The Gardener of Baghdad by Ahmad Ardalan

Author:Ahmad Ardalan [Ardalan, Ahmad]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2014-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Like every other day for the past several decades, Adnan turned the window sign to let everyone know his shop was open at exactly nine in the morning. He was still wearing the same clothes as the day before, as he had no time to go home and change in the morning and would have to wait till lunchtime to freshen up. He would spend an hour resting, shave his face, and he would meet with the old man at around four p.m. He hoped the fellow could help him solve the puzzle of the book that had left him thirsty for answers.

He had convinced his friend to bring his uncle to the shop rather than meeting him at the café. He wanted to talk to him in private and thought that a quiet place, with the smell of old books all around, might arouse the man’s senses and draw out his most vivid memories.

Adnan closed the shop earlier that day and went back to his old computer. He was a lover of books that could be held in his hand, and he had never been much of a fan of the Internet. In fact, he found it difficult to cope with technology altogether, anything more modern than the television or the light bulb. He didn’t even have an email address, and when he did have to type, he used only one finger. Thus, his limited knowledge of the World Wide Web made it impossible for him to search any of the names he’d read. Even if he had been able to Google it, he wouldn’t have trusted the information; Adnan was a firm believer than any information so easily gained could just as easily be corrupted. He preferred to hear about old Iraq from the people who had been there and lived through that era themselves. Nevertheless, he spent a half-hour surfing through all the websites, hoping to learn some general information of that period in history, the days when Ali and his friends walked the streets of Baghdad.

Adnan stared at the monitor for a while, reading about the British influence in Iraq in the fifties. He read about Nuri Saeed, or Nuri Pasha, as they used to call him, the Iraqi prime minister with the iron fist. When the tiny print began to give him a headache, he closed his computer, locked his shop, and headed home.

The hot shower was quite a relief for the tension that had knotted up throughout Adnan’s body, and it rejuvenated him a bit, much to his wife’s relief; she’d been shocked to see him looking so fatigued after getting only a few hours of sleep in the shop for the past few days.

His wife prepared a large meal for him, more food than she usually cooked, because he looked like he could use the extra nourishment, even if it did put a few extra pounds around his middle. The delicious taste of her food and the love he felt from his family was refreshing.

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