I, Who Did Not Die

by Zahed Haftlang

  “I can see that you are kind. But you should know, people are afraid of you.”

  I was jolted. How could she know about my not-so-legal freelance work? I certainly hadn’t told her.

  “Afraid of me?”

  “You do bad things.”

  “Bad things?”

  “People say you are like an enforcer or something.”

  “That’s not really true anymore. I mean, it’s been a long . . .” My voice trailed off.

  Maryam eyed me sideways. “And . . .”

  “And?”

  “You smoke too much.”

  I quickly dropped my cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out. I’d picked up the habit not long after joining the Basij. Was I that gone over this girl that I was willing to give up the one thing that calmed me?

  “All gone,” I said. “That was the last one. Ever.”

  She almost smiled, but then thought better of it.

  “Good. It’s made your teeth yellow. And your hands smell.”

  The more she insulted me, the more I liked her. I figured Maryam must really have the hots for me if she was going to this much effort to scrub me clean and make me a presentable husband. She was good for me; she could teach me some of the social graces I’d never learned while I was growing up in the army, help me get along better with people. I glanced at the black grime caked under my fingernails and quickly curled my fingers into my palms to hide them from her scrutiny. We continued like this for several months, me flirting and she scolding, until eventually I met her standards as a suitable, sanitary mate, and we agreed to marry. But there were two roadblocks: my mother and her father. Maman still wanted me to marry the schoolgirl she had chosen because the girl’s family came from the Bakhtiari tribal line, like ours. Maryam’s family was Isfahani, which Maman said wasn’t a pure ethnic group because they were a mix of Turks and Afghanis, and a lower social class to boot. Maryam’s father was dead set against his daughter marrying an unemployed, hot-tempered former POW. I was not much of an asset to her family’s wealth portfolio.

  “We’ll elope,” I said.

  “With what money?”

  “I’ll steal it.”

  As soon as I’d said it, I wanted to swallow it back down. It was pure habit, a natural reflex to use the quickest route to get from point A to B, and I’d blurted it out with all good intentions, but Maryam didn’t see it that way. She recoiled.

  “No way,” she said, her voice suddenly flat. “No robbery, violence, or aggression. I want someone who is going to earn a living. My future husband is going to work and come back in the evening. Like a normal person.”

  She was right, and I knew it. It’s one thing to wash the dirt off the outside. But I had a pretty bad reputation in Isfahan, and therefore it was highly unlikely anyone would give me work. I told her I’d have to move to another city where nobody knew me and save up the money for our wedding.

  “What skills do you have?”

  “Mechanics. I can fix things.”

  “Okay, then. What are you waiting for?”

  I left my fiancée at the bus station and rode nearly four hundred miles south toward the oil refineries on the Persian Gulf. Pretty quickly, and with the help of my POW card, I was hired to help monitor sulfuric acid production in the Abadan refinery. The massive complex was heavily damaged during the war and only back to half capacity, yet still it was one of the largest oil refineries in the world, located just ten miles from Khorramshahr, where I had saved that Iraqi. I thought of him every time I went to work, wondering what had happened to him. More than likely, he was dead. If he was alive, he probably wouldn’t remember me. I didn’t even know his name.

  Adjusting to the nine-to-five world wasn’t easy. I found polite society extremely frustrating because it was so . . . polite. People never said what they really meant, and low-level workers like me were supposed to just take abuse from our bosses, and that sort of powerlessness didn’t sit right with me. I was meek in prison, and I was damned if I was going to be like that ever again. I guess you could say my stint as a “street enforcer,” as Maryam called it, was my way of taking my power back, of using my freedom to be the oppressor for a change. Now, I was willing to admit that two wrongs didn’t make a right, but that didn’t mean I had to take shit from anybody. I was no longer taking money to threaten people, but I certainly was going to speak my mind if the situation called for it. Not surprisingly, I rubbed my superiors the wrong way.

  For example: My job was to check the levels and temperature of the sulfuric acid in the tanks and adjust the valves or add water to keep things running smoothly. Well, one day a coworker dropped a bottle of sulfuric acid and was horribly burned. I demanded to be transferred to a safer position. They moved me to polymer, where plastic pieces are made. It smelled horrible and I put up with it for several months but then demanded another transfer. This time it took more arguing, more answering questions about why I thought I was special, blah, blah, blah, but eventually I got my way and was transferred to transportation. Now this was a good fit because I was back in a mechanic shop, fixing company trucks and cars. Still smelled something awful, but petroleum at least didn’t stink as much as plastics. The foreman was a massive labor-faker, prone to disappearing for long stretches and taking credit for other people’s work, but I did my best to ignore him.

  Every three weeks or so, I traveled to Isfahan to visit Maryam and show her my growing bank account, and after I’d been at the oil refinery eight months, she consented to marry me. We decided to have the ceremony at one of my sisters’ homes, with or without our parents’ blessings. I hadn’t been able to save enough for a big wedding party, but I told Maryam that the refinery would give me a loan. I went to the company credit union, but the teller was a total asshole. I didn’t qualify, apparently, because I hadn’t been on the payroll long enough to get a loan. I couldn’t be trusted.

  For nearly a year I’d been working hard every day in toxic-smelling jobs, getting paid peanuts. I could steal more in a day than they paid me every two weeks, yet I was choosing to do this manual labor because it was the honest way to live, and the one time I asked for a favor, a little help, I got told I was not worth the company’s trust? He had no idea I could take him out with two fingers to his throat if I wanted to. Instead, I told him what I thought of him; he disagreed, and we were about to settle it with our fists when some company security guards intervened and saw fit to kick me to the curb.

  When I told Maryam I’d been fired, I felt more like her child than her lover, and I was so ashamed that I kept my eyes on my shoes as I confessed. But she said exactly the right thing. She said she believed in me. Then she suggested we have our ceremony right away, because so few relatives were going to attend and we wouldn’t need to host a big party anyway. In the end, three of my sisters showed up, as well as Maman, even though she frowned through the whole thing. No one from Maryam’s family came. But we were happy, and that’s all that mattered.

  Maryam and I found a one-room apartment for rent in the poor quarter of Isfahan. I looked for work but found that my reputation preceded me. There were openings, as long as your name didn’t begin with Zahed and end with Haftlang. It didn’t take long, a little more than a month, for my refinery savings to dwindle to rock bottom, so that eventually I broke down in tears in a taxi, realizing I couldn’t pay the driver. In our desperation, Maryam and I went to visit the mayor, hoping there would be some sort of benefits I could get as a former POW. But Mr. Big Shot wouldn’t see us, so we protested on the steps of his office, and then got a free ride in handcuffs to the local police station.

  But just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, fortune intervened. The arresting officer at the police station was a former Basiji I’d served with at the front. He was willing to listen to our story, and he was willing to place a phone call. And we walked out of the station with a new career for me: undercover airplane security guard. I would get paid to fly from Isfahan to Tehran four times a week. Yadollah
’s words came back to me, that wealth is about friends and not money. My good deed helping to restore Yadollah’s house had just boomeranged back with a favor for me when I most needed one.

  I was thrilled, until I took my first flight. Sitting in those tiny seats jammed in with all those passengers was claustrophobic, just like being crammed in a prison cell. I got immediately queasy when the attendants locked the plane door with a clank. When the plane took off, I had to bend down and put my head between my knees to keep from passing out, which is not the alert and ready position you want in a security guard. And then nobody told me about turbulence—that a plane can buck just like a boat in a storm. I gave it my best shot, really I did, but one summer of that and I had to quit. My timing was not ideal. I was about to become an unemployed father of triplets.

  “You’ll find something else,” Maryam said.

  “I think I’ve run out of options on land.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Lately, I had been thinking about finding work on one of those huge cargo ships. I thought I would feel safer out at sea, away from cities and noise and all the shadows of my past misdeeds. There was something purifying about the thought of being out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but water in all directions and no sound. Plus, I liked sunsets. It would be a sacrifice; I’d be away for months at a time. But I was running out of ideas, and this seemed like an income, plus a form of detox for my cigaretteless, anxious self. I needed a job that was away from people, that let me be alone with my thoughts and could help me ease back into society. I pictured myself with my own cabin, with a porthole, working on my poetry and writing love letters to Maryam in between my mechanic duties on the ship. This just might work.

  I was given a trial run as an engine technician by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, a private Gulf Coast shipping company contracted by the government to import and export all manner of things such as wheat, copper, fertilizer, and pistachios. The ship revitalized me like a new frontier, and I was hired on full-time. I left the other sailors alone, and they did me the same favor. In between engine work, I had plenty of time to resume my interrupted education. At each port, while the rest of the guys went to the bars or to find women, I went to bookstores. I devoured history and literature and poetry.

  I made sure I was back on land when the babies were due. Waiting in the hallway outside the delivery room, the hair on the back of my neck lifted. Every muscle was poised, ready to spring at the first sound of a human cry. When the nurse finally approached, her expression was blank.

  “I don’t know whether to say sorry or congratulations.”

  “Has something happened to Maryam?”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  Whatever she had to tell me next, I could handle it as long as Maryam was there to help me with it.

  “I’m sorry, the two boys are not well. Specialists are working on them in intensive care, but it doesn’t look promising.”

  I blinked and was back in Halabja, staring down at the torn sleeve of my protective suit. Those chemicals; they must have done this to my boys. A second nurse approached and placed a bundle in my hands.

  “Your new daughter, sir.”

  My baby calmly examined her surroundings, then locked eyes with me. I had seen hundreds of human beings take their last glance at the world, yet never had I witnessed the miracle of a person seeing the world for the first time.

  I felt her tiny spine through the thin blanket and had the sensation that my fingertips were fusing with her bones. It would take more than dynamite to separate us.

  We could already speak without words. And this is what I said to my new universe, my Setayesh: “I will never scare you. I will never do anything to make you want to run away from me.”

  EIGHTEEN

  REFUGEE

  I strode into the international airport in Amman a week before Christmas 1999, playing the part of a businessman eager to get home to his family, walking with purpose and just a touch of ho-hum to the ticket counter. The clerk waved my brother Jasem’s passport under an ultraviolet light, flipped through it, and handed it back.

  “Have a safe trip home,” he said in Arabic.

  Before I walked through a doorway that led to the security screeners, I turned to get a last glimpse of my brother, who was standing near the baggage claim, pretending to wait for his suitcase. I brought my hand to my heart, and he did the same. Thank you.

  I tried not to look at the wall clock too many times as I waited for the boarding call. I was leaving Jordan with everything I owned: one change of clothes, a shaving kit, 150 Canadian dollars that Jasem had given me, and one cocktail napkin inscribed with the word “refugee.” I’d left my Iraqi passport with my father in Jordan for safekeeping. So many things could go wrong that I’d had to knock back a shot—or two—of whiskey to make myself go through with this. At any moment I could get discovered masquerading as my brother and be deported back to Iraq, where government forces were already primed to think I was some sort of spy. Even if I made it all the way to Vancouver, what if Jasem’s idea to report his passport stolen at the Canadian embassy in Jordan didn’t work? What if we simply ended up switching places, me taking his life in Canada and him getting trapped in the Middle East?

  When I finally buckled my seatbelt and felt the engines engage one after the other beneath my feet with a rumble similar to the inside of a Russian battle tank, I accepted that there was no going back. As we soared off the ground, I felt little pieces of the hopelessness I’d worn like a coat for the last few months begin to crumble away from me, falling off like the beginning of a rock slide.

  The plane was aimed toward Amsterdam, where I would wait three hours for a second plane to take me to Vancouver. These were the facts printed on the paper ticket in my pocket, and all I had to do was find a connecting flight named KLM 452. But when I stepped off the plane in Amsterdam, I was swallowed by a human river, as people of every nationality poured through the corridors, speaking rapid-fire in a million languages at once, some of them with earplugs in their ears, having conversations with ghosts. Unaccompanied women were everywhere, stomping confidently in high heels with their hijabless hair flowing behind them. They were so beautiful, wheeling their bags expertly through the crowds, showing off their shoulders and wearing shirts with deep Vs in the front. I even saw a few ladies with shirts that didn’t go all the way to the tops of their pants, and one of them had an earring in her belly button. I stood in the swirl, transfixed by this new planet, trying to figure out where to go. Everywhere there were illuminated signs screaming for my attention in every language except mine. Most of it was English, those squatty neat letters that had absolutely no grace or movement to them. There were so many gates, and just one mistake and I’d get lost and miss the plane. I ducked into a duty-free shop and wandered the aisles, trying to come up with a plan. I pretended to read magazines while I calmed myself down, then gravitated toward the only thing that was comforting and familiar—the cigarette aisle. They didn’t have my Baghdad cigarettes, so I chose a box of Kents and handed the cashier one of Jasem’s bills, trusting that she gave me the correct change.

  I took a long, slow walk, searching for my gate, and eventually located it. But I didn’t wait there in one of the chairs, because I didn’t want to give anyone time to notice me. I carefully mapped out a circular route and paced for the next two hours, while memorizing how to pronounce “refugee.” I didn’t stop to talk or eat anything, because I wanted to be invisible. Somewhere along the way, I took the napkin with the word “refugee” printed on it and tossed it in a trash bin. I had it down cold.

  When it was time to board, a line formed behind a policeman who was checking passports and tearing tickets. When my turn came, he looked from Jasem’s photo to my face, then said in English, “This isn’t you.”

  I understood him and immediately pretended I didn’t.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “This. Is. Not. You.”

  “Wha
t? What?”

  The policeman put my ticket aside and began flipping through the passport pages now, studying each stamp. Behind me, someone groaned and dropped their bag to the floor with a frustrated sigh. I was terrified but had to act like nothing was wrong. Thankfully I had perfected this skill in prison, steeling myself from any emotion while being tortured. I looked at my watch, as if I was concerned about missing an appointment.

  “Where in Canada do you live?”

  Easy one. “Vancouver.”

  “What street?”

  He stumped me, but I could use the growing irritation behind me to my advantage. So I argued.

  “Not your business.”

  The officer grinned. He seemed to be enjoying this.

  “You’re right; none of my business.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of Canadian coins. He plucked a gold-colored one with a duck on it and held it up.

  “What’s this one called?”

  I smiled.

  He waved over two female airport officers to join our little party. The policeman pointed to Jasem’s photo. “Is this the same guy?” The women examined it, but I could tell they weren’t sure.

  “Which newspaper do you read in Canada?” one of the ladies asked. At least I think that’s what she said, because I only understood the word “newspaper.”

  “Oh, come on!” a passenger shouted from the back of the line. It was like a traffic jam now, and people were honking with their mouths.

  As she waited for my answer, I started acting insane. I bugged out my eyes and kept looking around, like something was wrong with my brain. If they thought my only problem was that I couldn’t speak English, they’d just pull me out of line and find a translator. But if I were mentally disabled, that would add a huge layer of complexity to the situation. I began to hum a little song softly, like I was oblivious to the seriousness of my predicament.