Escape from Saddam

by Lewis Alsamari

  The taxi could not simply travel west to the Jordanian border: the Iraqi border guards would quickly have seen that the passports were fake. Instead the route took my mother, brother, and sister north, through my father’s hometown of Samarra, past Tikrit, and into Mosul. From there they entered Kurdistan. The Kurds had a separate administration, but this was still officially Iraqi territory, and there was a heavy checkpoint at this stage. Without the help of the Kurdish smuggler, the fake passports would not have got them through; but he had some of the border guards in his pocket. A few wads of notes from the William Hill money placed into the hands of these corrupt officials soon bought them passage into Kurdistan. From there they continued north into Turkey, before doing an about-face and heading south through Syria and into Jordan. The border guards in those countries had no way of telling that the passports were fake, so they passed through, if not without suspicion, then at least without hindrance.

  By now the British government had issued me a document allowing me to travel abroad, and while my family was making their circuitous journey around the Middle East, I had business to attend to. I had had success traveling from Jordan to the UK by way of Malaysia, so I decided that this was the route I would arrange for them. However, they needed false passports, because the fake Iraqi ones they had would be no good. I had nobody like Abu Firas to help me arrange things, so I had to do it all myself.

  A friend of mine, a member of the Iraqi community in Leeds at the time, had been smuggled from Jordan to the UK by way of Romania by an Iraqi people-smuggler—an Alsamari called Radwaan—in Romania. That was a difficult route, so it seemed clear that the smuggler in question was skilled and influential. Radwaan and I spoke at length on the phone, not once or twice but many times as we both tried to get the measure of each other. He was persuading himself that I was serious and not simply a time-waster or, even worse, someone trying to set him up. I wanted to be sure that this faceless voice at the end of a telephone line could do what he claimed in return for the many thousands of pounds I was going to have to pay him. Eventually, the rapport between us became more comfortable, and we reached the stage where we could talk plainly about what it was I wanted. I asked him directly if he could provide passports for my family.

  “Of course,” he replied smoothly.

  “What’s available? What can you give them that will get them from Jordan and then in and out of Malaysia?”

  “It’s limited,” he told me. “Spanish is your best bet. Or Israeli.”

  “And are they original passports? Foolproof, I mean.”

  “Of course they are.” He didn’t sound offended that I had asked the question. “You can check them out before you buy, if you like. Just go to Germany, and see my brother. He’ll show you what you’ll be getting for your money—nobody will be able to tell the difference between the passports we supply and the real thing. You won’t have any trouble at all.”

  Something about Radwaan’s manner filled me with confidence. He had the quiet, easygoing attitude that had first recommended Abu Firas to me, and he wasn’t pushy, didn’t try to give me the hard sell. But I had only one shot at this, and he could hear the indecision in my voice. “Go and see my brother,” he insisted. “He is the one you’ll have to give the money to. Then make your decision.”

  The brother was living in Mannheim with his Romanian wife and small child. My travel document wasn’t officially recognized in Germany, but I decided that I would risk it anyway. Sure enough, I got off the plane and presented my document at passport control, and as soon as the officer saw the words “Great Britain” at the top, I was waved through. The contrast between the power of that slip of paper and the passports I had used in the past was almost shocking. I went to stay at the brother’s house and spent hours talking to him, once more getting the measure of the man as I had done with Radwaan. Finally, after several hours of wary and then friendly conversation, he pulled out some sample passports. They were Spanish, and to my eye they looked perfect. The final product, I was assured, would have my family’s real names marked inside, along with the photographs that they had sent me. I smiled inwardly: these were as good, if not better, than the fake UAE passport Abu Firas had arranged for me. But still, they were going to cost thousands of pounds each—money I was still reluctant to pass on to these people, no matter how sweetly they spoke.

  “How will you want the money?” I asked him.

  “Cash,” he said shortly. “In person. Here.”

  “I can’t transfer it from London?”

  “No.” He shook his head firmly before smiling sympathetically at me. “You are still worried?”

  “It’s a lot of money for me,” I told him honestly. “If this does not work, my family will be stuck. I’m not rich.”

  “I understand. Perhaps you should go to Bucharest, speak to Radwaan. It’s good to know exactly who you are dealing with.”

  And so I did. From Germany I flew to Romania, again without the necessary visa. When I arrived at passport control, it became clear that my entry into the country would not be as simple as it was in Germany. As a stern official examined my document, though, I heard a voice above the hubbub: “Alsamari! Where is Alsamari?”

  I held up my hand, and a rather overweight woman jogged, red-faced, toward us. “You’re here to see Radwaan?” she asked.

  I nodded, and she spoke a few words out of earshot to the official, who immediately stamped my document and allowed me to board my flight to Bucharest. Clearly Radwaan was a man of more influence than I had expected.

  He picked me up at the airport, a jolly man whose friendly demeanor belied a serious, businesslike attitude toward his chosen profession. We went to his house, and he showed me some more sample Spanish passports. “These are the best,” he told me. “Original. You can’t get better than this. No one will raise an eyebrow at them. And, if you don’t like the finished product…”

  I looked at him expectantly.

  “You don’t pay for them. It’s as simple as that.”

  Finally I was convinced. I had the recommendation of my friend in London, I had seen the kind of influence this man had over passport officials, and he wasn’t even asking for the money up front. I went to my bag and handed him the thick sheaf of passport photographs my family had sent me. He smiled. “I don’t need as many as that,” he said before selecting a few of each member of the family and handing the rest back to me. Then he drove me back to the airport.

  Once more, as I was passing through passport control, my travel document aroused suspicion. A monster of an official, a huge man with square shoulders and a tiny square head—he looked like Frankenstein’s monster—surrounded by three or four much smaller men, spoke to me in broken English with a thick Romanian accent.

  “Do you have anything dangerous in your bag, like bombs, or weapons, or gases—anything like that?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you flying to?”

  “London.”

  “You’re British. You have British passport.”

  I handed him my travel document. “Yes,” I said confidently.

  One of his eyebrows shot up. “This is not a British passport. Open your bags.”

  Reluctantly I unzipped my hand luggage and gave it to him. It took less than a few seconds for him to pull out the wad of photographs that I was carrying. He looked at them silently; then he looked around at his friends. They all grinned, a nasty expression that made it perfectly clear they knew what was going on. He let me squirm for a few moments without taking his eyes off me before he spoke again.

  “Who have you come to see in Romania?” he asked slowly.

  “I came to see my friend.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Radwaan.”

  Immediately I saw the light of recognition in his eyes. “Ah.” He smiled. “Radwaan.” He turned around to look at his friends. “He’s come to see Radwaan!” he told them loudly, and they all started to nod their heads knowingly.

  It wa
s clear that they knew who Radwaan was, and what he did. It was equally clear that Radwaan had them in his pockets.

  “Okay,” he said finally, packing the photographs back into my bag. “Off you go.”

  As soon as I returned to England, I collected the money I needed and flew back out to Mannheim to deliver it. A week later I went back to Germany to collect the passports. They were immaculate, just as I had been told they would be. All the while, I was illegal in Germany. If I had been caught with these things in my pocket, I would have been locked up; but such thoughts were far from my mind. I can honestly say that I didn’t even give the danger of my situation a second thought.

  By the time I had all the documents in order, my mother, brother, and sister had arrived safely in Amman. I had no desire to delay things, as I was half expecting the police to knock on my door at any time on account of the William Hill money, but I allowed myself a few days to cobble together any supporting evidence of my family’s identity—ID cards, student cards, and the like—before booking my flight to Amman.

  But before I did anything else, I had to speak to Rachel.

  She knew I was desperate to see my family. How could she not? It had been Rachel who had comforted me in the dark days since my family had been dragged into prison, and Rachel who had put up with my prolonged absences as, unbeknownst to her, I risked my liberty to obtain the Spanish passports. She had lived with my increasing distraction and panic; and at night, when my fears were increased tenfold, she had soothed me with her quiet, understanding embrace. Now I had to tell her that I was about to do the one thing that I had hoped would never be my lot: return to the Middle East, where I would be illegal, and embark upon a series of events that could result in my family’s deportation back to what awaited them in Iraq, and to my own imprisonment.

  “I can’t pretend it’s not dangerous,” I told her. “I can’t pretend there’s not a risk that I won’t come back.”

  Rachel looked into my eyes. Any intuition I had that this would be a tearful moment was instantly dispelled as she stared at me with such immeasurable determination that I was momentarily taken aback. “What?” I asked, afraid for a minute that she was going to try to persuade me to back out of everything.

  “I’m not going to let you do this by yourself.”

  It took a moment before it dawned on me what she was saying, but as it did so I shook my head. “No way…” I started to tell her.

  But she was adamant. “You don’t have to do this by yourself,” she insisted. “I’m a British citizen. I can travel wherever I like. You might need help at any stage of your journey, and if so I want to be there.”

  I continued to object, but she gently put her finger against my lips. “I’m coming with you, Lewis,” she told me. “And that’s the end of it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  GOING BACK

  When Rachel gave me a farewell embrace before my departure to Amman, the plan was this: She would not accompany me to Jordan. Instead I would travel alone, hoping that my inability to get a Jordanian visa would not hamper my entry. After all, I had been waved through in Germany, and I knew there was a possibility that I could just pay a fee if I was stopped at the border. Once in Amman, I would meet with my family and buy them two sets of tickets to Malaysia, one set in their Kurdish names on the fake Iraqi passports that would enable them to leave Amman, and one set in the names printed on their fake Spanish passports that would allow them to enter Kuala Lumpur. I booked myself on the flight to Kuala Lumpur, which was to make a stop in Abu Dhabi. That was where we were to meet Rachel, who had flown from London to Abu Dhabi and also was booked on the flight to Kuala Lumpur. Although she was insistent on coming, I could not tell her the details of my plan because I did not want her to be a party to the risks I was taking. I felt sick lying to her, but it was, I calculated, the only way to keep her safe.

  It was complicated and finely tuned, but I figured that I had done it once before, so I could do it again.

  Miraculously, I entered Jordan without any difficulty whatsoever. Again, one look at the words “Great Britain” afforded me politeness and expedited my passage in such a way that I would have thought impossible a few years previously. I paid a sum equivalent to ten pounds for my visa and was ushered into the country, all the while mindful of the treatment I had received when I last tried to leave. As I walked into the main arrivals area, it was buzzing with people. I scanned the crowds, trying to spot my family, and for a moment I felt a curious tingle of dread, as I thought they were not there. But then I saw them. They were standing in a far corner of the concourse, huddled closely together and looking around nervously, concern etched on their faces, ignored by all around them and emanating an aura that seemed to beg everyone not to pay them any attention. Never did three people look so uncomfortable and out of place, and only then, I think, did the full impact of what they had been through finally sink in. Having seen them before they saw me, I almost tripped up over myself as I hurried over in their direction, but I gradually slowed down as their faces became more distinct. They looked haggard and drained. The way their clothes hung from their bodies spoke loudly of their malnourishment, and you would have been forgiven for thinking, from the black circles around their eyes, that they had been fighting. They looked as if they hadn’t slept in weeks. It cut me to the quick to see them in that state.

  And then they saw me. As one, their faces broke into smiles that only seemed to emphasize the pitiful state they were in, but I couldn’t help smiling back: it was so wonderful to see them. Silently we hugged, oblivious to the crowds around us, our bodies absorbing the sensation of one another’s presence as though we were thirsty and drinking deeply from a cup of cool water. There were smiles and there were tears, and I remember thinking that even if everything went wrong from now on, it would be worth it just for that first moment of reunion.

  The smell of their clothes reminded me of Iraq, and other things too seemed somehow to speak to me of a difference between us, a gulf that had emerged in the time I had been in the West. As we walked away, the three of them stayed close together, their eyes darting around nervously just as they would have done if they knew they were doing something illicit on the streets of Baghdad. I wanted to tell them to look more confident, but then I remembered how I too had felt when I first arrived in Amman, how I had run from shadows and had wanted nothing more than to blend into the background. They spoke to me humbly, almost diffidently, and of matters that seemed to me to be somehow simplistic. Occasionally I caught my brother and sister looking at me with undisguised awe—a flattering yet painful experience. I suppose that in some way it made me feel superior: I had so much to teach them about the life that, inshallah, awaited them in the UK. But then I forced myself to remember the realities of what they had undergone in prison and since, and I reminded myself that there was in them both strength and worldliness that comfortable Westerners with their Nintendo machines and expensive Reebok sneakers could never know. So I fell in beside them, listening to the minutiae of their conversation as we left the airport.

  How many times I had pictured this meeting in my mind’s eye. Now that it had arrived I realized I was unprepared for how beautiful yet horrible an event it would be.

  We went straight to my hotel, where I debriefed them about the plan. “As soon as you leave Jordan,” I told them, “you are Spanish citizens. You need to be able to hold your head up high and tell people that. Rachel will meet us in Abu Dhabi. Whatever you do, you can’t let anyone think that you don’t believe your own story.”

  They nodded diffidently at me, and I secretly wondered whether they would be up to the task ahead of them. But they had come this far, through Turkey and Syria, so I had to trust them.

  Four days remained until our flight to Kuala Lumpur. Ever since I’d known I would be in Amman with my family, I had been looking forward to showing them around, taking them to my old haunts, and I did this. But somehow the place seemed shabbier to my eyes than it had the last time—so far r
emoved from the new me that I felt I was giving my family a guided tour of someone else’s life. We saw the company building where I had worked, the gym, and the road where I had lived, but none of them seemed to hold much meaning for me anymore. I pictured myself walking down the street with Shireen, besotted by her, and I couldn’t help but smile at my own naïveté. I’d come a long way since then.

  My family and I ate together in restaurants I knew—more because I wanted to ensure that they started eating proper food than out of any misplaced sense of nostalgia—but the rest of the time was spent in preparation for our journey. I took my mum and my sister to a hair salon to have their hair straightened and blow-dried in a Western style, and I bought Western clothes for them all, along with electronic gadgets for my brother, such as a personal stereo and state-of-the-art headphones. I knew that presentation would be crucial to our success: they could have the most convincing passports in the world, but if they looked like poor Iraqi refugees, they wouldn’t fool anyone.

  We waited. We went over the plan. We didn’t talk about what would happen if we failed, because it didn’t bear thinking about. We waited some more. Then the day for our departure arrived.

  I didn’t expect any problems leaving Amman, and I was right: we sailed through passport control with hardly a glance and took our seats on the flight to Abu Dhabi, which passed without incident. And, as we had arranged, Rachel was waiting for us there in the transit lounge. If ever there was a sight for sore eyes, Rachel was it: she embraced my mother as though she was her own and instantly won over my brother and sister. I hugged her too, but we didn’t say much. There wasn’t much to say: we both knew what she was risking by traveling with us. In the transit lounge we showered, Rachel took my mum to have her hair done again, and we waited some more. I grew increasingly agitated because the more I saw Rachel with my family, the more it became clear to me that you can’t just put new clothes on people and expect them to change who they are. Rachel had an aura about her, a confidence that my family lacked. Of course they did: they’d had it beaten out of them.