Free in Baghdad

first words, first walk, first…in Iraq's

September 27, 2006

Having the afternoon tea was the hardest thing for me throughout the early days that followed my brother's detention. I used to look at his favourite teacup and wonder why am I serving three cups instead of the usual four. I was never a tea fan, but all of a sudden I found myself craving for it just to reminisce the way he used to relish the taste of it. I have developed a habit to snap at anyone who tells me he is better off in the detention center. The comparisons between American and Iraqi jailors have been making me sick; whoever broaches this topic must get ready for my best venomous wishes for him to spend one day in that camp to see for himself how it feels to be behind bars. Yet everyday I get these divine messages that tell me to stop attacking people who have only meant well by saying this "Your brother is not only safer in prison but also luckier". Indeed. My brother happened to be loads luckier than many people I have known, one of whom is my friend's husband, who was supposed to be a free man in his own country. His so-called freedom has reduced him - as it has to the majority of Iraqi males – to a soft target for criminals.

My friend S used to greet me with her trademark overjoyed "HAAAAAAAAAALAAAAAAAAAW". Sadly it has been replaced by a wistful welcome that has been suppressed by bewildered sobs and grief. It wrenched my heart so much to set foot on her cozy flat, not for wishing well as I was hoping but for expressing condolences. The wedding photo she once proudly showed me when her eyes were beaming at the mention of the love of her life, was still hanging on the wall. She was so happy that her and her husband's odyssey had finally culminated in marriage, which was opposed by her family, who had no idea at the time that it was doomed to end tragically in less than two years.

S and I call each other everyday. The fact that her phone was out of the coverage area for four consecutive days made me smell a rat. She hadn't said anything about leaving Baghdad and she had never switched off her handset before. I grew worried and had no other choice but to ring her folks. Her mum was on the other end of the phone, once I said I was S' friend, she started to weep and said, "she's not ok, she's been hit by the last central Baghdad bombing. She survived but her husband hasn't."

The mention of the word bombing hit me like sledgehammer blows. Bombings have now started to take their toll on my friends and acquaintances now. They're no longer mere news items on TV. They're real, hitting people I know.

"Let me talk to her," I said pleading.

"No, she can't talk, she's been traumatized," she said.

A few days later, I called again. S seemed to have recovered and went back to her flat, where she belonged. Just give me your mobile phone number she will call you," her mother said claiming that S' phone was damaged by the blast. It was pretty weird why she would not give me hers. In 10-minutes' time the phone rang, it was the emotionally ruined version of her. "They killed him! They killed him!" were her first frantic words.

I was confused. Who were "they"? Was it not the bombing that killed her husband?

It turned out that her mum was afraid to say what truly happened; phones in Iraq are still wiretapped, and giving me S' phone number could be a lead for the perpetrators to wiretap our mobile phones as well, as if they weren't. S' account of the heinous tragedy was so irrelevant to her mother's and loads scarier.

E, S' husband, wanted to visit his brother, who lives in a neighbourhood, which has been the scene of communal violence following the Samara bombing, which has been seemingly dampened yet the area is apparently still infested with pro-militias policemen. The couple's car was motioned to stop at a real police checkpoint [No, not BOGUS, it was real]. The routine ID check, which has not made any sense to me until the day I heard S' story, has explained why it has been devised in the first place. Only now I could visualize how the usual scenario of the severed heads and bullet-riddled bodies, which are often dumped in abandoned areas, kicks off. It's no mystery now.

Taken from the car trunk handcuffed and blindfolded S found herself in a school building. I thought that schools were made for education. But in Iraq they are not. Saddam used them as weapons caches and now the barbaric militiamen are using them as prison cells and torture chambers. S and E were huddled up in a dusty classroom, where she saw a large picture of the young Shiite cleric, to whom millions of followers could bow and scrape just to earn his pleasure and blessings; they would not pee without His Reverence' permission, would they? In this classroom, the couple was separated. The man must go to an adjacent torture chamber, where he was hit by plastic hoses and cables let alone the jailors' favourite weapon "electricity", so that his loving wife could hear him scream, that's the fun of it, torture one and let the other watch, it's like hitting two birds with one stone. But why? They both had no idea. The kidnappers wanted him to confess to having links to the Mujahideen. His only problem was he didn't have any. By the time bombers were busy marveling the carnage they caused in central Baghdad a few months ago E was busy ferrying the dead and wounded to nearby hospitals with his car and I bet the kidnappers were busy spotting and torturing some unfortunate targets. So why the beating and cursing? E was beaten for having a Sunni family name, whereas S for being a Shia married to a Sunni, which to the kidnappers seemed like a very unlikely combination. It's funny that both of them were not even religiously committed. Who cares, the kidnappers must work; that was what they were paid and instructed to do. In that school, S shared a classroom with a number of other people, young and old, rich and poor, who all had no idea why they were taken in the first place. One was a mentally disabled man, who was taken because apparently the streets were empty not a soul was found to mess with except for him, and I guess they must have a certain quota to which they are committed. Despite her plight, S was brave enough to stand up for this poor man. "Shut up wanton you! He's drunk. His mother told us to punish him for that," one of the captors said. A senior man was taken for being an Egyptian national, another for having a picture of an Iranian religious authority on his car and another for being a resident of a predominantly Sunni area.

S was beaten, called names and spat at for not wearing the headscarf they gave her. And when her captors wanted to take her by the hand they placed tissues on her palm "it is not Islam-friendly for a man to touch a woman's hand," they told her. Oh! I just cannot bring myself to coming to terms with this type of Islam that condones abduction, cold-blooded killing and torture. The Islam I know says killing one innocent soul is as equal as killing everyone living under the sun, maybe this is the latest version that we must adapt ourselves to from now on.

S' captors tried to confuse her; first they said they were Baathists, then they were Omar Brigade, only later when she was transferred from one CIVILIAN HOUSE to another, where families lived, she mustered her courage to ask an old woman about her whereabouts. She told her they were in Chwadir in Sadr City. She realized that it was the glorious Mehdi army, who orchestrated the whole thing, which they later confirmed; Sadr city is the militia's stronghold, it is believed that no one could enter the area without their permission. It is unclear whether the families were accomplices in the crime or they were forced to temporarily harbour the victims.

A decision to release S was announced. The captors apologized to the couple, "We are terribly sorry. Our investigations have proved that you had nothing to do with insurgency. You will be freed and we will give you your car back," they said. They even asked her for forgiveness. How nice of them. After a lengthy separation, the kind captors allowed the couple to reunite for no more than 15 minutes, when E showed S the scars on his body and when he told her how good they were to him "I was allowed to take a shower and served good food and slept in the Husseiniyya, in the Sheikh's own room. Very fine people." What a luxury!

S gleefully received her captors' assurance that E was now back home along with their car and he was as sound as a bell, but her freedom must wait until tomorrow, the nighttime curfew was imposed and they're too chivalric to let a woman be alone in the street at such a time. Indeed, they lived up to their promise. She was released two days later. The pro-democracy policemen asked her to take her pick, whether to drop her at neighbourhood A or neighbourhood B, which she did. She was free at last. She found herself in her brother's house, where she passed out immediately and had not woken up until the next day.

So eager to celebrate her freedom with her soul mate and more importantly to try to nurse the fresh wounds on his body S insisted on leaving her brother's house. When her family saw that she was so determined they finally blurted it out, "E's body was found at the mortuary. Three gunshots to the back of his head. He was dumped in an abandoned area in Thawra."

But the captors could not be lying, could they? They said they freed him. They said he's home now.

Sure he is. How could he be any freer! E's soul is now free but S' isn't; it is not easy for her to discern why her? She had dreams of a happy life, but she's not entitled to them. E's body is now under the sod, but with it the killers took two lives who once shared one dream that was not meant to come true.

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