Iraqi.
The presentations today are different because now there is a concrete topic. Now there is a concrete task. They are told that tomorrow they will be attending the induction of new cadets in downtown Kirkuk. For the first time there are two police officers from Kirkuk in the room. They begin to lecture on the rule of law. As they speak, they look over at the British liaison officer sitting next to them. Even though they look like college students, they somehow hold the rank of superintendents. When they finish, the British officer shakes their hands and congratulates them. Then he begins to talk about the decapitation of the insurgent leadership and how legal modes of authority always triumph. He concludes by saying, “Among the most vexing aspects of counter-insurgency are the paradoxes involved in conducting war that is simultaneously political and military.” At lunch, this same officer tells Khafaji about his adventures trekking across Afghanistan the previous year. “Brilliant place. Generous people. Have you been?” In his smile, Khafaji begins to recognize that the man’s confidence is ingenuously distilled from fear.
At one point Olds asks Khafaji if he’s had a chance to speak to Parodi. Khafaji says, “I’ve tried calling, but…”
Olds doesn’t say anything. The smokers step outside for a cigarette and Khafaji notices the front page of a newspaper on the table. What catches his attention is a picture of the Mosuli exile standing next to Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim. He picks up the paper and reads the caption: “Interim Governing Council Establishes War Crimes Tribunal”. The others walk ahead while he goes in the opposite direction, newspaper in hand. He begins to read: “Today is an important historic event in the history of Iraq.” The article relates that the tribunal will begin by focusing on the murders of the Barzani clan in 1983. Then it will concentrate the prosecutions on Halabja. Then on the southern massacres after Kuwait.
Khafaji folds up the paper and looks around. At the opposite end of the building, he sees the others huddled together against the cold wind. Their clean uniforms stand out against the fading white concrete. He continues reading. The tribunal will have the authority to investigate crimes against humanity, war crimes and charges of genocide committed in the country between 14 July 1968 and 1 May 2003. 38 of the 55 most wanted leaders of the old regime have already been caught and will soon be facing this tribunal. In addition to these numbers, CPA authorities acknowledge the arrests of over 5,500 people, though not all for war crimes. Khafaji skims the next article. “Since May, investigators have discovered more than 200 mass graves throughout the country. In Kirkuk, Kurdish officials reported the discovery of a grave containing 2,000 bodies. In the village of Muhammad Sakran, more than a thousand bodies have been unearthed. In al-Mahawil, investigators suspect they will have uncovered in excess of 15,000 bodies when they are done.”
Khafaji feels his head start to spin and he walks back to his room. He lies down and stares at the ceiling. But nothing happens. No sleep. No poetry. No memories.
The sun goes down and the room goes dark. Outside, phosphorous lamps cast long streaks and shadows through the window. Khafaji covers himself with a blanket, but it is not enough.
Sometime after dinner, Olds comes back to the room. The Basran is with him. Olds shakes Khafaji’s shoulder. As Khafaji rubs his eyes, Olds apologizes in English. The other man, in his warm southern accent, invites Khafaji to come out with them. Then they turn on the light and insist: Khafaji must come along. Reluctantly, Khafaji gets out of bed, shivering. He puts on an extra undershirt and two pairs of socks when he dresses. In the parking lot, they find one Suburban still waiting for them. Everyone else already left in the other car. In minutes they are flying down an empty stretch of highway. Khafaji cracks the window open and the wind wakes him up. The dry desert seems to suck the air out of his lungs. He looks out the window and sees nothing for miles. As they speed by, a corral filled with horses suddenly appears under a bright floodlight. Huge, wild horses. The kind that belong in a poem. Khafaji looks again, and they are gone.
When they come to the city, the driver tells them they are heading into the Almas district. Khafaji does not recognize the neighborhood at all. Even when he thinks he sees something familiar, he knows it’s only his mind playing tricks on him. They stop at a three-story building where a group of Peshmerga stands at the entrance. The other SUV is already there, parked opposite. The gunmen salute without saying a word. Khafaji notices they carry the same weapons as the men at his building.
A young boy opens the front door. Light and smoke and noise spill across the dark, silent street. Once Khafaji’s eyes adjust, he sees men bunched like thick knots around tables. The red curtains and ornate glass chandeliers look garish, then soften. Strains of plucked ouds crash over the room from stereo speakers. Older waiters, dressed like refugees from the Ottoman court, flit around the tables, delivering bottles of clear liquor, replacing full ashtrays with empty ones. They make elaborate, clanking sounds as they work, to show how attentive they are. Khafaji scans the room, hoping to glimpse others from the group, but sees no one. An elegant older woman floats across the floor. She is wearing enough embroidered fabric to upholster the whole room. She greets them, one by one. “Welcome, welcome, gentlemen. Please come back this way. Your party is in the back.”
Khafaji walks through the room, watching men playing cards so intensely they never look up or notice the table next to them, let alone anyone walking through. Down a corridor, lit by red lights covered in satin, a hand draws back a curtain of smoke. Raucous laughter pours out from behind another door. The Kurds from the group stand up to welcome the arrivals, taking each by the hand and walking them to empty chairs at the tables. “Tonight,” says one of the officers from Kirkuk, “you are our guests. Make yourselves welcome.”
Two waiters are dedicated to the party. One comes over quickly. “What would you like to drink, sir?”
Khafaji looks around and sees only bottles of arak and vodka on the table. “How about whisky?”
“No whisky, unfortunately. May I bring you a bottle of what the others are having?”
Like all who order vodka, Khafaji understands it is a compromise. He reads the label on the bottle slowly. Letter by letter, sounding out the Russian name. But before he can finish, someone grabs the bottle out of his hands and pours a shot. Soon everyone is raising a glass. Small speeches are made. After each, they swallow a small shot of liquid fire. At one point, Salah gets up and clears his throat. By way of introduction he simply says, “Hardi.” Then he begins to recite a long poem. The Kurdish sounds are foreign, but not. Most of the words are foreign, but not. Poetry is a country, Khafaji thinks. When Salah finishes, everyone applauds, and someone demands a translation. Salah hesitates, then tries to translate:
We are the defenders of lowly peasants,
We are the flag of unity hoisted high,
We are the swords in the hands of the broken,
We have risen against tyranny.
The Basran demands to hear the rest, but Salah insists it’s too long and too local. The Kurds grin. Someone raises another toast, to the National Police Force. One of the Kurds shouts, “And to Hardi! The flag of unity hoisted high!” Released by alcohol, the tongues in the room finally embark on their journeys. Someone begins to sing, and many in the group stop talking and join in on the chorus. Eyes, clear and sober for days on end, begin to soften and fade into pinker tones. The room is warm. Khafaji looks around at his colleagues. The rebuilders of free Iraq. Somehow it comes out as a question.
Soon, the men at both tables start playing cards. Every now and then, the door opens a crack, and the old lady peers in. Sometimes she comes over and rubs the shoulder of one of the loud-mouthed Kurds at the other table. Sometimes she says nothing but leaves the door slightly open and goes off. At Khafaji’s table, they begin playing whist. Then someone suggests poker and takes out a stack of hundred-dollar bills. The game is friendly enough, and Khafaji is drunk enough that he antes up with the others. Someone puts a carton of Marlboros on the table next to the bottle. Everyone has been smoking since they sat down. While lighting one, Khafaji notices two young women looking in at the door. The door shuts. At some point, one of the Kurds, Sherko, suggests a game he learned in the US. “Texas Hold ’Em,” he shouts as he begins to deal and explain the rules. Everyone regurgitates the name with slight variations, until it finally becomes tiguss kholdoon – “snip Kholdoon”. They raise a glass to Kholdoon and his circumcision, and laugh hysterically. Khafaji plays a few games, loses a lot of money, and then asks a waiter where the toilets are.
When he stands up, the room starts to spin. The floor catches itself and stops moving. On wobbly legs, he tries walking. A place to wash his face in cold water until he can see straight again. He wants to breathe fresh air. Cold desert air. He holds onto the walls as he walks down the corridor back the way they came in. The front room is now mostly empty. Without the crowds of men the décor seems ridiculous. Twangy mountain music plays somewhere, and while Khafaji can’t understand the lyrics, he knows that somewhere a poet has lost his beloved. Khafaji looks around for signs of a washroom. He hears laughter and turns to find a flight of stairs. Another party upstairs, another card game upstairs. He grabs onto the handrail and begins to climb. At the top of the stairs, he finally finds a bathroom. He goes inside, locks the door and runs the tap.
With each handful of water he splashes on his face, he imagines he is waking up from another layer of dream. His cheeks begin to lose their heat, and his head begins to clear. He looks at his face in the mirror, then goes to the toilet. Just as he is flushing, there’s a knock on the door. Khafaji mutters, “Just a second,” and washes his face one more time.
Khafaji opens the door and finds himself staring into the face of a girl he recognizes. A girl he has never met. He stares at her and stares again, so startled that she pushes by him before he realizes what has happened.
When he finally gets his bearings, he calls out, “Zahra? Zahra Boustani? I need to talk to you.”
He begins to knock, and calls out her name again. “Zahra? Please come out. I need to talk to you.”
There is no reply. Khafaji knocks again, hesitating, and pleading in a gentle voice. Then he is no longer hesitating. His voice is no longer gentle. Soon he is slamming his fists into the door and shouting. Then he is leaning into the door, trying to force it open. This goes on until he feels thick hands twisting his arms behind his back. Khafaji struggles, but the pain is too intense. He goes limp and falls face-down on the carpet. When he looks up next, he sees the old lady’s slippered foot. And the boots of a younger bouncer. As she escorts Khafaji downstairs, the hostess tries to calm him down. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I just want to talk to Zahra.”
“You can’t talk to her, habibi.”
“I need to speak with that girl.”
“Zahra’s not yours to speak to. Your party is downstairs, habibi.”
The bouncer’s hands are still clutching Khafaji’s arm. When Khafaji agrees, the hands let go. He returns to the others, and slumps into his chair. The game has gone on without him. Just as if he never left.
Someone pulls out a new deck and deals. Khafaji picks up his cards and looks at them before realizing what they are. A shit hand. Ten of Clubs: Latif Nusayyif Jasim. Four of Hearts: Humam Abdal-Khaliq Abd. Khafaji looks at the five cards face-up on the table, hoping to build something. The guy to his left picks up one of the cards and starts to laugh out loud. He pokes the next person and hands him the card. Soon the whole table is in on the joke. When they finally show Khafaji the card, he already knows what it is: Three of Diamonds.
Khafaji laughs as much as the others, but inside he’s already folded this hand. His thoughts drift upstairs. Toward a closed room where Zahra Boustani sits with another group of men. Was it her? Does it matter? And even if it was her, what could she tell you that you didn’t already know? What do you know? Suddenly, it’s not Zahra he is thinking of, but Zubeida.
Khafaji rubs his eyes and decides to get back into the game. He wins a hand. He loses two hands. No one at his table is taking the game very seriously. But at the other table, the play is serious. At some point, Khafaji’s group decides to stop playing and they turn to watch the other game. One of the Kirkukis changes the game to Seven Card Draw. Within a couple of hands, the contest becomes lopsided. Before, the Basran had been on a winning streak. Now he begins to lose hand after hand, and the pile of bills in front of him is redistributed. The dealer is grim. He never smiles, even when he wins two hands in a row. His face makes it all look like business. After thirty minutes of losing, the Basran throws his cards on the table and shouts, “OK! We’ve played your game long enough. Now let’s play another one. Here’s an American game.”
“What’s it called?”
“52-Card Pick-up. It’s easy to play. You play it once, you never forget the rules.”
The others decide to humor the Basran.
“Go ahead and deal!” the Kirkuki mumbles as he passes the deck across the table.
The Basran leans forward and shuffles. Then he asks, “Are you ready?”
“Yes!” the whole table says.
He has a huge stupid smile on his face as he turns to the Kirkuki. “Ready?”
At that the Basran shuffles the cards again, then flips them across the table into the other man’s face and lap.
Silence reigns.
The Basran points and howls, “Good game!” Then switching into English, he exclaims, “That’s 52. Now pick them up!”
The Kirkuki lunges across the table. Other men have to jump in to keep them apart. Even so, fists are thrown and faces bruised. By the time tempers have cooled again, the party is over. The old lady walks the party out. When Khafaji tries to speak to her, the bouncer appears and takes him by the arm.
Driving back to the base, Khafaji presses his face into the window. Outside, it is absolutely black. He looks for horses, but sees only tiny glimmers of light in the distance. Flickers scattered across the wilderness. The black Suburban speeds through the black desert night, slips through emptiness. The only thing that can stop such travel is the fear of one’s own thoughts. Khafaji cracks the window, and breathes in the thin air. He looks at the stars, searching for Orion, but it has already set. He looks toward the other horizon, and sees Scorpio beginning to rise. He imagines there is nothing between him and the horizon. Then the horizon melts away and Khafaji imagines he is flying across the heavens. The air is so sweet and cold it hurts. Like inhaling shards of glass. He rolls up the window and closes his eyes, knowing that he will sleep fast. His sleep will be as dreamless as it has been every night since he left Baghdad.