by Kanan Makiya
Abu Haider had arrived looking for answers, convinced that our House contained them. Answers were not forthcoming; there was bitterness in that. Najmaldin was a kinsman, not by blood to be sure, but his kinsman all the same. Worse, he had lived in Abu Haider’s house, under his protection. Therein lay a whole other set of obligations. Abu Haider’s home, Najmaldin’s sanctuary, was his bond, and the seat of his honor; all had been violated. There was shame for Abu Haider in that, as there would have been for me had I betrayed my friend. The world had contracted to the sharper of two choices: his shame or mine. It was no choice at all.
Blood calls for new blood. Those are the rules, as the poet sang:
With the sword will I wash my shame away,
Let God’s doom bring on me what it may!
So, where would Abu Haider lay the blame? Since he had no specifics, Abu Haider chose to place it all on the House of Sadr.
Shortly after the meeting, information reached our security officers that Abu Haider was the hidden hand who had organized a provocation in the shape of demonstrations outside our offices in Najaf, claiming that they were full of closet Baʻthis, and that the Baʻth Party had infiltrated our movement from as far back as the days of Sayyid Sadiq; militiamen from the Hakim Brigades then ransacked our offices, beat up members of our staff, and demanded that we be banned from opening new offices in Najaf. Abu Haider had played his first hand.
Uncle, after consulting the Sayyid, responded vigorously. He ordered the mobilization of thousands of our militiamen across southern Iraq; overnight, they sacked more than three hundred offices of the Hakim Brigades, leaving them in ruins. And Haider was spotted in Baghdad throwing himself recklessly into the fray against his father’s Brigades. Had Uncle pulled out all the stops and found him after the meeting, thrusting him into the fray? I don’t know, but Uncle was involved, of that I am sure. Uncle’s decisive riposte to Abu Haider’s pathetic demonstrations was a masterstroke: settling the score for the old wounds of 2004, tilting the scales of the war of Shiʻa against Shiʻa back in our favor, and laying the grounds for our ascendancy in the coming battles over Baghdad.
—
Two weeks later, word reached Uncle that Abu Haider had a copy of the original investigator’s file that had been the basis of the Occupier’s arrest warrant, now rescinded by the first elected Shi‘a government.
Uncle called me into his office.
“Abu Haider is threatening us with a file, the one concerning the death of Sayyid Majid. It seems to have been prepared by a judge, who started deposing witnesses shortly after the body was buried. I want you to find that wretched man. Consider it a top priority. I want the original file; I want to know who has copies, and I want to know the names of everyone who spoke to the judge and whose name appears in the file. Do I need to tell you how much is at stake in all this?”
Grandfather
Two of the three Houses of Iraqi Shi‘ism met at Uncle’s house, but the ghost of a third, the House of Khoei, was also present. If Abu Haider was going to seek other ways of obtaining satisfaction for the murder of his brother-in-law, the file on Sayyid Majid’s killing was his best bet. He knew of its existence, but did he have a copy? Uncle thought not; regardless, it was imperative that I find the file quickly.
No one in the prime minister’s office or at the Ministry of Justice could locate the original or a copy of it. Once the new file had been generated in the spring of 2005—the one in which no one could remember anything and no one was responsible, and the death of Sayyid Majid was deemed an unfortunate accident caused by his own rash behavior—the old file “must have been inadvertently destroyed or mislaid,” in the words of the filing clerk in the Ministry of Justice. I searched the shelves myself, and found nothing.
I was given access to the office of the prime minister, whose files were in such a state of disorganization that nothing could be found. That office seemed not to have been introduced to the concept of filing, to the point that no one was in charge of the place where all the inactive files got dumped, just outside a foul-smelling toilet. That “archive” I spent hours rummaging about in, finding nothing (I did find correspondence with the United Nations spilling over into the toilet, amid other stacks sitting alongside unopened cartons of toilet paper). There was no question of going to the Americans, who had to have a copy. My only recourse was to find the judge who had generated the file in the first place. I had a larger purpose than what Uncle had in mind: I needed to know the truth of what had happened to Sayyid Majid.
But finding a man who does not want to be found, especially in Baghdad, to which he had been transferred, is a big undertaking. I extended feelers everywhere, trying to gather as much information about the man as I could, while I waited.
—
A few months after the meeting, Grandfather’s health began to decline. There was nothing catastrophic or abrupt like organ failure or a major fall. He just wasted away. In Mother’s case the person remained, whether as memories or as illusion; in Grandfather’s case, toward the end, the person that he must have been, that Mother wanted me to get to know, was annihilated.
He not only stopped struggling to live, but toward the end he also stopped believing in himself, collapsing inwardly and distancing himself from his previous life and beliefs; it was as though dying slowly disfigured his self-image to the point that even his loved ones no longer knew him. I saw Uncle turn away in disgust from his father on the few occasions that he did show up; Grandfather was beyond noticing such things.
Strangely, I learned to appreciate him during flashes of lucidity in the course of his deterioration, and began to understand why Mother had been keen on my getting to know him. But even the little I gained in love while he withered toward the grave was gone by the time he passed away. I could handle the sunken cheeks, the hollow eyes, and a skeletal frame that was more bone than flesh. But the foul language, childish behavior, and barrage of insults that accompanied any attempt by Aunt to help him were insufferable. Toward the end he was a man without taste for either happiness or food, which he would spit into my aunt’s face as she tried to spoon it into his mouth. I had to turn my face or leave the room. Poor woman: childless and therefore powerless, with a husband who despised and used her as one would a servant, she took refuge, after Mother passed away, in caring for and doting on me.
I visited Grandfather after he was taken ill, but not from noble motives. I did so because it finally dawned on me that Grandfather knew things that mattered a great deal to me.
—
The first conversation came early in his decline and followed my telling him about Father’s letter to Mother, which he knew all about.
“Your mother read it to me the day after she received it. I told her to hide it.”
“Why?” I asked, but he would not answer, turning his face away.
“Does Uncle know about the letter?” I pressed.
“No. And don’t tell him!”
“Why not?”
“It is better that way!” he said, and refused to discuss the matter further. “No one except your mother and I, and now you, knows the letter exists. Keep it that way.”
“I don’t understand, Grandfather. You and Mother have always been so close; you even gang up against Uncle. I have never heard you criticize her or say a harsh word, not once.”
“Your mother, God rest her soul, was an angel, an angel…you hear me. She didn’t just love your father; she was his rock, his backbone. You know what it was like to serve in that wretched war, and always be out there on the front, not in some cushy desk job? And all because you are a Shiʻa and your paperwork has Najaf listed as your city of birth! He was a shambles each time they gave him a few days’ leave. She stitched him back together again after each furlough. He would never have made it without her. And she always gave him a book to take back with him to the front. I remember one of them, which she went down to Baghdad to find. The Tragedy of Hallaj, I think it was called…”
“She gave me
that to read, months before she died. She said it was Father’s; I read it carefully…”
“It was your father’s…but only because she bought it for him. She used to say it was the job of Iraqi mothers to bring back the love that was absent in the lives of their children. Did you know that?”
“I did, Grandfather. She talked to me about it.”
“Why do you think she said it?”
“I just took it for granted. Isn’t it something all mothers say?”
“Nonsense! All mothers are not like yours. Never take her for granted. She understood things your father was unable to understand: that Iraq is a land where there is no trust, a land where the norm is to expect to be stabbed in the back. And when there is no trust, there is no love.” He seemed to drift off at this point, leaning back in his pillows and closing his eyes.
“Grandfather, are you okay?” I asked worriedly, leaning forward toward his craggy, bony face. He opened his eyes and turned toward me.
“Your father, God rest his soul, had his eyes permanently lifted up, looking always to the horizon, and beyond. He never remembered an insult, believing in the essential goodness of all men, who are driven to live up to that goodness. He could not think an ill thought about a person and excused his behavior, no matter how atrocious. Your mother loved him for that, but she knew when to turn her eyes down into the mud…the stones…yes, and the filth that lay strewn under both their feet. She was his eyes, son; with him it was like leading a blind man through a house filled with snakes…And he would follow her, wherever she led…”
He fell silent. I was embarrassed. Grandfather was not a man one associated with tenderness. And then I blurted out:
“Did you love her?”
But he would not answer; it was as though he was pretending he had not heard my question.
“Without her,” Grandfather went on, “your father would have perished long before his time…”
“Was Father betrayed in 1991?”
“Of course he was…It was someone he knew…It had to be. And from Najaf, because no one else could describe the location of the house he was holed up in accurately enough for Saddam’s security men to find.”
“What was Father doing there? Why did they go to such efforts looking for him?”
“He was helping Sayyid Majid al-Khoei escape, of course.”
“Sayyid Majid! The man who was killed in the Shrine of the Imam on the day of the fall of the Tyrant!”
“Who else do you think I am talking about, boy? Don’t you know anything?”
“Are you sure, Grandfather?”
“I am sure. They grew up together and were the best of friends, going to the same schools, parting only when your father went to university and Majid to the seminary. But during those terrible two or three weeks of the Uprising, they were like brothers again, inseparable…the brother your father never had.”
“What do you mean, the brother my father never had? What is Uncle?”
“Your uncle says nothing; he shares nothing…he has an infinite capacity for intrigue and suspicion. It drove your father crazy. Always he has been like that! I don’t know where he got it. Not from me!”
Then he fell silent, and would not explain. But as he spoke to himself, mumbling most of the time, sometimes too softly for me to follow his train of thought, I caught this sentence:
“Your father was tormented by lies.”
“Lies? What lies, Grandfather?”
“Any lies, white lies, the ordinary lies that people need to get through the day. Not so your uncle…or me. In that your uncle definitely took after me, I am sorry to say. Will God forgive me?”
“Of course he will, Grandfather…Do you believe in God?”
He wouldn’t reply, just looked at me with incomprehension.
Then he abruptly said: “Do you think Haider believes in God?”
“I am sure he does, Grandfather…It goes without saying.”
“Think about Haider, what he has done or might have done, and then think about what you just said, son. Now don’t talk to me anymore.” And he turned his head and fell silent, a signal for me to leave. I bowed my head and stayed, not moving a muscle, and was rewarded a few minutes later when he started mumbling again.
“Neither one of us resembled your father…such a gentle man…too gentle…He was obstinate and not made for this world. God, how obstinate that man was!”
He was getting all worked up at this point, his head turning sharply and rapidly side to side, as though he wanted to bang his cheeks on the soft pillow. The open palm of his right hand started beating the sheet. Even his yellowing eyes, sunk deep in their sockets, were moistening. I reached out and put my hand on the wrist of his left arm, and squeezed just enough for him to realize I was still there. Then he abruptly turned toward my side of the bed, seizing me tightly by the shoulders. His face had gone pale, his eyes glistening with intent, the irises yellower than ever. But he couldn’t speak. It was as though he was choking on the words. I put my arms around him to calm him down. After a short while he sunk back into his pillows, exhausted. I stayed by his side until he fell asleep minutes later.
—
There was so much that I did not know. What had gone on in the past between Uncle and Grandfather? Why, I was now bold enough to start thinking, had Uncle been standing by the body as I came careening down the alley nearly three years ago? Was he involved in the murder in some way? Why all this secrecy and subterfuge whenever the subject of what happened to Sayyid Majid came up? Why not tell me Sayyid Majid had been Father’s best friend?
And what of Uncle’s relationship with his brother? True, he was six years older and had no education beyond high school, being largely self-taught. He had stayed on in Najaf, becoming very successful in business, owning three shops in the Great Souk opposite Maidan Square. Meanwhile, my father left for Baghdad to study at the university and then was conscripted into the army the year I was born, deserting nine years later when he was called back to service even though the Great War had ended. Did the brothers have a falling-out?
Uncle had spoken of Father as a dreamer whose heart was brimming over with “love of the world.” But his defenses had been lowered when he said that. “Feelings are a weakness in men,” he always said; if so, he had weakened that day, letting his emotions run away with him. Perhaps he was thinking of me. It was the only time I had seen him exhibit emotion. I even thought I saw tears…as I had seen them in Grandfather’s eyes; I still see them in my mind’s eye today, recalling the exact words Uncle ended upon all those years ago.
“Perhaps his ideas and way with words made him a beautiful human being, something I never claimed to be. But it also made him a poor judge of human nature.” They are the words of someone who loves somebody, very much, but is also angry with him about something.
The Second Conversation
The second conversation came a couple of weeks later, during a lucid interval in the course of Grandfather’s decline, and followed my asking him what Father and Sayyid Majid had been doing in Najaf during the Uprising of 1991.
“You have to understand there were bodies all over the place…on rubbish heaps, in the alleyways…of Baʻthis, of the young rebels who had stormed the police stations and party offices, of bystanders…all Shiʻa bodies, often innocent men or women killed to settle a score. Some of them must have been wounded and crawled into a dark corner to die. Sayyid Majid and your father scoured the city collecting whatever bodies they could find, identifying them where possible, and giving them a proper burial. This was after Ayatollah Khoei issued his ruling on the third day of the Uprising, March 5, 1991, I think it was, in which he urged everyone to do their duty and bury the dead with dignity, according to proper rites and to refrain from maiming corpses or stealing anything.”
“You saw this, Grandfather, with your own eyes?”
“Yes, I saw it. I went out in the afternoon of the first day, until your Uncle locked the house down, put a guard inside, and arrange
d for someone to scrounge for groceries. He ordered us all indoors. There was no going out after that.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw young men—boys younger than yourself they were—hundreds of them at first, swelling to a few thousand. They couldn’t have been older than eighteen…They came pouring out of the alleyways and backstreets to storm the police stations and party centers around the Great Courtyard of the Imam’s Shrine. They were armed with clubs, swords, and pistols at first, rifles and automatic weapons by the end of the day. By sunset the Shrine and its courtyard had fallen and the rebels were running mock trials for their prisoners, slitting people’s throats or shooting them left, right, and center.”
“And Father?”
“At first he and Sayyid Majid had to go looking for a child of eight, a neighbor’s son…Ahmed, I think, was his name…Anyway, his mother had sent him to the shops just before the whole thing began. She was hysterical, tearing her hair and clothes. Although they had many other things to do, the Sayyid and your father went in search of him.”
“Did they find him?”
“Several hours later. The local greengrocer had taken Ahmed in when he came to buy onions in his shop; it was shuttered down to protect against the looters…He took a long time to find.”
“I had not imagined Sayyid Majid as that kind of man,” I said, speaking to myself, but Grandfather perked up.
“What kind of man did you think he was?”
“I don’t know. An American agent, Uncle said.”
“Hah!” his voice rasped back, and then he made a big effort to pull himself onto his elbows and with piercing eyes hollowed out in their sockets he struggled to say, “He was a gentleman, a man of honor, his father’s son in every respect. Ask Ahmed and his mother!” And he fell back onto the pillow from the effort.