The Poet of Baghdad by Jo Tatchell

Author:Jo Tatchell [Tatchell, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-87509-9
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2006-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

AUGUST 1979

TARIQ, NOW A CONFIDENT TWENTY-YEAR-OLD, sits in the back of the Toyota Super looking straight ahead into the darkness outside. Flanked by two plainclothes intelligence officers, he shifts awkwardly in his seat in an attempt to alleviate the shooting pains in his torso. His arm and shoulder still burn from having been twisted hard, an unnecessary precaution given that he had made no attempt to resist arrest. They had flung him into the back of the car with such force that he’d slid right across the cream leatherette seats and smashed his cheek against the window. Now that, too, is beginning to radiate a dull pain.

As they drive through the busy streets of west Baghdad, down the wide airport road, the driver of the car hums irritatingly. The two secret policemen say nothing. Instinctively, Tariq reaches into the pocket of his tight-cut denims and pulls out a pack of Rothman’s full-strength. A smoke would improve things. Although he had known it was only a matter of time before they caught up with him, they couldn’t have picked a worse moment. Jafar and Juma’a are both in prison, Jabbar has escaped to France, and who knew where Nabeel was? He hadn’t seen him for weeks. The only man in the house was himself. Without her boys around her, Mama had worked herself into a state of exhaustion. What was that saying of hers? “Bear sons and you will never be alone.” Well, since Baba died life had been nothing but hardship and misery for her, he thought.

The car jolts across the railway lines that run through the west of the city and Tariq’s shoulder bumps the officer next to him. The dark, wiry policeman speaks to him with a northern Iraq accent, so quickly that Tariq can hardly make out what he is saying. “Do you know why we have taken you in, Tariq?” He does not pause for an answer. “Because your brother is a traitor. And that makes you a traitor too.” His bony face is shiny with sweat in the close heat of the evening and his long teeth are bared. “His Excellency the President the Leader God Placed Him despises you. He despises all traitors who seek to undermine his presidency with their lies and cowardice. I think you Yasins must have been born stupid. Why should you be allowed to roam free while your brothers go on committing crimes against the state? But no matter, we’ll get you all eventually, throw you into prison, leave you to starve, or just put a bullet through your knees. We might even make you disappear. Will your mother find you in a back alley with your throat cut like a goat in the slaughterhouse? Will this be your future, Tariq? Remember, life is very cheap once you betray His Excellency the President the Leader God Placed Him.”

Despite his pounding heart Tariq keeps telling himself to stay cool and composed. So far it was all as Juma’a had said it would be.

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