Babylon’S Shadow

By Salah Hatam

This is a second Testified for the death of Iraq, accordance with the prophecies.
In 1981, the war between Iran and Iraq broke out, lasting eight years. It was an animalism war. After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, a second war directly broke out when Saddam Hussein conquered Kuwait in 1991. As Saddam Hussein lost the war, this caused the imposition of the economic blockade. The siege was too harsh and bitterly, which stretched for years. Society began to collapse, turning Iraq into a failed state.
This novel is about the life of a writer who suffered repression during the period between the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf war in 1991, with the siege as well as the barbarism of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

FROM THE EDITOR
Babylons Shadow is an interesting novel. The books setting is exotic, which will interest readers who are unfamiliar with the culture the author writes about. The story is intriguing, and it provides an insight into the conflict in the Middle East.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504954242

Salah Hatam

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1962. Studied production engineering at the University of Technology. He discontinued his studies, however, to devote his time to literary writing. Worked at the Iraqi, Jordanian, and Palestinian Press. Participated in the Iran-Iraq war (1980) and the Gulf War (1991). Lived under siege since the beginning of 1990. Had a warrant for his arrest as a result of publishing a short story. Left Baghdad in 1996 and joined political opposition, No-Fly Zone. Left northern Iraq and immigrated to Canada in 1999. Published five novels in Arabic. Prizes International France Radio for short stories in 1994 Naji Naaman, Beirut in 2007

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© 2015 Salah Hatam. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/09/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5425-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5424-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

About the Author

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With time, we constantly ate chickpeas to get protein. Our stomachs became very bloated. We were more a nation that made farts. We could not sit down one minute without farting. We farted in the street, at home, on the bus, in the re-election of the president, with the birds, with cyclones, with the rain, with the dust, in front of friends, in front of Mr. President, behind Mr. President, in front of the women, behind the cows, during the prayer, and when we drank beer.

But Mr. President did not fart; he was eating well. Every day thousands of meals were made in the palaces of Mr. President. Then they were thrown into the rubbish. If we approached this rubbish, they would kill us. There were dozens of presidential palaces in Iraq, and you can imagine the amount of food that was thrown away every day. Why not give us this food, Mr. President? Why not invite the poor to eat? We died of hunger, nudity, sadness, tragedy, and anguish.

If we got a hundred dollars, sent from outside Iraq, we could go to the stock market and change them, but intelligence officers would arrest us and confiscate the dollars.

The clergy, following the ruling party, said to be patient. All would go to heaven; just pray. But we have died since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, and God has not responded. Clerics said, Yes, because you are sons of prostitutes. I cried as I watched animals leave their kids because they were unable to feed them. Birds, insects, wild geese, cats, dogs—all of them fled from their children. I heard that the First Lady said, "If we want to live like the people of the UAE, we need to get rid of three-quarters of the Iraqi

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept.

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

—Psalm 137:8–9

CHAPTER 1

The river was low. Its banks pushed scents to enormous distances. Fragrance is a secret code in memory, and when you smell something familiar, you smile. There kingdoms with Angelic wings and remember Suhrawardi and the ibn Jarrah and Alskotai, as well as Junaid al-Baghdadi.¹

On the river, I dreamed angels gave me grace like medicine, but the medicine passed out of sight. Then, just as suddenly, it appeared and was a very great river. The city of Baquba is wrapped in mosques and minarets (towers) of mosques, as if there is a common language between God and spirit. As a human, I do not know specifically how the relationship between all of these things works, but I am convinced that we are the beloved of God, who always shows us secrets. I was thinking as I walked beside the riverbank, Where does snow come from? How did God create this world? Was it at once and with one word or laugh from a nonentity? I have not found evidence in books about the existence of God, but I realize he exists through the songs of birds and through the pain indwelling the hearts of those wounded in war.

I do not know how many years went by, but I know they were long years.

I glimpsed at it again. I bowed to the inside of the river with my wife and kids. It looked like I would I die, but they were forever. My wife’s and children’s eyes were filled with tears and even questions, but I was fading into the mist and fog. There was a scene made up of a palm and eyes mixed together. I laughed and scooped water from the river. They do not understand anything about what is happening in this dream created by coincidence. The rain is coming down, and I look at them. My horoscope told me, You will go to the sad kingdom, and your life will turn into a big cloud, like God before he created the world.

***

In my life, I often ran to the Tigris River. Sitting by the river gives me an anonymous continuity with the place and its narrative. I adored the myths that formed on the river’s banks. I often boarded the boat to run away from Rusaf² to the houses of yellow brick, which were a remnant of the mystics’ schools and sessions.

Mysticism was synonymous with Baghdad—something strange and stunning! Prostitutes slept with mystics, and the mystics slept with boys, and they all melded with the sounds of wind and rain. I sat in the presence of Qanbar Ali. I touched his grave, remembering al Rashid and the Mongols when they invaded Baghdad. Every centimeter tells me about the more than fifteen hundred years that have passed since then. I was looking for the grave in a ruin.

I was expelled from the University of Technology, but I still had the university’s ID and uniform. This allowed me to walk without questions from the army police. Iraq was at war with Iran. My feet took me to the libraries. I was looking for help with my depression. I was practicing the highest of virtues—not having sex with women in public-transport buses. I turned into a eunuch. I inundated myself with books from the libraries. I loved the books. The books turned to music devices. The strange harmony between books and me has no rational limits; it is like a religious mania. I always bought a book and walked back to my house or went to Hassan Ajami Café or Parliament Café to read.

After having some tea and enjoying reading, I would leave the café and walk for a while. I would meet some writer friends; they were all monsters.

Sometimes I met Shawqi Kream. He was a writer who worked on TV. Shawqi sometimes invited me to his house. Ahlam Mansour, Shawqi’s wife, who was a writer too, felt like we are dogs. We would leave Mansour, cursing, and go to the kitchen and eat leftovers.

Sometimes Salah Zangana would visit us. He was a writer. I admired the way he would gorge himself on food. He ate like a beggar. After two days of living in the Shawqi household, I heard at the Hassan Ajami that Shawqi wanted to rape me. I spat in the café.

I decided to leave the bad guys and go with my poet friend, Hussein Tramp, to my university. After that, an official saw I was a member of Saddam Hussein’s party. His eyes were swollen, and he looked at me contemptuously. Since they arrested my mother and everyone looked at me contemptuously, I wanted to give my resignation from the party, but they refused and insisted that I had to stay. The party was more like the Mafia. They wanted to humiliate me.

Everyone avoided talking to or drinking tea with me at the University Club. It was nasty. I felt like a traitor. I went with Hussein and saw the notice still on the corkboard that announced I was expelled from university. I tore it down and shredded it.

My friend said, Why the hell did you do that?

I felt suffocated. Then I thought I would go to my friend Rose. She was a good girl. Rose looked confused when she saw me, which may have been because my mother was a prisoner, but I did not care. I needed to cry. As I was looking for Rose, Hussein was staring at the female students. Hussein was mentally ill, and he kept telling me to look at girls’ asses. Hussein stored sex scenes in his mind and then went to the toilet to masturbate. I also adored masturbation. Before my mother was in prison, I would often go to the toilet and masturbate, sometimes twice a day. After I would masturbate, I would walk around the university feeling shaky and blind.

After my mom was imprisoned, a big change in my life happened. I imagined how she was being tortured—by burning her body with cigarettes. I knew it was a barbarous regime. And I collapsed when I thought she might have been raped. Then I did not attend lectures, and I felt that the world had become dark.

I went to the doctor, and he said, You have depression.

I made a mistake when I told Shawqi about my depression. He went to Hassan Ajami Café and defamed me. Sometimes Shawqi was a damned bastard.

Hussein was sitting in front of me at the club, and I looked at the students over his shoulder. I felt pity for them because they were driven to the party meetings like sheep. No matter what party officials said, the students hated it. The officials wanted numbers.

Many times, I was reprimanded in front of my friends because I did not act like a good member. I wanted to quit Saddam’s party, but this meant nothing. I was in detention and was investigated and perhaps hit. I felt extremely vulnerable to being hit. I’d blasphemed the party, and this meant they would hang me.

I remembered a room in Building 4 at the university. This room contained torture tools. The smell of the room was always a mix of carbon dioxide and urine. When the security officer summoned me one day to the room, I felt my face become deformed. I was shaking, and I could not walk up the stairs. Because I felt delirious, I lay down on the stairs. Then I got up and smoked a cigarette. I said to myself that the best way to get rid of the anxiety was masturbation. I got up, went to the toilet, and masturbated while remembering Rose.

There weren’t many things I hated in my life more than the security officers. Since I’d been informed of my mother’s arrest, I was kind of crazed. On the first day after I knew she had been arrested, I drank a full bottle of alcohol and threw up in the street. Then I slept on the sidewalk, and a police car took me and placed me in prison with thieves and drug dealers. The prisoners gave me Tofranil.³ In the morning, I discovered I was no longer a virgin.

I reached the room in Building 4. When I entered, the security officer was huge but fragile—he looked like a poodle. The officer motioned for me to sit. I sat on an old metal chair. The officer did not speak; he just looked at my face as if he wanted to discover more about me. He did not know I was very fragile too, and I felt like I had turned into an insect. We stayed ten minutes, perhaps more, mired in silence. He was huge and hairy and had an unpleasant smell. My stomach hurt, and I wanted to vomit. The officer laughed and handed me a cigarette. Then he said not to worry.

I was tired, and I wished that the so-called lead officer would rest, but he did not. He said calmly, Listen, I want you to convince Rose to work with us in the security organization.

Suddenly, I felt that someone had raped me. I cannot, I said with a sudden feeling of power.

You can, he said. The security force and the party commands you to.

I left after he kicked me out. When I left the building, the rain outside surprised me. I felt defeated. I stood for a few moments in the rain. I wanted to feel like I was really in this world. I imagined that the officer wanted to rape Rose. I was sure he wanted this; I had some information.

Giving in to the officer made me feel cowardly. But I did not tell him the color of her underwear or when she menstruated or other particulars. When I saw Rose, I asked her, Do you know the security officer named Hamid? My fingers were shaky. Without waiting for her response, I said, Well, he wants to meet you.

Rose hit me—and she was strong. She said, I did not imagine you filthy.

We entered the cafeteria at the University Club but did not sit with Hussein. We chose a place far away. We bought tea and drank without speaking. After a few minutes, I said I wanted to leave the university.

Rose said, Do you visit the university?

I looked at her eyes. She turned her face and looked toward the distance, her thoughts unknown. I detected a mild trembling around the corners of her mouth. I knew that officer Hamid was wanted for spying on others. We stayed a long time without speaking. I was ashamed of myself. I was with Rose and wanted her to forgive me because I was too cowardly to defend her.

After my mother’s arrest, I felt devastated and became very negative, I did not say no to many partisan duties. After my mother’s arrest, I was transferred to a special party ring called National Activity. National Activity private organization for the intellectually mutilated, Communists, criminals, and homosexuals. Our relationship with party officials was shit, And the security officer Hamid was the overseer.

***

After months of Rose’s relationship with the security officer, I noticed a transformation. She was absent a lot from lectures, and luxury cars always waited outside the university. I lived more days feeling unhappy. I could no longer attend lectures. On the day of the decision of the university chapter, suddenly I saw something strange—a large octopus and cockroach were licking me and removing bones from my body; that is a tragedy.

I was transferred and was to start reporting on and spying on students. I reported about who wanted to escape from the militia. Some students were strong and refused to work with the militia. I was to report them if they told political jokes; they would then be arrested. Others students were arrested who created opposition political writings on the toilet walls. I was summoned, along with the rest of the party members, and we were investigated. I secretly wanted more and more of the opposition political writing. I wanted revenge on Saddam Hussein’s party. But I hated the Iranian clerics. Saddam’s party made the university a spy, like the Gestapo. In the classroom, there were four security, two military intelligence, one presidency intelligence, three of the Baghdad intelligence, and three of the party’s intelligence organization. In the end, it was impossible fart without the party knowing.

I knew all these people, and I performed congenially. But despite this, some insisted on not belonging to the party. One of the female students had a brother who was a political prisoner. All eyes were directed to her. We even knew the date of her monthly period. It was simple: security put spy