The President's Gardens

by Muhsin al-Ramli

  Abdullah tore up the papers with the notes and threw them in the crack without even looking at them. He pushed the bag of money into Ibrahim’s hand once again.

  “And all this is for you. It’s yours, for you and your hardship. I didn’t do anything to earn it. It’s enough for me that you looked after my land and my house in my absence and kept them from wasting away through neglect.”

  “No! No, this rightfully belongs to you. I only did my duty. Besides, I have already deducted the wages for my labor.”

  “All this is for you, for the work you did. It belongs to you, and you need it more than me. The government gave us some money when we arrived, and I’ll also be collecting my pension. As you can see, I don’t have many expenses and no family to spend my money on. Take it! It came to you, and you have a greater right to it than I.”

  When Ibrahim insisted and would not take the bag, Abdullah opened it and grabbed what he thought was roughly half of the dinars, put them in his pocket, and handed the rest of the money over.

  “Fine. Then we’ll split it. Like this, without being exact. Take this at least, if only as my contribution to the cost of Umm Qisma’s treatment. But my gratitude and the debt I owe you—that can neither be measured in money nor repaid with words.”

  At that, Ibrahim wrapped Abdullah in a strong embrace where they sat, repeating words of thanks. “You are my brother, Abdullah. I’m with you in everything, now more than ever as you establish your new life.”

  “I know, Ibrahim. Don’t worry! My life is arranged just fine as it is. I don’t have any specific ideas or projects or plans.”

  “No? How come, brother? What about marriage and starting a family? What about the field?”

  “No marriage and no family. But as for the field—you continue to manage it, just as you’ve been doing.”

  “As you can see, I no longer have the strength for it. My brother takes care of that. I share in a little of the work with him, together with some of the administrative details. He complains about the heavy burden because the work in our field falls on his shoulders too.”

  “Then find me whoever you want from among the villagers to take charge of working the field, in whatever way and at whatever salary you see fit. You know more about these things than I do.”

  “But . . .”

  “Enough, Ibrahim! As far as I’m concerned, what I have is sufficient for me, as long as I can afford cigarettes and food. I don’t have desires, ambitions, or any other dreams. I have no need for anything at all. I don’t have any problems or headaches, and I don’t want any. All I want is peace. Yes, Ibrahim, just peace.”

  Before Ibrahim could make any reply, a car pulled into the courtyard and stopped nearby. Tariq got out in the full elegance of his traditional village robes. He threw his arms in the air with a joyful shout, and the scent of his cologne reached them before he did. With the sun just beginning to rise behind him, Tariq approached and greeted them, clapping Abdullah on the shoulder. “Aha!” he said to Ibrahim. “You’ve beaten me to him! Why didn’t you tell me, you bastard!”

  They cleared a space for him beside them on the rug. Tariq sat down, and after gazing at the crack nearby, he laughed with joy. “Haha! The sons of the earth crack finally reunite as a family.” He added with a wink, “And you know how I love cracks of all kinds!”

  They all laughed, and Ibrahim said affectionately, “Our befuddled friend. He still philosophizes just as he used to.”

  Tariq added, “But unfortunately, Abdullah, to this day I still only possess one crack. What do you think about all three of us searching out new cracks to refresh our beds? We’ll all get married on the same night and throw a huge wedding feast!”

  “Here’s your tea, Tariq. Have you had breakfast?”

  Tariq had turned the earlier atmosphere on its head, their newfound cheer reinforced by the delightful warmth of the morning sun and the hot tea. He put his hand on Abdullah’s shoulder and said, “Listen, I’ve brought the car so we can give you a full tour. We’ll show you the whole village—where we played as children, the river, the fields, everything. Everything!”

  For the rest of the morning until noon they traced the alleys between the houses. “This is the house of so-and-so. Do you remember him? This is a new house, belonging to so-and-so, son of so-and-so. So-and-so married so-and-so, and now they have five children. So-and-so became a widow. Her husband was killed on the last day of the war, when they announced the cease-fire with Iran, then she married so-and-so, and now they have three children. This is the house of so-and-so. His bull gored him and he died. His oldest son married so-and-so, daughter of so-and-so. This mansion belongs to Munthir, son of Hajja Wahida. He took up smuggling with the Kurds and became rich. This shop belongs to Hajji Radi. Do you remember how we used to buy our sweets, balloons, and crayons here? It hasn’t changed at all, has it? He died, God rest his soul, and now his daughter runs the shop. She’s pretty and has large breasts—would you like to see her? This is Jabar’s house, and these three beside it are the ones he built for his sons. All of them share one courtyard since he wanted to keep them under his wing.”

  They told him about many people: those who had died, who were killed, who had gotten married, who had had children, who had become rich, who had become poor. And when they went out to the land, he realized how much the village had grown and changed. They took him to the hills, the valleys, and the wells, the places where they would hunt pigeons, sand grouse, and jerboa in their youth. “This is where the Bedouin Abu Fahda would set up his tent. Do you remember him? Haha! You remember Fahda, don’t you? He hasn’t come back to the village for years—a tragedy!”

  Abdullah noticed that even the hills, the valleys, the steppes, and the wells had changed. He felt that they had become smaller than he remembered them, more decrepit, more lifeless, more ordinary. They brought him up once more through the village and went down between the fields toward the river. They greeted everyone they passed, the men and women working in the fields, the herdsmen and the children playing. They told Abdullah, “This is so-and so,” or “The son of so-and-so,” or “This is so-and-so, the wife of so-and-so, son of so-and-so,” or “That woman isn’t married.”

  Abdullah saw a skinny, bearded man with disheveled hair and a dirty robe. It seemed he was insane, sitting there with his butt on the ground, leaning against a mud wall. He scratched his head and his armpits in turn. His face was not unfamiliar to Abdullah. It was as though he knew him but couldn’t remember who he was. He asked the other two about him, but they changed the subject without reply and went on pointing at things and pouring out more information.

  “This is Daoud’s field. Last year, strange worms descended on his crop, poor man. And this is Dari’s field. Indeed, all of this is his. It’s bigger because he bought the neighboring field from Mas’ud when Mas’ud married a woman from Mosul and moved there. This is our field. Let’s get a couple of watermelons . . . Here’s your field. Do you want to get out to take a look at it?”

  “No, it’s okay. I can see it from here. Let’s go to the river now.”

  Abdullah felt a new sense of exile, for he found that everything he used to picture in his mind during the years of captivity had changed utterly. The trees, the rocks, the earth, the sky, the air—they were all different. Everything had changed, and he didn’t know what to think about the scenes he used to summon so often to his mind’s eye. Where were they? What meaning did they have now? Where had those places gone? Had he kept himself alive by imagining a reality that had no basis in reality? Those deeply rooted memories—where would they all go now?

  The answer to these questions, or at least the solution that would bring him peace, was found in his sense of futility, nihilism, meaninglessness, and the equality of all things. And what did it mean anyway? Everything seemed so strange, unreal, ephemeral. His existence and his nonexistence amounted to the same thing.

  Yet when they reached the river, he felt that the water alone was still as it had always b
een. Yes, even though the banks, the thickets, the roads, and the bluffs were different, the water was unchanged, and his heart throbbed for it in a delicious way. They stopped the car on the riverbank. The sun was in the middle of the sky, straight overhead, and Tariq suggested they swim and play with the watermelons in the water, just like they used to do on those distant afternoons when they were young. They stripped off their robes. Scars crisscrossed Abdullah’s back from floggings and beatings, and when he saw the comprehending sorrow in the eyes of Ibrahim and Tariq, he remarked, “Some of the gifts the Islamic Republic gives its guests.”

  They slowly entered the water. Soon, they were shouting happily and playing as though they were living those ancient moments again and had never grown up. The water was the same, and so were they, with their delight and their laughter. The difference was time, which flowed through them and over them, through and over everything.

  They tossed the watermelons back and forth to cool them down. “The difference is that these watermelons aren’t stolen,” Tariq said. “I don’t know why, but the stolen ones tasted better!”

  After about an hour of swimming, they climbed out onto the riverbank. They found a wide stretch of sand shaded by willow and tamarisk trees and sat on a plastic tarp Tariq brought from his car. They opened the two watermelons with blows of their fists, just as they used to do once upon a time.

  In that spot, they asked Abdullah to tell them about his years of captivity. He didn’t really want to, but he thought it was necessary, at least with his two friends, given that they had told him everything that had happened to them and to the village. Perhaps he could unburden himself of this matter once and for all. He would concisely narrate whatever he could. But only to them, and if they wanted to convey it to others, they could do so. In fact, he might send anyone who pestered him with questions their way, because he, personally, didn’t ever want to bring it to mind again.

  And so it was that he began to tell them his story, seated there around the cold watermelon on the cool, shaded sand.

  CHAPTER 9

  Guests of the Islamic Republic

  “As you know, the Iraqi army penetrated deep into Iranian territory. At the same time, the front was extremely long, and there weren’t sufficient forces to cover it all. That was one of the fatal military mistakes that cost thousands their lives. The only thing our government cared about was announcing some victory on TV, even if those victories were illusory or lacked any real value, things like reaching some mountain summit, descending into some valley, sweeping away an unknown village, or merely crossing an empty desert. The Iranians exploited those advances and surrounded Iraqi units to take huge numbers of captives, while our foolish government continued—”

  Tariq interrupted him. “Let me stop you there, Abdullah. I advise you not to speak like this! You know what I mean. We are friends here, and we have complete trust in each other, but take care not to speak like this in front of others. I only say this out of fear for you. You know what I mean.”

  Abdullah smiled bitterly. “Yes. Yes, I know what you mean. Rest assured that I have no desire to talk about anything with anybody, especially not about this.”

  “No, no, brother, go on. I only meant to warn you.”

  “Well! I used the word ‘mistake,’ but actually, every war is a mistake—no, a crime! As far as I’m concerned, existence itself is a mistake. Or at least, my existence in this world is.”

  Ibrahim and Tariq exchanged a knowing glance as Abdullah went on.

  “Anyway, we realized we were completely surrounded, with bullets and bombs raining down on us from every direction and from the sky above. We were falling one by one in rapid succession, and our ammunition had run out. We realized it was futile—suicidal—to continue the fight, as there was no doubt the only result would be our complete annihilation. So we surrendered.

  “Legions of Iranians encircled us, swooping down like ravenous lions pouncing on confused rabbits. Firing bullets into the air, into the ground, and into any of us that moved, they raced each other to be the first to lay their hands on us. They beat us and took everything we had, plundering our watches, rings, and wallets, everything in our pockets, and some of our clothes. Some of them traded their boots for the ones on our feet when they saw ours were better. We couldn’t have been more terrified, and they couldn’t have been more elated. They were celebrating, filling the air with their shouts and cursing at us in Arabic. Some of them took pleasure in kicking us, beating us with their rifle butts, spitting in our faces. I couldn’t understand how it was possible for a human being to be that happy just because another human being is terrified and trembling in his grasp. Later, I realized that the cruelty of man is more barbaric than that of any other creature.

  “They forced us to march for hours until we reached their rear lines. There were hundreds of us, though with nearly every step, our number would decrease by one. For the most trifling reasons, or even just for the fun of it, for the insane recklessness of power in the human soul, they would finish off the wounded with a merciless bullet to the head. Otherwise, they would just let them bleed to death, leaving the corpses to lie where they fell.

  “Once we arrived, we were arranged in a wide circle. They chose one of us at random and tied his arms to two cars. The cars started driving slowly in opposite directions until the man’s body burst apart. Anyone who cried out in protest had the same thing done to him. They repeated this with three or four of us, until some of us began passing out. I’ve never in my life seen such a horrific way to die.

  “They ordered us to sit down, and they came around with water for us to drink. Then their bearded general selected five of us. He ordered the driver of a bulldozer to make a trench in the middle, and they threw the five of them in the trench. Their pleas for mercy would have moved even a heart of stone. They silenced those cries by burying them alive in the dirt. My friend Behnam, a Christian doctor from Qaraqosh, burst into tears. He and I made an effort to stay close to each other throughout all this.

  “They wanted this to be a warning, to frighten us more than we already were after everything that had happened since the first shock. And of course, they succeeded. Though we were men, we were more afraid than children—terrified like rats in a flood, worse than a chicken in the jaws of a jackal. I knew deep down I was a dead man: it was only a matter of time. That’s why the humiliations, the beatings, the hunger, and the torture no longer mattered to me. I considered myself a man condemned, with an indefinite stay of execution. All the pain I endured, and each additional hour of life that I won by means of it, was only a further annoyance. None of it was real, as I saw it. The whole affair was only the nightmare of a restless night. Any moment, it would end in a deep sleep, and I would finally rest.

  “They tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us. Then they loaded us in military trucks to be transported. When they pulled the blindfolds off our eyes, we found ourselves in a city, parading down a wide street in a convoy. People were crowded on the sidewalk and looked down from balconies, windows, and rooftops. They were cheering and pelting us with rocks, empty bottles, knives, shoes, rotten eggs, bags of garbage, and whatever refuse they had at hand. Some of the truck windows broke and many of us were injured. The filth splattered us, and our blood flowed in the truck beds. Some of us were dripping blood onto the street.

  “They brought us to a military base outside the city. They offered us pieces of dry bread and a few mouthfuls of water. Then they sat us down under a large shelter with a tin roof. Up in front was a wide, raised platform, covered with carpets, chairs, banners, and microphones. After a while, a group of men mounted it. In the middle was a bearded man wearing a turban, whom we recognized as the man in charge, while the others were assistants, guards, and his entourage. We were told he was the Director General of Internal Security. He greeted us and began to address us in a calm, relaxing voice, with words of welcome and reassurance.

  “‘Welcome!’ he said. ‘Be welcome among your brother
s! We know that you were forced to fight us. We here do not consider you captives or even call you by that name. Rather, you are the guests of the Islamic Republic, and you will be treated according to the principles and morals of our glorious revolution.’

  “He went on at great length in this reassuring manner. So when he stopped and indicated that whoever had a question should ask it, one of us naively took it upon himself to raise a complaint. ‘Sir, do you know how many of us were killed without cause between the time we were taken prisoner and now? Why, when we do not treat our prisoners like that?’

  “Suddenly, the features and tone of the man in the turban changed entirely, and he began to yell furiously, his beard shaking with thundering emotion until the amplifiers screeched and whistled: ‘Silence, you insect! You dog, you unbelieving godless pig! You have a lying tongue and it deserves to be cut out!’ Without warning, guards violently picked the man up over our heads and dragged him away. We never saw him again.

  “The next morning, they transported us to Tehran in a train with the shades lowered and taped shut. They brought us to a big camp called Takhti Stadium, which originally had been a sports ground named after one of their famous boxers. There, they divided us up and put us in various large halls. They gave us each a blanket, a bowl, sandals, and a special prisoner’s uniform. Despite the size of the rooms, they were not big enough for the great number of people—a hundred or more—they put in each one.

  “There was one toilet stall in the far corner. Unfortunately, after all the pushing and shoving, Dr. Behnam and I ended up in front of the toilet door, meaning we were forced to inhale the odor of noisy farts and the nonstop splattering of shit. Sometimes in the middle of the night, people would trip over our feet as they made their way to the toilet in the dark. We clung to each other as we slept, with one of our blankets covering us and the other spread down on the ground to ward off the damp.