His wife trembled with joy as she stood wrapped in her fur coat. Her face was sallow and her body emaciated. As soon as she set eyes on her family, she cried out loud. The news from Baghdad had talked of bloodbaths.
Haidar took off his woollen coat and tossed it on the chair opposite. He dialled Kakeh Hameh’s number. The latter’s voice sounded faint over the line, as though he were a prisoner. Kakeh Hameh told him that Nahida al-Said had been hanged at the hands of the insurgents. Hekmat Aziz and his wife had also been murdered on the escape route to Basra. Haidar’s hand shook so much that he dropped the receiver. He cupped his hands to his face and broke into bitter tears.
He wrote the following passage to Farida: ‘With the help of the Tudeh Party, dozens of people managed to slip across the border with Iran into Soviet territory. Some of those who tried to enter the Soviet Union via the Caspian Sea died from the storms that capsized their boats. It’s worth noting that some Iranian opposition organizations, realizing the nature of the coup, offered to shelter the fugitives. These included the Melli Iran Party, which was nationalist and was part of the National Front led by the late nationalist leader Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh.’
From Moscow, Haidar wrote a long and significant letter to Farida. This was dated 23 March 1963, that is, more than a month after his escape from Iraq. He mentioned many details and referred to several important events. He believed that his views on the people, the rabble, on populism, mob mentality, revolution and the culture of coups had been proven correct by the latest coup and by the insurgents themselves. In other words, one coup engendered another, which in turn caused yet another, ad infinitum. Then he described in great detail the frightful events, including the image of the murdered leader lying on the floor of the broadcasting building, dressed in the same yellowish khaki suit and looking exactly the same as the day Haidar had seen him walking among the frenzied masses who crowded around his car to greet him.
‘The faces were distorted by love and the mouths gaped open repulsively; the same faces that were disfigured by anger and indignation as they murdered, lynched and hanged in the name of the new revolution.’
One of the puzzling facts of Haidar Salman’s life was that Tahira and Hussein returned to Baghdad while he stayed on in Moscow. Three months after his arrival, Tahira returned with her son to the house in Al-Karradah. According to Kakeh Hameh, it was her father, Ismail, who asked her to go back to Baghdad. In the meantime, Haidar Salman spent all his time developing his musical skills, composing the symphony he’d been dreaming of and giving concerts in Moscow and the other republics. He played in a small music institute near his apartment. He followed a strict regime of practice that extended from the early morning until the evening. By working like a slave, he tried to avoid thinking about anything. He felt utterly devastated by the colossal events that were taking place, especially the image of Nahida al-Said’s hanging, which he couldn’t banish from his mind.
One day, the fat, middle-aged, Russian director of the institute stopped him in the middle of the corridor. ‘Wouldn’t it be better Mr Haidar,’ she said, ‘if you practised the more technically challenging works of Schönberg?’ To this he had no response, for he didn’t care whose music he played. He played incessantly and unthinkingly, without paying much attention to the composer. True, he developed his skills and prepared for a number of concerts in Moscow and elsewhere. But he was a fugitive from the events around him, which he could neither comprehend nor decipher. Work was a form of escape from the images that haunted him. One day, he left early to go home. He walked slowly out of the building, buffeted by the wind. A large puddle left from the previous night’s heavy rain stood in his way. He skipped over it to avoid stepping in, without looking at the faces of the men and women coming from the building. He saw only their muddy boots, shabby trousers and wet coats. Before reaching the door to his apartment, he stopped in his tracks and lifted his head. The first phrase of the composition he wished to create leapt into his mind. Henceforth, he realized that he was looking for an untraditional form and was trying to avoid using old forms such as the sonata. He was looking to recombine the raw material of melody to inspire listeners and transport them to broader horizons. He was looking for an orchestral texture that was colourful and a harmonic language that was unique, employing counterpoint as an essential base in the harmonic structure, far from traditional forms.
On 25 August 1964, he began laying out the plan for his first composition. He’d already found a job at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, and was working from morning till noon. Instead of going home directly after work, he would go to the top of the hill, where lush, shady trees grew beside the walls of an ancient fort surrounded by large gardens. He lay down on the thick grass beneath the branches of poplar trees, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere and the cool breeze. He meditated and gazed at the beautiful houses that were ranged in neat rows. It was from this spot that he began to compose his own musical pieces. He was inspired to write a concerto that would start with an improvised melody (a cadenza) and would use the full orchestra, especially the string section. He jumped to his feet and went down the hill, as the first tunes took shape in his head. He walked quickly as he listened to the distant melodies. Immediately, while still on the street, he began to write down the notes. But when he arrived back home, he felt too exhausted to continue. After taking a short nap, he woke up and began to work on the technical aspect of the concerto. He sat at the table thinking. He thought first of violin techniques but then realized that the strings could support the percussion instruments. So he began with the latter.
He told himself that the cadenza could replace the exposition of traditional works. It could be used to introduce new elements that would be delicate and tender. It could be created out of the harmony that distinguished Arab music. He felt elated as he discovered this world. He felt able to uncover the capabilities of the violin, this powerful instrument that was so close to the human voice, while preserving at the same time the character of Arab music.
He couldn’t banish the idea of linking contemporary art with traditional forms, perhaps because the idea of preserving and using the heritage was so strong in Iraqi art. He had become firmly convinced of this view years earlier, after a conversation with the sculptor Jawad Selim.
As they sat at a wooden table in the Waqwaq café that was established by Boland al-Haidari and Hussein Murdan in Al-Adhamiya, he heard Franz Liszt’s Concerto No. 1, which he loved so much. They each had a cup of coffee as they sat opposite each other. Jawad Selim, with his handsome face, sharp eyes and thick, black beard, told him in a low voice, ‘You can’t possibly introduce anything new without getting inspiration from the past.’
Jawad Selim seemed like a traveller of old, sailing across the oceans of the Sumerian and Assyrian heritage in order to produce novel ideas. Al-Sayyab was experimenting with the two-thousand-year-old metres of Arabic poetry in order to make them compatible with the rhythms of modern life. So Haidar Salman diligently searched Arab and Islamic traditions. He wanted Arabic music to seep into Western classical music as stealthily and quietly as sand.