I Lost My Love in Baghdad by Michael Hastings

Author:Michael Hastings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2008-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER13

August 2006

BAGHDAD

Baghdad life is no longer new to me, it is just the routine. Wake up in the morning, feel your bed shake slightly, hear the windows rattle, a boom in the distance. Did I dream it? Close your eyes, back to sleep. The house shakes again. No, that’s a car bomb. It’s 8:15A.M. , I don’t need to get up for another half hour.

Munib brings an omelet and toast with a glass of unidentifiable juice and Happy Cow cheese wrapped in colorful tinfoil.

“Boom cars this morning,” he says. “Boom car” is his translation for car bomb.

Scott, whose room is on the second floor, comes downstairs.

“Did you hear the explosion this morning?” I ask, sipping coffee.

“Yeah, it was a big one.”

“Woke me up, that’s for sure. Beats any alarm clock.”

We hear machine-gun fire, probably from one of the ranges set up nearby to train the Iraqi security forces.

I take a shower. There is a bare lightbulb and a red-tiled floor, damp though it’s over 115 degrees outside. The mirror is cracked. The toothpaste is some local brand—Sino—and it feels like it burns away the enamel; the tap water is dirty so you swig and spit from the two-liter plastic bottle and the bottle top tastes like stale toothpaste, left over from last night when you brushed your teeth before going to bed. The shower water is either hot or burning hot; steam fills the room; the shower curtain won’t close properly and the water splashes out on the floor; a cockroach runs out of the drain and I step on it with my flip-flops—exterminate the brutes. There is surprisingly decent water pressure, all other things considered. It’s not an exaggeration to say that even after your hair dries and your Gillette Arctic Fresh deodorant is on you still don’t feel clean.

I put on what I wear around the house: baggy brown cargo shorts and a white T-shirt, keeping my flip-flops on.

It’s 9:30A.M. I talk to Scott about reporting, or we talk about sleep.

“Did you sleep well last night?”

“Mosquitoes again. They ate me alive. I had to sleep in my hoodie with the hood up and at 4A.M. I decided to fuck it and turn the light on and hunt the bastard down.”

Mosquitoes always find their way inside the house, like we’re living in a swamp and not the desert. The only explanation I can figure is that we are in walking distance of the Tigris River. Various other insects live in the house and faded green lizards sneak in through gaps and crawl up the walls to hide in plain view on the ceiling. At night, bats whip through the darkness.

Mosquitoes, lizards, bats. Extreme heat in the summer, air on your face like a blow-dryer switched to high. Noisy ceiling fans, dust everywhere, nasal-clogging sandstorms. Bad food washed down with unidentifiable juice. Boom cars. More people blowing themselves up in Iraq than at any other point in modern history. Baghdad is the deadliest city on earth.

What is it that Ranya, our fixer in Amman, said? She said she can’t stand Iraqis.

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