She covers her mouth and nose. “You should not have come.”
“I need to talk to Jamal,” says Luca.
“You have caused enough trouble.”
Her gaze switches to Daniela and her anger evaporates. She opens the door wider. “You take too many risks and put other people in danger.”
The boys run away and hide in the second room, peeking out through a curtain, one head below the other. Electrical wires sprout from the walls and a kerosene lantern hangs from a beam, revealing woven rugs and bedding rolled in the corner.
Jamal emerges from the second room, his handsome face transformed. Rearranged by fists or clubs, his almond eyes, his white smile, his youth. Gone. Beaten from him. His lips are blown up to twice their size and his right eye is full of blood, while the left has almost closed completely. Daniela can’t hide her shock.
Jamal opens his mouth to speak. No sound emerges. He tries again, his voice altered by his swollen lips and broken teeth.
“Please leave. It’s not safe for you to be here.”
His voice is loud in the tiny room.
“What happened?” asks Luca. “Why did they do this?”
“I work with Americans-this is the reason.”
“Abu?”
“He is safe, but they’re looking for him.”
Jamal wipes the spit dribbling down his chin. Luca reaches out and touches his friend’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
“It is not your fault. We both knew this could happen.”
Nadia is making coffee. From the plastic container she carries from the pump each day she pours just enough water into a saucepan. Daniela introduces herself and crouches down, talking to the boys, who are losing their shyness.
Jamal pulls cushions from the corner and asks Luca to sit down. His modesty and politeness are a study in respect passed on by his parents. He glances at his wife. Speaks softly.
“I met Nadia at university. I remember thinking I could never marry someone so beautiful, so I didn’t talk to her… I was too nervous. Then one day I found her crying. Her father had been taken by Saddam’s secret police for something he’d done or said or not done or not said. I told Nadia I would find him. It took me two weeks. It cost four thousand dollars to buy his freedom. Nadia married me out of gratitude, but it has become love.”
He wipes his mouth on his sleeve.
“None of my five sisters are married. My father says he won’t find them husbands until the militias stop killing each other. He prefers to keep them safe at home.”
“What does your father do?”
“He runs a market stall. I did have a brother, but he’s dead.”
They are silent for a moment and Luca tries to apologize again.
“You are not to blame. There is too much blame in Iraq. The Sunnis blame the Shiites, who blame the Baathists, who once poisoned the Kurds, and they all blame the Americans. We’ve become a country of nasty, pissed-off people with guns and third-grade educations. My generation has been at war ever since I was born. We are so familiar with it we have coffin makers on every corner, moving bodies like melons.
“The new Iraq was never going to be perfect, but we hope, we dream, we survive. The Americans will leave one day. And what will be left behind? All things light and all things dark.”
Jamal’s eyes find the floor. “They tried to drown me. Now each time I fall asleep, I dream of swallowing water. I can taste it, smell it coming out of my mouth and nose. I wanted to die in the end. I didn’t care anymore. I made a statement. I wrote what they told me.”
“I know.”
He blinks back tears, looking like a man whose life has undergone a violent decompression, a diver returning to the surface too quickly.
Jamal taps his chest. “They could not change who I am. They could not touch me inside.”
Daniela joins them, bringing a jug of rose-scented water and a tray of sweet pastries. Luca takes one and feels the sugar melting on his tongue. They speak in English for her benefit.
Jamal remembers something else. “There was an American… when they were interrogating me. I saw him just once, but I remember his voice. He was feeding them the questions.”
Daniela interrupts. “What did he look like?”
“Like an American,” says Jamal. “He asked me if I was scared. I told him no. He laughed and said I was too stupid to be scared.”
Daniela: “Did he have a side-parting?”
“Yes.”
“What about his voice?” Luca asks. “Did it sound cracked or broken?”
Jamal nods and all three of them are staring at each other, wondering how they could know the same man.
“His name is Jennings,” explains Daniela. “He was assigned to us by the US Embassy as our local liaison officer.”
“I was told he works for the State Department,” says Luca. “I met him this morning.”
Luca takes a moment to consider the ramifications. US involvement in the arrest and torture of an Iraqi civilian doesn’t come as a complete surprise to him, but normally such operations don’t feature personnel from the State Department or the CIA as eyewitnesses. The US government prefers to remain in the background, promoting the culture of deniability.
“When did you last talk to Jennings?” he asks Daniela.
“After the attack on the Finance Ministry. He wanted to know what files had been taken. He also wanted my laptop and whatever results we’d obtained. I told him the program had only been running forty-eight hours, but he still wanted the records.”
“Did you tell him about the double payments?”
“Yes.”
“What about the cash deliveries to the banks that were robbed?”
“He knew that too.”
They fall silent and watch Jamal’s two boys drawing pictures on butcher’s paper, sharing colored pencils between them. What sort of future awaits them, wonders Luca. Jamal has been identified and labeled as a collaborator. He and Abu will be targets from now on. Friendless. Never safe.
Reaching into his pocket, Luca places the keys to the Skoda on the tea tray.
“These are yours now.”
Jamal looks at him. “Why?”
“You can be a taxi driver-until you become a doctor.”
“You do not owe me anything.”
“I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
Jamal drives them to the al-Hamra Hotel and drops them inside the security perimeter. They say goodbye with the engine running.
“I will come back one day,” says Luca.
Jamal shakes his head. “Iraq is a place to leave, not to live.”
“What will you do?”
“I have family in the south.”
Daniela turns away as the two men embrace wordlessly. She takes Luca’s hand as they watch the Skoda leave, waving one last time before going upstairs to their room where they undress each other.
Luca can’t find the clasp of her bra.
“Try the other side.”
“I never say no to the other side.”
Unhooking the clasp, he reaches for her breasts. “These are nice.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Firm.”
“They hold my bra up.”
She turns, expecting a kiss, but Luca avoids her lips.
“I thought you were going to kiss me.”
“Not yet.”
He wants to change the rhythm of her breathing. He wants to make her skin flush and her toes curl. He wants to see her self-control dissolve and for Daniela to exist on the same plane he does.
Afterwards, they lie together. She takes his hand and can feel it beating softly as if it contains its own tiny heart.
“Who’s Nicola?” she asks. “Nadia mentioned her.”
“A woman I knew.”
“You were close?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I lost her.”
Daniela looks at him steadily and for a moment the intelligence in her eyes seems to be absolute and unshakable.
“Why did you take me to meet Jamal and his family?”
“To show you why I do this.”