Dedication
To Russ and to Dad, with love.
To PH, with thanks for listening... and listening...
And to Karen and Sally, with fond memories of
so many cups of coffee drunk and
too many chip baguettes eaten.
Contents
Dedication
BEFORE THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
AFTER THE END
Copyright
I am Luisa. I am Amira. I am Maysoon, Fay, Samara.
I am black. I am white. I am Asian.
I am Sunni, Shia, Christian.
I am Arab, Persian, Jew, Iraqi.
I am Mesopotamia. I am a million.
I am everyone. I am Baghdad.
I want to tell you my story, yet I want you to
hear everyone’s. Mine is not unusual, it is not special.
So many the same: the difference only a name,
a job, a family, a religion.
A million voices, a million stories.
And I am one.
My name is Lina.
Baghdad, March 2005
Before the war, fear hung over everyone, and we all knew that even voicing our true opinions was dangerous.
Although it was one threat, one regime, there were a million eyes and ears looking out over every city and town and street and home, ready to hear that one wrong word spoken, or that one wrong opinion offered. By anyone.
Before the war, before the Americans in 2003 with their bombs, I couldn’t have spoken like this, because even thinking like this was impossible if you wanted to live, if you didn’t want to disappear. As my dear Mama discovered.
Fear was never discussed, because fear was constant; you lived in it and it lived in you.
Back then, before the war and the madness it brought, my papa would’ve been shocked to hear me speak like this. He would’ve taken hold of me, I’m sure, scared for the life of his only child, clasped his hand to my mouth, his finger to his lips, his eyes wide with panic. But I knew, as all Iraqis of sound mind did, the importance of muted opinions and quiet anonymity, and the memory of how things were lies only just beneath the surface, even now.
Years of living like that are difficult to change, and I pause to remember that back then, merely what I’ve already spoken about would’ve been of interest to the Mukharabat, the secret police; that they would’ve found reason to arrest me, torture me, kill me even.
And so Iraqis spoke in silence, and to hear them, to really hear what they thought, what they felt, you needed to listen not to what they said, but to what they didn’t say.
Now? I shake my head. Now, one threat has been replaced by many. Uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Each with its own opinions and wishes and aspirations for the future.
What do I want for my future? I hear you ask. Is it survival? Or dare I wish for more?
No. I don’t want to survive.
I want to live.
But this is not just my life. This is life and I have to tell you all about it – for me, for everyone. To make sense of things, to understand and to be understood.
Sitting here, looking over the remains of my city and my home, the memories hang heavy around me, filling the air, stifling, and as I breathe them in, they burn my throat and chest like summer heat.
I can’t breathe, yet I can remember.
I remember the beginning of 2003. I remember the silent trepidation it brought. What did it mean, that year? To me, it meant more than three years of Mama missing and the frustration of still being no closer to knowing what happened to her. It meant finally telling Papa I didn’t want to be a lawyer as Mama had been. It meant exams and university applications.
And it meant war.
To all of us, it meant war. Just a question of when, how and who would survive. Nobody mentioned it on the streets, in the markets, or at school. Of course they didn’t. They knew better than that. And so did I. Did anyone even think about who would win? Was I the only one who dared to assume Iraq would fall? That our country would be occupied? Just that thought, that thought in my head, without the words even forming, without my lips opening to speak or to whisper, made me worry, made that fear grow inside me.
I was scared.
And as I sat in the kitchen alone one day listening to the noises of the neighbourhood outside, my friend Layla’s younger brothers playing in the street, the market not far away, car horns and chatter, moped engines and the muezzin’s call to prayer, I wondered