Free The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina Khadra, John Cullen

I’ve got pride to spare.”
    Sayed wasn’t intimidated. On the contrary, his smile grew wider in direct proportion to Yaseen’s raving. After a pause, he said in a monotone, “The man who feeds on others’ cowardice nourishes his own; sooner or later, it devours his guts, and then his soul. You’ve been acting like a tyrant for some time now, Yaseen. You shake up the order of things. You no longer respect the tribal hierarchy. You rise up against your elders and offend people close to you; you even like to humiliate them in public. You shout everything you say, whether yes or no, so loudly that no one in the village can hear anything but you anymore.”
    “Why should I concern myself about them? They’re worthless.”
    “You behave exactly the way they do. They stare at their navels; you stare at your biceps. It comes to the same thing. No one has any cause to envy or reproach anyone else in Kafr Karam.”
    “I forbid you to associate me with those imbeciles. I’m no coward.”
    “Prove it. Come on, what’s stopping you from turning words into deeds? Iraqis have been fighting the enemy for a long time. Every day, our cities crumble a little more, blown up by car bombs and ambushes and bombardments. The prisons are filled with our brothers, and our cemeteries are gorged with our dead. And you, you lounge around your godforsaken village, you get your hackles up, and you cry out your hatred and indignation from the rooftops; then, once your spleen is vented, you go back home, slip up to your room, and turn off the light. Too easy. If you really think what you say, translate talk into action and make those goddamned Americans pay for what they’ve done. If not, calm down and back off.”
    Then, according to my twin sister, Bahia—who had the story from the very mouth of Sayed’s sister, who’d heard the whole conversation through the door—Yaseen withdrew ungraciously, without uttering another word.

    Sulayman’s death threw Kafr Karam into confusion. The village didn’t know what to do with the corpse it was carrying. Its last feats of arms dated back to the war with Iran, a generation earlier; eight of its sons had returned from the front in sealed caskets, which no one had the authority to open. What had the village buried back then? A few planks, a few patriots, or a part of its dignity? Sulayman’s end was an entirely different matter, a horrible and vulgar accident, and people couldn’t make up their minds: Was Sulayman a martyr, or just a poor bugger who had found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time? The elders of the village called for calm. No one was infallible, they said. The American colonel had demonstrated genuine sorrow. His only mistake was in broaching the subject of money with the blacksmith. In Kafr Karam, one never speaks of money to a person in mourning. No compensation can lessen the grief of a distraught father at his son’s fresh grave. Had Doc Jabir not intervened, the talk of indemnity would have veered into confrontation.
    The weeks passed, and little by little, the village rediscovered its gregarious soul and its routines. The violent death of a simpleminded person arouses more anger than grief, but, alas, you can’t change the course of things. God’s concerned about being fair, so he gives His saints no help; the devil alone takes care of those who serve him.
    As a man of faith, the blacksmith adopted an attitude of fatalistic resignation. One morning, he could be seen opening his shop and taking up his blowtorch again.
    The discussions in the barbershop resumed, and the young people went back to the Safir to kill time with dominoes when the card games grew stale. Bashir the Falcon’s son Sayed didn’t stay among us long. Urgent business called him back to town. What business? Nobody knew. However, his lightning sojourn in Kafr Karam had made an impression; the young were seduced by his frank talk, and his charisma had compelled the respect of young and old. Our