Brave Deeds by David Abrams

Author:David Abrams [Abrams, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802189141
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2017-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

25

Wedding

There was that wedding reception we’d attended not too long ago. We were late, uninvited. Wedding crashers. By the time we arrived, things were a mess.

As we walked through the rubble, the craters, and the splashes of blood, Hamid reconstructed the scene for us, based on what he’d gathered from the neighbors and kids on bikes who still hung around the scene even after we arrived in our Humvees.

“The groom was a law student at university,” Hamid said, voice husky from the smoke—or sorrow. It was hard to tell. “The bride, she was the only daughter of the president of a furniture company. Very wealthy man. Made big money in desks and chairs in the 1970s and kept it, even through the Saddam years. Now, he’s doing—was doing—big, big business selling to US Army headquarters coming in to Baghdad, setting up their offices.”

Sergeant Morgan looked at him, frowning. “Those kids told you all this?”

“Yes—but, no, I also know the man,” Hamid said. “Know him through newspaper stories. Like I said: very, very rich. This wedding was—as you Americans say—a really big deal.”

Sergeant Morgan knelt beside an overturned metal platter of food, a spill of rice coming from beneath in a delta. He touched the plate—as if to turn it over—but yelped and jumped to his feet, shaking his fingers. The tray was still hot, long after it had been seared by flame.

“So how did we get from ‘I do’ to this?” he asked Hamid, sucking his fingertips.

“Wedding was this morning. They start early because it lasts all day. It was all very happy, all very good. Cheerful—laughing, singing, some dancing. Then they all came back here to the house of the bride’s family for the walima. Feast. You know ‘feast’? Is that the right word?”

“Yeah, like a reception,” Sergeant Morgan said. “I get it.”

“In our country, men and women they don’t eat together,” Hamid said. “Men eat first, tell stories about the bridegroom, laugh some more, maybe drink too much. Then the women eat, indoors, away from their husbands and fathers. Not as much drinking, but still lots of stories. That is how I think this one went today, how I see it in my head.” Hamid, the fool, was getting all misty-eyed and choked up.

He and Sergeant Morgan stepped around a body part as he continued to narrate the scene. “Then, after the proper time has passed, the groom comes to the women’s feast—he is shy and maybe embarrassed—and everyone toasts the couple with orange soda.”

“Orange soda?” Rafe asked. “That’s the tradition?”

Hamid shrugged. “Maybe they drank Diet Coke here. I don’t know. At my cousin’s wedding, it was orange soda.”

“Go on,” Rafe said. “Then what happened?”

“Then there was more dancing. Everyone’s together now. Men, wives, children. The very rich father, he’s hired a band, so musicians are playing loud and with happy excitement. Drums, trumpets, cymbals. The bride and groom are in the street, holding hands, swinging each other around and around in circles.” Yep, no doubt about it: Hamid was crying.

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