ainjim
11-19-2009, 09:15 AM
The editor-in-chief was yawning when he told me that the front page of the local newspaper, where I work, was completed. That means the edition of tomorrow is almost ready. Any one who works for a daily journal knows that the final touch is to send the last item to take its place on the front page.“Every thing is completed my dear fellow. Attractive, enthusiastic and carefully- chosen headlines crown hot top news, what do we want more than that? You are going to stay here for another hour as usual. Just in case…” He didn’t finish his usual daily phrase.“See you tomorrow”. He looked at his watch, laughing, “It is one O’clock in the morning."“See you today,”
He put on his jacket and started to leave. He stopped at the door and turned his face to my silent half-closed eyes and said, "Do you know? I think we are going to be in need for a good story for the Saturday edition. We got some good pieces of poems, essays and heart-broken cries in the literature page. But what we need really is a story, a good one too,” his last words faded in the long corridor
I returned home late that night. I was tired and there was also this sad unjustified feeling that sometimes covers my soul. I carried my mail and threw it over my bed carelessly. A long airmail envelope attracted my attention for a moment. When I saw his handwriting on it, I felt uneasy. These scratches-like letters are his style no doubt. I knew my friend Sadeem is one of those people who hate two things most, prolonged talking on phone and writing letters. There must be an important and, may be, disturbing matter that enforced him to break his habit and write to me. My thoughts went immediately to my family and relatives in Baghdad that live under the chaos of the American military occupation. With trembling fingers, I opened the letter and began to read.
“Dear Abdul. Peace upon you. How is everything? Listen, I don’t have much time. I know you must be well. At least you are not living in Iraq. And that’s alone is a great advantage. Your family is ok, they are still alive, and no body was hurt.”
A long hot sigh of relief came out of the bottom of my chest. I sat on the bed while my eyes were still fixed upon the letter, eating its words. "You wonder why I write to you, don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you. The last few days were the most miserable in my life. I have passed the most severe and horrible experience that life can afford. I can’t keep it to myself any more. I want you and all to share what I have seen and suffered on Saturday, the 16th of February 2005.
You are a journalist. Read these bitter pages. Publish them if you can. But, please, don't add or omit details. Don't change the names of people and places. They are all true."
"Dear Abdul. I am sorry; I know you are honest, and respect your readers. Please accept my apology. I am in a bad mood. To sum up, here is my suffering. It was 9:45 pm on a Saturday night. The phone rang. It was one of my relatives; he was speaking with a smothered voice. He asked me to go immediately to the emergency ward at Saddam's Educational Hospital (it was near to my house).I was told that Engineer Basim and his two little daughters were shot and all were in the hospital, but one of his daughters died. I did not know which is which.
In ten minutes, I was in the hospital with one of my friends. We went directly to the emergency department, and then we rushed to the long corridor leading to the waiting room. There, I found him. The shock was reflected upon his face. When I asked him about the condition of the girls, he replied with a strangulated voice and shaky lips, “Sarah died” Then, I asked about the other child; he said, “Zahra is waiting for an operation”. He accompanied us to the babies section, where that little angel was in a comma. Her blood-stained little white shirt was lift to her neck and blood was all over her clothes. Basim, the father, was limping out of a slight wound. The bullet only scratched his thigh. The doctor entered the room on a hurry and asked us to bring the child to the operation theatre. He also told us to fetch bottles of blood from the blood bank at the emergency department.
Zahra, 4, entered the operation room; the poor girl had had a bullet that penetrated her back to the ribs to the lower part of the right lung and then the cursed bullet passed out. The time she was having a serious operation, her elder sister, Sarah, 10, was in the morgue as the bullet penetrated her little heart and she was dead in no time. “What freedom the Americans have brought to us!”
We left the girl under the mercy of Allah, most gracious, most merciful, and the care of the very busy doctors. We went out of the emergency department, to breathe some fresh air.
Trying to get him out of his sad thoughts and fear, I asked him how he had managed to come to the hospital.
“I didn’t stop by the incident and rushed to the hospital. My car is there,”he said, pointing to the semi-dark park. When we reached the car, it seemed it had just come from a battle field; it had been exposed to a stream of fire that holes were all over its body.
“How it happened?” I asked
“There was a convoy in front of me and I couldn’t see what was behind……. Just a minute… I…don’t know,” he replied.
I began to examine the car thoroughly to see from where the shots had come. The car was stormed from the back and the bullets penetrated it to the front. Petrol was leaking slightly.
“Since Zahra was injured in her back, then, for sure, the fire was coming from behind,” I suggested.
“Yes,” he replied, “But I have seen some of the new Sultan's cars following the front convoy, seeking protection”!.
He suddenly stopped as if he was recollecting his thoughts and said, “Yes, there was another convoy behind, I’m sure, I’ve seen them in the mirror during shooting.”
I told him that he and his two daughters were a prey between two convoys.
“You have to know that Americans are full of suspicion, hatred and fear. They are authorized to open fire without any restriction. They shoot at their own shadows,” I said without realizing that I was blaming him.
Cars carrying martyrs and wounded persons, who met their destiny in the same incident or another, continued to rush to the emergency ward. The victims were brought in. One of them was a young man in his early thirties and he had lost his lower jaw. Another had lost his left eye. Amongst the three martyrs was an old woman.
“Sadeem, Sarah died, Sarah died,” he suddenly cried. “What I would say to her mother? What can happen to her?”
I was extremely shocked when I realized that the mother hadn’t known yet. “Haven’t you contacted the family?” I asked,
“No. I couldn’t”, he replied desperately
“Don’t you have a mobile?” I argued
“Yes” but look, where is the network???
It was 10:20 pm now. Time is so slow when you are waiting
“I have to bring her mother,” said Basim.
“I do not know what to say," I replied. "Your car is badly damaged, and the way to your home is closed due to the massacre, and definitely I can't drive my car at night again. And above all, one of us has to remain here. Doctors may need something.”
“Well, I have to tell my wife I am here, because she will be sick worried and curfew will start in less than an hour,” he said fast.
I checked his car, and then he drove immediately before he ran out of petrol. He went; I was not sure if he would manage to come back.
The time now was just about 10:25 pm. I walked back to the corridor, passing through the emergency ward accompanied by my friend. There, we saw many tragedies; Oh my God so many people, young and old, of both sexes, were rendered disabled, dead bodies here and there, wounded persons were groaning of pain, families and relatives were crying – what a scene? I was then familiarized with such sights as the emergency ward was overcrowded with other corpses. All those were one-day victims of the American occupation forces in Baghdad alone and in one hospital only.
At the far end of the operation ward, I found my mother who followed us later waiting for me with an eager look. Before I utter any word, the door was opened and the doctor came out to tell me the good news, “She will survive,” he said with a smile. He handed me her medical report, while my friend rushed to carry Zahra back to her blood-spotted bed. My mother tried to ask for some clean sheets, but, the doctor’s blaming look stopped her. Then he asked us to take the little girl to the third floor. I asked my friend to go to the ground floor to await the child's father, while my mother and I would stay by the bed of the child.
The clock on the wall ticked 11 pm, when Basim entered with his wife; she seemed like a woman that I had never seen before, indeed what is left of a human being due to such worries!!!! .”
When she arrived, calmness prevailed in the room where there were four families I have already told them about the whole situation. Basim looked at me. I understood he hadn't told his wife about the real condition of Zahra or about the death of Sarah
Dear Abdul, Just imagine my stance while I was with them. Basim started to shake. He was worried to death that the mother would ask about Sarah. His wife was leaning over the bed, watching her little girl with open frightened eyes and holding her little hand with trembling fingers. Just less than 15 minutes before she turned her face towards me and asked, "Where is Sarah?" Her husband looked at me, when I hastily replied that Sarah was taken to the Yarmouk Public Hospital. I had to lie. The mother fainted, so we took her out...
A few minutes later, she recovered. During then, Basim was contacting his family after the mobile came back to life once again. We went back to the room of Zahra. At the door, she stopped, "Sadeem, please, tell me the truth, has Sarah died?" she said in a weak sad voice. “Don't fear, I sent her in an ambulance with one of my doctor friends and one of the relatives will be there to look after her,” I said. “The x-ray machine in this hospital is not working, so I had to send her to another hospital,” I added in confidence. She examined me with a suspicious long gaze. I felt she was not convinced; a mother’s heart can foresee. However, there was still a flicker of hope that stopped her from further questions. She left me and entered the room. And I joined her a few minutes later. She was watching her baby who began to recover after the operation. Basim was standing behind her. He was crying silently. It's so painful feeling that you are not living a true life but watching a tragic movie.I asked Basim to leave the room, and I followed him after few seconds. At the far end of the corridor, I found him standing. His posture was somehow strange; he seemed like a man who just began to recover from a trance.
“Oh my God, where is Sarah? Where did she go? She is the one who opens the door for me everyday, oh God, oh God,” he started to mumble.
Though he was sometimes calm, the fits were hitting him once and again. He hardly regained his balance and started his way to the room. We watched Zahra mumbling in a weak tired voice ‘Sarah! Sarah!” then she closed her half open eyes. Hopefully, she began to sleep. Few moments of silence passed quietly. Then in a sudden move, Siham, the mother, jumped to her feet and went towards me. With a strange stream of begging words and tears she began to plead, “Please take me to my daughter Sarah, you told me she is at the Yarmuk Hospital, tell me what happened to her. Was she hurt much? Take me to her. I want to see her. Who would look after her? I want to be with her”
I tried to ease my throat and said awkwardly, “I have told you. I mean there is a curfew now because it is 1 a.m and nobody is allowed to walk or drive any where".
Everything was flashing like hell in my head, what would happen if she knew the truth?
I stayed with them until 3 a.m after providing the needed medication, food and bottles of blood. I went back home and tried in vain to sleep. For sometime; it was pointless, once I closed my eyes, I was dreaming of hospitals, the dead girl (Sarah) and the wounded people.
With the day break, I went to the hospital. There was the big tragedy that every one knew of the truth that Sarah was dead. The father, Basim took the body of his beloved Sarah to Al-Najaf to have her buried and Zahra pulled back to be alive again. Sarah is now resting in peace.
Basim was a Col. Engineer in the army but after the occupation, he was out of work. Now, to the big irony to tell you about what the American army investigator at Al-Tajee headquarter said. "After a thorough interrogation, it was clear that the civil car was stuck between two American convoys, where the back convoy felt intimidated and had to comb the area by firing the civilian car”
Dear Abdul, Neither I nor you- or any body else- can imagine or describe the expression on Basim's face when the American officer finally said to him, “Why you make such a fu... fuss? You lost only one daughter."!!
I threw myself on the bed. A mixture of sadness, anger and revolt was storming my heart and soul. When I wake up, the letter was still in my hand. I looked at it and decided to go to the editor-in-chief and say to him," Here is the true story you are looking for. Do you have the courage to publish it? Or you are forbidden to let your people know the truth!
The story based on a letter sent to an Iraqi site about a true accident. Names of persons and places are true.
Retold by ainjim an Iraqi journalist
He put on his jacket and started to leave. He stopped at the door and turned his face to my silent half-closed eyes and said, "Do you know? I think we are going to be in need for a good story for the Saturday edition. We got some good pieces of poems, essays and heart-broken cries in the literature page. But what we need really is a story, a good one too,” his last words faded in the long corridor
I returned home late that night. I was tired and there was also this sad unjustified feeling that sometimes covers my soul. I carried my mail and threw it over my bed carelessly. A long airmail envelope attracted my attention for a moment. When I saw his handwriting on it, I felt uneasy. These scratches-like letters are his style no doubt. I knew my friend Sadeem is one of those people who hate two things most, prolonged talking on phone and writing letters. There must be an important and, may be, disturbing matter that enforced him to break his habit and write to me. My thoughts went immediately to my family and relatives in Baghdad that live under the chaos of the American military occupation. With trembling fingers, I opened the letter and began to read.
“Dear Abdul. Peace upon you. How is everything? Listen, I don’t have much time. I know you must be well. At least you are not living in Iraq. And that’s alone is a great advantage. Your family is ok, they are still alive, and no body was hurt.”
A long hot sigh of relief came out of the bottom of my chest. I sat on the bed while my eyes were still fixed upon the letter, eating its words. "You wonder why I write to you, don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you. The last few days were the most miserable in my life. I have passed the most severe and horrible experience that life can afford. I can’t keep it to myself any more. I want you and all to share what I have seen and suffered on Saturday, the 16th of February 2005.
You are a journalist. Read these bitter pages. Publish them if you can. But, please, don't add or omit details. Don't change the names of people and places. They are all true."
"Dear Abdul. I am sorry; I know you are honest, and respect your readers. Please accept my apology. I am in a bad mood. To sum up, here is my suffering. It was 9:45 pm on a Saturday night. The phone rang. It was one of my relatives; he was speaking with a smothered voice. He asked me to go immediately to the emergency ward at Saddam's Educational Hospital (it was near to my house).I was told that Engineer Basim and his two little daughters were shot and all were in the hospital, but one of his daughters died. I did not know which is which.
In ten minutes, I was in the hospital with one of my friends. We went directly to the emergency department, and then we rushed to the long corridor leading to the waiting room. There, I found him. The shock was reflected upon his face. When I asked him about the condition of the girls, he replied with a strangulated voice and shaky lips, “Sarah died” Then, I asked about the other child; he said, “Zahra is waiting for an operation”. He accompanied us to the babies section, where that little angel was in a comma. Her blood-stained little white shirt was lift to her neck and blood was all over her clothes. Basim, the father, was limping out of a slight wound. The bullet only scratched his thigh. The doctor entered the room on a hurry and asked us to bring the child to the operation theatre. He also told us to fetch bottles of blood from the blood bank at the emergency department.
Zahra, 4, entered the operation room; the poor girl had had a bullet that penetrated her back to the ribs to the lower part of the right lung and then the cursed bullet passed out. The time she was having a serious operation, her elder sister, Sarah, 10, was in the morgue as the bullet penetrated her little heart and she was dead in no time. “What freedom the Americans have brought to us!”
We left the girl under the mercy of Allah, most gracious, most merciful, and the care of the very busy doctors. We went out of the emergency department, to breathe some fresh air.
Trying to get him out of his sad thoughts and fear, I asked him how he had managed to come to the hospital.
“I didn’t stop by the incident and rushed to the hospital. My car is there,”he said, pointing to the semi-dark park. When we reached the car, it seemed it had just come from a battle field; it had been exposed to a stream of fire that holes were all over its body.
“How it happened?” I asked
“There was a convoy in front of me and I couldn’t see what was behind……. Just a minute… I…don’t know,” he replied.
I began to examine the car thoroughly to see from where the shots had come. The car was stormed from the back and the bullets penetrated it to the front. Petrol was leaking slightly.
“Since Zahra was injured in her back, then, for sure, the fire was coming from behind,” I suggested.
“Yes,” he replied, “But I have seen some of the new Sultan's cars following the front convoy, seeking protection”!.
He suddenly stopped as if he was recollecting his thoughts and said, “Yes, there was another convoy behind, I’m sure, I’ve seen them in the mirror during shooting.”
I told him that he and his two daughters were a prey between two convoys.
“You have to know that Americans are full of suspicion, hatred and fear. They are authorized to open fire without any restriction. They shoot at their own shadows,” I said without realizing that I was blaming him.
Cars carrying martyrs and wounded persons, who met their destiny in the same incident or another, continued to rush to the emergency ward. The victims were brought in. One of them was a young man in his early thirties and he had lost his lower jaw. Another had lost his left eye. Amongst the three martyrs was an old woman.
“Sadeem, Sarah died, Sarah died,” he suddenly cried. “What I would say to her mother? What can happen to her?”
I was extremely shocked when I realized that the mother hadn’t known yet. “Haven’t you contacted the family?” I asked,
“No. I couldn’t”, he replied desperately
“Don’t you have a mobile?” I argued
“Yes” but look, where is the network???
It was 10:20 pm now. Time is so slow when you are waiting
“I have to bring her mother,” said Basim.
“I do not know what to say," I replied. "Your car is badly damaged, and the way to your home is closed due to the massacre, and definitely I can't drive my car at night again. And above all, one of us has to remain here. Doctors may need something.”
“Well, I have to tell my wife I am here, because she will be sick worried and curfew will start in less than an hour,” he said fast.
I checked his car, and then he drove immediately before he ran out of petrol. He went; I was not sure if he would manage to come back.
The time now was just about 10:25 pm. I walked back to the corridor, passing through the emergency ward accompanied by my friend. There, we saw many tragedies; Oh my God so many people, young and old, of both sexes, were rendered disabled, dead bodies here and there, wounded persons were groaning of pain, families and relatives were crying – what a scene? I was then familiarized with such sights as the emergency ward was overcrowded with other corpses. All those were one-day victims of the American occupation forces in Baghdad alone and in one hospital only.
At the far end of the operation ward, I found my mother who followed us later waiting for me with an eager look. Before I utter any word, the door was opened and the doctor came out to tell me the good news, “She will survive,” he said with a smile. He handed me her medical report, while my friend rushed to carry Zahra back to her blood-spotted bed. My mother tried to ask for some clean sheets, but, the doctor’s blaming look stopped her. Then he asked us to take the little girl to the third floor. I asked my friend to go to the ground floor to await the child's father, while my mother and I would stay by the bed of the child.
The clock on the wall ticked 11 pm, when Basim entered with his wife; she seemed like a woman that I had never seen before, indeed what is left of a human being due to such worries!!!! .”
When she arrived, calmness prevailed in the room where there were four families I have already told them about the whole situation. Basim looked at me. I understood he hadn't told his wife about the real condition of Zahra or about the death of Sarah
Dear Abdul, Just imagine my stance while I was with them. Basim started to shake. He was worried to death that the mother would ask about Sarah. His wife was leaning over the bed, watching her little girl with open frightened eyes and holding her little hand with trembling fingers. Just less than 15 minutes before she turned her face towards me and asked, "Where is Sarah?" Her husband looked at me, when I hastily replied that Sarah was taken to the Yarmouk Public Hospital. I had to lie. The mother fainted, so we took her out...
A few minutes later, she recovered. During then, Basim was contacting his family after the mobile came back to life once again. We went back to the room of Zahra. At the door, she stopped, "Sadeem, please, tell me the truth, has Sarah died?" she said in a weak sad voice. “Don't fear, I sent her in an ambulance with one of my doctor friends and one of the relatives will be there to look after her,” I said. “The x-ray machine in this hospital is not working, so I had to send her to another hospital,” I added in confidence. She examined me with a suspicious long gaze. I felt she was not convinced; a mother’s heart can foresee. However, there was still a flicker of hope that stopped her from further questions. She left me and entered the room. And I joined her a few minutes later. She was watching her baby who began to recover after the operation. Basim was standing behind her. He was crying silently. It's so painful feeling that you are not living a true life but watching a tragic movie.I asked Basim to leave the room, and I followed him after few seconds. At the far end of the corridor, I found him standing. His posture was somehow strange; he seemed like a man who just began to recover from a trance.
“Oh my God, where is Sarah? Where did she go? She is the one who opens the door for me everyday, oh God, oh God,” he started to mumble.
Though he was sometimes calm, the fits were hitting him once and again. He hardly regained his balance and started his way to the room. We watched Zahra mumbling in a weak tired voice ‘Sarah! Sarah!” then she closed her half open eyes. Hopefully, she began to sleep. Few moments of silence passed quietly. Then in a sudden move, Siham, the mother, jumped to her feet and went towards me. With a strange stream of begging words and tears she began to plead, “Please take me to my daughter Sarah, you told me she is at the Yarmuk Hospital, tell me what happened to her. Was she hurt much? Take me to her. I want to see her. Who would look after her? I want to be with her”
I tried to ease my throat and said awkwardly, “I have told you. I mean there is a curfew now because it is 1 a.m and nobody is allowed to walk or drive any where".
Everything was flashing like hell in my head, what would happen if she knew the truth?
I stayed with them until 3 a.m after providing the needed medication, food and bottles of blood. I went back home and tried in vain to sleep. For sometime; it was pointless, once I closed my eyes, I was dreaming of hospitals, the dead girl (Sarah) and the wounded people.
With the day break, I went to the hospital. There was the big tragedy that every one knew of the truth that Sarah was dead. The father, Basim took the body of his beloved Sarah to Al-Najaf to have her buried and Zahra pulled back to be alive again. Sarah is now resting in peace.
Basim was a Col. Engineer in the army but after the occupation, he was out of work. Now, to the big irony to tell you about what the American army investigator at Al-Tajee headquarter said. "After a thorough interrogation, it was clear that the civil car was stuck between two American convoys, where the back convoy felt intimidated and had to comb the area by firing the civilian car”
Dear Abdul, Neither I nor you- or any body else- can imagine or describe the expression on Basim's face when the American officer finally said to him, “Why you make such a fu... fuss? You lost only one daughter."!!
I threw myself on the bed. A mixture of sadness, anger and revolt was storming my heart and soul. When I wake up, the letter was still in my hand. I looked at it and decided to go to the editor-in-chief and say to him," Here is the true story you are looking for. Do you have the courage to publish it? Or you are forbidden to let your people know the truth!
The story based on a letter sent to an Iraqi site about a true accident. Names of persons and places are true.
Retold by ainjim an Iraqi journalist