The Baghdad Clock Read online

  6

  The spring air is refreshing, and the days are growing slightly longer. We cast off our heavy clothes and feel ourselves becoming lighter. The boys come out on their bicycles, racing through the streets and happily ringing the little bells on the handlebars. Mothers and fathers head out to the gardens, and we too come out to play on the pavement.

  Abu Baydaa sprays his garden with water, spreading a refreshing fragrance everywhere. Umm Rita waters the area around her front porch so the smell of the earth rises and spreads the scent of the late spring breezes over her. Like you, I love the smell of earth when raindrops fall on it. Like you, I do not know why I do.

  From Umm Salli’s house comes the smell of grilled meat and a dish of potatoes fried in fat, and we all feel a little hungry.

  Suddenly, music bursts out from Umm Manaf’s house and, moved by its rhythm, we run, forgetting our hunger. We enter a festival of colours worn by the young women as they dance to celebrate Manal’s wedding. Her mother distributes traditional wedding sweets wrapped into shiny squares. The songs become louder, and perfume wafts everywhere.

  My God, my God, Manal, how pretty, so pretty

  Tears of joy, Manal, and hands of henna

  I stand far from the little girls and thrust my small head among the bodies of the women so I can see Nadia as she dances in the middle of the garden near Manal. Everyone likes it when Nadia dances, and they clap for her. Manal draws her in and kisses her. Envy consumes my heart, and I ask myself, ‘How did she learn to dance like grown-ups? Why isn’t she embarrassed in front of these women? It’s as though she’s lost in her own world!’

  All the girls applaud Nadia, and the singing grows even louder. Boys climb the wall around the house to watch Nadia, who dances on, unaware of their presence. One of them shouts out something rude. Nadia stops dancing, and the boy flees, followed by his gang of friends. Nadia and I go out of the garden. Her cheeks are red with embarrassment.

  We hear a new song coming from the garden, but Nadia refuses to go back. Manal’s mother comes out to stand at the gate, calling her, but Nadia runs home and does not come out again that evening.

  As I have said before, I will tell you the truth. I was a little jealous of Nadia – maybe a lot – because people loved her and took an interest in her. We all like it when people care, and if nobody takes an interest in us, we do not exist. Sometimes when people ignore me, I cry. I just go to my room and cry. Then I come out and do strange things so that others pay attention to me. Do you know what these strange things are? When I remember them, I will tell you, but right now I have forgotten.

  I lived my days in our own neighbourhood – its streets and alleys, its gardens and pavements – amid that enlivening air that drifted out of the gardens and over our childhood.

  I drew a small boat on the wall of Uncle Shawkat’s house. But I forgot to draw its sails, for in my whole life I had never seen an ocean or a sea and I had never been on a boat. I had seen the sunset from atop the water tank, like I told you, and it was like an enormous ocean that stretched very far, even further than my grandmother’s house. On television I watched Sinbad, and I saw the ship battling the waves on the deep seas. Sinbad and Yasmina both laughing loudly, happy to reach the harbour: ‘We’ve arrived at the floating island!’

  The next day, I hid a piece of chalk in my pocket, went to Nadia, and said, ‘Let’s go and draw sails on the small boat.’

  ‘I’ll draw the harbour and the seagulls.’

  ‘I’ll draw the sails.’

  We arrived at the wall, and as we were about to scribble on the clean wall of their house, Uncle Shawkat came out to us and grabbed us. He gave Nadia a gentle pinch on the ear and imprinted a clock deep on the skin of her wrist. It hurt a little, and Nadia was about to cry. Pain mixed with shame, and a small tear shone in her eye.

  Uncle Shawkat was sad about this turn of events, which he had not expected. He took us by the hand and led us inside the house, where he wiped away Nadia’s tears. Baji Nadira came up, scolding him and bending over to smile at us as she apologised. Every time we saw them together, he would bite our wrists, and she would scold him and apologise.

  I do not remember – neither does Nadia, nor her family nor mine – when Uncle Shawkat and Baji Nadira came to live in that house. The houses that were born before us, and the trees that grew up before we entered the world, did not have a history that people remembered.

  Their house had a low wall running between the front garden and the street. It was covered in ivy with tree branches rising above it. The main gate opened by the garage where Uncle Shawkat kept his small, yellow Volkswagen. At the end of the garage, there was an opening, tiled with mosaics, which led through a side passage and into the back garden. This is the only house that had its own smell in my memory. It is also the first house that comes to mind when I try to imagine the neighbourhood.

  Baji Nadira and Uncle Shawkat were raising a pair of partridges in their back garden. Baji Nadira had brought them with her from Kurdistan. On one of the branches of the pomegranate tree hung a small cage for a nightingale, which sang every morning. It sometimes sang in the evening too, but it slept at night. Their furniture was similar to that of the other houses in the neighbourhood, except it was more spread out, so the house felt more spacious and comfortable.

  On the wall that ran parallel to the dining table, there was an elegant picture of the young couple on their honeymoon at a Kurdistan holiday resort, with the Geli Ali Beg waterfall behind them. The water gushed down and carved out a small river among the rocks. This river ran through the valleys for a great long way before emptying into the River Tigris. Standing beneath Geli Ali Beg, the couple wore warm smiles that made the snow atop the mountains melt and pour forth as a song that wandered among distant valleys. Their photograph was a waterfall of memories that flowed in silence towards the infinite.

  Uncle Shawkat and Baji Nadira lived in this intimate kingdom, and in the evenings they watched television together on the very sofa that Nadia and I were sitting on eating candy, after Nadia had dried her tears.

  Although they had been married for many years, they did not have any children. Baji Nadira had not given birth to any daughters to play with us. Nadia and I and all the children of the neighbourhood were their children. We all went into their house and ate food that Baji Nadira made. We liked it very much, and she was happy with us. She would tell us stories in her Kurdish accent about the majestic mountains and about Mamand and his beloved, whom he stole away to live with him there for the rest of their lives. She told us about squirrels and farmers and other stories.

  ‘There was a farmer and his son, and neither of them could hear very well. One morning, the son woke up very early and put on his work clothes. His father saw him and asked, “Are you off to plough the field, my boy?” And the son replied, “No, father. I’m off to plough the field.” And the father said, “That’s fine, my boy. I thought you were off to plough the field!”’

  Nadia and I laughed at this delightful story. ‘Another!’ we said.

  Baji Nadira lifted her head, looking at the ceiling to remember. ‘There was a small village on the side of a big mountain called Birah Magrun. In this village there was a beautiful young woman who lived with her family. Every day she dreamed that a handsome young man came through the window to talk to her, but in the morning when she woke up, he was nowhere to be found. One day, snow fell and covered the entire ground. The young woman, whose name was Joanna, went out and climbed up the mountainside until she became tired. She sat down to think about this young man whom she saw only in her dreams. She said to herself, “I’ve never seen him in real life, so why don’t I make his likeness out of snow?” She began gathering the snow around her until there was a large enough pile, and then she sat down and used it to make the young man of her dreams. After an hour, she had created the likeness of a friend with big eyes and blond hair, exactly as she saw him in her dreams. She stood in front of him, looking into his eyes. Then he sp
oke: “I love you!” Joanna was embarrassed, and her cheeks flushed red.

  ‘“What’s your name?” she asked.

  ‘“My name is Mando.”

  ‘“Why are you so thin?”

  ‘“Because I’m hungry.”

  ‘She smiled at him and said, “I’ll go home and bring you something to eat.” He smiled and thanked her. Joanna hurried through the snow towards the house, but she got lost along the way because the snow had covered her tracks. Meanwhile, the sun came out from behind the clouds. When Joanna reached the house, she got some food and ran back to where she had left her friend. She was happy with the food she was bringing him.

  ‘But she didn’t find any trace of Mando because the sun’s heat had melted him. Joanna was very sad and began to cry. She threw the food on the ground, and sparrows came to eat it. And ever since that day, Joanna has got up each morning to bring food to throw to the sparrows in that same place. This beautiful young woman didn’t like the sun because it had taken Mando from her. One day, when she was carrying food out to the sparrows, she saw the sun dip close to the mountainside, and she asked, “Why did you take Mando, Mrs Sun?” The sun replied, “I didn’t take Mando. He loved you so much that he melted from love and became a creek.”’

  Nadia and I were sad for Joanna and Mando, and Baji Nadira was sad with us. But she told us, ‘Some other time I’ll tell you the happy ending for this young woman, who meets the young man of her dreams again.’

  In later years, Uncle Shawkat’s appearance was no longer elegant like it was when I was little, when he had his new suit and his white shirt with a blue tie over it. He stopped caring about his clothing. Even his tie became old and faded. He no longer smiled at us very often, and when we greeted him, he would return the greeting coldly, without looking at our faces.

  Baji Nadira left her job and kept busy by looking after her house and her husband. She was especially eager to keep their front door clean, as well as the pavement and the windows, and she was anxious about the sheds and birdcages in their garden. I loved her Kurdish clothing for its beautiful colours; I loved her dances and her Kurdish songs at celebrations.

  Nargus! Owei, narcissus, so lovely and so high

  Owei, nargus! The mountaintop, the blooming narcissus

  Early one morning, a few days after Nadia and I had been inside their house, Baji woke up, packed a suitcase and travelled to her family in their mountain village. No news came of her at all after that visit, and when someone in the neighbourhood asked Uncle Shawkat the reason for her disappearance, he sometimes said she was sick, and sometimes that her mother had died. As time went on, he learned to live by himself, and people got used to forgetting about Baji Nadira.

  To be honest, it is not that people forgot her, but rather they got used to forgetting her absence. It was not that they forgot her as a person. There are people in the neighbourhood – indeed, in every place around the world – about whom forgetting means that we remember their absence, and this absence takes the place of their presence in our lives. Baji Nadira was one of those whom it was impossible to forget. Only a few days ago, we even dreamed she told us a new story that I will share with you when the time is right.

  7

  Even though I liked my school during the day, I was afraid of its ghosts at night. All the children were afraid of the school building during the night-time. During the day, they feared the head teacher.

  One night, towards the end of June, we were playing in the light of a street lamp in our street. We were about to go home when Baydaa said, ‘Come on! Let’s go to the school and climb the wall.’ At first, this idea seemed strange to us, but Nadia said, ‘Yes, let’s do it! We’ll go to where the boys are playing football, and we’ll tell them that the results of the national aptitude test have been hanging on the noticeboard outside the head teacher’s office since this afternoon. Then we’ll watch them climb the wall, and we’ll run away and leave them there!’

  The boys could not believe their ears when we asked them to perform this heroic task for us. They immediately left their small playing field and ran ahead of us. One after another, they climbed over the wall and jumped down inside the dark school building. We fled and left them there, nearly dying of laughter. However, these wicked boys spoiled our fun, for after a short while, they returned, having discovered our trick. Carrying papers with grades from an old exam that they had taken from the board, they told us, ‘Here are the results of the test!’

  We were all astonished to find that our lie had actually been the truth, and the trick was turned against us. We began begging them to tell us what was on the papers. ‘They’re just blank pages!’ we said, but they insisted that they were the test results. To prove it, they told me, ‘You have to repeat English.’ They told Nadia, ‘You failed every subject and will repeat the year!’ To Baydaa, they said, ‘Congratulations, smarty! You passed!’ And they told Marwa, ‘Your results haven’t come out yet.’

  We kept begging them to see the results with our own eyes, but they absolutely refused and ended up running away with the papers. We went home, but anxiety prevented us from sleeping that whole long night. Dear God, was it true that I had failed English? I tried to recall the questions and my answers, but my memory was all jumbled up, and I forgot everything about the test. I even forgot if I had been tested in all the subjects, even though I had never missed a day of school in my entire life.

  Every time fear filled my heart, I would tell myself, ‘They’re lying! I didn’t forget. I’m good at every subject, especially English. I memorised the book cover to cover! How could I have failed such an easy subject? And how could Nadia have failed everything when she’s one of the smartest students in the school? Why hadn’t Marwa’s results appeared if these were the national tests?’

  I wanted to get up from my bed and go out into the street. I was choking on this atmosphere of fear that prevented me from sleeping. It was a time when the electricity had gone out, which happened a lot in those days. I got up and went to the kitchen, where I opened the refrigerator and drank a lot of water. When I went back to bed, I fell asleep immediately without another thought about the results.

  Nadia knocked on the door of our house very early the next morning, wearing her school uniform. She said to my mother, ‘The results have come out, and we have to go and get them.’ My mother replied, ‘You’re dreaming! Test results don’t come out at a time like this.’ I was listening to their conversation from behind the door, and when Nadia ran off, I went back to sleep. But my mother was not able to go back to sleep. She started making breakfast for us, and before waking me, she went to the school herself and came back, calling, ‘Get up, sleepyhead! You’ve passed with an average of ninety-three per cent!’ In that moment, I thought she was joking, but after I’d made sure, I jumped from the bed into her arms and kissed her face. Then my father woke up and kissed me. This was the first time my father had kissed me on the occasion of receiving test results without also picking me up and spinning me around with joy. I had grown bigger, and his hands were weak. Why, Dad? I am not grown up yet. Even though I am bigger, I want you to pick me up and spin me around the room. I want you to throw me in the air, my entire life floating up, waiting for your hands to catch me and keep me from hitting the floor. I was so angry with you but did not say so at the time. I was too embarrassed to say that in front of you since you considered me to have grown up. In your hands, Dad, I am little even when I am thirty years old. I am always small and suspended in mid-air between your outstretched arms.

  I had passed, Nadia had passed, and so had Baydaa and Marwa. We met in Baydaa’s garden and made fun of the boys who were still sleeping at this late hour and did not know that the test results had actually come out. After a while, we went out and knocked on Ahmad’s door and told him, ‘We’ve passed! As for you, go to school, and you’ll see who failed English, smarty-pants.’ We did that with Farouq, Nizar, Manaf and the rest of the boys. An hour later, the neighbourhood was filled with joy. Everyo
ne had passed.

  That was a special day I will never forget. Sadly, joy and sorrow were joined together that day, and the happiness in our neighbourhood did not last long. That very day, after Nizar had received his exam results, a big black Chevrolet stopped at the door of their house, one that we would get used to seeing later on. That was the moment they left their home and emigrated from Iraq. We would never see them again.

  I did not know then what it meant for a family to emigrate and leave the neighbourhood. We were not used to anything like that. The sanctions were not as severe as they would be in the coming years.

  The day before, I had happened to hear my mother talking with Nadia’s mother about the sanctions, but I had not paid close attention. I had often heard the word ‘sanctions’ in those days, and I hated it. On account of this word alone, it was necessary to bear with grown-ups’ moods and not ask too many questions. Because of the sanctions, my mother was deprived of the comfort she was accustomed to and began complaining of boredom. We could not ask her for anything, not even something simple that cost only a word. Imagine, a single word making my mother tired! My father became very quiet. He would drift off and contemplate the ceiling as though it was the very first time he had seen a fan. We went out only rarely. We did not go to Lake Habbaniyah that summer, and we did not go on long drives.

  The black car drove away. Abu Nizar’s house remained empty, and soon it was covered with dust. The trees drooped. A long iron chain had been wrapped around their front gate, making it look sad. The family had actually emigrated, and from the trees and the downcast walls alone, it was easy to see that they were not coming back.