Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad

by Bee Rowlatt

  By the way, if you do not get emails from me for two months, write to my friend Maysoon. I will forward you her email. She will know what has happened to me.

  Will always love you.

  XXXXXXX May

  02.01.07

  Be careful, May

  May. I urge you to try to get another passport for Ali. And is yours still valid? There is a law centre nearby that offers confidential legal advice and I will phone them to see what they think.

  I did of course know that they killed Saddam on the festival of Eid, and I agree that it is significant. There is a video recording of his death that shows his last moments (I haven’t seen it and I don’t want to) and I think it is utterly squalid on all sides. And in this case it will not help. From the reports I have seen, it seems that although there were celebrations in some areas, people are unhappy – either because they still supported him, or because they hated him and wanted him to stand trial for so many other crimes. So apparently no one is satisfied.

  Anyway, I think it will get a lot worse just as you say, and I am so worried about you. The last part of your message made me feel quite sick; I can’t bear it. I don’t think you can stay there. I dread having to email your friend.

  Start thinking about the asylum route, May, and try to collect as much evidence as you possibly can. And I know it’s an insult to an intelligent woman, but for God’s sake, May, just stay inside and try to hide from the madmen.

  All my love

  Bee XXX

  03.01.07

  Other thoughts…

  I was just thinking, May. How come your family didn’t mind when your mum and dad married, if he was Sunni and she is Shi’ite? Was it easier back then, or was it OK as long as you were from a similar social background?

  And also, you never told me the next bit of the story, after you and Ali spent months on the phone and planned to meet but you were too afraid. Then he found you at your work, so what happened next?

  Justin and I met one rainy night in the Dog and Duck, a pub on Frith Street in Soho. It was Tuesday 8th February 2000. I was recently single and having a ball. I’d just landed a great new job; I was living in a lovely small house; I felt very attractive and excited about my life. Everything was just right. When I first met Justin (through a mutual friend) I liked him immediately because he argued with me. I love arguing and will argue about pretty much anything. So we challenged each other, and that was exciting. We carried on drinking at a few other pubs and ended up at a very late-night Soho café, drinking coffee.

  I remember that I kissed him right there in the café, quite surprising as I have never kissed anyone so quickly before. We shared a taxi home and he tried to come to my house, but he was drunk and slobbish so I said no. The next day he got my email address from the mutual friend, and we began flirty emails at work (at this time Justin was the north of England correspondent for a TV news programme so he lived up north in Leeds, but still used to come to London a lot) but it wasn’t serious. He came every weekend and we got close, but I was rather in denial and insisted to all my friends that he was NOT my boyfriend. My mum began to tease me about him and I’d get cross. I didn’t even hold his hand in public as it would compromise my independence.

  That spring I was sent to the US to work in Boston for a month and I missed him. By the summer I was gradually having to admit that I did like him, a lot. We planned a holiday in Corsica. Oh May, it was and still is the most romantic holiday I have ever had. Corsica is for us like a honeymoon (our actual honeymoon was wretched). While we were there I had a dream one night that we got married. It made me feel extremely strange and sort of electrified. Didn’t tell him about it of course.

  THEN suddenly in October my period was a bit late, so I did a pregnancy test one day at work, thinking I’d put my mind at rest. It was just before I had an editorial meeting on a conference call with my colleagues in Boston. But the test came out positive. I was in shock. Imagine me trying to say things about world politics to clever people in Boston, while my whole mind flew into a panic as I stared at the small blue line on the plastic pregnancy test!

  My first thought was to get an abortion. I’d had one before (when I was 18) and seeing as I had never once thought about babies, and didn’t even like them all that much, and my career was so important, it seemed obvious. I called Justin straight away. He was reporting on some story up in Northumberland (other end of the country) and I squeaked in a deranged voice YOU HAVE TO COME HERE NOW. I didn’t tell him why. He later said he guessed I was either pregnant or that something had happened to my mum.

  He got the next train to London and I met him off his train at King’s Cross station. I was green in the face, sick with worry, and felt somehow ready for a fight. But he was perfect; he said all the right things. He said he really wanted a baby with me, but that he would do anything to support me, whatever I chose to do. More than that, he said, ‘I will never leave you, whatever happens.’ That floored me. That’s the background he comes from. My background is different, if I think about it I had never really trusted men before.

  We didn’t say any more for a little while as that weekend we had planned to go away for my birthday. I had always wanted to see the works of Gustav Klimt in real life, and there was a big exhibition of his paintings in Vienna, so we had already booked to go. The Vienna weekend was amazing, with golden autumn leaves floating in the pale sun and Klimt’s beautiful sensual paintings. We ate posh food, walked a lot, and NOT ONCE did we mention the pregnancy. (Isn’t that weird? But remember, we’d only met just eight months before!)

  Well. We got back to London on the Monday and the following morning I went to work, and he caught the train back up to his work in Leeds. But he boarded a train that was to become famous: the Hatfield crash. The train was derailed and ripped open, four people were killed on the spot, and many more injured. Justin was there broadcasting all day (every journalist’s dream, being in the middle of a crisis) but in between the interviews he was calling me up in tears, in shock about the accident and very shaken. He was live on all channels filing throughout the day, and everyone at work kept calling me going, ‘Bee! Bee! Your boyfriend is on TV!’ (‘Yes, I KNOW!’)

  It was horrible, but at that moment I realized how deeply I loved him, and that life is fragile, precious and short. It changed my feelings about being pregnant too. It really changed me. (And now that’s Eva, who is 5½ and whose wobbly front tooth came out today in her bowl of pasta.)

  Anyway, that’s enough for today. Take care, May.

  All my love and hugs

  Bee XXX

  03.01.07

  My life

  Dearest Bee

  Thank God you wrote to me. Today I feel so depressed, I don’t know what has come over me, and hearing your beautiful story lifted my spirits.

  You reminded me in your email of an important point – my parents’ marriage. My grandmother on my mum’s side objected strongly to the issue not only because my father belonged to a different faith, but also because he came from a different background. My father belonged to a class of landowners and traders, whereas my mother belonged to a class of educated people and government employees. My grandfather was broadminded and did not object, saying that there are no real differences between the two faiths and that as long as there is affection between spouses they are bound to be happy. My father was madly in love with my mother so his family couldn’t object too much or they would have lost him (they were wise). They got married, as I was informed by my mother, in miserable circumstances and my granny refused to meet her son-in-law for six months. After that they were reconciled, and the two became best friends.

  But for me it is different. Ali’s family did not only object to my Shi’ite background. His people are extremely prejudiced, and there is a kind of tradition that almost no one dares to break. It is this: their men must marry from inside the same family or, at the very worst, from inside the same province. His cousin, for example, fell in love with a Sunni from an are
a about 30 kilometres away, and the poor woman and her children have not yet been accepted. That was about fifteen years ago.

  Though Ali’s family is well off, their behaviour is tribal, and they believe that fathers rule to the end of their lives. Mothers and sisters are over-protected (to the point of suffocation for people like me). Their women are only allowed to study and attend colleges that are for women, and they are not allowed to talk or mix with the opposite sex. On the other hand, they get as much pocket money and jewellery and other luxuries as they want. (I could never dream of living like that.)

  Apparently one of Ali’s sisters told him that even if I wasn’t a widow and much older, I would still be rejected for being an educated, free woman. She was scared I would create problems in their family as other women would want to imitate me. She is probably right. I suffered a lot at the beginning of our marriage because Ali thought that all the housework is a woman’s job. But I made it clear that I wouldn’t be a traditional wife, and I refused to do any chores at all, until the house became filthy. Finally he said, ‘Let’s do it together, love. I know you are not used to such a lifestyle.’ The same happened with the types of food he preferred – the tribal grilled fish and meat dishes with rice and a lot of fat or grease (YUK, YUK).

  I still have problems adjusting to his habits, but for now we don’t address them as it’s simply too dangerous for me to go out. He is happy at present because I am imprisoned in the house but, believe me, when the time comes to go out and meet people as I used to do, I assure you a lot of problems will crop up. It is on my mind all the time but it is too early to worry about all that now.

  Sometimes he shocks me with his views. Would you believe it if I told you that he, or rather we, don’t talk to my mother now? All because she introduced him to a person from the same region as him as ‘my son-in-law, MAY’S husband’. The mention of my name drove him crazy, and I had to spend the whole night trying to make him understand that there was nothing wrong with that. But he refused to understand, saying that the man was from a region where it was a disgrace to mention a woman’s name.

  The next day we were supposed to have gasoline brought to us (for my mother, my brother and us). I tried to talk to my mother about what had happened and ask her to be careful the next time, and she became angry. When they communicated about the gasoline they were tense and he was, I suppose, a bit stiff or rude (I don’t really know). She became mad and refused to give us our share. This made ME angry and I stopped talking to her. And that’s that.

  Oh Bee, I’m under so much pressure and I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I think of just running away, but this isn’t fair to him or to my reputation. Next time I will tell you the rest of the love story. See you then.

  Love you.

  XXXX May

  PS I think your story with Justin is fantastic.

  03.01.07

  RE: My life

  AAARGH, May. Sounds like a lot of trouble you have taken on, but I am sure that he also fell in love with you because of your intelligence and strength of character, so he has to embrace these even though they are culturally alien to him, doesn’t he? I don’t know how you cope. Are you friends with your mum again?

  Anyway, I’m in the middle of packing. We are all catching the midday train up to my mum’s today, so I have loads to do. I can’t wait; the girls adore my mum and she spoils them, so it’s a real holiday for them. It’s also lovely as she lives in a big house in nice countryside (although her two dogs are a bit smelly and my mum’s partner Dave feeds them from the table, yuk). I will call that law centre and phone you very soon.

  Bee XX

  06.01.07

  Where are you?

  Dearest Bee

  Are you OK? Did your trip to your mother’s go well? Are the girls OK?? Do drop me a line: I worry when I don’t hear from you.

  LOVE YOU ALL.

  XXXX May

  06.01.07

  Back from York

  May, don’t worry about me. You see, I’m simply indestructible (!). Quite apart from the fact that you are the one who is living in a war zone, while I’ve been having a lovely and uncomplicated time up in the Yorkshire countryside.

  The girls love it there so much. It’s possible to do almost nothing for a whole day. My mum loves birds and there are bird-feeding devices all over the place, so everywhere you look there are different kinds of wild birds fluttering about and eating up the seeds. It’s colder up north but smells much fresher and cleaner than here in London, and at night the skies are wonderful.

  I have to go because Elsa is in a whiny mood and can’t seem to be happy today. I’ve checked and it’s not her teeth but I don’t know what’s bothering her. Anyway, just wanted to let you know I’m fine. Hope you are too.

  Lots of hugs

  Bee XX

  06.01.07

  WELCOME BACK

  Dearest Bee

  Welcome back. I’m glad you enjoyed your stay with your mum. By the way, I love dogs and had one for 13 years. She was a black Hungarian Puli. Her name was Mina and she used to sleep in the same bed with us. But she didn’t eat at the table because I think it is unhealthy.

  Last night I became a nervous wreck and poor Ali didn’t know why. At first he became angry, then when he found out about my fears for the future and my disgust over the execution of S.H. and how I just couldn’t understand the brutality of the whole thing he calmed me down. He even cried and said, ‘I never thought you were so delicate in your emotions.’ It was funny really, I was treated like a 3-year-old toddler who was scared of the unknown. (Between you and me it was very nice to be a child even for one night.) HA… HA… HA.

  Back to the story. I told you that I chickened out and was scared to meet him, but that he came and saw me in the college without introducing himself. He said that he kept watching me while I was giving some directions to a student. Then he said that he came a second time, and I was in my room alone smoking and looking up something in the dictionary. Of course he never told me at the time; I only found out after we got married.

  On our first date I picked him up at a place near my home. I was surprised he recognized me, but he just said it was because my car was something different and red. Anyway we went to a café and I was so shy, as if I was a teenager going out on her first date. It was actually like that because I’ve been married for as long as I can remember. Of course I knew a lot of men, but they were just friends and colleagues, and no more.

  I couldn’t even look at him properly, and all the time I was saying to myself, ‘What am I doing here? Have I gone crazy? What about my reputation? What if someone sees me?’ etc. I didn’t even realize that he is more than six feet tall. I thought that he was short and fat.

  Our meeting lasted for four hours. He was so gentle and so nice but I had decided to call it off. He was younger than I am, and that’s that. The meeting ended and I returned home and he went back to his province. On arrival he called me, and said nice things about me that I never even thought possible. He sounded worried that I might not accept him, and we talked on the phone till dawn. The next meeting was after another two days. I kept thinking to myself ‘What is it that attracts this man, and makes him travel all the way to Baghdad despite the risks?’

  I just couldn’t believe that love was his motivator. My previous life taught me a very hard lesson about love, and I had reached the conclusion that it only existed in books and fairy tales and those naive Mills and Boon novels. Even Chaucer decided in his Canterbury Tales that all forms of love, except divine, are based on mutual interests and sexual desire. So why does this man insist on loving me???

  Time went by and our meetings became more frequent. I even took him to meet my mum, and she liked him very much but insisted that his family come and ask for my hand formally. This continued until it was too dangerous for him to come to Baghdad.

  We couldn’t see each other for four months. After that, I decided to go to Jordan to try to get a job and escape everything, but it didn
’t work out. I went again after a few months and still failed to get anything. On the way to Jordan everything diminished except his face. I called him and gave him my new number. He kept calling me regularly in Amman. I couldn’t bear being away, and missed talking to him for hours on end.

  While in Jordan the second time, I tried to phone him (I recall it was a Thursday) and he didn’t answer. I got worried and called again and again, until his brother answered and told me he was too sick to move. I don’t know what came over me; I felt as if my soul was on fire. I immediately made reservations and was on my way to Baghdad the next morning. On my arrival, he told me that he had wanted to follow me to Jordan and that his father had attacked him and broken a vase on his head. He was also denied food, and his money, which he kept in the family safe. He begged me to put an end to our misery because he could no longer stand the situation. He asked me to define my position, and said that if I really loved him I should act.

  I sat down and evaluated my life. I discovered that I was nothing but a lonely person who just wasted time by going out with friends when they needed time off from their busy family lives. I realized that all this might come to an end for any reason. As for my family, they couldn’t care less how I coped on my own. All they did was criticize my lifestyle and my friends. They were too busy with their own lives. I remembered when I needed someone to accompany me to hospital, they were too busy going to a wedding. It was only my mum who came with me.

  I told my brother and sister about Ali, and they disapproved as usual. Then I realized that I should not waste my life trying to gain their approval, or anyone’s for that matter. It is my life and if it’s good I’ll be happy, if it’s bad then no one will shoulder the responsibility but me.