We cruised on in our little boat towards the metal pontoon bridge that spans the Shatt al-Arab – the Stream of the Arabs – the broad waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. A line of cars and minibuses, many going to or from the border with Iran just a few kilometres away, clanked and clunked their way slowly over the temporary link. The boatman, a lean figure with chestnut-coloured skin, steered a course under a gap at the side where the bridge rose to meet the riverbank. We continued across the rippling grey water, the zephyr created as we sailed ahead providing a welcome, if small, relief from the otherwise muggy air.
Eventually, we came alongside a large motor yacht moored on the right bank. In better condition it could have been the sort of boat a Russian oligarch would keep in Antibes or Monaco, but the erstwhile polar-white paintwork was now grubby, as if starting to take on the colour of the river. Around the waterline it was beginning to peel away in the humid heat, revealing dark rust below. A funnel and a fading stripe along the boat’s side, both cobalt blue, were the only concessions to colour on the sober exterior, but we knew that, inside, the vessel had been extravagantly decorated with arabesque opulence. Not a soul was to be seen on deck, the yacht’s windows a corpse’s lifeless eyes. The pitch of our small engine dropped as we slowed down before passing along the length of the dormant ship. Staring at the silent vessel, I tried to imagine how different life on board must have been in the past. Eventually, we reached the square stern where the name BASRA BREEZE was painted in large capital letters. The superyacht, previously Saddam Hussein’s floating palace, now lay silently awaiting a buyer, a dictator’s widow seeking a new husband. Captain Hassan and Sergeant Ahmed, the plain-clothes guards from the Ministry of the Interior, took photographs as eagerly as would any tourist. Omar, the forty-something guide and interpreter sitting with his arms outstretched along the sides of the boat, had obviously seen it all before. In his limited English, Hassan asked me if I liked it; I returned his smile and said I did. The joviality of the two men made it easy to slip into a false sense of security, but, behind their gum-chewing, laid-back style, I knew they were carefully watching everything around us.
The boatman revved up the engine and we moved on. With one bony hand on the tiller, he used the other to adjust the black and white chequered scarf that was balanced on his head like a loose turban. My thoughts drifted to the legendary Sinbad whom I imagined sailing along the same waterway as he set off on his adventures from Basra, his home town. In those days, it was a major centre of culture and learning that had grown out of a military encampment founded by the second caliph, Umar Ibn al Khattab, the man whose conquests spread Islam across vast swathes of the Middle East. Surely Sinbad had enjoyed a more uplifting view, I thought. In the course of his seven voyages, the intrepid seafarer encountered many perils and endured much suffering, but, in the end, he became fabulously rich. Now, ahead of us, evidence of latter-day wealth was looming into view, yet the collection of two-storey sandy-pink bunkers, their roofs as flat as the surrounding landscape, was not my idea of a palace. Weary palms, browning fronds hanging from lopsided crowns, and flowing pistachio trees softened the angular design of the low buildings, but could do little to beautify what were essentially unsightly concrete boxes covered by a veneer of rose-coloured stone. Ali, the young photographer mysteriously sent by the Ministry of Tourism to accompany us for part of the trip, lifted the weighty camera that hung on a strap round his thin neck and began snapping picture after picture. A native of Baghdad, it was his first trip to the south of the country and Basra. Although he tried not to show it, he was evidently excited and regularly asked Hassan to take a photograph of him standing in front of the historical sites and mosques we visited. His fingers, unusually elegant for a man’s, grappled with the focus while he pointed the camera towards the shore. A few figures wandered around the broad balconies and behind the rolls of barbed wire and sandbags that surrounded the abandoned residence. Here, in days gone by, Saddam and his family had surrounded themselves with dictator kitsch and enjoyed pleasures beyond the wildest dreams of those they ruled. Like the famous Saladin, he was a native of Tikrit, but, unlike the sultan who died leaving only one gold coin and forty seven pieces of silver, Saddam did not give his money to the poor. And yet for all the wealth he amassed, the former leader of Iraq who, from the terraces of this unsightly edifice, once cast his gaze over his dominions, ended up seeking refuge in a hole in the ground near his birthplace.
I took a last look at the dingy palace and then we turned round to head back. We cut a wide semi-circle in the river and sailed on past dusty fields and stony beaches strewn with litter. A group of feral dogs ran along the top of the bank that rose just a couple of metres above the shoreline. They paused to sniff at something, then trotted inland towards a mass of straggly bushes where they disappeared from view. I watched as we passed occasional buildings and huts at the edges of the fields, eerily empty, the palm trees behind them little more than silhouettes in the haze. A small sphere glowed white behind the grey cloud that covered what should have been a sunny land. As we made our way back to Basra, a narrow, wooden boat spluttered past, clouds of white smoke billowing from its stern, its wake spanning out until it gently rocked our vessel. With its yellow canvas roof and old tyres hung along its sides, it seemed like the twin of our own little craft. I looked at the handful of passengers huddled along its gunwales. The men were all in white, the women completely in black; they could have been borrowed from a human chess set. In another time perhaps: board games, such as the once popular backgammon, are now frowned upon by the increasingly religious establishment in Southern Iraq. As the buildings and trees disappeared from sight, the view became one of overwhelming greyness, as if the water and sky had given up being blue and instead sunk into some sort of cosmic depression. It was strangely appropriate for the setting and I tried to determine if the dullness created the gloom or merely reflected it. Only the river bank, a horizontal band of green topped with sandy earth broke the monotone, its edges blurred against the opaque sky.
A while later, we passed back under the pontoon bridge and headed towards our mooring place. Slowing down, we chugged past a forest of broken wooden pilings that rose from the water’s edge like rotting, black teeth. Between them lay pieces of rusting machinery, chunks of concrete and abandoned digging equipment, scattered like a child’s toys as if the city had been subjected to a visitation by a rampaging giant. Just a few paces behind this impromptu junk-yard stood a run-down fairground where a Ferris wheel was gently turning, even though most of its thirty or so brightly painted cabins were empty.
We sailed on to the mouth of the creek and the small landing stage from where we had set off. A group of young boys in grubby, ill-fitting clothes watched with curiosity as our boat drew up, the battered tyres along its side breaking the impact when we finally came to a standstill beside the quay. As we clambered out, an Iraqi family was waiting to board after us. The father, a middle-aged man whose light-blue shirt stretched over his paunch, stood in front of his wife and teenage daughter, each of whom was wrapped in a black polyester abaya. I caught a glimpse of denim touching a golden sandal and imagined the suffocating heat beneath the sticky fabric. Three small boys in Western clothing, hair cropped short, and their younger sister, no more than six or seven years old, followed closely behind. She, too, was in an abaya, her wide eyes staring out from a face surrounded by black cloth. Not for the first time in this country, I saw a child covered in a robe intended to temper the libido of any men who saw her and found myself trying to understand why she should need to wear such a thing.
We began walking towards Lion of Babylon Square, along the way passing buildings that resembled a jumble of cardboard boxes tied together by the network of cables criss-crossing between them. A few billboards advertising washing powder and telecoms brightened up the place, but men in dark suits staring out from rows of political posters were an omnipresent reminder of the fragile political situation. The faces were try
ing to look friendly, reassuring, but their only saving grace in this increasingly intolerant country was that they did not have long beards and were not wearing turbans. We made our way towards the entrance to the souk and an open-air market in front of it that had been set up between a couple of rows of parked vehicles. I could see people wandering about. From a distance, those draped in black looked like gaps in the scene before us, shapes of personae non gratae cut out of a photograph. The Iranian influence was seeping over the border like an oil slick, contaminating all it touched, covering women in black as crude clings to seabirds. The market itself was a sad display of cheap Chinese goods in flimsy boxes, with plastic toys, batteries and disposable lighters laid out on sheets placed over the uneven ground. I felt I had entered a parallel universe, a world in which the people around me were trapped, but from which I could walk away.
We headed into the souk, swapping daylight for the glow of economy bulbs. I knew Hassan and Ahmed, one in front of us and one behind, were keeping a discreet lookout for any sign of trouble as they sauntered past the stalls. The souk was a jumble of colours and textiles: polo tops, thobes, shirts and abayas filled the walls and shelves of the tiny shops from floor to ceiling and hung from the roof of the aisles between them, a dense kaleidoscope of oversized bunting. In a country where so many people have lost limbs through conflict and terrorist attacks, it was disconcerting to see legs of mannequins hanging among the pendent clothes, a thoughtless reminder of what had been so brutally taken away. Wherever the passages were wide enough, tables had been set up and covered with packets of socks, T-shirts and men’s underwear. Storeholders chatted, shoppers inspected goods, the guards kept an eye out and, of course, people stared.
As we ventured deeper into the souk, the crowds thinned out and there was more space between the little stores, providing us with glimpses of older walls. Even so, it was a far cry from the exotic markets I had seen elsewhere in the region and a world away from the Basra of Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. At the far end of the bazaar, there were a few stalls selling army and police surplus. Ahmed examined a pair of desert boots, turning them over to look at the grip, a stark contrast to his own smooth-soled, pointed shoes. Laughing, he said something to Hassan before putting them back. For a brief moment, I pondered how an entire uniform might be fun for fancy dress parties, but then, with a sense of unease, realised how simple it would be for anyone to disguise himself as a representative of the very forces of law and order that had accompanied us throughout the trip.
***
I was standing in the old Jewish quarter. The haze was starting to lift and the sun beginning to glare down on us pitilessly, as if determined to compensate for its earlier absence. With its canals and fine architecture, Basra had once been known as the Venice of the East. The narrow channel in front of me, though, bordered with one-time magnificent merchants’ houses, was now a stagnant waterway filled with garbage, its thick stench pervading the ever warmer spring air. The houses themselves, now perhaps no more than half a dozen or so, were crumbling, their beige bricks holding together as a man who feels it is too early to die clings to life. The occasional window pane or insert of tiles the colour of lapis lazuli brightened up otherwise dull façades while ornate brickwork decorations around windows and doorways recalled better times. Above me, dark wooden balconies and mashrabiyas, the bay windows typical of Arab city houses, spoke of a distant era when – relatively speaking – lives could be lived without fear. I looked at the rickety structures with sun-bleached traces of turquoise clinging to the splintering wood and their weathered slats hanging like broken wings. Once upon a time, from behind the privacy of the latticework, the houses’ inhabitants would have been able to observe the goings-on in the street below. As the residents watched the world outside, the updraft created by the sun heating the dark wood of the mashrabiya would have drawn the heat out of the adjacent rooms, in turn sucking cooler air from the cellar to provide a gentle but refreshing draft for those indoors. It was a simple but effective system and one that worked with the environment rather than against it.
A small group of policemen in flak jackets, automatic weapons at the ready, hung about guarding us while we looked at the sad remnants of what had been a thriving and wealthy area. Omar led us to one of the crumbling two-storey houses. ‘Ministry of Culture’ and ‘Basrah Museum’ (sic), said the board outside. The arched windows, reaching almost to the ground, had bars on them, but the front door, battered and dirty, stood ajar. We stepped over the stone doorsill, concave from wear, and down into the dim entrance hall, my eyes taking a moment or two to adjust. A musty smell seeped out from the shadows on either side while ahead, from between decrepit walls, sunlight pierced a gap beyond which a thin column of green was just visible. At first, I thought the building was abandoned, but, as we walked around, I gradually realised that there were desks and chairs in the dusty and decaying interior. The rooms were more like empty offices than a museum. Scattered on tiled floors were dust-covered sheets of cardboard and empty plastic water bottles. As I entered one of the rooms, a skinny black and white cat scampered away; it paused to turn and watch me for a moment and then dashed through a doorway at the far end.
I headed towards the sunlight and picked my way into what had previously been the garden. A couple of large trees were poised valiantly in a last stand; around them, three or four scraggy date palms and creepers and other plants, deprived of care, had already reverted to their wild state in an effort to survive. A lanky oleander bush that had managed to produce a few pink flowers swayed gently, and delicate notes of birdsong drifted on the warm breeze. Suddenly, the adhan began and the almost bucolic atmosphere of the overgrown garden melted away in an instant. The voice of the muezzin floated across the air from a loudspeaker, sounding unusually melodic as if being sung rather than simply called out. I turned and saw Omar, arms folded, watching me through the open windows of the wooden façade that ran the length of the first floor. I smiled and waved a hand in acknowledgement. Looking at the delicate patterns of geometric shapes cut into the panels around the window frames, I wondered how the artisans who had toiled to produce such beauty would feel if they could see the state of their labours now.
Back inside, Hassan and Ahmed were wandering around the decaying building with an air of mild curiosity and Ali was busy taking photographs. Cautiously, we made our way up the creaking stairs; I half expected them to collapse at any moment and send us crashing below in a cloud of dust. We paused on the first floor, where Omar was hovering at the end of the corridor. The light from the open windows shone past his half-silhouetted figure onto the black and white tiled floor and crumbling plaster of the wall opposite. Specks of dust floated lazily in the heat of the afternoon and for a moment an incongruous serenity seemed to descend like some invisible gossamer. A floorboard squeaked and the feeling was gone. We moved on. There were more empty offices, unswept floorboards, peeling paintwork and, above all this, mahogany-coloured ceilings bordered by gold-painted inlay and carvings. Looking at the craftsmanship, I wondered if peace and stability would ever arrive in time to save these wonderful Ottoman houses. Sadly, I felt I knew the answer. I walked over to one of the mashrabiyas and peered through the wooden slats. Down on the street, two of the policemen were enjoying a cigarette and talking. I reflected on how many of their direct colleagues might have been killed or maimed at the hands of those who have no interest in seeing a stable society here. Were these men brave, dedicated, or simply desperate for a job? As I watched them, a little girl with an ebony plait and a long raspberry-pink and blue dress scuttled past clutching a bag of crisps, undaunted by the heavy weaponry within arm’s reach.
We continued up the stairs and emerged on to the flat roof. Covered with terracotta floor tiles and bordered by a low wall, it must once have been a pleasant place to sit on a summer’s evening and watch the stars. Today, the view across the low-rise city was a patchwork of sandy-coloured bricks, breeze blocks, corrugated iron and concrete, linked by c
ables and wires. Bouquets of green protruded here and there, and lines of washing added an occasional touch of colour. An Iraqi flag wafted from a pole at the front, while the sun, no longer a veiled white disc, beat down, the polluted haze above the city no match for its full fury.
Back on the street, we crossed a small bridge that spanned the fetid canal and walked over to another dilapidated house. The double front doors, their ageing wood holding out despite obvious neglect, swung open. A tall man in his sixties appeared on the threshold and, apparently expecting us, straight away bade us enter. As we filed in, he ushered us along a short hallway to a square atrium where three elderly men were lingering. All rather short and stout, there was a distinct similarity between them. Small, rodent eyes peered out from above large noses as they watched us like children who had been told to be on their best behaviour. They nodded greetings and gave nicotine smiles before deferentially stepping back, fading away. A row of four low, black vinyl sofas, presumably reserved for dignitaries, faced a large desk at the front of the atrium. Behind them, stood half a dozen rows of chairs, their covers tattered and torn. With a sweep of a hand, a smile and a few words of Arabic, our host invited us to look around. I was not quite sure what I was supposed to be looking at, but stepped forward. The whole atrium was bathed in a bluish-green luminosity. It seemed to be coming from the sunlight reflecting off sea-green pillars that supported a mezzanine and the lapis lazuli blue of the wooden ceiling bordering the glass roof high above. Behind the desk, a white-haired man looked out from a large poster on the wall above which a banner read ‘the union of basrah writers’ (sic). In the eighth and ninth centuries, the city had been a great cultural centre where poets, men of letters and religious scholars had once thrived; one of its governors had even built a library of 15,000 books. Now, it seemed, Basra’s literary heritage was involved in the same existential struggle as its architectural.
From Souk to Souk Page 17