by Roy Scranton
“Then you know we’re a nation of peasants,” Mohammed interrupted, setting his contracts to one side. “A nation of ignorant hill people in the north, dull-minded farmers in the south, and superstitious tribesmen in the west. We are, like most Arab nations, a backward and troubled people. And yet we’ve modernized more than any other. We beat the Iranians, we beat back the Americans, we’ve kept our nation together and hauled our peasants screaming and wailing into the twentieth century. And how, my brother, did this happen?”
“The curse of oil?”
“No. By having a strong leader. A strong leader who believes in unity, who believes in a powerful, secular state—a nation—that can stand up to the Zionists and lead the Arabs into the future. We’re an Islamic civilization, not merely a people or a religion, and it takes a strong leader to keep us moving together. Without Saddam, Iraq will shatter into a thousand pieces.”
“I read Aflaq too, my educated friend.” Othman perched his wide rump on the edge of Mohammed’s desk, offered Mohammed a cigarette from his pack of Miamis, then lit one himself. “Of course we must put sectarian squabbling behind us. On that, I walk with you today and tomorrow and the day after. But for our Father Leader and Daring and Aggressive Knight, the Hero of National Liberation, unity was always only a word. Four thousand times, he played the Kurds against the Sunnis and the Fivers against the Twelvers. He doesn’t heal the rifts between Muslims—he manipulates them. Whereas in a democratic Iraq, an Iraq where every voice can be heard, with the Americans here to help . . .”
“To take our oil, you mean. What does your Al-Bayati write? ‘The hourglass restarts, counting the breaths of the new dictator . . .’”
“They want us to modernize. You see how they are with the Persians. With the Wahhabiyya.”
“Speaking evil from the left side of their mouth while flattering out of the right. Denouncing the mujahedeen with one hand and shoveling cash at them with the other. Yes, I see. The Zionists and the Persians have always conspired together.”
“You’re too cynical. You always have been. You’ve always been too willing to accommodate yourself to power.”
“You didn’t seem to mind much when I used my ‘accommodation’ to get you out of jail.”
“For which I am forever grateful, my friend,” said Othman. “You saved me.”
“And I would do it a thousand times. But to save you, I had to have power. Brother Othman, listen: power must be held. It must be used. Listen: this has nothing to do with democracy. We’re under attack from the Zionist crusaders because we stood up against them—because bin Laden stood up against them. It’s the same as it was with Kuwait. Someone dares to stand up to America, and they’re going to punish whoever they can put their hands on. Listen: Saddam is the only thing that has kept our nation together for the last thirty years. When the Kurds took up arms against us, who stood against them? When the ayatollahs started rioting and rebelling even here in Baghdad, who stood against them? When the Persians bombed our cities and cut us off from the Shatt al-Arab, who stood against them? And when the Kuwaitis started murdering innocent Iraqis and then that snake George Bush, who I spit on, invaded our lands and butchered our brothers, when the entire world lined up to see us broken—who stood against them?”
“‘Carpenters and ironsmiths, hungry and burned under the autumn sky, all forcibly led to slaughter, killed by invaders, alien and homegrown . . .’ My friend, the same man who runs Abu Ghraib, who gassed the Kurds, who disappeared your own brother-in-law. How can you stand by this dictator as if he stood by you? He cares only about al-Tikriti. He cares only about Hussein. For all his strength, he has no more honor than a dog. And his sons! Think of them. You know the stories.”
“Rumors. Your tribe sit around the Writers Union like Scheherazade, making up gruesome fables to shock each other.”
“Not fables. You see the disco boats. You know what happens to the women—the daughters they take. Scheherazade’s not far off.”
“Listen, Othman, sometimes the powerful must be cruel. If we have to torture people to save lives, so be it. If we have to spy on people, so be it. If my grandsons are to know a peaceful and democratic Iraq, unified not by force but by law and honor, it will only be because we built strong foundations to secure that future. Is Hussein perfect? No. Is the party perfect? No. There are excesses. There are lies and evils. But the choice, Othman, is not between perfection and imperfection. We must choose, as always, between the lesser of two evils: a powerful leader or anarchy. And if you choose the Americans, you choose anarchy.”
“Maybe Bush will be strong,” Qasim said from his bricked-up window.
“What?” Mohammed turned, incredulous.
“Maybe Bush will be a strong leader. Maybe he will keep Iraq strong.”
Othman chuckled. “Your nephew sees things differently, brother.”
Mohammed stood up, spitting and stomping his foot. “Fuck Bush,” he said.
“But if Bush can beat Saddam, doesn’t that mean he is stronger? And maybe he’ll make Iraq strong again. Then we can build our democracy.”
“You see, Mohammed,” Othman said. “The young have hope. They’re not frightened of the future like you are.”
“Bush—strong! You heard about the protests. Against Bush. In his own country. He can’t even unify his own nation, and they have it easy. They’re rich. Fat. Decadent. Not only that, their women . . . You see how it was with this Hillary Clinton and now that Condoleezza Rice . . . Their women practically run the country.”
“Mohammed, surely you wouldn’t oppose a woman’s rule . . .” Othman said with a grin.
“At home. At home. There is a very strict line.”
“I see. So because Thurayya hasn’t yet made an assault on your office, you consider it well defended,” Othman said.
“True enough,” Mohammed said, wiping his hands and holding up his palms. “And she won’t ever try, God willing. Now, if you two are done vexing me with your daydreams, let’s finish up and get out of here.”
Qasim wiped his trowel on a brick and dropped it in his tool bucket. Mohammed tied up the last pile of contracts and set them on a corner of the desk. Othman closed up the last empty cabinets. Mohammed sent Othman to check on the other workers, then turned to Qasim. “Nephew, a word.”
Qasim faced Mohammed. His bad hand ached, and he felt feverish and dizzy. “Uncle, I know I was short with Aunt Thurayya.”
“Yes.”
“It’s just that . . . It’s not just her. I can’t take all this feminine meddling. My mother, Lateefah, Aunt Thurayya . . . I have to make important decisions, and all their fussing is . . . they don’t understand. They have no right to question me. They’re just women.”
Mohammed rubbed his mustache. “It’s true, nephew, that women are women. And it’s true that you must be firm with them. You can’t let them treat you like a boy. But a man’s wife . . . Well, things aren’t always so simple.”
“My wife is my Fatimah, Uncle. She’s my servant.”
“No, Nephew, you are hers. Lateefah is the one who will bear your children. She’s the one who carries your family in her hands. In her belly. You must protect and cherish her. You must stand by her.”
Qasim winced. “Now you are meddling!” he shouted.
Mohammed stepped across the room and slapped Qasim hard, knocking him back against the bricks, sending his glasses clattering to the floor. Qasim cried out, tears leaping to his eyes.
Mohammed exhaled through his nose with a snort. “I’ve nearly had my patience with you, boy,” he said. “Indeed, were it not for my obligation to your father, I’d have sent you from my house a long time ago. You blacken your father’s face. If you want to stay, if you want to curl your tail and hide in my home, then I will suffer it because your father was my brother. But don’t think you get to call yourself a man in my home. I know what you are, and I know a man wh
o abandons his wife out of fear and pride is nothing but a dog. When we get back home, you’ll beg your aunt’s forgiveness, or you’ll leave. Now clean yourself up and meet me outside.”
Some hours later, Qasim sat at his desk fuming, trying to puzzle out a particularly knotty equation, unable to focus. He’d called Baqubah earlier to talk to Lateefah and it had gone disastrously. His mother wouldn’t speak to him, and when his wife picked up the phone, she wouldn’t answer. Qasim was solicitous at first, gently asking questions, but each time Lateefah refused, his anger redoubled. When he finally asked, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you silent?” she said, “I’m grieving because my husband has abandoned me.” Qasim exploded, screaming into the phone, berating her faithlessness, and calling her names until she finally hung up on him.
Qasim told himself he’d called to entreat her, to comfort her, to promise her he’d send for her, and that it was her unrelenting selfishness that had provoked him. Sitting in his room, going through the same handful of variables over and over, his mind raced along the well-worn track of his indignation, chronicling the story of how put-upon he was, how beleaguered by fate, how neglected and how beaten down. His pained hand, his headache, and the fever in his ears made it all that much worse. From the Gulf War to his exile in Edinburgh to his father’s death, from his meddling aunt to his bullying uncle to his thankless wife, his life appeared to him as a succession of struggles against a despotic fate that had unfairly singled him out among all the others, he, Qasim, son of Faruq, for tribulation.
There was a knock at the door.
“I’m working,” Qasim shouted.
The door opened and Qasim turned to glare at Nazahah, who meekly watched at the floor.
“Cousin . . .”
“What? What do you want?”
“There are men here to see you, Cousin.”
“What men?”
“They say they’re from the university.”
“From the university?”
“Yes, Cousin.”
Qasim stood. “I’ll come down.”
“They said they’d see you here. They’d like to speak to you privately.”
“Well, alright. Send them up.”
Nazahah bowed and left, closing the door behind her. Qasim faced his chair into the center of the room. Two? He supposed both could sit on the bed, or one at the desk. He smoothed his blanket and arranged his papers and pencils.
There was a new knock at the door and as he turned, it opened. One man scanned the room and sat easily on the bed, the other closed the door behind him and stood in the corner. Qasim knew at once they weren’t from the university.
“I . . .” Qasim began, but was interrupted by the sitting man, who waved his hand and clicked his tongue. He looked around the room again, taking in Qasim’s modest furnishings, his many books on his few shelves, his bureau, the picture of Lateefah he kept near his bed, his handful of shirts and trousers hanging in the open closet. Eventually the man turned and looked at Qasim like he was measuring the size of the hole he’d need to bury him in. Qasim realized he was trembling, his skin turning clammy, his mouth going dry.
The man looked away, past Qasim, through the window to the darkened city outside, the distant lights of the Um Al-Tobool Mosque. “Nice view,” he said. Qasim jerked back over his shoulder, looking in surprise at the same view he looked at every day, then turned again to face the man.
“You . . .”
The man waved, clicking his tongue. He turned to Qasim’s nightstand and picked up the photo of Lateefah.
“That’s . . .”
“Shut up,” said the man by the door.
“Professor al-Zabadi,” the sitting man said, still holding the photo of Lateefah.
“Speak when you’re spoken to,” said the other.
“Uh . . . yes, sir.”
“Professor Qasim al-Zabadi.”
“Yes, sir.” Qasim thought he might throw up.
“Please sit down,” the man said, turning to Qasim, who sat, looking from one man to the other. “This is your wife Lateefah?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s not here?”
“No, sir.”
“She’s in Baqubah?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know, Professor al-Zabadi, we’re not from the university.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know where we’re from?”
“I think so, sir.”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re from the police.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you seem fearless.”
“Is that it? Or is it because of what you know?”
Qasim’s ears began to ring. The air seemed to be leaking out of the room. “What I . . . I don’t know what I know.”
“Professor,” the man said, “you have not joined the Party, is that correct?”
“I . . . no. Not yet, sir.”
“Why is that?”
“I wanted . . . I needed to finish my dissertation. I’m not . . . I’m not one for politics, for all those political . . . things. I’m just . . . a mathematician. Just maths. So, I thought, what do politics and maths have to do with each other? I’ll join later, of course, but I didn’t.”
“Just maths.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see. And who do you do maths for?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Who do you do maths for?”
Was this about his uncle? Was this about the accounts—the bribery, black-market deals, shady negotiations with officials? It was all run-of-the-mill stuff, the only way to get things done. He couldn’t believe they’d be here about that. Had his uncle made enemies? Was he going to have to . . . ? Qasim blinked. The room dimmed and blurred.
“Just . . . just my uncle Mohammed . . . he’s down . . . stairs . . . ”
“We spoke with him. He’s a very honorable man. But there are so many questions.”
Qasim choked back a belch of vomit. He sweated cold sweat, his good hand clenched in a fist and his bad hand throbbing. The man stared, watching and measuring. Qasim said nothing. With a great internal wrenching, he decided to answer only direct questions and speak as little as possible. He couldn’t lie, that was beyond his strength, but he could keep himself from giving away anything more than what they forced from him.
“Your uncle is very honorable,” the man said. “He takes care of his family. He takes care of you.”
Qasim coughed.
“It would be a pity if something happened to him.”
Qasim looked from the one man to the other.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” the one asked.
“I . . . think so.”
“What I’m saying is that we’re interested in certain kinds of information. But we’re very busy men, you know. We have only so much time. So if we’re looking over here, maybe we don’t have time to look over there. Or vice versa. You see?”
Qasim looked at the man, confused.
The man sighed and stood up. He stepped over to the desk, leaned over Qasim, and flipped through his papers. Qasim felt him at his shoulder, a menacing blur in his peripheral vision.
“What is this?”
“My dissertation, sir.”
“What’s it about?”
“Harmonic analysis. It . . . it has to do with permutations of Fourier series. Fourier transforms.”
“Transforms?”
“It’s . . .” Qasim gritted his teeth. “It’s very abstract. It has to do with series of numbers, with periodic functions. You would need several years of higher mathematics in order for my explanation to make any sense.”
“Why don’t you try?”
“It has to do with—simply put, what I’m trying to do is d
evelop a harmonic analysis of certain non-abelian groups to explore whether or not we can analyze them topologically. I think I’ve been able to establish these groups as locally compact in certain cases, but I’m still working on applications of the Peter-Weyl theorem. The problem is, they’re not always locally compact—which means . . . well. It’s . . . it’s a bit ambitious.”
“I see. And these equations, they’re good for making codes?”
“What?”
“Somebody gives you a message and you turn it into a non-abelian theorem . . .”
“Oh, no. No. Not at all. That’s a totally different branch of mathematics. No. Cryptography, cryptanalysis, that’s totally different. You might talk to Professor Farani, she’s very good with that sort of thing. Not really my field.”
“No?” The man smirked.
“Oh no. Like I said, I’m working on harmonic analysis. I’d like, once I finish the dissertation, to see if I could push it further, topologically, you know, but that’s a completely different . . . that’s . . . wait.” Qasim’s realization shot fear through his belly: “You think I write codes.”
The small man slapped Qasim with the back of his hand. “Don’t pretend we’re stupid, Professor.”
Qasim held his head in his hands. His temples ached and rang.
“How about we just take this, all these non-abelian codes, and have somebody crack them?”
“What? No, please. No. It’s not . . .”
“No?”
“That’s . . . That’s my work.”
“Why don’t you tell us what we want to know? Or maybe you’d like to tell us in Abu Ghraib?”
“I . . . my uncle . . .”
“Yes?”
“I do accounting for my uncle. I’ll tell you who he bribes, how much, I can tell you the black market . . .”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not here to talk about your uncle, shit-dribble. Who else do you do accounting for?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know what you mean.”
The man slapped him again. Then again. Then he picked Qasim’s glasses up off the floor and handed them back to him. He went to the door and spoke briefly with the other man, who came over to Qasim. He reached out and took Qasim’s good hand and pressed it flat on the desk. He held down Qasim’s wrist and pulled a claw hammer from under his jacket.