Frankenstein in Baghdad

by Ahmed Saadawi

“Each of my three madmen promoted his own idea of me to his clique, amassing followers who were fed up with what they saw around them and were seeking some kind of salvation.

“The Magician was uncomfortable with these developments and thought they would not end well, because we were now more visible.

“I know that things haven’t been going the way I would like. That’s why I’m asking anyone who listens to this recording to help me by not obstructing my work until I finish it and leave this world of yours. I’ve already been here too long.

I made sure my assistants didn’t bring any flesh that was illegitimate—in other words, the flesh of criminals—but who’s to say how criminal someone is? That’s a question the Magician raised one day.

“‘He convinced you that now you’re half criminal,’ he said, ‘that half your flesh comes from criminals. Tomorrow he’ll tell you you’re three-quarters criminal, and later you’ll wake up to find you’ve become totally criminal. But you’re not an ordinary criminal. You’ll be the supercriminal, because you’re made up of criminals, a bunch of criminals. Ha!’

“I fired one round from my revolver, just as I began to lose all sensation in my eye.

Bending down, I felt around for the warm body of the frightened old man. The bullet had hit him right in the skull. He had been expecting death to come from the upper floors of the buildings or from the ends of the streets in front of him, but it had come from behind.

These are eyes from the body of an innocent victim. The proportion of criminal parts in my body wouldn’t increase. But what should I tell him? In retribution for this victim, who should I exact vengeance on?

“The recording’s finished? What will you do now?” “Only one thing—this.” “No, sir. No, master. I’m your slave and your servant. Why are you doing that? No, sir. I’m your slave, your sla . . . ve.” “Hello, hello, hello. Yes.”

THIS WAS THE SECOND or third time Mahmoud had listened to the Whatsitsname’s recordings. He couldn’t get over the shock of the story or the soft, calm voice in which it had been recounted.

“What’s this extraordinary story?” asked the brigadier. “What about it?” “Who’s the guy telling this story?” “It’s a guy who sells junk in the area. It’s fantasy. The editor liked it and told me to write it up.”

The brigadier didn’t want to give away any secrets. He didn’t want to tell Mahmoud that the Whatsitsname he had written about—the Frankenstein’s monster in his article—was not fantasy but a real person, or that he had spent most of his time for the last several months trying to have him arrested, or that his personal life and his professional future were riding on this strange man, or that he was trying to dispel the aura of mystery with which the man surrounded himself, or that he had sworn to grab him with his own hands and expose him on television so the whole world could see he was nothing more than a useless, despicable, lowly person who had made himself into a myth by exploiting people’s ignorance and fear and the chaos around them.

He philosophized a little in the article, saying there were three types of justice—legal justice, divine justice, and street justice—and that however long it takes, criminals must face one of them.

Anyone who puts on a crown, even if only as an experiment, will end up looking for a kingdom.”

“Won’t you drop dead already and give me a break? You’re as tough as old boots, for God’s sake!” he said.

Amid the waves of pain, a voice in Hadi’s head told him that things would proceed as in an American action movie. His superhero would suddenly appear on the roof in the form of a dark hulk, then come down and at the speed of lightning fell his enemies with powerful punches, saving his friend and creator, his aging father. But that didn’t happen.

The Whatsitsname didn’t think the savage beating and the knife cuts would be enough to kill Hadi, but it looked like the kind of punishment he deserved for his many sins and mistakes. That’s what the Whatsitsname was thinking as he came down into the courtyard to put his creator on the bed and help him put his clothes on.

The Whatsitsname was now at a loss for what to do. He knew his mission was essentially to kill, to kill new people every day, but he no longer had a clear idea who should be killed or why.

The flesh of the innocents, of which he was initially composed, had been replaced by new flesh, that of his own victims and criminals. He thought if he took too long avenging the victims in whose name he was acting, the body parts he had taken from them would decompose in situ. It would be the end of him, and he would be free of this world.

“‘Fear not those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.’”

In his mind he still had a long list of the people he was supposed to kill, and as fast as the list shrank it was replenished with new names, making avenging these lives an endless task. Or maybe he would wake up one day to discover that there was no one left to kill, because the criminals and the victims were entangled in a way that was more complicated than ever before.

“There are no innocents who are completely innocent or criminals who are completely criminal.”

This was the realization that would undermine his mission—because every criminal he had killed was also a victim.

“Have you ever thought about how this monstrous criminal was made?”

“Yes, I think we played a role in creating this creature, in one way or another. Things were proceeding as usual before he appeared. I think some of our staff helped create him,” said the astrologer.

Aziz explained that after the explosion, Hadi had gone to the mortuary to collect the body because Nahem didn’t have any family other than his wife and young daughter. Hadi was shocked to see that the bodies of explosion victims were all mixed up together and to hear the mortuary worker tell him to put a body together and carry it off—take this leg and this arm and so on.

The accusation his friends made, that he had become just like Saidi, didn’t bother him at all. But in order to make the likeness complete, Mahmoud had to pass one more test. He had to have Nawal al-Wazir in the same way Saidi had had her. Or perhaps Saidi hadn’t really had her, as she insisted, in which case Mahmoud would outdo Saidi, would leave him in the dust.

Faraj didn’t die in that explosion. It wasn’t his time yet. He had more to learn. For one thing, he had come to accept that Elishva really did have secret powers.

A week before the explosion Faraj had made another successful deal. With Elishva. She had finally given in and accepted his offer to buy her old house—because Daniel had finally come back.

It was definitely him— the very same young man with the slight gray smile that was in the old picture in her sitting room. He had the same look, the same clothes and face, the same smile that spread across his face when his dark eyes met the old lady’s. So Saint George the Martyr had carried out his promise after all, bringing Elishva’s son back to her just as he looked that morning when he left the house reluctantly and in sadness, his heavy boots pounding the pavement till he disappeared from sight at the turn onto the main street.

She wanted to be sure that everyone was a witness to her miracle. Here was her beloved son, come back to embrace her.

Phone calls between Matilda and Father Josiah had helped to pinpoint the strategy: that there was a strong similarity between Daniel her grandson and Daniel her dead son, strong enough to confuse the old woman.

Daniel told his grandmother she had to come with him. She had to sell the house and get rid of all her stuff. She had to live with him.

She made Daniel kneel in front of the picture of Saint George and offer him thanks because he had fulfilled his promise to her. As she folded her hands in silence in front of the picture, she waited for the saint to say a few words to convince her son that a miracle really had taken place, but the saint held his tongue.

The old woman’s only condition was that he wasn’t to remove the furniture while she was there. She didn’t want to see her house disappear before her eyes but wanted to remember it as it had always been, tidy and clean and smelling of the people who had lived in it and passed through it.

The saint said nothing. He had performed his miracle and his role was over—that’s how the old woman finally understood it.

He looked around at the room and felt pangs of sadness. He would never again see the old lady who had contributed to his birth and given him the name of her missing son.

He felt closer to her than to other people and felt that he had helped to keep the memory of her son alive.

Now that she was gone, he had lost one of his reasons for existing. She had left him without realizing that she was leaving one of the last th...

The senior astrologer put a pink piece of paper in front of him, and before the brigadier had a chance to read it, the old astrologer said, “He’s here. In this house in Bataween. You have to act immediately, before he wakes up.”

He had never before had any trouble conjuring up people’s faces, but the features of the One Who Has No Name had always eluded him. That’s what made him more mysterious and more dangerous than all the others.

The fact that Hadi had survived was seen as a miracle, reminding everyone of the lies he had been telling for years about how he had survived falling down mountains and flying through the air after explosions. He had indeed defied death this time.

Abu Salim asked him who he was, and he said, “I’m the writer.” “Writer of what?” “I write short stories.” “What would you like me to tell you?” “Tell me everything.”

“There’s something else,” said the astrologer, expecting Brigadier Majid to turn toward him. “This car bomb—in a way we’re responsible for it.”

“We have to go back to the department immediately. It’s one of my assistants—the junior astrologer. He moved the car to this place with the intention of killing the Criminal Who Has No Name, but now the criminal has escaped, and the suicide bomber doesn’t know why he was sent here.”

He continued down the dark side street, and through his round glasses he could see the vague shape of a man standing in the middle of the street.

“I’d like to see your face, if I may.” “What’s the point of that? It changes. I don’t have a permanent face.” “Let me see.”

Then, as he stared straight at the criminal’s dark face, the headlights of a distant car lit it up for him. By the light of the car he finally saw it. Even he, with his cards and magic tricks, hadn’t believed he would get to see it.

This face he had just seen for the first and last time was also from his past. He recognized it, but whose was it?

During his slow death throes on the desolate street, he would be wholly convinced that it was a composite face, made up of faces from his distant past. It was the face of his own personal past, which he had thought had no face or features. And now it had appeared to him clearly, caught for a moment in the headlights of a passing car.