I, Who Did Not Die Read online

  The sun was going down by the time I got to my neighborhood, and I walked the streets and alleys looking for her, passing all the hiding places where we’d embraced during our morning walks. I trekked for an hour, until hunger started kneading my stomach and I turned to go home. As much as I desperately wanted to walk past Alyaa’s house, I resisted. It would be too suspicious if a soldier were lurking around an unmarried woman’s home. I would have to find another way to let her know I was in town.

  I could smell the scented rice cooking as I approached my father’s home. My sister Karima dropped the wooden spoon when she saw me.

  “Brother! Are you home for good?”

  I unwrapped her arms from my neck and told her I had to leave early in the morning. She frowned, then quickly corrected her mood and kissed me on both cheeks.

  “What, no smile for me?” she asked.

  I slumped against the wall and sighed as if I were deflating. Of all my sisters, Karima was the one who knew me best. She could tell, whenever the crease deepened between my eyebrows, that something was bothering me.

  Just then my younger brothers bounded into the kitchen, grimy from chasing each other outdoors.

  “Najah! Najah, have dinner with us!” They tugged on my uniform, competing for my attention. They were so unaware of their good fortune to go to school and study the wonders of the world. Their innocence was calming and put my sacrifice in perspective. I was keeping the country safe for them.

  “Go wash up,” Karima said, shooing them away. Since the divorce, as the eldest girl in the family, she had naturally filled in as mother. It was Karima who cooked the meals, Karima who made sure homework got done and teeth got brushed, and Karima who tonight would wash and iron my uniform.

  “Tell me,” she said, handing me a cup of tea.

  “I love someone,” I whispered, and the vault in my heart creaked open.

  Karima put down her cup and leaned in. She loved a secret, and she could keep one, too. So she knew lots of things about all of us, while we knew very little about one another.

  “Who is she?”

  I told her everything, about our sign language in the bread line, about the makeshift ring, about our wish to marry despite the other suitor. That we’d been courting before sunrise for the past year, finding quiet places to be alone. Karima cracked up when I told her I had proposed in the backyard.

  “Right under our noses? Sly, my brother!”

  I smiled for the first time since being conscripted, and it felt unusual, like my cheeks were irritated by being pushed out of place.

  “Who else knows?” she asked.

  “Mom wouldn’t give her blessing. She said it’s not right to turn a young girl into a widow, especially one who is already promised to a rich man.”

  Karima circled her finger around the rim of her teacup. “She does have a point,” she said.

  I dropped my head in my hands.

  “Hey, hey. Shhhhh,” Karima said, rubbing my back.

  I looked up at her through my tears. If Karima didn’t approve either, I would reluctantly agree I should give up.

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  “Najah, what you’re doing is dangerous. If you get caught, you’ll spoil her reputation. But love, esh, it doesn’t listen.” She sat quietly for a few agonizing seconds while I awaited her verdict. “Okay. I need to meet her, then I can say.”

  Just the fact that Karima would take the matter under consideration gave me renewed hope. Thanks to the snail of a bus, I’d have to leave the next morning at three to get back to the base on time, but even so I was going to stop by the bakery on my way, just in case Alyaa came early for bread.

  “Come with me to the bakery tomorrow, and if she’s there, I can point her out to you.”

  Karima’s eyes gleamed. The younger ones took their places at the table, and as she retreated to the kitchen to serve us, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it to let me know she was up for an adventure.

  The next morning we slipped out before anyone was awake, but when we got to the bakery, I realized my idea was ludicrous. We could see through the closed service window that the bakers were still stirring flour and water. It was only two in the morning, and the first loaves hadn’t even been baked. Karima shivered in the cold. I loved her then, for sacrificing warmth and sleep to help me untangle my life.

  “She must be really special for you to be acting so crazy,” Karima said, kissing me on the cheek. We waited for an hour, until I had no more minutes to spare. I desperately wanted to ask the first women gathering in line if they’d seen Alyaa, but I didn’t dare approach. Other soldiers from my unit were already scurrying to get to the bus station.

  “I’m sorry I made you get up,” I said. “I can’t be tardy; they might never let me have another leave.”

  “Go,” she said, straightening my collar. “I’ll keep my ears open at the marketplace, and I’ll let you know if I see her. Don’t worry.”

  I tried to put Alyaa out of my mind, telling myself she must have been busy taking care of her mother. So I got busy learning all the things I needed to know to drive and shoot a Soviet tank. There were four of us in my tank crew, each seated in a small reservoir with a hatch that lifted to the outside. The driver was in front, the gunner to his right with access to the roof-mounted machine gun, and behind them, two more spaces for the loader, who took care of ammunition, and the commander, who gave orders through our headphones. All of us learned how to load and fire the cannon, shoot the machine gun, and drive the tank. It wasn’t that hard to steer, easier than a car. All four limbs were in constant motion in the driver’s seat, which I steered with a manual clutch and two steering sticks positioned between my feet. I pushed the sticks forward to drive straight and pulled to slow down, and when I wanted to turn, I moved only one. I had a small viewer to see out of and an infrared periscope for night vision, but if there was a sandstorm, and there usually was, I relied on the directions called out by the commander and the gyroscope compass in my compartment giving me a rough idea of which way was north.

  We practiced positioning the cannon to the coordinates relayed over the radio by the commander and sighting targets through the telescope. I listened well, learned fast, and soon the commander was leaving me in charge of the tank crew while he trained some of the slower learners. I guess word of my skill reached the sergeant major, because one day he summoned me. After asking several people for directions, I finally located the blue door to his office inside a two-story headquarters made of cinder blocks. I knocked, and when the door swung open, I recognized an old neighborhood friend of my father’s.

  “Najah! I heard you were here and I wanted to see for myself. Come, sit,” he said. There were only two metal folding chairs, a small table, and a prayer rug in his sparse office. “Look how strong you’ve become. They tell me you’re quite a tank driver.”

  “I don’t know about that . . .”

  “I’m sure what I’m hearing is true,” he said. “Tea?”

  He set a steaming cup before me, not waiting for my answer.

  “Tell me. How is your father?” he asked.

  “He’s OK. He’s raising the kids by himself now,” I said.

  The sergeant major gave me a quizzical look.

  “After the divorce,” I added.

  “Oh?”

  My parents never should have married. According to family legend, my father was actually courting my mother’s younger sister, but when it came time for the wedding, my mother’s parents did a switcheroo, dressing their oldest daughter in the bridal gown because they were concerned she was too ugly and too old for anyone to marry. My father, an orphan whose mother and father had died of some kind of illness, was too polite to argue because he so desperately wanted a family. And my parents have been fighting ever since. Their biggest battle was over how to raise us. My father has a college degree in business administration and an important government job overseeing the cargo that came into the Port of Basra, while my mother ne
ver attended school. When my older brother and I skipped class to go fishing, she just shrugged. When my father discovered we’d been playing hooky for months, he was furious, and accused my mother of passing her ignorance on to us. Maybe he was right—my brother and I both went into the military after dropping out of school, and look where that had gotten me. My father threatened to take the rest of the kids away from her, and eventually he made good on his promise, divorced her, and made it his personal mission to make my younger brothers and sisters go to college. Anyway, it was too much to explain, so I gave him the quick version.

  “They fought all the time and finally ended it,” I said.

  “He’s still working at the port?”

  I nodded.

  “Must be rough on him.”

  Suddenly, I saw my opening.

  “It is, sir. My sister Karima helps out, but he’s always exhausted. And he’s not getting any younger. I wish I could be there for him.”

  He studied me for a moment and then reached into a drawer, pulled out a form, and scribbled something on it.

  “What time does your tank training end each day?” he asked.

  “Four, sir.”

  He signed his name to the form and passed it across the desk to me.

  “Listen, as of 4:01 p.m., I don’t care what you do, as long as you report for duty at five every morning. This permit allows you off base in the evenings, but screw this up just once and I won’t be able to help you.”

  I jumped to my feet and placed my hand over my heart in gratitude. Now I could find Alyaa. I nearly forgot to thank him as I ran for the door.

  “Tell your father I said hello,” he called out.

  I went directly to the nearest town, where I knew a guy with a clothing shop who had a motorcycle he wanted to sell. It was a German MZ with a big protruding headlight good for driving in the dark. And the next day at one minute past four, I was gone.

  Now I could blend into traffic and drive by Alyaa’s house without attracting as much attention as I would on foot, as long as I kept my patrols to no more than once an hour. I rode by her home several times that evening, but her lights never came on. I returned at three the next morning, walking so as not to wake the neighbors, and found a doorway where I could hide and wait for her to go to the bakery. I listened to the birds announce the impending day and focused all my energy toward her window, using the power of my mind to summon her. Eventually a light flicked on, and my whole soul lit up with it, like a balloon of warm water bursting inside my chest. I heard footsteps, and could tell by the delicate weight of them that they belonged to her.

  She took a few steps, then stopped when she spotted me across the street. I pointed to the alley by her house, but Alyaa just stood there, like a stone. Had she chilled to me? Then I realized she didn’t recognize my tank division uniform. I moved closer, and she instinctively clutched her veil over her face, and I knew I was frightening her.

  “Alyaa, it’s me!” I whispered, and she looked again, breaking into an ecstatic smile. We both sped to the alley and I gathered her in my arms, inhaling the scent of her. I kissed her forehead, her eyes, her nose, and each ear, using the light from her house to guide me. She squirmed, but not with enough force to actually break free. I was kissing her so fast that I forgot to breathe and had to come up for air, panting double-time.

  “Take it easy! People can see us,” she whispered.

  Adrenaline made me brave, and stupid.

  “You’re my wife, so what if people see!”

  She held her hand out to me, so I could see she was still wearing the engagement string.

  “I will never remove this as long as I am alive,” she said. “And I am alive because of you, so please make sure nothing happens to you.”

  I kissed her tenderly on the lips. She let me but then pulled away and quickly glanced both ways down the alley to make sure we had not been observed.

  “Let’s take a walk,” she said.

  I explained the rules of my curfew and asked if she could start coming to the bakery an hour earlier, so we could have more time together.

  “Give me two more days,” she said. “My brother is coming to stay with us. I can go to the bakery after he leaves.”

  I would give her as many days as she wanted. A thousand, a million, an infinity. I could wait forever now that I knew she was still devoted to me. I brushed the side of her face with the back of my hand and kissed her one last time.

  “See you in two days,” I said.

  When I returned to Basra, I waited at the bakery an hour beyond the time she had promised to show up. My mind raced with what-ifs. What if she had forgotten? What if she had given up on me? What if she had met someone else? Had her brother extended his stay? And the biggest one of all: What if I didn’t get back to the base by five? When my watch finally confirmed there was no way I’d make curfew, I gave in to outside forces and simply let that worry go. As long as I was going to be late, I might as well be very late and take the whole morning off, plus whatever punishment would come with it. I had to see her. I leaned against the wall, squeezed fistfuls of warm bread into balls, and absentmindedly chewed them. Finally, I spotted her in the distance walking with a friend, and when they came closer, Alyaa pointed at me and whispered something to her companion. I rode up to them on my motorcycle so I could talk to her away from all the ears waiting in line for bread.

  “Excuse me,” I said, trying my best to sound formal. “I’m going to my father’s house and I’d like you to follow me. I have something to discuss with you.”

  “Of course,” she said, lowering her gaze.

  I sat under the palm tree in our courtyard and watched the sky lighten from charcoal to steel to indigo and wondered what was taking her so long. She’d wasted so much time already. Normally, Father would be flicking on the lights about then, getting dressed for work, but he had taken a vacation. Whenever he was out of the house, Karima took a little vacation, too, letting the kids sleep in as long as they wanted. Still, something felt off with Alyaa. She should have been here by now. She had decided to leave me; there could be no other explanation. I let myself get so worked up that when she finally arrived, all I had to greet her with was accusation.

  “Are you seeing another man?” I pounced.

  I reached for her hand and she jolted back, as if she had just touched a hot stove.

  “How can you say that to me? Aren’t we engaged?”

  She burst into tears, and I hated myself for being so insecure. She loved me, she said, but her family was pressuring her to marry the man they had chosen for her, and as the months went by it was getting increasingly difficult for her to stall them. And I couldn’t tell her how much longer she needed to wait, because my “quick stint” in the military was turning into an indefinite obligation.

  “When are you going to bring me a real gold ring?” she wept. “I’m embarrassed to let anyone see my finger.”

  And there it was—both of us were starting to lose faith in each other. I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t court her properly, in her home, with permission from both our families. I was not an attractive husband, a soldier with a lost falafel fortune and responsibility for a pack of siblings. But when I was with her, all those barriers fell away, and all I felt was an innate sense of possibility.

  I held her to me and reminded her how much I loved her, and her sobs subsided into sniffles. Then I pushed open the door to the formal sitting room and led her in. I gathered the floor pillows together and gently lowered her down to rest. She reached for me in the dark and pulled me down to her. I slowly removed each piece of her abaya, letting the cloth flutter to the carpet. We began to rock softly together, the two of us trembling at what we both knew we shouldn’t want. But our bodies had taken over where words had failed us, and the urgent need to fuse together grew until neither of us could turn back. I entered her and she gasped one single word—yes—and pulled me tighter to her.

  For a moment it seemed that the room fell away and a
white light arched down to us from the heavens, like an answered prayer. Yes, she loved me. Yes, we had a future. Yes, pleasure was pouring out of me. Yes, it would be that way forever. Yes, there was a higher force looking out for us. We soared together, until our souls slowly shuddered back down into our bodies. She rolled over and brought her knees to her chest, and I curled myself around her.

  “You are my wife now, before God,” I whispered into her ear. “I will never leave you.”

  She started to cry, and when I turned her to face me, her skin was so pale, like the color of fog. There was no need to explain the terrible danger we had just put her in. She couldn’t marry anyone else now, because he would discover on the wedding night that another man had already taken her virginity. Women like that brought permanent shame on both families, a disgrace that was sometimes rectified by beheading. And if her belly started to show, well, unmarried pregnant women also had a way of disappearing in Basra.

  She trembled as she buried her face in my neck. I caressed her hair and assured her that I would talk to my father about marrying her.

  “I should get back home to my mother,” she said.

  “No, stay. Spend the day with me.”

  “How? Your family will see us.”

  I crept into my father’s room and returned with one of his floor-length dishdasha shirts, a belt, and a kaffiyeh to cover her head.

  “Wear this, and I’ll take you for a ride on my motorcycle.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  She laughed, and I was elated to see Alyaa come back to herself. She put on the clothes, and the dishdasha was so long I had to roll it several times over the belt to keep it from dragging on the ground.