Selections

 
I  told Fatin, my brother’s wife:  “It seems we have lost our way again!”  She answered:  “No. That is the place, there!”“What makes you so sure?”She said: “The smell.”She was right. The air was filled with the smell of the dead.We approached a huge depot surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence. Inside we could see, in the distance, a number of what looked like large warehouses with high ceilings. In front of a wide gate a crowd of men and women waited in the blazing sun. In a car park nearby stood taxicabs and private cars. Some of the people in the crowd were shouting, trying to force their way inside the depot. But two grim-faced, and armed, young soldiers blocked their way, cursing and using the butts of their guns to push them back. One of the soldiers shouted in anger: “Can’t you stand in a queue like decent people!”An angry woman retorted, advancing towards the young soldier: “Did we come here to buy cheese or chickens to stand in a queue! We came for  . . . !”But the soldier aimed his gun, at her chest and said: “If you don’t move back I’ll shoot you!”She didn’t want to test his words. She retreated quickly and some sort of a queue per family was formed; one family after another, in some cases eight persons thick. We took our place at the end and waited. I wished I had not allowed Fatin to come with me. Despite their sorrow, men could not resist turning their heads to look at her. She was wearing a dark dress, with a black shawl covering her head and neck, her white face flushed red from heat and despair, and her big black eyes shining with tears.  But I could not prevent her coming: it was her husband we had come to ask about. People were grumbling and a woman near the gate was quarrelling with her husband. She raised her voice to get the attention and support of the crowd while the man tried to defend himself and explain his side of the story.  It appeared that the man had left her with an infant more than twenty years ago, and now that he heard the boy had been killed, he had come to claim the body so that he might get his hands on the compensation granted by the government.  “I broke my back raising the child all these years! He was all I had in life and his mean father . . .” the woman was shouting. But her voice was drowned by the voices of a number of women wailing and crying frantically as four men came out of the depot carrying a coffin wrapped in a new flag.   The coffin was loaded on top of one of the cars in the car park.  The four men rode with the coffin and the wailing women crowded into a second car; both vehicles soon departed. Another family was allowed to enter the depot and the whole queue moved forward a little. The grumbling woman resumed her complaining, but this time her voice was interrupted by the sounds of the two guards stamping to attention and presenting arms as a lieutenant appeared in the entrance. All sounds subsided as he stood looking at the crowd. He was about forty, tall and neatly dressed, with his black cap cocked on his head, tilted to one side. He advanced slowly, watching the sad and silent faces. When he reached the grumbling woman she took advantage of his presence and tried to relate her story to him. He listened to her patiently. Her husband tried to interrupt her, defending himself, but the lieutenant ordered him to shut up. When he understood the reason behind the quarrel between the separated couple the lieutenant smiled and said: “So all this fuss is about who gets the government’s compensation?”The woman replied she did not care for any compensation, as no compensation in the world would bring her child back: “. . . but this cruel man has no right to be here!”The lieutenant said he was not a judge: “I suggest you settle this between yourselves. Although your husband is a scoundrel, he is still the martyr’s father. So let him take the car and you take the plot of land.”The husband said happily:  “Thank you, Sir! You are very fair, Sir!”The disappointed woman shouted at her husband that she would take him to court! The officer laughed and walked away. He seemed like a man feeling bored, looking for a little amusement. He advanced along the queue and spotted Fatin’s face. He stopped laughing and his face took on a serious and sympathetic expression as he stood before us.  He asked Fatin: “Whose body have you come to claim?”She told him she had come to enquire about her husband.He wanted to know in which battle he had been involved, and she gave him the name of the battle.“Are you sure?”I said that one of his colleagues, in the same unit, told us they had seen him fall on the ground, among the dead from both sides. But the fighting was heavy and they could not reach him. He did not like my butting in. He turned to Fatin:“Is this lady with you?”She told him I was her sister-in-law.He looked at me in silence and then told Fatin: “I must check the lists of names for you. Follow me!”He did not lead us through the main gate. He moved away from the crowd and walked alongside the fence. We followed. He walked briskly and kept a distance of about twenty metres between us. We had to quicken our pace not to lose him. He walked without looking back. When he reached the end of the long fence, he turned right. He came to a small entrance where a soldier stood guard. The soldier saluted and opened the door for him. He told him something and when we reached the entrance the sentry let us in before closing the door. I began to worry.  Where was this man taking us? We walked through the thick shadow of two factories: one was manufacturing coffins – we could see hundreds of them in rows alongside the factory walls. In the other factory soldiers were making flags.  We were exposed to the heat of the sun again but not for long, as the officer walked along a passageway between two low buildings.  On both sides we saw offices where soldiers were busy writing, typing or moving about. Before he reached the end of the passageway the lieutenant opened a door and waited.“Please go in!”We entered hesitantly. The room was spacious and cool: the air conditioner was on. He invited us to sit down, and we sat on a large sofa opposite his desk.  His office was lavishly furnished and there was a small refrigerator in a corner. Through a large window behind his desk we could see an empty field with a few scattered and dying trees. The warehouses with the high ceilings looked very far away. He took off his cap, threw it on his desk and picking a towel from a hanger began to dry the sweat from his face and neck. He said he was sorry he had brought us a rather long way round. He had wanted to avoid meeting the Major, the Chief of the Martyrs’ Reception Station. “That man would not let anyone in peace!” He was still standing. He picked up a small flask from his desk and splashed perfume all around the room. He said, looking at Fatin: “You cannot imagine the quantities of disinfectant and perfumes we use here but whatever one does one cannot beat the smell of the dead – and we have hundreds of them in here.”He offered a cigarette to Fatin. She was about to take it, but I said quickly that we did not smoke, which was more or less true.  At last he sat on the swivel chair behind his large desk, lit a cigarette and smoked silently for a long minute, filling his lungs and the air in the room with smoke. He said he had discovered that there was nothing better than cigarette smoke to combat, a little, that dreadful smell “. . . if you are far from the reception area, of course, but if you are in there . . . God help you!”.I did not like the man but we had no choice but to tolerate his horrible talk in the hope that he might help us to find out something about the destiny of our loved one. He was looking at Fatin all the time and I said: “I beg your pardon, Sir! You brought us here promising you would check the list of names!”“Oh yes. The lists.”He pressed a button on his desk.“I shall check them for you, although I doubt . . . “There was a knock at the door and a soldier entered and saluted. The lieutenant ordered him to bring the lists of soldiers killed in the battle before last. The soldier left the room.. The lieutenant asked Fatin whether she had children and she told him she had two, the eldest five years old. He said: “Let’s hope no harm has come his way for the sake of these little children, and for your sake, of course!” The list – a thick sheaf of papers – was brought and put on his desk. We looked at it with awe. “Could his name be . . .” The lieutenant looked at Fatin: “You said someone told you they had seen him fall on the battlefield but they could not reach him at the time?”“Yes, that was what the man said.”“Well, there are a number of possibilities. The body they saw might not have been his.”“Not his!” Fatin exclaimed hopefully.“It is also possible that he fell wounded and was taken a prisoner.”Fatin looked a little relaxed. I myself could not accept that he was gone. Deep in my heart I felt he was still alive, somewhere. That is why, unlike Fatin, I did not weep. To weep was to acknowledge his death. But still I wanted to eliminate any lingering doubt. I was not happy with the lieutenant. He was wasting our time talking to Fatin, his lusting eyes roaming over her face and body. I reminded him: “The names please, Sir!”“Oh, yes. What was his name?”I told him: “Salim Mohammed al-Matloob.”He asked Fatin: “By the way, what is your name?”She told him and he said: “They have chosen the right name for you. It suits your charm!”I did not like his remark, but it was not the first time she had been told that her name suited her beauty.
He lit another cigarette, grabbed a pencil and began to read, moving the tip of his pencil down the names. We looked at him in silence. Whenever the tip of his pencil lingered at a name we became more tense and looked at his face with throbbing hearts; when he moved his pencil on we felt relief.
The telephone on his desk rang, He picked up the receiver, held it for a second, and then put it back down without answering. He kept on reading, page after page, smoking all the time, and occasionally glancing at Fatin’s anxious face. We heard the roaring sounds of heavy trucks entering the depot. He stopped reading, turned his head to look through the window and cursed under his breath. We could not see what he saw. He turned his attention back to the list until he reached the last name. He dropped the pencil, and said: “Not on the list! There are a number of Salims but with different surnames.”
Fatin looked happy, and I said: “Thank God! Thank you, Sir”
He smoked in silence for a while and then said: “If what they saw was actually his body, it is possible – I say possible – we received it, but without a name and address and so stored it with the unknown!”
I wished he had not said that.
I asked him, shocked: “But how could such a thing happen?”
He looked at me and smiled: “Simple. Because of their large number, they pile them one on top of another and during loading and unloading the name tag sometimes falls from one corpse and lands on the uniform of the one below!”
Fatin, who went pale, bowed her head and cried quietly. He continued: “In a number of cases we have handed over the martyr to the wrong family, and if the body was burnt, or the face mutilated beyond recognition, they have taken it, and buried it as their own!"
The man was tormenting us with the way he talked, tormenting Fatin in particular; it was as if he was enjoying watching her, a weak and broken woman who needed help. He said: “So many odd things happen in this business of war and in this cursed depot we face nasty things most of the time. Sometimes we receive just limbs! What would you do with two legs, both of them right, or three arms?”
Fatin sobbed, her head still bowed.
He turned to her: “Please, Madame, don’t cry! Your husband is not among the dead.”
I asked him whether we could see the unknown. Fatin raised her head and looked at me in panic.
He said of course we could and that he would make the necessary arrangements. We heard a knock at the door and a soldier entered the room, saluted and said:
“Sir, the major wants you in the Reception Area. Nine truckloads have just arrived.”
The lieutenant said, rising: I saw the damned trucks! Report to the major that I am on my way.”
He tightened his large belt, put on his cap and told us he was sorry but he had to go. “The officers have to supervise the unloading of the cargo. Please come tomorrow, first thing in the morning. I shall order the guard to let you in.”
I said: “Can’t we see them today?”
“But I have to go now.”
“We will wait.”
He laughed.
“You want to wait! Do you know how long it takes to unload a cargo of nine heavy trucks.  First, soldiers working in the Reception Area have to bring the corpses down very carefully. Then they have to remove whatever weapons are still on each corpse: bayonets, hand grenades, revolvers and the like.”
Fatin looked stunned and in pain.
“Afterwards, the soldiers undress the corpses, check their wounds against papers sent by Field Medical Units, wash them clean from blood and mud, put them in coffins and store them. I am sorry to have to tell you all these details. I just want to show you that it is a long job.”
I did not want to return home worrying all the time that his body might be among the unknown, so I begged him to let us wait. I told him: “We left home at daybreak and spent a long time on the road before we found this place. We could wait till evening if need be. No one is waiting for us.”
The lieutenant looked hesitant. He turned to Fatin: “What about your children?”
She told him that we had left them with the neighbours and they did not mind if we returned late because they knew . . .  I was grateful to Fatin for supporting my request although she hated the idea of having to look into the faces of unknown dead.
He said we could wait if we wanted: “But I must warn you it will be a 1ong wait.” Before leaving his office he said, turning to Fatin: “In case – just in case – someone asks you what you are doing here, you say, ‘We are the relatives of Lieutenant Mansoor’.”
He left the room, closing the door.
Fatin was in bad shape so I asked her to 1ie down on the sofa, and try to sleep. She said she could not sleep. Nevertheless I made her lie down and put her head in my lap. I heard her sigh and in a minute she was in deep sleep. I sat dozing and after a while I also slept, exhausted. We might have been asleep for more than one hour when the telephone rang. We ignored it but could not go to sleep again. Time went by very slowly. Fatin stood at the window, behind the officer’s desk, and tried to make out what was going on in the depot but could not see much.
”I see a number of tiny figures moving about carrying things and then disappearing behind a building. Others look like they are sweeping the ground!” She came back and sat on the sofa. The telephone rang several times and then stopped. We heard a light knock and the door was opened quietly. A very young soldier – almost a boy – entered the room. Fatin blurted out, unasked: “We are the relatives of the lieutenant!” The boy smiled and said that he was his orderly. “Yesterday he ordered me to go straight to his house. His wife wanted me to do some shopping for her. She has guests. He looked at Fatin as men do. He said that when he later came to the Station he had not found the lieutenant in his office: “I saw you both asleep so I withdrew very quietly and went . . .”
We exclaimed, embarrassed and annoyed: “You were here before . . . and you saw us asleep!”
“But I did not want to disturb you. I left the office very quickly.”
We looked at each other and Fatin covered her legs. I did not know that the lieutenant was in the Reception Area. I asked him whether he knew when the lieutenant would be back. He said that he would still be there for a while, and that the lieutenant had ordered him to see whether we needed anything and to fetch it for us. I told him we did not need anything and that he could go, but he did not go. He seemed agitated. He said that while he was in the Reception Area one had exploded. I asked him, puzzled: “One?”
“A corpse!”
Fatin looked at him shocked. “Exploded!”
“Yes. Haven’t you noticed how the smell has become more dreadful?” He looked at our faces surprised that we had not noticed the change. He said he had quickly taken his leave from the lieutenant and fled.
“Thank God I am not in the team of those poor bastards assigned to do this messy job!” They also ran off but were ordered back by the officers, who stood at a distance. The poor chaps are afraid to be sent to the Front.”
He looked at Fatin’s wide-open eyes for a long minute, then added: “What would you say if I told you that some of them did volunteer to go to the Front.”
We said nothing, just looked at him. He smiled.
“They are bonkers, of course!”
I looked into his innocent boyish face, horrified. He was speaking of terrible things in so casual a way!
But how does a human body explode? I did not ask, out of fear that Fatin might faint if she heard more. Her face was so pale. I felt pain in my heart and prayed to God to spare my brother. The boy said he would be in the next room with the clerks. “If you need anything just ring the bell on the desk.”
He left the room. We avoided talking about what he mentioned. Fatin went and stood beside the window.
She hoped the lieutenant would come walking across the field she could see through the window. Not seeing him, she turned to me angrily and snapped: “Why did you tell him we would wait? You always want to do things your own way!”
I said nothing. She was agitated. Time passed. At last we heard, in the corridor, heavy steps approaching the door and the lieutenant came in. He seemed surprised to find us still in his office.
“I thought you had given up waiting and gone home to come tomorrow! Please sit down!”
He took off his cap, wiped his face and neck with the towel and sat behind his desk, loosening his belt and stretching his legs. He looked exhausted. He lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old one and then said:
“You must be very hungry by now.  I am dying of hunger! I shall send the orderly to bring us food here from the Officers’ Mess.”
He was about to ring the bell but I thanked him and said we could not eat.
“We shall wait here until you have finished your lunch in the Officers’ Mess, in order to arrange for us to see . . .”
He lowered his head for a second and then looked at me. “I am very sorry, Madam, this cannot be done today!”
I felt cheated. I said: “So we have been waiting for more than six hours for nothing!”
Fatin, who did not like the idea, sat silent as if the matter did not concern her. The lieutenant looked at her and smiled.
“Oh no, not for nothing. I have good news for you.”
We looked at him in expectation.
He said: “Your man was not among the martyrs brought in today!”
It was a good news indeed. The lieutenant said he paid little attention to names usually: “But today, for your sake (addressing Fatin), and for you of course (glancing at me), I read all the names, one by one.”
Still I had to see the unknown!
“To see those, Madam – and there are tens of them – we need at least four soldiers to bring down the coffins, remove the lids for you to see and then return them back to their places!”
“You have soldiers, Sir!”, I persisted.
“Yes we do, and plenty of them, but they have reached their limit today. I suggest you come tomorrow early . . . and follow the same route. I shall order the guard to let you in.”
Fatin looked at me and said: “Let’s go!” But I remained seated. I thought he was deceiving us.
“Could you not, Sir, provide four soldiers for . . . ?”
He was annoyed. He was not used to being questioned by ordinary people coming to the station to ask about their sons or to claim their bodies, and had it not been for his fascination with Fatin’s beauty, he would not have led us to his office. But he cut me short:
“Look Madam, today was a really bad day. Whenever there is a battle somewhere we go through bad days. Sometimes we receive twelve truckloads of them. Today was one of those especially bad days.”
He smoked in silence for a while, not looking at either of us and then went on talking in a tired voice: “Sometimes they send us corpses collected from the Marshes, in the South, after being there soaked in water for days, left over from previous battles.”
He smoked. He was a chain-smoker.
“Those corpses arrive bloated with liquids and gases. When moved abruptly they explode, splashing everything inside them all over the place, all over the soldiers dealing with them.”
The soldier who brought them the bad news about my brother said they saw him fall on the ground. There was no mention of marshes. So Fatin need not worry!
The lieutenant continued, contemplating the smoke coming out of his cigarette: “Sometimes they just explode without being touched. The soldiers flee from the devastating smell that fills the area but we, the officers in charge standing at a distance, shout orders at them to go back and do their job. If they hesitate we shoot over their heads! They go back and we watch. They try to drag the corpse by its arm and the arm comes loose; by its leg and it breaks from the joints.”
I looked at him in amazement. How could this man talk like this in our presence?  
He raised his eyes, looked at my face and, describing what went on as if he intended to prove something to me, said: “They have to use shovels to scoop the entrails from the ground and put them into a plastic bag to go with the body.”
Fatin covered her mouth with both hands and ran out of the room. I followed her. I saw her standing bent over, her arms stretched forward with hands flat against the wall to support her shaking body, vomiting her guts out. She said gasping: “Hold . . . my head!”
I stood behind her and held her head with both hands. There was no food in her stomach and so her vomiting was a tormenting labour. She was shaking with convulsions, but throwing up nothing; her face was streaming with tears. The lieutenant came out in alarm. He was carrying a bottle of water and a clean towel.
He said: “Wash her face when she has finished!”
He returned quickly to his office. He did not want to be seen at his office door with two women, one of them throwing up. Thank God there was no one in the corridor at that time. Fatin recovered gradually; I washed her face for her, dried it and then took her back into the room to rest. The lieutenant looked genuinely worried.
He asked, examining her face: “How is she now?”
I told him: “Better.”
She sat on the sofa, beaten and embarrassed. He said he was awfully sorry: “I should have watched my tongue.”
I gave him the empty bottle and the towel and sat beside her.
He said looking at me: “Let her lie down on the sofa. You may sit here, in my place.”
I did not like the idea of her lying in front of a strange man and nor did she. She looked at me with blazing eyes and said in a quivering, quiet voice: “This is what you wanted. Let’s go home now.”
He heard her, and said: “I suggest she stays a little until she recovers her balance.”
I too did not think it was a good idea to leave immediately. She was angry, but still weak.
He opened the small refrigerator, and offered her a glass of water: “Drink it, please, to wash out . . . ”
I took the glass from his hand, and gave it to her. She drank a little. We sat silent.
He said: “I don’t know how to apologise to you! Our daily contact with the dead has made us take things for granted. Sometimes we forget ourselves and blunder on without thinking, talking like that in front of people who have no idea of what is really going on! Please forgive me, Madame Fatin.”
When we left the lieutenant’s office it was almost dusk but the heat of the day had not subsided much. I held Fatin’s arm to help her walk but she withdrew it. We heard the rapid steps of the lieutenant behind us and his quick words as he passed. “Come early!” He soon disappeared behind the building; maybe he had gone to have a belated lunch. We walked slowly. On the way we saw two trucks in front of the two factories, soldiers busy loading one of the trucks with bundles of new flags and the other with newly made coffins. We carried on, walking in silence and left the “Martyrs’ Reception Station” as the sun was going down behind a thick forest of palm trees. The city was far away, busy and unconcerned – as usual.


Translated by the Author
A House on the Tigris was written in 1992 and hidden away by the author as it could
not be published in Iraq