“Any news on Ali yet?” I ask.
“Still nothing.” We’re both getting worried. Ali wasn’t working on RPC when Adam got back to Iraq, and no one there recognised the name. We told ourselves that he’d show up when word got to him that Adam was back, but it hasn’t happened.
“I’m due a Skype with Anna soon. I’ll ask if she can find anything on the system. Maybe he finally went to find Ameena.”
“Let’s hope so,” Adam replied.
Ameena’s visa application was approved a few weeks before I moved to the States. Ali was ecstatic. We all were. It wasn’t fast, but still quicker than expected. Ali came to the IZ to thank me with a huge tray of baklava, which Adam had told him was my favourite Middle Eastern treat.
I took him to Green Beans that day and we sat drinking coffee and eating, laughing as the sugar syrup and walnuts stuck to our fingers. It was one of my favourite moments in Baghdad. It was a small victory in the scale of things, but in one family’s life it was huge. It made it all worth it.
“Do you think you’ll ever go to the States?” I asked him then.
“One day I will visit them, inshallah. It is difficult to imagine Ameena being so far away, but right now my duty is here – to my parents and to my country.”
I put another piece of baklava into my mouth and nodded. I wondered whether he would say more about Ameena if I stayed quiet, but he started asking about my plans for the States instead. I began telling him and immediately felt guilty that it was so easy for me to come and go as I pleased.
As we left the café, Ali noticed the picture of Sampath on the counter.
“Did he die?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “He must have been so far from home.”
“How’s the new ’terp doing?” I ask Adam. “What did you say his name was?”
“Kareem… I dunno.” Today’s conversation is not going well. His hand moves round the back of his neck. “I mean, he’s okay. Just not Ali. I don’t like moving through them so quickly.”
There has been a lack of consistent interpreters since the start of Adam’s deployment. With the military withdrawal looming, many were finding ways to get out.
“Ali’s a hard act for anyone to follow,” I say, but I am worried. A team’s relationship with their ’terp is important. “How do the rest of the guys find him?”
“Fine, as far as I can tell,” Adam says. He pauses and I think he is going to say something else, but he changes the subject. “Anyway, tell me more about what’s going on with you.”
This is the pattern of conversations between us at the moment. Each wants to be in the other’s reality more than their own. We bat the conversation back and forth between us, thirstily soaking up the details of each other’s lives.
“I saw Noor again yesterday,” I say.
“Cool, the Kurdish lady? How’s she doing?” Adam asks. I introduced Noor into our conversations slowly. Adam joked that only I would manage to find an Iraqi friend in Colorado Springs. Kurdish, I reminded him.
“She’s good,” I say. “Actually, I’m going to her art group next week.”
“Art group? Cool. Is that part of her high school gig?”
“No, actually, it’s really interesting. It’s an art group for immigrants and refugees. I’m going to do some volunteering with them.”
Adam is quiet.
“Volunteering?”
“Yeah. You know, just help out if it’s needed. Or even join in. I’m not quite sure yet.”
I am excited about the group. The first time Noor mentioned it I knew I wanted to get involved. It is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been looking for. I had hoped Adam would be enthusiastic too. Instead he is silent.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“It’s just… Well, didn’t we decide that you were going to stay away from that kind of thing for a bit…? Just while you settle into Colorado.”
I am immediately defensive.
“It’s an art group, Adam, I’m not jumping on a plane back to Iraq. And this is settling in. It gives me something to do. A way of meeting more people.”
“But, well… refugees?”
“What?”
“It’s not really settling into normal Colorado, is it?”
“Do you only want me to be friends with white people or something?” I can’t keep the annoyance from my voice.
“No, of course not, it’s just that we agreed… You know what, never mind, Emma. Do what you want.”
“I will.”
Silence stretches out the distance between us.
“Okay, so I’m going to the chow hall to grab some food. I’ll catch you later, babe,” he says.
“Love you.”
“Love you too.” Whatever the conversation, it must always end with this.
Adam disappears from the screen and leaves me sat in our kitchen in silence. Outside, I see my neighbour’s kids climbing into the car to go to school. A woman jogs past with headphones and a small dog on a lead. The mailman cycles by. I am annoyed with Adam and yet now I am alone I ache for his presence.
*
I walk numbly to our bedroom and open the wardrobe door. I put my face between his clothes. His blue checked shirt brushes against my cheek. I take the sleeve and put my nose into the cuff. Close my eyes. Inhale. It smells of laundry detergent and deodorant and aftershave and him.
I press myself further among the clothes. Coat hangers slide across the half-empty rail. There is the T-shirt he wore on our bike trip. The ski jacket from the time we went sledging. The shirt that makes his eyes look extra green.
I inhale again. With each breath, I am closer to him. With each breath, I miss him more. Yearning twists in my stomach. I press further into the closet.
His clothes, his smell, his presence surround me. I slide to the floor, knees raised to my chest. I curl into the corner, sit among his shoes. The hanging clothes caress my shoulders. My wet mascara leaves a dark smudge on a sleeve.
When I am in our house, I am closer to him. Even when he is not here. This place is full of him. It is full of us.
I close my eyes and wrap myself in the memory of him. This is why I stay even when he is gone.
25
I give you my life
With all that I am
And all that I have
I honour you
There is a day, three months after that first visit to Colorado. The day it begins. There is family from two sides of an ocean. Everything is wrapped in love.
Pink and yellow petals blush as Sophie scatters them before me down the aisle. I walk with steady even steps, trying not to focus on the absence beside me. The silver toes of my shoes peek out from beneath my dress. My body hums.
At the front, Adam waits. Then he turns and our eyes meet and I do not know how my soul can feel so much. Our love glimmers in the July sun.
At dusk I hold his hand. We walk between the rocks at Garden of the Gods under a vast open sky. The train of my dress soaks up the red dust. I look up at the first stars and this is perfect.
Later there is music. Laughter. Dancing. Sophie’s dress umbrellas outwards as she twirls. Adam’s older brother teaches my mum how to two-step to country music. Rebecca’s husband cheers. I love them for coming so far for me. The night is cool but warmth radiates from our bodies and our hearts.
Now they are gone but Adam and I remain. We sit and gaze at the dark silhouette of the mountains. His coat is around my shoulders and his hand plays with the folds of white fabric of my skirt.
The night sighs around us and there is the faintest caress from the breeze and there is the feeling that this is it. This is safe. This is the start.
26
“As most of you already know, my name is Noor. I’m the art teacher at this school.”
We are sat around a large table in one of the high school’s art classrooms. Noor doesn’t have official permission to use the room for the group because the principal isn’t particular
ly open-minded. Noor once joked to the women that they should claim to be cleaners if he ever came across them in the hallways. It was funny until one had to use the excuse and it worked.
Noor says we should introduce ourselves and say something about our art. As much or as little as we want. Whatever we feel is important.
“I’m 27. I moved to the US in my early teens,” she continues, “from Duhok, a city in Iraqi Kurdistan. My family were fleeing Saddam.” Around the table there are murmurs, nods. Most of them have heard this story before.
“I work in collage and oil paints. I started this group two years ago as a way to bring people together – people who come from other places, have different stories. It is a place for us to explore our experiences through art. It is a safe space to talk and discuss our work and anything else that is on our mind.” More nodding.
“Today we have two new members of the group. I’d like you to welcome Emma, who is from the UK but has been living in Iraq, and Marie-Luz, who is Guatemalan, and a friend of Paz and Laura.”
I smile at the group and Marie-Luz gives a little wave.
“Okay,” says Noor. “Who’s next?”
There are eight of us in the group today, although Noor tells me the number fluctuates week by week. Myself, Noor, Marie-Luz, Paz and Laura (both Mexican), Hope from Somalia, Afsoon from Afghanistan, and Zainab, who is from Iraq.
We go round the group and everyone shares their story. The women are familiar with each other. They add in details to each other’s lives if someone forgets to mention something. They correct each other’s stories.
“You’ve been here seventeen years now, stop saying fifteen,” Paz teases Laura.
“Hush, woman, you’re making me feel old,” says Laura with a laugh.
The level of English in the group varies. Hope speaks haltingly. She moved from Somalia three years ago but she is painfully shy. She manages to tell the group her name and that she likes making clothes. In front of her, I see a tunic that I think Penny would like and a colourful patchwork skirt. Afsoon, the Afghan girl who must be a similar age to Hope, gives her hand an encouraging squeeze. I notice that the girls sit close together, offering physical comfort even when language fails them.
Afsoon makes jewellery out of silver wire, which she twists and melds to hold the semi-precious stones that I have seen for sale in souvenir shops around Manitou Springs. Paz does coloured sketches and Laura embroiders anything she can get her hands on – purses, tablecloths, shirts – in bright Mexican patterns. Marie-Luz says she wants to make the Guatemalan worry dolls that she watched her grandmother make as a child. They are tiny figures that are kept in a bag and then placed under the owner’s pillow at night-time, to absorb any anxieties. Marie-Luz says, somewhat shyly, that she had spent a long time trying to think of something to make because Paz and Laura talked about the group so much she was jealous. She says that she feels like a bit of a fake because she hasn’t done anything artistic before, but Noor reminds her that they meet for fun and support – they are not professionals.
As each person introduces themselves, it occurs to me that although Noor invited me here to volunteer, I have no idea how I can actually help. I am happy to be among this mismatched medley of people, but I am not an artist or an organiser. I am just another stranger. My palms begin to feel clammy as my turn approaches. I still struggle to introduce the Colorado version of myself.
While Laura and Paz’s conversation goes off on a tangent about the Mexican traditions they brought with them, I notice the easel that is stood behind Noor. Although she mentioned she works in oil and collage, she did not introduce her piece specifically.
At first glance what I see is a burning tyre. It is the central part of the piece and painted with vivid colours that make the licking flames seem to move off the page. Either side of the tyre are young men, standing, looking ready to leap into action. They wear traditional Kurdish outfits: red and white scarves and billowing trousers that are bound tightly at the waist. In that first glance it seems like a scene of destruction, but then I look closer. The background of the picture is a mixture of newspaper collage and oil painting. The torn newspaper pieces are photos of bombed-out buildings. Crying children. Chaos. But the painting that fills the gaps between the clippings is of deep green landscapes and plunging valleys, picnicking families. Then I understand. The burning tyre is not part of an attack or protest, but the Kurdish festival of Nawruz to celebrate spring. A new year. Jumping over fires is a part of the festival. Even I, who have lived in Iraq and knows its people, assumed the worst.
I shift my focus to the introductions again when I hear my name.
“Emma, would you like to tell us a bit about yourself?”
“Oh, yes. Hi, I’m Emma McLaughlin,” I begin. “As Noor said, I’m from England but I spent the last couple of years in Iraq. I work in the art shop now and I want to begin my own project. It’s an idea I’ve been playing with for a while… I want to make mosaics.”
Everyone is smiling at me. Perhaps it is the intimacy, the feeling of being at home among outsiders, that prompts me to continue.
“It is an old hobby,” I tell them. “When I was a child, we used to collect pieces of stone and tile and washed-up glass whenever we went somewhere special. It was my father’s idea. He said that each piece was a place to store our memories. We kept them all in a jar and when we had enough we would make them into some kind of mosaic. Sometimes we set them into concrete on the patio, sometimes we made a picture, this one time we stuck them to the side of a huge flowerpot. Then my father would always say the same thing: ‘Look how much beauty can come from broken pieces.’”
I look to Noor and she nods encouragingly.
“My dad died a long time ago now and I haven’t made anything since, but I still collect pieces. I have all these fragments, but I haven’t done anything with them. So that’s what I want to do here. With you. Find a way to make them into something beautiful.”
With these words I feel like I’ve been broken open. I have recognised part of myself, allowed myself to be known. I look around, surprised at myself, and everyone is smiling still.
“Like Hope’s clothes,” says Afsoon. “Making scraps into a whole.” She’s right. Maybe we are all trying to do the same thing.
The conversation moves on and the beating in my chest slows. I can relax now I have spoken. Now it is the Iraqi woman’s turn.
“Hello. I’m Zainab,” she says quietly. She speaks in short sentences, pausing between each as if rehearsing the words in her head before releasing them into the world. “I have been in America for five months. I have been in this group for one month. I come from Iraq and I like to paint.” She gestures to the material in front of her and sinks back in her chair slightly to show that the introduction is complete. She looks relieved and I wonder whether she was more nervous than me.
In front of her is a tiny palette of paint, a canvas that is the size of a tea coaster and a paintbrush so fine that the tip must be like the end of a needle. There is a partially complete scene on the canvas, painted in intricate detail. It looks like part of a garden or courtyard. I can make out the edge of a white plastic table, the gentle curve of a teacup catching the morning light and in the background a tree heavy with figs bathed in dew. It moves something in me, a different version of home. I lean forward to look closer.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. She puts her hand to her chest and dips her head in thanks.
For the next two hours the group works on their projects. Paz pulls out a flask of coffee and a tub of tamales for everyone to share. Afsoon bends over a tiny pair of pliers as she bends wire for her jewellery, her face almost touching the table. Hope adds stitching to the skirt that is so small and precise it is barely visible.
I am not entirely sure what to do. I brought the jar of pieces with me but I am too embarrassed to empty them onto the table, so I move the jar from side to side so I can examine its contents. Then I borrow some paper from Noor and start sketchi
ng ideas of what the mosaic might look like. I start by drafting a frame around a mirror, like the one in the art shop, but I have too many pieces, so the frame would be huge. I sketch the plant pot from my childhood, but that is not right either.
I see Zainab looking over at my sketch and I give her a shrug.
“It’s not right,” I tell her in Arabic which is far more halting than her English. Her eyebrows raise in surprise but she replies with a smile.
“Patience,” she says. “One day it will be.”
“Is your piece a painting of Iraq?” I ask her, gesturing to her work.
“Yes. It is my garden.”
“It’s lovely.”
At the end of the group, after everyone has left, I help Noor pack away the equipment and wipe down the tables.
“They like you,” says Noor. “We haven’t had anyone from England before. It’s a nice addition to the mix.”
“I like them too,” I tell her. “But I don’t really see how I’m helping at all, Noor. I’m just participating.”
“I know,” she says. “To be honest, I actually had something else in mind.”
Noor tells me that when Zainab moved here with her two children and husband five months ago they were assigned a volunteer “mentor” to help them settle in. The mentor is an older woman from the church, who is well-intentioned but “not too worldly”, Noor says. She just isn’t the best fit.
“My friend runs the mentor programme and asked if I knew anyone else. I wondered if you’d be interested?” Noor says. “You don’t even have to be her official ‘mentor’ – just more of a friend if you want. I didn’t mention it earlier because I wanted you two to meet first. See if there was any connection. And whatever you decide, you should still come to the art group.”
Pieces of Me Page 13