Baghdad Diaries

by al-Radi, Nuha;

  ‘He can’t,’ answered Medhat.

  ‘Well, he’ll just have to wait ‘til the morning,’ she replied.

  ‘He could die,’ said Medhat. She shrugged her shoulders.

  All the handles on the loo doors had been stolen – round, empty holes face you when you sit on the toilet. The man got better soon, and left after two days to recuperate at home.

  Medhat also told us stories about his false teeth. The first lot made a whistling noise and were so loose that they would shoot out of his mouth if he talked too fast. He took them back for a check-up. ‘They’re not loose,’ the dentist said, as he put them back in and patted Medhat’s cheeks, ‘just close your mouth and then open it.’ They promptly fell out. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ve lost weight.’ He made him a second pair which broke in the middle within two weeks.

  ‘That’s simple,’ the dentist said, ‘we’ll just mend them.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ asked Medhat, ‘if the new ones broke in two weeks?’ They glued them together and in a couple of days they came apart in exactly the same place. They made him another set but he never wears them. He went to another dentist, who asked him whether he had difficulty eating without his top teeth in. ‘No,’ said Medhat.

  ‘OK,’ answered the dentist, ‘just eat without them. Nothing can replace the teeth that God gave you.’ So Medhat now eats only with his lower teeth and all seems well; the new ones are kept in reserve. Our Muhammad takes his new set of shining white teeth out when he eats.

  ‘What’s the point,’ I asked, ‘when they’re supposed to help you eat?’

  ‘No,’ said Muhammad, ‘I bash myself with them and I can’t chew when I have them in.’

  12 February

  Went to the Rashid Hotel to give a letter to Appolone to post, and saw Isabel. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown – she has no clothing choices left, only two dresses and the jeans she was wearing. Apparently there is a well-known mafia of hotel staff members who rob the guests. When she comes to Iraq with medicines to distribute she immediately calls the parties concerned, but in the time that it takes her to go down to pick them up from the lobby and take them up to her room, all the medicines have disappeared. She says they listen in on telephone conversations and act immediately. She has learned not to say anything on the telephone. Appolone agreed with her. When he arrives at the Rashid, he calls the staff responsible for his room, lays out everything on the bed and tells them, ‘I have so many shirts, trousers, socks, etc and would like to keep that many.’ He then gives them all a tip and manages to survive his stay relatively intact.

  13 February

  I got a cordless telephone installed in my house yesterday and this morning I proudly walked about with it in my studio. It never stopped ringing. I would pick it up and it would stop or go off. Rushdie said someone nearby must have a similar one. By 1.30 I was going bonkers with this thing ringing off and on all the time, and I gave up on it. I handed it over to Rushdie who will try it out in his house and see how it works there. Other people have cordless telephones that don’t behave that way. Why not me?

  I walked with Amal in the souq, down the new riverfront. Found a lovely silver box as a present for Dood. On one side it has a map of Bahrain showing the air route to Baghdad, and on the other the route to Karachi with pearl-fishing scenes carved on it. Just beautiful. I bought myself a Sassanian seal with a lovely fellow on it with a wonderfully ornate hairdo. I couldn’t resist adding him to the two others that I wear around my neck. I am past chap time, I think, although one never gives up hope. I certainly look haggard enough.

  Went to visit Tawadud in the evening, taking my usual present for her from Salvi – a bunch of violets. She’s a super person, somewhere between eighty and ninety years old, deaf as a post, quite ill but always laughing and cheerful in the face of misery. Qusay, her son, has just had an operation to check on his lymph nodes; the prognosis does not look good. His doctor told him that he’s been seeing many such lumps since the war; he thinks it’s connected with the after-effects of the bombing.

  They have upped the exit tax to 100,000 dinars.

  14 February

  I am in a frenzy of artistic activity and feel more cheerful. I hope it continues. Munir came and paid me for the kilns. He says that the palace wants to use them as pizza ovens! I told him they can’t be used for that purpose, those kilns go up to 1,300 degrees! They’ll only use them up to 500 degrees, he said. No wonder we go backwards in this country. Such ignorance.

  Said is redoing their old khan with cement. Horrible. I met the man who pays for his rent in eggs. He was busy replastering the walls of his shop and patching up the ceilings with cement, even though one could see huge holes where termites had been busy. I said to him, ‘Don’t you see that your ceiling is all rotten?’

  ‘I’m going to prop it up with these iron rods,’ he answered. I hope he doesn’t keep his eggs there. The whole khan is riddled with termites – Said is giving me two old wooden columns that have termites. There were some very strange-looking light bulbs in his office – large and made of blown glass with the Shabandar name written on them.

  ‘What are they?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re between 80 and 100 years old,’ he said, ‘ordered by my grandfather, and they still work.’ The bottom fixture was busted but he will fit on new ones and reuse them. He is interested in old fixtures so will look after them, but is totally uninterested in old buildings and is doing a really bad job of remodelling the khan.

  Suhair says a lot of sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds are being brought into hospital with fainting spells or in a coma, and they then die in two or three days. Another after-effect of the war?

  We were shown an extraordinary film on TV about two guys who killed an entire family. The whole crime was re-enacted in the house, and was followed by the trial in which both were convicted. They will hang. Hundreds are killed every day. What’s so special about this case? Suhair said they were security types and they have to make a show of them.

  16 February

  There’s a terrible fight going on in the orchard between a couple of magpies. Other magpies flew in to watch – even a crow. The din stops and we have a bit of quiet, then he turns up again (I presume it’s a he), and the whole racket starts over. Great flapping of wings and flying between palm fronds, maybe it’s an extramarital affair and the husband has found out. I wonder if that kind of thing goes on with birds?

  I’m in love with Arthur Danto. If there was one reason for me to go to the USA it would be to meet him. He’s at Columbia University, so I must tell Sol to find him. On the whole, I hate art critics; they are pretentious and say nothing, but he is wondrous, a revelation, and writes humour. What more could one want? I’ve not been able to work in months and he inspired me to work again.

  My heart feels very heavy because Tawadud is not well and Qusay looks like a goner – that means she won’t survive long after him. We went and visited them again and although the results are not out, they seem better. Ma took her one of her cakes and Needles unknowingly put her foot in it (it was on the floor of the car in a plastic bag). Ma sort of patted it into shape again.

  No Salvi for two days now, but the horrific dog barking starts about 2 a.m. and continues until five in the morning; total pandemonium in the orchard.

  17 February

  Maysa, Suhair’s daughter, said there’s too much talk these days about Gulf War Syndrome. Everyone has that, it’s the norm now in Baghdad. But we’re dealing with basic diseases like cholera, polio, TB, major stuff, she continued. Gulf War Syndrome talk is for those who don’t know what’s happening in the hospitals. Gynaecologists are reusing disposable gloves, just dipping them in Dettol, same with disposable syringes. The anaesthetic that is used has come as gifts from various countries, different brands, and no one knows the strengths or what dosage to give to patients – one woman took fifteen hours to wake up from an anaesthetic injection after a Caesarean operation. Surgical thread is some old-fashi
oned stuff from Pakistan that takes five to eight months to dissolve and causes infections and complications. Anyone over fifty years old is told that there are no medicines; doctors want to keep what little there is for younger patients. That’s the level we’ve reached. I asked her what has really increased since the war.

  ‘Depression,’ she answered, ‘more than anything else.’

  ‘What do you give them?’ I asked.

  ‘Electric shocks,’ she said. ‘It’s faster, leaves no after-effects and is available.’ Everyone who was present reacted with ooh ... aah ... how awful, horrible, etc. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s only Egyptian movies that have made out that electric shock treatment is evil and only for loonies.’

  ‘What percentage of them are women?’ I asked. ‘Are there more than men?’

  ‘Far more,’ she answered. ‘They carry all the responsibilities of caring for their house and children on virtually nothing while the men disappear or stay home and sleep.’

  There’s a story circulating around Baghdad about a father who couldn’t support his family any longer; he bought a big fish in the market, poisoned it, and fed it to his family – they all died together. A caring father?

  Returned from Hamza with a little carpet for our house in Beirut, very bright colours. Dood called from Abu Dhabi. Apparently Hammoodi is taking religion classes and when Ma asked him how he’s doing with the bismilla,* he said, ‘Oh, we’ve already passed that!’ Our Muhammad was going round the house wearing his cat apron. I told him that his teeth looked better and he said, ‘Yes, I’m doctoring them where it hurts. I just file them down.’

  ‘With what?’ I asked.

  ‘Anything,’ he answered, ‘any stone will do. I watched them grinding down my teeth and I too have become a dentist!’ They certainly look as if they fit better – he must have been filing them for ages.

  Latest gossip is that all Ba‘th party** members have to go through religious training; special courses have been set up for them. Will they make the women wrap up their heads in those horrible scarves, like bandages?

  20 February

  While Ma was at the oculist yesterday, a nicely dressed man came into the shop and asked if he could sell his glasses – tragic and pathetic. Went and visited Hajir in the evening, she lives in an isolated bit of the old world. The walls tell their own story – kings, queens and princes, most of them dead. She has a wonderful photo of King Faisal*** aged about seven, standing with Queen Alia**** and King Ghazi. He looks so innocent and pure, a shining picture. Ma said, ‘Hajir, you know who’s missing from your walls?’ No comment on that one of course. She won’t even leave the country because it will mean that she has to travel holding their passport and she has vowed not to do so as long as they’re in power.

  21 February

  Davies phoned from London – she saw us all on TV, just by chance. She said we were all very good and then she cried. Christina also phoned, so I said, ‘Did you see the TV programme?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I just wanted to know how you were all coping.’ That was very touching; she is a strange and mysterious creature. Menth also phoned; Needles was thrilled. My new Korean (Supra) cordless telephone is now installed upstairs. It hasn’t rung yet, unlike the other one, which never stopped ringing.

  Salvi is stuck to his black lady friend. He’s terribly in love, and fiercely guards her from others who fancy her. When I last saw Salvi and his lady, they were lying on the grass while three other dogs on the wall and two in a ditch eyed them jealously. Salvi was looking utterly haggard. He hasn’t come to eat for three days.

  24 February

  I have befriended a robin. I looked him up in my bird book, just to double-check because I didn’t expect to find a robin here. He likes dates, therefore he must be an Iraqi robin. He lives in the bougainvillea by my studio and chirps non-stop. If I don’t go out and see him every now and then he will not stop chirping, but when I do he shows off, leaping and flying and looking to see whether I’m watching. I hope I can train him to come and visit me in my studio; he seems to be on his own, which is strange.

  Saw Hashim and he told me that all party members have been asked to pray publicly in the parade ground. I told him that they would put scarves on their heads too if he didn’t watch out. He laughed nervously and said, ‘No, only on the women.’ Meanwhile, Albright is going on a tour of France and Russia to convince those powers not to talk about lifting the sanctions against us. My favourite cartoon now is in my Guardian Weekly: it shows US soldiers arriving in Haiti and being greeted by a whole bunch of natives waving banners and yelling, ‘Hello dim or crazy’ or ‘dumb and crazy’ and ‘doom or crazy’, and one soldier with a very pained expression on his face saying, ‘It’s democracy!’ It’s by KAL from the Baltimore Sun.

  Suha and Assia came by. Assia was very funny, telling us about a friend of hers who now has red hair. ‘What happened?’ asked Assia.

  ‘I can’t afford my hair dye,’ she said, ‘so I’m using vinegar.’ Her mother apparently now puts eggplant skin on her hair! Assia is now washing her hair with Tide, she can’t afford shampoo and says it makes better suds anyway. She has almost shaved her head so she only has to go to a hairdresser once every four months. I told her I would cut it for nothing. I’ve been doing mine for the last thirty years. She took her father to the hairdresser and had his hair shaved off too. Assia says that over the years she must have donated over 20 pints of blood for the Palestinian cause; she will not do so again because everyone has ratted on us – it’s difficult to get one’s blood back. She’s also having difficulties with her teeth – a new bridge that makes chewing and talking tricky.

  25 February

  The orchard is full of white butterflies and fighting magpies. One group is very silent, the other really noisy. Salvi has found someone new, a fawn-coloured dog that looks like one of his babies. They are both parked on the wall. A whole pile of dogs looks on.

  26 February

  I feel as if I’m living on an animal farm. While I was on the phone I heard a clinking sound coming from near my vegetable rack, so I went to take a look and there was a long tail sticking out of a bag of wheat – a palm-tree rat chomping away and not at all bothered by my yelling. I screamed for Majeed, who came running. The rat continued to eat – it only ran out the door when Majeed grabbed a rag and began to hit him. ‘Are they deaf?’ I asked Leila when she passed by later in the day.

  ‘No, just hungry,’ she answered, ‘hungry like everyone else.’ I keep forgetting to shut my kitchen door, which is how all these animals come in. Once a snake tried to get in. It kept throwing itself against the glass door that leads into the kitchen. Much as I love snakes, I didn’t fancy having one inside, so I told it so and it slithered away.

  Salvi has lost his flea collar. He looks quite deranged. I fed him and he ate a little, all the time looking longingly at his new friend sitting on the wall. When he’d finished, he sauntered past Blackie, peed near her and went to his new friend.

  Apparently we returned 30 kilos of uranium to the Russians in part payment for our debt. It had been hidden in a cement bunker, imagine if that had received a direct hit! Got a letter from Freako saying that I had to come to Amman in person to renew my residence permit. What a waste of time – she forgot to send my passport back so I can’t even leave. I’ve decided that I will not go where we’re not wanted. I shall remain here with my Iraqi passport until things get better and if they don’t improve, then I shall live here in my little paradise and grow old, and probably gaga too.

  Rumour has it that a new law states that if one goes through a red light one gets beaten up and put into jail for a week!

  1 March

  Sol phoned this morning and I took it in bed on my new cordless. I love it. Yesterday Daphne called and I sat and talked to her under the palm trees so that she could get the feel of it. Sometimes I don’t work it correctly and it switches off. My passport arrived from Amman. Salvi is back, bedraggled and cut up all over. He is again s
leeping peacefully on his blanket after more than a month.

  2 March

  Everyone is talking about the UN delivering rations to the masses. Ma insists that there is a ship in Basra full of apples and bananas. By the time they sort out the distribution, the bananas will have rotted. Those who receive UN rations will have their Iraqi rations cut, or so say the rumours. Zuhair came today and said that France, the UK and the USA will distribute the rations. Twenty-one items per person, including cans and chocolate. No one knows anything. I think it’s all talk, like the endless talk about prices and the cost of everything – it’s driving me crazy.

  I’m selling everything I don’t need from my ceramic days and spending the money as quickly as it comes in. I buy truffles or anything else that I want. There’s no point in keeping the money, valueless, photocopied stuff. Who wants to live with a bank full of money and not eat truffles while the season lasts?

  Abu Muhsin tells Umm Raad to cook a watery vegetable stew because Adiba doesn’t like it that way. He tells Adiba to eat dates and bread, and that the food is for him alone. He has millions in the bank, is ill and is likely to pop off any minute, but he’ll hang in there until he sees Adiba into her grave. He’s in no hurry to face his enemies when he goes. Every time I see Adiba, she tells me that I was clever not to have married. She rushed off to put in her false teeth before she told us our fortune in the coffee cups. I have victory and a sword. I told them about a crazy dream I had the other night: I threw myself off a ten- or twelve-storey building because it was the only way I could get down. I wasn’t afraid and it was fun. All the people below were yelling, ‘You’re going to die,’ and they tried to catch me so that I wouldn’t fall hard on the ground, but I fell softly and all was fine. Since I’m wearing my third chap on a seal, I dream every night like crazy – I put the stone under my pillow and dream away. I think he’s Parthian, but he may be Sassanian – lovely hairstyle and beard.