Guilt

It was 9 p.m. when my cell phone rang. The screen showed an Iraqi number. My heart stopped for a minute! I was scared because it was about 5 a.m. in Baghdad. I immediately thought something bad happened! It was a second until I answered but it felt like an hour. Million things came into my mind in that second. Who was it? Why they are calling at this time? Something bad happened? Someone might have died?

It was one of my best friends in Iraq. I asked her what happened immediately. Her voice was different. She spoke slowly, sadly, and desperately. “I haven’t even slept, B,” she said. I was speechless! I didn’t know. I was afraid to ask her and get the saddest reply. Eventually I did.

“What happened?”

“There were clashes in my neighborhood since the morning,” she said.

There was nothing new about this, but I why she said that. My heart pounded like a drum. I just didn’t want to hear that someone was hurt.

“No one was hurt. I am scared,” she said. “Armed men and interior ministry commandoes fought each other in our neighborhood all day. You can’t imagine how it was. It was hell.”

“Get the hell out of there,” I said.

“I am supposed to go to Jordan tomorrow but the roads are still closed. I don’t know if I am going to be able to get out of the house tomorrow,” she said.

I was speechless again, heartbroken, and unable to think. Here I am! I was having fun with my other friends here in Washington DC when she called me. Is it fair? No, it’s not! I hated myself at that moment. How could I do that while people I love are suffering? Isn’t this selfish? Yes it is.

My friend Ahmed called me few days ago. He was on the roof of the house trying to find a cell phone signal. The cell phones are ones of things that are deteriorating in Iraq although they arrived shortly after the invasion. He could not call me through the internet because he uses the dial-up service which is rarely functioning as most of the landlines are not working. There is no enough fuel anymore for the generators to run the operators and towers.

Ahmed took the risk and called me at night as I could here the sound of shootings in the background. I told him I would call him the next day. I didn’t want him to die. He insisted. He was laughing hysterically.

“Ahmed! I am not joking. Please go down stairs now. I can call you tomorrow,” I begged him to prevent any stray bullet reach him.

“C’mon! It’s not the first time. Don’t you remember these things?!,” he said.

I didn’t say a word! Yes, I remember. Yes, I recall every hard time I went through with him. Is it just now that I feel it is dangerous? Yes, I remember being caught in crossfire. Yes, I remember how I survived car bombs and rockets explosion. His words triggered the past that is still seizing a huge part of my mind and heart.

“How is everything,” I asked him then thought what a stupid question I asked.

“Thank God! I am still alive,” he said stressing on how staying alive is the only thing people want these days. No other things or aspects of life are needed anymore. They just need to stay alive even if it is with suffering.

He asked about me. I didn’t know what to tell him? Should I tell him I am in Washington DC to have fun? Should I tell him that I saw all the places where our country’s destruction decisions were made? Should I tell him I am among my friends while he was by himself miserable? Should I tell him I can sleep with no gun next to my pillow? Should I tell him that I wished he was with me in all the places I went to?

I asked about how the disastrous life is treating him there. As usual, he was caught in crossfire and survived. Here is what he said literally, “I was at work [in Adhamiya] when explosions and shootings started around the area. Employees panicked. A rumor was spread immediately: the Interior ministry commandos came to kidnap the employees! We were all unable to function. In moments, I imagined myself being tortured by them. I even imagined my mother wailing at my body. We shut down everything starting form the computers and stopped working. The sounds of the shooting came closer. I could not stay in the building. I decided to run away before they come and kidnap me. I’ll be dead in all cases so I’d rather be killed in the street than being kidnapped and tortured. It was hellish outside. Different armed men were fighting each other. Iraqi soldiers, commandos, Mahdi army and the neighborhood armed men were all shooting at each other. I ran in the streets as fast as I could. I swear to God I saw the bullets falling next to me. I thought I only saw that in movies. Each minute passed was like an hour. It was so scary. Women and men were running and hiding in any safe spot they could find. I kept running until I found an empty land surrounded by metal fence. I climbed on the fence and was able to jump. I just wanted to be away from those who came to kidnap the young men in the area whether from our institution or from the neighborhood. I kept running for hours until I reached our neighborhood. I was exhausted and unable to do anything from what I saw.”

When my father called me the next day, I knew there was something wrong. He was also caught in the same cross fire in Adhamiya which Ahmed faced. He went there to get his pension salary from the bank. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t even say he should have not gone because I know they need the salary. I felt lost, disabled, and unable to think. He told me he had to stay in the bank because the bank is at least protected by guards and Iraqi soldiers. For few hours inside the bank, he was finally able to leave when everything around him looked deserted and scary. He said the neighborhood was dirty as trash filled the sidewalks. Most of the cleaners were killed. The houses and shops were riddled with bullets.

On Christmas day, I woke up on the noise of television. I was so sleepy that I really didn’t want to know what was going on. Thanks to the devil who woke me up three times earlier and never left me sleep in peace. I opened my eyes to see what it was. I grabbed my glasses. It was Christmas celebration in Disney World! Children in my niece’s age were jumping out of happiness. I turned my head on the other side of the pillow. I didn’t want to see more. I couldn’t accept the fact that my niece who is only 15 months old is suffering in Iraq. How could I see these children having fun while she is in Baghdad looking at her parents turning on the generator? How could I do that by the time she is locked in the house all day? She is even deprived from going to amusement parks which no longer exist! She does not even know what a slide is! Her new hobby is to use the phone and hear my parents talking to her. Is that fair? At least we lived our childhood in Baghdad happily and joyfully as most of the other children. Yes, Saddam was a tyrant, a dictator, a criminal but he did not deprive us from our childhood’s happiness like the thugs that are ruling the country now. Oh I forgot! Probably this is Haram [forbidden] in the religion. How blasphemous of me to say that! Sorry Mullah, Sorry Sheikh!

Before this entry, I wrote three others that I didn’t publish. I was so mad that I kept them on the computer only. In one of them I wrote about the death of one of Iraq’s famous actors who sacrificed himself for the sake of Iraq and art in Iraq. I was also mad at some stupid news that the Americans are involved in like the escape of the former electricity prisoner who called the government officials in the green zone “suckers”. Well they are suckers but what made me mad is that it reached this extent that he escapes and laughs at everyone in the green zone. It just made me feel angrier that the country is so lawless that a detainee like him escapes from the whole country!

I thought it’s only me who can’t enjoy his time during the holidays. It appeared that all of my friends outside Iraq feel the same. S, A., S., H., and me! Yes, we go out. We meet friends. We go to the movies, bars and clubs. But there is something missing. There is something wrong in that. There is a piece inside our hearts bleeding. Sometime, I feel the shirt or the sweater I wear is wet because of the bleeding. When I touch it, I feel my heart stops. I feel I love it so much even if it hurts. Sometimes, I wish I could abandon it forever to stop the pain. But then my soul talks to me and tells me not to do so. “This is your beloved. How could you think like this?” it would say. Sometimes, I wish I could see it. I want to stop the bleeding but I don’t know how.

When I am awake or asleep, it is always with me. I feel it every night. Sometimes I see it coming into my dreams in the shape of a woman bleeding and crying for help. I want to shout and tell her I would help her but I can’t. I always feel chocked as if there is a rope around my neck preventing me from shouting. It is always that black ghost behind me walking secretly. I always feel him saying, “you’ll never see peace.” I wake up shivering. My T-shirt would be full of sweat. I feel I would jump in cold water to cool the fire inside my body. I throw the blanket away, drink some water and think.

Oh Baghdad. What have you done to me? I miss you, I would say. Memories of my happy and hard times would flashback into my mind reminding me of how everything became upside-down. I close my eyes again. I wish they keep closing forever. They saw what no human on earth could see.

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