“He’s not going to do what he said,” said one.
“He thinks he knows,” said the other.
A dull boom outside startled the men and they turned to the window. In the street, a line of Crusaders stood on guard, the blades of their swords flashing like needles, reflecting the fiery angels crossing the sky whose wings and hair burned gold, swooping and soaring. One broke off and shot jets of flame from his hands—a burst of white sparks, Crusaders tossed along the road like broken bottles, a crater. One of the iron men screamed, pointing his sword to the heavens, and leapt. An angel fell upon him, wrapping him in flames, but the leaping Crusader stabbed through the angel’s heart and the two, pinned, plummeted writhing to the ground with a crash.
Staring down from atop a minaret, her face impassive white split with black, silver robes flowing in the maelstrom wind, she watched. She turned slowly, her eyes passing over the city, and he could feel her watching him huddled there in his bed. He tried to push himself to his feet, but saw his hand was crippled, broken blue, a twisted bird’s claw.
He heard the dogs a moment before he saw them, a pack slavering down the alley at him. With his good hand he pushed himself up and fled, feeling her eyes on his neck.
He turned one corner, another, then another, through twisting streets of the old city, the dogs close behind, their shadows shuddering on the walls, another corner and another. He fell in through a bakery door.
“In the cow’s belly, we’re all milk,” the baker told him.
“I’m not milk, I’m water,” Qasim said back.
“We must pour milk into you.”
“No, no. I need water.”
“You’ll drink pig’s blood before you’re through.”
“I’ll drink dog’s blood.”
“Oh, the dogs will drink your blood.”
“I’m not a man. They won’t eat me.”
“They won’t spare you either. They’ll kill you and leave you.”
“I’ll run forever.”
“Your hand is running. That’s a runhand.”
Qasim clenched his blue birdhand in a fist.
“We must pour milk into you,” the baker said, hobbling around the counter and into the back. In the wall was a little door and the baker opened it and, bending over, entered. “Come, come,” he said, going into the darkness. Qasim followed.
He crouched in an endless tunnel of tearing wind. Machinery chugged somewhere, loud, behind the wailing. Down, down he went, until finally the tunnel opened in a series of small caves spiraling one around another. The spirals became sines, tubes, a line of interwoven waves, a spinning weave of light and shadow, until translucent gold in the darkness shone upon a door: The House.
He opened the door with his good hand and went in. Qusay Hussein and Lateefah sat on the couch, holding hands. A goat bleated in the corner. Qusay had pulled up Lateefah’s dress and was violating her from behind. Lateefah moaned with pleasure, sweat beading on her face, her hands grasping at the couch, her naked thighs trembling as she pushed back into Qusay.
“What are you looking at?” Qusay shouted. He pressed harder into Lateefah, his hands holding tight to her hips, and she gasped. “You think you know, but you have a dog’s hand.”
“Stop,” Qasim said.
“God is great!” Qusay shouted, and shuddered. Lateefah’s belly swelled with his seed, and she was standing beside Qasim in his uncle’s house in Baqubah.
“I’m having it tomorrow,” she said, her face split with a black line.
“Don’t.”
“But sweetheart, it’s our baby. Look,” she said, and showed him the swaddled newborn. Its tiny black nose and furred snout poked out of the blankets. Cute floppy ears, bright black eyes, little white teeth, a curling pink tongue.
“I can’t…”
Lateefah handed the baby over. He knew he had to love it, so he made cooing noises. Lateefah smiled warmly at them, but when she turned away, he laid the baby on the table and smothered it with a pillow. The baby barked and yipped and Qasim forced the pillow down.
“What are you doing?” Lateefah screamed.
But he didn’t stop. He felt the wriggling thing under his hands and pushed down, down.
“Have some chai!” Lateefah screamed.
He smoothed over the pillow. He didn’t understand why he was in bed now. “It’s not ours,” he told her. “It’s a devil.”
“Please have some chai,” Lateefah said. She sat next to him, offering a cup.
The room was light, there was light in the room. Why was he lying in bed?
“Cousin, wake up. Have some chai.”
He shook his head, covered in sweat, the pillow was a pillow—his heart pounded in fear—but no, there was only the bed.
“Have some chai, Cousin,” Maha said.
“Yes,” Qasim said, taking the cup.
“The bombing started last night.”
“Yes,” he said.
Maha sat with him, watching him take his chai, telling him about the first bombs in the night. She gave him his antibiotic pill and made sure he swallowed. “Go back to sleep,” she said, and left him. He turned on his side and watched the wind riffle the palms through the window’s white X, his mind blank but for the image of Qusay and his wife.
Al Jazeera said nine B-52s had left their airfield in Britain and were six hours from Baghdad. Othman imagined the American pilots flying those enormous silver machines: they’d wear shiny helmets and black masks, like insectoid machine-men, but inside they’d be pale and blonde and say things like “Roger” and “I need a vector on that approach.” Othman lit a Miami and pictured their green flight suits with all those pockets, and how they’d call their wives and girlfriends before the mission. Some of them must have English girlfriends, he supposed, and others would have American wives who would hate the English girls. They’d walk out to their planes and high-five each other, saying “Got one fer Saddam!” and “Kiss my grits!” Then they’d put on their helmets and masks and fly over the English Channel and Paris and the Alps and Bosnia and Turkey and push buttons on their control panels and hundreds of bombs would fall from their machines onto his city. The earth would shake, buildings crumble, men die engulfed in storms of white-hot metal, children and women screaming, blood bubbling on blistering lips, and the pilots would high-five, saying, “How you like them apples?” Relaxing now, they’d turn their big silver planes and fly back over Turkey and Bosnia and the Alps and Paris and the English Channel, all the way back to their wives and girlfriends, who’d kiss them on the runway and say, “Bet you showed them what for!” Then they’d drive to fancy restaurants in sports cars, wearing tuxedos, and eat steak and drink Johnny Walker Black.
Most of the rest of the family had gone to sleep, a midday nap. Everything seemed almost normal.
Except for the constant terror, especially at night, especially last night. The bombing had started in the afternoon, massive raids in waves that shook the city. Sometimes they’d hear the hum of jets, sometimes not, then the first booms. If they were farther away, it was like thunder, but the closer they got, the more it sounded like the earth itself was breaking apart. The house shuddered. Everyone froze, then ran to the living room, which, having no windows, was the safest place in the house. The adults sat on the couch and armchairs, the children on the floor, as if they were all having tea, and waited while the booms multiplied and stirred to crescendo. Usually the wave was simple, peaking then fading into fewer, quieter booms and finally silence. Sometimes it was longer, complex, orchestraclass="underline" a peak would be followed by a lull, a quieter stretch mistaken for denouement, only to rise again reborn with a surge of hideous thunder. It might happen twice, three times, once Othman counted five.