Page 1
The Forbidden Areas,
by Kusay Hussein, with Sue Reid Sexton
Nobody would have believed me if I'd told them I was spending my military service in a luxury resort; nobody at all, especially my old comrades in arms.
The blue of Al-Tharthar Lake seemed to be darker than the Tigris River or the Euphrates which both link to it. It was almost like a sea but in the middle of the desert. The amber hills surrounded it like they still did not accept the new visitor; they couldn't cope with the fact that there was water near them, in their sight, as there was no sign of green at all. It was the second time I had seen that lake. The first time was more than 20 years earlier in an atlas in a geography lesson.
I filled my chest with the lake-fresh air which was blowing towards me. Two hours ago, in the early morning in Baghdad, I couldn't have done that. The weather is different in Baghdad; it seemed that the sun had lost its ability to burn there. I looked around; the view was enchanting. The hill I was standing on was divided by a small artificial river which branched from the lake. There was a small building, probably a guest house, down the hill on one side of the river. There were also five other buildings of a similar design spread on top of the hills on both sides of it. I remembered another river which was parallel to the road used by the jeep which brought me here. They call it the Tigris Arm and it may be the same small river which branches off from there.
I closed my eyes and forgot everything about my current military service and the pain which was in all the muscles of my body but especially in my right thigh where there were still three pieces of shrapnel left from my last military service in the north war in 1974. I imagined myself as one of the seagulls flying away over the lake where there was nothing but blue to surround me in all directions.
'Are you the new pipefitter?' A voice came from behind.
I turned round with an automatic answer: 'Yes. '
There was no comparison between my military suit and his. Mine was an ugly, un-ironed pale green one, usually used for the ordinary Iraqi soldiers. His was the well-designed, ironed, dark green suit usually worn by high military ranks and special troops. In my current service I had learned a new fact which didn't exist in my last one which was that I must be careful of people in such suits; sometimes they are more than just high ranking. The man was very young and too short to be one of Saddams special guards, but that was what he was.
I walked towards him after he gestured to me. He was too slim and his beret was lower than my shoulder by about a foot. I shouldn't have been surprised. I thought, This is the normal situation nowadays: the wrong man in the wrong place.
'Why are you still wearing a military suit?' he said. 'You should wear your work boiler suit.'
'Nobody gave me one,' I said.
'I think I can get you a temporary one,' he said, 'but let's go to the tool store first.'
It's another unbelievable advantage, being away a little bit from the humiliation, the feelings of slavery in which we are all submerged in the name of flag service, the other name for military service.
I remembered that moment two weeks earlier when we were standing in a long line waiting to receive our placement letters which would send us all to various combat units in the brigades that either belong to the seventh corps or support it, except me of course. The seventh corps was at the front line engaged in a running battle against the Iranian army which had been occupying Al-Faw city, south of Basra, for two months. The soldiers facial expressions suggested they were receiving their death certificates.
It was only me who survived, maybe because I knew how to follow that new common rule: the wrong person in the wrong position.
I looked very funny in the blue jump suit, I guess. It wasn't my size, too small, but even so I felt calmed and soothed, because of the non-military colour, like a flying seagull.
I was following Saddam's special guard, carrying the tools, when he asked me, without turning back, 'How long have you been in this job?'
'Since childhood,' I said.
To lie in such a situation is more than normal, to prevent others from putting their noses into other people's business. I wouldn't be in such a place
Continued ...
Copyright © Kusay Hussein with Sue Reid Sexton 2010
Page 2
The Forbidden Areas, page 2/6
... without their completing an accurate security information request. They must know everything, not just my real job as a chemistry teacher.
'You need to be an expert here more than in any other place,' he said. 'Any mistake will cost you so much more than you expect, get it? '
'Yes,' I said. 'Thank you for this advice.'
'Which uncles are you from?' he said, meaning which tribe do you belong to?
Now, this is a normal field security question for which I was well-prepared. 'Shammar,I said.
To say Shammar is like throwing a defensive smoke grenade in your enemys face. In other words Shammar is one of the huge tribes which are spread all over the country. It includes many smaller tribes, some of them Sunni, others Shi-ite.
'Which part of Shammar?' he said.
'Shammar, Al-Jarba.' I gave him the Sunni part of my tribe. 'And you? '
Then he turned to me, looked directly into my face and said, 'Al-Baijat.'
I do not know why he was provoked by my question. Maybe he wasn't. It's just a stupid question because all the first line of Saddams guards must belong to Saddams own tribe.
When we returned to the same point on the hill he said, 'The maintenance order today is out of the guest house down there.' We started to go down by the long stone stairway. 'You must not leave your work area for any reason. Theoretically I can shoot you for this. '
When we reached the work site it was just a simple leakage from the main water pipe.
'Just this?' I said.
'Yes, for now,' he said. 'Finish your work and stay here till I come back.'
I sat cross-legged and checked the leak point of the pipe which was lying on the concrete ground. It was the joint. Then I untied it slightly, put on some sealing tape and tied it again. It was not a bad performance at all for a couple of weeks training.
The fresh air was blowing slightly harder than up the hill. I looked at the guest house which was empty as if it had been deserted. I reclined my back against one of the stones that covered the foot of the hill and looked at the static lake and running river behind the guest house. The river was heading south towards Baghdad where the colours turned less dark: more pale like the old soldier's faces heading to the battlefield for their unexpected second or maybe third military service, with no chance to say farewell to their families. On the opposite side of the road they might see the constant flow of coffins on car tops covered with the Iraqi flag, heading back to their families.
Why am I still not feeling good? I asked myself. I should be dying now of happiness. People are fighting and dying on the battlefield while I am saved. Maybe I was losing some of my ability to be happy as I got older, but I don't think so. It was something inside me that I still couldn't define. I had started to feel it recently. Something seemed to be hidden somewhere that I couldn't locate. I didnt expect to find a banned zone inside me after all.
I closed my eyes, trying to escape like a seagull from there, from everywhere, and from myself, but it was like crying to the moon; I was totally surrounded by my thoughts and memories.
///
I looked down at my black military boots. The pale grass around them was covered by a thin layer of snowy dew. The exercise ground of the military training centre was huge. We used only a small percentage of its area even though we were more than a thousand training soldiers distributed in groups of twenty-five. The boring morning presentation ceremony was the same that day as the last forty-five days of the essential training course. I had done it before in my last service just like many of the other old soldiers who were mandatorily joining this course prior to being sent to the battlefield. The attendance paper was travelling through many hands with the familiar, mechanical, military movements, from sergeants to higher ranks then to the head officer.
I glanced at my watch; it was 7:30. I was thinking: My kids will be having breakfast now before heading to school.
continued ...
Copyright © Kusay Hussein with Sue Reid Sexton 2010
Page 3
The Forbidden Areas, page 3/6
As usual, the morning exercises should have started by the time the head officer began to walk back to his luxury office at the end of the ceremony.
Captain Kamal, who was responsible for the fitness sessions, took the commanding position for the whole camp. He used to hit his red boots with his swagger stick while walking, like a shepherd in a flock of sheep. His eyes were always watching us thirstily, looking for some kind revenge, maybe because we had spent the last five years of the war wandering the streets of Baghdad in our civilian suits when we should have been there from the beginning.
I do not know why it was that day, and not one of the last forty-five, but his eyes pulled the trigger of some odd feelings which were hiding inside me. They attacked my soul like thousands of black knights coming out suddenly from the protection of their forts and occupying my soul, filling it with a strange anger and a feeling of hopelessness at the same time.
He stood in the middle of the groups, shouting the same ridiculous joke: 'Please, if there is anyone sick or who feels that he is not well, do not hesitate to tell me now. Please, is there any one sick? Here is Sergeant Saffah. He will take care of you.' Then he laughed loudly. Saffah was one of the training sergeants who was responsible for punishments. He was very talented at his job.
Then Captain Kamal shouted, 'All the sergeants: stand to one side. All groups: take off your upper clothes. '
Unlike other days and unlike other soldiers who started to take off their clothes slowly and reluctantly, I undressed quickly and without care for the shock of the cold weather.
Then he shouted again, 'All groups gather into one.'
Everyone ran to re-form a huge group in front of him and kept their hands gathered on their chests to avoid shocking their warm bodies. That was our tradition that we had learned there forty-five days before.
But this day I didn't follow it. I didn't care about some soldiers swearing at me for touching them with my cold hands. I was heading towards the Captain, but I couldn't get to him as many lines of the soldiers were in front of me.
When he gave the order, we started to run slowly together, our feet beating in the same rhythm. He was trying to show his excellent skills to the head officer who was already in his luxury room by then, eating his breakfast and watching the same show for forty-five days.
I started to run faster, passing the soldiers' lines one by one, until I reached the front. I kept looking directly into his eyes, but he didn't care.
He shouted, 'Somebody chant.'
Then I started to chant, but with an old one, deliberately not mentioning Saddams name.
- Up the hill.
- Down the hill.
- Ask for us.
- The wind will tell.
- Ask for us.
- The hill of fire.
- Ask and ask.
- In the valleys.
But I didn't say it all. I stuck at up the hill, down the hill.
After a while all the soldiers started to laugh.
He shouted, 'Silence! and looked at me with the sparks flying from his eyes. He couldn't do anything; the head officer was watching. Then he gave us an order to run fast to the end of the exercise ground and back. The last ten soldiers would be jailed.
We all run every day when he gives such an order, but not now, not at the end of training. I tried my best to run fast in order not to be one of the last ten soldiers. Im not afraid of punishment, but to be punished by a person such as him was the second worst thing that could occur in my life. The first one ...
Continued ...
Copyright © Kusay Hussein with Sue Reid Sexton 2010
Page 4
The Forbidden Areas, page 4/6
was the arm to arm combat in the last war. Suddenly I felt a huge pain while I was running back. Somebody hit me from behind on my injured leg. I fell down and rolled on the frozen grass, watching him run away like a bandit.
Then I stood up, my head was almost exploding with the pain. I walked slowly, trying not to limp. When I reached the group, I joined the last nine soldiers who were standing to one side. Captain Kamal headed towards us slowly, smiling, waving the stick. His eyes avoided my gaze. I didn't care about the soldiers glances towards me with their enquiring eyes. I was still looking directly into his eyes when he gave Sergeant Saffah the order to punish us then put us in jail.
Saffah means butcher. His name corresponded to his actions, as we all knew. He had given us the order to creep on the asphalt road, still half naked, as a first step of the punishment, when somebody called him. He left us for a few seconds. When he returned he said, 'You are so lucky. You have to return to the group. It time for your placement. It should have been tomorrow, but they came a little bit early. Ha ha! There must be a shortage of soldiers in the battlefield.'
We took our place on the grass beside the other soldiers who were squatting. The officers of the republic guard were the first arrivals. They took their share of us, but from the younger soldiers. Our number started to decrease after each visit of these officers. Captain Kamal was standing aside watching the whole process without any interference. Then a man with an elegant appearance arrived followed by two armed soldiers. The man was like a soldier without any rank on his shoulders so we all thought that he was no more than a well-dressed soldier. He stood in front of us without saluting the Captain and said, 'Who was working as a pipe ... ?
He was interrupted by the Captain, who was provoked. 'Identify yourself. Which combat unit do you belong to and where is your officer? '
The man without rank continued talking to us. 'Who was working as a pipefitter before?'
'Nobody will answer you until you identify yourself,' said the Captain.
The rankless man turned to the Captain, pointing to the main office and shouted loudly, 'I think that the idiots in the office should have told you who we are.' He turned to us with indifference, leaving the Captain frozen in shock as if he had stepped on a mine. 'Again, who was working as a pipefitter before?' he said.
The Captain walked towards him, his face taking on a miserable appearance. He whispered to the rankless man as if he was apologizing, then he took a piece of paper from his pocket, showed it to him and said out loudly, 'This is the roster for the pipefitters. I made a test for them.'
The rankless man took the paper from his hand, threw it away and said, 'No thanks. I only need one and I just chose him.'
The Captain turned towards us immediately. He saw just one hand raised, and it was mine.
///
I went with the rankless officer to the main office. He took my full name and other IDs and entered the office. When he came out he pointed to a window.
'Wait here,' he said. 'They will shout your name and give you your placement letter from this window in about ten minutes. This is our office address in Baghdad. You must show up there tomorrow morning. Cheer up! This is your lucky day. You were accepted even if you didnt do the necessary test.' Then he left.
I was thinking, There is no such thing as a lucky day if you are still wearing a green suit, when I saw the Captain walking quickly into the main office. I felt that he was trying to arrange some malignant thing against me. I wasn't wrong when I saw Saffah heading towards me.
'Are you an insane?' he said. 'You are like someone sleeping on the railway truck waiting for the train to trample and smash him. '
The window opened; a soldier waved to me. I walked towards him, he said, 'You will receive your letter tomorrow morning because you are jailed today. You must hand yourself over to the sergeant immediately. '
Continued ...
Copyright © Kusay Hussein with Sue Reid Sexton 2010
Page 5
The Forbidden Areas, page 5/6
I went with Saffah towards the jail. It was an odd feeling. I felt calm when I shouldn't be. It seemed that the black knights had gone back to where they came from.
'Saffah!' The Captain shouted from behind. The Sergeant turned towards the sound and saluted the Captain.
The Captain said to Saffah, 'I do not want him to get any rest in the jail. Start with your military punishment immediately and go on until the morning. I want him to be a remnant of a human being but without a scratch. I will give you one week's holiday as a reward. '
Then I turned towards him and looked into Captain Kamal's face with a big smile.
Other soldiers in the military training camp started to gather to watch me being punished. They started clapping, encouraging me to keep on and not to give up.
I looked at the parallel lines of the tall old eucalyptus trees. There was a line of them on each side of the road. They almost gathered at the top as if they were consoling one another; they are the mandatory witnesses for all that had happened in that camp for a long time.
///
The silence, the darkness was everywhere. I couldnt even see the trees or Saffah's ugly face where he was squatting a few yards in front of me while I sat in the irrigational channel partly submerged in its freezing water. I could hardly recognize his lips, only when he took a breath making the cigarette end glow in front of his mouth. It kept moving from his mouth to his hand for a long time.
He blew out his cigarette smoke and said, 'Do you know what the time is now, you bastard? Half past two. Do you know something? This is not courage; this is pure madness. He threw the end of his cigarette into the water beside me after he finished it and lit another one. 'Fuck the army,' he said, 'all the ranks, the red boots. Look what they make us do to ourselves.' Then I felt his hands pulling me from the channel. While he was covering me with his suit, he said, 'I think he won't come again. He must be in bed now. By the way, fuck you too! '
At that moment I remembered that I had forgotten to think about what my children were doing that day; I had forgotten them totally since the morning, when I decided to look into the Captains eyes.
///
I woke up from sleep and found myself lying on the pipe. There was somebody kicking me on my feet when I turned round and saw another well-dressed, rankless person.
'Is this your mothers house to sleep in?' he said. 'Who are you, you bastard?'
'I'm the new pipefitter,' I said. 'I finished my work order a long time ago, I guess. Nobody came for me and I was told not to leave my workplace for any reason.'
'And instead of shouting for someone you slept, idiot. Let me tell you something: you are in a huge trouble.' Then he stopped talking and touched his chin by his fingers tips, thinking. After a while he said, 'The rule here is clear: all the maintenance staff must leave the place two hours prior to the Sheikh's arrival.' (The Sheikh meant Saddam.) 'Any breach of such a rule will expose you to one of two certainties: either getting killed immediately or two to four weeks in a special punishment camp. Believe me the first option is much better than the second. I know it's somehow not your fault, but you will still be held responsible because nobody will own the courage to say, this is my fault. But I will try to help. The Sheikh is sitting in the front yard just now, so there is a good chance to walk away without being noticed. You have to follow me without looking in any direction except down. I will lead you out of here, but if anything happens, keep your mouth shut. I will talk on your behalf.'
Continued ...
Copyright © Kusay Hussein with Sue Reid Sexton 2010
Page 6
The Forbidden Areas, page 6/6
I followed him, looking at the concrete ground. When we heard a shout, the man froze. I bumped into him from behind.
'Come here!' It was Saddam himself who was shouting.
Then the man turned and whispered quickly in my ear, 'f you want to die, look into his eyes. '
He ran towards Saddam and saluted him with a huge stamp on the ground with his boot heel. He started to talk to him, but I couldn't hear anything.
Saddam was sitting about two yards from the riverbank, wearing a white T shirt, white shorts and a white cowboy hat, and smoking a Cuban cigar. There were three armed guards standing behind him, looking all around. Then their faces turned towards me.
The man returned to me, dragged me by the arm and put me in front of Saddam, then left.
Thoughts crowded into my head at that moment. I remembered my childhood, my kids' faces, the soldier's faces when receiving their death letters. The slow drops leaking from the pipe. The red boots, swagger stick, the darkness of the green suit. I felt my soul was full of blackness.
I glanced at him. He was smoking slowly and looking into the clear ripples of the river. Then he suddenly turned to me as if he had remembered something. He repeated this two or three times.
At that moment there was one thought which invaded my head suddenly and started to hammer my head. Something made all the last memories fade and disappear. Something louder than drum beats came, which was to attack him with my naked hands and save the country from his evil. But I kept still, frozen, while he watched the river currents moving towards Baghdad, one by one, soul by soul. At that moment I stood naked in front of myself without any excuses. I discovered how cowardly I was. I felt a great shame, that I did not deserve the air that I'm breathing now. I told myself: 'Yes, I do not deserve life. I have to look into his eyes now. This is the least punishment for someone like me.'
Like a mule throwing itself from a mountain to put an end to its miserable life, I raised my face, started to look towards his eyes. When he turned to me for the fourth time, he found that I was looking at him with fully opened eyes directly towards his own. He stopped turning so that he could watch the dancing fishes in the clear water.
'Where are you from?' he asked me.
'Alexandria,' south of Baghdad,' I said.
'Sit down,' he said.
Then he pointed his finger towards his guards without turning his face and said, 'Bring him something.'
In less than a couple of minutes I saw a meal of a grilled fish in front of me on the concrete ground. 'Eat,' he said.
He was watching me all the time like he had nothing to do, like a cat enjoys watching her own mouse. When I finished, he ordered his guards to take me away.
///
After one week, I received an annual salary as a reward for some reason, I still really do not know why, and a yellow badge. My picture, name and rank was printed on one side. When I turned it over I found one sentence:
'This person is allowed to move and carry weapons in all forbidden areas.'
The End
Copyright © Kusay Hussein with Sue Reid Sexton 2010