by Sinan Antoon
The trip home was slow and it took twice as long as usual because there were new checkpoints due to a heightened security alert.
The cars crawled along like exhausted tortoises. I was tired of the depressing grayness that had enveloped Baghdad. I wanted to live in a city with clean, tree-lined streets where the traffic flowed. A city that breathed, whose inhabitants could inhale the energy of life in public parks that weren’t suffocating in a concrete jungle overflowing with garbage. My cell phone was in my purse, and my earplugs in my ears, and I didn’t hear the phone
ring when Luay called. I called him back when I got home. He said he would be getting to church a little late because a large delegation had just arrived at the hotel and he couldn’t leave work at the usual time. I pleaded with him not to be too late because it was an important day for Youssef and suggested that he get in touch with him to let him know. He asked whether I had apologized to him. I told him Youssef wasn’t home, even though his car was here. Most likely, he had gone to the church on foot.
The Eucharist
1
When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” And they said, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.” He saith unto them, “But whom say ye that I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and said unto him, “Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Matthew, 16:13–18
Father Tha’ir had read the passage in his melodious voice and after he’d finished, he’d lifted the Bible from the wooden stand it rested on and held it up to expose its red velvet cover, its gold leaf-edged pages and the cross embossed in the center. He brought the book to his lips, raised it to his forehead, then closed it and placed it back on the stand. “O loved ones,” he said, addressing the congregation, “let us pray for peace, that it may envelop our beloved land and bless us. Let us ask Almighty God for the successful formation of a new government which will protect us and watch over us. Say with me, ‘ Our Father who art in Heaven . . . .’”
The congregation rose to intone the Lord’s Prayer. As their voices rang out across the church with “ Give us this day our daily bread ,” the sound of gunfire drowned out the words. There was a momentary hesitation, a murmur rippled through the pews, but the recitation went on for the most part—people had grown used to the sounds of gunfire and explosions in recent years.
Father Tha’ir reassured his flock.
“It’s alright,” he said, “let’s go on.”
But the gunfire didn’t die down, it grew louder and more intense and sounded as if it were just outside the church door. People began turning around to look toward the door and a hubbub broke out. Speaking into the microphone, Father Tha’ir asked the young men standing by the entrance to lock the church door, and
children began to cry. Then the entire building shook under the impact of a terrible explosion. Father Waseem, standing to the left of the altar, gestured to the congregation to run and hide in the sacristy, off to the side of the altar. A group of worshippers hurtled forward, but others remained frozen in place, as if the sound of the bullets outside had turned them to stone.
Another part of the congregation headed for the side doors, which were normally kept closed because they led to the cemetery on either side of the church.
Youssef hesitated and remained standing in the pew; he wasn’t sure what to do. He glimpsed Maha running toward the altar on the far left side. He almost went after her and he called her name twice but there was no way that she could’ve heard him—the three wooden panels of the entrance door had been blown off their hinges and men with automatic rifles burst into the church firing in every direction. Youssef threw himself to the ground like everyone else.
2
Maha couldn’t tell how long she’d been lying on the ground in the dark. She knew that death was near and that it could swoop down at any moment. She thought of Luay, and of her parents and sister. She wished she could hear their voices one last time and say goodbye to them. But she didn’t have her phone. It was in her purse, which had fallen to the ground when she had raced toward the altar. If only she’d had her purse, she could’ve used her earplugs! She thought of Youssef to whom she had not apologized.
The church had been full when she’d arrived and the only empty place she’d found was in a pew in the far left-hand corner of the church. She’d looked around for Youssef during the service and was pretty sure that it was his head up near the front where the men traditionally sat, but she didn’t see him again after the attack began. Had he managed to get past the altar and into the sacristy? Had they killed him? Was he lying somewhere on the ground like her, waiting for death to close in on him? She was still holding the rosary and she brought it up to her lips and kissed it. She would pray for her own deliverance, as well as Youssef’s and that of the rest of the congregation. She would send her supplications to Our Lady of Deliverance who never abandoned those who sought her intercession. She said the prayer that she had read hundreds of times in the missal of the month of Mary and knew by heart:
Holy Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God, Pray for us. Mother crucified, Mother sorrowful, Mother mournful, Mother afflicted, Mother forsaken, Mother desolate, Mother bereaved of thy Son, Mother transfixed with the sword, Mother consumed with grief, Mother filled with anguish, Mother crucified in heart, Mother most sad, Fountain of tears, Abyss of suffering, Rock of constancy, Anchor of confidence, Refuge of the forsaken, Shield of the oppressed, Subduer of the unbelieving, Comfort of the afflicted, Remedy of the sick, Strength of the weak, Harbor of the
shipwrecked, Allayer of tempests, Terror of the treacherous, Treasure of the faithful, Eye of the Prophets, Staff of the Apostles, Crown of Martyrs, Light of confessors, Consolation of widows, Joy of all Saints, Pray for us, O Mother of Sorrows.
When she’d finished, she said six sets each of Our Father and Hail Mary. In the middle of the seventh set, the blast from two enormous explosions reverberated through the church and the whole building shook; this was followed by volleys of machine-gun fire and the sound of people screaming and running. She expected to die any minute now but instead she heard a voice shouting, “All those who are able to, get up, so help you God!”
Maha didn’t budge. She heard footsteps approaching and then felt a hand shaking her. She tensed up with fear.
“Don’t be frightened sister,” a voice said. “We’re your Iraqi brothers.”
She looked up and saw a heavily armed soldier wearing a helmet with a small gadget attached to it that had a red flickering light, which looked like a camera. He helped her up and, holding her by the hand, accompanied her toward the vestibule of the church. Other men in the same kind of uniform were also helping people out of the church.
In the courtyard, dozens of army soldiers bristling with weapons and emergency paramedics with stretchers were getting ready to enter the church and bring out the injured. Ambulances and security vehicles were parked at the gate where hundreds of onlookers gathered, crying and screaming. Luay was among them but he didn’t see her because he was standing some way off. He had rushed to the church as soon as he’d heard the news and stood outside with the rest of the crowd. He’d asked to go in because his wife was in the church and wasn’t answering her mobile, but they told him no civilians were allowed in.
Maha looked around and asked the soldier whose features were easier to see now, “Where is Uncle Youssef?”
“Who’s Youssef, miss?”
“He’s my uncle, he was inside with us.”
“We’re going to bring everyone out,” he reassured her. “Come this way.”
He handed her over to o
ne of the paramedics who asked her if she was wounded or if anything hurt.
“No, nothing,” she told him. “I’m fine, I just I want to go home.”
Maha had grayed in the span of a few hours. Her black hair was coated in a layer of white plaster dust that made her look like her mother.
That night, Maha sobbed as she washed her hair and scrubbed her blood-spattered legs in the bathroom.
She just couldn’t stop crying.
3
Three days later, a correspondent for the Ishtar cable TV station contacted her to ask whether she would be willing to give an eyewitness account of the attack as part of a series that Ishtar TV was working on, entitled Conversations with Survivors . She was guarded initially and wanted to know how the man had obtained her phone number. When he replied that he was also a Christian and that the church had given him her number, she relaxed and agreed to his request. Luay tried to dissuade her from going ahead with the interview, saying that her appearance on television would cause them problems they could do without, and that going over what had happened that day would only upset her more and plunge her back into the nightmarish event, but she was determined to go ahead. She told him that she wanted the entire world to know the truth about that day.
She wore a long-sleeved black shirt, black pants, and a black headscarf. She looked pale, and her eyes were ringed by deep shadows. She was also squinting due to the powerful light the cameraman had set up on a tripod next to the camera. She sat on the leather armchair in the living room. The producer told Luay he could sit by her but he preferred not to appear in the footage and sat on a chair off to the side. The director of the program told her to speak naturally and spontaneously and he suggested she use colloquial Arabic—spectators would relate to it more easily than to the more formal language usually used on television. She gathered her courage, took a deep breath, and began. She had to stop several times to wipe away her tears but she said what she had to say, as she sat on her chair, holding a black-and-white photograph of Youssef in her hands.
4
My name is Maha George Haddad. I am a student at the University of Baghdad Medical School. I was one of the hostages at the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance on October 31, the day of the terrorist attack. My husband and I go to church every Sunday. It happened that he wasn’t able to make it that day because he had a work commitment and couldn’t get away. At about five-fifteen, the service was ending and everything had been fine until then. The pastor, Father Tha’ir, had just enjoined us to pray for peace in the country, for the formation of a new government, and for safety and security to prevail once again. Just as we began to recite Our Father we heard the sound of gunfire outside, but it wasn’t very loud. Father Tha’ir reassured the congregation and we continued with the prayer, but the gunfire grew louder and more intense. The priest told the young men standing at the back to lock the main door. Suddenly there was a loud explosion that
shook the building. The other priest, Father Waseem, started shouting and telling people to hurry to the priests’ room behind the altar. People ran for cover helter-skelter. I too was afraid, and hurtled toward the altar, which was far from where I was.
When I got there, the room was full of people, there wasn’t an inch of space left, and there were people lying on the ground outside the doorway.
At that very moment, we heard shots being fired inside the church.
They were really close and very loud. I threw myself to the ground behind the altar, covered my head with my arms and played dead. The terrorists had burst in suddenly and taken over the church, so easily and so quickly, it took just seconds. I found that really strange — how had they done it so easily?
I don’t know exactly how many of them there were. Four men approached those of us at the far end of the church by the altar.
I could tell from their accents that they were not Iraqis, except for the one closest to the altar. One of them was Syrian and I’m not sure about the other two — all I know, is that they didn’t have Iraqi accents.
When they burst into the church, they began shooting at the people cowering on the ground on the far sides of the pews. Many were killed. The first person they gunned down right in front of my eyes was the deacon, Nabil. One of the terrorists came up to him and said something I didn’t hear, but the deacon pushed him away. The man put a bullet in his head and he dropped to the ground. Standing on the side of the altar where the choir usually stood, Father Wasim tried to reason with them.
“Leave the worshippers alone. Deal with me! I’ll give you whatever you want. Take me hostage even!”
They fired a bullet into his head. Then they shot Father Tha’ir, but he didn’t die right away. He fell to the ground and kept repeating aloud, “Father, my spirit is in your hands.” One of the men fired another two bullets into him and silenced him.
They were shooting randomly, at everything, but when they saw the cross, they went wild and began screaming, “Heathens! Nothing but heathens, worshipping the cross!”
They shot at the paintings above and on either side of the altar, and at the chandeliers, some of which came down. The Iraqi man was the one standing closest to me. I could hear the sound of the bullets as he fired. I was expecting him to kill me at any moment.
Every time he fired his machine gun, the casings cascaded down on me. He’d fire and scream at the same time.
“O God, strengthen my faith! Forgive me, God, forgive me!”
They killed most of the men. They went into the priests’ room behind the altar and threw in hand grenades; when they exploded we heard the sounds of moaning and crying.
One woman who was injured and was in agony begged the Iraqi man to kill her. “Don’t let me suffer . . . please, kill me!” she said.
Do you know what he told her? “No, I’m going to let you suffer.
Here and in the hellfire to which you’re going.”
She kept saying to him, “You’re a coward, nothing but an infidel and a coward!”
He didn’t shoot her but she eventually fell silent.
I expected to die with every passing second, I was sure he was going to shoot me in the legs or in the belly. I heard the guy with the Syrian accent say to the Iraqi, “Get one of the women up so she can come and talk on the phone.”
I was praying as hard as I could, trying not to move and pretending to be dead. But he must have known I was still alive because he came over and kicked me.
“Get up,” he yelled. “If you don’t stand up right now, I’ll shoot,” he threatened.
I was terrified. I got up and went toward where the other guy was standing a few meters away. He gave me the mobile. He kept his weapon in full view so that I wouldn’t forget his threat. He had the Baghdadiya TV station on the phone.
“Tell them you’re one of the hostages, and that the Islamic State of Iraq says you must release our Muslim sisters in Egypt and our mujahideen brothers who are detained, or else we will all die.
Tell them you’re all fine.”
I did as he said but I didn’t say that we were all fine. When I was done, he took the phone from me and said, “Go on, get over there!” The church was littered with dead bodies and broken pews.
I stepped back toward the Iraqi guy, but he raised his machine gun and yelled, “Get back there!” I did as I was told, and started praying the rosary.
Of course, I had no idea how much ammunition they had brought with them or how they had managed to get in with it all, but after a couple of hours, they had run out. The Iraqi said he only had four bullets left. One of the others answered him saying,
“Use the hand grenades.”
Every so often we would be shaken by a hand grenade they had thrown. A while later, one of them said it looked as if the army was preparing to storm the church. They agreed that when the troops came in, they would blow themselves up and kill everyone —
us, them, and the soldiers outside. When I heard this, I was sure it was the end. We were all going to die.
The lights were out because most of the chandeliers had fallen on top of us and in the last hour the power had been cut off. The church was shrouded in darkness, and it was difficult to see anything by the faint glimmer from one or two candles that were still burning at the altar. Then we heard the thud of loud explosions outside. It turned out that the Iraqi army had detonated stun grenades. One of the terrorists threw his remaining hand grenades inside the room where the third priest had hidden. And then it seems one of them blew himself up, and another one followed suit. The explosions were so loud that my ears were ringing; I couldn’t hear anything. Only two men remained now, the Iraqi who was near me and another guy. The Iraqi was about four meters away and detonated the explosive belt strapped around his middle. I felt pieces of his flesh landing on my back and legs. I had covered my head with my hands and was begging God and the Virgin Mary to save me. Then the anti-terrorism squad entered the church and freed us.
But after what? After three-quarters of the people inside the church had died?
Our relative in whose house we were living was killed. May he rest in peace, this is his picture. A gentle, peaceful man, he didn’t deserve this.
My question is why did they wait so long? If they’d mobilized earlier, they would’ve been able to rescue the people who were bleeding and shouldn’t have died. There would’ve been far fewer casualties. I hold the Iraqi government wholly responsible for the slaughter. How were those people able to smuggle all that ammunition and those weapons through the checkpoints? Where was the safety and protection they keep promising us? There must have been some foul play at work, or at the least massive negligence.