Read Online Escape from Baghdad! by Saad Hossain - Free Book Online

engineer drifting into unwilling bachelorhood, who used to make small brass toys by hand, hiding them all over the building so that her holidays were an ongoing, elaborate treasure hunt.
    The hallways had been narrow, cluttered with the smell of cooking, the sound of his daughter shrieking, running from door to door, under the impression that the whole building was hers, the other tenants mere extensions of her will. Each of the doors had been painted blue by the engineer landlord, who believed fiercely in the efficacy of paint, and it had worked out for him, in the end, for he had died on the street on his way to work and not home in bed as he had feared.
    Dagr leaned forward, oblivious, and the door opened of its own accord, making him stumble into a dark hallway. He fell near a pair of slippered feet, stockinged, rising up through varied clothing to a diminutive, incredibly old head.
    â€œWelcome, dear,” the crone said, reaching forth a feathery hand and ruffling his hair. “Are you certain you are at the right door?”
    â€œDoor…no,” Dagr said. “It looks like a door I once knew. My door. It was open. This door, I mean. Xervish brought us here.”
    â€œXervish,” the crone said. “A good boy. He is haunted by this house. This door, specifically. It frames the substance of all his dreams. Thus, he consigns to this place all those who disturb him.”
    â€œMy friends are outside,” Dagr said, rising to his feet. “Two of them. May we come in?”
    â€œAre you asking permission?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?” The crone asked. “Your friends outside have guns. Even now they are moments from drawing them.”
    â€œWe are not here to turn you from your home,” Dagr said. “If you want us to leave, we will go away.”
    â€œYou might, dear boy,” the crone said. “You might go away. But those two outside would not. Do you venture to speak for them?”
    â€œI do.”
    The crone smiled, revealing a most awkward dental landscape. “What a good boy you are. I am Mother Davala. You may come in. This house has been home to many. Three more will not tip the balance.”
    â€œIs there room enough, for us, grandmother?” Dagr asked, letting the others in.
    â€œOh yes,” Mother Davala said. “Plenty of room. Would you like some tea?”
    Bizarrely, within minutes, they found themselves in the sitting room, drinking glasses of mint tea from a silver filigreed teapot, a most elegant setting, the room well lit from semi-shuttered windows, a fine, faded Persian carpet on the floor, the furniture old and shabby yet still noticeably better than anything from the shops, the tea things appearing so much a part of the room that they scarcely questioned who had brewed it so fresh, with just the right number of cups, steaming at exactly the right temperature.
    In a separate alcove by the window, far from the coffee table, were two striped armchairs most advantageously positioned, commanding the light as well as a fine view of the street. Two ladies sat there, dark eyed, veiled in lace, ages indeterminable but for the thin white hands moving like graceful spiders, warping, wefting.
    â€œDon’t mind them, dears, they hardly ever speak,” Mother Davala said.
    â€œWhy is that?” Dagr asked.
    â€œTragedies, dear, tragedies,” Mother Davala said airily. “Destroyed homes and missing families, lost loves, and soured ambitions, futures catastrophically forked into a directionless mire. What is there to speak of, little boys, when all possibilities are gone and life is reducedto single moments of consciousness, unmoored from either past or future? Great silences stack up on each side, like my sisters here. We suffer impenetrable silences, the absence of those voices stilled forever, and when the sum of these is great enough, there seems no more purpose in speaking. This is life for those of us left