“See?” she says.
I’ve finished my plate, but my aunt has already brought me another. At some point, Emeril Live goes to commercial, and my aunt is assessing upcoming programming.
She nods toward the screen. “Now her,” she says with admiration, “I like. Everything she does is so nice.”
I turn my head toward the television set, but I already know who I will see. It is Martha. She is in a commercial promoting her television program Martha Bakes, standing against a robin’s egg blue background, an exquisitely decorated cake before her. My aunt is rapt with her description of what the next thirteen episodes of the program will bring.
I watch my aunt for a moment. “You know,” I say, “that woman Martha went to prison.”
She turns her attention away from Martha to me. She waits for me to explain.
“She sold stock based on a secret tip,” I divulge. I don’t even know why I am telling the story as though it’s salacious. Martha’s crimes obviously do not bother me one whit. But I nonetheless continue: “Then when the police asked her about it, she lied about it. And that’s against the law. So she had to go to jail. Can you believe that?”
I’m begging her to be disgusted with Martha. Terrible Martha. You think you like her, but wait until you hear. She should have known better, done better, but she didn’t. She had everything going for her, and then she threw it all away.
I’m leaned over the kitchen table waiting for her response. My aunt lights another cigarette and then shrugs her shoulders. “Eh,” she says. “So many people like to say the bad things other people do. We all make mistakes, do bad things. She did a bad thing. So what?”
I get up to take my plate to the sink. Then I walk over to my aunt and put my arms around her small frame, hugging her tight.
She is not expecting this. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
At first I say nothing, but then I notice she is trying to wriggle the hand with her cigarette free.
“You are just such a good person,” I say.
My aunt takes a drag from her cigarette and looks at me intently. “Jennie,” she admonishes me. “It is only for God to judge.” She adds, in Arabic, “Isn’t that true?”
“It’s true,” I tell her. She eyes me suspiciously for a moment. She knows something is up with me but does not press. Instead, she gives my cheek a big Iraqi kiss, picks up her cigarette, and resumes stuffing eggplants.
After we feast on the fruits of her labor; after my mother calls and tells me that she is certain that everything is going to work out; after I receive an e-mail from my lawyer explaining that the Giglio information will be made public only if there is a trial, I do feel better. But when I go to sleep, I realize that it isn’t my lawyer or my mother or even the delicious lunch that has put my mind at ease. It is my aunt’s mercy toward Martha, a woman whom she does not and will not know, that makes me believe that I can return to New York and face what awaits me.
My departure from Iraq is bittersweet. I’m relieved to return to a country that enjoys uninterrupted air-conditioning and political stability. But I will miss my family, and for all of its blown-out buildings and beat-up streets, Baghdad, too.
Access at the airport is restricted, so my family can’t accompany me. My aunt is worried about whether I can make it on my own. I laugh and tell her I have been to dozens of foreign airports by myself, that I will be fine.
When I arrive, the protocol appears to be more or less what it is at every other airport. I hurl my two suitcases on a luggage cart and make my way to airport security.
A security officer is scrutinizing one of my suitcases. He places it back through the X-ray machine and gestures to another official to take a look. Together they appear to be studying something they see in the bag. They decide to place it through the X-ray machine once more. They look at the screen again and nod their heads. Then they look at me.
“Open the suitcase, please.”
Mildly annoyed, I unlock the suitcase and pull the zipper. From the way they are looking at my bag, I can’t discern the offending item. Soon, however, one of the guards points to a copper jug that I purchased at an outdoor market, reminiscent of the one that resides in my childhood home, which in turn was brought by my mother from Baghdad on a trip she took three decades earlier. The man says something that I am unable to fully decipher, and I ask if he would please tell me in English.
“You cannot have this,” he says, referring to the jug. “You cannot take anything out of the country that is more than fifty years old. No. You cannot have it.”
I’m aware of this rule, enacted to stop the bleeding of Iraqi antiquities out of the country in the wake of the looting of the Museum of Iraq. But while my jug is vintage, given the provenance of my mother’s jug, it can’t possibly be more than fifty years old.
“But how do you know this is more than fifty years old?” I ask.
He doesn’t address my question. “You cannot have this.”
“But how do you know it’s fifty years old? There is nothing that makes that clear.”
He shakes his head. “No. You cannot have this.”
He still will not look me in the eye and this, combined with his staunch refusal to even discuss the matter, makes me angry. I move my head so that my eyes are in his line of sight. “Hello?” I say with not a little obnoxiousness. “Can you please explain to me how you are certain that this is more than fifty years old?”
Two other security guards appear from nowhere and join the chorus. “You cannot have this. It is more than fifty years old.”
“Yes, I understand the rule,” I say. I can hear the volume of my voice rising. “But how do you know this is more than fifty years old?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “You cannot have it.”
This entire exchange has drawn a bit of an audience. While there is another security line that is moving, a fair number of passengers seem content to stop and watch.
I hear my cell phone ring. It is my aunt, thank goodness. I pick up the phone. “Auntie,” I tell her with dramatic desperation. “They are saying I can’t take the copper jug with me.”
“What? Let me talk to them.”
I hand my cell phone to one of the guards. The guard is telling her to come back to the airport to retrieve the jug. I can hear my aunt on the other end of the line saying she will do no such thing.
The audience grows in size. The guard with my phone moves a few feet away from the security station and I walk with him so I can continue to follow what is being discussed.
After a few moments, I think to look over at my suitcase, which is lying open at the security station. A security guard, his hands ungloved, begins lifting various of my belongings in order to remove the jug from the suitcase. I’m watching it in slow motion, his bare hands wading through T-shirts and pajamas and underpants in order to root out the jug from its home.
I don’t believe what I am seeing. I run over to the suitcase and bellow, “Do not touch my things!”
Up to his elbows in my unmentionables, the man looks at me with genuine confusion.
“Put that down,” I say, pointing to his hands.
He ignores me. The audience is now the size of an off-Broadway show. As he pulls the jug from its secure place in my bag, various pieces of clothing spill onto the floor. He does not make any attempt to clean up the mess that he has made, he only walks away, my sentimental souvenir in hand.
The guard who has been speaking to my aunt hands my phone back to me. “Jennie,” my aunt says with angry resignation. “I am so sorry, but you have to give them the jug.”
“But why?”
“You just have to.”
I say nothing.
“Please, Jennie. You have to do what they say. They can really hurt you.”
“They can’t hurt me,” I say, based on nothing.
“Please, I wi
ll never forgive myself if something bad happens.” She sounds scared. It’s unclear if she is afraid of them or of me.
“But—”
“Please!”
“Okay,” I say begrudgingly. “This is such bullshit.”
I walk back over to pull my belongings together. I crouch down on the ground and pick them up off of the floor. Then I bunch these together and shove them into the gap in my suitcase where the jug once was. Just observing its absence makes me seethe.
As I am still on the floor, trying to rearrange my toiletries, a man in a suit accompanied by a member of airport security approaches me.
“I need to see your passport, please.” He holds out his hand.
“Why?”
“We need to return the jug to an address in Baghdad.”
“What?”
“You can’t just leave it at the airport. It is against policy.”
I am incredulous at the stupidity of what this man is saying. I look up from my luggage and glare at both men. “Well, it sounds like you should send the jug to the Museum of Iraq, since it’s such a precious relic.”
At first they don’t understand. When they realize that I am being sarcastic, they say, “Please, miss, your passport.”
I zip up the suitcase and place it on the luggage cart. “No,” I hear myself say.
“What do you mean?” The look of shock on the men’s faces gives me a sick sense of satisfaction that only eggs me on further.
“I mean no, I will not show you my passport.”
“You have to.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Please, miss. I need it for the paperwork.”
“Sorry,” I say. I relish parroting his words back to him. “You cannot have it.”
I expect that in the face of such open belligerence the men will be angry. Instead, their faces display confusion. I suspect they are not used to encountering someone so obstinate, so uncouth. I don’t care. I grip the handles of my luggage cart and then make my way toward airport check-in.
When I’m standing in line, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see approximately twelve men in suits surrounding me. They don’t appear to be particularly pleased.
One of the men at the front of the procession believes that my refusal to provide my passport must be based on some confusion. “Miss, we need to see your passport only to complete the paperwork. It will just take a moment.”
“No,” I say.
“You cannot say no,” he says.
“I’m not going to show you my passport.”
Various passengers who are standing in the line are pleading with me to just do what the man says. I ignore all of them. A now-familiar indignation washes over me, and reasonableness is beyond my reach. I can only see the stupidity of the rule that is being imposed and my unfettered need to break it.
The man takes out his cell phone. “If you are not going to show us your passport, we will have to take action.”
“Fine,” I say. I’m going to go to Abu Ghraib over this stupid copper jug, but I still can’t bring myself to acquiesce.
He’s still on the phone when I call over to him. “Make sure you call the U.S. Embassy as well,” I say. “You are required to advise them of any U.S. citizens that you detain.” I make this up, but it sounds like it could be real.
While I assert this with confidence, I do internally consider the possibility that he will actually follow my directive, that the U.S. Embassy will determine my criminal background and fly in Some Prosecutor to personally prosecute me.
But it doesn’t come to this. After a moment, the sea of suits disperses. There is no explanation, but the matter appears to be dropped, and I am left to proceed with check-in.
I should be relieved that my obnoxious behavior did not culminate in further action. But I am overcome with anger, incensed that I have been forced to leave behind my cultural heirloom, livid that my only memento of this city is a series of senseless dictatorial directives, irate that my family is forced to endure such nonsense every day. The fury courses through my veins, causing my whole body to shake. As I rifle through my carry-on for my antianxiety medication, as I pretend to ignore the looks of disbelief from my fellow passengers, as I consider what I’ve observed on this trip in the way of justice, I want only to personally bring down this corrupt excuse for a democracy and the overpaid hacks who service it. I long to storm the walls of the Green Zone and oust this regime in favor of one that actually respects its citizenry. I am consumed with the desire to illicitly provide the people of Iraq with the sociopolitical equivalent of Xanax.
It isn’t until later that I will look back on this incident and reflect on the fact that I have not learned anything from what I’ve done. That mere weeks after my charges are dropped, I can’t keep myself from defying rules that do not meet my personal standards. That I cannot seem to fall in line. That there may very well be something profoundly wrong with me.
CHAPTER 9
Persona Non Bra-ta
Upon my return to New York, I have reached a point in my work obligations where I must pull myself away from the Escaleras’ case as much as I can. It’s now early fall 2011. Woefully behind on my article, I frantically attempt to throw something together that will look decent enough to prospective law schools. With my impending participation in the law school job fair, I must also pull together materials for eleven tenure-track interviews I have scheduled two weeks from now.
I have not done myself any favors by pushing everything to the last minute. The week before the job fair, I am slated to present a draft of my paper to the full faculty. My intention is to compensate for its dismal state with a dynamic presentation of my findings.
I am preparing for this presentation at home when I receive a call from my lawyer. He tells me that the Escaleras have made a successful motion to sever their trials into two. David Escalera’s trial is slated to begin on Monday, the day of my presentation. Eduardo Escalera’s trial is to start two weeks later.
My lawyer confirms that Cameron will serve as the key witness in both trials. There are now two opportunities for my crimes to be made public.
“But the cases could still plead out, right?” I ask.
“I would have to think so, yes,” my lawyer says.
This is all I need to hear to get back to work. “Okay,” I say. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“But there’s one more thing,” my lawyer says.
There is always one more thing.
“David Escalera’s lawyer called me.”
“You? Why?”
“He says that he plans on subpoenaing you as a witness for the defense and wanted to know if you would appear voluntarily.”
“You mean take the stand? In open court?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
My lawyer indicates that he is not, in fact, fucking kidding me. Apparently, David Escalera’s lawyer, presumably wanting to cast doubt on Cameron’s testimony about his client, would like me to testify about what I did on Cameron’s behalf. I suspect the thought is that this would make Cameron look like shit. It, of course, would make me look like shit, too.
This is probably not a valid basis to subpoena my testimony. If they file the subpoena, my attorney says, we will move the court to ask that it be quashed.
This plan gives me little comfort. Getting into a paper war with David Escalera will only increase the likelihood of press attention. I wish I had remained in Baghdad, outside the subpoena power of the court.
I think for a moment. “Please call him back,” I say. “Tell him that if I take the stand, I will tell the jury that I think his client is guilty.”
My lawyer is silent. Usually his silence indicates to me that I have said something that possibly reflects a relative level of mental instability.
I d
on’t really care. I’m not getting on that stand. “I’m telling you right now,” I say. “If I get on that stand, I will answer every question by telling the jury that I believe David Escalera is guilty of drug conspiracy.”
I don’t know if my lawyer ever relays my manifesto. A few days later, he does call me to say that David Escalera no longer wishes to call me as a witness. Relieved, I turn back to my presentation. I’m pleased with myself, pleased with the outcome. It does not strike me that there seems to be every indication that the trial is moving forward.
MONDAY
Monday is a big day. I am driving to school. I am mentally repeating my academic presentation in my head. I am nervous. I am excited.
Today is the day of my presentation. It’s also the day that David Escalera is scheduled to go to trial. As of close of business on Friday, no plea agreement has been reached.
“Prepare yourself,” my attorney tells me on Friday. “This looks like it might be happening.”
But a wave of calm has come over me. I know I have logic on my side. For all of the posturing by the Escaleras over the past year, nothing can change the fact that (1) the vast majority of cases plead out, (2) many plead out on the eve of trial, and (3) no rational human being would risk years of his life behind bars when he can guarantee release in a matter of months.
They can’t go to trial, I decide. They simply can’t.
I look out the window. The sun so permeates my car that I must squint to see what’s ahead. I feel as though I am driving into the light.
And so, today is very important. It proclaims both the end of the Escalera saga and the beginning of my academic career. I’m standing on the precipice of a whole new life.
I look out the window and smile. It is a crisp October day. A Monday. A big day.
I’m in my office, putting some final touches on my presentation. It’s close to lunchtime. My cell phone rings, displaying the office phone number of my attorney. This is already a good sign. He is at the office, not at the courthouse, where he said he might be in order to observe testimony.
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