The Tobacco Keeper

by Ali Bader

  They became a familiar sight during this period. With his long black coat, his attractive, slender figure, his handsome, dark face and his long, greying hair, Kamal Medhat sat at a café on a tree-lined street close to the Umayyad Mosque. Nearby was a wide courtyard, a stone staircase, a two-storey house and a pool in the centre of a garden. Nadia al-Amiry’s face was lit up by a bright light.

  Their relationship became common knowledge. It’s surprising that he didn’t treat her as his wife from the beginning. It’s clear that he led her to believe that his connection with her husband, who had died in a car accident in Iran and been buried there, was no more than a coincidence of names. Everybody, including Jacqueline Mugharib, was convinced that Nadia al-Amiry had no idea that her husband had died in a car accident until Kamal Medhat, the musician, had told her. It’s also clear that after the man’s death his papers had been stolen and he’d been buried without the Iranian authorities having access to information about him. Both the revolutionary and the opposition movements were willing in those days to buy documents at any price to help them smuggle their members out of the country. Equally clear is the fact that he never mentioned the secret directly to her. But no one knew what she thought of her fugitive or missing husband. That remained one of her closely guarded secrets. To clear up some of the mystery, we need to mention that Nadia al-Amiry’s first husband, the merchant from Hama, had not been a particularly pious man, but he had been close to religious circles. He’d bought her a house in Al-Mansour City, a wealthy neighbourhood of Baghdad, after she’d given birth to a boy and a girl who now lived in Hama. One of her Syrian husband’s friends was a certain Kamal Medhat, who was a good, honest man but was in love with his friend’s wife. Her husband had became implicated in a coup hatched by Islamists in collaboration with army officers, and had been executed. Kamal Medhat had then married her. Their marriage was shortlived, he’d left for Tehran, where he’d been killed in an accident. She had left Hama and gone to live in Bab Touma. With her new husband away and with no information about him, she’d been utterly desolate. She’d wanted to return to Iraq, which wasn’t easy because relations between the two countries were so strained. What Kamal Medhat now wanted was her help to return to Iraq, while all she wanted was his company. That was how they decided to return to Iraq and live in the house in Al-Mansour that had been left to her by her first husband.

  Before discussing their return, we must describe the final scene between Kamal Medhat and Nadia al-Amiry in Damascus. Kamal Medhat had managed to change this woman completely, to convince her to demand her pleasures more forcefully than she had ever done in the past. Was he not, after all, the tobacco keeper, the guardian of ecstasy and pleasure? They were spotted together on New Year’s Eve.

  His head sank onto her shoulder out of pleasure. She wanted to breathe in his scent. He pressed her to him and she closed her eyes, almost collapsing from joy. She was gripped by powerful trembling as she stood in total darkness during the blackout in celebration of the New Year. A number of other men and women also took advantage of the darkness. The sound of music rose high from a corner and he thought he was about to be driven to orgasm. As she continued to lick the lobe of his ear, he was on the point of exclaiming, of falling down. But something saved him. Those sitting around thought he was simply drunk.

  When the lights were switched back on, everybody was hopelessly drunk. Kamal was very hot because of the heating and the drink, but the breeze coming through the window cooled him down and relieved his erection. He lay on the sofa and heard the rhythms of the music like muffled blows. When she put her hand down his trousers, he came immediately. His face convulsed as he threw his head back.

  Kamal Medhat reached Baghdad late at night; it was pouring with rain and pitch dark except for the flashes of lightning that lit up the city rapidly and briefly. Torrential rain continued to pour down from the sky. Nadia al-Amiry’s house in Al-Mansour had a brick façade and all its windows, which were made of pine wood, reached up to the ceiling.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked him as the car moved towards the entrance across the paved driveway. ‘This is your home!’ She turned to him sighing, and reached for his thigh.

  It was still raining when the car stopped. Nadia opened her umbrella and stood in front of the car door. As he got out of the car, she held the umbrella over his head to protect him from the rain. He walked towards the white stone wall that separated the house from the garden. He walked until the water seeped into his shoes. He removed the umbrella from above his head and let the rain fall on his hair and face. His beard and hair were soaking wet. He looked at Nadia, raised his hands into the air, spun around in circles and roared with laughter. It wasn’t a frivolous or sarcastic laugh, but a laugh straight from the heart.

  In the morning, he opened his eyes slowly and felt his face. He looked to his right and found Nadia sleeping next to him. Still drowsy with sleep, he smelt a delightful fragrance emanating from her.

  He got out of bed. Looking around the bedroom, he realized it was awful and a complete mess. On the floral wallpaper were family photographs and a painting of white horses. Magazines were scattered on the table and there was clutter everywhere. The decoration was primitive and artificial.

  That morning, Kamal Medhat looked at the garden. A pomegranate tree was covered with a delicate film of water, which made it gleam and shimmer. From the closed window of the room, winter glowed in the morning light and the green garden was wet with the rain. Everything sparkled and shone. He felt that he was where he had always wanted to be. Trembling with exultation, he felt his heart pound as he stood behind the window. He was once again a child looking at a tree spreading its shade over a plot of roses and at the rooster swinging its long, red tail in the air. His homecoming was pure bliss.

  So what was the cause of his elation?

  Years later, he wrote to Farida: ‘Simple-minded patriotism has never been one of my traits. In fact, I loathed patriotic feelings because they were the source of all fanaticism and hatred. But I felt like a rain bird coming back through the rain. I had to return on a cold, rainy day filled with thunder and lightning. When I think of this, I feel my heart fluttering and thumping like a great squirrel.’

  He left the house in the evening and took the bus to Al-Saadoun Street. As he passed in front of the door of the Semiramis Cinema, he stopped briefly to read the declarations of war pasted beside posters of semi-naked actresses basking in the summer sun on a European beach. At that time, he became a regular visitor to a bar at the corner of the street. He went there almost every week, sitting alone and speaking to no one. He would watch the clusters of coloured lights coming from the music shops. He saw women standing in the rain at cinema box-offices. He smelt hamburgers coming from a nearby shop and the wet stones of Baghdad’s streets on a rainy evening. He’d be happy walking in his heavy coat, black gloves and grey scarf. He entered a music shop and bought a medium-quality violin. At that particular moment, he realized how much he loved this part of Al-Saadoun Street in winter. So he stopped some distance from the Al-Nasr Square buses, took a cigarette out of the packet and lit it in the cold, damp air. He blew out the smoke and looked straight ahead at the street. He walked on until he reached the tunnel leading to the eastern gate. There he discovered a very different city. He was appalled by the posters for the war effort. Deep in his heart, he felt that the longer the war continued the more barbaric and deadly it would become.

  Baghdad, unlike Damascus and Tehran, was a cosmopolitan city. There were foreigners almost everywhere and women went about the streets dressed in modern clothes until the small hours. There was a bar on almost every corner of Al-Saadoun Street; even shawerma restaurants served draught beer with sandwiches. The cinemas showed the latest movies, and the walls displayed posters for concerts like any modern metropolis. Plays and operas from around the world were performed at the most prestigious theatres in the Middle East. But Kamal Medhat sensed that behind the modern, civilized veneer of the city lur
ked flagrant examples of decay and death. He sensed that the soul of the old city was fretting and moaning because its powerful imagination was being bridled and suppressed by the political rhetoric of tyranny.

  When he got home, he found Nadia sitting embroidering a dress for the baby she was expecting. He placed the stand near the large window overlooking the garden and began to play. That day, he wanted to regain his skill and recover his technique through various exercises on the violin. He soon found himself responding emotionally to the instrument, swaying as he used to do in the past. His heart thumped with pure joy as though he were under the influence of opium.

  The Opium Concerto was the piece he’d composed on his return from Tehran in the late fifties. It was his most beautiful creation, but it had been confiscated together with his books and documents after his expulsion to Tehran. What if it was resurrected once again? He tried to recall the basic melody and introduce new variations. This was what he told Farida in one of his letters. But it’s clear that he went back to his old habit of watching trees and flowers as a way of feeling the music of the universe.

  Kamal Medhat played the music as he looked at the garden. He saw the trees with their huge trunks and their long branches towering tall and magnificent. The lush green colour emphasized the will to life, while wars emphasized the wills of their individual perpetrators. Wars were the conflict of different wills, embodying destruction and death. That night Kamal could not sleep. His soul was ablaze with the violin and he felt happy and fulfilled. He wanted to take a long walk in the rain, so he went out in his raincoat and strolled along Baghdad’s wet streets. He sat on a bench in Al-Zawraa Park, his back turned to the cars and the buildings. He sat under the pouring rain the whole night, until his shoes became soaking wet. When the sun came up, he wandered a little in the park till he reached Al-Mansour Street, where he stopped in front of a man selling tea. The man had a large white moustache whose ends were yellowish from smoking. Kamal ordered a cup of cardamom tea and began to take one sip after another.

  After a break from music of nearly three years he went gradually back to practising and playing.

  Through practice his fingers, which had become rigid and stiff, began to grow supple, light and flexible. What was he going to do now? He was back in Baghdad, but what was he going to do? During this period his wife Nadia gave birth to a son, Omar. But like most artists, Kamal felt that children were of no great importance to him. The questions of art and work continued to plague him, until he was introduced to a Russian pianist, Maria Ivanova, who played in the large hall of the Sheraton Hotel. He began to accompany her on the violin at this place that was more of a café than a concert hall. The customers talked, drank and laughed as Kamal Medhat stood tall in his black suit and long hair, playing music and accompanied by the twenty-year old Ivanova, who wore a long dress with a slit that reached up to the thigh.

  Kamal stood in front of Maria Ivanova as she bent over the piano and played. He stood tall, with his dark face and light, greying beard inclining as he slid his bow over the strings. He was much happier with the music than he was at being in a hall full of chattering people.

  One day, a couple were sitting in the corner, listening to the music of this astonishing violinist who swayed with his violin like an accomplished dancer. This tall man with the greying beard and hair was no ordinary musician, for he never kept still while he played. He plucked the strings with tremendous force, moving his bow and turning this way and that. He leaned forward and produced exquisite, plaintive sounds amidst the noise of people drinking and laughing. The Russian pianist worked hard to keep up with this skilful violinist who swayed from side to side and produced such beautiful and technically accomplished music.

  The young couple got up and came towards him.

  ‘Who are you?’ the young man asked in surprise.

  A trembling Kamal Medhat stood stock still. His heart fluttered like a little squirrel within his chest. He felt that somebody had discovered his identity and wanted to arrest him. He realized his mistake in expressing himself through music, for his skilfulness might betray him. His talent, if discovered, would lead people to ask who he was. But it was music that tempted him to display his skills in front of Maria Ivanova.

  ‘Kamal Medhat,’ he said in a low voice.

  The young man extended his hand to shake his. ‘I’m Amjad Mustafa, a violinist,’ he said, ‘and this is my wife Widad, a cellist at the Symphony Orchestra.’

  ‘Lovely to meet you,’ he said, out of breath.

  ‘I’ve never seen such ability or such technical competence. Where did you learn your music?’

  ‘In Russia,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘I studied in Budapest, at the Franz Liszt Conservatory.’ He stressed the word Liszt, then added, ‘May I give you my phone number? I would love to see you.’

  Kamal Medhat placed the scrap of paper in the pocket of his black jacket, adjusted his red bow tie and went back to Maria Ivanova, who was enchanted by the way that he swayed and danced while playing the violin. He wasn’t, in fact, playing music at all. He was dancing and making love to the instrument. He held it gently as though it were a woman, swayed with it as though he were kissing her, rising with her as she responded to him. He would probe deep inside her and mount higher and higher with her until he reached the zenith.

  During the interval, Kamal Medhat went with Maria Ivanova to her room upstairs for an hour’s rest before returning to the hall. He stood in front of the low table, opened a bottle of vodka and poured himself a glass. Then he poured another for her in the cut-crystal glass. He turned to her and asked, ‘Would you like a drink?’

  With her black hair falling over her shoulders and her soft features, Maria Ivanova stood, beautifully tall, before him. She took off her dress and let it drop to her feet. She stood completely naked in front of him, with her small, firm breasts, her smooth, round, white belly, her long, soft legs and her sparse pubic hair. Choosing erotic words intended to arouse him, she told him in Russian, ‘I want you to play me …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve never felt as jealous of a woman as I have of your violin today. You were making love to it, and I want you to do the same to me.’

  Maria Ivanova’s room was like a brothel. There were rugs on the floor and animal furs spread on her bed. The hot air made the atmosphere intimate and lustful. She discarded her dress and lay naked on top of the fur covers. She made animal-like noises as Kamal Medhat felt her body and passionately sucked her rosy nipples. She took his other hand and led it over the contours of her body.

  He wrote to Farida: ‘I’m keenly aware of my carnality. Like an animal, I’m hungry for every sensation, every sexual technique. I kissed her passionately, I bit her lips and groped her legs. I did everything.’

  During this period, Kamal Medhat felt that Baghdad’s winter had a sad, grey colour when the rain poured down on the buildings. He was overcome with sadness and reverential awe when he practised a piece by Schönberg every day in the living room. His furry, white cat opened and closed its large loving eyes as it sat on a chair observing him. The green grass of the garden outside the window was wet. During those days in particular he didn’t know why he was reminded so much of Tahira’s death. He was obsessed with the idea that she had wanted to die. The death wish was a real fact that couldn’t be ignored, for it came from within the human soul and not from without. A person willed death and invited it from its eternal space. And death responded and came. The mystical feelings that dominated Kamal’s mind at that time were linked with the mysterious death wish within him. He didn’t fear death, but considered it a kind of flight into the unknown. Tahira might have succeeded in destroying the walls that encircled her. Death might perhaps free him, too, from the persistent images and nightmarish visions that had haunted his dreams and tortured him ever since the Farhoud. Death might destroy the wall that stood between him and his self, the wall that blinkered the narrow perception of his soul. It was as if he was being s
ucked in by the whole world, by noises, gentle arms, soft colours, escalating joy and an unbelievable force that pulled him upwards.

  It’s clear that it was Amjad Mustafa and his wife Widad who took Kamal Medhat out of his solitude and introduced him to Baghdad society. Widad, in particular, had family connections with the Iraqi political regime. She pushed him to find his rightful place as an artist of genius. For his part, he felt that his life had changed almost overnight. He became more attentive to his clothing and started to wear black suits, Italian gabardine coats and expensive glasses. He spent most of his time outside his home and enjoyed the company of musician friends for the first time. He was invited to the most important concerts in the world and accompanied the most famous orchestras that visited Baghdad. In addition to playing the violin, he began to compose pieces based on the ideas he had developed during his time in Tehran and Damascus. He played the violin in an intricate, highly skilled manner, and his ideas were fresh and plentiful. Those ideas helped him to develop spiritually. They were his first attempts at breaking down barriers, for some of his past compositions had been overly dignified. In brief, he managed to break through the solidified crust and allow the burning lava inside to erupt. But those works, after he’d put them aside and then gone back to them, became utterly nauseating to him.

  He wrote to Farida: ‘I use the word “nausea” in the physical sense of the word. Don’t think that I’m exaggerating or using the word simplistically or foolishly. The truth of the matter is that I compose my pieces at amazing speed, by defeating the inner resistance which might stop me. I was like someone moving the radio tuner quickly. But when the notes were ready, I would leave them for a day or two. And on returning to them, I’d be overcome with horrible nausea. Only aspirin could relieve me of the nausea and the headache.’