Baghdad Journal

"This is what he tells me."

Friday is Yawm al-Jama'a, or Mosque Day, the one holiday during the week when people don't work. They flock to the mosques for prayer, for the sermons of the Sheiks.

Brandon and I decide this morning to take the day off. We made a few phone calls. We've been writing, transcribing. Brandon found The Man who Would Be King on TV. After that there was no communicating with him. So I went downstairs to photograph the woman behind the desk who is there everyday and always looks tired. Her English is pretty good, so we talk about things. "For 23 years we have no rest," she says. "We are tired. Tired in our thinking, tired in our hearts." She tells me that life in Baghdad is no good since the Americans came, but she agrees electricity and water are better than they were two months ago. "But not like it was with Saddam," she says. A man comes in and sits on one of the red vinyl couches lining the foyer walls. He sits next to a five-year-old, Chaldean boy named Christian, who is always running around downstairs. His legs and face are thin, his shorts hiked high above his waste. They talk and touch like family.

When I finish photographing Christian, the man on the couch and I talk, understanding without understanding each other's language. His name is Abu Amir, the father of Amir. After a few minutes he stands up and makes a motion for me to follow him through the door. Brandon and I have been told it's not safe for us to walk by ourselves on the streets. But the mostly-empty street is full of heat and sun, and has an aura of rest, peace. Only when the tanks and humvees with spinning gunners roll by occasionally does it look like a place half-besieged. Abu Amir sees I'm reluctant to follow him. "I work," he says and with a bandaged finger points to the store next door. It is the only one open on the block.

Here the walls are lined with boxes. The store is stuffed with electronics and appliances. The owner says soldiers come here to buy lightbulbs, USB memory sticks, microwaves, toasters, refrigerators, water purifiers, for their offices and for posts in other towns around Baghdad. He says he does lots of business every day. "Before the Americans bombed, there was no money, but plenty of security," he said. "And now, the money is good, but there is no security. This is Iraq."

Standing in the narrow alley of appliances, Abu Amir asks in Arabic how I like Iraq. The owner's older brother, who has dull, purple bags around his eyes like the rings of a tree stump, translates the question for me. "Iraq, kullish ziena," I say stupidly--Iraq, very good. The owner says, "No, Iraq is not 'kullish ziena', not right now." Talking with my mouth full--still chewing my words--I tell him I know, he's right, but what I mean to say is that the people of Baghdad are very warm, kind, intelligent, and that, yes, I understand, at one time, before Saddam's wars, Bushes' bombs and UN sanctions Baghdad was a beautiful place. He accepts this.

The owner tells me a man from Tikrit came into his store a few weeks ago. "He was buying many things," the owner says. "When I ask him what he needs so many these things for, he tells me he sells them to American army." The owner was surprised Tikritis were doing business with the soldiers. "'You sell to the soldiers?' I ask him," the owner says. "And he tells me, 'Yes. At night we fight the soldiers, and during the morning we sell them these things.' This is what he tells me."