- Of course. Now, at once?
I jump out of my chair. This would have been impossible with Takhlef. The young, cool bunch in the corner invite us to join them. It turns out that the group of friends are holding a farewell lunch. Noor is leaving next morning. Her parents fear the war will break out any moment.
- We’re going to Jordan. We’ll just close the house and leave, Noor says. Her family are among those who, now at the end of January, have decided to leave the country. That option is open to few. Not many countries welcome Iraqis. But Noor has relatives in Jordan.
- Maybe we’ll meet in paradise, Noor sighs.
- Don’t talk like that, says Hadil. - I’ll start crying. Hadil cannot leave. - My father is an Army major. He must defend our country if we’re attacked. If he doesn’t, who will? So if we die, we’ll all die together.
- Nobody wants this war, says Noor. - Only the Americans. They want our oil. Everyone is terrified. How strange that the Americans don’t understand that; they should know what fear is after September 11th.
The five friends round the table are all second-year medical students in Baghdad. None of them wears a headscarf and they obviously belong to Iraq’s upper middle class. They are the ones with more opportunity to leave because they often have relatives abroad, money and connections. Noor’s brother lives in London. - That’s where I bought these clothes, she says, showing off her cord trouser suit. - At H&M, she smiles proudly, before being reminded of the day’s leave-taking.
- They’ve started digging wells at the University; I saw it this morning, Isra recounts. - We’ve dug one in the garden at home, her friend Mina continues. The girls think that the water supply and electricity will be the first casualties. Anyone unable to dig their own well is collecting water in tanks and cans. In addition people are buying gas stoves, lamps, torches and batteries.
While many in Baghdad show apathy and resignation when questioned about their fear of war, the young girls are more indignant.
- I know that most of Europe’s inhabitants are against the war. Even almost all the British. I have watched them on telly demonstrating in the streets of London. Doesn’t it help? Can’t they do something to influence Blair? Hadil asks. She has both knelt in a mosque and lit a candle in a church. To pray to God in both His ears.
- I wonder if I’ll ever see my house again, Noor says gloomily. - I’m taking my jewellery, photographs, school-books and diaries. I can’t leave my diaries, they are my life.
Before the girls leave I ask for their phone numbers, so I can contact them later.
A boy sits alone at the end of the table. He belongs to the girls’ circle of friends, and stays behind when they leave. While Aliya is away for a moment, he murmurs - They don’t say what they really mean. No one can say what they really think.
Then he leaves.
Shortly afterwards Hadil returns accompanied by a furious man. He is incandescent with rage.
- You must never contact us, he hisses.
It is Hadil’s father. The Army major whose task it is to defend Iraq from bombs. Iraqi military personnel receive strict instructions not to have any contact with foreigners.
- Where did you write down the number? Where? Give it to me, he says, and tears the page from the notebook where Hadil has scribbled her number. The father crumples up the paper, thrusts it into his pocket and turns on his heel. He marches out of the café, followed by a trembling Hadil.
We sit down again. Aliya is upset and frightened. Absurd. Hadil’s father fears Aliya and Aliya fears Hadil’s father.
When I write my small piece about the farewell lunch I wonder whether or not to include the boy’s comments. I add them, then cross them out. Someone might find him. Someone might have seen him. But I store the two sentences in my head; the first critical utterances in Baghdad.
I have long been pestering Aliya about visiting a newspaper or a TV station.
- Of course, Aliya says, and nothing happens.
I insist. Nothing happens. More insisting. Nothing happens. Yelling and insisting. Nothing, apart from Aliya sulking. No one has answered her request, she says breezily. I try another brazen tack.
- If we don’t visit a TV station, a newspaper or a radio station today, I have nothing to write about. Consequently you have nothing to translate and therefore I won’t pay you. Regardless of how many hours we spend waiting at the Ministry, there’ll be no salary.
Aliya glares at me. She purses her lips; the corners of her mouth tighten and her eyes narrow. Finally she gets up from the chair and walks towards the press centre. In a little while she comes back. Point blank refusal, no Iraqi TV visit.
- Strictly prohibited; broadcasting is a strategic and sensitive target, Aliya says.
I perch on the plastic table outside the press centre, legs dangling, and look defiantly at Aliya. - Don’t give up at the first hurdle.
Aliya slinks back to Mohsen. She returns after a while and says he will let us know in one hour.
- Shall I translate the newspaper in the meantime? she offers. The only thing she really enjoys is translating, preferably from newspapers and preferably from Saddam Hussein, which is really one and the same thing.
- Please do.
- War preparations must be stepped up, Aliya reads.
That is the headline in
al-Qadissiya
, the Iraqi army’s mouthpiece. ‘War preparations must be stepped up’, is also the headline in
al-Thawra
, and in the Government-run newspaper editorial. Uday Hussein’s newspaper
Babel
has the same headline. The man who has been talking about war preparations is Saddam Hussein.
When Aliya is halfway through the speech about the approaching war, I stop her. I have heard it all before.
- Maybe we should check the newspaper permission, I say and look meaningfully at the clock which is moving towards afternoon.
Aliya protests that she has not yet finished.
- We can do that in the car, en route, can’t we? I smile.
Aliya saunters slightly faster than normal when she returns. Instead of her normal downcast expression, she looks me straight in the eye. The permission is in her hand.
In the
al-Iraq
reception area hang no fewer than thirteen portraits of Saddam Hussein. I feel like commenting on the pictures, but hold my tongue - as usual. Aliya and I do not share a sense of humour. A man arrives to show us around. He asks what we want to see. - Everything, I say. - And I would like to interview the editor.
In the first room two men sit staring into the air. They are proofreaders and wait for the day’s text. Above them hangs a fourteenth portrait.
Mohan al-Daher receives us in his office where the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth portraits hang. In one long yawn he enlightens us about Iraqi strength, American cowardice and the enemy which is about to be crushed. When the yawn is drawing to a close I slip in a question.
- Bush gave Congress a strident speech yesterday. What will be
al-Iraq
’s reaction?
- I am waiting for the text, says the editor.
- The text?
- Yes, the text from INA.
- So the news agency writes the paper, I say; I should of course have realised that.
- Yes, says the editor, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
- But what do you think the newspaper will contain today?
- I have no opinion about that. The decision will be taken by those most fitted to take it.
Regardless of the text
al-Iraq
can safely begin choosing the front page picture. The motive never changes.
- Only the president is worthy of front-page exposure, the editor explains.
Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. I count down the wall. Twenty-three. In the basement the text ticks in on a large reel. The letters are imprinted in red ink. The sound of the keys is like that of an old-fashioned typewriter. When the text is transmitted a scribe tears the paper off the reel, hangs it up in front of his computer and imports it into the paper’s processing system. Ten men or so sit behind computers and copy in various parts from the reel.
One of the men shows me the paper’s picture archive - an ordinary Word programme. The man in charge of photos clicks and opens, enlarges and reduces. Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven. Forty-four. My head is reeling. Sixty-two. I am guessing. One hundred and eighteen. Roughly speaking, seven hundred and ninety-four. The portraits chase each other across the screen. I forget to ask whether they can choose themselves.
A broad-shouldered man enters carrying some handwritten sheets of paper and tosses them to one of the scribes. Wow, I think. A real journalist. I walk over and ask if he has written those crumpled pieces of paper himself. He confirms that he has.
- What have you written?
- Page eleven.
- Page eleven?
- The sports pages, the broad shouldered one explains before disappearing back up the stairs. The only pages the paper entrusts to its own people.
As I am about to leave I notice him. One of the scribes behind the computers is staring intently at me. His dark eyes follow my movements. The man is skinny and his cheeks hollow. He has lost most of his hair but he is not old. When I walk past he stubs his cigarette out in a dirty ashtray.
I can barely hear his voice.
- But you cannot read my thoughts.
I stop and pretend I’m searching for something in my bag. My back is turned half towards him as a signal that I want to hear more, without looking at him.
- We want freedom, he whispers. The picture on the wall looks down at him. Almighty.
My editor wants a longer article for the weekend. They are keeping a whole page for me. Doubting that I know enough, am not able, have not met enough people, makes me decline. - I’ve got nothing to write about, I say. But to no avail.
- We’ve already set aside a page.
On the page they want something from Iraq. ‘Something from Iraq’?
I have only disparate pieces and try to string them together. I turn them over in my mind, playing the voices over again.
‘Once upon a time’, Iraqis relate nostalgically, ‘when we were the first civilisation in history, the Assyrians, the Sumerians, Babylon
. . .
’ ‘Once upon a time
. . .
’ they go on, ‘when we could feed the whole Middle East, and the schools were not lit by candlelight. ’ Before the war against Iran, before Kuwait, before the bombs. But the memories of a golden past do not light up the dismal reality. A reality where hangers-on and petty black-market kings grow increasingly fat while the remaining inhabitants are kept in fear and poverty.
Seven fat fish from the Tigris swim leisurely around the brick-built swimming pool. Their tales swish quietly. Now and again one or other bobs to the surface and the reddish skin flickers in the sunlight. Small palms wave in the wind over the pool and the manicured lawn. Ali stands by the barbecue waiting for someone to order grilled fish.
The restaurant is starting to fill up. Winter is still in the air. The real heat usually arrives in March. But the restaurant has open fireplaces. Braziers are placed underneath the tables; no one is cold who has warm feet. Two dozen waiters or so in freshly laundered suits react to the smallest signal.
- Before it was always packed here, with ordinary people, Ali says while dousing the flames with some water. There is not much money around now. People eat at home.
Ali makes about £50 a month. That’s enough for him and his family and is a reasonable salary by Iraqi standards. The waiters make around £20. - Not enough, not enough, one of them whispers hastily while laying the table. It is safest not to talk to foreigners. The restaurant walls have ears. They who complain are not patriotic.