When the Apricots Bloom

by Gina Wilkinson

  “Old traditions die hard, especially for someone from a family like hers.”

  Huda scowled at the row of gas flares on the horizon.

  “Rania’s family is quick to abandon tradition when it suits them.”

  A tremor shook her, just as it had in the gallery when Rania turned to greet her, elegant as a pharaoh’s queen. Huda had armed herself with the memories of all that Rania had done, and all that it had cost. But when she looked into her amber eyes, it was as if they’d traveled twenty years back in time, to when they were girls, whispering secrets in each other’s ears. Despite her intentions, Huda’s heart had swelled, repeating patterns it learned long ago. She hated Rania for that too.

  Abdul Amir bent down and wrenched a dandelion from the lawn. It snapped off at the stem.

  “It must have been difficult, seeing her again.” He grunted and dug his fingers deeper into the earth until he tore out the fleshy root. “I’m sorry I couldn’t spare you that.”

  It was too dark to be sure, but Huda sensed her husband’s cheeks were flushed with shame.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “Abu Issa told you to stay home.”

  “He was right; Ally would have left me to wait in the car. She thinks she is superior.”

  “That’s not right, she—”

  “I speak the truth, wife.” Abdul Amir tossed the weed away. “So, what did you tell her? How did you explain your connection with Rania?”

  Huda rubbed her aching temples. The wine and the stress of the evening had made it more difficult than usual to dodge Ally’s questions, to bat her off with small talk and little jokes.

  “I said that Rania and I belonged to the same tribe. That when we were young, her father was my family’s sheikh.”

  Huda didn’t mention that on the way home, she’d been tempted to pull over to the side of the road and tell Ally everything about her and Rania. But a tiny voice had whispered, Be careful, what if the mukhabarat are listening in? Huda didn’t believe they made a habit of bugging the cars of little people, like her. But now that she was an informant, she couldn’t be sure. Huda didn’t know if she was being paranoid or prudent, so she’d kept quiet about her connection to Rania. The mukhabarat probably already knew all about their history, but there was no need to remind them.

  Huda sighed. As much as she wanted to leave the past alone, these days it was always there, an itch at the back of her throat, a spasm that woke her just before dawn, gasping for breath. Westerners liked to proclaim that the truth would set them free. That was foolish. And dangerous. But lying to Ally was harder than Huda had foreseen.

  Ally was not like the diplomat wives who had come before, with their measured smiles and tepid handshakes. Ally told wacky jokes. She laughed too loud. She took pleasure in things that Huda had stopped noticing long ago: the iridescent shine of a crow’s feathers, or a donkey cart painted the color of the Arabian Gulf. She couldn’t get enough of those donkey carts, as if they were floats in a grand parade.

  Huda tried to treat her dealings with Ally as a job. But her body was absorbing the repeated motions of friendship—the kisses that marked arrival and departure, the friendly pats, the playful winks—and fooling her heart into believing it was true. She was feeding the young woman sugar pills, but the side effects were surprisingly real. It was friendship by placebo.

  Abdul Amir yanked another weed from the flower bed.

  “So, did you learn anything of interest?”

  “I don’t think so.” Huda rubbed her eyes, smearing the kohl she’d applied so carefully. She wanted to curl up in bed and sleep for a week. Abdul Amir wiped his hands against his trousers.

  “Abu Issa and his partner stayed on after you left.”

  “They did?” Adrenaline drove a stake through Huda’s exhaustion. “Why? What for?”

  He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills.

  “They called it a performance incentive.”

  Behind him, the tall flames of the refinery stabbed the night. Huda was no longer certain they were to blame for the sour taste in her mouth.

  * * *

  Huda checked that the doors were locked, then padded through the house, switching off lights. In their bedroom, Abdul Amir was propped up against his pillows, reading the sport section of the Iraq Daily. He folded the newspaper and set it down on his bedside table.

  “Are you coming to bed?”

  “Go ahead and turn off your lamp. I’ll check on Khalid, then I’ll come.”

  Huda tiptoed down the hall and pried open her son’s door. The odor of dirty sneakers and testosterone hung in the air. How was it possible, she wondered, that one teenage boy could be so pungent? She stepped over a damp towel left in a heap on the floor and opened the window. On the far side of the bars, cicadas chirruped and clicked.

  Khalid stirred beneath his faded Star Wars sheets.

  “Mom? What are you doing?” He reached for her with a long, skinny arm. Huda didn’t understand how he could eat so much yet remain so thin. She had only to glance sideways at a sticky bun, and the next thing she knew, it was attached to her hips.

  “What time is it?” He slipped his hand into hers.

  “It’s late. Go back to sleep.”

  “My legs ache.”

  “Growing pains again? Shall I get a hot-water bottle?”

  The boy shook his head. His hair was very dark against his pillow.

  “Maybe I’ll feel better if you stroke my head?”

  It had been a long time since Khalid had asked her for this, and she’d wondered if those days were done for good. She smiled and perched on the edge of his mattress.

  “Roll over.”

  The boy pushed aside the stuffed Chewbacca doll he’d slept with since he was six. He claimed he no longer cared about the toy, yet he refused to throw it away. Even so, Huda suspected Chewie’s days were numbered.

  “Where did you go tonight?” he murmured.

  “Hush.” Huda gently scratched her son’s scalp. “Go to sleep.”

  “Why? Did it involve one of those men we’re not supposed to talk about?”

  “Where do you get such nonsense?” Huda frowned into the darkness. This was not the time, or place, for such a perilous conversation. “I went to see a friend, that’s all.”

  “Who?”

  “An old friend. I haven’t seen her in many years.”

  Huda stroked Khalid’s hair. It was the exact same thickness and color as his uncle Mustafa’s. Almost every day, Huda was struck by Khalid’s growing resemblance to her dead brother. Her chest ached with equal parts love and fear. It was difficult enough lying to Ally, but how much longer could she keep the truth from her son?

  “Have I met your friend before?” he whispered.

  “Yes, a long time ago.” Huda kissed his cheek and levered herself off the bed. “Now, it’s time to sleep.”

  Khalid grabbed her hand again. “Don’t go.”

  Huda caught sight of their reflection in the mirror on the chest of drawers. Years ago, she’d hung an amulet at its apex to ward off the evil eye: the Hand of Fatima, with an eye of cobalt glass in the center of its palm. Her grandmother had given her the amulet and promised it would keep her safe. It had worked, so far, but even the Hand of Fatima could only do so much. She glanced at Khalid, and kicked off her slippers.

  “Move over, then.”

  She slid onto the mattress and rested her head on the edge of Khalid’s pillow.

  “Who were the men that came tonight?” he whispered.

  “Are your legs still cramping?”

  “Who were they?”

  “Khalid, be quiet and go to sleep.”

  “But, Mom—”

  Huda put some iron in her voice.

  “Your father and I have told you before, this is none of your business.” She sighed, and her voice softened. “Another time, my son. Sleep now.”

  Khalid grumbled into his pillow, while outside, the cicadas’ cry cycled up and down. Huda lay
beside him and tried to forget Abu Issa and the Bolt Cutter, to banish thoughts of Ally and Rania, but her mind chattered like the insects outside. After Khalid fell asleep, Huda listened to his breath sigh in and out of his lungs. Eventually, she pried herself off the mattress. She stared at the Hand of Fatima, then shuffled from the room.

  CHAPTER 8

  Tom and Ally fell silent as they passed the flashing traffic lights and neared the men sipping tea and playing backgammon on the sidewalk. In the cool of evening, dice clattered. Dominoes clicked and clacked. A man tilted his head and blew out a stream of minty smoke from his nargilah pipe.

  “Hello!” he cried.

  Tom raised his hand in greeting and smiled. Ally tried to do the same, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate. She kept her eyes down and skirted past the mismatched tables. As soon as they were out of earshot, Tom’s smile vanished.

  “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “I get back from a week away and discover you’ve been playing Nancy Drew. If the woman at the hospital checked the nursing records, they’d show your mom was . . .” He trailed off, checked the sidewalk, and bent close to her ear. “They’d show your mom’s nationality, for sure.”

  “I never mentioned my mom. Not once.” Ally scowled. “There’s absolutely zero chance that Mrs. al-Deeb would make that connection. All I said was that I was writing a book about nurses who worked in Iraq.”

  “That’s enough to cause trouble,” Tom grumbled. “You don’t have a work permit.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Stay home and learn to crochet?”

  A seventies Cadillac, a long, wide boat of a car, cruised toward them. The driver tapped the horn to see if they wanted a ride. Gas was far cheaper than water, and in the evening, every second motorist was a freelance taxi driver. Tom waved him off.

  “I’m just saying . . .” He scanned the sidewalk again. “If anyone connects the dots, we’ll probably be thrown out of the country.”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen.” Ally peered past Tom, to the corner where Mohammad’s mother sold her newspapers. There was no sign of them. She wondered where they went at night. She prayed they weren’t sleeping rough, in an alley somewhere.

  A carpet vendor appeared in the doorway of his showroom.

  “As-salaam alaikum!” he cried cheerily, as he did every time he saw them on the sidewalk. “Come have tea, my friends.”

  Tom nodded noncommittally and deployed his diplomat smile. Two more vendors materialized in nearby doorways, each entreating them to come, recline a while on their fine carpets, kilims, and rugs. Tom and Ally exchanged a sideways glance and crossed the road, away from the men’s sharp ears.

  “I know you’re bored. And it doesn’t help that I’m away so much.” Tom paused near a shuttered souvenir store. Two letters had burned out in the fluorescent sign above the doorway, leaving dark gaps like missing teeth. “But this is why you’d be better off in Jordan.”

  “But what about my book?” Suddenly, Ally’s eyes stung with unexpected tears. “And what about my mom? As weird as it sounds, I feel like Baghdad is finally giving me a chance to know her.”

  “You have an aunt in America, right? Why don’t you get in touch with her?”

  “Aunt Bernice is in a nursing home. Early-onset dementia.”

  Tom sighed, but this time, without frustration. He reached for her hand.

  “Once, I heard my dad on the phone with my grandma.” Ally stared at the slabs beneath her feet. “He said it wasn’t cancer that killed my mom. It was a broken heart.”

  “A broken heart?”

  “When I asked him about it, he claimed Mom was depressed because of the cancer, and that’s what he meant. But I could’ve sworn he was holding something back.”

  “Like what?”

  Ally shrugged. She’d often wondered if postpartum depression had drained her mother of joy. Had Ally sucked the serotonin from her mother’s body, smuggled it across the placental barrier under the cover of nutrients and oxygen, so that she thrived while with each passing year her mother withered away? Her father denied it. He told her, Please, let it go. No good comes from dwelling in the past.

  The thing is, Ally longed to remember more of the past, something other than the burning feeling when her mother’s bony fingers touched her cheek. A familiar rush of guilt swept through her. A better daughter would remember more than that. A better daughter would know how the smiling woman in the photo became the woman in the darkened bedroom. All she knew was that here, in Baghdad, she felt closer to the answer. If she left now, she’d never find out.

  “I understand.” Tom lowered his voice. “But don’t go poking around. You could get us kicked out. Please, think about that.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled reluctantly.

  “If you plan to do more investigating, talk to me first. Don’t do anything rash.”

  “Okay, all right, I’ll talk to you first.”

  A light flickered in the souvenir store behind them. The door rattled, startling Ally and Tom. A middle-aged man with fat cheeks and an even fatter mustache stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “As-salaam alaikum.” He grinned like he’d just won the lottery. “Come inside, dear friends. Join me for a cup of tea.”

  “Thanks, but some other time.” Tom turned away.

  “Hang on,” said Ally. In the window display, a fist-size statue caught her eye. She wasn’t sure if it was a woman transforming into a dove, or a dove into a woman. Something in its dust-coated curves reminded her of the statue in Rania Mansour’s garden. She nudged Tom’s side. “Let’s have a quick look.”

  Inside, the shop smelled of sandalwood incense. The vendor herded Tom past a display of copper teapots and toward a stand of colorful nargilah pipes.

  “Have you tried apple-flavored tobacco, my friend?”

  Ally hung back by the entrance and leafed through a stack of postcards. Some were almost as old as her mother’s, with photos of women in bell-bottoms posing by the ruins of Babylon. Others were hand-painted with desert oases or turbaned men riding camels through ocher dunes.

  She drifted to the window display and plucked the small dove from the shelf. It was surprisingly heavy in her palm, cast in bronze. She turned it upside down. The Arabic numerals for 1996 were carved into its base, alongside a pair of looping initials. Ally’s breath snagged in her throat. Her eyes widened. She’d seen those initials before—on the back of her mother’s photo by the Tigris.

  She stared at the statue in disbelief. Could the sculptor be the link she’d been looking for? A true connection to her mother’s past?

  “You like this little statue?” The souvenir seller noticed her interest. He swooped to her side. “A very nice piece, indeed. You can use it as a paperweight, or maybe a bookend. Or display it on your mantel.”

  Ally’s heart hammered in her chest.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “It came from a local artist.” He smiled broadly. “I can give you a very good price.”

  Ally peeked at Tom from the corner of her eye. He was inspecting a case of watches stamped with Saddam Hussein’s portrait.

  “What’s the artist’s name?” She tried to act nonchalant. “Do you know her?”

  “Oh, yes.” The souvenir seller nodded vigorously, sensing a sale. “Miriam Pachachi is a very fine sculptor.”

  Tom closed the display case. “Found something you like?”

  “Your wife is very lucky!” cried the souvenir seller. “This week I have discount sale.”

  Ally quickly slid the bird-woman back on the shelf. Ten minutes ago, she’d promised Tom she’d stop ferreting about in her mother’s past. But even as that pledge had left her mouth, she’d suspected she wouldn’t keep it. Now she knew it for sure.

  “I’ll come back another time,” she told the vendor. She smiled apologetically, then caught Tom’s eye and gestured toward the door. Her heart was still pounding when she stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “What’s going on?” Tom dodged a potho
le. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, just a little tired, that’s all.” Ally’s lie slipped out smooth as silk, even as guilt nipped at her heels. She turned toward the flashing traffic lights and told herself every marriage, and every family, had its secrets, its little white lies. Anyway, it was probably best to keep Tom out of it. That way, if she stirred up any fuss, the ambassador couldn’t blame him. Or at least, he’d blame Tom only for reckless taste in wives.

  * * *

  Ghassan nodded to Ally and pushed open her front gate. She trudged to the curb and slid into the Corolla’s passenger seat. Huda was behind the wheel.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” said Ally, surprised. “Where’s Abdul Amir?”

  “He’s at the mosque,” said Huda. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.” Ally laughed awkwardly. For a change, she would’ve preferred to have Abdul Amir sulking in the driver’s seat. “I don’t want to interrupt your weekend, that’s all.”

  “I was happy to get out of the house,” said Huda. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to . . .” Ally tried to look nonchalant. “I’m going to the Rashid Hotel.”

  “The Rashid Hotel?” Huda’s cheeks were striped with pink blush, but underneath, her skin turned the color of curdled milk. It was an open secret that minders, informants, and spies populated the lobby of the Rashid. It was also where the regime corralled visiting dignitaries and the few foreign journalists allowed in on brief, tightly controlled press junkets. The guest rooms were famously equipped with hidden cameras, microphones, and all manner of surveillance devices.

  “I’m meeting a friend of a friend,” said Ally. “He works for a business magazine in Dubai.”

  “He’s staying at the Rashid?” Huda’s eyes were wide as an owl’s.

  Once again, Ally wished that Abdul Amir was behind the wheel. He’d know how to handle this. He kept a Saddam watch in the glove box, and he put it on his wrist whenever he knew they’d have to pass through checkpoints. He made sure to nod and smile at the men who loitered on street corners, men who wore leather jackets despite the heat, men who Ally suspected were secret police, or at the very least, informants.