LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

in their brusque English, but so many didn’t understand them. I’m lucky my English is good, I have Papa to thank for that, speaking English around the house, keen for me to learn early and learn properly. His fluency and his vocabulary hadn’t come from Western films and music like so many people’s had; it came from living and studying there for years.

      “English history books teach you a different kind of English,” he told me.

      When I hear the Americans talk, I think they could do with some lessons from Papa.

      Was I glad the regime had fallen? Yes, I suppose, I was. But so frightened and so worried.

      Papa and Aziz talked about it over dinner – they chatted and argued and debated about what it would mean to us as a country and as a people. Papa, always the historian, reasoned his argument with fact, Aziz went with what he saw and what he felt. As I watched them and listened to them I sensed the change already; they were Iraqis and they were talking. But even when the debate heated up, it ended in one of two ways: either Aziz’s contagious laugh forcing up the corners of Papa’s mouth, or Hana mentioning the prisons, questioning when they would be opened, and the prisoners liberated. The opposite ends of the scale, one lightening your heart, the other making it feel like lead. Both bringing the family together.

      I saw clouds cross Papa’s eyes whenever prison was mentioned. I saw the muscles fall slightly in his face.

      Life in the city was beyond dangerous, a curfew in the evening, gunfire across the skies, explosions rattling the windows and doors in their frames. I felt closer to Papa than I ever had. We were a strange family for this city, this country. I didn’t know of any other single fathers and I thought of what he did, bringing me up alone, waiting for Mama’s return, and I wondered if he was lonely. He went to work and came home. He did very little else. And I wondered if his belief in Mama’s eventual return ever dwindled, if he ever dared to let himself think she wouldn’t come back.

      Maybe if he had, he would’ve taken Aziz’s advice; left this country, returned to England, found a job there, at least until Baghdad was safe. Things would have been better if he had done so, if he had left. Things would not have ended as they did.

      But his belief in her survival seemed forever undaunted, and he stayed.

      Some days I believed she wasn’t meant to be found, that I should accept she would never come back. Other days I believed it was kinder to think she had died. I knew there had been no justice in this city, and still it eluded us, but always a smallest shadow of hope, the tiniest chink of belief, lurked somewhere inside me, and I could never let go of the possibility that one day she might just return to us.

      But as we waited and we hoped, our lives continued to change before our eyes.

      I watched strange men, in strange uniforms and with strange voices, march and drive into my city with weapons at their shoulders, pointing right, left, up, down, uttering promises of a better life. Safety and security. Freedom and democracy. Liberation.

      When these things would come, I never heard.

      I saw shops with fronts blasted out, schools with roofs caving in, holes in roads, burnt-out cars, piles of rubble that had been homes, plumes of smoke, shells of buildings, husbands comforting crying wives, mothers nursing injured children.

      People at school disappeared; stopped coming, were injured, some killed. My class was suddenly only twelve.

      I cried. Selfishly, I cried for everything I had lost. I missed my friends so much. I sat next to different students, spent my lunch times and breaks with girls I had never spoken to before. I felt lonely. I hoped it might bring a sense of camaraderie between us; all in the same position, all with the same feelings, but it didn’t. It brought a bigger division.

      One of the girls asked me what it was like being the only Christian in the class. I was shocked. She said she couldn’t sit with me. “Baghdad isn’t a place for Christians,” she told me. “You should leave.”

      Teachers left too. My science teacher, my favourite teacher, was forced to leave. A member of the Ba’ath party, he had no choice. But he was ambitious, hopeful and aspiring for his future; he joined, I’m sure, in name only, like Papa. To achieve anything, to get anywhere, to be promoted, to thrive in your career, was impossible if you didn’t join.

      But to the Americans, you were a Ba’athist, so you were a threat – your job was taken.

      And so Papa lost his job too. His passion for education and learning which had followed him throughout his life, pulled from under him. I could see the disappointment in his shoulders, the depression tugging at his body and his mind, the frustration in his eyes at being unable to help his students, who battled in to the university, past roadblocks and checkpoints, through explosions and gunfire. His students so loyal to him.

      My poor Papa. He was lost. He was drifting.

      I wished I could do something for him. Help him in some way, but there was nothing I, nor anyone else, could do.

      And now, what do I wish for?

      I wish that I had thought of something, anything, before it was too late.

      

      With time on his hands, and with danger everywhere, Papa insisted on walking me and Layla to school, taking turns with Ali.

      Before the war, I used to love the walk to school, even on days when I had an exam. Strolling by with Layla and her brothers, the sounds of a city coming to life, the smells from the bakeries, the morning sun prickling out sweat on our brows as we gossiped about fellow students, moaned about homework or bad grades or miserable teachers. I didn’t have to be taken to school every day in fear of kidnapping, attacks or rape.

      Now, as we walked with Papa, we dodged through rubbish piling up on streets, counted bullet holes in abandoned cars; Layla’s brothers jumped over charred marks on the pavements where something had exploded or been set on fire.

      And as it soon came to be that females daren’t go outside without a male escort, so it came to be that we could no longer dress as we liked.

      This was our liberation.

      I called for Layla one morning, and felt the change at my shoulder. It followed me, shadowing, eating and destroying, threatening everything I held precious. I looked at Layla and barely recognised her.

      She always wore jeans, she always wore her dark hair pinned a certain way, but now? I looked at her, a long abaya covering her body, a hijab covering her head. “Why?” I whispered.

      “My mother is worried,” she told me. “She doesn’t even want me to go to school. Not even with an escort. This is the only way she’ll let me out of the house. She says it’s safer.”

      I thought about her answer, staring around as we walked. I saw the girls, the women. Not one female without a male escort, most with two, all with their heads covered, some wearing abayas, covered to their feet.

      How long has it been like this? I asked myself. Have I been walking around with my eyes closed? Why have I not noticed?

      I turned back to Layla.

      “Think about it, Lina,” she said.

      Think about it, I repeated in my head. If I’d said it aloud, the incredulity would’ve been so heavy I wouldn’t have been able to take another step. I didn’t want to be told what I could and couldn’t wear. I didn’t want to wear a hijab, I wanted to feel the breeze blowing at my long hair.

      At school that day, I was the only female with her head uncovered. Whatever the religion, the upbringing, the faith, the girls were united by a hijab. At lunch I sat behind a group of girls who were debating something in hushed whispers. Briefly Layla leaned towards me. “They’re talking about Anita. She was kidnapped yesterday. If her family don’t pay the ransom by tonight, she’ll be killed.”

      Anita

Скачать книгу