The Wreckage

14

Luca steps gingerly over the debris in his apartment, trying not to break the unbroken. Bottles and plates are shattered on the floor, amid the contents of his pantry. His furniture lies in pieces and water leaks from a toilet cistern, torn from the wall.

On the floor of the bedroom he finds the photograph of Nicola. He picks it up and brushes the broken glass away. Removing it from the frame, he folds the photo and slips it into his shirt pocket.

In the kitchen, he picks up a chair and sits down. Dirty, unshaven and two days without sleep, he drinks bottled water and takes a moment to feel sorry for himself.

Where to now? America seems like a foreign country he visited a long time ago, like a childhood book he remembers reading. Over the years, moving from war to war, from coups to independence struggles, he has come to realize the arbitrary nature of nationality. There are places in Europe where four or five different countries are separated by just a few miles. One man’s country is another man’s prison. One man’s coup is another man’s dispossession. The dead always look the same.

He unhooks a gas cylinder beneath the stove; the lower half twists off to reveal a hidden compartment. A satellite phone is tucked inside. He calls the news desk of the Financial Herald in London and asks for Keith Gooding, the chief reporter.

The two men met in Afghanistan in 2002, which seems like a lifetime ago. They both traveled to Kabul via the Khyber Pass, escorted by forty Afghan fighters, men and boys, crowded into pickup trucks, clutching grenade launchers and belts of ammunition.

Four years later Luca was best man at Gooding’s wedding in Surrey when he married his childhood sweetheart Lucy, whose father worked in the Foreign Office.

Gooding answers the phone abruptly.

“How’s Lucy?”

“She’s still beautiful.”

“Tell me something-how did a man like you get a woman like that to touch your dick?”

“She grabbed it with both hands.”

Luca laughs. His chest hurts. He’s out of practice.

“So tell me, Mr. Terracini, how are things with you?”

“Been better.”

“What have you done this time?”

“I upset the chief of police.”

“Other people fish for minnows, you harpoon whales.”

Luca can hear phones ringing in the background and can picture Gooding at his desk, spinning in his chair, feet off the ground like a child on a roundabout. Luca has never been comfortable in an office environment. Never lingered. Gooding is different, a political animal with eyes on the editorship.

“They’re kicking me out of the country, revoking my visa.”

“Maybe it’s not a bad thing.”

“I’m getting close to something.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Stolen cash smuggled out of Iraq into Syria and possibly Jordan.”

“How much?”

“Tens, maybe hundreds of millions.”

“Reconstruction funds?”

“And banking assets. Mostly US dollars.”

“What can I do?”

“Find out who monitors international currency transfers. There must be some international body that investigates big movements of cash.”

Luca is about to go on, but stops. Someone is at the door. He glances at the intercom. Bare wires hang from a hole in the wall.

“I have to go.”

“Stay in touch.”

Walking to the window, he peers through a crack in the curtains. An SUV is parked out front along with the Skoda, which is now a muddy green color. One of Jimmy Dessai’s mechanics is leaning on the hood.

Jimmy is sweating from the stairs. He’s wearing a cut-off Levi’s jacket, showing off his tattoos. “I got your wheels.”

“I saw. What’s with the color?”

“I had a job lot of green paint. Bought it from a company that paints oil pipelines.”

“I’m not paying extra.”

“I know.”

Jimmy looks at the state of the apartment.

“Some housewarming.”

“I wasn’t even here.”

“Shame.”

Jimmy lifts his stubbly chin. The light from the window shines through the jug-ears, turning them pale pink.

“Hey, that thing you wanted to know about truck driving, I might have found someone. His name is Hamada al-Hayak. He’s been smuggling petrol over the border since the end of the Iraq-Iran war in the late eighties. A few months back he got shot up on a run to Jordan. Lost his arm. Now he works as a cook at a trucking camp outside of Baghdad. He’ll want payment… talking of which, you owe me five grand.”

“You’ll get your money.”

“Sooner rather than later.”

“What’s the rush?”

“That bull’s-eye painted on your back.”

Luca returns to the gas cylinder and pulls out a wad of US dollars, counting out five grand. Jimmy pockets the money without recounting.

He looks around the apartment again. “So who did this?”

“The Iraqi police.”

“Was it something you said?”

“I looked at them the wrong way.”

Jimmy chuckles and cracks his knuckles. At the door, he turns. “Are you leaving town?”

“Looks like it.”

“People are gonna miss you.”

“You trying to tell me something?”

“I just did.”

A pine-scented air freshener shaped like a Christmas tree swings from the rear-vision mirror of the Skoda but it still reeks of fresh paint. Luca drives to the al-Hamra Hotel and gives the keys to the concierge. He tries to call Daniela’s room from downstairs. She doesn’t pick up. She hasn’t checked out. One of the housekeepers opens the door for him.

Daniela is lying in darkness, curled up on the bed. Luca reaches for the light switch but she tells him to go away, anguish in her voice, a soft wet sound.

The housekeeper leaves quickly, pocketing a banknote. Luca moves into the room. Sits on the edge of the bed. Catches a glimpse of her face.

“I’m sorry to hear about your German friend.”

“He wasn’t my friend.”

She rolls on to her back, pulling the sheet up to her stomach. Her hair is matted into greasy clumps, her eyes dull and listless. Luca takes her hand and pulls her up. Groaning softly in protest, she’s like a refugee being told what to do and following automatically. He leads her to the bathroom where he turns on the shower, letting steam billow and the air grow humid.

Button by button he undresses her until her blouse falls open and slips from her shoulders; her drawstring pants are pushed down, one foot raised and then the other.

Standing before him in quivering stillness, she waits while he undresses. Then he leads her beneath the stream of water where he soaps a flannel and gently washes her arms and legs, her feet and hands, her shoulders and breasts. He shampoos her hair, massaging his fingers into her scalp, letting the soap stream down his forearms and over his penis.

Only when he’s finished does she open her eyes and gaze into his. Her lips move slightly apart. She wants to be kissed, but he holds her at arm’s length and begins drying her. Wrapping a robe around her shoulders, he takes her back to the bedroom and pours her a drink from the mini-bar.

“Shaun is dead,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“So are the others.”

“What happened?”

“They were dressed like soldiers. They came into the Ministry and started shooting.”

“Where were you?”

“Away…” She sucks in a breath. “I had to identify Glover’s body. They tortured him with an electric drill and then cut his throat. He was covered in flies…”

Her voice has a mechanical quality, devoid of emotion, like a person who has spent a lifetime tethered to the banks of a river, only to wake one morning and discover that someone has severed the mooring lines overnight and she’s drifted into a dark new place.

“The attack was premeditated. We were the targets. They went straight to the basement.”

“Why would they do that?”

“To stop the audit.”

“Had you discovered something?”

“The software had only been running for forty-eight hours. There were some double payments and overpayments…” The statement tails off.

“Except?”

“Do you know of Jawad Stadium?”

“It’s south of here.”

“According to the financial records it has been completely refurbished. Work began in 2005 and was finished two years ago. But the work was never done. I’ve seen the stadium. That’s where I was when they launched the attack.”

“How big was the contract?”

“Ninety million dollars.”

“And the duplicate payments?”

“Forty-two million.” She pulls her knees up and takes another sip, unused to the harshness of the vodka.

“Who knew you were looking at the contracts?”

“Glover called the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office and asked what team approved the project.”

“Did they tell him?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to anyone else?”

“I sent an email request to New York asking for information about the main contractor, Bellwether Construction. They sent a file, but most of the important details had been blacked out.”

They lapse into silence.

Swinging her legs out of bed, Daniela moves barefoot across the floor. She opens her satchel on the luggage rack and retrieves a single sheet of paper.

“You asked me about cash deliveries to banks. I did a search of the Central Bank database.”

Luca leans forward expectantly, his knees touching the edge of her robe.

“And?”

“I’ve probably broken a dozen laws.” She hands the page to Luca and begins explaining the figures. “The first column is a code used to identify each bank branch. Next there is a date and then the amount of cash requested in the nominated currency. I concentrated on US deliveries.”

Luca looks at the first three transfers.

BI (74-312)

092609

US$5.3m

RB (74-212)

020610

US$15.6m

ITB (74-466) 021110

US$1.8m

Even without checking, he knows these cash deliveries correspond with the robberies-preceding them by twenty-four hours. Somebody must have leaked the information to the armed robbers. How many people had access to the information? It could be an insider at the Treasury, or the Iraqi Central Bank, or the delivery company.

Daniela curls up next to him, reaching between the lapels of his robe and running her fingers down his chest, loosening the knot at his waist. She flattens herself against him, pressing her loins tightly to his and he feels a desire stirring that he tries to ignore.

“Don’t you want me?” she asks.

“I don’t want you mistaking my motives.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I might not see you again.”

“You will. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Daniela crosses the foyer, moving from memory on marble tiles that are polished and cool. Her cheeks have color now. Her hair is drying and her clothes are clean. Outside the air is hot and harshly bright, thick with the smell of wood fires and paraffin stoves.

They drive east along busy roads. As they approach each checkpoint, Luca tells Daniela to lower her eyes and cover her face with a scarf. Once they pass through, Luca continues his story, telling her about his arrest and interrogation-as much as he can remember. The account seems so strange, so pulled out of shape and littered with broken and jagged pieces.

“So you don’t have a visa?”

“No.”

“What will you do?”

“Leave.”

Sadr City is an immense suburb in eastern Baghdad full of ramshackle one-storey buildings covered in dust and patched together with scavenged building materials. The city has many neighborhoods like this one-sectarian strongholds, full of widows, orphans and the dispossessed; Sunni or Shiite, bombed back to the Stone Age. Amid the poverty, children play football using oil drums as goal posts. Their mothers, in full chadors, look like shadows in the darkened windows. The only splash of color comes from billboards advertising mobile phones and flat-screen TVs.

Jamal and Nadia have two rooms behind a shop that sells water barrels and tools. Luca parks beside a mound of broken bricks and discarded planks. He fixes a lock to the steering wheel and another to the gearstick.

A woman opens the door just a crack, one eye visible, suspicion in it, then fear, then anger. This is Jamal’s wife, Nadia. Two young boys are clutching her legs, peering from the folds of her dress.

She covers her mouth and nose. “You should not have come.”

“I need to talk to Jamal,” says Luca.

“You have caused enough trouble.”

Her gaze switches to Daniela and her anger evaporates. She opens the door wider. “You take too many risks and put other people in danger.”

The boys run away and hide in the second room, peeking out through a curtain, one head below the other. Electrical wires sprout from the walls and a kerosene lantern hangs from a beam, revealing woven rugs and bedding rolled in the corner.

Jamal emerges from the second room, his handsome face transformed. Rearranged by fists or clubs, his almond eyes, his white smile, his youth. Gone. Beaten from him. His lips are blown up to twice their size and his right eye is full of blood, while the left has almost closed completely. Daniela can’t hide her shock.

Jamal opens his mouth to speak. No sound emerges. He tries again, his voice altered by his swollen lips and broken teeth.

“Please leave. It’s not safe for you to be here.”

His voice is loud in the tiny room.

“What happened?” asks Luca. “Why did they do this?”

“I work with Americans-this is the reason.”

“Abu?”

“He is safe, but they’re looking for him.”

Jamal wipes the spit dribbling down his chin. Luca reaches out and touches his friend’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“It is not your fault. We both knew this could happen.”

Nadia is making coffee. From the plastic container she carries from the pump each day she pours just enough water into a saucepan. Daniela introduces herself and crouches down, talking to the boys, who are losing their shyness.

Jamal pulls cushions from the corner and asks Luca to sit down. His modesty and politeness are a study in respect passed on by his parents. He glances at his wife. Speaks softly.

“I met Nadia at university. I remember thinking I could never marry someone so beautiful, so I didn’t talk to her… I was too nervous. Then one day I found her crying. Her father had been taken by Saddam’s secret police for something he’d done or said or not done or not said. I told Nadia I would find him. It took me two weeks. It cost four thousand dollars to buy his freedom. Nadia married me out of gratitude, but it has become love.”

He wipes his mouth on his sleeve.

“None of my five sisters are married. My father says he won’t find them husbands until the militias stop killing each other. He prefers to keep them safe at home.”

“What does your father do?”

“He runs a market stall. I did have a brother, but he’s dead.”

They are silent for a moment and Luca tries to apologize again.

“You are not to blame. There is too much blame in Iraq. The Sunnis blame the Shiites, who blame the Baathists, who once poisoned the Kurds, and they all blame the Americans. We’ve become a country of nasty, pissed-off people with guns and third-grade educations. My generation has been at war ever since I was born. We are so familiar with it we have coffin makers on every corner, moving bodies like melons.

“The new Iraq was never going to be perfect, but we hope, we dream, we survive. The Americans will leave one day. And what will be left behind? All things light and all things dark.”

Jamal’s eyes find the floor. “They tried to drown me. Now each time I fall asleep, I dream of swallowing water. I can taste it, smell it coming out of my mouth and nose. I wanted to die in the end. I didn’t care anymore. I made a statement. I wrote what they told me.”

“I know.”

He blinks back tears, looking like a man whose life has undergone a violent decompression, a diver returning to the surface too quickly.

Jamal taps his chest. “They could not change who I am. They could not touch me inside.”

Daniela joins them, bringing a jug of rose-scented water and a tray of sweet pastries. Luca takes one and feels the sugar melting on his tongue. They speak in English for her benefit.

Jamal remembers something else. “There was an American… when they were interrogating me. I saw him just once, but I remember his voice. He was feeding them the questions.”

Daniela interrupts. “What did he look like?”

“Like an American,” says Jamal. “He asked me if I was scared. I told him no. He laughed and said I was too stupid to be scared.”

Daniela: “Did he have a side-parting?”

“Yes.”

“What about his voice?” Luca asks. “Did it sound cracked or broken?”

Jamal nods and all three of them are staring at each other, wondering how they could know the same man.

“His name is Jennings,” explains Daniela. “He was assigned to us by the US Embassy as our local liaison officer.”

“I was told he works for the State Department,” says Luca. “I met him this morning.”

Luca takes a moment to consider the ramifications. US involvement in the arrest and torture of an Iraqi civilian doesn’t come as a complete surprise to him, but normally such operations don’t feature personnel from the State Department or the CIA as eyewitnesses. The US government prefers to remain in the background, promoting the culture of deniability.

“When did you last talk to Jennings?” he asks Daniela.

“After the attack on the Finance Ministry. He wanted to know what files had been taken. He also wanted my laptop and whatever results we’d obtained. I told him the program had only been running forty-eight hours, but he still wanted the records.”

“Did you tell him about the double payments?”

“Yes.”

“What about the cash deliveries to the banks that were robbed?”

“He knew that too.”

They fall silent and watch Jamal’s two boys drawing pictures on butcher’s paper, sharing colored pencils between them. What sort of future awaits them, wonders Luca. Jamal has been identified and labeled as a collaborator. He and Abu will be targets from now on. Friendless. Never safe.

Reaching into his pocket, Luca places the keys to the Skoda on the tea tray.

“These are yours now.”

Jamal looks at him. “Why?”

“You can be a taxi driver-until you become a doctor.”

“You do not owe me anything.”

“I owe you more than I can ever repay.”

Jamal drives them to the al-Hamra Hotel and drops them inside the security perimeter. They say goodbye with the engine running.

“I will come back one day,” says Luca.

Jamal shakes his head. “Iraq is a place to leave, not to live.”

“What will you do?”

“I have family in the south.”

Daniela turns away as the two men embrace wordlessly. She takes Luca’s hand as they watch the Skoda leave, waving one last time before going upstairs to their room where they undress each other.

Luca can’t find the clasp of her bra.

“Try the other side.”

“I never say no to the other side.”

Unhooking the clasp, he reaches for her breasts. “These are nice.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Firm.”

“They hold my bra up.”

She turns, expecting a kiss, but Luca avoids her lips.

“I thought you were going to kiss me.”

“Not yet.”

He wants to change the rhythm of her breathing. He wants to make her skin flush and her toes curl. He wants to see her self-control dissolve and for Daniela to exist on the same plane he does.

Afterwards, they lie together. She takes his hand and can feel it beating softly as if it contains its own tiny heart.

“Who’s Nicola?” she asks. “Nadia mentioned her.”

“A woman I knew.”

“You were close?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I lost her.”

Daniela looks at him steadily and for a moment the intelligence in her eyes seems to be absolute and unshakable.

“Why did you take me to meet Jamal and his family?”

“To show you why I do this.”