by Natalie Hart
“So how’s it all going?” Kate asks. “I hope the thing with the medic didn’t cause too many issues. Trust Olivia to put her foot in it!”
“I wasn’t exactly happy,” I say. “But it’s fine now. At least I think it is. Adam’s not been very talkative the past couple of days.”
After we got back from our biking trip there was a shift in him. He became quieter.
“Oh, he’s one of those?” Kate says knowingly, wiping away the carroty trail of drool that was escaping down Noah’s chin. “Dave used to be like that too. He’d just completely check out weeks before he went away.”
“And now?” I ask.
“He got better after this little guy came along. I told him that if he was going to ignore our son then he needn’t bother coming home. That seemed to do the trick!”
“Good to know,” I laugh, partly at Kate’s brazenness and partly with relief that even someone as experienced as Kate found this part difficult too. “Although I’m not sure I’m ready to have a baby to sort things out.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that,” she replies with a wink. “Are you sure you’re okay though? You do look a bit, I don’t know, distracted.”
She’s right of course, but I cannot tell her that I had another one of the dreams last night. It was a market attack this time, like the one that killed Ameena’s family. I cannot tell Kate that I dreamt of a shopping bag abandoned with its contents spilling onto the road, fleshy tomatoes burst open on the ground, a wall that was plastered with chunks of meat from the butcher’s stand. I cannot tell Kate that I am scared of Adam going this time, but I cannot put my finger on why.
“I’m fine, just a bit tired,” I tell her. She gives my arm the same reassuring squeeze as after the pre-deployment briefing.
“The build-up is always rough,” she says, “But once he’s gone you’ll settle into it and everything will be much easier. Come and hang out with us sometime, okay?”
“I will do. That sounds great,” I say and then Kate is gone, pushing her cart away down the aisle, leaving me among the debris of my dream.
17
Tonight I dream of Penelope bidding farewell to Odysseus. She stands in front of a low grey sky. The wind whips around her. One hand is raised in a wave. The other clutches her thin dress against the pale skin of her chest. Strands of hair come loose and thrash against her face.
Penelope’s gaze is fixed, unblinking. She will not lose Odysseus from her sight for a second. There are not enough moments left for one to be wasted. I follow her eyes, expecting to see a hollow ship rising and falling on a black sea, but instead a vast expanse of tarmac stretches before her. There is a vessel, but it belongs to the sky not the ocean. A dark grey C-17 stands in wait. Its metal wings stretch out in welcome as Odysseus and his men file up the ramp at its rear.
The propellers roar and Penelope turns away. I hear a voice that sounds strangely like Mrs Edwards, asking “When does he return?” Penelope cannot answer. She does not know.
18
People are not supposed to enjoy going to war. It is a dirty secret shared by those of us who have been. People understand the difficult parts of war, or rather, they know that the bad bits must be beyond what they could ever imagine. But it is the good bits that confuse them. The reasons that we love it. That we miss it. That we keep going back. It is in the wistful looks of men and women who say “Fuck, those days were awful, but damn they were the best.” That is harder to explain. It is this feeling that bonds those of us who have been there and makes us different from those who have not.
I always enjoyed Iraq. The good and the bad. But with Adam I came to love it. I came to love him.
I remember the first time he used the word, like a scene from a movie. In my memory I do not inhabit myself, but rather see us both. Two bodies with an iridescent gleam in the darkness of the water and the night.
It was late. We were in the pool at RPC. I visited regularly by this point. We took it in turns to ride the Rhino between the IZ and VBC for visits. Jessica, the aerobics instructor, booked me onto the vehicle, the same way she did with herself when she visited her boyfriend Mike.
At first, it was Adam who would visit me. He came to the IZ when he could, but it was never enough. Each morning the question Will I see him today? buzzed through my head as I drank my coffee. I checked my phone more often than before. I sat at my desk and my mind would wander, to one or two or three nights before. The feeling of his body against mine. The weight of his arm around my waist as I slept. I craved his presence.
I had not realised I was lonely.
If I’m honest, I was happiest when I started to visit Adam. It wasn’t just seeing him, it was the adventure that went with it. I would feel a rush of adrenaline as the Rhino door slammed shut each time. I pressed my face as close to the window as my helmet would allow and watched dented old Iraqi cars and ghostly lines of logistics vehicles crawling along the route. It was my tiny glimpse of real Iraq.
Adam wasn’t keen on me taking the Rhino. He said it was a war zone not a school outing, but he couldn’t dissuade me. The adventure was mine.
Unlike most of the military, Adam’s team lived in a building that was once one of Saddam’s palace complexes. Adam’s bedroom was upstairs, above the team room, and where we spent most of our time. For our weekly movie nights I would roll his bivvy bag out onto the floor as a picnic blanket. He would bring sandwiches from the chow hall and I would bring two kinds of popcorn from the PX. It was the closest we could get to a date night there. There was nowhere to go without being seen.
“God, I can’t wait to have a real sandwich after this deployment,” he said one night. “There’s this great place downtown in Colorado Springs, they do the best subs. Seriously, they have this pulled pork that’s just heaven.”
“Okay, well put that on the list of places you’re taking me,” I replied. “But I want to go to a good Mexican first. And that BBQ place you mentioned.”
“Perhaps you should just move to the States with me and we can spread the eating out.”
These comments had become more frequent between us. Me visiting him in the US was something we joked about, but we both knew it wasn’t a joke really. We were testing the idea, to see how it felt on our tongues and in our bellies. It was still too fragile to address directly, to hold between our hands and examine. So instead we nudged it between each other, nurturing and normalising it with our conversations, silently excited as we sensed it grow. The “ifs” that punctuated our sentences transformed quietly into “whens”. And with our words we built foundations.
Adam and I only ever went to the pool at night. The pool was barely used compared to the one in the embassy compound, but there was a heavy rock in the bottom that the men would compete at carrying and a couple of chairs where people would sit and drink root beer in the evening. The nights were getting cooler by that point, but sometimes I would convince Adam to sneak out for a dip with me. We would leave his room quietly, past the closed bedroom doors and the sounds of rap music, murmured Skype calls and porn.
The first time he used the word, I had just got back from R and R. It was only a ten-day break, but by that point it seemed like an eternity to be away from each other.
The night I got back, I went straight up to RPC. Later in the evening, we slid from the edge of the pool silently, the water rippling like dark silk around us. Above the pool was one of Saddam’s palaces, raised up on a hill covered with palm trees that rustled in the occasional breeze. A bright moon behind the palace lit up its imposing silhouette and gave the dark angles of the structure a white glow. An aerial protruded from the top with a red light as a warning for passing aircraft.
I rested on my back, looking up at a cloudless sky that was awash with stars. My hair spread out around me and the water covered and uncovered my earlobes as I floated, periodically muffling the silence. My exposed skin rose to meet the coolness of the night air. It was a strange and surreal kind of peace. I was glad to be back.
Adam was treading water, watching me. I swam over to him and he took hold of my hand, drawing my body towards his. I wrapped my legs around his waist. Our bodies felt slippery and weightless in the water.
“Any update on Ameena’s background checks?” he asked me. I shook my head.
“There won’t be for a while yet. Even with her application expedited it takes such a long time.” Adam asked me regularly about the application and I always wished I had more to tell him.
“I’m sorry to keep asking,” he said. “I just see what the worry is doing to Ali. It’s such a tough wait.”
“There’s something between them, isn’t there?” I said.
“Ali and Ameena?”
“Yeah.”
“I think so. I think that’s why it’s hitting him so hard.”
“And you?”
I released my legs from around Adam and trod water, looking hard into his face.
“What do you mean?”
“Why is it hitting you so hard? Tell me why you want to help Ali so much. It’s not just that he’s a good guy. It’s more than that, Adam. You said you owed him. Why?”
Adam took a deep breath before he answered. The only sound in the night air was the water as it moved gently around the pool, disturbed by our bodies.
“I do owe him,” he said finally.
“For what?” I asked.
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes. For being here, now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He saved my life… He saved my life by risking his.”
“Can you tell me about it?” I said, moving my limbs silently to keep myself afloat.
“Not really,” he said. “But he found out information and he had a choice, to stay quiet and protect himself or to protect me and put his own life at risk. He chose the latter. And I’ll never be able to fully pay him back for that.”
I swam towards Adam and gave him a long chlorine-tasting kiss. I knew I would never be able to fully pay Ali back either.
Adam lifted a hand and smoothed back a piece of hair that was stuck against my wet cheek. He was studying my face, that small crease appearing between his eyebrows.
“What? What is it?” I asked him.
“Emma, you know I’m in love with you, right?”
Above us the unmistakeable sound of propellers filled the skies. The palm trees knocked against each other and ripples raced across the pool. The water vibrated as the sound got louder and I looked up to see the dark shadows of two Blackhawk helicopters move over us, coming in to land on the base nearby.
“Em?” he said.
A shiver ran through me and I ran a hand over the goosebumps that had raised up on my arm.
“I’m scared,” I told him.
“Of what?”
“Of this. Of us. Of what comes next.” I was not scared of loving him, but losing him. I felt like I was on the edge of a diving board, the moment you start leaning forward. Your feet still touch something solid, but by then you have committed to plunging through the air and into whatever the watery depths may hold. I was already falling.
“I love you too, Adam,” I said.
19
There is a particular time of morning in the art shop, 9.25am to be exact, when the early sun comes through the window and hits the spinning mirror perfectly. The small pieces of mosaic tile that surround the mirror glimmer in the light. It reminds me of the way the water sparkled during one of our few family holidays abroad, when my dad taught us how to snorkel. Everything glimmered that holiday. The sea, the scales of small silver fish, my mother’s blue earrings that she usually saved for special occasions but wore to dinner every evening that week. Looking back, I think they already knew.
“That sure has caught you, hasn’t it?” says Penny, coming out to the front of the shop. “I see you staring at that mirror almost every morning.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, embarrassed that she has found me stood watching it again. Sometimes I forget that the slow pace of the shop is its beauty. I feel like I should be busy, working, filling every minute. “I love mosaics.”
“A customer made it, you know.”
“Really? Who?”
“Nora. She doesn’t come in anymore. Her kids moved her to California to be closer to them when the arthritis started getting bad. Such a shame.”
I am disappointed that the lady is no longer around. I would have liked to ask her how she cut the tiles, how she glued them, how she found their form.
“Such a shame,” I say, repeating Penny’s words.
I enjoy Penny’s company when she stays in the shop during my shift. As we check stock and discuss rearranging the shelves (something she talks about but will never do), Penny tells me endless stories about the shop and the people who come in.
It is safer to listen rather than talk with Penny. I do not talk about Iraq with her. I do not talk about the Iraqis I helped move to the States. To her, foreigners are a different species and she does not deal well with things she doesn’t understand. Iraq is a part of me that I switch off when I am with her.
As I move around the shop, lining up the paint pots, dusting the shelves, I struggle to ignore the gnawing feeling that this is not enough. It is enough for now, I remind myself, but I do not know how long this will be true.
Later in the morning, Penny goes out to meet a friend. Customers trickle in and out. Browse, chat, occasionally buy, but the day is slow. Around lunchtime, the bell over the door rings again. This time it is a young woman on the phone. She is speaking a language that sounds familiar to me, although I do not understand it. It is like Arabic almost, but with more “ch” and “sh” sounds and I think I hear a “p”. It is some kind of Kurdish.
I try not to stare at the young woman as she moves around the shop. She has long dark hair that falls in loose curls, an oversized shirt rolled up to the elbows and a large turquoise necklace. I guess at her age. Younger than me by a few years, I think. Twenty-four or twenty-five perhaps. I am already trying to work out her story. Colorado Springs is not a melting pot like London or the IZ. If you are different, you stand out.
She moves around the shop, picking up coloured paper and ribbons with an ease that indicates she has been here before. Penny’s shelves have a mismatched feel to them that tends to confuse new customers. She comes to the till and puts down the armful of items she’s picked up, the phone held between her chin and shoulder.
“Okay if I leave these here while I grab the rest?” she asks, switching to flawless American.
“Sure,” I say.
A few minutes later she is back with another armful, her phone returned to her bag.
“Sorry. A lot to pick up today,” she smiles.
“Are these all for you?” I ask.
“I wish! No, my students. I’m an art teacher at the high school.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I say. She smiles again. It is a warm smile.
“I haven’t seen you in here before. Are you new?” she asks.
“Yeah, this is my second week,” I say. “I moved to the States quite recently…” I wait hopefully for her next question; I want to tell her that I am different too.
“Where from?” she asks.
“Iraq. I’m British. But I was living in Iraq.” The words fall out quickly, betraying my eagerness to form a connection.
She looks at me surprised.
“Iraq? Seriously?”
“Yeah, I spent a few years working there. What about you? I overheard you speaking – was that some kind of Kurdish?”
She smiles.
“Yes, I am Kurdish. My family is from Duhok. Usually I just say Iraqi though…”
“Oh?”
“No one knows about the Kurds here. The war sort of made me Iraqi overnight. Suddenly everyone in America knew Iraq, or thought they did. Kurds spent so long fighting Saddam’s Arabisation, but when the US invaded it’s like they Arabised all the Kurds here without even realising�
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“That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” I say.
“It’s the only way I have,” she says with a shrug. “So did you enjoy being there?”
“Yes and no,” I say. “It was different. Challenging.” There is a flicker at the back of my mind. Thud. Sampath. The arm on my throat. The blood in my mouth. Thud. Thud Thud. I push it all away. “But I loved it.”
“I am desperate to go back,” she tells me. “I was young when we left and I haven’t been back there since.”
“I hope that you get the chance to one day.”
“Inshallah,” she replies and I automatically repeat the phrase back to her.
“Inshallah.” God willing. The words taste familiar and inside I feel a different version of myself stir. The version of myself that I was in Iraq. That has been pushed down since I came here. My stomach flutters for a moment, my body greeting itself like an old friend.
“So, how are you finding Colorado?” she asks.
“Also different. Also challenging,” I say, and she laughs.
“I bet. Listen, I have to get back to the school, but I’ll leave you my cell. Let me know if you ever want to grab a coffee. I’d love to hear more of what you made of it over there.”
She grabs a pen from her bag and scribbles down her number.
“That would be great… What was your name?” I ask her.
“Noor.”
“That would be great, Noor. I’m Emma.”
“Well, hopefully see you again soon, Emma,” she says and scoops up her bags to leave. I hope that I do see her again soon. I am excited to have found a link with Iraq. Someone who “gets it” a little bit more.
For the rest of the day I let my brain wander back to Iraq; to the long days and the pink evenings and the green lights of minarets at night. I let myself miss it.
When I get home, Adam is back from work already. He has moved the coffee table to one side of the room and he is sat on the bivvy bag that I haven’t seen since Baghdad.