“Would you like to come along?” asked Saadun.
“Yes,” replied the boy.
“Go tell your father that you’re coming with me.” Abd alRahman’s father, wearing his traditional clothes, was observing the scene from the second floor balcony. Before the boy spoke the father nodded his head approvingly.
51
The two walked together through the muddy path that separated the house gardens from the surrounding fields. Saadun was whistling and walked fast, taking long steps, his hands in his pockets. The boy hurried behind, stopping every now and then to remove a pebble or a piece of fruit that had fallen from a tree. When they reached the main road, they headed toward the city drainage stations, where many fellahin fleeing the harshness of their feudalistic masters had established a shantytown. They came to the city looking for work as unskilled laborers, shoeshine boys, cigarette vendors, hawkers, gardeners, or café servers. The Baghdadis called them al-Shuruqiya.
Saadun and Abd al-Rahman crossed the muddy wall that separated the shantytown from the street. Young boys swam in the dirty swamps with water buffalo fighting tick bites. The smell was unbearable, and the sight of putrid garbage was disgusting, but they soon left this squalid part of the city. They headed toward a group of mud houses behind the huts until they reached a small café with a broken wooden door. Chairs were lined up in front. As soon as they sat down, Ramadan the waiter rushed to offer them two cups of hot tea that they then enjoyed under a warm winter sun. Some other customers, who were playing dominoes, recognized Saadun’s voice and came over. They hugged and greeted him, asking, “What brings you, Saadun? How are you?” Someone tossed two oranges to Saadun. Abd al-Rahman picked up the one that fell under the table and put it in his pocket. Said, the barber whose shop was near the café, came over and greeted Saadun.
“Oh, son of a bitch.” Saadun laughed. “We’re all children of bitches.”
Said looked very much like Saadun. He slapped him on his belly, hugged him, and said to those present, “This is not my brother, this is the devil himself.”
Saadun was soon surrounded by other acquaintances— Salman, Mahmoud al-Qantarji, who was reading the newspaper, and Jabbar. They were talking loudly, cracking jokes, and laughing. Meanwhile Abd al-Rahman was busy observing the street facing him. It was crowded with small carts, motorcycles, and wooden buses that were bursting with people. Cages holding hens and birds, and crates filled with milk containers were strapped on top. The buses were sloshing through the mud, each moving in a different direction, some toward Tayaran Square, and others toward Bab al-Sheikh or Bab al-Sharqi. The boy enjoyed watching all the action but was too timid to ask questions.
Mahmoud invited Saadun and the boy to lunch, but Saadun declined and got up to leave. They cheerfully bade their friends goodbye and headed to a nearby slaughterhouse. The butchers were standing outside their shops, knives at their waists, aprons stained with blood. Sheep were eating meat scraps and pieces of offal. The potholes in the street were filled with dry blood. The boy liked this type of dirt because he considered it honest.
The big-bellied slaughterhouse owner sat outside smoking a water pipe, his bald head shining in the sun. Women were carrying milk jugs, their feet wrapped in white fabric meant to protect them from thorns and dirt. Saadun and Abd al-Rahman stood at the entrance of the slaughterhouse and were soon approached by a fair young woman with skin as white as milk. She pretended to have missed the bus and said to Saadun in a hoarse voice, “We miss you.” She blushed as she talked, and her black eyes twinkled.
Saadun laughed back at her and touched her lightly with his foot, whispering, “Tomorrow.”
A bus driver called out his destination, “Bab al-Sheikh, Bab al-Sheikh,” and she rushed off. From the bus she bade them goodbye with a tender gesture.
“Who’s she?” asked Abd al-Rahman.
“A friend,” replied Saadun proudly, “isn’t she more beautiful than Rujina?” The boy was quiet as they both walked back to the house.
52
Abd al-Rahman relived those images on their way back. He compared them to his family and the whole Iraqi bourgeoisie’s extreme concern with appearances, hiding their dirt under starched collars and clean white shirts. Each day he discovered a different life with Saadun, the gardeners, the washers, the maids, and the driver.
The boy’s dislike for his family and his relatives grew day by day. He was critical of their inability to enjoy life and have fun, to live in the fast lane, or enjoy physical contact. Those who were unable to perform popular heroic acts he judged harshly and determined a person’s importance solely from appearance. He was resentful of their clothes and their mere existence, their strange illnesses, their annoying voices. He disliked women who did not look like Rujina, with her pure dark face, curly hair, mysterious eyes — and that crime of hers that so stirred his desires. He remembered how she had flirted with him without any feelings of embarrassment.
53
At first Abd al-Rahman was not able to establish contacts with people easily. He couldn’t accept the fact that sex was a natural matter, as if he wanted to eternalize his childhood. He wanted to act in a responsible manner, like a mature individual, without tripping.
During his adolescence, as his masculinity was developing, he felt he was a sacred child. He didn’t want to be like the adults and adopt their values, and he didn’t consider the family sacred. Rather, he wanted to contest all that. Among those around him, Saadun relegated people to the past; Rujina had a past but no family, having even gone as far as to destroy her family; Suleiman the gardener worked to be able to live in the khan; and all Naser wanted was his bottle of arrack. On the opposite side were the large, complex families whose members, both men and women, were dragged down by a life of habits. He mercilessly ridiculed the families in his parents’ circle that he disliked so much, doing his best to assail their narcissistic feelings. He wanted to denounce them and thereby scare and shock his family.
One day he asked Saadun if he was married. Saadun laughed, “No. For what?”
Surprised, Abd al-Rahman wondered aloud, “Oh! What’s the point in having a woman?”
“A married man has one woman, but a single man has many women.” Saadun explained.
54
Abd al-Rahman belonged to an aristocratic family, although he did not experience the life enjoyed by his grandfather in his glorious heyday. He was a refined man who had been quite powerful during the Ottoman period. Abd al-Rahman grew up at a time when his family was losing its prestige, position, and power. He was not at all unhappy with his family’s turn of fortune and enjoyed seeing it lose the standing and esteem it had once enjoyed. His grandfather did not talk much as he got older and began to wither away. His mustache, which he used to wear turned upward like a Turk’s, now drooped. He could not help himself and needed to be carried like a child between the garden and the living room. His eyes wilted, and he covered his hair, which had by now turned gray, with an impeccably clean white Turkish cap. A woolen robe covered his combed-cotton pajamas and woolen slippers. He would plant his silver-clad cane and speak with his son in a low voice. He spent most winter days on the covered balcony, where he was protected from the wind and could enjoy the warmth of the sun. He drank his Turkish coffee there. When he wanted to sleep, the servants carried him to his room.
His grandfather was one of the most prominent figures in Baghdad during the time of Sirri al-Kraidi, who became Baghdad’s wali in 1890. He established the park in Midan Square and, thanks to the astrologers, got close to Sultan Abd al-Majid and spent time at the palace admiring the beautiful gold-clad slaves and young boys from al-Karj. He often spoke of the meals that were served in the palace, the richly set tables, and the food served from gold and silver vessels. He described the cutlery, the pitchers, the glasses, and the incense burners. He married a Turkish woman named Nazla Hanim, and the couple went to Baghdad during the plague days. Right off she was shocked by the city’s ugliness, unhealthy air, unattractive people, and bad food, and she immediately returned to Istanbul. Her husband later joined her, and this is when he met Wali Hasan Wafiq, who joined him in his walks around Istanbul. They were usually preceded by a detachment of horse riders, the slaves of the wali, and another regiment of foot soldiers in military dress, with English guns, and pipes and drums.