toilet I piss into is black. It makes me think of an eisteddfod chair. Mohammedâs bathrobe is black embroidered silk. When I come out I join him on the balcony.
What happened to the lion we saw? I ask. The great carved lion gnawing a slave?
No one knows, he says. But there are still people alive who remember lions in Iraq. So many of our artists have honoured lions. The sculptors of Babylon were hired out all over the world to make stone lions. Or lions of alabaster. Even gold lions. Dragons and lions guarded Babylon. But they couldnât stop the tanks.
He pauses and smiles. Listen, you are the reason I am here. You and your companion.
We only wanted to film the museum, I say. But we cut it out of the film.
Yes, but history roared in my head, answers Mohammed. I was in the museum crypt. The lights were dim. There was silence. It was a holiday and even the scholars were absent. Dust floated in the air and lay underfoot. Only Haji Abid was there. He had worked in the museum for fifty years but if he understood what was going on, he didnât say. Then there it was. A red lion on a desk. Its mouth open, its mane like armour. It sat like a cat watching me. A terracotta cat on a newspaper. I would have sworn it was alive. The museum cat, licking its chops.
Mohammed sips his tea.
I stroked that lionâs cold fur, he says. Iâm told the statue was smashed in the looting. Knocked to the ground and trodden to pieces. All those idiots looking for riches. They didnât have a clue what theyâd done. Some used hammers and saws to break up statues too big to move.
But there were others, hired by high-ups in the party. They came with shopping lists and explosives to open vault doors, emptying whole cabinets into ministry cars. What could old Haji do, holding his broom? I found him once hiding in a pot discovered in the temple of the sun god at Hatra. Old Haji, like someone from the Arabian Nights .
Mohammed and I come inside. On glass shelves are women, voluptuous in pale alabaster, men of clay like red chess pieces. A copy of FI Magazine lies opened on a cream leather armchair at a picture of the new Ferrari.
How did you escape? I ask.
Mohammed inflates his cheeks. By then, he says, we were a nation of smugglers. I hired two men who owned a transit van. Cash, I said. One quarter now, three on delivery. It was a risk because I was using my savings. I told them we were going to Amman, so they had to have their papers. It was up to them if they came back. Neither turned a hair.
We actually used the museumâs own crates. The hired men didnât understand what I was doing. Boxes of stone? The head of a boy with no eyes? At first I had the idea that we should hide it all. I was going to buy a load of watermelons and pretend we were farmers. Then I decided there was no need. Because I knew what would happen at the border.
Delay, I said. Two check points.
Yes, said Mohammed. I recall you were detained there. But on our side they didnât care any more. Maybe they had never cared. All those grandmothers sitting in the dirt, looking through their bundles for a scarf to shield their eyes. And the children crying because of the wind, the men standing together, smoking, the buses unloading, reloading, the empty petrol tankers parked up.
Then no-manâs land, I said.
Indeed. That stinking part of the desert between two nations. As if both refused it. Razor wire, a burned-out car. Then more old people opening their cases. Doing it all again. Half the time the officials didnât bother to look. They were dead with boredom, sick of that screaming wind full of grit. It sounded like metal tearing. What a place. The road was scattered with shredded tyres, there were glaciers of black sand behind black rocks. They knew what was going on and that there was no way of stopping it. Some people slaughter a sheep and look at its liver. No need there. We all understood what was coming.
The Jordanian troops were
What happened to the lion we saw? I ask. The great carved lion gnawing a slave?
No one knows, he says. But there are still people alive who remember lions in Iraq. So many of our artists have honoured lions. The sculptors of Babylon were hired out all over the world to make stone lions. Or lions of alabaster. Even gold lions. Dragons and lions guarded Babylon. But they couldnât stop the tanks.
He pauses and smiles. Listen, you are the reason I am here. You and your companion.
We only wanted to film the museum, I say. But we cut it out of the film.
Yes, but history roared in my head, answers Mohammed. I was in the museum crypt. The lights were dim. There was silence. It was a holiday and even the scholars were absent. Dust floated in the air and lay underfoot. Only Haji Abid was there. He had worked in the museum for fifty years but if he understood what was going on, he didnât say. Then there it was. A red lion on a desk. Its mouth open, its mane like armour. It sat like a cat watching me. A terracotta cat on a newspaper. I would have sworn it was alive. The museum cat, licking its chops.
Mohammed sips his tea.
I stroked that lionâs cold fur, he says. Iâm told the statue was smashed in the looting. Knocked to the ground and trodden to pieces. All those idiots looking for riches. They didnât have a clue what theyâd done. Some used hammers and saws to break up statues too big to move.
But there were others, hired by high-ups in the party. They came with shopping lists and explosives to open vault doors, emptying whole cabinets into ministry cars. What could old Haji do, holding his broom? I found him once hiding in a pot discovered in the temple of the sun god at Hatra. Old Haji, like someone from the Arabian Nights .
Mohammed and I come inside. On glass shelves are women, voluptuous in pale alabaster, men of clay like red chess pieces. A copy of FI Magazine lies opened on a cream leather armchair at a picture of the new Ferrari.
How did you escape? I ask.
Mohammed inflates his cheeks. By then, he says, we were a nation of smugglers. I hired two men who owned a transit van. Cash, I said. One quarter now, three on delivery. It was a risk because I was using my savings. I told them we were going to Amman, so they had to have their papers. It was up to them if they came back. Neither turned a hair.
We actually used the museumâs own crates. The hired men didnât understand what I was doing. Boxes of stone? The head of a boy with no eyes? At first I had the idea that we should hide it all. I was going to buy a load of watermelons and pretend we were farmers. Then I decided there was no need. Because I knew what would happen at the border.
Delay, I said. Two check points.
Yes, said Mohammed. I recall you were detained there. But on our side they didnât care any more. Maybe they had never cared. All those grandmothers sitting in the dirt, looking through their bundles for a scarf to shield their eyes. And the children crying because of the wind, the men standing together, smoking, the buses unloading, reloading, the empty petrol tankers parked up.
Then no-manâs land, I said.
Indeed. That stinking part of the desert between two nations. As if both refused it. Razor wire, a burned-out car. Then more old people opening their cases. Doing it all again. Half the time the officials didnât bother to look. They were dead with boredom, sick of that screaming wind full of grit. It sounded like metal tearing. What a place. The road was scattered with shredded tyres, there were glaciers of black sand behind black rocks. They knew what was going on and that there was no way of stopping it. Some people slaughter a sheep and look at its liver. No need there. We all understood what was coming.
The Jordanian troops were
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