“Jesus, Nabil! Why didn’t you tell me?”
I take another sip, but find myself wishing it were a cold lemonade.
Sam shakes her head. “Does it make you want to quit? I would understand if—”
“Before we’re finished with this story? Never.”
“What about your family?”
“They don’t know. But I am a little bit worried about them, too. I told them to tell everyone who asks that I quit the job with the
Tribune.
I’m going to pretend to go back to my job as a teacher. And I don’t have Rizgar drop me off at home anymore. In the morning I will just walk, like I always did when I was teaching, towards Mansour, and then I’ll take a cab from Yarmouk Square. That’s what I did today. It makes it much harder for anyone to follow me.”
Sam nods, but I wonder if she gets the difference, if she knows where my neighbourhood is in relation to the Hamra here in Karada. I’m walking in the opposite direction for fifteen or twenty minutes every morning just so it will look like I’m going to work somewhere else.
“Has anything ever happened like that before, since you started working for me?”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“What do you mean, ‘not really’?”
“Nothing like that. But Rafik downstairs thinks we need a Shi’ite working for us. He says I’m Sunni and Rizgar is Kurdish and you have no Shi’ite working for you.”
Sam’s head falls back, her mouth open. “What? Anyway, you said you’re both, right?”
“It doesn’t matter. He said everyone will see me as Sunni because of being called Nabil, and my father’s Sunni. Which is true. That’s the way it works.”
Sam smirks. “Well, which do you identify with?”
“Both. Sunni history is very important, very proud — it is the history of the Arab people. When we make
hajj,
we go to Mecca, and that’s a Sunni country.”
What can I tell Sam that she would understand? I suddenly feel guilty for drinking beer and having this conversation in the same sitting.
“But the Shi’a way is more spiritual,” I say. “More mystical, perhaps. There are some nice rituals that I like, like visiting the tombs and asking for help from the martyrs and holy men. But then, maybe that’s just my mother’s influence. What else? I think Shi’ites are more idealistic.”
Sam waits, with even her eyes listening.
“Shi’ites believe that the Mahdi will come back and perfect the world. So we are always dreaming of a better time, of peace.”
“Which will come when the Mahdi comes,” she says. “So maybe that will be hastened by the Mahdi Army?”
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t link it with Moqtada al-Sadr. He’s a politician. But yes, he took the term from this. Mahdi is like, what is the word in English...”
“Messiah.”
“Yes, that’s it! So you know.”
Sam takes her bottle back, running her finger along its mouth. “I read a lot. And you know, we have Messiahs, too. A Christian one, a Jewish one...”
“I know.”
“
So
you know,”
she says, mimicking me. Beneath the coffee table, I nudge her foot with mine. She laughs. What in the world made me do that?
“I should go and try to find this guy Mustapha in Sadr City,” I say.
“I’ll come. Give me ten minutes to change.”
“You have to let me go alone, at least to check it out first.”
“You still want to do that?”
“Yes, it’s the best way. That’s what everyone says. It’s a place where they make forgeries. Women don’t go to places like that. It’s better if I go without you.”
Sam looks reluctant. “How’d you get to this guy?”
“Through my cousin, Saleh, the one you helped. They offered him a job at CARE, you know. He’s very happy about it.”
“What a credit,” she coos. “Maybe I can put that on my resume someday: Helped find gainful employment for fixer’s relatives.”
“Just your fixer?”
She nods. “You deserve a fancier title. How about, Fixer Extraordinaire. Or, Interpreter Emeritus?”
If Sam weren’t so amusing sometimes, I don’t think it would be worth doing any of this.
“How about...my best friend in Baghdad,” she says. I hold out my hand, and she slaps hers into it like a playful child, smiling and scowling at the very same moment.
~ * ~
39
Scowling
As I walk through his hallway, I notice Mustapha glance around to see if anyone on the street appears to have been watching me. He spits, sending out a brown teardrop towards the cement.
“You’re the guy Iyad sent?”
Iyad, yes, that was the name of the guy Saleh said was the go-between, who sent me here, to Souq Mureidi in Sadr City. Saleh said he was sure that if there was any answer to be had, if there was any confirming who made Akram’s documents and why, it would be here.
I nod. “That’s right.”
I follow him up a set of dirty steps, those grey and black tiled ones that are ugly when you put them in and even uglier when they sit unwashed for ten years, and he pushes a door open for me to walk through. Near the window stands a very stocky, wide-shouldered man with one of the most threatening moustaches I have ever seen. He doesn’t smile or greet me, and when I say
salaam aleikum,
he only grunts out a
salaam,
a sort of half response.
Mustapha focuses his eyes unwaveringly on mine, and I notice they are slightly green, a kind of hazel colour, and suddenly I have this sense that maybe he’s a good person, the sort of person I should trust. Maybe he’s as nervous as I am. Maybe he doesn’t even like the scary-looking chap; maybe it’s just his security guy, or one of his bosses.
“It’s like this,” Mustapha says. “There are all sorts of documents that we know how to create. Not we, not
me,
you understand. My friends. I am only a connection for you. Maybe I’ll be the
wasta.
Maybe I can help put you in contact. Please, sit,” he says, and points to a beaten-up little armchair that looks like it’s been covered in carpeting. I do, and he takes a wooden chair from what I presume to be his desk. It has some files on it and things that might seem appropriate for a desk — a holder with pens, a calendar, a thin pile of folders — but nothing that would look like this could be the place where the work of forgery is actually done.
“You have to promise first not to tell anybody about how I helped you or where I send you,” he says. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the machine-gun leaning on the filing cabinet, within the other guy’s reach. Brutus, that’s who he looks like, just like in the Popeye cartoons they used to show when I was a kid, dubbed into Gulf Arabic. I should give out nicknames, like Louis does, to maintain a sense of humour. He was right about that much. I’m taking everything too seriously.
Brutus must have seen me notice his gun, because he takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and begins cleaning it. Louis, he’d know immediately what kind it was, fully or semi-automatic. I know it’s only for show, but my spine aches with fear.
“Of course,” I say. “Just between us.” I sip the glass of tea that Mustapha has set on the plastic table he dragged up to my shins while I was watching Brutus. It tastes too sweet, as if someone was trying to cover up the poor quality of the leaves by using much more sugar than necessary.
“It’s an M-16,” Mustapha says.
“I know,” I lie. I’m lying more all the time, since the day I met Sam, and realized that she was lying all the time, too, and probably for her own good. Lying to stay alive. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?
“It’s a nice one. I’ve been in the market for something like that.”
Mustapha breathes in, like he’s waiting for me to finish pretending I know something about guns. “Listen, you’re here about documents, right?”
“Exactly.”
“There are documents on weapons, on imports and exports of security materials, on scientific equipment that can be adapted for alternative uses,” he says, ticking these off on his fingers, “to use the phrase the weapons inspectors like. There are documents that show what the accounting looked like when the UN said we could start selling oil again so the Iraqi people wouldn’t ‘starve,’” he says, crunching two fingers in the air to make a quote, to show me he doesn’t believe anyone actually went hungry in those days, at least not because of the sanctions. He, for one, looks as if he has been eating better than most of us, with an expansive middle that spills like an overstuffed ice cream cone over the edge of his belt. “We did all sorts of documents for the UN, for the weapons inspectors. All sorts of accounting records and import documents and even fake affidavits. You would never be able to tell the difference. We have some talented people in this country.” He reaches for his cup of tea which, once cupped in his hand, looks miniscule, like a thimble. He sucks it back and drains the rest into his mouth. He crosses his right leg over the left, limbs too lanky for a man of his girth.
“Really,” he says, “it is an art, you know, creating an image of something so perfect that it is no longer a fake, because in the act of creating this new thing based on artificial information, you have actually created something real. It is quite beautiful.”
“Yes, well, that is a very interesting point,” I say unconvincingly.
“Interesting? Not just interesting. Practical!” He corrects me. “That’s what this country needs. Practical leadership. In English they have a word you probably haven’t heard before. It’s called pragmatic.” He pronounces it slowly and clearly:
brag-maht-eek.
I sit and listen.
“We need more people who are pragmatic. We don’t need ideology. We certainly don’t need democracy. You see, at the other end of the spectrum, we deal with very mundane things as well. We can provide licences, permits, travel documents, for people who want to pay top quality, we can even get you a new passport — sometimes, sometimes, we can also arrange to get you a visa to a Western country. At least, we did, before the war. And you?” He pauses, scanning my face, my body, taking in my old shoes worn especially for Sadr City, and returns to my stubble, asking are you planning to become a beard or not? Because if not don’t bother me.
“Are you looking for a new passport?”
“Well,” I reach for my tea so I will have time to think. “Possibly. I might want to go to France.” It doesn’t feel like a complete lie. I do want to go to France to visit Ziad and his family.
“Got family there?”
I smile and nod.
“Me, too. Paris?”
“Indeed.” Another lie. But why start giving him extra information about my family, telling him that Ziad lives in Marseille?
“Ah. So, for a passport you need to wait about two weeks, or maybe only ten days, and it will probably cost you $800. Can you afford that?”
I feign shock. “God. Seriously? I will have to think about it.” It is, in fact, much more than I expected. If I weren’t working for Sam, how in the world would I afford it? How would anyone?
“Take your time.”
“I was expecting more like $400 or $500.”
“Well, we might be able to do that.”
I reposition myself, leaning in to him with an elbow on my knees. “And what if I wanted to see some of the documents these people, you know, made up for the weapons inspectors?”
“Ha-hah!” He slaps the side of his thigh. “Brother, forgive me, but if you have trouble getting together a few hundred dollars for a passport, then you’re not getting anywhere
near
that. And what would you want with it, anyway?”
“It wouldn’t be for me. It’s not me, I...I certainly wouldn’t have enough money to pay for these things. But I know someone who might. I mean, perhaps I can help bring an important client to you.”
“Oh? And who is that?” Mustapha brightens with a long-toothed smile that reminds me of the neighbourhood butcher my mother went to for many years. I dreamt he killed the animals with his teeth; I refused to eat meat for months afterwards.
“I really can’t say just now. I have to talk to her.”
His eyes shift with curiosity, and I realize I’ve slipped.
“The
group,
that is,” I add, as naturally as possible. “I have to talk to the group.” It sounds plausible, since the word group, or
magmua,
is feminine in Arabic.
Mustapha smiles. “That’s fine. There’s no rush. You can check with this — group.”
I study his face for a moment longer, those pleasant greenish eyes like the palm trees in Jadriya, and I realize that maybe there’s a reason he looks pleasantly familiar to me. I know his face from somewhere. University? Yes. He was a law student, my year. Mustapha al-Qaeis.
“Didn’t you go to the University of Baghdad? Class of 1996?”
“Hah! I thought your face looked familiar. Al-Amari, right?”
“That’s right. It took me a while to place you.”
“Hey man,” he says, holding out his hand in a more brotherly way, and I give him my hand in return, and before I know it he’s pulling me in for a hug.
When we’re done, he smiles and looks off into the distance for a moment, as if remembering. “It’s been some time. Don’t think I’ve seen you since second or third year.”
“Yes, that’s right. But it feels like longer, no?” Now I know why I didn’t recognize him straight away; he’s probably gained twenty kilos since then, and has lost most of his hair. In comparison, I have nothing to complain about.