It’s been a few weeks since I talked to my family by phone. I’ve been wrestling with classes, work, and preparation to move to a new place near the university. As I was having breakfast this morning, I recharged my Yahoo Voice account and punched my father’s cell phone number on the screen. It was such a relief to hear his voice. I almost felt home. We chatted for a little while about his health situation. As usual, it’s been more difficult to get to the hospital day after day. He stopped going to the Kadhimiya hospital after the Sarrafiya Bridge was blown up since it was the only possible bridge for people to safely go to the other side of the river after insurgents took over downtown Adhamiya and made it almost impossible for people to use the A’ema Bridge to get to Kadhimiya neighborhood. Luckily, one of my neighbors is a nurse at the Physiotherapy hospital which is about 15 minutes drive from my home. She told him that they have the medical equipments which he needs. He told her he went there at first but they told him that they didn’t have them. No one knows why they did that!
Then the shock came like thunder from his voice, like a door slammed in a quiet place or rocket falling on a house filled with civilians. “Your uncle J was kidnapped and was released a few days ago after paying a $10,000 ransom.” I was absolutely shocked. What? Kidnapped? I felt the pain in my heart. I thought about all the people who had heart aches at that moment. I felt like someone stabbed me with a needle in the middle of my heart. It hurt. It really hurt.
I asked him about what happened and he told me that after my aunt the journalist was threatened and both of them left the house in September 2006, my uncle went every now and then to check on the house to see if it was taken by the insurgents or not. Last Wednesday, he went in the afternoon and decided to spend the night there after it got dark. Watering the plants and taking the important stuff they wanted took most of his time which flew without him noticing it was almost 5 in the afternoon. He stayed there and the insurgents broke into the house and kidnapped him with the complete absence of police and army in Dora neighborhood which is completely lawless like many other neighborhoods in Baghdad. My poor aunt broke down when she heard the news. My other aunts, who are also displaced and currently live together, took her to the hospital the next morning after trying to calm her down all night after she received a call from one of the kidnappers who threatened to kill him in 48 hours if they don’t pay the ransom. My father said the doctor told them they almost lost her if they hadn’t brought her in the first hours of the morning. She was entirely wrecked.
My father passed the phone to my mother who seemed more desperate than the last time I talked to her. I tried to cheer her up but in vain. I told her how I miss her and how I missed her a lot last night when I went to South Street enjoying the beautiful sight of shops and restaurants which once upon a time we had in Karradah and Mansour. I told her how I wanted her to see all the cosmetics and women’s wear stores which was her favorite in pre-war Baghdad. “We have no appetite for anything anymore, B,” her voice hissed to my ears. The words came tired, shaky and desperate. Too desperate. “Habibi, live your life and don’t think too much about us. We want you to be happy and alive. Go enjoy your youth and never let this news disturb you. At least one of the 22 million is safe now and that’s what I care about.”
Then the shock came like thunder from his voice, like a door slammed in a quiet place or rocket falling on a house filled with civilians. “Your uncle J was kidnapped and was released a few days ago after paying a $10,000 ransom.” I was absolutely shocked. What? Kidnapped? I felt the pain in my heart. I thought about all the people who had heart aches at that moment. I felt like someone stabbed me with a needle in the middle of my heart. It hurt. It really hurt.
I asked him about what happened and he told me that after my aunt the journalist was threatened and both of them left the house in September 2006, my uncle went every now and then to check on the house to see if it was taken by the insurgents or not. Last Wednesday, he went in the afternoon and decided to spend the night there after it got dark. Watering the plants and taking the important stuff they wanted took most of his time which flew without him noticing it was almost 5 in the afternoon. He stayed there and the insurgents broke into the house and kidnapped him with the complete absence of police and army in Dora neighborhood which is completely lawless like many other neighborhoods in Baghdad. My poor aunt broke down when she heard the news. My other aunts, who are also displaced and currently live together, took her to the hospital the next morning after trying to calm her down all night after she received a call from one of the kidnappers who threatened to kill him in 48 hours if they don’t pay the ransom. My father said the doctor told them they almost lost her if they hadn’t brought her in the first hours of the morning. She was entirely wrecked.
My father passed the phone to my mother who seemed more desperate than the last time I talked to her. I tried to cheer her up but in vain. I told her how I miss her and how I missed her a lot last night when I went to South Street enjoying the beautiful sight of shops and restaurants which once upon a time we had in Karradah and Mansour. I told her how I wanted her to see all the cosmetics and women’s wear stores which was her favorite in pre-war Baghdad. “We have no appetite for anything anymore, B,” her voice hissed to my ears. The words came tired, shaky and desperate. Too desperate. “Habibi, live your life and don’t think too much about us. We want you to be happy and alive. Go enjoy your youth and never let this news disturb you. At least one of the 22 million is safe now and that’s what I care about.”
The voice chat lasted for about 30 minutes when I lost them using the last cent I have in my voice chat fund. I was left with thoughts that hit my head and almost crippled every activity I planned to do for the weekend. I flipped through yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer and remembered the Philadelphia Book Festival which ironically I was planning to go to, but the news made me forget it. I grabbed my cigarette packet and burned one cigarette in my throat and lungs and thought of the festival. I was hesitant to go, but I didn’t want to miss such event which reminds me with all the happy times I spent buying and reading books since I was a child until I graduated from college the year the war started. I checked the bus schedule online, put on my brown shorts and Polo dark blue T-shirt and locked the door as I held the baseball hat I bought in New York City and my bag, which I eventually let it settle on my shoulder.
The bus drive was long. The highway was madly crowded making the cars drive very slowly. However, there was a benefit out of this. I took the chance to read three chapters from “A Long Way Gone”, a book I started reading after I finished the “Kite Runner”. The other thing was seeing a huge balloon hovering over the Philadelphia Zoo with people on it. I stared at it for a few minutes and flew back to my childhood days when I used to dream of being on of these balloons and travel around the world like the cartoon characters I watched and the ones I read about in “Eighty Days Around the World”.
The bus drive was long. The highway was madly crowded making the cars drive very slowly. However, there was a benefit out of this. I took the chance to read three chapters from “A Long Way Gone”, a book I started reading after I finished the “Kite Runner”. The other thing was seeing a huge balloon hovering over the Philadelphia Zoo with people on it. I stared at it for a few minutes and flew back to my childhood days when I used to dream of being on of these balloons and travel around the world like the cartoon characters I watched and the ones I read about in “Eighty Days Around the World”.
The weather was awesome. It was 75 F, a perfect day for festivals. Center City was filled with people and tourists heading to towards the Free Library area where the festival was held. I arrived there at noon sharp. It was a perfect time since it just started an hour earlier. As I stepped in, I let out a huge sigh of relief. One of my biggest amusements is being among people with their families and children since it always makes me feel that humanity is still alive and that there is still a chance to live normally sooner or later. Thousands of people of different ages, backgrounds and interests filled the area. Some put out chairs to enjoy the open air, kids and adults were jumping and singing on the streets, puppets dancing and mingling with the crowds. And most importantly, books booths settled along the sidewalks of 19th and 20th Streets. Books were lined next to each other and some were one above the other in piles, some were signed, some were newly published, others were free and most of them were on huge discounts attracting the book-lovers to the white-tented booths like a piece of magnet pulling every close piece of metal. The most beautiful thing I found there was the energy that filled the air, the smile on every face of an adult or a child. Every body was enjoying the food, music, and most importantly buying the books.
As I made my way to the book booths, I couldn’t but recall my beautiful memories of al-Mutannabi Street where every day in it was a festival. I looked at the books and the booksellers and remembered how happy the booksellers in al-Mutannabi Street used to be welcoming the book fans. As I flipped through the pages of books I was interested in, I smelled them. Smelled my fantasy and old days. Smelled the books my hands once touched in Baghdad.
Time flew so quickly that I found it was 2:30 p.m. when I remembered that I have to go back home finish my story which will be workshoped next week. I left with my heart having a kind of relief that I haven’t had for a long time. Being among books and book fans meant a lot to me. It meant Baghdad, al-Mutannabi Street, my father’s huge bookcase, my college days, my beautiful memories of my beloved city which I terribly miss and pray for every single day, if not every single second in my life.
*Festival Photos are on my Photoblog, Random Images.
baghdadtreasure@gmail.com
