*I dedicate this short story to my dear friend Basant Patra*
It was his eleventh birthday yesterday so his mother gave him an extra bowl of soup which he accepted with great delight. He knew he could not ask for cake or candles not to make her look sad and helpless. His whole life was a miracle of survival, even though he had the size of a seven year old. His mother explained that during the years of the sanctions when milk or medicine were rationed or hard to find, she had to give Jawad half the food he needed to grow up. Even that was a miracle, as the corpses of two thousand children were piled each day outside the morgues. “We think the price is worth it”, explained the American Secretary of State.
Jawad loved making little toys from trash and selling them to the neighborhood kids. This was a whole world for him where he could get lost and not even hear the shells and bullets which continue even to this day, not unusual for him as he had spent most of his life under the occupation of some strange people who looked like giants carrying machine guns bigger than him. He called them “jimmies”. When I asked why he said: “When they came to my house and took my father away after covering his head with a hood and tying his wrists, one of the giants gave me some candy and said: ‘I am Jimmy, how are you?’, so I thought that is what they called themselves on their planet”.
One day Jawad found an old car tire that had landed on the corner of his alley. While others ignored it he was jumping of joy like a frog who had found a pond. He started wondering what he could design for his new project. He spent days digging in piles of trash to see what pieces he could put together to create the best toy he had ever made. His hands were tied since he only had a hammer and a screw driver. But he dreamed of the impossible, as he never had a bicycle. Finally, with a few other pieces and a smaller wheel for the front, he put together his first model. Then he challenged the neighborhood kids to ride it while he ran by the side in a race. He already had a reputation as the best runner around, and never missed a chance to show it off while he laughed and boasted of his name, which means stallion in Arabic.
It had been five years since his father had vanished with the “jimmies”. Every time they tried to find out where he was taken or whether he was dead or alive, they received the same answer: “We will find out and let you know.” Of course, they knew this was the standard answer to everyone who missed one or more members of their family, and they were still waiting and hoping that those who promised liberty and democracy would either come up with charges and have a trial or release the wrongly accused.
Every time Jawad’s mother applied for help from the Red Crescent or any charity agency, she came back empty handed, since they told her she had no proof that Jawad’s father was dead so he would not qualify for any help. She is a strong woman and she has seen more tragic days than her wrinkles, but with few hours of power a day, walking two blocks to get fresh water and living next to an open sewer during nine months of heat each year was becoming harder to bear.
“What did we do, why are they here, what do they want from us?” she keeps saying, without waiting for an answer as no one could give her a satisfying one. Then Jawad answers: “Mama, I told you they want our oil”. And she says: “Let them take it all and leave us alone! Why did Allah not give us more dates instead? Then no one would have cared to invade us! Everything is destroyed and no one is building! What more can they do to us?” So it goes on and on day after day and without any hope or even hope for hope.
Jawad had been a miracle child even before his birth. Just two days before, in the next street now called “Missile Street”, a satellite-guided cruise missile had landed on the whole block killing 17 civilians, four of them small children playing in the streets. One of the children was his six year old cousin Haidar. That morning his mother did not feel well and had decided not to join her sister for coffee as she always did.
“You want to see his picture?” Jawad asked, “come with me, I have to buy some cigarettes”. We walked a few blocks and stopped at a booth where an old man was selling cigarettes. He had a picture of a young boy with curly brown hair hanging from his wall. Jawad said, “that is Haidar, his son, he would have been seventeen now”. The old man looked at the ground and did not even lift his head up for his customers or greet them. It seemed like he had dropped a coin and was looking for it for the past several years. The son, the crown, the heir of the family, the pillar of his parents when they got old, the pride and joy of the grandchildren he hoped to have, was gone forever in a second.
“You see the big river there?” Jawad pointed to Tigris: “Before ‘the jimmies’ came, my dad put me on his shoulders and took me to the bridge so we could watch the swimmers. It was so deep even the big boys could not stand in it on their feet. There were no islands there. Now look at that little boy standing with the water reaching halfway to his waist.” The river was full of sand and trash, yet it was the only safe place for these boys to play and cool down.
Tigris, the river which was the jewel of countless poems over the centuries, the river which came out of the Garden of Eden according to the Book of Genesis, was turning to a shallow lake. Mesopotamia, “the land between the two rivers”, the cradle of human civilization, was turning into a dustbowl. Most of the water from the rivers does not even enter Iraq anymore because of dams built in the surrounding countries. A whole nation blessed with water and oil is dying after being crippled with wars and sanctions. The “cradle” cannot even feed itself anymore and has to import most of its food. Long lines of cars wait for hours at the gas pumps. Electricity and other vital resources are more scarce than ever. This was “Mission Accomplished” as the big ‘jimmy’ boasted!
Saddam, the former CIA errand boy, who installed himself in power by shooting everyone on the list provided to him by his boss, had never brought his people to such misery in the three decades of wars and being a brutal dictator. Like Hitler, he made sure everything was in complete order or else! He built his palaces but he also built universities. He built his army but he also built highways and bridges. One lived a pretty good life under Saddam, as long as he kept his mouth shut!
I asked Umm Jawad (mother of Jawad) why she does not move to Syria for a better or at least safer life. She said her cousin told her it was very bad there. When her husband who was a goldsmith was killed last year, the rest of the family fled to Jaramana, a growing Iraqi refugee enclave in Damascus.
“There is no bathroom door, no hot water, no furniture, no heat and no privacy” she said, but her $150 a month apartment was all she could afford with the help of an Australian relative. “There are no jobs or government help of any kind. Seven people sleep and eat in the same room around an old television set.”
How does Jawad feel, I wondered, growing up in a country where everyone below the age of thirty has seen nothing but war? We sat down in a coffee shop on Palestine Street.
“What about school, Jawad?”
“I quit school when teachers began demanding money from parents for teaching their students. Work is better," he said, through rotting teeth." As long as I know how to read and write, that's all I need."
It is said that human beings like animals can adapt to almost anything. Some die, some suffer, some even grow stronger. But the secret of human existence for over a million years, is the ability to adapt. Five and a half million years ago even the Mediterranean Sea was dry. Yet not far from its coast, in Northern Africa, the hominids or ape-men, survived to become our ancestors. A little malnourished boy who had to turn to an adult almost suddenly, has never lost the will to live, and perhaps more importantly, the will to wonder at everything.
I wanted to catch his big beautiful brown eyes for a few seconds to look inside this boy’s soul, but it seemed like he was developing the same habit as his uncle, searching the dusty black-and-white tiled floor of the coffee shop for some clues and answers which he knew could not be there. Yet, how can anyone live with many demanding questions drowning his mind with constant noise like the traffic in front of us, but not have even one answer to explain anything? I wondered if he still remembered the thrill of surveying his kingdom like a little prince from his dad’s shoulders, when everyone in the world was below him waiting for his command. Did he miss his dad? No! I cannot, I will not ask him! This powerful yet fragile soul had seen enough cruelty without me adding salt to his wounds!
Before the victors of the First World War divided their spoils among each other and created countries by cutting up the desert along their pencil lines, Jawad’s land stretched from the two rivers all the way to the Sinai. Many kingdoms had come and gone over the centuries, but the Bedouins, his ancestors and now relatives, never changed their lives. They are nomadic people who herd their sheep from one well to another after it dries up. They are known for their hospitality and generosity to the point of giving shelter to anyone who asked for it, and would fight to death rather than giving him up to his enemies. They are survivors of the toughest life one can imagine. Little escapes them in a desert which is as wide as the eye can see and with few signs to navigate. They use the stars by night and familiar landmarks by day. They wear the proper clothing to retard the loss of moisture and reflect the burning rays of the sun. When he lifts his eyes and gazes at the horizon for a long time, Jawad looks exactly like a Bedouin who could see almost anything no matter how far it was.
Indeed, the strength of man has nothing to do with how many and how big his weapons are. It has to do with endurance and perseverance. Jawad knows like his people that few things can withstand the power of time. A few decades of occupation is like a minute in history. The occupier who does not and will never belong there will eventually leave. The desert is full of corpses of those who chose cruelty over kindness and war over peace. While the Bedouin continues his peaceful life, the tanks will rust and turn to homes for lizards and scorpions.
“I must find a real job”, Jawad says, ‘like my friends. They work six days a week but could bring $10 or more. I can also smile and look happy so the “jimmies” would pay me to take some pictures.” His tough-guy demeanor drops like a curtain for an instant and shows the deep sorrow of a childhood which seems lost forever. Then in a low voice he says, “but my other friends who are in school are more happy, they can play soccer and count money”.
Where are all the men in this city? An army of child laborers quietly say goodbye, every morning, to the childhood that slowly disappears and will never come back. Yet they will always remain little like cubs rejected by their mothers, an army of little children who could never be children. Can anyone hear them? Only those who can hear the two rivers which are dying day by day, drop by drop.
