The priest spoke sternly, ‘Shush. Some respect for the dead, please.’
The commotion caused by my magical appearance in the church subsided. The two young deacons resumed their chanting and kept looking at me with pleasant curiosity. I was a new face in the congregation. Stories would be woven around me, speculation and gossip. Soon the link would be made to the story of my parents. The Chaldean girl who opposed her family to marry an Assyrian. The man was later arrested and then they fled to America. But what brought the daughter back?
As if by a miracle, like the ones that Grandma used to order from her saints, I was turned into a member of the congregation under the gaze of the women and the deacons. There were so many sects springing up in the country nowadays. You had to be with one or the other. But if you asked Tawoos, she’d tell you that I was a dog with two homes.
Eventually I’d have to slip out of the church and away from the sect, leaving Rahma Girgis Saour asleep in her wooden box. My sadness was like a presence that walked out with me, protecting me from the rain and humming in my ears.
I wanted Muhaymen to be here so I could cry on his shoulder like women do.
He and Tawoos were probably trapped in Sadr. Was the massacre there not over yet?
XXXVI
It tasted like vinegar. Freedom in this country tasted like vinegar.
Bush was sad about the four thousand American soldiers who were killed in Iraq. He said that he thought a lot about every single one of them. Our poor president. How could he possibly hold four thousand distinct thoughts in his head? I didn’t want to add to his intellectual difficulties by becoming number four thousand and one. No, I hadn’t come to my birthplace to die, just to fall in love with a Mission Impossible man. Well, unrequited love was another kind of death.
It was the 25th of March 2008. The date appeared on the corner of my laptop screen. My second contract with the army had come to an end and I hadn’t renewed it. Here’s what I’d brought back from Baghdad: a sadness like pure honey, thick and sticky and translucent, good for insomnia and poetry, bad for my ageing skin and my aching joints. It was a kind of suffering that lifted me up then weighed me down again. It took me by the hand, led me to a forest of grey trees and left me there.
I decided: no presents, no tears, no final glances at a house, bridge or palm tree. I was still dealing with the burden of my grandmother’s memory. We’d barely had time to talk. My visits to her had been furtive, stolen from the war. Her project of my re-education was never completed, but what she’d given me had completed me as a woman, as a human being.
How are we supposed to preserve the living memories of the dead? If we let their experiences go with them to the grave, they’re lost to us for good. And then we must go back to the start and get our fingers burned as we relearn everything. We crawl like infants and walk into things, but insist that we know it all. We rely on mystics and novelists to tell us our own history. There’s no memory bank for this kind of data.
In a science-fiction version of my life, I’d plug a memory stick into my grandmother’s head, copy her memory onto it, then plug it into my own temple and click ‘Copy’ and ‘Paste’. Within seconds, her wisdom and experience would be transferred to my brain. What do we call this gadget in Arabic again? The Keeper of Memory?
I’m tired. And my laptop is tired of me and of my writing alter ego who would have followed me to Detroit if I’d let her. She would have liked to record my downfall, then got up from her writing table, stretched her arms and back, clapped in delight and poured herself a drink to celebrate her victory over the American granddaughter. She, too, has changed since the day we first met. I no longer see her in colourful shirts and a modern haircut. The story has turned her, chapter after chapter, into an old-fashioned woman with values that time has forgotten. Does time really forget? She dresses like the women from Fallujah now. Her face has the sharp features of the women from Mosul, who, by the way, would all, every single one of them, make excellent school mistresses or matrons. They’re all hardworking, frugal, uncompromising. If you say to one of them, ‘Come on, some give and take, let’s negotiate a middle ground,’ she shakes her head resolutely and marches on.
I couldn’t wait around for the writer to take off her abaya and dance on my grave. I wouldn’t stay until the day that Muhaymen anticipated, the day of the fleeing helicopters. So I arranged a roadside bomb for the writer. I killed her off before she could kill me. Now I’m sitting alone, in front of my screen, finishing my story.
When I left Iraq, I didn’t go straight home. I flew into Washington and went to visit the Arlington Cemetery. I looked for Regina Barnhurst, but didn’t find her in front of the marble headstone. It was getting cold by the time I found Brian’s grave. Leesa Philippon saw me from a distance, came over and put a hand on my shoulder. I recognised her from the photo in the paper. I had it stored in a picture folder on my computer that I used every now and then to sharpen the arrow tips of my sadness. Leesa looked like she lived in the cemetery. She keeps the absent boys company and wipes the snow off their graves. She protects the bones of the dead from the cold. The mothers have received their compensation money, and their fingers still burn from its touch.
‘Was it a father or a husband that you lost?’
Would Leesa believe me if I told her that I had lost my author and a part of myself? She invited me to join her club, but I couldn’t belong to anything any more, not even to my own name. The woman who owned all my nicknames – Zuwayna, Zayoun, Zonzon – was gone. Was there a club for granddaughters in mourning?
Back at the airport I bought a mug printed with 20.01.09, Bush’s last day in office. He’d go, all right, but his curse would remain, polluting the waters of the two rivers for generations to come. They’d call it the curse of Bush, like the curse of the pharaohs. I think Americans will call it that too, and NASA will have to send out space missions in search of a curse-free galaxy.
I got home and took a long shower. But the dust of sorrow didn’t come off and flow down the drain with the soap. It stuck to me like another layer of skin. It stayed to complete the project of my re-education. It’s there when I drive around and watch people laughing, shopping, eating and putting on weight. Do these people know what I’ve been through? Do they know what’s still going on over there? Our sons and daughters in the army have become mute numbers who carry their tombstones on their shoulders as they walk.
I don’t think I need psychological counselling like others who’ve returned from Iraq. My sorrow is taking good care of me. I won’t be committing suicide like my friend Malek the Sad, the British lord from Basra. ‘We ate shit, Zeina, my dear.’ He took a car and left Mosul, heading south. They later say that he intended to return to his city and disappear there. Or that he was following Sayyab to Jekor, the poet’s birthplace. But he never made it. His car came off the road and into a palm tree. Eyewitnesses say the driver waved to them before driving the car at full speed into the line of palm trees. Malek had had enough of eating shit and was going to nibble on dates (with the angels) instead.
I put my khaki uniform in a plastic bag and threw it out with the garbage. I wouldn’t be planting basil in my helmet. Sweet perfume doesn’t grow in metal. That’s what I write to Muhaymen, but he doesn’t reply. Bombs are still falling over there, and I guess internet cafés offer little protection.
So I left alone in the end. Haydar didn’t come with me. Muhaymen stayed behind and I promoted him to my Keeper of Sorrows.
I brought no presents and no keepsakes. I don’t need reminders. I just repeat after my father: I’d give my right hand if I should ever forget you, Baghdad.
Glossary
abaya: the long, loose black robe covering a person from head to toe and traditionally worn by Muslim women
afreet: a powerful evil jinni, demon, or monstrous giant in Arabic mythology
Al-Aqida: faith or creed
Allah yusa’edhum: God give them strength
amma: paternal aunt
/> ammou: paternal uncle
biryani: This traditional Indian dish of highly seasoned rice and meat or fish is popular in Iraq
Bismillah: an invocation in the name of Allah
dishdasha: a long tunic, usually reaching the ankles
dolma: stuffed vegetables, usually including rice and meat
Farhud: term used by Iraqis to refer to the anti-Jewish pogrom of 1941
galabiyya (also jellabiya): traditional Arab garment
Hadith: the collective body of traditions relating to Muhammad and his companions
Hajja: term used for a woman who has performed the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj), also used to address elderly women.
jeonky: Iraqi Arabic for a charlatan or swindler
jinni: in Arab and Muslim legend, a spirit often capable of assuming human or animal form
khala: maternal aunt
khalooqa: insult
Mahjar poets: the poets of the exile, a school of Arabic writers from Syria and Lebanon who settled in North and South America in the early twentieth century
mejaddareh: traditional Levantine dish of rice and brown lentils
Majnun: the hero of the folk epic of Majnun and Layla, two star-crossed lovers. Layla tragically dies in one version of the myth. ‘Majnun’ also means mad.
masgoof: traditional Iraqi dish of grilled fish spiced with salt, pepper and tamarind
mawwal: folk song in colloquial language. Often lovelorn and plaintive, characterised by word play.
Mosaddegh: Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh, who was deposed in a 1953 coup
mujahid (plural mujahideen): one who engages in Jihad
Nasser: Gamal Abdel Nasser, former President of Egypt
Nuri Pasha: Nuri as-Said, former Iraqi Prime Minister
oud: a pear-shaped, stringed instrument similar to the lute, commonly used in Middle Eastern music
Rashid Ali: Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, former Iraqi Prime Minister
Sayyab: Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, a prominent Iraqi poet of the 1950s and 1960s
shawermeh: a Middle Eastern and south-eastern European sandwich-like wrap containing meat or chicken
shnou: what
Sitt: lady
tabla: a small hand drum popular in the Middle East, India and Turkey
tabouleh: Lebanese salad based on bulgur wheat and parsley
tanbal: lazy person
tarbiya siz: Turkish expression meaning an insolent ill-bred person
teshrib: an Iraqi dish made of lambs’ tripe and chickpeas
wallah: a promise invoking Allah’s name for greater credibility. Can also be used to express incredulity to mean ‘really?’ or ‘is that so?’
yaaba: father
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATOR
Nariman Youssef is a freelance translator and
translation consultant. She has an MA in Cultural and Critical Studies and an MSc in Translation Studies. Her research interests revolve around
translation theory and processes of cultural exchange. She is currently studying for a PhD at the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW), University of Manchester. Nariman lives and works between Egypt and the UK.
First published in Arabic, 2008
as Al-Hafida al-Amreekeya by
Dar Al-Jadid, Beirut
English edition first published in 2010 by
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing
Qatar Foundation
Villa 3, Education City
PO Box 5825
Doha, Qatar
www.bqfp.com.qa
Copyright © Inaam Kachachi, 2010
Translation © Nariman Youssef
Cover image © Vlad Gavriloff, 2009
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
Cover background image © Photolibrary, 2010
This electronic edition published 2011 by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing
The right of Inaam Kachachi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make
available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without
limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or
otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does
any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution
and civil claims for damages.
ISBN 9789992142721
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Quotation
Contents
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
Glossary
A Note on the Translator
Copyright Page
The American Granddaughter Page 15