Perhaps the best explanation for the absence of any delay on Grandfather’s part in choosing the place and deciding to move there is that, over the years, he used to stand and gaze for long periods out the window of our guest room in Subh Village. Perhaps he was forming this plan.
Grandfather’s insistence on accepting the insulting name in the beginning, and his promise to change the name to Dignity after we took revenge, was a tactical, premeditated step. It demonstrated his intention to establish a goal that we needed to struggle to achieve. Tying the goal to the name of the village meant we would always remember it. At the time he had said, “Let the Prophet be our model in everything, for he is the one that changed the name of the city Yathrib to ‘Medina, the Illuminated City’ after emigrating there to establish the core of the Islamic state, which would stretch to all corners of the earth after he was gone. When we avenge our dignity, we, too, will name this village of ours Freedmen, The Absolute, or Dignity.”
That was then. And till this day, I haven’t liked those names because of how diluted those generalized, traditional concepts have become. What’s more, deep down I preferred the name Qashmars, at least from the point of view of how pretty the sound was to pronounce. Perhaps my father was of the same opinion, seeing that he had bestowed upon his club here that very name.
In the first two years after our move, we noticed a newfound vigor in Grandfather’s body and mind. What’s more, there was even an improvement in his health, so much so that he was usually not content just to give orders and plans (even the architecture!) and to oversee the work, but he found it hard to keep his hands from taking part.
He used to say, “This will be a good town, with the Qur’an as its constitution and sharia as its legal system. We will make it a model of virtue and an earthly base from which people depart for heavenly paradise!”
In the village, Grandfather filled the role of absolute governor. No details escaped his notice. Leaning upon his Pakistani cane, he shouldered his almost eighty years and made daily rounds in the village: writing marriage contracts and blessing those who married young, determining the punishment for wrongdoers, and reconciling adversaries. He would visit the sick, and he would recite incantations and Qur’anic texts over the places of their injuries. He would censure the women who revealed their legs when sitting in front of the washtubs and call to account whoever among them overburdened their donkey. He would proffer advice and teach both young and old about their religion and their world. He meddled in everything and exercised control over everything, doing it all out of zeal to apply “God’s statutes” in their entirety.
He made the mosque’s prayer hall, which was next to our house, his dwelling place and a headquarters for administering all village affairs. Prayers, meetings, and religious celebrations took place there. There, too, were the judgment council, conversations, colloquies, and worship. There was the school where we all learned. And there were the books, the box of sweets, the bag of dates, the poison for rats, and the hereditary family sword.
When picking the muezzin, who performed the call to prayer, he chose the darkest and strongest person among us, thereby imitating Prophet Muhammad’s choice of Bilal the Ethiopian. And because he didn’t want to change the man’s name, he commanded the muezzin to name his son Bilal. Then he called him “Abu Bilal,” that is, Father of Bilal. Actually, he did this even before the son who would confer this name upon the father was born. He ordered stairs to be built that would lift Abu Bilal to the roof to recite his call to prayer from there. So we all woke up at dawn to his voice, which became more beautiful with the passage of time and Grandfather’s instruction. In the same way, we would measure the time according to his five calls to prayer. Meanwhile, Grandfather reserved the Friday call to prayer for my father, perhaps with the intention of forcing him to come back every weekend from his job in Kirkuk.
My father was the only one who left the village, so he became, in this way, our sole link to the outside world. And judging by the intensity of my father’s obedience to Grandfather, I was certain that he would have left his job, which he loved, had Grandfather asked that of him.
Grandfather stipulated that my father take a path across the mountain and not through Subh. So in order to cross to the other side of the mountain and reach the highway that connected Mosul and Baghdad, my father followed a trail made by the livestock. He would flag down cars going in the direction of Mosul, and from there to Kirkuk. He would sometimes travel by foot, taking more than an hour to cross the mountain. Other times, one of us would accompany him on a donkey. I was the one who liked doing this the most because my father would talk to me on the road about the outside world and about the Germans, whom he liked a lot. He would say, “They really like eating sweets, and they have many different kinds. Next time, I’ll bring you a piece of their chocolate. They are like our family, which is obsessed with dates, but their sweets have an infinite number of colors and flavors.”
Along those lines, I also remember him talking one time about German women. He was talking freely, as though he were alone, or — who knows? — he may have meant to inspire a sense of friendship and treat me like a man. “Their hair is like a field of wheat at harvest time. The fuzz on their breasts and their pubic hair is like a handful of golden grass. But their smell! Their butts are their least beautiful parts since they are not rounded at all, but just a continuation of their backs and thighs. Butts without personality! If they would encircle their green eyes in the middle of those golden faces with black eyeliner, it would be amazingly beautiful — amazing! Their breasts are large and swaying. Faces and bodies as smooth as butter, but bland and boring — is it because butter is eaten with sweet things rather than savory? There are lots of fat ones with huge bodies. Tall ones, some of them reaching as high as that tree — that one, do you see it? Yes, I’m serious! They are less talkative than the other foreigners I know. Somewhat cold. Is this what makes them love the sun? In the sun, they become red like tomatoes.”
He would talk to me about other foreigners, whom I would imagine to be tribes like us — French, Thais, Americans, and Indians. Also the English, about whom he would say, “I don’t like them because they have yellow smiles.”
I wondered to myself at the time about the secret behind his hatred of the English because of their yellow smiles while at the same time he loved the Germans, who had yellow hair. But I quickly gave up wondering since I didn’t understand what it meant to have a yellow smile, and I didn’t want to interrupt his fiery discourse about the Germans: “There in Germany, Saleem, everything an Arab longs for exists in abundance. I mean water, plants, and attractive faces. All of Germany is one big green field. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s true they might be so serious as to be dry in their interactions, as though they live for work alone. They are stubborn, like your grandfather, and for that reason, iron suits them. They use it to make the best cars. They are very successful in iron and music. A challenge strengthens them, and therefore they built their country up quickly after the war, surpassing their enemies in construction. They have freedom there. Everybody says what he wants and does what he wants, without anybody interfering in his choices. Freedom, Saleem. Ah, freedom! Do you understand what I’m saying, Saleem?”
“Yes, Father,” I said, even though I was picturing his words in my own way more than really understanding what he meant. As far as I was concerned, these were startling images, like the ones Grandfather etched in our imaginations about paradise. I mixed my father’s descriptions into Grandfather’s until they seemed the same to me. The only difference was that what my father described was present on earth while what Grandfather described was found in heaven.