He wanted to tell Saidi about the phone call from Nawal al-Wazir. He also wanted to ask him about some other things to do with the magazine. But Saidi certainly wouldn’t hear him amid all the noise, and Mahmoud was worried about spoiling Saidi’s good mood by bringing up work. A waiter brought them glasses of some mysterious blood-colored drink. Saidi picked his up, took a sip, then leaned over toward Mahmoud. “Bloody Mary,” he shouted.
Yes, Bloody Mary, delicious, great, wonderful—what bliss! What other little delights did this man dabble in? No doubt he was a happy man. So now Nawal al-Wazir was the devil incarnate. Saidi must have exchanged her for some other woman. Someone like Saidi couldn’t not have a woman. Definitely, wonderful, beautiful.
The waiter came back with a large bottle of dark whisky, fresh glasses, and a metal bucket full of ice. Another waiter sprang out from behind him with some plates of mezes and gave a little bow as he listened to Saidi. The waiter smiled gratefully and withdrew.
They drank. Then the band stopped playing, and Mahmoud could hear other noises—the clinking of glasses and the murmur of people talking at the nearby tables. So they had been able to talk despite all that noise? Is this place really in Baghdad?
Farid Shawwaf had warned Mahmoud about being too deferential toward Saidi. “Don’t be his lapdog” was the phrase that stuck in his mind, but Farid never actually said that. Mahmoud just worried that he might say it. It was an offensive expression, and Mahmoud always caught a whiff of it in what his old friend said. Besides, Mahmoud wasn’t Saidi’s lapdog, or anyone else’s. He didn’t follow Saidi around. It was Saidi who dragged Mahmoud around with him, Saidi who needed him. But what did he need him for, Mahmoud wondered.
So far Saidi had introduced Mahmoud to half the people in the government, many senior officers, and foreign diplomats. He had introduced him to mysterious characters he had never heard of before, such as Brigadier Majid. He had let him in on some terrible secrets. What was Saidi’s purpose in all this? What did Saidi gain from it at the end of the day? Mahmoud needed to be a little more daring and ask his boss some questions. He needed answers, though he believed the answers would come one way or another.
Mahmoud plucked up his courage and made a start. “What” did Brigadier Majid say that was true? he asked.
Saidi seemed to be rummaging around in his memory for anything relevant to Mahmoud’s question. Then he broke into a serene, toothy smile. “About the printing press,” he said. “It would have been a disaster. Many of those working in the printing business are waiting for the security situation to improve and hoping the worst doesn’t happen. Don’t forget that this year there’ll be unprecedented elections. There’ll be lots of work on election posters and leaflets.”
“Are you going to buy another printing press, or have you decided against it?”
“No, I’ve bought a house close to Andalus Square. That’s the deal I made today. A furnished house from an old man from an Amirli family,” Saidi replied.
Mahmoud had established that Saidi would answer his questions, so he saw no problem in asking more, or maybe it was just the combined effect of his good mood, the whisky, and the Bloody Mary. He tried to be more daring and ask him about personal matters—about Nawal al-Wazir, for example. But then the band started up again: a song by Hussein Neama but at a higher tempo. Mahmoud brought his glass to his mouth and took a large sip. He ate from the plates of meze and turned to Saidi every now and then. He felt he really liked this man and wanted to be like him.
“You have to understand, Farid Shawwaf. I want to be like him, not be his underling.” That’s what Mahmoud would say when he next saw his old friend. He didn’t need any of Farid’s confusing advice.
Mahmoud kept drinking steadily. Then he noticed Saidi giving him a strange look. He was smiling as he drank and looked as if he wanted to say something.
“How I wish I was in your place,” he finally said. “If some power could arrange for us to change places. But it’s too late for that.”
Mahmoud gaped in amazement. The words alone were like the wave of a magician’s wand, fulfilling his impossible dream. He wished he had the courage to answer Saidi by saying that he too wanted to become him, that he wanted to change places with him, that his life would mean nothing unless he became like Saidi, if he didn’t, at some later stage, turn into Ali Baher al-Saidi.
5
Hadi the junk dealer was resentful and disappointed when the old man from Amirli told him he had sold his house and his furniture and was moving to Moscow in two weeks to marry the girlfriend he had met decades ago when he was studying chemistry in Russia.
This shouldn’t have happened. He had spent a long time trying to persuade the man to sell some of his battered old furniture, but the man had been very sentimental about the memories contained in these old pieces of wood. Yet now he was announcing that he’d got rid of everything—his memories, his furniture, his life in Baghdad—all to have a belated honeymoon in what was left of his life.
Hadi needed whatever money he could raise to meet his basic needs. He had spent the last few days in a state of permanent drunkenness, ever since that dark night when the frightening guest had visited him and he had tricked himself for a moment into believing it was a figment of his imagination and not his own creation.
Hadi crossed Andalus Square and walked slowly past the Sadeer Novotel. He recalled the night when he was thrown through the air by the force of the explosion. He wished he had died right then.
For a while he sat on the sidewalk, smoking. He assumed a car bomb or some other explosive might go off at any moment and that this was a good place to get killed by one. He sat there till darkness fell, deep in thought about the possibility that dozens of bombs had either exploded or been defused during that day. No day passed without at least one car bomb. Why did he see other people dying on the news and yet he was still alive? He had to get on the news one day, he said to himself. He was well aware that this was his destiny.
When Hadi was back in Bataween, he heard from Aziz in the coffee shop that Abu Anmar was looking for him. Hadi went to see him and found him sitting in the lobby of his hotel, in his dishdasha, with his big paunch and his white headdress, reading a thick book. Abu Anmar took off his glasses, closed the book, and stood up to shake hands with Hadi.
Over the past few years, Hadi had run into Abu Anmar in the neighborhood only a few times and had talked to him once or twice. He knew some of the rumors about him, the most important of which, as far as Hadi was concerned, was about his long-term relationship with Veronica, the Armenian woman who cleaned the hotel so thoroughly every week. Some people said that her teenage son, Andrew, who often accompanied her, was Abu Anmar’s son.
Abu Anmar told Hadi that he was thinking of selling the furniture in some of the rooms because he was preparing to renovate the hotel. In fact, he wanted to replace everything and was hoping to find a buyer for the beds, the wardrobes, and other pieces of furniture. Hadi perked up when he heard this and quickly tried to remember the things that might be relevant in a transaction such as this. He told Abu Anmar he was willing to buy, and Abu Anmar thought a tour of some of the rooms might give Hadi a more accurate idea of what was involved.
The tour was disappointing for Hadi. The rooms occupied by Mahmoud al-Sawadi, Luqman the old Algerian, and two other guests were the best rooms in the hotel. The furniture in them was still usable, but the rest of the furniture was just old junk, some of it eaten by termites and some water damaged. But he didn’t change his position and assured Abu Anmar that he would find a buyer for it all.
Hadi sat with Abu Anmar in the lobby. For the first time he noticed a small wooden table behind the big reception desk. In the middle of it was a full bottle of arak, a glass, and a plate of cucumbers. Hadi wasn’t in a position to drink just then—his body was saturated with alcohol, and he reeked of it. He had dragged himself out of bed in the early afternoon to go se
e the old Amirli man. He had walked down the street with difficulty, and it took a while for the effects of the alcohol to wear off. But what could he do? He had at that moment an intense thirst for that wonderful bottle.
Abu Anmar went on talking about his plans to replace the hotel’s furniture and didn’t think of inviting Hadi to sit down and have a drink with him. Although he wore glasses to read, Abu Anmar wasn’t blind and could see that the junk dealer was mentally unbalanced. If he were ever to hear that Hadi was a thief and a murderer, it wouldn’t greatly surprise him. He had called Hadi for a purely commercial transaction.
Abu Anmar had said what he had to say, but Hadi had no strong desire to leave. If Mahmoud al-Sawadi hadn’t come in, an awkward situation might have arisen.
Mahmoud was drunk but was trying hard not to show it. He noticed the blast of air from the ceiling fan in the lobby and thought of the depressing atmosphere he had been trying to escape all day. He had drunk more than he could handle in his evening out with Saidi and was planning to go straight to bed. He was so out of it that he wouldn’t notice the humidity, the bad ventilation, and the unpleasant smells in his room.
Mahmoud raised his hand in greeting and gave a big smile. He was surprised to see the celebrated storyteller in the hotel. He sat down in the sitting area, slapped Hadi on the thigh, and asked how things were.
Mahmoud didn’t notice how serious Abu Anmar looked. He wasn’t happy that Hadi was staying so long. He wanted to go back to drinking at his leisure and reading books about astrology and fortune-telling, his favorite genre. Without the other two people in the room noticing, he poured himself some arak, put in a lump of ice and some water, and slowly started to drink. On previous occasions he had invited Mahmoud and Hazem to drink with him. He enjoyed spending the evening with them, but tonight things were different.
Mahmoud had a heavy feeling in his stomach. As he was walking down the dark lane toward the hotel, he had thought of trying to vomit in the bathroom. Maybe it would help if he sat down and chatted, to distract himself from his stomach until he felt better. He started to ask Hadi about his extraordinary story, about the body he had stitched together, and so on. Abu Anmar looked up from his book and peered over his glasses at Mahmoud with a mixture of curiosity and amazement.
Until that night Hadi had kept the promise he had made to himself during his conversation with Aziz in the coffee shop—he would forget about his story and never mention it to anyone again. But then he’d discovered the story was true, and he no longer found it amusing to tell in front of other people.
No one knew, not even Aziz, that the Whatsitsname, as Hadi called it, had come back to Hadi alive and standing on its own two feet. There were serious things happening, and Hadi was merely a conduit, like a simple father or mother who produces a son who is a prophet, a savior, or an evil leader. They didn’t exactly create the storm that followed. They were just the channel for something that was more powerful and significant than themselves.
Now, what would he tell this young journalist, whose head was lolling drunkenly and who was trying to cover up his drunkenness by resting his forehead on his clenched fist or by changing his posture when he felt a little off balance?
Mahmoud was expecting casual nonsense of the kind that Hadi’s listeners were used to hearing from him. An amusing story for free, and then Mahmoud would go off to his room to sleep like a log till the morning. But Hadi was going to go way beyond what Mahmoud had in mind.
“I’ll tell you a sequel to the story,” Hadi said. “Just for you. But on two conditions.”
Hadi’s eyes were flashing. Mahmoud had thought Hadi was crazy from the beginning, so he felt more tempted, more curious to let him continue, in case he knew something significant. Abu Anmar looked up from his book and started to listen to this strange conversation.
“And what are your conditions?” asked Mahmoud.
Hadi stroked his mustache and his thick beard. “You have to tell me a secret in exchange for my secret,” he said, deliberately earnest and lucid. “And the other thing is, you buy me dinner and a bottle of ouzo.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SECRETS
1
THE PRELIMINARY REPORTS that had been prepared the evening before by the team of astrologers in Brigadier Majid’s office spoke of ghostly figures gathering on the Imams Bridge, which crosses the river Tigris between the districts of Kadhimiya and Adamiya. The brigadier had some suspicions that the fortune-tellers and astrologers had confused these ghostly figures with the people who for the past two days had been setting off from various parts of Baghdad and heading for Kadhimiya for the ceremonies celebrating the anniversary of the death of the imam Musa al-Kadhim.
The final report from the senior astrologer came at noon, in a pink envelope, and it gave an approximate number for these ghostly figures: about one thousand. As the brigadier read the report, the big television screen in his grand office flashed breaking news that dozens of people had been killed on the Imams Bridge. A rumor that there was a suicide bomber among the pilgrims had caused panic, and some of the pilgrims were trampled to death while others threw themselves into the river and drowned.
The brigadier was frustrated that he hadn’t been able to do anything to prevent the disaster. Then he remembered something that made him even more upset: he was always providing valuable information, but the authorities didn’t make good use of it. He had sent reports on many criminals, after painstakingly identifying their locations, but not a single one had ever been arrested, or if they were arrested, then some officer in the National Guard or in the Ministry of the Interior would appear on television or in front of his subordinates and take all the credit for the success of the security operation, with no mention of the curious Tracking and Pursuit Department or of the diligent work by a team led by a dedicated and meticulous man called Brigadier Sorour Majid.
He spent most nights in the office. He had a small room as an annex to his large office, with just a bed and a closet for clothes. Everything he needed was there—except for a woman’s body, and he didn’t usually think about that. He thought about success and about continuing to be “irreplaceable” and “indispensable.” He was waiting to pull off a major coup with his own personal stamp on it so that maybe he would be promoted to a higher position. A coup in the sense of arresting a criminal who was a threat to everyone. That’s what he’d been working on for two months now. The team of astrologers and analysts that he headed had managed to collate all the information available about strange murders in Baghdad, and all signs pointed to one perpetrator. In every crime there was one victim, and the victim had usually been strangled. Accounts by witnesses were almost unanimous on the criminal’s appearance.
The brigadier had concluded that one person was behind all these crimes. There were usually one or two such crimes every day, and as the days and months passed, the numbers had mounted. A day before the story of the ghostly figures on the Imams Bridge, the senior astrologer had come to the brigadier with some good news: he had discovered the name of the criminal. He had enslaved the djinn and familiar spirits and made use of Babylonian astrological secrets and the sciences of the Sabeans and the Mandeans to find the aura of the name surrounding the body of the criminal.
“It’s . . . it’s the One Who Has No Name,” the senior astrologer said, raising his arms in the air—a gesture that suited his flamboyant appearance: he had a long white pointed beard, a tall conical hat, and flowing robes.
“What does that mean, the One Who Has No Name? So, what’s his name?”
“The One Who Has No Name,” said the senior astrologer, who then took a few steps back and turned to leave the brigadier’s office. The brigadier didn’t stop him or ask him to provide more information, because he was used to strange behavior in his department, and he had to treat these astrologers with kid gloves, since they were his main sources. Tomorrow the One Who Has No Name, he mused, might become He Who
Has No Identity, and then He Who Has No Body, and then He Who Can’t Be Caught and Thrown in Jail.
But today he could ignore this criminal who didn’t have a name, because the disaster on the bridge had turned out to be a big one, and he would have to prepare a report on his department’s monitoring of the Imams Bridge, in case the Americans or the Iraqi government asked for one, so he called together the officers on his team. One of the junior officers mentioned an important piece of information that had been picked up two hours before the meeting: these figures hovering over the bridge were ghosts that lived in people’s bodies. They slept and rested in those bodies without the people being aware of them, or they could wake up and break free for a little and wander around outside the people’s bodies but only when the people were frightened. According to the astrologers, these ghosts were called tawabie al-khouf, the “familiars of fear.”
The team of assistants finished preparing the report, then placed it in a pink envelope on Brigadier Majid’s desk. The brigadier wasn’t sure the government or the Americans would ask for it, but he was doing his job and always had to be ready for anything. The astrologers went back to their living quarters in the department, and some of the officers left at the end of the workday. The brigadier turned off his television, went into the side room where he slept, turned on the air-conditioning, and lay on his bed. Closing his eyes, he could hear only the whirring of the air-conditioning. Out of nowhere, he had a strange feeling that his thoughts had left his head and were swirling around near the ceiling, and they included a ghostly figure that was his own personal “familiar of fear.” A familiar that didn’t have a name. Its name, in fact, was the One Who Has No Name. It went round and round: he was seriously worried he would wake up one morning to see an order dismissing him from his position, signed by the prime minister; worried that the Americans would wash their hands of his department and leave it to the mercy of the political parties in power. There was also a deeper and more personal fear: if he had recruited the djinn, the ghosts, the spirits, the astrologers, and the fortune-tellers against multiple enemies, he couldn’t be sure his enemies wouldn’t mobilize them against him in the same way. Perhaps his enemies were now making a major effort to create and nourish these fears deep inside him.
Frankenstein in Baghdad Page 10