Between Two Worlds Read Online Free PDF

nine-year-old that those men were about to face a firing squad—or understand that the man who was ordering their execution was the “Amo” my mother and Aunt Layla had been talking about a week before. But I felt fear stream out of that small television screen and chill our kitchen, where until that moment I had always felt safe. I remember exactly the look on my mother’s face. I remember her eyes growing very round and fixing hard on the screen. I had never seen that look on her face ever before, but I recognized it anyway: it was horror.
    When the session ended, Mama sat there, still, before turning off the television. I could see her trying to gather her thoughts before she looked across into my eyes and spoke to me. I was small enough then that when she was seated and I was standing, our eyes were at the same level.
    “Honey, things are going to be different with Basma’s family from now on,” she said. “You can still be friends. You can see her at school, but I’m afraid you can’t go to her house to play anymore and she probably won’t be able to come here.”
    “Why not, Mama?”
    She took both my hands in hers and leaned close.
    “Zainab, her father was one of those men who was grabbed and taken away,” she said.
    I wonder if I cried for Basma—or for myself at the restriction on our friendship. I don’t remember. We flew to Seattle, as we often did in the summer, for my father’s two-month pilot’s training at Boeing. The next time I remember seeing Basma was when school started in September. She was sitting at the back of the classroom. Teachers avoided calling on her. Other kids avoided her altogether. We spent recess walking around the playground holding hands and looking down at the ground. A terrible thing had happened, but I don’t think either of us named it. One day Basma didn’t come to school, and I never saw her again. By the time I met the man who had ordered her father’s execution three years later, I had taught myself to forget her last name.
    From Alia’s Notebook
     
    We weren’t excited about this friendship. We did not accept his invitations many times and managed to be away from him for two years while he befriended other families we knew, but we couldn’t avoid him forever.
    We stopped by a friend’s house after leaving a party around 11 P.M. and Saddam was in his living room. We spent three hours that evening listening to what he was saying. I will always remember his eyes. They focused on each one of us, examining each person very closely. We talked about many things, including different hobbies and particularly hunting, as it was one of his favorite. When we arrived home that night, we were surprised to find a hunting rifle that was sent by him as a gift. This was his invitation to friendship.
    In the days before he was president, he would visit us alone or with the company of only one guard. He often spent the nights roaming in the streets of Baghdad visiting one family after the other. It wasn’t unusual to get a call from him in the middle of the night to say that he is coming in a few moments and to ask us to invite so many friends to join us. One had no choice but to invite him and manage to entertain him even if one was in the middle of sleep.
    He was a heavy drinker. Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey was his favorite. He always made sure to bring boxes of it to all the parties he attended. He loved dancing, particularly to Western music. He never got tired of dancing despite the fact that he was not a particularly good dancer nor drinker. He was a strong man with energy equal to ten men. I don’t deny his strong personality. While we liked him for his charming personality, we were also afraid of him for we couldn’t say no to any of his requests.
    He often told us his youth stories during these nights. He talked about his childhood and how he escaped his stepfather’s torture one night in his uncle’s house: how the dogs followed him, how the darkness of night