Baghdad Noir Read online

  My brother got on one of the yellow buses heading to the nearby Hurriya 3—it was so close that we would usually walk there. Another bus came speeding by, which was unusual, as we rarely saw a fast yellow bus. I got in and kept watch on the bus my brother was riding. He might get out, then my wife’s gold would be lost along with all the other goods he had stolen. I had to know where he was selling the jewels, and to whom. He didn’t buy any expensive clothes or other material objects for himself, so where did the money go? The few passengers on his bus got out by the Hurriya 3 yellow buses, and I saw him head to the main street of the Dolai neighborhood. It didn’t appear that he was planning to catch the bus to Dolai; I walked a few paces behind him, worrying now that he would see me if he turned around.

  He passed the al-Farouq mosque, which had been built in a rush, as though God were about to lock the gates of Heaven and Earth and did not want another mosque disturbing him with the call to prayer. I saw Abdullah put his hand in his pocket, as if to make sure the jewelry box was still there, as he entered the improvised Dolai market. Traders were scattered around the pavement, hawking fruit and vegetables, and I saw spring onions spread on the ground for the first time since their disappearance during the long summer months. Now, they were back in season. From amid the crush of passersby and shoppers, there was little chance my teenage brother would notice me.

  He soon left the market, having seemingly readied himself for something significant. He walked more cautiously as he approached the Rasoul Bakery on the corner. He looked left and right before turning down a side street. I sped up so as not to lose him. A small girl ran past me; the poor child tripped and dropped her black plastic bag. Her steaming fresh bread had fallen on the ground. I looked hesitantly at her, then at the bread, but I didn’t have time to help. I stopped at the top of the street and peered around the corner to observe Abdullah’s movements. He stood in front of a green metal door and glanced in my direction. His eyes met mine but he quickly turned away. No, he didn’t see me. I just imagined that. Oddly, my brother didn’t knock on the green door; he just pushed it open and entered like he was family, like he went in there every day.

  I moved at a brisk pace. The house was the fifth on the right. It had a small front garden filled with dead plants; I peered at the dried-up bitter-orange leaves and the leafless branches of the acacia and castor oil trees. Scrap metal, tools, and junk were piled up. The door to the house was not properly closed, and there was a gap I could peek through. With a shock, I saw a man with a florid face who looked just like Izzat al-Douri, dictator Saddam’s vice president. The man’s mustache had the same red tint as his face, mixed with a few white hairs, and he sported a bushy red beard. The hair on his head was thin and did not fully conceal his red scalp. Bizarrely, he was sitting behind a green ping-pong table beneath the inner balcony; Abdullah was sitting directly opposite him on a small metal chair.

  The street was empty apart from a few children. At nine in the morning, most people were busy with breakfast. I could hear the clang of spoons stirring glasses of tea, ringing like the school bells of a distant childhood. I could smell the eggs frying in their pans. I would not attract anyone’s attention here, as I stole glances through the narrow gap in the doorway. I saw my brother put his hand in his jacket pocket, take out my wife’s jewelry box, and set it reverently in front of the florid-faced man, as if my brother were paying off some sort of debt. I could not hear exactly what the florid man was saying to him, but he spoke like he was dispensing King Solomon’s wisdom. My brother nodded his head in agreement at what was being said. Then the red man handed my brother something wrapped in a blue rag. Abdullah took it and quickly stuffed it in his pants pocket as he continued to listen. It appeared that the meeting was ending, so I hurried up the street and went into the Rasoul Bakery. I joined the line of men waiting to buy bread, but turned toward the outside window, waiting for my brother to walk by. He sneaked past the bakery, stealthy and lithe, like a tiger about to pounce on its unsuspecting prey. I watched him kneel down underneath a palm tree on Dolai’s main street to tie his shoelace, and at that moment I remembered that I had buried a hand grenade under the palm tree at our house.

  I left the bakery and hid behind a fruit seller’s wooden stand, afraid that Abdullah had sensed my presence or spotted me. At that moment the blasted hand grenade leaped into my mind again—a grenade that might explode at any time and cause a catastrophe at home.

  * * *

  My friend Hamza and I had often talked with anger and excitement about how to resist Saddam’s dictatorship and the fascist Baath Party. But we didn’t have concrete plans, and our enthusiasm remained mere talk, until one no-good Friday.

  Baghdad was melting in the heat that burning summer day; asphalt stuck to our shoes and we could barely step out of the viscous tar. We took refuge in any patch of shade, no matter how narrow or weak. The sun would have hard-boiled an egg in three minutes, as my friend Hamza put it. “The sun in Iraq,” he stated with unshakable certainty, “is the wet-nurse to tyrants. Our summer is the world’s biggest factory for dictatorship, violence, and crime. We have to overthrow summer before Saddam and the Baath Party.”

  We had a short and enigmatic meeting at the Tobji Café that sizzling Friday. I couldn’t have known that it would be our last—I can’t even remember what Hamza was wearing on that no-good day. He came into the café drained of color, glancing around like an Iraqi sparrow, his eyes darting in every direction. He sat down across from me. On the table between us were some dominoes. The waiter put a glass of tea down in front of Hamza, but it remained untouched on the table. He uttered a terrifying command: “Leave this café and never come back. I’ve come to warn you—I’ve been wanted for the last two days, and the security guys have turned the neighborhood upside down trying to find me. Take this bag and look after it for me. In a few days I’ll come and pick it up. You mustn’t tell anyone about me or the bag.”

  When I got home, no one sensed my confusion and worry. I crept straight to my room and opened the black bag. I was shocked when I saw a hand grenade, which emanated a foul smell. Cold sweat started streaming down the back of my neck, despite the intense heat. In the middle of the night, after everyone was asleep on the roof, I went back down to my room and put the hand grenade and its black bag inside an empty tub of Polyfilla. I dug up the soil under the only palm tree in our yard and buried it, expecting Hamza to come get it in a couple of days. But a week went past and he didn’t come.

  That had been a year and two months earlier, and since then there had been no trace of my friend anywhere in Hurriya City, Iraq, Asia as a whole, perhaps even the whole world. The hand grenade remained buried. Then I searched for it the night before my age group was called up for military service. I’ll put the grenade in my blue backpack with my food and other stuff, I thought to myself. On my way to al-Shorja on al-Shuhada’a Bridge, I’ll throw it in the Tigris along with its black bag.

  I dug up the earth around the palm tree but couldn’t find the empty tub of Polyfilla. I had no idea where the shifting soil had taken it, or when it was going to explode once the firing pin had been corroded away by rust.

  * * *

  My brother straightened up after tying his shoelace beneath the palm tree. He didn’t look around him, confident in an invisible bodyguard, or as though he were under some sort of spell. I did not want to spoil the results of tailing him before I had discovered where this mysterious morning would take us. I didn’t care about losing a day’s pay, and didn’t think about my colleagues with stalls near mine.

  My brother went back the same way he had come. I watched how he ignored the people, the shops, the houses, the trees, and the cars—oblivious to everything. He walked the surface of the Earth alone. Handsome and elegant, he moved through the market, shrugging off the crush of shoppers and passersby who bumped into him. He did not hear the jumble of singsong voices from dozens of traders calling out to attract customers. He did not smell the hundreds of scents and fragra
nces wafting around the market. He walked unaware of his steps and in pursuit of his shadow. He passed the al-Farouq mosque, recently built but on the verge of collapse, like a defective fetus. He crossed over to the other side of Hurriya 3 Street, where the yellow buses were lined up blocking the view of the barbers, the herbalists, the cobbler, the hardware store, and a number of secondhand shops. It seemed like Abdullah didn’t care what these shops sold, that he didn’t even notice the sparks flying off metal being welded in a nearby workshop. He soon reached the al-Moshahda mosque, one of the landmarks of Hurriya 3. My father used to pray there before he got arthritis in his knees. My brother continued down the street, leading to the large market of Hurriya 2 without hesitation or confusion, apparently unconcerned that anyone he knew might see him. He walked with confident steps. I was stunned by the poise of this teenager; shocked by a brother who I was seeing for the first time as a stranger. Even some kids playing soccer stopped running after their ball when they sensed him coming.

  He did not go into the market, but veered into a backstreet and toward the gateway of the gas cylinder depot, which overlooked Hurriya 2 Highway, opposite the schools. Abdullah stopped and stood in the middle of the street in front of a small shop with Elegance Tailor written on the window in large red letters. He stood with his back to the wall of the gas depot; I watched how he looked the place over, as if he were making sure he had the right location, then took out the blue rag the florid-faced man had given him and burst into the tailor’s shop.

  I heard a single shot. People jumped and ran off in every direction. Terrified, strangled voices cried out, and heads disappeared into shoulders and behind doors, windows, and fences. All I could see were feet running desperately. A three- or four-year-old child fell over and was swept up by his mother as if by a magnetic pull. She carried him inside another shop and shut the door. A woman on a rooftop next to the tailor’s shop shrieked and abandoned the wet laundry she was draping over the fence. Another woman left her gas cylinder to roll, clunking along as she fled through an open doorway toward the end of the street. Everyone ran away—not a head in the area was raised because there was still the threat of another bullet. At that point, my brother came out of the tailor’s just as he had gone in, calmly and confidently, as though he had just met the proprietor to discuss the finishing touches to his wedding suit. He was empty-handed, no blue cloth or pistol. He walked at the same pace as he had on our street and in Dolai, gracefully and handsomely, still with those innocent butterflies dancing around the flame of his face.

  I remained rooted to the spot at the corner of the gas depot wall, trembling and nervous, and on the verge of throwing up all over my shoes. I was totally paralyzed, unable to move my arms and legs, while Abdullah made his way toward Hurriya 2 Highway with an eerie calmness. He stopped for a moment when a yellow bus came along. He climbed in and his face vanished among the passengers. I realized that his serenity was even worse than the murder I had witnessed; the unawareness of someone who kills in complete serenity with no compunction in his heart or mind; someone who kills a human being as though he had simply plucked a hair off his face—unaware that he had poisoned the wellspring of life. Such people have murderous ideologies, but my brother had no such creed. He didn’t even know how to pray. Was he from a new generation of killers—one whose members had no ideology or motive?

  A crowd formed in front of the tailor’s shop. Heads emerged from shoulders, from doorways, windows, and rooftops. The workers at the gas plant came running. I also started to move again as I awoke from my paralysis. As I walked on heavy legs, I glimpsed a man covered in blood behind his sewing machine. His head had fallen onto his right shoulder, and I was stunned by the great similarity between him and the red man who sat behind the green ping-pong table at the desolate house in Dolai.

  I got home just in time to prevent myself from vomiting. Everything seemed normal, like any other day. It appeared that my wife had yet to miss her jewelry box. I was crushed, however, as though I had to carry the corpse of the tailor on my shoulders. I asked my mother about Abdullah. The word brother had become odious and discordant, an antonym of itself. Should I say: my teenage enemy? The calamity was that he was my brother, whether I wanted him to be or not; no matter what he did, in the end, he was still my brother.

  “He hasn’t come back since the morning,” my mother answered.

  What should I say to my family? To my mother and father? Your son is a dangerous criminal. He’s the burglar who stole the Kashan rug. Which was my father’s favorite carpet; he practically sanctified it, and didn’t allow anyone to so much as touch it. It reminded him of precious immaterial values: a fire had erupted in a big carpet shop on al-Nahr Street, and my father had picked up a hose and forced his way through the fire. His fellow firemen had pulled back in fear of the flames and smoke that consumed everything they came across, incinerating the surfaces while writhing serpents of steam coiled up into the air. My father, though, had raced straight to the source of the fire and put it out. The pillars of smoke dispersed and al-Nahr Street erupted with applause and cheers for the heroic fire-slayer. The shop owner arrived carrying a Kashan rug that he gave to my father. My mother would repeat to us: “Your father is a ball of fire, with a God-awful temper. He gets angry and worked up about the stupidest things. He’s the ball of fire that puts out fires . . . I’ve never seen another fire put out flames.”

  The Kashan rug disappeared like the Japanese juicer, which had remained in pristine condition because it had never been touched; we didn’t use it and didn’t drink any juice. The economic sanctions on Iraq had squeezed the juice out of every last one of us. How on Earth could we drink fruit juice?

  My brother stole the juicer too; he prevented us from selling it, even though we could have lived off the proceeds for a week or more. We still did not know the scale of his other, as yet undiscovered thefts.

  I could sense the hand grenade creeping about under the rooms in the house. The safety pin had been corroded away by rust and the thing was about to explode.

  * * *

  Abdullah was surprised when I invited him to the Tobji Café. I had forgotten Hamza’s warning not to go to that café, but where was he now? It had been over a year since all trace of him and his name had been wiped from space and time; as though he had no place on the tree of life; as though his mother had neither carried him in the womb nor given birth to him.

  My brother and I stood on Hurriya 2 Street in front of the Working Men’s Café, crowded as usual with yellow-bus drivers. I had never been inside and hated its name, which harked back to the early Baathist era, when words like fighter, revolutionary, and working man meant the opposite. We got into one of the yellow buses during the afternoon rush hour, when the streets were at their most crowded and walking was quicker than driving. But I was exhausted, enfeebled, and violated in body and mind. I didn’t know where to start with my brother or how to present him with all the tangled threads of the riddle. Barely able to keep my composure, I somehow maintained a facade of calm. The person sitting next to me was a murderer with blood on his hands, and the lives of all these pedestrians, shoppers, and strollers bumping into each other on both sides of Hurriya 2 Street and Bata were in jeopardy. No one knew who the next victim would be—maybe someone dictated by the florid-faced man in Dolai, whose instrument of death was sitting next to me. There were so many people on the street; it looked like everyone who lived in Hurriya City had gone outside.

  We got off the bus at the edge of Hurriya City on Rabie Street. I saw a drab-colored mass of Baathist comrades carrying machine guns and looking fiercely into people’s faces. We dodged the mud-colored group by slipping behind a tractor trailer hulking over the pavement. I spotted the Tobji Café, where customers were still sitting outside despite the cold breeze, and shouting at each other as they played dominoes.

  We sat down in the same place that I’d had my final meeting with Hamza. The waiter set two cups of tea down on the table. Without preliminaries, I
surprised my brother the moment he put the cup to his lips so that I could clearly see the tremor in his hand. “Abdullah, why did you kill the tailor near the gas depot this morning?”

  He stammered, but his face seemed flushed with innocence. It would have been hard to condemn him had I not seen him kill the tailor myself. Could I deny the evidence of my eyes? He didn’t drink his tea, only put the cup back on the tray. Then, with an astonishing lack of artifice, he answered: “Me? Kill? I try not to accidentally step on ants! Kill? How? Why?”

  I slapped him with another accusation in a voice hoarse with rage: “Earlier this morning, I saw you steal my wife’s jewelry box, and discovered that it was you who stole the Kashan rug and the juice machine! Do you deny that too?”

  “If I didn’t love you, I’d think you were an enemy, not a brother,” he said sweetly, his voice dripping with sadness and pain. “In the blink of an eye, I’ve turned into a killer and a thief. God knows what’s next.”

  Abdullah’s eyes glistened and the tears flowed. It was enough to break my heart. Suddenly, he stood up and quickly fled the café. My eyes followed him as he disappeared among the people and houses. I stayed sitting, confused and unsure what to do. Night had fallen and the lights had turned on, but the darkness inside me remained thick and black.

  Sometime later, I too stood up and left. My feet stumbled in the darkness and I sensed that I was in danger. I had woken the sleeping monster. My brother would tell the florid-faced man in Dolai; I sensed that he obeyed that man’s every command and would carry out all his orders, even if it meant killing those dearest to him. I had recklessly rushed to accuse Abdullah, who now knew I was onto their secret. They would never leave me alive. God, where to run? Going home meant going to my death, but the house was my only refuge: que será, será!