Longing for Baghdad
By
Abdel-Rahman Mounif
Born to a Saudi father and an Iraqi mother, novelist Abdel-Rahman Mounif (b.1933) spent his formative years in Amman before travelling to Baghdad to study for his university degree. The extract below deals with his memories of the 1948 War and with his Iraqi relatives returning from Palestine and stopping on their way home to visit his grandmother who longs to return to Baghdad. This she eventually does, if only to be buried in the family cemetery. It is taken from his autobiography Sirat Madina (The Story of a City), Amman and Beirut, 1994.
AFTER 15 May [1948], instead of plunging powerfully into the war within the context of a specific plan and a clear objective, the Arab armies were left drowning in the swamps of politics and in the labyrinths of politicians.
The larger part of the Iraqi army that had left for Palestine stopped for a long time at the Iraqi border to rest and prepare. As for the vanguard forces that had reached [Palestine], supposedly to be followed by larger reinforcements, as grandmother confided to her neighbours, these were spread over a vast area. Unable either to attack or adequately defend themselves, they were obliged to return to Jordanian territory. And when Ismail came once again to visit his grandmother, he was deeply upset.
"Bibi, they left us to our fate and left," he said. "We didn't know what to do."
He shook his head sadly and added: "Now the orders will come. And nothing..."
His tone changed, and he became angry.
"Pimps!" he shouted "What morals! Where were your maps, where were your plans, what were you going to do? They left us in the open and said, 'orders will reach you.' And we knew nothing. Should we have been on the offensive or the defensive? Should we have hidden in trenches and protected ourselves, or should we have just carried away our stuff and left?"
He calmed a little, then resumed: "After we had spread ourselves out over there...orders came -- to withdraw. They just threw us out and said, 'We will attack the Jews by another route. And now we don't know what we'll do, we don't know what will happen!"
Grandmother said, trying to calm him: "Ismail, dear, don't be so angry. Such confusion is inevitable and nothing happens except slowly, slowly."
"You mean after we have died like dogs?"
"God forbid, don't wish it on yourself!"
"Where are those pimps who covered their chests with decorations, saying, 'We'll liberate Palestine in two days'?"
"Patience, dear. Be patient."
"Bibi, I say such things to no one but to you. And then only to cool my heart."
The same thing happened to a thousand Ismails, on all the fronts, with only slight differences in the details. And in the period from 15 May to 11 June, the date of the first armistice, towns fell, thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands became homeless. All this could be seen clearly from Amman.
[...]
Illustration by Faik Hassan
|
The 1940s in Amman were long, heavy and difficult. They started in the shadow of World War II, and ended during the first Arab-Israeli War. During these wars, and in the period separating them, people suffered much: sadness reigned, the waiting became unbearable, and there was only a little, transitory happiness.
Children grew up in that decade before their time, as if behind its back; older people aged faster than they would have done in other places, or at different times.
Grandmother, who had assumed that her stay in Amman would not last so many years, found herself there far longer than she had expected or could bear. When her relations who had been with the Iraqi forces came to bid her farewell on their way back to Baghdad, she said, imploringly: "Aba Ismail, Abu Haqqi, and you, Ali, dears, can I travel with you?"
And after a while, as if talking to herself, she said: "I don't have the strength any longer."
Silence reigned, since nobody knew how to respond to the question. She said, with a kind of gentle admonition: "How come none of you is saying a word? You don't want me?"
The two relations said many things. They said they wanted her, that they had missed her terribly, that they wished she was back in Baghdad. After another stretch of silence, while grandmother shook her head, Ismail said, explaining and apologising: "We wish, Bibi, that we could take you with us. But we're military."
Grandmother changed, drowned in thought and sadness, and she was full of waiting. A year passed, then another year passed, and then the third year had almost passed.
One day, at the start of summer, a relation arrived wanting to travel to Baghdad. No sooner had grandmother heard the name of that city than she made her decision: "I will travel with you, Abu Ibrahim."
And while the custom was for grandmother to discuss her decisions, this time she appeared completely resolute, and would accept neither discussion nor any change of plan.
On the last day prior to her departure, uncharacteristically, and unlike her behaviour before previous journeys, grandmother woke up early and began a series of visits.
She visited most of the neighbourhood houses. Even at houses in which she had never set foot, she would knock on the door and justify her actions: "We are neighbours, after all."
She would wipe her mouth with her thumb and forefinger and resume: "I was thirsty, dear. I thought I'd knock on your door and ask for water."
And after she has been welcomed and given water and asked how she liked her coffee, she would say: "My heart flutters if I drink coffee, dear. All I wanted was some water, and now I have drunk some."
Then she would rest a little, and resume in a different voice: "Dear, we are neighbours. And I am travelling to Baghdad. So I wanted to say to you, 'In God's safety'."
In this way, grandmother took her leave of family, acquaintances and the neighbourhood residents, asking everyone to remember her well. She said to her grandson before driving to Baghdad: "When you finish, dear, come to Baghdad and don't worry. I'll be there."
And she left. At the end of the summer the grandson also left, after finishing his secondary education. Grandmother's happiness on his arrival was incredible. She wept, she laughed, she ululated, she recited prayers over his head, she asked him about everything. But when she found out that he had arranged to live in the Arab Students Hostel with a colleague of his, she rejected the decision, swearing and opposing the move. And when he said that he could not break the promise he had made to his colleague that they would live together, she replied: "Bring him along, and the two of you can take the room upstairs."
She used every possible means to persuade him. And, attempting to evade the issue, he said: "I promise you I'll come and stay here every Thursday, Bibi."
She decided to agree, since she knew she could convince him to move in with her on the first Thursday he came.
He came at the end of the first week, and promised her he would prepare to move in on the next Thursday. On Wednesday, one of his relatives visited him at the Students Hostel, and, in a cold, neutral tone, informed him that grandmother had died the previous night, and that she would be buried at noon that day.
Few people, fewer than 10, were present at the funeral. Modestly, in an atmosphere of prayers recited at intervals and interspersed by silence, grandmother was buried in the Sheikh Ma'arouf Cemetery. One relative told the grandson while they were moving, in a tone that was not without pride: "These graves..."
And he pointed to several neighbouring graves. "Our relatives... This is Bibi's cousin, and this is her brother Kurayim, and this is her brother Ruhayim. And this is the grave of your uncle Houbi, and this..."
And the grandson went out of the cemetery into the noise of the city, into cruel and tender Baghdad, to begin a new stage in this life.
