“On account of this too, I was eager to act in a different way toward you, my children. I had doubts, or rather, I was certain about my inability to enforce a strict upbringing like my father. At the same time, I was wary of imposing upon you an image of the divine father, as happened to me. So I was impartial, human, and friendly, as you have observed.
“I would practice with you my other half, my living, normal, human ‘I.’ Internally, though, I was and still am divided in two, Saleem. One half was content, obedient, and convinced of the holiness that my father represented, as well as committed to working now for the sake of the hereafter. The other half was suspicious, rebellious, doubtful, human, and committed to the world. It loved laughter, women, wealth, poetry, rebellion, and sin. I would practice the first in the village, in the presence of my father, and the other there in Kirkuk, at work, with foreigners, or with the Germans, to be more precise. But with you, I was eager to be neutral and to avoid letting my fierce inner struggle affect you.
“Your grandfather was a great man, Saleem. But he may have been born in the wrong era. I loved him greatly, but I wish that I had found a way to be free of his control other than by being loyal to him in every detail. At the same time, there is another half of me, which you have no doubt noticed here and consider improper. I have let go of its reins, and I don’t make excuses for it, Saleem. I have set it free from its prison that lasted so long, allowing it complete freedom and liberty until it vomits up every repression. Or until I see where it takes me.
“But don’t ever think that my first half has died, or that it has abandoned its controlling and censuring role. Instead, I’m like someone who is on a vacation or taking a break after having long practiced a certain way of life, and who will resume that way of life one day. Indeed, I find that it is the first half who sometimes continues to dominate. It is he who uses the other half for his own purposes like this. It is he who pushed me toward the fateful adventure that carried me here. He rides that bridled other half and paves the way for him, all for the sake of fulfilling his obligation, his covenant, his oath of vengeance before your august grandfather.
“I don’t know if I’ve expressed this entangled nature in my soul very well, or if I have satisfied you with my answers and this explanation of mine. Or if I have disappointed your hopes. I don’t know if I have been a good father to you or the one you wanted. Because my father, who kept me from pleasing myself, was the same one who kept me from thinking about pleasing others.
“Well, I’ll try now to sketch things out for you as they actually happened by telling you the story which brought me here. Or rather, the story of my arrival to this place.
“After your grandfather’s departure,” (he didn’t say his “death” or his “murder”) “I was in a state of the most intense conflict with myself. Your mother was the only one who realized this pain. But she continued to be just as you knew her: a magnificent woman who acted as a mother to everyone. I used to go to my father’s grave and cry over him there. I would recite the Qur’an for him to reassure him that I still had it all memorized, just as he had wanted. I would whisper to him, speaking with him, asking him questions, and feeling that he was answering me. I would confirm the covenant that I had made with him and my commitment to everything he wanted from me, especially my oath of vengeance. And would you believe that I didn’t dare look at his headstone, either? Instead, I would rub it with my hand and then kiss my palm. And when I would leave I would hear his voice calling me: ‘Listen, Noah!’ He would repeat his famous saying, and the mountain would echo it back: ‘If a dog barks at you, don’t bark at it; but if it bites you, bite it back! … bite it back! … it back! … it back! … back! … back!’
“I was away from my job in Kirkuk for more than two months. When I went, intending to offer my resignation, I learned that they had fired me for being gone so long and had appointed someone else. They gave me the rest of the money that I had earned along with a good severance payment.
“Then I went to my Kurdish friend, Kaka Azad, a man of great wealth and even greater sorrow. My relationship with him had become very strong during my years of working there, given that I used to go to his restaurant to store my belongings and confide my secrets. He would often take me to his house, where he lived alone. We would stay up late, and I would spend the night there. In the morning, he would drop me off at work in his car.
“Azad has a long and bitter story too. To make a long story short, the government had killed his family and destroyed his village. He found it utterly demolished when he returned from one of the trips that he used to take to Iran and Turkey, smuggling both goods and people. So he too swore to take revenge. He doctored his identity card and settled in Kirkuk after opening a magnificent restaurant there. He used it to find out what was going on and get close to men in power, whom he would lead on gradually until they poured out information to him about themselves and what they knew. Azad would pass this information on to the rebels in the mountains. He would also use it to plan his own schemes.
“I used to talk with Azad about everything, and our friendship deepened to the point of brotherhood. With an oath on the Qur’an, we pledged our brotherhood to each other one dawn at the prayer niche in a mosque, and we each gave our new brother a hair from our mustaches. I don’t deny that in doing so I was still imitating my father in that he took a Kurd as his brother. Do you remember? Sheikh Abd al-Shafi, the one we visited for Istabraq’s treatment.
“My brother Azad taught me much. If your grandfather nourished my blood with the essential meaning of values such as dignity, manliness, and good morals, Azad poured them into my bones like cement and taught me how to practice them with a firm heart. He taught me the rigidity of stubbornness. He would dedicate each operation he undertook to the soul of one member of his family, and when he had reached the last one, he would start over, in the same order, dedicating further operations to them. I also learned from him how to wear masks, to practice contradictory roles, and to perfectly embody different personalities to the degree that I confused myself with them.
“When I informed him of my covenant with my father, and of my oath to insert this bullet” (he took his keychain and shook the bullet in his fist) “into the anus of that fucker who was the cause of everything, Azad patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘I envy you because you know the face of your enemy. Your job is easy. You aren’t like me. I’m fighting an enormous, faceless octopus of an enemy: the men in power, in the party, in the army, and their supporters. Rest assured, you will fulfill your vow. You will also avenge your son who was killed in their war, together with the other sons of your village, one by one.’ I wished that my father could have heard us then. I wept, and we embraced.
“Afterward, we decided to relocate to Baghdad. He sold his establishment in Kirkuk, and together we opened a splendid restaurant between Saadun Street and Abu Nuwas Street. At the time, I told your mother that I was journeying to fulfill my oath, and we shared the following exchange. I said to her, ‘I have been pleased with you.’ She said to me, ‘And I, with you.’ She knew what an oath on the Qur’an meant. And she knew very well what my father had meant to me, he who had signified the same value and preeminence for her. I told her that I didn’t know how long I would be gone. I didn’t know where I would settle or where I would go. I didn’t know, while I was away, whether I would live with or marry other women, or whether I would die. If she wanted me to divorce her, I would do it. Otherwise, let her forgive me for what I might do, or what I would be forced to do, or what would happen to me.
“She cried, of course, and said, ‘Do whatever you want. I don’t want a divorce from you. Your being my husband and the father of my children is an honor for me. You are my crowning glory, and I want you to be my husband in the afterlife too.’ She remained strong in her convictions and came to understand me. She even gave me strength and resolve by encouraging me and promising that she would take my place in managing the house and the family. She would beseech God on m
y behalf in her prayers. In exchange, she asked me to spare no effort in searching for you. I promised her, and then we bid each other farewell. She offered me her gold jewelry, but I told her that I had plenty of money, some of which I gave to her.
“Then I departed, like you, one dawn long ago, and I haven’t since gotten in touch with her. What’s more, I haven’t even been concerned with my promise to ask about and search for you. That couldn’t really interest me.
“In Baghdad, our restaurant became a favorite among important officials, people of influence, and the rich. We would seduce them with our hospitality and our flattery. We acquired their friendship and facilitated their depravity. In this way, we learned much about them. At the same time, we inflicted upon them many carefully planned attacks. We gathered critical information, which Azad delivered to the rebels and the opposition. We learned that the young man I was searching for had been appointed as some kind of attaché in the Iraqi embassy in Spain. That’s how we began looking for some way to get me to him.
“Then it happened that some officials from the Ministry of Information came with a delegation of Spanish tourists to our restaurant for dinner. I met Rosa, and one thing led to another. Wait a second, Saleem! Don’t think that I used Rosa and deceived her, even though, to be honest, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do that. I’ve done much worse in the company of my brother Azad. But what happened to me was the coming together of my goal and my emotions, for I actually loved her, and she loved me. She is the only woman that I have loved and chosen by myself, for myself. As you know, your grandfather chose your mother for me, and the first time I met her was on our wedding night. My love for your mother is strong, but it isn’t the typical love between a woman and a man. How can I explain it to you? I mean, we were a very successful couple, but we weren’t passionate lovers. As for Rosa, I fell in love with her and chose her purely out of my own desire. There were many things that brought us together. And so it came about that she undertook all the arrangements for my coming here. She spoke with the Spanish embassy and the immigration office, she signed the documents and the required guarantees, and she paid the fees for everything, including the flight here.
“We settled first in Barcelona; then I persuaded her to come to Madrid and set up this business with me. But she doesn’t know anything about my other objective, which I’ve made good progress toward achieving. I’ve compiled plenty of details about when this animal comes and goes, about his house and his favorite places. And I’ve acquired the trust of two strong thugs who will help me, professionals from a Colombian gang. They’re ready to make a move any time I want. Executing my goal and fulfilling my oath is nearly accomplished. The only question is choosing the appropriate time and place. So, what do you think?”
CHAPTER 12
I certainly didn’t think anything at that moment. I just reeled from the sudden shock. My father, who clearly noticed my surprise, didn’t insist upon hearing my immediate impression, nor did he object when I changed the subject. I invited him to come out with me and pretended to focus my thoughts on resolving Rosa’s fury.
He said, “You go ahead to the club and wait for me there while I call her now. We’ll see what happens.”
I found the club’s outside door half-open. I stuck my head in and called to Fatima, whose voice came back to me: “Come on in!”
I slipped in without opening the door any further. As soon as I got down and looked around, I was taken by a second surprise of an altogether different kind, which lessened the bitterness of the earlier one with my father. The place was as clean and neat as if a team of professionals had just then installed the furnishings. In fact, Fatima had just succeeded in getting everything in order. She was putting on the finishing touches and spraying air freshener, circling around and aiming it into the corners.
She smiled and asked, “So, what do you think?”
I was able to give her, of course, my immediate opinion: “Amazing! How did you do all that? You’re my hero!”
Her smile broke into a contented laugh. She went behind the bar while asking me if I wanted something. “No,” I said. “I’m waiting for my father to come down.”
“How was he when you saw him?”
“Fine,” I said, but I was quick to change the direction of our conversation to anything else. I asked her, “How’s your hand doing?”
“Perfect. I told you it’s just a scratch. If only all our injuries were like this one!”
Then I turned to routine questions along the lines of whether she would be going home or whether she would work today. This was interrupted after a little by the sound of the door being thrown open. My father came in, vivacious and happy, spreading his arms like a stage performer and boisterously calling out: “Ta da! Fatumi! Fafy! Good morning, my dear!”
“Hi, Mr. Noah! Good morning! How are you doing?”
“I’m as strong as an ox, as you can see! Saleem and I are going to have lunch. Do you want to come with us?”
“No, thanks! I have to go home. I need some more sleep, and we have a lot of work ahead of us tonight too.”
“Listen, if you don’t want to come, you don’t have to. Just give me a call so that I can arrange something. I do especially need you to be here tonight, but you worked so hard last night and today that you deserve more of a rest.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Noah. I’ll be here for sure.”
“Fine. In that case, to pay you back, I’m also giving you Wednesday off, in addition to your usual Monday and Tuesday.”
My father patted my shoulder, saying, “All right then, let’s go, Saleem! You go now too, Fatima. We’ll see you tonight. And you can arrive late, if you want. That is, after midnight, when the party gets going. See you later!”
We went out, and he led me to the Chinese store to buy another pack of cigarettes. His mood was convivial there too, and he joked with the woman behind the counter. He kept repeating a few words in Chinese, which I understood to be a greeting, and a couple other words that may have been obscene because the woman laughed and replied, turning them back on him, “No, no! You are, you are!”
After that, we left, and he led me from one narrow street to another and through several alleyways until we arrived at a traditional Spanish restaurant, whose façade testified to its antiquity. The scent of ancient wood wafted out as soon as we went inside. My father had been calm on the way there, admiring the pleasant weather, praising Fatima and the goodness of the Chinese shopkeepers with banalities that were nothing more than attempts to fill the silence. He tossed a few coins near the head of a vagrant sleeping in one of the corners, saying, “Poor guy, he’s got AIDS.”
Nevertheless, I noticed how he resumed his exuberant manner as soon as we entered the restaurant, calling out to the waiter there and addressing him by name—“José!”—who, together with another friend, responded with a similar affability and intimacy. My father directed me toward a seat at a table in the farthest corner of the dining room, next to the window that overlooked the alley. Meanwhile, he stood with the men at the counter and explained our lunch order, jumbling the pronunciation and the sequence of the Spanish words and resorting to gestures at the menu or samples of the dishes on display.
There, in the corner illuminated by sunlight coming through the window—the clock facing us pointed to nearly four o’clock in the afternoon—we partook of our food, drink, cigarettes, and conversation slowly and deliberately.
We went back to fill in the details of what we had covered in our earlier discussion and to finish up numerous episodes. He expressed his overpowering desire to call Azad to let him know that he had found me, saying, “This would make him very happy.”
He followed that by saying, “But I can’t do that because we agreed that I would only call him when I had carried out my goal. At that time, I will call him without making any indication, implicitly or explicitly, about what I have done. Just the call by itself will mean that I have completed the task. We will simply exchange greetings, ask how thing
s are going, and talk about other, normal things. Do you know, we also agreed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca together, as soon as we are free from the tyrant’s regime. Then, we will repent before God, be purified for our sins, and pursue righteousness.
“I tried to convince my brother Azad more than once that he should marry and start a new family. He’s in a position to do that from the standpoint of health and finances. But he continued to refuse, saying that he had taken an oath upon his soul to marry and bear children only after the tyrant falls. He doesn’t want to bring other children into the world who will be subjugated by the dictator or the mere sight of his face.”
Then I told my father what I had heard and read in the news about the intention of the United States to assemble a coalition and attack Iraq if it didn’t allow inspections and the removal of weapons of mass destruction.
He exclaimed, “What weapons of mass destruction? What is there that’s more destructive than the dictator himself, who kills and drives out millions? Why don’t they just take him out and save us?”
We argued about politics after that. I rejected an attack on Iraq under any pretext, and he said that salvation from the dictator was something for which we ought to pay the highest price. I told him, quite deliberately, that Germany, for example, refused to participate in an alliance like this.
His answer surprised me: “Of course. The Germans are a great people, civilized and respectful of the laws. And a filthy affair like a dictator needs an opponent to match, such as the American president. The Americans put the dictator there, and they ought to take him away. Afterward, we’ll know how to take care of them, for it is easier to fight the thief who is a stranger than the thief from inside your own house.”
Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) Page 13