- Alas, everything has got worse: embargos, sanctions. One time we could live off our salaries, he complains.
On our way out of the district, over the dried-up watercourse, we stop in Saddam Square to buy some nuts. Yasser is sitting on a concrete block. - It was beautiful here once, he says. - Grass grew by the roadside, the streets were swept, no sewage flowing everywhere like now. Look, the centre strip there, it’s a desert. All the green has gone.
Nevertheless, there is one flash of colour looming over the roundabout: an enormous painting of the president surrounded by scenes from Iraqi history, from martyrs on white horses and a full-bodied Scheherazade from the
Thousand and One Nights
to state-of-the-art military vehicles.
- That’s the best thing we have in this town, Yasser says, pointing to the huge placard. - And we are very proud of our neighbourhood’s name, he adds, to the great satisfaction of our two guides.
At the end of the book market there is a steamy teahouse called Shahbendar, a meeting place for authors, painters, sculptors and directors. I bump into a literary critic called Isam.
- Iraq is a theatre, he whispers. - Everyone plays their role.
We all love our president, and are prepared to die for him.
It would be madness to throw off the mask. To speak the truth is to be mad, he mutters between gulps of tea, all the time looking around casually. All Baghdad’s teahouses have regular informers.
Isam’s family moved from Palestine to Iraq in 1948. Being a Palestinian he is as vulnerable as all Iraqis. So it surprises me when he agrees to meet me at my hotel the next day.
We sit at the farthest end of the room. I ask why he wanted to meet me.
- Because I’m mad. Iraq is the kingdom of fear. No one will tell the truth when you are with your minder or other Iraqis they do not know. Few will even talk to you alone. For one single disastrous word you can go to prison for twenty years, for a disastrous word spoken to a foreigner you can disappear altogether. This country is one great shit-hole. Nothing moves on the surface, it just stinks. We need help to throw a large stone into the hole. That’s what we’re all waiting for; for something to happen.
Isam believes that most Iraqis are for the war. - It’s not that we are pro-America. I’m a Palestinian and I hate Israel and America, and in spite of that I welcome Washington’s army, to free us from the tyranny. Then they must leave Iraq to the Iraqis. Nevertheless, Isam fears that an American invasion will lead to civil war.
- The Shias and the Kurds know that it would be best to cooperate with the Sunnis and let bygones be bygones. I just hope the Americans will beg them not to indulge in acts of revenge. It all depends on the length of the war. Very few will take up arms if the regime falls quickly. Then they’ll hide in their houses and later dance in the streets. But if the fighting is drawn out anything could happen.
Isam stirs sugar into his tea. - It’s all over, he says, and glances around carefully. - The regime is finished. The secret police is less active than before. They don’t ‘hear’ certain conversations. In January we started very carefully, just between friends, to discuss the situation. In our own homes, quietly. In February the conversations continued in the teahouses, still quietly, still carefully. That would have been impossible only a few months ago. It was very confidential and I saw the informers watching, but instead of denouncing us they closed their ears. To avoid problems when it all falls apart.
The literary critic predicts that the resistance will be small, that the Americans can more or less roll in to Baghdad. Many inhabitants might be armed, but few of them are prepared to fight for Saddam Hussein, he prophesies. - People hate him. Iraq has become a country of schizophrenics and cowards, a country where people fear their friends, their family, their own children. Once upon a time Iraq was the lighthouse of the Middle East, but thirty years of oriental Stalinism and twelve years of embargoes has crushed the country and its people.
Suddenly he grows silent and looks nervously to one side. A man in a pinstripe suit is sipping tea a few tables away. He is staring vaguely into space. The hotel spy! Who else? Isam decides it is time to break up. - Don’t phone me again, he says quietly before leaving.
I meet him again at Shahbendar the following Friday. He says that in future we must only meet there. His wife had been beside herself with fear when she found out he had met a foreigner in a hotel. - We’ll be killed, all of us, she’d cried. But not loud enough for the neighbours to hear.
Isam was the only Iraqi, apart from Father Albert, who talked openly to me in the months before Saddam’s downfall.
- Don’t point, Aliya hisses whenever I point a finger at the portrayed president. - Don’t look at him; look down or to the side. Don’t talk about him, don’t ask about him.
It is as though she believes he possesses some sort of magical power and can see, hear and feel if anyone pours scorn upon him. I wonder whether it is him or Aliya who has introduced the rule not to point at the president.
Aliya herself is allowed to talk about him. Every day she reads and translates his decrees. When I ask questions she cannot answer, she always says that Saddam Hussein will solve all in the best and wisest way.
Aliya was born to a middle class family and grew up in Baghdad in the 1970s. On the first page of every school book was a picture of the president and every lesson began with ‘Long Live Saddam Hussein’. To Aliya, and to all Iraqi children, he was the great father. Parents took care not to talk disparagingly about him. If the children were to relay any critical remarks it could cost the family dearly.
Aliya was a good student and eventually secured a place at the prestigious English faculty at the university. From there she was employed as a translator by INA. Translating the president’s speeches and decrees felt like meaningful work, surrounded as she was by posters, murals, mosaics, statues, impressions, bronze heads and photographs.
Until she started working for me this was her world. From knowing what to translate, word for word, now she has to be on guard. Assess the information she can give to me. When she is in doubt I can see her fighting herself. She wants to do a good job, as good as possible, but she treads warily and is careful not to betray her country. Not once does she suggest an illegal idea, or establish contact with someone risky or unofficial. Time and again I tell her what issues interest me. She nods but nothing happens.
- I’m working on it, she will say when I ask her to investigate something. On the whole our attempts are unsuccessful and I sometimes suspect her of not even asking. Sometimes she will phone in the evening and tell me enthusiastically that Saddam is on television, do I want her to translate the speech?
I always do; I am duty-bound to accept what is available. The entire spring is one big struggle: to do my job, meet people, discover how Iraqis live and what they really think. However, Aliya’s innate meekness contributes to my sometimes escaping. Quite simply she is unable to keep up and lets me wander around on my own. Nevertheless, I seldom get more out of my time without her than with her. After three brutal decades the people have become their own minders.
Every Friday, since the very first one with Jorunn and Ali, I visit the book market. Usually I give Aliya the day off in order that I can go alone. I go to buy books and sit in Shahbendar and maybe find someone to talk to.
The Bohemian café is packed with people. Or rather, with men. It’s like stepping into another era. The walls are hung with pictures of old Baghdad, sketches from street corners and markets. A 1950s wireless is attached to the wall, and over it the compulsory portrait. A little man rushes around replenishing the tea glasses.
One day a tall, bearded man approaches while I am chatting to a colleague. He addresses us in immaculate, almost aristocratic French.
Je m’appelle Haidar. Je suis peintre
.
We invite the painter to join us for a glass of tea and touch on safe subjects: Iraqi art, Babylon, Paris, spring. I want to ask him all sorts of questions but hold back. He tells us he is not exhibiting at the moment; all his paintings are at home in the studio. That means we are precluded from seeing them as it involves visiting his home.
- They are abstract, in strong colours, yellow, red, green, orange. I paint what there is least of here, he says melancholically.
I see my old acquaintance, the literary critic, talking to a friend. He gets up and greets me courteously when I approach.
- I thought I might buy some books, I say.
- Are you interested in poetry? Mizhar asks. - Here is a collection written by a soldier during the Iranian war. Strong stuff.
The man has got up from the stool. In front of him on the ground lies a collection of books, most of them worn and well-thumbed. Mizhar sighs. - I myself am a poet, but at the moment I’m working as a proofreader and bookseller. One cannot survive as a poet. Would you like this book with epic poetry?
In Iraq all recently published books are politically correct and often deal with good overcoming evil. The hero conquering the enemy, Arabic identity and courage, the harshness of life under sanctions, the war against Iran and the Gulf War.
Two years ago
Zabiba and the King
was published. It is about a woman, living in the century before Christ, and her loveless marriage. The king meets Zabiba and they discuss God, loyalty, love and the wishes of the people. In one scene Zabiba is raped, reflecting the American invasion of Iraq. The story ends with Zabiba’s death on 17 January 1991, the day the bombs started to drop over Baghdad. The author is, allegedly, Saddam Hussein.
A well-dressed man squats on the ground, leafing through Mizhar’s books. He is looking for a book by Sartre. - Existentialism is in keeping with our times. I have learnt a lot about myself; about the individual’s need for freedom and society’s limits, Latif says. He is a computer engineer. - It is difficult to keep abreast of developments. In twelve years Iraq has not imported a single scientific periodical. Look around - all old books. We haven’t a clue about what has been written anywhere else since the Gulf War. Of course there are plenty of wonderful old books here, but I long for new ideas, he says. - I have read a bit about structuralism but I would really like to read some more.
One boy is looking for books about cloning. - I have heard that it is possible to clone humans, he says, but, like Latif, finds nothing about the subject.
- Iraqis have always craved books. They are our sustenance. Besides love they are all we need, the bookseller says, and recites one of his own poems, about a man who is dying of love but has not the courage to tell his sweetheart.
Traditionally the Iraqis were always considered the most inquisitive people in the Middle East. ‘Egypt writes, Lebanon prints, Iraq reads’, goes the adage. Before the war began in the 1980s the Iraqi population was the most educated in the Arab world. Now the educational system has collapsed and five million people have left the country, half of whom were highly educated.
The Kurd Jalal specialises in history. Displayed on a collapsible shelf are books about Mesopotamia - the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the mythical Tower of Babel. - I buy cheap from old people and sell dear, Jalal laughs. - It’s really rather sad. People sell off what they have been collecting during a lifetime, maybe for generations, for a few meals or some medicine for their grandchild’s measles.
- The system, he says quietly - it’s crushing us. Do you know our history? Do you know what has happened to this country? It’s worse than a dictatorship, a lot, lot worse.
Suddenly Jalal disappears up the street, making a sign for me to stay put. When he returns he stuffs a book into my bag. - Read it, then you’ll understand all. The author was
. . .
Jalal whispers and cuts his throat with a finger. - By the regime. Come back when you’ve read it, but don’t show it to anyone. That could give me twenty years inside.
- Why do you take the risk?
- It is dangerous to live nowadays, no matter what. Go now.
I continue down the street, carrying the burning book. Behind each pile of books sits a bookseller, surrounded by a group of friends. Tea-sellers walk about with steaming pots and pour out glasses for a few dinar. The books lie around in the dust, but only the legal ones. Each book carries a stamp to show it has passed the censorship. It is illegal to sell uncensored books and doing so would result in a severe penalty - from six months to capital punishment, Jalal says. Those kinds of books are not spread out in the sun, but are hidden in back rooms and cellars.