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| panda-like calm through fiction | |||||||||
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An Iraqi Christmas Carol
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I could never pronounce or spell his first name, but his last name was Zakaria. He was a proud Muslim, but he liked that his name came from Zakarias, a messenger of Allah, and father of the Prophet Yahya, or as westerners know him: John the Baptist. There was a world of difference between him and us, a poor Iraqi translator and the American Army ostensibly here to give him democracy, but Zakaria was the kind of person who liked to emphasize what we had in common, instead of what made us different.
He was killed by an IED, planted just a little too far down an alley to be called roadside. We were just walking on foot, talking about something, his son, I think. And suddenly I wasn’t walking anymore; my body moved sluggishly, my ears hurt and I was having trouble focusing my eyes. I tried to get up from where I fell, but didn’t have the strength, so I crawled over to him. There wasn’t enough of his chest left to perform CPR on, and I took one deep breath in so I could sigh, only it made me realize the sharp pain in my own chest, the warm wetness spreading out from my wounds. I passed out. Doctors patched me up, and when I came to they told me that Zakaria saved my life; as close as I was to the explosion, if he hadn’t absorbed the most of it, the shrapnel that sliced into my chest would have cut my heart in half. I don’t have any delusions that he wanted to die for his country- or for me- or even that he thought that he might. But he did. I could have gotten a medical discharge, served out my tour on a safe little base in Kansas or Kentucky, but I couldn’t do that, not now. His widow invited me to Christmas dinner, but I declined. Her husband, wittingly or not, saved my life; I wasn’t ready to look across a table and know how far I had left to go to pay that debt. I still wasn’t in my right head, still hadn’t realized that she was putting on Christmas dinner for me, because it’s not like the holiday had any significance for her. Of course, if I’d been there, either none of what happened would have, or I’d have been dead and unable to do what I’m about to do. But some militia men, claiming to be Mahdi Army, burst through Zakaria’s door. In life, her husband had been able to hide what he did for us- even the fact that he worked with us at all- but in death, his secrets had come out. The Mahdi needed to make an example somewhere, and they heard he had a son. If his son had been even a few years older, the example would have been written in blood on his mother’s doorstep, but his age gave them enough pause they took the kid with them. Which is why I have a ruck filled with magazines and grenades and a claymore or two, why I’m out this late, why I’m sneaking around the base perimeter. I hear the shuffle of feet and stop dead; they have me to rights, and from the tone of their voice they know it: “Where the hell do you think your going?” My muscles tense; if it was a ranking officer or an MP I wasn’t getting out any way but through them- but as I turned I recognized the voice, and then the build of the silhouette it belonged to, and deducing his partner was easy: Dartsman and Troy, the balance of my fire team. They’re not bad guys, and not stupid guys, they just get into conversations like: “Seen too many John Wayne movies, I think.” “Is that it? Going out to play lone sheriff cleaning up the town with pure grit?” “This is the US Army, you don’t piss without a buddy watching your six.” “Just make sure your buddy ain’t watching you piss.” “We assumed you were just shocked and awed; if we knew you were fantasizing-” Much as it pained me, I cut off their witty banter: “Okay. I get it. I’m an idiot for not inviting you idiots to go AWOL and do something potentially illegal.” At this a third man moved in the darkness, and I was suddenly aware of a badge glinting off his chest in the dark. This time it was definitely Dartsman who spoke up. “Right, this is Dawud, a policeman. He’s the one who told me about the kidnapping. He speaks broken enough English to translate, and when we’re done cracking skulls he’ll make arrests.” “Anything else he can tell us?” Dawud’s eyes narrowed in the dark. “One man, he was recognized, by a neighbor. But to me, he will not talk. Instead, he takes down my name, for later, he says.” Dawud spit on the ground. “Let’s go play bad cop,” said Troy. The man lived only a few blocks from the Forward Operating Base, and we were there in a matter of minutes. When Dawud pointed out the residence, we stopped to discuss our ingress. Dartsman pulled a brown bottle out of his pack, and a bottle opener. “That isn’t-” I started, but he cut me off. “It is. I stowed it away after the Super Bowl party.” Because drinking isn’t allowed in Islam, out of deference, we didn’t drink in Iraq, but February the brass had made an exception- and got each and every one of us two free frosty ones. He handed Troy a Polaroid camera, then popped the top off his beer. Then Dawud knocked on the front door. A man in his thirties with a long, straggly beard answered the door; he looked haggard. Dawud pushed his way in, and we followed. Dartsman handed the bewildered man his open beer label out, muttered, “Hold this, and smile,” and pointed at Troy, who was pointing the camera at them. Dartsman threw an arm around him, gave a wide grin and put his thumb up as Troy snapped the picture. The man blinked after the flash, still trying to figure out what had just happened, and when he realized what he was holding he nearly dropped the beer. “You spill it and I’ll break that bottle off in you,” said Dartsman, hurriedly grabbing it from him. He upended the bottle and chugged until it was empty, then heaved a heavy, pleasured sigh. Troy showed the man the photo, and Dartsman leaned against him. “Mighty damning. Collusion and drinking. Your fundamentalist friends will be pissed.” The man’s lip quivered. “Please,” he said. Dawud pushed the man over, and he fell back over a chair; the man scrambled, suddenly defensive. “The boy,” he said coldly. “We will bring the boy back to his mother, or you will return, to yours, in a box.” His eyes shuffled around the room, to each of us, in a circle, until he realized Dawud was the only one playing any kind of ball at all. He raised his hands and stood up slowly, “All right, all right. They’ll have taken him to a safe house. I can point to it on a map.” The safe house was a klick and half away, so we had plenty of time to contemplate the possibilities. Troy started with: “Well, it’s not any fortification we know about.” “Course, if I had a dime for every patrol that’s stumbled on a new fortification, or a trap, or an IED, all without being pointed towards it-” Dartsman didn’t even try to finish; none of us wanted to hear it. After a long, cold silence, Dawud spoke up. “I do not think it’s a trap.” His voice was trembling, but there was a certain kind of conviction that made it more convincing. “I’ve been lied to, misled, and I’ve heard the truth. I do not think he lied.” Nothing more was said until we arrived. The tip seemed legitimate enough. The apartment safe house opened into a side door that led to an alley, was respectably defensible. The only thing even a little odd about it was that it was so perfectly suited to being a safe house. We got in for a closer look, and through binoculars we could see inside the place, well lit, without curtains. “I don’t think they’re Mahdi.” Dawud took a look. “I agree. Mahdi are not so stupid. They do not even have a sentry. But the boy, I cannot see the boy.” Which meant he couldn’t just call in his cavalry, so we had to stay off book. I hesitated a moment before speaking. “Okay. That just confirms that we need to go as soft as we can. If they push we hit back hard, but if we can get by with a show of overwhelming force then we do it that. And there are probably civvies in the surrounding apartments, so even if it comes to shove, keep it tight, three rounds center mass. Dawud, you stay behind us. You’re a cop, but this is what we do for a living, and this is no time for amateur hour.” Dawud shook his head. He was a detective, not SWAT. He didn’t want to be at the front any more than we wanted him there. Troy led, because he’s the best with a lock pick. Dawud recognized the lock on the door, a standard one, “Simple, to pick,” he said. Troy had barely hunched over when there was noise at the front door, “… night. My wife will be anxious to have me home.” Then the knob quickly snapped around and the door opened. The man’s smile faded as he stared down the barrel of Troy’s shotgun mounted underneath his M4. Dartsman yanked him by the collar out into the space between buildings, zip-tied him and threw him at Dawud’s feet. “The boy,” he asked, “where is the boy.” The man’s eyes flicked excitedly from Dawud to Dartsman, still hovering over him, and the M4 in his hand. Dartsman removed a grenade from his webbing, and slid the lever underneath his collar and put his finger on the pin. Then Dartsman pulled out his best Chris Tucker five octaves lower impression and said, “Motherfucker I will give you a frag necktie.” “No no no, no no no,” the man said hurriedly. “Boy, upstairs.” “What about guns?” Dawud again. “Are there any guns?” “Guns, yes,” the man said, nodding vigorously. “But do they carry them, are they armed.? “Armed? Armed, no. Guns they keep in back, in kitchen.” “How many are inside?” “Four, with me. Three now.” Before we could ask anymore questions, we heard a man from inside saying, “Born in a damned barn, can’t shut a damned door to save his-” he stopped as he recognized the glint of light off of gun barrels. His eyes darted back into the apartment, but as his eyes adjusted he realized they were pointed to him, so he stepped slowly out of the apartment. Troy zip-tied him, too, and we left them both with Dawud. I stood on the steps, Troy and Dartsman close enough I could feel their breath. “On my go, 2, 1, go.” I moved right, towards the front of the house, where we had been able to see through the windows most clearly. We’d anticipated it would be clear, but you never want to just assume. Troy went left, aiming that under-barrel shotgun, knowing anything that got in its way would cease to be a moment later. Dartsman hung back a moment, until I swung around to cover Troy’s side, and then came in behind and between us. “S’that-” Dartsman cut himself off, and we all realized we heard running water coming from what must have been a bathroom. A man came out, smiling wide, looking satisfied. He realized in slow motion that the front door was still standing open, and U.S. Army was standing there with guns pointed on him. Then he rabbited. “Got” I was about to say, but Troy was already two steps ahead of me. He belted the runner in the back of the head with the butt of his M4, and he slid into the kitchen like a runner stealing second. Troy was first into the kitchen, and cleared it before we passed its threshold. He flipped the runner over. “Where’s the forth man?” “Upstairs.” Troy and Dartsman wasted a second exchanging a look; I was already moving for the stairs. I burst through the only door at the top. The fourth man was standing holding the boy, with a large kitchen knife in his hand. At the sight of me he spun, putting the boy between us, but holding the knife half between the boy and himself and me and him. Dartsman was a step behind me, and immediately aimed his M4 at the knife in the man’s hand. “Dartsman, you got the knife?” I asked. “Oh yeah.” Troy entered the room; probably remembered to zip-tie the man in the kitchen. “Troy, we clear of the next apartment?” He leaned towards the window. “Unless the neighbor’s really tall and standing on his roof.” “Take his hand off.” The bullet smashed through his forearm, smacked his hand against the wall, and the knife spun towards the floor, light slicing off it like a falling disco ball. The man fell to the ground and spent a moment cradling his wounded arm before realizing he was close enough to the knife to make a go for it; only in the second’s pause Troy had moved closer, and put his boot down on the man’s throat, and his rifle beside his head. I stopped a moment, unable to move; unable, really, to not see Zakaria in his son. I realized he was terrified; I told him, “I knew your dad. He was a good man.” The boy hugged my leg. Dartsman zip-tied the last man, and they helped him to his feet. They marched him and the kitchen runner to Dawud. When he saw that the boy was all right, still clinging to me, he smiled. “Praise to Allah you’re safe.” After the first half klick Zakaria’s son climbed up in my arms; Dartsman carried my M4. When we got to his home, Dartsman and Troy started in on a joint excuse about where they had to be. “No,” I said; “you wanted in on this, you’re going to see it through.” I knocked on the door, and Zakaria’s wife answered. Her eyes were swollen and red, but they lit up instantly when she saw her child looking sleepily at her. “Mommy?” he asked as they reached out for each other, and she took him into her arms. After a long moment she realized she wasn’t strong enough to hold him up as long as she wanted, and had to set him down, where he hugged her knee. She turned to us and said, “Dinner is cold, but I must insist you let me warm it for you.” After twenty minutes, she emerged from the kitchen with several dishes approximating an American Christmas dinner; there was even a subdued red and green color scheme to the decorations in the dining room. We were waiting as she served up dessert when Troy, who often doesn’t have the common sense God gave to ferrets, said, “I’m surprised to see you celebrating Christmas.” Zakaria’s wife smiled indulgently. “We respect the People of the Book, and believe in the Book and in the miraculous birth of Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. We disagree with claims of his divinity, but he is still a Prophet of Allah. And those who follow him, whether they realize it or no, too follow Allah. We are family more than you realize.” Troy smiled pleasantly as her words and the flavors of her dessert washed over him. Then he said, “Neat. Can I have another slice of pie?” |
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