Mahdi Isa al-Saqr

For about fifty years, Mahdi Isa al-Saqr quietly put out one volume of fiction after another to consolidate his stature as one of Iraq’s key writers. His first collection of short stories, Mujrimun tayyibun (Decent Criminals), appeared in 1954, to be followed by two other collections in 1960 and 1986. Several stories in all three volumes are among the best in modern Arabic fiction, and some have been translated into English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Serbo-Croatian. It is remarkable that in a little more than ten years between 1987 and 1998, al-Saqr published five novels, an explosion of creative energy at a time when many thought he was ready to sit at home and reread the brilliant oeuvre of his earlier years. Of these recent works, two stand out as worthy of wider audiences: Al-shahida wa al-zinji (The Witness and the Negro, 1987) and Al-shatiʾal-thani (The Opposite Bank, 1998). A timely and well-deserved gesture came in 2001 when al-Aqlam, Iraq’s premier literary magazine, devoted a generous section of its May–June issue to celebrating al-Saqr’s rejuvenated career.

The short stories “Breaking Away,” “Waiting,” and “Morning Exercises” represent major themes in his most recent works. The first deals with the obsessive longing his characters feel for remote histories and places. “Waiting” and “Morning Exercises” demonstrate their characters’ refusal to accept defeat. Al-Saqr skillfully deploys imagery to embody resistance to assaulting forces. In both stories, date palms, bright daylight, music, and open skies provide the relief denied individuals in their potentially oppressive environment.

The last selection here, “A Dreamer in Dark Times,” is from The Witness and the Negro, a novel that depicts U.S. armed forces in a southern Iraqi seaport near the end of World War II. Although the place is unidentified, many details suggest the writer’s native city of Basra. The book, however, quickly transcends the overarching problem of invasion and focuses on a universal issue—men’s and women’s willingness and ability to break away from prejudice to embrace common human values. The central character, Najat, is a victim of one crime and a witness to another. She is raped one night in an orchard by a black GI, who then shoots and kills a white MP when the latter stumbles on the incident in the orchard. The shooting is an accident and has nothing to do with race.

“Breaking Away,” “Waiting,” and “Morning Exercises” are translations of “Inʿitaq,” “ʿUyoon adhnaha al-intidhar,” and “Tamrinat Sabahiyya” from al-Saqr’s Shawatiʾal-shawq (The Banks of Longing; Baghdad: Dar al-shuʾun al-thaqafiyya, 2001). “The Returnee” is a translation of “Al-ʿawda” from Shitaʾ bila matar (Winter Without Rain; Damascus: Manshurat itihad al-kuttab al-arab, 2000). “A Dreamer in Dark Times” consists of excerpts translated from al-Saqr’s novel Al-shahida wa al-zinji (The Witness and the Negro; Baghdad: Dar Afaq Arabiyya, 1988).

Waiting

Her eyes on the road, the woman says, “I have a feeling we’ll get something from them today.”

The man turns his gray-haired head toward her. “May Allah hear you.” He shouts his words into her ear.

The elderly couple sit close to each other on two old cane chairs in the shade of a palm tree just outside their house. They have been doing this every day—the ritual of hopeful waiting. The man lays both hands on top of the walking stick between his legs; the woman leaves hers in her lap, dormant like two tiny pets.

From the houses on both sides of the street, children and young teenagers take off for school, followed by hurrying men. Almost all action dies away in the alley.

“Last night in a dream . . .” She does not look at her husband as she speaks. He is lost in thought. “I saw our little son.”

The man’s silence puzzles her. She looks at him. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes, yes. You had a dream, and our little son was in it.”

“Do you know what he said to me?”

“What did he say?”

“He said he’s dying for . . .” She narrates the dream and falls silent. Time hardly passes as the elderly couple watch the road in silence. The palm tree shade shrinks on the alley’s asphalt. The woman fidgets, and the man reaches for her knee. “It’s still early.”

“What do you say?”

He raises his voice. “I say he might still come.”

The woman moves her jaws as if chewing food and says nothing. Her eyes are on the road searching for a glimpse of him coming into the alley on his old bicycle, a small leather mailbag hanging on the bicycle rod. The mailman has seen them there every day, patiently waiting for him. Dogged by their anxious expectation, they stand up as soon as he turns into the alley, well before he approaches them. He stops in front of them, leans on his bicycle, and greets them politely. Their eyes follow his movements, almost willing his hand to go into the bag, the adroit fingers flipping through envelopes to pull out a letter, perhaps two. Smiling, he would say, “They arrived today.” But it has been a long time since the mailman has done that. All he offers is an apologetic explanation. “Sorry, nothing today. Maybe they’re on their way,” as if their mail came separately on the back of a camel. His apology, so often repeated, stalls the delicious waiting. Painful as it is, waiting has its own little pleasures, the tinkling of hope, the daydreaming, and the imaginary recitation of letters yet to be written.

“I have a firm feeling we will . . .” The woman repeats her hopeful words. The shade recedes unnoticed, exposing them to the searing sun. The children and workers come home.

The man looks into his wife’s tranquil face and says, “Let’s go inside.” His despair makes him shout rather than speak.

“You go in.”

“The sun will hurt you.”

She does not answer. The man picks up his chair and goes into the house, supporting himself on his stick. The woman remains outside, surrounded by the alley’s emptiness. Flooded by sunlight, she relaxes and relishes the sweet numbness creeping into her head.

A transparent wave engulfs her, tossing her up and down in swift motions. Then it flings her on a vast coast, its gold sand twinkling under the sun. She squeezes her dress to dry it, only to find it untouched by water. Not a single drop there. She looks around, dazzled. She tries to recognize the place.

There and then she sees him on that ancient bicycle, speeding toward her. He stops in front of her, gets down, and starts to reproach her, breathlessly, “You sit here enjoying the sea breeze while I rove around looking for you!” He pulls up his mailbag and lets the bicycle drop onto the sand. “Here, take this!” He gives her a letter. “And this!” His hand goes into the bag again. “And a third one!” He laughs. “All the letters in this bag are for you. They arrived today. All the boys and girls wrote—all of them. The mail has been delayed.”

He holds his leather bag up and turns it upside down, shaking its contents into her lap. A cataract of colored envelopes covers her body. She turns into a tiny hill of letters, still falling on top of one another. Her head emerges, the gray hair all but gone. She giggles like a child, and the mailman bursts into a laugh, dancing around her. His bag is still up there, envelopes pouring down till they cover the sand around her with lovely colors. They fall and fall, endlessly.

The Returnee

He sat there staring at the emptiness in front of him. Her sudden absence had confounded him. Out of the loudspeaker the voice of the muqri reciting the Qurʾan invaded the surrounding space and buzzed in his ears. It subdued the polite, intermittent whispers of the funeral guests assembled in his house’s front yard. His eyes picked up and dropped the men’s polished shoes as they changed positions on the grass under the lawn chairs. A day such as this had been coming, of course. He knew that. She would go before him, or he would, but he didn’t know the separation would take such a toll on him. “What tortures me is the idea that once we leave this world, we never return.” These were her words as they were having tea one day. He told her that no human being or object ever leaves this world as long as the world continues going around and that living things simply keep returning, only changing their outward appearance.

She felt a little better then. “So, I’ll be back once I’m dead?” She waited impatiently for his reply. “You’ll be back like the rest of us. Perhaps as a tree blessing the ground with a dense shade or as a bird filling the sky with happiness.” She looked content and said she’d return in the form of a sparrow that endlessly circles the house and lives in the trees of its garden. “No, no. Let me think. I don’t want things to stand between you and me. I’ll come back like a cat and go places with you. Scratch my body against your legs as you read or sit absent-minded.” He laughed and said she’d outlive him.

“Father!” His oldest son, seated next to him, touched his arm and brought him out of his reverie. He stood up and pressed the outstretched hand of one of the mourners. He said a few words and then sat down. Numerous faces passed in front of him today. Too many to look into carefully. Some were with him at the cemetery. Darkness had fallen then, and a boy had brought a lantern that shed some light on the silent faces. They were standing around the graveside as the gravedigger worked hard at deepening the dark hole in the ground. One of the faces hanging over the grave separated itself from the others, and a little later the sound of water trickling to the ground in the dark behind him shocked his ears. A jarring sound in the midst of silent sleepers. He didn’t turn his head, and a minute later the face returned to join the other grim faces. As they piled the wet dirt over the shrouded body, city lights gleamed in the distance. One pair after another, car lights pierced the darkness on the road going downtown, like torches carried by ghosts into the throbbing city.

This is how a companion who had filled his life with mirth turned into a mere memory. For others, her departure was just a social occasion. They’d linger a while, but eventually would leave the funeral gathering, each heading off in his own direction. He wished they had never come because this endless movement was wearing him down. His legs ached, but he had to observe the conventions; otherwise they would say he had showed no respect for her memory. These rituals, they say, keep the bereaved preoccupied and shield them from the pain of loss. But nothing so far was lessening the pain of her loss. An abyss had yawned open in his soul and brought him endless desolation. They had lived together long enough to know what the other thought without uttering so much as a word.

Words stopped being a necessity.

Their looks alone were enough.

“Take heart. We all are on this road.” He stood up and shook the hand that the man extended. No one would argue with this simple fact, but fragile human emotions rarely take notice of hard facts. He heard some of the low, cautious conversations among those around him. Some talked of the latest news, and others finalized business deals. Bitterness crept into him. How tired and forlorn he felt. His son noticed that and stopped reminding him to stand up to receive callers or bid them farewell. He apologized for him, mentioning his weak heart. That was true enough—his was a weak heart.

He kept staring in front of him refusing to accept her absence. Then he saw her coming. He hadn’t seen her in the neighborhood before—a small white cat strolling quietly over the green grass, between the chairs’ and men’s legs. His face lightened up as she approached, and his heart came to life when she stopped under his chair. She sat on the grass, and a little later she scratched herself against his leg. He smiled and bent to pick her up. Unfazed by the looks in the mourners’ eyes or the concern in his son’s, he left the funeral assembly. His back was turned to them all as he walked toward the house, his arms around the cat.

Breaking Away

Only a few patrons were at the café that early in the day. An elderly lady from the nursing home sat by herself eating the cherry pie I usually brought her with the coffee. She would cut a piece and pick it up with her fork and chew at it with her shiny dentures. Through the window her eyes followed the people going into and out of the bazaar. In the other corner of the café sat a man by himself sipping his coffee slowly as he looked at a newspaper spread on the table. My coworker, Mary, stood behind the partition washing dishes and glasses, her plump body swaying with the music coming from a tape recorder on a shelf behind her. The café owner was away depositing money from the previous day’s takings.

I stood close to the front window panel watching the old painter pegging up his work on a rope he had tied between two poles. His was a corner of the roofed part of the bazaar next to a wooden bench and not far from the café. Mary came and stopped right behind me, her hand on my right shoulder and her chin on my left. Her thick blond hair was all over me, and one of her breasts pressed against my back. I was engulfed in her overpowering femininity.

“What are you looking at?”

I moved away from the lure of her maddening body, her head falling off my shoulder. She approached again:

“What is it you’re staring at? I don’t see a thing out of the usual.”

“I’m looking at the old painter displaying his art.”

“You must be delirious!”

“I know he’s not there . . . . I know he’s been bedridden since he fell sick, but I can’t help visualizing him right there. A thin body topped by a bright, graying head.”

“Leave the old man alone and try to get something done before the boss comes back.”

Two days before he was taken ill, I had given him a postcard I had received from home. It pictured a scenic date palm orchard that he had promised to paint for me. But sickness was faster.

“Do you want me to call the nursing home and see if you can visit him?” asked Mary.

“Yes, please do.”

A man and a woman entered the café and sat at a table. “You take care of them,” I said.

“Why, aren’t you working today?”

“Do it now, will you?”

I continued to stare through the window. I saw the old man approach, pushing his ancient bicycle. He used to ride that thing before he became too old to bike. But why bother now about the bicycle? Mary said the old man was a little crazy, but I didn’t think he was.

The old painter leaned the bike against the wall, untied his big bag, and laid it on the bench. He then carefully emptied its contents: a bundle of papers, a square board, color pens, a plastic mug for the pens, a piece of cloth stained with all sorts of colors, a small container with clear liquid, a brush, pegs—ordinary clothes-pegs. The old man lined up his stuff on the bench and from the bundle of papers began to pick the painted ones. He would pick one and fasten it to the line with two pegs, then pick another and another. When all the paintings were on the line, he would sit on the edge of the bench, put the board on his knees, take a blank sheet of paper, and clip it to the board with four small tacks. He would then start sketching.

“The boss will be here any time now, and you’re still standing there staring through the window.” Again, Mary came closer and stood right behind me.

“Did you ask the home if I can visit him?”

“Yes, you can go if you don’t stay long.”

“I’ll go this evening. Do you want to come?”

“I can’t stand sick people, especially the elderly. They depress me. I’ll wait for you in your room.”

The old man used to take a break from painting at ten in the morning. He would wave to us, and Mary would pour his tea and put a slice of apple pie on a small plate. Then I would take it to him. If I didn’t have much to do at the café, I’d linger a few minutes and look at the paintings spread out on the line.

“This one is so lovely,” I once said of one of his paintings. “All this harmony of color, and these rays of sunshine trying to break through thick foliage.”

“You like The Forest?”

“Very much.”

“Do you want to get into The Forest?”

I looked at him in disbelief. He wasn’t joking. Was he really crazy, as Mary thought?

“Get into what?” I asked him.

“Into the painting . . . into The Forest.”

“And how would I do that?”

“Come back during your next break and I’ll show you. We’ll enter The Forest together.”

He stopped painting when I returned and stood up. He took my hand and led me to the picture. “Now. Concentrate all your being in your eyes and just look at the colors.”

We stood there together contemplating the forest—its trees, its dim roads, and the glimpse of a distant sea. We were silent as if in prayer. A moment later the branches quivered, the leaves fluttered, and the wind blew among the trees. I found myself there with him inside the forest. We walked on ground covered by withering, falling foliage that kept cracking beneath out feet.

“Look at that huge tree on your right.” A colossal tree stood there, its thick and overlapping roots were sunk deep into the soil but were still smooth and glistening with raindrops, as if dirt had never covered them.

“Do you know how old that tree is? More than two hundred years,” the old man said. We marched into the heart of the forest, with the old man still holding my hand. Birds were chirping, and those that weren’t were busy digging among the fallen leaves. We watched them fly away and disappear into the trees.

“Excuse us,” the old man whispered to the fleeing birds. “We didn’t mean to disturb you.” We continued our walk between rows of trees. A gusty breeze from the sea refreshed us and set the branches swaying, sending more leaves to the ground.

“If you’re tired, we can sit on one of those benches,” he said.

“I hope you’re not tired.”

“When I walk among the forest trees, I regain my youth.”

The waves of the sea were glistening with sunlight now, and a vast sandy beach came into view behind the trees. Seagulls shrieked as they flew over the shallow water close to the coast. “Let’s sit over there,” the old man said, pointing to a concrete bench next to a garbage can fastened to the ground not far from the water. I sat, but he didn’t. He stood facing the ocean, then one of his hands delved into a pocket and came out with a handful of bread crumbs, which he peppered on the sands. A flock of seagulls dived onto the crumbs. We silently watched the gulls fight for the food and tuned into the hubbub of the waves as they hurried, bright edged, only to break upon the beach in undying whispers. The breeze had a little bite now, so I raised my jacket collar a little.

“Let’s go,” the aged painter said.

In the evening I went to visit him. From the entrance to the nursing home an elderly woman led me to his room. The woman interrupted her conversation with a colleague of hers to say she was his friend. Like a loyal dog, his deserted bicycle remained on the balcony, next to the door to his room. I patted its cold handlebars consolingly. The old woman knocked with a bony finger, then put her head through the door. I heard her say, “Quit playing sick. Look here—you have a visitor,” and then she pushed the door open.

“Go in,” she said and went away.

I stepped into the silent room. His bed, the central piece of furniture, looked vacant as if there were nothing under the nearly flat cover. A waxen face bereft of all light, however, was visible from a tiny space on the pillow. His eyes sparkled when he saw me. “I’m glad you’ve come.”

I pressed the hand he extended—fragile and cold. I sat on a bedside chair close to a table adjacent to the wall on which he had a water pitcher, a glass, a container of dark medicine, and a book. A spoon was balanced horizontally over the glass.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m a little worried about you.”

“I’m fine.” He pointed to scores of paintings hanging from ropes running across the room. “I did all those in my old age,” he said with a touch of pride.

“A magnificent achievement.”

I started looking at the first row of pictures and was thrilled with the one that immediately caught my eye. I got up and went around the bed to look at it closely.

“Those date orchards of yours I painted . . . just before . . .”

“As if you lived there.”

“Take it.” I pulled the painting from the rope and rolled it up. “Take any other painting you want.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll take The Forest we entered together.”

“That one is on the next rope.”

I unpegged it and rolled it up over the date palm painting and came back to sit by his bedside.

“Your postcard . . . that’s in the Bible—on the table,” he said almost out of breath.

I took the postcard. “I’ll let you rest now—my stay must have exhausted you.”

“I’ll have a long rest pretty soon.”

“No, you’ll be up in a few days.”

“Death doesn’t scare me—it’s just another way to delve into a painting.”

I stood up and bent to kiss his white forehead. I pressed his arm a little and left.

When I arrived back at the pension, I found the door to my room ajar. I pushed it open and saw Mary lying on the bed. Her short dress revealed a generous portion of white thigh. She didn’t stir, but merely turned her head and smiled.

“You’re late.”

“I didn’t stay for long.”

“How is he?”

“I’m afraid he’s going down.”

“Nothing unusual there. He’s an old man.” She sounded indifferent.

“There are a lot who are older than he is.”

I stood there in the middle of the room holding the rolled-up paintings, looking at her bare skin.

“Leave the old man alone. Come and lie down beside me.”

“Mary, please leave. I’m tired and depressed and would like to be alone.” She couldn’t see why I was avoiding her. She sat on the bed.

“You must be kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t be silly. You don’t want to spoil the night because of that crazy old man.”

“Not just that.”

Getting off the bed, she said disappointedly, “It was stupid of me to waste my time waiting for some nice time together.”

“Perhaps another time.”

“You think I’ll ever set foot again in your damned place?” She picked up her bag and left, angry.

I closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed for a while, then I got up and unrolled the two pictures. I spread the old man’s Forest on the table, pinned the date palm orchards on the wall, and stood there contemplating them the way he had taught me. My eyes devoured the orchards until I was enveloped in the greenery of the date palms. Hissing fronds fluttered in the air over my head; doves cooed and sparrows chirped on the branches and in the tops of trees. All these years I had missed the smell of wet, cultivated land, of the irrigation channels, and the aromas of fruits in the trees and herb bushes lining the roads. And leaves warmed by sunshine, smoke curling from chimneys in the tiny villages scattered among those orchards, and the smell of bread baked in tannurs.

I walked among palm trees and branching vines in sunny and shady spots, caressed by a succession of warm and cool breezes. I stepped over arches of date palm trunks that were caked in dry mud from the feet of those who had crossed during winter. Green frogs croaked in the shiny waters below, and schools of tiny fish darted away as my shadow approached. From a distance I heard the voice of a man singing, sweet sad singing echoing among the trees. I passed a mud hut where a woman was baking bread in a tannur, its round top blackened by years of use. I greeted her, and she beckoned me to approach. She handed me a warm, round loaf of bread and said: “Son, eat it for your good health.” I took the bread and walked toward the river, savoring small pieces of warm bread and big chunks of my bygone childhood. The river swarmed with ships bound for the gulf and big, rectangular ferries pushing against the water toward the city’s ports.

The other bank was covered with a dark, endless stretch of orchards. I sat on the ground in the shade of a date palm and rested my back against its sturdy trunk. Basking in the moist river breeze, I took off my shoes and stretched out my legs. I closed my eyes, surrendering to a spell of delicious drowsiness. The water flowing in the river carried me away from under that date palm, on its eternal course between endless stretches of palm tree orchards.

Morning Exercises

Our little boy was playing by himself in the front garden when the siren shook the morning’s quiet.

He rolled his colorful rubber ball on the grass and ran after it, then sent it in the opposite direction. He looked happy, and his mother and I contentedly watched him through the big window. We had no pressing matter to attend to.

The ominous shriek shook our lethargy. We sprang to our feet and ran toward him, bumping into each other. He was standing there, bewildered. I snatched him, and we all ran back into the house.

He fidgeted under my arm and cried, “I want my ball.”

“Later.”

My wife drew the curtain, blocking the daylight, and turned the radio off. The music had no chance against the wailing siren, anyway.

“Why did you turn it off?”

She sat next to me and said, “We need to hear what goes on outside when the siren goes off.” She gave our kid a tentative smile. He had settled quietly on my lap, my arms around his little body, as the stubborn siren terrorized the air around us. Under my arm I felt his heart racing.

“Don’t be scared—it’s just an exercise,” I said.

“An exercise?”

“Yes, all this noise comes from a small thing. They’re just testing it.”

I raised my voice a little to make sure he heard me. The siren finally went off. For a few minutes we could hear only the frenzied traffic on the nearby streets. Then silence fell as the roads emptied themselves. We waited. The boy was uneasy, so I sat him beside his mother and headed toward the radio. I turned it on, and music flooded the room with soft tunes. My wife didn’t miss the incongruity.

“You are crazy.”

“Perhaps.”

The sweet music mysteriously touched the place. An absurdity under that trying atmosphere. I had the kid in my lap again and heard my wife’s trembling voice.

“There’s a plane up there.”

“I want to see it,” the boy said.

“You can’t see it,” I said. “It flies too high.”

The boy sat miserably under my arms, listening to that intruding sound vibrating in the sky. It sounded distant but unique, unadulterated by other sounds. Much like the night buzzing of a lonely insect. That did not last for long. The air around us roared with the antiaircraft artillery. The little body shrank. He asked me:

“And this is an exercise, too?”

“Yes. They fire in the air to test the artillery.”

I evaded his questioning stares. He turned to his mother, who gave a smile too wan to assure him. I went to the radio again and turned it up. An odd mix of artillery fire and string instruments. My wife shot a hopeless look at me. A few seconds later we heard a heavy but distant explosion, and the collapse of a large structure, as if a torrent of boulders were suddenly let loose.

“Ya satir!” my wife gasped.

I gave her a cautioning stare.

“Why not make us some tea?”

“Now?”

“Will you please keep quiet then!”

The boy moved to his mother’s lap, consolingly. My wife looked at me and said, “Shouldn’t we sit in a more secure place?”

I said, “Every place is the same at a time like this.”

Outside, heavy artillery fire continued to roar. Then a deafening explosion nearby. The ground under us shook, the doors and windows rattled. A large glass panel came crashing to the floor, barely held by the drawn curtain. The radio went dead—perhaps because of the explosion.

The child’s eyes widened with fear. I saw my wife, the color of her face gone, rise with the boy and dash deeper into the house. I stood up and looked at the curtain fluttering in the wind. The artillery sounded as if they were in the next room. Glass shards pierced the curtain, and daylight sneaked in. For a moment the curtain looked laced with silver lines in all shapes and designs.

The antiaircraft fire finally fell silent. An ambulance raced on the quiet streets, then a car a little later. The heavy silence afterwards lasted only a few minutes before the siren sounded again, the wail more like a sigh this time. The city came back to life. I opened the curtain; the air blew through the broken window, loaded with smoke, dust, and other smells. There was no fire in the distance in front of me. In the pristine blue sky pigeons flew over the palm trees and houses, flirting with the bright sunshine as if nothing had happened. Except there was the smell of burning in the air and the broken glass.

“At last it’s over,” I heard my wife say behind me. I turned and saw the kid hanging on to her hand, his eyes still questioning.

I said, “You can go out and play in the garden.”

He was hesitant, his eyes on the ball lying where it was on the grass under the brilliant sun. He let go of his mother’s hand and went out.

I said to my wife, “Let’s gather the glass before it hurts someone.” We picked up the shards off the floor and furniture. My head was down as I carefully picked up the pieces when I heard my wife say, “Look at him!”

I turned my head. The kid stood still there, his hair glistening in the sun. The ball was in his hand, but his eyes were on the suspicious sky as if he heard distant echoes.

A Dreamer in Dark Times

Chapter One

Just before Hameed got close to the water, he saw an American MP standing arms akimbo on the bank watching the river. He recognized his white hat and white, wide belt and the big gun. A big man, too, with a flushed face topped by blond hair that stuck out of the hat. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing muscular forearms with a light suntan, unlike the locals’ swarthiness. The river extended in front of him, wide and full, its tranquil surface shining with the morning sun. Close to the bank seagulls looked for small fish in the shallow waters, their shrieks adding to the noises coming from the nearby street. Owners of commuter boats at the crossing point quarreled noisily as they scrambled for clients.

Cautious and hesitant, Hameed walked toward the MP and stopped a few steps from him.

“Smoke, smoke, sahib?” he said, his hand pantomiming smoking.

The MP ignored him and kept looking at the river in front of him.

Hameed got closer to the man. Perhaps he didn’t hear him.

“Smoke, sahib, please,” Hameed mumbled and pantomimed smoking. “May Allah protect you.”

“Fuck off,” the man said as he turned an angry face.

Disappointed, Hameed retreated but kept looking resentfully from afar at the MP. He bent down and picked up a stone and looked back for a second at the massive structure in front of him, then turned his eyes away to a large seagull hovering over the river bank. He threw the stone at it, but the bird swerved away toward the river as if carried away by a strong wind. It’s funny, Hameed thought, how fast it flew away.

Then he noticed the MP was leaving his spot. His eyes followed the broad back and the heaving, muscular buttocks that reminded him of the behind of a plump woman. The sparkling black butt of the gun quivered with the moving thighs. The MP joined another uniformed MP at the crossing point. They guarded the point day and night, Hameed thought with a smile, to make sure none of their soldiers crossed the river to the other side where the brothels were. But as soon as night fell, the prostitutes themselves crossed the river, with nothing but a bedspread tucked under their arms. They sneaked into the date palm orchards at the outskirts of the city, close to the barracks and depots scattered in the desert.

Hameed bent and rolled up the bottoms of his pants to start his daily work. The pants were stiff with dirt and dry mud. He stopped when he saw an American army jeep park on the other side of the street. There was the entrance to the market with the arched roof. His attention turned to the jeep. He loved these compact cars and fantasized about owning one of them. He watched its three occupants get out from a distance. Three men—an MP, a local policeman, and a good-looking, lanky young man in civilian clothes. He saw the men enter the market, led by the local policeman, who proudly held under his arm a big black official book. The sight of these men made him uncomfortable. They must have come to arrest somebody, and Hameed wondered who that might be.

His eyes then moved to the black¹ driver who stayed in the car. He was smoking and looking at what was going on in the street and the river below. He looked like a giant in a cage. A big frame squeezed into a tiny space. The driver then got out of the car and started stretching his body next to the car as he looked at the river. It was clear he was bored as he waited for the men’s return. Hameed crossed the street and approached him. The driver noticed him and smiled, revealing white teeth. That was enough encouragement for Hameed.

“Smoke, smoke,” he said and raised two fingers to his mouth.

Without hesitation, the Negro reached into his shirt pocket and took out a colorful pack of cigarettes and offered it to him. Hameed grabbed it and pulled a cigarette as he scrutinized the Negro’s face, and when he saw his warm smile, he took another.

“Tenk you, tenk you, sahib,” he said and returned the packet.

He smelled the two cigarettes and tucked them behind his ears. The Negro laughed, and Hameed looked at him for a second and laughed with him. The Negro stopped laughing, but retained a smile. Amicably, he laid a heavy hand on Hameed’s shoulder. Hameed liked him immediately for his generosity and warmth. Then he heard him speak fast and lifted a baffled face to him. He had no idea what the Negro said, but decided not to offend him.

“Yes, sahib. Yes. OK,” he mumbled with a positive nod.

The driver’s face beamed immediately, and he gave Hameed’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. He appeared delighted, and Hameed wondered where that joy came from. Then he was stunned when he saw the bawdy gesture the man was making with his other hand.

“Chicks, chicks,” he said, pumping his fist sideways.

Hameed didn’t like the look in the man’s eye.

“No, sahib, no chicks. Not allowed. MP,” he said resentfully and pointed toward the two MPs manning the crossing point. The driver’s face became glum, and he pulled his hand from Hameed’s shoulder.

“Oh, fuck the goddamn MPs,” he said angrily and turned away from Hameed. Hameed did not know what to do for a moment and then started to check out the car. He went around it, admiring its different parts.

“OK, sahib,” he said after a while, pointing to the car.

“Yeah,” he said, completely indifferent, and his smile was gone.

The driver then ignored him altogether and followed with hungry looks the back of a young woman on the street. When he whistled, several passersby turned around, and the woman rushed with frightened steps. Hameed thought it was wise to get away from this reckless driver and from his car, and he went back to his spot on the bank. He was still curious about the three men, and he waited for their return. Then he saw them emerge from the market, with the MP leading the way this time. The driver went back to his seat as soon as he saw them. Hameed’s heart jumped when he saw Najat. Her face reflected the bright rays of the sun as she came out of the dark market. Her mother dragged her own massive body next to Najat. He soon lost interest in the three men and devoted his eyes to the face he adored. Where would she go with her mother so early in the day? he wondered. He became even more bewildered when he saw her mother talk to the local policeman and shake her hands with obvious anger. What was going on?

The three men headed to the car, and Najat and her mother followed them. He became alarmed when it dawned on him that they had come for Najat. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? Why wouldn’t they leave people alone? He crossed the street again and got close enough to see what was happening. He saw the good-looking man hold Najat’s hand and help her into the back seat of the car. She was silent and quiet as if she were hypnotized.

“I will not let my daughter go alone,” her mother said and continued to wave a heavy arm in front of the men’s faces. “I’ll go with her.”

Her shouting drew in some people, and the policeman asked them to disperse. Hameed was upset and decided to follow the scene from the riverbank. Numerous questions dogged him as he kept hearing the mother’s loud voice as it imposed itself on the shrieking seagulls. Najat sat quietly in the car, her head hung down, unwilling to be seen by others. The young man was translating to the resentful MP what the mother was saying, and the MP continued to shake his head and repeat “No, no, no, no” as he looked at his watch. Umm Najat then grabbed the metal of the car with her huge hands and insisted on going with her daughter. At last the MP gave in and let her get her wide body into the jeep and sit next to her daughter. Soon enough a victorious look on her face washed away the frustrated anger. The MP sat next to the driver, still shaking his head resentfully. The young man sat with the two women and the policeman walked away since his mission of locating and delivering Najat was over. He walked in the direction of the police station, hugging his record book.

Hameed’s heart leaped up when Najat raised her head and looked toward the river, even though she looked dazed. Her eyes fell on him briefly, but she did not smile as she usually did when she ran into him. Her look was indifferent, or perhaps just oblivious to her surroundings. A world he knew nothing about was engulfing her; his dejected looks followed the car as it sped away. Why was she so depressed and disoriented? And where were they taking her? He wished he knew as he sank deeper in his fears.

He remembered the day when they had kicked him out of their depot outside the city. He had been leaving after work with a crowd of porters and had tried to sneak through the gate, but one of the white MPs discovered the small amount of sugar he had hid in his clothes. The MP had forced him to eat all the sugar. Then he had him take off his clothes and stand naked. He then had painted his body, including his face, with tar and had him stand there in front of the shocked porters. Then he had him stand in an empty barrel at the gate of the depot so that those passing by would see him. The barrel was hot and his stomach was upset, not to mention that the tar was burning the flesh underneath. He had felt as if his body had caught fire, and he started to vomit the wet pulps of sugar inside the barrel. He was tired but had not been allowed to sit, not even in the barrel. He had remained there till he was let free at the end of the day. He had come home after the onset of dark and had given his mother the scare of her life. She thought a black ghost had slipped into the house.

Those people might hurt Najat even though her mother went with her. What would the mother do anyway but raise a shouting hell? Hameed pulled one of the two cigarettes from behind his ear, asked for a light from a passerby, and sat on the bank smoking. His distracted look followed the direction where the jeep had vanished.

From Chapter Three

Najat hesitantly walked with the translator. The camp swarmed with men. Five rows of them, about six feet apart. The soldiers stood under the burning July sun separated by two feet. The colonel and his white escort were joined by a black officer at the end of the first row. A few steps away stood the four white MPs she saw a moment ago sitting in a jeep at the entrance to the camp. They all were waiting for her arrival. She felt dozens of eyes watching her as she walked and stopped out of sheer fright. The translator told her to proceed. She walked with him, still tormented with anxiety, and when they approached a group of officers, the translator told her to wait, and he went alone toward the colonel. The waiting brought trepidation. The two talked for a while, then the translator asked her to approach. She froze, and he had to encourage her again. Her baffled eyes were fixed on his face.

“The colonel says look at their faces carefully,” he said with a calm voice. “Take your time and scrutinize their features. If you see the culprit or his companion, just stay in front of them. Don’t move. If you identify one of them, they’ll take care of the other. Let’s go now.”

She did not move. He spoke too slowly as if he were talking to a child. She kept looking at him not because she did not understand, but perhaps because she was waiting for some elaboration. In fact, she understood every word he said, especially his phrase “if you see the culprit.” The thought that “the culprit” was among them, standing in one of these long lines, paralyzed her. She was going to see him. She was going to have a second encounter with him.

“Go ahead,” the translator said, baffled by her inaction. “Don’t be afraid of them. They can’t do anything to you.”

She moved awkwardly, then stopped in front of the man at the top of the first row. She raised her head slowly and looked at his face. The black face and broad nose and full lips look like the rapist’s. No, maybe not. She was not sure. The face and neck were covered with sweat, and the man just looked straight ahead over her head and into the open space. He appeared as if he had stopped breathing, and she moved away from the frozen features and aimlessly looked at a bulging vein in his muscular neck. It looked like a tight cord along the neck, and her look lingered there to avoid looking at the face above her head. She dared not raise her eyes again, and it hit her that this was just one of many faces she would be looking at in these long rows. She wished she would disappear from the face of the earth at that moment and would not have to look at these stiff faces. And she froze again. The colonel and his men thought that this was the wanted man, and there were some quick exchanges.

“Najat, is this the man?” she heard the translator ask.

“No, no, that’s not him,” she managed to say.

“Move on, then,” he urged her.

She heard the black soldier’s sigh of relief as she moved to the next in line. Well, she almost got that man in trouble. Her unsure eyes went over the next face, and that, too, looked like him. And the third one. And the fourth. The faces covered with sweat under the scorching sun looked alike, with almost identical features. Their stern faces forced her to push her head back to be able to see them. After a few encounters she realized that they, too, feared her as much as she feared them. Those giants who had stripped her naked with their hungry looks a moment ago when she was in the car were standing there looking at the vacuum above her head in total surrender to her scrutinizing eyes. The colonel was behind all of this. He wanted to get to the culprit. He was walking along her side, his overbearing body bumping into her every once in a while, but he did not seem to feel her presence as a woman. He treated her more like one of the police dogs she heard were being used to track down criminals. His questioning looks quickly and abruptly moved from her face to the face she was looking at in an attempt to figure out responses and reactions. The men looked past him the way they looked past her.

She was very careful not to make a mistake. Every face she approached looked like the face of the wanted man. Her heart would sink for a second, and then she would realize it was not him. The lines seemed an endless succession of faces, and she wanted to be done with looking at them. Sometimes she would linger for a second and move on quickly, but at one point she felt the colonel’s firm hand clamp her arm.

“Don’t rush! Don’t rush, you bitch!” he shouted above her head.

She lifted a frightened face to his. She had no idea what he had said or what he wanted. The translator told her that the colonel wanted her to look more carefully at the faces. The colonel pushed her arm angrily, and she moved, but she struggled to slow down.

That colonel despised her and treated her like a slut, she thought. She was not surprised, given the place where they had found her. She could not but recall the events of that miserable night in the date palms orchard. And the frightened face she saw in a split second in the MP’s torchlight. She prayed to Allah that she might not see that face again. She forced herself to proceed slowly in front of the long lines of faces. Even the air surrounding those erect men’s bodies was charged with anxiety and tension, and it suffocated her like a thick, sticky liquid. What if she closed her eyes and opened them and found that she was done with the whole business? What if all this was a dream she could forget someday? The body odor coming from those sweating bodies under the burning sun and the colonel’s towering and threatening presence left little room for wishful thinking. When she got to the last face in the line, she felt some relief as if she had just emerged from a long, dark tunnel. Her sigh of relief did not last long, though, for she had to examine the faces in the other rows.

It took an eternity to go through those tense faces, and when she was done, the colonel and his men surrounded her. The translator was passing on their questions.

“Have you seen him?”

“As I said before, it was nighttime and dark,” she tried to justify her hesitation.

As soon as the translator rendered her words, the colonel exploded.

“Look here, you fucking bitch, you whore,” he said, pointing his long finger at her face and showering her with curses she did not understand in front of all those people.

“It’s better to just answer the questions,” the translator intervened.

She realized she could not get away with indecision any longer. That colonel was not someone who would settle for half truths, and she did not want to aggravate him any further. He could send her to prison.

“I didn’t see him,” she said, defeated.

The colonel said something to the translator and continued to wiggle his finger in her direction.

“The colonel wants you to look him in the eye when you answer his questions,” he told her.

She raised her eyes to the colonel and said with a quivering voice, “I didn’t see him among them.”

His cruel gray eyes penetrated hers in an attempt to read her thoughts and feelings, and she shook out of fear. But she struggled not to let him stare her down in case he would think she was lying. His aggressive attitude had gradually created in her a desire to challenge him. He would not see through her. If she chose, no one would find out from looking into her eyes what she wanted to keep secret. But would she benefit from keeping those secrets? The white officer whispered something to the colonel, who then talked to the translator.

“The colonel says maybe you saw him, but you were afraid to speak in front of him?”

The colonel could not believe she did not see him. She knew he was trying to get her to talk, and she was getting firmer and firmer.

“I didn’t see him in any row,” she said as she looked at the colonel.

“And not his companion?”

“No, not his companion either,” she said. She wanted to say that she never saw his companion’s face because at the time of the incident he was in the dark all the time and the MP’s torchlight had not fallen on him, but she did not want to see the colonel explode again.

“How about anyone who looked like them?

“No one.”

The colonel watched her for a while, then turned to the two officers and talked for some time. The alien words added to her bewilderment. The soldiers were still standing in the line looking steadily ahead. The colonel turned to the translator, and her anxious looks turned in that direction as well.

“The colonel says that’s enough for today.”

She could not withhold her sigh of relief.

1. The word zinji, “Negro,” is used in the Arabic text. It does not have the negative sense it usually has in current American usage, so I opted to translate it as “black.”