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ANCHOR BOOKS EDITIONS, 1969, 1989

Copyright © 1965 by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House,

Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada

Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by

Doubleday in 1965. The Anchor Books edition is published by arrangement with

Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock.

Guests of the Sheik: an ethnography of an

Iraqi village / Elizabeth Warnock Fernea.

p. cm.

Reprint. Originally published: 1969.

1. Women—Iraq—Nahr. 2. Nahr (Iraq)—

Social life and customs.

I. Title.

HQ1735.Z9N344 1989 89-27687

306’.09567’5—dc20

eISBN: 978-0-307-77378-4

Copyright © 1965 by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

www.anchorbooks.com

v3.1

For My Mother,

Elizabeth Warnock

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Other Books by This Author

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Cast of Characters

PART I

Chapter 1. Night Journey: Arrival in the Village

Chapter 2. The Sheik’s Harem

Chapter 3. Women of the Tribe

Chapter 4. Women of the Town

Chapter 5. Gypsies

Chapter 6. Housekeeping in El Nahra

Chapter 7. Problems of Purdah

Chapter 8. I Meet the Sheik

PART II

Chapter 9. Ramadan

Chapter 10. The Feast

Chapter 11. Moussa’s House

Chapter 12. Weddings

Chapter 13. Salima

Chapter 14. One Wife or Four

PART III

Chapter 15. Summer

Chapter 16. Hussein

Chapter 17. Muharram

Chapter 18. Pilgrimage to Karbala

PART IV

Chapter 19. Autumn

Chapter 20. An Excursion into the Country

PART V

Chapter 21. Winter

Chapter 22. Jabbar Becomes Engaged

Chapter 23. Death in the Tribe and in the Town

Chapter 24. At Home in El Nahra

PART VI

Chapter 25. Back to Baghdad

Chapter 26. Leave-taking

Post Script

Glossary of Arabic Terms

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

I spent the first two years of my married life in a tribal

settlement on the edge of a village in southern Iraq. My

husband, a social anthropologist, was doing research for his

doctorate from the University of Chicago.

This book is a personal narrative of those years, especially

of my life with the veiled women who, like me, lived in mud-

brick houses surrounded by high mud walls. I am not an

anthropologist. Before going to Iraq, I knew no Arabic and

almost nothing of the Middle East, its religion and its culture.

I have tried to set down faithfully my reactions to a new

world; any inaccuracies are my own.

The village, the tribe and all of the people who appear in the

following pages are real, as are the incidents. However, I have

changed the names so that no one may be embarrassed,

although I doubt that any of my women friends in the village

will ever read my book.

Without their friendship and hospitality, and that of other

Iraqi and American friends too numerous to mention, this

book quite literally would never have been written. I want to

thank my friend Nicholas B. Millet for drafting the sketch-

map which has been used on this page in this book. I owe a

special debt of gratitude to two people. Audrey Walz (Mrs.

Jay Walz) read the incomplete manuscript and advised me to

finish it. Her enthusiasm, together with her sound judgment

and critical ear, have aided the book’s progress immeasurably.

My husband, Robert Fernea, first encouraged me to write

Guests of the Sheik. His interest and his intellectual honesty

helped me face the realities of living in El Nahra and, later, of

trying to shape that experience into the book which follows.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

PART I

1

Night Journey: Arrival in the Village

The night train from Baghdad to Basra was already hissing

and creaking in its tracks when Bob and I arrived at the

platform. Clouds of steam billowing from the engine hung

suspended in the cold January air as we hurried across, laden

with suitcases, bundles, string bags and an angel-food cake in

a cardboard box, a farewell present from a thoughtful

American friend. We were on the last lap of our journey, and I

found myself half dreading and half anticipating the adventure

we had come almost ten thousand miles to begin.

“Diwaniya! Diwaniya!”

“Those are the coaches we want,” said Bob, taking my arm

and steering me down the platform past crowds of tribesmen

arguing heatedly or sitting in tight quiet groups, their wives

swathed in black to the eyebrows, with children on hip and

shoulder; past the white-collar Iraqi effendis in Western suits

and past the shouting German tourists.

An attendant in an ill-fitting khaki wool uniform helped us

board and guided us to a compartment, where he dusted the

worn leather seats with his coat sleeve. We sat down. I found

my stomach was churning and I glanced quickly at Bob to see

how he was taking the long-awaited departure.

I knew he was nervous about my reception in El Nahra, the

remote village where we were now headed and where he had

been living and working as an anthropologist for the past three

months. He was no more nervous than I, who knew little of El

Nahra except that no one spoke English there, that the people

were of the conservative Shiite sect of Islam, and that the

women were heavily veiled and lived in the strictest seclusion.

No Western woman had ever lived in El Nahra before and

very few had even been seen there, Bob said, which meant I

would be something of a curiosity. I wasn’t sure I wanted to

be. And we were to be guests of Sheik Hamid Abdul Emir el

Hussein, chief of the El Eshadda tribe, who had offered us a

mud house with a walled garden. Our first home, said Bob—a

honeymoon house. But who had ever heard of a honeymoon

house made of mud?

“Hil-lal Diwaniya! Samawa! Bas-ra!” bawled the

conductors. “Yallah!” The train began to move past the

station and the line of waiting taxis and horse-drawn carriages.

“Well, we’re off,” announced Bob, a little too heartily. He

motioned to the hovering porter and ordered some beer to

celebrate our departure. “Maybe we’ll have some rain before

we get to Diwaniya.” He stood up to peer out of the window.

I looked out, too—expecting what? A friend to wave

goodbye? Three months ago I had come to Baghdad as a bride

and the city had seemed strange and alien to me then, a place

so far removed from my experience that I had nothing with

which to compare it. Now, headed for an unknown tribal

village, I did not want to miss my last glimpse of Baghdad,

which seemed a dear familiar place.

Clouds hung low and dark in the bit of sky I could see

between the buildings and the townspeople and tribesmen,

carriages, cars and donkey carts that moved more and more

quickly past the train window. The winter night was coming

fast, and as we left the Tigris River behind, the lights were on

in all the hotels along its banks—the Semiramis, the Zia, the

Sindbad. We passed rows of mud-and-mat serifa huts with

kerosene lanterns flickering in their doorways, a series of

smoking brick kilns, a mosque with a lighted minaret, more

serifa huts, and then there was nothing to see but the dark

horizon and a few date palms and the wide, empty plain.

“Aren’t you excited?” asked Bob. “I can’t understand you

at all. Here we’ve been waiting and planning all these weeks

for you to come down, dear, and now that we’re on our way at

last, you sit there as calmly as though you were going

shopping or something.”

At least I look calm, I thought; that’s good.

“Yes,” I brought out. “I am excited.” We sipped our beer.

And also scared, I added to myself. I had to get along well in

El Nahra so I could help Bob with his work. But would I be

able to? Bob had warned that we could certainly expect the

women to be friendly at first, in the customary hospitable

Arab way, but he couldn’t be sure how they would react after

the initial period.

In the dining car I was the only woman, and the men stared

at me curiously. We went back to our compartment and

watched the dark landscape while the train pushed slowly

south. I had thought, and Bob had agreed, that the women

might accept me more readily if I met them on their own

terms. Thus, although I had balked at wearing an all-

enveloping black abayah, I had elected to live like the women

of El Nahra—in relative seclusion behind walls, not meeting

or mixing with men. But what if, in spite of my efforts, the

women shunned me and left me to myself, more of a

hindrance than an asset to my husband? Two years alone in a

mud house, I reflected. Hardly an enchanting way to spend a

honeymoon.

The weather was certainly not welcoming; a midnight rain

in Diwaniya poured down as we ran from the train to the

waiting room with its single wooden bench. I sat by the

luggage while Bob looked for a taxi or a carriage to take us to

the government rest house; even if the weather had been ideal,

we could not have continued on to El Nahra that night. The

village lay only ten miles southeast but there was no regular

transportation except for occasional trucks and taxis which did

not travel after dark.

While I waited, people gathered to stare at me again, and I

slowly became aware that, among the crowds of middle-class

Iraqis and townspeople, I was the only woman without an

abayah. I began to be self-conscious. This is ridiculous, I told

myself. Why should I have to wear that ugly thing—it’s not

my custom; the arguments with Bob about the abayah returned

in a rush. Bob said I ought to wear it, since everyone else did.

Since we were guests of the sheik, he added, it would make

everything easier if I wore the abayah; the sheik wouldn’t

have to punish people for insulting me. Insulting me! I had

been indignant. “They say an uncovered woman is an immoral

woman,” Bob had explained, “and the tribesmen ask why a

woman should want to show herself to anyone but her

husband.” I remembered my furious reply: “If they can’t take

me as I am—if we have to make artificial gestures to prove we

are human beings too—what’s the point?” Now, although I

hated to admit it, my principles were weakening before my

embarrassment as more and more people gathered to whisper

and point and stare. I wished from the bottom of my heart that

I had borrowed the abayah offered by a Baghdadi lady friend

and could bury myself in its comforting anonymity.

After half an hour’s carriage ride through splashing mud we

were ushered into a side wing of the rest house, the place

where women were allowed to stay if accompanied by their

husbands. I broke out our angel-food cake to eat with the tea

Bob had ordered before we lay down to sleep with the rain

dripping into the puddles outside our curtained window.

Although the sun was shining in the morning, the taxis were

still not able to move on the muddy roads outside the city, so I

was deposited in the home of one of Bob’s friends to wait.

The lady of the house was called Um Hassan, mother of

Hassan, her oldest child, “like my husband is called Abu

Hassan,” she explained slowly and patiently in Arabic. Um

Hassan was a perceptive woman. She took a long look at my

tweed coat and red scarf.

“You’re going to live in El Nahra?” she asked

incredulously.

I said that I was.

Without another word she produced an abayah. “You wear

this, dearie,” she said (or the Arabic equivalent thereof), “and

you’ll feel a lot better.” As I began to protest, she stopped me

in midsentence. “You can borrow it. I’ll have one made for

you here.”

Her son brought samples of black silk; a dressmaker came

and measured me. The abayah would be sent by taxi next

week, said Um Hassan, and I could return hers then. Well, it

seemed I’d capitulated; I was going to wear that servile

garment after all. I discovered that my principles were not as

strong as my desire to be inconspicuous and well thought of in

my new home.

Um Hassan and I drank several glasses of hot sweet tea and

I was urged to eat lunch while I waited for Bob to return. My

mood was hardly improved by the long face Um Hassan

pulled when I struggled to ask about El Nahra in my scanty

Arabic.

“You won’t stay,” she prophesied. “You won’t be able to

stand it. No cinema, no paved streets—and the food! No

chickens—if you get one, it’s nothing but bones.” To make

sure I had understood, she rattled in their dish the chicken

bones I had picked clean at luncheon.

Bob finally arrived at dusk, tired and annoyed; we would be

sharing a taxi with six other people and he had had to pay

double to assure that he and I would have the front seat to

ourselves.

“The driver can’t even promise we’ll get through, the road

is so bad,” he admitted. “But I think we’d better try it; we

can’t sit in Diwaniya for the next three days.”

Um Hassan showed me how to keep the black silk abayah

on my head and around my body by clutching the two sides

together under my chin. At the doorway I turned to shake her

hand, stepped on the hem of the abayah, and it slipped neatly

off my head into a little pile on the doorstep. The men in the

waiting taxi stared popeyed, and one of Um Hassan’s little

boys stifled a giggle while Bob helped me recover the abayah

and I tried to maneuver myself and the unfamiliar cloak into

the taxi without losing it again.

Bob looked at me. “I do think you’ll be more comfortable,”

he said. I knew he meant the abayah but I was beyond

discussion of the matter at this point.

“We’ll soon be home,” he said. “Don’t worry.” He put his

arm around me comfortingly, but he’d forgotten the abayah

too, and only succeeded in dragging it off my head again.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and together we dragged the silly thing

back up.

Home. Home indeed. I could not even see a track in the

mud ahead of us as the old Ford taxi slid around through

puddles in the growing dusk.

“After we pass the shrine of Abu Fadhil, the local saint, we

pick up the El Nahra road,” Bob was saying, and although I

didn’t believe there could be anything ahead of us in the

muck, a single electric globe gradually became visible, high

up; it was burning on the very top of the shrine’s brick dome.

The mud-and-thatch houses nearby were shut tight and

darkened by the rain; they rose up on either side of us like

deserted tombs. Only a donkey braying within indicated life.

Night was coming; already the huts were merging into the flat

landscape, and as we passed them and edged forward into

empty fields of mud, the horizon itself slowly merged with the

dark sky.

We drove on into nothing. No lights were visible in any

direction; no other taxis, people or animals were on the road.

In the back seat the men were quiet, and we could hear, very

loudly in the silence, the splash of mud against the sides of the

car and the ominous bangs and creaks as the undercarriage hit

the ridges of ruts. Wind swept in through the windows, empty

of glass panes. Even in my borrowed abayah and overcoat and

sweater, I shivered in the damp air.

The ten miles took almost two hours, but we were stuck

only once. The driver sighed, the men in the back seat got out

and tied their long garments or dishdashas up, and Bob rolled

up his trouser legs. Directed by loud shouts from the driver,

the seven of them, shin-deep in mud, rocked the car back and

forth in the slime, and finally, when it would still not budge,

literally lifted it up and over the bad place, the driver gunning

the motor as hard as he could to help. We finally got to solid

ground, the men emptied their shoes of water, and Bob looked

ruefully at his mud-soaked khakis. Everyone climbed back in

the car and we drove on.

Eventually the men stirred. Bob was pointing ahead to

where a faint light could be seen. Dark shapes of palm trees

loomed in front of us, and we rounded a bend and rolled over

the last rut onto pavement and into a blaze of fluorescent

lights: the main street of El Nahra. Bob indicated the jail and

the school and the mayor’s house. The street was deserted, but

the fluorescent street lights burned brightly all the way to the

bridge, where we stopped at an open coffee shop. The back-

seat passengers got out and a few men sitting drinking a late-

evening cup of coffee raised their hands in casual salute to the

taxi. We crossed the bridge and turned right onto a mud road,

which followed the irrigation canal past dark walls and a lean-

to coffee shop. “This is the tribal side of the canal,” said Bob,

“where we live.” Here there were no fluorescent lights, only

old-fashioned street lamps glimmering dully in the muddy

waters. I could make out big trees next to the water.

A dog began to bark, and another. Within minutes what

seemed to be hundreds of dogs were howling furiously around

us.

“It’s only the watchdogs of the tribal settlement,” Bob told

me. “They always bark when a stranger comes near. That’s

what they’re for.”

We turned left away from the canal, the dogs still barking,

and the taxi stopped at a high mud wall, where Bob unlocked

the padlock on a wooden door and carried in the bags. I

gathered my abayah around me, picked up my purse and the

angel-food-cake box and went through the door into a garden,

following Bob up a narrow path to a small dark house as the

rain spattered down onto the leaves in a sudden shower.

As Bob wrestled in the dark with the padlock on the house

door, the trees in the garden around me rustled and sighed, and

my shoes squished in deep mud. I shifted my feet, transferred

my parcels to one hand so that I could get a firmer grip on the

abayah. Water dripped from my bangs down my forehead and

into my eyes.

The lock snapped open. “Don’t expect too much,” warned

Bob as we stepped over the threshold. He flicked a switch and

a single bare electric globe went on, illuminating a small,

dusty, incredibly littered room.

“I’ve been living in one room,” he offered, “but now you’re

here we can fix up the other. In fact you can probably fix this

one up better too.”

I stood by the door. Books, papers, clothes, blankets and

dishes were piled on an old wooden table covered with dirty

oilcloth, on a broken-down sofa, on a single iron cot which

stood against a stained and cracked whitewashed wall. Among

the dusty papers stood a tin can; the label stated that

Robertson’s strawberry jam had been or still was inside. Most

of the earth floor was hidden under woven reed mats which in

turn were covered with a dusty rug. Above my head I heard a

strange sort of twittering and I looked up to the high beamed

ceiling.

“What’s that?” I found I was almost shouting.

“Only a few birds, for heaven’s sake,” answered Bob in an

exasperated tone.

I looked at him and he looked back blankly. At that point,

somewhere inside of me, I knew what I should do. For it had

been hard for Bob too; he had searched for this village for

months, gone through all the preliminaries that were necessary

for us to settle down here: asked for permission to stay, found

the house, moved into a strange place all by himself, and

prepared the way for me. His Arabic wasn’t very good either,

but he had gone right ahead. I could have made a lighthearted

joke about living in a mountain, no, desert cabin (loud, foolish

laughter), with all the mountain, no, desert greenery (more

silly laughter), where God paints the scenery, etc., etc., etc.,

and we could have laughed it off together, the tense journey

and the staring, pointing people and the exhausting drive

through the mud. We could have had coffee and talked about

the abayah and kissed each other and it would have been all

right.

But I couldn’t do it. I felt only a flood of irrational

resentment against my new husband for bringing me here,

where not only was the bed not big enough for two, but the

ceiling was full of birds’ nests!

“Do you want to see the other room?” he asked. We went

outside into the rain and mud again. “No connecting doors in

this hotel,” he added lightly.

He unlocked a second padlock and the door swung in,

releasing a dank and musty odor. He turned on another bulb,

lighting a bare room that held a camp stove, a table with a

canteen of water on it, and more birds whirring in the beams.

“Shall we finish the tour with a quick turn around the

garden, ending at the outhouse, which, experience has shown,

is the best outhouse in the whole damned neighborhood?” Bob

was trying his best to buoy up my sagging spirits, and I tried

to answer in the same vein, but nothing came out.

“My dear B.J.,” he said gently, “you don’t need to wear

your abayah in your own private garden.”

I was still clutching the despised abayah tightly under my

chin.

“Never mind, it keeps off the r-rain,” I stuttered, feeling

stupid and miserable and annoyed with myself for acting like

the bride arriving in the palazzo and finding the plumbing

unsatisfactory.

The outhouse was simple—mud walls and roof and a brick-

lined hole in the ground. Bob had given me a flashlight so I

could pick my way back through the muddy garden to where

the door of the house stood open and the single light shone

out.

When I got back, he had cleared a passage through the

boxes and bags and straightened the bedclothes. We lay close

together on the narrow iron cot and I clung to Bob, who slept

almost immediately. I lay awake remembering my bachelor

cousin, who had toasted Bob and me at our wedding. “Here’s

to the roving life!” he had said, raising his glass of champagne

punch. “Here’s to adventure and the non-stuffy approach.

Your very good health!” It seemed years, rather than months,

since that bright June day in my aunt’s suburban Chicago

garden when we had said goodbye to our families and friends

and set off, in a shower of rice, for Georgetown University to

study Arabic. That, too, seemed long ago after the boat trip to

Beirut, the ride over the desert road to Baghdad, the months of

waiting and working until Bob found the right area for his

research in social anthropology. The lawns and towers of the

University of Chicago and the faces of my family against the

June garden faded slowly as I listened to the strange birds

chirping softly above my head, to the rain falling on the

thatched roof of our mud house and to the sound of Bob’s

regular breathing; finally I, too, slept.

Loud knocking at the door awakened us.

Bob turned over and nearly fell out of the narrow bed.

“That must be Mohammed,” he said.

“Mohammed,” I muttered sleepily. “Who’s Mohammed?”

“The servant the sheik assigned to us; he’s a nice boy.

Brings water and shops and cleans a little and does the dishes.

You can meet him after breakfast.”

“But can’t I shop?” I asked. “I’d enjoy going to market.”

“Heavens, no. The women don’t appear in the market ”

The knocking continued while I thought of something to

say to that, but before I got it out Bob was up, pulling on his

trousers and shouting through the door in Arabic, “Good

morning, Mohammed. I’ll be out in a minute.” To me he said,

“You stay here. I’ll get the stove going and fry some eggs, if

Mohammed has remembered to bring them.”

I dressed by electric light, for although the clock said eight-

thirty, the window of the room had no glass panes and the

wooden shutters were tightly closed. Overhead the birds were

also waking up, and when I opened the door one flew out in a

rush and I found myself staring at Mohammed, a tall thin man

in what I was to find was typical tribal dress: white dishdasha,

wool sport coat, tan aba or cloak, and black-and-white head

scarf. (The scarf was called a kaffiyeh, Bob said, and the

heavy rope which held it in place was an agal.)

Mohammed smiled broadly, showing a row of beautiful

white teeth. “Ahlan wusahlan,” he said. “Welcome.”

Bob came out of the other room. We all smiled at each

other awkwardly until Bob broke the impasse. “Come on and

eat,” he said. “Mohammed, please heat some water so I can

shave.”

We set the plates of eggs and the cups of Nescafé down on

the table. I tried to wipe the oilcloth, but it was caked with

layers of dust. Bob turned on his radio to the BBC news,

which came through sporadically between loud hums and

bleats of static.

“That’s Radio Moscow jamming,” explained Bob between

mouthfuls.

From the ceiling a feather wafted down onto the eggs. I

snatched it off.

“Those blasted birds!” I cried.

Bob reached over and took my hand. Don’t cry, I warned

myself. “Place isn’t much, is it? But really it should be quite

nice when we get set up. I’ve been counting on you to fix it.

The roof is good. We could replaster the walls. What do you

think we need?”

“A bigger bed.”

Bob smiled. “Actually, I thought of that. John Priest, this

young American engineer in Diwaniya, has a three-quarter

mattress he’s willing to sell us, and an apartment-sized

refrigerator too. His company is providing him with

everything, so he doesn’t need the stuff he brought over.”

“What about a stove?”

“We do have the camp stove, but it’s true, it uses too much

expensive gas. I’ll see what I can find. What else?”

His eye followed mine to the big nail on the back of the

door and another which had been pounded into the plaster

wall; on these hung all of his clothes that weren’t scattered

about the room.

“Maybe a cupboard or a wardrobe to store things in.”

“Yes, good idea. Well,” said Bob, rising, “I’d better get

moving if I’m going to do everything today.”

“This morning? Now? You’re going now?”

“I have to. Those two boxes we shipped with us, with the

blankets and the folding table and chairs, must be in the

Diwaniya station. I can’t leave them there more than twenty-

four hours. And the next taxi should be going in about nine-

thirty.”

“Don’t leave me alone here the first day, please Bob.”

“B.J.,” said Bob, “be reasonable. I have to get those boxes.

And you’re not alone. Mohammed is here. See what you two

can do with the place. He’s shy, so take it easy with him. He

can go to the suq and buy whatever you need.”

“Okay,” I answered. “I’m sorry. But don’t be gone too

long.”

“I promise you I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”

“Okay.” He kissed me and I was left alone at the table with

the wind blowing through the cracks in the shutters and birds

flying about the cluttered room. Then, without warning, the

electricity went off and I sat in darkness.

If Mohammed had not been in the next room, I probably

would have thrown myself on the rumpled cot and howled

from sheer self-pity. This wasn’t what the romantic, roving

life should be at all, I said aloud, and drained my cup of

Nescafé in the dark.

A light knock sounded at the door. Mohammed. What

would I say? More important, what would he say and how

would I know what to reply if I couldn’t understand him in the

first place?

Mohammed gulped once or twice and adjusted his agal and

kaffiyeh. Looking at him, I decided he was pretty scared of

me, too, and this gave me new courage. I smiled. He smiled in

return and held aloft an Iraqi sterling pound note. He pointed

out the door in an exaggerated fashion. “Mr. Bob,” he said

loudly, and pointed to the pound and to the door again and

enunciated, “suq, suq.”

Aha, he was going to the market; Bob had given him the

pound note. “What do you want?” he asked in Arabic.

That was a greater problem. I rummaged in the suitcase

until I found the Arabic-English dictionary and thumbed

through it, Mohammed watching me intently, until I found the

words I wanted. I went slowly—nails, rope, tomatoes, onions,

potatoes, meat.

“No,” interrupted Mohammed, “no meat.”

“Why?”

He launched into an explanation. I shook my head. Then he

made an unmistakable sound and gesture as though he were

about to cut his own throat and said, “Tomorrow, not today.”

They don’t butcher today, but tomorrow, I realized.

Feeling quite pleased with myself at this small linguistic

success, I smiled again at Mohammed. He smiled too, cleared

his throat and adjusted his agal and kaffiyeh.

“Eggs, sugar, salt?”

“Yes, there is,” replied Mohammed.

I pushed ahead. Matches, a broom, soap–struggling with the

unfamiliar words, but Mohammed was too polite to laugh at

my ludicrous pronunciation. During our entire stay in El

Nahra, Mohammed never laughed at us, no matter how silly

some of the things we did must have seemed to him.

Occasionally, if we appeared about to make a serious faux

pas, he might mildly suggest another course of action. But

afterward he would always spread his hands as if to say,

“Naturally whatever you do, whether you take my advice or

not, is perfectly all right.” And Mohammed never, apparently,

gossiped about us, although the temptation must have been

great. In the first weeks after we arrived Bob noticed

Mohammed in the coffee shops as the guest of many men who

had never bought him tea before; perhaps people were curious

about the strange Americans and believed Mohammed to be

the best source of information. But we learned on good

authority that Mohammed politely drank the proffered teas

and coffees (why not?) but never divulged a word about what

the Americans ate and what they did when they were alone at

home. Mohammed was a Sayid, one of the thousands of

Moslems who claim descent from the prophet Mohammed. He

was also a gentleman. Although he worked for us, he did not

work only for wages. We became his special responsibility; he

explained to Bob that our reputation had to be protected like

that of his own family.

When Mohammed had set off for the market and I was

finally alone, I flicked the light switch again and again. What

had happened to the electricity? Only in the evening did I

discover that the current was turned off every morning at nine-

thirty and switched on again at four in the afternoon. This was

to save wear and tear on the generator, which was

underpowered for the needs of the village. Meanwhile I was in

total darkness, and when I opened the shutters it was so cold

in the room that I put on my coat. In a few days I learned to

wear several layers of clothes all the time and leave the

shutters open so I could see.

A stroll in the garden. Yes, I would take a stroll in the

garden, although the phrase from Victorian novels seemed

hardly appropriate in this setting. Yet despite its present

sodden state, the garden was a pleasant place. The high mud

wall gave us complete privacy and the very tall date palms

would provide shade against the summer sun. There were

patches of grass, a small vegetable garden overgrown with

weeds, an apple tree, banana trees and many other shrubs and

trees I did not recognize then, lemon and bitter orange and

oleander. From the slight rise in the center of the garden

where the house stood, a banked mud path ran down under a

large grape arbor to the edge of the wall. Near the grape arbor

was a mud-brick oven. I had never seen one closely before

and went over to peer into the cylindrical interior, blackened

by the daily bread baking of previous inhabitants.

In the farthest corner stood the outhouse and in the opposite

corner some tangled rosebushes were blooming. Here,

although I stood on tiptoe, I could see nothing but the cloudy

sky and the tops of the palm trees in neighboring gardens. The

sheik’s beautiful young wife, for whom this house had been

built, had been well protected here from prying eyes, I

thought, and intruders would have had an uncomfortable time

getting in over the prickly camel-thorn that was arranged like

barbed wire, six inches high, all around the top of the wall.

From my corner of the garden I looked back at the house,

mud-colored, rectangular, flat-roofed. Its two wooden doors,

one for each room, had once been painted blue, the color to

ward off the Evil Eye. The shutters, banging open in the wind,

had once been blue too. A crack zigzagged down the wall

from one window to the ground where the plaster of mud and

straw was washing away from the baked-brick sides. The roof

beams, jutting out at regular intervals like square eaves, were

covered with a thatch of mud and reed mats that looked quite

inadequate to keep out the rain. What kept the roof from

leaking? I would ask Mohammed. How would I make him

understand? Never mind; I would ask Bob later.

Mohammed banged on the gate several times before

entering the garden. He was laden with parcels and I went up

to the house to see what he had bought. He paused at the door

of the living room to take off his muddy shoes, and I looked at

my own, caked with mud from the garden walk, and took

them off too. Mohammed said, in careful Arabic, “That’s

better.” He pointed to Bob’s slippers, dry and clean by the

bed, and I put them on. How practical, I thought, and

thereafter always took off my dirty shoes at the door and

slipped into clean ones.

We spent the rest of the morning trying to bring some order

out of the chaos in the living room.

Mohammed asked only one favor of me the first day. Half

in sign language and half in simple Arabic, repeated over and

over again, he asked me please not to tell anyone he washed

our dishes or he would be shamed among men for doing

women’s work. I said of course I would not tell anyone. He

brought a copper jug of water to fill our barrel canteen, he beat

the rug, and swept the floors with a tool not much bigger than

a whisk broom. I indicated I wanted a reed mat for the other

room. He nodded, but said it would be a week before it could

be made. He strung a clothesline in the garden, hammered

nails for pictures, and announced he was going home to eat

lunch. Lunch—I had almost forgotten lunch.

“Will you come and eat with my mother?” asked

Mohammed.

“No—no, thank you very much,” I said hastily. “There is

food here.” I suspected Mohammed had asked me out of token

politeness, and that his mother would hardly have been

prepared for a guest, but even if she had, I didn’t feel I wanted

to face any more new situations at the moment.

Mohammed left and I bent over to rummage for a can of

soup in the boxes around me. My back was to the door and I

heard no footsteps, but suddenly I was aware that someone

else was nearby. I turned around to find a grizzled old man in

a shabby aba standing just behind me at the open door. I

jumped up, knocking over my chair, and the poor old man, as

startled as I was, gestured wildly toward the round tin tray on

his head, which he lowered carefully to the floor. It was

food—hot lunch, in fact. He seemed to be struck dumb at the

sight of me, or perhaps he was dumb to begin with, for he did

not utter a sound but pointed toward the door, then toward the

tray and to me, and backed out of the door. I heard him

hurrying down the path, apparently upset by the encounter. He

was no more so than I.

In a minute or two I managed to laugh at my fright and sat

down to eat the chicken and rice, mashed greens and bread

which someone (Mohammed told me later it had been the

women of the sheik’s house) had so thoughtfully provided for

me. There was more than twice as much food as I could

possibly eat, so I scraped the leftovers into storage jars,

washed the plates and put them back on the tray. When the old

man returned, presumably for the tray, almost creeping to the

door this time, he stared in astonishment at the empty plates

and then at me. With a heavy sigh, he shouldered the tray and

left. It was not until many days later that I learned the Arab

custom of serving much more food than they expect you to

eat. The leftovers go to women, children, family servants and

to the poor. In my jars I had probably saved several people’s

lunch, including the old man’s. And he—I learned from

Mohammed that it was Ali, servant and gardener of the

sheik—thought I had eaten it all! So the first tale that went

round the settlement about the American lady was that,

although she was thin, she had a fantastic appetite!

After lunch the sun came out briefly, and then it rained.

Mohammed warned me that if the rain continued, Bob might

not be able to return that night. The clouds in the sky seemed

to be shifting, and I looked to Mohammed for confirmation.

“Enshallah [God willing] he will come,” he said.

Mohammed pumped up the camp stove and I peeled

potatoes and tomatoes. Darkness fell, the electricity came on,

and Mohammed indicated he would wait for Bob near the taxi

stand in town. There was nothing else to do, so I sat down in

the living room and pretended to look through my Arabic-

English dictionary. We had cleared away most of the boxes

and litter and had moved the table to the side of the room. I

had scrubbed the green oilcloth with a brush, and a colored

geometric pattern was now visible in the rug, thanks to

Mohammed’s sweeping.

From the tree outside my shuttered window many birds

called, and the few who nested in our beams answered. Will

he come or not? I looked outside again. It was not raining, but

the sky was overcast. Back in the room the radio emitted

static, bits of Arabic music and the deadening hum.

After eight o’clock I heard rain on the roof and my heart

sank. But then there were thumps and the sound of an

automobile revving near the wall. I ran down the path to open

the gate.

“Go back in the house and stay there,” called Bob. “There

are a whole lot of men to help with the stuff and you shouldn’t

be seen.”

I did as I was told, crouching by the living-room shutter,

where, through the cracks, I could see boxes and more boxes

and finally the refrigerator being carried into the other room.

An English-speaking voice, not Bob’s, was giving orders; that

must be John, the American engineer. Would we have

company for dinner?

“Put on your abayah now and come out,” Bob shouted, “so

the men can put the wardrobe into the living room.”

Again I did as I was told, slipping on my muddy shoes as I

went out the door. With much grunting, the men edged the big

wardrobe through the narrow door. Bob paid them off and

they left.

John said he would be delighted to stay for dinner.

Originally from Cincinnati, he was on an exploratory water-

drilling trip for an American firm under contract to the Iraqi

Government. It was his first job since graduation from

engineering school.

“A small contribution,” he said and produced a bottle of

beer, which we split three ways and drank while we looked

over the loot. The refrigerator was small, but enough for our

needs. The folding table and chairs would be ideal for both

eating and working.

“I asked Abu Saad to have a screened cupboard built for the

kitchen,” said Bob. “And what do you think of that?”

Gleaming against the dark earth floor and mud-gray walls was

a white enamel two-burner kerosene stove. “The oven is

portable. You can use it on top of the stove or not, depending

on what you want to cook,” said Bob, demonstrating.

“Where’s Mohammed?”

We found him standing in rapt admiration before his own

image in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door. He was

adjusting his agal and kaffiyeh.

Mohammed smiled. “Kullish zein [very good],” he said,

indicating the wardrobe. Of heavy oak, it occupied at least a

third of the wall space on one side of our room, boasted two

lower drawers and two full-length mirrors in addition to the

double closet space.

“It’s awfully big, and it was a little expensive,” confessed

Bob, “but it was the best buy I could find. Let’s eat. We’re

starved.”

After a meal of boiled potatoes, sliced tomatoes and canned

corned-beef hash with fried eggs, I brought out the remains of

the angel-food cake. Mohammed said good night and John,

Bob and I were left around our oilcloth-covered table,

drinking Nescafé while the charcoal brazier smoked and

glowed.

“Did you get along all right with Mohammed?” asked Bob.

“Oh yes, he seems a very nice boy,” I answered, and then

told them about my lunch tray. They howled with laughter.

“Poor Ali,” Bob said. “You’ve probably given him such a

fright he won’t come to the garden for days, even to cut grass

for his sheep.”

John stood up. “I’d better go,” he said. “It’ll take me at least

an hour to get back to Diwaniya on that damned mud road.

But thanks for dinner. I can’t remember when I’ve had angel-

food cake.”

“Thank you for all your help,” we answered, practically in

unison. “Come see us any time.”

He nodded and looked around him, at the beamed ceiling,

the worn but bright rug, the outsized elegant wardrobe. “You

know, I didn’t believe it when Bob told me,” he confided.

“Mud hut, earth floors and all that jazz. But you’ve really got

quite a nice little place here.”

Bob saw him to the gate and I collected the empty coffee

cups and carried them into the kitchen. The rain had stopped

and a cold wind had come up, clearing the sky so that a few

stars were visible. Shivering, I stepped back into the living

room, which was still warm from the dying charcoal fire.

Well, I thought, I suppose we could build a bookcase of

boards and bricks and cover up the sofa and chairs with

something. The mattress really does make the bed bigger. It

won’t be bad, I decided, and realized to my surprise that I was

actually looking forward to fixing up our first home.

2

The Sheik’s Harem

An invitation to lunch with the sheik was delivered early next

morning. This meant that Bob would eat with the men in the

sheik’s mudhif or guest house and I would lunch in the harem,

or women’s quarters. The harem. What would it be like? What

would the women be wearing? What should I wear?

“Something attractive,” said Bob promptly.

I stared at him.

“And try to be natural,” he counseled.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly planning to be unnatural,” I

retorted.

He had not even heard me. “And keep your eyes open and

try to remember everything you do and see.”

“Yes, dear.”

“You might write everything down as soon as you get home

if I’m not here.”

“Really, Bob, stop fussing so. I’m nervous enough as it is.”

“I’m not fussing,” he said, and then he looked at me.

“Well,” he explained, “I’ve been here for two months and the

sheik’s family, which is the word they use to refer to the

womenfolk, hasn’t even been mentioned in my presence. So I

can’t help but wonder about them. And it’s a rather important

occasion for you, too—your debut into local society.”

Mohammed came with a jug of water and announced that

Ali had been commissioned to fetch us.

“Hmmmm,” said Bob. “It’s just up the road, but of course

we walk right through the center of the settlement from our

house to the sheik’s mudhif. Sheik Hamid is probably sending

Ali to make sure the children don’t bother you.”

“Bother me? Even in the abayah?”

“Well, you’ve been here two days without anyone’s having

a look at you except Mohammed and Ali. If you’re curious

about the sheik’s women, think how curious they must be

about you!”

By the time Ali came for us, I couldn’t decide whether I felt

like a debutante being presented at court or Joan of Arc going

to the stake. And since it had been dark when I arrived, I

really had no idea of what lay beyond our gate. The sun was

shining and the mud on our path was drying fast. As Ali

opened the latch a group of small boys in dishdashas jumped

away from the gate and stared and giggled until Ali shouted

and flourished his stick at them, whereupon they ran ahead,

turning back at every other step to look at us again.

“Ali says he is sorry for the boys’ rudeness,” Bob said.

“Actually, the women probably sent them out as scouts and

they’re running back to the harem to tell them you’re on the

way.”

No one else seemed to be on the mud-rutted road, however,

which was bare of trees or greenery of any sort and was lined

on both sides with mud houses set close together. Only high

walls and blind fronts of mud brick faced the street; I was to

learn later that the doors were usually on the side or in back,

to allow the family more privacy in their comings and goings.

All the walls, like mine, were topped with several inches of

prickly camel-thorn.

“Why isn’t anyone else out?” I whispered to Bob, and, as if

in answer, a woman emerged suddenly from one of the alleys

between the houses, balancing on her head a tray of what

looked like round gray pancakes. Seeing us, she uttered an

exclamation and pulled her abayah over her face.

“Why did she do that?” I asked. “Does she think I have the

Evil Eye or something?”

“Oh, no,” said Bob. “The women always seem to cover

their faces quickly when caught unawares by strange men.

She’s carrying camel dung,” he added matter-of-factly.

“Camel dung?”

“They make it into cakes like that and dry it in the sun for

fuel,” he explained.

And when I looked back, that was what the woman was

doing, arranging the dung cakes in geometric regularity on the

sunny side of the road.

“Just keep walking,” said Bob.

“But this empty street is kind of eerie,” I answered. I simply

could not resist looking around once more. As I did, a kind of

whispered laugh or exclamation went up and down the street,

where women in black abayahs stood by the walls or peered

out of the doors of nearly all the houses, looking after me.

“The women are all standing at their doors, staring,” I said

to Bob.

“Never mind, it’s not much farther. Look, there’s the

sheik’s mudhif!”

Ahead was a clearing, at the edge of which earth had been

built up to form a large square platform. On this stood the

sheik’s guest house or mudhif, framed by a grove of date

palms, green and lustrous in the dun-colored landscape. I had

not expected the guest house to be so big. The tribesmen near

the entrance were dwarfed by the thirty-foot arch of the

mudhif, which looked like an enormous quonset hut open at

both ends. Great bundles of swamp reeds, arched over and

anchored in the ground, formed the ribs of the structure which

stretched at least 150 feet back toward the palm grove. Only in

the entrance arch was the bunching visible for overlapping

reed mats covered the sides and roof. We heard afterward

from archaeologist friends that the plan and structure of the

mudhif have origins in antiquity and that some of the earliest

Sumerian temples may have been of just this shape.

Flying from the capstone of the entrance arch was a white

flag with a crescent and star appliquéd upon it in red.

“I think that may be the tribal flag, or perhaps the sheik’s

personal flag,” whispered Bob.

A few horses were tethered near the mudhif and more men,

in aba and agal and kaffiyeh, were gathering in the clearing.

As we approached, a tall man disengaged himself from one of

the groups and came toward us. Bob turned off to meet him.

“Good luck,” he whispered, and I was left alone to follow Ali,

who bore left, away from the mudhif, toward a large square

mud-brick building which I had not noticed before.

This must be the harem, I told myself; it was here that all of

the sheik’s family lived, though Bob had said that in the past it

had been used as a fortress in tribal wars and later against

Ottoman and finally British soldiers. The gun emplacements

could still be seen on the roof and the thick mud-brick walls

were honey-combed with holes just large enough to

accommodate a rifle barrel.

Ali led me all the way around the fortress to a narrow

opening and motioned me through. I was standing alone in a

large open courtyard, the hard-packed earth of which had been

carefully swept just that morning, for I could see the marks of

the broom in wide swathing arcs on the ground. The only

visible object was a central water tap with a small brick wall

around its base. To my right, to my left, and in front of me

stood low, square houses built out into the courtyard from the

shelter of the compound’s high mud-brick walls. These, I was

to discover later, were the apartments where each of the

sheik’s wives lived separately with her children. Through the

entry-ways of these flat-roofed apartments, arched and

plastered with mud, I could see daylight in other, small inner

courts.

Where was everyone? The entire compound seemed empty.

I turned back, but Ali was gone and I faced the courtyard

alone, where now, from doors all around the court, women

and children began to emerge. Little girls in long-sleeved print

dresses and boys in candy-striped dishdashas ran and leaped

toward me, then ran away giggling only to turn in a wider

circle and come forward once more. The women—it seemed

like hundreds of them—advanced more slowly, in their

flowing black abayahs, their heads coifed and bound in black,

all smiling and repeating, “Ahlan wusahlan [welcome]. Ahlan,

ahlan. Ahlan wusahlan.” Most of them came at a dignified

pace, but the younger women could not contain their

excitement, it seemed, for they would caper a bit, look at each

other, choke with laughter and then cover their faces with their

abayahs as the woman with the dung cakes had done. I stood

still, not certain whether I should advance, until an old woman

came close and put a motherly hand on my shoulder. She

looked into my face and smiled broadly, which warmed her

deeply wrinkled face with a kind and friendly expression

despite the fact that many of her front teeth were missing. She

had three blue dots, tattoo marks, in the cleft of her sun-tanned

chin. She nodded and, still with her hand on my shoulder,

steered me across the court.

We went in procession, the women closing ranks around

me, the children still jumping and leaping on the outskirts of

the group, past the water tap, to a shorter mud wall. Here, at

an open doorway, a lovely, quite fleshy young woman awaited

us; she was a startling contrast to the women about me, for she

wore no abayah, only a dress of sky-blue satin patterned with

crescents and stars. She had tied a black fringed scarf around

her head like a cap, leaving her long black curly hair free to

fall loosely around her shoulders.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” she said and shook hands with me,

laughing in a pleased way, to show perfect teeth. Heir dark

eyes were outlined heavily with kohl.

“Selma, Selma,” called the children, “let us come in too.”

“Away with you,” she said good-naturedly, but made no

attempt to back up her words as she led the way, through her

small inner court, to a screen door where I was ushered into

what seemed to be a big bedroom.

“Go on. Out! Out!” she said to the children, but they

crowded in anyway after the women. There was only one

chair in the room and Selma motioned me to it. I sat down and

found myself face to face with a roomful of women and

children, squatting opposite me on the mat-covered floor and

staring up at me intently.

Selma had taken my abayah and hung it on a peg near the

door. “You won’t need it here,” she said, pointing to herself,

although she was the only woman there without it. She sat

down at my feet. I felt uncomfortable sitting in a chair while

everyone else sat on the floor, so I got up and sat down on the

floor with them.

Selma looked upset and leaped to her feet.

“No, no, the chair is for you,” she said and took my hand to

pull me back up. “You are the guest.”

I sat down in the overstuffed chair once more.

There was a brief pause.

“Ahlam wusahlan,” said Selma in the silence.

“Ahlan, ahlan wusahlan,” chorused the roomful of women.

I cleared my throat. “You are Selma?”

“Yes,” she said, laughing again in that pleased and very

attractive way. “How did you know?”

“Everyone knows because you are the favorite wife of the

sheik,” replied an admiring young girl, and tweaked at

Selma’s blue satin skirt. She was a bit embarrassed, but

pleasantly so, and swiped mildly at the girl, who ducked

successfully and then giggled.

“And what is your name?” Selma asked me politely.

“Elizabeth.”

“Alith-a-bess,” she stumbled over the unfamiliar

combination of syllables, and several others tried out the word

and failed.

Selma laughed. “That is a difficult name. We can’t say it.”

“I have another name,” I offered, knowing that diminutive

names were often used here. “It’s B.J.”

She picked that up as “Beeja.” “She is called Beeja,” she

said, and so I was named.

I asked the name of the girl sitting closest to me.

“Basima,” she answered and pointed to her neighbor.

“Fadhila. Hathaya. Fatima. Rajat. Samira. Nejla. Sabiha.

Bassoul. Sahura. Sheddir. Laila. Bahiga.” How would I ever

remember who they were? They looked that day so

remarkably alike in their identical black head scarves, black

chin scarves, and black abayahs. It was months later that I

began to notice the subtle differences that the women

managed to introduce into the costume: Fadhila always wore a

fringed scarf, Laila’s abayahs were edged with black satin

braid; Samira’s chin scarf was fastened on top of her head

with a tiny gold pin in the shape of a lotus blossom.

But the dominant presence in the room, watched by every

eye including mine, was the dazzling Selma, of ample but

well-defined proportions, her air of authority softened by

laughter. Mohammed had told me that Selma had five

children. From her face, I guessed she could not yet be thirty,

but childbearing had already blurred the lines of what once

must have been a remarkable and voluptuous figure. The blue

satin dress was cut Western style, but longer and looser; it

moved in several directions when she moved, for Selma

apparently felt that corsets were unnecessary. Her feet were

bare (she had left her clogs at the door), but each slim, bare

ankle bore a heavy gold bracelet. Gold bracelets were on both

arms, several heavy gold necklaces swung against the blue

satin dress, and long dangling gold filigree earrings caught the

light when she moved. In her gold jewelry and blue satin and

black silk head scarf, her eyes gay and almost black in her

white face (whiter than that of any other woman in the room),

she was attractive by anyone’s standard and must once have

been startlingly beautiful. I felt quite dowdy in my skirt and

sweater and short-cut hair, and was only glad I had put on fake

pearls and gold earrings.

Selma offered me a long thin cigarette, which I refused; she

pressed me again, but I said I did not smoke.

“It is better not to smoke,” said the old woman who had

guided me to Selma’s door. “Haji Hamid does not like women

who smoke.”

Selma looked at the old woman. “Kulthum,” she said, “Haji

Hamid is my husband as well as yours,” and then deliberately

lit cigarettes for herself and several others. In a few minutes

the room was full of sweetish smoke, unlike any cigarette

smoke I had smelled before. Kulthum said nothing, but I

noticed she did not smoke.

I looked around me at the scrupulously clean room. Its

mud-brick walls were newly whitewashed. I pointed upward,

trying to indicate that the beams here were the same as the

ones in my house. This was a fairly complex idea to get

across, for at first the women thought I had seen something

lodged in the beams and everyone peered and whispered. One

woman stood up to get a better look. When they finally

realized what I was struggling to communicate, they laughed,

no doubt at the simple-mindedness of the conversational tidbit

I had contributed. Later I found that every house in the village

was built in exactly the same manner, so obviously my house

had beams like this one!

“Haji Hamid’s bed, the sheik’s,” said a girl, pointing to the

large double bed.

“And Selma’s,” said one of the girls, snickering. She

showed me in mime how they lay together in a close embrace.

Everyone laughed and Selma blushed with pleasure. I glanced

at Kulthum, but her wrinkled face showed nothing.

The intricate ironwork of the high-posted bedstead had been

gilded, suggesting an opulence which was reinforced by the

bright pink satin spread falling in flounces to the floor. The

same pink satin had been used to cover a small radio on the

night table. Over the bed hung an oil painting of a mosque;

above that was a large faded photograph of Emir Feisal, father

of the Iraqi dynasty, on horseback. A pair of large crossed

Iraqi flags topped the king.

Selma noticed me looking about and got up to identify the

many photographs and pictures which covered the walls. The

man with the strong bearded face was Abdul Emir, Hamid’s

father. I had heard of Abdul Emir, for he was a famous

warrior in Iraq who had led the 1933 insurrection of the

Diwaniya tribes against the British-backed Iraqi Government.

The rebellion had been so nearly successful that the British

had been obliged to cut the area’s water supply in order to put

the tribesmen down. According to Bob, people in Diwaniya

still spoke of this event, and it was whispered that the

government continued to punish the tribal confederation by

refusing to pave roads and by delaying electricity and other

modern services as long as possible.

In another photograph Abdul Emir sat in a chair in a

garden, flanked by nurses and surrounded by well-dressed

tribesmen. He looked thin and ill, but he sat rigidly forward,

gripping his knees with long, bony hands. The men in the

picture were leaders of the tribes united in the confederation

led by Abdul Emir, Selma told me, reading aloud their names

from the caption and thus demonstrating her education, for—

although I did not realize it then—she was the only woman in

the room who could read fluently. Selma added that Abdul

Emir had died soon after the picture was taken, and Hamid

had succeeded to the sheikship. Four portraits of Hamid, taken

at various periods in his life, attested to his present eminence.

Selma now began to rummage in a wardrobe, the only other

large piece of furniture in the room. There were two chests

with padlocks and, against the far wall, mats, blankets, rugs

and long narrow pillows were piled nearly to the ceiling.

“For the mudhif,” said Kulthum, following my eye. “Many

tribesmen stay at the mudhif when they come to market, and

many strangers stop here too.”

Tradition decrees, Bob had said, that any guest may expect

food and a bed for three days without any questions asked.

Since these tribal guest houses are the only hotels on the bare

southern plain, two or three guests an evening was usual. But

from the pile of bedding it looked as though Sheik Hamid

could easily sleep thirty or forty people.

Selma, who had gone out, returned now with a tiny cup of

coffee which she presented to me on a green cut-glass plate. I

sipped it slowly and set it down on the plate. Selma took it

from me and handed it out the door to a waiting servant.

After the coffee, conversation lagged. A baby began to cry,

a thin baby with horrid-looking red sores on its face and neck,

and the mother pushed aside her foota, or chin scarf, pulled

out her breast and gave it to the child. The women regarded

me fixedly. I smiled. They smiled. A very small girl with

tousled hair and tiny gold earrings got up and touched my

skirt, then buried her head in her hands in confusion. The

women laughed. I laughed.

For some reason this set off a convulsion among the

children, who all along had been fidgeting but subsiding at

slaps from the nearest woman. But now they were stirred to

greater pummeling and quarreling—so much so that Selma

rose, took a stick and set about them in earnest.

“Out, out, out!” she cried, and several ran out with mock

screams and yelps of pain.

“They are so difficult, children,” said Selma, and sat down

near me again.

She offered me another cigarette and I declined. When was

lunch, I wondered? I had been in the room more than an hour

and simply could not think of another thing to say, even if I

had been able to remember any more Arabic. I crossed my

ankles; a dozen pair of eyes followed the movement. I

uncrossed my ankles; there was a short silence. My hostess

flung herself into the breach and asked me how much my

nylon stockings had cost, whether my skirt was ready-made

and if my earrings had come from my family or were a present

from my husband. I unscrewed them and handed them around;

one of the women scratched to see if the gold would come off.

All of these questions took time and had to be repeated again

and again so I could understand. When my faltering replies

came out in Arabic the women could not help laughing, but,

out of politeness, they did so behind their abayahs.

I asked Selma how much her ankle bracelets cost.

“Forty pounds,” she said proudly, “for one,” and pulled out

the pin so that it could be taken off and examined. It must

have weighed at least half a pound. “All gold,” she added.

The women began pointing out her individual necklaces

and bracelets, telling me the cost and the Arabic name of each.

Later I estimated that Selma wore on her person at least $1000

worth of gold. She said that the pieces of jewelry had been

presents from her father and from the sheik, and repeated,

“It’s mine, my own.”

This was literally true, I found. A woman’s jewelry is her

own insurance against disaster, and the community may take

action against men who attempt to seize their women’s gold.

At the door a great commotion was under way, as a

maidservant tried to break through the crowd, stepping over

women and children to bring me a copper basin and ewer,

soap and a towel. She indicated that no, I was not to put my

hands in the basin, she was to pour the water over my hands.

Slight giggles at my clumsiness were silenced by a look from

a tall girl with many gold teeth, who introduced herself as

Alwiyah, the sheik’s oldest daughter.

After I had finished washing, Selma rose with Alwiyah and

handed me my abayah.

“It is time for lunch, ahlan wusahlan,” she said.

In my abayah I followed Alwiyah and Selma across her

little private courtyard to another larger room where a table,

covered with a white cloth, was laden with plates of food.

Selma shut the door ostentatiously but the children and

women clustered around the windows to watch. One chair was

drawn up to the table. “Am I to eat alone?”

Selma and Alwiyah nodded and smiled.

“Oh, no,” I protested, “this is too much—you must eat with

me.”

Selma and Alwiyah exchanged startled glances, whispered

together and then Selma called for two more chairs. She sat

down opposite me and Alwiyah sat at the side. Selma shook

with inner laughter, and the crowd at the windows roared, for

what reason I could not fathom. When, afterward, I had sat on

a mat to eat and felt foolish myself, I realized why the women

had found Selma’s and Alwiyah’s first venture at table

amusing. Traditionally, to eat alone, served by one’s host, is

an honor, but Selma, sensing my discomfort, was doing things

my way. She nibbled a bit of meat, taking a spoonful of this

and that, enjoying herself and the audience reaction hugely.

Alwiyah did not; she smiled regularly and made polite

remarks, but was apparently too bound by custom to eat a

mouthful.

The table was covered with ten or twelve different dishes:

kebab and grilled kidneys; a salad of hard-boiled eggs,

potatoes and beets; half a chicken in tomato sauce; mashed

greens; two kinds of rice, one topped with a crisp crust, one

mixed with nuts and raisins, chopped carrots and bits of

chicken liver. There was a pitcher of watered yogurt to drink,

and for dessert I was offered a soup plate of heavy white

cornstarch pudding with an odd, but not unappetizing, flavor.

“It is rose water,” said Alwiyah.

Every time I paused, Alwiyah would urge me to eat more,

but I finally laid down my spoon.

“You have eaten nothing,” scolded Alwiyah, and Selma put

another kidney on my plate. But I was determined, and in spite

of haranguing from the women (a matter of form, I discovered

later) I stood up and we returned to the bedroom where the

servant brought the washbasin and ewer again.

The crowd had already gathered for the second round, and

the air seemed more relaxed now as I successfully finished

washing. We were just beginning to nod and smile at each

other again when the sound of a man’s voice outside sent the

women and children scurrying away like a flock of frightened

chickens. I was left alone in the room with Selma, who

hurriedly donned her abayah and ran out the door, leaving me

alone in the room.

I had no idea what was going on, or what was expected of

me. Should I, too, don my abayah? Should I leave? Should I

get under the bed? Before I had time to rise, Selma was back,

rummaging in the cupboard for a heavy rifle and a full

cartridge belt, which she handed out the door. The man’s

voice said something else, and she returned to me.

“The sheik and your husband are going partridge hunting,”

she said. “Do you want to go home now or stay until they

come back? Do stay,” she added.

I wasn’t sure what arrangements were involved, but staying

seemed the easiest course of action. The man’s footsteps died

away and in a moment the women and children trooped back

in and Selma took off her abayah once more.

“Ahlan, ahlan wusahlan,” they repeated.

The silence was broken by the arrival of the servant with a

tray of tea glasses. Selma served me herself, and then offered

tea to Kulthum and to Bahiga, the other wives of the sheik.

Both were much older than Selma: Bahiga light-skinned with

big wide-open gray eyes, her face beginning to show wrinkles,

Kulthum wrinkled and old enough to be Selma’s mother.

“Where is your mother?” Kulthum asked. I told her she was

in America far away, and when Selma repeated this in a better

accent, the women clucked in sympathy.

“Poor girl,” they said. “Poor child.”

To be alone without any of one’s womenfolk was clearly

the greatest disaster which could befall any girl. I rummaged

in my wallet … unfortunately no picture of my mother, but I

came on one of Bob and handed it to Kulthum. She seized on

it and passed it around to the other women, who examined the

picture from every angle and finally pronounced him hilu

[handsome].

“But why didn’t he let your mother come with you?”

persisted Kulthum. I was at a loss to explain, but Selma

interrupted with another question.

“Do you have any children inside you—here?” she pointed

to her stomach.

“No.”

“No?”

I said I had only been married for six months.

“Enshallah, you will have one soon,” said Kulthum, and

patted my hand. “Children are gifts of Allah. I have five sons

and two daughters, thanks be to God.”

“How many do you have?” I asked the other wife, Bahiga.

“Five living,” she said. “Two died.”

“Selma?”

“Two sons, three daughters,” she replied.

“When you have children, you will not feel so alone

without your mother,” prophesied Kulthum.

The room was small and getting progressively more stuffy

and smoke-filled by the moment, for the population, although

it changed regularly, never numbered under twenty. Women

were coming and going all the time. A few would get up and

leave, those remaining would shift position and more would

come in, greet me, and sit down. I had the feeling that runners

had been all around the settlement, and women were coming

from every house to look me over. I was suddenly overcome

with weariness and my face felt hot. Selma looked tired too,

but the women sat on, smoking, nodding, and murmuring,

“Nitwanness [we are here to enjoy ourselves].” I looked at my

watch; it was after six but I knew I could not leave until the

men came home.

I cleared my throat and told Selma the browned rice at

lunch had been very good. How had she prepared it?

Selma looked pleased and began to explain.

“Eat more rice, Beeja,” advised Kulthum. “You are too

thin.”

“Yes, yes,” cackled an old woman, “does she have any

breasts at all?” grabbing her own dropped bosom and then

pointing at me. There was a loud burst of laughter.

“I certainly do have breasts,” I began indignantly, but

Selma, always the polite hostess, was ahead of me.

“It is pretty to be thin,” she said.

“No, no, Selma! It is better to be fat.”

“You are very pretty.”

Selma stood up unexpectedly, took in both hands the loose

roll of flesh around her waist and said, “You call this hilu

[attractive]? No. I eat too much rice.”

She looked to me for confirmation or denial. I was torn;

what should I say—no, Selma, you are pretty, ergo I am ugly

and thin and have no breasts, or yes, I agree you are too fat

and you should go on a diet immediately? Fortunately the

women intervened before I even had time to form my sentence

in Arabic.

“No, no, Selma, you are pretty,” they said, and one added,

“without all that rice you wouldn’t have such fine breasts and

such a good big behind,” illustrating her meaning quite

graphically. Selma tossed her head and laughed and sat down

again.

“That,” shouted another, “is why Haji Hamid loves you

more than Kulthum and Bahiga.”

I looked around quickly, but Kulthum and Bahiga had gone.

The conversation seemed about to take an interesting turn

when the servant girl banged on the screen, hissed something

to Selma I did not catch, grinned at me and wiped her face

with her dusty black veil, all at the same time.

Selma rose. I’m sure she too was relieved. “The men are

here and your husband wants you,” she said. “The servant will

go with you, because it is getting dark.”

I donned my abayah, trying to wrap it around me as the

women did, but not succeeding very well. Selma said kindly:

“Soon you will know how to wear the abayah.”

“Don’t they wear the abayah in America?” asked a woman

in surprise.

“No, no,” said Selma.

“Why not?” she said to me.

Again I could think of no reply but Selma was saying

something to the woman.

“Then why does she wear it here?” persisted the woman.

“Because she is polite,” said Selma, and nudged me gently

toward the door. The group followed, repeating the traditional

farewells, “Ahlan wusahlan” “Tiji daayman [come often],”

“Allah wiyach [God go with you].” Selma bade me good night

at the door of her own courtyard, but the other women and

children walked to the entrance of the compound, where Ali

waited to accompany me home.

In the mudhif, lanterns had been lighted, and the tribesmen

going in and out were silhouetted in the shadowy arch. Stars

were coming out in the vast sky above the mud houses and

walls. Women passed us, silently padding down the path,

bearing jugs and cans to fetch the nightly supply of water from

the canal. I could see no faces, but several spoke to me. Ali

and I stood aside while a flock of sheep, baaing and snuffling,

shuffled along past, raising a fine cloud of dust into the

evening air as the boy shepherded them home.

Bob was waiting at our gate.

“How did it go?” he said.

“Fine, I think,” I answered. “I was obviously the biggest

curiosity to hit the compound in years, but they were nice

about it. But I’m really tired out.”

“Come tell me everything that happened,” he said, and we

walked up to our house together. It seemed very cozy and

calm and peaceful after the hubbub and strain of the afternoon.

When I mentioned Selma’s eating with me, he said that was

a very good sign.

“Twenty years ago,” he said, “a Shiite Moslem here would

not eat food which had been touched by Christians, and any

dish from which a Christian guest had eaten or drunk was

smashed so that the infidel wouldn’t contaminate the faithful.”

Although he knew this was no longer true among most of

the men, he had feared the women might still feel this way,

since they were relatively more isolated.

“Selma was very friendly, and a good hostess. She’s been to

school, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. What is she like?”

“Selma?” I considered. “She seems very good-natured; runs

the compound, I’d say; laughs a lot; is intelligent.”

“Yes, but what does she look like?”

“She’s beautiful,” I replied promptly, “running to fat, but

still beautiful.”

“I thought so,” Bob said.

I looked at him. He had never seen Selma but assumed she

was beautiful. Because he had heard stories about her beauty?

That was unlikely, since men did not discuss women in public.

Because her inaccessibility had surrounded her with mystery?

Then the abayah and the seclusion were an asset to Selma, for

they only increased her attractiveness. And they did not seem

to hinder her much in her private life either, for she had

seemed to me a happy and contented woman.

But I was still curious.

“Why did you assume she was beautiful, Bob?”

“Well, I hear that the sheik gave her family 1500 English

pounds when he married her, and she is his fourth wife.

Wouldn’t you assume from that that she was pretty special?”

“Yes, Bob, of course.” I couldn’t help laughing at his male

naïveté.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “Let’s have some more coffee before

we go to bed.”

3

Women of the Tribe

In a day or two Bob resumed his interviews and suggested I

might start visiting the women regularly and begin to keep a

journal. To help him complete his picture of tribal and village

life, I was to record observations about women and children

and activities within the home, areas which he had no

opportunity to study.

“Just go,” he said. “The sheik has told me several times that

you will be welcome in any house in the settlement.”

“No one has come to visit me,” I pointed out.

“Never mind; it may not be the custom here,” said Bob.

“You make the first move.”

I was too shy simply to knock on every door along the path,

but fortunately during the first days my reluctance did not

matter. Mohammed invited me to call on his mother, and in

his house I met many of the Sayids, six families who were not

members of the El Eshadda, but who lived with the tribe in a

sort of noblesse oblige relationship. Because of their descent

from the Prophet, the Sayids are bound to be treated with

some respect, and are used as mediators in tribal disputes. In

return for their services as peacemakers, the Sayids receive the

protection of the tribe, and they had been given parcels of land

when they first came to settle with the El Eshadda. The

ancient practice of giving other special privileges to Sayids—

plowing their land free, grinding their grain without

payment—was less observed now than before. But the Sayids

still received alms on religious festivals, and Laila, the local

seamstress, later told me she always sewed without charge for

Mohammed’s sister.

The Sayids had their own small mudhif on the edge of the

settlement, around which their houses clustered wall to wall.

The first time I visited Mohammed’s family, he called for me

after supper, carrying a kerosene lantern to light the way. We

turned off the main road into a dark and narrow alley which

wound among the low mud houses, each marked by one or

two lanterns hung inside the walls. Electricity was expensive,

and only the sheik and his brothers could afford it. At the end

of the alley the Sayids’ mudhif loomed, also lit by lantern

light, and, framed within its shadowy vault, a few men sat

cross-legged, smoking and playing backgammon. The slap of

the wooden pieces on the game board came to us distinctly

over the sound of their voices.

Ahead, in a doorway, stood the figures of two women, tall,

straight and thin like Mohammed—his mother Medina and his

sister Sherifa. Medina held a second lantern high. “Ahlan

wusahlan,” she said, and we crossed their dark court, where I

could hear the cow munching in the corner, into a tiny room,

swept clean and almost empty. I sat on a mat covered with a

rug and a white sheet. Sherifa insisted that I make myself

comfortable with a long pillow also covered with clean white

linen. She then brought in a charcoal brazier and we sat

around it, warming our hands against the cold.

They served me fruit on that first occasion, which I knew

was a great extravagance for them, but afterward when I went

to visit I was offered, like all their other guests, a glass of

lemon tea made by brewing the skin and seeds of dried lemons

(numibasra). Medina made it especially well.

I spent many such evenings in Mohammed’s house, where I

was treated almost as a relative, and where the atmosphere

was relaxed and the conversation gay. The family, once well-

to-do and highly respected in the community, had retained a

general air of taste and dignity in spite of misfortune. They

still owned 200 acres of land, but because of soil salination, a

mounting problem in the area, less than twenty acres could be

cultivated. Their present poverty-stricken state was mitigated

by Mohammed’s job with us. They were “gentility in

straitened circumstances” but they were cheerful about it, and

that made all the difference.

When the family land had first begun to salt up, Medina’s

husband had left El Nahra to find work. He had not found it,

but in Kut he had found a rich sheik whose personal charity

was the support of Sayids, so he had settled there, and only

visited El Nahra when he was sick or needed help. Medina

made the best of it. She was only forty-five, but she looked

seventy, so thin that every bone in her hand was visible. Her

skin was seamed and wrinkled by years of work in the hot,

drying sun, her mouth shriveled into empty gums. Her black

garments had been new many years ago, but she wore them as

though they had been bought yesterday; she still hennaed her

fingernails and outlined her eyebrows with dull blue kohl.

When she was feeling poorly, which was often, she lay on a

mat and her voice became the dry, cracked whine of an old,

old woman. But when she felt well she sailed down the alley

like a queen, her black garments flowing behind her. In the

afternoon sessions in the sheik’s house she was always treated

with courtesy and respect. She talked animatedly and smoked,

one after the other, the cigarettes offered by Selma—she was

too poor to buy them herself. The women listened to her

attentively and laughed at her jokes; she had a way of

gesturing with a cigarette and tossing her head back as she

talked—she had style. I never met anyone who disliked her.

Women would bring her food from their own limited stores

and visit her in droves when she was too sick to get up from

her pallet.

Sherifa carried herself like her mother, with a dignity not

always seen among the poorer people in the settlement. I was

told that when Sherifa had been younger, she had been very

handsome, and her husband had bought her much gold

jewelry. But the man went bad, no one could explain why; he

had deserted Sherifa after her baby boy died; she was now

neither widow, virgin, nor divorcee, and hence had no future.

Yet she was intelligent and industrious and her advice was

much sought after by other women and girls. She kept

chickens and sold eggs; she raised lambs in the spring and

sold the meat and wool. She helped keep the family alive.

The younger brother, Abad, was twelve, ambitious and

clever. He was in the sixth class at the local primary school,

and at night he sat on the path under a street lamp to study his

lessons, for the two lanterns in his house were not strong

enough to read by.

There was an older brother, Abdul Karim, who seemed to

have been born without energy. Theoretically he was a sheep

trader, but few people had seen him at work. His wife,

Fadhila, was vigorous and attractive, with strong arms and

bright eyes; she laughed from deep inside, a loud, healthy

laugh which infected even the dourest old ladies. Her greatest

sorrow was that she had no children. According to local

beliefs, it was always the wife who was at fault in these

matters. In a society where childlessness is grounds for

divorce, Fadhila, despite her health and energy, was judged

inadequate as a woman and as a wife.

Fadhila and Abdul Karim lived in their own room, across

the court from that of Mohammed, Medina, Sherifa and Abad.

Each household was economically separate, but Fadhila and

Sherifa shared the chores, bringing cans of water from the

canal several times a day, sweeping the court, feeding the

cow, the lamb and the chickens, baking the barley bread and

doing the cooking, the dishes, the laundry. Fadhila preferred

the dishes and the laundry because it gave her an opportunity

both morning and evening to exchange gossip with the other

women of the village who squatted along the canal, scouring

their pots with the gritty silt of the bank and scrubbing their

families’ clothes in the muddy irrigation water.

Down the alley lived the sheik’s gardener and servant, my

guide, Ali, with his wife, Sheddir, and their grown son and

daughter. Their house was even more modest than

Mohammed’s. A small court where Sheddir cooked on a

Primus stove, a lean-to for the cow and chickens, an oven for

bread, and one tiny rectangular room where the entire family

slept on mats on the floor because they could not afford a bed.

One wooden chest, its blue paint peeling, contained their few

possessions. A lantern hung on a nail, and on the mud-and-

straw walls of their room pictures had been pasted or tacked—

pictures cut from magazines of Mohammed the Prophet, of a

traditional Arab beauty in abayah and fringed head scarf.

Ali’s salary as the sheik’s gardener and servant was minute;

most of what he earned was in kind. He had access to the

garden to cut grass for his cow, and he always received a

small share of the sheik’s grapes which he could trade in the

market for barley flour or rice. Ali was saving money to help

his son get married. Since Ali was a poor man, only twenty

pounds was needed for the bride price, the sum set by custom

within the tribe and paid by the groom’s father to the bride’s

father. The bride’s father uses part of the money to help his

daughter buy furniture, household goods and her trousseau.

But twenty pounds was half of Ali’s annual income. How,

then, to hurry up the procedure? Ali’s daughter was of

marriageable age, too, and since paternal first-cousin marriage

was the preferred marriage in any case, Ali was negotiating

with one of his brothers who also had a boy and a girl. If the

fathers could simply exchange children, two marriages would

be made for the price of one and the family line would be

assured of continuance. A fair exchange. This was the kind of

strategic arrangement which many poor fellahin families

strove for. Otherwise a man might wait ten years to get

married, for it took at least that long to save the required

amount.

Sheddir, Ali’s wife, while cutting grass in the garden one

morning, invited me to visit her, and I did, twice. After that I

did not feel as free to do so, for each time I came they spent an

embarrassing amount on delicacies, fruit, coffee, sweet

biscuits. I knew that wherever I went in the settlement, except

perhaps for the houses of the sheik and his brothers, my

arrival was bound to put a strain on the family’s finances.

Their traditional sense of hospitality always struggled with

their slim budgets, and usually hospitality won. I would

protest vigorously when this happened, but it did no good, for

I was only following the accustomed pattern: a guest always

protested at the honors done him to show his host how much

he appreciated them. So I made excuses to Sheddir and asked

her to visit me instead.

Occasionally, when I passed the house of our next-door

neighbors, a family of weavers and dyers, the gate would be

ajar and I could see bright yarns and rugs displayed in the

court. I had been debating whether or not I might call on the

weavers unannounced when one morning Bob came to tell me

to drop everything and come at once. Saleh, the weaver, had

been in the mudhif that morning. Bob had expressed interest

in his loom and Saleh had promptly invited him over, adding

that I would be welcome to come and sit with his family.

Since Bob was with me and the men of the family would be

around, I fully expected to be ushered into an inside room and

served tea behind a closed door while the men disported

themselves in the court. But when the gate was opened, the

women in their abayahs were sitting in full view at one end of

the court; they beckoned to me. That was one of the few

occasions when Bob and I visited within sight of each other,

although we did not speak. The men sat in another corner, far

from us, and the women covered their faces with their abayahs

whenever Bob passed near them. Still, the weaving

paraphernalia was spread all over the court, and there was a

good deal of covert peeping through the abayahs as Bob and

Saleh walked around, looking carefully at everything.

I recognized one of the women immediately by the thin,

scab-covered baby she carried on her hip; it had been she who

had given the baby her breast during my first visit to Selma.

“I am Hathaya, Saleh’s daughter,” she said. “Ahlan

wusahlan.” I sat down with the group of black-garbed women

who served as background for the vivid display in the court. A

swath of bright red wool six feet long and nearly three feet

wide splashed across the court from the pit loom near the

family house almost to the mud wall. Looking closer, I saw

that this was the woof of a rug in the process of manufacture;

long strands of red yarn were stretched taut and fastened to

wooden pegs driven into the hard-packed ground. Already a

geometric pattern of black and red pyramiding squares and

rectangles was emerging from the pit loom, where Hathaya’s

husband Mahmoud sat and threw the shuttle. I could not

understand why he seemed to be sitting on the ground until I

was told that the loom was set in a dugout nearly three feet

deep and pedals controlling the woof were operated from

below. All around us newly dyed yarn was drying in the

morning sun. Yellow, red, orange, green, the skeins were

draped over the wall, spread across the roof of the lean-to and

hung on makeshift frames of sticks, covering every available

inch of the dun-colored walls with gaudy loops of twisted

color.

Fluffy piles of raw sheep wool had also been spread out to

dry. Hathaya picked up a soft handful and tossed it to another

woman, who produced from the pocket of her dress a spindle

and showed me how she twisted the bits of fleece into strands

of yarn, which were then spun on the wooden spinning wheel

and finally woven on the loom. In addition to rugs the family

made abayahs, which were dyed black for the women but left

the wool’s natural color for men.

“How much does one cost?” I asked.

An old woman held out the corner of her abayah for me to

finger the rough homespun.

“For this kind, half a pound,” she said, “if you bring your

own wool. But a fine one, very warm, for winter, costs three

pounds.”

“How much wool does it take?”

“The wool of two or three sheep, washed and dried, will

make one abayah,” she said.

While Saleh took Bob around I drank tea with the women,

who talked to me so fast I could scarcely understand a word,

and who laughed hilariously at my stumbling answers. In this

house there was no restraining presence such as Selma, no

protection such as that offered by my special relationship with

Mohammed’s mother and sisters. These women had me to

themselves, to do with as they pleased. The children plucked

at my abayah and touched my shoes; the women would call

them off, then draw near enough to touch the material of my

abayah themselves. They talked loudly about me, indifferent

to my presence or possible comprehension. However, I caught

a few comments: my heavy shoes (horrible); my skin (white);

my husband (not bad); my skirt, visible when I sat down even

though I kept my abayah around me (good wool, but too

short); and my cut bangs (really strange, quite awful in fact).

They wondered audibly what I had on under my skirt; when

they asked me outright, I pretended that I couldn’t understand.

One old woman, who talked the loudest and the fastest, kept

insisting that I should drink another glass of tea (good for the

blood), patted my hand and told me not to worry (about what,

I was not sure), yet she simply could not restrain her mirth.

Every time she looked at me she would go off into a good-

natured cackle which was in itself so infectious that the

children and women would automatically join in. Somehow,

in this situation I was not upset at being considered an

amusing object, as I sometimes was on later occasions.

Perhaps it was the sun on the bright yarns, the lovely rug

spread in the court, the men and the women so proud of their

industry and so pleased to be able to show it off. Or perhaps it

was the naïveté of the women’s unashamed curiosity and

amusement. They did not laugh simply to observe my

reactions. They poked me and pinched me and laughed in all

sincerity, simply because they were curious and found me

terribly funny. After a while the waves of mirth became

contagious; I began laughing too, at nothing in particular, and

soon we were all guffawing together.

When the men sat down in the opposite corner to have their

tea, I was given the tour of the loom and the spinning wheel.

Would I like to see Hathaya spin? I would. She did. Everyone

was pleased. But the baby, in the arms of another woman,

began to wail and Hathaya picked it up and gave it her breast.

Would I like to see their house? I would. A small, dark room,

reminiscent of Ali’s house, then another larger, airier room

where Saleh slept, which was filled with neat piles of folded

rugs and abayahs.

“Tell your husband you want one of these beautiful rugs,”

said the old woman slyly; she was Saleh’s wife and no fool.

She had decided, and rightly, that I might very well be a

profitable source of business as well as a divertissement.

I said I certainly would. “Are these for sale?” I asked,

indicating the piles.

“No,” she said; these had been woven on order and were

now waiting payment. The people would come in about a

month after the harvest, when the fellahin were paid for their

grain by the merchant in El Nahra. “But don’t worry,” she

added quickly, noticing I was turning away. “Just save the

wool from five sheep, and we will make you a special rug in

beautiful colors.”

Hathaya pointed out that we had no sheep.

The old woman looked thoughtful for a moment. “Ask

Mohammed,” she said. “He will find you some wool to buy in

the autumn, after the sheep are shorn. And then bring it to me,

and we will draw a fine pattern and …”

She was interrupted by a shout from the court. Bob was

leaving and nodded to me to follow.

“You must come visit us every day,” said the old woman,

and went off into a final paroxysm of laughter. I said she must

come and visit me; the women looked at each other and

smiled. Would they come?

“God willing,” they replied, and I picked my way past the

yarns and the bright rug to the gate where Bob waited.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” said Hathaya. Her baby was wailing

again; she turned from us and helped it to find the breast. The

gate shut and we were again on the dusty path, which was

drab compared with the gaiety and color we had left behind.

4

Women of the Town

Across the canal from the tribal settlement of mud-brick

houses lay the village itself—more mud-brick houses, shops, a

small covered bazaar, and a mosque distinguished from all of

the other mud-brick buildings only by a small mosaic. “There

is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet” was

spelled out in faded blue tiles above the door. Date palms and

a few eucalyptus trees gave shade along the bank of the canal.

The urban side of El Nahra was reached by a new cement

bridge which had recently replaced the pontoon footbridge;

the old bridge had risen and lowered as the canal filled and

emptied, but the new one arched proudly over the canal,

oblivious of the water or lack of water underneath.

The American Point Four engineer who advised the Iraqi

Government on the construction of this new bridge had

suggested it be built of cement blocks; it had been. He had

neglected to allow for the fact that it is difficult to get onto a

high cement bridge from a dirt road without proper

approaches, which did not of course exist in El Nahra. Hence,

although the villagers were pleased with the new bridge, many

of them cursed it in the winter, for when the dirt roads turned

to mud, the horses and donkeys and even the cars would slip

and slide and skid, trying to gain enough purchase to get onto

the slick cement of the arch.

The engineer had also pointed out that the old bridge was

really very badly situated—down the canal from the main

street, where it joined the tribal settlement with the mosque.

What was needed, he said, was a central location.

Accordingly, the bridge was built to accommodate such

modern ideas; it was moved up the canal and now spanned the

hub of the village, joining a group of busy coffee shops on the

tribal side to the bazaar entrance and taxi stand on the other,

urban bank. What the engineer did not know, and of course no

one dreamed of telling him, was that the old bridge was

inefficiently situated for a very good reason: to allow the

women to pass over, unnoticed, to either side of the canal, to

visit friends or pray in the mosque without being exposed to

the stares of the strange men who always filled the coffee

shops or lounged at the entrance to the bazaar.

Now the new bridge facilitated social intercourse among the

men, it was true, and it was certainly a time saver for the taxi

drivers who had to deliver passengers to the tribal side, but it

considerably cut down the social life of the women. They

could no longer slip across the bridge to see a friend and slip

back without their absence being noted. They could no longer

wind through alleys to the back entrance of the bazaar, make a

small purchase and return home discreetly. With the coming

of the new bridge, each foray across the canal became a major

undertaking. Who knew who might be sitting in the coffee

shop who might remark that so-and-so’s family was running

about town these days. For a model wife stayed at home, cared

for her children and for her house, prepared good food for her

husband and his guests, and kept out of sight of strangers. So,

although few people really noticed it and only one or two of

the women even remarked on it, in fact the women went out

much less often after the new bridge was finished and the old

bridge was dismantled and sold for firewood.

The main street of El Nahra, neon-lighted, was a

continuation of this new bridge. Here were the offices of the

government officials assigned from Baghdad to administer the

village and its immediate area. A boys’ primary school (400

pupils), a girls’ primary school (175 pupils), the mayor’s

office, the jail, the government dispensary with its resident

doctor, the police station, and the post office lined the street.

On a side road facing the canal was the office of the irrigation

engineer, the one indispensable man among the government

officials, for on his authority the floodgates which channeled

water from a branch of the Euphrates River were opened and

closed. The village and the surrounding farm community

depended on the water supply for life.

Along this bank, near the irrigation office, were the most

modern dwellings in El Nahra, two or three well-built houses

of fired brick, with tiled floors and carefully cultivated

gardens. This was the fashionable, the “right” side of the

canal, and the tribal settlement was obviously on the wrong

side. Why on earth didn’t Bob and I, foreigners and not

destitute, live on the right side of the canal, I was asked by the

women schoolteachers, the mayor’s wife, the engineer’s sister

and the doctor’s wife, the handful of middle-class ladies in the

town who entertained me at lunch and tea, polite, pleasant,

and quite puzzled as to our presence in this remote village and

our house among those of the tribal fellahin.

Khadija, the engineer’s sister, was from a tribal group

herself and could hardly contain her curiosity about the

women of the sheik’s house; she had never visited them, as

they were not of her social group. Paradoxically she would

have liked nothing better, for she enjoyed visiting the hut of

the man who cultivated her beautiful garden. In the gardener’s

one-room shack she could sit on the floor with his wife and

daughter, drinking tea and gossiping. This kind of visit was all

right—the gardener and his wife were her servants; she was

expected to be kind and visit them occasionally, bringing

small presents of tea and sugar. But the sheik’s house? Never.

She was above that sort of thing now. Her brother Jabbar, the

engineer, was a self-made man. An attractive, intelligent and

ambitious boy, he had graduated highest in his class from the

time he entered his village primary school until he finished

secondary school in his provincial capital. His achievements

brought him a scholarship to the engineering college in

Baghdad. Now he was an effendi, a white-collar worker; he

had risen higher than any member of his family before him.

His younger sister, brought to El Nahra to keep house for him,

had assumed his social status without his education and

intelligence; unfortunately, she had not even Jabbar’s good

looks in her favor. She worked at dressing smartly and

learning to make crème caramel, she obediently visited the

teachers and the mayor’s wife, tried hard to keep up with the

latest song successes of Abdul Wahab and Um Khalthum, and

asserted that she wanted to learn to read and write, but she was

equipped for her role neither by training nor by native

intelligence.

Jabbar wished her to become accustomed to conversing

with men so that she might be a companion as well as a

housekeeper for her husband; accordingly he invited Bob and

me to his house and insisted that the four of us sit and eat

together. Khadija was painfully embarrassed and could not

even look at Bob; she kept her eyes cast down and

occasionally giggled nervously. Jabbar decided I could teach

her to bake cakes and cookies like the upper-class Baghdadi

women; I tried hard, but she had neither talent nor interest.

Khadija seized on me out of loneliness and curiosity, for I

was so odd a figure in the village even she felt comfortable

with me. But the friendship was a difficult one. Unless I spent

every afternoon with her, which was impossible, she

complained to Jabbar that I did not like her; since Jabbar was

one of Bob’s closest personal friends in the village as well as a

key figure in his irrigation study, this made life troublesome

for all of us. I finally limited myself to a weekly visit with her,

and Bob told Jabbar that I was busy at home and helping him

the rest of the time.

Khadija dreaded marriage, she told me, because she would

have to leave Jabbar and her family and go with her husband;

I thought she feared more the burdens of cooking, child-

rearing and entertaining in a white-collar household, activities

at which she seemed bound to prove inadequate.

The teachers, the mayor’s wife and the doctor’s wife, all

fairly well educated, tried to be kind to Khadija, and although

she was pleased at their attentions, basically she resented

them. Hind, youngest of the three teachers, a lively witty girl,

tried to teach Khadija to read and write. At this time Jabbar

was considering marrying Hind; though nothing had been said

to Hind’s family, she had heard the rumors. When he suddenly

became engaged to another girl, Hind quite rightly tried not to

visit his house so often. But Khadija was furious and told me

over and over again that Hind had never liked her, that she

only wanted to marry Jabbar, and that was why she had visited

her before.

I did not believe this, for Hind was kind as well as sensible,

much like her older sister Aliyah, who had come to El Nahra

thirteen years before when the girls’ school opened and had

remained there ever since, teaching, in loneliness and

obscurity, the girls of this remote area. At first, she told me,

only a few girls, daughters of merchants and effendis, had

come to school; Aliyah had not been discouraged. She visited

the village families, not just once, but many times, until they

became used to her presence and were no longer suspicious.

She pointed out the importance of women learning to read, not

only the Koran (the women mullahs were available to teach

them that), but books about Islamic history, about sewing and

cooking. When Sheik Hamid married Selma, Aliyah went to

visit her and was welcomed warmly; they had mutual

acquaintances among the teachers in Diwaniya. Gradually the

tribal girls began to attend the school. First only one came

from each of the wealthier families, then the poorer girls, and

finally more and more of the villagers. The school had grown

slowly, but it had 175 girls now, and only three teachers.

Inspectors from the Ministry of Education had expressed

several times to Aliyah herself their amazement at the large

enrollment in such a conservative area, but knowing Aliyah

and the high personal respect she enjoyed in El Nahra, I was

not surprised.

The town fathers knew that Aliyah was no modern upstart,

come to teach the girls to take off their abayahs and learn the

wicked, immodest ways of the city. Her family was from

Baghdad, it was true, but was known to be conservative and

religious; Aliyah wore the abayah herself and lived quietly

with Hind, their mother and another unmarried sister who

cooked and kept house. Jabbar once explained to Bob, “They

have no man to protect them, but their good reputation is

protection enough.”

Aliyah was anxious that I teach English part-time at the

school; she had asked the Ministry repeatedly for another

teacher to help handle the growing enrollment, one who could

manage English. But she was constantly disappointed, for

young girls did not want to come to a village as remote as El

Nahra, where there were no decent living facilities for single

women, few congenial companions, and not even the cinema

to distract them from the hard work, low pay and bleak

atmosphere. I would have liked to help Aliyah; we both wrote

letters and I was interviewed by the Ministry. They offered me

a job as an English teacher in the boys’ secondary school in

Diwaniya. “After all,” said the deputy Minister, “boys need to

learn English more than girls,” but I declined. So nothing ever

came of the project; I was sorry for Aliyah’s sake, but in the

long run it was better for Bob that I not be tied down every

morning.

I admired and liked the two teachers and enjoyed their

company. They were intelligent enough to have some grasp of

why we were there, and they accepted us without many

questions. I would have visited them more often except that

we all had our own work to do. But when I was depressed I

would put on my abayah and walk across the bridge to Sitt

Aliyah’s house. There I would drink tea and try to improve

my Arabic by talking and listening to Aliyah, Hind and their

visitors (they always had visitors, from every economic

stratum of the village) talk of books and movies and the place

of women in the new Iraq. It was comforting to know that

even in El Nahra there were women who cared about such

things, who worked subtly to improve conditions around

them, but always from a position of strength and acceptance in

their own community.

Um Saad, the mayor’s wife and the third teacher, was

another sort altogether. Highly educated, bearing the name of

a wealthy and ancient Baghdadi Shiite family, she was held

slightly in awe by the other teachers. In spite of her origins, or

perhaps because of them, Um Saad was slight and

unassuming. The moment I entered her house, I was aware of

taste and education. There was not a garish object or a wrong

color or texture. The pictures were old and good; the

bookcase-the only one I ever saw in El Nahra with one

exception (in the house of Khalil, the bright young man who

taught Arabic literature in the boys’ school)—covered one

whole wall of the dining room.

The mayor, Abu Saad, was something of a poet and Um

Saad read and criticized his work; she knew a great deal about

Arabic poetry of the past and present. Their relationship was a

close one: they had three sturdy boys, they were intellectually

companionable, they seemed very happy. But there was one

problem. Abu Saad confessed to Bob that he knew the

wearing of the veil and the hiding of women in the house were

old-fashioned and out-moded customs, that his wife was as

intelligent and sensible as he was and that he should

encourage her to enjoy the world as he did. But all of his

background warred against it; his father had been a mullah,

prominent in the business affairs of one of the most important

mosques in Baghdad. His grandfather had written books well

known throughout the Islamic intellectual world, urging

limited education for women but warning of the dangers of a

too liberal interpretation of women’s role. Abu Saad tried to

overcome this, but he could not; Um Saad tried to understand

and sympathize with his conflicts, but she could not. She

remained a devoted wife and mother, but she was quietly

disappointed that her husband did not have the strength to live

according to his own rational convictions.

The doctor’s wife never visited Um Saad; they had nothing

in common. Her name was Nadia; she was voluptuous, well

dressed, very coarse and very wealthy. Her husband, a

Christian, had renounced his faith and become a Moslem in

order to marry her. Dr. Ibrahim hated the village and despised

the tribesmen and fellahin; he told Bob at their first meeting

that the fellahin were animals, not human beings. After that

Bob avoided him whenever possible. He kept his dispensary

open only when he felt like it, and treated with contempt or

indifference the men and women who trooped to the

government clinic, racked with one or several of the diseases

endemic to the area–tuberculosis, bilharzia, malaria, amoebic

and bacillary dysentery. Although the sulfa and other

medicines provided by the government were supposed to be

free, Dr. Ibrahim charged for them. One night when

Mohammed’s mother was very ill, the doctor refused to go to

see her in his own car (it was raining and he didn’t want to get

it splashed with mud) and forced the distraught Mohammed,

in addition to the medical fee, to pay half a pound for a private

taxi to take him across the canal to the tribal settlement. The

tribesmen were silently contemptuous of the doctor. “No man

who changes his religion can be trusted,” they said, and dosed

their bilharzia and dysentery with caraway tea, buying aspirin

in the market for the pain.

This little group of civil servants and civil servants’

wives—Um Saad, Aliyah, Hind, Nadia and Khadija—were

always pleasant and always hospitable to me. Their lives were

remote from those of the tribal women I knew: their

upbringing and training, their aspirations and hopes were

different, for they were from the cities, which have developed

separately from the rural areas in the Middle East for

generations. But as I visited back and forth between the two

societies, sitting in a deep maroon plush armchair at Um

Saad’s or squatting on a reed mat at Mohammed’s, I was

struck too by the similarity in these women’s values. Though

the town and the country are worlds apart, a good woman is

the same in both spheres: her reputation for fidelity is above

reproach, she is hard-working, a devoted wife and mother, a

good cook and housekeeper, and a quiet, obedient companion

to her husband. And in spite of the relative obscurity in which

these women lived, I came to realize how much they

influenced men, their husbands and especially their sons, and

even—indirectly, by silent example (as did the teachers)—

men they never saw or met. Not only did the women

influence, but in many cases they helped to determine events:

whom their sons would marry, whom their daughters would

marry, whether or not a child would go on to school and

university. And they did this without coercion, without

publicity, and above all without reproach.

5

Gypsies

Gypsies! I had heard the word several times in the houses of

the women recently. “Do they dance?” I asked. “Tell

fortunes?”

“Of course,” said the women. “They are gypsies.”

“Have you ever seen them?” I asked. They looked at me.

“No,” they said.

Bob reported that a troupe of traveling gypsy entertainers

was camped somewhere in Diwaniya province and, one sunny

winter day, out for a drive with Jabbar and Khadija, we saw

them on the move, thirty people or more in a caravan of

donkeys and camels.

They were unmistakable, distinguished from all other

nomads on the road, not only by their bright clothing and gaily

saddled animals but by the arrangement of the caravan. The

men were in front, as is usually the case, but these men were

on foot rather than on horseback, and instead of kaffiyehs and

abas and heavy rifles, they wore tight black trousers and

gaudy silk shirts and carried drums and pipes and batons. Next

came the younger women on donkeys, but again there was a

difference. The gypsy girls rode astride and their abayahs

were tucked artfully around them to good effect, showing here

a décolleté flowered dress, there a printed silk petticoat or a

gold-braceleted ankle. On the camels at the end of the

procession rode the old women and men and children. The

pots and pans and striped blankets were tied to the camel

saddles. But even the children were different, the boys in tight

pants and silk shirts like their fathers, the little girls in shiny

silky flowered dresses.

Almost as soon as we saw them, the caravan moved over to

the side of the road and stopped. The young men turhed to

prance toward us and two children jumped down from the

camels and proceeded to turn somersaults and cartwheels on

the road, directly in front of our oncoming car.

“Stop, Jabbar, please,” said Khadija, “so Beeja and I can

see,” and when Jabbar put on his brakes, the men snapped into

formation. The children wove, tumbling, among the oud

players, the drummers, the men with pipes and nose flutes,

occasionally even upstaging the leader, who had produced a

handful of small balls from his pocket and was now twirling

and tossing his baton and juggling the balls, all at the same

time. The camels stayed by the side of the road, but the girls

brought the donkeys round to serve as a backdrop for the

performers and musicians, and, like bareback riders in a

circus, reined in the beasts with one hand and gestured

coquettishly toward us with the other. They shouted and called

to us, but we could not understand what they were saying.

Slowly the little tableau moved toward us on the empty

road, until the gypsies were so close we could see the flashing

gold teeth of the men, their embroidered skullcaps and the

single gold earrings in their ears, the gold pendants about the

slender necks of the children. Smiling and calling to us still,

the girls turned the donkeys slowly around, jingling their gold

bracelets and switching their black abayahs like the trains of

ball dresses. I had already begun to think of the abayah as a

sheltering cloak, a symbol of modesty. It was a shock to see it

used in this way, at one moment framing the girls’ pointed

faces and tightly laced bosoms, and then flipped toward us

provocatively as they turned in time to the music.

Now the music increased its tempo, the children twisted

their narrow bodies in a frenzy of backbends and somersaults,

and to the accompaniment of a long roll on the skin drums, the

leader flung his baton high into the desert air. While it twisted

and turned in a dazzling series of circumlocutions, he deftly

juggled the balls, caught the baton, then the balls, tossed his

black head triumphantly and sank to his knees in a sweeping

bow. He landed almost directly beneath the car window, and

while we clapped, Jabbar produced some coins, and the

leader, with a brilliant smile, peered into the car where

Khadija and I sat, in our abayahs, in the back seat.

Would we like one of the girls to dance? he asked.

“Oh yes,” said Khadija, who had stared fixedly at the gypsy

girls during the entire act.

“Not today,” said Jabbar. “That’s enough.”

He waved off the leader and we drove on, while Khadija

sank back against the seat and proceeded to sulk.

“See, Khadija, they are still waving after us,” I said, looking

myself at the group which receded quickly into the distance

until finally only a few tiny sticklike figures and animals stood

on the empty road under the wide blue sky. Khadija did not

turn her head, and though even Jabbar tried to tease her, she

did not respond. We rode home in silence and spoke no more

about the caravan.

A few days later Bob reported that the gypsies had camped

again, this time near El Nahra and we had been invited to visit

them by Abdul Razzak, a friend of Jabbar’s who was

irrigation engineer in a neighboring village. Abdul Razzak

was going to take presents to one of the dancing girls, who,

Jabbar claimed, was Abdul Razzak’s mistress and very

beautiful.

Khadija did not go with us, for reasons which remained

unexplained, and I was alone with the three men. It was a cold

day, the sun darkened by a thick cloud which looked

ominously like an impending sandstorm. As we left El Nahra,

the wind whipped up the silt in clouds around us.

The dust was worse farther out, blowing so hard that we

almost passed the gypsy camp before seeing it. I had looked

forward to entering a low black camel-hair tent, like those the

Bedouin pitch on the plains in their seasonal wanderings

through the Euphrates Valley. But I was disappointed, for

these were old army tents, tattered and faded and stained,

arranged in a small semicircle around a larger central tent with

a cross of wood at its peak.

“Does the cross mean the gypsies are Christians?” asked

Bob.

Abdul Razzak said no. “I think it is just their radio aerial.”

Even before we stopped, the watchdogs had set up a fierce

barking; they jumped on the car with teeth bared, scratching

and growling. It was hardly an auspicious welcome, and we

decided to stay where we were until someone came to greet

us. At least five minutes went by, with the dogs snarling and

jumping at the windows; finally a man, wrapped in an aba

against the cold and wearing only a skullcap on his head,

looked out of the central tent. Through the fog of dust he

recognized Abdul Razzak and called off the dogs. He was full

of apologies for not coming sooner; he had been asleep, he

said. They had entertained all of the provincial police officers

the night before, and everyone was very tired. Abdul Razzak

said we would come another time, but the man brushed aside

this suggestion. He ushered us into a side tent, which was

higher than it looked from the outside, but was dark and cold.

No one was up and about, but at a sharp word from our host,

two women in abayahs arose from mats and padded silently

out in bare feet to prepare our tea. We were seated on boxes

covered with old blankets and rugs; Abdul Razzak offered

cigarettes and the host made an effort at polite conversation,

but he looked exhausted and even talking seemed a strain.

I looked around me in the gloom. From the entrance flap,

which had been staked back, a thin stream of light illuminated

the bare earth in the center of the tent. This was empty. But

the edges and corners of the tent, shrouded in darkness,

seemed full of bundles and boxes, and people lying on pallets.

When one of the bundles moved and a child emerged, I began

to wonder how many men and women lay around us in the

darkness, too weary and cold to bother about visitors.

Only the women who had been summoned by our host were

moving about. One placed a small charcoal brazier at our feet

and sat down beside it to warm herself; the other was making

tea near the entrance. The child who had awakened wandered

over, tousle-haired and dirty and thin, and crouched near the

brazier. The rest of the company slept.

“I am sorry,” said the man. “Everyone is tired and it is so

cold.”

Abdul Razzak tried to be gay and Jabbar laughed helpfully

at his jokes. Bob joined in the conversation occasionally, but I

sat in silence clutching my abayah under my chin. Finally

Abdul Razzak could not stand it any longer. “Where is

Fatima?” he asked. “I have brought her some presents.” The

man called out and one of the bundles answered back; in a few

minutes a girl came over, yawning and smoothing her hair

down under her abayah. Even in the gloom of that miserable

tent she moved beautifully, drawing her abayah about her with

ease and grace. Without a glance at us, she bent over Abdul

Razzak’s hand, kissed it perfunctorily and sat down at his feet,

one arm resting on his knee. He produced the presents, a bottle

of perfume, a scarf, and some English biscuits in a painted tin

box. She thanked him, not very graciously, and muttered

something at which both Jabbar and Abdul Razzak guffawed.

Jabbar translated into English. “She is asking Abdul Razzak

why he didn’t bring her some hashish so she can forget her

troubles,” he said, and proceeded to stare at her admiringly.

Fatima sank back into a cross-legged position and asked for

a cigarette. While she smoked she looked us over, apparently

decided that we were not worth her while, and looked away.

She was young, with enormous black eyes and fine high

cheekbones, but her face was wasted and pinched by illness.

Her eyes were dull and had dark circles beneath them, her skin

was yellowed like the skin of malaria patients, and she was so

weary she seemed to have difficulty even stubbing out her

cigarette. Abdul Razzak was teasing her; she responded with a

faint smile, rested her elbow on one knee and began to pick

her teeth. The host spoke sharply to her, but she continued to

pick her teeth. “You must forgive her, Abdul Razzak,” said

the host. “You know how sick she is, and she was such a

success last night the officers didn’t let her stop dancing until

nearly five o’clock this morning.”

Another girl had joined our circle; she looked much like

Fatima, and Abdul Razzak said she was her older sister. The

sister nodded at Jabbar and Abdul Razzak and Bob, and jerked

her head in my direction. “Who is that?” she asked. Jabbar

explained. She stared, came over and sat down nearer to me,

and stared harder, then stared at Bob. Then she laughed, a

short dry laugh and whispered something to Fatima. Fatima

repeated this to Abdul Razzak, who looked slightly

embarrassed.

“What does she want?” I could not help inquiring.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Abdul Razzak, but I insisted.

“She says she will dance for you if you like, but it will be

very expensive since she does not usually dance for women.”

“Tell her I didn’t come to see her dance, just to visit,” I

said. The sister stared at me again, a shrewd hard glance, then

looked away indifferently. Fatima was seized by a fit of

coughing, and when she had finished, she rested her head in

her hands. Her shoulders were trembling.

The tea, in a china teapot with a bit of aluminum wound

around its broken spout, had been brewing in the charcoal at

our feet. Now the older woman poured it out into glasses,

served it, and sat down, looking at us with her one good eye;

the other was whitened and sightless with trachoma. After we

had drunk tea, the girls had some, and Abdul Razzak passed

around cigarettes again. Fatima declined, punched Abdul

Razzak playfully on the knee and asked for something else.

He smiled, produced another cigarette and gave it to her.

“Hashish,” explained Jabbar, laughing. “She will become

more jolly after she has smoked it.”

Gradually, as the clink of tea glasses signaled refreshments

and warmth, more and more people had risen and come over

to join the group. Men, women, children, they were all thin,

and after glancing at us fleetingly, they would turn to

conversing with each other in low-pitched tones. The one

object in the room that seemed to interest them was a child of

about two. She was very plump, fatter than anyone else in the

tent, with the deceptive milk fat which is the ominous and

ironic sign of serious malnutrition and almost certain death.

Her hair was matted around crusted sores, which covered her

head and face and disappeared down into the neck of her filthy

shift.

“See how lovely and fat she is,” the older women said

proudly, and picked her up so I could see her better. I nodded

politely.

Fatima and her sister, who had indeed become more lively

since the tea and cigarettes, were chattering volubly with

Abdul Razzak. As the child was being exhibited, they looked

at me in an almost friendly fashion and spoke to Abdul

Razzak.

“The girls asked if you have any children and I said no, and

they said they think there aren’t many children as fat and

healthy as this one. They are all very proud of the baby, so

you must praise her.” I did as I was told and Abdul Razzak

translated my remarks.

All the women looked pleased, and the one who was

holding the baby at the moment got up and brought the child

over to me, trying to get her to sit on my lap. The child did not

realize what was required of her, but obediently held out her

arms. I took her and everyone murmured with delight.

I looked at the child in my lap, the deceptive fat hanging in

gray rolls about her neck, wrists, and ankles. She smiled, but

through the layers of filth, the unhealthy flab, the scabs and

the oozing of the open sores on her face, it was a grotesque

gesture, hardly human. I was suddenly violently revolted and

found myself, to my horror, utterly unable to lean down and

kiss the small face turned up to me. The women pushed her at

me; I simply could not. I smiled wanly, patted the child’s

matted head, and handed her back.

Apparently the women had not noticed my distaste, for the

child tottered off, and they laughed at its uncertainty on the

flabby legs. I tried to think of a pleasantry to offer in the

conversation, but none came. Our host had lapsed into silence,

but Fatima was sitting on the box beside Abdul Razzak,

talking to him in a low, urgent voice. Her sister smoked,

resting her elbows on her bent knees and staring straight ahead

at nothing. Some of the women had gone off, and Jabbar said

he thought we should leave.

He nudged Abdul Razzak, who was nodding absent-

mindedly to Fatima as he rose. She continued her plea,

whatever it was. The host rose with us, but the women stayed

where they were and the girls huddled together, lighting still

another cigarette in the dying embers of the charcoal fire. The

child had disappeared.

At the tent flap the man bade us goodbye, and we walked in

silence to the car, followed by a hound sniffing hungrily at our

heels. I looked back at the tents, which were almost the same

shade as the dun-colored earth, at the shivering man wrapped

in his aba, his hand raised in a gesture of farewell as the dust

swirled around him. And I remembered the proud, gay

procession we had seen along the road, the drums, the pipes,

the flashing eyes of the women as they jingled their bracelets

and swished their bright-colored petticoats. I was glad Khadija

had not come with us.

6

Housekeeping in El Nahra

In a few weeks our life in El Nahra settled into a working

routine. After breakfast, Bob and I would listen to the BBC

news and drill on Arabic, adding to each other’s vocabulary

new phrases and words we had heard for the first time the day

before. By nine-thirty he had gone off for his morning

interviewing and I began the household chores. My

afternoons, like his, were given over to regular visits, he with

the men, I with the women of the tribal settlement. The

evenings we spent together, reviewing the events of the day,

writing in our journals, reading or playing chess.

Most of the problems posed by everyday living in the

village had been solved fairly easily. Our stove, refrigerator,

new cupboard and the aluminum work table and folding chairs

filled the bare kitchen. The dirt floors were covered with new

reed mats, and we had screens made for the windows. Bob and

Mohammed dug a garbage pit for tin cans and we burned

refuse in the cylindrical oven. After many days of delicate

negotiations, Bob finally found a man who was willing, once a

month, to clean out our mud-brick toilet. We arranged to have

our heavy laundry done in Diwaniya, as no one in El Nahra

wanted to do a Christian’s laundry, even at a price; the rest of

the clothes I did by hand. We even became accustomed to

taking baths out of two pails of water, one for washing, one

for rinsing.

The preparation of food, however, was a major occupation.

Shopping had to be done each day, for we were out of reach,

literally as well as financially, of the luxuries of canned and

frozen foods. Bob bought jam, dried yeast and coffee in

Diwaniya, and otherwise we ate what was available locally:

the vegetables and fruits currently in season, rice, eggs,

yogurt, and, since we were rich by village standards, meat

every day.

Mohammed did the marketing, and with his help I soon

learned what every merchant had to offer, although in all the

months in El Nahra I never visited them in person. Only

women of very low status ever appeared in the public bazaar;

rather than go personally, a woman sent her children, her

servants, even her husband to buy groceries, pick up mail, or

carry urgent messages to friends.

The village butcher slaughtered a goat or a sheep daily, and

if Mohammed got to the market early, we had lamb kidneys

for lunch, or liver, or the tenderloin which lies along the

backbone. But if he was late we got a kilo chunk of

unidentifiable meat, which might take one or four hours to

cook, depending on the age of the animal. With Mohammed’s

help, I learned to strip off the tough membranes, and then he

would either grind the meat or cut it into minute pieces

suitable for stews of various kinds, which we ate with rice.

Onions and garlic to give flavor to the stringy meat were

cheap and plentiful, and Mohammed brought me a fine supply

of spices, cinnamon bark, whole nutmegs, turtneric root,

peppercorns, saffron, dried celery leaves and mint. Whenever

I needed spices for cooking, he would pound them fine with

an old brass mortar and pestle which belonged to his mother.

Homemade tomato paste was the other ingredient essential

to local cuisine. In the summer, when tomatoes glutted the

market, every good housewife bought a supply, spread the

tomatoes on flat tin trays and carried them up to the roof of

her house. There, in the summer sun, the raw tomatoes dried

and thickened, and salt was added every other day for about

two weeks. The resulting tomato paste was then ready to be

packed into earthenware jars to be kept throughout the winter.

This paste had a delicious and distinctive flavor—the women

asserted it was the combination of salt and summer sun.

We used locally made ghee, or clarified butter, for cooking,

and after experimenting with a few tins of tasteless imported

margarine (specially treated to maintain, its texture in tropical

climates!) we turned to local butter for all uses. One or two

women in the tribal settlement specialized in making butter

and selling it to the market to be clarified into ghee. If we

ordered in advance and paid slightly more than the market

price, we could usually get part of the supply. Many months

after I arrived, I was visiting the butter-and-egg woman one

day and asked the purpose of a shapeless leathery mass which

lay near us on the ground. The woman demonstrated that it

was her butter churn, a young lambskin which had been

cleaned and dried in the sun, then greased for easy handling.

The cream was poured in, both ends of the skin were securely

tied, and then my neighbor simply shook the “churn” back and

forth till the butter came. Occasionally the butter we bought

was topped with a film of dirt, undoubtedly from the inside of

that old and fragrant “churn.” When this happened,

Mohammed would simply scrape off the dirt and return it to

the woman, explaining that we only paid for clean butter.

I made yogurt from water-buffalo milk, which was richer

than the thin milk yielded by the settlement’s undernourished

cows. The jamoosa, or water buffalo, huge black slow-moving

animals, were much better adapted to the local climate than

were cows. They seldom contracted tuberculosis. Their milk

was in demand and even the meat could be eaten, but, though

the buffalo herders were prosperous by local standards, they

did not enjoy a comparable social status. A cow was an animal

conferring prestige, but a water buffalo was not. Still, several

tribesmen owned buffalo, and from one of our neighbors

Mohammed would buy a quart of milk each evening. Still

foaming, the milk was put on to boil. It cooled during the

night. In the morning we skimmed off the cream, a rich, thick

butterlike substance (gaymar) which was delicious with jam

on toast. To the rest I added a spoonful of yogurt starter,

wrapped the pan in a towel to keep it at a constant

temperature, and by late afternoon we had yogurt, for cooking,

for eating, or for drinking if we diluted it with water.

We always got good rice, rice grown in Iraq, or the famous

long-grain “amber” rice which supposedly came from Iran.

When potatoes were available, we often buried them in our

charcoal brazier and baked them. Other vegetables were

seasonal; for weeks we might eat marrow squash, then spinach

would come onto the market, followed by broad beans and

okra. In the fall there were eggplant and carrots. The winter

fruits, oranges and bananas, were excellent and in summer we

ate watermelon and grapes.

For special occasions we could buy a chicken, which was,

predictably, very skinny and outrageously expensive, but had

a good flavor if parboiled or marinated before roasting. On

some nights we returned home to find by our doorstep a brace

of small partridges which had been shot by one of Bob’s

friends. Plucked and cleaned and sautéed, they made a fine

change of diet.

The local bread, flat round cakes made of barley or wheat

flour, salt and water, was healthful and good when hot, but

usually it was dry and often tasteless. Finally I tried baking

my own bread in our portable oven and soon I was baking

four fairly presentable loaves a week.

So we ate well, if monotonously, slept a reasonable amount

and were seldom sick. We were finding people generally

pleasant and helpful, and our painfully meager Arabic showed

signs of improvement. Gradually we began to feel more or

less at home in El Nahra, although new problems kept arising,

some more serious than others.

First there were the birds, which absolutely refused to leave.

We shooed them out of the house several times a day, and

tried to keep the windows and doors shut lest they swoop back

in. Bob had screen doors made with tight latches, and we crept

in and out of the house, shutting the doors quickly against the

flocks of swallows that filled the yard, perched on the roof or

in the lemon trees, waiting for the door to be opened the

smallest crack.

One night I awakened, coughing, for a feather had fluttered

down into my face. What would come next? “This must stop,”

Bob said, and in the morning he and Mohammed set out to

“do something definite about the birds,” I was not sure just

what. Mohammed returned with a long bamboo pole, and

every night thereafter before we retired. Bob would probe in

and around each of the beams, routing out the sly swallows

who had hidden there during the day, waiting for the peace of

the night to recommence their mating and nest building! After

a month of nightly probing, most of the swallows retired in

defeat, but the next spring they came again, small groups

which camped in the lemon tree, twittering sadly and

obviously unable to understand what had happened to their

haven.

Bob was also in some perplexity about horses. Much of the

visiting of tribal clan settlements in the back country had to be

done on horseback, as there were no roads. Bob enjoyed this,

for he had always liked to ride, and he found it another area of

common interest with the men of the tribe. For these occasions

the sheik insisted on lending Bob one of his good Arab

stallions. They were valuable and beautiful horses, worth at

least 500 pounds, and Bob lived in fear that, while he was

riding the borrowed animal, it might trip and break its leg, and

then what would we do? It was not only that we could not

afford to replace the horse, but that the sheik would probably

not allow us to do so (after all, we were his guests) and this

would have been even worse.

One morning the gate opened and Bob and Mohammed led

a horse into our garden. He was small and light brown and

slightly sway-backed.

“I’ve bought him,” Bob announced.

“Bought him?”

“Yes, what do you think of him?”

“Well—”

“I know he’s not too beautiful, but he was only thirty

pounds, and it seemed the best way to avoid borrowing the

sheik’s horses all the time.”

I nodded. It did seem reasonable. But who would feed him

and water him?

“I’ve already thought of that,” said Bob. “I’m paying a man

to feed and water him every day, and he can be tethered at the

mudhif.”

So it was. Bob was very pleased to have his own horse, and

except for occasional visits to our garden to crop grass, the

horse was completely cared for at the mudhif.

Meanwhile I was having my own troubles. These were

serious, but they were hard to define, and I could not at first

describe them even to Bob.

At this time we had been in El Nahra for two months. Bob

had made many friends, not only among the tribe, but also in

the town. He felt his study was going well, and he was

enthusiastic and full of plans.

But I felt I was getting nowhere. I had conscientiously

visited a number of houses in the settlement, some of them

several times, had been welcomed and treated to tea and

gossip in each. But not a single woman had come to call on

me, and even in my own visiting, the women and I were still

saying to each other approximately the same things we had

said on the first occasions. My direct questions on subjects in

which Bob was interested were parried by polite remarks. As

my Arabic improved, I could often get the drift of

conversations and understand occasional fragments. It seemed

to me that many times the women were talking about me, and

not in a particularly friendly manner. If I could have been

certain they were talking about me, and understood exactly

what was being said, then I could have dealt with it, replied to

the comments and brought it out in the open. But the terrible

thing was that I could not be certain. Were they talking about

me or not? What errors in etiquette or custom had I

committed? What in heaven’s name were they saying? My

uneasiness grew in this atmosphere of half-hearing and part-

understanding.

I tried to tell myself that the women did not come to see me

because they were busy with household chores and children,

and that they seldom went out anywhere; this was all true. I

realized that my novelty value was wearing off, and I was not

developing any close relationships with the women which

might have replaced it. Why? I did not know.

Finally I talked to Bob about it. He tried to help, pointing

out that among the men, tradition prescribed how strangers

were to be greeted and treated, but that this was not true of the

women, who did not see a stranger from one year to the next,

and were certainly not accustomed to dealing with them for

long periods of time. Bob and I rarely visited together, so we

had little opportunity to compare impressions of the same

situation, which might have corrected my judgments and

dispelled some of my doubts. He suggested that he speak to

the men about having their wives visit me, but this I vetoed. I

felt that if the women had to be forced by their husbands into

coming to see me, they might better not come at all.

We discussed the situation very rationally, and I could even

explain it to Bob, saying that of course the language barrier

made all communication doubly difficult and was bound to

exacerbate the situation in which I found myself. There was

no doubt that the women did not answer direct questions.

There was no doubt that they did not come to see me. But was

there actual hostility? Unfriendliness? Coolness? I felt

definitely that there was, but I had to admit that my isolation

and loneliness might very well be magnifying this

unfriendliness into a ridimulous and unrealistic bogey. But it

was there, nonetheless, and I came to dread the daily visits,

the tea drinking among the whispering, the smiles which now

seemed artificial and insincere. And the giggling behind the

abayahs. Twenty women, giggling, with their eyes fixed on

me. Or were they?

Bob took me into Diwaniya, and we went to the movies. He

stayed home in the evenings to read and play chess when he

should have been in the mudhif, interviewing. He knew how

miserable I was and he did his best, but in the end it was a

problem I had to solve myself. We were very happy together

in our little mud house. If only I could make some kind of

breakthrough with the women, I thought. For one thing, I

spent at least four hours a day with them. They were a major

factor in my life, whether I liked it or not, and my only

company, except for Bob and Mohammed. I felt very strongly

that we must have some common humanity between us,

although we were from such different worlds. But how to find

it?

Things reached some sort of climax when Bob was invited

on a long trip to visit one of the farthest-outlying clan

settlements. The sheik’s brother and his oldest son were going

across the fields thirty miles on horseback, and would be gone

at least two days and one night. I did not mind spending the

time by myself, but the sheik decided it was not proper or safe

that I stay alone at night, and decreed that Amina, Selma’s

servant, would sleep in the house with me. At that particular

stage in my relations with the tribal women, a servant from the

harem to watch my every movement as I brushed my teeth,

washed my face and went to bed was the last thing on earth I

wanted. But there was no help for it. The sheik said she was to

come, and she came.

Poor Amina. I think she relished the night with me even

less than I did, but there was no recourse for her either. She

came at suppertime, and sat on the floor beside me, watching

me as I ate. Then followed the hour when I usually read or

wrote letters. Amina continued to watch me. A half hour of

this intense, silent scrutiny was enough. I gave up, made tea

and offered her some, and tried to talk. She was not very

communicative, but she drank the tea. Mohammed came to set

up a camp cot in the living room, beside the bed where I slept.

Amina was to sleep on the cot and I was to wake her at five,

so she could go and milk the cows. Mohammed bade us good

night and departed. I wanted to undress and climb into bed

but, feeling shy, went into the kitchen to change into my

nightgown. Amina followed me. I came back to the living

room; she did likewise. Apparently the sheik had warned her

that things would go badly with her if she let me out of her

sight for a single moment after darkness fell. I wondered

whether she would accompany me to the toilet. She started to,

but stopped halfway down the path to allow me some privacy.

I came back, undressed as I had seen my grandmother do,

putting the nightgown on over everything and gradually

discarding clothes from beneath its protection, while Amina

watched. I got into bed. Amina wrapped herself in her abayah

and lay down on the cot, pulling up the blanket which I had

offered her. Once more I got up to turn on the light and check

the alarm, and at this point Amina spoke.

“Is your husband kind to you?” she asked. I said yes. She

sighed, and burst into tears. I was appalled. I was trying to

make up my mind whether to go over to her when she stopped

dead in the middle of a sob, sat up cross-legged on the cot,

dried her eyes on a corner of her tattered abayah, and launched

into the story of her life.

How I wished then that my Arabic were letter-perfect! For

the story poured out of her in a torrent of words, punctuated

by occasional sobs. I caught perhaps a third of what she

actually said, but she repeated so much that the outline was

finally made fairly clear to me. As the tale emerged, I was

tempted to break down and cry myself.

Amina was a slave, but she had not always been one. As a

girl of fifteen, she had been married to a sixty-five-year-old

man. Not even her father thought it was a good match, but

there were twelve children in her family, and never enough

barley bread and dried dates, the diet of the very poor, to go

around. Her marriage brought her nothing but grief, for she

nearly died delivering a stillborn son, and then her husband

died, leaving her penniless. Her own family was destitute.

Most of the members of her husband’s family had died, and

those who were alive did not want another mouth to feed. No

one wanted her. What was she to do? At this point Sheik

Hamid heard of her plight. He had then been married to Selma

for three years; she had two sons and needed a servant. Hamid

bought Amina from her father for twenty pounds, and gave

her to Selma.

“And never have I had such a good life as since I came

here,” she averred. “Why, I can have as much bread as I want,

every day, and rice, and sometimes meat. Selma even gives

me cigarettes. And Haji-” here she raised her hands and her

eyes to heaven and launched into a flowery eulogy of the

generosity, the greatness, the goodness which were peculiar to

Hamid’s character.

“Do you ever see your family, Amina?” I asked, knowing

that even through woe and poverty and separation, family ties

are not soon severed in this society. The question was a

mistake. Amina began to cry again, and between sobs she said

she had not seen her family for seven years.

“But oh, Haji, he is a good man. There is no sheik in the

Euphrates Valley as good as Haji.” She went on and on like

this until she finally ran down. She was worn out and so was I.

The recital had taken at least an hour. I suggested we might

sleep, and she agreed. But when I turned out the light, the

sound of muffled sniffling came to me through the darkness.

“What is the matter, Amina?”

“Nothing,” she replied, but the sniffling continued.

“If your husband is really kind to you,” she said

inexplicably, “get a lot of gold jewelry from him while you

are still young. You never know what will happen.”

And before I could reply she was snoring loudly, fast

asleep.

Bob came back at 6:30 the next evening. I had no time to

recount the tale of Amina, for several members of the clan had

returned with the men, and were eating in the mudhif. Bob

was expected to make an appearance, and he changed his

clothes and left. Not more than five minutes after he had gone

there was a loud pounding at the gate. I thought he had

forgotten something and ran to open it. Not Bob, but seven or

eight black-veiled figures greeted me—the women! They had

come at last. They marched up the path, giggling and

whispering to each other like a bunch of schoolgirls on a field

trip to the zoo. Not until they were all inside the house and

had removed their face veils did I know who had come:

Selma—yes, Selma, the social leader of my little settlement—

and Sheddir, wife of Ali; Laila, one of the sheik’s nieces;

Fadhila, sister-in-law of Mohammed; two women I did not

know; and Amina, my roommate of the night before. Aha, I

thought, the business with Amina was not a waste of time,

perhaps she has told them I am not such an ogre after all. I

smiled at her in gratitude, but she was talking to Selma and

did not respond.

No one paid any attention to me. They gazed around them,

at our wardrobe with its full-length mirror, at the postcards

and the calendar I had pinned up, at Bob’s brick-and-board

bookcase, at our narrow bed against the wall. I decided to let

them look, and went to make tea, returning with seven glasses

on a tray. Everyone refused. I offered it again. Again I was

refused. Suddenly I was angry. This was a great insult, not to

accept tea in a house where one was visiting, and they knew it

and I knew it and they knew I knew it. I said, as sweetly as I

could, “How is it that you receive me into your houses and

insist that I drink your tea, but when you come to see me, you

only want to look, and not accept my hospitality?” There was

a shocked silence.

Selma rose to the occasion. “The women are shy,” she said.

“They know your ways are different from ours, and think they

should refuse the tea, since it is their first visit to your house.”

She knew I knew she was making up every word she said,

but I once more appreciated her tact and kindness in a difficult

situation. “But,” she said grandly, “I have been to secondary

school in Diwaniya and have read about the West, I know

your ways are much the same as durs, so I will drink some

tea.”

The crisis passed. Sheddir also accepted a glass, and

Fadhila, but the others still refused. I passed around cigarettes.

As I had thought, this was too great a temptation to resist, and

everyone, even those whom I had never seen smoke, took a

cigarette.

“What do you do all day here by yourself?” asked Fadhila.

“I cook, and clean the house.”

“Why don’t you do your washing in the canal as we do?”

suggested Sheddir.

“Because I like to do it in my house,” I said.

Then in a whispered conversation which followed, I

distinctly heard Sheddir say that she often came to our garden

to cut grass for their animals, and had never seen much

laundry hanging on my line. She allowed as how I must be

very lazy. I felt myself bristling, readying a tart reply to that

one, but Selma intervened.

“You say you cook,” she said. “What do you cook? I

thought Westerners ate all their meals from tin cans.”

I told them what we had for lunch, and added that I had

baked bread that morning.

“Bread like ours?” asked Sheddir.

“No,” I said, “Western bread.”

Selma explained to the group that this was a high loaf called

“toast.” Haji ate it all the time in Baghdad and had told her

about it.

“Let us see some,” they clamored.

I ran to the kitchen, proud that I was good for something,

and returned with several slices of fresh bread, cut into

quarters.

“You taste it, Sheddir,” Selma instructed.

Everyone stopped talking and watched as Sheddir, very

flustered indeed at being chosen the group guinea pig, picked

up one of the squares of bread between thumb and forefinger

and stuffed it in her mouth. She masticated a moment, then

made a terrible face and spat it out on the floor. The ladies

exploded and laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks. I

was close to tears myself, and not humorous ones, but I

realized that Selma was watching me.

“Sheddir is not accustomed to your bread—she finds it

strange,” she offered kindly, but she could not help shaking

with laughter at this huge joke. At the height of the mirth,

Sheddir thought of something else that was screamingly

funny, and launched into a long tale which I did not

understand, but which seemed to have something to do with

me, for she kept watching me out of the corner of her eye as

she talked.

“Do you know what she is saying?” Selma asked me. I

shook my head. “Sheddir says you do not know how to cook

rice, and because your rice is so bad, your husband comes to

eat at the mudhif.”

I admitted I did not know how to cook the rice in El Nahra

because it was different from the rice in America.

Even Fadhila laughed at this. “Rice? Rice is the same

everywhere,” she asserted and people nodded. I was obviously

slow-witted as well as lazy.

My face must have shown what I was feeling, for Selma

changed the subject.

“Do you and Mr. Bob both sleep in that little bed?” she

asked. I said yes.

“What fun they must have, I’m sure!” croaked Sheddir and

the ladies were off again. I knew this was a good-hearted joke,

but I had been tried too far that evening. Selma saw it too. She

stood up and pulled her abayah around her, announcing that

Haji Hamid would soon be back from the mudhif, and if he

found her gone–she made an unmistakable gesture.

“Oh, no, Selma,” protested Sheddir. “Haji would never beat

you. You are too beautiful.” Selma arched at this, but she did

not deny it. The attention had been diverted from the strange

American and the women’s attitude changed. They rose and

prepared to take their leave. I saw them to the gate, voicing

the traditional farewells, and got a few halfhearted ones in

reply. Then I shut the gate and burst into tears.

Six months before, I would not have believed that I could

be so upset at being accused of laziness and incompetence by

a group of illiterate tribal ladies. But there was no question but

that it was a real and very terrible snub now. Not only the

practical difficulties of continuing the visiting and maintaining

good relations bothered me. It had now become important to

me to be accepted by these people as a woman and as a human

being. And tonight, when I had thought success was near, the

evening had turned into a fiasco. I was indignant first, and told

myself they were nothing but a group of curiosity seekers.

Then I began to feel righteous. After all, they had insulted me

by refusing my tea, spitting out my food, and telling me I was

lazy and a bad cook. I felt hurt. They did not find me

sympathetic or interesting or even human, but only amusing as

a performing member of another species. I tried to feel tragic,

superior, ironic, above it all—but failed utterly and wept

again.

When Bob came home he told me to forget the whole

incident, to remember that we were in El Nahra to do some

specific work, not prove any romantic theories about humanity

being the same everywhere. But this did not satisfy me. Bob

said I should simply try to relax, and continue the visiting on a

businesslike basis. I said I would try, but I was not convinced.

Next morning, after Bob had gone off to the mudhif, I was

unreasonably depressed. Bob had suggested I should charge

out and visit immediately one of the women who had been at

our house the night before, apparently on the theory that if you

get thrown from a horse, you must get back on it right away or

you’ll lose your grip forever. But I could not force myself out.

I started lunch and then wandered into the garden, stopping to

inspect a large hole in our mud wall where dogs sneaked in at

night to raid the garbage pit. I bent down to look through the

hole, and drew back in alarm as my gaze met three pairs of

eyes, three black-framed faces looking in at me from the other

side of the wall.

One of the women smiled. “Good morning,” she said

through the hole.

“Good morning,” I replied.

“We hear you can’t cook rice,” she said.

I almost threw a rusty tin can at her, I was so annoyed.

But the third one said, “If you will open your gate, we will

come in and show you how to cook rice, so your husband will

be pleased with your food.”

For the second time in twenty-four hours I was close to

tears, but this was quite different. I opened the gate and let the

ladies in (one was Laila, the sheik’s niece; the other two I did

not know). They marched purposefully up the path and into

my kitchen, where they did indeed show me how to cook rice.

We picked over and washed the rice, covered it with cold

water, then sat down on the floor to drink tea while it soaked.

A large pot of salted water was put on the stove to boil, and

the rice was cooked in the boiling water until the grains were

separate and tasted right. When the rice was drained, clarified

butter was put in the dry pot over the fire until it sizzled. Then

the rice was poured back into the pot and stirred quickly until

each grain was coated with the boiling butter. Then we

covered the pot, turned down the heat, and let the buttered rice

steam slowly. We drank another cup of tea, and I thanked the

ladies profusely.

“We don’t want your husband to beat you,” said one. “After

all, you are here alone without your mother.”

“Come to see us soon,” said Laila, as the gate closed behind

her.

Lunch was quite a gay meal that day. Even Bob remarked

on the rice, and when Mohammed came, he tasted it and

pronounced it all right—the final seal of approval, I knew, for

though Mohammed did not eat much, he was very particular

about his food.

That afternoon I marched up the path to the sheik’s house

almost triumphantly. The rice-cooking lesson had reassured

me, and I felt I could take on the whole harem. Mohammed

had been sent to tell them I was coming, but apparently he had

forgotten, for no one was at the door, and I crossed the

courtyard to Selma’s house without seeing a soul. At the door

Amina met me.

“Oh,” she said, obviously startled, “ahlan wusahlan,” and

quickly led me into the sheik’s bedroom, where the rugs were

rolled up and the bed stripped. General house-cleaning seemed

to be under way. In yesterday’s mood I would have gathered

my abayah around me and departed, but not today. Amina

hurried out to find someone, leaving me alone in the bedroom

for the first time. The biggest chest was open, spilling out

sheets and pillowcases, tablecloths, antimacassars and towels.

Also I saw, to my amusement, that despite the splendor of the

gilt bedstead and the satin spread, Sheik Hamid, like every

other person in the village who could afford a bed at all, slept

on bare boards covered with a cotton mattress. I was just

screwing up courage to take a closer look at the contents of

the open chest when Selma hurried in, in an old house dress.

“Ahlan wusahlan!” she said. She was flustered and

preoccupied and I apologized for arriving unannounced,

explaining that I thought Mohammed had told her of my

coming.

“Never mind,” she said, “stay and have tea. But you must

excuse me, because I have to make Haji’s bed before he

conies back from the mudhif.”

I said I didn’t mind at all, and she shouted for Amina, who

came in and grinned at me as she helped Selma beat the

mattress and lay it back carefully on the boards. By this time

word of my arrival had spread and a few women and children

straggled in. They joked with Selma as she puffed over the

mattress, and nodded at me. Selma dug into the chest for

sheets and pillowcases, heavy white cotton elaborately

embroidered in bright colors. The bottom sheet was tucked in

all around, but the top sheet had a wide border of embroidery

which was draped down over the bedside. The pillowcases

were skinned tightly over the long, narrow pillows, and tied in

fancy bows at each end so the colored pillow covering (pink to

match the bedspread) showed to good advantage. Mottoes

were embroidered over the pillowcases—for good luck, said

Selma, translating them for me. The most popular motto was

“Sleep here and good health.”

“Can you do embroidery like that?” asked Samira, the

daughter of Kulthum, pointing to the complicated pattern

which followed the border of the sheet.

“Not as beautiful as that, but I can embroider,” I replied,

remembering the few doll clothes I had painfully cross-

stitched long ago under the watchful eye of my aunt.

“Why don’t you embroider some nice pillowcases for your

and Mr. Bob’s bed?” continued Samira.

I was up to anything that day. “Oh, I’m already planning

to,” I lied airily. “Mr. Bob is bringing me some cloth and

embroidery thread from Diwaniya.”

“You can buy the cloth here,” said Samira.

“Yes, I know,” I answered, knowing absolutely nothing

about it, “but the cotton is cheaper in Diwaniya and the

selection is much better.”

Another woman interrupted to say that cloth was cheaper in

El Nahra, and there was no need to go all the way to Diwaniya

for it.

“It may be cheaper,” admitted Selma, turning from the bed,

where she was applying a final pat to the satin spread, “but it

is not as good quality as the cotton in Diwaniya. I know,

because that was my home before I married, you remember.”

That silenced them.

“What kind of pattern will you embroider?” asked Leila, the

sheik’s niece who had come to my house the evening of the

bread episode.

“I haven’t decided,” I answered, quite truthfully this time.

“I think I would like to do one like that”—and I pointed to the

flowers and leaves and the good luck mottoes on Haji’s clean

pillowcase—“but I don’t have any patterns.”

“Oh,” said Laila. “I have many, many patterns, because my

sisters and I embroider all the time. Come to visit us when you

get your cloth and you can choose one of ours.”

I was suddenly unreasonably elated at the invitation. “I

will,” I promised. “I will get the cloth tomorrow, so I’ll come

day after tomorrow.”

Selma had finished and locked the chest again. She sat

down to rest, untying her asha and rearranging her hair under

it. “Amina,” she called, “bring us tea.” Amina brought a tray

of three glasses, one for me, one for Selma and one for the

oldest woman in the room. I had been sitting on the floor the

whole time, but no one had commented on it. Selma was too

occupied with other things to think much about me and the

proprieties of entertaining a guest. We all drank our tea

together.

It was late and I felt that I should go, but we sat on. When I

rose, Selma said, completely unexpectedly, “The sheik would

like to meet you.”

I looked blank.

“Would you like to see him here or at your house?”

The suddenness of it caught me off guard. I thought fast. I

had been in purdah ever since I arrived and had neither spoken

nor sat with any tribal men other than Mohammed, who didn’t

count as he was considered “my family” now. Yet Sheik

Hamid was our host. What was the best thing to do?

“I must ask my husband,” I said, and Selma nodded. It was

apparently the answer they expected.

When I got home I was in good spirits, and related to Bob

all the details of the cleaning and weekly bed changing, the

big chestful of linens, and my plan to embroider pillowcases.

He looked surprised. “Do you know how to embroider?” he

asked.

“Oh of course. I learned when I was seven years old.”

He laughed. “All right,” he said. “Do what you like.”

Then I exploded my bomb. “The sheik wants to meet me.

What do we do?”

He looked really surprised then, and a little puzzled. I told

him how the question had been put to me, and he nodded

thoughtfully.

“We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll have to think about it.”

But I was destined to meet Sheik Hamid far sooner than

either of us expected. Completely unforeseen circumstances

demanded it.

7

Problems of Purdah

News of our residence in El Nahra had spread quickly

throughout the area. Almost every week visitors came to the

sheik’s mudhif to look over the American strangers:

schoolteachers from neighboring villages anxious to practice

their rusty English; rural civil servants who had brothers or

cousins at school in the United States; relatives and tribal

brothers of Sheik Hamid who wanted to talk politics with the

foreigners that Hamid had imported. Often Bob would ask the

visitors down to our garden for tea; they were always men and

I never appeared.

But one afternoon when I was alone in the house I heard a

loud knocking at the gate. Bob had gone hunting with the

sheik’s eldest son, so I knew it could not be he. And

Mohammed always opened the door himself. Who would be

visiting so early after lunch?

I had strict instructions not to let in any man whom I did not

know. For we had, after all, taken great care to avoid my being

seen by the tribal men whose guests we were. If some passing

stranger should be admitted when Bob and Mohammed were

absent, it would make a mockery of our avowed desire to

abide by local custom.

I peeped through a crack in the wooden gate and saw a

brand-new aqua-and-white Buick parked in our alley. A portly

figure was barely distinguishable in the back seat. “I am the

driver of Sheik Hamza, who has come to visit you,” said a

man’s voice.

“I am sorry. My husband is not at home,” I replied.

The driver relayed this message, then I heard the Buick’s

window being rolled down and another voice said, in badly

pronounced English, “Good afternoon. I visit you.”

I swallowed. Hamza was the sheik of a tribe settled about

twenty miles to the west; Bob had spoken of him as a

spendthrift and wastrel who lived most of the year away from

his village, neglecting his tribal duties and leaving his fields in

the care of relatives while he spent the sharecroppers’ money

in Lebanon or Europe.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “My husband would be glad to see

you, but he will not be home before six o’clock.”

A torrent of Arabic followed, in which the sheik and the

driver argued. The driver rattled the gate and said to me in

Arabic, “You do not understand. Haji Hamza wishes to visit

you.”

I repeated the little speech about my husband, somewhat

shakily this time, but not knowing what else to do. There were

more angry words, and I wondered fleetingly whether they

might be so bold as to break the flimsy gate latch, but the

sheik’s voice spoke peremptorily, the car window was rolled

up, the driver backed out the Buick and they drove away.

Five minutes later Mohammed hurried in, breathing hard.

Sheik Hamid had seen Hamza’s car at our gate. Knowing Bob

was not there, he had sent one of his sons to fetch Mohammed

from his afternoon nap in case I needed help. I told

Mohammed the story, and he nodded approvingly. “Hamza is

not a good man,” he said. “You did right not to let him in. He

was not even polite enough to come to the mudhif and greet

Haji Hamid. He just drove away.”

When Bob came I told him of the incident, but he had

already heard it from three other people, including

Mohammed. He too was relieved that nothing had happened,

and then told me that some time ago Sheik Hamza had

conveyed through Jabbar an invitation to us to lunch at his

house on the tribal lands near Suffra. Bob had told Jabbar that

he would be delighted to come, and that I would like to meet

his women. He had heard no more from Hamza. “We have to

be consistent,” he said. “It would be very poor if Hamza, who

has a bad reputation anyway, went around the area boasting

that he had seen you and talked with you, while in El Nahra

we insist we are following local custom.”

“Besides, it might be interesting to see another sheik’s

harem,” I said. “I think I’d rather do that than eat with

Hamza.”

Bob looked at me closely. “You’re in good spirits,” he

grinned. “I never would have thought embroidery could have

such a therapeutic effect.”

I smiled. I was feeling better. The embroidery project had

worked out well. I had gone to Laila’s house and she had

traced a pattern onto my length of cloth. After that I took my

pillowcase with me whenever I went visiting. The women all

remarked on it, but after the first few minutes I found I could

sit quietly and stab my needle through the cheap cotton, and

little by little the group would forget my strange presence and

talk on as though I were one of them. I had a place in the

circle and something to do; I didn’t have to make conversation

every single minute and, as my Arabic slowly improved, I

found I was learning a great deal by simply listening.

We forgot about Hamza, but after a week he relayed his

luncheon invitation again. He told Jabbar that I would be

welcome in his harem. So, looking forward to the change, we

set off one pleasant afternoon in Jabbar’s Land-Rover. We

followed the traffic heading up and down the canal bound for

El Nahra or Suffra—women carrying fuel on their backs,

groups of donkeys bearing grain, and men riding horseback.

Suffra was only a tiny clearing in a palm grove, but a sheep

market was in progress near the suq, and we had some

difficulty making our way through the crowds of bleating

animals who ran backward and forward in terror as the car

approached. From Suffra we took a track across the fields, and

after an hour of driving came in sight of a large square three-

storied house with a red tiled roof and yellow stone walls. It

stood at the end of a wide paved driveway lined with date

palms and orange trees, and was set squarely in a fenced

garden.

“Quite a palace,” Bob said. I remembered the modest mud-

brick fortress of Hamid and his guest house of reeds, and

silently agreed.

Jabbar laughed bitterly. “Hamza lives in style,” he said,

“and he takes such a large share of the crops from his fellahin

that they are the poorest in the countryside.”

“Mind you,” he continued, “I can’t say I dislike being

entertained here—he always has good food and lots of liquor,

and life is pretty dull in El Nahra—but when the revolution

comes, men like this must go.” Jabbar was a passionate

believer in the need for Iraqi national reform, like many

young, first-generation educated men and women who knew

from personal experience that conditions were deteriorating in

the rural areas. Bob met many of these young men, and they

all believed firmly that the Nuri Said government would soon

be overthrown. Diplomats and foreigners, seeing only

Baghdad’s economic boom, pooh-poohed such talk when we

met them at parties. The revolution, when it did come one year

later, appeared to surprise almost every embassy in Iraq.

“It will be interesting,” Jabbar was saying, “to find out

whether Hamza has spent any money on his women’s

quarters. You can tell us later.”

The Land-Rover paused at the entrance to the house, and a

servant came out to greet us. Jabbar explained that I was to go

to the harem. Could he drive me there, or would the servant

accompany me? The man looked puzzled.

“The harem?” he said, looking at us, and at me in my

abayah.

“Yes, the harem,” repeated Jabbar somewhat testily. The

servant conferred with another servant who had come up to

the car, then excused himself for a moment and came hurrying

back.

“The women are not here,” he said. “The sheik would like

you all to come in.”

“Not here?” echoed Bob, and forgot his customary

politeness in such matters, he was so annoyed. “Where are

they?”

“They have gone on pilgrimage to Karbala,” the man

replied.

At this point Sheik Hamza emerged, fat and middle-aged, in

well-cut robes, fingering his worry beads and smiling broadly.

“I am so sorry,” he said. “My wives and daughters have

been plaguing me for weeks to let them go to Karbala, and

when they asked this morning, I could not persuade them to

stay.”

We had been tricked. “This is impossible,” Bob said to

Jabbar in English. Jabbar agreed, but said that we really could

not just turn around and go back to El Nahra; Hamza would

already have prepared food for us, and if we were to refuse his

hospitality now, it would be a grave insult.

“We must go in,” he told Bob. “An insult like that would

damage my reputation in the area as well as yours. Hamza

may go to Baghdad and no one will ever hear of it. And if

gossip does get about, explain it yourself to Sheik Hamid. He

knows Hamza and will understand.”

Bob was silent. I could tell he was furious.

Hamza stood by the Land-Rover, still smiling and fingering

his worry beads. “Please do come in and be comfortable, you

and your wife,” he said.

We had no choice but to act as though it were a perfectly

normal occasion. I would take off my abayah when we were

inside the house, and we would lunch as pleasantly as we

could under the circumstances, just praying that news of our

visit didn’t reach El Nahra before we did.

We walked up the neat gravel path between formal gardens,

and into an enormous rectangular living room. Trying to be as

dignified as possible with two menservants, Hamza and his

teenage son standing by goggling, I took off my abayah and

handed it to one of the servants. Then I crossed the room and

sat myself down in an overstuffed sofa slipcovered in

cretonne—orange and yellow dahlias of truly gigantic

proportions on an apple-green ground. Bob sat down beside

me, and Jabbar took an armchair nearby. Hamza just stood

there, staring at me, clicking those worry beads and shifting

from one foot to the other like an adolescent boy at the

burlesque for the first time. I don’t know what he expected,

but I’m sure I was a disappointment, for I was wearing a high-

necked wool dress (it was a cold day) and a brown sweater

and thick-soled walking shoes. Hamza took a deep breath and

came forward, still with his goggling smile.

“You must have a drink,” he said in Arabic.

I smiled too. “No, thank you,” I said.

“Oh, but you must. I have Scotch whisky and gin and beer.”

“Perhaps some tea?” I suggested.

Hamza’s face fell, but he shouted at one of the servants and

then sat down next to Jabbar. Jabbar began talking of local

affairs, but our host only half listened. He kept looking at me,

then looking away and giggling to himself, still fingering his

beads.

I was embarrassed at these covert glances, and tried to talk

to Bob, who was still so annoyed he could barely speak.

Jabbar gradually drew Bob into the conversation and I took

advantage of the redirected attention of the three men to look

around me at our host’s “palace.”

Covering the entire floor of the room was the largest and

most magnificent Persian carpet I had ever seen, woven of

muted blues and reds in a subtle and ancient pattern. I could

not help asking Hamza about it. It had belonged to his

grandfather, and was an antique carpet, costing thousands of

English pounds even at that time. I stared at it, thinking of the

beautiful room that could be built around such a carpet, and

then looked at the gewgaws, odd pieces of bad, expensive

furniture, pictures, posters and cheap statuary that covered the

carpet and competed with it so vulgarly.

All around the room, armchairs, sofas and end tables had

been placed against the walls. The one exception was the far

corner, where stood a radio-record player combination with

many shiny fixtures and luminous dials. The chairs were

upholstered in mustard or scarlet velvet and gilt braid, or in

different patterns of cretonne: birds, leaves and enormous

flowers in a blinding selection of colors. Two layers of lace

curtains screened the windows, which were hung with drapes

of still another cretonne pattern (birds in birdcages as I

remember).

And the walls, mercifully white, were plastered with airline

calendars, beautiful examples of Arabic calligraphy, out-of-

focus photographs in colored frames, whatnot shelves loaded

with knickknacks and reproductions of Landseer-type English

paintings. All the pictures were hung about two feet from the

ceiling, so I had to crane my neck to look at them. Hamza,

observing the direction of my gaze, got up in the middle of a

conversation with Jabbar and Bob and began to identify the

photographs: one of his father—an unpleasant-looking old

man, but at least his face had bones and character in contrast

to the formless fat of Hamza; countless pictures of himself:

Hamza shaking hands with the young King Feisal; Hamza

boarding a KLM plane for Lebanon, standing beside a pert

airline hostess and grinning fatuously; Hamza bowing before

Nuri Said, the Iraqi Prime Minister; Hamza kissing the hand

of the British ambassador’s wife, who wore flowered voile

and a picture hat.

Then he started on the whatnot shelves: one had come from

Germany, he said, and had cost ten English pounds … who

would believe that such a small piece of wood could cost so

much? For a moment I was afraid he might launch into the

origin and price of every whatnot in the room (it would take

hours) but fortunately the servant arrived with tea. Hamza sat

down beside Jabbar again, and we were presented not with the

strong tea of the tribe, but with an imitation of English

afternoon tea, lukewarm and filled with canned milk and

sugar.

A second servant brought in a large silver tray which was

encrusted with baroque silver leaves. Hamza told me proudly

it was a French antique tray; it may have been. Plates of tinned

biscuits and pastries were passed around, and a huge bakery

cake, complete with garlands and rosebuds of pink icing, was

set down, together with a silver cake knife, in the center of the

biggest coffee table. The tinned biscuits tasted like tinned

biscuits, but the pastries were stale and hard, at least a week

old, bought no doubt when Hamza was last in Baghdad. Even

Jabbar, I noticed, waited until Hamza left the room for a

moment and then surreptitiously wrapped his inedible pastry

in a handkerchief for later disposal. While Hamza was out, I

broached the subject of the cake. “Shall I cut it?” I asked.

Jabbar laughed, almost gleefully. “You can’t,” he said.

“I can’t! Why not?”

He laughed again.

“It’s made of plaster,” he said, lowering his voice at the

sound of approaching footsteps. “He just keeps it for show,

and serves it to all his guests.”

I opened and shut my mouth in amazement, and looked

hard at the cake. Perhaps the pink rosebuds were a little dusty,

but … I restrained a giggle in time to refuse a second cup of

milk-sugar-tea.

Hamza was trying out his twenty-five-word English

vocabulary on us. This was good for perhaps ten minutes of

questions and answers.

“You visit Iraq for the first time?”

“Yes.”

“How you find the weather in Iraq?”

“It’s very nice.”

“How is the weather in America?”

“Hot in the south, cold in the north, like Iraq.”

“Did you visit Hollywood?”

“No.”

“Is the weather hot in Hollywood?”

“Sometimes hot, sometimes cold.”

“Do you see Marilyn Monroe?”

“No.”

After this effort, Hamza lapsed into Arabic with Jabbar and

I continued my fascinated inventory of the room. The whatnot

shelves held, among other things, two pink-and-gilt

cornucopia vases filled with bright paper flowers; Toby mugs

from England; a Kewpie doll; a miniature German beer stein

with a pewter cover; and several figurines (the shepherd

embraces the shepherdess in baby-blue china; the Chinese

man balances his eternal water buckets in red-and-black

lacquer).

On the mantelpiece of the artificial fireplace stood, reflected

in an oval gold-framed mirror, a full-size Coca-Cola

advertisement (a girl in white shorts and sailor blouse lounged

beside a bright blue sea and smiled before the pause that

refreshes), a fine Turkish silver coffee service, a painted

plaster Dutch girl, and two glass candlesticks. In one

candlestick stood a red twisted candle; in the other a green

twisted candle; “Merry Christmas” was spelled out on each

candle in vertical gold paper letters.

All of the end tables were covered with antimacassars,

which were in turn covered with glass ash trays, brass ash

trays, silver ash trays and vases stuffed with real overblown

roses. The central coffee table, its three black legs supporting

an enormous abstract kidney, held, in addition to the plaster

cake, Hamza’s favorite treasures: a Persian miniature on

ivory, a beautiful inlaid Damascene cigarette box, and an

enormous music box upholstered in pink silk. At the touch of

a button on the music box a ballerina doll sprang up from a

hidden recess and pirouetted, round and round, to the strains

of “Tales From the Vienna Woods.” Hamza pointed out the

largest object on the table, a silver and gold globe, as big as a

basketball. He pressed another button, and I started in fright.

The world split open and cigarettes sprang out at us in all

directions.

That was enough. I leaned back and nibbled a last tinned

biscuit. Hamza thought I was bored and immediately

suggested a tour of the house and gardens. We rose politely

and followed him, tailed by the young son, still goggle-eyed. I

decided privately that the boy must be not quite bright.

The gardens were lovely. Carefully tended rosebushes were

in bloom, filling the air with fragrance. The grass was freshly

watered and lush green, and rows of lemon and orange trees

shook their leaves in the late afternoon breeze. At the edge of

the gardens we could see the fields of green barley ripening in

the gentle winter sun, stretching away as far as we could see to

the edge of a palm grove. Small groups of Bedouin tents

dotted the landscape and a man on a donkey, making his

solitary way home, disappeared from sight as we watched. A

flock of black-and-white crows rose, calling to each other

from the tall grain. The sun had begun to set. I said to Hamza

in all sincerity that with such a lovely scene to look upon

every night, I thought he would never want to leave his house

and go back to Baghdad. Jabbar agreed, pointing to the pale

colors of the sky as the sunlight faded from the flat land land

the dark palms, and said the country was very beautiful to

him. Hamza seemed at a loss for words; after a moment he

said he was lonely and bored in the house, and would leave

again soon. We returned to the porch and sat on a lawn swing.

As the twilight deepened, a faint trilling note came to us, and,

as we waited, breathless, the full-throated song of a

nightingale. It was a mournful song, clear and sweet in the

quiet air. I had never heard a nightingale before, and was just

deciding that I had been too harsh in my private judgments of

Hamza’s taste when a blast of music from the special

combination record player drowned out the unseen bird.

“Mambo Italiano!” screeched a sugary male Latin voice.

Hamza chuckled with pleasure. “My son knows that we like

music,” he explained.

After “Mambo Italiano” we heard Elvis Presley on two

badly cracked records; at the earsplitting volume Hamza’s son

had set, each nick in the face of the record grated doubly on

our hearing. When Elvis Presley was finished, we heard

“Mambo Italiano” again.

In half an hour we finally did accept a drink from Hamza.

Anything to dull the noise, I thought, and asked for beer,

which came with dishes of Greek olives, pistachio nuts, and

canned English vegetable salad. At 7 P.M., starving and

exhausted, we were summoned to lunch, five hours after we

had arrived.

Hamza had spread his resources lavishly for us. I counted

forty-three separate dishes of food on the table, centered by a

whole roasted lamb. Unfortunately none of it was very good,

and all of it was cold, the rice, the tomato sauce, even the

good lamb meat clammy with a film of congealed grease. I

was glad I was a woman then, for the delicacies of the table

(sheep’s eyes, roasted to lumps of fat) went to Bob and Jabbar.

We picked at our food, doing our best, but it was heavy going.

The cornstarch pudding was tinted bright pink and had the

consistency of rapidly drying plaster. I barely got it down.

After our meal we returned to the living room, and as we

sipped our coffee a sudden rainstorm burst around us. For

fully two hours the rain poured down in sheets, and Jabbar

looked worried. He told Bob in English that we could not

leave until at least an hour after it stopped raining, for even

with four-wheel drive we would not get farther than half a

mile in the mucky fields. Of course, he added slyly, we could

always spend the night at Hamza’s. Spend the night? I looked

in consternation at Bob, who was not too pleased at the

prospect either. Hamza responded nobly to the sound of rain

outside by turning on the record player again. We sat

doggedly listening to “Mambo Italiano” and Elvis Presley

over and over again until finally the rain let up.

At eleven o’clock Jabbar decided it might be worth trying

the road. Hamza said he would send four men to ride in the

back of the car and help us if we got stuck. Bob protested but

Jabbar said he thought it was a good idea.

Hamza and his son stood at the door, bidding us a flowery

farewell. We thanked them and shut the door of the Land-

Rover. The four retainers, with rifles cocked, climbed into the

back.

“Why do they bring their rifles?” I asked.

“Well,” said Jabbar, “Hamza is not too popular with his

fellahin, as I’m sure you can imagine. He sent the men along

to help us out of the mud, but also he is taking no chances that

someone might attack us.”

“Surely that’s not even a possibility,” said Bob.

“You never know,” answered Jabbar. “The share of the crop

which the fellahin take is very small. Hamza gets the rest.”

We inched through the mud in silence, for the presence of

the four armed men in the back had dampened our

conversational spirits. After two hours we reached the

crossing to Suffra, and here we stopped, the men dismounted,

said “God be with you,” and turned to tramp home the ten

miles through the muddy night.

“Thank you. God be with you,” shouted Jabbar after them,

and we started on again.

After perhaps another half hour Jabbar spoke.

“You mustn’t think too harshly of Hamza,” he said. “Oh, of

course he wanted to see your wife—she is the only Western

woman who has come into this area in years—but more than

that, he probably was ashamed of his women’s quarters. He

wanted to entertain you in style, as he thinks Westerners

entertain, and so he brought you to his house, to offer you the

best he had. It’s a compliment, in a way”

“He certainly was generous,” admitted Bob.

“And Hamza is not really an evil man,” continued Jabbar.

“He is not like the sheiks on the Tigris who beat their fellahin

and imprison them and treat them no better than pack animals.

Hamza is just stupid.

“Yet,” went on Jabbar, “because of his stupidity, many

people are starving. No,” he added, almost to himself, “it is

not right. He must go, like all the others ”

“But what about men like Sheik Hamid?” argued Bob.

“They fulfill their tribal duties, they are hard-working and

conscientious, they take only a fair share of the crop.”

Jabbar was quiet for a moment. “Sheik Hamid is different, I

agree,” he said. “A hundred, even twenty years ago, he had a

place, but not now. It is too bad, really; Sheik Hamid will fight

in all sincerity because he feels he is right, and that sheiks and

tribes are still important. He really believes that, you know.

And when the revolution comes he will be hurt; he will never

recover. I am sorry about men like Sheik Hamid. But

Hamza”—he snapped his fingers in the air—“he will just run

away and never understand what happened to him—if he gets

away, that is.”

And we were all silent, thinking of the foolish Hamza and

his goggle-eyed son, his trick cigarette holders and Persian

carpets, his plaster cake and his beautiful nightingale.

8

I Meet the Sheik

A week later I was presented to Sheik Hamid. The day after

we returned from our visit to Hamza, Bob went up to the

mudhif and invited the sheik to lunch. He accepted, and said

his brother Abdulla and his oldest son Nour would accompany

him. We decided that after lunch I would, minus my abayah,

serve the tea; at that point I would be introduced, and the

meeting would take place in our own house and on our own

terms.

We were both extremely apprehensive about the lunch. It

was the first time we had entertained our host, and we wanted

to do it well. For days beforehand we discussed what might be

appropriate to serve; finally I drew up a menu which Bob

liked, and submitted it to Mohammed for his approval. He

made only one change. “Five chickens would be better than

three,” he said. “After all, it is Haji Hamid who is coming.”

And this is what we had:

Chicken and Noodle Soup

Grilled Kebab Beef in Spiced Tomato Sauce

Lamb cooked with Beans and Onions and Fresh Dill

Whole Roast Chickens (2)

Fried Chickens, American Style (3)

Caucasian Rice (with raisins, almonds, onions,

chicken livers, butter and saffron)

Eggplant in Meat Sauce Sliced Tomato Salad

Yogurt Khubuz (flat wheat bread)

Homemade Western Bread

Butter and Jam

Strawberry Jello Caramel Custard

Spongecake Cookies

Fresh Fruit (Bananas and Oranges)

Tea Coffee

We wanted to provide enough food to honor the sheik in

traditional fashion, yet no more than he might provide for us if

the situation were reversed. I wanted to prove, egotistically

enough, that I could cook. Mohammed simply wanted, I think,

not to be ashamed of us.

So for three days we prepared for the feast. The chickens

and butter were ordered, and Mohammed’s mother offered to

make the khubuz and send it over hot, just before lunch.

Mohammed visited four food stalls in the market to find

amber rice. I baked bread, cake, cookies, made the desserts

and the yogurt. Bob picked out the fruit himself, piece by

piece, and Mohammed bargained for it. The night before, all

three of us were in a state of nervous exhaustion.

The day of the lunch I was up at six, for there were many

dishes to cook, and I had only two kerosene burners and the

camp stove on which to work. Mohammed arrived at eight,

and Bob fussed around the kitchen, watching us cut up the

onions and the meat, fry the almonds and raisins and chicken

livers in butter, and pound the spices. He kept going out and

coming back, and made our feverish preparations no better by

telling us that everyone in the settlement was aware that the

sheik was lunching with us that day. “An hour after he leaves,

every house will know exactly what we served them,” he said.

“So it better be good.” I nearly lost my temper at that point,

but Mohammed merely looked around him at the pots boiling

on all the burners, at the cut-up vegetables, the fruit, and the

sweets which lay piled on the kitchen table, and then looked

calmly at Bob. “There is a great deal of food here,” he said.

Bob repented, and offered to make amends by cutting up the

raw chickens, cleaned and plucked the day before by

Mohammed, into American-style pieces. Mohammed thought

this amusing but said it was not a bad idea, since it would

make the chickens easier to eat.

The men were due at one and I felt I must produce the food

fifteen minutes later, no more, no less. At 12 the camp stove

sputtered out of gas; Bob was already at the mudhif, waiting

to accompany the men personally to the house. Mohammed

was making salad, but he dropped everything and ran to the

market for gas.

At 12:45 Mohammed asked me for the tray.

“What tray?” I said.

“The big tray for serving,” he answered, and explained that

he should carry in all the food at once, in order to make the

best possible impression.

“I don’t have a tray like that,” I confessed, panic-stricken.

“Never mind,” said Mohammed, and ran out again,

returning with an enormous tin tray like the one Ali had

brought my first day in the village. “My mother’s cousin’s,”

he explained, and sat down on the floor to scour it. I noticed

he had put on a clean dishdasha while he was at home, and

that his kaffiyeh was freshly pressed.

I heard the gate open, and knew that the guests had arrived.

Bob almost immediately came into the kitchen to check on the

progress of our preparations, and, seeing Mohammed down on

the floor scouring the tray, looked quite cross.

“Why didn’t he do that before?” he asked. “It’s one o’clock.

They’re here. We have to eat.”

I explained. Mohammed, who had not understood what we

had said, must have caught the tone. He suggested that it

would be better if Bob did not leave our esteemed guests alone

in the other room. Bob went.

Then Mohammed and I dished up the food, the chicken, the

kebab, the meat dishes, the vegetables and salad and yogurt.

Abad, his younger brother, appeared at the back door with the

bread, still hot from the family oven. I began to spoon the rice

out onto a platter, but Mohammed said he would do it, and

proceeded to pack the rice down carefully so as to cover the

entire platter with a neat mound, saving a few of the nuts and

raisins and the crisp butter crust from the bottom of the pan to

decorate the top. He looked quite pleased with his handiwork.

We piled the platters, twelve of them, onto the tray.

Mohammed mopped his brow, readjusted his headdress, then

lifted the heavy, steaming tray to his shoulder and set out for

the other room.

I sat down in the kitchen. The first part of my job was over.

I listened carefully for voices from the living room which

might indicate how the whole thing was going. After an

interminable quarter of an hour, Mohammed came back.

“They are eating a lot,” he said. “The rice is all right.”

He looked as relieved as though he had cooked it himself.

He carefully mopped his brow again, before returning to the

living room to stand by in case he was needed. This was the

signal for me to lock the door, change into my brown wool

dress, and put on lipstick and earrings and my Baghdadi gold

bracelet in honor of the guests I was about to meet.

Mohammed knocked, and I opened the door so he could

bring in the tray of leftover food. I looked carefully at the

dishes; the rice had indeed been a success. I had cooked

enough, I thought, for fifteen people, and almost half of it was

gone. The men had also seemed to enjoy the soup, the

chickens (their plates were piled with bones) and the meat

with tomato and spices. The eggplant and bean dishes had not

been so popular.

Now for dessert! The tray of sweets looked quite attractive,

I thought; Mohammed must have thought so too, for he went

out to the garden and brought back a rose to stick into the

spongecake. At that I was impressed. Mohammed shouldered

the tray again, actually smiling as he went out.

Ten minutes passed before dessert was polished off.

Mohammed came back with the partially eaten food. He

would brew the tea now, he said—he knew exactly how the

sheik liked it, with a bit of cardamom seed. I was glad to turn

over this responsibility to him, for I found, as my meeting

with Hamid approached, that I was as nervous as an

adolescent debutante at her coming-out ball. I combed my hair

for the fourth time and adjusted the earrings again. Bob came

into the kitchen, looking quite pleased, saying the food had

been good. “It’s almost time,” he said in a tone usually

reserved for missile firings and atomic-bomb explosions.

Mohammed was carefully placing three spoonfuls, of sugar

in each tiny glass, then he poured the tea—strong enough to

float an egg, I thought, but it did emit a fine odor of

cardamom, “Come on,” said Bob. “Wait two minutes after I

leave, and then bring in the tea.” I did, wondering idiotically,

as I traversed the short mud path from the kitchen to the living

room, whether or not my stocking seams were straight.

I went in, my eyes cast down, less from modesty than from

simple unadulterated stage fright. The men said good

afternoon. I replied nervously, my voice cracking foolishly. I

passed the tea around, somewhat shakily, and set down the

tray. Then Bob introduced me formally and I shook hands

with the three men, drew up a chair into the circle, and looked

directly at my distinguished guests for the first time.

Sheik Hamid Abdul Emir el Hussein, honored with the title

El Haji because he had made the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca,

returned my gaze. I cannot say exactly what I had expected

this man to be like, whose lineage was one of the oldest and

purest in southern Arabia and whose position had become

synonymous in my world with romance, wanderlust, and

mystery. But I didn’t expect him to be quite so solid and

dignified, exuding an air of middle-aged respectability and

authority.

Sheik Hamid was a big man, portly but erect; his gray

mustache was clipped, and his steel-rimmed glasses sat

squarely on his nose. Superficially he resembled Sheik

Hamza, in his sober well-tailored brown robes, British shoes,

gold signet ring and wrist watch, fingering his string of amber

worry beads. But there the resemblance ended; where Hamza

shambled and goggled, Sheik Hamid was direct and

businesslike. Seated firmly in his chair like a man who is

reasonably successful and content with life, he regarded me in

a forthright fashion, smiled and inquired briskly about my

family. Was my father well? I replied that my father had been

dead for many years. The guests clucked sympathetically, and

the sheik’s brother Abdulla said that it was difficult for a

family when the father died. Was my mother well? Yes, I said,

and turned toward Abdulla, a tall spare man with finely drawn

features and deep-set eyes. He was murmuring condolences

about my father, and as I listened to the mellifluous Arabic

words, rounding and joining in a harmonious pattern, I lost

some of my nervousness in the beauty of the language spoken

so well by this gentleman.

Abdulla asked me if we were comfortable in El Nahra, and

I said yes. Sheik Hamid said we were welcome to stay as long

as we liked, that his house was our house, and his belongings

ours. I knew these were the customary sentiments, uttered to

every guest, but he said them sincerely and I believed him.

Then Nour, his son, said something to his father in an

undertone; I wondered why he had not participated in the

conversation, and then I remembered Bob’s saying that when

a son, whatever his age, was in the presence of his father, he

always deferred to him and did not speak until he was spoken

to.

The sheik listened to Nour’s whisper and then said to me,

“Is there anything you need for your house that we might

provide?”

“No, no,” I protested. “We are grateful for what you have

done already. Thank you very much.”

We spoke of the weather, and Sheik Hamid and Abdulla

and Bob discussed the condition of the crops. I brought in

another tray of tea. Bob passed around cigarettes. Abdulla and

Nour took one, but Sheik Hamid did not.

“You do not smoke?” said Sheik Hamid to me.

“No,” I replied.

“It is better for a woman if she does not smoke,” remarked

Abdulla.

I smiled politely. He was paying me a compliment, I knew,

but since I was not certain how to respond, I kept silent. My

part of the conversation was apparently over and I looked at

Bob, trying to convey that I felt it was time for me to leave; he

understood and nodded.

I rose to collect the empty tea glasses, and asked the men if

they would drink another tea. They refused, as is customary

when food or drink is offered for the first time. Bob pressed

them to have more, which is also customary, and Sheik Hamid

said no, the tea was very good, but he had had enough. Once

more Bob offered it, and they still refused; this was a sign they

really did not want any more tea!

“You must excuse me. I have work in the house,” I said.

Sheik Hamid chuckled, but the chuckle had no edge of

salaciousness about it, as Hamza’s had. It was an extremely

fatherly chuckle.

I bade them farewell, apologizing for not shaking hands, for

I was carrying the tray.

“You must always visit my family,” said Sheik Hamid, and

Abdulla repeated the sentiment.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” I replied, and Bob held the screen door

open for me as I departed.

When I got to the kitchen, I found I was perspiring from a

combination of nervousness and relief. Mohammed was down

on the floor washing the dishes, for he had gone home during

the tea drinking and changed into his old dishdasha. The clean

kaffiyeh was draped over a chair.

I told Mohammed how good the bread had been which his

mother had sent, and he nodded, saying that his mother always

made good bread. Sometime, he added, he would bring me

khubuz laham, a special bread in which tiny cubes of cooked

meat and onions and chopped celery leaves were added to the

dough before the bread was baked. I began to put away the

leftover food and tidy the kitchen, and the piles of plates and

greasy pots were diminishing as Mohammed worked steadily.

I felt let down and disappointed. I suppose I had expected

Mohammed to comment enthusiastically on the excellence of

each dish which we had presented for the sheik’s pleasure. He

didn’t. No one ever did such a thing, I found out later. If the

food was good, it was obvious; people ate it, and there was

little of it left. Why should one talk about it? I half realized

this, even at the time, but I needed reassurance.

Finally we heard the men leaving, Bob walking to the gate

with them, and then the sound of his footsteps running back

up the path. He burst into the kitchen quite jubilantly.

“The food was good, B.J.,” he announced, “and what

impressed them even more was that you cooked that dinner all

by yourself.”

“Mohammed helped, you know.”

“Yes, but Sheik Hamid said it would have taken seven or

eight women in his house to produce that much food. He was

quite struck by your industry.”

“Let’s hope he mentions it to his women,” I replied.

“Maybe they will begin to think I’m good for something.”

“Well, they’ll hear it one way or another,” said Bob. He

stopped and considered.

“I think the whole thing went off all right, don’t you?” he

asked, and we sat down to review, play by play, the incidents

of the great occasion. We were very pleased with ourselves.

Mohammed continued to wash dishes, glancing up at us only

occasionally with what I thought was an indulgent smile.

PART II

9

Ramadan

Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting and penitence, fell in

April that year. We had been well briefed about Ramadan by

our friends in El Nahra, who described the strict fast—no

food, water or cigarettes from sunup to sundown. After the

breaking of the fast, regular religious readings (krayas) were

held, conducted by mullahs, men and women religious

teachers who served the segregated sexes. Gay evenings of

visiting, socializing and tea drinking inevitably followed the

krayas and the long days of abstinence. This year particularly,

people welcomed Ramadan, for it was to come in a relatively

cool month. As the lunar calendar, by which the Islamic feasts

are calculated, moves forward through the seasons, Ramadan

falls at a different time each year. When it comes in the

summer, in the turning heat of July or August, it is a great

hardship on the faithful fellahin who must work all day in the

fields without a drink of water or a mouthful of food. Many of

the old and sick die during a summer Ramadan, but if this

happens, the souls are assured of immediate entrance to

heaven, for death has occurred when the believer was fasting

and hence in a state of grace.

The beginning of Ramadan is marked by the appearance of

the new moon. The mullahs in the holy shrines of

Khadhimain, Najaf and Karbala watch the sky for several

days, and when the chief mullah announces that he has indeed

seen the crescent moon, however briefly, the beginning of the

month is officially declared from the minarets of the mosques.

The news travels quickly by radio, by taxi and horseback

throughout the surrounding countryside.

Two nights in a row Mohammed came with the evening jug

of water to announce that he thought Ramadan would begin

the next day; two mornings he appeared to say he had been

mistaken. The third night the skies opened and it poured. Bob

and I had considered waiting up to see if the new moon really

would appear, but the rain discouraged us and we went to bed

early.

In the middle of the night our doorbell began to ring. I

heard it first, an insistent buzzing that went on and on, audible

over the steady beat of the rain on the roof. I woke Bob. Who

could be at the door at this hour? The bell went on buzzing. It

was an eerie sound at three in the morning, in the darkness and

the rain. Finally Bob got up, slipped on rubbers and a raincoat

and went to investigate. No one was there, but the bell

continued to buzz. After standing in the garden for a few

minutes listening to the noise, Bob suddenly realized that the

rain had short-circuited the bell. He tried to fix it and failed,

and finally, drenched and furious, he simply ripped out the

connection. The bell stopped ringing. He dried himself off and

got back into bed, grumbling and annoyed. We fell asleep

almost at once. Perhaps a half hour later we were startled

awake by a thunderous noise of drum beats, rifle shots, shouts

and a loud knocking on the door. Bob sat bolt upright in bed.

“Don’t go out there,” I suggested, quite frightened.

Bob deliberated for a moment. He too had been startled by

the unaccustomed noises and also had just spent fifteen

minutes in the muck trying to disconnect the doorbell, but

finally he put on his wet raincoat and rubbers again. At the

door he paused, rummaged in the cupboard until he found a

hammer, and headed out.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Well,” he smiled sheepishly, and I realized he was

probably a bit uncertain about what he might find. We had no

weapon in the house.

Out he slogged into the pouring rain, while I sat in bed

shivering, hugging the blankets around me, and listening for

telltale sounds. The knocking had stopped, but the rifle shots

continued and the drum beating became even louder.

In five minutes he was back, laughing. He tossed the

hammer on the table. “What is it?” I asked, but he sat at the

table while the water dripped down his face, and laughed and

laughed.

“It’s Ramadan,” he announced. “The mullah must have

seen the new moon, and the old man up the alley is making

sure that everyone knows it.”

“But why the knocking on our door?” I persisted.

“He’s knocking on every door,” Bob answered, “to remind

the people to get up and eat breakfast before the sun rises.

He’s the neighborhood alarm clock.”

Bob dried himself once more and climbed into bed, still

smiling to himself. “You were really frightened, I think,” he

chided me.

“Well, what did you carry that hammer out for?” I answered

accusingly, and he laughed again. We fell asleep and didn’t

wake until Mohammed knocked on our door. It was half past

eight.

“It’s Ramadan,” announced Mohammed.

“Yes, we know,” said Bob.

Ramadan had been under way for a week when Mohammed

asked me if I would like to go to an evening kraya with his

sister Sherifa. It would be a big kraya, he said, held in the

house of a distant relative who lived on the other side of the

canal, with the ahl-es-suq, or people of the market. Bob had

already been to several krayas for men, and I was eager to go,

for the women talked about the krayas as great social as well

as religious events.

Fadhila, Sherifa and several younger girls came for me.

They were not wearing their face veils, which surprised me, as

I knew we would be crossing the bridge and passing the suq,

and the tribal women did not walk unveiled in that area.

However, I had underestimated their ingenuity. They did not

want, and did not need, to wear their face veils on the

settlement side of the canal, so they waited until we reached

the bridge before pausing to don their veils.

We crossed the bridge, turned right into an alley

immediately in order to avoid the suq, and again into still

another alley where we knocked on a dark door and were

admitted into a large courtyard. Electric lights were strung

along the mud walls which faced the court, illuminating the

scene of preparations for the kraya. The earth court was

carpeted, and mats were now being laid down in straight rows

and covered with white sheets for the expected guests. Two

women squatted in a far corner, filling with cigarettes a large

plastic box painted with colored flowers. Sherifa and Fadhila

went to the women and embraced them, kissing them on both

cheeks. I shook hands, we were offered cigarettes and then led

to a mat in the center of the court, near the chair where the

mullah was to sit. Fadhila told me she and Sherifa were placed

next to the mullah as a special honor, because they were

descendants of the Prophet.

Against one side of the court which lay in shadow stood a

rickety wooden bed where a woman lay, wrapped from head

to foot in her abayah. She occasionally shifted position and

moaned. Near the bed were five or six clay water jars, from

which the young girls of the household were filling small

aluminum bowls. These bowls of water were passed around,

with the cigarettes, to the growing number of guests.

The kraya, Sherifa said, would begin about half past eight.

It was still only seven-thirty, but fifteen or twenty women and

numerous children were already present. I had never seen any

of the women of ahl-es-suq before, the shopkeepers’ and

artisans’ wives, and I watched them as they filed in, greeted

friends, and kissed with deference the older women present.

Babies slept peacefully in their mothers’ arms, babies

wrapped in yards of white or printed flannelette, and the

toddlers sat quietly, cross-legged and solemn beside their

elders. Only one child was crying, its abnormally large head

lolling against its mother’s shoulder. She jostled it constantly,

but it continued to howl. No one else seemed to notice, for the

women were too busy talking to each other.

For the occasion, young and old had donned their best

black. There were some beautiful abayahs of heavy silk crepe,

and a few of the black head scarves were heavily fringed.

Many wore a wide-sleeved full net or sheer black dress, which

Sherifa identified as the hashmiya, the ceremonial gown worn

for krayas and similar religious services. Underneath was a

hint of color; as the women seated themselves cross-legged

and arranged their hashmiyas over their knees, bright satin

petticoats shimmered through the smoky net: green, blue, red.

They wore black stockings, and the rows of clogs left at the

door were almost all black.

This attractive yet austerely dressed company was suddenly

jolted by a new arrival, whose abayah had been pushed back

over her shoulder to reveal a sheer hashmiya surprisingly not

black, but green and white over yellow. Heavily made up, all

her bangles and necklaces jingling, the woman flounced in,

looking defiantly from side to side. The young girls gathered

around her to finger the material of the showy hashmiya, but

the conservative old matrons, without jewelry and without eye

make-up, continued to smoke or chat, not even lifting a

hennaed finger in her direction.

There was a stir: the mullah had arrived, a tall woman with

a hard, strong face, carrying worn copies of the Koran and her

own Book of Krayas. Everyone made way for her as she

strode across the court and seated herself ceremoniously in the

chair near us, the only chair in the room. Sherifa and Fadhila

rose to kiss her hand, and then she spied me and looked again,

narrowing her eyes. I nodded politely, not feeling that it was

appropriate for me to indulge in the customary hand kissing

since I was an unbeliever. She addressed a couple of questions

to me in a loud, shrill voice which I did not understand, but

the hostess stepped in and explained that I was the guest of the

El Eshadda; Sherifa added that I wanted to see a kraya and

they had invited me. The mullah nodded, said “Ahlan

wusahlan” perfunctorily and looked away. More women and

children were pouring into the court; we were forced to move

over and make room for two young women who were old

friends of Sherifa and Fadhila. The four of them chattered

together until the mullah interrupted rudely and asked Fadhila

if she was pregnant Fadhila said no.

“Why not?” demanded the mullah.

Fadhila, obviously stricken, murmured, “God knows best,”

in a low voice.

I thought it a cruel question, for Fadhila had been married

for seven years, and everyone in the village knew she was

barren.

Finally, when it seemed that not a single person more could

be jammed into the court, the mullah stood up and clapped her

hands to quiet the crowd. The two young women who sat near

us took their places on each side of her (they were novices, I

later found out, in training to be mullahs themselves) and the

kraya began.

The mullah sat down and the two young girls stood to lead

the congregation in a long, involved song with many

responses. Gradually the women began to beat their breasts

rhythmically, nodding their heads and beating in time to the

pulse of the song, and occasionally joining in the choruses, or

supplying spontaneous responses such as “A-hoo-ha!” or a

long-drawn-out “Ooooooh!” This phase lasted perhaps ten

minutes, the girls sank down into their places, and the mullah

arose to deliver a short sermon. She began retelling the story

of the killing and betrayal of the martyr Hussein, which is told

every night during Ramadan and is the beginning of the

important part of the kraya. At first two or three sobs could be

heard, then perhaps twenty women had covered their heads

with their abayahs and were weeping; in a few minutes the

whole crowd was crying and sobbing loudly. When the mullah

reached the most tragic parts of the story, she would stop and

lead the congregation in a group chant, which started low and

increased in volume until it reached the pitch of a full-fledged

wail. Then she would stop dead again, and the result would

be, by this time, a sincere sobbing and weeping as the women

broke down after the tension of the wail.

I sat silently, frozen by the intensity of it all, and hoping

that none of the women, and especially the mullah, would

notice that I was sitting without beating my breast, without

chanting or weeping—in fact without participating at all. I

contemplated throwing my abayah over my head, as all the

other women had done, so the hawk-eyed mullah would not be

able to tell whether I was crying or not, but by this time I

thought she was sufficiently carried away by the force of her

own words so that she wouldn’t have cared. I was right. Real

tears were coursing down that hard, shrewd face as she told,

for the hundred thousandth time probably, the story of the

death of the martyr.

Abruptly the weeping stopped, the women were drying their

eyes and everyone stood up. I nearly tripped and fell as I tried

to rise, for my abayah was caught under me and one leg had

fallen asleep in the cramped position in which I had been

sitting for the past hour. Sherifa caught my shoulder as I

stumbled—fortunately, for the mullah was beginning the third

stage of the kraya. Flanked by her two novices, she stood in

the center of the court rocking forward with her whole body at

each beat, slowly but regularly, until the crowds of women

formed concentric circles around her, and they too rocked in

unison, singing and beating their breasts. Three older women

joined the mullah in the center, throwing aside their chin veils

so they might slap their bared chests.

“A-hoo-ha!” sounded the responses.

All her veils flying as she rocked, the mullah struck her

book with her right hand to indicate a faster tempo, and the

novices clapped and watched to make sure that all were

following correctly. I shrank back out as the circles of women

began to move counterclockwise in a near-ceremonial dance.

A step to the left, accompanied by head-nodding, breast-

beating, the clapping of the novices, the slap of the mullah’s

hard hand against the book, and the responses of “A-hoo-ha!”

“Ya Hussein,” they cried. The mullah increased the tempo

again, the cries mounted in volume and intensity, the old

women in the center bobbed in time to the beat, there was a

loud slap against the Koran, a high long-drawn-out chant from

the mullah, and everyone stopped in her tracks. The three old

ladies who had bared their chests readjusted their veils, and

many of the women stood silently for a moment, their eyes

raised, their open hands held upward in an attitude of prayer

and supplication. But the mullah was already conferring with

her novices. The kraya was over.

The women began to stream out, smiling and chattering,

drawing their veils over their faces and bidding each other

good night. Sherifa was laughing with one of the novices.

Fadhila led me over to our hostess, where we sat down for a

final chat and cigarette before departing. It was hard to believe

that these decorous and dignified ladies were the same women

who, five minutes ago, had thrown themselves into a ritual of

sorrow for the martyr. I was quite overcome by the episode

and found it difficult to respond easily to the conversational

overtures being made by my hostess.

Finally we rose to go. It was ten o’clock. The old woman on

the bed in the corner, I noticed, had not stirred throughout the

whole ceremony. As we began to leave, a crowd of little girls

surrounded me, grabbed me, pulled my abayah apart to see my

dress and stared rudely into my face. “Haven’t you ever seen a

woman before?” asked the hostess, quite annoyed, trying to

hustle the children out, but they would not go. Sherifa tried to

push through, but the crowd of girls was too dense around me.

At this the mullah became enraged, and shoved her towering,

threatening figure through the crowd, setting on the little girls,

beating them with her fists and with the Koran and sending

them screaming and hollering, half in pain, half in excitement,

out into the night. I thanked her. The women also were

amused by this display of the mullah’s temper, and talked

about it on the way home, imitating to each other her gestures

with the Koran and laughing among themselves.

“Was the kraya good?” asked Sherifa.

“Oh, yes,” I said.

“This mullah is a strong one; she talks well,” she said

appreciatively, and I agreed.

Almost every evening during Ramadan I went to krayas—at

the sheik’s house, at Laila’s house, at Abdulla’s and

Mohammed’s. The tone of each kraya depended on the

personality of the mullah, but the basic ritual remained the

same: The latmya invocation with preliminary chant and

breast-beating; the sermon, different for each day of Ramadan,

but followed by the telling of Hussein’s betrayal (hadith); the

latmya again, at a faster pace, with the circles of women

moving together in strict tempo, the spontaneous cries and

wails, the profession of inspired penitence by the few women

who join the mullah in the inner circle and finally the da-a, or

moment of silence and prayer at the end. This final moment is

considered to be the climax of the kraya, I was told, for then,

in a state of purification, the women may ask great favors

from Allah and expect to have them granted. Often these

favors are requested conditionally. A woman may pray for a

son, and vow that if her prayer is granted, she will hold krayas

in her house during Ramadan for a stipulated number of years.

Such vows are sacred, and if for some reason the woman

cannot fulfill them, she may be released only by a gift to the

mosque or to the mullah.

The krayas are comparatively recent innovations into Shiite

ritual, dating from the sixteenth century, when the Ottoman

Turks conquered Mesopotamia and imposed their sometimes

harsh and unjust rule on the people of Iraq. The Turks were

Moslems, but Sunni Moslems; they were hated doubly by the

Shiites, as conquerors and as representatives of a rival sect.

The krayas had begun as protest, and as they gained in

popularity and acceptance throughout the Shiite world,

became the means by which the Shiites asserted their religious

differences from the Turks and, by implication, their

dissatisfaction with the Ottoman regime.

Today the krayas still provide religious fulfillment for both

men and women, and they also seem important as social

occasions in the lives of the women, who seldom congregate

in large groups. Women gather for two hours before a kraya is

scheduled to begin, and stay long after the mullah has

departed, talking and smoking. No refreshments other than

cigarettes are ever offered.

Women consider it a great honor to hold krayas in their

houses. Usually extra money is needed, to pay for the

cigarettes and to offer a gift to the mullah for her services, and

this money must either come out of the woman’s own savings

or be granted to her by her husband. Often the presents to the

mullahs are made in kind. Laila told me that they always gave

two chickens and a gallon can of clarified butter to the mullah

on the two great feasts, and in return the mullah would

officiate at several krayas, either during Ramadan or

Muharram. But Sherifa and Fadhila might ask the mullah to

come for nothing, for it is considered an honor for the mullah

to hold a kraya in the house of a Sayid.

Mullahs are not necessarily Sayids themselves. However,

the vocation of mullah is usually handed down within a

family. Widows, or young girls who do not expect to marry,

often choose to become mullahs. It is a highly esteemed

profession, and profitable as well—a gifted woman can

support an entire family.

Women mullahs receive their training from older mullahs in

their native villages, going regularly for lessons from the time

of puberty. They learn to read and write and recite the Koran,

they are instructed in the ritual of the krayas, and begin to

memorize the Koranic suras, the stories, the historical

background which they incorporate eventually into their own

Book of Krayas. An educated Shiite mullah has a

sophisticated and well-documented source book which she

uses to conduct her krayas. The tribal and village mullahs

depend on legend and oral tradition to supplement the

standard material employed in the sermons and rituals.

A Shiite friend of mine in Baghdad, a girl who was teaching

in the College of Liberal Arts, once told me that her sister

wanted very much to become a mullah, but their father would

not allow it. He felt first, that it was old-fashioned, and also,

with many educated Shiites, that such special vocations and

ceremonies accentuated and aggravated the differences among

the sects of Islam, and that only if the bitterness between

groups in the Arab world, and particularly religious groups,

could be dissipated would Arab unity be possible. My friend

agreed with her father, but she admitted that she still attended

krayas during Ramadan and Muharram.

Why did she go? The memories of childhood were still very

strong, she said, and she found the krayas a common meeting

ground for herself, estranged from the old ways, and her

sisters and cousins, who were still traditional. She enjoyed the

reading of the Koran which followed the krayas. Each of the

women present would take a turn at reading the suras, which

gave everyone an opportunity to participate personally in the

proceedings.

The krayas in El Nahra were not often followed by Koranic

readings, simply because most of the women could not read.

Only at Laila’s house, where the two middle girls, Laila and

Basima, were in the sixth class of the girls’ primary school,

did this take place. The women of the settlement told me that

the krayas at Laila’s house were always good, because of the

Koranic readings at the end. It was considered a great treat:

Basima would read, and Laila, and finally their mother, Um

Fatima, would take the Koran and read a few of the most

important suras. As a girl in her father’s house, Um Fatima

had been taught the rudiments of reading by a mullah, and she

still retained this limited ability. Laila was competent, but

Basima was better than either. More intelligent than Laila and

better educated than her mother, Basima seemed to sense the

power of the words she was reading. They were not just

groups of characters to her, and as she sat on the mat and read

sura after sura in a slow, expressive voice, women would

shake their heads, murmur to themselves, or raise their open

hands to heaven in the traditional gestures of supplication.

When she had finished, there would be a pause, a sort of hush

before the women sighed, gathered their abayahs around them,

and prepared to leave.

10

The Feast

Ramadan was drawing to a close, and the three-day Iid el-Fitr

(the feast of fast-breaking) drew near. This year the end of

Ramadan coincided with the winter harvest, so the festival

was to be celebrated in a season of plenty. Almost everyone

would be able to afford new clothes, traditional for the

occasion, and the three seamstresses in the settlement worked

far into the night.

For the three days of the Iid the sheik’s mudhif would be

the scene of tribal feasting. All members of the El Eshadda

were welcome, in fact expected, to visit the mudhif at least

once during the Iid as a tacit demonstration of their loyalty to

the sheik. Such large tribal gatherings took place only at this

Iid and the Iid el-Adha, which follows Muharram. But then

the men assembled, as they had in the past before wars and

raids of conquest, to sing old songs of the tribe, and, in the

measures of the ancient warriors’ dance or hosa, reiterate their

pride in the El Eshadda and its present chief. Climax of the

gathering was an enormous noonday meal in the mudhif,

provided by the sheik with the aid of contributions from other

tribesmen.

The banquet, for from 200 to 800 men, was prepared by the

women of the sheik’s house, assisted by the daughters and

wives and servants of his brothers. The women talked of

nothing else for weeks beforehand, and when the first day of

the feast dawned, I hurried up to the compound to see what

was happening.

Inside the mud walls the women were already at work, but

they rose to greet me, and we shook hands and exchanged the

salutations of the day, “Ayyamak sa’ida [May this day be

happy for you].” Hard candies were offered and kolaicha, the

sweet cakes of sugar, oil, barley flour and cardamom seed

made especially for the Iid.

“Come up above, we can see better from there,” said Laila,

leading me up a narrow stair to the wide roof covering one

end of the compound which had been used as an observation

post when the house had been a fortress. From the low

battlements we could view discreetly the increasing activity

around the mudhif. The clearing was just beginning to fill with

men, and servants hurried about, filling the animal troughs

with water and stacking freshly cut grass into piles for the

visitors’ horses. A thin ribbon of smoke spiraled from the

mudhif entrance, signal that the coffeemaker, freed grandson

of a Negro slave, was roasting beans over charcoal.

Since early morning tribesmen had been arriving from

outlying clan settlements. Even now, from the roof we could

see several small figures of horsemen on the flat horizon,

outlined against the bright blue sky. They gradually assumed

shape as they approached in twos and threes, and we could see

the men’s abas and kaffiyehs billowing behind them in the

light breeze, and their saddle buckles glinting in the morning

sun. Then there was a pause as the horses were hidden in the

shady palm grove, a sudden clatter of hoofs as they burst out

of the grove onto the hard-packed silt of the clearing, and

shouts of recognition as the men dismounted, tied their horses

and turned to greet the sheik, who was seated ceremoniously

on a pillow just inside the entrance. Bright rugs had been laid

on the floor next to the arched walls of the mudhif, and here

the men took their places after exchanging traditional

greetings with the sheik and the men already present. The

coffeemaker brought them a sip of bitter coffee in a tiny china

cup; they drank the coffee, and the arrival was officially over;

the men settled themselves for low-voiced conversation with

their fellow tribesmen, some of whom they might see only on

these occasions.

Laila was very excited, and pointed out individuals to me—

Hikmat, her mother’s cousin from the El Jurayd clan; two

brothers of Sheik Hamid’s first wife; a gray-bearded man

riding up with his three sons, the subchief of one of the

original clans of the El Eshadda. There also, said Laila, was

Sayid Muhsen, descendant of a Persian family which had

settled in the El Eshadda area a hundred years ago. Sayid

Muhsen was well known for his progressive ideas. I

remembered that Bob had told me Muhsen had built a school

in his little settlement of fifty families and had gone to

Baghdad to beg a teacher from the Ministry of Education. It

was rumored that the girls and boys of the settlement attended

school together, which was almost unheard of in the Diwaniya

area. There—Laila paused—yes, she said, it was Urthman,

one of the estranged uncles of the sheik. The quarrel over the

succession to the sheikship still smoldered between the two

men, but on feast days Urthman came to say his salaams to

Hamid. Laila predicted, however, that Urthman would not stay

to lunch.

The crowd was growing, augmented by the men of our

settlement, who were emerging from the houses along the path

in new white dishdashas and freshly pressed abas. Boys and

girls dashed round the clearing, excited by the activities of the

festal day and dazzled by their own sartorial splendor, the new

sandals or tennis shoes, the girls in bright dresses, the boys in

striped dishdashas. They ran between the women’s quarters

and the mudhif, bearing messages in both directions.

“Haji wants tea now for him and three guests,” announced

Abbas, second son of Selma.

“Yes, yes,” answered Selma, preoccupied with the rice

paste she was patting into shape for kubbas.

“Now, Mother,” insisted Abbas.

“Who are the guests?” Selma wanted to know.

Abbas listed them, and within a few minutes every woman

in the compound knew that the mayor, the engineer and a

visitor from Diwaniya had come to pay their respects to the

sheik.

The women had been at work since five o’clock, but now at

ten, instead of losing heart at the prospect of the 300 lunches

to be served hot at noon, they were gayer than ever. Even

Kulthum who, as senior wife, was supervising the

preparations with seriousness and dispatch, paused in her

work to exclaim in surprise when told that Urthman had

arrived and might stay to lunch. Laila translated, telling me

Kulthum had remarked acidly that Urthman’s winter harvest

must not be too good if he found it necessary to cadge a free

meal from the nephew whom he cursed in every coffee shop

in the vicinity. But I gathered from the tone of the laughter

and the blushes on the sheik’s daughters’ faces that Kulthum’s

comment had been a good deal more pungent than that.

For the feast, a cow and five full-grown sheep had been

killed; Laila took me to the slaughterhouse behind the

women’s quarters where Abu Selman, the sheik’s official

butcher, had ceremoniously slit the throats of the animals and

murmured the customary blessing over them. Abu Selman was

now skinning the carcasses and removing the entrails. The

kidneys, liver, heart and brains were set aside for special

dishes; the head, stomach and feet of three of the sheep were

turned over to the sheik’s daughter Samira, who would clean

them and make them into patcha, a local delicacy. The other

two sheep were to be roasted whole over a charcoal spit and

the eyes and ears offered as treats to the most honored guests.

Abu Selman chopped the carcasses into great chunks and his

son carried them on tin trays to Kulthum, who waited with her

sharpened knife to cut the mutton and beef into still smaller

pieces. The piles of fresh slippery meat were washed and

washed under the water tap, then went into salted water to be

boiled until tender over fires of dried palm fronds that were

blazing all over the eastern corner of the court. This boiled

meat and its broth, together with bowls of vegetable stew,

mounds of rice and piles of wheat bread, formed the meal

which would be served to the tribesmen.

The sun climbed higher, and the heat from the fires added

to the general discomfort; the women were sweating profusely

through their black garments. In one corner the sheik’s

daughters and their cousins were peeling squash, chopping

spinach and cutting up onions and tomatoes for the vegetable

stew, to be flavored with a bit of fat meat, garlic, salt, celery

leaves and raw ground turmeric. Three women were mixing

and patting barley dough into flat loaves; a small girl sat

brushing the flies away from rows of plates of cornstarch

pudding.

“More fuel, Amina,” called Kulthum. “Samira! Sabiha!”

Armloads of small sticks and fronds were brought and Amina

stoked the open fires.

“Here, too,” Alwiyah shouted. She stood at the door of the

kitchen, wiping her eyes with her foota while smoke billowed

white around her. “Quickly, Amina, hurry.”

“Yes, yes,” muttered Amina, depositing more fuel at the

door.

“No, inside,” and Alwiyah gave her a good-natured push.

Grumbling, Amina entered, dropped the fuel and

reappeared wiping her eyes.

“It’s hot as hell in there!” she announced to the whole court,

and everyone laughed as she elbowed Alwiyah and then ran

like a naughty child from the sheik’s daughter’s outraged

dignity.

“What are you cooking?” I asked Alwiyah, and she showed

me into the kitchen, a long mud-brick room without smoke

holes, where six or eight women were stirring and tending

enormous pots cooking on open fires. The smoke hung in the

room like dense fog, and the women would stir for a few

moments, then walk to the door to wipe their streaming eyes

and mop their sweat-streaked faces. Yet they laughed as they

did so.

“These are the dishes for the sheik and the special guests,”

Alwiyah said. This explained the women’s good nature

despite the heat and smoke. They had been chosen as the best

cooks, to prepare food for Haji’s tray.

“Don’t stay in here, Beeja—it’s too hot,” warned Alwiyah

with a hand on my shoulder. But I wanted to see the food, so

the pots were uncovered one by one: ground liver stewed with

tomatoes, kubba, fried eggplant, patcha, saffron rice. Four

chickens were being grilled over charcpal in the bank of round

brick ovens along one side of the kitchen.

“Beeja, the hosa is beginning. Come on,” called Laila.

Bob had told me to watch for the hosa, which in the past

was always performed before the tribe went to war or set out

on foraging raids into the desert. Now it served as a rally of

support for the tribe and for its leader, reviving memories of

the El Eshaddas’ exploits and inspiring tribal pride in their

collective glory.

“Come quickly,” said Laila, and we hurried up to the roof

again. The crowd was backing away from the front of the

mudhif, leaving an open space for young tribesmen with rifles

held high to assemble in a circle. The sheik stood near the

entrance, the proper position for him during the songs of the

hosa, which praised him and his lineage. Bob, I saw, stood

beside the sheik.

The circle of tribesmen were shuffling slowly to the right,

while one recited a rhymed poem in a high singsong voice.

This was greeted by shouts of approval; the moving circle

repeated the poem and added a refrain before stopping to fire

guns into the air. With a shout from the audience, the cadence

was resumed; another tribesman offered a poem, the circle

moved and chanted to the refrain and the hosa was on in

earnest.

“Hikmat is saying a verse about what a brave warrior

Hamid’s father was against the British,” Laila told me.

Then came a loud paean to Hamid himself, “A great

politician, a generous man,” repeated Laila. The circle moved

faster and faster, and the figures were nearly obliterated in

clouds of dust raised by the shuffling men. One man and then

another, exhausted by their exertions in the hot sun, dropped

out of the circle and others took their places. As enthusiasm

mounted, more tribesmen offered spur-of-the-moment poems

and these were greeted by louder and louder shouts of

approval. The staccato sound of rifle shots reverberated

around us, and the verses came so quickly it was difficult to

hear anything above the shouts and rifle fire. But I was almost

certain I had heard some words in English, repeated over and

over.

“What is that?” I asked Laila.

“Oh, that is an old poem,” she said. “ ‘Elizabeth, great

queen Elizabeth, you were always our friend before, why did

you desert us in Palestine?’ ”

The women were calling us down to help load trays, for the

sheik had ordered the food. Then we mounted the roof again,

and as the first line of men servants emerged from the

women’s quarters, bearing large trays of steaming rice on their

heads and followed by small boys carrying the plates of stew,

the hosa stopped. The men fired one last barrage of rifle shots

and disappeared into the shadows of the mudhif. Lunch was

served.

None of the visiting tribesmen had brought his family with

him, but one very old and poor woman had come with her son

and was eating with the oldest inhabitant of the women’s

quarters, a crippled and half-blind wife of Hamid’s dead

father. Because of their age, these women had been served at

the same time as the men; they squatted together by a tray of

food in a shady alcove near Kulthum’s apartment, eating

slowly, without a word to each other.

In the compound, the women rested in the shade. At

midmorning they had snacked on fresh bread and bits of meat

and were content to sit until the men were finished and the

platters returned, partially empty, from the mudhif. Then we

would eat together from one of the big tin trays, and then, too,

the women would know whether or not their efforts had been

a success. There was no doubt that the poorer tribesmen would

eat as much meat and rice and stew as they could, but it was

the trays of delicacies which would be scrutinized carefully to

see whether the kubbas and the patcha, the liver and grilled

chickens, the eggplant and the pudding had appealed to the

more sophisticated palates of the effendi guests, and, of

course, to Sheik Hamid himself. No word of praise would be

uttered, but every woman in the compound would be able to

tell, from the amount left on the platters, whether Selma’s

special kubba was really so special, and whether the daughters

were making progress in their efforts to prepare good patcha.

Amina burst in to announce that the men were bringing

back the dishes; the coffeemaker was brewing tea in the

mudhif, she said, and the men were talking quietly and

belching politely to indicate their appreciation of the feast.

Clean plates were filled with leftovers from the big trays and

we began to eat. The children had been fed before, piecemeal,

from the steaming pots, but they joined us anyway, nibbling

bits of everything that was offered, sitting happily in their now

somewhat wrinkled and dusty new clothes. The wives and

daughters and servant girls ate and talked together

congenially. Petty jealousies were banished today; from the

look of the trays, things had gone well and the party was a

success. Now the women were entitled to good food and tea in

the shade. The dishes would have to be done after eating, but

after that entertainment was scheduled. Sheik Hamid had sent

word that the young boys were to dance for us as they had

done for the men at the end of the meal in the mudhif. Laila

told me this was a special treat in my honor, and the women

smiled at me and touched my shoulder and nodded as we ate

together.

First the dishes. Amina and the other servants brought soap

and sand into the center of the court; hundreds of plates and

bowls and spoons and pots and trays were piled high around

the water tap, a seemingly endless task. Everyone helped,

except the two old ladies, who had eased their bones down

onto clean reed mats set out by Amina and were now snoring

peacefully in Kulthum’s open court. Twenty-two women can

wash a lot of dishes in half an hour. The clean utensils were

put away, hands and faces washed, black garments rearranged,

and mats and pillows laid out against the far wall of the

compound in the widening patch of shade. We sat down in

two expectant rows, far from the kitchen and its smoky smells

and memories.

Kulthum looked exhausted as she picked her teeth carefully

with a straw. She also looked triumphant. With lunch

successfully over, she could rest momentarily on the

realization that it was her organization that had produced the

meal. Even the thought that she would have to do it again

tomorrow, for six or seven or eight hundred, and the day after

that as well, did not dim the glow of self-satisfaction that

brightened her lined and tired face. She was past forty and no

longer bearing children for Hamid; her oldest son was in

disfavor with his father; her personal fulfillment had to come

from other sources.

Soon a line of little boys trooped into the court, headed by

Selman, the butcher’s son, who played the reed pipe to

accompany the dancing. Crowds of children surrounded the

boys, sons of the women in the court, or their sisters’ and

brothers’ offspring. Selman picked out a song on his pipe; he

had learned his skill by listening to an old nomad who earned

his tea and meals by playing in the mudhifs and coffee shops

in the valley. As Selman’s song gained volume, the little boys

formed a long line and put their arms about each other’s

shoulders. They moved in an offbeat shuffle, singing as they

moved, back and forth, now jumping slightly, now bending

down for a concentrated jump in the steps of the line dance or

dabka. Kulthum’s youngest son, the leader, was gesturing

with a handkerchief and leading the line around and inside

itself, shouting to indicate the jumps and imitating very well

the professional dabka leaders I had seen in Baghdad and

Diwaniya.

The coffeemaker’s daughter dashed off and returned with

an empty kerosene can, turned it upside down and picked up

the beat. The women joined in, clapping in time. The plaintive

notes of the reed pipe blended with the childish voices as they

sang of death by violence, of love and betrayal, smiling at

their mothers and aunts and moving together, now slowly,

now quickly, now jumping high, now stamping to the beat of

the kerosene drum. The bright dishdashas and the white tennis

shoes of the little boys were covered with dust that spurted up

in clouds as they jumped, but they kept on as the women

urged them to one more, just one more song. A wail that

nearly split my eardrum was greeted by shouts of laughter.

Selman stopped briefly to shake the saliva out of his pipe and

the little boys giggled, for the wail had originated with

Kulthum, dignified, middle-aged Kulthum, who had drawn

her abayah over her face and let forth a truly momentous cry

to indicate her pleasure in the occasion.

The ice was broken; several women began to wail joyously

as they clapped. Kulthum asked for “Samra, Samra,” and the

tired little boys, jumping more slowly now and not quite

together, started the old song of the beauty of the brown-

skinned maiden. They did not finish it, for the sheik came

striding across the courtyard on his way to his afternoon nap.

Selma scurried ahead of him to turn back his sheets, but he

made his way over to us, patted Selman on the head and spoke

to me. His daughters and sons rose to give their father formal

feast-day greetings. He bowed, they bowed and kissed his

hand and stole away. Soon only Selma and I and the sheik and

a few of the little boys stood by, and I made my excuses and

said what a fine Iid it had been. Sheik Hamid, after another

bow, headed for his bed, and I started home, ready for a nap

myself after the excitement of the day’s activities. As I passed

the mudhif, I had a brief glimpse of many men resting on mats

inside, while their horses munched grass in the growing

shadows of the afternoon.

11

Moussa’s House

The houses closest to the tribal mudhif were occupied by the

sheik’s brothers and uncles. Abdulla, the sheik’s older brother

and second in command, and his two favorite younger

brothers lived in houses connected to the sheik’s own by

common walls and passageways. Brothers with whom he was

not so intimate had built separate dwellings not far away.

Moussa, Laila’s father, was one of these.

Moussa lived in a big square mud-brick house at the end of

the road that stretched in a straight line from the canal to the

clearing around the mudhif. An excellent location, one would

have thought, for here all the public activity of the settlement

took place. Sheik Hamid’s car, a four-year-old Oldsmobile,

was driven into the clearing with a flourish when he returned

from his parliamentary duties in Baghdad. All visitors

disembarked here—tribesmen from outlying settlements,

nomad Bedouin, parking their cars or tethering camels, horses

or donkeys before going into the mudhif to do business. On

religious holidays the villagers would gather in the clearing to

greet the sheik ceremonially, to watch the hosas. Here the

processions of Muharram, Shiite month of mourning, would

terminate, after a march through the village. It was, in fact, the

village green, the taxi stop and parking lot all rolled into one.

However, the occupants of Moussa’s house had, apparently,

no glimpse of the comings and goings around the mudhif, no

view of the green palm groves beyond, for the front of the

house was without windows. This, Laila told me proudly, was

to insure complete privacy for the women, yet the ladies’ pride

in their privacy did not seem at all compromised by a

succession of peepholes which had been carefully chipped out

of the mud-brick wall at convenient eye levels.

There seemed to be no view through the public entrance,

either—a side door facing the road—but here, too, I found

peepholes. The ladies inside knew as soon as visitors had

arrived in the clearing; the little girls told the neighbors in the

rear, and if it was important, those neighbors also passed it on.

Thus news traveled with lightning speed through the closed

doors and windowless walls.

Whenever I came to visit Laila, I would pound on the heavy

wooden side door with both fists to attract attention. I would

hear the running of many feet, a whispered consultation

behind the door, and would realize that two or three of the

sisters were stationed along the wall, peering out to see who

the visitor might be. For Moussa’s house, consisting entirely

of women except for Moussa himself, had no male guards

near the entrance like Sheik Hamid’s. The girls had to be sure

of the identity of their visitors. After calling out and being

satisfied by sight and sound that it was I, two heavy bolts

would be drawn, the iron latch lifted, and the door opened a

crack just wide enough for me to slip into the shadowy

entrance passage. As many times as I visited the sisters, I

never penetrated behind two mysterious closed doors giving

on the passage; once one of the doors was ajar and I could see

rugs and pillows and bolsters set out neatly along the walls,

and in the center a smoking charcoal brazier. This was

Moussa’s private diwan or reception room; the other door led,

Laila told me, to his bedroom.

I was always hurried along the passage to the end where it

opened onto the court, a huge open space as big as an ordinary

house, where most of the affairs of the household were

conducted. Fatima or Sanaa or Nejla, Laila’s older sisters,

wending their way across the court with water or laundry or a

broom, would see me and call out.

“Ahlan, Beeja, ahlan, ahlan wusahlan, Beeja!” Gradually

women and girls (there were nine sisters, after all) would

emerge from rooms opening on two sides of the court, or from

the kitchen in the corner. Or they would raise themselves from

their places along the far wall, where they would be squatting

peeling vegetables, pounding spices or cleaning rice and flour.

The older sisters came forward, adjusting the everyday black

garments—chin scarf (foota), head scarf (asha) and abayah

over a black dress—which flowed behind them gracefully as

they walked; we would shake hands in the sunny court as

though we had not met for years. Laila was always among

them, but as a member of the younger generation, she no

longer wore the traditional garments, only an abayah and veil

when she left the house. Indoors she sported a house dress, of

cotton print in summer, flannelette in winter; it always seemed

a bit outgrown and short for her, and her hair was always

escaping from the scarf she used to tie it back. She seemed

shorter than she actually was because she was round-

shouldered from stooping over a sewing machine day after

day; her collars were stuck with pins and threaded needles.

Only eighteen, she already had lines around her small, close-

set eyes from squinting in the sun or in the bad light of the

sewing room. But when she smiled in welcome, her face

became a child’s again, gay, mischievous, hopeful. She would

take my arm and escort me into the sewing room. One of the

little girls took my abayah and hung it on a nail, and I settled,

cross-legged, on a rug-covered mat while the sisters and

visitors gathered to chat and Laila, smiling still with pleasure,

went on with her sewing.

Because Moussa was away almost all day, neighborhood

women tended to drop by, for water, for gossip, for advice,

perhaps to bring Laila sewing or embroidery. I joined this

throng, knowing that I was not causing any extra problem by

my presence. The house had a central water tap, one of five or

six in the settlement which was connected to the village’s

chlorinated water system; Um Fatima had said that anyone

might draw clean water from this tap, and the women flocked

to take advantage of her offer. They always crossed the court

to speak to Laila and greet the Amerikiya in passing, so I saw

many women informally this way whom I might not have met

otherwise. Sometimes they would set down their water jugs

and their children and gossip.

Very seldom was this malicious gossip, for these women

knew that idle conversation about a woman’s reputation might

have tragic results. Occasionally, I felt, they simply couldn’t

resist, and a village widow of nonexistent income was usually

their target.

“Where does she get her money?” one would say. “She had

a fine new abayah on the Iid and her children had new clothes

too.”

“Her relatives probably gave it to her,” Fatima would

suggest.

“Humph. She has no relatives in El Nahra. But she must get

the money from somebody; she certainly doesn’t dig it out of

the canal.”

The malicious laughter would be cut short by Fatima or

Nejla and the conversation turned to other subjects: children,

illness, the weather, the crops.

Moussa’s family, with nine daughters and no sons, was

something of a phenomenon in the settlement. Bob had told

me that among other tribesmen Moussa was often the butt of

jokes and an object of pity since he had no male heir. Yet,

although the subject was never mentioned directly, Bob said

he also sensed a grudging admiration and respect for the

women of the household. What they could do—sew, cook,

clean, make a man comfortable—they did better than anyone

else. Certainly among the women this was the case. Women

said, “It’s because they have no men that they work so hard,”

but Um Fatima and her daughters were almost universally

liked and admired.

The girls had long ago divided up the work, and in addition

each girl had developed her own specialty by which she

managed to earn extra money. Fatima made silk abayahs and

Sanaa crocheted the heavy black tatting which edged the

ashas. Nejla kept chickens and raised a pair of lambs every

spring to sell for wool and meat. Basima and Laila

embroidered bridal sheets and pillowcases; the three younger

girls went to school.

Um Fatima herself knew a good deal about poultices and

medicines. From the beams in her sitting room hung little

bunches of dried herbs, twigs and leaves which she would

pound up in a mortar and use to treat the eye infections, the

carbuncles, the dysentery and fevers which plagued her and

her neighbors’ ailing children. In addition she was considered

a pious woman, competent to give advice in religious matters.

All religious holidays were observed scrupulously; the house

was the site of many krayas each Ramadan and Muharram.

Bob testified that male guests were treated to delicious food,

and no visiting relative, male or female, had ever been turned

away without bed and board.

The nine sisters found room in their hearts even for me, and

one day, sitting in the sheik’s house, I realized from a remark

of Selma’s that Laila had chosen me as her friend.

There it was; it had happened; I had been partially accepted

and had not even been aware of it, though recently it had

seemed to me I had not been as neglected as before.

Mohammed had brought Sherifa to see me. Sheddir and her

daughter Sahura paused and drank tea with me after cutting

grass. But Laila was visiting me all the time. Her calls were

never announced in advance and were often inconvenient, but

I would put down whatever I was doing and sit and talk. At

first Laila would bolt out of the house like a frightened rabbit

as soon as she heard Bob’s step outside the door; after a time

she seemed to become less cautious, and even though Bob was

working or typing in one room, she would sit with me in the

other, cautioning me over and over and over again not to tell

that she had been there while Bob was around as it was ayb

(great shame). She did not mind Mohammed’s presence, for

some reason, and talked to him quite informally, although of

course she wore her abayah whenever he was with us. Usually

she came alone, but Basima or one of the younger girls

sometimes accompanied her.

After a few weeks the family began to bring their female

guests to view the village Amerikiya. I opened my clothes

closets and food cabinets and one day I even delivered a short

lecture in Arabic on the theory of electricity (a subject I had

never understood in my own language) to a middle-aged

cousin of Laila’s who had ridden in four miles on horseback

with her husband to discuss the forthcoming marriage of her

son.

“My cousin doesn’t believe you have a machine that could

make ice,” said Basima, so we adjourned to the kitchen to

look at the refrigerator.

The blank white front of the refrigerator and even the ice

trays themselves elicited little response, but when the lady

actually felt the ice (to make certain we weren’t teasing her),

her face changed; it was a hot day and the woman’s face,

bound round like a coif with the black foota and asha, was

bathed in perspiration.

“How wonderful!” she said. “You must get one for Laila.”

She meant the ice tray, I think, but Laila apparently thought

she meant the machine, and hurriedly announced that her

father planned to buy one if the year’s crop was good. Then

she plunged into another topic to change the subject quickly

and began to explain the process of ice making in such false

minute detail that I was impelled to explain myself how the

hot electricity made such a thing take place. We finished the

afternoon with iced lemonade, but the visiting cousin refused

ice, saying it was too cold and hurt her teeth—the three or four

she had left, she said, opening her mouth to show me broken

stumps in her old gums.

News of the novelties which the Amerikiya could provide

for bored visitors must have spread throughout the settlement,

for one afternoon Mohammed came rushing in to say that the

sheik’s oldest daughter Alwiyah and two lady guests were on

their way to my house. “They’ll be here any minute,”

announced Mohammed, depositing on my table cigarettes and

pumpkin seeds in case we might not have a large enough

supply. Then he dashed out, as quickly as Mohammed ever

moved, for it wouldn’t be fitting, he felt, for him to be present

when the sheik’s women arrived. I hadn’t time to get nervous,

so the ladies and I spent a pleasant hour smoking, drinking tea

and eating seeds, splitting the husk with our teeth, removing

the kernel and spitting the husk out, all in one motion. Laila’s

little sister Rajat crept in with the group of heavily veiled

ladies and sat on my floor to watch the show. Laila herself

arrived soon after, slightly flustered; she insisted on passing

the seeds and cigarettes and tea and smiled the whole time,

like a stage mother whose child has just been given a lead in a

hit musical comedy.

When the women left, Laila stayed on.

“It’s not often the sheik’s women leave their house,” she

confided. “You should feel honored.”

“But what about Selma?” I insisted. “Why doesn’t she

come?”

“She will, in time,” said Laila, “but that’s not important;

someone from the sheik’s house has visited you, and that’s all

that matters.”

Mohammed brought water earlier than usual that evening; I

suspected him of overweening curiosity about the party, and it

is true he asked whether there were enough cigarettes left for

Bob. I said no, it would be better to bring some more from the

suq. When he saw the piles and piles of pumpkin-seed husks

overflowing the ash trays and spilling on the floor, he said that

the shopkeeper on the tribal side of the canal knew how to dry

pumpkin seeds properly and we should always buy from him.

One morning Laila brought a gaunt old woman who grinned at

me cheerfully, patted my cheek and sat down in my best

armchair without being asked. Laila announced, “Qanda has

business with you.”

“Ahlan wusahlan,” I replied, wondering what on earth her

business could be. I offered candy, but the old woman refused.

“She wants a cigarette,” prompted Laila.

Qanda took two, lighting one and depositing the other

within the recesses of her black garments. I pressed the box of

cigarettes on her, and after a minimally polite refusal she took

two more. These also were stored away before she pushed her

abayah aside and leaned forward.

“Now,” she said, and began to speak very rapidly, gesturing

floridly in all directions. I was having difficulty understanding

and asked Laila to repeat for me in slower Arabic.

Qanda, it appeared, was the local beautician. She plucked

eyebrows, removed unwanted body hair (with a string or with

a sugar solution), pierced ears and noses, made up brides on

their wedding days, and, most important of all, she was an

accomplished tattooer. She stood up and yanked her black

dress above her knees to show me two full-blown roses

tattooed on the backs of her calves.

“Aren’t they lovely things?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “I

only charge a quarter of a pound for each.” I agreed that the

roses were very beautiful, but said I did not want to be

tattooed.

She eyed me a moment, then started a new tack. “It seems

expensive now, I know,” she said, “but a tattoo lasts a

lifetime, and by making you more attractive, it will help you

keep your husband.”

I smiled and said no, thank you.

Qanda muttered something to Laila, who giggled and

repeated it.

“Qanda says you are young and newly married and don’t

know much. She says you are so thin your husband will soon

grow tired of you, but if you will let her tattoo your backside

for half a pound, perhaps that will amuse him.” Qanda

interrupted Laila, who added, “Qanda is sure it will amuse

him, she can almost guarantee it, it works with all her

customers.” She broke down in uncontrollable laughter, and

Qanda and I joined her.

I explained that it was not our custom to tattoo and

therefore my husband would not find it attractive.

Qanda smiled sweetly. “You are just thinking of the

money,” she said calmly. “I can arrange for you to pay half

now and half when your husband is satisfied. Remember, I am

the best tattooer in El Nahra. I tattooed Abdulla’s wife when

she was a girl.”

I assured her I believed her workmanship excellent, but I

simply did not want to be tattooed. Qanda looked exasperated

and began to glower, until Laila broke in to explain patiently

that tattooing was considered old-fashioned nowadays, that

none of the young girls wanted to have it done except perhaps

one small tattoo “just for fun.” And, she concluded

triumphantly, the schoolteachers had told her that women in

Baghdad had not been tatooed for many years.

Qanda grunted, but she subsided, accepted still another

cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply. After a moment she leaned

forward once more.

“At least you should have your ears pierced,” she said. “I

only charge 150 fils for that, and I will ask 125 from you as a

special favor to Laila.”

Actually I had been considering having my ears pierced, but

much as I enjoyed Qanda, I was not sure I wanted her to

undertake the operation. “All my earrings are from America

and are different,” I said, trying to demonstrate the difference

between screws and clips and hooks, but Qanda shook her

head in bewilderment.

“Show her,” suggested Laila, so I opened my jewelry box,

and at this Qanda leaned forward with real interest. I trotted

out my collection of costume jewelry, false pearls, and my

gold bracelet and gold earrings.

With the nose of a connoisseur, Qanda passed over the

imitation items and seized on the bracelet and the gold hoops.

Then she put them down.

“Is that all you have?” she asked.

I nodded.

She looked very puzzled indeed, glancing around the room

with its radio, clock, books, electric light and other symbols of

prosperity. She spoke to Laila, who said, “Qanda can’t

understand why you have all these things in your house and

yet no gold. Not even Sheddir has as little as that.”

I replied that I did have some gold in America which I had

left behind for fear of losing it on the long trip to Iraq.

“Wear it, wear it, you silly girl,” Qanda burst out. “What

good does it do lying in a box far away?” Then she launched

into a short, earnest sermon about the value of gold as

ornament, but secondly and most important, the necessity of

gold in every woman’s life as insurance in case her husband

should die or leave her or divorce her. I had not heard such an

eloquent statement of the “diamonds are a girl’s best friend”

theory in a long time.

Finally Qanda stood up, peered at herself closely in my wall

mirror, snorted, and announced that she must leave to prepare

a bride for marriage. “Is there a wedding today?” I asked.

“No, it’s tomorrow,” she said, “and from now on I shall be

very busy. This is the season, you know.” She started out the

door, turned and wagged her finger at me.

“You come with Laila to see the bride,” she said, “and

when you see what a good job I have done on her, you’ll

change your mind about tattoos and pierced ears. Maybe

you’ll even want to have your nose done, ha ha!”

I gasped out a sort of goodbye, and Laila, grinning and

nodding, winked at me outrageously as she followed the

skinny old woman, still laughing at her own joke, out of my

garden.

My partial acceptance into the society of the women was a

mysterious process, and I have often wondered what marked

the turning point in our relations and what prompted Laila to

single me out for friendship. Probably it was a combination of

particular circumstances, many of which I remained unaware,

plus the fact that people were just becoming used to our

presence. Also, as my Arabic improved I was able to

participate more fully in the half-joking, half-serious teasing

with which the women entertained each other. Now

occasionally I could reply to the sarcastic taunts that came my

way, and this repartee succeeded brilliantly where my former

bland and accommodating manner had not. Many months later

Laila told a visiting Iraqi friend of mine that in the early stages

of my residence in El Nahra the women had wondered

whether I was deaf and dumb, or just not quite bright, because

I smiled but often did not seem to hear what was said to me.

Afterward, reported Laila, I had come to life and my company

had improved immensely.

12

Weddings

Four weddings were to be held in the tribal settlement at the

same time, and the families involved had pooled their meager

finances to provide a more spectacular feast and

entertainment.

“They are even bringing dancers from Diwaniya,” said

Laila. “You must ask Mr. Bob if you can come with me to see

everything.”

“Of course I can,” I said. Laila looked exasperated.

“Ask him,” she insisted, and when I looked puzzled she

said, “It’s at night, don’t you understand? My father never lets

us go out at night except to krayas during Ramadan and

Muharram—no women do—but because of the weddings he

might let us, especially if I tell him that Mr. Bob says you can

go. Will you ask him?” So I agreed.

One of the prospective bridegrooms was Hassan, the son of

Sheddir and Ali, the sheik’s gardener. Bob reported that Ali

had finally completed marriage arrangements with his brother.

Ali’s brother’s son would come to El Nahra, bringing his

sister who would marry Hassan. When the boy returned to his

own village, he would take back as his bride Sahura, Hassan’s

sister, who would be dressed in her bridal finery in her

father’s house, but would not be married in El Nahra. There

would be a token exchange of money, two marriage contracts

would be signed, and the two couples would be united. So,

said Laila, we would see both the traditional arrival and leave-

taking of a bride. In addition we could visit the three other

brides who were scheduled to be married the same night and

compare their clothes, their jewelry and their beauty!

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” said Laila. “We

haven’t had four weddings together for a long time.”

On the appointed day Laila and I went together after lunch

to Ali’s house, where Sahura sat in state in her wedding

finery, awaiting her bridegroom. The little court had been

carefully cleaned for the occasion, and the scrawny chickens

who usually scratched in the hard-packed earth were penned

up in one corner. Women and children come to view the bride

were passing in and out of the courtyard and pressing against

the door of the one-room house. Qanda, filling a tray of

glasses from a clay water jar by the door, looked up and

smiled in welcome as we entered.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” she said. “Come right in.” She handed

the tray of glasses to a young girl, and came running over to

take me by the arm in a grasp of iron.

“Why didn’t you come and see the bride I did the other

day?”

I started to explain but she hurried on without listening.

“That was a really good job, if I do say so myself. A fine

tattoo between the breasts and rosebuds on both calves (I did

them for her last year, when she became engaged). And the

face of that girl—what plump cheeks, what eyes! I had some

new kohl from Diwaniya and we hennaed her feet and

hands—not too much, just enough. Ah, I wish you could have

seen her,” she sighed, as one whose masterpiece had just been

destroyed by fire. “But now,” she added in a changed tone,

“come and see Sahura.” She led us through the crowd around

the door.

Sahura, all in white, sat against the far wall, cross-legged

and very stiff-necked, on a small square of new matting

covered with an embroidered sheet. Before I realized what

was happening, Qanda had propelled us through the throng of

women and children and we were plopped down on the

ground, shoulder to shoulder with the old women of the family

who had been given places of honor near the bride. Sahura

stared straight ahead of her and did not turn her head as we

entered. Laila whispered that the bride was not supposed to

notice anything on her wedding day. Qanda had pressed

through the crowd with us and knelt now at Sahura’s side; she

had picked up the girl’s long braid of glossy brown hair and

was balancing it in her hand.

“Look at that!” she shouted, in order to be heard above the

din in the tiny room. “A braid of hair as thick as an arm. Her

husband will be glad to see that, I can tell you!” For a moment

I winced at Qanda’s tone, weighing Sahura’s hair like a

commodity and then I realized that, good diplomat and

saleswoman that she was, Qanda had selected Sahura’s one

good feature and was emphasizing it in order to encourage the

poor girl and help her to relax during her day-long vigil before

the wedding.

For Sahura was certainly no beauty. A big-boned girl with

broad shoulders and heavy arms, she would be a good

assistant to her husband in the fields. But she had tiny eyes set

close together and a long, plain face which was usually

redeemed by her cheerful expression. Now, however, her face

was fixed in a tense look of waiting; the badly fitting white

dress did nothing for her and the black kohl carefully painted

around her eyes seemed to make them even smaller. Her

hands and feet were hennaed, but there tradition ended; Qanda

had used Western lipstick to redden the wide mouth, had

powdered Sahura’s skin a deadly white. I heard Qanda telling

another newcomer how magnificent Sahura’s hair was. “See

how Well it is oiled,” she was saying, and I looked again at

Sahura and hoped her husband would not be too hard on her

when he lifted her veil for the first time and discovered he had

not married a beauty.

Now the conversation turned to Sahura’s jewelry, her own

personal dowry bought with money given to the bride by her

female relatives and female friends. She had silver ankle

bracelets and heavy gold earrings and a pendant of silver into

which had been set a large uneven turquoise.

The old women near us were discussing Sahura’s faults and

virtues, the chances of her husband’s being handsome or at

least kindhearted, her prospects in her future home. I gathered

they did not think much of the latter, a small clan settlement

hours away by horse, with no market, only a few houses and a

small mudhif and a clump of palm trees in the middle of the

sandy plain.

“It will be hard for the child,” said the lady sitting nearest to

Sahura. “The water is not good there, I hear. She will be sick

all the time until she becomes accustomed to it.”

“I’m glad my daughter didn’t have to go away when she

married,” put in another. “It’s hard for a girl without her

mother and it’s hard for the mother, too.”

“And then, of course, she doesn’t know anything,” added

the second, leaning forward. “Sahura has been sheltered like a

good girl. She has never even been to Diwaniya.”

The two women clucked in sympathy and rocked back on

their heels. Sahura, only inches away, must have heard this

doleful interchange, but she made no sign, sitting up stiffly

and looking straight ahead of her. We were drinking sherbet, a

sticky sweet concoction with a base of ground-up oranges.

“Doesn’t Sahura drink something?”

“Oh, no,” said Laila. “She had breakfast early this morning

before she was dressed, but she won’t eat till after the

wedding; then she and her husband will have a big meal

together. If he is a good man, he will bring her fruit and

sweets and sherbet.”

Qanda was bustling around, distributing glasses of water

and cigarettes and keeping the crowds of women and children

moving in and out. She looked tired and her own make-up was

streaked with sweat, but part of her job, it appeared, was to

uphold Sahura and her terribly flustered mother Sheddir

through this, their greatest and most difficult experience as

mother and daughter.

“The groom has hired a taxi to take Sahura and her things to

the wedding at his house,” the old woman near me said. “It

should be coming soon.”

It was four-thirty. A little girl ran in and whispered to

Qanda. The crowd of women stirred in anticipation. We heard

a clatter of cans and a banging of drums, followed by a volley

of rifle shots. The bridegroom was approaching to claim his

bride. But he would not come directly to the house; Sahura

would go out to him to show that she was to live with him in

his father’s house.

Qanda was shouting orders at Sheddir, who was distracted

and did not seem to understand. She was staring at Sahura;

finally she leaned over and kissed her daughter on both

cheeks, and burst into tears. Sahura remained impassive.

Qanda quickly leaned over the girl and covered her face, first

with a white veil, then with a black. She motioned

peremptorily to the weeping mother, who handed Qanda the

new black silk bridal abayah; this was draped about Sahura’s

head and shoulders. Qanda put an arm around the girl to pull

her to her feet and, supporting her, led her out of the house. As

Sahura crossed the threshold, never to return again as a

daughter, the women set up a keening wail of sorrow and

farewell, and rose to follow the bride down the alley to the

main road where the taxi was waiting. Crowds of young men

and boys surrounded the car, and we could see the bridegroom

sitting in the back seat. The couple’s new household goods

had been tied to the roof of the taxi: an iron bedstead, painted

orange and blue, a chest, wrapped in bright woven blankets, a

rolled up cotton mattress and several zinced-copper cooking

pans. As Sahura approached on Qanda’s arm, the boys beat

their skin drums furiously and the men fired their rifles into

the air.

At the door of the taxi Sahura turned, and Sheddir,

screaming and crying with pain, ran up and threw her arms

around her daughter. Qanda gently disentangled the sobbing

Sheddir, pushed Sahura into the back seat of the taxi and shut

the door. The taxi bounced in the ruts and the bedstead on top

wobbled; the driver accelerated and the car raced off in a

cloud of dust. Wailing, the women ran after the taxi, and we

walked along with the crowd until the taxi was out of sight on

the canal road; the men were firing a few final rifle shots,

which were pop-popping in the hot still air. In the middle of

the dusty road, Sheddir clung to Qanda and sobbed, but

Sahura had gone.

The wedding drums began to beat before dark. We heard

them as we were finishing our supper in the garden. The

sound of the drummers mingled with the call of the mourning

dove and the shrill cries of the giant black crows high in the

date palms; we could hear the shuffle of many feet on the path

outside. Bob left to meet Mohammed at the Sayids’ mudhif,

which was to be the scene of the festivities. By the time Laila

came for me, the drums were louder and the road was

thronged with people headed for the mudhif. Tribesmen in

their robes walked in twos and threes, children ran shouting,

and black-shrouded women walked close to the walls of the

houses.

Laila had other ideas; she turned us off into an alley which

led away from the mudhif. I protested, but she insisted that we

should see the brides first; after that the party at the mudhif

would be in full swing and there would be so many people

milling about that no one would notice us.

All of the settlement lanterns had been commandeered to

light the bridal houses and the mudhif, and we groped our way

along in the dark, trying to avoid the center gutter, its trickle

of slops and garbage dried to a muck by the day’s hot sun.

Soon the moon would come up, Laila said, guiding me over a

rough spot, and I looked up to see the stars already filling the

summer sky. Women brushed against us, giggling, and we

joined a group on its way to view the first bride, who sat, like

Sahura, on a white-covered mat in her house. There, however,

the similarity ended.

This girl was relaxed and pretty; she arched her body in a

pleased way under our gaze. An old woman pointed out the

bridal bed, hung with white mosquito netting. She picked up

the border for me to feel the heavily embroidered bottom sheet

and pointed to Laila, who pursed her lips and admitted that

she and her sister had embroidered it. I praised it at length and

was rewarded with an exhibition of the top sheet and

pillowcases, all embroidered with the same pattern of bright

red flowers and green leaves, mottoes carefully traced in

Arabic across the pillowcases. “Sleep here, and good health,”

said the mottoes, Laila informed me. The old woman patted

the bed, cackled and looked at the bride, who actually

chuckled and tossed her head.

The second bride sat in state in a large roomy house where

the walls were freshly whitewashed and the date-palm logs

supporting the roof were nearly new. I was surprised, and

Laila explained that this girl was the daughter of a prosperous

Sayid, who had a piece of good land near the sheik’s holding.

“Who is the girl marrying?” I asked.

“Abdu, son of Abdul Hakim,” answered Laila. “You know,

he is a very religious young man from an old Sayid family.”

Then I did remember Bob’s mentioning Abdu as an

unattractive but intense and ascetic young man, who was one

of the religious enthusiasts of El Nahra. Abdu organized

krayas during Ramadan, helped plan the yearly religious plays

and was a leader of one of the taaziyas, a group of young men

who performed ritual flagellations during Muharram.

I had difficulty reconciling my picture of the intense Abdu

with the young girl in white before me. Lovely and dusky, she

was loaded with gold: bracelets, earrings and two long

necklaces, one of gold coins and one of cone-shaped beads.

All were presents from her father, said Laila; he had given her

two sheep besides. Her groom was a poor man, though of an

ancient and pure lineage. Since the girl was a Sayid, she was

bound to marry a Sayid, for Sayid girls were given only to

men who carried the blood of the Prophet in their veins.

I praised the girl’s wedding dress, which fitted her

beautifully and seemed much better made than most of the

clothes I had seen in the settlement. The women looked at

each other but said nothing. I had made a mistake, but what? I

turned to Laila for help, and was shocked at the invective

which suddenly burst out of her. On and on she raved,

criticizing the cut and the seams and the way the neck was

finished, until I realized that one of her seamstress rivals had

been employed. Laila stopped as suddenly as she had started,

saying good-humoredly to me and the assembled women,

“The material is excellent—it must have cost at least three

pounds a meter—too good to be ruined by bad sewing.” We

rose and passed out into the alley again.

Laila rushed me along to the last house, murmuring that we

would stay only a minute there. “I wouldn’t go at all if it

weren’t for you,” she said. “It’s because I know this girl so

well and she is only fourteen, too young to marry; everyone

considers it great ayb [shame]. Her groom is an old man.”

But as we approached, I heard the beat of a kerosenecan

drum, and voices of women singing, “Samra, Samra, how

beautiful is my dusky maiden.”

“Why are they singing, then?” I asked.

“Because they feel sorry for her and want to cheer her up,”

said Laila.

The group of women and girls who sat in front of the door

of the bridal chamber urged us to sit down, but Laila glanced

into the poor room where the girl sat. In spite of the

voluminous folds of her white dress, she seemed thin and

small. She had been heavily made up to make her appear

older; unfortunately the attempt had not been successful, and

she looked like a child arrayed for a theatrical entertainment.

Staring straight ahead of her, like Sahura, the girl did not seem

to notice us, but she kept blinking repeatedly, like a child with

something in its eye.

“Let’s go,” hissed Laila, and we nodded at the old women,

refused politely their invitation to tea and although the girl

beating the kerosene drum shouted at us to stop, Laila plunged

on silently back toward the main road. Here, in the buzz of

activity and noise, she regained her good spirits. In the alley

we almost collided with a black-veiled figure who turned out

to be the sheik’s daughter Samira. She and Laila dissolved in

helpless laughter at the comic coincidence of their meeting.

“Watch the slops,” giggled Laila, pulling Samira out of the

center of the road.

Samira let out a mock scream and clung foolishly to the

side of the house nearest us. This brought on more laughter,

until we were silenced by Laila.

“Shhh,” she said sternly. “We must be quiet. The sheik

doesn’t know Samira is out, but she says the guards are

looking the other way tonight so all the women can see the

dancing. Alwiyah is out too. They are the two bravest.”

We took hands and moved along in the general direction of

the Sayids’ mudhif, heading toward a yellow glow of light

which was reflected in the sky above the flat roofs of the

houses. Somewhere a donkey raised his head and brayed

fiercely; Samira clung to me and screamed; we all laughed

again. There was much laughter in the crowds that moved

along with us—high-pitched giggles of children, deep laughter

from old women experiencing again, without the tension and

pain, the excitement of their own wedding nights, long since

past. The animals in the compounds we passed were moving

restlessly, snuffling in the darkness; the sound of the drums

was everywhere and even the dogs on the edge of the

settlement had joined the crowds and were yipping wildly.

The square around the mudhif had been kept open as a stage

for the entertainment and was glaringly lighted by scores of

lanterns placed every few feet along the ground. At least a

hundred men sat close together on the flat logs outlining the

square, smoking and drinking tea, for the wedding feast was

just over. Men were carrying out the empty food trays;

everyone had taken advantage of the free meal of rice, mutton

and flat bread in sheep broth provided by the grooms’ fathers.

I could see Bob sitting near the mudhif entrance, washing his

hands over a copper basin, and Mohammed stood nearby

conferring with a group of strangers.

“The dancers and musicians,” whispered Laila.

“But when will it begin?” I asked. We had been wandering

from house to house for two hours now; it was all very

interesting, but my legs were beginning to give out.

“Soon, right now,” said Laila, but she was wrong. A line of

little boys moved out into the square, to perform as they had

done during the Iid. One sympathetic drummer kept up a

desultory beat for them, and the boys’ mothers, anonymous

among the crowds of women who stood, three and four deep

on the edge of the square, clapped enthusiastically. We could

see the children’s lips move in the well-known songs, but the

sound of their voices was lost in the clapping and drumming,

the clink of tea glasses, the hiss of the Coleman lanterns, and

the hubbub of many men moving back and forth across the

square.

The drummer grew tired and stopped. The boys moved

away, but nothing happened. Laila evidently sensed my

impatience, and began to prod and push and elbow me

forward and backward and sideways, until she had succeeded

in pulling us both into a place among the women where we

could see clearly the whole bright square.

“Now, now, see Beeja!” she said.

I looked and indeed the strangers and Mohammed had

moved into the center of the square, followed by a drummer

and two pipers who experimented with one tune, then another.

After a long wait and some words between the musicians and

the dancers, the three dancers linked arms closely and leaped

into a chobi. The drums burst forth, five, six, then ten, the

pipers joined in, and the men settled back to enjoy the long-

awaited and expensive spectacle. But the dancers still were

not satisfied, for they would leap and twirl gloriously for a

moment, and stop to scratch their heads under their kaffiyehs

and argue with one another. Mohammed, standing on the edge

of the square and carrying a long staff to indicate his role as

master of ceremonies, looked alternately perplexed and

annoyed. Men began to murmur, and finally Ali, the father of

Sahura and Hassan, leaped to his feet.

“Yallah,” he shouted, “we are paying good money for this.

Let’s have the wedding dance and finish with this fooling

around.”

The dancers stopped, Mohammed move in to intervene, and

Ali strode furiously into the square. This seemed to have the

desired effect. Quickly one of the dancers dropped out, the

second adjusted his kaffiyeh and the third shed his aba, pulled

out and put on a woman’s dress. A scarf was tied tightly about

his hips, belly-dancer style. His kaffiyeh wrapped round his

head like a turban, he was at last ready and moved toward his

partner.

Pipes and drums clashed raggedly, found the desired tune,

and the music swelled out, above the rhythmic clapping of the

crowd and the high-pitched ululating wails of the women. The

man held his arms up and concentrated on his footwork, not

looking at the “woman,” who undulated provocatively toward

him, each body movement accented with gestures from “her”

long, thin arms and hands. Lighted from above and below by

the lanterns, the dancers cast vast shadows on the square,

shadows which moved silently together and apart.

Closer and closer together the dancers came, and when the

“bride” nearly touched her partner with her hips, the audience

cried, “Ah,” and a long wail tore through the air. One of the

grooms leaped into the square and pinned a bank note on the

dancer’s dress. At this signal the man dropped out, and the

drums and pipes began a new song for the bride’s solo. This

started slowly, a free-form undulating and wheeling across

and around the dusty square. But in a prolonged whirl the

kaffiyeh flew off the dancer’s head, releasing an astonishing

amount of long black hair which fell crazily about his head

and shoulders. Faster he pivoted and leaped, the hair

streaming and the long hands flung about in an agony of

passion.

“He is good,” I whispered. Laila’s eyes were fixed on the

man-woman figure twirling in the yellow glare of the lanterns,

while the women screamed and the men counted the turns

with “Ah,” “Ah,” “Yallah,” and a spatter of coins and

applause. How long could he keep this up? High above the

maze of drums wove the thin melody of the pipes. The coins

showered in, raising little spits of dust as they fell. The dancer,

perspiring freely, clapped those long hands against his temples

to keep the tangled hair out of his eyes as he whirled—dust,

hair, hands, feet moving in the changing shadows and

flickering lantern light. A group of men pushed through the

crowd into the square, the dancer stopped and the drums

ceased.

“The mullah has come; it is time for the weddings,”

whispered Laila. The bridegrooms and their close relatives

rose. “First the men will go down to the canal to wash their

faces and hands, and then each will go with the mullah to his

bride’s house, where he will say that he agrees and she will

say that she agrees. After that he will go in to his bride.”

The crowd rushed to follow the young men and their escorts

toward the canal. “We stay here,” said Laila.

“Why?” I asked, wanting to see the washing ceremony at

the bank.

“It’s only for the men,” she said, “we stay here,” and she

strengthened her grip on my abayah, so I turned back to the

square, no longer a stage as the men hurried across it,

oblivious of the exhausted dancer hunched against a log,

drawing on a cigarette and pushing back his hair. His two

companions were combing the dust for stray coins.

I gradually became aware that the drums had started up

again, a low throbbing beat which continued insistently under

all the noise. The beat was cut by volleys of rifle shots.

“They are coming back from the canal,” said Laila.

I would have loved to follow one or another of the groups

led by the mullah as they headed to one bridal house or

another, signed the papers, the girl and man solemnly agreeing

to take each other as man and wife, and then entering the

bridal chamber together. But this was not to be. I stood with

Laila and Sherifa and Medina and the sheik’s daughter

Samira, who could see nothing either but nevertheless were

chattering with excitement.

“They’re coming back, they’re coming back,” the murmur

reached us from women closer to the alley, and we could hear

the men approaching and entering a house near the mudhif.

“Come on, Laila,” I pleaded. “It’s just down the alley. No

one will see us in the dark,” and she agreed. When we reached

the door, the groom, followed by the same insistent drum roll,

was going in the gate. His mother and the bride’s mother were

already inside, said Sherifa, to bear witness to the fact that the

consummation was a proper one.

The mullah came out.

“He has gone to his bride, I think,” said Laila.

The drum roll continued and the crowd shifted uneasily,

whispering and chattering to each other.

“It’s taking him a long time,” cackled one old lady. “What’s

the matter with him, is he sick?”

“Shh,” said Sherifa sternly, “mind what you say,” but the

lady continued to cackle.

Minutes went by and the crowd grew quieter. The drum roll

continued.

There was a loud cry within, and in a few moments the

bridegroom emerged smiling. After a triumphant volley of

rifle shots, the groom’s friends and relatives pressed forward

to shake his hand. The women surged into the compound to

congratulate the bride, who would remain in her room, and to

see the bloody sheet displayed by the bride’s mother and the

groom’s mother, incontrovertible evidence that the girl was a

virgin and a worthy bride. The drums ceased.

Sherifa sighed and Laila laughed with relief.

“It’s all right, everything is fine,” she said.

The groom’s smiles meant that indeed everything was all

right; the girl was a virgin, the man and his mother were

satisfied. If they had not been, the groom had the right to

demand that one of her relatives kill the bride on the spot. The

right was not often exercised but it had happened within the

memory of Laila. In that case the girl had not been killed, but

sent home in disgrace. Her life was ruined; she might better

have been dead, Laila told me.

The mullah was already at the next house, and we heard

another volley of shots in the distance. Another wedding had

been consummated. In a quarter of an hour, another. By this

time, we had moved back to the square, where dancing had

resumed. Tea was being passed around again and I could see

Bob shaking hands with one of the grooms. The groom

offered Bob a cigarette, Bob countered and offered him one,

and the usual “after you, my dear Alphonse” shadow play

began. Bob won, I noticed, by almost pushing his cigarette

case in the poor groom’s face. It wouldn’t have been fitting

for the groom, the guest of honor, to give a guest a cigarette.

The groom accepted a light, then, magnanimous with the flush

of his wedding night, threw a large coin to the dancers. I

pressed forward, eager to see more, but Laila pulled at my

abayah.

“It is very late,” she said. “Samira and I must go.” We bade

goodbye to Sherifa and her mother and started home. At the

main road Samira turned into another alley so that she might

slip unobserved through the sheik’s back door. Laila said good

night at my door. I latched the gate behind me and sat down in

the garden to wait for Bob; the moon was high in the sky and

the stars paled beside it. I could still hear the drums.

13

Salima

Laila and I were planning a formidable journey across the

canal and around the suq to visit Salima. Laila’s best friend

from school, who had been married the year before and had a

new baby. The visit, promised for many weeks, had been

postponed again and again for reasons of etiquette.

First Salima’s mother bore a son and Laila and her mother

were unable to call because of sickness in their own house;

then Laila’s grandfather’s sister died and Salima and her

mother did not come to offer condolences. At this point the

social omissions were equal, and either friend could make the

first move. Salima had done so, and thus Laila felt secure in

the knowledge that she had won the round and it was expected

that she should return Salima’s call.

Salima, according to Laila, was the most beautiful girl in El

Nahra. She had a magnificent double bed in her house and

many books and beautiful clothes. Her father was a cloth

merchant, but Laila’s family did not buy from him because his

prices were too high. Salima’s husband Khalil was the Arabic

teacher in the boys’ elementary school. Khalil’s mother was

the village wise woman. Bob had mentioned Khalil as an

upstanding man possessing all the traditional virtues. He was

intelligent and a good scholar, respected his elders, did not

drink or spend money foolishly, and was saved from utter

dreary respectability by a subtle and extremely sharp wit. I

was looking forward to meeting his beautiful sixteen-year-old

bride Salima.

It was five o’clock on a hot June afternoon when Laila

knocked at my door. I adjusted my abayah and went down the

path to meet her, still exhausted from two hours of steamy

half-sleep in the 100-degree heat. Even Laila was complaining

about the heat, and when we had been out less than ten

minutes I could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down my

neck and the backs of my legs. The sun was going down on

our right, but no wind stirred the palms and cottonwoods

along the canal. It would be a hot still night, I realized

unhappily, for the lengthening shadows of the trees reflected

in the water did not even shimmer. Empty when we started,

the street was filling with people emerging from their

afternoon naps. The coffee shop near the bridge was opening,

and the yawning proprietor scratched his head and adjusted his

agal and kaffiyeh as we passed. We cast down our eyes

modestly as we walked, but when we mounted the bridge, the

sight of a long camel caravan coming slowly toward the

village on the opposite side of the canal made me temporarily

lose all discretion and pause to stare.

“It is only the salt caravan from the south,” Laila said,

plucking at my abayah. “It comes every spring and every

winter. The salt isn’t as good as what we buy in Diwaniya;

don’t stop.”

But I slowed my steps to watch as the score or more camels

ambled along the road, setting down one padded foot and then

another, jogging their heavy tasseled saddlebags and striped

trappings as they walked. Three drivers-Bedouin, I assumed,

although they wore robes like the El Eshadda—walked beside

them, tapping a bony camel with a stout stick when it looked

as though it might turn aside, whopping the scrawny backsides

of the beasts when they balked. An image of the camels in the

gay trappings and the three robed men moving under the

palms formed, broke and re-formed in the still bright water of

the canal. Laila was plucking at my sleeve again, whispering,

“Shame, don’t stop, come on!” I dutifully dropped my eyes

again and followed her.

Salima’s house was near her father’s cloth shop, only a few

steps from the suq, but Laila would not have dreamed of

walking through the market. Instead we made a wide detour

around the suq, turning left into the maze of tiny alleys behind

the main street where most of the merchant families in El

Nahra lived. The blind fronts of the houses, with their tightly

closed wooden shutters and mud-Wrick walls plastered with

mud and dry grass, were set close together along the alleys

where we picked our way, avoiding the gutter in the middle.

Occasionally the doors would open and women would

emerge, carrying children on their shoulders, on their heads a

pile of pots, or laundry or a water can, bound for the canal.

They stopped and stared at us, and Laila, who had discarded

her face veil as soon as we left the main street, answered their

greetings, delighted to be out and delighted also, it seemed, to

be seen traveling with me, the village curiosity!

“Ah,” they said, “so this is the Amerikiya,” and Laila

smiled in a proprietary fashion as they surveyed me from top

to toe, not unkindly.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” they said, and I responded, and if the

pots on their heads were not too heavy or the children weren’t

wailing to be off, they would begin questioning.

Why does she cut off her hair in front like that (referring to

my bangs) and does she have any children inside her and why

does she wear man’s shoes (referring to my heavy walking

shoes) and did she get her abayah in America, and always,

where are you going? Greetings to Leila’s mother followed,

inquiries as to the health of her sisters, and admonitions not to

trip on the uneven cobblestones. Then the women would be

off, clop-clopping down the stones in their wooden clogs,

children riding on their mothers’ shoulders and holding on to

the black-covered heads for support. So adroit were the

children at clinging, the cans, piles of laundry or pots on their

mothers’ heads did not waver an inch.

By the time we had reached Salima’s house, Laila was

beaming happily, and I realized that this roundabout journey

was half the fun of the visit. We had chatted with many

women, whom she knew but seldom saw, and had gathered

enough village gossip to regale the harem for the next three

days.

A tiny girl with round black eyes and long dark braids,

dressed in a short cotton shift and wooden clogs, opened the

door of Salima’s house, a door like all the others along the

alley, made of wood slats and set into the mud-brick wall,

closed with bolts and an old-fashioned iron latch.

“Salima’s sister,” whispered Laila.

The door swung to behind us and we were in a large, fairly

neat courtyard, where a cow mooed in one corner and several

chickens scratched. Reed matting had been laid along the

shady side of the court from the door to the entrance of the

house. Near the house stood a bedraggled tree, its leaves thick

with dust, and under the tree, supported by pillows, an

enormously fat woman sat, fanning herself desultorily with a

broken reed fan. A mound of flesh, draped in black, her head

wound in white, she did not indicate that she had heard us

come in. The little sister escorted us across the court, and as

we approached, the white-coifed head turned toward us,

showing a lined face with pendulous cheeks, passive except

for a pair of tiny piercing eyes. Laila bent down to kiss one of

the woman’s flabby hands and murmur a greeting; I, too,

muttered something and the woman waved her hand that I

might not kiss it, a mark of courtesy to me.

“How are you, Um Khalil?” asked Laila. The woman

smiled, causing all the pouches and lines in her face to change

position, but it was not a pleasant smile. She had stopped

fanning herself for a moment to recognize us and now began

to fan again, a signal for us to pass on. Salima, standing just

inside the door of the narrow whitewashed room which was

her home, embraced Laila as she entered. Then she

remembered her manners and greeted me, reached for our

abayahs (Laila stubbornly kept hers on) and indicated a sofa

where we were to sit.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” she kept repeating.

“How are you?” asked Laila, beaming.

“Well, thanks be to God.”

“And your baby?”

“Well, thanks be to God. How is your mother?”

“Well, thanks be to God,” replied Laila.

“And your sisters?”

“Very well, thanks be to God.”

After a moment of silence the process would start all over

again.

“How are you?” Laila would repeat delightedly.

Salima, sitting at our feet, would smile with pleasure,

“Well, thanks be to God. We have not seen you for so long.”

“We are all well, thank God. But I am afraid,” Laila would

offer, “that our visit causes much difficulty for you.”

“No, no, no, you honor us by coming and bringing your

guest,” all eyes turning to me.

Thus the friends, in the formal phrases of their mothers and

grandmothers, re-established the social bond broken by long

separations, before turning to conversation of personal

interest.

Khalil’s mother had been sick. As the village wise woman,

she had dealings with many people, and the house had been

filled with visitors day and night. This had meant much extra

work for Salima, serving the guests with tea and coffee as well

as preparing special dishes for her mother-in-law. To make

matters more difficult, her baby girl, asleep in a wooden

cradle, was cutting a tooth, and cried at night so Salima could

not sleep. However, Khalil had brought her some perfume

from Baghdad (it was produced and smelled all round) and

had brought back many books for himself. Laila expressed

astonishment at the amount of money spent on books.

“But Khalil is a scholar,” said Salima, in tones of awe.

“Yes,” nodded Laila, and paused politely before launching

into an account of the wake for her grandfather’s sister and the

enormous boil which her little sister Amal had had on the back

of her neck.

The bookcase standing against the opposite wall of the

narrow whitewashed room did contain many books, the only

books I had seen in El Nahra except in the mayor’s house and

the girls’ school. The bookcase shared honors with the bed as

the most impressive piece of furniture in the house, but where

the bookcase was austere with its dark polished wood and

glass-paned doors, the bed was a magnificent creation in pink

satin; a canopy festooned with ruffles cascaded down in

billows to the bedspread, which dusted the floor with more

ruffles.

Looking at Salima herself, sitting on the floor cracking

pumpkin seeds with her teeth, I had to agree with Laila: the

girl was a beauty, the true nut-brown maiden of whose

loveliness balladeers in any country might sing. Her face was

almost perfect, sharply cut like a precious stone, with elegant

hollows and planes. In contrast, her slight body had an

unfinished look; she was full-breasted, yet had the thin arms

and knobby knees of a child. Even the face, despite the full

lips and deep-set black eyes framed by sooty lashes and

“eyebrows like swords,” in the words of the Arab poet, was

quite empty of any expression other than genuine childish

enthusiasm at the presence of guests. She and Laila giggled

together over past school mischief and busily spat out

pumpkin seed husks onto the floor. Salima was not completely

unknowing, however. She wore a tight-bodiced dress of wine-

red velvet, rumpled and somewhat spotted, but the color gave

luster to her long black hair and warmed her dusky skin with a

glow like a shine on an apple. And though she wore no eye

make-up, I noticed her hands and feet were dyed with henna

and she had stained her lips with brown-red bark juice, the

favorite lip rouge of the village coquettes.

Neighbor women came and endless numbers of small

children, to sit and stare and chatter awhile. A pail of gray ice,

in which nestled several bottles of Pepsi-Cola, was handed in

from the courtyard. Everyone exclaimed at Salima’s

extravagance, for ice was expensive in the heat of June, but

she laughed and said it was for her dear friend Laila and her

guest. Laila blushed and looked terribly pleased. Little sister

brought tea; the baby woke and Salima nursed it. I looked to

Laila for a sign of departure, but she sat contentedly on the

sofa as though she might never move again. The talk circled

and eddied around me, and I looked from one face to

another—a neighbor woman, worn and drawn; little sister,

big-eyed, with traces of Salima’s beauty; the fat baby, drowsy

with milk and warmth; and Salima herself, the perfect face set

on the half-grown body. I remembered the story of Salima’s

marriage, which had been the talk of El Nahra for more than a

year.

Khalil was not related to Salima, and that was the first

surprising thing. Within the El Eshadda such a union would

have been unheard of, for tribesmen boasted with pride that

they never let their womenfolk marry outside the kin group or

the larger circle of the tribe. Among the merchants of the

village the codes were less strict, but still the preferred

marriage was that between first cousins on the father’s side.

The boy always had first claim to one of his father’s brother’s

daughters (bint-amm), and if for some reason the girl was to

marry another relative, the boy cousin (ibn-amm) first had to

relinquish his claim.

Salima had been a beautiful child, and Khalil had noticed

her playing near her father’s shop and scurrying through the

village on errands for her mother. One day she grew up and

donned the abayah. Like many little girls in their first abayah,

she went to extremes, covering her face with a fold of the

abayah whenever she passed men or boys, keeping the

garment tightly about her at all times. Yet the abayah did not

cover the wide black eyes, and as Salima walked, the swishing

folds of the garment would often part to reveal a slim ankle

bound in silver, or a delicate arm as Salima reached for the

hand of her younger sister. Khalil fell in love and waited,

Laila said, for four years until Salima was fourteen. Then,

fearful that her father would marry her to her cousin, he

decided on a bold course of action. Without consulting his

mother (another unusual circumstance which had, in the end,

worked to his detriment, for the old woman was furious and

took out her fury on the new bride), he went to Salima’s father

and formally requested her hand.

According to Laila, Salima’s father had been confused and

perplexed by Khalil’s action. No daughter of his had ever

married outside the family before. True, Salima’s ibnamm was

an older man and already married, but he still had a claim on

the girl, and even if he agreed to give her up, there were still

many eligible young men in the family who would have been

happy to pay a large bride price for his beautiful daughter.

Also, Salima was very young. Her father, loving her as he did,

felt she should not be married until she was seventeen at least.

Yet he was honored by Khalil’s request. As a schoolteacher,

Khalil was a step above Salima’s family of artisans and

shopkeepers. In all of El Nahra there was not a young man of

better prospects—a devout Moslem, a good son, a respected

man in the community, serious, polite, advancing socially and,

most importantly, assured of an income for the rest of his life.

He asked Khalil to wait until Salima was fifteen, but Khalil,

wildly in love by this time, was afraid of a trick and refused.

The negotiations were broken off. Through mutual friends,

Salima’s father was made to realize why Khalil was so eager.

The father wrote to Salima’s cousin asking him to renounce

his claim, which he did. Khalil discovered what the old man

had done, again through friends, and went once more, in his

best suit, to Salima’s house and asked her father for her hand.

The father promised Salima to Khalil provided the young man

would wait another year. Khalil agreed.

Although the negotiations were supposed to be secret, they

leaked out through Salima’s mother, and Salima had a

delightful last year at school, the center of attention,

surrounded by admiring friends who helped her plan her

trousseau and sat with her constantly, giving advice and

congratulating her on her good fortune in having such a

handsome fiancé. Salima’s father went all the way to Baghdad

to buy brocade—wine-and-gold, blue-and-silver, white-and-

gold—for her wedding clothes. Soon after Salima’s fifteenth

birthday the young people were married and went on a

honeymoon (for Khalil was sophisticated by local standards)

to Baghdad, where they made a pilgrimage to the tomb of the

Imam at Kadhimain. Salima produced a photograph to show

me, taken in Baghdad, of the two of them staring in

astonishment at the camera. Salima wore a flower in her hair,

Khalil had one in his buttonhole. Laila pronounced it very

attractive. All of these exciting events had been recounted

again and again to Laila, who had visited her friend constantly

at first in her new home, then less and less as Salima became

busier with her household, her child and her authoritarian and

relentless mother-in-law.

Laila confided to me on the way home that it was wonderful

for Salima to have made such a good marriage, but for her

such a thing was impossible. Not only would her father not

dream of marrying her to a man who was unrelated, but she,

Laila, could not imagine a more Horrible fate than being

married to a stranger and sent to live away from her family. I

mentioned one or two tribal girls who had done just this, and

Laila explained they were from poorer families. “But nobody

of the sheik’s family could ever be given to a stranger,” she

said, “unless, like Sheik Hamid’s sister, she married an even

richer and more important sheik than Hamid himself.”

“Who will you marry, then?” I asked. Laila hedged, saying

she didn’t want to marry, because Salima had told her

marriage was nothing but work and not what it was cracked up

to be at all. “But if you did want to, who would you marry?” I

pressed her.

“Oh, my cousin,” she said, “but there aren’t enough to go

around. My sister Basima and I have figured out that there are

one hundred and eighty girls in our section of the El Eshadda

and only a hundred and thirty-five boys.”

“Would you want to marry your cousin?” I asked. “Would

your older sister Sanaa want to marry her cousin?”

Laila looked shocked. “Of course,” she said. “Sanaa is to

marry Sheik Hamid’s son Ahmar. She has always known she

would marry him and she has been in love with him for

years.”

“But how can she be in love with him if she never sees

him?” I asked. “Doesn’t your father arrange the marriage, and

doesn’t she wait until the wedding night to be with him for the

first time?”

“Yes, yes,” said Laila impatiently, “but Sanaa has known

Ahmar since she was a baby. They played together all the time

till Sanaa put on the abayah and went to sit in the house. She

watches for him when he goes by our house; we tease her

about him.” She looked at me oddly. “Naturally she wants to

marry him; who else would she want to marry?”

“No one, I can see that,” I put in hastily. It was nearly dark

along the canal road where the water buffalo were being

driven up the bank out of the water, toward their owners’

lands to be milked. The sun had mercifully set and a vague

breeze stirred the air, but Laila was walking with her head

bent, absorbed in her thoughts.

“I will never marry, Beeja,” she finally brought out.

“Why not?” I asked in surprise.

Laila explained, so quietly I could scarcely hear, that since

she had no brothers, someone would have to care for her

mother when her father died. “Last year my father told me that

he had chosen me,” said Laila, “because I can sew and can

earn a living for both of us.”

“But isn’t there any man who would marry you and come to

live in your house and help you take care of your mother?”

“Ye-es,” said Laila, “there is a special marriage when the

man agrees to come and live in his wife’s house and the

children inherit the land, but most men prefer to stay in their

own house.”

I decided to shift the conversation. “Who will your oldest

sister Fatima marry?”

Laila sighed. “Well, she was supposed to marry Haji

Hamid’s son but he disobeyed his father and eloped with

Selma’s sister, so now Fatima has no one to marry.”

“What about Basima?” I asked, thinking I was on safe

ground, for Basima was still under sixteen.

Laila smiled. “She will marry Jalil, Sheik Hamid’s brother’s

son.”

“But—” I stopped. Several things that had been puzzling

me for a long time were suddenly becoming clear. I had

wondered why Moussa’s beautiful daughters were unmarried,

and also why three of the sheik’s marriageable daughters were

still sitting in the harem. There was no one for them to marry.

Prohibited by the code of their tribe from marrying men other

than first cousins or similar close relations, they were trapped

by circumstance, by social forces within Iraq which they were

powerless to change. One was an unusual case, an elopement.

But the sheik’s sons and his brother’s sons were something

else, something new. These young men had been sent to

Baghdad to study in the new coeducational colleges there and

they had emerged with Westernized ideas. They wanted to

marry educated girls who could be companions as well as

wives and mothers. The boys could find such girls, for Bob

had told me that Jalil was hoping to marry a pretty

schoolteacher in Diwaniya and the sheik’s brother had

reportedly quarreled with his two sons over the issue. The

girls were the ones who suffered, destined to stay year after

year, unmarried, in their fathers’ houses, passed on finally in

their old age to their married brothers to support. An empty

and meaningless life, the reasons for which they would never

be able to understand.

“I don’t think I want to marry anyway,” Laila was going on.

We had reached my gate by this time, and neighbors, passing,

greeted us, but Laila paid little attention. She was intent on

finishing her train of thought. “In our house, we share the

work. If I got married, I would have to do it all. My sisters feel

the same way.”

But I remembered her sister Sanaa’s telling me that ten

years ago everyone had said she was as beautiful as the

sheik’s bride Selma. “Look at me,” she had said. “I’ve been

sitting here, working and waiting for ten years, and my heart

grows narrow and cramped and it begins to show in my face.”

“The thing to do,” continued Laila, “is to go to school and

become a teacher. That is what Basima is going to do. My

father says so. Perhaps he’ll send me to school too”

“But what about your sisters Fatima and Sanaa and Nejla?”

I asked.

“Yes, it is a pity,” she agreed. “When they were little girls,

it was considered great shame to go to school. Now it is not,

and everyone goes, but it is too late for them.”

14

One Wife or Four

Hussna, a woman who lived near the market, was noted for

her bad temper, poor housekeeping, and unkempt children.

During Ramadan Laila had pointed her out to me at one of the

krayas. “Everyone feels sorry for her husband, Abad,” said

Laila. “He is a good man and deserves a better wife.”

In early summer, when the rumor went round the settlement

that Abad was considering taking a second wife, even the

women I knew who usually vehemently criticized the man in

such cases agreed that Abad was justified. Further, they

approved of his choice, a recently widowed young woman

with two small boys. By marrying the young widow, Laila

explained to me, Abad would improvp the situation in his own

house and also provide a good home for the fatherless family.

Or so he thought. When Hussna heard of the plan, she was

reported to be thoroughly enraged. Without saying a word to

her husband or her neighbors, she borrowed fifteen pounds

from her mother and took the earliest taxi, leaving the village

one morning at dawn. By noon, fascinated neighbors coaxed

her mother into admitting that Hussna had gone to consult one

of the powerful wise women in Samawa, some fifty miles

away. Um Khalil, the village dignitary, could write charms to

keep babies from harm and other such simple things, but the

women in Samawa, I was told, could do anything: bring a

baby boy, even twin boys, to a woman who had been barren

for years; cure any sickness; even strike an enemy dead. But

their charms and cures were expensive.

By late afternoon everyone in El Nahra knew where Hussna

had gone, and her husband, sitting nonchalantly with friends

in the coffee shop, was eyed curiously by acquaintances and

passers-by. What would happen? Even I stared at the

ordinary-looking man as Laila and I walked by on our way to

visit the school. Abad’s hand trembled a little, perhaps, as he

raised his glass of tea to his lips, but that was all. The widow

kept to her house. We were told that Hussna had returned late

the same night, and that in the morning the widow’s oldest

boy was sick with fever and dysentery. The child recovered,

but Abad abandoned his plan of taking another wife. Hussna

reigned alone and triumphant in her slovenly house, and Abad

was seen more and more often in coffee shops. Within a few

months the widow and her children were forced by economic

circumstances to leave the village and move in with relatives

in Diwaniya.

When I asked Laila about this, she pooh-poohed the whole

chain of events. “Once long, long ago, my grandmother’s

sister went to Samawa and paid ten pounds and when she

came back, her husband never beat her again,” she said. “But

my sisters and I don’t believe in these wise women, who have

never been to school or studied with the mullahs and don’t

know a single verse of the Koran. Years ago, yes, but now,

no!”

Bob told me the men joked about the charms of Um Khalil

and scoffed at the mention of the wise women of Samawa, but

visits to any of the wise women were always noticed, and

served to draw attention to the household in question. This in

itself may have had some effect on the men.

Few women went to the extremes of Hussna. However, Um

Khalil had regular visitors, as did the woman mullahs of El

Nahra. Medical services were relatively new to the village,

and in case of barrenness or serious illness in themselves or

their children the women had little recourse except their own

experience, prayer, or a charm. They purchased charms to

make cruel husbands kind, indifferent ones loving, to prevent

divorce, to keep new babies safe from the Evil Eye. But more

than any other single thing, they prayed, purchased charms,

connived against being supplanted by a second wife.

This fear of the women seemed to me out of all proportion

to the facts. In the tribal settlement of one hundred and four

households, for example, only nine were or ever had been

polygamous. There had been four divorces in the past year and

a half. The Koran allows a man to take up to four wives, if he

can provide for them equally and give them all the same

amount of affection. But it is expensive to take more than one

wife. Another bride price must be raised, ranging anywhere

from 10 to 150 or even 500 pounds, depending on the

economic and social status of the man and girl involved.

(Selma, Sheik Hamid’s wife, had commanded a bride price of

1500 English pounds.)

After the initial investment, the man must pay for food and

clothing for the new wife and her prospective children. In case

of divorce, the man must return a certain portion of the bride

price to the woman or her family, and must continue to

provide for the children of the marriage. And in addition to

monetary considerations, there is the inevitable hullabaloo as

the two or more women fight for supremacy in the household.

Bob reported that the men mentioned the last problem most

frequently; the quarreling among the women affected the

man’s peace and comfort, and most men confessed that,

though they often desired another wife, they found it easier

and cheaper to make do with one, even though one might not

have the whitest skin, the darkest eyes or the longest hair of

any damsel in the village.

But another wife was always a possibility which rose to

trouble the hearts of the women, I noticed, when they were ill

or out of sorts. They talked of it constantly, in a joking,

indirect way most of the time, though there were times when

the discussion became very serious. I, in my peculiar situation,

was a favorite target for jokes on the subject.

“When,” the women would ask, giggling, “is Mr. Bob going

to take another wife?” We had been over this ground many

times before, in Laila’s house, in the sheik’s house, in other

households which I visited regularly, and my answer was

always the same.

“He might like to,” I would say, “but our religion and the

laws of our country permit him to have only one wife at a

time.”

“But,” came the inevitable argument, “isn’t our way better?

Mr. Bob can divorce you and then you have no home. But if

the sheik were to take another wife [sly dig at Selma, who

always looked uncomfortable at this point] he would still have

to take care of all his present wives and children. Which is

better?”

And before I could reply they would chorus, “Our way is

better,” nodding their heads to each other in agreement.

Next someone would say, “Oh, by the way, I hear Mr. Bob

is going to marry one of the sheik’s daughters.”

I was supposed to register shocked disbelief, which I

always did, and the women would nudge each other and laugh

at my mock consternation.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” I would say, “all of the sheik’s

daughters are my friends.”

At this point the joke would cease being a joke, and one of

the older women would intervene. Once Kulthum, the sheik’s

oldest wife, touched me considerably by adding, “Don’t

worry, Beeja, we would never let them do that to you because

you are like our own daughter and we would not want to hurt

you.” If it had been her own son who was involved she might

very well have been able to prevent such an eventuality, for I

had been told by Bob that the men sometimes considered

themselves victimized by their mothers, who always had the

final say in choosing their sons’ wives.

However, by the time a man had accumulated enough

wealth to marry a second time, his mother was usually dead.

The marriage of middle age tended to be a marriage of

pleasure, the girl chosen by the man himself rather than by the

women of his household. A man in comfortable circumstances

who married again when his first wife was past the

childbearing age was doing what was expected of him,

although the occasional malcontent who wanted to divorce or

remarry with every change of season was considered

irresponsible. Bob found that the sheik, if he discovered that a

poor tribesman was contemplating marrying a second time,

would often try to dissuade him. For the sheik knew that,

given a bad harvest, such a family would be an economic

drain on the entire community.

In the time of the prophet Mohammed, polygamy was

considered a great step forward. Mohammed wanted to

discourage the pre-Islamic practice of female infanticide, and

check the polygamous situation which seems to have bordered

on licentiousness. To provide for the extra women he ruled

that men could marry up to four wives. Today polygamy is

disappearing in the cities of the Middle East, where it is rare

and frowned upon. Some Koranic scholars have even gone so

far as to insist that the Koran has been wrongly interpreted for

centuries.

But in rural areas polygamy persists, partly out of tradition,

partly because it still fills a social and economic need. In the

cities women are now attending schools and colleges, taking

jobs in the offices, factories and schools of a growing

industrial

society.

Some

are

becoming

financially

independent, and though still tied closely to their families,

they are beginning to weaken even these bonds by establishing

separate households when they marry.

Yet in rural areas like El Nahra the extended family is still

the basic social unit. There is no place for a woman outside

the houses of her father, her husband, her brothers or her sons.

Even as a second or third wife, a woman has a role and status

and purpose. She has a respectable place to live and food to

eat; her children, who will support her in her old age, have a

chain of relatives to whom they may turn for marriage

partners, for jobs, for bare subsistence if necessary. And the

women of El Nahra, though they feared being replaced by

other wives and insisted vehemently that two women were too

many in any house, were well aware of the alternatives. I

know of no woman in the village or tribe who would have

chosen spinsterhood and isolation rather than marriage,

whether as the first, second or third wife of a man.

In El Nahra, I found, polygamy was more or less palatable

to a, woman, depending on the personalities of the wives, the

temperament of the husband and the demands of the particular

household. Sheik Hamid’s first wife had died giving birth to

her third child. The sheik then married Kulthum and, fairly

soon after, Bahiga, who cared for the motherless babies as

well as bearing their own children. I did not hear much of the

earlier history of the two women, but when I knew Bahiga and

Kulthum they appeared friendly, though they did not visit

each other in their private apartments. When Sheik Hamid was

forty-five, he married for the fourth time, the beautiful Selma.

Selma was married for her beauty and education (she had

finished high school) as well as to cement a political alliance

with a distant section of the tribe, but she did not sit in idle

splendor on the pink satin bed, waited upon by servant girls

with plumed fens. She had been married also because she was

desperately needed as a working member of the household.

When he married Selma, Haji Hamid had recently

succeeded his father as sheik, and thus was responsible for the

traditional hospitality in the tribal mudhif. There were fifteen

growing children in the compound, and Bahiga and Kulthum,

aging now, could barely keep up with their duties. In addition

to child care, laundry, tending the sick, keeping their own

apartments and the compound in order, they had to cook three

meals every day for approximately sixty people (fifteen

children, two wives, the wife and four children of Sheik

Hamid’s eldest son Nour, the sheik himself, the aged wife of

the sheik’s father, two sentants and from ten to thirty tribal

retainers and guests who ate regularly in the mudhif). Even

with Nour’s wife, the two servants and teenaged daughters to

help, this was an enormous task.

Selma lived in her own house for two years and bore her

first child before moving into the compound with Kulthum

and Bahiga. I knew, for I had been told by each wife in turn,

that they were jealous of the sheik’s affections and felt

rejected when he favored one woman’s child over another, or

brought gifts to one and not to the other two. Yet the three

women depended on each other, and knew that their work

would be much more difficult without the help of the others.

The basic jealousies and petty dislikes were there, but they

were submerged and mitigated by the necessities of daily

living.

Not all women accepted the situation with such good grace,

however. I remember a young woman whom I met by chance

in Selma’s room one summer evening, a woman from an

outlying clan settlement who had left her husband, fleeing to

the sheik’s harem, traditional respectable refuge of women in

difficulties. She had arrived just before dark, Laila whispered

to me, and had been telling her story over and over again to

the crowds of women who came to see her.

It was not an unusual story, I gathered from the comments

of the group. The second wife of a middle-aged tribesman, she

had been married just a year. But from the day after her

wedding, the first wife and the mother-in-law had joined

forces to make her life miserable. They left the most

unpleasant household tasks for her to do, insulted her before

guests, and shouted at her from morning to night. When the

husband came home, they complained that the girl was lazy

and ill-bred.

Even while the girl was talking, one of Selma’s little boys

ran in to whisper loudly in his mother’s ear that a man had just

arrived in the mudhif and said he had come to take his wife

home. When the girl heard this, her face changed expression;

she looked at the ground and we waited for what was to come.

After we had eaten a few more pumpkin seeds, Kulthum

moved closer to the girl.

“Is your husband kind to you?” she asked gently, and the

girl nodded, her eyes still cast down.

“Then you would be foolish not to return to him,” Kulthum

counseled.

The girl still kept silent. Selma spoke up.

“Tell your husband how mean the other women are,” she

said. “If he really loves you, he will beat them and they will

understand that they cannot treat you so badly.”

Several of the women disagreed loudly. Kulthum and

Bahiga, the sheik’s two older wives, looked at each other and

looked away. What part of their past were they recalling?

Kulthum spoke again.

“It will be better in the long run if you would try to make

friends with them,” she offered.

“Make friends with them!” The girl’s head flew up and she

exploded in a frenzy. “They hate me, they hide the sugar and

steal my cigarettes, they pour salt into the food I prepare for

my husband, they gossip about me to the neighbors and they

tell my husband I am mean and will not help with the

housework. They want nothing except to get me out. How can

I make friends with them?” She broke down and sobbed

loudly into her abayah. Kulthum moved closer to the girl and

touched her shoulder.

“You are still young and pretty,” she said. “Remember that.

They are old and ugly now and barren. You can still bear

children who will be your comfort when you are old.”

“I am five months along with child,” hiccuped the girl

through her sobs.

“Ah, then,” said Bahiga, “you must go back.”

Kulthum nodded and several other women voiced

agreement.

Selma’s servant Amina brought tea and we sipped it,

talking of other things. Kulthum and Bahiga rose to leave, as

did many others. Selma and the girl talked together in low

tones. I realized that Selma had been unusually quiet during

the evening, perhaps because of the presence of the two older

wives, but perhaps also because the girl’s troubles had revived

memories of her own problems of adjustment when she had

first married the sheik.

Laila and I rose to go, and Selma said, “Did you understand

what we were saying this evening?”

I nodded.

She spoke to the girl, who was drying her eyes on a corner

of her abayah. She looked at me hard.

“I am telling her,” said Selma, “that in your country it is

forbidden for a man to marry two wives at the same time, and

if that were true here, she would not have been able to marry.”

We all tried to laugh, and even the girl managed a smile.

“Well,” said Laila, as she bade me good night at the door of

her house, “I hope my father doesn’t think of taking another

wife, because she would be very unhappy. All of my sisters

and I love our mother.”

As I did not answer, she went on, “After all, that man might

never have married the girl if his first wife had been a better

wife.”

“How?” I asked, though I thought I knew what Laila would

say.

“Served and respected her husband, worked hard, kept

herself beautiful for him, made him laugh, and of course borne

him sons.”

What could I answer? I knew, as did Laila, that her mother

had done a magnificent job on all counts except one: there

were no sons.

“Of course I know my father wants a son,” Laila half

hissed, half whispered, “so Fatima and I have bought a charm

from Um Khalil to put in my mother’s bed so she can

conceive a boy. It cost three pounds. She doesn’t know, but

just in case that doesn’t work, we have bought another to put

under my father’s pillow to drive out all thoughts of a second

wife.”

A group of men were approaching on their way home from

late evening tea at the mudhif, and Laila said good night

hurriedly and stepped inside her door out of sight. I walked on

down the path to my gate, thinking about Laila and her sisters,

who appeared so happy and industrious and claimed to be

above the magic of the ignorant. Yet they were silently

helping their mother in every way they could to wrestle with

the problem that faced all women, rich and poor, educated and

uneducated: how to keep the love of one man and remain the

only woman in a happy and respected household, surrounded

by children who would provide for their mother in her old age.

To achieve this end, they were prepared to do almost

anything.

On the other hand, there were polygamous households in

the settlement that were genuinely happy. The house of

Abdulla, the sheik’s older brother, was a shining example.

Abdulla had married Bassoul, the young daughter of a

Bedouin chieftain, after his first wife Khariya had been unwell

for several years. She had rheumatism and various female

complaints which made it difficult for her to complete the

daily drudgery of the household. Some said that Khariya

herself had urged Abdulla to take another wife to help her out.

Others discounted this. But wherever the suggestion had

originated, it had been a good one. From the early days of the

marriage, Bassoul had been Khariya’s friend, and now, when

one saw them together, they seemed devoted to each other.

Bassoul was young and strong, with bright eyes and rosy

cheeks. She relieved Khariya of the burdens of carrying water,

washing and other tasks which wearied the older woman.

When Bassoul did not conceive, Khariya took her to the local

mullah, who wrote a sura from the Koran for her. Khariya

paid for this blessing. Five years after her marriage, Bassoul

finally conceived and Khariya seemed as happy as though it

were her own daughter.

I had asked many women about the secret of this

household’s happiness, and the best answer came from

Khariya herself.

“You wonder why Bassoul and I are happier together than

the sheik’s wives, don’t you?” she said. I nodded.

“Everyone says,” she continued, “that it is because Bassoul

is a good girl and helps me. This is true. But even if she were

the best-hearted girl in the village and worked harder than any

servant, we would not be happy together if Abdulla were not

the kind of man he is. He believes the Koran and does what it

says. When he goes to Baghdad, he brings back two presents:

a gold bracelet for Bassoul and one for me. When Bassoul

gets money for a new abayah, he always asks me whether I

need one. And he divides his nights equally between us.

Women always stand together before strangers and say they

are happy together; they are ashamed to admit that they have

not been clever enough to remain the only wife, and so they

pretend that whatever they have is good. Don’t believe them.

Women will always fight and quarrel and be discontented if

the man is not strong enough to give each of them what she

needs and wants from him.”

PART III

15

Summer

Haji Hamid was preparing to leave for his summer vacation in

Lebanon. Each year he spent the two hottest months in a small

mountain hotel above Beirut, where he met sheiks from Iraq,

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria, men distantly related to him

by blood or by tribal affiliation. In the cool mountain air the

men would talk away the summer, drinking tea and coffee,

playing trictrac (backgammon) and occasionally driving into

town to tour the fleshpots of Beirut. When September came

they would head back to the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula,

to towns and tribal settlements where many of them, like Haji

Hamid, were still responsible for the welfare of many people.

Summer sojourns to fashionable watering places like

Lebanon were a comparatively new thing among the sheiks of

southern Iraq. Haji’s father had been one of the first to go, and

each summer he had taken one of his sons with him. When

Haji had assumed the sheikship, he decided to be adventurous;

scorning the little mountain hotel, he traveled to Cyprus one

summer, accompanied by three retainers.

The men checked into a second-class hotel in Nicosia, and

all might have been well if the hotel had not unexpectedly

caught fire in the middle of the first night. Servants rushed up

and down the hallways, pounding on doors and shouting

“Fire! Fire!” alternately in Greek, Turkish and English. Haji

put on his eyeglasses and opened the door of his room to see

what the commotion was about, but of the clerk’s screaming

neither he nor his retainers understood a word. No smoke had

yet penetrated the floor and the four Arab gentlemen stood

looking at the frantic clerk in some perplexity. Finally in

desperation the clerk pulled at the sleeve of Haji’s white

nightshirt; the three retainers stepped forward, but Haji

apparently realized that it was no plot, the clerk simply wanted

them to come with him, and they did so.

Hustled downstairs and out onto the lawn, the four Arabs

were greeted by a sight which Haji told Bob he never forgot.

All the hotel guests were assembled on the lawn, attired in

odds and ends of clothes which they had been able to don

quickly in their flight from the burning building. Some wore

almost nothing. These half-clad men and women were talking

and joking together, and Haji, coming from a society where

strange men and women never talk together, and the women

are always covered up to their eyes, found the scene very

upsetting. Eventually the fire was put out, and little damage

had been done. The guests returned to their rooms, but Haji

had had enough. Next morning he packed his bags and

returned to Lebanon.

The sheik was planning to drive to Baghdad and take the

plane to Beirut. His car was being washed and waxed, and

when I went to see Selma she was putting her husband’s

summer wardrobe in order for traveling: boiling the

undershirts, dishdashas and long-legged drawers, and

bleaching them in the sun to a dazzling whiteness. She was

also cooking his favorite meals for him, “so he’ll be anxious

to come home,” she explained. “Haji says the food in the hotel

is very bad. You never know what they put in the stew.”

I had wondered whether Selma might accompany him to

Lebanon, because I knew she had gone to Baghdad with him

at least twice and had stayed in the house of relatives.

“Yes, but I only had Feisal then,” she said. “He was a baby

and easy to take. I couldn’t go now. It would be expensive to

take all of us, and who would take care of my five children

while I was gone?”

I nodded. “But it might be a pleasant change,” I suggested

tentatively.

Selma eyed me. “Pleasant? Why? To live in a strange room

all by myself, keep out of sight of strange men, eat I don’t

know what?”

“But don’t you miss Haji?”

“Of course,” answered Selma. She paused. “But I have a

change when he’s gone. Of course I miss him, but it is much

less work for me. And then,” she paused again, “he misses me,

and he is much happier to see me when he comes home.” She

looked down at the row of gold necklaces about her throat and

fingered one of lovely tapered cone-shaped gold beads. “See,

Beeja,” she laughed, “he brought me this last year. Lebanese

goldwork is very good.”

The night before Haji’s departure, Bob brought him over

from the mudhif to have tea with us in the garden. Haji sat

down in one of our folding aluminum armchairs, took off his

glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired and complained

that the heat seemed to affect him more every year.

“But it is very pleasant here,” he amended. After the 110-

degree heat of the day, the garden was cool and peaceful, and

I realized how hospitable our host was. This was his only

garden, he obviously enjoyed sitting in it on summer evenings,

but now that he had offered it to us, he would not have

dreamed of intruding.

A light breeze rustled the hot leaves on the orange and

lemon trees, the dried banana stalks rasped against each other

softly, and the stray cat we had adopted, who slept all day in

the shade of a palm tree, was slithering about the yard, hunting

for hedgehogs. I brought tea.

From the coffee shop on the canal we heard the announcer’s

voice from Radio Baghdad, giving the time and the station

break. A pause, and the sound of a cello, round and full, of a

violin and a piano swelled out of the tropical night. “It’s

Beethoven,” said Bob, astounded. “The Archduke Trio.” We

waited for the coffee shop proprietor to turn it off, but he did

not.

Bob roused himself to say to Haji that we found this music

very beautiful. Did he?

“No,” said Haji, “I don’t. I have friends who say they do,

but I think they are just pretending to like it because the

English and other foreigners do.”

He sipped his tea and spoke of his weariness and his

financial troubles and his feeling that he needed a change. The

Beethoven went on, and Bob and I exchanged looks of pleased

amazement at the sound of the music we loved and had not

heard for so long. I went to get more tea.

With a click the station changed. Abdul Wahab, a well-

known Arab vocalist, sang among the drums and pipes. When

I returned with the tea, Bob and Haji were chuckling.

“Now this,” said Haji, “is music.”

I wished the sheik bon voyage and left the men to linger

over their tea glasses.

Two days after Haji left, Selma’s oldest son Feisal was in

bed with an unidentifiable illness. I went up to the house,

where the boy lay on a cot in the sirdab, or summer cellar, a

room much cooler because it was set in at least two feet below

the surface of the ground. Feisal’s mother and aunts, his

brothers and sisters and cousins all sat on the floor around his

bed, clucking in anxiety. A glass of water stood on a little

bedside table. From time to time one of the children would

take a sip from the glass, only to flee screaming in mock terror

at a reprimand from the women. The noise and the crowds and

the bright electric light in the sirdab had no effect on Feisal;

he lay in a stupor and did not move.

Selma’s eyes were red from crying. “He is so sick, Beeja,”

she said, “and he won’t eat and he won’t drink, since

yesterday afternoon. Feel him.”

I put my hand on his forehead; the child was burning up

with fever.

“He vomits,” said Selma, “but he won’t drink at all and he

gets hotter and hotter and I don’t know what to do.”

I didn’t know either, but it was obvious that the child was

seriously ill. The temperature outside was at least 110, and if

Feisal would not drink and the fever continued, he was in

danger of dehydration.

“Has the doctor come?” I asked.

Selma said that Nour and Abdulla had gone to get the

village doctor. I sat for a few moments before excusing

myself. Selma had her hands full and another guest was the

last thing in the world she needed.

After lunch Bob brought bad news from the mudhif; the

doctor had diagnosed Feisal’s illness as typhoid fever. This

panicked us. We ordinarily did not meddle in community

affairs, even if asked, but typhoid in midsummer was

something we did not like to contemplate. Bob had suggested

to Nour that the people living in the compound should be

inoculated, but Nour had replied that only Haji Hamid himself

could authorize such drastic action.

“I think I’ll call Haji myself,” said Bob. “He’s probably still

in Baghdad. It would be terrible to have a typhoid epidemic

break out.”

Haji, as we expected, thought inoculation an excellent idea.

When Bob reached him, he had just received news of Feisal’s

illness and was wondering whether to return to El Nahra.

Instead he called Nour and talked to Abdulla, giving

instructions that everyone in his house and Abdulla’s house

was to be inoculated.

Soon another crisis developed: Dr. Ibrahim had no serum.

Abdulla and Nour and Bob got the postmaster out of bed to

open up the telephone exchange and place another call to

Baghdad. Haji promised he would buy the medicine as soon as

the pharmacies opened in the morning and put it on the first

taxi bound for El Nahra, tipping the driver well to deliver the

serum directly to the doctor.

In the morning I could see the boy was worse. Even more

women and children had gathered round his bed. They

moaned when Feisal moaned, cried out when he cried out. The

presence of so many people in the small sirdab had warmed

the usually cool air, and Selma was perspiring freely, wiping

her face with her foota and trying hard not to cry. She fell on

me as I entered, something she had never done before, and

demanded what she should do. I could think of nothing new,

and merely said that the boy should be bathed and that

somehow she must get water into him.

“But Beeja. I can’t,” she said desperately. “He knocks the

water out of my hand. He’s my first-born and I’ve spoiled him

and his father has spoiled him. But he gets worse and worse

and I’m afraid—I’m afraid he will die.” She broke down and

sobbed.

I put my arm around her shoulder, which seemed little

comfort, and several of the older women got up and told her

not to worry.

“No, he won’t die, no, Selma he won’t die,” I kept repeating

over and over again while she sobbed, talking for lack of

anything more concrete to offer. “No, he won’t die,” I said

again, but not out of conviction, for the boy looked dreadful.

Nour spoke through the screen to Selma.

“We must all leave—the doctor is coming,” she said, drying

her eyes on her foota again, and we all adjourned to Selma’s

room where the women loudly debated Feisal’s chances of

recovery.

The boy cried out in anguish from the sirdab, and the

women shook their heads, silenced for the moment, and

whispered in sympathy. At another cry Selma half rose,

realized she could not enter her son’s room while the strange

doctor was present, and sat down again. We all knew the

doctor was not doing anything awful to Feisal, but his cries

were piercing. Selma sobbed again, and Kulthum patted her

knee. The screaming gradually subsided and a knock sounded

on the door. Selma put on her abayah, talked for a few

moments with Nour outside the door, and came back into the

room.

“The doctor says Feisal will get w-worse tonight,” she

announced, her voice trembling, “and tomorrow he may be

better. And the doctor says he must stay in the room alone,

with only me to watch. And the door must be shut.”

This was greeted with cries of protest.

“He’ll be frightened.”

“He can’t stay alone.”

“No, no, Selma, we must keep watch.”

“Nour says so,” interrupted Selma firmly, “and he also says

the doctor is going to give everyone in the house injections

against the fever.”

Shock, disbelief, fear and displeasure registered in rapid

succession on the faces of the women as the force of this

statement penetrated to them. The barrage of objections was

almost too much for Selma and she appealed to me.

“Beeja will have the injection too,” she said.

I replied that I had already had it, and the injection did not

leave a scar, baring my upper arm to show it unmarked. They

crowded to look, distracted momentarily, and I showed them

my smallpox-vaccination scar–“very small and it didn’t

hurt”—lying blithely and babbling on about how many

different kinds of injections I had had for how many different

kinds of diseases.

“The doctor is coming after supper,” pronounced Selma.

By late evening Bob reported the doctor had inoculated

more than thirty men, women and children. Feisal was

approaching the crisis, and the doctor felt he would reach it,

and the fever would probably break, before morning. He was

right. I went visiting in midmorning and found the crowd of

women in the sirdab again, but now Feisal was conscious, and

crying, in his usual wheedling way, for sweets, for toys, for a

bird to play with. He struck his mother’s hand when she came

near him. Yes, the spoiled son was getting well.

The summer wore on and each day was a little hotter than

the day before. We found we were accomplishing less and

less. An hour’s cooking tired me. Bob made the effort every

morning to visit the mudhif or the irrigation office, but found

almost no one to talk to. People were hoarding their stores of

energy to last through the two months of heat yet to come.

About this time we both had bad bouts of dysentery, which

sapped our strength even more. After this experience we

decided to boil the drinking water, and each night before bed

we would pour boiling-hot water into two huge porous clay

jars to cool during the night. For despite our relative

inactivity, we were drinking between us over a gallon of water

a day.

At night we slept outside, on camp beds and under

mosquito nets. Each morning the bedclothes had to be carried

inside or they would have been so hot and dusty by nightfall

that we would not have enjoyed lying on them. We found that

an afternoon nap had become a necessity, and this grew longer

every day. By mid-July we were eating our lunch at noon and

immediately afterward retiring to the living room to try to

sleep. But even protected by our foot-thick mud walls and by

window screens of woven camel-thorn dampened by a bucket

of water several times a day, it was so hot that sleep came

with difficulty. We lay on the camp beds and read mysteries

and waited for sundown. Fortunately we had a little fan and,

more important, electricity to run it, for Abu Saad, the mayor,

had a fan too and liked to keep it running while he napped.

When the mayor ordered it, naturally the town generator was

turned on. Even so, in that one summer we perspired so much

during the long hot afternoons that we rotted through the

canvas of both brand-new camp beds.

At five we would get up, take a cold sponge bath and dress,

and as the sun dropped to the horizon, we would hear other

people on the paths outside. By seven o’clock dusk had settled

over the countryside and the settlement was alive again.

“In Iraq in summer the days are very hot, but the nights are

very beautiful,” ran one of the phrases we had learned in our

colloquial Arabic course at Georgetown University.

I have often wondered about the homesick Iraqi who was

the author of the phrase, writing about the marvelous summer

nights of Iraq from his desk in the steaming humidity of a

Washington, D.C., summer. For I shall never forget the sense

of release we felt when night had descended after the fierce

heat of the day. The birds woke and added their voices to the

buzz of the noise as families cooked their dinners and went

shopping in the reopened suq. The children played a game

with sheeps’ knuckles, shouting, in the road. We sat in our

garden, eating supper from a big tin tray and tasting the

coolness of the air. We stayed up late, for it was too wonderful

to go to bed. Bob would go to the mudhif and I would head for

Laila’s house or Selma’s or Sherifa’s.

The women gathered in the courts under the stars. One by

one, children would come home and fall asleep in their

mothers’ laps or on the summer beds of split reed mats which

ranged round the court; the women sat on and on, smoking,

chewing pumpkin seeds, talking and relishing the breeze that

frequently came up after sundown. It was on these evenings

that I felt closest to the women, as we relaxed together after

sharing the day’s heat and talked and exchanged confidences

as friends.

“What do you dream about, Beeja?” asked Laila one

evening. We sat in an irregular circle in the court of her house.

Fatima was passing around a tray of khubuz laham which she

had just made, and we nibbled the bread contentedly, washing

it down with cooled water from the clay jug in the center of

the circle.

“What’s the matter, are you afraid of us?” Nejla, the family

jokester, opened her eyes very wide and looked

melodramatically into mine. Everyone laughed.

“How could I be, Nejla? You are so funny,” I answered.

Nejla was delighted. “Yes, I am, aren’t I?” she asked the

group.

“Well, what do you dream about?” persisted Basima.

“Many things,” I said. “My mother, Mr. Bob, things that

have happened in the past. What about you?”

“I dream about my cousin,” said Basima. “I always dream

of him, and the day we shall marry.”

Fatima said slowly, “I have one dream again and again. I go

out in the morning to get water and the canal has gone dry.

Soon everyone is standing by the bank, waiting for the water

to come.”

“And does it come?”

“I don’t know. I always wake up.”

We sat quietly together. A finger of the new moon was

visible in the sky above us.

“When you see the new moon,” said Basima, “my father

says you must look at something beautiful or someone you

love and then make a wish.”

“What if there isn’t anything beautiful nearby?” I inquired.

“Then you look at water,” she replied.

“Has the canal ever dried up?” I went on.

“I don’t think so,” said Laila, “but my father says that once

the British cut off the water because Haji was fighting them

and winning.”

“Haji Abdul Emir, our grandfather, you mean,” said

Basima.

“Sometimes I dream about Haji Abdul Emir,” Fatima put in

unexpectedly.

The girls exclaimed at this. “Really, Fatima?” “How do you

dream about him?”

“I dream he is on horseback,” she answered. “You girls are

too young to remember, but before Haji Abdul Emir got sick,

he had a beautiful horse—it cost nearly a thousand pounds. He

would gallop up the road to the mudhif very fast and all of us

children would run after him. Once he even rode a racing

camel up the road, a milk-white camel.”

“Well,” said Laila primly, “I dream about my friend Salima,

and when you leave us, Beeja, we will dream about you and

what good times we had together.”

“But I’m not leaving yet,” I pointed out.

“You will, and you will forget us,” they said.

“No, no,” I protested.

Fatima smiled and winked at Laila. “Let’s buy a charm

from Um Khalil so Beeja won’t forget us.”

“Or look in the Book of Stars and see what it says,”

suggested Basima.

“What’s the Book of Stars?” I asked.

“Selma has one, that she keeps hidden from Haji, and it tells

you about everything,” said Laila. “I’ve looked in it many

times to see whether I am going to marry and it always says

no.”

“I want to marry a fat man, a fat man,” chanted Nejla, “a

man as big as a bar-rel.” She laughed at her own joke, but no

one joined in; they were too interested in what they are saying.

“We don’t believe in the Book of Stars, Beeja,” said

Fatima, “we’re just joking. This kind of magic is against the

Koran.”

“But Fatima,” Laila put in, “the Book of Stars must be

worth something because look what Selma did with it!”

“What did she do?” I asked.

Fatima looked disapproving, but Laila plunged ahead.

“When Selma first moved into the compound, Haji would

sleep one night with her, the next night with Bahiga and the

night after that with Kulthum. But Selma didn’t like that at all.

She wanted Haji all to herself.”

“Laila—” cautioned Fatima.

“Well, she did, and you know it, and so she got this Book of

Stars from her sister in Diwaniya and after a while Haji

stopped sleeping with Bahiga and Kulthum and only came to

Selma.”

“Yes, but-”

“She did it with her Book,” finished Laila triumphantly and

looked around her for confirmation. The other girls nodded.

“That is against the Koran,” repeated Fatima angrily, “and

you should know better, Laila. You know what the mullah

says.”

“Is the hiriz against the Koran too?” I asked, trying to turn

the conversation. I had seen these charms everywhere in Iraq,

small silver or tin amulets containing a few seeds and a roll of

paper on which some Koranic verses had been written by a

mullah. The amulet was pinned to a child’s clothing to ward

off the Evil Eye, or it was suspended from the mirror of a taxi

to bring good luck. Something blue was usually a part of it, a

blue glass bead or a fine turquoise set into the silver of the

more costly amulets.

“Well, no,” admitted Fatima. “Everyone buys a hiriz for his

children. Rajat was so sick when she was a baby that my

mother bought three for her from Um Khalil.”

“If children are afraid at night, they hold on to the hiriz and

then they are all right,” Laila added.

“And a hiriz can do a lot of good,” put in Basima.

“Remember Um Farid?” They nodded.

“Tell me,” I pleaded.

“Um Farid was once asleep in her house. Her husband was

away and only her mother and her baby were there. A wind

came in the night and blew out the lantern, and a burglar came

afterward and Um Farid got such a fright she could no longer

speak. After a while her mother went to Um Khalil and bought

a big hiriz and Um Farid got better. She was at Sherifa’s house

the other day and said quite a few things.”

“I think Um Khalil must be very rich from this work,” said

Laila. “Once Salima opened a big black box which belonged

to her mother-in-law and it was filled with five-and ten-pound

notes.”

“That is bad,” said Fatima, “very bad. Um Khalil takes

money for doing good and for doing evil too. One of the wives

of Haji Abdul Emir used to claim that all magic, the Book of

Stars and even the hiriz, were haram, a sin against God. But

when she was very old she said that what you do for the good

of your family is all right, halal, but if you try to use magic

and charms for a bad reason, then it is haram.”

“It’s better to pray at the tomb of Hussein and forget all

this,” said Sanaa, who had been quiet throughout the

conversation. “Or pray for something and promise to fast in

Ramadan if you get your wish. Then one is sure one is not

committing haram.”

Sometimes Nejla would entertain us with imitations. She

loved to dress up in her father’s clothes and play the irate man,

scolding wives, daughters, or sons. Her instinct for gesture

and gait was excellent, and we could always guess who her

target of the evening happened to be. Her pièce de résistance

of that summer, requested again and again, was the scene after

the kraya, when the mullah had set upon the girls who were

pulling at me. Nejla did us all, the rowdy crowd of little girls,

myself shrinking timidly away trying not to show my distaste

(how had she seen that?), the erect mullah shouting and

striking fiercely out in all directions.

In Sherifa’s little court the neighbor women gathered also,

and Laila, Basima and I would often walk up to spend part of

our evening there. Once a woman, distantly related to Sherifa,

began to query me about the intricacies of childbearing in

America.

“What I can’t understand,” she said, “is how American

women stop having babies. Do they refuse to sleep with their

husbands?”

“No, no,” chorused the group. “How could they? They

don’t, do they, Beeja?”

“No, they don’t,” I started.

“They have operations by men doctors,” offered Basima,

“so they don’t get pregnant.”

“But what if they do get pregnant?” insisted the woman.

“American women want children too,” I began again.

The woman burst out, “So do I, but I have ten, ten, and the

doctor says I will die if I have one of those operations, but I

don’t care. If I have another baby, I will die anyway. I’m

pregnant again, and I’ve eaten lots of pumpkin seeds, but

nothing has happened. So now what do I do?”

“Never mind, Um Ali,” cautioned Sherifa. “Go to the

midwife. She knows how to get rid of babies. And don’t

worry. God knows best.”

The woman gestured impatiently and sighed, a long, tearing

sigh.

“Really,” counseled Sherifa, “the midwife is very good.

And not expensive either.”

Talk turned away from the woman’s insoluble problem.

Laila blurted out that she had always considered Christians

unclean because she had been told that they did not shave any

of their body hair.

“And is it true,” asked Basima, “that in America they put all

the old women in houses by themselves, away from their

families?”

I admitted that this was sometimes true and tried to explain,

but my words were drowned in the general murmur of

disapproval.

“What a terrible place that must be!”

“How awful!”

“And their children let them go?”

“Thank God we live in El Nahra, where the men are not so

cruel!”

It had never occurred to me before, but the idea of old

people’s homes must have been particularly reprehensible to

these women whose world lay within the family unit and

whose whole lives of toil and childbearing were rewarded in

old age, when they enjoyed repose and respect as members of

their children’s households.

For months the women had begged me to tell their fortunes

with coffee cups. This I could not do, but finally I admitted I

could read palms, and soon the palm reading became part of

the summer evening’s entertainment. I had to change my

approach, for one could hardly say, in this culture, that a

woman would have four or five flirtations and then a

marriage, but rather that she would have many offers before

marrying. Travel for these women meant religious pilgrimages

or visits to the doctor; a long travel line indicated a possibility

of visiting Mecca. Everyone wanted to know whether she was

jealous, whether she was passionate. The passion was

important; the married women would giggle and tell the

unmarried ones that they had yet to learn how much fun it

could be to sleep with one’s husband.

“Always?” I asked.

“Of course,” they would reply. “If we did not enjoy

sleeping with them, how could we love them?”

I thought to myself, truly how else, for they seldom saw

their husbands except to serve them at meals, and at bedtime.

On the night of the prophet Mohammed’s birthday a fine

full moon rose over the canal. For the occasion, the main

street of El Nahra and the suq as well had been hung with

paper streamers and colored lights. Bob left after supper to

attend the festivities, a skit to be held in the suq, followed by

refreshments. Laila and Sherifa and Fatima and Basima and I

could not stay indoors that night. We were not daring enough

to cross the canal, but sat in a row by our wall, wrapped in our

abayahs, watching the reflections of the colored lights and the

moonlight in the water and listening to the sounds of

merriment from the opposite bank.

Fatima and Laila tried to persuade little Rajat to go across

and watch the skit and come back and tell us about it.

Although Rajat wore the abayah, she was only eleven and

could easily have passed unnoticed, but she grew shy and

stubborn and refused to go alone. Fatima, to make up,

entertained us with accounts of the skits she had seen when

she was a girl and had hovered around the suq on the night of

the Prophet’s birthday.

“I wasn’t afraid of life the way this one is,” she said with a

contemptuous glance at the shrinking Rajat. “Abdul Latif, the

mukhtar of the suq, always played the stupid pilgrim on his

way to Mecca,” she began, “and the foreigner was always

played by—” and she went on, describing the skit in detail,

complete with gestures, until we all laughed at her cleverness.

The moon was high in the sky and we sat close together,

loath to leave, when Rajat, the shy rabbit, sprang up as if shot,

hissed that she could hear Nour and her father coming along

the road, and that we had better hurry home.

We rose quickly and almost ran toward our respective

houses, still in good spirits. As I closed my gate behind me, I

heard the men’s voices on the path and knew the women

would be safely home before them.

When Bob came, he presented me with two pieces of

imitation toffee and a Jordan almond, the “favor” of the

evening.

“It was very interesting,” he recounted. “Abdul Latif, the

mukhtar, played a stupid pilgrim on his way to Mecca. He

meets a foreigner on the road, and this was very well done, I

thought, by a man named—”

“Yes,” I smiled. “I know.”

He looked a bit surprised. “What do you mean? Were you

there?”

“No, but it was just as good,” I answered and went on to

explain about my evening with the girls by the banks of the

canal.

16

Hussein

During the summer we also acquired an armed guard, or rather

Abdulla, Sheik Hamid’s brother, acquired him for us. Abdulla

told Bob that Haji felt we should have a guard, and had

instructed Abdulla to find us the right man. So we took on

Hussein, more to please Abdulla than out of any felt need for a

man with a loaded rifle to stand outside our door every night

Hussein belonged to another clan of the tribe, a somewhat

impoverished group which lived down the canal about half a

mile. Hussein’s wife Sajjida, accompanied by two thin

daughters, came to visit me, and I returned the call.

Their house was poorer and smaller than any in our

settlement. The single room was hardly more than a hovel,

with a ceiling so low one could not stand upright, but the floor

was swept neatly and the one reed mat was clean. We had

Coca-Cola, all of us, sitting together knee to knee in the tiny

room—Hussein, Sajjida, an aged woman cousin who lived

with them, and the two little girls.

After that Sajjida and I visited each other several times, but

though we both tried, the relationship never ripened into

friendship, for the odds were too uneven. I had so much and

Sajjida so little. I was the one who was at fault, for I felt

uncomfortable, but Sajjida felt no constraint at all and would

ask me constant and unanswerable questions.

“Can’t you give me something to keep boy babies alive?”

she said once, looking around the room as though the answer

might be found in the closet or the bookcase or behind the

radio.

I must have looked perplexed for she explained that she had

had two boys, but both had died, one after four months.

Hussein had told her that in America boy babies did not die.

“What do you use?” she wanted to know.

While we were in El Nahra she had another boy, born dead,

and when I went to see her she merely looked at me out of

huge sunken eyes. I felt ashamed, thinking of the vitamin pills

and orange juice and incubators and oxygen tents in the

maternity hospitals at home. That whole world might have

been on another planet, so far was it from the hovel where

Sajjida lay on a worn reed mat and delivered one dead baby

after another.

“Is it true that you eat meat every day?” she said another

time. I think the question was purely one of curiosity but I

wasn’t sure and again I felt ashamed. For the first time since

coming to El Nahra, I had become distinctly aware of hunger.

Although I had read of famine and seen films and photos, I

realized I had never personally known anyone who went to

bed hungry. Sajjida and her little girls often did, or at least

they had before Hussein had found work. Even with a steady

income, their average daily diet consisted of bread and tea,

rice and dried dates occasionally, meat rarely.

Hussein was lucky to have a job in El Nahra, but many

other members of the clan had turned to migrant labor. They

traveled to Baghdad in early spring to hire out as workmen in

the building trades; in Baghdad they could sleep in the streets

on the warm summer nights, and thus save almost all their

earnings to take back to El Nahra and support their family

during the winter. The clan had been hit hardest by the soil

salination which was creeping slowly over most of the

farmland. Forced by one bad season after another into near

bankruptcy, the members of the clan had either sold most of

their land, bit by bit, to Haji or one of his uncles, or simply

abandoned it.

Yet, Hussein told us proudly, his clan was the oldest clan of

all, and the sheik of his clan had once been the sheik of the

entire El Eshadda. He did not seem to feel any resentment

against Haji Hamid for being the current leader and

landowner, though he may have kept silent since it was to Haji

that he owed his present job. Bob believed that Haji felt some

responsibility for the fate of Hussein’s clan, for it was reported

that he gave rice and flour regularly to the poorest families.

We thought his insistence on an armed guard for us simply a

way of providing income for still another poor family, but we

were wrong. Hussein, it turned out, had had a good job with

the irrigation department, but when Abdulla approached him

as a representative of his clan, Hussein dutifully gave up his

job and came to us. We wondered then whether Hussein’s

undue praise of Haji might not have been a bit forced, because

the irrigation department job would have been permanent,

whereas we were temporary guests at best.

There was no doubt, however, as to Hussein’s pride in his

lineage and his clan. He could give us, from memory, his

entire family tree going back five generations, when one

Jassim and his brother Shebib had settled in the valley. This

was what it meant to have a sense of the past, for Jassim’s and

Shebib’s eight daughters and sons, their husbands and wives

and children and their husbands and wives and children were

as real to Hussein as though they were alive today, although

they had been dead for more than a hundred years. As a boy,

Hussein had spent the long summer evenings and the long

winter evenings sitting in the tribal mudhif with the men; he

had heard his father talk of the family and the clan and the

tribe and, hearing it again and again, stored it in his memory

as evidence of his own identity, his place in the world, such

evidence to be passed on to his children after him. This was

what kept Hussein and Sajjida alive, I think, for certainly

nothing in their physical environment augured toward hope or

pleasure, but they felt themselves part of the chain, passing on

jassim’s and Shebib’s ancient blood to their thin daughters,

who would marry cousins within the clan and so continue the

lineage. Then Hussein and Sajjida could die in peace, assured

that they had done their duty and that something of themselves

lived on.

Each night at sundown Hussein reported for work, his rifle

over his shoulder. He slept outside our gate. The nights were

warm and he insisted that he did not need a mattress or a

sheet. I don’t know that the consciousness of his presence ever

gave us any greater feeling of security, but it did touch off two

incidents which were the talk of El Nahra for days afterward.

One night we had as a guest an Iraqi woman schoolteacher,

a friend of mine from Baghdad. She had come to visit because

she was interested in the area, she said (she had never been

outside Baghdad in her life), but after she had arrived, she

seemed very nervous and kept asking us questions about the

friendliness of our neighbors. We had convinced her finally, I

think, of the tribe’s good will and hospitality, and had just

settled her for the night in our best bed when we were nearly

startled out of our shirts by a volley of rifle shots, very loud in

the still summer night, which thudded directly into our garden

wall. My friend leaped out of bed with a cry of fright and

came running to me in her nightgown, then turned back in

sudden modesty to look for her robe. Bob shouted that he was

going out to investigate and at this my friend clung to me and

began to tremble all over.

“Don’t let him go out there, B.J.,” she pleaded. “Please!”

I pointed out that he had already gone and I was sure there

was some simple explanation, but my friend would not be

comforted.

She wrung her hands and kept repeating, “Oh, you don’t

understand, you just don’t understand,” until Bob finally

reappeared.

Although he had only been gone a few minutes, it seemed

much longer. He appeared unconcerned, and explained that

Hussein was considering buying a gun from one of the sheik’s

guards and they had been trying it out by shooting it into the

mud wall of our garden.

My friend looked at him suspiciously. “You are hiding the

truth from me,” she said accusingly.

“No, honestly, that is what he said,” Bob replied.

“And you believe it?” she insisted.

“Of course,” said Bob. She was still not convinced, so I

made some tea and we sat in the kitchen, talking of other

things, until my friend was calm enough to go back to bed.

The next day, when we went to visit the women, they had

all heard the story and went out of their way to tell my friend

how rude they considered such behavior, especially to a guest

as distinguished as herself. I think she was mollified, but she

never saw us again without reminding us of the “Experience

with the Tribe,” as she called it.

The second incident proved to be not so easily forgotten.

One night I was raising the mosquito net to climb into my bed,

which had been set outside in the garden, when I was struck a

furious blow on the head. I screamed, loudly and

involuntarily, and screamed twice more in rapid succession

before I recovered enough to pull myself together and look

around to see what had happened. Then I felt rather silly and

embarrassed, for on the ground by the bed lay a mourning

dove, fluttering and trying to rise. Later Bob and I decided that

a hawk must have dropped down on the dove, which in turn

plunged to escape capture and hit my head accidentally on its

downward flight. But that was later.

The doorbell now began to ring furiously. Bob had been in

the toilet when the incident occurred; as I ran around the

house, I saw him coming from the garden and he motioned me

back as he headed for the door. A shot was fired just before he

reached the gate.

In five minutes Bob was back, looking very puzzled, and I

am sure I did not help matters by flinging myself on him and

sobbing. I was trying to explain what had happened, but I was

nearly incoherent.

“Hussein insists you were screaming, but I told him no,”

Bob said.

“But I was screaming,” I replied.

“I didn’t hear you,” he insisted.

As the story gradually emerged, he began to laugh. “Now I

see why Hussein was acting the way he did.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He obviously thought I was giving you a good beating,”

Bob explained, “and when I said you hadn’t screamed, he

nudged and winked so I would know he understood.”

He laughed again and looked at me. “You’ll have some

explaining to do tomorrow in the harems,” he said.

Bob was right. For some reason the women found this story

extremely funny, whether because they believed it was a bird

or because they thought I had concocted an ingenious tale to

hide my wifely punishment, I don’t know. But whenever

conversation languished during the rest of the time I spent in

El Nahra, Laila or Fatima would say, “Tell us the story of the

bird that hit you in the head,” and when I obliged, everyone

would dissolve into hysterical laughter. It became one of my

most successful social anecdotes.

17

Muharram

That year the Islamic month of Muharram came in August,

when the heat had reached its peak, and no breeze came after

sundown. The hot close nights were filled with the sound of

religious chanting and breast beating, for krayas were being

held everywhere, in the suq and in the mudhif for the men and

in private homes for the women. Attendance was greater than

at the krayas of Ramadan, for El Nahra is in a Shiite area and

the month of Muharram is of special significance to all Shiite

Moslems. It was during Muharram, in the seventh century,

that Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed, and the

imam or religious leader at that time, went to Kufa to press his

claim to the caliphate and was slain in battle on the plains of

Karbala. Hussein’s death contributed to the split into Shiite

and Sunni sects which persists in Islam to this day.

Each year during Muharram the pious Shiite communities

in Iraq and Iran and in India commemorate Imam Hussein’s

martyrdom, through daily krayas and through mourning

processions and passion plays which dramatize each important

occasion in the last days of the martyr.

“You will see them all, Beeja,” promised Laila. She, like

the other women, was very excited about the coming events,

which marked an annual period of color and drama in the

village.

First of the major occasions was the wedding procession, in

memory of Hussein’s daughter’s marriage, which had taken

place just before his departure for Kufa.

“In the wedding procession my little sisters will carry

candles. All the small children do,” said Laila.

“The burying is also very good,” she added, “but very sad.

We will go to the mosque that day and you can come with us.”

Go to the mosque? “Yes, I would love to,” I answered. No

one had even suggested I go near the mosque before. But

Laila was already onto something else, the re-enactment of the

battle between Hussein and his foes, which, it appeared,

would not be presented in El Nahra.

I asked, “Why not? I should think it would be exciting to

watch.”

“Oh it is,” she replied.

“Then why isn’t it going to be presented?”

Laila was vague. “Ask Mr. Bob,” was all she would say.

Bob asked several of the tribesmen, who were also vague

about the reasons, and finally he turned to Jabbar, the

irrigation engineer.

“It’s very simple. The sheik and the mayor won’t put up the

money,” explained Jabbar. “The government asked for 2000

English pounds this year.”

Bob was puzzled and said so. “You mean the government

charges the village for putting on the battle scene?”

No, Jabbar answered. In the past the battles had sometimes

led to bloodshed when feuding families had used the general

confusion and excitement as a cover for settling old scores.

First the government had tried to prevent the performances.

Failing in this, they required the village to pledge a large

amount of money which would be forfeited in case of trouble.

“Why are you so curious to see this sort of thing?” Jabbar

then asked Bob.

“Why not?” Bob retorted. “All the tribesmen seem to find it

interesting.”

“Oh yes, of course, the ignorant people, yes, they enjoy it,”

Jabbar replied, “but it really has nothing to do with us. I

cannot see why you should bother.”

His manner was so odd that Bob pressed him until Jabbar

finally burst out that he was certain that Bob would find the

ceremonies, especially those of flagellation, primitive and

uncivilized.

“And then you will go home to America and lecture and tell

everyone that all Iraqis are backward, uneducated,

superstitious people.”

Bob was quite disturbed. “Jabbar,” he asked, “do you really

believe I would say that?”

“Well, why shouldn’t you?” Jabbar replied. “I myself find

these ceremonies primitive.”

Bob tried to reassure him, told him of the processions of the

Western churches, of the self-mortification practiced by the

early Christian martyrs and by some contemporary religious

orders. Jabbar nodded, but seemed unimpressed.

“I used to walk in the processions myself when I was a

child,” said Jabbar. “I do not think such things are peculiar to

us. That is not the whole point. The point is also a political

one.”

“Political? How?”

“The British encourage these productions just to exaggerate

the differences between Sunni and Shiite Moslems, and thus

keep the Arabs from uniting as one people,” he said. “But

when the revolution comes, all this will change.”

“Perhaps,” Bob replied, and they finished the evening by

drinking together nearly a whole bottle of arak, the strong

local liquor brewed of dates which, when mixed with water,

tastes and looks like Pernod.

Every woman who could afford to give an appropriate gift

to the mullah held a kraya in her home. I listened to the

mullah’s sermons and the women’s chanting in the house of

Laila, in the apartments of Kulthum and Selma, in the house

of Sherifa, and in the house of Abdulla’s wife Khariya. But I

was beginning to shrink from the evening sessions, for one of

the mullahs had apparently decided that I had been an

observer long enough. She would stand beside me during the

kraya, exhorting me to beat my breast and shouting the

responses in my ear so I would join in. I found I was reluctant

to do so, partly out of shyness, partly because I suspected the

mullah had other things in mind for my religious education

after Muharram was over. Laila and Sherifa made excuses for

me on these occasions, but even they suggested I might

participate. It was becoming a difficult situation and neither

Bob nor I could think of a quick and easy solution.

Fortunately I was saved from the necessity of facing this

particular issue by an emergency call from the Davenports,

our missionary friends in Hilla. Joyce, just beginning her third

pregnancy, had been ordered to bed by the doctor. Would I

come and help with the household and the two small boys

while she was out of commission? I was doubly glad to say

yes, for the Davenport house had been a haven for us on many

occasions. When Bob was first scouting for a village in which

to settle, the Davenports had offered him their spare room

whenever he should be near Hilla. Months later, when he fell

ill on our way back to El Nahra from Baghdad, we had stayed

with the Davenports until he was able to travel again. And I

found that when I needed a break from the village round and

the eternal struggle with Arabic, my energy and optimism

were restored in two or three days spent speaking English with

Joyce and playing with the children.

Joyce was ill and terribly tired, so I stayed with her almost

until the end of Muharram. My last night in Hilla was the

night of the wedding procession, and that day Rosa, the

Davenports’ servant girl (a Christian), and Um Hussein, the

gatekeeper’s wife (a Moslem), talked of nothing else. Um

Hussein came to the back door several times to hold

whispered conferences with Rosa, who would then manage to

say loudly, in Joyce’s hearing, that it was really a shame that

we couldn’t all go to see this beautiful thing. But Joyce and

Harold were a bit doubtful, wondering if it was wise for

Christians to wander out on such a night. By suppertime we

could hear the crowds gathering in the streets, and even the

boys felt the excitement.

“Hussein is going to the procession with his mama,” said

Stevey accusingly. He was nearly five, and Hussein, the

gatekeeper’s son, was only four.

“Go, go,” said Timmy, pounding the table with his spoon.

Rosa brought in a bowl of rice pudding. “Let me take the

children, madame,” she pleaded. “It will be very pretty and

everyone is going.” Joyce looked at Harold.

“I’ll go along,” I offered. “If I wear my abayah no one will

notice me, and the children are so small no one will notice

them either.”

At that moment Um Hussein arrived at the door again,

bearing paper flowers and candles for the little boys, and at

this overture Joyce and Harold gave in.

All of the people of Hilla seemed to be out that night.

Hundreds of children, dressed in their best, walked with their

parents, carrying candles and paper flowers or fresh-leafed

branches of laurel. After a time several policemen marched by

in a group—a signal, according to a woman standing near Um

Hussein, that the procession was about to begin. The children

lit their candles and joined together in a long, uneven queue,

chanting as they moved along the street. The parents walked

beside them, and one father carried his infant daughter in his

arms, holding her candle and laurel branch and singing as he

walked. Then came flags—green, Hussein’s color, black and

scarlet, and standards of colored lights. Finally the wedding

float appeared, borne aloft by eight young men, an elaborate

glass-sided palanquin in which a married couple could easily

be carried through the streets by bearers. This one, however,

was empty. Mounted in a gaily painted and carved wooden

frame, the palanquin was decorated with tiny glass lamps and

gilded globes.

“What is it?” asked Timmy.

“See how beautiful it is?” hissed Rosa. She had only one

eye but that one was sparkling with enjoyment.

“Yes, but what is it?” Timmy insisted.

I was not quite sure how to reply, but Stevey, the five-year-

old, solved my problem, for as the palanquin passed us, the

eight bearers shouted in unison and all of the colored globes

suddenly blazed with electric light.

“It’s a Christmas tree!” shouted Stevey in ecstasy.

“Christmas tree!” echoed Timmy.

“Shhh,” said Rosa, but no one had heard. They were all

looking in admiration at the glittering palanquin, with its red

and blue and green lights brightening the night.

Without warning, the generator failed and the lights went

out. The bearers cursed, lowered the palanquin, fussed with

the mechanism until the lights flashed on again, lifted it once

more and the float continued down the street.

We turned toward home, for it was now long past the

children’s bedtime, but the chants echoed after us, and the

loudspeakers in the coffee shops blared far into the night the

refrain of the marchers:

“Hussein, ya Hussein.”

“Hussein, he dies tomorrow.”

After the wedding procession begins the period of deepest

mourning during Muharram. My train arrived in Diwaniya,

the railroad junction, after the ceremonies were finished, but

Bob told me about them as we drove, in the familiar old taxi,

over the road to El Nahra.

This night, in Diwaniya, the flags and the standards of

colored lights were only a prelude to the taaziya, or mourning

procession of men. Wearing only black, their shirts cut out at

the shoulders, they marched in groups of twelve or eighteen,

chanting in unison and flagellating themselves with chains and

swords.

“How do they flagellate themselves?” I asked.

“Well, they beat themselves with the chains mostly,” said

Bob. “The chains are bound together in bunches, like a cat-o’-

nine-tails. A few men cut themselves lightly with the swords,

too. They had several male nurses walking with the group, and

once they stopped a man and bandaged up his head before he

continued walking. Also there was an ambulance.”

“It sounds frenzied,” I said.

“Oddly enough, it wasn’t,” Bob answered. “I was really

struck by how orderly the whole thing was. And it was quite

moving.”

He added, “Jabbar says there’ll be an even bigger one

tomorrow, which is Ashur, the tenth of Muharram. That’s the

day Hussein was killed.”

“Even in El Nahra?”

“Yes,” he said. “Jabbar says taaziyas are organized in every

Shiite village in southern Iraq. They practice in advance and

the village takes up a collection so that its taaziya can be

represented in the big mourning procession which takes place

every year, forty days after Ashur, in Karbala. That,” he put

in, “I’d really like to see.”

“Why don’t you go?”

“Jabbar says better not, but anyway we’ll see the one

tomorrow.”

Early next morning Laila arrived to welcome me back.

“You must come right now so we can get a good place to

watch the procession.”

I started out the door in my abayah, but Laila held back.

“What is the matter?”

“Well.” said Laila, “my sisters told me not to ask you, but

we are friends and I thought you would like to see it and so—”

“And so what?”

“I—we—Beeja, you do want to see the play of the big

battle when Hussein was killed, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course, but Bob says it is not going to be held in El

Nahra.”

“It isn’t, I know,” said Laila, stepping close to me, “but it is

being held in Suffra, just down the canal. Why don’t you ask

Mr. Bob to take you in a taxi, and then I can ask my father if I

could go too.”

I smiled to myself, wondering how many days and nights of

plotting had gone on among Laila and her sisters before they

had formulated this plan. I promised Laila I would try.

Bob had left earlier for the mudhif, and Laila and I joined a

group of women who stood at the corner of Laila’s house,

commanding a view of both the road and the clearing around

the mudhif. The women were visibly perspiring in the hot sun,

but they Were in a holiday mood. We could hear shouting and

chanting from the other side of the canal.

“How is the American lady in Hilla?” asked Fadhila.

“Did you see the wedding procession there?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was lovely.”

“Wait until you see the taaziya here, Beeja,” said Sherifa.

“It is always very good.”

“There’s Mr. Bob standing with Haji Hamid and Abdulla,”

Laila interrupted. “See, right by the door of the mudhif,” and

I, squinting against the sun, could just make out Bob’s white

shirt and khakis among the abas and kaffiyehs.

“Every year the taaziya comes to the mudhif,” explained

Sherifa. “Afterward the people from the market and from the

rest of the village sit down and have coffee as the guests of the

El Eshadda.”

The shouting was coming closer and several women peered

down the empty road.

“Look, look Beeja,” hissed Laila.

A few children had turned the corner by the canal and were

running toward us up the path, which was now lined with

women pressed close together, their abayahs drawn over their

faces. In the crowd of villagers which followed the children,

we could see the green and black flags heralding the

appearance of the taaziya.

“Ya, Hussay-in!” The men in black or white moved within

the crowd, but remained together as a group, in the form of an

uneven circle. A few were stripped to the waist. Their heads

were bound in black kerchiefs, they stared straight ahead of

them as they walked, and their right hands, holding bunches of

chains, swung up in answer to the cry, and came down with a

thump on the bare shoulders.

“Ya Hussay-in,” they cried again in unison, moving ahead

in formation, and the chains thudded on their shoulders again.

An anonymous wail came from one of the women lining the

path, and the ululation was taken up by the women clustered

against the wall of the sheik’s house and standing around the

edges of the mudhif clearing.

“Hussein!” the men cried, so close to us in the bright

sunlight I could see their shoulders bruised blue from the

blows of the chains. The rest of the refrain was lost in the

general hubbub, women wailing and children crying. In the

hitching area near the mudhif the horses whinnied.

Several groups of taaziyas were moving into the clearing,

chanting together, then apart, and in the syncopation of the

chant and the stamp of bare feet in the dust we could hear, as

regular as a metronome, the chains jingling, free in the air, and

the dull thud as they struck flesh. The flags wavered on the

outskirts of the clearing where the tribesmen had gathered,

and the taaziyas moved in formation toward the door of the

mudhif. The sheik moved forward to greet the participants,

and the tribesmen and townsmen went with the taaziyas into

the mudhif to drink tea. An old Sayid in a green turban

circulated among the bystanders, collecting contributions for

the performers’ coming trip to Karbala.

“Beautiful, wasn’t it?” the women said to each other and

several reached up under their veils to mop their sweaty faces.

“Did you see Ali’s son, Beeja?” asked Laila. “He was in the

second group.”

“He has been doing it since he was eighteen,” Fadhila

pointed out, “because his mother promised him, you know.”

“Why?”

“Well, Sheddir had two stillborn babies, and she went on

pilgrimage to Karbala and at the tomb of Hussein in the

mosque she prayed and promised that if she had a healthy son,

she would dedicate him to the taaziya during Muharram.”

“And he does it?”

“Of course. He is proud to do it, it is a great honor,” Fadhila

said. “A great honor for anyone,” she added with a look at me,

“but even better if your mother had promised you, because

then you are fulfilling a holy vow.”

Laila interrupted. “Beeja, if Mr. Bob gets a taxi to go to

Suffra, who else will go? Will there be room for Basima?”

Several women turned at these words and looked at me

expectantly.

“Well,” I temporized, “I don’t even know if he has gotten a

taxi, but if he has, then anyone can come who wants to,

provided there is room.”

When we saw the size of the crowd which had gathered

outside our gate to go to Suffra, Bob decided to let the driver

decide when the taxi was full. He was certain, I think, that this

would cut down on the load, but women piled into the back

seat and children crawled in and sat on the floor. Mohammed

and Bob and the driver were in front, and the driver seemed

quite unconcerned despite the fact the car was so tail-heavy

we hit bottom whenever we went over a rut. The windows

were wide open, otherwise I felt we might have come close to

suffocation from the heat and the pressure of the crowd. Also,

it appeared, some of the women were unaccustomed to motor

travel, and they retched quietly and constantly into their

handkerchiefs. Nausea and discomfort did not seem to detract

from the delights of the day’s excursion, however, and I

noticed that even the carsick ladies managed to smile when, at

each bump in the dirt road, the women in the back seat clung

together and dissolved into whoops of muffled laughter.

I had seen the square of Suffra only once before, when we

had driven through with Jabbar on our way to visit Sheik

Hamza. It had been the day of the weekly sheep market, and

the square had been crowded with lambs and full-grown

sheep, bleating loudly and pressed so tightly together Jabbar

had had difficulty getting his Land-Rover through.

Now, completely cleared, the square looked like a playing

field, and this impression was strengthened by the sight of a

small reviewing stand, four or five tiers of seats behind a

bunting-draped wall which had been erected along one side of

the arena. To this canopied stand Mohammed and the taxi

driver led Bob, pushing ahead of him through the crowds of

villagers and tribesmen who had come to town to see the

annual enactment of their shabih, or passion play.

With the women I trooped down to the far end of the

playing field, where a group of eucalyptus trees offered shade.

As we walked, four costumed men on horseback cantered by,

wheeled and cantered toward the center of the playing field

again. Completely covered with yellow trappings, the horses

could have been the mounts of medieval knights waiting for

the jousting to begin. Their yellow covers were bound and

decorated in black, and from the black-rimmed eyeholes, the

horses looked out, their eyes seeming bigger than life, as

though they wore eye make-up. The men’s costumes were

green and red, of some silky material which shone in the sun

and billowed out from their shoulders as they swept by. They

wore sashes and high cardboard hats, cut like war helmets of

some indeterminate historical period. Swords, curved and

painted, were brandished high.

In front of the reviewing stand a small group of horsemen

waited; green and black flags, like the flags of the taaziya,

were held up and outward. All that was needed, I felt, was a

brass band or at least a trumpeter to herald the opening of the

drama.

“When does it begin?” I whispered to Laila.

“It has begun,” she replied, and the four costumed

horsemen trotted by us, stopped near the tree, and waited.

“Oh,” I said lamely. What was going on? I looked at the

horsemen, but their costumes told me little.

“The swords aren’t real,” Fadhila confided in me.

“Of course they are real,” replied Laila.

“They are not real,” retorted Fadhila. “Mohammed says the

government has forbidden it.”

“Well, when we had the play in El Nahra, we had real

swords,” Laila returned, in some contempt, and this began a

spirited argument between Laila, Fadhila and some women

from Suffra, near whom we had found a seat on a hard, sandy

hummock under one of the eucalyptus trees.

“What is happening now?” I asked.

Laila turned, abstracted, from her conversation. “What?”

I repeated my question.

“Oh, well, the battle is beginning.”

The horsemen near us spurred their mounts and galloped to

the center, thundered back, wheeled and rode into the center

of the arena again, where they were met by other horsemen, in

different costumes. The flag-bearers moved toward the center

and moved away again, and both sets of horsemen returned to

their corners.

I turned to Hathaya, the weaver’s daughter. “Now what is

going on?” I asked.

“Now?” she said, looking briefly at the arena. “The battle

has started,” and she moved closer to one of the women and

they resumed their conversation.

Rebuffed, I sat back on my hummock and peered across the

square. I could barely make out the figure of Bob in the

reviewing stand and at that particular moment I wished

mightily I were with him. I could not see him clearly, but I

was sure that, as an honored guest, he was sitting on a chair

drinking Pepsi-Cola and having the play explained to him in

detail by the village elders. It’s hardly fair, I thought

peevishly; I’ve come all this way too and I can’t even find out

what I’m supposed to be seeing. My friends were no help at

all. And besides, I was thirsty.

Laila introduced me to several of the women, who were

relatives or friends of friends, but they did not offer any

explanation of the play either. They were far more interested

in family news from down the canal. I shifted around, trying

to find a more comfortable place on the hummock. There was

none.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Laila.

“Yes,” I said, noting the crowds of colorful horsemen in the

square.

“It’s a war, Beeja,” explained Laila, “between the good men

of Hussein’s family and the evil men of Muawiya.” I nodded.

“The costumes are very beautiful, don’t you think?” I

nodded again.

“What’s the matter, Beeja? Are you sick?”

“No,” I said, “I’m very very thirsty. Let us find a man

selling Pepsi-Cola.”

Laila demurred. “Don’t waste your money, Beeja. Why,

today I am sure the Pepsi-Cola will cost four fils instead of

two.”

“I don’t care. I—”

“Soon the play will be over and then we will go to the

house of Hathaya’s aunt. She brought up Hathaya after her

mother died and Hathaya loves her very much. This is the first

time she has seen her in four years.”

I looked at Hathaya, her puny baby asleep in her lap, deep

in conversation with her aunt, and suddenly felt a little

ashamed of myself for my pique. If I had not been an outsider,

I would have enjoyed the social aspect of the occasion as

much as they, and, I realized, I would have appreciated the

play too, for I would have seen it so many times I would not

have needed an explanation. But I was still very thirsty and

found myself thinking longingly of water and Coca-Cola and

iced lemonade and a whole succession of cool drinks, despite

the colorful and ancient drama being enacted in front of me.

The forces of good, on green-caparisoned horses, and

wearing cardboard helmets, fought with the forces of evil in

turbans and on yellow-caparisoned horses. Neutral elements,

represented by the flag-bearers, tried to make peace and failed.

Everyone knew what the outcome would be, but the battle was

still worth the seeing. By this time fifty or sixty horsemen

filled the square, and the two groups of warriors galloped

toward each other, met briefly in the center in a clash of

wooden swords, then regrouped at each end in preparation for

another assault. In between rounds, several small boys would

run into the arena and rescue from the dust objects which Bob

later told me were papier-mâché arms and legs carried by the

horsemen and thrown up into the air after each assault to give

an air of reality to the proceedings. With shouts and cries the

women and men urged on the forces of Hussein and hissed the

forces of Muawiya. I wanted to cry out too, but what I felt like

shouting at the top of my lungs was, “I’m so thirsty.”

Then came rifles, passed up to the horsemen from the

audience, and the battle started anew. The knowledge that the

bullets the men fired over each other’s heads were real bullets

added danger and a certain awe to the affair. Even the

gossiping women were silent.

My view was less superb than Bob’s, I was sure, but at least

I had a sense of participation, for as the battle raged faster, the

horsemen drew up closer and closer, until I could taste in my

parched throat the dust raised by the panting horses, who were

brought up short only a few feet from us and then turned to

gallop back into battle. The legs of the horses ran with sweat,

the cardboard helmets were wilting, and the silken tunics

stuck to the backs of the horsemen. But the riders, at full

gallop, continued to fire their rifles, and the smell of

gunpowder was added to the odors of sweat and manure that

drifted toward us from the arena. I tried to moisten my lips,

but my tongue was dry too. I tried to forget my thirst by

concentrating on the spectacle. I found that half closing my

eyes filtered the spectacle quite effectively, reducing the glare

of the sun and the density of the dust clouds until the ancient

play became a fine kaleidoscopic whirl of odor and shining

blurs and flying sand.

Without any particular concluding action that I could see,

the battle ceased. I looked at my watch. We had been

onlookers in the hot sun for more than three hours. No wonder

I was thirsty. In a few minutes the crowds filled the square,

and the horses, still in their brilliant trappings, were led off to

the canal to drink. The costumes and horses’ coverings would

be saved for next year’s performance, Laila told me. The

reviewing stand was hidden in the throngs of people who

pushed on, back to houses or shops or to the long road home

to their clan settlements on the plain. Where was Bob? I saw a

pail of Coca-Cola pass by, carried by a man, and I rushed after

it, but Laila pulled me back so fiercely that I turned to her, and

saw Bob and Mohammed and the taxi driver walking near us,

but not with us. We headed up a narrow street leading off the

square to a wooden door in a mud-brick wall. Once inside the

door, we separated again. The men disappeared into one room

and we were led into another, where in coolness and darkness

(such a relief from the dust and heat outside) several women

were seated in a circle on reed mats. We sank down also, and

loosened our abayahs.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” said a large, square woman seated near

the door.

“Shlonich [how are you]?” asked Fadhila, and we repeated

her greeting.

“I am afraid we cause trouble by our presence,” said

Fadhila.

“On the contrary, you honor us.”

Using the phrases traditional between host and guest, the

square-faced woman and Fadhila set about building a polite

relationship for the short period of time we would be together.

Could I interrupt the dialogue to ask for water? In a moment

they were discussing mutual friends and near-relatives in El

Nahra, and after this, Fadhila felt the moment had arrived

when she might appropriately make a request.

“Good aunt, may we trouble you for some water? We are so

parched from the heat.”

At a word from the square-faced woman, a young girl

slipped out and came back with a tray of glasses.

“Water is a gift from God,” said Fadhila fervently, setting

her empty glass on a tray.

“The Koran says that water is the source of all life,” quoted

the square-faced woman.

If, at that moment, I could have remembered any proverbs

about water, I would have quoted them, that water tasted so

good to me. It had obviously been drawn from the depths of a

porous clay jar, for chips of the clay were visible in the bottom

of the glass. But in my great thirst, the flat earthy taste of the

clay seemed only to give flavor and sweetness to the water. I

drank slowly, savoring each mouthful, until I looked up to see

the girl waiting for me to finish and replace my glass on her

tray.

“Thank you very much,” I said.

“By the Prophet, good aunt, may we trouble you for more

water?” Fadhila asked.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” the square-faced woman replied, and

more water was brought.

I thanked the woman again. There was a pause. Then she

said to Fadhila, “Why doesn’t your new friend talk very

much?” Fadhila replied that I was American and didn’t speak

Arabic well.

“Don’t they speak Arabic in America?” piped up another

woman.

“No, of course not,” Fadhila said.

“Then what do they speak?”

“They speak English,” answered Fadhila.

The woman said, “Say something for us in English so we

can hear what it sounds like.”

I smiled, remembering my American friends who had made

the same request in reverse, and recited:

“Under

a

spreading

chestnut-tree

The

village

smithy

stands;

The

smith,

a

mighty

man

is

he,

With

large

and

sinewy

hands;

And

the

muscles

of

his

brawny

arms

Are strong as iron bands.”

A spurt of laughter followed my effort. “How funny it

sounds,” said the young woman, but she stopped talking at a

look from the square-faced woman.

“Why did you come to El Nahra?” asked our hostess.

“I came with my husband.”

“Her husband is an effendi; his name is Mr. Bob,”

announced Laila, as though that explained everything.

The girl had returned and set down in front of us a brass

tray containing several spoons and a large soup plate full of

what appeared to be porridge centered with a well of slightly

congealing oil. While we watched, the square-faced woman

rose and sprinkled sugar over the porridge.

“Eat,” she urged. “It is hareesa, a special dish for the tenth

of Muharram.”

We began to spoon it up, mixing the oil and sugar together.

I found it not unpleasant, but the plate was enormous and after

five minutes we all stopped eating. The square-faced woman

urged us on. We protested. She urged again. She was so

insistent one might have almost believed that not to eat more

would incur her lifelong displeasure, but I had been around

long enough now to know that this was not necessarily so.

Several other people would eat from what we had left.

“It is simply delicious, good aunt, but we have had

enough,” said Fadhila, and Laila and I echoed her.

The girl took away the tray and brought us a basin of water

and a towel. The damp towel and the tea which followed

revived us enough so that we could converse with enthusiasm

about the spectacular performance we had just witnessed.

“The horses were very beautiful,” I offered.

“Always in Suffra the shabih is performed very well,” said

our hostess.

“Majid rode very well today,” the weaver’s daughter

Hathaya said.

The square-faced woman nodded and smiled and the young

woman who had asked about my English looked gratified.

“Majid is her son,” explained Hathaya, “and is married to

her” (pointing to the younger woman).

“A good boy,” said the proud mother. “He does not forget

me even though he has his own children now. He gives me a

pound every month,”

“Sons should always care well for their mothers,”

murmured the young wife deferentially, and cast her eyes

down.

The weaver’s child was thrust forward. “Good aunt, what

can I do about this?” asked Hathaya, pointing to the baby’s

horrid scabrous rash.

Our hostess took the child in her lap and examined the sores

gently. “A poultice, I think,” she suggested, and described the

ingredients which should go into it.

“You have no children?” she asked, turning to me.

I shook my head and then the women asked if I had any

inside me and where my mother was and how much gold my

husband had given to my father as my bride price.

I explained, or tried to explain, that our customs were

different, and that no bride price was given.

“No bride price?”

“Then what do you furnish your house with?”

“Who pays for your trousseau?”

“Don’t you have any gold jewelry?”

I said that the families of the bride and the groom gave

presents to the couple to furnish the house, and that the bride’s

family bought her trousseau and the groom offered gifts of

gold jewelry. Anyway, some did.

“Where is your gold?” they asked eagerly.

“I have left it in America, so it will be safe,” I replied.

This dodge was greeted with a snort from the young wife,

but Fadhila came to my rescue and said that I did have some

small gold earrings and one gold bracelet which was worth,

she thought, about twenty Iraqi pounds. My wedding ring was

also said to be gold, she said, though she personally thought it

was silver.

In all fairness, she added that the schoolteachers had said

my ring was made of white gold, but how much that was

worth she did not know.

“Let’s see,” the women clamored. I took off my ring and

passed it around.

“Gold, that’s not gold,” asserted the young wife.

“That’s what I feel,” agreed Fadhila, “but the

schoolteachers said—”

“Let me see it,” said the square-faced woman. She

examined it carefully while we awaited her verdict. She

weighed it in her hand.

“Well,” she said, “I don’t know. It’s not very heavy. If it is

white gold, which I doubt, then it’s not very much white gold.

But,” she added kindly, returning it to me, “it’s quite pretty.”

I was both annoyed and amused.

A knock on the door was the signal that the men were

going. We rose, exchanged numerous elaborate farewells and

trooped down the narrow street to the taxi.

“Tomorrow,” Laila said in my ear as we neared El Nahra,

“is the dafna, the burying ceremony. My sister and I will come

and get you after lunch.”

A single costumed horseman circled quietly around the

open area near the taxi stand. Laila was pushing through the

watching crowds of tribesmen and townsmen so that we might

have a better view. But when we finally stood near the front,

there was nothing to see except the horse, in green trappings,

the color of Hussein, walking slowly around and around.

Still, there was something strange about the rider in his

medieval dress and sash and headdress, trailing a long white

handkerchief in one hand. And then the horse turned toward

us and we could see the rider’s face, swathed in heavy white

bandages like a mummy or a victim of the horrors of war.

Only his eyes were visible. He continued to walk the horse, in

its trappings, around and around. The crowd was silent.

A young boy in black, carrying a green flag, pushed

through and began to follow the horseman around the ring.

We were still quiet. What were we waiting for?

I was pushed violently from behind and stumbled against

Laila. Amid cries and shouts, the crowd parted to let the

taaziya in their black cut-out shirts and black head scarves

pass. The chains rustled against my shoulder as Laila

whispered, “Here, Beeja,” and pulled me out of the way.

Behind the taaziya, carried by eight men in abas and

kaffiyehs, came the funeral bier, on which a headless body

lay, draped in black velvet.

“It’s not real, Beeja,” hissed Laila at my side. “It’s made of

straw.”

Straw or not, the body had a macabre realism about it, for

the butcher (according to Laila) had supplied a freshly

slaughtered neck of a cow for the occasion and this protruded,

still bloody, from the black velvet.

At the bier’s appearance the crowd wailed, the horseman

began to wipe his eyes with his long white handkerchief, and

the procession, led by the horseman, the taaziya and the boy

with the green flag, headed down the main street of El Nahra.

“Beeja, we’ll go with them,” said Laila.

The procession moved quickly, and from every alley and

side street along the way women and children and more men

streamed, swelling the crowd following the bier out of town.

Groups of women would stop in the middle of the street and

spontaneously began beating their breasts and chanting the

way I had seen them do in the krayas. Little girls stood near

their mothers, imitating the breast beating and trying to keep

on the beat.

We passed the mayor’s house, the jail and the school, and in

a moment were out of the village limits, onto the dusty road

that led to Diwaniya. Where were we going?

“Not far,” said Laila. Her sister Fatima, who had appeared

from nowhere, greeted me, then turned away, pulled her

abayah over her face and emitted a piercing wail.

The horseman turned off the road toward an abandoned

brick kiln. Here, around a slightly raised platform, eight black

flags had been placed at regular intervals. The boy with the

green flag moved until he stood at the head of the platform,

and the bier was set down in front of him.

Reining in his horse, the rider halted at the foot of the

platform. The crowd—so large now that people surrounded

the platform and filled the road we had just left—surged

around him. A few old men circulated among us, distributing

handfuls of straw over the heads of the multitude. One man

had a container of mud which the women took and smeared

over their faces, hands and abayahs.

“No, Rajat, no,” Fatima spoke sharply to her little sister,

who was vigorously applying the mud all over her clean

cotton dress.

“Ya, Hussein, beloved,” shouted a woman in face veil, and

in a frenzy plucked dust and stones from the ground and threw

them over herself. “Hussein. Do you not mourn for Hussein?”

She came closer. “Laila. Beeja.” She stopped in the act of

throwing more dust and raised her veil briefly to smile at us. It

was Amina, Selma’s servant. She quickly let her veil fall and

resumed the dust throwing.

A ceremony was in progress on the platform but we could

hear nothing above the noise of the crowd, which thronged

around, still tossing straw and mud and beating themselves

intermittently. The horseman turned his swathed face to us,

raised the hand with the long handkerchief and spoke. He

sobbed and mopped his eyes, exhorting us, it seemed, and the

people responded with cries and wails. The taaziyas swung

their chains. Laila and I were talking to the sheik’s daughter

Samira and consequently hardly noticed what was happening

before the bier was lifted off the platform and the procession

started out of the burial area and back to town.

“They are taking it to the mosque,” said Laila, and we fell

into line with the crowd behind the sobbing horseman, the boy

with the green flag, and the eight pallbearers bearing the

velvet-draped bier with its grotesque, bloody burden.

But this time we moved slowly, for every few steps the

bearers would let down the bier and the horseman would stop,

wheel and deliver to the crowd another short sermon

punctuated by his own sobs and echoed by the wails of the

women.

At the mosque the whole town seemed to have gathered,

and the noise and confusion were overpowering. People

fought for positions near the door in order to see the ceremony

inside, and we were jostled back and forth until we had

difficulty keeping our balance.

“What is this? Have you no manners? We are near the

mosque,” shouted Fatima in cutting tones.

No one listened.

“Fatima,” Laila cried to her sister. “We must see. Beeja

must see. I will try to get near a window and you see if you

can get someone inside to open it.”

“All right,” said Fatima. She departed, and Laila took my

hand and dragged me until we were against one of the

shuttered windows of the mosque.

In a moment we could see Fatima again at the edge of the

crowd, red-faced but triumphant.

“Don’t move,” she called over the heads of the people who

separated us. “Stay where you are.”

As she elbowed her way back, the shutters of the window

suddenly banged open outward, and an old woman grinned at

us. “Ahlan wusahlan,” she said.

At this coup, the people behind pushed us even harder,

mashing us against the wooden bars of the window. Although

we were uncomfortable, we had an excellent view of the

ceremony inside. The sobbing, bandage-faced rider had

spurred his horse into the mosque; still mounted, he stood in

the center of the mosque, alternately exhorting the crowd and

muffling his sobs in the long white handkerchief. By the

niche, which I assumed to be the minbar of the mosque,

another man stood, and whenever the horseman paused, this

man raised his arms and spoke.

Other windows were being opened and the people pushed

toward them.

“Stop shoving—stop it!” Fatima cried, but it was no use.

We were jammed so tightly against the window bars I felt I

could stand it no longer.

“Let’s go, Fatima; it’s almost finished,” suggested Laila.

She was having difficulty holding her abayah on, the crowds

were pulling and pushing at us so hard.

“Yes,” said Fatima, “and these impious people are rude. It’s

shame, shame, shame!” she shouted, her voice rising with

each repetition of the word, elbowing her way out with dark

looks at the indifferent, roistering people.

“This is a funeral for the martyr Hussein, not a party,” was

her final shot before we hit the open street.

“It’s late,” said Laila. We had crossed the bridge and

walked now along the tribal side of the canal, where the road

was calm and almost empty. On the other bank, the crowd still

milled and shouted around the mosque.

My clothes under my abayah were soaking with

perspiration; we had walked and pushed and been pushed

during the hottest part of the day. Although it was near

sundown, the heat still shimmered, a felt and observed

presence in the air. The water in the canal was at low level in

this season, and the sides of the mudbanks were dried and

cracking in the heat.

“Will you come and have tea with us?” said Laila.

I felt exhausted, and I was certain they must be too.

“No, thank you,” I replied. “I should fix supper for my

husband.”

They left me at my gate and I watched my friends go, two

black-robed figures, one tall and proud, one shorter and

slightly stooped, walking gracefully home through the hot

powdery dust.

18

Pilgrimage to Karbala

After the burial ceremony, the village seemed visibly to relax.

The krayas were over, the yearly cycle of religious drama

successfully complete. People set about their chores in order

to be ready for the pilgrimage to Karbala.

Summer crops were harvested. The sheep were sheared and

the women washed the wool in the canal, piling the damp

fleeces in the courtyards of their houses to dry before

beginning the carding and spinning. Okra was threaded on

long strings and hung from the roof beams to dry for winter.

Soon it would be time to harvest the dates. In spare hours the

women returned to the everlasting task of cleaning rice and

flour, tossing it expertly on woven plates to rid it of chaff and

then laboriously picking out, one by one, the stones and hulls

and bits of dirt and straw.

Clothes were washed and mended for the coming journey.

The hajj, or pilgrimage, is one of the five basic obligations of

Islam and every Moslem hopes to visit Mecca before he dies.

But the Shiite Moslem has a further duty, to visit the shrines

of the twelve imams of the Shiite sect.

In El Nahra, the sheik and one or two rich merchants were

the only people who had been to Mecca, but even the poorest

fellahin and their wives had been several times to the three

nearest Shiite shrines, at Najaf, Karbala and Khadhimain.

The most propitious period to visit Karbala was the time

now approaching, the fortieth day after the death of the martyr

Hussein. This year Laila had invited me to make the

pilgrimage with her, her mother and her older sister Fatima. I

had accepted immediately, or rather Bob accepted for me after

talking to Laila’s father, Moussa. Moussa had first apologized

to Bob for not inviting him, and explained that it might not be

the best time to see Karbala, when it was crowded with

pilgrims. But we guessed that the real reason lay in Bob’s

appearance. With his crew cut and light skin, he was too

obviously foreign and Karbala, during the ceremonies on the

fortieth day after Hussein’s death, was particularly sensitive to

the presence of unbelievers. I, on the other hand, could easily

pass unnoticed in abayah and face veil. I had been wearing the

abayah for several months and was accustomed to it by now.

My Arabic was good enough so that even if I had to speak, I

might be mistaken for a Persian pilgrim whose native tongue

was Farsi; my light skin, should the face veil slip, could also

be attributed to Persian origins.

Moussa added that Bob need not worry about

accommodations in the crowded city, for we would stay at the

home of his cousin Yehia, a doctor in Karbala.

As the time of our journey grew near, Laila visited me

several times a day to discuss the presents we would take to

Sitt Najat, Cousin Yehia’s wife, to talk about the glories of the

golden mosque, and to plan what we would do when we got to

Karbala. Laila was very anxious to go this year. She hoped,

she said, that if her pilgrimage and prayers were worthy, her

father might send her with her sister Basima to the secondary

school in Diwaniya.

The other women too spoke of nothing but the coming

pilgrimage; Medina, Mohammed’s mother, and Sherifa, his

sister, were determined to go, although there was scarcely

enough money in their house to buy food for the coming

month.

Nearly three quarters of a million Shiites actually made the

pilgrimage that year, 1957, filling the little town of Karbala

(normal population 30,000) far beyond capacity. Pilgrims

came from Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. Many were poor and

illiterate but many were men and women of education and

wealth, come to find solace together at the tomb of Hussein.

For the essential character of the pilgrimage has not

changed much in a thousand years. In the past, pilgrims had

brought spices, rugs, copper and silver to exchange for food

and lodging; they also brought new ideas and communicable

diseases. In 1957 the pilgrims brought hashish, spices, copper

and rugs to trade in Karbala; they managed also to bring

smallpox and cholera, and agents disguised as pilgrims

brought in Marxist leaflets. The mosques were lighted by neon

instead of by candlelight, the wealthy pilgrims came by

airplane rather than by palanquin, but the ritual was

approximately the same as it has always been. The trade in

goods and ideas and the mixing of people from all parts of the

Shiite Moslem world were marginal to the principal purpose

of a good pilgrimage, spiritual renewal through penitence and

prayer.

But before we started, I did not know all this. I guessed at

the vital place the pilgrimage held in the lives of all my

friends, and was therefore startled and surprised when Laila

came the day before we were scheduled to leave and

announced that she was not going. She cut short my

expressions of sympathy. Her father had ruled that it was too

expensive for so many to go. Fatima was to represent the

family, accompanied by Rajat (who could travel for half fare)

and I would accompany them.

“It is good that Fatima should go,” Laila said. “She works

hardest at home and she is the most religious girl in the

family.”

“Now,” she said, changing the subject, “let me see what you

are taking to Sitt Najat.”

I brought out two freshly baked cakes and a basket of fruit

to be inspected, and Laila pronounced them adequate. The bus

left at six the next morning; I must not be late, she said.

Bob and I rose at five. The sun was just up and we

breakfasted in the garden, hearing already a babble of excited

voices near our gate, where the bus was loading.

Bob had earlier felt a little uncertain about the wisdom of

my pilgrimage. Now, on the last morning, he repeated his

fears.

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“I’m sure.”

“It will be hard, probably.”

“Yes, but it’s only five days.”

“Well, be careful,” he said. “I really think everything will

go well, especially since you’re staying with Moussa’s

relatives. I’ll telephone you tonight to make sure you arrived

safely.”

“What will you do if I haven’t?” I was only half joking.

“Come myself, notify the Karbala police—I’ll think of

something.”

I nodded, thinking that in spite of all the perils I had

imagined and Bob had imagined, I really wanted very much to

go. The excited voices outside infected me with a great new

sense of freedom and possible adventure.

At five-thirty Mohammed arrived with a jug of water, and

told us his brothers were going, and would look out for me if I

should need anything. Then Laila came, smiling and gay as

though she were leading the pilgrimage personally; she and

her sister Fatima had saved me a place in the bus near the back

window and I was not to hurry over my breakfast. “After all,”

she said, “you will be away from home for five whole days;

it’s a very long time.”

“Goodbye dear.” I kissed Bob and clung to him for a

moment. The pilgrim city with its golden mosque was a long

way from our little mud house. What would I find there?

At the bus my arrival, with a hand satchel and a basket

containing the fruit and cakes, increased the commotion.

“Look, look, the Amerikiya is making the pilgrimage!”

“What is she taking with her?”

“See, she wears the veil!”

“Where will she sit?”

The latter question signaled the opening of a pitched battle

of words between Moussa’s daughters and a neighbor woman

who had managed to pile her bedroll, a basket of food and two

small children in the space Laila had presumably reserved for

me. Laila appealed to the woman’s honor, to her sense of

hospitality, the honor of her family and the honor of her as yet

unborn children; the woman remained unmoved. Laila looked

defeated and things appeared to have reached an impasse

when the woman suddenly rose, dragged the children onto her

lap and passed her luggage out the window to be placed on the

roof. I felt myself pushed forward and down into a place

which might have been comfortable for an emaciated eight-

year-old. Then Rajat clambered in on top of me and curled up

on the floor at my feet.

The bus was actually a covered wooden truck which had

been converted to the passenger trade by the addition of a few

wretchedly narrow wooden benches, placed so close together

that one was forced to turn one’s legs sideways if the seat

opposite was occupied. The seating capacity was about

twenty, but I counted forty-five men, women and children

inside that morning, not to mention babes in arms. Even as I

counted, more young boys were clambering up onto the roof.

The driver was haggling with a man who wanted to carry

four sheep on top of the lorry. A two-year-old began to wail

and was handed out the window to do his business. I waved at

Bob, but he did not respond. He later told me he could hardly

distinguish me from the other women. Not having been

brought up with women who wore the costume, he was unable

to detect the subtle details—the way the head is turned, the

gesture with which the abayah is adjusted—by which men

recognized their mothers, their sisters and their wives in a

large crowd of identically attired and veiled women.

Finally the driver climbed up into his seat and slammed the

decrepit wooden door. The crowd which had gathered to

watch us leave shouted last-minute instructions and farewells;

a chorus of traditional blessings—“Allah go with you,”

“Maasalaama,” “Fiimaanila”— followed us as the truck, full

of people hanging out the glassless windows and waving

handkerchiefs as though they would never again see their

beloved families and friends, rounded the corner on two

wheels and we were off.

It was seven-thirty and already hot. The road followed the

canal, where women washing their breakfast pots or doing the

morning’s laundry looked up at us as we rattled by. The date

palms on the opposite bank were gray with the accumulated

dust of the desert summer and the fields we passed were

brown and dry. Only the stubble of the small summer crop

remained. On each side of the road the flat, dun-colored land

stretched away for miles, broken only by the cuts of small

waterways carrying water to the fields and the dips of old

canals, their dry hollows green with a little shrubbery

nourished by some dampness remaining in the soil. Here and

there a single fellah was visible against the horizon; his

dishdasha tied up around his waist to allow freedom of

movement, he broke the dry ground with a hand hoe,

preparing the land for autumn planting. Clusters of green date

palms marked the clan settlements, each with its mudhif, the

high round arches of bound reeds dried to sand color. We

passed one mudhif which was leaning sharply and which

looked ready to collapse. My sullen neighbor roused herself to

point it out as an abandoned settlement where the land was too

salty to produce a crop. We could see the white patches of

salt, like glistening early snow, on the land.

The road was dirt, dried to a fine powder in the summer sun

which was now rising in the sky and beating down on the

wooden roof of the truck. Even though we seemed to be

moving unbelievably slowly, the truck’s speed was just

enough to raise the dust which poured in the windows,

depositing a gray film on our black abayahs, settling on the

children’s hair and faces, and even penetrating the fine black

mesh of my face veil. The young men and boys sang for joy at

the prospect of five days’ holiday. “Ya Hussein, ya Hussein,”

they cried; the women responded with ululating cries and the

children who could move in the crowded truck clapped in

time.

My nose and throat were soon clogged with the dust and I

made an effort to find my thermos bottle, somewhere under

the seat. This operation forced Rajat to get up off the floor and

flatten herself against the wall of the truck, my neighbor to lift

up her children, and the entire row of women to shift position,

which they did with a subdued moan. At first the thermos was

refused politely by everyone, but I insisted, and soon we were

all sipping lukewarm water. My neighbor pulled out her breast

for her year-old boy to suckle, and he nursed away

contentedly while we settled back into our cramped postures

on the benches. I looked at my watch. It was nine o’clock.

We were slowing down and the men were hanging but the

windows to see what the obstruction was when the truck

swerved sharply to pass a Bedouin caravan. We came so close

the side of the truck nearly grazed one of the camels, and as

we passed I looked up into the face of a withered old woman,

who in turn stared down at me from the nest of bright rugs in

which she sat on her camel, steadying two small children in

front of her. Copper pots and pans swung from the saddle on

ropes braided of variegated wool. We passed four more

camels, bearing women and children and bundles of

belongings, then donkeys carrying fuel and sacks of grain. The

caravan was moving slowly and we left them behind in the

dust. As we passed I saw one of the men in front on horseback

choking and shaking his rifle at us furiously. The boys in the

truck gleefully laughed and shouted back at him.

By 1958 the road to Hilla, on the way to Karbala, was a

straight paved highway, but at this time it was only a cart track

winding along the canal between stands of date palms which

appeared, because of the lowland, to be growing out of the

water. Rice was grown here near the canal’s edge, my

neighbor volunteered, and pointed out the families of migrant

workers. The men stand all day in mud and water that have a

harmful chemical reaction on the flesh, and thus the workers

are reputed to suffer from an incurable rotting disease. I had

been told that fires are kept burning all night in the swampy

country to keep away the wild jackals who smell decaying

human flesh and come in packs to investigate. I remembered

the stories and looked curiously at the peaceful scene we were

passing—the rows of men, dishdashas tied around their

waists, bent over patches of gleaming mud to pick the lush

green plants into reed baskets. My neighbor was looking too.

She clucked sympathetically. “A difficult life,” she said.

Each hardship that the pilgrim experiences on his way

brings him added grace in the eyes of God. I began to feel that

all forty-five of us, including my infidel self, must be storing

up many indulgences as the morning grew hotter. The dust

continued to pour in, my limbs grew cramped and aching, and

the truck creaked and rolled from side to side, giving me a

good whack in the back of the head with a bare bolt in the

woodwork every time the wheels hit a pothole. The

company’s spirits had wilted in direct proportion to its

discomfort, but when we climbed up out of a rut and onto the

paved part of the road, the boys burst into song again. We

roared along the straight pavement at an incredible speed of

twenty miles an hour, and there was no dust. We were hot,

hungry and dusty but we were going to Karbala!

Excitement mounted when we reached the Karbala-

Baghdad crossroads, which had been transformed by the

pilgrim traffic from a quiet truck and taxi stop into a thronging

metropolis. Buses, trucks, private cars, donkey carts and

walking pilgrims were pausing here for lunch and rest on their

way to the holy city.

Our truck had not even stopped before the sherbet sellers

and the sweets peddlers crowded up to the doors and

windows.

“Sammoon, sammoon haar!” A little boy bore on his head

a tray of the fish-shaped loaves of white bread.

“Khubuz, khubuz laham,” croaked an old man.

A clatter of castanets announced the cold drink seller, a

glass barrel of iced liquid strapped to his shoulder, who called,

“Tamurhindi! Tamurhindi!” and banged his round brass

castanets once more.

The smell of lamb roasting over charcoal braziers reminded

me that I had not eaten since five that morning. With Fatima

and Rajat I made a tour of the stalls which had been hurriedly

set up to handle the pilgrims. We ordered kebab and squatted

down by the roadside, as scores of other women were doing,

to watch our meat wrapped around skewers and put on the

fire, for Fatima, good housewife that she was, would not have

dreamed of eating kebab that was already cooked, that had

been handled by many people and visited by families of flies.

We bought some hot khubuz to hold the kebab and its

traditional accompaniments: tomatoes, onions and young

celery leaves chosen from big blue enamel bowls on the

counter and washed ceremoniously before our eyes by the

hands of the proprietor himself. As a final noble gesture he

threw in a few turnip pickles at no extra charge, and we settled

back by the roadside to enjoy our meal.

After devouring our lunch we bought tea, and Fatima tried

to persuade Rajat to go across the road and down the street to

the public market to buy us a watermelon for dessert. But

Rajat had never been out of El Nahra before and was afraid to

leave us. Fatima cajoled, pleaded, ordered; Rajat remained

stubborn. So, rather than make a public scene, Fatima

gathered her abayah around her, threw a particularly scornful

look at Rajat, and marched across the road where, in an empty

field under some dusty palms, a few of the women from our

truck were taking their ease. We sat beside them and finished

my thermos of lukewarm water.

It was pleasant in the shade. We were secluded under the

trees and yet had an excellent view of the comings and goings

at the crossroads. Every few minutes a truckload of young

men and boys would careen around the intersection and head

out the Karbala road. The trucks bore hand-lettered banners

which swelled in the wind as they rounded the corner.

Bareheaded and white-shirted, the boys were standing in the

backs of the trucks. “Ya Hussein, ya Hussein,” they shouted,

clapping, as they rolled by.

“The taaziyas,” murmured Fatima. “I don’t see a banner

from El Nahra.”

“It must be there,” said Rajat.

I remembered the collection taken for the taaziya after its

march to the mudhif on the tenth of Muharram. This was what

it was for, to bring the taaziya or mourning procession to

Karbala for this holiday so that it might, together with all of

the taaziyas from the other southern towns, perform in the

great mosque and in processions through the streets the

ceremonies which the occasion demanded.

Our truck honked its horn warningly, and we repaired to a

canal to wash before resuming the journey. Now every vehicle

we saw on the road was full of pilgrims bound for Karbala.

The men and boys shouted back and forth as the trucks passed

and repassed each other. Someone in front took up the chant

and refrain again, and the women joined in with piercing cries.

Even my neighbor, inspired, drew her veil modestly over her

face and let out a cry that shook us all. Rajat, still on the floor,

got the full force of this shriek but only looked up at the

woman admiringly.

At Twaireej, the last town before Karbala, many pilgrims

had stopped to rest and were washing their feet and hands in

the canal, crowding the old pontoon bridge and its long

stairways leading down to the river. From Twaireej the road

followed the canal, and on both banks we could see pilgrims

on foot, on horse or donkey, heading for Karbala. A party of

five men in the snow-white coats and trousers of Pakistan

strode along under the palms with knapsacks and heavy

walking sticks. The long-suffering women jammed into the

rear benches with me noticed the Pakistanis, and one old lady

pounded me on the knee to tell me they were Shiites from

India come thousands of miles to pray at the shrine of

Hussein, the great Hussein who was so treacherously betrayed

and murdered. She shed a few noisy tears, dried her eyes on

the corner of her abayah and then smiled at me. I nodded in

return and muttered some inane platitude through my veil; she

laughed delightedly and announced in a loud voice to the

truck in general that even the Amerikiya appreciated

Hussein’s sacrifice. As the men in front turned around to look,

I shrank back shyly and whanged my head on the screw again.

Suddenly we rounded a bend, had a glimpse of throngs of

people and colored flags flying and came to a jolting halt in a

narrow street. We had arrived in Karbala, and I could have

wept for joy at the thought of stretching my cramped limbs,

washing my face, discarding the abayah briefly and perhaps

sitting in a cool, quiet place. But other forces were at work,

which fortunately I could not anticipate or I might have

abandoned my adventures then and there and hired a taxi to

take me back to El Nahra.

Everyone crawled out wearily, the old women groaning, the

children wailing, and we stood around in the hot sun,

collecting luggage as it was dragged from under the benches

and tossed through the windows of the truck. The sheep,

bleating in protest, were handed down from the roof, and a

little boy with a stick was commissioned to keep them from

running off crazily in all directions. I assumed that Fatima,

Rajat and I would start out for Uncle Yehia’s house, but

instead we headed with three other women into a dilapidated

mud-brick house almost opposite where the truck had stopped.

Here we climbed a dark, steep stairway into an upstairs room

where we sat down on the only furniture, a length of none-too-

clean reed matting.

Through a broken wood screen we could see into a court

below, where a few scraggy trees provided a minute amount

of shade from the noonday sun. I recognized Abdul Karim and

Abad, Mohammed’s brothers, among the men and boys who

had congregated in the court and were arguing with the man of

the house. We took advantage of the privacy to remove our

veils and wipe some of the dust from our faces. Presently the

mistress of the house appeared, a sloppy fat woman in run-

over clogs and a cheap black shift, spotted by many greasy

lunches. She looked us over and Fatima asked politely for

water. The woman turned her head and shouted to someone,

and a pale young girl, also in a soiled black shift, slunk into

the room with a battered tin bowl which she presented to me. I

drank a little of the water, which was not too clean, and passed

the bowl along. Fatima was conferring with our companions

and did not trouble to conceal her distaste. The woman of the

house kept interrupting and her voice, rising, became an angry

shout. At this Fatima frowned and stood up, adjusting her

abayah and motioning to me to do likewise. We put on our

face veils and trooped down the dank stairway and out into the

street again. It appeared that we had considered taking a room

in the house, but it was dirty as well as expensive and the

woman’s personality had not appealed to Fatima. Rajat took

my basket and I picked up my satchel.

Surely now, I thought, we will head for Uncle’s house, but

Fatima said no, first we would go to the mosque and pay our

respects to the martyr Hussein. I fell back into line,

temporarily resigned to my fate, and we set off single file into

the heart of the city, crowding the cordons marking the area

restricted to pedestrians only, passing khaki-uniformed

policemen holding back the trucks, buses, donkey carts and

horse-drawn carriages.

As we neared the center of town we had difficulty keeping

together in the crowd. For the first time I realized in

consternation that I was totally dependent on Fatima for my

welfare during the days of the pilgrimage. I could not go back

now, as I had no idea where to go. I found myself reluctant to

use my Arabic among the throngs of strangers. My only

alternative was to follow the line of black-veiled women in

front of me carrying their bedrolls on their heads.

But my feelings of dismay receded before the sights and

sounds around me, the city decked out in all its finery for the

yearly festival and the thousands of people pushing forth to

the golden mosque.

We were passing an elaborate diwan, a tent which had been

erected just off the main street, carpeted in fine Persian rugs

and hung with tapestries. A few obviously rich male pilgrims

had settled into overstuffed gilt chairs. Undisturbed by the

crowds milling by, they were sipping coffee in comfort while

they fingered their worry beads and listened to readings from

the Koran piped in through a radio loudspeaker.

The town was a sea of splendid colored flags and strings of

colored lights. Every shop, from the shabbiest kiosk offering

cigarettes, shoelaces and chewing gum to the larger

“magasins” displaying Western clothing in the window, had

some illumination and flew a green flag for Hussein, a black

one for mourning, and often others of pink and purple, scarlet

or sky blue. Some were mere token flags, a twist of cloth

suspended from a stick and propped up among the wares, but

others were elaborately embroidered with mottoes and hung

from carved gilt standards. Long bright bars of pink-and-white

neon illuminated with a garish light the mourning finery

which decorated the major coffee shops and hotels: black silk

banners lettered in white; fringed tapestries portraying in vivid

colors the important events in the lives of Hussein or the

Prophet, black-framed portraits. The smaller mosques had

erected black canopies at their entrances; clusters of flags

marked the doors and from each mosque now we could hear

the chant of the muezzins, high and shrill from the many

minarets of the town, summoning the crowds of faithful to

their noon prayers.

We walked and walked in the blazing sun, probably not as

far as I thought, for I had to struggle constantly to keep up

with my companions, elbowing and prodding my way, even

pushing with my satchel to get through the tightly jammed

masses of people. Occasionally the crowd would separate me

for a moment from the figures of Fatima and the other women

from El Nahra and I would panic and push ahead fiercely,

hardly caring whom I shoved, until I could again see, among

the hundreds of black-clad women with bedrolls on their

heads, the bright familiar bundles on the heads of the women I

knew.

Where to step was another problem. The sidewalks were

fast being transformed into byut, temporary households set up

for the duration of the pilgrimage by families who could not

afford lodging elsewhere. This was the great holiday of the

poor, to come by truck, donkey, horse or camel or even on

foot from all parts of the Shiite Moslem world, and camp out

on the sidewalk as close to the great mosque as possible, so

that they might go many times each day to pray at the tomb of

the martyr. Even as we walked, people were unrolling mats,

setting down squares of carpet and claiming a strip of

sidewalk as their own. The old people sat on the strip to hold

the space while the wife or son went to buy fuel for the Primus

stove, to fill a battered teakettle with water, or bring bread and

a measure of sugar. Turning to look back at a woman in face

veil and abayah sweeping her square of sidewalk with part of

a broken broom, I was elbowed into a blazing Primus stove on

which someone was preparing lunch. I felt a stab of pain as

the flame seared into the side of my shin, but there was no

time to stop and look down to see how bad the burn was. I had

to fight to catch up with Fatima again.

Finally, after half an hour of tortuous walking, we turned

into the main street. My leg was throbbing steadily by this

time and my shoulders and arms ached from the effort of

keeping my abayah modestly around me and holding onto my

satchel at the same time. My face veil, which I had been so

worried about losing, was pasted to my face with sweat, and

sweat dripped down my arms and legs and into my shoes. I

tried to jerk my abayah up and pull it around me more

securely. What would I do if it were to slip down and I were

revealed, uncovered and foreign, in the middle of this crowd?

Why had I ever come anyway? Then suddenly, in a break in

the crowd, I saw at the end of the street the three golden

domes and the slender minarets of Hussein’s shrine

shimmering in the dusty sunlight like the fantastic mirages

seen by the faithful in the desert. Crowds milled below the

minarets, which reached their shining peaks up into the fierce

blue sky. A little boy pushed past, shouting in my ear,

“Sammoon! Sammoon haar!” and Rajat pulled me by the

hand. The moment passed, but it had crystallized everything

about this strange day for me: the golden mosque, the flutter

of bright flags, the small boy shouting in my ear, the sibilant

sounds of Koranic verses sung from the loudspeakers, and the

smells of sewage, strongly brewed family tea, and perfumed

Arab gentlemen hurrying by.

The crowds were pushing us forward with them to the

mosque. As we tried to step aside and let the strongest go past,

we were knocked against old ladies selling eggs packed in

grass-lined woven baskets, against the itinerant peddlers

loudly hawking the tinware and painted enamel bowls that the

poor bring back as keepsakes from the pilgrimage. In the huge

circular open area surrounding the shrine, the earliest-arrived

pilgrims had camped, and these households bore signs of

longer habitation—an old man sleeping on a mat, a girl

washing a cooking pot in a cupful of water. Trays of food

were offered for sale: chickens, roast fish still clamped in iron

grills, bowls of stew, but few could afford to buy. Fatima

looked longingly at the fish.

“I think I’ll ask how much it is,” she said.

The other women laughed. “You wouldn’t.”

“I will too,” insisted Fatima and marched up to the peddler.

“How much?” she repeated, and snorted derisively at his

reply. “Who do you think will buy your fish?” she asked. “Is it

made of gold?”

Just when I thought we could not go further, we stopped, at

the entrance to a side street leading away from the shrine and

here, unexpectedly, ran into some other women from El

Nahra. Fatima was overjoyed; the women embraced each

other like long-lost sisters and we promptly deposited our

luggage in the shade of a house, sat down on our bags, and

began to exchange experiences. In a few minutes Sherifa and

Medina, who had come the day before, wandered up, and we

embraced again. Medina dug out a handful of pumpkin seeds

from an inside pocket and handed them around. The holiday

had begun.

While the women talked, I looked about me. A flashing

neon sign to our left announced the presence of a first-class

hotel, and above the sign on the hotel’s spacious balcony I

could see a group of wealthy Pakistani pilgrims, the men in

snowy white, the women in brilliantly colored saris, drinking

lemonade and watching the crowds below them in front of the

mosque. On a mat near us four children and an old woman

huddled together, watching the mother trying to make tea on a

Primus stove which alternately smoked and belched forth

yellow flame. A few feet away a small boy lay rigid on a rug,

his head supported by a pillow, while two women and an old

man took turns fanning him. The younger of the women was

trying to force a few spoonfuls of hot tea between the boy’s

clenched lips. The man removed his kaffiyeh briefly, mopped

his forehead and passed his hand over his face. Then, while I

watched, the adults moved the boy’s pallet into a larger patch

of shade, away from the traffic, and I got a closer look at the

child, who was emaciated, his eyes glazed and sunken from

fever, the skin of his face tight over the bones, the mouth

slack. He looked very near death. The father now began to fan

and the two women straightened out the boy’s thin dishdasha

and arranged his feet more comfortably. At first I wondered

why on earth they had brought this sick child to Karbala in

such heat, but the obvious answer came. Dying on pilgrimage

assures the soul immediate entrance into heaven.

Fatima leaned over to tell me that we were going to a house

just down the street, where some of the women we knew had

stayed in past years. Through a large central courtyard full of

women and children, we were ushered into a small room

where the dirt floor was covered with part of a mat. A painted

and locked wooden box stood in a corner. That was all. Before

I could summon up my scattered bits of Arabic to ask Fatima

about Uncle Yehia, she had disappeared, and Rajat with her. I

was left in the room with our luggage and Um Ali, an older

woman from El Nahra whom I knew only slightly.

“Where have the girls gone?” I asked.

Um Ali grunted. She did not know. Perhaps they had gone

to the mosque.

We sat in silence for a few moments. I was tired, dead tired.

And I was thoroughly annoyed with Fatima for leaving me

behind without explanation, as though I were a sack of

potatoes or at best a poor relative of whose reactions one

could not be certain. Surely Fatima was old enough and

experienced enough—but there I stopped. Fatima was

certainly old enough, past twenty-five, but she was hardly

experienced enough to handle any out-of-the-ordinary

situation. That situation, apparently, was myself. She hadn’t

wanted to take me to the mosque, perhaps. All right. I

understood that. But was I then to be dumped thus,

unceremoniously, in a corner whenever they went off to

participate in anything on this five-day holiday? If that were

the case, why had I come? But it seemed there was nothing I

could do about it, because I was totally dependent on her. Or

was I?

A crippled boy whom I had seen occasionally in the

settlement limped into the room, sat down and looked up at

me. Um Ali grumbled to herself, produced a few coins from

the knotted corner of a handkerchief and gave them to the boy

with instructions to buy her some sugar. Aha! An emissary to

the outside world. I produced a few coins of my own for the

boy and asked him to bring me a Pepsi-Cola.

The Pepsi-Cola, which was quite cold, raised my spirits

considerably. I loosened my abayah, wiped my arms and face

with a handkerchief and examined my burn which had now

developed a puffy white blister but did not hurt any more. Um

Ali drank her tea and dozed in a corner. Flies buzzed about

over her empty tea glass. I waited.

Sherifa came in to whisper that she thought we were to stay

at Fatima’s uncle’s house.

“Why don’t you go there?” she asked.

I replied truthfully that I did not know.

“If you don’t stay there, you may not find any place, it is so

late,” warned Sherifa. “Tell Fatima. Even this place is full.

The room you are sitting in now has been reserved for

tonight.”

I will, I thought grimly, if I ever see her again.

When Rajat appeared after nearly an hour, I pounced on

her.

“Why,” I said, “don’t we go to Uncle Yehia’s?”

“Oh, we can’t possibly go to my uncle’s,” she answered. “It

would be great shame [ayb] because we didn’t bring any big

presents, like chickens or butter.”

I pointed out that I had two cakes and a bag of fruit which

she herself had carried the whole length of Karbala for that

very purpose.

She merely stared.

“Are we to stay here?” I asked.

“No, it is full.”

“Then where will we sleep tonight?”

“After lunch,” said Rajat patiently, in the manner one uses

with a recalcitrant child, “we will look for a place. Fatima says

so.”

“Where?”

“Near the mosque,” she answered. That was all I could find

out.

At that point I decided I could not face the possibility,

which was now very real, of sleeping on the street. It was past

three o’clock, the ceremonies were scheduled to begin at

sundown, and as Sherifa had pointed out, most of the available

space was filled by now. Sleeping on the sidewalk did not

bother me so much as the prospect of keeping myself wrapped

up in abayah and veil for five days and nights, with no private

place in which to wash or go to the toilet. All the apocryphal

stories of Shiite fanaticism rose before me, and I had a few

bad moments imagining a Grade ? extravaganza in which I

was unveiled as an infidel and an impostor in the middle of

the night by excited crowds and borne aloft to the mosque

where I was presented to the mullah to do with as he wished. I

knew I was being silly, that my friends were with me, and that

even sleeping in the street would not be a catastrophe, but by

now I felt panicky. I was tired and hot and hungry and my leg

hurt. But what could I do about it? First, I had no bedding, as

Laila had told me I would be staying with her uncle and hence

would need none. Second, I had the cakes and fruit, and

thirdly, Bob was supposed to telephone me that evening at

Uncle Yehia’s. These all seemed points in my favor, and I

decided to confront Fatima with my case and ask if we might

at least go to Uncle Yehia’s house and say hello; I had no idea

where he lived or even what his full name was. Then I would

have an address at least in case of trouble, and perhaps Sitt

Najat, the wife (who I had heard was a trained nurse) would

be sophisticated enough to perceive my dilemma and invite

me to stay there. It was worth a try.

When Fatima returned, I outlined the plan: we could visit

Uncle Yehia and give him greetings from the family. I would

leave the cakes and fruit as presents, and we would tell Sitt

Najat that Bob was to call, and she could tell him I was all

right, in fact having a fine time. Otherwise, I pointed out

boldly, Bob might get in touch with her father if he did not

hear from me. The latter seemed the clinching argument, and

Fatima agreed we might go after lunch. I offered to help

prepare the meal, but the women urged me to wash and rest. I

had been steeling myself for an appearance in the courtyard

full of strange women and this seemed the time, so I wrapped

my abayah around me, made a quick trip to the muddy filthy

enclosure which served as the toilet and then stood at the

common tap to wash my hands and face. It was quite a trick to

get everything clean, and still keep the abayah out of the mud

and covering one decently. I developed new respect for the

many skills which my friends took for granted.

Suddenly all conversation stopped, and I heard a horrible

inhuman barking sound. It came from the throat of an

adolescent girl who was hopping and jerking her head as she

came forward, her insanity so obvious that a woman near me

involuntarily murmured, “Mashallah.” The girl pursued

another woman who was teasing her. Someone snickered, and

then a small child snatched an object from the woman’s hand

and returned it to the insane girl; she subsided, coughing and

hiccuping, in a corner. I stumbled back to our room where Um

Ali was saying her prayers. Fatima unpacked her bag and

produced a couple of cold chickens and some hard-boiled

eggs. After two glasses of hot tea, I asked if we might go to

see Uncle Yehia. To my great relief, Fatima said yes. We

would leave our baggage with Um Ali and go for a very brief

visit.

We started back the way we had come, past the family of

children, where the old woman had curled up to sleep on the

mat, past the fever-ridden boy whose old father still fanned

him. We turned into a small street and knocked on a narrow

wooden door, set up three short steps from the street.

Someone looked out and said Uncle Yehia was not home.

Then another woman came and she and Fatima argued for a

while about whether we would go in and have tea. For one

terrible moment it looked as though the door would shut in our

faces, but finally someone’s charity for poor relations

prevailed and we straggled in, past some visitors sitting cross-

legged in the central court, into the sirdab, or summer cellar

room. We sat on a clean mat and drank strong tea. I offered

my cakes and oranges. Sitt Najat, a short stocky woman with

very white skin and short shining straight black hair looked at

the cakes, looked at me and smiled in welcome. I felt my plan

had worked and I was right. I was presented with a fait

accompli. Fatima said I must stay with Sitt Najat (courteous

weak protest from me, fortunately overruled) and she would

come for me in the morning. She would have a definite place

to stay then.

We made another trip to the house of the insane girl to

bring my bag (we had not brought it the first time, of course,

as it would have looked as though we were asking for

hospitality). Night was coming as I plodded down the street of

the shrine for the third time that day, and the neon lights cast a

weird phosphorescent glow on the flags and banners. When I

sank down for the second time in Sitt Najat’s sirdab, I felt that

the pilgrimage might not have been in vain as far as my

spiritual education was concerned. I had endured bumping and

banging, jostling and burning already; now I was being given

the absolution of privacy and a good meal in this charitable

Moslem house, and later, oh joy unbelievable, a bed on the

roof under the stars. Sitt Najat’s understanding was profound,

I thought, as she led me up to the roof, past the cots of her four

children, her husband and herself, and the beds which had

been set up for her five visiting relatives, to a cot strategically

placed in a corner, away from the multitude. I could hear the

Koran still blaring from the loudspeakers, mingling with the

chants of the taaziyas, whose performances had begun. From

the roof I could see part of the mosque, the very top of the

main golden dome and the spires of the minarets, but tonight I

was too tired to appreciate the view, too tired to begin to

digest the impressions of the long day. I lay down on the iron

cot, its cotton mattress covered with a spotless white sheet.

“Sleep here and good health,” the familiar adage, was

embroidered on my pillowcase, in a pattern of vines and

flowers.

Bob never did phone. I realized why, after a quarter of an

hour in Sitt Najat’s house. There was no telephone. Bob later

told me that he had, desperately, called the hospital and asked

for Uncle Yehia, only to be told that there was no doctor by

that name on the house staff. This was correct. Yehia was only

a dresser in the hospital, a sort of male nurse, but his devoted

relatives in El Nahra had promoted him to the status of a full-

fledged physician and he probably did not deny it. Finally Bob

had turned to the sheik and to Jabbar, asking what he should

do. They both had told him that if I was staying with Moussa’s

relatives, I would be all right.

This, too, was correct. Najat’s house was my home and my

refuge during the five days I spent in Karbala. Fatima and

Rajat came every day and took me out to walk and watch the

taaziyas and see the sights of the town, but they always

brought me back before dark. Fatima could now pray at the

shrine and gossip with her friends without worrying about me.

I was very content. It was an ideal solution for all of us, except

perhaps Najat, but even she insisted it was a pleasure.

However, I know that as a guest I presented problems to

Sitt Najat. She later told me that she had known personally

only two Western women, Englishwomen who had been her

instructors in the nursing college she had attended in her

native Mosul. Neither had ever been a guest in her house. I

could tell she was uncertain that first morning when I came

down. First she jumped up and ran to the bathroom, where she

noisily rattled the water can (to let me know it was full of

clean water) and then emerged to greet me, leaving the door

ajar in order to leave no doubt in my mind about the location

of the facilities in case I did not know the necessary Arabic

words. When I had finished, she jumped up again, ushered me

past the relatives drinking tea in the court and into the sirdab.

A breakfast tray followed, and Najat sat by me as I ate the flat

bread and goat cheese, drank the leban (watered yogurt) and

the tea, watching me anxiously and asking every few minutes

whether this was like American breakfasts. Lunch was the

same: I ate in lonely splendor in the sirdab, my only company

a child who had wandered away from the cheerful group

eating from a big tray in the court to take a look at the strange

Amerikiya eating.

I decided this special attention was ridiculous and a

needless burden on my harried hostess. Najat had offered the

hospitality of her house to me, a complete stranger. And now

she was giving me choice bits of food in addition to personal

service when she already had six other guests.

When suppertime came, I sat down firmly on the mat in the

center court and made a valiant effort at bright conversation

with the relatives. By the time Najat had dished up the meal—

rice, stew, pickles, a jointed chicken in tomato sauce, flat

wheat bread for everyone—I was firmly ensconced between

two of the stout older relatives, and declined to leave.

Najat laughed. “You see, she can eat like us. Don’t be

afraid of her,” she told the old ladies.

I pretended not to hear, and from then on we always ate

together, spooning rice and stew from the common bowls,

sharing the basin of leban, finishing off with a glass of tea.

We sat in two groups—the four lady relatives and I, Sitt

Najat and her niece and her five children at one tray, the two

young male relatives, resplendent in their snow-white

dishdashas, at another tray in a far corner of the court. The

men came to the house merely to sleep and eat, and it was

only on the last day, when we were exchanging addresses, that

I discovered the oldest boy spoke fairly good English and

could have simplified my life immeasurably during the five

days I had been there.

But in retrospect I am glad I didn’t know he spoke English

or I might, in my laziness, have depended on him for most of

my communication, and thus have missed many of the stories

and confidences of my hostess and her guests.

The four ladies from Mosul, Najat’s relatives, would

occasionally venture out to pray or to watch the taaziya

processions passing by, but they spent most of their time

sitting on mats in the court, eating, drinking tea and gossiping

endlessly. Their gray hair was long and loose, kept in place by

white or black head scarves tied like caps over the tops of

their heads; they covered their big, shapeless bodies with

ankle-length cotton dresses yoked and smocked at the neck

like nightgowns. They were pleasant, passive old ladies who,

after a lifetime of serving husbands, in-laws and children, had

retired to a comfortable old age in which their sons’ wives and

their other younger female relatives waited on them. During

the entire time they were in Karbala they made no attempt to

help Najat as she scrubbed the house and prepared the meals

for fifteen people, and she did not expect it.

Fortunately Najat was a strong, wiry woman and could

carry the burdens which a household, an influx of seven guests

and a full-time job outside her house placed on her shoulders.

She had five children, and also served as chief nurse in

Karbala’s free, government-run maternity and child welfare

clinic. An adolescent niece of Yehia’s lived with them,

theoretically to look after the children while Najat was at the

clinic, but the niece was much more interested in doing

nothing, and spent most of her time in the house next door

while the nine-year-old daughter watched the children. Najat

told me she kept her job, in spite of the heavy home schedule,

because it got her out of the house and in touch with people.

Otherwise she would have been as secluded as a village

woman. She missed her relatives and friends in faraway

Mosul; she missed the simple escape of the movies, for

Karbala, being a holy city, boasted no cinema. But she

enjoyed life and obviously felt lucky to have found an

approved public outlet for her talents, even in the holy city.

Her neighbors, whom I visited while I was there, spoke

admiringly and respectfully of her, not, I found, because of her

emancipated status as a nurse and wage earner, but because of

her large healthy family, her tireless industry, and her great

store of cheerful good will.

Najat wore no face veil, and only donned the abayah when

she left the house. She had laughed at my veil when I arrived,

and urged me to discard it. “People think that Karbala is a

fanatic city just because it is Shiite,” she said. “It is not true at

all. Everyone is friendly here; you don’t need to wear the veil.

Take it off.”

How much of what she said was traditional Arab courtesy

(she could see how uncomfortable I was in the veil) and how

much she really believed herself, I do not know even now. But

the only occasion I followed her advice and went without the

veil was the evening, at the height of the festival, when she

took me into the city to watch the taaziyas performing near the

mosque. That night she was frightened considerably, I know.

Perhaps until that time she had really believed it was all right

for me, an unbeliever, to go without the veil. Perhaps she got a

new insight into her own countrymen that night, but whatever

she felt, the events silenced her. She never mentioned the veil

to me again.

We set out that evening ostensibly to buy her two daughters

new shoes for school, for the term began just after the

ceremonies ended. I knew perfectly well that we were going to

see the taaziyas and so did the girls, but a good woman Najat’s

age does not go wandering outside her house at night even

during religious festivals unless she has a cast-iron excuse for

her husband, should he object, and for her neighbors, should

they feel like gossiping.

I was told later that there were nearly a million people in

Karbala that night—Karbala, which normally has a population

of 30,000. I believe it. Before we even left Najat’s house we

could hear the muted roar of the crowds, and by the time we

reached the main street leading to the imam the noise was

deafening.

“Walk near the shops,” shouted Najat, “or we’ll never make

it. Don’t lose sight of me.”

It was almost impossible to move at all unless we let the

crowd carry us along, but Najat was determined. Single file,

holding onto the little girls, we plunged into the dense mass of

people and pushed our way through until we could walk

beside the shuttered shop fronts. Occasionally we fanned out

to dodge the counter of an open kiosk or avoid stepping on

someone lying prone on a mat. But most of the mats were

rolled up that evening. This was the climactic night of the

spectacle of the taaziyas; no one who was able to walk upright

was asleep.

“Mama, we can’t see anything,” complained one of the little

girls.

“Can’t see,” whimpered her younger sister.

They were quite right.

We could hear the hoarse cries of the taaziya processions,

but a mass of spectators ten and twenty deep blocked our view

completely except for occasional glimpses of flags and

smoking torches held high.

“Never mind, we’ll go up to the mosque and watch the

taaziyas coming out,” promised their mother. “That will be

much better.”

So we resumed our struggle forward against the stream of

traffic. Holding tight to the hand of Najat’s daughter, I kept

my eyes fixed on the resplendent mosque at the end of the

street and surrendered to the general air of excitement and

tension that I felt in Najat, in her daughters, and in the

hundreds of thousands of people who pressed around me.

Night had heightened the holy day sounds and sights of

Karbala. The radio loudspeakers blared, turned up full volume

to compete with the cries of the taaziyas and the roar of the

crowds. Neon blazed white and pink and gold all along the

street, casting a weird glow on the flags and banners; on the

faces turned upward—white, black and brown; picking out the

jumble of costumes worn by the group of believers: the black-

and-white kaffiyehs of the southern Iraqi tribes, green turbans

of Sayids, white coats of Pakistanis, navy-blue and wine-red

abayahs of Persian women. Garlands of electric lights

festooned the slender minarets of the mosque, and the broad

golden dome, illuminated by thousands of bulbs, shone like a

sun set in the black night sky. There was no wind, but the

crowd moved ceaselessly back and forth, while the colored

flags and banners hung limp above in the artificially bright air.

We had almost reached the imam when Sitt Najat motioned

me into a shoe store. There were no customers, but the

proprietor, a distant relation of Najat’s husband, had opened

his shop so he might watch the processions. He expressed

amazement at the size of the crowds; usually, he said, he had a

very good view of the parades, but tonight he had to stand on

a chair or on his counter to see over the people’s heads.

I was introduced, murmured traditional greetings, and the

shoe-store proprietor asked Najat, to my everlasting delight, if

I was a Persian pilgrim visiting the family.

Sitt Najat smiled and said that I was an American.

The proprietor’s eyes widened in surprise. He recovered

enough, however, to say to me, in careful English, “I see you

wear the beautiful mantle of my countrywomen. Is it not a

graceful robe, the abayah?”

I replied that I had found it so, and useful as well; this gave

him the opening for a sad little speech, phrased in the same

stilted English.

“If even a foreigner, such as yourself,” he said, “finds the

abayah beautiful, why then do our young women begin to

despise it so? I have heard from reliable persons that in

Baghdad young girls now walk about without the abayah,

exposing themselves on the streets to men they do not even

know. Is this true?”

I said yes.

“And they laugh at the abayah and call it ugly,” he added,

shaking his head.

Then, remembering his manners, he ordered Coca-Cola for

us to drink while the girls tried on shoes.

When we left, he took my hand gravely, with a mournful

“what is the world coming to?” sigh, and pointed out a place

near his shop where we might stand on a raised step to get a

good view of the taaziyas.

We thanked him and inched our way into the spot he had

indicated. He was right; there were two high steps leading to

the closed door of a shop, and from the top one we could just

see over the crowd. Najat and I took turns lifting the children.

Each taaziya group performed the prescribed ceremony

before the tomb of the martyr and then marched out of the

main entrance of the mosque to proceed down the street,

repeating the ritual, in religious ecstasy, before the thousands

of pilgrims. By the time we finally had settled ourselves, one

taaziya had just passed down the street. We could hear the

chant of the group next in line, echoing and re-echoing within

the great courtyard around the tomb. Then the new group

emerged; a green banner and a black, lit by flickering torches

held high, were borne forward by the hands of very old men

and boys who were not of the age to perform the ritual of

flagellation. Then a score of young men, bare to the waist,

wearing only black or white trousers and white head cloths,

surged out, marching in strict rows of fours. I do not know

what I had expected, from the torches and the noises and the

sounds of the chant and chains, from the small procession I

had seen in El Nahra. An orgy? An exhibition of

sensationalism? Whatever I had expected, this was completely

different, different in scope and quality from the taaziya I had

seen in El Nahra.

The torches and weirdly lit banners, the bunch of black

chains in the right hand of every man, the black garments, the

glazed and exhausted eyes of the performers, and their

drenched, sweating bodies signified a religious experience

with which I was totally unfamiliar. Intense yet deliberate, the

rhythm of the slow, liturgical chant never varied, its tempo

ruled by the downward sweep of the chains, by the long,

sustained cries of the leaders, by the thud of metal on flesh. In

ancient and dignified figures, these young men were spelling

out once more for a million pilgrims the renunciation, the

humility and penitence which lie at the heart of Shiite Islam.

Mourning for the lost martyr was exalted into a great drama of

sorrow and became the individual sorrow of every pilgrim.

“Ohhhhh—Hussein, most great, most honored, we grieve

for thee,” called the leader, walking backward, step after

measured step down the cleared aisle of the street. At this

signal the chains were swung like incense burners, across the

body, out to the side; a silent half beat, marked by the thump

of bare feet marching in unison, passed before the score of

chains swung back to thud on the bared shoulders.

“Yaaaa—Hussein,” responded the young men.

“Ohhhhh—Hussein, most betrayed, we mourn for thee,”

cried the leader, shaking the sweat out of his eyes. Click went

the chains across the body, out, and then the unbearable silent

half beat. The crowd held its breath, letting it out in a

concerted sigh as the chains struck the bare shoulders.

“Yaaaa—Hussein,” answered the young men. Their

shoulders were bruised blue from the ritual beatings, the

kerchiefs around their heads blotched from perspiration. Still

they kept up the sustained note, the measured beat, and the

chains swung again like censers. The chains thudded and the

chant swelled higher from a score of throats, from a hundred,

as the taaziyas awaiting their turn inside the mosque were

heard in the distance, in the silent half beats of the continuing

ritual.

“Ohhhhhhh—Hussein, our beloved martyr, we grieve for

thee,” cried the leader.

Tears streamed down the faces of sobbing men standing

near me, and the piercing wailing cries of the women spoke of

loss and pain and grief and lamentation.

The taaziya procession passed us, chanting and marching,

striking their shoulders. The cry of the leader receded into the

distance, but already another group was poised at the mosque

entrance, eager to take part in the yearly ceremony. Another

black banner and a green; gold tassels, flaring torches, a bare-

chested leader; the group fanned out into a circle, varying the

figures and beats accordingly. A careful circle, they moved

together down the street, swinging their chains, chanting in

sadness and yet in exultation.

Now a third group waited impatiently for the circle to pass

out of earshot. The men, their tempers taut from the heat and

the heightened emotions of their ritual exertions inside the

shrine, were clamoring to start. Their leader and the mullah at

the entrance tried to hold them back, but in a total break with

the dignity and restraint of their mission they pushed forward,

almost on top of the circle of men who chanted and swung the

chains in front of them. A green banner toppled and fell,

breaking the thin line between frenzy and disciplined ritual.

Men from rival groups tussled briefly and bitterly. The crowd

fell back, gasping at this breach of conduct, and the police

intervened. The leader of the unruly group pushed his fellow

villagers back into line and began desperately to mark the

slow, strong beat.

“Ohhhhhh Hussein, oh betrayed one!” he cried. The men

shuffled into place and the chains clicked, almost in unison

again. Farther down the street the green banner was raised

once more and the perfect figures, the circle and the square,

reasserted themselves.

But now four or five taaziyas were backed up at the

entrance to the shrine, their appearance delayed by the melee.

The leaders had started the litany already, apparently to keep

the groups in line, and they could be heard alternately

chanting and shouting in strange cacophony.

“At the next break we must cross the street, or we’ll be here

all night,” Sitt Najat shouted in my ear.

She took my hand, and I took the hand of her daughters. We

started forward and had pushed ourselves nearly to the front

edge of the crowd at the door of the shrine when we were

forced backward again by the banners and torches of a new

group. I heard an oath behind me and turned to see angry faces

thrust next to mine, a woman gesturing in my face and a man

with his arm raised to strike me. I looked down, to discover in

horror that I was standing on someone’s tiny prayer rug! How

anyone came to be praying in that crowd I will never know,

but I had stepped on the woman’s hands with my heavy shoes

and had almost stepped on the disc of clay used by Shiites to

rest their foreheads while bowing in prayer.

At the shouting and angry words, people stood back and

turned around to look. I opened my mouth to apologize, but

Sitt Najat had already taken my hand again and was pulling

me away. I felt myself propelled through protesting crowds

that nudged and prodded and elbowed me as I was dragged

forcibly along; I felt the daughter’s hand slip from mine, but I

was powerless to turn and find her again.

“Hold on!” shouted Najat, covering her face with her

abayah and motioning to me to do likewise. I held my abayah

in front of my face with one hand, and felt the other nearly

being pulled out of its socket as Sitt Najat, now in obvious

panic, jerked me through the crowd, away from the incident

and the growing number of shouting people who stood at the

door of the shrine.

We might have spent only a quarter of an hour pushing our

way through that crowd, we might have been much longer, but

I was ready to drop when we reached a side street and were

suddenly lost in an unlighted alley. Let us stop, I thought

silently, oh, let us stop, but Najat did not pause. She pulled me

on and on, and I stumbled through the dark, tripping over

unknown objects and stepping into puddles, my foot squishing

in my shoe as I ran. Najat continued to drag me on.

Finally she slowed down, and I asked her where the

children were.

“Oh, they’ll find their way back,” she answered.

We plodded along in silence.

“You must be tired,” she finally said. “Let’s have some tea

when we get home.” When we sat at last on the mat in her

own courtyard, drinking hot tea, she spoke. She did not refer

to the incident, nor to the furious pace at which we had

traveled.

“It was much better to come home that way, don’t you

think?” she asked. “Not so many people.” That was all she

ever said.

I never saw the tomb of the martyr Hussein. No one

suggested that I go, and after the evening incident with the

taaziyas I lost my interest in going into the mosque altogether.

In the days that followed I went out again each morning and

afternoon with Fatima and the other women from El Nahra,

who came to Sitt Najat’s to call for me. We would watch the

taaziyas, still performing, though their fervor was somewhat

spent, or we would stroll toward the outskirts of the city, away

from the crowds. We would stop at some strange house,

Fatima would ask the women politely for water, and, after

satisfying our thirst, we would sit under a tree and talk. We

went to the maternity clinic where Najat worked. We walked

to the hospital where Yehia was stationed. He came out, in his

white coat, and talked to us as we sat in the garden, like

hundreds of other relatives and patients waiting for a doctor or

a nurse or simply resting from the heat and the crowds. One

day I insisted that we ride in a horse-drawn carriage. The

women were shy about getting into it, and insisted that the

driver would not let us off where we wanted to go and would

then overcharge us, but I insisted and promised to pay if we

were overcharged. Once we got into the carriage and jostled

along the dusty streets behind the old horse, the women were

enchanted. They laughed and sang and did not want to get out

when the ride ended.

I asked them if we might go to the bazaar, for before

leaving Bob had suggested I look around and see what

treasures might have been brought in by pilgrims to sell in

exchange for food, lodging or travel home. The days passed,

and we did not go. Finally I insisted that I must go to the

bazaar, because it would be great shame not to bring a present

to Bob. This seemed to impress Fatima, and on the last day

she came to call for me in the morning accompanied by

Ibrahim, her young cousin, who she said would take us to the

bazaar. So I hurriedly donned my abayah, reminding Fatima

again that I wanted to go to the old bazaar, where we could

find copper and silver and rugs. She nodded and said that

Ibrahim knew where everything was and would take us

wherever we wanted to go.

Ibrahim was fifteen. Fatima treated him like a brother (he

was more than ten years younger than she and hence not a

possible marriage partner for her) and I did the same. In his

striped dishdasha he stood nearly a head taller than everyone

on the street, and was easy to follow as he led us along a

circuitous route, up one small street and down another, “to

escape the crowds,” he explained. It was a bright clear day

with a cool breeze. Many of the peddlers were packing up

their wares, workmen were beginning to remove the strings of

colored lights from store fronts and, as we turned onto the

main street, families were rolling up their mats and bedding,

preparing to leave for home.

Fatima chattered gaily all the way, though I noticed dark

circles under her eyes and asked if she were ill.

“No, just tired,” she replied. “But I can sleep in El Nahra. I

won’t be in Karbala for another year and maybe not then, for

it’s Sanaa’s turn to come next time.”

We were close to the shrine, walking along the outer court

where a row of fancy shops displayed Western goods to attract

the rich pilgrims. I knew the old bazaar was on the other side

of the court, and was just then thinking smugly how much

more beautiful the indigenous copper and silver work was

than these cheap, flashy Western imports, when suddenly

Ibrahim stopped, announced grandly that this was the place

and ushered us into the largest and shiniest of the shops.

My face must have shown my dismay, for Ibrahim hastened

to explain that he knew Bob would not want any of the old

things in the native bazaar. These were the places where rich

foreigners shopped, and he assured me that the one we were in

was the very best. My heart sank. I looked around at the

colored nylon blouses, the Ronson lighters and printed scarves

and perfumes and had a fleeting vision of gleaming old copper

and brass. Fatima was wandering happily about, looking

carefully at everything and commenting on the beauty of the

merchandise. Rajat stood at the door, her eyes very large and

round above the abayah which she was shyly holding over the

lower half of her face. At the end of the counter Ibrahim

lounged, obviously quite pleased with himself, waiting for my

approval.

I pulled myself together, trying to see the humor of the

situation, and said yes, it was a fine shop.

“It’s a wonderful shop,” answered Fatima, touching the cut-

glass stoppers of the French perfume bottles and looking at the

transparent, lace-edged nylon blouses. There was nothing like

this in El Nahra or Diwaniya.

Fatima bought a small scarf for her mother. I realized

somehow as she was buying it that she had not counted on the

price being so high, but she would not have dreamed of saying

so, and thus she now had no more money to spend.

But I plunged on anyway. First some Evening in Paris

cologne for Laila, and for Fatima herself. A black elasticized

belt for Rajat. Handkerchiefs for Ibrahim. A large painted tin

box of toffee for Sitt Najat. Elizabeth Arden night cream in

gold-lettered jars for Sanaa and Nejla. A ball-point pen for

Mohammed. And for Bob, after much discussion and

bargaining among Ibrahim, the proprietor and myself, a polka-

dotted maroon wool tie; the label said Regent Street, London.

The proprietor felt that a small music box which held

cigarettes and also played the Blue Danube would have been

more fitting. I held my ground. Finally the tie was wrapped

and all the other packages as well, except for the belt, which

Rajat insisted on wearing.

When we left the shop, it was noon and very hot. Ibrahim

bought Coca-Cola at a kiosk and we sat on the curb near the

shrine to drink it, watching the thinning stream of people

passing in and out to pray. Pilgrims with bright bedrolls were

heading out of the city.

“I hope my mother is all right,” said Fatima suddenly, and I

found myself wondering about Bob and our mud house. The

pilgrimage was over. We were already thinking of home.

PART IV

19

Autumn

The date palms in our garden, like all the date palms in El

Nahra, were heavy with ripe fruit. For the past three days we

had seen above our wall the neighbor boys high in their trees,

and heard their shouts as they called to the men and women

below that dates were cut and coming down. Like enormous

bunches of heavy yellow grapes, the dates would break

through the crackling palm fronds and fall with a thud to the

ground. One morning Bob opened the gate to a group of

strangers—two men, three women and several children—who

identified themselves as the part owners of our date trees, and

said they had come to harvest their crop. “Haji owns the land,”

explained one of the men to Bob, “but the trees are owned

partly by him and partly by the descendants of one of Haji’s

uncles. My wife is one of the descendants, and we collect the

dates every fall and give Haji part of them.”

They began to work, and by midmorning the garden was

covered with mounds of golden dates and with dried stalks

and fronds pruned off by the boys after cutting down the fruit.

The women and girls plucked the dates from their stalks and

sorted them into piles. The dead fronds and empty stalks were

also sorted to be stored for eventual use as fuel.

In the afternoon the women paused to rest, and I invited

them in for tea. “I have heard about you,” the oldest one said,

“and we wanted to come and see what you looked like, but we

live on the other side of the canal, near the suq, and it is a long

way to come.”

“You’re related to Haji, but you live on the other side of the

canal?” I had not met anyone with tribal affiliation who lived

with the market people.

“Yes, Haji’s great-grandfather was my great-grandfather,”

said the woman. “But my husband was from another clan of

the tribe, and he took up sheep trading when his land salted

up. So we live near the suq, where he works.” Then she

hastened to explain, “But we are not really of the ahl-es-suq

[market people] because we still own our tribal land.”

The tribe, Bob had said to me only yesterday, considered

itself superior to the market people. He had found, he said,

that the social divisions in the village were clear: the tribal

people living in the clan settlements, the people of the market

who lived near the market, and the government servants or

muwadhifin, who lived in the government houses. Each of

these groups kept apart from the others, seldom intermarried,

and each considered itself superior. The woman’s quick

explanation that she was not of the market people only

verified Bob’s observations; though she had lived near the

market all her life, she was still of the tribe and proud of it.

I invited her and her sister to drink tea with me every

afternoon while they were harvesting, and during those

afternoons I learned how thoroughly useful the date was to the

local housewife. Dates of the best quality were sold to a date

merchant in Diwaniya. Damaged dates were fed to livestock.

Dates were eaten with bread and watered yogurt, as a

nutritious and filling meal. They were boiled up into a heavy

syrup, almost like sorghum, which was a substitute for jam

(we had discovered it was excellent on pancakes) and good for

cooking purposes. My friend also made her yearly supply of

vinegar from dates. “But I never have enough bottles for the

vinegar,” she said, casting her eye around the room. I followed

her train of thought easily enough, and that day when the little

girls filed out of the garden, each carried an armload of empty

bottles from my kitchen.

The mounds of dates grew higher and higher in the garden;

the children tied the stalks into bundles and the men came

with sacks to carry away the fruit. The harvesters departed and

we saw no more of them until a child appeared at the gate one

morning with two bottles of date vinegar, a gift from the old

woman. I peered at the muiky gray liquid, and the child

advised, “Let it settle and then it will be all right.”

I thanked her, but she did not go.

“Grandma says if you have any more bottles, she can give

you more vinegar.” I produced some more bottles but told her

the vinegar she had brought would be enough.

The beginning of the new school term brought earth-

shaking news. Sitt Aliyah, principal of the girls’ school for

thirteen years, had been transferred. She had been given a

teaching job in Diwaniya and had settled down with her

mother in a comfortable modern house. Selma, Laila and her

sisters, Um Saad, Jabbar’s sister Khadija, all the women were

stunned. Sitt Aliyah had become so much a part of the

community that it did not seem possible that school could

continue without her.

Although the women rejoiced in Sitt Aliyah’s promotion,

they could not quite believe that she had gone from El Nahra

forever. So many people had depended on her for so many

things; she educated their girls, of course, but she also knew

how to make excellent mosquito nets that fitted exactly over

one’s bed and kept out the myriads of insects that plagued

one’s summer sleep. Her mother made sherbet from fresh

lemons and knew how to store it for months so that it would

not spoil. Sitt Aliyah was never too busy to write a letter if

one wanted. She would even advise about tonics for thin

children and eyewashes for the infected trachoma eyes. She

would read the Koran for a woman in trouble.

Hind, her younger sister, was to become principal of the

school; the women said, “Hind is a good girl, but she is young

and wants to get away and go to Baghdad. Aliyah was like

us.”

New rumors flew: Aliyah would stay, Hind would go, Um

Saad would be principal, a new schoolteacher was to arrive. A

new schoolteacher, it turned out, was really going to arrive,

any day, to fill the vacancy left by Aliyah’s departure. And

now the speculation turned to the new teacher. Her arrival was

breathlessly anticipated, not only by the tribal women and

girls, to whom she was a symbol of the world outside the

village, but also by the middle-class women to whose tiny

social horizons she would be an important addition. If the new

teacher were gay and enthusiastic, it would mean a good year

for the school and a pleasant winter of afternoon teas for the

middle-class wives. If she were dull—the women sighed and

hoped she would not be dull.

Aziza, when she finally came, made an excellent first

impression, for she was pretty, well-dressed, poised, educated,

and her family background satisfied all camps. She was of

tribal background but her father was a teacher in Diwaniya, so

she had status with the middle-class ladies. This was her first

job after graduating from the teachers’ training college in

Baghdad, and she was eager to please and ready to work hard.

She was not above sitting cross-legged with the tribal women

and chewing pumpkin seeds, and she dutifully visited all the

civil servants’ wives and brought them the customary present

of sweets. Yet I sensed something different about this girl, and

the townspeople must have, too, for although in the beginning

she was liked and entertained, she did not develop any close

friendships, and she was never taken to heart the way Aliyah

and even Hind had been. Perhaps Aziza was too serious and

found herself unable to respond to the ironic teasing which

went on among the women. Perhaps it was the curious reserve

in which she seemed to hold herself.

She begged me to help her improve her English, and I

found her an apt pupil. Then Hind insisted that I must teach

her too. Hind was clever, but she had no patience and seldom

finished anything. The lesson hour with Hind usually

degenerated into gossip and fortunetelling, whereas Aziza

would drill on English plurals. The two girls began to vie with

each other about who was to teach me Arabic in exchange for

the English lessons. The competition became unpleasant and I

finally had to suggest a compromise. I would come twice a

week to the school after four o’clock. One day I would study

the Arabic primer with Hind and give her a lesson in reading

English; on the other day Aziza would help me with spoken

Arabic and I would reciprocate by instructing her in

conversational English. Gradually my days with Hind petered

out, but Aziza and I kept up our lessons.

Although Aziza had spent two years in Baghdad, she had

lived the entire time in the carefully supervised college

dormitory, so her knowledge of the big city was very limited.

She knew enough, however, to want to know more, and she

would question me by the hour; I had never seen such

curiosity about the outside world before. Every session,

whether we were discussing politics or religion or marriage or

geography, always ended in the same way. “Tell me,” she

would say, “about the high life.” By this she meant the kind of

life she thought I led when I was not in El Nahra, in which

women and men sat and talked together, went to restaurants

and movies in fashionable suits and well-cut dresses, and

danced, at one gala ball after another, under brilliantly lighted

crystal chandeliers.

Aziza and I became friends, but we did not speak of our

friendship. If we had, Hind would have felt affronted (after all,

she had known me first) and Laila and Khadija would have

complained bitterly. For, I discovered, friendships among

women were much more important and much more intense in

this segregated society than in our own. Where the men spend

the major part of their time away from women, the women

have to depend on each other for company, for support, and

for advice. A man might be a devoted father or brother or a

loving husband, but in El Nahra he was seldom, if ever, a

companion. I never heard a woman discuss her emotional

attitude toward her husband or her father or brother, but long

hours were spent in debates about the fidelity or indifference

of women friends. Naturally these friendships became most

serious for women who were single or childless or widowed,

but even married women with large families had close women

friends for whom they composed poems or cooked special

sweets. To a visitor in the sheik’s harem, Selma once said,

“Beeja is not Fatima’s friend, she is Laila’s friend,” and when

I protested, she said, “Yes, yes, you and Fatima like each other

but you are the friend of Laila.” And that was that.

20

An Excursion into the Country

Aziza and I kept up our lessons twice a week that autumn, but

it was usually I who went to see Aziza. Therefore I was

surprised to find her at my door after lunch one afternoon.

Laila, who had been visiting, sprang up in delight, pleased that

the teacher, a person of some importance, should appear when

she was present.

“Come for a ride with me,” said Aziza. “It is such a fine

day.”

“A ride?” I echoed.

“Yes,” replied Aziza. “My cousin is here from Diwaniya

with his car and his driver. They are going partridge hunting

along the canal. I will sit in the back seat to look at the view

and I thought you might like to come. Do come, Beeja!” she

urged, clapping her hands together. “The country will be

beautiful today.”

“I would love to,” I answered. An excursion away from my

house and garden would be a real event. But I turned to my

visitor Laila.

“Laila must come too,” said the kindly Aziza, and Laila

beamed. “But,” she added, “are you sure that your father

would allow you to go driving with my cousin?”

“Of course, of course,” said Laila.

When I remember that afternoon, I wonder what gave it

such a luster. It had none of the characteristics of autumn

afternoons to which I was accustomed—no brilliant leaves, no

crisp winds or changing skies. Perhaps it was the light, the

sunlight in Mesopotamia which warms without burning,

which adds subtlety to what is usually an elemental landscape.

For fall here is really spring. The year’s principal crops are

planted early in October. By the end of the month the brown

fields that have baked under the summer sun are fuzzed with

green. This thin dusting of green, the young barley and wheat

and sesame plants, casts a gentle haze over the flat land. Even

the uncultivated sandy sections develop shadows, and the

sharp fronds and spiny trunks of the date palms look softer in

outline. Gazelles race over the plains; the partridge nests in the

new grasses. This is the best season of the year, for the heat

has lifted and the icy muddy winter has not yet come.

Aziza’s cousin, one rifle in hand and a second rifle on the

seat beside him, rode in front with his driver. Both men wore

tribal dress, almost identical with the garments worn by the

men of the El Eshadda. For their tribe and the El Eshadda

were members of the same tribal confederation. The cousin

spoke occasionally to Aziza, but he was careful not to address

Laila or myself. We sat silently, wrapped in our abayahs,

enjoying a marvelous sense of release in the unexpected

holiday.

We went as far as Seddara El Nahra, the point where the

sluice gates of the El Nahra canal are located. Here a small

rest house had been built in a large garden facing the canal; I

knew this little house and garden well, for Jabbar, as irrigation

engineer, had free use of the place and often brought his sister

Khadija, Bob, and me here for picnics. Today, however, we

passed on to a section of canal that I could not remember

having seen before, and drove along for nearly half an hour

until the cousin stopped the car near a plowed but unplanted

field. Aziza indicated that we would get out and walk a little

while the men went on ahead to hunt. In this way they would

not intrude on our privacy while we strolled, and they would

return for us when they had bagged a brace of partridge.

Strange as it seems to me now, I realized as we got out of

the car and breathed deeply the country air how long it had

been since I had had a chance to walk aimlessly for pleasure.

It was not the sort of thing that ladies in El Nahra did; they

were busy most of the day, and in their leisure hours they

hardly felt the need of more exercise. Even if they had, they

were expected to stay indoors with their families and not

wander about in public view.

The three of us struck out over the furrows of the field,

clutching our abayahs up slightly above the ankles so that we

would not trip on the uneven earth. We walked away from the

road toward the bank of an irrigation canal no longer in use.

The bank formed a fairly high ridge where Aziza had

suggested we might sit for a better view; from there we could

easily see the car when it returned.

“How lovely it is,” said Laila. It was the first time she had

spoken since we had left my house.

“It is good for the mind, the countryside and its scene,” said

Aziza to me, in her stilted not-quite-colloquial English.

I looked about me and agreed.

Brown and green, the flat land stretched away to the

horizon, a horizon which seemed only a flat base for the arch

of the sky. Over and above the ridge toward which we walked

the camel-thorn grew, its spiny branches picked out clearly

against the wide emptiness of that cloudless sky. A few small

undistinguished birds rose from the brush and whirred over

our heads toward the water of the canal, and as we neared the

bank we heard a deep, pulsating note.

“It is the calling of the partridge,” said Aziza, and began

telling me the Arabic names of the birds and plants. Laila was

not listening; she walked along with her head down,

apparently deep in thought; I had never seen her so quiet.

Suddenly over the ridge three children appeared, two

barefoot boys with shocks of black hair and a girl in a ragged

abayah, carrying a baby on her hip. They stopped dead at the

sight of us, as surprised to see us as we were to see them in

this apparently empty place. Aziza spoke to them, but they did

not answer. After a moment of intense scrutiny, one of the

boys bolted down and across the hollow of the unused canal.

We were close enough to the bank to be able to see now two

or three mud huts clustered on the far side of the canal. A

scrap of green, raggedly outlined, marked the garden and I

guessed that these were water squatters who had settled near

the old canal in the hope of getting moisture from it. When the

rains came, the land would just sustain a small crop without

further irrigation.

While we watched, the boy disappeared into one of the huts

and reappeared with a man. Laila looked frightened and

turned to run but Aziza held her ground. The boy pointed, the

man started toward us, then seemed to change his mind, for he

retreated into the hut again and a woman emerged and came

toward us, the boy running ahead and pointing.

“Stand still, Laila,” said Aziza. “Where are you going?”

“Oh,” cried out Laila, “someone will recognize me and tell

my father I have been out wandering!”

“Then cover your face, you silly girl,” replied Aziza in her

severest, most schoolteacherish tone.

Laila stood still, but she covered her face with her abayah

and turned away as the woman neared us.

“Salaam daykum!” called Aziza cheerfully.

The woman did not reply. She had paused on the bank

above to stare down at us, three ladies, wearing respectable

abayahs, out walking in a strange field. Every inch of her thin,

tattered figure seemed to question our presence. She peered

over our heads to see if we had escorts, and even I turned

around to search for a sign of the cousin’s Buick. The road

was empty.

Finally she returned our greeting.

“We are out walking because it was such a beautiful

afternoon,” offered Aziza.

“Where do you come from?” demanded the woman.

“Don’t tell her, Aziza,” pleaded Laila. “Please don’t tell

her.”

But Aziza recounted in detail the story of our outing while

the woman and the tousle-headed children listened; even the

baby did not make a sound. After Aziza had finished, there

was a long silence before the woman, her old-young face

already set into harsh lines of hunger or pain or fear, switched

her tattered abayah about her feet ever so slightly and said

perfunctorily (she would have been violating all of her social

codes had she done otherwise, even in this situation) “Ahlan

wusahlan. Come and drink tea with us.”

We declined with thanks and moved off, murmuring “God

be with you” and “Peace be with you,” farewells which were

not returned. After crossing perhaps half the distance between

the ridge and the road, we looked back. The woman and the

children still stood in a line against the sky.

When we reached the road, the Buick still had not appeared,

so I offered to take pictures of the girls. Laila refused, but

Aziza posed by the little arched iron footbridge which crossed

the canal; then she climbed the bridge to pose again, leaning

on the railing and looking into the water romantically.

The Buick roared up just before sundown and we clambered

gratefully in. It was good to be rescued on the lonely road as

night approached and the only human habitation for miles

those unfriendly families in the mud huts. It was very cosy in

the car. The lights were on in El Nahra and it was actually

dark when we reached my door. On impulse, I asked the girls

to have supper with me, as Bob was eating in the mudhif.

Over cold chicken and salad, watered yogurt and tea, Aziza

became quite eloquent. The subject was tribal purity, and

Laila supported her effusively on every point. Neither girl, it

appeared, would ever dream of marrying a man not of her own

tribe.

“It is—it is—” fumbled Aziza, looking desperately for an

explanation which might appeal to my strange Western mind,

“it is like the British royal family,” she finished triumphantly.

“They do not sully their bloodlines. Why? Because they are

proud of their lineage. That is the way we feel.”

“But if a man from another tribe were very handsome and

very rich would you marry him?” asked Laila.

“I might like to, if I saw him and fell in love with him,” said

Aziza.

“I would, if my father asked me to,” burst out Laila.

“Any girl would do whatever her father asked,” retorted

Aziza, “but my father would never ask anything like that. In

our tribe we are very tall and we want to keep the tallness.”

“Of course,” said Laila politely, and then to make amends

she added, “your cousin is very tall.” “Yes,” said Aziza.

At that moment Mohammed called through the shuttered

window to ask if he could speak to me privately. I was

surprised, for Mohammed never interrupted or intruded when

I had guests, especially women. I excused myself, and Aziza

asked me as I went out whether Mohammed could walk her

home, as she did not like to return to the school alone in the

dark.

Mohammed waited in the kitchen.

“Sitt,” he burst out without even a prefatory greeting,

“something very bad has happened.”

“What?” I cried, my mind jumping to a vision of Bob lying

dead in a ditch out in the middle of the plain.

“It is Laila,” he said.

“Laila?” I echoed, in some perplexity.

“Yes, Laila. Isn’t she in your room now with the

schoolteacher?”

I nodded.

“Didn’t you take her with you this afternoon?”

“Yes,” I said, still not understanding.

“You should not have done that,” said Mohammed

solemnly. “In fact, you should never have gone at all without

asking your husband.”

My first reaction was one of irritation. What right had

Mohammed to tell me what I must and must not do?

“Thank you very much, Mohammed,” I said as calmly as I

could, “but I am sure my husband would not object. After all,

I was with the schoolteacher, whom everyone respects.”

Mohammed brushed my reply aside with a gesture of

impatience. I could hardly believe that this was Mohammed,

who never spoke like this to anyone, and had never presumed

to discuss my conduct with me. But he continued firmly, “Sitt,

you are a foreigner and although you wouldn’t, I should think,

want to ruin your good name, you don’t have to live here. The

schoolteacher’s cousin is a very bad man; he drinks and

gambles and stays with bad women in Diwaniya.”

I opened my mouth to interrupt but Mohammed held up his

hand warningly.

“Laila is in great danger,” he said. “If anyone”—he paused

and repeated “—anyone were to know that she went riding

with a strange unmarried man without men from her family

present, she could be killed. Her father would have to do it to

save the honor of the other women of the family. Do you

understand?”

Yes, now I did understand, with the sickening realization

that one has as a child of being caught in an act of serious

wrongdoing, conscious that there will be no discussions or

excuses, no opportunity to explain. It is done and one is to

blame and waits for punishment.

“What shall I do, Mohammed?”

“You must deny that Laila was with you. Say it was a

cousin of the schoolteacher. I know Laila went and so do

some of the children who saw you go, but I will deny it and so

will the children because they like Laila.”

“But Mohammed, she is here now, eating supper with me.

Everyone will know that, and will see her leave.”

Mohammed paused. “You could say that she camp after the

ride to eat supper with you,” he decided. “Perhaps you had

better explain to the schoolteacher.”

I went in to Laila and Aziza, where they sat chatting

happily, and told them what Mohammed had said. “We must

swear it was a cousin of yours in the car, Aziza,” I finished,

“and all stick to that story.”

“Yes,” said Aziza.

Laila’s holiday manner disappeared as I talked; she now

rose abruptly, knocking her half-full glass of tea all over her

abayah. I pushed my handkerchief at her, but she did not take

it.

“Never mind, never mind,” she said and wiped ineffectually

at the wet abayah with her hand.

“I must leave,” she said, shaking our hands perfunctorily

and going out quickly.

Aziza and I were left looking at each other. “I should have

known better,” she said. “I know how conservative these

people are; after all, I grew up as Laila did. That is why I

made a point of asking whether her father would allow her to

go. When she said yes, I was too careless to press it further.

“We must say nothing,” she added. “The least they can do

is to beat her. Let us hope they do nothing worse.”

Mohammed coughed discreetly outside the window where

he was waiting to escort Aziza home. He would walk, as he

walked with me, a few steps ahead to lead the way; and he

would wait until the school gate had clicked shut behind Aziza

and only then return.

Aziza took my hand.

“I’m sorry our lovely afternoon finished this way,” she said.

My face must have shown what I felt, for she added

quickly, “Don’t worry, please. If no one will admit that she

went with us, it will be all right.”

When Aziza had gone, I sat appalled at the possible

consequences of my thoughtlessness. I tried to busy myself

tidying up our two rooms, but I had a bad hour, alternately

imagining Laila weeping and beaten, or Laila thrown into the

canal and drowned (would they tie her hands and feet?). There

should be something I could do to help, but, alas, there was

nothing. What I had done could not be repaired by any words

or action of mine.

Bob’s appearance was hardly reassuring. He had just spent

an extremely uncomfortable half hour in the mudhif being

scolded by Nour for his husbandly neglect in letting me go out

alone. Poor Bob had been at a disadvantage, for he had been

away from El Nahra the entire afternoon and knew nothing of

what had happened.

“I covered you, I think,” Bob said, “by saying that I had

told you beforehand that you could go, but I didn’t know

anything about the sheik’s women, fortunately. When they

asked me who was in the car with you, I said quite truthfully

that I had no idea. But I have never seen Nour so upset. He

spoke very abruptly. He has never acted this way in all the

time we have been here.”

Bob was as upset as I.

“I’m afraid you’ve made quite a blunder,” he said. “You

might have asked me before you went. You’ve made me look

foolish and compromised your friend.”

“I know, I know,” I wailed, “but what can I do?”

He thought for a moment. “I think you probably should stay

here, but I had better go back to the mudhif and act as if

nothing were wrong. Maybe I can find out what is

happening.”

We both knew this was unlikely. Whatever Laila’s

punishment, it would be administered behind the high walls of

her house. What actually took place would be known only

long after.

Bob on his return had little to report. Nour had seemed

calmer, but had repeated his earlier strictures on Bob’s

conduct. “Nour is being overconscientious because Sheik

Hamid is in Baghdad,” Bob said.

“If only the teacher’s cousin hadn’t been such a rake,” he

added, “I have the feeling it might not have been so bad. Nour

may be afraid that the cousin will gossip about Laila and you

in the Diwaniya coffee shops. Then the tribe will lose face.

This business of the good name of their women being the

honor of the tribe is no joke.”

Neither of us slept much that night. I reproached myself

again and again for being so thoughtless. After all, Aziza had

asked Laila and she, Laila, had made her own decision about

going. It was not all my fault. But I knew that I should have

been perceptive enough to realize that it was an almost

unheard-of action for as sheltered a girl as Laila. I was older

and, as a married woman, theoretically I was more

responsible. On the other hand—and so I argued back and

forth.

Mohammed, when he came in the morning, had not

dropped his role of counselor-adviser. This must mean that the

situation was still grave, but when I asked he said he did not

know what had happened. He told me not to visit Laila’s

house but instead to visit the sheik’s house. This seemed like a

good way to appear unconcerned and a wise move in general,

but I found it very difficult to walk up the path that morning,

past Laila’s house (what was going on inside?) and into

Selma’s courtyard. I sat down in the bedroom and prepared

myself to face questioning. Selma and Samira sat with me,

and Kulthum came in to drink tea. Several other women

stopped momentarily, but an hour passed with no mention of

yesterday.

Bob told me at lunchtime the men too had stopped talking

about it in the mudhif. I asked Mohammed at nightfall if he

had heard any news.

“Laila is all right, I think,” he said, “but she hasn’t been out

of her house all day, and neither have her sisters.”

At this I felt a great sense of relief, although Mohammed

warned me again never to mention the episode to anyone. It

would, he said, be all right for me to visit Laila the next day.

Laila greeted me cheerfully. I had just about decided

Mohammed had exaggerated the seriousness of the whole

affair when Laila left the room, and her three older sisters

came in and closed the door. They proceeded to give me the

politest, most cutting lecture I have ever received.

I was thoroughly embarrassed as the girls pointed out the

damage I had nearly done.

“We know that you don’t understand our ways,” said

Fatima.

“We realize you didn’t mean any harm,” put in Nejla.

“We just wanted you to understand …” Sanaa left her

sentence unfinished.

None of the three actually mentioned the facts of the case,

and when I put in, rather crossly, that after all Laila had come

of her own accord, they merely looked at their hands.

Finally Fatima said, “Yes Beeja, we know she should not

have gone. We have scolded her already, but she is young and

silly. You are older and a married woman and have been to

school. If our father knew for certain, he would beat her very

hard. We were all so frightened for Laila last night.”

The three girls stared at me in a somber way, while I felt

they were willing me to imagine the things that might have

happened to Laila. I dropped my eyes before that steady,

virtuous, oppressive gaze, saying I was very sorry for the

trouble I had caused.

Fatima caught me by the hand. “We will never mention this

again,” she said.

Gradually our pattern of visiting re-established itself, the

men in the mudhif no longer discussed the question, and I

thought the incident forgotten completely. But two months

later I was drinking tea with Selma. We were discussing I

don’t remember what, when she casually asked, “Who was in

the car with you, Beeja, when Sitt Aziza took you for a ride?”

“Aziza’s cousin from Diwaniya,” I replied promptly.

“What was her name?” inquired Selma, pouring a little hot

tea into the saucer and blowing it.

“I’ve forgotten.”

“Many people say that it was Laila in the car,” said Selma,

offering a little of the cooled tea to her three-year-old

daughter, who sipped it noisily.

“They are wrong,” I lied.

One of the women said, “But my daughter told me she saw

Laila get into the car.”

“So did mine,” put in another.

My uneasiness was growing, but Selma cut the two women

short.

“Didn’t you hear Beeja?” she asked. “Are you calling our

guest Beeja a liar?”

No more was said. But I began to realize that Bob and I

would never be other than foreigners, even though our efforts

to conform to the local customs might prove ingratiating. No

one would seriously blame us for our lapses, but we had to

recognize our responsibility when, on our account, other

people were exposed to blame or shame or worse.

How little I really knew about the society in which I was

living! During the year I had made friends, I had listened and

talked and learned, I thought, a great deal, but the pattern of

custom and tradition which governed the lives of my friends

was far more subtle and complex than I had imagined. It was

like the old image of the iceberg, the small, easily

recognizable face on the surface of the water giving no idea of

the size or shape or texture of what lies beneath.

PART V

21

Winter

Winter came down upon us with a sudden rainstorm. All day

clouds had been gathering in the skies, the first time for

months and months, and at sunset the rain poured onto the

land. Everyone rejoiced, for an early heavy rain was good for

the crops. We went to sleep that night lulled by the refreshing

sound of rain beating on our roof after the dry heat of the

summer.

At the end of the third day it was still raining. By now the

road was a morass of mud, and I did not leave the house. Even

at home it was difficult enough. Every time we went from one

room to another or across the garden to the bathroom or the

garbage pit, we would slip and slide on the mucky ground.

Mohammed was not so lucky. He still had to haul our water

several times a day and bring food from the market, and he

finally stopped wearing shoes altogether. He would hoist his

dishdasha up and double his aba over his head against the rain,

but his legs were always splashed with mud up to the knees

when he finally arrived.

Our roof began to leak and we would wake in the middle of

the night to feel the splash of rain on our faces, on the floor,

the chairs and table. Until the sun shone again the mud roof

could not be repaired, so I set pots and pans in strategic places

on the floor and we covered our bed with a tarpaulin and our

heads with raincoats when we slept.

By the fourth day, even Bob decided to stay indoors and

work on his notes. Our diet had become very monotonous, for

none of the farmers were bringing produce to market. The

taxis from Diwaniya had stopped running, so no canned foods

or jam or cigarettes came into El Nahra, and the supplies in

the shops dwindled steadily. The post office was closed and

the telephone line was out of order.

The Biblical story of the deluge, which is supposed to have

taken place very near El Nahra, seemed very real. We were

quite cut off. Who would have thought that rain would be a

problem in the middle of the desert? But it was. Horses could

make very little headway in the thick, deep mud, the cattle

could barely walk, and everyone who could stayed indoors

and tended the eroding mud walls and roofs. The men were

worried about the crops, said Mohammed. The water table had

been high to begin with, and too much rain at one time could

easily drown the young shoots of grain. We knew now why

Haji had built our little house on a slight rise in the garden.

Mohammed, our only link with the other people in the

settlement, reported that the floors in some houses were

already wet. If the rain didn’t stop soon, many people would

be flooded out.

Fortunately, on the sixth morning, it did stop. We woke to

bright sunshine and an unexpected amount of noise. At first

we could not account for the burst of noise, and then we

realized that the settlement, which had become quieter and

quieter during the rain, was merely emerging from its

enforced retreat. Children were running up and down the road

again, servants were setting out for the suq, and the livestock,

driven out of their enclosures for the first time in days, were

mooing and braying with joy.

Mohammed came to say that Haji had invited us to lunch.

To celebrate the end of the rains, Selma was making

faisanjan, or Persian chicken, and Sheik Hamid wanted us to

sample the special dish. At noon I put on my abayah and tried

to pick my way up the road through the slimy mud and the

deep puddles. Through Saleh the weaver’s open door I could

see Hathaya, his daughter, and his old mother laying reed mats

over the muddy ground, to protect the wool which Saleh was

stringing back and forth from the loom to the pegs at the end

of the court. All the houses along the road had rows of fresh

dung cakes spread out to dry for fuel on the wall tops; the

housewives had been busy that morning.

Laundry was underway in Haji’s house. The daughters were

hanging up clothes, children’s dishdashas, sheets, towels and

dresses on lines stretching all around the big central court. A

pot of white clothes still boiled over an open fire and Amina,

stirring with a long reed stick, nodded to me cheerfully as I

came in.

From Selma’s own apartment drifted an odor strong enough

to drown the smells of wet dung, mud and laundry, a lovely

odor which came from the kitchen. Here the chicken

simmered on a Primus stove while Selma stirred and tasted.

Faisanjan was a worthy delicacy to celebrate our release

from the rain. The preparation took hours. First walnuts were

pounded and pounded in a mortar until nothing was left but

the oil. The chicken was jointed and browned in the oil and

then a little salt was added and water in which dried

pomegranate seeds had been soaking. In this fragrant broth the

chicken cooked slowly until the broth thickened to a nut-

brown sauce and the chicken fell from its bones. Walnuts and

dried pomegranate seeds and salt proved to be an

unexpectedly delicious combination of flavors. I told Selma

that it was excellent and she smiled.

“No one in El Nahra can make faisanjan like Selma,” said

Samira.

Selma did not protest.

Three days later, when no more rain had fallen, Mohammed

said he thought it safe to repair our roof. Two men came from

the suq with buckets and ladders. I watched from behind a

half-closed shutter while they hauled up buckets of mud. I

heard the sound of the mud being slapped on the roof and

smoothed by hand. A few drops of mud plopped down past

the window. The men climbed down and took away the

ladders. Our roof repair (which would last for five years, they

said stoutly) cost exactly $1.25, and had taken about an hour.

Sherifa, Mohammed’s sister, had been ill for several days.

Mohammed described her symptoms as fever, chills, coughing

and vomiting. I asked whether I could visit her.

“After a day or two, when she is better,” he suggested.

“Has she been sick like this before?”

“Oh yes, many times,” answered Mohammed, “but it is

worse in winter, the cough especially.”

The day he came to announce that Sherifa was well enough

to see me, I took some aspirins and fruit and went to her. But

if today she was supposed to be better, I wondered what her

illness had been before. The normally cheerful and always

polite Sherifa made little attempt to greet me. From the mat,

where she lay covered with a blanket, she raised a limp hand.

“I’m very sick,” she said.

Her mother Medina was making tea over the tiny charcoal

fire. I asked whether I could bring the doctor for Sherifa.

“No, no, I don’t want him here,” said Sherifa, raising

herself slightly on one elbow. Then she was seized by a fit of

hard, dry coughing and lay back on the mat and turned her

head away from us.

Medina offered me tea, and Fadhila, who was mixing bread

dough for the noon meal, came in to sit for a moment. Fadhila

asked me to stay and watch her bake the bread; she seemed

unmoved by the sight of Sherifa, who was now moaning

continually.

“Poor Sherifa,” I said. “What a pity.”

“Oh yes,” said Fadhila matter-of-factly. “She is always like

this in winter, poor thing. But what can one do?”

“Bring the doctor.”

Fadhila raised her hands.

“Why?” she asked. “If he came, which is quite unlikely, he

would charge a great deal of money, which we don’t have.

And even if we could pay him, then he would prescribe many

expensive medicines, which we can’t afford to buy. God wills

that poor Sherifa be ill, and he grants me, thank God, good

health.”

I still felt that, if necessary, we could bring the doctor for

Sherifa, and asked Bob to discuss it with Mohammed.

Mohammed said he did not want the ill-famed doctor in El

Nahra to come, but that perhaps we could take Sherifa with us

when we went to Diwaniya the next time. He had heard that

the new woman doctor at the free government hospital was

running a good clinic.

“Of course we will take her,” said Bob. To me he added in

English, “She probably has tuberculosis, you know, and what

can we do about that?”

We had already heard of a death from tuberculosis that

winter, a young woman from the market people. The

incidence of tuberculosis was very high in El Nahra, the

doctor had told Bob, but they did not know the exact figures,

for the disease remained more or less quiescent through the

hot summers, but flared up again when the cold rains began.

If anyone had reminded me, in the heat of September, that

soon I would be shivering with the penetrating cold and that

ice would form on the mud puddles outside our door each

night, I would have laughed. Yet here we were again, wearing

four or five layers of clothes all day long in the rooms where

just two months ago we had sweltered in 120-degree heat.

That year we were grateful for our two Aladdin kerosene

heaters, bought secondhand from friends in Baghdad. They

made the rooms fairly comfortable and were a great

improvement over our charcoal brazier, which had smoked so

much that the fumes gave us headaches.

Everywhere I went to visit now, some member of the family

was sick. The women put on heavy black sweaters or imitation

black caracul jackets under their abayahs. Over their

dishdashas the children put on sweaters and wrapped their

heads up in wool scarves and caps.

“If one’s head and neck are warm, all is well,” Mohammed

pronounced. He himself wore a wool tweed sport coat over his

dishdasha, under his aba. It was secondhand but in good

condition, bought from a big bundle of coats and sweaters

which had arrived in the suq, Bob said, when the cold started.

Some enterprising Lebanese businessman, we discovered, had

begun buying up lots of used European and American coats in

New York and London and selling them by the bundle in the

small cities and towns of the Middle East.

But many people in the settlement could not afford such

luxuries. They added another layer of cotton garments,

warmed themselves on good days in the morning sun, drank

glass after glass of hot tea and huddled around small charcoal

braziers at night.

The cold deepened, and the price of charcoal rose higher

and higher in the market. For us this was of minor importance,

but I lay in bed at night listening to the rain and wondering

about the families who went to bed at nightfall simply to keep

warm. At least they would be warm there, I thought,

remembering the pile of blankets that seemed to be the only

major possession I had seen in many houses.

One morning I woke feeling very poorly indeed. By noon I

had a high fever and by nightfall all the symptoms of severe

bronchitis and flu had descended on me. Bob put me to bed

and Mohammed brewed meat broth and mint tea. I could not

remember when I had been so sick.

The next day Laila and Rajat came to visit. Laila had

brought me four eggs; she and Rajat clasped my hand and

murmured words of encouragement. They sat by my bed and

watched me anxiously. When I coughed, Laila coughed; when

I blew my nose, Rajat sniffed in sympathy. By noon I was

exhausted from trying to talk to the girls, and wanted only to

be left alone. When lunchtime came they left, promising to

come back as soon as they could.

“Oh, it’s not necessary, thank you very much,” I said

weakly.

“Beeja,” Laila answered, “how can we leave you alone

when you are sick?”

My protests were useless, and promptly after eating the two

girls returned and sat down by my bed again. The rest of the

day passed in a haze of fever. I finally could not even manage

social pleasantries, and would doze off periodically and

through my half sleep hear Laila and Rajat discussing my

illness. I remembered the scene at Feisal’s bedside when the

crowds of women and children had assembled to keep him

company while he fought typhoid fever. Someone had once

told me that in this society loneliness was one of the greatest

of misfortunes, for it meant that your family had deserted you,

and you had no one sufficiently concerned for your welfare to

stay with you. Where I felt I needed solitude to recover from

an illness, my friends in El Nahra believed just the opposite.

When a person is sick, they reasoned, he needs support from

his friends and relatives even more.

I was touched by Laila and Rajat’s concern, but when they

told me, in finally departing, that Sherifa and Samira would sit

with me tomorrow, I did not feel I could face it. I asked Bob

to have Mohammed pass the word in the settlement that he,

Bob, was going to stay home with me until I was well,

knowing that this was the only way I could decently prevent

the women from coming without hurting their feelings. Two

days later I was ready to come out into society again.

About this time, through conversation in the mudhif, Bob

became aware of a neighbor of ours whom we did not know, a

blind man who seldom stirred from his house. His wife was

dead and he had two sons, one nearly blind like himself.

“How,” Bob asked, “does he support himself?”

“It is very cold today,” answered a man, moving closer to

the small brazier of burning charcoal in the center of the

mudhif.

“Yes, indeed,” said another. “Thank God we have a fire and

food and good company.”

Bob told me he was at first totally mystified by the

conversation, but with a little help from Mohammed he began

to understand. The man, said Mohammed, was very poor. Haji

gave him food, many people gave him food; as a matter of

fact, this was the time of year when people gave him food or

money.

Bob decided that it would be nice to “do something” for the

man and said so.

A murmur went around the mudhif.

“Ah, but it is not necessary, as a guest, that you should do

so,” said Haji’s brother Abdulla.

“Not necessary,” echoed the men.

“But I insist,” said Bob.

“Mr. Bob insists,” repeated Abdulla.

“Ahhhh,” commented the men.

“Yes,” said Bob, stating his intention to buy a sack of wheat

for the man, the most practical gift he could think of. The

tribesmen seemed to pay no attention, and Bob was puzzled.

Later that day he gave the money to Mohammed. “Go buy

the grain and get a porter to deliver it,” he said.

Mohammed looked uncomfortable. “This is a pound and a

half,” he said.

“Yes,” said Bob. “What’s the matter? Isn’t that enough?”

“Let’s just give him the money,” suggested Mohammed.

“But why? He’ll just spend it on cigarettes or something,”

Bob said, in a rush of annoyance, “and then starve the rest of

the winter.”

Mohammed looked carefully at the ground, then at Bob,

then at the ground again.

“He is a man,” he said. “Let him choose.”

Poor Bob stared at Mohammed. “Take the money,” he got

out, “and give it to him and for heaven’s sake don’t say where

it came from.”

For a long time after Mohammed had gone, Bob sat at the

kitchen table. I poured some coffee and we drank it slowly.

Finally he said, a little wryly, that he wished he could have

paid the money minus the personal embarrassment to learn

what he had learned.

“To discuss a gift publicly here,” he said, “is obviously in

the worst possible taste. I knew that before. And a recipient of

charity has just as many if not more rights than the donor. I

knew that too. What’s the matter with me?”

He was very annoyed at himself. “It’s amazing how many

ways we seek to gratify ourselves,” he said.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I answered. “You felt sorry

for the man, you wanted to do something and you have. That

old man is probably enjoying his first cigarette in months,

even if he is cold.”

“I hope so,” said Bob. “I really hope so.”

Winter was hard on us all in El Nahra.

Our winter depression was broken by word from the two

American engineers in Diwaniya, who called Bob at the

mudhif to say they would be out for dinner. This was cheering

news. John Priest and his colleague. Tim Maestas, maintained

a headquarters house which had often been a refuge for us in

an emergency, when we missed the train to Baghdad or were

stalled in Diwaniya awaiting a taxi to El Nahra. But we

seldom saw the boys themselves, for they were out in the field

for weeks at a time.

In anticipation of their arrival, Mohammed bought quite a

fat chicken, and I baked a cake and some cinnamon rolls. But

after lunch the rain began and at dusk we knew the road would

be so bad the boys would never make it. The next day,

however, it cleared slightly and that evening, as we were

finishing supper, we heard the roar of a truck outside our wall.

Mohammed ran to open the gate, and five minutes later John

and Tim tramped up the path, bearing a case of beer! Tim

produced a pack of cards. We were immediately jubilant at the

prospect of a change of routine, which was even more

welcome after our disappointment of the night before.

I brought glasses and the men opened beer cans with great

gusto and hilarity. Bob fiddled with the radio, looking for gay

music, but all we got was the Arabic news broadcast from

Moscow.

“May khallif,” said Tim in execrable Arabic, “never mind,

we’ll sing for you. Didn’t I ever tell you I was a boy soprano

years ago in Oakland, California?” He began to warble, “O, a

little bit of heaven fell from out—” and on the high note we

dissolved into laughter.

“We’ve been out in the boondocks for ten whole days,”

announced John. “Truck bogged down, sunk to the axle in the

thickest, gooiest damned mud I ever saw. And then of course

it had to rain again and we holed up in the wet tent for two

days; couldn’t even try to get her out.”

“The driver went to the nearest village for help,” Tim put

in. “And you know it took twenty, yes, twenty guys to budge

her. The home office will never believe how much baksheesh

it cost.” He and John exchanged glances.

“Have another beer, boy,” suggested John.

“I’ll have another myself,” said Bob.

The flame was burning merrily in our kerosene heater. We

settled into chairs around the table and Tim had already dealt

cards when the doorbell sounded.

Bob and I looked at each other questioningly. Who could be

calling at this hour? He went to see and returned to summon

me.

“Women,” he announced.

There at the gate stood a little cluster of women. I greeted

them, puzzled to know the reason for this visit, since the

women seldom went out of their houses after dark except

during Ramadan and Muharram. They reached the house and

paused by the lighted window of the living room. I rushed

after them to warn against the presence of the men inside but a

roar of raucous male laughter went before me. By the time I

let them into the kitchen, the women were suppressing excited

giggles behind their abayahs.

“We came to keep you company,” explained Laila, her eyes

bright. “My father heard the truck with the American men

drive up, so he agreed we could come and sit with you so you

wouldn’t have to be alone all evening.”

The women, exchanging smiles of virtuous complicity, now

pulled chairs into a circle. At the full realization of what their

visit meant on this particular evening, my face must have

shown my disappointment.

“Why, what’s the matter, Beeja?” cried Laila, starting up.

“It’s nothing,” I said. I lit our other kerosene heater and the

women gathered around it. “I think,” I added, “I think I—hear

my husband calling,” I finished, on inspiration.

“Now, don’t go in the room,” teased Laila. “Talk to Mr.

Bob through the door so those men won’t be able to see you.”

Everyone laughed heartily.

And there I was, trapped by my own hand, so to speak. I

stood out in the cold by the living-room window and called in

to Bob, telling him of my predicament. And he laughed.

Actually laughed. All three of them guffawed. I felt positively

murderous.

“Bring us another ash tray, dear,” he said, and I stomped off

furiously, hearing the glasses clink and the cards slap down on

the table.

“At least they can’t play bridge,” I thought nastily.

But before the kitchen door I paused.

“Laila and Sherifa and Basima have come on an errand of

mercy, they think,” I told myself. “They feel sorry for me.

How can I tell them to leave? I can’t.”

In another vein, I considered. “How could I possibly

disillusion them? Could I tell them I’m going to sit in there

with three men, two not even relatives, and drink beer and

play cards?” I shocked myself at the vision of what that would

have done to my carefully maintained image in the

community.

At the sound of another roar of laughter from the living

room, my resolution faltered. “Perhaps the women won’t stay

long,” I thought unkindly, and opened the kitchen door.

But the ladies stayed and stayed—and stayed. They did

everything in their power to amuse me. We sang songs, they

wrote out poems, and Basima composed a couplet for the

occasion which had a wonderful double play on the word

“visitor”. I made three pots of tea. When the men pounded on

the wall, demanding glasses, clean ash trays, coffee, the

women would pause in their merrymaking, look at me

sympathetically and shake their heads in a “we know what it is

to be a woman and suffer” look.

At eleven o’clock the women rose, apologizing profusely

for leaving me while they (jerk of the head toward the wall

behind which could be heard male voices) were still there.

“We’ve stayed out much later than we should anyway,”

explained Sherifa, “but we were enjoying ourselves so much

the time seemed short.”

She was right. It had been a good evening, though

somewhat different from what it had begun to be.

The living room was thick with smoke.

“Have your friends gone home, dear?” Bob inquired

sweetly. He was smoking a cigar.

“Did you say your wife was living in purdah?” asked John

of Bob.

“Yes, and a good thing too,” put in Tim. “Best way to start

a marriage. Train ’em up early.”

“Of course, of course,” said Bob, as though he had planned

it all.

Naturally there was no beer left.

22

Jabbar Becomes Engaged

Jabbar had become one of Bob’s best friends in El Nahra. In

the beginning it had been understandable that Bob should see

a lot of him, since Jabbar was the irrigation engineer and Bob

was interested in the local irrigation system. But as the months

passed, their relationship, despite certain very real obstacles,

developed into a deeper friendship. Jabbar held violently anti-

Western political views and hence for a long time was highly

suspicious of Bob’s motives in settling in El Nahra. But he

was also a naturally friendly person with a lively mind and a

good deal of intellectual curiosity. Like most Iraqis, he had the

gift of separating his political views from his personal

judgments about people, and gradually he came to realize that

Bob’s work in El Nahra was truly that of a graduate student

doing research for a degree, and had no ulterior political basis.

I, too, saw Jabbar fairly often, for he continued to attempt to

bring his sister Khadija out of seclusion; to go on short

excursions with us or to eat with us was a good way of

accomplishing this. I had always liked Jabbar. He was kind, he

was gay and amusing, he had the clean-cut boyish good looks

(dark curly hair, regular features) that are attractive to almost

everyone. He was much admired and respected in El Nahra, a

real achievement in an area where the representatives of the

central government were always viewed with some distrust

and suspicion. The ancient enmity between town and country

still prevailed throughout most of Iraq, and El Nahra was no

exception.

True, the tribesmen disapproved of Jabbar’s card playing

and drinking, but they respected the way in which he

administered the irrigation office. Water, quite simply, was

life in El Nahra, and the irrigation engineer, in accordance

with instructions from Baghdad, decreed when the sluice gates

were opened and shut, allowing or stopping the flow of water

from the Euphrates into the El Nahra canal. The times of flow

were generally set in Baghdad, but there were many day-to-

day situations (one farmer complains he is not receiving water

because his neighbor upstream is illegally damming a canal)

in which Jabbar had to exercise his own personal judgment. In

a lesser man this judgment would usually have been used for

personal gain, but Jabbar was not that sort of man. He listened

to all complaints and adjudicated disputes, often calling on

Haji or the mayor to help him in making a decision. In this

way he bowed in both directions: to the mayor, who like

himself represented the new control of the area by the central

government; and to the sheik, the traditional adjudicator of

such disputes before the central government had taken over.

Jabbar believed firmly that Iraq needed a revolution to

throw out the Nuri Said government, which had been set up by

the British. He thought that the feudal estates should be

redistributed equally among the people, He knew that Iraq had

far to go before it could achieve the technological

accomplishments of the West, which would, he thought,

provide every Iraqi with a high standard of living. Only under

a socialist government, he felt, would technological

development be accomplished as quickly as possible. To him,

socialism represented the application of science to the

problems of society.

Bob would point out that the West’s level of technology

had been reached very gradually, over a period of years, and

that “efficiency” in achieving social change often had very

disagreeable consequences for the people who were supposed

to benefit.

“We haven’t time to wait,” Jabbar would reply. “Look at

the fellahin. The people are hungry, they need doctors, they

need food. What can I tell them about democracy?”

As an engineer, with scientific training, Jabbar was much

impressed by the Marxist argument that social change took

place automatically and logically. One just established the

framework and everything moved along according to

scientific plan. Schools, factories and hospitals were built,

people automatically accommodated themselves to the

changes and the society adjusted to meet the new challenges.

One day Bob told Jabbar about an experience he had had in

a distant clan settlement, thinking that it might jar Jabbar from

his preoccupation with the Marxist line.

Far out in the middle of the plain, miles from the nearest

village, a tiny clan had settled. The two brothers who ruled the

clan jointly had received Bob and the sheik’s son Nour, who

had ridden up on horseback, and had entertained them in their

mudhif. Talk turned to politics.

“Why,” said the tribesmen, “has it taken Russia only forty

years to accomplish what it took the West a hundred and fifty

years to do?”

Bob questioned this. He talked about the advantages and

disadvantages of authoritarian governments, and mentioned

the help Russia had received from America and Europe, who

had gone through a long slow process of industrialization and

democratization.

“No,” the tribesman said, “you people could have done all

Russia has done in forty years too if you had had Marx to

guide you.”

When Jabbar heard this story, he simply said, “Perhaps the

man oversimplified the matter, but he is basically right.”

So went the argument between Bob and Jabbar, day after

day. But politics was not the only subject of their

conversation. Jabbar wanted to marry. He was handsome and

intelligent and many mothers of his cousins had sought him as

a husband of their daughters. But Jabbar had modern ideas,

and he wanted to marry a girl who was also modern, who had

been educated and who would be his partner in helping to

build the new Iraq. As he had cast behind him the families

through whom he would have normally negotiated for a bride,

he was obliged to turn for help to college friends, especially

Naji, a Baghdadi of a middle-class family. More than a year

ago Jabbar had told Naji that if he heard of a suitable girl, he

should begin negotiations in Jabbar’s name.

Late one winter afternoon Bob received a message from

Jabbar: “The news from Baghdad is good. Please come over

immediately.” Bob went. I waited and waited supper and

finally went ahead and ate alone. At eleven o’clock I heard the

click of the gate latch.

“What happened?” I asked, consumed with curiosity.

Bob sat down and put his feet up. He looked tired and

exhilarated at the same time.

“It’s quite a story,” he said. “I asked him what the news

from Baghdad was, but Jabbar said, ‘I see, Bob, that you are

in a hurry.’ I protested, and said that whatever he had to tell

me was more important than anything I had to do at the

moment. He seemed to debate with himself, and finally I

couldn’t help it and burst out, ‘Are you engaged?’ ”

“I don’t know,” Jabbar had replied. “It’s very strange really;

let’s have a drink.”

And this is Jabbar’s story as he told it to Bob:

My mother, Khadija and I went to Baghdad because Naji had made an

appointment for us with the uncle of a very fine girl. The uncle is an

inspector in the Ministry of Education, and Naji said the girl was young and

pretty, had been to school and came of good family. Naturally I was

interested. My mother and Khadija waited at Naji’s house while I went alone

to visit the uncle.

We drank tea and the girl’s uncle said to me, “Your work is finished.

Everything is arranged so that you will move to Baghdad immediately.”

At this I became angry and said, “I didn’t come here in order to be

transferred to Baghdad. I came to be married.”

The uncle said, “But I thought you agreed that my niece, who is only

seventeen, should finish her last year of secondary school.”

I said I had agreed to this, that I considered her education very important,

but she could finish seccondary school in Diwaniya.

However, I felt I had to explain that I was not ready to move to Baghdad.

My present salary would not permit me to live comfortably there, for rent

alone would take half my wages. I told him I had bought land in Baghdad

and hoped to build a house there in the future, but that all of this took time

and planning.

The girl’s uncle seemed to agree, and when we parted he said,

“Tomorrow I want you to meet the girl’s mother’s brother; he is Khalid

Amma, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.” I was very surprised to hear this,

for Khalid Amma is probably the second man in Iraq after the Prime

Minister. I had known the girl’s family was a good one, but I had not known

that it was so important. I was not too sure I wanted to marry into this family

for fear it might be beyond me.

My mother and Khadija visited the girl and her mother. Afterward my

mother told me that the girl was very nice and pretty, but that her mother

would not agree to her daughter’s leaving Baghdad. “It would be best if

Naji’s mother or some other neutral person were to discuss the situation with

her,” she suggested.

Naji’s mother talked to the girl’s mother for a very long time. Sometimes

the mother seemed to agree to let her daughter leave Baghdad and

sometimes she changed her mind. Finally she said she wished to talk to her

sister, and Naji’s mother understood that the girl’s mother did not want to

decide that day. The way the situation stands now, Naji will call me as soon

as he knows their answer.…

At this point Bob interrupted. “So, Jabbar,” he said, “you’re

going to marry into a rich and politically conservative family!

You and your liberal ideas!”

But Jabbar had just laughed, and said, “When the revolution

comes they will be glad to have me in the family.” He

continued his story:

The same night after I had seen the girl’s uncle, Naji and I

met in a restaurant Abdul Razzak, an old friend of ours from

the engineering college. I was happy to see him, for he and

Naji and I had been like brothers in college; since I am not

often in Baghdad, I had not seen him for several months. After

dinner Abdul Razzak said he had to speak to me in private and

suggested that we go back to Naji’s house.

Naturally I wondered what Abdul Razzak had to say to me

that was so private he could not mention it before Naji. But

Naji is very understanding. He went away and left us alone in

his sitting room. As soon as the door was closed Abdul

Razzak said, “Would you marry a girl who was twenty-five?”

At first I thought he was joking, because he knew that Naji

had been negotiating with a girl’s family for me and that I was

practically married already. But then I saw that he was not

joking and I replied, “I would marry a girl if she appeared

twenty-five exactly or younger. Why do you ask?”

“There is this girl,” said Abdul Razzak, “and she is very

wonderful. She is not married because for seven years her

mother had cancer and she was needed at home. Many men

asked for her hand but she refused. Two months ago her

mother died.”

I was very much surprised, for Abdul Razzak is not married

himself and it is not usual for a bachelor to know such things

about an unmarried girl. “How do you know about her?” I

asked.

“She is my sister,” he said.

Then I could not say a word, because according to our

custom a man never talks about his sister to unmarried men,

even his closest friends.

Abdul Razzak said, “You are like a brother to me, Jabbar,

and I want you to have my sister, whom I love very much. I

know you and I think she is better for you and you are better

for her than anyone else could be.”

I was very much moved that Abdul Razzak should trust me

in this way. I said, “I am honored that you speak to me of your

sister. I will come to see you tomorrow before leaving.”

After Abdul Razzak had gone, I told Naji what he had said.

Without hesitating for a moment, Naji advised me to leave the

first girl and marry Abdul Razzak’s sister. Again I was

surprised, for remember, Naji had made all the arrangements

for me to marry the first girl and had gone to a lot of trouble

for me. I finally confessed to Naji that I did not know what to

do.

“But it is a great thing for Abdul Razzak to break with

custom so he can be sure his sister will be happy,” pointed out

Naji.

“Yes,” I replied.

“You should be honored.”

“I am.”

The next morning I telephoned Abdul Razzak and said that

if his sister accepts me, I am agreeable.

And that is the end of my story, concluded Jabbar.

“But what about the first girl?” interposed Bob.

“Well,” said Jabbar, “her family is very important, but I do

not know it well. If Abdul Razzak’s sister will have me, it is

better that I marry into that family.”

“But,” said Bob, “won’t the first family be angry with you

if you break off your arrangement with this girl now?”

“We will never say no exactly,” said Jabbar. “When they

give their message to Naji, he will find he cannot reach me

until he has heard the answer from Abdul Razzak’s family.

Then if Abdul Razzak’s family agrees, my mother will have to

postpone several times going to the house of the first girl to

hear their answer. And in this way they will know without our

saying anything.”

“I hope everything will turn out as you wish,” said Bob.

Jabbar laughed. “God willing,” he said, “but I’m not sure I

know what I want. For four years I have had no prospects for

marriage and now in a single day I have two.”

By the end of the week Abdul Razzak’s family had agreed,

but the girl, also infected with the new progressive ideas she

had picked up in school, had said that she wanted to meet

Jabbar before she personally would consent.

At this news Abu Saad, the conservative mayor of El

Nahra, said to Jabbar, “You are making a modem marriage,

Jabbar; be careful. I don’t agree with your methods, but I still

hope for your sake that the marriage succeeds.”

Jabbar explained to Bob that Abu Saad was older and did

not understand that times were changing. Then he went off to

Baghdad and stayed for four days. I was almost as impatient

as Bob for his return so we could learn the outcome of his suit.

What finally had occurred was completely unexpected. The

sister had not liked Jabbar and he did not like her.

“She was too tall and bossy,” he said to Bob, “not

warmhearted, too intent on her own ideas.” The match had

been called off, by mutual agreement, and Jabbar was now

engaged to the first girl. Late summer had been set for the

wedding date.

“Are you happy?” said Bob.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Jabbar again. “In a way it is too

bad about Abdul Razzak’s sister, because it would have been a

good thing to break with a custom like that. The first girl is

very nice, and her family a good one, but yet …”

Bob felt, and I agreed with him, that the engagement, which

had been conducted in traditional fashion, lacked luster for

Jabbar, who thought of himself as a pioneer, a man willing to

dare great things in the name of progress. This aspect of his

personality cried out for a dramatic gesture to demonstrate his

position to the world, a gesture which the marriage to his

friend’s sister would have been. His present bride-to-be would

no doubt prove to be ideal eventually, but at the moment his

soul still yearned after the other match, which carried with it,

in addition to the untraditional aspect, an aura of romance and

friendship and sacred honor.

23

Death in the Tribe and in the Town

A high, keening wail startled me one cold morning, a wail

which was coming nearer and nearer to our house. I left my

cooking, dragged a kitchen chair out to the mud wall, climbed

up and peered through the screen of camel-thorn. A funeral

procession was passing. The coffin, wrapped in a red-

patterned rug, bobbed only a few feet below the top of my

wall, carried aloft on the shoulders of several men. I wondered

who had died, for the sheik himself and his older brother

Abdulla were among the pallbearers, followed by a large

slow-moving crowd of men and boys. Behind them came the

women, their faces covered with abayahs, wailing as they

walked. Their piercing cries rose above all the other sounds of

the winter morning, as though the whole settlement heard and

waited.

While I watched, one of the pallbearers, a very old

tribesman with a short white beard, stumbled and the coffin

bobbed slightly. A boy ran up to steady the old man at the

elbow and the procession turned along the canal to town,

heading for the center of El Nahra where a taxi would be

waiting to take the body to Najaf. Two men, Bob had said,

always accompanied the body to Najaf, the holy city where all

pious Shiites hope to be buried, staying to see that burial rites

were carried out properly, the body wrapped in its rug to be

placed in a tomb or grave near the mosque. The coffin would

return to be used again.

I could see, from my kitchen chair, people on the canal road

stopping and waiting in silence as the procession passed by.

Halfway to the bridge the women from the settlement paused

and let the coffin continue its slow journey without them. But,

crowded together shivering on the bank, they continued to

wail. I could not see the coffin loaded onto the roof of the taxi,

but I knew when it left El Nahra, for the wailing rose higher

and higher and then stopped. The women dispersed to their

houses in twos and threes. I stayed to watch until the men, too,

returned to the settlement, conversing in quiet voices as they

passed my wall. A little girl skipped along the path, carrying a

bar of soap and a paper funnel full of tomatoes. The grain

mill, silenced during the funeral procession, began its strident

wheet-wheet-wheet, and the sounds of the settlement resumed.

It was an ordinary morning once more.

Who had lain in the coffin? Someone important enough to

be carried on the shoulders of the sheik of the tribe. Bob said

at lunchtime that it had been the wife of Hamid’s father, the

crippled little old woman had been living in the sheik’s

compound.

Further details were supplied by Laila, when she came that

afternoon with her bag of embroidery. “See, Beeja, we have a

set of sheets and pillowcases to do for a girl who is to be

married soon. They will pay well for it, almost a pound.”

“What about the old woman?”

“Yes, well, she was very old. She just stopped breathing

this morning. You remember at the Iid she could hardly sit up

to eat her lunch. She was Sheik Abdul Emir’s second wife, not

Haji’s mother; but when the last of her children died about ten

years ago, Haji offered her a room in his house. They say she

was a very good woman; her mother was from the Bedouin.”

“So she wasn’t related to Sheik Abdul Emir?”

“Oh yes,” said Laila. “Her father was a brother of Abdul

Emir’s father, so she was his bint-amm. But her mother was

from the Bedouin.”

There was no ceremony for the old woman beyond the

procession. Within a fortnight another death took place and

official mourning ceremonies were announced. The mother of

Um Saad, the mayor’s wife, had died far away in Baghdad

after a long illness. When Um Saad returned to El Nahra, her

mother had been dead nearly three weeks, and Um Saad had

gone through the ritual mourning period in Baghdad; she was

destined to go through it for five days more. Everyone was

expected to call at the house of Um Saad and offer

condolences. On the third day I put on my darkest clothes

under my abayah and set out.

The servant who answered the door at Um Saad’s neat

house gave me a strange look as I entered. Could Um Saad not

be at home? I wondered. Was someone sick? The servant said

no, no one was sick, Um Saad was at home. She hesitated a

moment, then simply told me to keep my abayah on, and

ushered me into the living room.

I was unprepared for what met me. Since Um Saad and I

had so much in common, I assumed that our attitudes toward

death might also be similar, that this condolence call would be

much like the ones I had paid in my own country. I was quite,

quite wrong.

All of Um Saad’s Western-style furniture had been pushed

against the wall, and two lengths of carpeting covered with

pillows had been laid out in parallel lines on the floor. Seated

cross-legged on these pillows were ten or twelve women, clad

in black. Um Saad herself sat at the head of one of the rows;

she, too, wore black, and not her smart black suits or dresses,

but a long, loose garment. Her hair, usually arranged so

fashionably, was bound up in the traditional head scarf and

chin scarf. Her face was worn and red-eyed from weeping,

and she clutched an abayah around her shoulders. I hardly

recognized her, she looked so much like the women who

surrounded her.

I hesitated at the entrance, still unsure. Should I go up to

Um Saad, take her hand and offer my sympathies? Apparently

the answer was no. The servant pointed to the rows of shoes at

the door. I took mine off, was guided to an empty pillow and

sat down. There were no greetings. The women opposite

stared at me in silence and I stared back. After a moment or

two one of the women said something, half to herself, half to

the group, which I understood as a generalized eulogy of

motherhood. The woman seated next to me took it up.

“What is there to replace one’s mother? Nothing, nothing,”

she chanted. “Nothing, nothing.”

“True, very true.”

“There is nothing to replace a mother.”

My neighbor rocked back and forth on her heels and

moaned, “Nothing can ever take the place of your mother, Um

Saad.” She sniffled, sniffled again, and burst into tears.

At this, every woman present began to cry systematically.

Most of them threw their abayahs over their heads and sobbed

in private, but the woman directly across from me sat

impassively while tears ran down her cheeks.

My initial uneasiness had gradually given way to

melancholy at the sight of poor Um Saad and the somber

grief-stricken women, and I was close to tears when the

weeping began to subside. Faces were uncovered, the women

dried their eyes and blew their noses, and a silence fell once

more on the room.

I sat and waited.

Um Saad began to talk about her mother’s illness. It

sounded like cancer to me and had gone on for years, she said.

The story of the woman’s suffering, her rallies and relapses,

her sorrow at the death of one son, the departure of another for

studies abroad, her courage in the face of great pain were

recounted, between sobs, by her daughter.

“And I,” finished Um Saad, “was far from her when she

needed me most. I could only be there when she was ready to

die.” She broke down, and the women covered their heads

again and wept with her. This time I did, too, covering my

head with my abayah and sobbing without restraint. I felt

sorry for Um Saad, sorry for her mother, sorry for myself

even, far from home and my own mother.

An hour passed. Women rose, one by one, went up to Um

Saad, pressed her hand, and departed. Um Saad begged me to

stay and have a cup of coffee. Her husband’s niece was with

her, the dietitian for the teacher-training school dormitory in

Diwaniya.

The three of us, over our cups of coffee, held what seemed

to me a surprisingly ordinary conversation in view of the wake

in which we had just participated.

Um Saad began to talk about the ceremony. She admitted

she was near exhaustion. “But it is better this way,” she told

me. “One must have some time alone after a death, and also

time with one’s friends and relatives. Time to mourn is

necessary, but when this is over I shall be ready to return to

work, to everyday things,”

24

At Home in El Nahra

After the wake, I was away from El Nahra for more than two

weeks; Peter, the third son for our missionary friends in Hilla,

was born in late January and I went to stay with Joyce until

she was strong enough to manage her household again.

Before I had been home twenty-four hours, Laila came to

inquire after my friend and give me all the news.

“How is the American lady? Did she have a boy?”

“Yes.”

“El hamdillah,” said Laila. “Boys are really the best, Beeja;

they can take care of their mother when she’s old. What good

are girls?”

I was shocked. How could Laila talk like this, with her eight

devoted and hard-working sisters? I said so.

“Well, naturally we love each other but we’d all like to

have a brother. Wouldn’t you?”

I nodded.

“So,” said Laila, “and how big was the boy?”

“Seven pounds.”

“Seven pounds! That’s very small. The child won’t live,”

pronounced Laila.

“What do you mean, Laila?” I retorted, in some heat. “Very

small—seven pounds isn’t very small! Of course the child will

live; it’s a very normal size for a child.”

Laila looked at me and smiled mischievously. “Don’t be so

nervous, Beeja—I was only teasing you. Probably,” she said,

“American babies are smaller than ours if all American ladies

are thin like you.”

“Probably.” How could Laila go on like this, when she

knew nothing about it? But I also knew she had long ago

spotted my vulnerable areas and, when she was feeling

lighthearted, felt no compunction about twitting me. For

although she liked me, Laila still thought of me as a protégé

with a great deal to learn. Teasing was a good way of

exposing my prejudices and sharpening my wits at the same

time.

“Don’t you want to hear the news?” asked Laila. “Selma is

pregnant again.”

“Selma?”

“Yes, and she’s not too pleased either, but Haji is. If she has

a boy, it will be his eighth son. And remember Sahura, who

was married last summer? She’s home.”

“What’s the matter with Sahura?” I asked, bringing in a tray

with two glasses of tea.

“She had a miscarriage, and was so sick her husband got

frightened and brought her all the way home across the plain

on horseback. Even my father told my mother he shouldn’t

have done that, because the long ride made Sahura much

worse and maybe she won’t be able to have any more

children. She just lies on the mat in her mother’s house and

doesn’t want to get up.”

I offered Laila a glass of tea. “I’m afraid my visit causes

you a great deal of trouble,” she murmured dutifully, and I had

to offer the tea again before she would take it.

I smiled to myself, thinking that as many times as Laila had

drunk tea with me, the custom of protesting was so strong she

could not drink tea without exercising that custom.

“We had a fine celebration when Abdulla’s youngest boy

was circumcised—the three-year-old who is Bassoul’s son.

The Bedouin second wife. The doctor came from Diwaniya to

do it. His father bought him new shoes and a white dishdasha

and a brown sweater.” Laila paused to put three teaspoons of

sugar in her glass, stirred and sipped her tea.

“Bob tells me Ahmed is here,” I contributed. Ahmed,

Abdulla’s oldest son, was in college in Baghdad and was often

spoken of as the sheik’s successor, especially since Haji’s own

eldest son Nour had poor health and might not be strong

enough to assume the duties of the sheikship.

“Yes,” said Laila. “He came because Khariya, his mother, is

sick. I think I told you long ago that Khariya sold all her gold

jewelry to pay for Ahmed’s college expenses.”

Ahmed himself had told Bob of his mother’s sacrifice. “If it

were not for my mother,” he had said, “I would never have

been able to go to college. Oh, my father is proud of me now,

now that I’m an effendi and have an education, but when I

finished primary school in El Nahra and wanted to go on, he

refused to give me a single fils.”

Laila was saying that Ahmed was going to take his mother

to the woman doctor in Diwaniya.

“Bob says Ahmed is a very bright boy,” I remarked.

“I think he’ll probably marry his bint-amm, Haji’s daughter

Samira, then he will be sure of being sheik,” predicted Laila.

She dipped an English biscuit carefully into her second glass

of tea.

“I’ve saved the most exciting news for last,” added Laila,

“but I really shouldn’t tell.” She sat back and her eyes

twinkled. “In fact, I can’t tell you.” She nibbled on the biscuit

unconcernedly.

“Oh please, Laila,” I begged. Laila was always the bearer of

news rather than the subject of it. Looking at her thin little

body, the head of fine black hair marred by a certain awkward

tilt, the plain face with its intelligent but small eyes, the

mobile too-wide mouth, I felt perhaps the Book of Stars was

right in telling her she would not marry. She had energy and

talent and moderately good health and could support herself.

But she had little gentleness and no beauty to make a man

draw in his breath at his good luck when he raised her veil on

her wedding day. She was too sharp, too curious, too

stubborn, difficult as well as plain. She would grow into the

role she was beginning to assume already, a small pillar in the

women’s society, a fountain of gossip and good talk, a woman

whose emotion would be expended in bitter enmities as well

as deep friendships—with other women.

As I had thought, Laila could not keep this secret with

which she had been taunting me. But she evidently felt it

worth while to be cautious, for she leaned over and whispered.

“You must not tell anyone, but Haji’s son Ahmar, the clerk

in Diwaniya, has written to my father and asked for my sister

Sanaa’s hand in marriage.”

“How did you find out?” I asked, surprised that a daughter

as young as Laila would be taken into her father’s confidence

in such a matter.

“My father reads Arabic, but he doesn’t write it,” explained

Laila, “and so he had to ask Basima to write the letter to

Ahmar, asking him to wait. And Basima told me in bed last

night.”

“That’s wonderful! But why did your father ask him to

wait?”

“Haji is against this marriage. He wants Ahmar to marry

one of Abdulla’s daughters.”

“But Ahmar obviously wants to marry Sanaa.”

“Yes,” answered Laila patiently, “but my father doesn’t

want to offend Haji just now. Our land is getting salty and my

father may have to buy some of Haji’s land before too long.”

I offered Laila another glass of tea and thought of Sanaa.

Was she destined to be an old maid like her sisters, to sit in

her house year after year while her beauty faded? I hoped not.

But if land was at stake as well as the uneasy peace among the

sheik’s brothers, her chances of happiness would not be

considered very seriously.

“Promise you won’t say a word, Beeja, even to Mr. Bob.”

I promised.

All the next week was spent visiting women I had not seen

during my absence. Selma certainly did not look happy at the

prospect of another child. She seemed listless and her

movements were already slow, though she was only four

months pregnant. We sat down together on a mat in the

sheik’s bedroom and Selma produced a small dish of pumpkin

seeds.

“It’s so hard for me to bear children, Beeja,” she said.

“Everyone said it would be easy, because I have big hips” (she

slapped one broad thigh) “but it wasn’t. Then my mother said

it would get better with each child, but, it hasn’t. It’s awful

every time.”

“You must rest after the baby comes,” I suggested.

“Oh yes, rest, that’s what everyone says.” Selma nodded

her head. Her usually good-natured face looked bitter for a

moment. “Well, I stay in bed for two days after the birth and

that’s all.”

“Only two days?” I echoed foolishly.

“Yes, and even then I have so much work to do when I get

up.” She closed her eyes.

I touched her knee. “I’m sorry, Selma. I too had always

heard it got easier.”

Selma opened her eyes and sighed. “And then the midwife

has to come and cut my breasts so the milk will come. That’s

almost worse than having the child.”

I was appalled. “Cut your breasts? But why?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the only way. Otherwise I can’t

nurse and then what would the baby live on? It would die.”

At this I felt completely inadequate, and did not know what

to say in sympathy. Now I realize that poor Selma must have

had inverted nipples and the midwife was doing the only

possible thing, painful though it must have been, to free the

milk supply.

Selma looked at my stricken face. “Never mind,” she said,

trying to smile, “God is good. Maybe it will be easier for you.

The children are worth it, el hamdillah. How is your friend in

Hilla?”

Two days later I took a present of cloth and went to sit with

Sahura, who tried to rise when I came into the small mud-

bricked room, but grimaced with pain and lay down again on

the mat.

“She shouldn’t have lifted those big sacks of grain,” said

her mother Sheddir in a scolding voice. She sat beside her

daughter, spinning wool. “How could you be so stupid,

Sahura?”

I glanced at Sheddir in surprise and saw that there were

tears in her eyes.

“She is a good girl, wanted to help her husband; she didn’t

know any better,” said Sheddir; she took up from the floor of

the room the wooden spindle she had put down when I entered

and resumed her spinning. “It was a boy,” she said, looking

down; her hands moved quickly, rubbing the threads of wool

together and moving the spindle so that the thin strand of yarn

grew longer and longer.

I walked to Khadija’s house, and she told me that Jabbar

was bringing his bride Suheir home from Baghdad in July.

“You won’t be here,” she said.

“No, I guess not,” I replied. “Come,” I suggested to change

the subject, “let’s go visit the schoolteachers.”

Little girls in their white-collared black uniforms were

streaming out of the school gate when we arrived. Hind and

Aziza were going from room to room gathering up the day’s

records while the janitor swabbed the floors of the halls. We

were taken into the teachers’ office and Hind ordered coffee.

Aziza looked thin and tired. Remembering her animation

and enthusiasm when she had arrived in El Nahra last fall, I

wondered. Had she been ill? Had life been too hard on her in

this lonely village?

Hind, always quick to sense a mood, had seen me look at

Aziza. “Beeja,” she announced, “this girl works all the time.

She doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to play.” She

laughed, not pleasantly, but Aziza did not join her. I knew

Aziza was a hard worker and a serious girl. Hind, on the other

hand, managed to take life very lightly and do with it just

about what she pleased. Had the frivolous headmistress and

the serious junior teacher clashed head-on, and the junior

come out the loser, unable to take the mocking and the

ridicule? From Aziza’s set face, it seemed so.

“How are your sisters in Diwaniya?” I asked Aziza.

She turned and gave me all her attention. “I haven’t seen

them for a long time, but I can imagine what they are doing. It

is time to think of spring. My mother always had us take out

all the blankets and our woollen clothes and air them

carefully. Afterward we would sit together and mend

everything, and then we would put the woollens away with

cloves in each layer, to keep out the moths. I remember

mother made anise tea for us to drink while we mended,” she

added wistfully.

“Come, come, Aziza, don’t talk as though your poor sisters

were dead,” teased Hind, and Khadija laughed obligingly.

“Tell us about Jabbar’s bride, Khadija—is she pretty? What

kind of gold pieces did she choose for her wedding jewelry?”

By the end of the afternoon Aziza had begun to relax and

Hind produced a book from under a pile of papers on her desk.

It was a volume of modern Iraqi poetry and Hind chose some

of the love poems to read aloud. She read very well. Suddenly

she slammed the book shut.

“Read my fortune in the coffee cup, Aziza,” she said. “Tell

me when I shall marry.”

The next morning Hussein’s wife Sajjida came to see me.

Her oldest girl had been sick for a long time with cough, but

was better now. I went in the evening to Mohammed’s, where

Sherifa made lemon tea and we sat around the charcoal brazier

telling stories about the past. Sherifa had a two-week-old lamb

which she had bought to raise and sell in springtime. Bleating,

it tottered about the room on fragile legs until Sherifa

persuaded it to settle in her lap, where she fed it milk from an

old medicine bottle with a nipple. Afterward Sherifa and

Medina took down the lantern and walked me home. Soon,

however, we blew out the lantern, for a full moon rode high in

the wide, clear sky. Against that sky the palms were cut out

dark and clear, and the camel-thorn topping the walls became

a strange, intricate pattern of decorative filigree. Pale light

dappled the mud houses, and when we turned from the alley

toward my house the moon was reflected, like a watery

balloon, in the still waters of the canal.

That night I sat in my kitchen and wondered at the changes

in me. We were scheduled to leave El Nahra within a month,

and I found I was avoiding the thought. During the last year

and a half my life had slowly but surely become intertwined

with the lives of my women friends, and I was surprised at the

depth of my feelings.

When Bob came in from the mudhif, I told him. He looked

at me quizzically. “I feel the same way,” he said, “but I have

always thought, from the beginning, that our situation here

had much more to offer me than you. We have to go, though,

because I have lots of library research to do in Baghdad before

we leave for home in June.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“We could come back for the big feast in May, if you like,”

suggested Bob, “the Iid after Ramadan. Why don’t we? By

that time we’ll both be more accustomed to the idea of going,

and it’ll be easier to say our last goodbyes after we’ve been

away for a while.”

“That’s a fine idea,” The more we talked of it, the better we

felt, and by bedtime we were already planning the presents we

would bring back with us.

The truck had drawn up outside the gate and men were

carrying our bags and baskets and bundles out the door. The

little house was stripped almost clean, as bare as when we had

arrived more than a year and a half ago. In the kitchen in

lonely splendor sat the refrigerator, our hospitality present to

Sheik Hamid. The furniture he had lent us was still in the

living room, but the big wardrobe with the double mirror now

reposed in Mohammed’s house, our contribution to

Mohammed’s wedding savings. The stove and the plastic

chairs and the aluminum folding table were tied on top of the

truck. Children streamed in and out of the open garden and

Laila stood beside me holding a present, a two-kilo can of

rice, cleaned rice. I looked at the rice, trying to figure just

about how many hours of patient labor it had taken the girls to

pick out the straw and chaff and tiny particles of dirt. I said I

could not think of a nicer present.

Laila wiped her nose. “You won’t come back for the Iid,”

she said accusingly.

“Oh yes I will. Mr. Bob says we will and so we will.”

“No, you won’t.” She wiped her nose again and I held my

breath, afraid of what she or I might do next. At that moment

Sherifa arrived with another present, a can of sweets—her

mother’s specialty, made with milk and pistachio nuts.

“Well, if you do come for the Iid,” went on Laila

importantly, “you must stay at our house, not at Haji

Hamid’s.” She launched into a long account of the comforts of

her house as compared with that of Haji’s.

Sherifa and Laila and I checked the two rooms once more to

make certain nothing had been left behind. A pile of pumpkin-

seed husks in one corner of the living room was all that

remained of my party the night before. I had told Laila to

spread the word that Bob would be in the mudhif that last

evening and I would welcome any woman who might come. It

had been a gay party; we had consumed several kilos of

pumpkin seeds, five packages of cigarettes and countless

glasses of tea.

“Come on, B.J., the driver is waiting,” Bob called from the

gate. At the sound of his voice, Laila and Sherifa instinctively

covered their faces.

Mohammed came running up the path; he was coming to

Baghdad to work for us until June. His freshly pressed

kaffiyeh and his agal seemed set at exactly the right angle, but

being Mohammed, he could not resist adjusting them once

more. “Yallah,” he said. “Everything is now ready.”

There was no time for extensive farewells. I climbed up

beside Bob in the driver’s seat. We had hired an entire truck

and I saw that it was full not only with our possessions, but

with townspeople and tribesmen taking advantage of a free

ride to Baghdad. The sun was bright and the children ran after

us, shouting, as the truck turned the corner and swung out of

town along the gleaming canal.

PART VI

25

Back to Baghdad

We settled in Baghdad with a friend who was doing research

in Middle Eastern history. She had rented a mushtamal or

garden cottage in the southern residential area of Baghdad.

Since the mushtamal was two stories high, we were able to

divide space fairly well and sharing rent and food expenses

was a saving for all of us.

Mohammed did not stay after all. For the first two or three

days in Baghdad he walked around in a constant state of

contained excitement. Everything was new and wonderful to

him. He went twice to pray at the shrine of Khadhimain. But

gradually he became more and more glum. We knew he was

lonely without friends or relations, but there was nothing we

could do about it. When we sent him shopping, he would

come back without the things we wanted, complaining he

didn’t know the suq and couldn’t be sure which merchants

were honest. He got lost several times trying to find our house.

After living all his life in a place where he was related to

many of the residents and knew everyone else, to be cast adrift

in a strange place where no one recognized or cared about him

was a frightening experience for Mohammed.

At the end of the second week he asked if he might go

home. Bob gave him a month’s wages, helped arrange for him

to get an official work permit for future use, and wrote a letter

to Jabbar asking him to remember Mohammed if any jobs

arose in the near future within the bureaucracy of El Nahra.

The morning he left, Mohammed was a new man. He had

bathed and wore a clean aba and kaffiyeh; I had seen him

ironing the kaffiyeh the night before. “I don’t know where the

ironing man’s shop is,” he had said defensively. Now his few

belongings were tied in a bundle and he could hardly wait to

go. El Nahra had little to offer him economically, but there at

least he knew who and where he was.

Abdulla’s son Ahmed was finishing college in Baghdad, as

was Hadhi, Sheik Hamid’s son. Hadhi and Sheik Hamid had

quarreled over politics and were barely on speaking terms;

Hadhi’s mother Bahiga, like Ahmed’s mother Khariya, sent

him money. Perhaps this common bad experience with their

fathers had drawn the boys together. At any rate they were

close friends, and they took Bob to dinner one night. Bob

came home in a bemused state.

“The two boys were really going at it politically,” he told

me. “Hadhi sounds as if he has been given the treatment by

the local Commies. A bright boy. I wonder what will happen

to him. Ahmed is bright too but not so interested in politics.

He knows he’s being considered for the sheikship, but he has

rather mixed feelings about the position. Says he’s going to

get a job teaching and stay in Baghdad. On the other hand he

talks about getting married to one of Sheik Hamid’s

daughters—Sabiha, I think he said her name was. Which one

is she?”

“Not Sabiha,” I said immediately. “He must mean Samira.”

“Samira, Samira,” repeated Bob. “No, that wasn’t the name,

I’m sure.”

“It must be, because Samira is the really beautiful daughter,

the one with the two marvelous braids of black hair. Without

her head scarf and chin scarf, with her ruddy skin and those

black braids, she looks like the daughter of Pocahontas. But

Sabiha—Sabiha is silly.”

Bob thought a moment. “Who has the lighter skin?” he

asked.

“Sabiha, but—”

“Ah-ha,” said Bob. “That’s the reason. A matter of

prestige.”

I exploded. “That’s ridiculous, Bob. Samira has everything:

beauty, a warm heart, intelligence. Sabiha may be light-

skinned but she certainly has nothing else to offer.”

“Well, that’s the most important thing to Ahmed,

apparently.”

“But if this system of marriage weren’t operating, if Ahmed

could meet both girls, I’m sure he’d—”

“He’d do exactly the same thing,” finished Bob. “You

forget he grew up with the sheik’s children, and knew both

Samira and Sabiha very well until they were eleven or twelve.

He knows what he wants and that’s that.”

I still felt annoyed at Ahmed, but I knew it was mostly for

Samira’s sake. If Ahmed did marry Sabiha, this eliminated

one of the best marriage possibilities for Samira, who, as a

sheik’s daughter, had a very narrow range of acceptable

husbands.

Jabbar came to Baghdad whenever he could to see his

fiancée Suheir. The couple was allowed to see each other and

enjoy a brief period of courtship, for the official betrothal

ceremony, the “signing of the book,” had already taken place.

Although the consummation of the marriage was yet to come,

Jabbar and Suheir were now legally man and wife, as only

under extremely unusual circumstances was a marriage

contract broken after the signing of the book.

One weekend he brought his sister Khadija to Baghdad and

we lunched together at a fairly secluded upstairs restaurant.

Neither girl wore the abayah and Khadija was very nervous.

She sat self-consciously at the table, picking at the buttons on

her coat, and every so often casting sidelong glances at Suheir

or me to see how we were handling the food.

Over kebab and tikka, flat bread and pickles, Jabbar and

Bob discussed politics. Suheir displayed a gold bracelet, a gift

from Jabbar, which they had bought together that morning in

the gold market on River Street.

A plump, pretty girl well aware of her charms, Suheir

teased Jabbar constantly and unmercifully. Occasionally he

would actually blush and Khadija would clap her hands in

amusement. Khadija seemed fascinated by Suheir, and Suheir

was working hard to ingratiate herself with Khadija—wisely

enough, since the two women would be living in the same

house before long. Khadija apparently was won over, but

knowing the moods of this unhappy, uncertain girl, I

wondered.

Suheir, by a single gesture, commanded the conversation.

“Shall we tell them, Jabbar?” she asked.

“Tell them what?”

“About our plan.” She blinked her eyes coquettishly.

“Oh yes,” replied Jabbar. He looked suddenly delighted.

“Suheir is going to educate the women of El Nahra away from

the abayah.” He laughed aloud.

Khadija looked shocked. “You mean she is not going to

wear the abayah?”

“That’s right, I’m not,” answered her future sister-in-law.

“And you can take it off too. We’ll show those villagers,

won’t we, Jabbar?” She leaned forward and almost, but not

quite, touched his hand.

Jabbar sat back in his chair and pulled hard on his cigarette.

“You see, Bob,” he said, “here is a true daughter of modern

Iraq. Together we will destroy these outmoded customs.”

Bob and I glanced at each other. We seemed to be thinking

the same thing, that this, at last, was the dramatic gesture

Jabbar had been seeking, the gesture of defiance and pride

which had been lacking in the traditional marriage

arrangements.

Jabbar had eyes only for Suheir, who was leaning forward

whispering something to him. He laughed again. I smiled to

myself, thinking that probably he would be happy with Suheir,

and then I caught sight of Khadija, who was eyeing the

couple, a stricken and unpleasant look on her face, the look of

a frightened rabbit. At that moment I hoped fervently that

Jabbar would not insist on his shrinking little sister’s assuming

the freedom he was willing to give her. Khadija’s daughter

perhaps might be comfortable without the abayah, but I

doubted that Khadija ever would be.

Sayid Muhsen also came to Baghdad. One of Bob’s close

friends, he was the leader of a clan settlement an hour or more

away from El Nahra. It was Sayid Muhsen who had built the

school in his settlement and personally petitioned the Ministry

of Education for a teacher. It was in Sayid Muhsen’s school

that boys and girls attended classes together.

Sayid Muhsen had other modern ideas. He had had four

children in four years and felt it was time to stop, or he would

be unable to provide a decent living for his family.

Accordingly, he had taken his wife to a Diwaniya doctor and

asked for contraceptives; the doctor had given his wife a

device to wear, he told Bob, but it had not worked, since she

had had a fifth child recently. Besides, his wife complained

that the device was very painful to wear. Also it had been

expensive, five Iraqi pounds.

At this Bob had become very angry at the cavalier way his

friend had been treated, and told Sayid Muhsen that if he came

to Baghdad with his wife, Bob and I would personally take

them to the American Hospital to see the resident woman

doctor.

Accordingly, one sunny April day we went trooping to the

hospital. Bob and Sayid Muhsen and five of his male relatives

sat on one side of the long, white-walled waiting room. I sat

on the other side with his wife, who was heavily veiled from

head to foot. Whether the five male relatives were there for

Sayid Muhsen’s moral support, or whether they came as an

honor guard for his wife, we never knew.

Fortunately the woman doctor at the American Mission

Hospital was a sympathetic and understanding person as well

as a competent physician. She spoke very little Arabic and had

an Iraqi nurse to interpret. I explained the situation first and

she asked to see the expensive device. When Sayid Muhsen’s

wife produced it from some inner fold of her voluminous

abayah, the doctor’s eyes widened and she, too, began to look

very angry.

“That is an instrument for examination purposes only,” she

said. “You mean you actually wore this thing?” she asked,

turning directly to Sayid Muhsen’s wife and forgetting she

knew no English. The Iraqi nurse hurried to translate.

“I wore it for several months,” answered Muhsen’s wife.

“The doctor told me to. But it didn’t help, because I had

another baby anyway.”

After this had been translated, the doctor opened and shut

her mouth. She cleared her throat and began a little talk about

the principle of contraceptives, the nurse interpreting as she

went along. “Now,” she said to me, “would you mind

leaving?” I explained to Sayid Muhsen’s wife that I would be

outside the door.

I waited for a good quarter of an hour, while the men

opposite shifted uneasily in their seats and I, watching them,

grew restless myself. Eventually the doctor came out and

asked me to have the husband come in. I signaled to Bob and

he brought Sayid Muhsen over. Sayid Muhsen disappeared

into the doctor’s office. In another quarter of an hour the

couple reappeared and we left together.

At the door we parted in some confusion and without a

word. The male relatives went ahead, Sayid Muhsen shook

Bob’s hand, was uncertain what to do about me since we had

never spoken before, did nothing therefore but turn on his

heel, say goodbye to Bob and indicate that his wife was to

follow. She turned her heavily veiled person vaguely in my

direction, as though she were about to say something but

thought better of it since Bob stood beside me and there was

no uncertainty at all in her mind about him. She turned and

fled. Later Bob told me that Sayid Muhsen had been

impressed with the efficiency and politeness with which the

affair had been conducted, as well as with the reasonable size

of the bill. He had paid only two pounds for everything.

When Sheik Hamid came to town for the spring session of

Parliament, Bob went to see him in his hotel. He returned with

an invitation. Haji had expressed a desire to take us to dinner

at the Auberge, a fancy and expensive Baghdad night club.

“I’ve inquired,” he told Bob, “and I’ve been told that this is

a very reputable place. You don’t need to worry about taking

your wife there.”

Sheik Hamid would never have taken any of his own wives

or daughters to a night club or to any public gathering. He

would take me, but only if the place was respectable. I was

touched by the sheik’s consideration, and relieved to find that

he would accept our foreign ways in this new setting.

That evening the sheik’s driver called for us in the

Oldsmobile. When we climbed the steps of the Auberge, we

found the sheik and his oldest son Nour already present in the

small, well-appointed but still empty bar.

Sheik Hamid was in good spirits. Having spent his summers

in Lebanon, he was, I think, pleased to be able to show us that

he was conversant in many of the ways of the West. He

ordered fresh lemonade all around, and afterward a dinner of

soup, roast beef, potatoes, green beans and salad. He took a

table on a slightly raised platform which was somewhat

removed from the big dance floor and its surrounding tables.

This way we were not inordinately conspicuous to the rest of

the clientele, which at that early hour was still small. A trio

played softly in the background and I had settled down to

enjoy our meal when I became aware of how excruciatingly

embarrassed Nour was. It occurred to me that not only had

Nour probably never been in a restaurant like the Auberge

before, but also that this was one of the few times he had eaten

with his father and perhaps the first time he had eaten with

any woman, much less a Westerner, since he had been a child

at his mother’s side. His father confirmed this in the next

moment.

“It’s time Nour learned some foreign ways,” said Sheik

Hamid, “well enough to get along, anyway, don’t you think?”

Nour smiled dutifully. “Yes, Father,” he said, although he

could hardly have felt more at ease by having his lack of

experience pointed out to us.

Being with his father, Nour was duty-bound to be silent

except when spoken to, a duty which he fulfilled that evening

to the letter. But he seemed totally bewildered by the food and

table service and kept glancing at Bob to see what was to be

done with the array of spoons, forks and knives arranged in an

unknown pattern around his plate. I kept comparatively quiet

myself, Bob volunteered a few jokes and Haji responded with

some of his own.

The dinner passed in relative calm and we were relaxing

over coffee when the trio finished and a large dance band

came on. As we ate, more and more people had slowly been

filtering into the Auberge and now many of the small tables

around the dance floor were occupied. When the band started

off, brassy and loud, a few couples ventured out to dance, in

rapid succession, a rhumba, a waltz and a slow fox trot. A

Charleston retired most of the dancers, but three active

couples remained and Haji laughed uproariously at their

antics.

“You see,” he pointed out to Nour, “that’s the sort of

woman you find in Lebanese night clubs. You can always tell

a woman of that type by the kind of clothes she wears.” He

glanced briefly at me, and then jerked his head in the general

direction of the dance floor.

Nour followed his father’s gaze and his eyes widened. I,

too, followed Haji’s eye, from my own reasonably

conservative dress (high neck, three-quarter sleeves) to the

décolleté cocktail dresses on the dance floor. And suddenly

seeing through the eyes of Sheik Haji Hamid the couples

gyrating frenziedly around, the women in tightly fitted low-cut

dresses kicking and twisting in time to the music, I was

embarrassed for my countrywomen. I was embarrassed partly

because they appeared ridiculous and partly because of what I

knew the sheik was thinking of them.

We could never have explained to Sheik Hamid that the

majority of those lightly clad, madly pivoting women on the

dance floor were respectable married women dancing with

their husbands, or proper embassy secretaries out on a date.

He simply would not have believed us. Just how firmly fixed

his ideas were we learned by his attitude toward us in relation

to the activity on the dance floor. It did not occur to him that

we might want to dance, or that Bob and I were ever

participants in merrymaking of this sort. He talked to Bob and

Nour in confiding tones, as though he were an old roué

introducing his sons to the fleshpots of Monte Carlo.

I suppose I was flattered, for I had apparently shown, by my

restrained conduct in El Nahra, that all Western women were

not, per se, wanton, but I had done this by generally observing

Hamid’s own customs toward women. How many years

would it have taken, I wondered, to convince Sheik Hamid

that I was a respectable woman if I had not worn the abayah in

El Nahra, if I had sat with the men in the mudhif, ridden

horseback in blue jeans and wandered through the suq and the

village as I pleased? How many years would it take, I

wondered, before the two worlds began to understand each

other’s attitudes towards women? For the West, too, had a

blind spot in this area. I could tell my friends in America again

and again that the veiling and seclusion of Eastern women did

not mean necessarily that they were forced against their will to

live lives of submission and near-serfdom. I could tell Haji

again and again that the low-cut gowns and brandished

freedom of Western women did not necessarily mean that

these women were promiscuous and cared nothing for home

and family. Neither would have understood, for each group, in

its turn, was bound by custom and background to misinterpret

appearances in its own way.

At this moment Haji Hamid leaned over and nudged Bob,

indicating a particularly curvaceous blonde in black who was

being whirled around by a young Iraqi somewhat shorter than

herself.

“There,” he said, “look at that.” From his tone, he might as

well have said, “Look at that tart and her client.”

To my horror I recognized a girl Bob and I both knew well.

Her partner was also an acquaintance of ours.

The gulf that divided us from Haji Hamid never seemed

greater to me than at the moment when I realized that we

could not introduce him to our friend. He had already made up

his mind about her, and the fact that we knew her would

detract from our reputation, not improve hers.

The sheik must have caught a hint of my consternation,

although I tried very hard to act as though nothing had

happened. Yet I was terrified that the girl would come over, to

confront us, as it were, with the absurdity of our position.

Perhaps I could do what such a situation demanded, but I was

not sure; I was afraid that our evening would be ruined and

something else indefinable spoiled forever.

“I think your wife is tired, Bob,” said Haji. He consulted his

gold wrist watch. “We should go home.”

Home we went, avoiding the dance floor on the way to the

door. We were not noticed. The Oldsmobile delivered us to

our mushtamal, where with many thanks and a great sense of

relief we bade Haji Hamid and Nour good night.

We talked until very late that night. The dinner party had

dramatized, a little more effectively than we might have

wished, the difference between the sheik’s world and ours. It

had also made us realize that our presence in El Nahra had

done little to resolve those differences. We admitted to each

other that we had both had somewhat irrational and idealistic

notions of being examples, of bridging the gap between one

set of attitudes and another. Now, of course, we knew we had

not basically changed anyone’s attitude, except perhaps our

own. With our friends in El Nahra we had established personal

ties, as individual human beings. This was all we should have

hoped for, and perhaps it was enough.

26

Leave-taking

We were on pilgrimage ourselves, back to El Nahra to

celebrate the feast with our friends. Instead of the knocking

train, we had allowed ourselves the luxury of a taxi ride from

Baghdad, and the car sped through a countryside that was

shorn and green, for the harvest was nearly finished. In a few

fields we passed, clouds of chaff still rose into the air from the

threshing circles, where the fellahin led their strings of

donkeys around and around to trample the wheat and the

barley. We knew that the harvest was finished in the area

around El Nahra, because Nour had written Bob that the

annual division of grain between Sheik Hamid and his

sharecroppers had already taken place. The yield had been

good this year. It was May 1958. In Baghdad, pundits declared

the undercurrents of revolution stemmed by the news from the

countryside. In a good year, revolution was less likely. But we

did not think much about revolution that late spring morning.

After three months of hard paper work in Baghdad, the

prospect of a holiday with the tribe in the peace of El Nahra

was very inviting.

The problem of accommodations had been neatly solved,

and what I had feared would become a quarrel between Selma

and Laila did not even develop. Laila wrote to say that since

we were guests of the tribe, it was only right that we stay with

Sheik Hamid and his family. She and her sisters would expect

me for lunch. Bob would sleep in the mudhif and I was to be

housed in the harem—but where, I wondered? The apartments

of Bahiga and Kulthum were too small, and they could not put

me in Selma’s own rooms because that was where Haji slept.

“Are you looking forward to going back?” asked Bob.

“Of course.” I spoke more sharply than I intended and he

looked down at me.

“You don’t have to be so snappish,” he said. “I just

wondered how you felt. After three months of city living, it’ll

be quite a change. You haven’t forgotten how scared you were

when we came down the first time, have you? I was really

worried about you.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten.” But it seems so long ago, I

thought, when I was somebody else and hardly knew Bob. I

looked back at my old self patronizingly, mentally patting that

frightened bride on the head. Poor thing. She certainly had

been worried and unsure of herself. I could still recall vividly

my overpowering embarrassment as I had sat without abayah

in the Diwaniya station and people had pointed at me. The

frustration of not being able to understand what was said to

me. That circle of unfriendly women in Selma’s quarters,

whispering behind their abayahs and giggling—at me? Sheik

Hamza goggling. Sheddir spitting out my good bread on the

floor. And the chastening realization that the women had

pitied me. Pitied me, college-educated, adequately dressed

and, fed, free to vote and to travel, happily married to a

husband of my own choice who was also a friend and

companion. The idea of a husband as friend had never

occurred to my friends in El Nahra, and as for the rest, none of

it meant much beside the facts.

“Poor girl,” Kulthum had said, summing it all up. No

mother, no children, no long hair, thin as a rail, can’t cook

rice, and not even any gold! What a sad specimen I must have

seemed to them. I smiled again at my image. What kind of

charity combined with compassion had persuaded them to

take me in?

Bob spoke again. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“Only that the first trip seems ages ago,” I answered. “It

seems quite natural to be going back. I’ve missed my friends.”

Bob put his arm around me. “I feel the same way,” he said.

By the time we reached Diwaniya, the wind had come up

and the clear sky was darkened by a fine cloud of rolling dust

and sand. A strange brown pall hung over the countryside.

Shopkeepers in Diwaniya were slamming down their metal

shutters and animals were being herded home through the

streets, ominous signs that this would be a big storm.

“What a shame,” said Bob, echoing my own thoughts. “The

feast will be ruined.”

We transferred to another taxi and for the last time headed

out across the plain to El Nahra. The shrine of Abu Fadhil was

shrouded in a mist of dust, and the horizon was gradually

disappearing as the wind strengthened and raised more and

more sand. In an hour, when we neared El Nahra, the clump of

palms at the edge of the village was only a vague dark mass in

the moving swirling clouds of dust. We drove down the main

street just in time to see the fluorescent lights turned on,

although it was scarcely four o’clock in the afternoon. The

canal was murky in the dulled light. Few people were out by

the time we turned the last corner and passed the wooden gate

in our wall, locked and double-locked against intruders, I saw

in sorrow. We were deposited in front of the mudhif; here

sand beat against the taxi like fine hail and behind the huge

arch of the mudhif the shadowy palms were tossing back and

forth on slender trunks.

“We’re going to get the full blast of the storm here,” said

Bob. “The wind has a clear field all the way across from the

desert. I hope it lets up soon. Oh look, there’s Nour coming

down from the mudhif. I’d better go.”

“Have a good time,” added Bob, and he was gone, running

back with Nour to the shelter of the mudhif.

Ali, the old gardener, helped me out of the taxi and for the

first time the full force of the wind hit me, whipping my

abayah around my legs and flinging sand into my face. I

pulled my abayah close for protection, Mohammed took my

bag and I was ushered into the compound.

“She’s come!” shouted a figure, whom I recognized in the

dimness as Amina. She dashed forward. “Beeja is here!” she

called.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” said a voice. Samira, I thought.

“Ahlan, ahlan,” another called. Bahiga.

“Beeja,” cried Laila and took both my hands. She stood off

and looked me over quizzically. “You came back.”

“Of course I came back,” I said, trying to be matter-of-fact

and smiling at that sharp sidelong look of Laila’s.

Fatima shook my hand. “We told you, Laila,” she chided.

Kulthum’s voice was heard scolding. “What are you

standing out there in the wind for? Can’t you see that Beeja

has come a long way in this awful dust and is tired? Bring her

inside.” She emerged, smiling all over her wrinkled face, the

three blue tattoo dots still clear in the cleft of her chin. “Come,

my dear,” she said, taking me by the arm and leading me

through the court.

I sat down in Haji Hamid’s bedroom, the same pink satin

bedspread covering the gilt four-poster, the neatly folded

bedding piled to the ceiling, the oil painting of the mosque in

sunlight, photographs of Sheik Hamid and Sheik Abdul Emir,

and of King Feisal I on horseback, with the Iraqi flags crossed

above him. It seemed very pleasant and very familiar.

“She did come back,” repeated Laila.

“Well, we thought you’d want to come back,” Kulthum

said, “but we knew you couldn’t come unless Mr. Bob

brought you, so we couldn’t be sure.”

Selma bustled in out of breath and wrung my hand

violently. She was very pregnant and very fat; the seams of

her ordinarily loose dress appeared to be at bursting point.

“See how big Selma is! Her baby should be enormous!”

Medina had followed Selma into the room and rapped her

smartly on the behind. The company laughed delightedly and

Selma turned and tweaked Medina’s abayah.

“Have some respect for pregnant women,” she said lightly.

“You have some respect, my girl,” retorted Medina, “for

old age. I’m so old I can say anything I want. Ah me, but I’m

tired, I have to admit it.” She advanced into the room, erect

and graceful still, carrying herself so that her rusty black

garments billowed behind her like a court train. She sat down

and took my hand. Hers was bony and warm. “How are you,

Beeja?” she asked.

“Ya Selma,” she called, “ya wife of Sheik Hamid,”

inflecting her words in such a way that one could not help but

laugh, “do you think the house of your illustrious husband is

bounteous enough to offer me a cigarette?” Selma threw one

to her, took one herself and sat down with us.

“Where’s Sherifa?” I asked.

“She’ll be coming as soon as she’s milked the cow. She

knows you’re here.”

“Tea, Amina,” said Selma, “and then, Beeja, we’ll show

you where you’re to sleep.”

Amina brought a huge tray. The little glasses in their china

saucers clinked and tinkled as we stirred the sugar.

“I’m very glad to be back,” I said.

After tea the group escorted me to my quarters, the

storeroom just off Selma’s court which had once been

Bahiga’s bedroom, when she was still bearing children for

Haji. Clean mats covered the floor, and furniture had been

moved in, a bed and a cupboard, a washstand, a table and an

armchair. Samira walked around the room, touching each

piece of furniture and telling me where it came from, while

the company in admiration kept exclaiming “Al-lah!” Laila

pointed out that it was our old bed they had brought in for me.

“So you’ll be more comfortable,” explained Kulthum.

“Nour thought of the table, because he knows you write letters

and do things like that. Samira and I brought the minor, and

Selma said they should bring the armchair, too.” She turned to

me expectantly.

For a moment I did not know what to say. I was moved by

the women’s thoughtfulness and concern for my comfort. I

was also struck, for some reason, by the armchair. How I had

fought, long ago, to sit on the floor with the women rather

than in that lonely armchair in Haji’s room. My friends, in

trying to provide for my needs, had again pointed up the basic

dissimilarities in habits which would always exist between us.

But now it no longer mattered. I felt they had prepared the

room and made it comfortable for me out of mutual respect

and affection, and beside that reality, our differences seemed

unimportant.

My hesitation was misinterpreted. Selma said anxiously,

“What’s wrong? Is there something we’ve forgotten?”

“Oh no, it’s lovely, thank you all.” I paused, and decided to

blurt it out. “I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t.”

Blank faces greeted me.

Oh no, I thought, let us not have our communications break

down now. I rushed on, “I mean I’m so glad to be with you

again that I couldn’t speak for a moment.”

Still no comprehension. I began to feel quite desperate as I

searched the faces of my friends. It was Selma, as she had

done so many times before, who saved me. She had narrowed

her eyes suddenly and I saw that she had grasped the sense of

what I was trying to say. She spoke quickly to the women and

they turned back to me smiling.

“Ahlan wusahlan,” they said. “Ahlan. Ahlan.”

A sudden gust of wind whipped the door open and

distributed a swirl of sand about the room. The women rushed

to slam the door shut. “You’ll be much more comfortable than

Mr. Bob,” Laila pointed out. “The mudhif is full of dust.” She

settled herself with the other women beside me on the mat-

covered floor. Shut in from the storm, we felt safe and well

tended.

“Shlonich, Beeja, how are you?” asked Alwiyah.

“Well, thanks be to God. And how are you?”

“Well, thanks be to God.”

“I’m afraid I cause trouble by my presence,” I offered.

“No, no, we are honored to have you visit us,” returned

Alwiyah.

“Shlonich, Beeja?” asked Samira, and so we went,

reestablishing our relationship in the formal phrases of custom

and ceremony.

“Do you remember the bird that hit you in the head?” Laila

giggled.

I nodded.

“Has Mr. Bob seen any birds like that in Baghdad?”

Laila watched me, winking and nodding at the other

women.

“Not yet,” I smiled, “but maybe there are some there, who

knows? Have you seen any here, Laila?”

Laila was taken by surprise. “Who, me? I’m not even

married.” The women whooped. Laila looked at first

disconcerted, but gradually her expression changed to one of

pleasure, and she sat nodding happily, presumably, I thought,

in satisfaction at my good performance.

Nothing had changed. I might never have been away. We

talked, as we had talked before, of children and marriage, of

cooking, of things that had happened while I had been gone;

they were gradually easing me back into my old life here.

I was awakened by the sound of children laughing. At first I

couldn’t imagine where I was—gray mud walls high around

me, unfamiliar quilts and embroidered sheets, closed wooden

shutters admitting thin bars of daylight through the cracks.

Then I remembered and rose, a muddy taste in my mouth from

the dust that had sifted in during the night, under the door and

through cracks in the shutters and walls. The smell of it was

still thick in my closed room. Bob had probably had a

miserable night lying in the near-open in the mudhif.

It was the first day of the feast. When I opened my door, the

wind had died and the sun was shining weakly through the

dust that still drifted gently in the air. In the court all of the

children of the compound were frolicking, gay in their new

clothes. A crowd had gathered around a baby gazelle which

one of the boys was coaxing to drink from a bottle; Selma’s

son Feisal picked up the milk-white kid and brought it over.

He set it down on its gangly legs and the kid’s eyes, brown

and much too big for its small pointed face, focused

uncertainly on me.

“Abdulla found it in the bush,” Feisal said.

“Its mother was dead,” explained Abbas. “Abdulla heard

the baby crying when he was out hunting.”

Amina advanced with a tray. “Out of the way, out of the

way,” she hollered at the children. “Do you want me to slop

the Sitt’s breakfast tea?”

Grinning, she set the tray on the wooden table, wiped her

hands on her dusty abayah and held them out to me.

“Ayyamak sa’ida, Beeja,” she said.

“Ayyamak sa’ida!” More of my housemates were entering

the room, dropping their clogs on the doorstep as they came

forward to shake hands for the feast.

Selma said, “Enshallah walad, Beeja [God willing, you will

have a boy].”

“Do, Beeja,” urged Laila. “After all, you’ve been married

two years now. You don’t want Mr. Bob to divorce you, do

you?”

“When she gets back to America and is with her mother,

then she’ll have a boy, enshallah,” pronounced Kulthum. She

patted my knee.

To turn the attention away from myself, I said, “Selma, it is

you we’re thinking about. Enshallah you will have a boy.”

“It’ll be another girl,” put in Selma quickly. “Just because

Haji especially wants a boy this time.”

“No, no Selma, don’t talk like that,” the women shouted.

Selma raised her heavy bulk from the floor with some

difficulty. “Time to get back to work,” she reminded the

group.

Soon the women were busy with preparations for the

gigantic noon meal to be served in the mudhif. The butcher

had come and gone while I slept. Kulthum sat in her old place,

cutting up the slippery meat while the younger daughters

pared vegetables and the children ran errands between the

compound and the mudhif. Laila and I went up on the roof

again to watch the gathering of the tribesmen. I could see Bob,

looking a bit rumpled from his night in the mudhif, standing

with Sheik Hamid and Nour. The men of the El Eshadda

circled in the figures of the hosa, paused to chant their poems

of praise to the sheik and to the tribe and raised their rifles for

a salute. The shots rang out in the hot, dusty air. In a few

minutes we were called down to help load the trays, and then

we returned to the roof to watch the procession to the mudhif,

men balancing on their heads the heavy trays of rice, meat,

stew—enough food for two hundred people.

The next day I lunched at Moussa’s house and here I felt

even more at home, slipping along the dark passageway into

the open court where the sisters had assembled to greet me. I

turned toward the sewing room, where we had sat so many

times together, but the girls ushered me into their mother’s

sitting room where Um Fatima herself waited to lead me to a

pillow.

After lunch, Um Fatima conveyed the momentous news that

Basima would enter the girls’ secondary school in Diwaniya

the following autumn. She would live with a cousin of her

father’s and come home weekends.

“That’s wonderful,” I said sincerely. “In a few years she’ll

be a teacher like Sitt Aziza, maybe even a principal.”

“Enshallah,” said Basima modestly, but I could tell by the

look in her eyes that she agreed with me.

“Our father says that Rajat will go too, when she finishes

primary school here,” added Fatima. The shy Rajat dropped

her head in embarrassment.

“Sitt Aziza said Rajat is doing very well in her studies,” put

in Sanaa. Rajat dropped her head even lower.

We discussed Basima’s fall wardrobe. Laila was making

her three dresses.

“That won’t be nearly enough,” said Basima. “I’ve heard

that the girls in Diwaniya wear a different dress every day. I

can’t buy that many, but I must have at least five, and a

jacket.” She was quite self-important about it, and her mother

spoke sharply.

“You are lucky to go to school at all, Basima,” she said,

“and you’ll be lucky to have one dress, let alone three.”

This seemed a good moment to bring out the small presents

I had bought in Baghdad—perfume, cloth, sweets—something

expected from anyone coming home from a trip.

After tea I professed weariness, but Laila would not listen.

“You can sleep in America,” she said. “Let’s not waste these

days. This afternoon we are going to see Salima. The teachers

are in Diwaniya for the feast, but I promised Salima we’d

come.”

So went the feast. Next day we visited Sherifa and Medina

and Fadhila, Mohammed sitting with us and smiling

constantly while we drank lemon tea. “Send me a charm from

America so I can have a child, Beeja,” said Fadhila, “and so

Sherifa can marry again.” From Mohammed’s house we went

on to Ali’s and that afternoon Hussein took me down the canal

to his clan settlement. Sajjida was pregnant again. “Enshallah

walad,” I offered. “Enshallah,” she rejoined. The little girls

looked on solemnly. In the evenings the women came to my

room in Haji’s compound, and I spent all the money in my

purse on cigarettes and pumpkin seeds. Amina brewed tea

with cloves. One morning a very old woman I had never seen

before entered the room. “Ayyamak sa’ida,” she said in a

cracked voice. I rose to greet her in return and added, almost

without thinking, “Enshallah hejjiya [God willing you will

make the pilgrimage].”

The old lady settled herself, groaning and grunting with the

effort, on the floor, and then peered at me. “How long have

you been here?” she asked.

“Almost two years.”

She pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “She’s coming

along all right,” she announced to the rest of the women.

“See, Beeja,” said Kulthum, “you’re learning. Stay one

more year and you’ll be just like us. Ask Mr. Bob to bring

your mother and then you’ll never have to leave us and go

back to America.”

The moment was broken by the arrival of Feisal with a note

from Bob. “Since there seems to be no other way of meeting,”

he wrote, “I have arranged that you and I are to take a walk

and look at the fields behind the palm grove. After lunch,

when everyone is napping, come to the door of the compound

and I’ll be waiting nearby.” I laughed, recalling all the

abduction-from-the-seraglio melodramas I had ever read.

“What is it? What’s so funny?” clamored the women.

“Have you no manners?” Selma asked. “It’s not polite to

ask.” Then she laughed herself. “But what is it, Beeja?”

“My husband wants to see me after lunch outside the

compound.”

“He must miss you,” teased Laila.

“Doesn’t like to sleep alone,” Amina squeaked.

“El hamdillah!” pronounced Kulthum firmly over the

raucous remark which Amina was adding to a giggling

audience. Feisal snatched up my written reply and ran.

The sun was still high when Bob and I stepped out together

along the edge of the palm grove. The children could not resist

following, and we had a small band running along behind, but

keeping a reasonably respectable distance. Before us stretched

a network of canals, their banks making a tracery, hillock-

high, which marked off the tiny plots of farmland like squares

on a checkerboard. Only harvest stubble was left in the

ground, but there was still water in the canals so we picked

our way along the uneven ground of the banks.

“I’ve never been this far out before,” I said.

“You haven’t, of course—I never thought,” Bob answered.

“I wanted to talk to you and this seemed the easiest way.

How’s it going?”

“I don’t look forward to leaving, if that’s what you mean.”

“I don’t either,” he replied, “though I wouldn’t mind being

out of the dust.”

“It’s not so bad now the wind has died.”

We walked steadily along. Crows rose from the harvested

fields and when we looked back, the mudhif was hidden by

palms. Where the big canal turned, a thick clump of camel-

thorn grew out and over the water, creating a fairly large

shaded area on the bank.

“This must be where the women come in summer to take

baths,” I told Bob. “They’ve told me about this place; it’s

hidden from the mudhif and they have a little shelter from the

camel-thorn.”

“How do they take baths? In the canal?”

“Yes, they wait till sunset and come in groups. They bathe

in the canal with all their clothes on, then go home and put on

clean clothes. Quite ingenious.”

“Are the women curious about your life in Baghdad?”

“Not at all,” I answered. “It seems as though I haven’t been

away.”

We were skirting the settlement, heading back along a

roundabout road which, Bob said, led to the big bridge

spanning the El Nahra canal. The children had dropped behind

long ago.

“Mr. Bob, Mr. Bob,” someone was shouting. Two

tribesmen were running and gesticulating at us. Bob walked

toward them and I stood with my back to the men, gazing out

at the long, flat brown landscape, cut into tiny squares by the

canal banks, the enormous sky dwarfing it and yet protecting

it as well. The winds came from the desert and blew away the

loam in the spring, but some sank into the canal and was

thrown up again as silt in the fall. The sun burned the earth till

it cracked, but the winter rains filled it until it could live again.

Every fall the fellahin planted grain in the square plots, and

the Euphrates River water, piped into these small canals,

watered the grain and the people lived for another season.

Thus it had been for more than five thousand years. The

women were part of it, too, part of an enduring and traditional

way of life that had developed in response to conditions in the

valley, a way of life in which the women were secure and

generally content.

They had never envied me, only made me fit, as well as I

was able, into their patterns. I had done so, learning something

about myself along the way. It had been a rewarding

honeymoon, I thought, if not precisely what the bridal

consultants in Chicago would have advised. But then their

view of marriage, like that of my friends in El Nahra, was a

limited one.

I turned to Bob, but he was already speaking. Never mind, I

would tell him another time.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have to get back. There are

guests from Baghdad in the mudhif and Sheik Hamid wants

me.”

We parted at the compound.

That night Laila appeared after supper. “You must come to

us,” she said. We sat together in the sewing room, the sisters

and their cousins from across the alley, and ate fruit and drank

tea. Suddenly there was a furious pounding on the door, and a

figure in man’s clothing advanced threateningly upon us,

striking the air with a huge stick.

“Here, you silly girls, why are you sitting idle when you

should be working?” shouted a thickly disguised voice. “Have

you finished cleaning all that rice?”

The heavy stick swung above us, and while we all paused

uncertainly, Basima tugged at the kaffiyeh covering the

figure’s face and her sister Nejla was revealed, choking with

laughter.

“You were scared, Beeja. You didn’t know who it was.”

“Nejla is very good,” said Laila.

“Yes, very good indeed.” For a second I had been unsure.

“Do Abdulla,” suggested Fatima.

Nejla’s stance changed. She stood straight and tall and

appeared suddenly thin as she walked proudly around the

room, swinging the stick slightly, the man’s aba flowing

behind her; it was a remarkable imitation.

Once more there was a pounding on the door. Basima rose

to open it. Alwiyah and Samira and Selma stood there.

Fatima exclaimed in surprise. “Selma!” she said, striking

her forehead with the back of her hand in mock amazement.

“To what do we owe this honor? You haven’t been in this

house since your last daughter was born, three years ago.

Girls, look what we have here, the favorite wife of our

esteemed uncle, Haji Hamid!”

“We heard that Nejla was entertaining,” answered Selma

flippantly. “We wouldn’t dream of missing that. Besides, isn’t

Beeja leaving tomorrow?” She threw off her abayah, wrapped

it round her knees and sat down in the center of the group,

which moved aside to make way for her.

“Yallah, Nejla, do Mr. Bob,” she said with a glance at me,

and Nejla obliged, imitating Bob’s long strides and rapid pace

while evervone clapped. She then gave us a very bitter,

accuratem tation of Dr. Ibrahim, followed by a bit of

buffoonery that was obviously Ali, the aging garbner.

“New Mohammed,” and Nejla mimicked Mohammed’s

shambling gait, a mixture of dignity and humility, and his

eternal gesture of adjusting his agal and kaffiyeh, to such

perfection that his sister Sherifa shrieked with laughter.

When Nejla sat down to drink tea, the talk turned to

Basima’s plans to go to secondary school. Selma thought it a

good idea, but said that many women in the settlement did not

feel the same way.

“You must expect that, Basima,” she counseled.

“Many families don’t like to see us going out and getting an

education to better ourselves,” offered Fatima.

Selma looked disdainful. “That isn’t it at all. It’s whether it

is proper for Basima to live in the house of her cousin, where

there are unmarried men her own age.”

Fatima’s eyes blazed. “What do you mean, is it proper?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” answered Selma,

quite loudly.

The tempers of the two women, usually so balanced,

seemed about to explode into violence, and I could not see

that the words which had passed between them were that

important. Basima, who had been sitting quietly during this

interchange peeling an apple, now cut the apple in half and

held out a piece to each of the angry women. Selma looked

down at the proffered fruit, distracted for a moment, and then

in a sudden furious gesture struck the piece of apple from

Basima’s hand. Fatima drew in her breath in a long, quivering

hiss. The company became very still. It was Nejla who saved

the situation. Picking up the discarded piece of apple from the

floor and taking the second from Basima’s hand, she began to

eat them alternately.

“The reason I am so good-natured and healthy,” she said,

winking at me, “is that I never let good food go to waste.”

Someone snickered, but Selma and Fatima remained tight-

lipped.

“Now you, Selma,” continued Nejla, “you’re fat enough,

it’s true, but Fatima needs to gain weight or she will never

marry.”

She munched the pieces of apple and we all laughed

obediently. Selma turned her head and began to talk to

Medina. Then I remembered the ancient, still unresolved feud

between the men who were heads of the households

represented by Fatima and Selma. Moussa and Hamid had

split many years ago over the question of the succession to the

sheikship. Sheik Hamid had not wanted his son Ahmar to

marry Moussa’s daughter Sanaa, although Ahmar had asked

specifically for Sanaa’s hand. Selma’s sister had eloped with

another son of Sheik Hamid, the one who was to marry

Fatima. In El Nahra, as in any small community, there were

conflicts between families, resentments and bitterness which

were buried deep but which were always ready to flare up in

situations such as this.

I thought, it will not be easy for Basima until she finishes

school, but when she is finally a teacher like Hind and Aziza,

the women of the settlement will forget their jealousies in

mutual admiration of her status as an effendi. Even Selma will

not be able to resist showing off and talking about her

educated relative.

To change the subject, Laila began to talk of my impending

departure, which was the last thing in the world I wanted to

discuss that evening.

“Will you write to us?”

“Of course I will,” I said.

“No you won’t.” Laila sniffed.

“How is the garden?” I asked firmly. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know,” said Laila, wiping her nose ostentatiously.

“It’s been locked up since you left.”

“Maybe if I asked Haji,” I suggested, “he would open it up

and we could sit and have Coca-Cola there tomorrow

morning.”

The women looked pleased but doubtful.

“Don’t you ask Haji,” Selma counseled. “Ask Mr. Bob to

ask him.”

Bob was successful. Ali, grumbling, unlocked the gate, and

we swept in, Laila, Fatima, Rajat, Sherifa, Samira, Alwiyah

and I. Rajat brought Coca-Cola and we sat in a circle on the

uncut grass, under the shade of the bitter-orange tree. Because

it seemed impossible that I should be leaving my friends

forever, I did not mention the subject; nor did they. We talked

of the past and always when conversation flagged, we talked

of Basima’s going to school in Diwaniya. She was the first

girl of the El Eshadda to go.

“Will you wear an abayah there?” asked Alwiyah.

“Of course she will wear the abayah,” retorted Fatima.

“Every woman in Diwaniya wears one.”

“The woman doctor at the hospital doesn’t wear one,”

Sherifa said. “I saw her when I went to have my chest X-

rayed. You remember, Beeja. She seemed to be a good

doctor.”

“Sitt Aziza says that she and Hind don’t wear the abayah

when they’re in Baghdad,” volunteered Laila.

“But that is haram,” Fatima announced. “It is written in the

Koran that all women must wear the abayah.”

“You’re wrong, Fatima.” It was Basima, younger sister,

contradicting older sister. We all stared at her. “It is not in the

Koran at all. Sitt Aziza says so. And how would you know

anyway, since you can’t read the Koran?”

All things change with time, and in the silence of Fatima as

she looked at her impertinent and yet chosen younger sister

Basima, the past seemed to hang in balance with the present.

But it was Fatima who gave in.

“I will ask the mullah,” she said, but her tone was

unconvincing.

“Let’s see if Beeja’s house is locked,” suggested Laila. I

had no desire at all to inspect my mud house, but there seemed

no alternative as the women rose and we mounted the path

past the palms and the oleanders to the two wooden doors.

They were not locked and we swung them in. The rooms were

empty—even the reed mats had been taken up from the dirt

floors. It was no longer my house. But as I turned to leave, I

heard a faint twittering and some feathers floated down from

the roof beams onto the earth.

I smiled to myself. “The birds have come back,” I said to

Laila, and started to explain. Before I had finished, someone

began banging steadily on the gate.

“It’s Ali,” called Fatima. “The taxi is waiting outside the

mudhif.”

My bag had already been passed out to Mohammed and

stored in the trunk. The women had gathered at the door of the

compound, and I, determined to be gay, had started down the

line to shake hands, murmur traditional farewells and thanks

for their hospitality. When I came to Selma, heavy and clumsy

with the child she was carrying, she smiled politely in a set

way and then as I smiled back, her face changed and she threw

her arms around me and cried aloud. At this my own reserve

broke and I found myself weeping, passing from one abayah-

clad figure to another in a welter of embraces and tears.

“Go, go, Mr. Bob is waiting,” hissed Ali from the other side

of the doorway, and I flung myself out the door, past the

mudhif where the tribesmen stood and into the taxi. I had only

a glimpse of Bob’s startled face, of Nour bending to shake his

hand, before the door was closed, the taxi started, and I heard

behind me, echoed in my own sobs, the sound of a swelling

cry of ululation. It came from the compound. In that high wail,

the expression of joy or excitement or grief which is

inherently the women’s own, they were bidding me goodbye.

Post Script

My husband has just returned from a brief business trip to

Iraq, the first visit either of us has made since leaving in 1958.

Bob went back to El Nahra, wondering apprehensively how

our friends had fared during the revolutions which have taken

place in the six years we have been gone. He found the village

much the same. Sheik Hamid has weathered the political

storms fairly well; the life of the tribe seemed substantially

unchanged. The mudhif still dominates the settlement, but the

sheik has also built himself a modern brick guest house,

behind the harem and near the palm grove. A regular bus

service links the village with Diwaniya and the old mud road

has been raised and graded. A new intermediate school for

boys has been built. Otherwise, except for the ease and speed

of his trip from Baghdad, Bob said he felt as though he had

been away from El Nahra for six months, not six years.

Naturally Bob did not see my friends the women, but just

before he left, an extraordinary bundle was delivered to him,

together with three letters for me. The bundle contained gifts:

from Moussa’s house came a large plastic bag, carefully

stitched together at both ends on a home sewing machine.

Inside was a cotton skirt made by Laila, a pink embroidered

blouse from Fatima and Basima, and lengths of material for

my children from Um Fatima. The women of Mohammed’s

house, Sherifa, Medina and Fadhila, sent a hiriz, a charm of

gold set with tiny turquoises, “to hang from the hair of your

youngest child and protect her from the Evil Eye, as is our

custom here.” Selma sent a lovely gold ring, set with five

delicate seed pearls.

The letters were full of news, which supplemented the

information I have received over the years in letters from

Laila.

Sherifa, the deserted wife, has been divorced and has

married again, “to a good man this time,” she writes. She has a

son.

Mohammed is in the Iraqi Army, an officers’ orderly.

Abad, the boy who used to study his lessons under the street

lamp, is doing well in his last year of secondary school in

Diwaniya.

Jabbar and his new bride Suheir were both tragically killed

in an auto accident on the Baghdad-Diwaniya road, only five

months after their marriage.

Hussein, our guard, has a construction job in El Nahra. His

wife Sajjida has at last borne a healthy boy.

Ahmed, Abdulla’s son, married Haji Hamid’s fair-skinned

daughter Sabiha and works in a bank in Diwaniya.

Laila herself is still unmarried and sews at home.

Sanaa did marry Haji Hamid’s son Ahmar. She has a son.

Nejla got her fat man, a rich merchant in Diwaniya. “She

can eat all the rice she wants,” reports Laila, “and she has a

very sweet daughter.”

Basima is now Sitt Basima, principal of a girls’ primary

school in a nearby village.

Selma has had three children since I left, one a boy. Bob

saw this little son of Selma’s dressed up in an American

cowboy suit Sheik Hamid had brought back from Lebanon; he

pronounced him the best-looking of all of Hamid’s good-

looking boys. “Dear sister, Um Laura Ann,” begins Selma’s

letter. (Since I am a mother now too, she greets me as the

mother of my oldest child.) “My dear, I was very much

pleased to see the pictures of your children which Mr. Bob

brought. I pray they are in good health. When will you be

coming to see us? All of the family send our love and we are

kissing the eyes of your children. Your sister, Um Feisal.”

Cairo, 1964

GLOSSARY OF ARABIC TERMS

aba – a long cloak worn traditionally by Iraqi men.

abayah – the long black cloak worn traditionally by Iraqi

women.

abu – father.

agal – a dark rope which holds an Arab tribesman’s head scarf

(kaffiyeh) in place.

ahlan wusahlan – welcome.

ahl-es-suq – people of the market.

Allah wiyach – God be with you (feminine form).

asha – woman’s head scarf.

ayb – shame.

ayyamak sa’ida – May your day be happy (a greeting used on

feast days in Iraq).

baksheesh – a tip.

bayt, byut – house, houses.

bint-amm – female cousin, father’s brother’s daughter.

bint-khaal – female cousin, mother’s brother’s daughter.

chobi – a line dance performed by men or boys.

dabka – a man’s line dance.

dafna – burying ceremony.

dishdasha – the basic garment which is part of the street wear

of both sexes in Iraq; a long garment made like a nightshirt.

diwan – reception room.

effendi – originally a Turkish civil servant; now generally an

educated man who wears Western clothes.

el hamdillah – thanks be to God.

enshallah – God willing.

faisanjan – a Persian chicken dish, with walnut oil and the

juice of dried promegranate seeds.

fellah, fellahin – farmer; farmers.

fiimaanila – goodbye; literally, “go with God’s blessing.”

fils – a coin worth about three cents; 100 fils make up the Iraqi

sterling pound or dinar, worth $2.85.

foota – scarf; used by Iraqi women to mean chin scarf.

gaymar – the butterfat remaining on top of water-buffalo milk

after it has been boiled and cooled.

ghee – clarified butter.

haji, hijjiya – terms of address for the man or woman who has

completed the pilgrimage to Mecca.

hajj – the pilgnmage to Mecca.

halal – ritually permissible, as opposed to haram.

haram – ritually forbidden; sin.

hashmiya – a loose gown worn by southern Iraqi women on

ceremonial occasions.

hilwa – attractive (fem.), hiluu (masc.).

hiriz – a charm or amulet.

hosa – a tribal war dance of southern Iraq.

ibn-amm – male cousin, father’s brother’s son.

ibn-khaal – male cousin, mother’s brother’s son.

Iid el-Fitr – the feast of fast-breaking, following Ramadan.

Iid el-Adha – the feast of sacrifice; the feast of the tenth day of

the month of pilgrimage.

imam – a religious leader; may also refer to the shrine or the

tomb of the religious leader.

kaffiyeh – the head scarf worn by Arab tribesmen.

khubuz – flat wheat or barley bread.

khubuz laham – flat bread with meat and spices baked into it.

kohl – powdered antimony, used as eye make-up.

kraya – a religious reading, common in Shiite communities.

kubba – a dish common throughout the Middle East: a paste of

rice, or of meat and cracked wheat, is filled with meat,

onions, spices, raisins, then fried or baked.

leban – in Iraq, yogurt mixed with water.

maasalaama – farewell; literally, go in safety.

mashallah – what wonders God hath willed; i.e., wonderful!

may khallif – never mind.

minbar – the niche in the mosque which faces toward Mecca.

mudhif – tribal guest house in southern Iraq.

muezzin – the man who, from the minaret of the mosque, calls

the Moslem faithful to prayer.

Muharram – month in the Islamic lunar calendar during which

Hussein and Ali, the grandsons of the prophet Mohammed,

were slain.

mukhtar – title given to the man in charge of the market.

mullah – Moslem religious teacher, man or woman.

mushtamal – garden cottage in town.

muwadhifin – government civil servants.

nitwanness – we are here to enjoy ourselves.

oud – a stringed instrument, like a lute.

patcha – Middle Eastern dish, made by boiling the sheep’s

feet, head and stomach.

purdah – an Indian term generally meaning the seclusion

of women in separate quarters.

Ramadan – Moslem month of fasting.

salaam alaykum – peace be unto you.

sammoon haar – hot bread.

Sayid – a descendant of the prophet Mohammed.

serifa huts – rough makeshift houses built of mud and mats.

shabih – passion play.

Shiite – a sect of Islam; the followers of Ali.

shlonich – how are you? (feminine form)

sirdab – summer cellar; a room dug into the ground for greater

coolness.

Sitt – term of polite address used for an educated woman.

Sunni – the largest sect of Islam.

suq – market.

sura – a chapter or section of the Koran.

taaziya – mourning ceremony, including a procession of

young men who ritually flagellate themselves during the

Shiite commemoration of Ashur, the tenth of Muharram,

day when Hussein and Ali were slain.

tamurhindi – a datelike fruit from India; used in Iraqi cooking

and to make a cold drink.

tiji daayman – come often.

tikka – grilled lamb meat.

um – mother.

yallah – let’s go.

Note:

Following the suggestion of the publisher, any Arabic words

which appear in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary are spelled

accordingly.

To simplify the problem of transliterating Arabic, I have

omitted, in the Glossary and throughout the book, most of the

diacritical marks usually used to indicate special Arabic

sounds which do not occur in English. The “kh” sound is

roughly equivalent to “ch” in the German “ich;” “gh” to the

“gh” in “Ugh;” “ch” is hard, as in “church;” “dh,” as in

“mudhif,” is close to the “th” sound in “the.”

ELIZABETH WARNOCK FERNEA

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea taught English and Middle Eastern

Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She also produced

a number of films about the lives of Arab women. She is the

author of Guests of the Sheik, A Street in Marrakech, A View of

the Nile, and with her husband, Robert A. Fernea, The Arab

World. She died in 2008.

Books by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

Remembering Childhood in the Middle East: Memoirs

from a Century of Change

Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village

The Arab World: Forty Years of Change

(with Robert A. Fernea)

The Struggle for Peace: Israelis and Palestinians

(with Mary Evelyn Hocking)

A Street in Marrakech

Children of the Muslim Middle East

Nubian Ethnographies

(with Robert A. Fernea)

A View of the Nile

Middle Eastern Muslim Women Speak

(with Basima Qattan Bezirgan)

Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of

Change

In Search of Islamic Feminism: One Woman’s Global

Journey

Thank You

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Table of Contents

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

PART V

PART VI

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

PART V

PART VI

Table of Contents

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

PART V

PART VI

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

PART V

PART VI