Baghdad: The Final Gathering

by Ahmad Ardalan

  Deena had an older brother who was about Fares’s age. In our society at that time, even as we speak but to a lesser extent, relationships were very conservative, and there were expected, conventional ways for a girl and boy to be together. Couples were supposed to go to the same college or work at the same place, and they had to have some agreement about the future, a sort of planned engagement. Regardless of that, boys were still boys and girls were still girls. With all that taken into consideration, special care had to be taken for the both of them to keep their relationship going, without their families knowing. Those daily, seemingly random meetings were the best ways for Fares to see his girl, at least for the first few years. She was only my age, three years younger than him, and while it was really just innocent teenage love, it was still very real to both of them.

  Years passed, and they remained together. Their relationship got closer and stronger as they grew, but when Fares went to college, she didn’t. Her parents’ believed that she had already done enough for her education by finishing secondary school, and that was that; they held the same old-school thinking that some sects of Iraqis held and believed she was ready for marriage instead, that her only future work would be caring for her future husband’s home and children. It was really a shame, because Deena was a very smart, driven young lady who would have done well on any path she chose.

  Her lack of further education was one of the early hurdles in them being together, as my aunt was reluctant to accept a girl without a proper education, especially since Fares was a well-educated computer engineer with a master’s degree. Deena had no college education at all, while everyone in our family had gone to one university or another. It was really quite ironic, such a contrast between two Baghdadi families who lived only a few homes away from each other. When Fares told her about his love for Deena, his mother refused to accept it, believing he deserved better. Still, despite my aunt’s objections and cautions, nothing would stand in Fares’s way of being with Deena. She had her own opinion about it, but in the end, the choice was his, and he had to decide his own path in life. Unfortunately, Deena had worse obstacles of her own to contend with, namely her father, who had other plans for his only daughter. He always wanted her to marry his best friend’s son, Dr. Mazin, a cardiologist who was eight years older than her and living in Egypt, but she refused him again and again

  Fares asked for her hand but was rejected twice. When he approached them for the second time, her father became furious and took serious action. He put their house up for sale and moved the family half an hour away from Baghdad, close to where his mother was from, hoping that Fares not being in close proximity to his daughter would help. Rather than tearing the two apart, though, that only seemed to strengthen their love. Fares once told me he would swim rivers and oceans for Deena, and I believed he truly would.

  The father threatened to cut Deena out of his Will and give all her inheritance to her brother if she followed through with being with Fares. Of course my love-struck cousin told her to forget the money, but she took it as a hit to her pride and vowed that she would get her father’s approval, one way or another.

  Months passed, then years, and many people interfered, trying to persuade the old man, but Deena’s father would not change his mind. In the end, no power in the world could convince him but his fatal sickness. When he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, he was given the grim prognosis that he had only a few months to live. Deena’s mother begged him to give their daughter his approval to marry Fares, and three weeks before he died, he reluctantly conceded.

  They waited for her father’s death anniversary to pass, and exactly a year later, they were wed in one of the most beautiful wedding ceremonies ever to take place in Baghdad. A carriage escorted the happy couple to a grand ballroom, and they were carried in on what looked like a flying carpet. The venue was absolutely magical, like an old Arabian palace, with stunning lighting and dreamy décor. Everyone enjoyed themselves, but no one was happier than Fares and Deena. That coupling was fifteen years in the making, and they were as inseparable as two turtle doves.

  Sadly, the honeymoon did not last long, and the wedded bliss came to an end all too soon. About seven months into their marriage, in July of 2000, Deena was walking home from a neighbor’s house when a speeding car lost control. The driver, a 17-year-old kid who was below the legal driving age, hit her head on with his Nissan, and Deena died on the spot. The driver also met his end that day, as no one in Iraq wore their seatbelts back then; socially speaking, anyone who did wear one was considered to be an unmanly sissy, which was quite a foolish idea indeed. This time, that cultural stigma attached to seatbelt-wearing had tragic, fatal consequences for driver and pedestrian alike.

  It was a catastrophe, to say the least, and everyone was shocked and saddened beyond belief. The pain was immense for all involved, and Fares never recovered. He took an unpaid leave from work and isolated himself from almost everyone. He holed up in his house like an agoraphobic for months, unable to do anything by cry and eat. He gained forty-five pounds in a year, and when he finally returned to work, he was like a zombie, a dead, empty man walking. Everyone tried to help, but it was no use.

  My cousin was a mentor of mine, my friend, and he meant a lot to me, so I tried to help him, but all my efforts went to waste. I visited him every ten days, with rental movies and kebabs, but it did little to no good in pulling him out of his funk.

  Today is the first time he has visited anyone else’s home since that time. I get up from my seat and approach my heartbroken cousin slowly, looking into his sad, vacant eyes. I do see a slight twinkle of hope there, but I know there is a lot of work to be done.

  He looks back at me, and his lips move in some sort of silent remark.

  I smile and consolingly rub his shoulder. There is always hope, I say to myself. As long as there is breath in our bodies, hope is the one thing we always have.

  Chapter 3: Friends

  It has always been like this. No person young or old, friend, stranger, doctor, teacher, or you name it—has ever been exempt from the banter and mocking of my three best friends and me. No matter how old we get, we still insist on picking on someone when we’re all together, and I know this will never stop.

  Each time, the unfortunate target is approached in a different manner. Sometimes, it’s done directly, face to face. Other times, we find a more indirect way to point out faults in those we know. On a quiet day, we just talk and laugh amongst ourselves, behind their backs. Of course, the easiest way is for someone to bring up a subject of conversation that will allow everyone to gang up on the poor, unsuspecting soul. Sometimes we agree to disagree, and we aren’t exactly bullies, but we’re far from being kind all the time.

  Generally, it starts when one of us gives a sign to the rest or whispers our code word, “Dragon,” to the person nearest to him; we can’t really explain why we use that word, but it just sort of stuck after the first time we used it. Once we start, we can’t stop. We pick on everything from voices to accents to looks, hair in particular. If any new friend gets close to us, that is sadly the end for him; he unknowingly invites himself in to be insulted by the preying bunch we are, all in good fun of course.

  This time, I see the three of them at the end of the table, making fun of my business mentor and partner, Mr. Shadi. Damage control is necessary, because this is a man I greatly respect. Two of them brought relatives, but the devils chose to sit very far away from them, so they can act like the kids they have always been and enjoy the party even more. Mr. Shadi, unaware of their tactics, mistakenly believes they are interested in his conversation about an article he read about the Big Bang Theory. Little does he know that the trio are having a blast by letting him go on and on, not understanding a word of what he says and asking him to repeat it again and again.

  No more, I say to myself as I reached them. “Okay, now, let’s all get up and have a drink, shall we?” I suggest, giving them a firm look that requires no interpretation a
nd giving Essam’s thick skin a pinch.

  Thankfully, this time, they oblige.

  Maybe we have grown up a bit.

  “Omar, we want to spice things up. Don’t take it too seriously, Big bang is a big deal nowadays!” Emad replies with a cheeky smile on his face. The other two make the same remarks, and each gives me a wink.

  My serious look disappears, and we all share a laugh.

  Those three are my anchors in life. We have known each other for the past twenty years. Each one of us is a rock corner of the square bond we’ve created, a bond that cannot be broken. It is not something that clicked at the beginning, and it took a few years. In fact, I was the one who delayed it.

  Aws pours himself a drink, pulls me aside, and whispers, “Rumors from the stock market today aren’t favorable. I think it is going to happen, and it is big this time”

  Aws, my oldest friend of the bunch, is the wealthiest and probably the best-looking. At the same time, I’d also consider him the most unstable. I first met him in Iraq, back in 1982, on our fourth day of school.

  After we returned from Berlin for good, my parents registered my brother and me at one of the most prominent schools in Baghdad. My parents chose that school because it had a reputation for being strict, and it offered the best education in the city. The headmistress had been in charge for more than twenty years, and she was respected and feared within her scholarly circles.

  Unlike our Berlin school, the one in Iraq required us to wear navy-blue uniforms. I felt so weird in that uniform as our mother drove us to our first day of school. I also remember being very nervous; I chewed all my fingernails up during the fifteen-minute drive. I was a new arrival, and I didn’t have any friends there at all. How will the kids treat a new boy? All of them have been together for at least five years. Am I going to fit in? What if no one likes me? What if I don’t like anyone? Those questions and more loomed in my head as my mom continued to drive.

  Our classes were color coded, and I was assigned to Primary 6, the yellow group. Primary 6 was the last grade of primary school in Iraq, and then I would be off to middle school. It was also my last year of coed classes for six years; in Iraq, middle school and high school do not mix boys and girls.

  The first few days were neither tough nor fun. I played a bit and talked with a few people, but I didn’t feel I had a true connection with anyone until Aws came to school. He was four days late in beginning the year, as he was on vacation with his parents in the States, a trip they took every year. They always left in July and returned in September. They could only afford to do so because Aws’s father owned the biggest cement factory in Iraq, and Aws was an only child, their spoiled prince.

  I believe fate brought us close, as the student who was supposed to be seated next to me was absent that day. The absent boy’s parents had called and said he would be taking a few days off, so Aws was seated there temporarily. In the end, the other student changed schools, and Aws and yours truly were classroom neighbors for the whole year.

  Because of my early studies in the international school in Berlin, I spoke English fluently, and Aws spoke fine English due to all his travels in the States. Over time, we got to know each other, and we clicked fast, almost as perfectly as a key in a lock. Within months, all teachers and classmates addressed us as an inseparable pair; it was always, “Omar and Aws” or “Aws and Omar.” Contrary to my earlier expectations, I enjoyed that year very much.

  Classes were easy, and breaks were fun. I enjoyed playing soccer and hide-and-seek with the other kids, but Aws and I most loved sitting near the old tree that stood just behind our art class. It was over twenty feet high and covered a large area with nice shade from the sun. Jido, as we used to call that tree, had to be decades old. Beneath it, we enjoyed the things we bought from the school canteen: a bottle of 7-Up for me, a Pepsi for him, and two packs of potato chips. We talked about the future and sometimes about Rana and Hana, the twin sisters we were both so fond of.

  From our very first encounter with the twins, we found them quite intriguing. I liked Rana a great deal, and Aws had a bit of a crush on Hana. As identical as they were, we could tell them apart by the way they wore their hair. Rana let hers flow to her shoulders, while Hana preferred hers short. Rana also had a bit darker complexion. The girls were assigned seats in class in the row to our left, and we often caught ourselves staring in their direction.

  We did anything and everything we could to get their attention. When our history teacher asked a question, we were the first to raise our hands to answer it. Whenever we got the answer right, the girls looked back at us and smiled. Sometimes we left notes for them, and sometimes we gave them flowers we cut from the school gardens. Aws once offered them two small teddy bears from a shop near his home.

  Sadly for us, the most Aws and I ever got from our attempts were two ten-minute walks after class, to the back of the school building, where the gardener left his bicycle sitting outside his old room.

  “Omar, we will get them next year. Don’t worry,” Aws assured me.

  “I am not worried, but it will be more difficult. They will be in different schools,” I replied.

  “We will find them, I am sure.”

  “Or maybe they will find us,” I answered back, drawing laughs from both of us.

  Just like that, the first year flew by. A few months before the end of the school year and during the first few weeks of summer, just before Aws and his family went on vacation, we met a lot in the afternoons. My mother dropped me off at his house, and his driver took me home later in the evenings.

  Aws lived in a beautiful villa in one of the best areas of Baghdad. All who lived there owned their own private businesses and were doing well. What I loved most was their swimming pool, the biggest I’d ever seen. The water was always cool and clear, and the light blue tiles were decorated with images of dolphins. We always swam first, then spent the rest of the day playing Atari in his room, which was decorated with many posters of different cartoon characters. We ate the lovely fatayer their house cook prepared, and I still remember the taste of those baked mince pies.

  Other days, we went to The Hunting Club, one of the most prestigious social clubs in Iraq, established in the mid-sixties. It included several restaurants, a bar, a beautiful wedding hall, and a great sports compound. There were two outdoor pools and one indoor one, four soccer fields, three basketball courts, around eight tennis courts, and, of course, an enormous canteen that offered anything and everything two hungry boys could imagine: chocolates, potato chips, tasty burgers, soft drinks, and alcohol for those over 18. It really was the best place for all ages.

  On weekends, our parents dropped us off there as early as ten a.m. We used to start the day by swimming, then eat lunch, swim again, play a little tennis, then end the day on the soccer field, until we were dead tired.

  Many times, my brother Ammar or my cousin Fares and their friends accompanied us, and we all had a great time. We spent half our day there, not less than eight hours. Aws and I saw the twins there several times, which was another reason we enjoyed spending such long hours there. At the end of the day, when our parents picked us up, our skin was darker from the kiss of the sun. We really couldn’t have cared less, but when the burning sensation of the sun made our nights miserable, we promised to use sunscreen the next day. That promise was never kept, so it was a case of painful déjà vu just about every day.

  When Aws left to go to the U.S. in mid-July, I stayed at my aunt’s home. The summer passed, filled with more swimming and soccer, soccer and swimming, and Atari and more soccer. Every Iraqi boy loved the game, and we were no exception.

  September rolled around, and Aws called me a week before school started. We met two hours later. He talked about his trip and all the places he visited. It all sounded exciting, but when he told me about Disneyworld, my imagination took over. In East and West Germany, I’d been to many parks, but I’d never visited a place that even remotely matched what Aws described to me. “
Omar, it is where dreams come true,” he said. “The plays, the shows, the castles, the music, the colors… It is unbelievable. Even their ice cream is different.”

  I could see the happiness in his eyes when he talked about it, and I felt my own happiness swell as well. I understood how much joy a place like that could offer to kids, and that is why I now own arguably the best arcade center and playground in Baghdad. Even better, I’m planning ahead for something more astounding! Incidents and encounters in life spark ideas, and that talk my friend and I had after he came back from his vacation was one of those inspiring moments for me. In it, I found my true calling in life.

  We also talked about Rana and Hana, but I had seen them only twice while he was gone. “They must have gone on holiday somewhere,” I told him, “but they’re still cute and have been waiting for us, I’m sure.”

  We both laughed about that, but we secretly hoped it was true.

  The first day of middle school came. Luckily, and with a little help from Aws’s influential father, he and I were in the same class. The dynamic duo was back again, but it would not be long before another would join our ranks.

  Essam, my other anchor and my longtime best friend was in our class that year as well, but he was far from being a good friend for quite a while. In fact, it took more than a year or two for that to happen, and we surely weren’t pals on the first day of middle school. In fact, that day, the two of us got in a small fight. It was a rocky start to what is still a thriving friendship.

  Essam is very white, and back then, he had thick, black hair, combed to the back. His dark, hazel eyes are small for a guy his size, and he was a bit chubby for a kid his age. He had about forty pounds on me, and he even stole a sandwich from my cousin on that first day of school. I intervened to help my cousin, and a fight started. There was a lot of grappling, until our math teacher walked by, stopped the fight, and gave us each a nice, solid slap. Looking back, I know I was lucky that day; Essam is a big fellow, and even I wouldn’t have bet on me. What I didn’t know then that I know now is that the brute also has a big heart of pure gold.