by Roy Scranton
“I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm . . . Helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable, and free country will require our sustained commitment. We come to Iraq with respect for its citizens, for their great civilization, and for the religious faiths they practice. We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people . . .
“Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now . . . so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities . . . I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half-measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.
“My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others. And we will prevail.
“May God bless our country and all who defend her.”
He lay in bed thinking, why them again? The two men, standing over him, one slowly waving his hammer.
“He’s not going to do what he said,” said one.
“He thinks he knows,” said the other.
A dull boom outside startled the men and they turned to the window. In the street, a line of Crusaders stood on guard, the blades of their swords flashing like needles, reflecting the fiery angels crossing the sky whose wings and hair burned gold, swooping and soaring. One broke off and shot jets of flame from his hands—a burst of white sparks, Crusaders tossed along the road like broken bottles, a crater. One of the iron men screamed, pointing his sword to the heavens, and leapt. An angel fell upon him, wrapping him in flames, but the leaping Crusader stabbed through the angel’s heart and the two, pinned, plummeted writhing to the ground with a crash.
Staring down from atop a minaret, her face impassive white split with black, silver robes flowing in the maelstrom wind, she watched. She turned slowly, her eyes passing over the city, and he could feel her watching him huddled there in his bed. He tried to push himself to his feet, but saw his hand was crippled, broken blue, a twisted bird’s claw.
He heard the dogs a moment before he saw them, a pack slavering down the alley at him. With his good hand he pushed himself up and fled, feeling her eyes on his neck.
He turned one corner, another, then another, through twisting streets of the old city, the dogs close behind, their shadows shuddering on the walls, another corner and another. He fell in through a bakery door.
“In the cow’s belly, we’re all milk,” the baker told him.
“I’m not milk, I’m water,” Qasim said back.
“We must pour milk into you.”
“No, no. I need water.”
“You’ll drink pig’s blood before you’re through.”
“I’ll drink dog’s blood.”
“Oh, the dogs will drink your blood.”
“I’m not a man. They won’t eat me.”
“They won’t spare you either. They’ll kill you and leave you.”
“I’ll run forever.”
“Your hand is running. That’s a runhand.”
Qasim clenched his blue birdhand in a fist.
“We must pour milk into you,” the baker said, hobbling around the counter and into the back. In the wall was a little door and the baker opened it and, bending over, entered. “Come, come,” he said, going into the darkness. Qasim followed.
He crouched in an endless tunnel of tearing wind. Machinery chugged somewhere, loud, behind the wailing. Down, down he went, until finally the tunnel opened in a series of small caves spiraling one around another. The spirals became sines, tubes, a line of interwoven waves, a spinning weave of light and shadow, until translucent gold in the darkness shone upon a door: The House.
He opened the door with his good hand and went in. Qusay Hussein and Lateefah sat on the couch, holding hands. A goat bleated in the corner. Qusay had pulled up Lateefah’s dress and was violating her from behind. Lateefah moaned with pleasure, sweat beading on her face, her hands grasping at the couch, her naked thighs trembling as she pushed back into Qusay.
“What are you looking at?” Qusay shouted. He pressed harder into Lateefah, his hands holding tight to her hips, and she gasped. “You think you know, but you have a dog’s hand.”
“Stop,” Qasim said.
“God is great!” Qusay shouted, and shuddered. Lateefah’s belly swelled with his seed, and she was standing beside Qasim in his uncle’s house in Baqubah.
“I’m having it tomorrow,” she said, her face split with a black line.
“Don’t.”
“But sweetheart, it’s our baby. Look,” she said, and showed him the swaddled newborn. Its tiny black nose and furred snout poked out of the blankets. Cute floppy ears, bright black eyes, little white teeth, a curling pink tongue.
“I can’t . . .”
Lateefah handed the baby over. He knew he had to love it, so he made cooing noises. Lateefah smiled warmly at them, but when she turned away, he laid the baby on the table and smothered it with a pillow. The baby barked and yipped and Qasim forced the pillow down.
“What are you doing?” Lateefah screamed.
But he didn’t stop. He felt the wriggling thing under his hands and pushed down, down.
“Have some chai!” Lateefah screamed.
He smoothed over the pillow. He didn’t understand why he was in bed now. “It’s not ours,” he told her. “It’s a devil.”
“Please have some chai,” Lateefah said. She sat next to him, offering a cup.
The room was light, there was light in the room. Why was he lying in bed?
“Cousin, wake up. Have some chai.”
He shook his head, covered in sweat, the pillow was a pillow—his heart pounded in fear—but no, there was only the bed.
“Have some chai, Cousin,” Maha said.
“Yes,” Qasim said, taking the cup.
“The bombing started last night.”
“Yes,” he said.
Maha sat with him, watching him take his chai, telling him about the first bombs in the night. She gave him his antibiotic pill and made sure he swallowed. “Go back to sleep,” she said, and left him. He turned on his side and watched the wind riffle the palms through the window’s white X, his mind blank but for the image of Qusay and his wife.
Al Jazeera said nine B-52s had left their airfield in Britain and were six hours from Baghdad. Othman imagined the American pilots flying those enormous silver machines: they’d wear shiny helmets and black masks, like insectoid machine-men, but inside they’d be pale and blonde and say things like “Roger” and “I need a vector on that approach.” Othman lit a Miami and pictured their green flight suits with all those pockets, and how they’d call their wives and girlfriends before the mission. Some of them must have English girlfriends, he supposed, and others would have American wives who would hate the English girls. They’d walk out to their planes and high-five each other, saying “Got one fer Saddam!” and “Kiss my grits!” Then they’d put on their helmets and masks and fly over the English Channel and Paris and the Alps and Bosnia and Turkey and push buttons on their control panels and hundreds of bombs would fall from their machines onto his city. The earth would shake, buildings crumble, men die engulfed in storms of white-hot metal, children and women screaming, blood bubbling on blistering lips, and the pilots would high-five, saying, “How you like them apples?” Relaxing now, they’d turn their big silver planes and fly back over Turkey and Bosnia and the Alps and Paris and the English Channel, all the way back to their wives and girlfriends, who’d kiss them on the runway and say, “Bet you s
howed them what for!” Then they’d drive to fancy restaurants in sports cars, wearing tuxedos, and eat steak and drink Johnny Walker Black.
Most of the rest of the family had gone to sleep, a midday nap. Everything seemed almost normal.
Except for the constant terror, especially at night, especially last night. The bombing had started in the afternoon, massive raids in waves that shook the city. Sometimes they’d hear the hum of jets, sometimes not, then the first booms. If they were farther away, it was like thunder, but the closer they got, the more it sounded like the earth itself was breaking apart. The house shuddered. Everyone froze, then ran to the living room, which, having no windows, was the safest place in the house. The adults sat on the couch and armchairs, the children on the floor, as if they were all having tea, and waited while the booms multiplied and stirred to crescendo. Usually the wave was simple, peaking then fading into fewer, quieter booms and finally silence. Sometimes it was longer, complex, orchestral: a peak would be followed by a lull, a quieter stretch mistaken for denouement, only to rise again reborn with a surge of hideous thunder. It might happen twice, three times, once Othman counted five.
The raids went on all night. Every time the all clear sounded, they sat astonished at the reprieve, then blinked and, like old men stirring from long sleep, came slowly awake. Some returned to what they’d been doing, others tried the satellite. Thurayya made more chai. Othman usually went up on the roof to survey the damage, to see which part of the city lay smashed and burning. Columns of smoke strung the sky.
They’d chat or make phone calls, discussing this or that, what it would be like after, what it was like in the last war, what it was like during the war with Iran, what it was like before the war with Iran, what was good or bad about this CIA guy Chalabi they had on the news, or was America good or bad, or were the Americans better or worse than the British. Then the air-raid sirens would grind up or the AA would cough or something would explode and they’d all jump and run into the living room and it would all start all over. It went on and off like that, off and on, all night. They scrounged bits of sleep, on the couch, on the floor. Nobody wanted to go upstairs. There was an argument about whether they should leave Qasim in his room; they decided he’d be okay, but Mohammed and Ratib quickly boarded up his window. It was a long, awful night, restless and terrifying, spent at the edge of anxious exhaustion. Little Nazahah prayed and prayed, knowing somehow it was all in God’s plan.
Mohammed decided they should keep all their papers and money with them downstairs, in case they had to evacuate.
“Evacuate where?” Thurayya asked.
“We’ll go to my brother’s in Baqubah.”
“How?”
“We’ll take the van and the Toyota. If we need to, we can go to the warehouse and get a pickup.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Thurayya said.
“Just in case.”
“Mohammed.”
“Just in case. Everybody needs to pack a bag, too, and a bag for the children, and we’ll bring them all down here to the living room.”
The bombing let up at dawn. Everything but the satellite TV still worked, so after breakfast and packing, they got busy calling friends and family across the city and farther away, collecting and spreading news. Othman slept. After lunch they switched, most of the family dozing while Othman fiddled with the TV, which was how he discovered that the satellite was back on and Al Jazeera had timed the bombers.
Six hours.
Great silver jets against the sky and the hundreds of bombs they carried, each one death for someone. He remembered the last war, the ground leaping beneath his feet, the dead. A child’s arm poking from the rubble, smooth, purple-gray skin sticky with half-dried blood. The man with the shrapnel in his belly, howling all night—how could he have so much life left in him to keep screaming so loud for so long?
And the tanks—the tanks will come too. They’ll rumble through Baghdad like . . . He remembers a tank clanking down a city street, its malevolent cannon swinging side to side, pointing now at a bakery, now at a bookshop, so huge it takes up almost the whole road. Its tracks chew blacktop and sidewalks. A gang of children tumble from around the corner and launch rocks at it. The rocks clatter off the tank’s hull and it jerks to a halt. The gun swings around, its gaping death-eye searching for something to annihilate. Then the tank lurches into reverse, crunching up the road at them. Run, kids, Othman thinks, and they do, dashing around the corner. Was it in black and white, this memory, or color? Was it even a memory, something he saw on Al Jazeera or in Saving Private Ryan, or was it something he just made up?
Six hours.
And will it be worth it?
It had to be. We have to get rid of Saddam and his goatcunt sons. Donald Rumsfeld says it’ll be short. Just a few weeks of insanity, just a few weeks of war, then the Americans will give us peace and democracy. We’ll be a great nation again, like Germany or Japan. We have the oil, we have the drive, we have the brains and dedication, all we need is freedom and we’ll be as great as Baghdad ever was. We’ll be greater than Cairo, Damascus, greater than Beirut or Tehran. We’ll rival Berlin, Tokyo, New York, London . . . The name Baghdad will sing on the tongues of wealthy men and their fabulous women, the name Iraq will jingle like gold coins. We’ll fix all the damage from the last war, from the last ten years, and we can socialize the oil profits to do it. Then we’ll clean up the ghettos, fix the streets, finish the highways left half built. We’ll raze Saddam’s palaces and monuments and hire Iraqi architects to build real monuments to the Iraqi people, monuments to rival the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building. We’ll build Iraqi skyscrapers, better than in Dubai, and we’ll become the new economic center of the Arab world.
And our literature! It’ll flourish like flowers after the rain. No longer will we have to mutter our lines into our hands, hunched in the dingy corners of the Writers Union. They used to say Egypt writes, Beirut publishes, and Baghdad reads, but soon they’ll say Baghdad does it all! We’ll shout our poetry in the streets. We’ll have publishers and book fairs. I’ll finally finish my epic. Adonis will come, and Darwish, and Mahfouz, and Munif, they’ll all come and speak, and they’ll stay because we’ll have what no other Arabs have, not even the Jordanians and not even the Egyptians—we’ll have freedom. Freedom in a free Arab state, self-determination, national solidarity. It’ll be like the Republic, only better. Think of it! To write whatever you want, to shout “Down with Saddam!” and not have to worry about having your arms broken or your manhood burnt off. And all we have to do is go through a little war, a little trouble.
Five and a half hours.
He had to put on a movie. He couldn’t keep watching the news. He lit another Miami and flipped through the DVDs. Five and a half hours would be two, maybe three movies. Something the kids would like, maybe Shrek? We could watch Shrek again. Or, what’s this, Air Force One? Han Solo. Very good. Han Solo and his big silver jet.
Mohammed came in, wiping his hands on his dishdasha. “I just finished changing his bandage,” he said. “It’s still bad.”
“It’s only been two days,” said Othman.
“He should be better.”
“Or what? What can we do? Take him to the hospital again?”
“We should do something,” said Mohammed.
“Give it another day.”
“Where are Ratib and his boys?”
“Ratib’s on the roof. The boys are sleeping upstairs.”
“Good.”
“They said . . .” Othman started. He couldn’t carry this knowledge alone. Someone else had to help him. “They said we have a little more than five hours.”
“Until what?”
“Nine B-52s left Britain three-quarters of an hour ago. It takes them six hours to fly to Baghdad.”
“It’s no more than we expected.”
“I just thought you sh
ould know.”
“God protects all.”
Othman thrust Air Force One at Mohammed. “Is this any good?”
“It’s okay. You know. Action movie . . . Are you well, my brother?”
“No,” Othman said. “No, I’m not. I’m furious. All we do is sit and wait. Wait for more bombs and tanks and . . . Whether it’s good or bad, or both . . . We should do something.”
Mohammed smiled. “What can we do? Shout into the wind? Would you wrestle the Leviathan? You know how it is. Life’s like a cucumber.”
Othman grinned in spite of himself.
“That’s right. One day in it’s in your hand, the next day it’s up your ass. As for today . . . Well. Shitty days are only good for sleeping. Maybe you should get some rest. I’m going to take a nap now myself, then let’s go see if Uglah has opened his bakery.”
“Yes. You’re right. That’s good. I’ll, uh, I’ll watch Han Solo here. Come get me when you’re going.”
Othman turned back to the TV. He eyed the blue void of the screen while he fumbled with the DVD. He’d remembered where the image came from: the kids were Palestinian, and the tank was Israeli. It had been on the news. He thought of other pictures, pictures of Israeli soldiers storming Palestinian neighborhoods with M16s, Israeli-owned American attack helicopters launching rockets at Palestinian cars, Israeli-owned American fighter jets bombing Palestinian houses.
Five hours, more or less. He pushed play.
He was in a cave again, dark and cool. Lights flickered dim in the distance, sometimes one way and sometimes another, illuminating winding paths in half-seen flashes. This time Faruq was there, standing behind him, off to the side, in front. Faruq was young, much younger than Qasim remembered, with full black hair and a thick mustache.
“You’ve got to kick the ball, Qasim. You can’t be afraid.”
“I can’t kick.”
“Listen,” Faruq said, squatting beside Qasim, now a child. “Whatever you do in life.”