Shortly after becoming an official embed, I got a call from Nick Wapshott in New York. “Congratulations, young Ayres,” he crooned. “Marching off to war, eh? You’ll come back a changed man. Everyone always does.” As long as I came back breathing—and with no absent, much-loved limbs—I didn’t really care. My fragile mental health had already survived September 11 and a biological attack on my office. Now it was Saddam’s turn to try and unhinge me.
In the taxi ride home from the airport, I marveled at the hot breeze, the blue slab of sky, and the spiky desert foliage. Once again California was teasing: showing off what I would miss if I went to war. It had been snowing in Ross-on-Wye, with a Welsh prima donna gale blustering in from the west. As for the weather in Iraq—it was hardly worth thinking about. I imagined the Gulf forecast: A fog of war expected from the south; high pressure in Baghdad; chance of a poisoned cloud, blowing in from the north; invaders and embeds advised to stay indoors.
I clambered out of the taxi at 1131 Alta Loma Road and offered a nod of recognition to the Mexican doormen—the foreign legion sentries who guard every West Hollywood apartment complex. If the Mexicans ever decide they want California back, the Americans are in trouble: The Latinos pretty much run the place already. They have a head start, unlike the Americans in Iraq. I once read that there wasn’t a single U.S. spy in Baghdad. Why would anyone risk it? Not even James Bond could smirk his way through one of Saddam’s tongue-pulling sessions.
After dragging my bags through the canyon of SUVs in the garage, I passed the swimming pool and tennis court and took the steps up to my apartment. I shook my head. What the hell was I doing? Why was I giving this up for Iraq? I considered my options for the month of March: swimming pool, or death. I was still grasping at the hope, however, that the invasion wouldn’t happen. I had heard on the news that the Turks were getting ornery and refusing to allow President Bush to off-load military equipment at the port of Iskenderun. If the Americans couldn’t advance into Iraq from the north, that would leave Kuwait as the only friendly country from which they could attack. And surely, no military commander in his right mind would invade a country the size of France from one direction. Finally, at 4.23 P.M., I clattered through the front door of my apartment, heaving my bags behind me.
Alana wasn’t home. I inspected the fridge for alcohoclass="underline" It was empty. I debated whether to take a quick shower or check my e-mails. I decided on the latter. My computer gave an indignant bleep and began clacking and whirring as it powered up. At that moment the front door was flung open and Alana appeared, her hair ironed and shiny from an expensive primping in Beverly Hills. She was carrying groceries, a dozen bags of supermarket ballast from Trader Joe’s.
For a second we looked at each other in silence.
Then Alana said: “I bought orange juice! And coffee!”
Her face was a study in relief: that her ridiculous boyfriend, with his ridiculous job, had come back home; and that her week of solitary confinement in Los Angeles was finally over. Alana couldn’t stop smiling.
“Hi,” I replied, feeling slightly awkward after our separation. I was pleased to see her, too. But it was a complicated pleasure, because Alana made everything so much harder; so much more dramatic. War is the opposite of love, after all. And Alana was a reminder that I was trading one for the other.
The details of what happened next have been lost. My memory, with its reporter’s talent for minutiae, fails me. Only the pathos remains. We must have embraced; kissed, almost certainly. I know that the shopping bags, with their warm loaves, damp leaves, and pungent vegetables, were ignored: abandoned on the floor, leaking and rustling beside my desk. Eventually I must have sat down in front of the computer. It was then that I saw the e-mail from Glen, highlighted in a bold font. “Here we go…” was the ominous subject line. It had been sent at 1812 GMT, when I was somewhere over Greenland. I double-clicked. What followed was bad news, the worst news. The e-mail had been forwarded from the Pentagon. “Instructions for Embedded Media” it began. “All embedded media representatives must report to the Coalition Press Center, located at the Hilton Kuwait Resort, at 7:00 A.M., Zulu Time, on March 5.”
It was happening.
This gave me all of ten days to prepare for war. Given that I had no Kuwaiti visa, no flak jacket, no helmet, and no supplies—and no inoculations—I would have to turn around and head straight back to London, and from there on to Kuwait. I was looking at eighty-three hundred miles, or twenty hours, of hard economy. I cursed again at missing the gas mask course. Then I thought of Oliver Poole, who was probably already on the Iraqi border. I pictured him, in desert fatigues and chemical-proof spacesuit, shadow-boxing and jogging on the spot. The infantry probably loved him.
“Oh no,” I said as my blood turned sour. “I have to go back.”
“What?” said Alana, quietly.
“The war. It’s really happening. March 5. I have go back. I have to get to Kuwait. The bloody war. I can’t believe it.”
“No,” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“No,” said Alana again.
It took a lot to make Alana cry. This, however, was more than enough. She sat among the unpacked grocery bags, her thwarted attempt at a normal life, shivering and sobbing as tears spoiled her makeup and hair. “What am I going to do with all these groceries?” she asked, and for a moment she looked like a little girl left alone on her birthday by a cruel stepfather. I thought of Gottfried and his failed marriage. “She couldn’t wait any longer, Christoffel,” I heard him say. “I don’t blame her. Why wait for Gottfried? Gottfried talks only of hell.”
I’m ashamed to say that part of me felt annoyed at Alana—it was me that was being sent to war, not her. And she didn’t seem to understand the strange contradiction that could make her boyfriend both a neat-freak hypochondriac and a war reporter. Then again, I didn’t understand it, either.
I realized, of course, that I was being selfish. I didn’t have to go to the Gulf. I didn’t have to leave my girlfriend alone in a city she hated (and to which I had selfishly dragged her). I didn’t have to bullshit my own father, potentially destroying him with guilt if I died on the battlefield. I didn’t have to do any of this. But I was scared; scared of losing my new career as a foreign correspondent; scared of someone else taking my place and doing well; and scared of squandering an opportunity that many reporters worked their whole lives to get. It was essentially a form of cowardice that was pushing me to Iraq. I thought of Jean-Paul Sartre’s dilemma with the Frenchman and his sick mother. Perhaps there was no right or wrong in this situation. Man is free to do what he wants; there is no God; as a result, man is forlorn.
At some point I joined Alana on the floor. I was probably crying, too. “What kind of a job is this?” I think I asked. War reporting is supposed to be macho. But there was nothing macho in this. Nothing macho at all.
Later, the self-pity over with, I noticed the file attached to the Pentagon’s e-mail. It was a list of things to buy for Marine embeds.