“You know what?” Ally put her hand on Huda’s arm. She was stiff as a wax dummy. “I’ll go another time.”
Huda eyed her suspiciously.
“What do you mean, another time?”
“I’ll go some other day,” Ally replied vaguely.
It was a lie. The reporter wasn’t just a friend of a friend. Ally had worked with him at the Canberra Herald, before he landed a well-paying gig in Dubai reporting on oil prices and real-estate deals. He was leaving Baghdad tomorrow, and Ally was going to see him, no matter what. He’d agreed to bring books for her—books about pioneering professional women like her mother. Ally’s own books were still sitting in Iraqi customs, waiting for import stamps.
“What’s this about?” said Huda.
“It’s nothing.” Ally grasped the door handle. “I can get a taxi.”
“A taxi?” Huda shook her head vigorously. “No taxis. You can’t trust those drivers.”
Ally decided this wasn’t the time to mention Hatim—a freelance taxi driver she’d started to use when she couldn’t get hold of Abdul Amir. Hatim was friends with a security guard at the embassy, and he usually worked around the souk near her house.
“Don’t worry,” said Ally. “You go home and relax.”
“I won’t relax. Not if you’re thinking about getting in some stranger’s car.”
Huda frowned, put the car in gear, and steered away from the curb. Reluctantly, Ally buckled her seat belt. Soon, they passed the Baghdad telephone exchange. The building was draped with a forty-foot-tall banner declaring, “Yes, Yes, Yes, Saddam!” A presidential election was looming—if it could be called an election when there was only one candidate—and the dictator hung over everything. Like a bad smell, Ally thought, or the bubonic plague.
“I’ll make this a quick visit,” she said. “You don’t have to come inside the hotel. Unless you want to, of course.”
Huda said nothing, but her eyes darted up and down, left and right. Ally attempted to lighten the mood.
“My mom used to go dancing in the Rashid’s nightclub. Can you believe it? She sent a postcard, saying she’d stayed till four in the morning dancing under a disco ball.”
Up ahead, a handful of people milled about on the side of the road, while a young policeman chased yet another presidential banner that had come loose from its anchors. The breeze changed direction, and Saddam’s smug grin rose high above the bitumen. The policeman twirled desperately, trying to catch it. A few onlookers tried to help out, but they seemed nervous, as if they might cause offense by placing their hands on the president. Ally wondered, If those people were free, would they set that banner on fire?
Ally glanced at Huda from the corner of her eye. She wished she could tell her that she knew about the secret police haunting the Rashid Hotel, and confide that her heart was beating faster than normal too. But she’d learned that in Baghdad, truth was like a blister. If you pricked the surface, you only made the pain worse.
They motored onto the Jumhuriya Bridge. On the far bank, the palace of giant heads was hung with bunting, guard towers wrapped like Christmas gifts. Soldiers paraded about in shiny boots. Ally’s peripheral vision caught the dull gleam of a mounted machine gun.
“So this fellow I’m meeting was invited here by the government.” Ally tried not to stare at the machine gun. “The authorities are trying to find investors to renovate a resort at Lake Habbaniyah and they want some press coverage. Do you know the area?” Ally eyed the heat shimmering above the bitumen like a thin fog. “I think my mother picnicked there.”
“It must have been wonderful in her day.” Huda brightened a little. “The lake is so big it’s like being by the sea. Back in your mother’s time, there were swimming pools, tennis courts, restaurants, and a big beautiful hotel. But you don’t need to hear about it from this journalist. Abdul Amir and I will take you there in person. We can go tomorrow and see for ourselves.”
“I can’t,” said Ally. “I need government permission to leave Baghdad.”
“Oh, of course . . .” Huda glanced across the cabin. “I stopped by your house last evening to see if you wanted to go to the market. Ghassan said you’d gone out with Mr. Tom.”
“We went to look at some paintings.”
“Paintings? Where?”
“Rania Mansour’s gallery. She’s got some great pieces, like that sculpture in her garden.”
Ally longed to tell Huda that the sculpture had been created by Miriam Pachachi, the same person who took her mother’s portrait. She’d never thought it would be so hard to keep secrets, but they seemed to have a will of their own. Even now she could feel them clawing at the roof of her mouth.
“I hope you are careful in your dealings with Rania.” Huda frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t trust anyone.”
“Who?” Ally swiveled toward her. “Rania?”
“I’m just saying, you don’t know who you might meet at her gallery.”
“Like who?”
“Who can say?” Huda muttered in irritation, “You think they wear signs on their backs?”
Huda flicked on the radio, as if to say, Conversation over. She kept the music up high until they reached the boom gate at the entrance to the Rashid Hotel. A thickset guard with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder emerged from a guard post. He bent down and stared into the cabin. Huda opened her mouth to greet him. No sound emerged. Ally leaned past her.
“As-salaam alaikum,” she called.
The guard raised an eyebrow at Huda. She gave a tiny shrug and shrunk into her seat.
“I am here to visit a guest.” Ally enunciated her words carefully.
The guard frowned. “You are guest?”
“My friend is a guest. I’m meeting him here.”
“Guest?” he said.
“Yes.” Ally nodded animatedly. “I’m meeting him in the lobby.”
Confusion muddied the guard’s features. He glanced at Huda and muttered something that Ally couldn’t understand. When Huda replied, her words skittered out timid as lambs.
“Excuse me.” Ally leaned past Huda and held out her diplomatic ID card. It was stamped with the foreign ministry’s gold seal.
“Diplomasiya.” Ally hooked her thumb toward her chest. “I am diplomasiya. I go to the hotel. Now.”
The guard inspected the ID warily. Ally smiled again, but this time in the icy manner of a princess accustomed to having her demands met. Her confidence worked. The guard tapped his forehead in a quasi-salute, clicked his heels, and waved them on. The boom gate lowered behind them. Ally giggled nervously.
“Yes, sir, I am diplomasiya. What do you think? Am I bossy enough to be a VIP?” Ally forced another chuckle, even as a voice inside her head said, Calm down; act like you belong.
The hotel rose before them—fourteen stories of gray concrete with white balconies like rows of shark teeth. A long banner rippled in the wind. “Iraqis will give their lifeblood for Saddam Hussein,” it read. Ally stopped chucking and folded her flighty hands in her lap.
A doorman bustled from the marble lobby. He wore a red turban around his head, billowing white pantaloons, and curly-toed shoes, like he were Aladdin. Ally touched Huda’s arm.
“Please, just drop me off in front of the lobby. The hotel will have drivers who can take me home. Don’t worry about me.”
A side door opened. Two men in poorly tailored suits slipped out. Their oiled mustaches, heavy boots, and barely concealed handguns screamed secret police.
“We’re here now,” said Huda. “It’s too late.”
CHAPTER 9
The doorman threw open the door to the lobby. Huda waited, but Ally didn’t step inside the hotel. Like a woman on the edge of a cliff, Ally bent her head and stared at the mosaic of tiles at her feet. After a moment, she straightened her spine and trod purposefully onward. Her heel landed squarely on the pigeon chest of George H.W. Bush, cemented into a doormat.
Huda scurried i
n Ally’s wake. Her legs were not as long, and she had to step twice on the American president before she made it into the lobby. Inside, the air was cool. The towering marble walls were smooth as glaciers. Four enormous chandeliers hung overhead.
“Is it just my imagination?” whispered Ally. “Or have we found Superman’s Fortress of Solitude?”
“Not Superman,” murmured Huda. “A castle in a fairy tale.”
The chandeliers were draped in a thousand crystals—exactly as Rania had described to Huda almost twenty years ago. As she tiptoed into the hotel, memories unspooled in her mind. She remembered Rania returning from her first trip to Baghdad, giddy with delight after attending a cousin’s wedding feast in the Rashid’s ballroom. She talked for days of women in jewel-toned Siamese silks, of dining on lamb stuffed with apricots, and dancing to disco music. Most of all, she talked about the moment she stepped under the great chandeliers.
Rania said when she looked up, it was like gazing into the sun, but when her eyes adjusted, the sparkling crystals seemed more like a constellation of stars, extending through the heavens, offering infinite possibilities. Back then Rania claimed anything was possible for a smart young Iraqi with the courage to follow her dreams. Huda had believed her.
It was summer at that time. Like most people in her village, Huda’s family slept on the roof of their mud-brick home to escape the heat. Lying on a thin bedroll, while her two brothers snuffled and snored, Huda imagined the milky stars were the lights of the Rashid Hotel. She fell asleep dreaming of crystal chandeliers and silk dresses.
Even after the seasons changed and the family returned indoors to sleep, Huda continued to dream, God willing, one day she too might bathe in the glow of those miraculous lights. Now, as Huda’s heels clacked across the lobby, she couldn’t find the courage to lift her head. Instead, she watched the thousand crystals cast their reflection on the smooth marble floor, as if they were shimmering on the surface of a lake.
The women continued through the lobby. On a gilded couch, a white-robed sheikh with a gold Rolex flipped through a magazine. Government minders in short-sleeved business shirts nursed coffee cups and sucked on cigarettes. Plump, mustachioed mukhabarat sulked by the doors, looking like spoiled boys who’d rather be elsewhere, tormenting small animals or ripping off grasshoppers’ limbs.
Every nerve in Huda’s body screamed at her to turn around and sprint for the door. She wished she could’ve allowed Ally to visit the hotel alone, but she knew Abu Issa would require a full accounting. Or else the Bolt Cutter might be called upon to intervene, to tighten a wrench around her knuckles, one by one, until they cracked.
On the far side of the marble hall, someone hissed.
“Russee.”
A snicker rippled through the lobby. Men stopped what they were doing, turned, and raised their heads like dogs sniffing the wind. Ally’s confident step faltered.
“Russee . . .”
Huda grimaced. This was not the Iraqi way. And if the men thought Ally was a Russian whore, what did that make Huda? From the corner of her eye, Huda saw Ally hesitate. Then her spine uncurled, and once again she took on the haughty air of a princess. Chin high, she sailed toward the reception desk. Huda followed. Like flotsam trapped in the slipstream of a boat, she couldn’t fight the forces around her; all she could hope was to stay afloat.
A clean-shaven man in a dark blue suit darted from behind the reception desk. He gave Huda one brief, dismissive glance, then beamed at Ally as if she were his favorite niece.
“Welcome, madam.” He opened his hands wide. “What a pleasure to greet you at the Rashid Hotel. I am Saadi, the concierge. May I assist you to check in?” Like a well-trained sheepdog, he looped behind the women and herded them toward the mahogany desk. Huda trotted dutifully onward. Ally didn’t budge.
“There’s no need,” she said. “I’m meeting a friend.”
“In that case, madam, please sign our guest register.”
The concierge gave a little bow and waved her toward the desk. Ally hesitated for a moment. Once again, men shifted in their seats, lowered their newspapers, set down their coffee cups. Huda’s breath dried up. Stay calm, she told herself. Pretend you are a sheikh’s daughter attending your cousin’s wedding, dressed in a fine silk gown.
“Ally!” A bald man with skin as pink as ham loped across the room. Behind him, the elevator operator checked his wristwatch, pulled a notebook from his pocket, and scribbled a note.
“Peter.” Ally smiled awkwardly. “I’ll just be a moment. It seems I have to sign the visitors’ log.”
“They’ll get your information.” The bald man chuckled and tipped his head toward the elevator operator. “One way or another.”
The concierge’s eyes narrowed into slits.
“Who is this woman?” He hissed at Huda in Arabic. “And who are you?”
In the periphery of her vision, Huda sensed men drawing closer. Her pulse began to gallop. She offered the concierge a placating smile.
“Ally, give me your ID.” She stuck out her hand. “I will sign us in.”
“Good idea,” said the sunburned journalist. He waved Ally in the direction of the nearest couch. “Let’s have a cup of coffee while Saadi does what he must. Hotel policy, right, Saadi?”
“Yes, sir.” The concierge’s lips contorted. “Hotel policy.”
Huda trailed Saadi to the far end of the reception desk. The wall behind it was decorated with a portrait of the president and a series of identical clocks showing the time in Baghdad, Beijing, Moscow, and Mecca. Hand trembling, Huda laid Ally’s ID on the counter. Two men appeared beside her. Fat-cheeked, dead-eyed, solid as bookends.
“Madam,” one of them said, “please come with us.”
Huda opened her mouth, but her tongue turned to stone. The men frog-marched her through a set of doors behind the desk. Just before they swung shut, Huda caught a glimpse of Ally spooning sugar into a coffee cup, and her long dark hair shining beneath the chandelier.
The men dug their fingers into Huda’s arms and propelled her down a narrow corridor. They threw open a door. Dreams of silk dresses evaporated.
“Please, don’t!” cried Huda.
She glimpsed filing cabinets lined up against the wall, then one of the men grabbed the back of her neck and flung her into an office chair. Its wheels squealed as she sailed across the room. Like a small child strapped into a whirling carnival ride, Huda clutched the arms and tried not to throw up.
“Please,” she cried, “I can explain.”
“Shut up,” barked the taller of the two mukhabarat. He had a large scar on his left cheek—a curl of purple skin, raised and swollen like a worm. His partner ripped Huda’s handbag from her shoulder and emptied the contents on top of a desk.
“I’m not—”
“I said, shut up.” The scarred man bent over Huda’s chair and shoved his face in hers. “Are you deaf? Or just stupid?”
As the men rifled through her wallet, sweat bloomed in Huda’s armpits. The sharp odor of fear permeated the air. She wished she’d let Ally take a taxi. She should have gone home and cooked lamb stew for Abdul Amir, then taken Khalid to the ice cream parlor. Two scoops of pistachio for him. Chocolate for her. Just like old times. An enormous sob rose in her chest. Why hadn’t she kissed Khalid goodbye before she left, or Abdul Amir?
“Who are you?” The purple worm twisted on the mukhabarat’s cheek. “And who is the foreign woman?”
Huda’s words tripped over each other in their haste to escape. In a strange way, it was a relief to tell the truth. There was no risk of judgment. Not from men like these. The scarred man plucked a small blade from the desk. Huda shrunk into the chair.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he said.
He began to toy with the blade, tapping it against his palm, scraping dirt from his nails. It dawned on Huda that it was a letter opener, not a knife. Still, it could slice out an eye, as easy as scooping flesh from a melon.
“Abu
Issa can confirm everything.” Huda pointed to her handbag. “You will find his number in the side pocket.”
He snatched up her bag and threw it in her face. It bounced off her cheek and tumbled into her lap.
“Hand it over,” he said.
Huda unzipped the inside pocket and removed a small piece of paper. He ripped it from her fingers, dragged a telephone across the desk, and punched in the number. Huda prayed the lines were working.
“Hello?” he barked. “Who’s this? General Intelligence, you say? M-5 division?”
He caught his partner’s eye and shrugged.
“I’m calling for Abu Issa.” Absentmindedly, he scraped the point of the letter opener across the desk, back and forth, back and forth. Huda kneaded her sweaty palms in her lap.
“Four o’clock? Okay, I’ll call back.” The scarred man put down the phone. He nodded to his partner, then he grabbed Huda’s chair and dragged her toward him. She closed her eyes and turned her face to the side. Could he feel the terror seeping from her pores?
Boots stomped in the corridor. A fist hammered on the door. A third man poked his head into the room.
“Excuse me,” he said coolly, as if he were interrupting a job interview not an interrogation. “The foreign woman is making a scene. She wants to know where her friend is. Should we detain her?”
The scarred man frowned. He grabbed Huda’s throat and dragged her from the chair. Eyes bulging, she tottered on her tiptoes. He leaned in close.
“Go out there and tell the foreign bitch you have completed the guest registry.” His breath was hot and sour. “Tell her there is nothing to worry about.”
He released his grip. Huda stumbled backward, choking.
“I’ll be talking to your so-called Abu Issa later today. If your story doesn’t check out, you can expect a visit from me. Now, get out there.” He shoved her toward the door. “And put a smile on your face.”
When the Apricots Bloom Page 9