Free My Father's Rifle by Hiner Saleem Page B

happening. When he was right near the house, he called out to my mother. As soon as she appeared at the doorstep, he threw her his belt and drew her inside. “Haybet,” he said, “there are people who have returned to the mountains to fight!” My mother stopped in her tracks, astounded. I thought she would regard this as marvelous news, but I was wrong. “What’s the point?” she said, and there was a long silence. Then my father came up to me, finger raised. “Listen to me carefully, my son. What you’ve just heard must not get out. If the government has any suspicions, we’ll be in great danger. We’re aïdouns , we’re all suspect.”
    As aïdouns , we were denied access to many jobs—at the university, in the government, or in any sensitive position. But in fact the rule was applied to all Kurds. If a person pronounced so much as one word that displeased the government, he would disappear. The mosques were called “Baathist mosques,” and so were the streets, the neighborhoods, the hills; everything was now “Baathist,” even the brothels. Everyone lived according to the proverb “Hold on to your hat so the wind won’t blow it away.”
    Hundreds of thousands of workers from all the Arab countries moved into our region. They took up the jobs that were vacated by the ousting of aïdouns and many other Kurds. With the victory of oumma Arabia , our country became a tourist paradise for Iraqis and Arabs from the Gulf
countries; they came to our mountains to relax. Large hotels, camping sites, and villas sprouted everywhere. The Kurds had been crushed once and for all. Arab tourists strolled down the streets in djellabas, throwing contemptuous glances our way often enough. Some Western tourists also came, but they were escorted by the mokhabarat 11 to ensure they had no contact with us. Our town became a bit livelier, but we were demoralized.
    I decided to leave Aqra during the summer holiday. I was curious about everything, and I went to look for work in the region around Dihok, where there had been no tourists before the Kurdish insurrection. I heard that a movie theater in Sarsing was looking for a projectionist. I hurried there: for me there was no more appealing job. I could see films, which would be an initial apprenticeship. I was received by a tall, dark-haired man. I couldn’t fool anyone with my Kurdish accent in Arabic. He asked me quietly, “Are you from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan or from the Kurdish Democratic Party?” 12 He expected to trip me up. I was dealing with someone from the intelligence service. I replied as quietly as he, “I’m a student.” Someone called out to him from the far end of the screening room and he left, giving me an appointment in the afternoon. I decided not to go back, and disappeared in the town.
    The streets were crowded—I saw happy Arab children enjoying the tourist paradise; the Kurds sold fruit juices and refreshing yogurt on the sidewalks. I left Sarsing and went to Anichk, where there was a camping site with trailers. I became the assistant of a Kurdish electrician who was employed by the government. We were given lodgings in Soulav, in a luxury state-owned hotel perched on a hill and
surrounded by mountains. I shared a room with a man who always listened to the same cassette, played very loudly. I was an assistant electrician, but I had to do a multitude of other tasks—cleaning the swimming pool, helping in the kitchen … Everything there belonged to the state, and we were the state’s employees.
    Summoned to fix the electricity in a trailer, I was received by two fifty- or sixty-year-old men from Baghdad. They were drinking raki under a tree. As I got nearer I saw their hair was dyed. They were clearly rich; perhaps they were high-level government employees … Pointing to the trailer, they explained what was wrong, and I went over to it with