Formation

by Ryan Leigh Dostie

  He opens the bag slowly, unfolding the paper around the CD player, and the boys flock around him, loud and excited, though he is quiet and still. He looks stunned.

  “You said you needed one, right?” I ask, slowly wondering if there is some cultural gap I’m missing. Do I seem like some older woman trying to buy the younger boy? What does habibi really mean? He looks up at me with that blank, stunned stare, and it wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for. I know other male soldiers have given him gifts, so why do I have to be so different? Why am I always stumbling into ravines and rifts that they all get to stride right over?

  He says some kind of thanks, and turns to walk away, but one of the older boys, practically a man and far larger in size, snatches the CD player out of Majid’s hands, making to stride in a different direction with the prize.

  “Hey,” I yell from my gut, my Army voice, deep and masculine and powerful, because tone matters. “Give it back,” I order.

  The young man pauses, then reaches out, dropping the package back into Majid’s hands. I’m surprised, because what does he think I can do from here to stop him? I often forget how I must look, with an M16 slung over one shoulder. He walks away quickly. Majid still appears stunned.

  We never mention the CD player incident. Not even some months later, when soldiers have worked hard to fudge his age, to make him older than he really is, to fit the minimum age requirement of eighteen in order to work inside the camp. Then he’s in here, doing manual labor moving heavy rocks from one place to the other. It seems like a terrible waste for such a brilliant mind, but he seems happy with the hourly wage.

  * * *

  Moving heavy rocks from one place to the other is a common job for Iraqi locals inside the camp. “Putting money back into the local economy,” it’s called. The groups of men are guarded by two soldiers, one who strolls behind the group, the other in front, magazines seated into their weapons, hands at the ready. That’s called Haji Duty. Not officially, of course, although I’m not sure what the official name for the duty actually is. I’ve never heard anyone use it. Haji is an honorific title given to a Muslim who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca. It’s an earned and honorable term, but we use it indiscriminately.

  “No, no, not Haji,” one Iraqi tries to correct, ducking his head a little with embarrassment at being misclassified, at being given a title he hasn’t earned, smiling politely at first, though most stop trying to correct the mistake when the word slides into a racial slur, a derogatory term for all Middle Easterners, be they Muslim or Christian, Arab or not. We take something of honor and tarnish it, muddling it up until the title means nothing at all. Although as far as racial slurs to demonize the enemy go, it’s a rather mild adaptation from wars prior.

  These groups of Iraqi workers are ubiquitous in the camp. There are the hard laborers, but also those who wash the laundry (mostly women), or who ship in dirty blocks of ice, or those who run the Haji Mart, the store for local items, or the barbershop, who also pluck women’s eyebrows with a thin red thread. Eventually they’re all over the camp, doing the work we no longer want to do, that we no longer have to do, and the camp shuffles, expands, breeds into a tiny city—or, at the very least, something more than war-torn buildings with black, empty windows and rubble for roads.

  During lunch one day I pause at a group of four or five Iraqis crouched over brown MRE bags, towered over by two young American soldiers who snicker loudly, watching the eating men a little too gleefully. I hesitate, trying to put my finger on why the scene feels off, and glance down at the MREs. They all read in bold black letters: PORK CHOW MEIN.

  “That’s pork!” I say, aghast.

  The two soldiers lose it, bursting out laughing.

  “Hey, stop!” I say to the Iraqis, waving at their food, alarmed. “That’s pork!” And they stare up at me, blank, confused as to why this woman is yelling at them, so I shove my index finger to the tip of my nose, pushing it up in a symbol I’ve seen Iraqis recognize before, and say, “Pig! Pig!”

  An indescribable horror dawns on the group, written clearly on their faces, a slow, slack-jawed realization, food frozen partway to mouths, dropping their boxes as if they’re suddenly scalding hot, hands thrown up in the air in disgust, trying to put as much distance as they can between themselves and the forbidden food.

  And the soldiers laugh louder, I suppose because the realization was part of the joke.

  “Dude, that’s fucked up!” I turn on them.

  “It’s fucking hilarious, is what it is,” says one and his eyes slide toward me, a sideways glare, saying who the fuck are you and why the fuck do you care?

  I could report them, I have the time in service now, the rank, but I lack the follow-through. I’d like to say it is because I don’t want to report anyone else, or because I’m threatened by my higher-ups, but really I just don’t want to deal with tracking down their command, with the paperwork. I can’t be bothered. So I growl a little, threaten a little, then storm off and forget it, which helps no one at all.

  * * *

  Not all such interactions are as grim, though. Some laborers come to where we work, cleaning out the debris from one of the floors. Someone wants to turn the building into offices, and they mean to, sending Iraqi workers in to remove the walls that are now on the floor, until they realize the building sways in the wind, or shudders with each distant mortar attack, or that it’s a precarious monument at best, safe for no one and Intel is only there because we need to be invisible. But until then it’s nice seeing new faces on the floors. While on break, I lean against a fallen column, watching some of the workers move blocks into wheelbarrows.

  One gentleman, a foreman of sorts, joins me. He speaks English, enough to get his point across clearly and with a charming accent. He’s middle-aged, in that place in life where wisdom intersects youth, with an amiable face, hair white at his temples, slender, and with a well-kept beard. He asks me about my god. I answer circuitously. Despite a lifetime of history with him, I’m not sure how I’m feeling about God at the moment.

  So this man tells me about his god, instead. I won’t remember which words he uses, or how he’ll phrase his belief, but it’s not the words that matter. Rather, against the backdrop of the late-afternoon sky, leaning against a once marble window frame, I listen to a man speak with a conviction I recognize. He speaks of peace, burning from the inside with a spiritual fire that I know, that I’ve seen, that I’ve had myself before. I see it in his dark eyes, in the way he leans forward slightly, an eager desperation for me to hear him. He’s trying to save my soul. I thought only Christians did that. This Muslim man is trying to save my soul because he is so certain he knows the truth, so convinced, so worried for me, except he’s not talking about my god. He’s talking about his god.

  The axis of my world tilts.

  Even after he’s gone, that man stays with me. An epiphany, my spiritual question mark. I have no intention of becoming Muslim, but I’m not sure I’m Christian anymore, either. Not after this man so casually rattled the foundation of my world, not with words, but with the power of his own belief.

  * * *

  It’s the Iraqi translators that are the real unsung heroes of the nation, though. They serve alongside US troops anywhere a translator is needed, which is everywhere: in the camp, on the streets, into combat—with no rifle, often no armor, and sometimes for as little as five dollars a day. They defy terrorists, insurgents, local militias, and then go home through those same enemies at the end of the day, walking out of the camp at dusk with no protection, only to come back the next morning the same way. Their lives hinge on American success, gambling themselves and their families on the hope that we’ll come out victorious. Many apply to relocate to the US. Some make it. Most don’t. Many die during the wait for the vetting process. No twenty-one-gun salute here. Thanks for your service, here’s your grave, no one will know what you did, except those few of us who saw you once, brave and resilient and defiant. You served your country and mine,
and one day we’ll repay you by blocking your fellow translators’ entrance into our country, because you’re still Iraqi, after all.

  But not Daveed. Daveed is in his forties, college-educated, idealistic, and kind. He has pale-green eyes, which are vibrant against his tan skin. He grins with crooked teeth and has energy to spare. He has a family in Baghdad, a wife and children, and still he dares. Daveed has no intention of relocating to the United States. He couldn’t care less about the five dollars—he comes from money. Daveed loves his country. He’s not interested in leaving. This baffles the soldiers around him. Why wouldn’t he want out of this sandbox? Why wouldn’t he lunge at the chance to toil away at minimum wage in the good ol’ United States of America? But Daveed sees something different in his homeland. He sees optimism in the American forces whom he hopes will help rebuild his country. He sees greatness here and he needs to be a part of it. His patriotism is beautiful.

  And then there is Mahmod. Mahmod is in his twenties, a handsome medical student with a dark wash of thick black hair. He wears a brown leather bomber jacket and distressed blue jeans. He uses English slang and sticks close to the men. During a convoy run, the executive officer is injured, bleeding out into his own lap, and suddenly there is Mahmod, tightening his belt around the arm, a makeshift tourniquet that saves the officer’s life. He’s crowned “Son of the Regiment” and loved. The regiment touts him as the epitome of the Iraqi translator, perhaps better loved than Daveed for his youth, perhaps better appreciated than Daveed because of his dazzling, even-toothed smile. So when he rapes a Staff Sergeant in the translator shack after a game of chess, she knows she can’t report it. She’s older. She’s been in the Army longer. She knows the machine better. He’s the Son of the Regiment and she’s an American woman. She knows exactly whom they’ll believe. So she says nothing, reports nothing, becomes a statistic, and saves her career.

  Near the end of our deployment, as we’re packing up to leave Baghdad, during the uprising of Sadr, the Siege of Sadr City, the spring infighting of 2004, Mahmod is murdered, cut up into pieces, and his dismembered limbs stuffed into a dumpster just outside the camp gates. Or so it’s said. There’s no way to know. Those who loved him say no, no, Mahmod got out safely, that he’s now living in the US and working in Los Angeles. In Hollywood, to be exact. But I don’t care either way.

  * * *

  One day a different Iraqi translator visits my guard tower. He’s not a regular at our camp, but he’s on loan from the First Armored Division, clearly higher ranking in whatever system they use for national linguists. He is simply making his way around the towers out of curiosity. Tall, with a barrel chest and broad shoulders, he has the bearing of a football player two years out of the game, with a hard beer gut, though maybe that’s just the bulletproof vest. He speaks English smoothly, with almost no accent, and there is something very American about him, from his large, stocky build to the ease of his stance, legs spread apart, arms crossed over the swell of his chest. He’s handsome in a familiar way. Maybe it’s the cocksureness, that edge of arrogance, that’s both familiar and appealing.

  When he arrives I’m gnawing at the edge of a hard stick of classic pepperoni, sent in from home. “May I?” he asks, pointing to the unfamiliar food.

  “Sure,” I say, and slice off a chunk with my knife.

  He rolls the meat in his palm. “Does it have pork in it?”

  I cock my head and try to think what’s actually in pepperoni. I was born in the Pizza Belt—New Haven, home to the greatest thin-crust pizza in all the world—but I have never stopped to consider what pepperoni actually is. “It’s beef,” I say, fairly certain, and the other soldier on guard doesn’t correct me so that seems about right.

  The linguist takes a bite, his dark brow rising in delight. “This is freaking delicious.”

  “Right?” I grin, breaking off another chunk with my teeth. “Best stuff on earth.”

  We end up talking about democracy, somehow, although perhaps the conversation is always destined to come around to that when you’re occupying another country. He seems excited about the future, and pleased with his own involvement. Then he says something that surprises me. “We don’t want to be too Western,” he says, chewing on his second slice of pepperoni, as if being too Western is a bad thing.

  “What do you mean? What’s ‘too Western’?”

  “I mean, we want everyone to have freedom, that’s important, but we can’t have women walking down the street in short skirts or anything. For example, I mean.”

  My brow crumples. “But shouldn’t they have the freedom to choose to wear short skirts or not?”

  “No, no.” He shakes his head and leans back against the tower wall. “Too much freedom is a bad thing, you see.”

  “There’s no such thing as too much freedom.”

  “No, but think about it. When given too much choice, man will choose wrong, he will choose poorly. Society must have rules to protect ourselves from our own nature.” He points to his chest as he speaks, animated. “From us doing wrong.”

  “But a woman wearing a short skirt isn’t hurting anyone.”

  “She is hurting herself. She is hurting the men around her. She disrespects herself and those who see her. It is our job, our responsibility, to protect the morality of our society.”

  My head hurts. “But that’s not freedom,” I stress.

  “Freedom is the right to speak against my government. To assemble peacefully and to have fair elections. Freedom is electing our own leaders. But if there are no guidelines, no structure, there is chaos. Society cannot function on chaos. We need sharia to protect ourselves.”

  “But what if people want to choose to wear short skirts, or to be gay?”

  He shakes his head, sadly. “Then society will crumble. We will fall.”

  “America hasn’t.”

  “Has it not?” he counters, raising his eyebrows slightly, as if surprised by my claim.

  I tilt my head, pushing up the brim of my Kevlar, stunned. This man fights for democracy, fights alongside American troops, but his democracy doesn’t look like mine.

  I open my mouth to counter, to clarify what freedom actually is, because I think I’ve got it all figured out, when one of the soldiers in charge of him pops his head up through the door on the floor.

  “We’re moving out,” he says to the linguist, then pauses. He looks at the packaging in my hand and then points one gloved hand at the linguist. “You know that’s pork, right?”

  The linguist swallows hard. His face is ashen.

  “No, no,” I quickly assure him. “It’s beef.” I scramble with the package, trying to read the tiny script. “Isn’t it?”

  “Not any pepperoni I’ve ever had,” the soldier replies, and sure enough, there are the words on the package, PORK and BEEF.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I really thought it was just beef.” I think of the soldiers who purposefully fed Iraqi workers pork—of their smirks, their elation at a joke fully realized. They reveled in the horror. But that’s not me. I didn’t mean to do it. “It’s okay, you didn’t do it on purpose,” I say for him and me.

  “That doesn’t matter. It’s still a sin,” he says, shaken.

  “But you didn’t intend to,” I stress. I didn’t intend to cause him to sin, either. It wasn’t a prank. I’m not laughing. Surely that means something.

  “It is not intent that always matters,” he says, glancing up at me with dark eyes. He isn’t angry. “Action is more important than intent.”

  “How does that saying go?” the soldier in the doorway pipes up. “‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’?”

  “That’s not helpful,” I snap. He shrugs.

  Intent is important to me. The intent to free this country is important to me. And to me, at this moment in the war, it seems to be working. We intend to do right by these people and certainly there are accomplishments here. I’ve seen a Christian woman walking with a Sunni and a Shi’ite, their attire ran
ging from no veil, to headscarf, to full black hijab, and I tell myself this must be some kind of accomplishment, our good intentions fulfilled. But then again, what do I know? I only see the country from the tiny periscope of my guard tower window.

  Filicide

  The wind in Iraq is painful. It is a hair dryer on high pressed against my skin. I tuck my hands into the cuffs of my uniform sleeves, hiding my face behind a thin scarf. Sweat evaporates into the air like puffs of smoke, leaving white salt stains on my arms. Full battle gear rattles against my rib cage and around my hips, straining on my shoulders. Breathing in is drinking fire.

  I shuffle faster, nostalgic for spring with its humid days, when my uniform would be drenched with sweat. Sweat no longer survives out here in the summer sun and my uniform burns. I slip into the shade of our work building with relief, escaping the blazing wind. The temperature plummets and sweat immediately blooms over my upper lip and trickles down my spine. I yank down the scarf, gulping in the shadows. I shove up the lip of my Kevlar, which in turn knocks into the bun at the base of my neck and tumbles forward again. I groan at the stairs. Six flights, 117 stairs, to be exact, in full battle rattle—Kevlar, flak vest (neck collar included) with two SAPI plates, TA-50 harness, six full magazines of ammo (seventh strapped to the butt of the M16), two canteens, and one water CamelBak hydration system makes for over fifty pounds of gear. I’d better be thin and with one fine ass after all this.

  Bits of debris tumble down the steps behind me, echoing across the curved stairwell. I pause, half turned, curious. A boy is pressed against the drywall. The marble was all blasted off the walls long ago. He is gangly, his threadbare pants too short, exposing dark ankles lined with layers of dust. Dark hair nearly obscures large, black eyes.

  “Hello,” he says, out of place in this once glorious palace that is now occupied by khaki, tan, and black metal. “How are you,” he says in heavy accent and holds out one slender hand; years of work have rendered his palms twice his age. He climbs toward me, hand extended, teeth bared, and he seems slight and young.