Fragments

 

Today will be the last day of my daughter’s life. I know what you’re thinking: it's only fiction, and here comes the part where he says all the clichéd things about her – about her eyes, her soft hair, how I love her so, how I would do anything to protect her. But you see, I can’t, because I don’t know she is going to die. Life is like that, you see, and if you think it’s not you’re sorely mistaken.

            We are in the park and she is on the miniature Ferris wheel. I can see her little beaming face as she circles slowly in the faded green compartment, on her own, her Baba down below her waving, her mother in the house preparing lunch, Uncle Ashram at the Mosque, and Abed at home practising his readings, biting his nails down to the quick when not absorbed in his religious concentration.

            ‘Sufi!’ I yell. ‘I love you!’

            ‘Baba!’ she says. ‘Baba! Look how high I am!’

            ‘Don’t be scared,’ I say. ‘Don’t be scared, Baba is right here, and you can go as high –’

***

It is night time and I am in bed. Baba shouted at me earlier for not brushing my teeth, and he stood beside me whilst I said my prayers; he tucked me in, kissing me on the forehead, telling me that Gabriel would one day keep me beneath his wings, then he tickled me until I begged him through tears of laughter to stop. I am lying in bed and the lamp is on in the corner, shining light on the paper butterflies and bees on the wall. I turn out the light and go to the window, looking at the stars. They are bright, but not very clear, as Mr Hahmat, next door, has left his pantry light on and it brightens my window in its fuzzy half-light.

            I hear a strange noise and look upwards, shapes seeming to rush like dark angels through the night, and then in the distance I see a bright illumination. It is beautiful and big, like the bonfire that Uncle Ashram made last year when we cooked the lamb after Ramadan. Suddenly I see more lights on the horizon, big balls of colour engulfing the sky. I can hear loud noises and I am scared.

            ‘Baba!’ I yell. ‘Baba!’

            ‘Sufi!’ my Baba calls from downstairs. ‘Baba is coming, get down on the floor!’

            I get down on the floor to hide beneath my bed. I think maybe Allah is angry. I hope it is not because I said my prayers wrong. ‘Baba!’ I scream, and then a bright-hot light explodes outwards like a sun outside the window and I’m –

***

It is March 20th and Rageh Omaar, our Iraq Correspondent, now reports live from Baghdad, a day after Operation Shock and Awe and the bombing of Baghdad was begun by the American Coalition. Rageh, what’s it like where you are?

Well, all is panic and confusion. Where I’m standing the streets are littered with rubble. This used to be a market, but now it’s barely recognisable as anything more than a pile of scorched bricks. Fathers and mothers search desperately for their children amongst the chaos, and over here there is a memorial for a local family whose several children all died in the explosion.

               Fathers show me pictures of their children in desperation, thinking that a non-Iraqi face might be able to help them find their missing family members, but there is very little hope here, and there is little that can be done to help the situation. People are just trying their best to pull together in this desperate hour in searching for their loved ones, but the hospitals are full and the wounded are dying out here in the streets.

            I watched earlier as Coalition troops arrived, the children stood stock still, some waving American flags, some merely terrified or confused. A few adolescents pelted the tanks with stones and bricks but quickly dispersed when more and more troops filled the streets, any opposition encountered easily frightened off with this display of militaristic power.

And Rageh, what’s the situation been like for the past few months?

Well, life has continued as normal. People still live in poverty and obscurity. The middle classes try to keep up their businesses and read American and British magazines and journals; the poor still try to maintain their everyday necessities – electricity, fresh water, heating. But to me it has been like a dream. Most sit in the coffee houses, praising Bush, discussing what will become of Saddam Hussein and his various ministries. To them it's just something to discuss, apart from the tedium and pain of everyday life.

               Since the UN Security Council blockade and sanctions began in 1991, Iraqis have been suffering almost constantly. I’ve asked many Iraqis what they think the occupation will bring, whether it will be a success, but most of them have severe doubts. After the last ten years of despair and disappointment, from what I can gather most of them think that –

***

My father once told me that when a child dies, their young life does not flash before their eyes. They do not see the past, living in their most joyful moment for all time; they see the future, full of pain and misery and the terrible things yet to come. He told me that this is their punishment for the sins of man. But I pray, mighty Allah, protector of all that ever was and will be, redeemer of lost souls, please guide my daughter, my Sufi. Please protect her from such visions. Redeem her, lift her, and show her only the olive branch, the white dove, the tranquil waters of the river Jordan. Allah, cradle her in her hour of need; show her only your everlasting mercy and enduring love. And tell her that her father loves her, that her Baba shall not have let her death be in vain.

            Please, Allah, let her death not have been –