The Baghdad Clock Read online

  When I try to remember that time, what comes back are the days of bitter cold, or the times when it rained. As for the summer, what I remember are the nights we slept on the roof. Those nights have all collapsed into a single night, a time I counted the distant stars, and when I went to sleep, the stars fell into the yard. That is why the rain will appear so frequently in my stories, and it is as though the burning summer sun was never there at all.

  At my grandmother’s house far away, the stars were closer than they were at home. We went there eight days before the war began. That was also in January 1991. We were afraid of the war, and my father decided that we would go there and be safe from the rockets because my grandmother did not fear the war, and the war took no notice of her.

  My grandmother’s house was big. It was surrounded by tall trees with little canals running between them where green frogs jumped. Two white ducks swam in the small pond behind the fence, followed by their four or five ducklings. I do not remember exactly how many ducklings there were, but I do remember they walked on the water and did not get wet.

  A grey cat sat by the edge of the pond. It was not blind or wet. It watched the ducklings and lapped the cold water with its tongue. When I got close, it ran away and disappeared among the trees.

  Even when it was very cold out, my grandmother would get up each day at dawn and pray because God could see her as she prayed in the dark. Grandmother would speak to the stars, and when the sun came up behind her four palm trees, she would come into the kitchen and make me breakfast. Her breakfasts were delicious. I have not had such food anywhere else in my entire life.

  Grandmother loved me. She spoiled me and took good care of me. I used to wish she was my mother, and I was delighted when she told me a secret that has remained between us until now: ‘I carried you in this tummy of mine before it gave birth to your mother.’

  At night, I shared her wide bed, a bed which swam with us through space. I did not see her dreams. My grandmother did not dream, and her eyes were not green. When she dozed off with her hand under her cheek, she neither smiled nor spoke to herself. She just slept so that stars might enter the window and encircle the picture of my grandfather, hanging on the wall to guard us from thieves. I did not know my grandfather, and he did not know me. All the same, I loved him and wished that we could see each other. He had been there in that picture for a long time, looking at us without saying a single word. The first time I saw his picture, I asked Grandmother, ‘Who’s that?’ She replied, ‘That’s Harun al-Rashid,’ which made my aunt laugh, as well as my father and my mother. I did not laugh. After a while, my father said to me, ‘It’s your grandfather.’

  Far from the house, on the opposite side of the garden, there were big wooden wheels called norias that took water from the river and poured it into the canals. The norias were close to the river, and so was the house, but even so, I could not see the river. At night, the smell of small fish came to me from the water, along with the songs of people immersed in the depths of time.

  Nadia had never seen the river before either. Once, we were running in the inner courtyard of the school, and she sang: ‘I crossed the Shutt for you.’

  Our friend Marwa came over and told us, ‘Shutt is another name for the river.’

  Some days later, Nadia went with her family to visit relatives on the eastern side of the Tigris River. Their car crossed the river, and Nadia saw a mangled bridge, killed by aeroplanes in the war. She saw the waves, the fish and the small boats. She smelled the air of the river and loved it. That night, she dreamed that her book bag fell into the water. The waves took it far away and a white bird came and stole it.

  In the schoolyard, Marwa said, ‘Liar! Birds don’t steal book bags because they don’t read or write.’

  ‘Nadia’s not a liar! I saw that in her dream too.’

  ‘How did you see her dream? You’re a liar like her.’

  4

  In our fourth year at school, I grew tall, taller than Nadia, but my eyes were not green. They stayed just like they were when I was small. My mother had not been lying at that time. It is just that I got big and left them as they were; I had simply changed my mind. I did not want my eyes to be green. Green eyes see the world just like the rest of us. Nadia did not see everything as green: I was not green; our house was not green; the sky was not green. But the trees and the grass were green.

  I was taller than Nadia. I see things from far away, and the things I do not see I imagine. If you want the truth, I like the things I imagine better than the things I see. When I decided one day to see the River Tigris, I climbed the stairs of the house to the roof because the river was far away, and when we climb up on the roof of the house, we see distant things. I stood on the water tank that was on the roof over the second floor. I turned in all directions, but I did not see the Tigris or any other river. I saw many bridges, buildings, tall trees, and birds circling in the sky.

  Before I forget, let me describe for you what else I saw that evening. I saw an enormous, unending ocean of space. In this gigantic ocean of horizons that stretched far under the light of the setting sun, I saw our neighbourhood as though it were a ship anchored along the shore, a gigantic ship with the Ma’mun Tower in the middle like its tall sail. The Baghdad Clock looked like an anchor thrown on the harbour quay, and the Zawra Tower was like the ship’s bridge, where the captain steered.

  I thought to myself, ‘One day, when this ship sets off, the enormous engine will groan into life; it will puff its white steam into the sky, and its whistle will sound far and wide. Everyone will climb aboard for a long journey towards the Isle of Safety, towards harbours no one has ever reached before. This ship will voyage out, further and further, until all trace of it is lost in the thick fog of forgetfulness.’

  I forgot to tell you about something else. Not too long after that, when I was leaving school after classes were over one day in February, I heard music echoing through the sky, music that I imagine most of you heard on the television or radio in those days: ‘Bum, ba bum bum ... bum, ba bum bum.’

  Do you remember it? I do. I don’t know how old you are now, but if you were in Baghdad when the clock opened in 1994, you would remember it. Everyone who was in Baghdad in 1994 remembers the clock and its music.

  A week or so later, we went on a school trip to the museum surrounding the new Baghdad Clock. We toured the halls and gardens. Then they took us inside, where we saw clean glass cases displaying gifts that people had presented to the president of the Republic. They had given him traditional swords, old rifles, and decorated panels with poems about his life. We saw stone reliefs and small clay seals that told stories about the ancient people who lived in Iraq thousands of years before us.

  Someone had drawn a big picture of the president and, alongside it, an even bigger picture of Harun al-Rashid. I said to the teacher, ‘Harun al-Rashid is my grandfather.’

  ‘I know,’ my teacher replied. ‘He looks like you.’ She burst out laughing as though she would die.

  Some poor women, who did not have anything to give the president as a gift, had cut off their braids, written their names on them, and put them in the museum. I do not know what the president does with women’s braids.

  The clock struck ten o’clock, and this time I heard the words of its patriotic song: ‘With you, Saddam, the folk have made their pact; you’ve seen their lofty sacrifice.’

  In the garden at the front, under the clock that read 10:10, we stood in a single row for a photograph to commemorate the occasion. That picture remains the only one I have of us all gathered together in one place: me, Nadia, Ahmad, Farouq, Baydaa, Marwa, Wijdan, Rita and Manaf, with the rest of the students in our class.

  On the right of the picture, Mrs Najah stood with her blonde hair and her red shirt. She put her hand on my shoulder and smiled for the camera. I loved Mrs Najah so much. And I liked it that she always put her hand on my shoulder. She was a good teacher who loved us all and laughed with us. When her husband drove up i
n a white car and waited for her at the door of the school, wearing his pilot’s uniform, we greeted him, and he would laugh with us too.

  Nadia dreamed she was running in the garden of the Baghdad Clock. She tripped and fell on the grass, cutting her leg. Ahmad came over to her, took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and sat down to press the handkerchief against the wound. Was that a dream, or was it an actual event that I have forgotten?

  Another day in February, we were going to school, and we saw Farouq. He was wearing jeans, a white shirt and grey shoes, and he was not carrying his book bag. This image of him was somewhat strange. He told us he was taking that day as a holiday from school, and that his father was travelling far away.

  A little later, Ahmad came up on his bicycle, smiling and singing to himself. He turned to Nadia and said, ‘I have a cat with green eyes.’

  ‘Liar! You do not.’

  Nadia took a piece of chalk out of her bag and wrote on the wall of the school in the large, carefully formed letters they taught us in class. ‘Ahmad stole our cat.’

  Many years from now, Nadia and I will pass by this place, next to that very wall. We will read the name Ahmad and laugh at the memory. The words we wrote with chalk on the wall of the school will remain there forever so that we might remember them and laugh.

  On that same day, Mrs Najah came in and handed out copies of our class photo taken in front of the Baghdad Clock. We made fun of Marwa because she appeared behind Ahmad’s shoulder like Yasmina in the television series, Sinbad. In this picture, we discovered that the clock was smiling at us. Baydaa said, ‘It’s laughing at us,’ and Mrs Najah laughed too.

  5

  At night before I fell to sleep, I thought about the Baghdad Clock. How did it stand there by itself in the dark without being afraid? I imagined it resting its head on its shoulder and dozing off. But which way would it bend to sleep? When did it wake up? Did it feel tired like us? Did it get any time off?

  My parents had gone to sleep and all the lights in the house were off. I got up out of bed, put on my mother’s long coat from the hall cupboard and walked on tiptoes to the front gate. A white cat – not the blind, wet one – beat me to it and leaped over it onto the pavement. I ignored the cat, slowly opened the gate, and went out into the street.

  When I got to the end of the street, I heard a car approaching. Its headlights shot out in front. I immediately pressed myself against the wall of the shop. The car passed by me and turned into the street that ran parallel to our school, the same street where Nadia and I found the blind, wet cat.

  A few moments later, the world had fallen back into a deep silence. I went in the direction of the main street on the other side and walked towards the clock.

  Halfway there, I hesitated and decided to return home and sleep. I do not know why I then continued on my way, all alone in the darkness. Sometimes we decide on something but do precisely the opposite.

  I arrived at the clock, which was prettier at night than it was during the day. When you go around it and look at it from every side, you can see that it is actually not one clock, but rather four clocks, each one facing in a different direction. I do not know why it was not called the Baghdad Clocks, seeing as they had put a big lamp on the ground in front of each one of the four.

  The short hand was pointing at one, and the long hand at nine. In that moment, Nadia was dreaming. She usually dreamed at that time of the night. I wanted to carry the clock and put it in her dream, but her dream was short and the clock was tall.

  I walked close to the building, which formed an eight-pointed star. The tall tower, which we saw from afar, stood atop it. I drew back and sat on the ground behind the big lamps illuminating the tower.

  ‘Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock...’

  What is the use of time if a person does not hear the sound of the swinging pendulum? I used to like talking to this thin object that would take half a step back and then half a step forward. That is all it needed to be happy.

  I said to myself, ‘Why does it count the small seconds that people have no use for?’ Then I asked it, ‘Who cares about the seconds at this time of the night, when people are asleep? Don’t you get tired?’

  ‘One day I’ll get tired, and then I’ll stop forever.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘When there is no longer a ship anchored in this wide ocean of darkness.’

  The hour hand remained fixed at one, and the minute hand pointed at twelve. I got up and brushed bits of wet grass off my clothes. Turning around, I ran towards the main street, pursued by the faint lights of a distant car. The car took a sudden turn to the left, and darkness once again filled the world. I saw a soldier on guard duty carrying a rifle, but he was looking the other way and did not see me.

  While I was on my way back, I saw in front of me the prow of an enormous ship with the Ma’mun Tower in the middle, like a mast with its sails furled. I went through a small opening on the side of the ship, wandering through dark passageways as I looked for the shortest path to the side facing the water. The sound of crashing waves reached me, and I was struck with an intense dizziness that nearly made me lose my balance and fall down. I really heard waves, and everyone has to believe me when I tell them about my journey inside the ship.

  I am not lying. I will tell you what I saw, or what I imagined. When I was wandering through the ship, I thought to myself, ‘Should I tell them what I was thinking?’ Because most people only believe things that come into their own minds, and they do not know things that have not occurred to them.

  The captain arrived, half-asleep at that hour. He asked, ‘What are you doing here at a time like this?’

  ‘I want to ride the ship and travel far away.’

  ‘But you were born on it, and if you want to travel, you have to get off.’

  After that, he started walking back to his cabin to sleep. I ran after him and called out, ‘Who are you? I’ve never seen you in the neighbourhood before, and I don’t know you personally, even though I’ve met all the people around here.’

  He gestured that I should wait and entered his cabin. Re-emerging with a teapot, he poured us each a small cup. Then he sat on a small bench, looked into my face, and said, ‘Where are we right now?’

  ‘We’re on the deck of the ship,’ I replied.

  ‘Is there a ship without a captain?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is there a car that moves without a driver?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m the driver,’ he said. ‘I’m the one who guides this ship.’

  ‘But this ship doesn’t move.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m the driver of the ship that doesn’t move. My sole duty is to keep it from moving.’

  ‘What’s the use of a ship that doesn’t move?’

  He drank his tea and poured himself another cup. ‘It’s stopped here so that the travellers can get off.’

  ‘And where will you go if everyone gets off?’

  He stood up with his tea and leaned against the rail, looking off into the unending darkness of the ocean. He spoke, as though talking to someone else: ‘Listen, my dear. The ship is an idea in your head, and I am an idea in the head of the ship. Small ideas usually have delicate wings, and when they lose their value on the earth, they fly up into space. The world we live in is just an idea made by the imagination of an inventive creator, and when he found it to be complicated, he began explaining it by means of other, smaller ideas. And so, after millions of years, the sky is filled with ideas that fly around on delicate wings. Everything our eyes touch is just an idea. There’s nothing real about reality. We are prisoners of our imaginations, and our experiences in the world of reality consist only of ideas. All of existence is an assembly of ideas. That is the sole truth. Don’t believe anything else. And don’t tell anyone, because people only believe things that come independently to their minds. Yet they don’t know where the mind is to be found. There’s never a day when they ask themselves, “Do I actual
ly possess a thing called the mind? What is it shaped like? What’s its colour?” The mind, my little one, is another idea. A complicated idea made of other ideas as though they were real.’

  I did not understand the captain’s words, but he was telling me the truth. I instinctively know when people are telling the truth. Sometimes there are things we do not understand, and we know their meaning, not through words but rather, the meaning is already inside us before others talk to us about it. Some meanings exist inside us but are sleeping. Then words that we understand come and wake them up.

  Often, when I am alone in bed before I fall asleep, I say to myself, ‘Why don’t I dream like Nadia?’ Then I think a little and go on to say, ‘Maybe I dream too, but I don’t know that I’m dreaming. Maybe I’m a long dream in the head of someone who is sleeping and doesn’t wake up. Someone who’s dreaming my whole life.’

  Am I a dream or an idea like the captain said? What is the difference between a dream and an idea? Should I be happy if my life is only a dream in someone’s head?

  I left the captain without saying goodbye since his mind was elsewhere. Without turning towards me, he kept talking, looking out into the darkness of the unending ocean.

  At the end of a long passageway, I saw the shelter where we had slept to escape the war in January 1991. I thought about going inside, but I gave up that idea. I was afraid, and my heart pounded violently.

  I ran towards our street. Pushing open our gate, I quietly entered the house on tiptoes. The white cat jumped in front of me a second time and disappeared among the dense trees in the far corner of the garden. I left the front door half open, climbed the stairs to my room, and sat on my bed. I was guiding the ship into the distance like a courageous captain, braving rainstorms and violent winds that blasted the sails. When the sun rose and shone through the window, the storms had blown themselves out, the waves had retreated and the ship had come safe to harbour – all thanks to the guidance of the wise captain.