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The American Girl
A Tired Awakening
We left Amman in the middle of the night in an old white Suburban. The jet lag and late night awakening further deepened my dream-like state. We piled our things into the car and began the 1,000-mile trip to Baghdad.
Hundreds of people filled the little buildings patched on the Jordan-Iraq border. Some had been there for days, some weeks, in hopes of getting a visa to enter Jordan or Libya, the only two countries that allowed Iraqi passport holders in.
With every mile, every turn of the tires, I grew quieter.
“Airplanes once flew the skies of Iraq before the Baghdad airport was shut down,” my uncle said solemnly. “Before America shut down our nation and starved us from sanity.”
My elder brother grabbed a cigarette from my uncle. “I am planning to tell dad we should all move here soon.”
I objected. “Ali we are going back in a few weeks, Dad said. You can stay here, but I am going back.”
He laughed and ignored me. “You know nothing, Sara.” The steadiness in his voice and the vein that protruded from his forehead quickly silenced me.
"There is Baghdad." The driver pointed ahead. I saw the phantom city which was barely visible, its colorless buildings blended with the desert sand below, and grayish cloud above.
Not quite smoke, not quite dust, not quite humidity, but a blur, a haze, that had the smell of Baghdad.
A faintly burnt aroma and earthy spice that pervades the land. Baghdad in the morning, slowly waking from its slumber but still living the nightmare of its reality.
Symbols of state tyranny and oppression over the last 30 years grossly jutted out of the ground, disfiguring the natural beauty. The clock tower. The communications needle. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The ministries. The Grand Mosque. The green canopy of the national fairgrounds and monuments.
I sat in the back seat, staring at the uncle I had met just hours before.
Ali was possessed by the image of the post-war city and the scarred structures scattered across it. Between the ages of 14 and 15, he had transformed from a junior high jock into a revolutionary. He seemed in search of a depth he could not find on the clipped grass of the soccer field or the glossy lips of his cheerleader girlfriend.
I rolled down my window hoping it was the dirty glass had caused the city to appear as it did. But there it was, faded and murky. Traces of diesel and oil blew into my white face. The main highway took us past the governmental areas, but I watched the other side of the road.
The streets were lined with billboards of Iraq’s President, Saddam Hussein. Him praying. Him shooting. Him holding an Iraqi flag. Him waving in a tuxedo. Him in sunglasses. Him waving with sunglasses on. All frozen gestures. Him frozen.
We passed complexes of apartment buildings, made in 80’s Russian arabesque geometric design. They had the potential to look like buildings from back home. Half the windows lacked glass. Laundry hung from every third balcony. The walls were stained black and brown. There must have been twenty or thirty of them, arranged in perfect symmetry, labeled with huge numbers on the front. A grand design, failed like everything else here.
My uncle pointed out Michel Aflaq’s tomb off the highway, next to the decrepit remains of an Abbasid wall and gate to the old city. Both were sitting off the highway in a field, alone. Testaments to the history of this land, with no one to admire them. The walls and gate, free- standing and still intact, seemingly waiting for some recognition of their past beauty and grandeur before they crumbled into nothingness. Jealous perhaps, that in the West the mere suggestion of an ancient structure marks the site as hallowed ground. The tomb with its turquoise top, strangely free of dirt, gleaming in the sun. A dusted tree, a dry, dead tree framed the picture. Iraq. Tired. Dirty. Dusty. Too exhausted and traumatized to swat the flies that buzz around the corners of its eyes and mouth. Too tired to rain and clean away the filth that has accumulated in its streets, on its buildings, in its trees, and in the hearts of its people.
Exiting the highway we came to the Sha’ra Rashid. I picked my way around potholes and crumbling asphalt, reaching the sidewalk as I followed my uncle’s silent lead through the unknown crowd, past the soot-blackened, rusty aluminum gates and the half-open doors of the shuttered shops.
Water hoses and rubber mops pushed grime towards the street. The men stood in their plastic slippers, waiting for us to walk by before they renewed their attempts to clean their little corner of Baghdad. A neon sign marked the coffee shop with its large glass windows. The floor was yellowed Formica tile, which made a high-pitched scratching sound as pebbles ground between it and the soles of my shoes. There was a TV mounted on the wall in the far corner of the room. Plastic chairs surrounded flimsy plastic tables covered with vinyl tablecloths. A fan slowly turned, making the fluorescent light above it pulse. I sat quietly with my uncle and two brothers.
The Letter
Ali stood over me in the late hours of the night.
“You need to be like your cousins…,” he said harshly.
I sat quietly by the cupboard where I kept all my dolls, books and memories safe. I rested my back against the cupboard doors so my dolls could not hear the yelling. Underneath my shirt where it was safe, I hid a black and white picture of my parents. “Shhh, you are safe,” I whispered to them, “We are protecting you.”
“Dad would be ashamed of you. And you think you could go back to America? You will turn into a slut. Like all the other girls there…”
His beard had grown in the months we’d been here.
And my other brother’s belly had grown. My seven aunts overfed him. Many nights he would leave me and stay at their houses. Like tonight. I was not much noticed by them. I did not eat much and maybe they did not like that.
“Or are you already a slut?” he asked.
The two daughters of my uncle did not like me much either. They would rearrange my cupboard the times I left it and stare at me as I ate meat with a fork and knife or when I tried to hug my uncle. And recently I found the sunflower dress my mom bought me covered with black marker stains.
“You are an empty girl…” he continued.
My plastic dolls were safe from him. He could not get to them. I covered the little opening between the cupboard’s two doors.
I whispered to them again, “Go to sleep. It is bed time.”
Ali had yelled himself tired, I supposed. He'd fallen asleep at the edge of the bed.
The depth of darkness in my black bedroom seemed to be never ending. I knew the clothes hanging on the line above my body were bright with puzzle-like patterns because I had seen them in the light. But the fabrics had fallen into a puncture of darkness which did not seem to end. No color. No patterns. Just black.
But outside my window was a glossy pattern of stars. Stars fighting the same blackness. The stars could see me and my parents at the same time. They could connect us. The thought made me feel safe for a moment.
I snuck beneath the lines of drying laundry and past my uncle watching an old Arabic movie.
I tiptoed to the only room with a lock, the bathroom. It was my favorite room in the house. Under my arm and ragged hair, I held a sheet of stickers and stationery my dad had bought for me. I placed the pink paper on the cold tile floor and wrote in my best cursive hand writing:
Dear Dad,
I know this is sort of funny but I just realized that I really want to go and live in America. I am crying right now. First thing is my friends. I promised! Them I was going to come back to America. I also can not leave my language I love it so much and I understand quite well. 3. My energy I use to have is leaving (I could even see it right now) I have nobody at all to play with and I am going the same thing day after day eating fatty foods (no fruits) and sleeping or sitting. I used to have energy and I loved very much because I don’t have friends to play with and speak the same language to have energy to exersize and play with them, and to go to school learn with my friends, exersize, speak the same language, play with energy and have a cat. I loved you and made me happy. I am not really happy. I was always pretending here. I was bored, sad, unhappy and of course lonely. There is lots and lots of bad boys and vilence in Iraq. Here is lots of vilence like raping, killing, and blowing up things. My heart is gone every minute. I think of American and start crying in tears. I love you a lot and I wish I could know how you are doing, but I have to go and I just want you to know you were ALWAYS there for me just when I didn’t want to admit it because I thought I was muture of doing things. But I was wrong I just realized I don’t want to GROW. I love you a lot I always thought parents were supposed to take are of us only. I thought that a half a year ago and now I have to go not forever, but long enough to make my heart BREAK.
Your daughter, Best friend
P.S. I will always be with you in AMERICA.
I finished by drawing flowers around the letter. I did the circles of each flower first then I put half circles around each big circle. I tried to do it as perfectly as I could but the rough floor made the flowers look bumpy.
I laid my body onto the cool tiles, looking up at the ceiling covered in rusty stains and mildew. Waiting for the hours to pass. My hair had begun to dry from the Iraqi-made shampoo and dirty water. I hoped my mom would not get upset at me for not taking better care of it.
Suddenly, the mosques’ speakers echoed off the walls of the houses. Allahu Akbar (God is the Greatest), a call to the sunrise prayer. The window in the bathroom was slightly open and I could see men gathering for prayer in the lightening shade of the night. I watched bands of blue, purple and red crack through the black night sky. The adhan reverberated from a hundred mosque towers. The call comforted me. It meant another night had passed.
I felt sure that today I would finally get a letter from California, from my mom or dad. I had written them 20 letters now, made them very pretty and sent them. I had to wait for my uncle to bring the mail home. He would put it on the only nice piece of furniture in the house, a wooden hallway table encrusted with golden and rose veins.
It had been forty days since the last letter I got. Forty. But today was special. I was turning nine, so I waited.
I waited.
But no. No letter came that day.
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