Chapter 192
He lowered the pistol, turned away, head clutched in trembling hands, trying to shake the vision of the boy falling. He didn't see the girl stop screaming and take up the AK-47. She held it as she has seen so many times before: low at her waist, strap hanging like a distended belly, black muzzle-mouth wavering, two fingers on the trigger, scarred and scuffed wooden stock tucked into her underarm.
She pulled the trigger, and it was the roar of the rifle that brought him back to the present. She missed, and he was frozen. He could shoot her brother because he was a boy and would grow into an insurgent by the time he was a teenager, if he wasn't already.
This was just a girl, twelve years old, if that. Maybe she had just begun wearing the hijab, maybe she was the only mother the boy had. He couldn't shoot her. He just couldn't.
Couldn't.
She had no such compunction; she did not miss a second time.
Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of death.
Agony ripped through him as the hot bullets tore apart his chest and stomach. She emptied the entire clip into him, dropping the rifle when it went clickclickclick, empty. She fell to her knees beside her brother, weeping now, limp and sobbing. She did not look at the American as he lay on the ground bleeding out.
Amen.
He was floating now. He saw the girl, far away somehow, thin shoulders shaking. The pain was distant, and he was cold. There was no sound once again, but this time the silence was a welcome respite from the cacophony of h.e.l.l. The silence was an enveloping coc.o.o.n of comfort.
He heard the Hail Mary once again, but he was not thinking it, not saying it. It was a prayer whispered to him across the chasm of eternity: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of death.
Amen.
There was heavy significance to the words, but he was too cloaked in slow peace and drifting chill to understand.
Then: May the Lord Jesus Christ protect you and lead you to eternal life.
He recognized that...what was it? Where had he heard those words before?
Then it came to him...Chaplain McGillis said them, whispered them to Jimmy Carson when he was gasping his last breath, to Andrew Chavez and to Lucas Haney as they died.
The Last Rites...
The American heard McGillis' voice in his head as he whispered the Eucharist and the Viatic.u.m. Perhaps not in his head. Perhaps next to him, kneeling and kissing his small silver cross, fingers on his forehead.
The silence spread, the cold deepened...peace like a river drowning him in its black embrace...
There was no white light. There was only blackness, and silence, and cold.
CHAPTER ONE.
RANIA.
First Gulf War; Iraq, 1991.
The American, he dies slowly. Not like Mama, who died instantly, in a spray of pink blood. I remember when Mama died. I tried to wipe the blood from my face, but I only smeared it worse, making my face sticky, like a mud-mask. He does not die like Papa, either, who was killed by a single stray bullet to the head, sudden and silent. The American, he dies like Uncle Ahmed, slowly, and in pain. Something about being shot in the belly, it causes such horrid suffering. Uncle Ahmed, he cried out to Allah to save him, weeping so piteously for so long that I forgot to be sad and just wanted him to die so the awful moaning and cursing and pleading would stop. Allah forgive me, but I did wish it. Not only once, but many times.
This American, however, he is not so noisy. He lies there bleeding from the belly and the chest, making a sucking noise every time he breathes. He does not cry, or scream, or clutch himself, as if trying to hold his life in with weakening arms. He just lies there, muttering to himself quietly, staring up at the ceiling, fingering those little wooden prayer beads. He works the beads as if they give him comfort, as if they, along with the strange words he speaks, could take away the pain.
Ha.s.san, my poor brother, is noisy, moaning and cursing. He stares up at me, trying to breathe slowly, clutching at my arm, mouth working. I weep quietly, put my fingers over his mouth, tell him I love him, tell him he will be fine, he will be fine. I unwrap my hijab, rip a piece from it, and wind the length of fabric tightly around his bleeding arm. Ha.s.san, he only gasps, looking terrified, and holds my gaze and clenches his teeth as I cinch the cloth tight around his wound.
I feel shame and guilt wash over me when I look at the American, dying alone. The anger that took me over, caused me to pick up the gun and shoot him-the anger is gone, and I feel hollow, empty like a water jug. I know Allah will forgive me, but will the American? He does not look evil. He looks kind, and young. He is tall and thin, with bright red hair and a beard that is not quite a beard, the stubble and scruff of a man who has not shaved in many days. His eyes are blue, very bright, startling in their intensity.
He stumbled in upon us, fleeing from the bullets as we had, clutching a camera and breathing as if scared, holding the beads by his chin and praying. I could not understand his words, but I knew he was praying. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was moving, but he was not speaking out loud. Prayer is prayer, even if he was not praying to Allah as he should. Perhaps Allah will hear him anyway, I remember thinking. Maybe all G.o.ds are the same G.o.d, only with different names, and a prayer to one is a prayer to all.
I want that to be true, as I watch the American struggle for breath, clinging stubbornly to life. I want him to have comfort, to have salvation that would carry his soul to heaven. I do not want to have sent him to h.e.l.l. He looks so afraid, rubbing those wooden beads and praying, bleeding to death.
No one should have to die alone and afraid.
He took some pictures with his camera, braving the storm of bullets, peeking around the door post and popping back in, as I have seen other men do, only they did it with guns instead of a camera. I wonder what his pictures look like. Do they show death in all its many forms? My people dying, his people dying, each killing the other.
I do not know why they fight.
Then the American heard Ha.s.san moving, and Ha.s.san got angry, although he was more afraid than angry. When boys and men are afraid, they turn it into to anger, quickly, in the way the blue hot sky becomes dark with black clouds when a sudden storm rushes in. Ha.s.san was very afraid. He only wanted to protect me, to be a man, to be brave, and so he made himself very angry, but he was just a boy. The American was not dangerous, not until Ha.s.san pointed Papa's gun at him. I did not want Ha.s.san to shoot, but I was frozen with fear. When I saw the American reaching behind his back, I knew in my stomach and my heart that something bad was going to happen.
And it did, so fast. The American drew his gun, quick as a viper striking, and the air was filled with the thunder of gunfire. Ha.s.san cried out, jerked backward, fell to the dirt floor. The sound was deafening, made my ears ring.
I was overcome by anger then. He was my brother, and we were alone. We were just frightened children. I had to protect my brother. The anger overtook me. I could not help it. It was as if I was dreaming, in the way that I was moving without being able to control what I was doing. I reached down, hearing vaguely the sound of screaming somewhere far away, picked up the heavy rifle, and fired it. I missed, and I thought for a moment that he might shoot me, but he did not. I was glad. I didn't want to die. He shook his head slightly, and I saw some kind of resolve harden there in his vivid blue eyes. Was he resolving to kill me, since I held a gun?
I could not die. Ha.s.san needs me. Aunt Maida needs me. My finger jerked on the trigger, and the American was ripped apart, slumped to the ground.
My legs would not support me any longer, and I knew the screaming was coming from me.
When Ha.s.san quiets and is able to sit up, I let myself cry soft tears, silent tears. I hear the American whispering, hear him sob and sigh a breath, hear the beads clicking together. I stand up, brush the dirt from my knees, and go over to him. He looks at me, but I do not think he sees me. Perhaps he sees someone else, maybe his mother, or a friend, or a wife.
I take his
He dies while I pray, and I close his eyes, as I closed Mama's, and Papa's, and Uncle Ahmed's. I fold his hands over his prayer beads. They are smooth and worn from being rubbed so often. I place his camera on his stomach as well, so that when the other Americans find him, they will be able to see his pictures.
I stand up again and go to the doorway, trying not to see the American's body. I feel very grown up as I creep carefully toward Aunt Maida's house, Ha.s.san trailing behind me, clutching his arm, teeth grinding against the pain. I feel old in my heart, tired in my soul.
I am glad I prayed for the American, and I hope his G.o.d heard me.
I pray to my G.o.d, to Allah, and wonder if he hears me.
The fighting has moved away from where we live, Ha.s.san and Aunt Maida and I. The bombs flash in the night, shaking the earth until dawn. Gunfire rattles and cracks, and there are faint yells and screams. It is the constant sound of death. I hear the whump-whump-whump of American helicopters, the high howl of jets, the rumble of tanks and the things that carry many soldiers, like tanks but without the cannons. It is all far away now, though.
Ha.s.san's arm heals slowly, and he burns with anger, and with impatience to join the fighting. "I am a man!" he yells. "I will kill the Americans, as they killed Mama and Papa. As soon as I am well, I will go and kill them."
I beg him to stay here, where it is something like safe. Aunt Maida just sits at the table, staring with blank eyes at the wall, and she does not say anything. After her husband, my Uncle Ahmed, died she began to drift away in her mind, so that she will not have to miss him anymore. She will die soon, I think, and then it will be only me and Ha.s.san in this world.
Aunt and Uncle and Mama and Papa each had very little money, and now it is only Aunt Maida. Life continues, despite the war, despite the death all around. Shops open in the morning to sell food, the stalls with their hawk-eyed vendors. I try to beg for food, to steal it, but I get little. Ha.s.san is hungry, and so am I. Aunt Maida says nothing, does not move, but I think her body is eating itself to keep her alive, and soon there will be no more body to eat, and she will close her eyes forever.
I pray to Allah to save her, to wake her up so she will take care of Ha.s.san and me, because I am just a girl and I do not know how. I pray to Allah to protect Ha.s.san, to keep him away from the fighting. I think of the dying American and how his praying did not save him. Uncle Ahmed called on Allah to save him, and he died. I prayed for Allah to spare Mama and Papa, but they died, too. I am beginning to wonder if Allah hears me. Maybe because I am only a child he does not listen. Perhaps he only hears the prayers of adults.
I do not think I will pray anymore if Aunt Maida dies and leaves us alone.
Iraq, 1993 I wake up to early morning sunlight streaming in through the boarded-up window, piercing the gloomy gray of our small house. It is still, too still. I sit up, adjusting my dress on my shoulders. My head covering, or what is left of it, is on the ground beside me, but I do not put it on yet. My hair is long and loose and tangled, glinting black and almost blue on my shoulder. I should brush it, but I do not have time, because I must continue to search for food for Aunt Maida and Ha.s.san and me.
I look around without standing up. The house is so small I can see it all from where I sit on my bed beneath the window, next to the door. There is the kitchen, a stove and an empty refrigerator. There is the couch, threadbare and ripped, empty. Ha.s.san is gone. I feel panic in my belly, knowing he is too young to understand what he is doing, but I cannot go after him yet.
Something else is wrong. I find Aunt Maida in her chair by the little black and white TV, now always off. She is still sitting straight up, her hands folded in her lap, staring at the wall, but her thin chest does not rise and fall as it has for so many weeks now. I managed to feed her for a while, some soup heated on the stove, then some bread and beans I bought, found, or stole. Then she turned her face away and would not eat anything. She would let me pour water into her mouth, so at least she would not die of thirst, which I think is worse than dying of hunger, although I do not know why I think that.
Perhaps it is because hunger is only a dull ache in your belly, growing sharper as the days move past. You grow more hungry, always more hungry, like a hole in your belly growing ever larger until you think it may swallow your ribs and your heart and your liver and whatever else hides behind the skin of your chest and belly, parts I do not know the name of.
Thirst, however...it is a desperation. You would do anything for one drink of water. To be thirsty is worse than to be hungry. You can eat a bug, or worm, you can s.n.a.t.c.h a can of beans or a hunk of hard bread from a market stall. But to find water? It is not so easy. A bottle of water is heavy. It does not fit beneath the folds of a dress, or in a sleeve. You get thirstier and thirstier until it is like anger or hatred. Your mouth turns into a desert, dry and sandy and empty, your lips cracked.
I think this is why thirst is worse than hunger.
Aunt Maida dies of hunger, but really of a broken heart. She is old, and she loved my Uncle Ahmed for all of her life, since she was a little girl. He never hit her, like many men do their wives. He loved her. When he died, I think she did, too-it just took a longer time for her body to realize her heart and mind were already dead.
I touch her face, and it is cold, so cold, and hard. Her eyes stare unseeing. She sees Uncle Ahmed in heaven, I think.
"Do you see Allah?" I do not recognize my voice, or why I am asking questions of a dead woman. "Is He there, Aunt Maida? Ask Him why He does not answer me!"
She does not respond, of course, for she is dead.
I am just a girl, only fourteen, and my arms are weak, but Aunt Maida is so small, so thin like a bird that I can drag her from the house, still stiffened into a sitting position. An old woman watches from an open doorway. Her eyes are like brown beads, hard and cold, and she does not move to help me, or ask questions. I have no hijab on, and she curls her lip in disapproval. I drag my dead aunt through the street, as far as I can. I do not know where I will put her, what to do with her. There is no one to tell, I think. At least, I do not know who to tell. So I drag her as far as I can until my arms and legs and back are sore and empty of strength, and then I leave her, sitting awkwardly in an alley, amid the heaps of trash.
I stand over her for a moment, wondering what to say to the dead body. In the end, I do not say anything. I whisper, "Goodbye, Aunt Maida," to her spirit, but that is after I am back home.
A dead body is just a dead body. Aunt Maida has been gone for a long time.
I am worried about Ha.s.san. I do not expect him to come back, but I keep hoping. I wrap my tattered and torn hijab around my head as best I can and set out to find Ha.s.san, to bring him home and scold him being a stupid boy.
He spoke of finding a gun.
I think of that day two years ago, in the wrecked building. I do not know where he got that rifle in the first place. I was gone, looking for food, and I found Ha.s.san huddling in a doorway while gunfire racketed in the streets, dust kicking up, shouts echoing, English and Arabic.
I hid in a far corner, waiting for the shooting to stop, and when it did, I ran across the street to where he was hiding, tears drying on his face. He was not hurt, and I held him close when the shooting started up again. He was clutching something to himself against the wall, between his knees and his arms wrapped around it, his little body shaking. I was behind him, my arms around his shoulders, my fingers clutching his sleeves.
An American soldier trotted past us, rifle raised to his cheek. He paused, glanced at us, dismissed us, and continued on, loping away like a wild dog, threat clear in the way he ran, hunched down close to the earth. When he paused, Ha.s.san tensed, and I could feel hate seething from him. They killed Mama and Papa, so he hates them. It is simple, to him.
I know the bullets that took their lives could easily have been ours, however. Stray bullets do not recognize American or Iraqi. They only know soft flesh and red blood. I cannot explain this to Ha.s.san, though, for he will not care. I cannot explain why anyone is killing anyone, for I do not know the answer myself. Iraq has never been a safe place, but when the bombs began to drop, crumping in the distance and flas.h.i.+ng like fireworks, it became even deadlier. The streets filled with men with guns, tanks, trucks with keffiyeh-clad warriors clutching guns. It was sudden, and it has not stopped.
Death is all around now.
When the American soldier pa.s.sed on, we ran, and I pulled Ha.s.san behind me, not looking back at him. Guns crashed and bullets buzzed and ricocheted ahead of us, and I jerked Ha.s.san into an empty building, destroyed by a bomb or a rocket. We hid in the corner and waited.
And then the American man with the camera came, and he was not a soldier, but still an American. He saw us, and that was when Ha.s.san stepped forward, a gun in his arms, too big for him. I wanted to yell at him, ask him where he had gotten such a thing, but I could not. My throat was closed, and if I yelled, I was afraid the American might have a gun we could not see and shoot us.
And then the gun went off, the American's hidden gun. And then I killed him.
I heard crying, and I knew it was me. I knew tears would not bring back the dead American. I did not mourn him, for I did not know him. But I mourned his death. I mourned for myself, for having killed him.
I see him even now while I am awake two years later, staring at the spot where he died. His blue eyes are wide and staring into me, but not seeing me. Blood spreads beneath him, seeping from the holes in his belly and chest, pools around him. It stinks, the blood. It smells...coppery, and vaguely of s.h.i.+t.
I let myself think the bad word, since there is no one to care.
I blink, and he is gone, leaving me with the bad taste of memories and waking nightmares, and always the gnawing mouth of hunger.
It is a long walk, and it is well past dark by the time I find anyone. I find a knot of soldiers, black and brown rifles leaning against the wall near their hands, or across their knees. There are seven of them, smoking cigarettes. They talk loudly, proclaim their feats in battle, how many Americans they have killed. They are all liars. I can tell by the way they laugh too loud, laugh through the smoke streaming from their noses.
They stop when they see me, and they drag their rifles closer to hand, even though I am Iraqi, and just a girl.
"What are you doing here, girl?" one of them growls. "It is dangerous. You should be home with your mama and papa."
I ignore their stupid questions. "My brother..." My voice is soft, too soft. I strengthen it. "My brother ran away to fight. He is only twelve years old. I need to find him."
They laugh. One of them does not, and he speaks to me. "I saw a boy. Hours ago. With some other men. He had a rifle, and he was shooting it at the Americans. He hit one, too, I think."
"Stupid boy," I mutter under my breath. "I need to find him," I say, louder.
The one who spoke shrugs. "Good luck. I only saw him the once, very quickly. He was off to the west."
I look around me, having no idea which way is west. "Can you show me?"
He stares at me, then lifts one shoulder. "I could."
The others are watching me, a look in their eyes that makes me nervous. I want to get away from them.
"Please show me? He is just a boy. He should not be fighting."
"If he can shoot a rifle and kill the infidels, he is a man," one of the others says. "You should go home to your mama and let the boy do a man's work."
"We have no mama or papa. They died. He needs me. Please, help me find him."
The strange, hungry look in their eyes strengthens when they realize I am alone, all alone. Their gaze travels down my body, from my ripped hijab to my old dress, my small girl's b.r.e.a.s.t.s and my thin legs, the triangle between them visible when a breeze blows my dress flat against me. I know what they want. I know that much. I have seen what men do with women, and I know I do not want it to happen to me with these men.
I edge away, watching them. They do not move, and the one who said he had seen my brother nods, ever so slightly.
"I need a drink!" he says, a little too loudly, and the others forget about me as they head off in search of alcohol.
They traipse off into the night, and the kinder one looks back at me. He is older; perhaps he has-or had-a daughter my age. Perhaps he too knows what would happen to me, and is seeking to spare me in the only way he can. I nod at him, a silent thanks. He flicks his fingers near his knee, a quick, quiet gesture telling me to go.
I turn and run through a side street, turning blindly until the sound of their laughter fades. I stop running, turn in place to find my bearings. The buildings are all the same, tan walls dark in the moonlight, shop fronts shuttered and barred closed. The city is deserted, it seems. It is not, though, not really. People are shut in their homes, where they have at least the illusion of safety.