Baghdad Fixer Read Online Free PDF Page B

direction of an empty chair.
     
    But what to do with this woman? This Sam, who does not belong in this room full of men but will not manage with the women, because she won’t find anyone there who can speak English.
     
    Sam smiles uncomfortably, apparently noticing that there are no other women in the room. She holds up a large basket of food, what appears to be fruit and vegetables and canned goods, plus boxes of biscuits and chocolates. “This is something for your family from the three of us. We are so sorry for your loss. We wanted to thank you for your help yesterday.”
     
    At another time, this gift could have been awkward. Neither Noor’s family nor mine is poor, Al-Hamdulilah. Thank God. We are not the type of people who have to go to the UN offices in search of handouts. But since the war started, it’s been getting more dangerous to go out for food. These days, there isn’t a family who would not appreciate such a delivery.
     
    Noor’s grandfather picks up the carved cane at his side and thumps it on the floor. He looks ancient and wears a black sheikh’s robe, even though I’m sure he’s not a sheikh. He repeatedly clears his throat with great effort, and I can see his fleshy throat flapping as he grumbles to the man next to him. “Nabil,” Baba says. “Perhaps you should tell your new friend to bring the gift to Noor’s mother in the next room.”
     
    My new friend. In the feminine form, because in Arabic we have no choice but to distinguish male friends and female friends. What could sound worse? I stand with my eyes on the floor. “Come, please,” I say in English.
     
    “Nabil,” Baba repeats my name, as if I’m a small boy who’s just learning his manners. “Why don’t you first tell them who she is.” I introduce her to the room full of men, Noor’s relatives, other men who are friends of the family or who have come from the neighbourhood. When I say her name, without realizing, I pronounce it like the city in our country, Samarra, with a shadda on the r, which acts like the damper pedal on a piano. Even though this is different from the way I’ve heard Sam pronounce her name, I can already feel that this is a good thing, and that maybe I have even done it deliberately. They’ll say, oh, yes, Samarra, beautiful name, good Sunni tribes there. Maybe they’ll behave like she isn’t a foreigner and an occupier after all, isn’t a brash American woman who can’t speak a word of Arabic who has rudely dropped in on a house of mourning.
     
    “Salaam aleikum ,” she says to them, pronouncing the greeting perfectly.
     
    “W-aleikum is-salaam ,” they answer and nod. The older men look away, but the young cousins stare as if a film star has arrived. I take the heavy basket from her and gesture for her to come with me to the women’s room, as if she would not have already known where it was from the weeping.
     
    I lead the way into the corridor and turn right to bring her to Noor’s mother, wondering what on earth the women are going to think of me for bringing an attractive American woman into the house of mourning. Sam touches my elbow, and it makes all the muscles in my back lock.
     
    “Sorry, Nabil, I won’t stay long,” she whispers. “I hope it was okay for me to come. I need to talk to you.” I turn back to her with my mouth open, but no words come out.
     
    Aunts and sisters and girlfriends fall silent and gaze at me with confusion when I enter with the big basket in my arms and this Sam standing next to me. A little girl of four or five points with a chubby finger. “Like my Ginny doll!” she says, and they start to laugh a bit, and note that it’s true, this woman looks a bit like a bootleg Barbie women buy for their girls. Sam smiles with them but I can tell she doesn’t know why. I explain that Sam is a foreign journalist who was at the hospital last night looking for a friend while we were praying for Noor, and that Sam prayed for her too, and that she