Free The American Granddaughter by Inaam Kachachi Page B

knew they’d arrived when packets of pistachios and almonds and strings of figs and dried fruit started appearing on the tables. But could apricot syrup be an adequate compensation for beer? The soldiers were always complaining about the prohibition on alcoholic drinks. On more than one occasion, a local employee had faced punishment when caught smuggling beer onto the base. Some of the army informants would occasionally come to the outer gate with a well-wrapped bottle of arak and ask for it to be delivered to officer so-and-so. The officer would have paid for it, in advance, in greenbacks.
    One day, a woman for whom I’d translated a compensation claim came to the gate with eight big portions of Mosul kibbeh – a special delicacy of minced lamb and cracked wheat – and left them to be delivered to me. That was the most beautiful present I’d ever received. That evening I held a banquet for my colleagues.
    Christmas 2003 followed not long after Thanksgiving, six days before the new year, according to the tradition of Western churches, which celebrated Christmas a few days earlier than Eastern Orthodox ones. One of the army’s Christmas traditions was for high-ranking politicians to suddenly descend on us, Santa-like, so that TV cameras could capture images of them spending Christmas with ‘our sons and daughters in Iraq’.
    My khannas possessed me when I heard my grandmother’s voice on the phone. We were in the first days of 2004, still a few days before Eastern Orthodox Christmas, and my khannas would tolerate no delays. I left Tikrit in the morning, after persuading the commanding officer that I had to go and see a female gynaecologist urgently. He’d told me that that was what the resident doctor was for, but I feigned Arab feminine modesty and insisted that I had to be examined by a woman doctor. I told him that the cleaner, Nahrain, had booked an appointment for me with a doctor acquaintance of hers in Mosul, and that she would see me at her home, not in a hospital. Nahrain arrived at the agreed time and confirmed my story. But the commanding officer was still uncomfortable about my going to Mosul under the circumstances. ‘What circumstances, sir?’ I asked him. ‘Our patrols are everywhere and I will be back before dinner.’
    Nahrain went out ahead of me. I followed wearing civilian clothes, similar to what city women here wear, and draping the black abaya she’d brought for me over my head. I found her waiting for me on the street with a taxi that a relative of hers drove. I hugged her and thanked her for her help. ‘I will bear the sin of your lie, Nahrain. I can’t thank you enough.’
    ‘This wasn’t a sin at all. It was a good deed, and God will reward me threefold.’
    As the car started on the road to Baghdad, I was in a state of disbelief that the officer had permitted me to leave. A recruit of Iraqi origins had been kidnapped and vanished without trace. We heard that he used to visit some relatives of his and had married their daughter. Did one of them denounce him?
    We passed devastated buildings and bombed-out areas, followed by fields still awaiting spring to announce their greenness. A few times we passed army convoys, and I was about to raise my hand to salute them but just managed to check myself in time and keep my hand under the abaya , cautious not to meet the driver’s eye in the mirror. Finally there were the palm trees marking the outskirts of Baghdad.
    As an extra precaution, I got off at the main street then took the first right turn, across from what used to be called the Tuesday Market. The cold January wind was blowing into me and causing my abaya to billow. A large man wearing a grey dishdasha was walking towards me from the other end of the street. I pulled my abaya across my face, leaving only my right eye exposed to see the road. It’s not that I was scared, but watchfulness was a habit I’d developed here. As the man passed next to me, intentionally walking as close