From Souk to Souk

by Robin Ratchford

  Suddenly, Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik filled the air, pouring at full volume from a pair of speakers near a desk where our host stood beaming. His posture and perfectly pressed grey shirt and trousers lent him a military aspect, diminished only by his artistically long silver hair. While the music blared out, I perused the posters that adorned the walls: huge photographs of writers I had never heard of sporting 1970s moustaches and faded advertisements for artistic events long past. Pointing to the upstairs, I asked one of the ageing trio hovering about if I could go up, hoping my sign language would be understood, even if English were not. He looked at me for a moment, nodded and, with a shake of a hand, indicated a doorway.

  I began exploring the various rooms that led off the square mezzanine like prison cells, peering through the arched doors to find piles of books and papers on the floor, cardboard boxes and broken chairs, all covered in a thick layer of dust: the efforts to maintain a degree of normality on the ground floor had not extended to the upper storey. Returning to the balcony, I looked over the balustrade at the space below where the policemen in their light beige trousers and dark blue polo shirts were milling around, weapons hanging limply at their sides. Ali was wandering about, adjusting the strap on his camera in between taking pictures of the atrium. Just twenty-four, he was keen to practise his limited English, often sitting next to me as our little group drove around. He took every opportunity to ask me questions and check vocabulary, mostly through improvised sign language. He saw me and grinned, before raising his dark eyebrows, shrugging his shoulders and pointing upstairs. The music changed abruptly to Beethoven’s Für Elise and a small bird, apparently trapped inside the building, flew up towards the glass roof, its chirping scarcely audible above the noise. I watched Ali as he quickly tried to photograph it and wondered what relevance the picture could have to his assignment.

  Back downstairs, Omar was talking to the man who had let us in and who was looking pensive and nodding. He saw me and beckoned me across.

  ‘Il parle français,’ he said.

  ‘Oui, oui!’ smiled our host, ever nameless.

  In the brief conversation that followed, I learnt, if the surroundings did not already make the point clear, that being an intellectual and writer in current day Iraq was not easy. Unsure what I was expected to say, I nodded sympathetically before concluding the exchange with a smile and drifting away. In the strange blue-green light one of the policemen, an improbably rakish scarf tied under his shirt collar, was reading a poster, two others were casually talking and the three old men were loitering impatiently. The piano music, the blurred strains of which had been echoing round the atrium, stopped only to be immediately replaced by blasts of the March of the Toreadors from Carmen. As if on cue, everyone headed towards the exit, the policemen once again bringing their guns into position.

  Moments later, we were back out in the hot Mesopotamian sun, the old wooden door clicking shut behind us. The writers’ union had felt like an outpost struggling to maintain the last vestiges of secular culture, especially any with a hint of the West, in a city coming increasingly under the shadow of its neighbour. One could ask whether it matters if, in the city of Sinbad, there is cultural space for the music of eighteenth-century Austrian composers, or writers who speak French, yet, as I was to find out, it is not just Hesperian culture that is being driven out of Basra, but anyone and anything that does not conform to the worldview of the extremists.

  ***

  We were sitting in a long, air-conditioned room a good half-hour drive from the Jewish quarter. Hassan and Ahmed were opposite me, ensconced in two of the heavy wooden chairs that lined the marble walls, busy looking at the Captain’s camera and the pictures he had taken earlier on. Only now did I notice that the Sergeant had not shaved today, a dense designer stubble having formed round his chubby features. Sunglasses tucked into the breast pocket of his shirt, he pointed a thick finger at the display on the camera with a comment that made his boss laugh. Hassan saw me watching and smiled with a cheeky glint in his eye. Above, a flotilla of glass chandeliers, each shaped like a three-sailed boat on a round, twinkling sea, hung from the peach-coloured ceiling. My eyes wandered to an alcove at the far end of the room where a cross made of logs was draped with a tasselled shroud. The entire symbol was a bas-relief. In parts the white plaster cerement merged seamlessly with the wall on which six olive branches had been painted protruding from the cross. On either side of the icon stood a vase of artificial roses, an arrangement of silk lilies on a low table in front completing the lifeless ternion.

  At the creaking of the door, I looked round to see a young policeman, gaunt and extremely thin, enter with a tray of tiny cans of soda and straws, standard fare for guests in Iraq, it seemed. As he smiled nervously from beneath a thin moustache, I noticed there was something wrong with his left eye, perhaps the result of an injury. I watched his delicate hands while he set the tray down on the polished wooden coffee table; the body beneath his dark blue uniform appeared so fragile I doubted he had the strength to do any real police work. We quickly finished the drinks and continued waiting, the shiny white air-conditioning units humming soporifically. Hassan and Ahmed wrapped up scrutinising the morning’s photographs and began looking round the room before finally simply staring into space.

  Eventually, the door opened again and our host arrived. Wearing a long cream thobe and a spotless white headscarf, or ghutrah, that extended below a generous waist, he walked towards us, dark eyes seeing everything. We stood up, clambering inelegantly out of our low seats. Speaking in Arabic, Omar introduced us to the man, who listened carefully and looked at us with polite interest. The thick brown beard, full cheeks and well-set figure belied his young years: he was not even thirty. The sign was given that we may sit down and, after he had carefully positioned himself in one of the chairs, Mazin Naif Rahim, local spiritual leader of the Mandaeans, began to speak. He addressed himself in Arabic to Omar while Hassan and Ahmed listened intently as, still toying with his mobile phone, the man talked about the people under his charge.

  Some consider the Mandaeans to be the true descendents of the ancient Babylonians. Archaeological evidence points to their language – a form of Aramaic known as Mandaic – being the same as the dialect spoken in the cities of the Babylonian Empire, not only Babylon itself, but also Borsippa, Nippur and Uruk, all long since abandoned. The Mandaeans’ system of astrology also resembles that practised in these once flourishing centres. It was Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century who first named them ‘the Christians of St John’ because followers of the Mandaean religion consider John the Baptist their saviour. Like all Gnostics, they shun the material world in favour of the spiritual. Not surprisingly, their main religious rite is immersion in water, which they consider a symbol of life. Rahim spoke for some time before stopping and waiting for the guide to translate. For a moment, Omar seemed to be collecting his thoughts, then he leant forward and began.

  Rahim was spiritual head of the Mandaeans in Iraq, the leader of all followers of the religion, Sheikh Sattar Jabbar al-Hulu, having moved to Australia. The Mandaeans had lived in Mesopotamia for over two thousand years, he said, mostly in the area around the Shatt al-Arab and the lower parts of the Tigris and Euphrates. Glancing at Hassan and Ahmed, he explained that, since 2003, the population of Mandaeans had dropped by over 90 percent. Many had been killed, others had fled overseas or to Kurdistan because of violent attacks, forced conversions and harassment at the hands of radical Islamists. Now, there were just some five thousand left. The Mandaeans’ traditional work as goldsmiths and silversmiths meant they were targeted by criminal gangs and militias for ransoms, especially because, as pacifists, their beliefs forbade them from carrying weapons.

  His eyes attentive beneath thick eyebrows, Rahim studied us while Omar described how it had become too dangerous and the water too polluted for the Mandaeans to carry out baptisms in Iraq’s two great rivers. Instead, they had to use a special pool inside the building. With
a gesture to the cross in the alcove, Omar explained that the drabsa, as it is known, was the symbol of the Mandaeans. Above the niche, the text inscribed in marble, he said, was taken from the ‘Treasure of God’, the Mandaeans’ sacred book, the script being in both Arabic and the unique alphabet of the Mandaean-Aramaic language.

  Rahim invited us to look at the baptism pool. We filed out of the long reception room and followed him along a passage to an area that resembled a small, half-finished spa, brightly lit by fluorescent strip lighting. Centre stage was a rectangular pool of rather murky water with steps leading into it along the length of one side and a large, very elaborate chandelier above. With an air-conditioning unit the size of a vending machine as the backdrop, the holy man stopped in front of a badly grouted wall bordering the pool and started to speak, looking at Omar and gesturing towards the opaque water. While waiting for the translation, I glanced round at the odd decor: marmoreal crazy paving, bathroom tiles, and filigree gold lamps on the walls. This was where the baptisms were carried out, began Omar, once Rahim had finished. Mandaeans believed multiple baptisms and ablutions washed away impurity from the body, and the more times they were done, the better, so the soul could pass on to the next world.

  In the far corner of the room, I noticed a cloth canopy suspended from bamboo sticks with a couple of simple wooden bench seats beneath. I picked my way over the tangle of pipes, hoses and cables that lay around to take a closer look. Between the two seats was a battered table with several large stone discs on it. Rahim followed me and, through Omar, described how this was where Mandaean wedding ceremonies took place, the bride and groom sitting on the thinly padded benches. A small olive sprig protruded rather sadly from between the bamboo and the canopy, a symbol, I imagined, to wish the young couple a peaceful life. For those who remained in the country, this felt to me like the triumph of hope over experience, the protection afforded Mandaeans appearing as effective as the flimsy construction of sticks and cloth before me. My attention drifted back to Omar, who was finishing by explaining that Mandaeans were only allowed to marry within the sect.

  After browsing the various panels of writing and pictures that adorned the walls of the strange room, it was time to thank our host and leave. As we left the building, guarded by police, I wondered how long it would be before the rather elegant interior with its polished woodwork and marble would be reduced to the same state as the once splendid merchants’ homes we had visited earlier.

  ***

  We have just been for an evening walk through town, bright shop windows lighting up otherwise tenebrous streets. Omar told our police escort we did not need them and we slipped out into the dark with only the two plain-clothes guards, Ali the photographer, and Mazen, the grey-haired driver who, spending so much time behind the wheel, was keen to stretch his legs. We walked single file along the raised pavements in front of luminescent window displays and barber shops, looking at thin children buying sweets and swarthy men being shaved. Shops here that once sold music now peddle only recordings of Koranic verses, while the liquor stores have disappeared altogether, their Christian owners gone, or murdered. Omar said he had a headache and needed to stop in a pharmacy, so we ambled on without him, confident he would catch us up. As we paused to look at rows of biscuits and chocolate bars in an open shop front, a policeman emerged from the shadows of the street, the dark blue of his uniform as camouflage in the night. Like many in this country, he bore more than a passing resemblance to its former dictator. Black eyes flashing, his tone at first seemed merely curious, his questions just meaningless noise to the non-Arabic speaker. Only as Mazen and Ali tried to field his queries did I realise that neither of the guards was with us. The policeman’s forehead wrinkled and his voice hardened with each successive question. Ali pointed to his camera and shrugged, a flow of words accompanying the gestures. As the policeman turned to the driver, the black truncheon at his waist catching the light, I asked Ali what was happening.

  ‘Is OK,’ he said, shaking his head. Ever tactile, he touched my arm in an effort to reassure me, but the look on his face had quite the opposite effect.

  Idle passers-by were solidifying into a crowd, listening attentively to the man in uniform, looking at us, starting to jostle with each other. Nobody was smiling, not even our normally jovial driver. Cigarette still in his nicotine-stained hand, he took out his simple mobile phone, hairy fingers quickly pushing buttons, while Ali now turned his attention to deflecting the questions from the gathering youths. I saw Mazen dialling again and then again, trying to reach Hassan or Ahmed. His oversized Adam’s apple rose and fell and his tongue passed over his lips. Perhaps because he had an audience, the policeman’s tone was now sounding overtly hostile. He stepped forward, eyes narrowing: it was no longer necessary to understand Arabic. The tranquillity of the morning’s boat ride suddenly seemed a world away. A microcosm of the Arab Street, it appeared, was now in front of us.

  Then, as if having received stage directions, Hassan and Ahmed appeared, one from either side, nonchalantly reassuring the policeman with picture IDs that put him back in his place. I looked around: the crowd had dissipated and instead shoppers drifted as casually as before. Lighting another cigarette, Mazen had just begun talking to the two minders when Omar arrived.

  ‘What was the problem?’ I asked, as Hassan explained our encounter to him.

  ‘He wanted to know where the security was,’ said Omar, wiping his forehead. ‘It’s not a problem.’

  We headed back in the direction of the hotel and soon found ourselves on the tree-lined corniche. In more liberal times, waiters in white jackets served cocktails at casinos here. Now, straggly bushes and uneven pavements spoke of poverty and neglect. Set back from the road, a statue, twice life-size, formed a silhouette in the dark evening air, one hand held in front. Clouds of moths and midges fluttered and floated round the dim streetlamps on either side and, in the distance, on the far bank of the Shatt al-Arab, tiny yellow lights twinkled. We approached the angular-faced giant and Omar translated the script on the square waist-high plinth beneath. It was Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, he said, a local man and Iraq’s most renowned twentieth-century poet. Ali took a photograph for his collection, the flash quickly attracting two policemen who appeared from nowhere. Omar’s papers from the Ministry and Hassan’s ID card met with confused looks, shaking heads and an insistence that we move away from the statue and not take any more pictures. Fear is never far below the surface in Iraq: fear of making the wrong decision, fear of the hierarchy, fear of thinking rather than simply obeying.

  ***

  We are in a bar a couple of hundred metres further along the corniche sitting on yellow plastic chairs, our soft drinks on the matching table in front of us. Groups of men sit a short distance away, talking, laughing, discussing and smoking as men do anywhere. The brightly lit bar, set between the road and the slow-flowing river, now black, is what passes for nightlife in post-war Basra. The air is warm and deceptively comforting as Hassan pulls out the magazine from his semi-automatic pistol before showing it me. He keeps a firm hold of the gun; I find it strangely reassuring that he trusts no-one. I look up and in the distance see the Ferris wheel, now a rainbow of colours lit up against the night sky, still turning languidly. I reflect on how Sinbad’s fictional adventures ended happily with the sailor finding great wealth through ‘fortune and fate’. Sadly, after all I have seen today, I fear that only the latter awaits the current inhabitants of this once flourishing city.

  Babylon Revisited

  I take another drag on the shisha and relish the flavour of double apple tobacco before blowing the smoke out, the scented cloud dissipating before my eyes into the warm evening air of the hotel courtyard. My gin and tonic is slipping down beautifully and, if Peter does not arrive soon, I shall have to order another. I pick up my phone from the table to check the time again: he should have been here half an hour ago. As I touch it, barely audible above the Arab lounge music, a huntsman’s horn: I have a text message. Peter
’s taxi is just arriving at the hotel; I should order him a G&T. Sucking with satisfaction on the water pipe, I look for a waiter in the rapidly fading light. They are all so polite here, so willing, so helpful, so easy on the eye. I wish they were like that at home. I ask for two large gin and tonics – Tanqueray, please – watching his manicured fingers as he taps the order into the gadget he is holding. The badge on his chest says he is called Jamil.

  No sooner has the waiter gone than Peter walks in. He sees me waving behind my veil of smoke and pads straight over. They have taken his bag up to the room, he says, flopping into one of the black faux wicker armchairs. We talk about his flight from London, the food, the delay, the taxi ride, until Jamil reappears with the drinks and sets them down on the table, together with bowls of nuts and spicy biscuits, flavours of the orient to whet our appetites. Our gins are delicious and just the thing to get us in the mood for our short holiday. I can feel the tobacco and alcohol going to my head, but the high starting to lift me into party mode is not induced by social drugs alone: it is simply from being back in Dubai, the sparkling city of hedonism where, if you are willing to suspend disbelief, you can imagine all your dreams coming true. Here is where you can experience the sensuous pleasures of the Middle East seemingly without limit, where you can indulge yourself in the delights of luxury shops and feast on your fantasies. Come to Dubai and leave behind all that guilt for, here, you can enjoy yourself without the faintest glimmer of a conscience.

  We decide to dine at the hotel and ask Jamil for the menu. As he lights the tea candle in the glass on our table, I notice two young couples entering the patio and looking round for somewhere to sit. With their dark skins and close-cropped goatees, the men, like so many here, look straight from Arab central casting. I wonder if their polo tops really are a size too small or whether their muscles are simply too big. The women might have stepped out of a fashion magazine, a little white dress next to its electric-blue twin, long hair ready for a photo shoot, pouting lips shiny with gloss, doe-like eyes noticing nobody but registering everything. Perusing the menu, Peter asks if I am going to have a starter. I say I am, while I watch the men guide their high-heeled trophies down the steps towards one of the square tables. Jamil returns to take our order. As Peter plays with his signet ring and reads out his choice, I wonder how the waiter dresses when he is not in his burgundy and white hotel uniform, what sort of place he lives in when he is not dashing round the palm-filled patio, dutifully attending to the whims and desires of the well-heeled clientele. I imagine him commuting to a tiny apartment in some distant corner of Dubai on the driverless metro system built to ferry domestic staff and other people without cars around this sprawling city. He asks what we would like to drink. We order water and a bottle of wine, a 2010 Sancerre. It is all tapped into the little gadget.