Daughters of Iraq

by Revital Shiri-Horowitz

  “Sounds good,” Shimon said and again offered her coffee or tea.

  “You gave me cold water, don’t you remember? Listen, Shimon, I may be senile, but you’re still much too young.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on with me,” Shimon laughed. “You’ve got me all confused.”

  “Are you ready to start?” He nodded, and she contemplated Iraq, in the summer of 1950. “Okay. So one day, I remember it was right in the middle of a sweltering Iraqi summer, my father gathered the family and told us they’d decided to move to Israel. I couldn’t understand what was so great about Israel; in fact, I thought my life there would be worse. I was angry. I told my father that in Iraq we had friends and family, and I didn’t want to leave them.

  “My father told me we couldn’t go on living in Iraq because we had no money and, regardless, soon everyone would be gone. There was a mass exodus to the holy land underway. You have to understand what it was like back then. My father had been out of work for two years already, but we kids wanted for nothing. Nobody had told us Aba had been fired, that he spent every day at the coffee shop playing backgammon. How could I have known he wasn’t working? Only on that day did I learn he’d been out of work since Israel had been declared a state. He was fired because he was Jewish, and that was that; he was never able to find another job.”

  Farida settled herself in the chair. “What can I tell you? It wasn’t easy for me to hear that. In my eyes, my father was invincible. He was so strong.” Farida made a tight fist. “Eddie, the wunderkind of my sister, allah yirchama”—she stopped to wipe away a tear—“the star student of Shumash, didn’t get into university for the same reason: he was Jewish. He worked as an accountant for a bit and brought in some money, and my brothers-in-law also worked a little here and there. That’s how our family got by. You have to understand, they began stripping my father’s dignity in Iraq—then, here in Israel, whatever dignity he had left was completely destroyed.” Even after all these years, Farida was still angry. “But never mind that—that’s a completely different story, the story of my father. Do you know what it means to finish Shumash with honors, like Eddie did?”

  “What’s Shumash?”

  “It’s the best school in Iraq.”

  “Ah,” Shimon said. “Good for him. Those Iraqi bastards.”

  “Did you know that in Iraq, the whole family lived in a kind of commune?”

  “I think I know what you’re talking about,” Shimon said. “My parents lived like that in Morocco, the entire family together, right?”

  “Yes, exactly. Everyone helps everyone else. Remember my nephew, Eddie, who I was just talking about?”

  “Yes, of course I remember. You’ve told me about him many times. He was killed in one of the wars, right?”

  “No, not in a war, allah yirchamu.” Farida was quiet.

  Shimon applied the dye to Farida’s hair, not saying a word.

  “When my father told us we were moving to Israel,” Farida continued, “we understood that my mother and Eddie would stay in Baghdad, because Eddie couldn’t leave his friends from the underground. He was a youth leader, too. It broke my heart,” Farida said, and even now, forty years after that difficult day, her eyes welled with tears. She wiped more tears from her cheeks. “What can I tell you? I cried a lot that day, and for many days after. I was afraid something would happen, and I didn’t want to say goodbye to Eddie, or to my mother. We had to be on the plane within twenty-four hours, they told us. Each of us took one thing, no more, and we wore our best clothes. Can you imagine that? I didn’t even have time to get used to the idea.”

  “That’s tough,” Shimon agreed. “I need at least a month to prepare for a trip to Eilat.”

  “On the day of the flight,” Farida continued, “my eyes were so swollen it looked like somebody had punched me.” She settled her wrinkled hands in her lap. “My father only allowed us one thing to bring, but I brought two, and he didn’t say a word. I took two books. One of them Eddie had given me for my fifteenth birthday, a small book of poems by Abu Nuwas, a famous Arabic poet. The other was the Bible I’d received from my grandmother at my Bat Mitzvah. That was it. We all boarded the airplane, leaving the past, heading for a future more different than we could ever have imagined.”

  Shimon massaged her scalp, working the dye into her hair with his fingers. It felt wonderful.

  “The whole flight to Israel, I vomited my brains out,” Farida continued. “I threw up and cried. The flying motion made me sick. Since then, I’m telling you, I have never left Israel, not even once.” She smiled. “What? What don’t I have here? I have desert, I have snow, I have flowers, I have the Kinneret—what else do I need? And when I travel to see those places, I don’t throw up . . .” She laughed, but it turned into a paroxysm of coughing. Shimon brought her a large glass of water. She cursed cigarettes and whoever had created them.

  Shimon laughed. He rubbed the last application into Farida’s scalp, instructed her to wait thirty or forty minutes, and turned to his next client, Ruchama from the bank.

  Half an hour later, Shimon checked on Farida. He moved a section of hair to the right, then left, humming while worked. He decided she was ready for rinsing. He told Margo to wash Farida’s hair, reminding her to use conditioner. When that was done, he began to cut her hair. Farida enjoyed the touch of Shimon’s gentle hands. She watched him work his scissors, watched tufts of her hair fall, hit her shoulders, and drop to the floor. “Shall I continue?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “Ya’allah, please go on.”

  “We changed planes in Cyprus and finally landed in Israel. I looked around, and what did I see? It was hot, it smelled, everyone was running. It was absolute chaos,” she said in disgust. “Someone came and took us to a little building, where they questioned us, asked us our names. Farida, I told them. What kind of a name is that? They asked. That’s not an Israeli name. You need to choose an Israeli name, not something funny like Farida. What’s Israeli? I asked. What’s wrong with Farida? Farida is a name from the Diaspora, they said. Diaspora! Can you believe that?”

  Shimon looked at her, but Farida didn’t wait for a reply: “They changed my sister Violet’s name, too, and everyone else in the family. Listen, you’ll love this story.” Her eyes twinkled. “In Baghdad, our last name was Twaina. My father decided that from that day on, our last name would be Yishayahu Isaiah because he was one of the smartest prophets in the Bible. That was his dream, to move to the holy land and take the name of a prophet. Like it is written in Isaiah, Chapter 62: ‘For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness shines forth like the dawn, and her salvation like a blazing torch.’”

  Shimon complimented her on her excellent memory, and she told him that her father, of blessed memory, was religious, and that he’d recited that verse so many times she could recall it in her sleep. Even if she were ensconced in a dream about winning a million shekels in the lottery, she said, she’d be able to recite the line without a mistake. Shimon laughed as he continued to trim her shiny hair.

  “Listen, listen to this one,” Farida said. “So all of a sudden, I’m not Farida anymore, I’m Shoshana. My sister Violet is Sigalit; Yusuf is Yosi; and so on. Hebrew names, not Diaspora names, that’s what they told us.”

  “So why does everyone call you Farida, and not . . . what was it, Shoshana?” Shimon broke out in a rollicking laugh, making sure to keep his scissors away from Farida’s face.

  “It’s not funny,” said Farida, laughing along with him. “Imagine someone coming up to you unannounced and informing you that henceforth your name is Zion. How would that make you feel? Can you imagine?”

  “Zion? Why Zion? You’re killing me here, Farida. How do you expect me to cut your hair when you keep cracking me up like this?”

  “What’s so bad about Zion? Haven’t you ever heard our national anthem? ‘The Land of Zion, Jerusalem?’ It happens to be a very nice name.” At thi
s point, everyone in the salon was laughing with them. “Ya’allah,” she scolded him. “Keep cutting. And listen to my story. Maybe you’ll learn something about someone else’s life. Now, where were we?”

  “Shoshana, remember?”

  “Yes, of course I remember,” she said. “So Shoshana is my Hebrew name, but almost nobody uses it because I don’t like it.” When nobody responded, she continued. “So after they Hebraicized our names, they loaded us on these trucks, the kind used to carry fruit, and drove us to the immigration office. It was in Atlit, I think. And what do I see? Tents, tents, tents, ya walli, rows and rows of tents. I didn’t understand what we were doing there, and my father was lugging mattresses all over the place, happy as can be, and my sister was smiling the whole time, and I couldn’t stop asking myself, how can this be? I mean, we came from Baghdad, from a comfortable home in a big beautiful city. How did we end up in this hole?”

  Shimon and Farida both laughed. “It is a hole, isn’t it?” Shimon said.

  “Yes,” said Farida. “But people came to this hole from Iraq and Romania, and from Morocco, like your parents. Where didn’t they come from? And to make matters worse, our neighbors in Atlit were practically on top of us, like this.” She clasped her fingers together. “But God save us from the Moroccans.”

  “Why?” Shimon asked.

  “What, don’t you know that the Iraqis hate the Moroccans?”

  “Really? Why? What did the Moroccans ever do to the Iraqis?” Shimon laughed again.

  “You know, I honestly have no idea,” she confessed. “But to this day, if you were to ask a genuine Iraqi who his daughter should marry, he would tell you that he doesn’t care, as long as he’s not Moroccan . . .”

  Shimon suppressed a smile and said, “Walla, I didn’t know that. As it happens, I’m Moroccan, and my girlfriend is Iraqi, and her parents never said a word.”

  “Then they’re bogus Iraqis.” Farida sighed. “Ya’allah, Shimon, take it easy. I have to catch the bus soon. Otherwise you’ll have to entertain me for another hour, and you don’t want to do that. Nu, it’s finally beginning to take shape. It’s not bad, this haircut, not bad at all. You should go to England and cut Diana’s hair.”

  “Diana who?”

  “Diana who? Diana the princess! Have you seen her haircut? It’s from the time of my mother’s grandmother!”

  “Oh, Farida, Farida, it’s so good to see you.” Shimon smiled. “You always make me smile, a blessing on your head. God should watch over you.”

  Farida admired her new hairstyle and hair color, paid for her visit, and left the salon happy. She walked back to the bus stop.

  Chapter Fourteen: Violet

  Wednesday, February 11, 1987

  I, Violet or Sigalit am getting on a strange truck with my family. It’s the kind of truck used to carry animals. We start moving. We’re all packed in tightly, Farida next to me, little Yusuf now Yosi sitting on my lap. Aba sits across from me, dressed in his best white suit; his hands tremble in his lap. We’re surrounded by the rest of our extended family. I don’t know where they’re taking us, and the truth is, I don’t care.

  “Ya, look how beautiful it is here,” I say to Farida.

  “Beautiful?” she says. “What’s so great about this place?”

  “Look,” I say to her. “You see how the water is being directed toward the trees and flowers? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “So what?” Farida says. I try to ignore her foul mood. I concentrate on this wonder, which, I later discover, is called a sprinkler. The truck moves on. I’m amazed by all that I see. Unfamiliar trees, people working in the fields, wearing silly hats, waving as we drive by. They look strange to me—they don’t wear much: both men and women go topless.

  “Wai, wai, how beautiful,” I say. Every little thing strikes me. It’s hot and humid and crowded on the truck, but I could ride for hours, taking in all the sights. I look at my little nephews: couples are sleeping, lulled by the motion of the truck; some look around with wide eyes, taking in the new world. I think how lucky we are to have arrived at this magical place. Farida won’t stop sighing. She complains that she can’t breathe. I try to calm her, cheer her up; I know this is difficult for her. Ima and Eddie aren’t with us, and she feels unmoored, adrift. In retrospect, I see she was right. I was clueless. We were in for a lot of hardship. Life would never be the same for any of us.

  The truck soon stops, and we disembark. Darkness sneaks in quietly and takes over the street. I look around and see tents, rows and rows of tents. There are loudspeakers, too, in constant use, inundating us with amplified, disembodied voices. I don’t understand the messages at first, but later I will learn that they are used for general announcements: meal times, infirmary hours, and so on. I can’t imagine why we’re here. Maybe we’re here to switch trucks?

  Then I see Aba, my brothers-in-law, and my brother setting up a row of beds on the ground. “What’s going on?” I ask my father. “You mean we’re staying here? Sleeping in this tent?” Aba says we’ll be here until they decide where to send us. It seems odd to be sleeping in a tent. We are dressed in our finest clothes, and we have just come from beautiful houses with soft beds. But I don’t mind. What an adventure. Who would have imagined I’d be sleeping in a tent? I don’t dare say this aloud, but my heart beats wildly. It feels like it’s the first time I’ve ever been out in the world, and I’m about to discover its beauty and its grandeur.

  “Okay,” I say to Farida. “We’re here, so why not make the best of it? Let’s pretend we’re in a golden palace. You see this sand? It’s the gold that covers our floors like a carpet, and that piece of cloth waving in the wind is a magnificent regal canopy over our beds. And look, if you peer through the holes in the tent, you can see the sky full of stars, decorating our palace like diamonds. And what fun it is to be sleeping in this palace together!” I manage to coax a smile out of her. Then I push my bed against hers, take her hand, and we both fell asleep.

  Farida doesn’t think I believe what I’m saying, but that night, my imagination spins out dreams of royalty. I’m glad we’re in a tent, in a foreign place. I feel like we’ve stepped out of the Bible. The tale of the tower of Babel is unfolding right next to me: people are speaking so many different, strange-sounding languages, and you can’t tell who comes from where. Unlike the Biblical story, though, which was full of strife and chaos, here we are trying to help each other. We communicate in the universal language of hand signals.

  I’m restless throughout the night, writhing in my bed. I hear unfamiliar rumbling sounds. I can’t figure out what causes them, and they continue unrelenting throughout the night. The next morning I find out it’s the sea. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it. “Waii,” I say to Farida, “look how big it is. You can’t see the other side. It dwarfs the biggest river in Baghdad. And it’s so blue. What a beautiful sight. What a dream.”

  Chapter Fifteen: Noa

  At precisely ten o’clock, Ofir rang Dan’s doorbell. Noa opened the door and grinned at the sight of him. Ofir had made a special effort for Noa instead of dressing in his usual sloppy way, he wore a white shirt and a pristine pair of jeans. His shirt was tucked tightly into his pants, and a brown belt completed his ensemble. Ofir remembered that, in Noa’s opinion, the best-dressed men in the world were the ones wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt.

  “I’m so glad you came,” Noa said, taking his hands. “And right on time, too. Very impressive.”

  “Hello, Mr. Rosen.” Ofir tried to strike a serious, respectful tone.

  “Good evening and hello to you, Mr. Ofir,” Dan said, shaking his hand. After the obligatory greetings, Dan turned to Ofir and unabashedly asked him, “Where are you taking my princess this evening?”

  “Ah, to a geek party.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Dan said, smiling. “Now that I know you’re a geek, you can go out with my Noa. If you weren’t a geek, I’d be nervous.”

  Ofir was enjoying the ligh
t banter. He told Dan he had nothing to worry about with Ofir himself, but he couldn’t vouch for Noa.

  Dan, clearly enjoying the conversation as well, told the young couple to have a good time and sent them on their way

  “Goodbye, Aba,” Noa said, embracing her father. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  The lights of Tel Aviv lit up the night. Ofir and Noa got into the car. Ofir drove a 1979 Ford Fiesta, which he had lovingly restored himself; they called the car Dolly. In recent weeks, Dolly had broken down several times. Ofir had fixed one thing after another. He hoped she would make it all the way to the moshav.

  They left Tel Aviv and got on the road to Haifa. The smells of late spring and early summer mingled with that of farms and chicken coops. Noa leaned back, closed her eyes, and breathed deep. She allowed her mind to drift. There was nothing else she would rather be doing than driving endlessly, peacefully, calmly, silently.

  Ofir left her to her reverie. They listened to Arik Einstein singing “You.” They hummed along with the music, letting the smells, the empty road, the half-moon, and the stars envelope them. Each respected the other’s privacy. Noa and Ofir had been roommates for over a year, and they were sensitive to each other’s needs. In spite of the challenges of cohabitation, they never argued. They each did what they were supposed to do while trying to make the other person’s life as easy as possible.

  When they had first moved in, Noa had brought her wide bed, copious clothes, a few books of poetry, her textbooks, and a few stuffed animals she’d had since she was a little girl. Ofir brought a futon, his guitar, and the few clothes and books he owned. They organized the kitchen and the living room together. They bought two second-hand armchairs and used a bright-orange crate for a table. On weekends and holidays, they spread a festive tablecloth over the crate, a housewarming gift from Ofir’s mother. On Fridays, Noa adorned the ersatz table with a vase of fresh flowers. They shared kitchenware, some of which had been gifts from relatives, some of it purchased with what little money they had. Every Thursday night—cleaning night—they donned their cheery “uniforms.” Ofir wore boxers, and Noa wore shorts and a tank top. They attacked the housecleaning to the accompaniment of rock music, Israeli music, or classical music, depending on their moods. Phil Collins and Sting were particular favorites.