Kauthar Page 6
They won’t stop until they have reached Imam Hussein’s shrine in Karbala. Six hours through the desert in the blistering heat and without water, without food. Other groups of pilgrims are now joining them. Rafiq looks up and sees a sea of countless heads before him, spread out like a huge prayer rug with an infinite number of green, black and red flags fluttering above it in the wind.
‘Allah is the Greatest!’
‘Long live Ali!’
‘Long live Hussein!’
‘Allah is the Greatest!’
‘Long live Ali!’
‘Long live Hussein!’
To the rhythm of the drums an unlawful, surging sea of people is rolling towards Karbala. Men in black and white zarouals let the zanjeer, spread wide like glittering, metallic fans, slash across their naked shoulders and bare backs. Bloody red streaks begin to dance in front of eyes burning from dripping sweat. Rafiq feels sick. His dry tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth. But still he screams as loud as he can and beats his hands forcefully against his chest. He can barely wait for the blood to start flowing across his back too. He would love to pull out the chain whip right now, tear his shirt off and feel the pain, the pain that will remind him of, and link him to, the agonies suffered by Imam Ali and Imam Hussein all those hundreds of years ago. In his eyes, drops of sweat mingle with tears in anticipation of the agony that will bring him closer to Allah and Paradise. In his mind’s eye he can already see the palm-lined avenue with the golden dome at the end, Imam Hussein’s resting place.
But for the moment they are still on the open road, though mud huts and low, narrow houses are now lining the road. Women and children are offering water and pita bread to the pilgrims. The boys walk past without taking any. The sun has reached its zenith. They will pray zuhr – the midday prayer – in Karbala. Their voices have grown hoarse. Their shouting has become quieter.
Suddenly Rafiq notices a different tone in the pilgrims’ cries. Aggressive, sharp sentences – at first barely audible – break through the plaintive shouts.
‘Saddam, shil idak! Shab al Iraq ma yiridak! Saddam, get your hands off. We Iraqis don’t want you. Get your hands off!’
For a moment Rafiq is confused. But Hami, who is still walking in front of them, has already joined in.
‘Saddam, get your hands off!’
Rafiq sees streams of blood running down Hami’s back. He hears Khalid shouting next to him: ‘Saddam, we Iraqis don’t want you.’ And then he too opens his mouth and shouts, ‘Get your hands off!’ Renewed energy surges through his tired body and into his arms and legs.
The men and boys are now shouting as if out of one mouth. They whip the zanjeer across their backs more furiously. They pull out their short knives. For a moment the metal glitters in the sun. Then the men lift the knives to their heads and cut their scalps. Blood streams down their faces.
‘Saddam, get your hands off. We Iraqis don’t want you. Don’t want you.’
And all of a sudden Rafiq realizes that he can still become a true hero. They no longer fight against Yazin, the evil ruler in the times of Imam Hussein. Today their enemy is called Saddam Hussein. Khalid is the first of the young boys who tears off his shirt. Rafiq follows suit and pulls the chain whip from his belt. And now finally he can carve welts across his back. Welts that will prove he is a man. A tearing, burning pain drives a cowardly cry from his mouth. A sudden fright shouts through his limbs. What will Khalid think, hearing him cry like a baby because of the pain? Rafiq turns his head to look at his friend. Did he hear his cry?
But Khalid has disappeared. From behind, people are pushing against Rafiq. Khalid has been pushed forward by this powerful wave. For a second Rafiq is able to stay on his feet, but then he tumbles to the ground. The taste of sand in his mouth. He feels someone stepping on his back. He tries to get to his feet. Again he is thrown down. Someone is stepping on his leg. Only now does he comprehend what is happening. People are trampling over him, running, out of control and in panic. He manages to get to his knees, pushes himself up. Someone grabs his arm, pulls him along; a hand is clawing his upper arm. It belongs to a man with a face covered in blood. Then he lets go. And Rafiq is running, because everyone is running. He doesn’t know why and he doesn’t know where. He only knows that he is alone among a frenzied crowd. He has lost sight of Khalid, he has lost sight of all the other boys. He is running, because everyone is running.
The shooting, a helicopter overhead, an armoured personnel carrier. Only gradually do they sink into his consciousness. A flash here, a blast there. Then a soldier appears in front of him, pointing a gun, and fear paralyses his legs.
They put him in the back of a lorry, alongside men with bloody heads and faces and red welts on their backs. He prays that his mother and father will forgive him. At the police station he tells them his name. They take his fingerprints. He gives them his address and the name of his father. Then they put him in the cellar.
And Kauthar, the Shiite from England, listens to the story of Rafiq, her husband, the Shiite from Iraq. And in her imagination she sees a gawky, black-haired boy aspiring to be a man. There he is, among the crowd of pilgrims, with a feeling in his gut that he is finally where the action is, where he will have the chance to be a hero. And that he has managed to get away from his worried, frightened mother, who in the evening still tucks him into bed with a tender kiss on the cheek.
‘In the cellar I wet myself. But luckily by the time my father came to fetch me, everything had dried,’ Rafiq continues. ‘He used his connections to get me out quickly. On our way back to Baghdad in the car he didn’t say a word. Ya Baba, say something. I sat next to him in the car and cried and begged him to say something, anything. But he kept quiet. When we arrived home, the first thing my mother did was to give me a slap, then, with tears of relief streaming down her face, she took me in her arms. Meanwhile, my father sat down in his chair in front of the television and started to wait. He knew what would happen. The next day he didn’t go to work, nor the following. “Why is he not going to work?” I asked my mother. “He can no longer go,” my mother replied. “Why can’t he go any longer?” I asked. “Because of you,” my sister screamed. “Because you so desperately wanted to be Shiite and revolt against the government.” I knelt in front of my father and begged him to go back to work. I vowed that I would never again take part in an Ashura procession or a demonstration or go to the mosque or any assembly whatsoever. Of course, I hadn’t understood anything. I thought we would soon return to normality. I apologized again and again to my father, I kissed his hands, I bathed his feet, I begged him for forgiveness.’
Rafiq pauses. He is lying on his back, his hands folded behind his head. I stroke his forehead.
‘Three weeks later they came and took my father. Before they came, he forgave me. “It isn’t your fault,” he told me. “It all happened as it was supposed to happen.” He said that Allah was punishing him because for years he had neglected his beliefs, his religion. “I want my life to be a lesson to you,” he told me, “then I will not have lived and suffered in vain. Your mother, your sister and you will travel to London in a few days’ time to live with Uncle Ali. Pay attention at school, don’t get into trouble, study at university and build a career in a proper, decent job which will allow you to earn money and live anywhere in the world without denying your faith. Be a practising Muslim, a good Shiite. Pray and fast and trust in Allah, and when the time comes, return to your country and offer your services to your people. Be a strong man, Rafiq. Like your ancestors.” Those were his words. I hear them inside my head to this day. The last words that I heard from my father. They give me strength when I tremble, they guide me and keep me on the right path. Alhamdulillah. Praise be to Allah.’
‘What happened to your father?’ I asked quietly.
‘We never saw him again. Three days after they came to get him we flew to London, to my Uncle Ali. Before we travelled my fat
her divorced my mother. He was not a weak man. I wish I could tell him that today, now that I understand. He was a very wise man. He divorced my mother so she could marry Uncle Ali in order for us to have a new home here in London. My mother cried and screamed and begged my father not to divorce her. But he insisted and said that otherwise we couldn’t stay in London. She had to marry Uncle Ali in order for us to have residency and eventually become UK citizens. Uncle Ali has a British passport. My father told her that if she didn’t marry him we might have problems with immigration. Also, without marriage she couldn’t share the house with him. But it was my father’s wish she did, so that we would be safe. My mother threw herself on the floor in front of my father, pleading with him. She wanted to stay with him – after all, she was his wife. She didn’t want to marry another man, she was not a loose woman. She cried and she hit herself with the flat of her hand, on her face, on her chest, and cried and screamed and begged. My father did not change his mind. He was a strong, wise man.
‘My uncle married my mother according to our laws and according to the British law at the register office. But they never shared a bed. My mother remained loyal to my father until her early death. She looked after my uncle’s house and cooked and cleaned and brought up her children. He looked after us financially, as is the duty of a Muslim husband. My uncle is a good, decent man. I respect him hugely. You will meet him. You are now part of the family. And I wish I could introduce you to my father. But my father is dead. We received the message that he had died six months after our arrival here. We heard it from friends. They tortured him to death in Abu Ghraib, one of the most notorious prisons in our country. Our friends were allowed to pick up my father’s body. It must have looked awful. Burn marks from cigarettes and electric cables. My mother never knew, but I think she guessed. She never wanted to know the details. She didn’t need to. But I, I wanted to know, I had to know. My father’s friends told me a few years ago, once my mother had passed away. She was only fifty-one but she looked much older. Deep wrinkles marked her face and sadness had bent her back and burned her out. One night she simply slipped away, without a sound.’
Rafiq falls silent, and I see tears on his cheeks. I move to lie on top of him and kiss away the tears.
‘We Shiites cry a lot, even men. Our hearts are heavy.’ He smiles.
‘Do you still have family in Iraq?’ I ask.
‘Only one uncle. My mother’s brother. He lives in Baghdad with his wife and daughter. Fatimah, his daughter, is twenty-two. Five years ago they wanted her to marry me. But I hadn’t finished my studies and didn’t want to return to Iraq. And she didn’t want to leave her family.’
‘Would you have married her otherwise?’
‘Luckily I never really had to make that decision. Uncle Ali and Fatimah’s father thought about us marrying. She was seventeen then – a pretty girl, a school kid. She could never have been an equal partner for me. I pitied her, because I am aware how privileged I am to have grown up here in England, safe and well looked after, where everything was done for me, so I could learn and study and have nothing to worry about. I am aware that privilege brings responsibilities, that I have a debt and a duty towards my father and my people.’
We are now walking across Hampstead Heath. Daisies and dandelions and chickweed in the grass. We jump across a little brook. He takes my hand again. Only an hour ago I kissed away his tears in bed, but now we are miles apart. I am walking next to a stranger, whom I trusted, thought I knew. But I suddenly realize that he too is playing games according to his own rules. I have a debt and a duty towards my father and my people. And these rules have nothing to do with me. He will follow them with or without me, because he followed them before he met me and he will follow them after I have gone.
We are heading up Parliament Hill. On the top a boy flies a bright-red kite.
I don’t even exist as a figure on the game board. Rafiq noticed me out of the corner of his eye and thought that it might be fun to while away a moment or two with me. Soon he will turn his attention back to the game.
A gust of wind tears the kite out of the boy’s hand. His game. The boy runs after the kite.
I pull my hand out of Rafiq’s. I will never again watch others play games and I will never again try to play games.
‘You, Kauthar, are my wife. I’ve searched for you all my life. I trusted that my heart would tell me when I had found you. My heart that is guided by Allah. You ask me how you fit into the picture. Not at all. Because you are the picture. You are my life. I need you. I love you,’ Rafiq says.
The red kite spirals towards the big white cumulus clouds.
When our temporary marriage has come to an end, we go to the Islamic Centre. Uncle Ali is Rafiq’s witness and Mr Alim is mine. The imam delivers the wedding sermon. Afterwards Rafiq carries me across the threshold and we spend a week behind closed curtains and only let go of each other to wash and pray. The world remains outside and cannot touch us. Life carries on without us, while we live a different reality. A reality of touch and union. And as I collapse on to him, and my body lies on top of his, and I hear our hearts beat together, I know that I am happy. And if I were to die at this very moment, it wouldn’t matter.
‘The name of the first river is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.’
I stop reading and look up from the book of the Prophet Moses.
‘Did you know that?’ I ask Rafiq.
‘No,’ he replies, and leans over to me and kisses me, pulling me towards him. ‘That’s precisely why I married you. You are clever and you will show me the way to Paradise.’
We move into the top flat of an old Victorian house close to the hospital where Rafiq works and with a view across Islington.
Rafiq says, ‘You don’t have to work. As your husband I should look after you. Use the time to finish your Arabic studies.’
I continue working three days a week. My Arabic improves quickly. We now often talk in Arabic rather than English. I start wearing more colourful skirts, sometimes even with a pattern. We go for afternoon strolls on the Heath, hand in hand. The autumn sun filters through the red and yellow leaves and we walk through the rays. A young couple in love. In the evenings we eat dinner by candlelight. I buy evening dresses, nice underwear to surprise Rafiq.
I have found my way, my religion, my husband, my life.
And she bows to God in prayer. And she bends over her husband in love and lust. And she is ready to conceive a new life inside her. And she waits. And the waiting is still quiet. In the packed Tube as she travels to work she sees pregnant women every morning. Women who proudly show off their bellies. She feels a faint tearing inside her, beneath her abdominal wall. Her skin tightens, pulls as if she were the pregnant woman. The months pass. December, January. Soon it is spring, then summer. She asks God for patience. Allah rewards the patient one. She is thinking about the first pregnancy and asks Him for forgiveness. She hasn’t told Rafiq. Perhaps she should, so that no secret stands between them. Perhaps it is this secret that still divides them, prevents them from a true union. God knows and is giving her a sign.
I tell Rafiq and he takes me into his arms.
‘You are a different person now to how you were back then. Your path to Allah was difficult. But you have arrived and Allah has forgiven you, so I must and can forgive you too.’
He enters me and afterwards kisses my tummy.
‘Maybe this might help,’ he says.
We both laugh and pull the blanket above our heads.
‘Are you referring to the kiss or the other bit?’ I tease him, and take his head between my hands, and pull him up towards me and tousle his wiry, curly,
short hair. The date is 23 Jumaada al-thaany 1422. I don’t work Tuesdays and Rafiq has worked the night from Monday to Tuesday. The date is 11 September 2001 and no secret stands between Rafiq and me.
The telephone rings and Rafiq says, ‘Let’s not answer.’ My hand glides from his shoulder blades down to the dent at his coccyx. He breathes into me and I feel his and my wetness. Uncle Ali’s voice speaks on the answer machine in the living room. For a split second we both listen. We can’t decipher the words. The voice stops and once again we are alone. Eventually, however, we have to leave the bed, to wash, to pray, to eat. As I am in the bathroom, I hear Uncle Ali’s voice again. He is talking in English, judging by the intonation and melody of his voice. He is doing this for my benefit, because I still struggle to understand fluent Arabic when I can’t see the speaker face to face.
‘What did your uncle want?’ I ask, walking into the living room.
Rafiq shrugs his shoulders. ‘He just said we should call him back.’
Rafiq takes a bath. I blow-dry my hair. We pray asr and maghrib together – the late-afternoon and after-sunset prayers. Rafiq prays some more, to catch up with the prayers he missed while at work. I am standing in the kitchen, preparing an omelette, when Rafiq comes in and says that we should head to his uncle’s, he insists that we watch the news on television. We don’t have a television. Rafiq’s arm reaches out over my shoulder and he turns on the radio that stands on the windowsill.
I ask, ‘What’s happened?’
The onion on the chopping board falls into beautiful slices underneath the sharp kitchen knife.
‘The United States of America has been attacked,’ declares George Bush on the radio. As if he had waited for my question. I put down the knife and look at Rafiq questioningly, wondering if he can explain. Bush’s voice, news reporters, background noise from America. I move the frying pan on the gas flame back and forth, then I push a wooden spoon underneath the omelette and turn it in one quick movement. Twin Towers, hijacked planes flying into the towers, towards the Capital. Wailing of sirens from America. Screaming. Oh, my God, it’s falling it’s falling the North Tower is falling.