I send this note to Lester and turn off my computer monitor. I am embarrassed, but it must be done. We need contacts in America, and I am the only one in the flat who can achieve this. The only one with names.
Ben Ali is working to block access to the Internet, and our methods to defeat his firewalls work only in short bursts. Messages must be short. It is still New Year’s Eve in America, and Lester needs to be out kissing girls, I should think. I might not hear from him for some time.
Here in Tunisia, there have been girls to kiss but neither celebrations nor music. Only serious kisses that carry our fears. After that first protest in the square, those first real bullets, and the bodies left in the streets, my flatmates finally came to understand. And now I think I like them better. Before the first protest, they wanted only an excuse to party. But when the police showed them death, they did not run and quit as I had expected. They grew committed.
Now they are making plans for the next protest and hosting this new committee of university students in our flat. They make calls to people in France and America using satellite phones stolen from the police. They make hacker friends across the sea who show us the tricks to defeat Ben Ali’s shuttering of the Internet.
And they talk more and more about sending me to speak in English for the cameras. They do not even ask me. They just say this. A weapon, they say to each other. His polished English is a weapon. We must use him.
I wonder if Hani would laugh at this. Kateb the weapon. Much truth in that.
My brother, Muhammad, dropped me at the lake in the morning, while Hani, Mundhir, Haji Fasil, and Abu Abdul were only just stirring. After my brother had gone, I produced the stack of dinar I’d managed to hide in my trousers and took Hani behind the farmhouse.
“Hani, look at this money. My father gave this to me last night. We can leave now, Hani.”
Hani’s eyes grew wide and he began to count. “At least half must go to Haji Fasil,” he mumbled. Then he shook his head unhappily. “But it is not dollars. We need dollars if we are to cross into Jordan or Syria. Dinar will not help us.”
“We can find a way to change them to dollars along the way,” I said, trying not to sound desperate.
“But what better place will we find than this for changing money? Pederson is coming back today. You can ask him for help with this, yes? Maybe at Government Center in Ramadi they would have dollars for us?”
I grew cold. It began on my palms, spread up my arms and down my legs. “Pederson is coming back today?”
“Yes. Of course,” Hani said without concern. “He came back here yesterday, after you had left with your father and brother. He said he would be using our beach cabana to meet with soldiers of the new army and others. Merchants and sheikhs. Like a shura, I think.”
“When?” I grabbed him by the shoulders as I asked this.
“Very soon. Morning, he said. Why do you ask?” Hani furrowed his brow, puzzled.
I left him and ran around to the front of the farmhouse, where I found Haji Fasil smoking and drinking tea.
“Haji,” I began, out of breath. “You and Abu Abdul must leave.”
“Why?” he asked, as calmly as Hani but not so stupid. “Are your brother and father on their way to kill us?”
“No, but the Americans are coming back today . . .”
“Yes, I know. Men passed by here late last night. I saw them planting the bombs, Kateb.”
“Where?!”
“On the highway. Two bombs. One north and one south. I think they plan to trap the Americans with the bombs, and then attack with bullets and rockets from across the desert.” Haji waved his hand about the air, as if we were discussing a football strategy. “I saw the men early this morning. Placing their machine guns in the dark. Hiding their cars in the desert. Preparing for a quick escape, if God wills it.”
I became angry with him for sitting so calmly, for smoking his cigarette and drinking his tea. “Then why do you stay? Run away! Go to Ramadi or Fallujah and come back when it is safe.”
“Because, Kateb,” he sighed, “if we are not here, the Americans will know that there is a trap. They will pass quickly, and men like your father will be disappointed that they could not kill them as planned. They will blame me, Kateb. And finally they will kill me.” He lit another cigarette. “No. No, you see, the thing to do is stay. Let these things happen as God wills and try to survive the bullets when they come. Let some Americans die if they must, let them kill your brother and his people if they can, and we live until tomorrow, Kateb.”
In that moment, as Haji Fasil finished his tea, I heard the American engines. Pederson and his men were coming from the north. I went to the dirt path stemming off the highway and saw them in their Humvees, getting closer. I wondered where the bombs were hidden.
“Hmm. A little early,” Haji Fasil considered as he stepped back to his spot in the shade.
I watched Hani venture out to wave and greet them, with not the slightest notion of the danger. Senseless as a rock, Hani.
“Where are Mundhir and Abu Abdul?” I asked Haji Fasil.
“Fishing.” He sat with his back against the wall of his farmhouse, putting out his cigarette. “They will be safe on the water, God willing.”
Pederson’s marines parked their Humvees and searched around for bombs and dangers, as usual. But with far less concern than the day we first met. They had grown to trust us. Grown to enjoy Tourist Town in a way close to how Hani had intended.
Pederson came walking toward me on a direct line. “We missed you when we came back yesterday, Kateb.” He shook my hand, smiling behind his helmet and sunglasses. “We had an Iraqi Army terp with us, but he wasn’t as good as you.”
I swallowed. “Of course. I was required to make a quick trip yesterday afternoon. I am back now, however.”
“Glad to see it, glad to see it.” Pederson motioned for me to walk with him to the fire pit. “So, today we have a little sit-down with your neighbors to see if we can make things safer around here. I appreciate you helping with that.”
I heard more engines. This time from the south. Rough engines, without good American parts. It was the new Iraqi Army coming to talk.
Pederson sat down on a log, looked up, and smiled. “Good deal. Right on time.”
I could feel the bombs that would kill them in their flimsy pickup trucks. Curbstones, which I had seen the day before in my father’s backyard factory, waiting for them with artillery shells hidden inside.
“Tell them to stop,” I heard myself say.
“What?”
“Tell them there is a bomb on the road, but do not cry out or become excited. There are people watching us.”
He calmly nodded his head. Knowing. He put the radio to his lips. “Break. Break. This is Actual. We have intel on an imminent ambush. Raise that adviser team and tell them to halt. Push security west, over.”
Then he sat still and looked at me, sweating and breathing hard but hiding his fear admirably.
“One bomb to the north for you. And a bomb to the south for the jundis.”
“And then what, Kateb?”
“Bullets. From the desert.”
He nodded, like this was all no problem. “Okay, then.”
I looked down at my feet and shivered.
“You’re doing the right thing here. We can handle this for you.”
I believed him. As he stood and walked away to prepare his men to fight, I believed in the American with such confidence. Because he liked me. And I thought, for those few minutes only, that we could all escape. That when the fight was over, the Americans would take us somewhere safe.
Even when the bombs inside the curbstones exploded, one and then the other, while I dropped into the sand to protect my face, I believed for a few minutes more. Hiding behind the fallen tree and listening to the bullets snap over my head, I believed that everyone was going to live until the next day. Mundhir and Abu Abdul, safe on the water, would find a place to go and fish every day. Hani and Haji Fasil, pulled to the ground for cover by some dedicated marine, would be kept safe by American courage until they could go to Ramadi and open their own shop in the Grand Souk. Even when the weight of a knee fell into my back and pushed me deeper into the sand, I believed. Not until I felt the American tightening plastic cuffs onto my wrists did I begin to doubt.
They pulled me to my feet and I understood, for the first time, how good my father and brother had become at their war. The marines gave me a tour as they hauled me toward their Humvees.
I saw the Iraqi army truck to the south, smoking and ruined, with the dead pieces of men all around it.
I saw Haji Fasil’s limp figure in a pile near the farmhouse, a jagged hole in his forehead and a splay of blood and gore against the wall behind him. Who had fired the bullet that killed him? An American? A jundi? My brother? Who could say?
I saw Hani scrambling to get away from the marines who wanted to cuff him like they had cuffed me. He wanted to reach Mundhir, who was swimming away from the stricken kitr, returned from its morning fishing excursion a few minutes too soon. I saw Hani break free and reach Mundhir in time to help him drag ashore Abu Abdul’s broken corpse.
They put me in a vehicle with Pederson, who told his marines to remove the cuffs. “Get those off him, right now,” he screamed, before turning back to me, suddenly gentle again. “Sorry there, bud. We put the cuffs to guard against the chance that someone is still watching. We’re waiting for a postblast team, and then we’re bringing you back to Government Center for a debrief with our intel guys . . .”
I stopped listening to him then. I watched from my window as Mundhir cradled Hani’s head in his powerful hands and smoothed our friend’s hair as they both wept.
“Of course,” I said to Pederson. “Take me wherever. I do not care.”