I Have Iraq in My Shoe

by Gretchen Berg

  Tom Pappas was not staying in my villa. There would be no bathroom sharing, and no chance encounters in the hallway in tighty-whities, possibly with Tom playing his guitar and crooning a ballad about fighting lionesses. My hair was standing on end and I was close to hyperventilating as I carefully typed back a response to Jill. It said, “Please do not offer my villa as an option for Tom. I am not comfortable with that arrangement.”

  I could not believe that I was the only person to recognize how totally inappropriate that was. This was a Muslim region, where unmarried men and women were hardly permitted to be seen together in public, much less have sleepovers at one another’s houses. I had Kurdish neighbors. This was a university building. Why was there absolutely no concern for how that would look? If I had been a Kurdish female employee, the subject would never have been brought up. If I had been the daughter of one of the board members or faculty, this idea would have been considered an offense. And “plus, he’s the chancellor”? Was that some sort of ultimate trump card that could be pulled at any moment? Where was the line drawn with that? “I’m sorry, but yes, you have to wear this gag ball and rubber dominatrix catsuit. He’s the chancellor.”

  The next morning my cell phone rang and it was Jill. My stomach tightened and I rolled my eyes as I answered. She was there at the villas and wanted to speak with me. I went downstairs and across the deck to Steve’s villa, where Jill was waiting. She began with, “There will not be any overnight guests.” My relief was hesitant, and I was still wary. She continued on to explain that, after our emails, she sat down and thought about the situation. She said, “I realized I didn’t want to be running into Tom in the middle of the night in the hallway!”

  Yes! Finally, we had some perspective! No matter that it took Jill actually having to almost be in my shoes to understand this; we were there. I think Jill’s common sense must have temporarily broken, but she managed to fix it. She then went on to explain that she called both the chancellor and the provost and told them Tom couldn’t stay in my villa, and now they were both very angry. The provost threatened, “Jill, you’d better talk to Gretchen, or I will.”

  I was aghast that both were “angry” about the situation, and I told Jill, “I will gladly have a conversation with the provost, gladly!” Why did they not get this? What was wrong with these men?

  Jill said that wouldn’t be necessary, and the issue had been resolved, but the tension was still there.

  The following week I received something a little closer to cake icing:

  From: Awat

  Subject: I miss you

  To: Gretchen

  Hi, Miss gretchen how are you? Are you fine? I miss you very much…

  That is how you ice a cake. I didn’t care if he wanted to use me as a sponsor to get his family to the United States. I was just grateful to have someone ask how I was doing. The only other person who was sympathetic and understanding was the Citibank agent on the phone, when I called to yell about the fraud alerts that kept shutting down my card when I was trying to use it. After they transferred me several times, I had to talk to a hard-nosed manager, who was difficult up until the point where I exhaustedly said, “I’m in Iraq, and it is impossible to have to keep calling about this!” She was immediately profusely apologetic and uber-sympathetic, and I realized she probably thought I was in the armed forces, keeping our country safe and whatnot. I didn’t correct her; I really needed the sympathy.

  The Erbil living situation was exhausting me. I had less privacy than ever. The university hired a part-time administrative assistant and had turned the downstairs bedroom into her office. A large copy machine had also been placed at the bottom of the staircase. This was horrible feng shui, I was sure, or possibly one of those weapons of mass destruction everyone had been wailing about.

  The new admin was a short, plain, guarded Kurdish woman who wore T-shirts and jeans to work. She was also a tattletale and complained to Jill that Steve and I weren’t always in our classrooms. Jill wanted Steve and me to be sitting in our classrooms “during working hours,” which meant pretending we actually had eight hours of work to do. Warren hadn’t cared if we spent part of the day upstairs in our villas. Jill was less flexible. Whatever slight perks there had been in the Erbil villas were slowly being taken away.

  My newfound contentment with Dadyar was short-lived. I had to have an awkward conversation with Jill regarding other “complaints from the staff,” which meant either Dadyar or Vana. Jill said that Vana was “incredibly intimidated” by me, and she proceeded to recount a story in which the innocent, put-upon heroine (Vana, who I then decided was like the stupid, incompetent Prissy in Gone with the Wind) had been diligently scrubbing away in the kitchen when the wicked and ruthless Scarlett happened by and disgustedly wiped a fingerful of dust in poor Vana’s/Prissy’s face. This was absurd, and I had thought Jill might have been joking, except when I said, “Oh my God, are you joking?” she said unsmilingly, “No. That was what I was told.”

  Vana had complained to her boyfriend Dadyar, who then complained to his cousin Rana, the HR director, who then complained to Jill. I could only imagine the story becoming more and more sinister as it passed from person to person. Ellen informed me that Jill and Rana had adjoining offices at the university and were frequently seen talking and laughing together. This was not good news.

  Of course Vana was intimidated by me. I knew about the torrid, illicit love affair! She knew I knew! It was like The Young and the Restless, except no one was particularly young. I had long passed the point of caring about the infidelity of “the staff.” It was none of my business. I just didn’t care. I was so disappointed in this turn of events, however, as I had gone out of my way to be nice to Vana. Each week she would drag her bucket and mops into the villa, and I would give her my most winning smile and say, “Hi, Vana! How are you?” And I had warmly welcomed her back from her three-week trip to Ethiopia by saying, “We’re glad you’re back! We missed you!” I didn’t understand how any of that could have been misunderstood to be intimidation. These were the few people involved in my day-to-day life, and I couldn’t trust them. From the moment I set foot outside my bedroom in the morning, until 5:00 p.m. when the staff left, I had to be on my guard. All of that nonsense, combined with the fact that Katherine had gone back to Australia to begin her diplomat training, and most of the other people I knew in Erbil had finished their respective contracts and left to go on to bigger and better things, equaled me really wanting to go back to Suli.

  The teachers in Suli had recently been moved from the isolated villa compound to a high-rise apartment complex, with beautiful, spacious, brightly lit apartments. They had designated one entire apartment building for the university staff. The top floor had been made into an all-purpose recreational area, with a Foosball table, movie-screening room, and workout room. Ellen had moved in with Carey, who had brought even more crap than I had and whose apartment could have been featured in a special homesick-themed issue of Elle Décor. Once you set foot in the apartment, you may as well have been back in the United States. Carey had generously offered for me to live with them, in the pretty Elle Décor apartment, where Ellen was still channeling Betty Crocker and Mrs. Fields. I wanted to be in Suli.

  In spite of the deluxe new accommodations in Suli, things with the school were slowly unraveling, and morale was low. Jill had explained to our department that despite what Warren had told us (that we were wildly profitable, and making “millions” for the university), we were actually in fairly dire financial straits. Warren had lied about all the money that was coming in and left Jill with an enormous mess to clean up. An image of Jill’s baby-sitting days unfolded in my head. I saw Warren as a misbehaving seven-year-old, guiltily caught standing in the middle of a jumbled pile of crap, with Jill, hands on hips, standing over the pile, ruefully shaking her head. This was bigger than broken Legos or spilt Cheerios, though. Everyone began worrying about losing their jobs.

  Even though things with the CED were bad, I
still wanted to be in Suli. I explained this to Jill, who claimed she would do her best to bring me down there, depending on whether or not she could find another female to trade places with me. All of the female teachers in Suli knew how bad the Erbil living situation was, and none of them wanted any part of it. Hey! Who wants to live where they work, and be subjected to unfair rumor-spreading and constant privacy invasions? Anyone? Are you sure? No one? Bueller? I was stuck. I knew I was teetering on the edge of insanity when, after everyone left the villa at the end of the day, I would rush around, slamming and locking each door and yelling, “MINE!” with the click of each lock.

  Chapter Forty

  Reality Bites

  One sunny Saturday morning I woke up at 11:00 a.m. and thought, “Wow, it is late,” and then proceeded to lazily stay in bed, reading. At 11:15 the doorbell rang. I had developed a Pavlovian response to the unwelcome doorbell-ringing and door-knocking that occurred on the weekends, when I was supposed to have my perpetually diminishing me-time. My immediate response was to quietly say, “No. Fuck off,” to the empty room and then return to whatever it was I had been doing when the interruption occurred.

  The doorbell rang again at noon, a double-ring this time, and again I responded without thinking, “No. Fuck off.” I then heard the door handle rattle. MOTHERFUCKER! Are they trying to get in? It was the bedraggled, unscrupulous Union soldiers, descending on Tara to pillage and plunder and steal Mrs. O’Hara’s rosewood sewing box. I silently cursed Jill for not bringing me down to Suli. No one in Suli ever had to deal with potential students or Union soldiers knocking on their doors in their deeeee-luxe apartment in the sky.

  I was in my room, clad in nothing more than somewhat transparent, pink summer shortie pajamas. It was hot. Was it Steve? Or Dadyar? Both had keys to the villa. Although they would have at least tried to call first, wouldn’t they? My cell phone was on the dresser, silent, sans any indication of missed calls or text messages. I then heard chatter outside my window. I couldn’t discern whether it was English or something else over the whir of my air conditioner. I crept to the window and carefully peeled back one of the hanging vertical blinds to peek out at the shared deck between the villas. There, at one of the deck tables, sat a Kurdish man, woman, and ten-ish-year-old child, who had made themselves comfortable. There were papers on the table, and I momentarily wondered if they were here to take a placement test? But I would have been told about that beforehand—wouldn’t I? I looked around for Steve but couldn’t see anyone else. Someone was now aggressively knocking on my front door. Dammit! Whoever it was they were being fairly relentless, considering all the villa blinds were closed: kitchen, living room, classroom.

  The large billboard out in front clearly stated, “If interested in English courses, call the number below.” It did not say, “If interested in English courses, please aggressively ring doorbells and knock on the villas, especially on the weekends.”

  So, I continued to answer, “No. Fuck off,” to the knocking, and decided to abandon ship for the day. In the past, I would have had no place else to go. But now? Ha HA! Costa Coffee! I could walk there! I could escape the forced entrapment of “my” villa, while Kurds rang my doorbell incessantly. I didn’t care why they were there. I hadn’t been advised of any official school business happening today, and it was Saturday for crying out loud. I needed my weekend!

  I quickly pulled on yoga pants and a billowing Maximall top, and tucked a few necessities into my purse: money, sunglasses, sunblock, and my little writing pad and pen. I crept down the stairs, past the hulking copy machine, carrying my flip-flops, so as to approach the door stealthily, like the Pawnee hunting Tatonka. The last knock had rapped roughly five minutes ago, so I deduced the coast was clear. I swiftly unlocked the door, whipped it open, and immediately closed it behind me and locked it again. No Kurds. The deck was on the opposite side of the house, so I could quickly stroll down the driveway before turning a sharp right into the street and away from the villa. I made it. During my escape I noticed three unfamiliar cars now parked in front of the villa. What was going on here today?

  I continued slowly down the street, walking through the oppressive, ovenlike heat of midday, turned right, and walked the remaining three blocks to Costa Coffee, every step releasing a bit of the tension and anxiety that had built up with each ring of the doorbell, each aggressive knock on the door.

  Ahhhh, Costa Coffee. I heart you. This was clean, untainted air-conditioning. Smoking was not allowed. The men had to go outside and stand under the overhang with their cigarettes. Traditional coffee shops in Iraq had the unwritten rule of being men only. They were starkly furnished and usually packed with cigarette-smoking men. This coffee shop was identical to other Costa Coffees, with the comfortable living room chairs and cherry wood tables, and the glass counter full of paninis and muffins. It was heaven. Heaven’s prices were fairly high, in that you’d drop $12 on a sandwich and froufy coffee drink, but it was absolutely worth it.

  I took my BBQ chicken quesadilla and coffee mocha frescato and parked myself in one of the overstuffed, striped chairs, next to an Iraqi girl who was busily typing away on her pink Mac laptop. I had only been sitting and writing for a few minutes when the Iraqi girl stood up and leaned over my table. “Hello!” she said pleasantly. “Hello,” I answered, smiling. “Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked. I knew she didn’t work for Costa Coffee, so my resulting facial expression must have said “Hanh?” She explained herself, “You looked a little lost, and I just wanted to know if you needed anything.” Her name was Heba, and she was from Baghdad. I asked why she was in Erbil, and she happily replied, “I’m on vacation! Just for the weekend.” She was very cheery and friendly. I wanted her to have a better vacation option. She went on to tell me that she worked for such-and-such company (something I had never heard of and quickly forgot the name of) and asked what I did. I said I taught English for the university, and she seemed excited. Heba explained that she was interested in getting her MBA, so I wrote down the school’s website and my email address and said there would be a link to the MBA program on the site. She thanked me, then went back to her little pink Mac. There were Kurds sitting and having conversations, in English, and Westerners enjoying snacks, and best of all, no one was smoking. It felt familiar and safe.

  It finally dawned on me that the only things that made me happy here were things that reminded me of home. I no longer wanted to read The Kite Runner, or The Poet of Baghdad, or A Thousand Splendid Suns. I had completely lost my objectivity and my political correctness. It took an observation from a total stranger, a woman from Baghdad, for me to acknowledge that I really was lost. I didn’t want to be in Iraq, or Kurdistan, or Erbil, or really even Suli. I wanted to be home, and home wasn’t here.

  The very next week, when I went down to Suli to do my banking, Jill called me into her office and quietly informed me that I had to be laid off.

  Ever since Warren left, and we were made aware that CED was losing money, being laid off had been a distinct possibility. We had all been living on pins and needles for a while, and the overwhelming sense of foreboding was something everyone tried to ignore. I was the first to go. The one with the highest salary, who was a “pain in the ass” of the chancellor and the provost, was an easy first choice, and my recent “rebellious” uncooperativeness was probably just the extra shove they had needed.

  After being told I would have to be out of the Erbil villa within a week, I went into a bit of a tailspin. My Excel budget spreadsheet wasn’t ready for me to go, and the daunting task of making spur-of-the-moment travel plans from Iraq was not easy, but I did not make a dress out of living room curtains and go swanning into the administrative offices in order to manipulate or guilt them into keeping me on. Mostly because the living room curtains were cheap Venetian blinds. There was no begging, or attempted manipulative guilting, but there might have been some crying, some hyperventilating, some hand-slapped-to-the-forehead wailing coupled with despair.


  There was maybe a half hour of the above before there was some clarity. I didn’t want to be there. That was the bottom line. Four hours after my conversation with Jill, I was sitting in Carey and Ellen’s Elle Décor living room, with at least six other Americans and Canadians, wearing shorts, playing Cranium, and drinking a strong vodka cocktail that Carey had lovingly poured for me. The vodka helped quell the vacillating emotions of relief and wistfulness.

  In life, it is important to find where you fit in, where you feel comfortable, where you feel home. I was not home in The Iraq. While I never expected to stay longer than my original signed contract, I also hadn’t expected to so desperately need to be somewhere I was openly accepted and welcomed. I longed to be back in a place where bacon was consumed freely, and out in the open, and where I could drink a glass of wine without worrying that the waiters were judging me, or that I was sitting in the “wrong” section of the restaurant. I longed to be back in a place where the TV series Dirty, Sexy, Money was not censored down to Dirty Money, and where Mad Men and Big Love were not considered to be lifestyle recommendations. I longed to be back in a place where kissing scenes were aired in their entirety and where smiling in photographs wasn’t considered a “stigma.” I longed to be back in a place where I would only be considered a whore when I wore provocative clothing and asked to be paid for sex. There was a lot of longing. I didn’t care about the loss of salary; I didn’t need any more shoes. I needed to be home.

  The university worked with the Qalawa Refugee Camp and would periodically take donated goods to the families in need. I wanted to donate a good portion of the clothing I had brought, including some of my completely impractical footwear. The camp was composed of roughly forty to fifty families of Iraqis who migrated to Kurdistan from Baghdad in 2007 and was located just outside of Suli. I wasn’t sure they would actually benefit from platform espadrille wedges or grommetted stilettos, so I spoke with Dashnye, a British-educated Kurdish woman at the university, who coordinated the donations. I explained, “I want to donate some shoes, but most of them are silly, impractical high heels. Would the refugee camp even want these?” Dashnye assured me that there were a number of young girls at the camp who would be thrilled with high heels. Just because people are displaced doesn’t mean they don’t want pretty footwear. Plus, variety is the spice of wardrobe. I donated nine pairs.