Read Online Baghdad Fixer by Ilene Prusher - Free Book Online Page B

“But here, if you drive big, new cars you look like an American government official or CIA. Those are the cars getting attacked. In a car like this,” he says, patting the dashboard, “we look just like regular Iraqis.”
     
    “Hey, what are you guys talking about? Don’t go leaving me out the first day on the job,” Sam says.
     
    “He says that you are safer in this car than in the jeep,” I explain.
     
    “Ah, yes, that’s true. I always trust Rizgar’s judgement. He got us through the war in one piece, didn’t you, Rizgar?”
     
    Rizgar peers at me again in the rearview mirror with a serious face. But then he smiles, revealing a gold eye-tooth, and forms a thumbs-up sign and we laugh. The thought that the war is through, that Sam — and therefore America — sees it in the past tense, is filling me with the brightest sensation I have had for weeks.
     
    ~ * ~
     
     
    7
     
    Filling
     
     
     
    We drive towards the centre of town, through Karkh, and suddenly it feels like we’re in a film, because all down Rashid Street there are American tanks, big rolling monsters in dark green, and other military vehicles with heavy artillery mounted on them. Nothing here has ever looked like this before. I see a few American soldiers, not many, and I cannot understand why. Where are all the soldiers? Shouldn’t they be marching in the streets? In the front seat, Sam is scribbling things into her notebook. Rizgar shakes a box of cigarettes, down to its last lonely occupants, and ejects one into his mouth.
     
    I keep searching for the soldiers who belong with the tanks, expecting to see hundreds, maybe thousands of them, and instead I only catch sight of three or four. I remember one time, when I was about fourteen, we saw a parade of Republican Guards marching by our high school. We all ran to the window to watch, mesmerized by the syncopated stomp of their red boots, ignoring the teacher’s reprimand to go back to our seats. Was I expecting the Americans to appear like that, advancing into Baghdad in a perfect phalanx?
     
    “I’m surprised the Americans have not put up any of their flags around the city,” I say, feeling as if I am talking to no one, because neither Sam nor Rizgar react.
     
    I can hear her pen come to rest, and then she turns and looks over her shoulder at me, her hair full of bright light from outside. It occurs to me that for modesty’s sake, she should tie her hair back or otherwise put it into place, the way the female professors did at university if they didn’t wear hejab.
     
    “Well,” Sam purses her lips, “they did put that huge flag up on the Saddam statue. You saw that, didn’t you?”
     
    I peer out of the window and take in the Ministry of Information, which seems to be moving past us in slow motion. A massive hole cuts through three floors, around the fifth, sixth and seventh storeys and the building looks as though it has been hit by a wrecking ball. Twists of mangled metal emerge and wind in odd directions.
     
    I owe Samara an answer. “Uh, no. I didn’t see it.”
     
    “Oh God, it was all over the news. When they got into Baghdad on Tuesday these soldiers climbed up that big statue of Saddam in Firdos Square and hung an American flag over his face! I mean, before they toppled the thing with the help of a tank. The Bushies are getting a lot of flak for it back home. People here must be talking about it.” Sam stretches her neck further over her shoulder and smiles again, and in her face I see an expression that says , And where have you been?
     
    “They didn’t mention it on Iraq Radio,” I say.
     
    Everywhere there were stores, everything is either gated up or gone. Or burned. Or wrecked. Alarms are wailing, buildings are smoking, people are hurrying rather than walking. Almost every large building is damaged in some way. Several government ministries look like they have been hit by small airplanes. Maybe that is what this war is about: revenge for what