A Fistful of Dust

by Nasser Hashmi

  Azaad ended the call and slid his mobile into his tracksuit bottoms.

  ‘I’ve called a man who will take you to Baghdad,’ he said. ‘I will take you to him tomorrow. Then it’s your problem.’

  ‘Good result,’ I said. ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done.’

  He picked up my suitcase and headed towards the hotel. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?’

  I shook my head and followed Azaad to the hotel. My left knee creaked and I heard it click as I took the first few steps. I took out my inhaler and smiled before wrapping my dry lips round it. I took a long, lingering breath and felt a good slab of warm air enter my lungs. I couldn’t wait to slump onto my luxurious hotel bed and sleep for a very, very long time.

  I phoned room service for supper. It had been a frustrating few hours because even the gorgeous, inviting bed couldn’t deactivate my brain to provide some sleep. I wondered if the hotel room was too grand for me: the red sofa, the giant mirror, the seductive bed, the attractive lampshades, the immaculate towels and the stylish James Gent shampoos and showers gels. There was no other explanation. I had slept about four hours a night for a week before I travelled and I had a two–hour nap on the plane, that meant I was ready for my big 10–hour marathon which usually came after a seven or ten–day insomniac–stretch. But after my seventeenth roll to the left – and an increasingly desperate count of how many lbw dismissals I’d given in my final season at Redbrook – I gave up and went to have a shower. After a bit of difficulty getting the hot water on, I came out feeling extremely sleepy and phoned down for a plate of grilled fish, a salad and a cup of tea. I couldn’t finish the food and the tea tasted sourer than ever. The liquid sloshed around in my mouth for a while as I tried to extract something, anything but it tasted more like urine than a pleasurable hot drink. It had probably started back at Edmund Street with my early morning cuppa when I noticed my sense of taste going south. No food was affected – and still wasn’t – but it was agonising to lose the sensation of a warm, sweet beverage which had been my companion for so long. I wanted to get it back one day.

  I didn’t finish the tea and lay on the bed trying, without much success, to switch the TV channels with the remote control. About half an hour passed and I knew I was in the right mode for a serious bout of sleep. But then I was startled by the sound of the phone and the remote fell out my hand. Oh Lord, I thought, have I been rumbled by Nadia? Was she here in Iraq looking for me? Yes, old man, hunched, 73, white hair, white woolly jumper, extremely pale, breathing problems, is he here? Of course, madam, he just ordered room service. Can I phone him, what’s his number? The back of my neck was sweating and I wondered if I should answer it. After the fifth ring, I got off the bed and decided to pick it up.

  ‘Hello mister, you need to be ready tomorrow,’ said Azaad, speaking extremely quickly. ‘Ibrahim will take you to Baghdad. He can’t go Friday, okay? I pick you up at 10 in the morning.’

  ‘Er, hold on there,’ I said, switching the receiver to my stronger right hand. ‘I’ve got a reservation for two nights here, why can’t he do Friday?’

  ‘More trouble on Jummah. You want more danger?’

  I hesitated and thought about the Golden Mosque back in Rochdale and how Friday was always a day of calm and compromise. Now, I imagined hordes of Muslims gathering in Lower Sheriff Street with their bombs, weapons and luxurious beards. It wasn’t true, of course, but was that the kind of thing Azaad was getting at? Was Friday in Iraq a write–off left to insurgents, American soldiers and religious zealots to battle it out on the streets? How could I have been so naïve? There was a surge going on and it was obvious that civilians, of which I was now one, had to be extremely careful. Perhaps, I didn’t think it was as dangerous as everyone said.

  ‘Look, this call is costing me lots,’ said Azaad. ‘Ibrahim is a good person. I pick you up at 10 and take you to him.’

  ‘Why can’t you come? I don’t know this…Ibrahim.’

  ‘I have two big jobs to Sulaymaniyah tomorrow. I can come next week.’

  I knew I couldn’t afford to stay in the hotel for that long; I needed to have enough money for the journey to Baghdad and beyond.

  ‘Okay, but I want to talk to this Ibrahim for a few minutes before we go…’

  ‘You’re the boss…’

  ‘Er, just one last question…’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘How did you get this number?’

  ‘Things work differently here, we know everyone…’

  Azaad had a lot of difficulty squeezing his car past the street vendors in the centre of Erbil. They were blocking his way and lined the edge of the road to sell their flat–bread, cheap DVDs and colourful second–hand gifts. I was constipated by this stage – probably as result of the succulent grilled fish – so I wasn’t as enthusiastic as the night before. But I had no option but to grin and bear it because I sensed Baghdad was close, probably about four hours away, and that meant Wasim’s world was tantalisingly within reach. Azaad finally found a small gap to park the car and we both walked towards the cramped tea hut to meet Ibrahim. He was a big man, about six four, with a moustache, no neck and a meaty, filled–out face, and was sat on a tiny red table drinking water and reading a newspaper. He greeted me warmly by almost massaging my shoulder with one hand while giving me a handshake with the other. But after that, he said little and listened to Azaad’s instructions about the trip to Baghdad. I wasn’t sure what to make of him but I sensed a restrained geniality about him because after Azaad told him about my ‘illness’ – even though he didn’t actually know what it was – he said ‘I can go and get my grandmother to come with us’. It was a nice touch and he looked like the sort of person who’d play with a straight bat. But even if he didn’t, I had enough experience of dodgy cabbies or drivers – particularly at Islamabad airport in 67 when a man tried to smuggle me into a cab and made a pass at me – that I wasn’t unduly worried. I’d gone beyond that stage. We spoke for about 20 minutes by which time Azaad said he had to go to Sulaymaniyah to drop off an American couple who were thinking about settling in Kurdistan. After Azaad had gone, Ibrahim and I walked towards his car and I was surprised because it didn’t have the four corners of orange like all the other taxis I’d seen in the town so far. Was he actually a cabbie? Had I got him wrong? I sat in the back seat of the white Toyota Corolla with the black roof and got so worked up about it that I could feel my body weakening and, inevitably, a dry cough developing once more rather than the messy mucus one I’d experienced for the flight in. Perhaps I should have been scared. Perhaps he was a kidnapper, killer or a frustrated Baath Party member looking for some revenge on a British subject? It didn’t matter now, I was in his hands.

  The interior of the car was a sparse, scruffy affair. The back of the passenger seat was ripped and I could see a bit of foam sticking out while some fluffy orange bits were clearly visible underneath the seat. The gear box had obviously been changed because the needle–like gear stick was the thinnest I’d seen. There was also an unzipped brown holdall on the back seat which had bulky, silver–foiled items bulging out of it as well as four unappealing bottles of water. But what caught my eye most was a strange cube – about the size of that Rubik monstrosity – hanging down from the rear–view mirror which changed colours and complexion by the minute. It was intriguing and dazzling. First, I could see that all the six sides were the colours of the Kurdish flag. Then it changed to America’s stars and stripes. Then it changed to the Iraqi flag. Then it changed to an all green affair with La–illaha–Mohammed–ul–rassulalah written in Arabic on all six sides. I wondered how the hell this was happening and, more importantly, why? I waited until we were on the outskirts of Erbil to put it to Ibrahim. He looked in the rear–view mirror but didn’t smile.

  ‘This many checkpoints,’ he said, taking his hands off the steering wheel for a few seconds and almost signalling a wide. ‘When we see American soldiers, we have American flag.’ He
pointed to the cube as it changed to the stars and stripes. ‘When we go near Iraqi security, we have Iraqi flag.’ The cube changed to red, white and black with tiny green writing. ‘When we go near Ansar–e–Islam boys or Al–Qaida, we have Islamic flag…’

  ‘Hold on…how are you doing that?’ I asked, moving forward to get a better look.

  He glanced over his shoulder and then gestured to his right hand which was in his right trouser pocket. I looked through the gap between the driver’s seat and window and watched him pull a remote control out of his pocket. He pressed a button and the flag on the cube changed again. He handed me the remote. ‘You want a go?’

  Lord help me, I thought, I’ve ended up in the car of a James Bond fanatic who’s probably got wings on the side of the car to take us up into paradise. I admired his innovation and courage but my enthusiasm for the cube was diminishing.

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous,’ I asked, sitting back. ‘Won’t they be suspicious if they see a remote–controlled device?’

  ‘It’s not fantasy; it’s survival. You have to be good with your hands where I come from.’

  I wanted to ask him a bit more about his background but I could feel my jaw muscles tensing up each time I tried to speak. I knew I wasn’t ready for a long conversation so I settled back and looked out of the window. The green–tinged valleys of Iraqi Kurdistan were gradually disappearing and snatches of bare, brown desert were coming into view. The grinding wheels of a Toyota pick–up truck had been behind us almost all of the way and I wanted Ibrahim to let him past – or put his foot down – because my ears were suffering. But he was content to go at about 50 miles an hour because he said ‘Pashmerga and Americans have their eyes everywhere’ which didn’t fill me with confidence. But I couldn’t see them, where were these warriors? So to divert my attention from these phantoms, I unzipped my shoulder bag and pulled out a Lata Mangeshkar cassette which Fareeda liked listening to in the evenings while rolling out the chapattis in the kitchen. I wanted to hear it so badly that I hadn’t noticed there was no cassette or CD player in the car, just a radio. It was a crushing blow. It was going to be a long journey.

  After a few minutes, however, Ibrahim started talking about his family and I managed to calm down. His languid, drawn–out delivery ate up the time. He said he lived in a remote, but beautiful, village in the mountains but developers were circling because they wanted to build a small guesthouse in the area. He was sick of the attitude of the ‘town bosses’ and said villages were being crippled because local produce was being replaced by Iranian, Syrian and Turkish goods. His family had been self–sufficient – they grew their own crops and had a tiny store which the villagers could reach on foot – but now the future was uncertain. The developers had already paid off some villagers but others weren’t prepared to go so easily. That’s why Ibrahim was going to Baghdad, he said, to meet his ‘great friend’ Gulzar, a lawyer, who helped them so much with his ‘patience and advice’. They had met by chance when Gulzar temporarily fled north after the bombing of Baghdad in 2003 and Ibrahim had picked him up in his cab outside the Citadel. It was at that point that Ibrahim stopped talking. He wouldn’t say anything else and raised his hand as if to apologise. I wanted to know more but Ibrahim didn’t speak again for the rest of the journey. The image of a Baghdad lawyer cowering outside the giant caramel fort was difficult to get out of my mind.

  4.

  I was woken by the sound of banging on the car window. An old man with a tall, ancient tea–pot and a tiny silver cup offered me a drink but I didn’t know where I was never mind feeling thirsty. I felt like I’d been asleep forever but it was clear we’d arrived because I could see a few damaged palm trees, a row of stubby army vehicles and the odd burnt–out building in amongst the proud, solemn ones. It had become a scorching afternoon with the sun now fizzing through the window making my eyes sting and my skin crumble. Ibrahim had slowed the car down, mainly because he didn’t want to run the old man over or break his arm, but the man was incredibly resourceful and kept up with us, particularly when we stopped at some non–working traffic lights or were questioned by a bored Iraqi soldier in beige t–shirt and ripped army bottoms.

  The traffic got worse as we drove along and, at one set of lights, I was sure I saw a round of bullet holes sprayed into the orange traffic light pole but thankfully, I didn’t have time to work out how the dispute might have developed. The biggest thing that struck me, however, was the lack of people milling around. Apart from the odd street seller, Iraqi security and a few young boys in t–shirts and sandals throwing stones into a ditch, there was no–one else around in the streets. Most of the people I could see were tucked safely in their cars, probably thinking the sanctuary of their own vehicle was better than taking a chance on foot. It all felt lopsided and I had a strange urge to get out of the car and disturb the bare, peaceful landscape because it was being neglected.

  But romantic notions of tiptoeing across the landscape didn’t last long. I was looking at a wonky telegraph pole, with its hanging wires almost disappearing into the small bush below, when the blast was heard. Then it was followed by a smaller one. Then it was followed by one that sounded like a firecracker. It was extremely difficult to pinpoint where the sounds were coming from; my ears had enough problems with TV sounds, kettles and doorbells never mind bombs. There was no smoke coming from any of the buildings, no screams were heard and all the cars continued sedately down the road. I wondered if anything had actually happened but Ibrahim, thankfully, confirmed I hadn’t been hearing things. He simply shook his head and pressed his remote control to change the cube to the ‘Islamic’ flag. I wasn’t sure why he did it because all I saw in front of me was an army of blue–sleeved Iraqi police in their flak jackets carrying rifles and looking extremely bored. Perhaps there was a zealot or two among them.

  Ibrahim knew I had different ideas in terms of the type of hotel I wanted to stay in because I’d told him so at the start of the journey. I wanted to try the Adam Hotel first in Sadoun Street and then the Andalus Palace Hotel or the Khayam Hotel in the same area as back–ups if there was no space at the Adam. I considered the Erbil International Hotel as a once–in–a–lifetime experience but now I wanted something less glitzy and more down to earth. Ibrahim, however, had other ideas. I thought he was taking me to the Adam Hotel but he shook his head when I repeated my request.

  ‘You have a death wish?’ he said. ‘There are high concrete security barriers in that area near Abu Nawaz market. They go on for half a mile.’

  ‘I’m old enough not to worry about those things,’ I said. ‘I just need a toilet and a mirror.’

  ‘You’ll have nothing if you go down there.’

  Perhaps Ibrahim was right. I was a stranger in this country and had no idea how dangerous it was. But in my eyes that was a good thing. It was a good thing that my condition was so corrosive I couldn’t feel anything outside my ‘sphere’. Without the internal struggle, I wouldn’t have been able to step on the plane, never mind come to Baghdad. Now I was here, I felt calm and composed. It was as though the turmoil of the city offered a comfort blanket. It was a companion, a partner in strife.

  ‘I can take you where there’s plenty of room,’ said Ibrahim.

  ‘No, no I couldn’t possibly do that,’ I said. ‘You’ve done enough for me. Just take me to the Adam and that will be fine.’ I reached for my wallet in my trouser pocket. ‘How much do I owe you anyway?’

  Ibrahim saw me taking out my wallet and raised his hand. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Put that away, old man, you owe me nothing. I’m not taking any dinars off you.’

  I put the wallet back in my pocket and sat back to relax. But as I did, I felt a scent of rubber in my nostrils and a sick feeling in my stomach. I reached into my trouser pocket and picked out my emergency sick bag (a scrunched–up carrier bag from Lidl in Spotland Road) in order to release some of the locked–down liquid from my lungs and throat. But when I bent down and launched into a mighty heave to get
rid of the sorry substance, nothing came out. All I had for my troubles was a few colourful drops of saliva, a bitter taste in my mouth and unbearable pain in my chest and stomach. Ibrahim asked me if I was okay so I lied and gave him the thumbs–up.