Baghdad Fixer

by Prusher, Ilene

  “We know. We have already called the army.”

  “The Iraqi army?”

  He frowns and puts his hand on my forehead. “You should rest more. Mahfouz, bring him some water.” I lay back, open and close my eyes several times, squeezing them shut to cut out the light, then letting it in again. Maybe it’s another nightmare — one of my bizarre daydreams. If I force my eyes open again, I’ll wake up and see it didn’t happen.

  Open, close, open. Still here, on the floor of someone’s home in Samarra.

  “...like there’s any Iraqi army left.” One of them sniggers at the other’s comment. “He must have had a good bang in the head.”

  “Maybe that’s why he passed out. You should have a doctor look at him, too.”

  “Him, he’s fine. He was probably just upset to see his ladyfriend injured.”

  My head is swirling. I need to sit up, to take charge. I think I can do it. I roll on to my side and let some invisible force yank me upright, so at least I’m sitting up. They seem surprised to see me up again. I scan the room and count twelve of them, plus two women in abaya, tending to Sam. She is conscious, but seems out of it, a bit blank. Maybe she is in shock.

  “Sam?” I turn to her. “Are you okay? Sam?”

  She doesn’t answer, but her eyes search around for my voice. Her throat passes a small, broken moan.

  “Don’t make her try to move her neck,” one of them says. “It might be broken. They’re sending a helicopter for her.”

  I lean over her, so that my face is above hers, directly above her eyes. “Sam, I’m here.” Her eyes float up and focus on mine. Her irises are a muddier brown now, less golden than usual.

  “My body hurts,” she whispers.

  “Which part hurts?”

  She moves a fraction, as if she is trying to shift, and grimaces. “Everything,” she creaks. “I, I can’t take deep breaths.” I notice that her mouth isn’t bloody anymore, though her lip is a little swollen. Maybe the women rinsed it out for her. Maybe she isn’t bleeding from inside. Maybe her teeth just hit against her mouth when we crashed.

  “They said help is on the way, Sam. They called the American army. They’re sending a helicopter to bring you to a hospital.” I put my hand to her forehead, which feels hot, and pull out the dambab so I can unwind part of the scarf and let in some fresh air, ignoring a whisper of haram, shame, from one of the men.

  How could God let Sam die? Take her away right before my eyes, like Noor? Please, don’t let me lose her, too.

  I turn to face the men sitting on a row of long floor cushions, staring as if they’d never seen such a scene in their lives and I’m suddenly aware of a pain in my right shoulder. I use the rest of my body to move me instead. “How soon are they going to be here, the medical people?”

  “They said about fifteen minutes,” says one in the middle of the group, who has coal-black eyes and what may be the most dignified grey beard I have ever seen. If I could have grown a beard like that, surely Baba wouldn’t have disapproved. I can see from his gold-trimmed black robe that he must be a sheikh. The men to either side might be twins, perhaps twenty or twenty-five years younger — at most — than the man in the middle, surely their father. “I asked them to come right away. I told them we had an American woman here, a civilian, and they said they would hurry.”

  “How did you call them?”

  The man smiles with a world of wisdom in his face, as if he could provide the answers to almost anything I’d ask. “We have our own mode of communications with the Americans.”

  “Do you have a Thuraya here? A satellite phone?”

  He clears his throat. “Yes, we do.” I begin thinking of all the people I should probably call — my parents, Sam’s editors. But my parents — how would I call them? Sam said that the Thuraya phone couldn’t make calls to landlines inside Iraq, because the landline system is totally out of order. They must take me back to the car at least to get Sam’s bag with her most important things: camera, phone, computer, notebooks. I’m sure they would let me use their phone, if I knew a number to call. They have been very kind, so far. Who are they, anyway? And who do they think we are?

  “May I ask your name, young man? Where were you and this American woman driving to?”

  I look at him, and then my eyes trail across the nearly-matching faces, varied only in age, facial hair and slight differences in pigment. A receiving line, a tribal court. When my eyes meet his again, he stands up, thanking everyone for coming to help wish our unfortunate visitors well, and begins to give each of them farewell kisses. I can’t stand them staring at me, and so I turn my back and wait for them to leave the room. Sam emits a half-moan and calls my name. A tear runs from her right eye, heading straight for her ear. I catch the tear before it gets far, wiping at it with my thumb.

  When most of the extended tribal court is gone, the sheikh chooses a seat closer to me. His two look-a-like sons follow, flanking him like bodyguards.

  “Who are you?”

  Hadn’t I planned for this all along? A story at the ready for any situation. Sunni, Shi’ite, Kurd, foreign, local — we would have our bases covered. Unless we happened to get stopped by a Turkoman, a Christian, or a Yezidi, which wasn’t terribly likely - or terribly worrisome — there was no community we didn’t have connections with, names to throw around, if we ran into a situation like this. Like this? What in the world could be like this?

  For Sunnis, Sheikh Faddel el-Duleimy, and maybe Uncle Zaki, Saleh’s father. For Shi’ites, the name of my mother’s relatives in Al-Kut. For Kurds, the letter, tucked safely into the inside pocket of my overnight bag. My bagl And Sam’s! Did they take anything out of the car?

  “Did you find, did you take any of the bags which were—”

  “We took two small ones,” says one of the sons. “There was too much so we had to leave the rest. It’s all upstairs.” His voice is deeper than his father’s. It suddenly occurs to me that we’re downstairs, in their basement. Why had I not noticed it earlier? Was I so out of it when they carried us inside? My head swirls with a wave of nausea, my shoulder throbs.

  “Why are we waiting downstairs?” My voice sounds shaky. I wonder if they notice.

  “It’s for your safety,” the sheikh says. “We don’t know who shot at you and perhaps it’s possible they will try to come and finish the job. It’s better this way. If anyone comes looking, they won’t find you. Not many houses here have basements, so this is your best protection. That and your blessing from God,” he says, putting a hand over his heart. He turns to the son who has been quieter. “Ask Maysoun to make tea, won’t you?” The son pulls himself up reluctantly, his eyes still on me. “So you are from Baghdad?” the son asks. “Which family?”

  Fast fast fast. Hesitate and die, one of Sam’s colleagues at the Hamra had taped to his laptop. “The Duleimy family I mean, I am from Baghdad, but the larger family is from Fallujah and Ramadi. Do you know Sheikh Faddel, my cousin?”

  I see a sheen of scepticism in his eye.

  “This woman is an aid worker, a doctor who was sent here to help in the hospitals,” I say. “I was trying to take her to visit some clinics in the north where there is a great shortage of medical staff.”

  “But then why was your car loaded with household goods as if you were moving to somewhere?”

  “Hassan,” the father says, lifting a hand like a scolding motion: Go easy.

  “And if you are from the Duleimy family, what are you doing carrying around a letter like this?”

  “Hassan! I said no.”

  Hassan unfolds a white piece of paper. Across it, three creases and Safin’s handwriting. My mind is screeching as he pulls it open to reveal the rectangle of incriminating evidence, held up before my face, Baba’s deliberate insurance policy turned into a death sentence before my eyes.

  Too many words rushing to my mouth, and not enough air and space to get them out. My lips moving, but no sound passes over them.


  “Well?”

  They know they have me cornered. Maybe they didn’t really call the army for help after all. Maybe they’ll leave Sam here to die and then they’ll kill me, too.

  The sheikh’s head shakes with a shortening of patience, laced with mercy. “Do not let my son frighten you,” he says.

  Hassan frowns, lowers the letter. Sets it down next to him.

  “I’m sure there’s an explanation for all of this,” the sheikh says.

  “Why don’t we start again. So you must know by now that you’re in the south of Samarra and that you’ve been fortunate enough to come under the protection of the Albu Baz tribe. You are our guest, and especially as you are in distress, we will take good care of you.” His voice is matter-of-fact and calm. Vaguely kind, even. “Would you be so good as to tell us who you are?”

  “The Albu Baz?”

  “That’s right. I am Sheikh Hikmet Mumtaz al-Baz, and this is my son, Hassan Mumtaz.” Hassan forces his lips into a smile, clearly annoyed at his father’s exceeding generosity. “You may call me Sheikh Mumtaz. Who are you? And who is the lady?”

  I look down at Sam, who appears to have drifted off to sleep with her eyes half open. Isn’t that dangerous? Should I wake her up? I put my hand to her cheek.

  “My daughter gave your ladyfriend some strong pain pills because she was suffering,” Sheikh Mumtaz says. “Her husband is our local pharmacist. It may make her sleepy, but it is nothing to worry about. She will suffer less.”

  I have to dam up the tears flooding into my eyes and nose, send them back to where they came from. “She isn’t my ladyfriend. She is my boss, actually. I am her translator.”

  “For?” Hassan leans forwards. “The Americans? CIA?”

  “No,” I say. “Nothing like that. She works for a newspaper in America. I am her translator.”

  “How can you know?” Hassan snaps. Again, his father holds a hand in front of Hassan, the way a driver braking hard protects a passenger next to him.

  “I know. I trust her. We’ve worked together for a long time.”

  “Well, then. Sorry,” Sheikh Mumtaz says. The tea arrives, held aloft on the hands of a ten-year-old child. Sorry for stopping you, does he mean, or sorry for my son’s behaviour? The young boy places a steaming cup in front of me, then gives one to each of the men. The glass burns my hands a little, and then my lips, but I am glad for it, glad for anything to buy time to think.

  Sheikh Mumtaz. If you wrote an English fairytale about him, he’d be named Lord Excellent. What did Sam say that day when Sheikh Faddel asked who she was working for? I’m for the truth. Just tell the truth.

  And I do, and it starts to spill out, most of it, anyway, the parts that seem relevant. Trying to escape some people who may or may not be trying to kill us...forged documents...just trying to get to the truth...trying to get Sam to the border safely...my father asking for the letter, with Safin’s help, just as precaution, like a talisman, a hand of Fatima, a mashallah khamsa. Just in case. It seemed like a good precaution at the time. That’s the trouble with life. You have to prepare, have to make provisions, just in case. In case of an accident. A catastrophe. A misguided bullet. But how do you know which accident to make provisions for?

  Sheikh Mumtaz takes the letter in his hand. Smiles. Looks at me. “Did you really think you would be able to pass for a Duleimy?” I can hear a helicopter overhead. He folds the paper up again. “You might want to keep this,” he says, “just in case.” He hands it back with pale fingers that seem unusually long and delicate, like an angel’s.

  I decide to come clean, or virtually clean, with Sheikh Mumtaz: all the important points of the story. I repeat for him a hadith I learned from my mother: No man is true in the truest sense of the word but he who is true in word, in deed and in thought. “That is what our Prophet Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him, wanted us to strive for, I believe.”

  Sheikh Mumtaz seems satisfied. I also notice the slightest smile on Sam’s face. But she is probably lost in her own painkiller dream, and hopefully, not feeling too much.

  One of the young boys appears at the door. “They’re coming!” he yells excitedly. “We can hear them already.”

  I jump up, worried that they will miss us somehow. “We must start moving her up.”

  “Not at all. The medical team should come to get her and put her on a stretcher. That will be better.” Sam’s eyes open and look up at the ceiling, and then search for me.

  “My father is right,” says Hassan. “It’s probably worse if we move her any more than we already did.” Sheikh Mumtaz stands and Hassan follows, as does the other brother who never said a word.

  “I’ll take the boys out to flag down the helicopter and find a safe place to land,” Sheikh Mumtaz says. “You can just wait here with her.” He places his hand on my shoulder and I am thankful for it. I can hear the fluttering of it now, the helicopter propellers whirring like desperate hearts beating out of sync, and the sound of the men hurrying up the stairs.

  I move closer to Sam, hovering over her so she can see me. I think this is the closest to floating above Sam as I will ever be.

  “Sam?” I lean in closer. “I want you to stay as still as possible and be brave. They will take care of you and everything will be all right.”

  She blinks, more of a wince, says nothing. I wait, gazing at her, and suddenly fat tears well up in my eyes. I blink and a tear spills on to her face. How embarrassing. Tafil-baka, I hear Bassem’s bullying voice call. Tafil-baka. Cry-baby.

  “I love you.” I cough it out, almost blubbering. How could I let her see me like this? She’s the one who’s injured, who has the right to cry. When her eyes close again, tears run towards her ears. With her eyes shut, she can see everything now — all my weaknesses. I wipe the tears on her face with my sleeve.

  “I know,” she says.

  I say nothing, frozen.

  “Kiss me once more.”

  “What?”

  “Kiss me again. Just a little.”

  And my mouth moves over the curve of hers, first hovering and then, the pleasure of my lips meeting hers, just a brush of pink skin on skin, a softness, a sweetness. Blood and love and tears. Her mouth open, ever-so-slightly, to mine.

  I stop and pull away, afraid I could hurt her. I kiss her forehead instead, then put my lips to her ear. “You’ll be okay, Sam. Inshallah. I know you will. I know you’ll come back.”

  “I’m sorry about everything, Nabil. Your father’s car—”

  “Don’t even think about that now.”

  “Would you tell him sorry, too? I feel bad that—” she gasps for more air. “And can you call Miles to tell him what happened?”

  “Shh,” I say, smoothing back the hair on her forehead, and as I hear them rushing down the stairs, I kiss each of her eyes. “Ayouni,” I whisper.

  There are several soldiers wearing white armbands and red crosses standing over us, and they pull me aside as if I were a child. They lay down a stretcher, and Sam cries out once as they lift her. I follow them up the stairs, and as we rush through a huge reception room on the ground floor I see two bags from our car. One is mine, and the other is a duffle bag stuffed with the food Mum made. No sight of Sam’s bag with all her equipment.

  Outside, a small crowd circles likes a football scrum, the youth of the Albu Baz tribe gathered around to watch, the men keeping them back, the women peeking out from doorways and windows, the children jumping in the excitement, shouting to the soldiers, “Hallo, Mista, hallo. What yo name? I lav yoo,” with their hair whipping in the wind kicked up by the helicopter. The soldier who appears to be the head of the medical crew checks Sam’s US passport, which she’d been wearing in a moneybelt around her waist. And if she were an Iraqi? If it were Amal? What would they do then? Is there something that they’ll do at a hospital in Europe or America that is so different from what they would do at Al-Kindi?

  I keep trying to speak to the soldier in cha
rge, but he ignores me. Perhaps he can’t hear me with all the noise, or perhaps the growing crowd around the helicopter feels threatening to him. I put a hand on his arm, he yanks it away and pushes me with both arms, and I stumble backwards. “I just want to tell you that I’m with her. I’m working with her. I’m her...fixer.”

  “Good for you!” he yells into the whirlpool of dust. “But we need to get going, so if you want to fix something you’d better help clear this crowd out so we can take off.”

  “I think I should go with her!” I shout back. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

  He looks at me like I’m barking mad, and tells the other soldiers to start pushing the crowd back, with force if necessary. He turns back to me. “Afraid not, partner. We’re not authorized to bring Iraqis with us.” The soldiers succeed in widening the circumference by a few metres. Some of the tribesmen, armed with Kalashnikovs and AK-47s that double as batons, help push it further. As if suddenly regretting his gruffness, the soldier in charge comes back over to me. “You can ask after her at Ramstein Airbase in Germany,” he says. “She’ll be in good hands there.”