Mayada, Daughter of Iraq: One Woman's Survival Under Saddam Hussein

by Jean Sasson

  Mayada’s ears listened to Mamoun’s voice as her eyes followed Samara, who was only a few steps ahead. She noted idly that a knot of black and white hair had escaped from under Samara’s scarf, and Mayada’s heart sank to think that the two friends now walked toward such disparate fates.

  Feeling Mayada’s eyes on her, Samara turned to share one last look. All of her emotions were concentrated in her vivid eyes as she stared levelly at Mayada. She mouthed something, but Mayada could not discern the words.

  At the end of the corridor, Samara was pushed toward the torture room.

  Mayada was helpless to save her.

  The guard looked at Mayada, speaking rapidly. “Salam is waiting. We will meet him. He will take you home.”

  Mamoun quickly marched Mayada back into the same room she had visited on her first day in Baladiyat, nearly a month before. Nothing had changed—the same gray man sat behind the same circular desk. He searched through a cabinet and handed Mayada her bag. He grunted and pointed to a document, instructing her, “Sign here.” After signing, Mayada peeked into her bag and saw that everything was there: her ring, watch, wallet, workbook, telephone book, identification card, keys and even the note written to her by Fay.

  Mayada slipped on her watch and then her ring. The ring spun loosely around her finger. She had lost a lot of weight. Mayada put the ring back into her bag.

  “Follow me,” Mamoun ordered, as they retraced steps she had trod the day she was first arrested. Everything seemed surreal to Mayada as she walked quietly behind Mamoun.

  On her way out of Baladiyat, Mayada followed Mamoun into the prison’s entrance hall. The large room was crammed with hundreds of men, all squatting on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs. Although the men were waiting to be processed, and none had yet been tortured, acute misery was etched on every face in the room. The men’s wide eyes reflected the terror that writhed inside each of them.

  As they cautiously wove their way through this nest of trapped men, Mayada’s gaze moved among them.

  She whispered at Mamoun’s striding back. “What is this about?”

  He turned his head slightly and answered in a low voice, “Later, in the car, I will tell you.”

  Mayada knew when to keep quiet. She followed Mamoun out through the door of Baladiyat prison and marched briskly down its broad stairs. When she cleared the steps, she paused and through eyes bright with excitement she peered up at the sky. The sunlight was blinding. It was beautiful. Mayada’s face quickened into a smile that pulled at her eyes and her mouth and her heart. She was truly free. She held out her hands, welcoming the warm August sun on her face and hands. She heard a flock of birds squawking and searched the sky to see their flight.

  “Come now!” Mamoun commanded.

  Mayada walked as briskly as she could. The best was yet to come. She was going home. To Fay and Ali.

  “My car is parked in the car park,” Mamoun told her. “Let’s hurry.”

  Knowing that someone might be watching their departure, and knowing that if she appeared too friendly with Mamoun, she might be arrested once again, Mayada lowered her head and walked determinedly. “Here we are,” Mamoun announced as they arrived at a white, 1990 Toyota Corolla.

  “Get in the backseat,” he instructed her, nodding with his head.

  Mayada’s heart pounded as the chief gate of the prison compound was soon framed in the car’s windshield. This time she was traveling in the right direction, out of Baladiyat. She glanced back at the photographs of Saddam that flanked the gate. She wanted to spit at the evil dictator. But of course, she didn’t.

  Mamoun slowed at the exit and showed a few documents to a guard there before he and Mayada passed through the black gate of Baladiyat.

  The moment they were rolling on the highway, Mayada began to laugh, a wild unrestrained sound that she couldn’t control.

  Mamoun turned around and stared. “Salam said you were a jolly one,” he remarked.

  Not wishing to irritate this man, Mayada managed to curb her noise and instead threw back her head into a soundless laugh. Abruptly, though, concern for the unknown fate of the hundreds of new Baladiyat prisoners jolted her upright.

  “What about those men? Has there been an attempted coup?”

  “No. Someone passed out leaflets against the government in the Kadumiya district. All of the men walking in that area were arrested earlier this morning.”

  Mayada knew that Kadumiya was a Shiite district in Baghdad.

  “Why would the secret police arrest all the men? Only a few were passing out leaflets, I’m sure. Most of those men are innocent, nothing more than passersby, men running small errands or the like. Why is our government like this?”

  Mamoun replied sternly, “Don’t ask me. I am my master’s slave. I do what I am told.” He twisted his head around. “Listen to me, sister, all Iraqis are under arrest. They take turns picking us up and bringing us in. Even I have been locked up and tortured on two occasions.”

  Mayada nodded in agreement. Not one Iraqi was safe. She would leave this country as soon as she could arrange it.

  Then Mamoun spoke again. “This is important. Your husband is waiting for you, at Baghdad Al-Jadida.” Al-Jadida meant “New Baghdad,” and Mayada knew that this was a neighborhood about thirty minutes from Baladiyat.

  She quickly set the record straight. “I am divorced,” she said. “Salam is my ex-husband. But my home is next to his father’s home and we have two children together, so we are still on speaking terms.”

  “He’s not your ex-husband for long,” Mamoun said with a smirk.

  Mayada was baffled by his comment, but Mamoun gave her no time to ask for details. “Listen to my instructions,” he said. “You are not to leave Iraq. I will come and talk with you in a day or two and tell you what you must do. Remember, you cannot leave. This is a temporary release only. If you want to stay out of Baladiyat, you will have to do what I say.”

  Mayada knew instantly that Mamoun was threatening her with blackmail. She had heard many stories from Samara about the routine extortion of former prisoners. By blackmailing released prisoners with the threat of new detention, many guards became rich.

  She pushed this new worry out of her mind for the moment, telling herself she would deal with it later. Mayada refused to let her joy over her release be diminished by this guard’s forewarning. Besides, regardless of what anyone urged, she would take her children and leave Iraq as quickly as she could arrange it. Her mother would help her.

  Mamoun quieted as he tended to his driving. Mayada longed to reach over his shoulders and blow the horn and shout out the windows that she was free. But she didn’t.

  Instead she sat back against the car seat and stared out the window. She hummed quietly behind her closed lips so Mamoun couldn’t hear her. She slumped down to peer at the sky, seeing a few white fluffy clouds.

  How she longed to leap from the car and breathe the fresh air! But she couldn’t, at least not yet. Instead, she straightened her back and studied the shop windows and the people walking past. She cast her gaze from side to side with pleasure. Baghdad was unfolding as new, as though she had never seen it before. Outside a supermarket, people pushed their shopping carts expectantly toward the entry door. Mayada noted a grandmother with graying hair. The content-looking woman walked holding the tiny hand of her grandson, who toddled along with the pleasure of new life. Three or four teenage boys peered into a shop window filled with sports equipment. Nearby, two men walked side by side, laughing, gesturing and talking.

  Four major traffic lights slowed traffic between Baladiyat and Baghdad Al-Jadida. The main street was filled with shops and supermarkets, and the side roads led to quiet suburban homes. It would take another ten or fifteen minutes to reach Baghdad Al-Jadida.

  Mayada saw a whole family of women walking together down the street. She felt a tug at her heart. These lucky people—walking and talking and living full lives—were unaware that at this very moment, only a
few miles away, a beautiful Shiite woman named Samara was being brutally tortured.

  Mayada sat quietly and reviewed the shadow women’s telephone numbers and special code words.

  Soon she and Mamoun arrived at the Baghdad Al-Jadida neighborhood, where Mayada quickly saw Salam. He sat in his white Oldsmobile outside a flower shop called Al-Khadrae, or The Green. He wore dark sunglasses and sat slumped in his car. Mayada laughed hysterically. Salam looked like an undercover cop.

  She leapt out of the car as Salam stepped out of his.

  She cried out, “How are the children?”

  Without answering her question, Salam began shouting at Mayada, furious that she had been arrested. “You stupid! Getting yourself arrested! Now, get in the backseat,” he ordered.

  With a wave of his hand at Salam, Mamoun roared off.

  Mayada was so happy to be free that even Salam couldn’t upset her. She was one step closer to her children.

  As he started the car, Salam told her, “We must get remarried. Soon.”

  Mayada’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about, Salam?”

  “Mayada, this is a temporary release. You will be arrested again. I have to take you and Fay and Ali out of Iraq, to Jordan. You cannot go alone.”

  Mayada saw his point. She had no Mahram to accompany her out of Baghdad. If she wanted to leave Iraq—and she did—she would need that marriage document. She capitulated quickly.

  “Well, this will be only to get the children out of Iraq. We get divorced the minute I arrive in Amman.”

  Salam didn’t answer.

  “Salam? Only if you agree to an immediate divorce once we arrive in Amman. Otherwise I’ll find someone else who will agree to marry me, only for the sake of leaving Iraq.”

  “All right. I will do it,” he agreed. “But we must hurry. Your stupidity at getting arrested will have the secret police on all our heads.”

  Mayada sat and glared at the back of his head. She was glad she was no longer this man’s wife. And she would not remain his wife a moment longer than it took for her to move her children out of Iraq, to a safe country.

  “Salam. You didn’t answer my question. How are Fay and Ali?”

  His voice was filled with impatience. “They are fine.”

  As they approached her house on Waziriya Place, she sat up in the backseat and stared through the front window. She didn’t see either of her children waiting for her return, though she did see a small, thin boy who stood miserably beside her former father-in-law’s garage. She supposed he was one of Ali’s many friends.

  The moment the car stopped, Mayada didn’t bother saying goodbye to Salam but quickly jumped out and hurried up the walkway. As the car drove away, she heard Salam shout out the window, “We get married tomorrow!”

  The skinny boy looked up and then came running toward Mayada. Could it be that this child was her Ali?

  “Mama! Mama!”

  “Ali!” Mayada’s lips trembled with his name.

  Ali leapt into her arms, crying and exclaiming, “Mama! Mama! You are home!”

  Mayada was choking on her tears. “Ali! Let me see your face! Let me see your face!”

  Her chubby young boy with the smooth baby-face had disappeared. In his place was a serious young man with dark circles under his blue eyes.

  “Mama, I thought I’d never see you again!”

  Mayada lifted Ali off the ground. Her child was frail and small. She sobbed, knowing how her children had suffered without her.

  Ali hugged her tight, then pulled at her face. “Mama, I took your nightgown with me and tucked it under my pillow. Every night I asked God: Get me back my mama. Get me back my mama. That’s all I want, for the rest of my life. Just my mama.”

  “Your mama is back, Ali. And I’ll never leave you again.”

  Mayada glanced behind him. “Where is Fay? Where is your sister?”

  “Our father took her to stay with Uncle Mohammed.”

  “Why?” Mayada felt a flicker of anger. Fay should have remained with her paternal grandfather, close to her own home.

  Mayada pulled Ali with her. “Let’s go to your grandfather Mohy.” He was her former father-in-law, Mohy Al-Haimos. “He’ll get Fay back.”

  Mayada and Ali went into Mohy’s home without knocking, and she found Mohy standing there in his white dish dasha (Iraqi men’s attire). When he saw Mayada, his face broke into a wide smile. “Hella, hella, hella [welcome back],” he cheered. Mohy walked up to Mayada and kissed her on both cheeks. Mayada’s former mother-in-law, Jamila, heard the noise and walked out from the kitchen. “Am I dreaming? Is this really Mayada returned to us?” She looked into Mayada’s face and smiled happily.

  Mohy told Jamila, “Call Mohammed and tell him to bring Fay home. Her mother has returned.

  “While we are waiting, sit down, Mayada, and tell me everything that happened to you.”

  With Ali hanging on her arm, Mayada told the old couple something of Baladiyat, leaving out the most ghastly parts to protect her young son.

  “And do you wish to stay in Iraq?” Mohy asked Mayada, as her tale wound down.

  “No. There is danger here for us.” Mayada paused. “Uncle Mohy, my children and I can no longer live in a country filled with houses of torture.”

  Mohy nodded his head in agreement. He had once been arrested on a bogus charge and had spent a year under house arrest. He hated Saddam Hussein and everyone associated with his government. “I will help you do what is best,” he promised.

  From the beginning of her marriage, Mayada had loved her wise father-in-law. Mohy was a fine gentleman.

  Just then Mayada heard the roar of an engine and ran to the door. She saw Fay, who excitedly jumped from the still-moving car being driven by Salam’s brother, Mohammed.

  Mayada stepped outside. “Fay!”

  Fay ran to her, shouting, “Mama! Mama!”

  “Fay!”

  When Fay saw her mother, she shrieked so loudly that neighbors walked outside to see what the commotion was all about.

  Mayada called out to her former in-laws, “I am taking the children home. I will see you soon.”

  Holding her daughter under one arm and her son under the other, Mayada walked quickly to her home. “Inside. Inside,” Mayada warned them. “Let’s not make a scene.”

  The moment they walked in the door, Fay suggested, “We must make a prayer. We must thank God you are home, Mama.”

  As soon as Mayada put down her bag and the three of them washed their faces and hands, they stood in a straight line, facing Mecca. They kneeled and touched their foreheads on the floor and thanked God for returning Mayada from Baladiyat.

  And Mayada’s world was good, once again.

  10

  Dear Samara

  IRAQI LIBERATION DAY:

  APRIL 9, 2003

  Mayada Al-Askari

  Amman, Jordan

  Dear Samara,

  A glorious day has dawned.

  Last night my twenty-year-old daughter, Fay, sat up all night watching television, waiting to hear that Iraq had been freed. This morning she woke me at fifteen minutes before six and whispered, “Mama. Get up. I think it’s over.”

  I knew instantly what my daughter was telling me. After thirty-five years of cruel and capricious tyranny—from July 17, 1968, until today—Saddam Hussein’s steel grip on my beloved Iraq had finally been smashed.

  I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room to hear the wonderful news with my own ears. When the newsman said that Iraq’s Baathists were on the run, and that many of them had disappeared into thin air, I laughed with an abandon I hadn’t felt in years. In joy and in triumph, Fay tilted back her head to loose a chant of Halhoula, howling in celebration. I immediately joined her. The two of us created such a commotion that Ali jumped out of his bed to investigate. When he too heard the news that Iraq had been liberated, he slipped off his T-shirt and twirled it above his head, whirling a dance of freedom.

  Our hearts were bursti
ng with happiness. After exhausting ourselves in jubilation, the children and I washed and prepared for prayer. Together we faced Mecca and thanked God for putting an end to our country’s long nightmare.

  After our prayer, I told Fay and Ali a little about the precise moment when I realized the nightmare had begun. I was only thirteen years old. The Baath revolution of 1968 had taken place the week before. My father was still alive, and we were still living in Baghdad. One of my father’s dearest friends, Haqi Al-Berezenchi, an Iraqi Kurd who was the ambassador to India at the time, was a dinner guest that warm July night, as we all sat in the garden overlooking the Tigris. Because of the recent Baath revolution, politics was the only topic of conversation that evening. My father was worried sick for Iraq and for Iraqis, but Haqi assured him, “Don’t worry, Nizar, this is nothing but a wolf’s wedding. Like brief copulating animals, this revolution will end soon enough.”

  With all due respect to Haqi, that wolf’s wedding led instead to a long, stormy, thirty-five-year marriage in which a vicious beast had gripped the Iraqi people by the throat.

  Samara, I am so happy that I am ashamed, for I know there are many Iraqis who have suffered terrible losses during this battle for freedom. We have been reminded in the cruelest manner that freedom does not come cheaply.

  Samara, no day passes that I don’t see a vision of your beautiful face, and the faces of the other shadow women in Baladiyat’s cell 52. Every morning now in Amman, when I walk from my apartment to my place of work, my steps slow as I scrutinize the face of every woman sitting among the sidewalk vendors. I wonder if you escaped. I wonder if you made it to Amman, and renewed your once-lucrative cigarette business. A few times, my heart has contracted with hope and I have rushed to embrace a woman with black hair streaked with white—like yours. For a brief moment, I am flushed with the belief that you got out of Baladiyat alive. But so far, I have met only disappointment.

  Where are you? Are you celebrating Iraq’s freedom with your family? Or have you paid with your life for this freedom that I embrace? Were you murdered by Saddam’s torturers at Baladiyat, long before this war started? Were you unaware that freedom was soon coming to Iraq? And where are the other shadow women? Which of them lived? Who died? These questions haunt me daily.