‘But it’s not true!’ I protested.
‘If you don’t go, it will be worse. Do as I say. He’ll bring you home in two days. Everything will be okay. Your father would never hurt you.’
It was difficult for me to believe her, but I let myself be convinced.
Dad was waiting for us outside. We climbed into the car without saying anything. He had shocked and wounded us with his violent actions, and now we sat silently in the back seat, side by side, squeezing each other’s hands as we tried to comfort one another.
At Bibi’s house, Dad helped put our things in our bedroom. He tried to be nice. He acted as if that awful night had never happened. He asked us about school, about what we had done that week. Linda ran off to take refuge in Aunt Ahlam’s arms. I answered him in mono-syllables, confused by his bizarre behaviour. I asked myself if that man, who couldn’t make eye contact with me, was still my father.
Shortly after, Klara and I heard Kasside and Ahlam speaking with Dad about our full-time move to one of their houses, as if it were already decided. We looked at each other in disbelief. Surely they would tell us before doing something so drastič
I relied on my daily routine to keep my mind off what had been happening. Mum, too, even though she was fed up, encouraged me to get out of the house and find ways to occupy my thoughts to avoid dwelling on the dramas that were plaguing our family. So when Bàn invited me to her house one afternoon, I accepted willingly.
There was surreal silence as we played in the large villa. It wasn’t the same with Otůr gone. It was hard to pretend that everything would be okay after her death. Even then, the very action of talking about Otůr and what we missed about her emphasised the sombreness engendered by her absence. Every once in a while we heard an explosion detonate in the distance, providing a bitter reminder of what we had lost.
‘Are you home alone? Where’s your mum?’ I asked.
‘She went out. My uncle is in his room,’ Bàn said, pointing to a door at the end of the hallway. ‘He’s probably sleeping or watching television. He won’t bother us.’
I only knew him by sight. He was her father’s younger brother and still lived with them. He was a tall man with a moustache, trimmed short like his hair, and a dark complexion. I thought he looked like Saddam.
We locked ourselves in Bàn’s bedroom to listen to music and flip through magazines. I asked if I could use the bathroom. She showed me where it was then returned to her room.
The corridor was dark. As I turned the bathroom doorknob, a hand touched my shoulder.
‘Hi. Are you here to see Bàn? I didn’t know she had visitors,’ her uncle said to me, staring at me oddly.
‘Good afternoon,’ I responded hesitantly.
‘It’s been years since I’ve seen you. You’ve grown a lot.’ The corners of his mouth turned, a creepy half-smile formed on his lips.
The way he was looking at me was unnerving. He placed his arm around my shoulders and opened the bathroom door.
‘Were you looking for the bathroom? Come on, I’ll show you something.’ He gestured for me to go in first.
It all seemed very strange to me, but I obeyed, afraid of what he might do.
He closed the door behind him and sidled up beside me, getting incredibly close. I backed up until I was against the wall. I was trapped and frightened. What did he want from me?
Standing over me, he leaned his face closer to mine, as if he were going to kiss me. I couldn’t move. I felt the weight of his body pushing against me. His hand moved suggestively over my clothes.
I was petrified.
I heard him panting in my ear and I could smell the nauseating odour of his breath. I tried to move, but he pressed me against the wall. He started breathing heavily and saying indecent words, while his clammy hands ran over me. I wanted to scream, but nothing came out. All I could do was tremble.
He started fiddling with the buttons on his pants. I looked frantically for an escape. I launched myself towards the door but he was faster – and caught me immediately.
‘Where do you think you’re going, huh?’
He pushed me back against the wall. He pulled down his pants and started to touch himself, murmuring in a deep voice. Frozen, I saw his genitals looming towards me.
My desperation for escape grew. Fuelled by adrenalin, I gathered all my strength and made a run for it. I shoved him, freeing myself from his grip. I bolted down the corridor, out the front door and all the way home without stopping, moving my legs as if the devil himself was following me. Only when I was safe in my bedroom did I finally start to catch my breath.
I felt confused and dirty. I knew it was a grave, horrible thing, but I couldn’t speak to anybody about it. I couldn’t let my mother see me upset. She had already suffered enough. When she called from the kitchen, I looked at myself in the mirror and felt overwhelming shame. Had I really been so naïve? How could I, even for an instant, have gone into the bathroom with a strange man? I was about to cry but I held back my tears. I looked for a sign of that nightmare on my face. Nothing could be seen. I had to forget everything as quickly as possible. I didn’t want Mum to worry about me.
A week later Aunt Ahlam came to visit us with Samar and Sundus. She was the only one of my aunts who still came to see my mother. Her visit was a positive sign, even if it was out of obligation. We weren’t alone. As long as somebody from Dad’s family continued to keep in touch with us, everything wasn’t lost. Ahlam stayed in the living room with Mum. She looked at her compassionately, as if she pitied her. I feared Ahlam too, sooner or later, would wind up turning her back on us.
I was alone with Samar in my bedroom. I had kept my terrible secret to myself for days. But Samar, who I had always been close to, was somebody I felt I could confide in. While I told her about Bàn’s uncle, I saw the shock in her eyes. The shame I felt made it difficult for me to speak, but I needed to rid myself of every last drop of rage and fear, so I told her all the dreadful details. Once I finished telling her my story, I felt liberated. Divulging my shameful secret to Samar didn’t erase what had occurred, but at least it alleviated the guilt.
‘You have to tell your parents. This is too important to keep a secret. Tell your father. Maybe he can do something to fix it,’ my cousin advised.
I looked straight into her eyes. ‘Samar, nobody needs to know anything. I just want to put it behind me and forget it ever happened.’ How could she not have understood how ashamed I was? I wouldn’t be able to handle it if my parents ever found out.
‘But that pig can’t get away with it! Somebody has to do something, for heaven’s sake,’ she insisted.
‘Please, I don’t want anyone else to know. Don’t tell anybody, I beg you,’ I pleaded. ‘Swear it. Promise me you’ll stay as quiet as a mouse.’
The next evening I was in my bedroom when my father arrived. I heard him ask my mother where I was, then my door opened and he came in with a perplexed and worried expression on his face. Without greeting me he sat on the bed.
‘Tell me what happened,’ he said solemnly.
‘What do you mean, Baba?’ He couldn’t have known.
‘With that man. Tell me what he did to you.’
I stared at him in disbelief. I suddenly felt vulnerable. Samar had betrayed me. Dad waited for my answer, his hardened eyes piercing through mine.
‘Nothing,’ I stuttered.
‘Don’t mess me around. This is not a game, Michelle. I assure you it will be all right. I just want to know what happened between you and that man, and you’re going to tell me, step by step, like a good girl.’
His interrogation was making me feel more ashamed and uncomfortable.
‘Staying quiet won’t resolve anything. Out with it. Tell me,’ he commanded.
‘I can’t. I can’t …’ I felt my eyes water.
‘Don’t make me lose my patience, Raghdde. I have to know what he did to you.’ His voice began to crack, but he controlled himself.
‘He didn’t do
anything to me. That is, maybe he wanted to, but … nothing happened, I promise.’
‘Look me in the eyes and tell me one thing,’ he continued. ‘Did you do anything to provoke him? Did you tease him?’
‘No!’ I was horrified. How could he have thought it was my fault? ‘I didn’t do anything! It was all him. I didn’t have anything to do with it.’
‘You have to tell me, Michelle. Did you do anything to make him behave this way?’ His words stung.
‘No, I swear,’ I repeated, crying. ‘He took me in the bathroom. I didn’t understand what he wanted. Then he threw himself on me.’
‘What did he do to you? Did he touch you? Where did he touch you?’ His voice started to rise, his fingers gripped the bedspread.
‘He tried to touch me, but I managed to get away.’
‘Where? Where did he touch you?’ he insisted.
‘I don’t know. He put his hands on me, I told you, I don’t know. I don’t remember.’
My father grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. ‘You have to tell me – what did he do?’
Why did he continue to question me like this? What did he want me to tell him?
‘You have to tell me if you provoked him. Did you?’
‘No, no! Baba, stop, I beg you!’ I replied tearfully, ‘It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything. Please, believe me.’
He shook me harder, his voice louder. ‘The honour of the entire family is at risk. What will people think of you, of us? Don’t you understand the seriousness of what’s happened?’ He removed his hands from my shoulders and slid them down the sides of my arms.
I continued to cry. He turned to me again, trying to compose himself, but his voice exposed his growing rage.
‘I’m going to ask you for the last time, Michelle. It’s a serious question. Did you provoke him?’
I stared at him through my tears, shaking my head desperately. ‘No, no.’
He glared at me.
‘I didn’t do anything wrong, Baba, I swear.’ I saw the look on his face: he didn’t believe me. I lowered my eyes, humiliated, demoralised and confused.
He stood up and left the room without saying another word.
It was evening and darkness had cast a shadow over the city. The bombs rang out in the distance. A ruckus broke out on the street; we could hear men fighting – there was loud yelling and the sound of glass smashing. I thought it was a brawl spilling out from one of the neighbourhood bars not far from our house. Then I heard a gunshot. We ran to the terrace to see what had happened, but everybody had already dispersed and the street was deserted. A few minutes later, there was a weak knock at the door. Mum went to open it.
My father was barely standing and covered in blood. He was unrecognisable: his eyes were swollen and his jaw hung ajar. He staggered through the door and fell backwards onto the floor. My mother tried to keep him conscious as she desperately called out to the neighbours for help. The ambulance arrived quickly taking both of them away.
A few days later we went to visit Dad at the hospital. Mum, my sisters and I took a bus across the city. Money was getting scarce and we couldn’t afford to take a taxi. I hated public transport. Once, a woman completely veiled in black stared at me unnervingly. Pointing at my dress that was hemmed just above the knee, she yelled, ‘You should be ashamed!’ The trip that day was also tainted by public humiliations; the men’s sultry looks, their lascivious stares. Some rubbed their hairy hands against Mum, whispering obscene phrases.
My father lay on the bed. His arms, covered in lacerations and bruises, rested atop the stark white sheets. His head was wrapped in bandages. Big, clumsy stitches and the outline of the metal plate they had inserted to rebuild his skull were visible through the gauze. Seeing him in this condition was horrific. And it was all my fault.
We found out later that on the evening that he confronted me, Dad left the house and went to Bàn’s, looking for her uncle. He then insulted and threatened him. The next day Bàn’s uncle and three companions stood in front of our gate and waited for Dad. When he arrived they beat him mercilessly and slashed him with a knife. The gunshot missed him, but maybe it was just a warning shot. Somebody must have arrived in the meantime, a car or the police, because the aggressors dispersed in a hurry, leaving Dad for dead.
Now he was trapped in a hospital bed. I gathered my courage and walked towards him. I took his hand, but he pulled it away. He averted his gaze, preferring to stare at the wall. I tried to talk to him. ‘Baba, it’s me. Talk to me. Tell me something, if you can. I’m sorry. I’m sorry … Baba, talk to me. Look at my face, I beg you!’
He stayed mute. My mother held a handkerchief to her mouth to smother her sobs. Klara and Linda clung to each other. Mum stared at the scene with distraught eyes.
Dad was in hospital for six weeks. We visited him almost every day but he was always the same: unresponsive, cold. He didn’t want to see us, especially me. He never replied to my questions. He never said a word.
In the summer of 1987, Dad moved once and for all to Bibi’s house, or at least that’s what he told Klara. He had stopped speaking to me. The embarrassment and shame over what happened was too much for him. Every time he came by our house, I searched his face for a sign that he had forgiven me, but it wasn’t there. He was so removed and aloof that sometimes I felt like a complete stranger.
Even at Bibi’s house, I felt I was being kept at a distance. The day after Dad’s accident, Kasside glowered at me when I went up to greet Bibi, who, too, regarded me disdainfully while I bowed to kiss her hands.
‘Klara,’ I said to my sister, at the end of a particularly trying day with the women of my father’s family, ‘why are the aunts acting like this? What do they have against me?’
‘Why do you ask that?’ she responded. She seemed disconcerted by my question.
‘With you and Linda they are affectionate. With me, well, you see it too, they barely speak to me …’
‘It’s all in your head. Come on, let’s go and see what good things are in the kitchen,’ my sister cut me off, trying to change the subject.
‘It’s not just in my head. They’re mad at me. Do you know something? Tell me, please.’
‘I don’t know anything, Michelle. I don’t know why they’re acting like this. I just heard Kasside saying to Baba …’ she stopped, hesitant.
‘What did she say to him?’
‘She was speaking about the Mum and Baba situation, and she was suggesting that we all move in to Bibi’s while we wait for the other house to be built.’
‘What other house?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t understand. It sounds like Baba bought some land some time ago, and now he’s building a villa where we’ll go to live. They spoke of a woman that we don’t know, and then Kasside brought up Baba’s accident. She said you were responsible for what happened. But I don’t think so. You didn’t have anything to do with it. It was an accident,’ Klara said regretfully.
Despite my sister’s attempt to protect me, I knew my father’s entire family were treating me like some sort of criminal. It wasn’t just my imagination playing tricks on me.
After that day, our visits to Bibi’s house became less frequent. On those occasions, I felt it was becoming more and more obvious that my sisters and I had to choose whose side we were on: Mum’s or Dad’s. It was a heartbreaking ultimatum. I would never abandon my mother.
Mum was in the living room, seated on the couch, her forehead wrinkled with worry. Fiddling anxiously with her fingers she addressed me frankly. ‘Michelle, school is about to start. We have to buy books and everything you girls need, but we don’t have much money.’
Her big green eyes which usually gleamed with life, were flat, lacklustre. Now that he didn’t live with us anymore, Dad would leave three plastic bags full of food at the front door once a week. He had the legal obligation to take care of us but, according to him, all he had to do was provide us with adequate food. I didn’t know where Mum would find the m
oney to maintain the household when nobody from my father’s family would help us.
Thinking of cash, I had an idea.
‘We can use the money they gave us for the El Id party. After all, we saved it for a time of need, right?’ I ran to my bedroom and told Linda and Klara to take out their savings. We gave the little wooden boxes stuffed with money to Mum. We dumped the cash on the table and counted it.
Mum took a deep breath. ‘We have to be able to buy books and everything you need for school with this.’ Then whispered to herself, ‘But how will we manage for everything else?’
‘Mum, what’s wrong?’ I enquired.
‘With what’s left, we can go on for another few weeks, but then I don’t know …’ She was forcing herself not to cry.
‘We’ll use this,’ I offered.
She lifted her head and stared at me questioningly, ‘How?’
‘We’ll use this money. We’ll stop going to school. Why should we buy books if we can’t even pay the bills?’
‘Not in your dreams,’ she said decisively. ‘Even if I have to stop eating, you girls will continue going to school! We’re not giving up your education. I’ll find a solution.’ Her face suddenly brightened. ‘I’ve had an idea. I’ll go and sell what remains of our jewels. You girls didn’t bring everything with you when we met in Frankfurt, did you?’
‘No, just the most precious.’
I ransacked the closet and found a small chest of jewels in the corner. I brought them to her. We opened it together and pulled out gold necklaces, a few rings, and some thin bracelets.
‘When I think of what we had …’ her eyes watered again. Her eyes never seemed to be free of tears these days. She swallowed, then added, ‘I’ll try to convince the goldsmith to buy them for a good price.’
We went to the jeweller together, the one who had sold us many valuable jewels that we had worn to parties. I remembered when we were there in such a jubilant state, preparing for Esmàa’s wedding. But this time he welcomed us with a sneer. He must have known my mother was a single woman now, even if she did everything to hide it. In Baghdad, this sort of predicament deprived you of any protection, leaving you to fight off people’s cruellest intentions.
The Girl from Baghdad Page 14