After Kathmiya slipped out of his front door, Shafiq felt like he had sent a kite up into the sky only to watch it spin out of reach.
The brief glimpse of her was the one cause for hope in the days that followed the riots.
Shafiq might have experienced a blossoming of love but instead he felt like a poisonous scarlet flower was blooming in his chest. Montages flitted across his eyelids when he closed them: the open wound of the honor killer, the menace of school-age bullies, the gray headlines about the triumph of Nazism, invisible but floating closer like deadly gas—all these were just seeds of a new fear so palpable it seemed to be flowering inside him.
And the tranquil moments in between—when he realized that most girls were not killed by their fathers, that his school was filled with more friends than foes, that the war in Europe remained far off—these were mocked by the uncertainty that governed his days of effective house arrest.
“We gotta be ready to fight back,” urged a teen who was constructing makeshift weapons, studding round bars with heavy metal bolts.
Shafiq was comforted by the belligerence only until the older men started stoking his doubts.
“We’ve lived in peace for so many years because we don’t fight,” insisted one man with a long gray beard that seemed to testify to his ability to survive. “Jews don’t make trouble or invite trouble. That’s not our way.”
“Yes—trying to fight will be the death of us,” warned another gravely.
But eventually they stopped sounding the alarm and turned inward instead, facing their traditional tallit shawls and reciting the Shema prayer. Shafiq understood the word from the Arabic, ism’a, to hear. “Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One,” they mumbled.
The sound of the prayer competed with the banging of the men making weapons. Both disturbed Shafiq in equal measure.
Reema stretched food in every way she knew how, exhausting the bags of rice in the underground storage room, opening the last bottle of homemade wine, emptying jars of pickled vegetables and baking bread until the flour ran out. But even Shafiq could see there was no keeping up with the appetites of a crowd of some three dozen anxious and restless people.
And no cash left to replenish the stocks.
Until that moment, money meant little more than trinkets to Shafiq. He preferred the feel of a scalloped ten-fils coin over a bill worth ten times as much. And he never realized that his father kept the family’s savings in a safe at his warehouse. The place held only one great treasure as far as Shafiq was concerned: Sayed Barazani with his endless supply of treats.
“I have to go to the warehouse,” Shafiq’s father told his family. They were all crowded in a small washroom, the girls huddled on an overturned basin while Ezra paced and Naji sat close to their mother, one strong hand on her smaller one.
“The place is called ‘Roobain’s Warehouse,’” Leah said gently. She was reminding her father of what all the children felt acutely: anyone could tell it was a Jewish business. And if they didn’t figure that out from the name, they probably remembered Roobain himself, always conducting transactions in front of the building in his two-chair, no-phone, no-fan, just-have-a-seat-and-join-me-for-Turkish-coffee “office.”
“So?” Roobain asked.
Naji had closed his hand over Reema’s, but Shafiq just wanted to crawl into her lap. More than the primitive comfort it offered, he craved the innocence of the past.
Just days ago, it seemed, he was playing stickball in the streets like any normal Iraqi twelve-year-old. And now, suddenly, he was a prisoner in his own home.
“You can’t go,” Reema pleaded.
“People here are hungry,” Roobain countered firmly. “Besides, I have to check on the workers.”
Shafiq saw Ezra look over at Naji and understood they were thinking, You don’t even know if there’s any warehouse left for them to work in.
“It’s too soon! We can get by with what we have,” Reema insisted.
“Are you going to cook the empty rice sacks?” Roobain snapped.
“Maybe some of these people can help,” Naji said earnestly. “In a collective effort,” he added. Ezra shot Naji a look, but Shafiq couldn’t understand why. The visitors were already joining in the cooking and cleaning, living less like guests and more like family.
Shafiq’s father would never, ever consider imposing on them for money. Convincing him would be like trying to make Salim leave Iraq. “Don’t mention any of this to them,” he warned sternly. “I’m going to the warehouse.”
“But,” Reema stammered, “what if something happens? What if…” Her eyes were wet and Shafiq was startled. Mothers don’t cry. The streets of Basra are safe. And I’m an Iraqi patriot.
Nothing was right.
“You can’t go; your accent,” Ezra pointed out.
Yes, Roobain sounded more Jewish than a torah. The children had enough schooling to shed the dialect in mixed company, but their parents had never even learned to read, much less speak without an accent.
“I’ll do it,” said Naji, casual and brave.
“And I’ll go with you,” offered Ezra, formal and dutiful.
“No!” Reema said, gripping Naji’s hand so hard his brown skin turned white.
“Don’t worry, Nana, I’ll be fine,” he said with such a lilt in his voice, Shafiq almost believed his middle brother could cruise through the violent streets and turn all the thorns into flowers.
“You stay here with them,” Naji said to Ezra. “I’ll be okay. I have friends out there, just like Salim.”
“Friends?” Ezra pressed.
“Comrades,” Naji answered cryptically. That word again: rafiq.
Ezra turned to his parents. “You cannot let him go,” he pleaded. “I’ll go and I’ll be better off…because I don’t have ‘comrades’ out there.”
Shafiq didn’t want to let Ezra walk out the door and face the warehouse alone. “I’m going too,” he said, trying to sound as firm as his brother.
“Not Shafiq,” Naji protested, ever protective.
“Why not?” Ezra asked bluntly. “He deserves to see the world as it is.”
“Yeah, why not?” Shafiq repeated, avoiding Naji’s eyes.
“It is better if there are two,” said Roobain, nodding sadly. Shafiq straightened up and stood tall. But when his father added, “Naji stays here,” all his bravado evaporated.
The trip to Ashar was eerie, as the two brothers wobbled with fear navigating streets that Shafiq had only known as life’s ordinary backdrop. Suddenly, Basra seemed different, though what he perceived to be most striking was not the terrible material damage—shops destroyed, with nothing left but their broken facades, small booths ransacked and emptied—but the severe change in his brother, who witnessed this all with a frown that looked etched into his face.
“They will pay for this,” Ezra pledged to himself. Shafiq had never heard anyone in his family talk like that. There had never been a “they” that the tribe wanted to take on. He feared his brother’s fury more than the mob attacks.
The young men passed the silversmith’s store, where a section for Kaddish cups and menorahs was upended and emptied.
“They can destroy the objects, but the faith—never,” Ezra pledged to himself. Then he added to Shafiq, “Walk confidently, like we own the street. Fear has a strong smell, and you’d better not stink.”
Approaching the warehouse with hidden trepidation, Shafiq wondered how he would tell his father the news in case of the worst. Ezra craned his neck to see ahead, and Shafiq watched his older brother’s eyes grow wide. He was afraid to look, but turning toward the Khan Roobain he saw it standing, as ever, in perfect condition.
“Sayed Barazani,” Ezra said, rushing toward his father’s business partner.
The Kurdish manager was guarding the warehouse along with his son and four other men. The double doors, normally open, were shut.
As Ezra and Shafiq drowned Sayed Barazani in hugs, he immediately asked, “How is the family?” This question was common, posed daily or even hourly, often repeated several times within one conversation, but never with so much urgency as now.
“Alhamdu lil-lah, Alhamdu lil-lah, thanks Allah. Fine, fine, everybody is fine,” Shafiq and Ezra clamored together.
Looking at his older brother, Shafiq could not find a trace of the frown that a moment before had seemed permanent. Ezra’s face glowed with gratitude toward Sayed Barazani and the other good men who worked for their father, as though whatever wound his spirit had suffered from the calamity was healed by the sight of them.
“Roobain?” Sayed Barazani asked. “Your mother? The children?”
Ezra was happy to report that they were well. “But stuck at the house,” he added. “And my Baba was worried…” His normally sure voice wavered. The khan looked untouched, but of course the inside could have been pillaged.
“No problems here,” Sayed Barazani said like a sergeant to a general. He then spoke in Kurdish to one of the porters, who nodded and backed away.
“Thank you for all that you have done for my family,” Ezra said. “We’ll never forget that you saved our warehouse.”
“Thank you for protecting us,” Shafiq put in. Thank you for being here to welcome us, he thought. Thank you for being a friend to the Jews, and for cleansing the anger from my older brother.
Just then, the porter called out to Sayed Barazani in Kurdish. In the distance, a crowd could be seen approaching the warehouse.
“Go,” Barazani said urgently, and before the boys could change their expressions of gratitude, they were being pushed through the creaking doors, prisoners again in their own land.
But Shafiq felt uplifted enough by the scene at the warehouse that he could muster the courage to leave alone. “I’ll run home to let them know it’s safe,” he said to Ezra. “You stay here and get the cash.”
Ezra nodded. Sayed Barazani took off the headscarf he was wearing and wrapped it around Shafiq. “Allah wa-yak,” he said, turning to go back outside to confront the mob. God protects you.
“Sayed Barazani,” Shafiq said quickly, “Allah y khaleek. And to your sons,” he could not help but add. “Allah y khaleek.” He kept repeating the phrase over and over, gratitude flooding his pores. “Allah y khaleek. Allah y khaleek. Allah y khaleek. Allah y khaleek.”
“Ala al-ain wu ala al-raas,” the older man replied, smiling. It was an expression that meant literally, “At the eyes and at the head,” but really signified, “I was glad to be helpful. I would do it again and again. It is my honor.”
There were shouts outside. As Shafiq dashed toward the back door, he heard Ezra climbing the steps in the unnaturally quiet warehouse.
On the way out, Shafiq grabbed three tins of olive oil, as though he were looting the place. A Jewish boy dressed as his Kurdish protector pretending to rob his own father’s warehouse. Life had never been so absurd.
Running through the streets, Shafiq felt safe behind the disguise. For a moment, he imagined he really was a looter on the dominant side, free from having to pretend. He liked the feeling of security, but was ashamed that the smugness was not really his to own.
Then, when he got home and saw Omar’s older brother standing in the doorway, he knew his friends were his security.
“Shafiq!” Anwar rushed over to embrace him. Shafiq’s parents also appeared at the door.
“Where’s Ezra?” Roobain asked.
“Everything’s fine. He’ll be back soon.” Shafiq was bursting with confidence: in his happy news, in the brotherhood of his friends, in his father’s partner.
Roobain only nodded, as though there had never been any doubt.
Anwar handed the family a basket that overflowed with fresh feta cheese, eggs, vegetables, bread and the quince jam they all cooked in summertime. “From my mother,” he said.
Reema could barely carry the bulging package, but she managed to gather it in her arms. And she could hardly express her thanks, but she tried. “Thank you, and may God protect you.”
Shafiq wanted to ask about Omar, but Anwar was busy dressing Naji in traditional Arab clothes, securing a white bandana around his head with black bands while he stepped into a dishdasha. The two of them would be able to escort Ezra back safely.
Shafiq suddenly remembered the headscarf. “Here,” he said. “It’s Sayed Barazani’s. Please give it back to him with my thanks.”
My thanks, and thanks, and thanks, and thanks. And my prayers to Allah: May Sayed Barazani be protected always.
When the boys returned with Ezra, he told them what he saw. “They were like a militia,” he said, eyes aglow with evident admiration for the tough Kurds. “I watched from the roof—they stood in a line. It was like: ‘You Do Not Touch This Place.’ The looters couldn’t penetrate.”
The whole family was immensely relieved and, like Shafiq, uplifted by the loyalty of the Kurds.
But when only Shafiq and Naji could hear, Ezra added, “I was up there on the roof dreaming that I could spit bullets and kill all the looters.”
“You’re sick,” Naji said flatly.
Shafiq didn’t know what disturbed him more—Ezra’s rant or the growing fissure between his two brothers.
Concern rested over Shafiq like a film that afternoon. Until he saw the note inside the hole in the garden wall.
Hope surged. The curled paper could only be from Omar. He took it out of the uneven cavity with so much tenderness it might have been a wounded bird.
Hey Shafiq,
Omar wrote in his typically messy handwriting.
Well I always wanted free time off from school but not like this! Too bad we never learned those Bedouin tricks like how to smuggle ourselves onto trains and live in the desert and stuff…remind me once this is over we have to practice!
Anyway, I read this quote in “A Tear and a Smile” that I thought was great so here it is.
“You are my brother and I love you. I love you worshipping in your church, kneeling in your temple, and praying in your mosque. You and I and all are children of one religion, for the varied paths of religion are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being, extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, anxious to receive all.”
Your brother,
Omar
After a lurching tide of emotions—from fear to flight to fight—Shafiq was now overcome by one which drowned out all the others: affection.
I love you worshipping in your church, kneeling in your temple, and praying in your mosque. Shafiq read this phrase until he had it memorized. It seemed so simple, obvious, clear and sound. He looked up at the sky, wide and serene.
Back in the garden, a note was pushed to the neighbors through the hole near the water pipe:
My brother Omar,
The Bedouins have no trick we can’t learn. We could probably steal the knives off their belts before they realized we were there.
Your brother,
Shafiq
P.S. Thank you for the perfect verse.