Sisters in War

by Christina Asquith

  WHEN SHE FINALLY followed Umar to the doors, she was stopped by an arriving SUV. A serious-looking band of muscular Western men jumped out and jogged past, in tight T-shirts and bulletproof vests, wearing bulky black wristwatches. Guns were strapped to their sides. She wondered who they were, but was soon distracted as she almost tripped up the steps entering the palace. The ceilings soared high above her, and the marble floor shimmered before her like an endless ocean. Chandeliers lit the hallways, and a few silk-upholstered chairs with carved wooden armrests sat in front of large murals.

  “Look how he lived while we suffered,” she said softly.

  Umar was laughing. “This is all fake,” he said. “The gold is paint; the chandeliers are glass. The man had no taste!”

  Umar found a circle of Iraqi friends, also waiting for the Americans to interview them for jobs. They were all dressed in short-sleeved work shirts and with mustaches, and were there to provide the foreigners with whatever they needed: translators, cleaners, photocopies, food, drivers. When Zia heard the fees they intended to charge, she was stunned. Hundreds of dollars! But this was a pittance to the rich Americans, they assured her. Standing amid the luxury, they mocked Saddam and his family. “Saddam is hiding and we are standing in his palace!”

  “That son of a bitch,” another said. “He didn’t know his father and was trying to compensate for that by building these giant palaces.”

  It was one of her first days out in the city since the invasion, and Zia quickly looked around them to see if anyone was listening. She was normally quite outspoken herself, but not about Saddam. This kind of talk made her nervous, particularly given where they were. Maybe the palace was bugged, or Saddam would use black magic to hear them and find them. A lifetime of fear was not easily overcome.

  After an hour of waiting with the men, she summoned her courage and wandered off to explore the palace. She didn’t think anyone would mind, or even notice her—surprisingly, they didn’t seem concerned about security of any sort.

  The Americans had been in the palace about a month, and the place was messy. Empty plastic water bottles littered the floor, and she wrinkled her nose at the stench of sweat, leftover food, and disinfectant. In addition to the soldiers, she saw American civilians for the first time. They wore white shirts, khaki vests with lots of pockets, and baseball caps. Many looked to be in their fifties, with shadows of beards, haggard looks, and patches of sweat on their shirts.

  She explored deeper down the labyrinth of hallways, discovering bedrooms, private offices, and kitchens, although most rooms were empty of treasures, probably cleared away by looters. A ballroom had been converted into a sleeping space with hundreds of bunk beds. With a small Kodak camera her uncle had sent her from Jordan, Zia snapped photos to show Baba, Mamina, and Nunu the floors and the ceilings, the murals and even the palace bathrooms, which had Western toilets, with real brass fixtures, instead of Turkish-style ceramic bowls on the floor. She imagined Saddam walking these same halls. Zia pressed on through the massive palace, driven by curiosity but terrified of what she might find.

  When she got back to the group, Umar hadn’t noticed she’d been gone. She told him how nervous it made her that they were all just standing like this in Saddam’s palace, but he laughed again.

  Don’t be afraid, Umar reassured her. Saddam is halas, finished.

  But I have been afraid my entire life, she thought.

  THOUGH SHE HADN’T been given a job on the first trip, with Baba’s permission Zia returned again with Umar to the palace the next day. Umar eventually found the captain he was looking for, and they signed the laundry contract. When Zia finished translating, the captain turned to her.

  “Your English is perfect. Do you want a job here?”

  Zia felt her heart soar as she nodded. He scribbled down a name, Captain Michaels, on a piece of yellow sticky paper, and told her to go find him at the rotunda. When she got there, she saw dozens of Iraqis standing around waiting to be interviewed by one soldier, who was sitting on a plastic chair and using another plastic chair as his desk. After a few minutes, Zia lost her nerve and left. He’s busy, she thought. She convinced Baba to allow her to return to the palace over the next few days with Umar, and tried again. Finally, she caught Captain Michaels during a slow moment and approached him. In his rumpled fatigues, he looked up at her with a bemused expression.

  Zia could guess why. She had felt pangs of self-consciousness that morning, and, suspecting the Americans held stereotypes about “dirty” Arabs, she had countered that in the extreme: wearing a white pantsuit with a short-sleeved jacket, a crisp green shirt, and polished white shoes, with her hair blow-dried several inches above her head. She had piled on her gold rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, and wore thick eyeliner and eye shadow and dark lipstick. As she hobbled in high heels past the barbed wire and across cracked sidewalks into the palace that morning, the sweaty, unshowered Americans turned to stare at the movie star in their midst.

  The soldier looked back at his papers. He took her résumé, which had a small passport photo clipped to the upper right corner. Pleasantries were brief.

  “Are you a Ba’athist?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “What about your father? Was he a Ba’athist?”

  Zia was taken aback. “No,” she said, emphatically.

  Then he smiled. Zia couldn’t help but notice he was tall and handsome, with tanned skin, black hair, and big arms. He wore a platinum wedding ring, and under the plastic laminate that held his badge, he had put a photo of a woman.

  “You’re way too pretty to work for the military,” he said. “You belong in an office with air-conditioning and a desk. I’m sending your application over to the civilian side.”

  “Okay,” she said, elated at the thought of actually landing a real job with the Americans.

  As Zia returned home that day, the setting sun cast rays of orange and pink across the sky as the taxi crossed the Jumhuriya Bridge spanning the Tigris River. Below her, rickety wooden boats ferried passengers across the black water. Green reeds undulated along the river’s edge. Seagulls flapped and squawked overhead. Looking out the window, she felt that everything suddenly seemed brighter, and she could see from the faces of people in the street that she was not alone—people laughed and smiled and their attitudes toward one another seemed open and welcoming. For the first time in years, her future looked bright, and her fears of Saddam were forgotten. Maybe I will rise to become a diplomat and work in the palace, she imagined. Or maybe I will marry a foreigner, and serve as the Iraqi ambassador to his country, she thought, giggling to herself. Anything felt possible.

  A few days later, she explained her new life enthusiastically in an email to an uncle in Jordan. “Saddam’s palace is now a magical place. You can say what you want and take the job that you want. Life is difficult. We have no electricity yet, and no clean water. The security is not good. But people are happy. I am happy.”

  WHEN ZIA RETURNED home from the palace around seven p.m., Nunu was still sitting cross-legged in front of the television in the same bathrobe she had had on when Zia left that morning.

  “Nunu!”

  “I’m addicted!” Nunu laughed, cuddling the remote control. “TV is my new best friend.”

  Baba had recently joined the throngs of families buying satellite dishes, piping in hundreds of channels. Baba preferred CNN, Al Jazeera, and the BBC, but Nunu’s favorites were American sitcoms and talk shows.

  As Zia’s world opened up, and she found her way out of the house and into a job, Nunu’s life seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. The lack of a strong police force meant the streets were too dangerous for a nineteen-year-old to move around in freely; and while university classes had resumed, they were sporadic, due to traffic jams, lack of electricity, and general chaos. Nunu had whined about the restrictions until she discovered Oprah. Now, every evening on MBC 4 she got her daily dose, and her big sister knew better than to stand in the
way.

  Nunu loved the new flood of information and excitement from the world at large. After ten years of UN sanctions that kept Iraqis in isolation, satellite dishes, Internet cafés, cellphones, political magazines, and newspapers all blossomed across Iraq, seemingly overnight. Under Saddam, Zia’s family had only two television channels, controlled by the Ministry of Information. Foreign news had been banned. Although they occasionally showed pirated Hollywood movies from the 1980s, most broadcasts had been of Saddam’s speeches, parades, ceremonies, and government sessions, which Nunu had always found either boring or terrifying.

  By contrast, everything about Oprah’s show enthralled Nunu, even when the topic was entirely disconnected from her Baghdad living room. She loved to watch the episodes about women with credit card debt, Hollywood celebrities trying to get pregnant, fashion faux pas, and the dizzying array of fad diets. The idea that these were the problems American women faced! Each episode focused on women’s issues from some angle, and was infused with positive messages and encouragement. What Nunu loved most were the personal survival stories, like when Oprah brought on women who had been molested or had suffered under an abusive spouse. In Iraqi culture, problems such as rape or sexual abuse were taboo, because the shame for the crime rested with the woman. Nunu was fascinated by the idea that not only did American women also suffer from these problems, but that they would confess them in front of an audience. And Oprah opened her heart to them. She asked questions and told them it wasn’t their fault, and to be strong. Such emotional sharing was unheard of, in Nunu’s experience. Each episode was part entertainment, part inspiration, and part therapy. American television was always so uplifting, and it motivated her to write in her journal, a secret pastime that even Zia and Mamina didn’t know about.

  “Oprah always says ‘follow your dream,’ ” she had written once. “In my society, girls are not supposed to have dreams. But I do have them. Probably they are dreams that the American girls would think are silly. I dream of being a good housewife who would obey her husband and keep the house tidy. I dream of having children and a rose garden.”

  Lately, Nunu was always writing about what Oprah said. She came back to certain sayings: “If you want a positive life, you need to think positively and act positively. Don’t compare yourself to others, because what one person has may not be destined for you.” Nunu filled her journal with such emotional missives. “We are human, from flesh and blood, so it’s okay if we cry and hurt.” Nunu loved that one. Iraqi society could be harsh, she felt, and women’s emotions were usually dismissed and denigrated by men. Feelings were shared among mothers, daughters, and sisters, but were never to be aired publicly. Oprah said that women’s feelings mattered—so much so that she gave them a platform on television. Nunu felt she was slowly learning the vocabulary with which to express herself and that she was becoming aware that she had some right to do so. The kind of encouragement that Oprah gave was unheard of in Iraqi society.

  As her sister walked in, she looked up from the television with a smile. While Zia was outside the house, learning about the broader world through work and career, Nunu was receiving no less of an education by having that world beamed into her living room.

  “Oprah wants to be the mother of all people,” she told Zia.

  “Nunu, come,” Mamina was saying, as she set a steaming platter of dolma—rice and ground meat wrapped in grape leaves—on the table. Nunu reluctantly turned off the television.

  She moped at the table, explaining that one of her favorite series had ended. “I miss them,” she said about the actors. “I feel like they were my friends and now they are gone.”

  Zia laughed at Nunu as she glanced longingly toward the television.

  “Nunu, you should do something else, like read books. Watching television all the time is not good for you.”

  “Yes, it’s true,” Nunu said. “There was a report that says television weakens the mind and reduces the human’s ability to concentrate.” Then she paused. “I heard about it on television!”

  Everyone laughed. Nunu held out her hand to give Zia a high five. Baba reached across the table for bread, and Mamina heaped spoonfuls of dolma onto everyone’s plate.

  While Nunu ate, Zia filled the room with chatter about the Americans she had seen and met that day. “They have women in the military,” she told Nunu. “I saw one sitting on a tank with a gun. No one says to them, ‘You should be at home doing housework.’ ”

  Plus, Captain Michaels was so much kinder than other bosses she’d known. “He didn’t shout and he dealt with his workers humanely,” Zia added.

  Mamina beamed proudly as her daughters laughed and told their stories. Their futures at last were looking brighter and brighter. After all these years of struggle, her girls were going to be able to reach for their dreams again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  INSIDE BAGHDAD’S CONVENTION center, Manal was watching bedlam break loose at a meeting of Iraqi women organized by the U.S. military.

  A few Iraqi women, in flowery pink headscarves and high heels, sat patiently in the front. But a much larger group in black headscarves, black cloaks, and black gloves sat with their arms folded, glaring hostilely at the soldiers. They had arrived with a list of complaints, and the long lines at the three security checkpoints outside the convention center only added to their fury.

  “Where are the policemen?” a middle-aged woman shouted, her face flushed with anger. “My daughters can’t even go outside.” Women complained that their husbands were unemployed, their children’s schools were closed, and the crime, looting, and gangs in the streets were dangerously out of control.

  “We haven’t had any electricity since Saddam fell months ago!”

  Standing in the front of the room, looking uncomfortable, was Sergeant Jody Lautenschlager, a petite soldier with long dark hair and baby fat around her cheeks. She looked about nineteen years old. Lautenschlager had organized the meeting ostensibly to reach out to Iraqi women. Manal knew her as a Civil Affairs officer detailed to work in the Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center (HACC) and to handle Iraqis with “immediate needs.”

  “Okay, we do have a number of financial grants from the U.S. State Department that will be available for Iraqi women to boost female participation in the private sector,” Sergeant Lautenschlager told the crowd.

  Silence descended as the translator spoke in Arabic. Then, quickly, the shouting began again.

  “We don’t care about women in business. Our husbands need jobs! When will salaries start again for the men?”

  As the room dissolved into shouting, Sergeant Lautenschlager looked helplessly around for support. Sorry, sister, Manal thought. She wasn’t going to bail her out. Most of the Americans working on women’s issues inside the palace were Bush Republicans, and they had consistently refused to associate with Manal because she had protested the war. Indeed, the only reason Manal had attended this meeting was to keep an open mind. She wanted to do what was best for Iraqi women, and perhaps there was a chance the military had some good programs. Instead, though, the meeting was confirming her worst expectations. Despite the promises made to liberate Iraqi women during Bush’s campaign for war, little had happened since. Sergeant Lautenschlager’s program had been one of the first times Manal had heard the U.S. authorities mention women’s rights since the war began, and clearly the program was ill-conceived and these soldiers—however well-intentioned—were unprepared and inexperienced. Did the U.S. Army really believe a few business grants would buy them off?

  The celebratory mood toward Americans had begun to nose-dive over the broiling hot summer months since Manal had arrived, as unabated violence and looting continued, and basic services such as police surveillance, water, and electricity, and reliable government salaries, hadn’t returned. One local women’s group was claiming to have documented four hundred cases of women who had been raped in Baghdad in the months since the war began. Human Rights Watch (HRW), a well-respected New York age
ncy, verified twenty-five cases of sexual violence against women. They found that, in the chaos of war, there were no police to protect these women, no hospitals to treat them, and no judicial system to bring the perpetrators to account. Many victims didn’t even go to the hospital after they were raped. The social stigma against rape victims was strong, and there was little point—the hospital equipment had all been looted. Manal’s limited exposure to the Americans in Saddam’s palace, thus far, revealed they had no clue what was going on in the streets. Either that or they genuinely didn’t care, because they were just in Iraq for the oil or to play out some democracy fantasy cooked up by the Bush administration, Manal thought angrily to herself.

  The meeting was getting nasty. In the front row, several well-heeled Iraqi women with coiffed hair and manicured nails collected their briefcases and stormed out. Their seats quickly filled with old women in black abayas showing only their eyes, nose, and mouth, and small blue tribal tattoos on their rough hands. A few women clutched framed black-and-white photographs of male relatives who had disappeared under Saddam. Others waved more recent photographs of men they claimed the Americans had detained without reason, leaving no information about their whereabouts. “We will starve without my husband,” one woman cried. These women were livid, jabbing the air with their fingers, their faces bright red, some crying openly and cursing the Americans in Arabic.