CHAPTER 10
The queue outside al-Faqma ice cream parlor was six people deep when Huda hustled into line. She put her hands on Khalid’s shoulders and angled him toward the patio.
“Look, over there.” She pointed out a woman wiping soft serve from a toddler’s chin. “They’re about to leave, so see if you can get their table. And keep an eye out for your father.”
Huda glanced toward the coffee shop on Hurriyah Square. Abdul Amir was still out front, chatting with the men playing backgammon. Huda prodded Khalid toward the patio.
“Your dad won’t be long, inshallah.”
She shuffled to the serving window. A man in a white cap and coat prepared her order, scooping chocolate ice cream into a waffle cone and ladling chunks of tropical fruit over two creamy sundaes. When he was finished, Huda carried the sweets out to the picnic tables.
“I said strawberry syrup, not orange.” Khalid frowned at his sundae.
Huda raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t you mean to say, ‘Thank you, Mom, for this delicious ice cream’?”
“Thanks.” Khalid stabbed a plastic spoon into the offending sundae. “I guess.”
Huda grit her teeth and glanced at the coffee shop. Abdul Amir had taken a seat on one of the benches out front. She had a feeling he knew she was watching, but he didn’t meet her eye—just like the teenager hunched over the table in front of her.
“What a beautiful evening.” She waved her cone toward the setting sun. She tried to forget the terrifying encounter at the Rashid Hotel and trained her gaze on a line of seagulls flapping toward the Tigris, their bodies outlined like tiny shadow puppets against the pink-and-orange sky. On the sidewalk, Baghdadis darted in and out of cafés. Others bargained with street vendors for fabric, costume jewelry, toys, and leather shoes.
“Now tell me,” she said, “how is your sundae? Do you really like it better than pistachio ice cream? You have been eating pistachio since you were a baby.”
“I’m not a baby.” Khalid slumped in his seat. “Don’t call me that. Soon I will be a man.”
“I did not say you were a baby.” She lowered her cone. “But as for being a man, it is well known that a man buys his own ice cream. And, more important, he respects his mother.”
“Going for ice cream was your idea, not mine.”
“I thought it would be a nice family outing.”
“Really?” Khalid fished a pale green grape from his sundae. “Dad must be enjoying his family outing too, seeing as how he’s back there smoking nargilah with his friends.”
She glanced toward the coffee shop and saw Abdul Amir throw his head back and laugh at someone else’s joke. On the table beside her, his sundae was fast transforming into a lake of lukewarm cream, pockmarked by islands of tinned pineapple and a solitary cherry.
A puff of wind traveled down the street. Above the patio, lines strung with tin moons and stars tinkled. A block away, speakers crackled to life. In a minaret of blue and yellow tiles, a muezzin cleared his throat. His phlegmy preparations echoed through the sky.
Khalid tossed his plastic spoon on the table. “I’m going to the mosque.”
“The mosque?” Huda eyed him with surprise. First no pistachio ice cream. Now the mosque. Had a jinni possessed her son? “Where is this sudden interest in prayer coming from?”
“Mom, you might believe in coffee grounds. But I put my trust in Allah.”
Huda’s jaw dropped.
“I’ll meet you back here,” Khalid called over his shoulder.
Bewildered, Huda watched him dart through the traffic and across the road. She sighed and dumped her cone into her husband’s forgotten sundae.
“What a waste of good ice cream.” Abu Issa’s breath grazed her ear.
He circled out from behind her, pushed Khalid’s half-eaten treat to the side, and sat down in the boy’s place. Huda’s throat constricted. The young couple at the next table fell silent too, as Abu Issa’s mukhabarat essence spread through the patio like a cloud of cheap cologne. The speakers at the mosque hummed, and the muezzin began to wail. His prayer ebbed and flowed like a holy tide. Abu Issa leaned across the picnic table.
“I hear you visited the Rashid Hotel.”
“I wanted to call you.” Huda’s whisper was tinny with fear. “My phone wasn’t working. There was no power. The electricity is still out. I had promised my son ice cream, I—”
Abu Issa raised his hand.
“Stop babbling, woman. Do you have anything to tell me?”
Huda shot a glance past his shoulder. Abdul Amir was no longer outside the coffee shop.
“Where’s my husband?” she blurted. “Did you take him?”
The words came out louder than Huda expected. The couple at the next table climbed to their feet and hurried away. A group of young men in fake Ray-Bans stubbed out their cigarettes and shuffled off, leaving behind glasses of orange juice still three-quarters full. The owner of the ice cream parlor watched mournfully as his customers retreated into the pink-and-gold haze.
“There is nothing to fear. Not if you cooperate,” said Abu Issa. “I want to know everything about this visit to the Rashid Hotel.”
Huda nodded rapidly.
“Ally went to visit a finance reporter for a magazine in Dubai. She was picking up a few books from him. That’s all.”
“Books about what?”
“Biographies about those British nurses and teachers who used to work here, back in the seventies. History, that’s all.”
“What else did they discuss?”
“I don’t know. Two men, two of your . . .” Huda trailed off.
The remaining customers took great pains not to look in her direction. They were like members of an ancient caliph’s court, milling about anxiously, while Scheherazade recited endless tales to delay the executioner’s sword.
“Two of your colleagues took me to a back room for questioning.” Huda kneaded her fingers in her lap. “One of them telephoned your office. Did you speak with him?”
Abu Issa said nothing. He made a show of inspecting the chunky ring on his finger.
“By the time they released me, Ally was ready to go.”
“What was the name of the man she met with?” said Abu Issa.
“Peter.”
“Peter who?”
“I’m not sure.”
Abu Issa growled under his breath.
“What sort of answer is that?”
“I don’t—”
His fist thumped the table.
“Your poor productivity is unacceptable. You must perform your duties without excuses. Do you understand?”
“Of course, I—”
“How is the girl connected to the reporter?” Abu Issa eyed her coldly.
“She said he was a friend of a friend.”
“Did she go up to his room?”
“Of course not.” Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Ally is a married woman.”
“Married or not, these foreign women will lie down with anyone.”
Huda dared another glance at the coffee shop.
“Please, where is my husband?”
“He’s having a chat with my partner.”
Fear wrapped its icy hand around her throat. In the minaret, the muezzin fell silent. Static scratched at the gathering dusk.
“I’m to blame,” said Huda, “not my husband. I’ll do better, I promise.”
“Fortunately, your husband is proving to be a patriotic Iraqi.” Abu Issa rubbed the flat of his palm across his ring. “And what about your son, is he a patriot too? Has he trained with the Lion Cubs yet?”
Huda went cold. Every year the government took boys as young as ten and sent them to military boot camps in the desert. Often they were beaten, and it was said that to graduate, the young Lion Cubs had to tear a small animal apart with their hands and eat the flesh. Not all the boys came back. And those who did were changed inside.
“We can easily arrange entry to the Lion Cubs,” said Abu
Issa. “It’s an honor, really. Graduates from the Lion Cubs get an express pass to the ranks of the fedayeen.”
The black of Huda’s eyes dilated. The fedayeen was a death squad led by Uday Hussein. They liked to make the families of their victims display their loved one’s severed head on their gates. Atop the minaret, the speakers squealed, then went dead.
“There are many benefits for members of the fedayeen,” murmured Abu Issa. The official title was Fedayeen Saddam—but even Abu Issa balked at saying his master’s name aloud, here at the ice cream parlor, surrounded by children licking soft serve.
“Khalid’s not . . .” A ribbon of pain wrapped around Huda’s chest. “He’s just a boy.”
Abu Issa leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. The band of pain around Huda’s chest grew tighter and tighter, until she could barely breathe.
“We can discuss this another time.” Abu Issa glanced across the street. “I must attend to another appointment.”
The wind rattled the paper-thin moon and stars strung overhead. Huda’s world felt just as fragile, just as easily undone. Abu Issa needed only to hook his finger and tug, and it would all come crashing down. He rose from the table, eyed the melted sundaes, and shook his head.
“I hate to see such waste.”
* * *
“Hello!” Abdul Amir waved from the far side of the road. “Over here!”
Huda dashed through the traffic to a crescent-shaped park on the fringe of Hurriyah Square. Overhead, hundreds of tiny flags stamped with the president’s face fluttered like nervous doves.
“Where did you go?” She clutched Abdul Amir’s arm. “I was so worried.”
“Calm down, my good wife.” He led her to a bench by a large fountain. Spotlights illuminated its dry mouth. “There’s no need for alarm.”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“Abu Issa was at the ice cream parlor. He—”
“I know.” Abdul Amir rested two plastic shopping bags by his feet. “Faisal told me.”
“Who?”
“Faisal. Abu Issa’s partner.”
“The Bolt Cutter?”
“Come now. He’s not such a bad guy.”
“Not a bad guy?” Huda clutched her temples. “I thought they’d taken you to Abu Ghraib.”
“Quite the opposite.” He hauled one of the plastic bags onto his lap and pried open the flaps. It was stuffed with slabs of dinar. “Not bad, huh?”
Three women in finely tailored abayas strolled past the water fountain. The lights reflected off tiny crystals embroidered at the cuffs and hem of their robes.
“How did you get that money?” Huda whispered.
“I told Faisal about Ally’s visits to the United Nations compound.”
“But why? She’s only there for the evening aerobics class.”
“She says aerobics, but how do we know that’s true? Two weeks ago, when the UN weapons inspectors were visiting Baghdad, she made two trips there. Coincidence? Maybe. But it is information nonetheless, and that made Faisal very happy.”
“I can’t believe this.” She shook her head.
“Believe it, wife, and be happy.” Abdul Amir swapped the bag on his lap for the one by his feet and pulled out a box embossed with golden calligraphy. “You have always wanted to try the famous pastries of Abu Afif, yes?”
He pried opened the box. The aroma of warm pastry, pistachios, and rosewater escaped into the night. Huda pressed her hand to her mouth.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Don’t worry, I also got a little something for myself.” He peeked inside the bag and grinned. “Six bottles of beer. Amstel, from Holland, not that cheap Turkish dishwater.”
The buttery smell of the pastries made Huda’s stomach turn.
“It’s dirty money,” she said.
“Maybe once it was, but now it’s mine.”
“If you must take it, then save it. For something important.”
“What’s so important that I can’t buy a beer?”
A conga line of honking cars turned onto the square. A Chevy with cat-eyed headlights cruised at the front, carrying a bride in a frothy veil. A minibus decorated with plastic flowers followed. Wedding guests danced in its narrow aisle, while in the back seat, musicians beat cymbals and tabla drums. Huda leaned close and murmured in Abdul Amir’s ear.
“We need a passport for Khalid.”
Abdul Amir reared back.
“What? Why?” He glanced left and right. “No man under forty-five years old can leave the country. It’s impossible. What on earth are you thinking?”
“Perhaps if we offered an official enough money, he would bend the rules. I’ve heard of boys going abroad to study.”
“Not ordinary boys. Not boys like Khalid. Where is this crazy idea coming from?”
The wedding bus trundled past. A young man with a trumpet hung out the door and sent a lungful of notes spiraling into the sky.
“Abu Issa said . . .” Huda’s throat ached. “He said he would put Khalid in the Lion Cubs, and then into the fedayeen.”
Abdul Amir growled and shoved the box of pastries back in the shopping bag.
“Did you ever consider the saying ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’?”
Huda recoiled. Who was this man sitting next to her?
“I can’t believe you’d say that, after all that we suffered—”
“The past is dead.” Abdul Amir’s palm sliced the air.
“But you know—”
“What I know is that once, I had a good job. I studied hard and worked long hours. I deserved it. Then the Westerners imposed their sanctions and killed the hopes of ordinary Iraqi men, like me. I was forced to rely on my wife to feed my family.” His cheeks burned. “Now you say I should sneak my son out of his own country. For what? I ask you. So he can end up a gas station attendant in the fabulous United States of America?”
“Anything is better than the fedayeen,” she hissed.
“Abu Issa wants to scare you, that’s all. You need to give him more information.”
“But I have nothing to tell.”
“Make it up then, like everyone else working for them.”
Huda tried to reply but shock rendered her dumb. The wedding procession rolled past. She stole a glance at Abdul Amir. Whether a love match or arranged the traditional way, it didn’t matter how well the bride knew the groom on the wedding day. Husbands could change so much; even a wife of sixteen years could suddenly find herself married to a stranger.
* * *
Abdul Amir paced up and down the garden, backlit by the flames of the refinery. He swigged on his fancy Dutch beer, stopping only to rip weeds from the garden.
“Don’t overreact.” He hurled a leathery rue into the compost pile. “Abu Issa has the carrot and the stick. That talk about the Lion Cubs was the stick. Give him some information, and he will be happy.”
Huda pointed to his beer bottle.
“And that is the carrot?”
Abdul Amir scowled, but shame colored his cheeks. Huda noted his mixed emotions with relief. Perhaps she could still influence him. Once upon a time, he’d made a habit of confiding in her and trusting her opinion. But since losing his job, he spent more and more time brooding in the garden, or at the coffee shop with the other jobless men, all of them sucking on nargilah and bitterness.
“You can’t be so foolish.” Abdul Amir paced on. “Not about our son’s future.”
“You know what the fedayeen do. Not even women and children are spared. Do you want our son committing sins like that?”
“Of course not. But this passport idea is plain stupid. Where would Khalid go? What would he do? You want him alone in a foreign land, with no one to care for him?”
“We could send him to Damascus. My cousin is there. I’m not saying we send him tomorrow. Why don’t we first try for a passport? Then we have options, in case we need them.”
“What would Abu Issa do if he discovered you
r plan? He’d question our loyalty. Then we’d feel his stick—you, me, and Khalid.” He stabbed his finger at the patio table, where he’d dumped the shopping bag full of cash, his six-pack, and the box of rosewater pastries. “Our life is not so bad. You can enjoy the finest baklava in Baghdad. I can buy a nice beer—and I did not need to pay with money from my wife’s pocket.”
“Beer and sweets? I should be satisfied with that? Forget about Khalid’s future?”
“I warn you, do not do anything rash.” He yanked a weed from the earth with unnecessary force. “Your brothers did that, and look what happened to them.”
Huda flinched, as if she’d been slapped.
“If they’d succeeded, we wouldn’t be worried about our son’s future,” she hissed. “We wouldn’t have to fear he’d be drafted into the fedayeen, to kill innocent people and hang their heads from their gates.”
“Your brothers were foolish and impulsive. It must run in your blood.”
“Mustafa and Ali were not foolish. And they were not the only ones who wanted freedom. Tens of thousands of men like my brothers joined the uprising. Maybe more.”
Abdul Amir cast a cautious glance over the neighbor’s fence.
“Don’t forget,” he whispered. “The people who came up with that whole misguided rebellion had the power to protect themselves when it went wrong. Your brothers were just ordinary people, like us. Expendable.”
“They saw a chance to be free.” Blood pounded at Huda’s temples. “And they would have succeeded if the Americans had lived up to their promises.”
“Bah!” Abdul Amir flung his hands wide. “Your brothers should have known two things: you can’t trust the Americans, and you can’t beat the system. You can only adapt and work out how to use the situation to your advantage.” He eyed her fiercely. “Did their deaths teach you nothing?”
* * *
As if on autopilot, Huda steered the Corolla toward the swooping expanse of concrete and steel that made up the Jumhuriya Bridge. At its feet, bulrushes stretched taller than a grown man. A checkpoint had been erected by the on-ramp. A soldier swung the muzzle of his Kalashnikov and gestured for Huda to pull over.
I haven’t done anything wrong, she told herself, but her racing heart refused to believe it. Another soldier, a teenager, weaved through the line of idling vehicles. His boots were too large and his legs too skinny. He’d yet to grow into his bones—just like Khalid. Huda pictured her son bunking down in rough military barracks, while his bed with Star Wars sheets lay empty.
When the Apricots Bloom Page 10