Beyond Love (Middle East Literature in Translation)

by Hadiyya Hussein

  "As you like."

  While we were drinking tea, I looked at her face carefully. It had lost its shining light. I also noticed her weakened body. I couldn't help asking, "What happened after we went our separate ways?"

  She stared at me, the shadow of a pale smile flowing into her eyes, so I felt it was inappropriate to ask her about her circumstances. I wanted to rephrase my question to fill the gap that had opened between us, but she went on, as if she realized that in exile we had nothing but words to express our tragedy.

  "You know the ruin that befell the country soon after you left it. But if you are asking specifically about me, I have lost everything. They killed my brother, Nadir. My mother died of grief and sadness just two months after him. And the man I loved disappeared somewhere in this world."

  Words froze on my lips for a few seconds. Nadir had been a strong man, with light-brown skin, wide eyes, a light mustache, and curly hair. When I first visited Nadia's family, he had been standing at the door. I'd smiled at him as though I'd known him for many years and said, "You are Nadir. Nadia has told me about you."

  He'd said jokingly, "And how do you find me? Do I really look like Alessandro?"'

  I'd said confidently, "Of course not. You are better looking. You have Sumerian features."

  Nadia looked into the distance, reminding me of those days at the Factory of Hope when she used to roam far away. Then she said intensely, "Death flourishes in our country. It has become like any growing trade and has found supporters and allies possessing the ugliest technologies of torture."

  She put down her cup with some tea still in it. Without allowing me to comment, she continued. "One of the traders washed his hands of his own crime and instead pushed Nadir into hell. Nadir was unemployed after he finished his military service-you know how it is. He used to spend most of his time in the coffeehouse or praying in the mosque with his friends. After the police raids started targeting the mosques, he listened to my mother when she begged him, 'My son, God alone will protect you from their evil. He knows the secrets of all things. You can pray at home; you don't need collective prayer in these circumstances.' Then after a while Nadir worked as a truck driver with Hamid Kalla, one of the merchants of Shourja Market."

  She leaned against the wall, tears suspended behind her eyelids. "Nadir didn't know what fate had in store. Between the cartons of merchandise, Hamid was smuggling banned packs of foreign cigarettes. At that time, as you know, the country was not stable. People were escaping military service and the militia's forced training; there were conspiracies and feuds among the speculators to dominate some or all of the market of smuggled oil. There were suspicious brokers and middlemen, pamphlets posted on walls everywhere, and weapons and students could cross the borders for the right price. Nadir was stopped at the checkpoint between Baghdad and Basra and the contraband cigarettes were discovered.

  "Nadir was condemned to fifteen years in prison for committing an economic crime during a state of emergency. We didn't know if this incident was part of a conspiracy to get rid of the youth who were attending mosques or if Hamid was just a cigarette smuggler who in order to protect himself denied any involvement in the crime when it was discovered."

  She swallowed as if parched. I gave her some water and suggested that she rest, but she continued. "The last thing my mother said on her deathbed-she had become a heap of ashes inside her clothes-was, 'If only my belly had kept having miscarriages and had dried out and decayed."'

  Nadia was overcome by distraction. After a moment, she emerged from her thoughts and asked, "How is it possible to die like this? The world is moved by the death of a child here or there but is deaf and blind to our gratuitous deaths."

  She looked at me. "Do you know, Huda, what hurts us in being away from our country is not just the exile, but our bleeding memory. Even though that memory was once beautiful, it digs deeply now and reshapes the past like an enemy laying an ambush. The few happy moments that we witnessed have buried themselves in deep domes within our memory, and we can't find them without suffering still more wounds-as though we're eager to torture ourselves and whip our souls for reasons we don't understand. Tragedy wears us like clothing."

  I asked her how the prison penalty became a death penalty.

  She was absorbed; thousands of sharp blades seemed to pierce her heart, and her eyes remained full of tears. She looked away. "Once a month my mother and I used to visit him in prison. At every visit, his body was thinner, but his determination to take revenge on Hamid Kalla remained strong. We tried to find a way to calm his excitement, but in vain; it was like looking for a needle on a floor filled with straw. His eyes lost their sparkle, and the veins of his hands stood out as if he'd aged twenty years. Meanwhile, the president forgot all about issuing any pardon for the prisoners."

  I said to her, "He has no time. He is always busy planning wars."

  She sighed and said, "Ah, Huda, every time I want to get away from these tragedies, I get drawn back to them. The past that we buried has left us with no present through which to reach another life. The irony is that we all recount the same stories even though we know that every Iraqi has been burned by this fire."

  I poured some more tea, saying, "These stories are all that we have. We ought to repeat them again and again in order to bear witness to the age of butcheries. You have to speak, Nadia. Tell me why they put Nadir to death."

  A cloud passed over her eyes, and she looked absentminded, as if her soul had been pulled out of her body. Then she seemed to wake up suddenly, as if from an oppressive nightmare. "Although the political prisoners were put into individual cells, they were able to reach other prisoners and to organize a cell that was called the Delivery Cell. It was a small cell in the beginning, but it grew bigger because the prisoners' pain brought them to the brink. Then one day, in the last shadows of the night, they exploded. The truth is some of the guards helped them-otherwise, the guns would not have made their way to them-and after dawn prayer call the prison was in flames. The prisoners almost prevailed, but four and a half hours were enough for the regime to send in the necessary support to regain control of the prison. Some fled, some were killed, and the rest were put to death without trial. Nadir was among those who had joined the Delivery Cell."

  I mourned with her, but I pulled myself together sharply and said with regret, "We must have committed major errors in order to arrive at so wrong a place. I sometimes despair because I see that our weak silence about those big wrongs is what stole our confidence and held us back. The consequence was that we assumed unconsciously the guilt both for those crimes and for not fighting them."

  Nadia didn't comment; my words echoed in my ears, and I was struck by the triviality of what I'd said. I abruptly broke into convulsive laughter. She put her hand on my forehead and said, "Laugh, Huda. Some laughter is like tears."

  We fell silent for a little while as we tried to escape the painful memories. Then she asked, "When is your interview with the Refugee Office?"

  "I don't know. I don't even know about the format of the interview."

  "They will ask for the circumstances of your flight from Iraq and the possibility of your return. You have to answer carefully because if you have any chance of returning, they will cross your name out."

  "Oh, Nadia, how can I return after what I did?"

  "What did you do?"

  The long, painful memories of my journey descended upon me, and I said, "I fled because of a foolish thing I should not have done."

  I started telling her about that unfortunate day when they made us crawl to the polls to write just one word, "Yes." We were to write it in support of a president who had no rival. Because I wanted to overcome the fear that was rooted in me, I decided to say "No," despite all the warnings from my cousin Youssef. When I told him my idea, he assured me that even if the entire people said "No," the result would indisputably be "Yes." Nevertheless, I was stubborn, and I wrote "No."

  My neighbor was responsible for the party's mas
querades in our quarter.3 Although my neighbor and I had never openly clashed, our relationship was unfriendly. She was unable to drag me into the party, and I hated the regime that brought wars and woes upon the country. I used to avoid her and strove to bite my tongue whenever I met her in the street. On celebration days, I used to leave home so that she couldnt oblige me to participate. I would take my grandmother to my aunt Umm Youssef's place in Kadhimiya until the clamor of the celebrations calmed down4

  The most important thing is that I said "No." I wrote it stubbornly, as though extinguishing the dictator's last breath. Then I left the polling center, which was decorated with portraits of him. The numerous poor were strung out in long lines. Some of them were shouting with joy, thinking they were going to get an increase in rations, as had been promised them. When I came back home, I felt better and more energetic than I ever had before, so much so that I didnt complain about my grandmother's many requests on that day. Rather, I put my head next to her hands, asking her to caress my hair as she used to do when I was a child.

  The following morning someone knocked on the door. I found myself standing toe-to-toe with my neighbor, looking at her sad, inflexible face that usually never knew smiles. On this occasion, though, she displayed a big smile that ill-suited her sharp features. She asked to come in. I showed her a deference she didn't deserve, despite already knowing why she was there. Feigning nonchalance, I asked her if she preferred tea or coffee, but she refused and immediately said, "I have no time. I'm tired. We sorted out the votes until late yesterday, and we found five ballots from our region with the word 'No."'

  I said unconcernedly, "I wonder who are the stupid ones who would dare to do such a thing?"

  She looked at me with a glance both wily and threatening and said, "It will not be difficult for us to find outthe voter's name and address are secretly printed on the voting cards. Electronic machines will find the traitors. The punishment will be stronger than they imagine."

  I don't know how I contained myself enough to reply, "Human life cannot be determined by machines; they might be wrong."

  Her cunning glance penetrated me. She spoke with a deep desire to torture me. "Although the machines cannot be wrong because they are imported from a highly developed country, experts in handwriting will also go over the names."

  She was belching between her sentences and frightening me more and more. She asked, "Are you one of them?"

  My heart sank, but I controlled my emotions. Holding tenaciously to my calm, I said, "What would push me to do such a scandalous thing?" I was avoiding her questions with other questions that pulled the danger away from me, if only for an instant.

  She replied, staring at me, "Because you stubbornly refuse to join the party and don't participate in any patriotic activity. For us, these things demonstrate a negative attitude."

  I smiled faintly. "That's not enough to accuse me. Is it possible that the one who did it is a member of the party in name only?" Not giving her the opportunity to respond, I continued questioning her. "Didn't the president say that all Iraqis are Baathist even if they are not affiliated?"

  "But, for us, all citizens are guilty until they are proven innocent."

  "Of what are they accused?"

  "Disloyalty to the leader and therefore failure to contribute to the march of the revolution."

  "Who distinguishes loyalty from disloyalty?"

  "We, the protectors of the principles, we do."

  I was furious, but I held back, saying, "So if there are secret ink and experts in handwriting, why do you waste your time with me?"

  She looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "Listen, before it is too late, confess to me, and I will see what I can do. You are a woman like me, and we are neighbors. That is the only way-after this, things will be out of my hands."

  I said with the same faint smile on my face, "I have nothing else to discuss."

  Her face was flushed. "I assert that what you declare here is not the truth. You have had a chance that might not be offered again. I fear an ill-fated end for you." She belched again and left.

  One hour later I woke up my grandmother, gathered her belongings, and told her that I had seen my mother in a dream, so I had to go to Najaf to visit her tomb. I told my grandmother she had to stay with my aunt until my return. I had believed the story about the handwriting experts and the secret ink and fearfully started making up scenarios about what was going to happen to me.

  Only Youssef knew about my fears. He was angry and kept asking, "What did you do to yourself? Didn't I warn you?" That very day he took me to his friend's house, and before twenty-four hours had passed, he had arranged a passport with a false identity for me. This was how I fled, leaving behind my belongings, my grandmother, and the beautiful memory of my past.

  I STACKED NADIA'S BOOKS on a small table, hung up the handbag, and picked up the notebook. On the first page was some poetry by George Saidah. It was written with big letters as if it were the title for what followed:

  How can you leave?

  How can I not go with you?

  I started reading what Nadia had written on the next page:

  I thank exile, for it gives me time to reorganize my papers and catch the fleeting details. I reshape them and blow the spirit into them, and here I'm starting from those forgotten days, from that womb that used to have miscarriages.

  On a long night, in a cold month in 1963, during a winter with endless rain that steeped the wretched houses, Juri was in labor. This was just one day after the lifting of the curfew after the coup d'etat of February S.

  Outside the muddy house in that nameless village, the wind was howling, and the thunder muffled the cries of the woman in labor while Mazloom alSa'idi sat with shaking fingers and dry lips, smoking a rolled cigarette. Between him and Juri there was a dying fireplace where, from time to time throughout the unbearably long night, he stirred the burning coals to life. His cigarette fell when Juri let out a cry that made him think the baby had finally slipped out.

  But the baby hadn't slipped out. Juri kept moaning and gripping the bed with her fingers, while Mazloom al-Sa'idi tried to comfort her, hoping for the morning.

  She gnashed her teeth, calling, "I can't! You have to do something lest I die!"

  The thunderstorm didn't stop. Darkness reigned heavily over the houses, the lamp hanging from the low roof of the room shaking, its light flickering.

  Mazloom put on his woolen coat, rolled his koufiya around his head, and courageously waded through the flooded streets. The wind's sounds brought desolation to his heart, and the shaking branches produced strange voices like the muttering of devils.

  It was one hour after midnight, and the darkness hid the street's features. The houses' closed doors were clothed in deep shadow. Mazloom held fast to the wet fences, and the lightning showed him where to put his feet. He entered a narrow, twisted alley and then arrived at the door of the midwife, Lami'a's door. He knocked a few times, and the echo faded in the night. He continued knocking with cold, rigid hands until he heard a rough voice asking him, "Who's there?"

  "I'm Mazloom al-Sa'idi. My wife is in labor."

  "Oh, man, you are terrible. How can you come at this time of night?"

  "People don't choose the instant of their birthyou know this."

  "But my joints won't help me. Can you wait until morning?"

  "It's not in my hands. If she could wait, I wouldn't have come."

  "It must be a girl; their delivery is hard, and their lives are even worse."

  He was deeply anxious while he held the hand of the fat midwife, who carried her leather tool bag in her other hand. He thought that perhaps God was punishing him for some offense he must have committed. Otherwise, why was his wife giving birth to a fourth female child? Although all these infants had died just a few days after their births, Mazloom al-Sa'idi was shattered every time his wife lost her baby, feeling responsible for its death because of his constant prayers to God to give him a male child. He would remain
depressed and crushed for long days. But it wouldn't take him long to ask God's forgiveness, saying, "Praise be to God. No one is praised for an affliction except him." Meanwhile, Juri remained broken, feeling that she was responsible for giving birth to female children who quickly died.

  The midwife slipped, and Mazloom was so absorbed by his memories that he would have fallen on top of her if he hadn't at the last minute grabbed onto a tree. Lamia yelled at the same time as the thunder, insulting the devils who ambushed good people every time the sky grew dark. Mazloom thought she meant him, but he ignored her. He helped her get back on her feet and carried her bag for the rest of the way; her woolen wrap was soiled with mud.

  When they entered the house, they heard Juri s screaming and choking. Lami'a said, "Heat me some water quickly," and by the light of the shaking lamp she started examining Juri and reassuring her.

  "Don't be worried. Seek the help of al-Zahra, the mother of the Hassanayn.s Don't clench."

  Although the room was cold, Juri was dripping with sweat.

  "Push. Only a little while to go. Open your legs. Don't squeeze them together. Don't worry, the baby is coming at dawn, and dawn is soon, God willing. Come on, control yourself. Push. Keep going."

  Just before five in the morning, a lump of blue flesh fell into Lamia's palms, and after a moment the yelling increased. The two small legs were twisted together, so the midwife separated them to identify the baby's sex. Juri was still moaning and gnashing her teeth. The midwife wrapped the lump of flesh while Mazloom al-Sa'idi waited tight-lipped behind the door, his heart heavy with grief.