http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/alani180606.html
Istimar!
It was the height of the summer season in Baghdad; what we normally referred to as ‘Aab Al-lahab’ or ‘Flaming August’. The dates had over-ripened and were dripping black spots on the patio in the larger villa next door. Some of it dripped off Dad’s favorite tree. It was that same tree, which fell to the ground, hours before he passed away in February,1999, or so says ‘Abu-Shaker’. It had fallen with a distinctly loud thud that awoke the neighbors as well. No, it was not another American missile, they sighed with relief upon discovering. Besides, after the massive December bombings of 1998, when Aseel, my cousin’s wife, had given birth to her twins under an air raid, there had followed some kind of a lull in air raids.
But, this summer season was long before that. It was during the Iraq-Iran war, the war of attrition that should have never been. The dates dripped, and the Italians that were tenants at one of our larger houses, began complaining. Mama had started complaining long before that. “Othman, when are you going to call the date pickers?” He would stare right through her, as if she was another date palm in the room, significantly shorter and fuller in shape. “It’s high time, we picked those dates. I need to start giving out the portions I do every year. We will loose them if they over-ripen!” She was referring to eight tall date palms next door, and another five in our own back yard.
Anita was one of the sweetest Italians Mama had ever met. Her husband was a chancellor at the Italian embassy in Baghdad. We would go to her house for piano lessons. Zinnah, my sister, was quicker to pick up. I had been self-trained for too long to change my ways. She had wanted us to perform at the Italian embassy where other children from the Italian community in Baghdad of the mid-eighties were going to perform. She had been working hard at training these children. We were teenagers then. Dad’s response to that was, “We don’t want the security police knocking on our doors again. We had best stay away from these ‘public events’!”
Eventually, Dad called the date pickers. They were villagers that traveled to Baghdad at this time of the year, knowing that there were many Baghdadi gardens, where the date palms were too tall for their owners to pick. Not that they were any taller. Date pickers wrapped a large piece of strong burlap around their waists and hips. A thick rope bound the two loose ends of the burlap, forming a huge ‘purse-like’ swing, in which the picker sat. The rope was used for climbing the tree. The picker would haul himself upwards, sitting in the ‘sack’, and using the rope and his bare feet to support him. The date palm’s dead fronds would form the cleats onto which the picker would ‘latch’ his rope.
They arrived late as expected. Dad had already informed our Italian neighbors that the date pickers were going to come and pick the date palms and that they would get their portion. The pickers worked throughout the whole afternoon, and when they were done, they came to ring our door bell. Dad inspected the sacks of dates they managed to fill, and just as he was turning over the last one, Anita showed up at our door. ‘De patio issa dirty!’, she complained. Dad looked quizzically at the first picker (they were two of them), ‘Did you not clean up where the dates dropped?’. ‘No’, he replied, and added, ‘That’s a woman’s job! We don’t clean.’ Dad was firm, ‘But we agreed that I would pay you to pick the dates and that you would protect the patio by laying newspapers. I even gave you a whole bag of old newspapers.’ The man said nothing. Dad tried to get him to clean the mess, by offering him more money. It was useless. Finally, the man said, ‘I will pick up all the dead date palm leafs and the bits of fronds that are scattered around the date trees, but I will not clean the patio.” Anita waited patiently. Dad turned to her and calmly said, ‘We’ll take care of it. They’re going to come back and pick up the dead leaves.’
He walked into the living room, where the three of us had sat listening in to the dialogue. ‘You have heard everything...Which one of you will go to the house next door and clean the patio, since Jumhuriya (the cleaning lady) has left for the day?’ ‘That’s a woman’s job!’, insisted Ahmed. ‘But you are the oldest, and you’re a boy!’ argued Zinnah. It went on and on. I could see my father’s weary eyes begin to lose patience, and yet still he waited for us to reach an agreement. ‘I’ll go!’ I said.
It had been a while since I had ‘visited’ to take a piano lesson. I had memories in that house because we had lived there at one point, and these seemed to wave at me from behind the window panes. The pickers stopped working when they saw me approach. I was not a child, and yet I was not a ‘woman’. I was dressed in ‘weird-looking’ cut-off jeans (a little over the knees). Anita looked very disappointed. In her broken English, she managed, ‘You, clean it?’ ‘Yes’, I said. ‘Why?’ she asked. She obviously felt sorry for me. ‘It’s OK.’ I replied.
The pickers had been eyeing Anita, since she first appeared at our door. She looked different, and when she had spoken, she had certainly sounded different. In her nervousness, she turned to one of the pickers, and with all the courage she could muster, she chided him with a ‘You puttita dere now!’ He glared at me instead of her.
‘What did she say?’
‘She’s asking you to do your job.’ I replied.
‘What language was that?’
'That was English.’
At that, the terror in the date picker’s eyes and voice became pretty apparent. ‘Istimar! Istimar!’ he shouted back at Anita. He was calling her an imperialist and colonialist. I was shocked, at first. Given his villager’s education and the level of schooling that he might have achieved, I was amazed that he could mutter such a sophisticated word. But then, it was a word deeply embedded in Iraqi history and culture. ‘No, they’re not,’ I replied, trying to clam him down. ‘They are diplomats. They were invited into this country,’ I argued, in an attempt to explain their status as ‘strangers’. I smiled at Anita to assure her that I had some control of the situation. ‘Istimar!’ he insisted, and then fell silent.
I ignored him as I washed the patio with soap and water, and scrubbed the stubborn stains of bits and pieces of sticky dates off the marble. Later, I returned home to tell my story to Ahmed and Zinnah. Mama and Dad listened too. We could not stop laughing at the date picker’s remarks. Zinnah even attempted a mimic. ‘Istimar!’ she screamed in my face. ‘How simple and ignorant, they are,’ sighed Mama. ‘What if they knew she was our piano teacher?’ asked Zinnah. ‘We are being taught to play a Western instrument, by none other than the Istimar!’ Dad said nothing.
I look back at this incident now, and I do not think it is funny anymore. If the villager did not know better then, I know better now. Iraq is now filled with ‘Istimar’. Troops and forces from different nations have made their way in, UNINVITED, by the people of Iraq. To me, they are ALL ‘Istimar!’
Istimar!
It was the height of the summer season in Baghdad; what we normally referred to as ‘Aab Al-lahab’ or ‘Flaming August’. The dates had over-ripened and were dripping black spots on the patio in the larger villa next door. Some of it dripped off Dad’s favorite tree. It was that same tree, which fell to the ground, hours before he passed away in February,1999, or so says ‘Abu-Shaker’. It had fallen with a distinctly loud thud that awoke the neighbors as well. No, it was not another American missile, they sighed with relief upon discovering. Besides, after the massive December bombings of 1998, when Aseel, my cousin’s wife, had given birth to her twins under an air raid, there had followed some kind of a lull in air raids.
But, this summer season was long before that. It was during the Iraq-Iran war, the war of attrition that should have never been. The dates dripped, and the Italians that were tenants at one of our larger houses, began complaining. Mama had started complaining long before that. “Othman, when are you going to call the date pickers?” He would stare right through her, as if she was another date palm in the room, significantly shorter and fuller in shape. “It’s high time, we picked those dates. I need to start giving out the portions I do every year. We will loose them if they over-ripen!” She was referring to eight tall date palms next door, and another five in our own back yard.
Anita was one of the sweetest Italians Mama had ever met. Her husband was a chancellor at the Italian embassy in Baghdad. We would go to her house for piano lessons. Zinnah, my sister, was quicker to pick up. I had been self-trained for too long to change my ways. She had wanted us to perform at the Italian embassy where other children from the Italian community in Baghdad of the mid-eighties were going to perform. She had been working hard at training these children. We were teenagers then. Dad’s response to that was, “We don’t want the security police knocking on our doors again. We had best stay away from these ‘public events’!”
Eventually, Dad called the date pickers. They were villagers that traveled to Baghdad at this time of the year, knowing that there were many Baghdadi gardens, where the date palms were too tall for their owners to pick. Not that they were any taller. Date pickers wrapped a large piece of strong burlap around their waists and hips. A thick rope bound the two loose ends of the burlap, forming a huge ‘purse-like’ swing, in which the picker sat. The rope was used for climbing the tree. The picker would haul himself upwards, sitting in the ‘sack’, and using the rope and his bare feet to support him. The date palm’s dead fronds would form the cleats onto which the picker would ‘latch’ his rope.
They arrived late as expected. Dad had already informed our Italian neighbors that the date pickers were going to come and pick the date palms and that they would get their portion. The pickers worked throughout the whole afternoon, and when they were done, they came to ring our door bell. Dad inspected the sacks of dates they managed to fill, and just as he was turning over the last one, Anita showed up at our door. ‘De patio issa dirty!’, she complained. Dad looked quizzically at the first picker (they were two of them), ‘Did you not clean up where the dates dropped?’. ‘No’, he replied, and added, ‘That’s a woman’s job! We don’t clean.’ Dad was firm, ‘But we agreed that I would pay you to pick the dates and that you would protect the patio by laying newspapers. I even gave you a whole bag of old newspapers.’ The man said nothing. Dad tried to get him to clean the mess, by offering him more money. It was useless. Finally, the man said, ‘I will pick up all the dead date palm leafs and the bits of fronds that are scattered around the date trees, but I will not clean the patio.” Anita waited patiently. Dad turned to her and calmly said, ‘We’ll take care of it. They’re going to come back and pick up the dead leaves.’
He walked into the living room, where the three of us had sat listening in to the dialogue. ‘You have heard everything...Which one of you will go to the house next door and clean the patio, since Jumhuriya (the cleaning lady) has left for the day?’ ‘That’s a woman’s job!’, insisted Ahmed. ‘But you are the oldest, and you’re a boy!’ argued Zinnah. It went on and on. I could see my father’s weary eyes begin to lose patience, and yet still he waited for us to reach an agreement. ‘I’ll go!’ I said.
It had been a while since I had ‘visited’ to take a piano lesson. I had memories in that house because we had lived there at one point, and these seemed to wave at me from behind the window panes. The pickers stopped working when they saw me approach. I was not a child, and yet I was not a ‘woman’. I was dressed in ‘weird-looking’ cut-off jeans (a little over the knees). Anita looked very disappointed. In her broken English, she managed, ‘You, clean it?’ ‘Yes’, I said. ‘Why?’ she asked. She obviously felt sorry for me. ‘It’s OK.’ I replied.
The pickers had been eyeing Anita, since she first appeared at our door. She looked different, and when she had spoken, she had certainly sounded different. In her nervousness, she turned to one of the pickers, and with all the courage she could muster, she chided him with a ‘You puttita dere now!’ He glared at me instead of her.
‘What did she say?’
‘She’s asking you to do your job.’ I replied.
‘What language was that?’
'That was English.’
At that, the terror in the date picker’s eyes and voice became pretty apparent. ‘Istimar! Istimar!’ he shouted back at Anita. He was calling her an imperialist and colonialist. I was shocked, at first. Given his villager’s education and the level of schooling that he might have achieved, I was amazed that he could mutter such a sophisticated word. But then, it was a word deeply embedded in Iraqi history and culture. ‘No, they’re not,’ I replied, trying to clam him down. ‘They are diplomats. They were invited into this country,’ I argued, in an attempt to explain their status as ‘strangers’. I smiled at Anita to assure her that I had some control of the situation. ‘Istimar!’ he insisted, and then fell silent.
I ignored him as I washed the patio with soap and water, and scrubbed the stubborn stains of bits and pieces of sticky dates off the marble. Later, I returned home to tell my story to Ahmed and Zinnah. Mama and Dad listened too. We could not stop laughing at the date picker’s remarks. Zinnah even attempted a mimic. ‘Istimar!’ she screamed in my face. ‘How simple and ignorant, they are,’ sighed Mama. ‘What if they knew she was our piano teacher?’ asked Zinnah. ‘We are being taught to play a Western instrument, by none other than the Istimar!’ Dad said nothing.
I look back at this incident now, and I do not think it is funny anymore. If the villager did not know better then, I know better now. Iraq is now filled with ‘Istimar’. Troops and forces from different nations have made their way in, UNINVITED, by the people of Iraq. To me, they are ALL ‘Istimar!’