The Corpse Exhibition: And Other Stories of Iraq

The Madman of Freedom Square

IN THOSE UNFORGETTABLE DAYS BEFORE THE MIRACLE happened and I discovered the truth that everyone now denies or ignores, we used to guard the platform where the two statues stood. We had light arms, three mortars, and seven RPG launchers. The prominent people and opinion-makers in the neighborhood had rejected an order from the new government to remove the statues, and we had information that the army would storm the neighborhood by night. While deep down I didn’t consider this to be my battle, it was much easier to deceive myself than to bear the shame of running away. The battle might break out at any moment and I might lose my life for the sake of these two young men cut from stone who stood upright on the dais as though they were about to fall flat on their faces. It’s clear that the sculptor was just a building worker who knew nothing of the art of sculpture. The fanatical Islamists had a fatwa that all the statues in the country should be removed because they were idols and incompatible with Islamic law. As for the government, it had decided to remove everything that symbolized the period of the former dictatorial regime. The notables and other people of the neighborhood held the view that the statues had nothing to do with the former regime nor with repressive fatwas. I didn’t believe in that kind of nonsense. My father said it was a symbolic battle of destiny for the sake of the neighborhood’s future. I don’t know how my father, as a science teacher at the high school, could believe such superstitions. Of course, there are dozens of versions of the statues story, but perhaps the version that my grandfather told was the one closest to the truth. The touch of realism in my grandfather’s story made the people of the neighborhood seem even more naive, whereas his intention was to portray them as friendly, intelligent, and generous. This is what I was thinking at the time, before my life changed forever.

Perhaps it would be best if I first repeated to you in brief my grandfather’s version of the story, before I tell you what happened to me on the night of the battle. With great sadness he would say, “No one knows when exactly the two young men appeared. They were the same age, the same height, and as alike as twins. People in the neighborhood thought they were from those rich districts far away, but they could not guess where they were going. Each of them carried a backpack, and they wore smart clothes suggesting they were wealthy and well bred. What struck the people of the neighborhood most was their blond hair and their white complexions. The Darkness district was one of the most wretched in the city, and the inhabitants were skinny with swarthy complexions they had inherited from their peasant ancestors. It was the people in nearby parts of the city who gave the name Darkness to the neighborhood, the only one that did not have electricity. I imagine it was the first time the people of the neighborhood had seen visitors of this species of humanity.

“Every morning the two young men would walk through the village toward the river in the distance, coming from the direction of the wasteland that separates the Darkness district from the Arbanjiya district. They would smile tenderly and with affection at the half-naked children of the neighborhood, and greet the elders with a slight nod that suggested respect. They would avoid the muddy patches in the lanes simply and unassumingly, without showing signs of disgust or haughtiness. The people of the neighborhood saw them as angels from heaven. Nobody spoke to them or asked them any intrusive questions, or stood in their way for any reason whatsoever. The neighborhood was dazzled by the aura of light that radiated from the young men. They would walk with confident, measured steps, as though they had learned to walk in a private school. Their silence added to the mystery of them. They were well mannered and dignified, but with a light touch of good humor. The people of the neighborhood fell in love with the two young men and grew accustomed to their radiant appearance every morning. Day by day people became more and more attached to the two handsome youths, and their coming and going became like the rising and the setting of the sun. The children were the first to grow attached to them: They would gather early in the morning on the edge of the quarter to wait for the young men to appear from across the wasteland. They would bet Sinbad cards on which lane the men would come down today. When “the blonds” arrived the children would be thrilled. The children would tag along with them until they reached the other side of the neighborhood, jumping up around them, laughing, and touching the young men’s clothes with their fingertips, in a mixture of fear and exhilaration. The children would be even happier when the men would graciously bend down, without stopping walking, to let the children touch their blond hair. The girls of the neighborhood fell for the blonds, and before long it was as though a sacred and secret covenant had been concluded between them and the local people.

“The days passed without either side daring to break the barrier of silence or ambiguity. Before the blonds appeared it would have been suicide for a stranger to enter the neighborhood. But now the girls would stick their heads out from the balconies and windows to feast their eyes on the beauty of the two young men and sigh with the ardent passion of youth. As soon as the men were gone they would drift off in daydreams as they listened to love songs on the radio. When the blonds were coming, the girls would take their radios out on the balcony in hopes that the radio station would play a love song at just that moment, and if a love song was on they would turn the volume right up as though the song were a personal message of love from the girl with the radio. The two young men would react to all this respectfully, modestly, and amiably.

“The days passed.” My grandfather gave a deep sigh and prolonged the a of “passed.”

“An old woman died,” my grandfather said. “And fifty children were born in the neighborhood, of skinny mothers and unemployed fathers. The summer passed and the men who sell vegetables made more money. The local women attributed to the baraka or spiritual power of the blonds the fact that their husbands, who worked sweeping the streets or as school janitors in the city center, had all received pay raises. The husbands, who had been skeptical about the baraka of the two men, soon stopped scoffing, when the government decided to install electricity at the beginning of winter. After all these signs of baraka, the women began a campaign to plant flowers outside their front doors so that the blonds could smell the fragrance as they made their angelic passage through the Darkness district. As for the men, they filled in the puddles so the blonds would not have to walk around them.

“There was a spark of hope in the faces of the people, and this brought out their natural color, which in the past had been coated with the grime of sadness and misery. Everyone started to make sure the children were clean, sewed new clothes for them, and told them to be more polite when they met the blonds. They taught them a lovely song about birds and spring to sing when they were with the blonds.

“To reinforce all this veneration and faith, a man in the neighborhood was suddenly appointed to an important position in the government, and he promised to pave the streets and extend the pipes to bring in drinking water. The young people told the man to ask the government to bring telephone lines to the Darkness district, and I also remember what the people did when they found out that a group of evildoers were planning to attack the blonds close to the river. They had a discussion in the mayor’s house and then warned the evildoers that they and their families would be thrown out of the neighborhood if they went ahead with their plans, and the bad guys backed down.

“No more than two years after the blonds first appeared, every wish had come true, just as miracles happen in myths and legends. The old maids got married, the muddy lanes were paved, everyone with a chronic disease was cured, most of the children passed their exams, whereas previously their results had been embarrassing. The biggest miracle of all was the overthrow of the monarchy through a coup by heroic officers who enjoyed the support of the people. It’s clear that all this good fortune and felicity had come to the people by virtue of the blonds. From then on harmony and love reigned among the people of the neighborhood, and enmity and violence almost disappeared. Another new thing was that the schools became mixed, with boys and girls together, and the government built a clinic close to the neighborhood, and I used to sell chickpeas in front of it. The government did something very logical when it changed the name from the Darkness district to the Flower district. It chose the new name after a government official visited the neighborhood and submitted a report in which he mentioned how many flowers there were and also how clean the neighborhood was. Almost every house had a telephone line, and it was noticeable that more than a few of the inhabitants had come to have cars. The other new thing in the neighborhood was that the old people now took part in the adult literacy program and were enthusiastic about discovering the mysteries of the alphabet and of language in general. In short the neighborhood acquired a new vitality and prosperity after the medicine began to take effect. But the happiness evaporated on that ill-fated morning, the day after the military coup, when the children went out to the edge of the neighborhood to wait for the blonds to come. They waited long and the blonds did not come. Their mothers joined them and sat with them on the wasteland. The government had built a wide road across the middle of the wasteland and now tanks and armored personnel carriers were driving along it. Then the rest of the local people came along to join them, and everyone was looking at the tanks on the main road, belching out black smoke. They had a sense of bitterness inside them, lumps in their throats and tears in their eyes.

“The sun had set and darkness had descended again.”

My grandfather blew out the lantern flame and gave a long sigh.

——

It was after midnight, and the new government’s tanks were invading the neighborhood to remove the statues of the blonds. The men of the neighborhood had taken up battle positions on the roofs of the houses and in the alleyways. A fierce battle broke out, and even the women took part. I had slipped through, along with three friends carrying grenade launchers to destroy a tank that was moving down the middle of the main road, but the helicopters firing from above restricted our movements. We hid behind a taxi parked on the pavement. Then some of the shops and other buildings caught fire. It looked like we were doomed to lose the battle because of the constant bombardment from the helicopters. We broke one of the windows of the taxi and hid inside, with plans to drive it off and escape. Suddenly one of the helicopters in the sky burst into flames and crashed onto the roofs of the houses. Then our fighters hit a tank with their missiles, and we saw the government troops withdrawing in panic. A while later we saw a group of young men from the neighborhood rushing forward like madmen, shouting “Allahu akbar” and spraying bullets around at random, jubilant and heedless of the battle. We got out of the taxi when the young men went by, and we heard from them that God had brought about a miracle. They told us the blonds had come back to the neighborhood and were now fighting ferociously against the government forces. They said it was the blonds alone who had set fire to the tank and brought down the helicopter. My friends cheered and shouted “Allahu akbar” with the group as they ran toward the government troops, firing bullets in every direction. This neighborhood was surely just a vast mental hospital. I felt anger and hatred as I stood by the taxi, transfixed, watching the throngs celebrating the miraculous victory. I lit a cigarette and thought that the best way to end my torment would be to abandon this cave they call the Darkness district. Just as I turned to walk home, a torrent of missiles suddenly rained down right across the neighborhood. One of these missiles threw me and the wreckage of the taxi against a nearby wall. I saw flames around me on all sides. I did not feel any pain, but the sudden silence around me gave me a strange feeling of peace. When the blonds pulled me from under the wreckage of the car I saw that one of them was wearing a shirt stained with my blood. My father says I was unconscious when they found me in front of the door to our house, but I’m sure the blonds carried me on a white stretcher, and all along the way they smiled at me, and I reached out my hand to touch their beautiful blond hair.

Some of the young men from the new generation in the neighborhood now call me the madman of Freedom Square. The government planted some trees and put some benches where the statues of the blonds had stood. They put up a large plaque with the new name of the neighborhood: Freedom district. I know what these idiots say. They claim that the piece of shrapnel that went into my head damaged my brain. But they are just villagers still living in the Dark Age. I have repeatedly asked the notables and others to contribute money to rebuild the statues of the blonds and protect the history of the neighborhood. This is the least I could do to repay them the favor of saving my life. What makes me angry is that even my father no longer believes in the story of the blonds, after the soldiers demolished the statues and killed many young men that night. Some people now claim that the story of how the blonds miraculously appeared that night and fought on our side is just cheap propaganda, spread by certain youngsters to raise the morale of our fighters, and that the government army wiped out the resistance before morning broke. But I am quite sure it was the blonds who carried me on the white stretcher, and with these very fingers of mine I touched their angelic hair.

A few days ago I met a stranger whom I believe to be honest, not a fake like most of the people in the neighborhood, and he told me he believed my story of how the blonds appeared that night. He spoke to me at length about how we have lost our history and heritage because of the agents of the West and because we have neglected our religion, and how freedom means not becoming stooges in the hands of the infidels, but what I don’t fully understand is the wide belt the man wrapped around my waist in his house this morning. I feel very hot because the belt is so heavy. I’ll sit down in the shade of the tree…. Damn, the women and children have taken all the benches.