Iraq + 100 Read online

  Mullah Hashish was in a black frock and turban, waving a threatening index finger and yelling at his disciples standing under the pulpit: ‘We will send them all to Hell.’

  * * *

  Word got out. Kahramana was hailed as a hero A U.S.-Sulaymania News reporter appeared on television, standing outside the Visa Hall at the Annex border.

  Reporter: A remarkable story of bravery and survival. Just sixteen years old, Kahramana managed to attack and significantly wound the head of the so-called Islamic Empire after he tried to rape her. Kahramana is now undergoing psychiatric therapy and …

  Anchor: Jason, is there any news on her immigration appeal? I mean surely they cannot send her back!

  Reporter: The Annex government is yet to come up with a decision on that. But, as you can see behind me, there are crowds appealing [the protestors whistle and cheer] for Kahramana to be granted asylum.

  Anchor: Keep us updated. Thank you, Jason.

  Reporter: Absolutely.

  * * *

  Two days later, Akhbar Al Imara ran this on the front page with a title in red ink—which was remarkable because they only ever used black or, on religious occasions, green for their headlines.

  The great, the brave lion, the sword of Allah, Amir Mullah Hashish—May Allah reward him in abundance—has vowed to cut off the head of Kahramana, the serpent corrupting our pure sisters and brothers with her filth, after the Amir Mullah Hashish—May Allah reward him in abundance—discovered that Kahramana was not the pure virgin she pretended to be. Kahramana confessed to the Amir—May Allah reward him in abundance—that she had committed filthy acts of adultery with no less than twelve other men and three women who will all be beheaded in the courtyard outside Wadi Hashish Municipality tomorrow at sunset. Attendance is mandatory.

  On top of this was a grainy photo of men and women in shackles and red overalls, on their knees, looking miserable, with four men in black hoodies labeled with a green ‘anarchy’ sign made of two crossing machetes. They were brandishing their vintage (and no doubt broken) AK-47s at the camera, grinning.

  * * *

  A week later the women’s rights group Kuchan Sulemani hijacked the Annex’s armoured truck carrying thousands of copies of Akhbar Al Imara. They loaded the newspapers into their van and sped off, having taken the driver out with a sedative dart. The Kuchan Sulemani activists then appeared at the Annex’s main border gate, the following dawn, to erect a large papier mâché art instillation made of thousands of copies of Akhbar Al Imara, just in front of the Visa Hall. Plastered across every surface of the installation was the front page of Akhbar Al Imara, as well as large print-offs of the three women accused of having sex with Kahramana. Each face was the size of a car’s front windshield. Another print-off, of Kahramana’s face as it appeared in so many NUL publications, was also plastered on it, along with a Sorani Kurdish phrase hailing her a feminist icon. The activists were tear-gassed away a few hours later, along with the local press who had shown up to cover the story.

  Kahramana stared at the sight of her face appearing sporadically across the new items on the TV screen bolted to the wall of the restaurant. She was fascinated by all the attention she was getting. There she was, eating well up on the eighth floor of Freedom Fires Tower, with the Women’s Rights’ Attaché from the American Annex of Sulaymania. The attaché had come to congratulate Kahramana on winning her appeal to stay in Sulaymania. She was also there to discuss Kahramana’s nomination for the Courageous Women’s Award. The attaché gently touched Kahramana’s arm, telling her how much she sympathized with her ordeal. The Iraqi interpreter mechanically touched her other arm as she translated.

  Kahramana bowed her head and said nothing. She was contemplating the matter while sipping her soda. Only she knew that on that day, retiring to her master’s chamber early and dressed in only the most tantalizing of undergarments, she had caught Mullah Hashish, pants around his ankles, with another man. The other man hiked up his pants and bolted, leaving Mullah Hashish to fall to his knees with his face in his hands.

  She knew that Mullah Hashish would never let his secret out. He, who called homosexuality a ‘foul Western concept’ and ruled that all homosexuals should be ‘eaten alive by wolves’—he would stop at nothing to keep her from spilling this secret. He was going to kill her.

  Kahramana looked at the interpreter. The interpreter looked at the attaché. Kahramana leaned forward and, copying her, all three women huddled so close their heads almost touched. Kahramana began to tell them how, on the night of her wedding, she caught Mullah Hashish forcing himself on another woman. The woman was crying for help so Kahramana attacked Mullah Hashish and freed the woman. They both ran for the border but the other woman did not make it. ‘What happened to the other woman?’ asked the attaché. ‘She was eaten by wolves,’ said Kahramana.

  * * *

  Anchor: Jason, remarkable news that Kahramana has finally been granted asylum and she’s been nominated for this prestigious award! Tell us what’s going on over there.

  Reporter: Well, as you can see, the crowd behind me here—they have gathered to celebrate Kahramana receiving the Courageous Women’s Award and for her finally being granted asylum. It has been a long struggle, a long road to this victory. I have with me here Sherein Agha, chair of the NGO, Kuchan Sulemani, who has long fought for Kahramana’s case and other women like her.

  [The camera moves to put both Sherein and Jason in the frame.]

  Reporter: So you must be very proud of today’s success. Tell us your thoughts about these announcements and what they mean.

  Sherein: Well yes, clearly we’re very glad at how things turned out for Kahramana; she’s a brave woman and it’s been a remarkable journey. But she is only one of tens of thousands of … our figures estimated at least a hundred twenty thousand women … who are at the mercy of men like Mullah Hashish in the so-called ‘Empire’. Men who think it is acceptable to murder and rape women and to perform genital mutilation on young girls. This battle is far from over and … [Sherein raises both hands to gesture hopelessness.]

  Anchor: Jason, I have to cut you and Miss Agha short there. Thank you very much.

  * * *

  A week later Akhbar Al Imara posted a photo of the now-officially-one-eyed Mullah Hashish in his signature black frock and turban. This time, and for the first time, he was surrounded by six pregnant women standing sideways, three to his left and three to his right so that their huge bellies could be seen, despite the flowing black garments they wore covering everything but their eyes. Mullah Hashish was standing in the middle pointing his index finger threateningly as per. Underneath a caption read: ‘We will outnumber them and send them all to Hell.’

  The news story read:

  By order of the great, the brave lion, the sword of Allah, Amir Mullah Hashish—May Allah reward him in abundance—all women must be either pregnant or breastfeeding at all times. Men must follow the example of the great steed with his many wives and marry as many women as they can afford. All men must have a minimum of three wives as an expression of commitment to populate the glorious empire and outnumber the enemy. Men whose wives are not pregnant or breastfeeding will be called in for questioning, counselling and medical assessment. When called, attendance is mandatory.

  * * *

  But in NATO-run Baghdadistan, few were worried. In fact, the day Akhbar Al Imara ran their story, NATO officials could be seen in cafés all over the city, reading their copies and twitching with joy. They had finally figured out the sterility-gas weapon thing, or so they thought. Jason was chasing that story, as he did last time.

  * * *

  Kahramana put the stained newspaper down to give her full attention to the tall and handsome Central Annex Intelligence officer who had come to question her one more time about what she knew of the mysterious Mullah Hashish. Kahramana was excited to see that he had blue eyes just like her. She pointed to her eyes then at his, nodding and smiling at the interpreter. The dull and puffy-faced int
erpreter looked at the CAI offer: ‘You got that?’ ‘Yup,’ he replied without looking up, scribbling away with his pinky on his pad.

  It was another long and boring interview, and it turned out this CAI officer was almost as dumb as Mullah Hashish. He kept asking her the same questions over and over. Now and then Kahramana secretly snuck glances sideways at the crowds gathering in the snow, far below, like ants behind the giant T-walls. They were waiting to get onto the Sulaymania side—the sunny side. One after the other, their visas would be rejected, Kahramana thought. She smirked at the stupid CAI officer. But he didn’t notice, he was too busy poking holes in her story.

  * * *

  A week later Kahramana was detained for giving false evidence. Her deportation was scheduled for a fortnight after the interview with the blue-eyed intelligence officer.

  Kuchan Sulemani activists half-heartedly banged their pots and burned Annex flags for Kahramana. But this time media didn’t even show up. They were too busy filming the nationalist flag-heads swinging bricks at the NUL headquarters in Erbil and chanting for the deportation of all Arab refugees. The paparazzi retweeted an alleged sex tape of Kahramana which the flag-heads circulated from an earlier meme that Wadi Hashish had used to show Kahramana was not a virgin.

  The NUL took Kahramana back to the camp and stalled her deportation for a further six months, trying to delay the inevitable. Kahramana cried and cried until her eyes turned black and her hair started showing grey and her face wrinkled. Then came deportation day.

  The NUL drove a dozen female refugees to the West Gate, and parked up just beyond the perimeter fence, on the far side of the T-wall. There they handed out survival kits (water bottles and energy bars mainly), and dignity kits (tampons, HIV and pregnancy tests), to each woman, as well as leaflets explaining their rights as refugees and how they could appeal the decision in five years time.

  Dragging her feet between the T-wall and barbed-wire fence, Kahramana suddenly saw Abdulhadi. He was still working as a border patrol. She tried to reach out to him but by now she was on the wrong side of the wire. She called to him: ‘Help me brother! They’re going to decapitate me!’ To which Abdulhadi responded with a brief, blank stare before returning to his job of waving official vehicles in and out of the gate. It wasn’t that Abdulhadi didn’t recognize her. It was just that he had other things on his mind: scrounging migrants, the low quality of confiscated cigarettes, this damn NATO-induced snow.

  THE GARDENS OF BABYLON

  HASSAN BLASIM

  TRANSLATED BY JONATHAN WRIGHT

  To Adnan Mubarak

  One of the tiger-droids has been tampered with. The public garden system has only just launched the model, and some nine-year-old boy has already hacked it, making it circle pointlessly in the air, above everyone’s heads. Visitors have begun gathering round, laughing at it, including me. We watch as a supervisor intervenes, along with a male and a female droid, and together they coax the thing back down to Earth. As the crowd disperses, the supervisor issues the boy’s mother with a fine. There’s nothing unusual about this kid’s hacking skills, of course: Babylon is now a paradise for digital technology developers, a playground for hackers, virus architects and software artists.

  It’s still too early for the queen to arrive, so I watch the children having fun with the crocodiles in the water tank. There are other animals, originating from every continent, roaming freely among the visitors: tame, friendly beasts, from birds to insects, as well as smart-trees, developed to match the rhythm of this ‘Age of Peace and Dreams’—as our queen likes to call it. And our queen is right. I don’t understand the people who object to her policies. This virtual life, with so much affluence and creativity, really is the true rhythm of the age. It means there’s extraordinary harmony between our imaginations and our realities. It was the federal ruler of Mesopotamia who gave the director of the city the title ‘queen’. I think she deserves the title. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but she’s a strong woman and she’s left her mark on our city by building it on the principles of creative freedom. We have built peace and prosperity through imagination. That’s what the queen says, and today she’s going to open the Story-Games Centre, which recently recruited me. The queen took over the management of Babylon ten years ago. She divided the city into twenty-four giant domes. At first HK Corporation objected to this division, but the Chinese later did a U-turn, saying they hadn’t initially understood the queen’s plans. Of course, they only said this after the queen gave them the contract for managing the city’s water provisions. Maybe what I’m saying today about Babylon’s imagination policy doesn’t exactly apply to me, since these days I find it difficult to work. But for most citizens it’s perfect. My problem is I need to relax too much. And it’s like my imagination has run dry. I have to finish my first story-game this week, but I’m too laid-back. Creativity requires a certain exuberance. I have no ideas, no images; too often I feel bored and empty.

  On the screen above the Gardens, I watch an advert for the new water trains that will soon come into service. These are fast trains that will supply the city with water from central and northern Europe. I feel an overwhelming desire to leave the Gardens and head for the abandoned Old City, but I’ve left my facemask at home. Our queen has now appeared on the screen, with the CEO of HK, and they are drinking glasses of water with the new train behind them—the pride of Iranian industry. Over recent years these water trains have become a key factor in the selection of city managers. City managers are appointed by the Governor General of Federal Mesopotamia, with the proviso that the international companies that manage the provinces endorse the choice. Things have gone well with the water trains. For several years, Babylon had faced the prospect of going thirsty. Then the Water Rebels had formed and started to agitate against the Chinese company. The Water Rebels are constantly on the move and are still active in both the abandoned city and in the new domes. The rebels still don’t like the way the water is being apportioned. HK Corp distributes the water from a central point and armoured, automated trucks are responsible for supplying every house with its quota of water. To some extent, I can see why the Water Rebels are angry; some people hardly seem to have enough e-credit to pay for their quota, while in rich areas you see special trucks filling swimming pools and fountains with the stuff. Several times the rebels have hacked into the trucks’ software and made them dispense water in the poor parts of town. What I don’t understand is why they reject any dialogue at all with our queen.

  I’m hungry. I message the restaurant and they send me the nearest waiter-bot. I like this restaurant. They’ve designed their robot waiter to look like a cook and also like the first astronaut to set foot on the moon. He’s very funny. Everything you order comes out of his belly. I credit him on my phone for the sandwich and the orange juice and, as I eat, I reread a classical text by a writer who lived here at the beginning of the previous century. It’s quite a boring story about violence in the age of oil and religious extremism. I was disappointed when I was offered the job in the Archive Department. My dream was to work in the New Games, designing my own story lines. But they assigned me the task of converting the old stories by our city’s writers into smart-games. The manager said it was one of the most important departments. ‘You will have the chance to open the door for the new generation to discover the distant past of Babylon.’ Of course the manager is exaggerating, because who’s interested in that bloody past today? Most young people only follow the best-selling space story games. The garden is teeming with visitors. It’s obviously because the queen’s expected to visit. There are visitors from all over the world, although today most of them are Chinese. They and their families look very happy. Why not, since it was they who designed the new domes, and they who are running Babylon? Almost everything—the transport system, energy, the hospitals, and smart-schools. Not to mention the food and water business. No one can deny the ingenuity of the giant domes. Each district is a circular space like a giant sports ground, roo
fed over with a smart-glass dome that absorbs the sunlight, which is the main source of energy in Babylon. All the districts are linked by amazing underground trains. The Chinese have also given the inhabitants of Babylon the privilege of Chinese citizenship, so we Babylonians can go and live in China as if it’s our own country, and likewise for Chinese people wanting to live in Mesopotamia. I call up my dear Indian friend Sara. Her phone isn’t available. I can’t read anymore. The rhythm of the story makes me feel sleepy. I switch the story to listening mode in the hope that the reader’s voice will inspire me and give me an idea about how to design the story-game I have to produce.

  * * *

  The doorbell rings. I look out of the window. The morning sun floods the trees in the garden. The oranges shine like my mother’s golden earrings. How I miss her! I miss her kisses, her tears and the way she sighs at life’s ups and downs. I miss her earrings, the golden love hearts my father bought in Istanbul in the 1970s as a honeymoon present. That was when my father played the oud and my mother was a history teacher.

  The doorbell rings again. A large flock of sparrows is pecking the grass in the garden. My father waves from beyond the garden wall. Frightened, the sparrows fly off to the neighbours’ garden.

  ‘Good morning, father. All well? Has something happened?’ I say as I undo the padlock on the door’s steel chain.

  ‘Nothing, son, nothing, I just wanted to see you.’ He shakes my hand and wipes the sweat from the end of his nose. He looks into my eyes and embraces me. He’s carrying a black bag, which he waves at me.