- "So that’s why Heller’s work is so timeless and universal. For next week, please reflect on how we can project this onto today’s society in our country. Have a good weekend.”
Amphi4 was filled with the regular eclectic bunch: The guys, some in T-shirts, some wearing a blazer; And the girls, some of them dressed modern and western, others traditionally Muslim in several variegations according to their belief. The lecture on 20th-century American literature had finished, which heralded the start of the weekend. Ayra stuck her book and notebook in her backpack and joined the stream of students toward the exit of the lecture hall. There was the usual murmur and laughter while some bizarre phone melodies sounded up midst the crowd. She followed the flow through the outdoor garden passage which was merrily bordered by trees, as a blue sky welcomed her with spring temperatures. It was her penultimate year at the College of Linguistics at Baghdad University. Living in the metropolis was quite a change against the little village in the north of the country where she grew up.
There was Amal already, waiting outside on his motorbike in his leather jacket. He waved enthusiastically at her. He had nagged her for weeks to show her his ‘super cool band’ until she finally gave in. Maybe he wanted to make a pass at her, but she wanted no more than friendship. She was not in the mood for romance, still trying to find her way in a society that was thrifting away more and more in chaos. - “Hold on tightly baby, we’re gonna ride!” She closed her jacket and wrapped her arms around his waist. His finger hit the starter and off they leaped onto the street like a rocket as the front-wheel pranced two times. The back of the seat was somewhat higher than the front, giving her a free view over his shoulder, as parked cars flashed past. She squinted her eyes in fear when she saw a curve approaching with the speed of light. He took the bend flawlessly while the world seemed to keel around her. Amal slowed down and took a sharp right turn into a narrow pedestrian street, slaloming around indignant walkers, to find his way to another road. They stopped in a quiet street in front of a neglected antique building. - “My grandparents live here, in an apartment on the ground floor. I am popping by to bring some meds from the pharmacy. It won’t be long,” explained Amal. She followed him through a ramshackle archway that led past a patio overgrown with weeds. The proud pond that once must have shone in glory, was declined to a rectangular hole in the ground, covered with yellow toadflax and remains of mosaic tiles. Amal knocked on one of the weathered doors as they entered a dusky room. - “Hi, grandma, it is me. Here are the heart tablets for granddad.” - “Shhh, Amal. Granddad is having his nap,” hushed the old lady, sitting at the table. Her eyes were pale grey and stared into nothing while she spoke. Ayra figured she must be blind. - “Who have you brought along with you?” - “A friend. I’m gonna show her the band today.” The old woman swiveled her head left and right as if scanning for some hidden cue. - “Come here next to me, honey, and give me your hand, will you?” Ayra obeyed, a little surprised. The woman’s wrinkled hand palms felt like thin leather, when she groped Ayra’s left arm, as she kept staring in front of her. - “Your life is filled with turbulence and love, girl. And you are very bold.” The old hands now found their way to Ayra’s wrist and palm while there was a short silence before she continued. - “You are helping a friend, a young woman like yourself. She is hungry and in distress and doesn’t know what to do. She is thanking you for your help.” Ayra felt a little jolt of excitement at this extraordinary encounter. - “Is she in distress because of the situation in our country? Will we have another war?...” The old lady trembled slightly as she examined Ayra’s hand and fingers. - “Not our country, dear. Far, far away from here, and many, many years from now.” - “So, I will get old?” - “You will be old and grey like I am now, and yet, still young like the young woman you are helping.” - “How come??...” - “Love will melt time away, dear, like a bridge.” The woman’s fingers kept palpating Ayra’s hand palm. - “You will know true love and ….” Suddenly her blind face shadowed as if shocked by something. She let go of Ayra’s hand. - “I must stop now, dear. I am tired.” There was a moment of silence in the room. Then, she turned to another subject: - “Amal, how is your father? He never visits me anymore, that son of mine!” - “But dad is no longer, grandma. You know he passed away two years ago.” - “I had a long talk with him, last week,” the old lady mumbled in hardly understandable words. She looked very tired now. Amal kissed his grandmother on both cheeks. - “We have to leave now, grandma. I’ll visit you next week.” Ayra was puzzled when she followed Amal to the bike. - “How does she know those things?” - “Don’t worry about a thing she said,” he assured her. - “Grandma used to have ‘the sight’, as we call it. Once, she even helped the police solving a murder case. But now, she is dementing and everything is mixing up in her mind. Sometimes she even doesn’t recognize me.” Ayra still sensed a strange twirl in her belly about what just happened.
Amal’s foot kicked down the gear pedal and off they roared as their noise echoed from the facades, while the wind fluttered their hair. They ended up on a lonely street in front of an old workshop. Four motorbikes were parked in front of its closed roller shutter. - “Here we are, baby.” Ayra took a deep breath from her rocket ride experience and the mysterious encounter with the old woman. This clearly wasn’t going to be a regular day. Bang! “Goal!!” She looked around in shock. Two kids were playing soccer using a wooden garage door as the target. Bang! A second goal echoed through the street. A neighbor opened his upper window and began to shout down, waving his fist, while a car tooted annoyed as the boys’ game was blocking the street.
Amal led Ayra through a narrow passage next to the workshop’s roller shutter. She was curious. Amal was certainly too off-stream to play in a traditional band at weddings and birthdays. No doubt it would be something extravagant. She followed him as he opened an iron door and led her through a long corridor as the sound of a bass drum encountered her. Amal introduced her to the gang, dressed in their leather jackets. They were plugging cables into their instruments and turning knobs on the installation. One of the guys had long hair bound together in a ponytail, the other three were bald-shaved, one of them with Chinese characters tattooed around his head. Amal greeted the guys with a fist bump. She followed his example after a second of hesitation, but the guys made her feel comfortable, fist-bumping her spontaneously with a friendly smile. A feeling of intrigue teased her with no idea what to expect. After some tonal twiddling, they seemed to be ready to go. - “Okay, guys, let’s rock!!!” Ayra gasped in shock, as the band started producing rock harder than the bombardments during the US-Iraqi war. The singer screamed in bestial agony, while the guitarist competed with his squealies, enhanced by the wild rhythm section. After half an hour of acoustic violence, Amal decided it was time to stop and dedicate some attention to Ayra as he had noticed she was overwhelmed by their tsunami of rage. She threw a shy glance at him, not really knowing what to say. - “Come, Ayra, I’ll take you to Ali’s for a snack.” It sounded like a good suggestion to her and she nodded friendly with a feeling of relief. They said goodbye to the band and off they set, as the bike roared through the street like an angry lion.
Ali’s fast-food bar found itself in a small shopping street. Traffic looked relatively quiet for a Friday afternoon. Amal ordered two kebabs with a coke and then they sat down at one of three little tables that were neatly placed on the sidewalk. The sun was already low but the street still held the pleasant warmth of the spring day. - “So, what you think, baby?” he asked with a broad grin while popping the tab on his coke can. Ayra couldn’t hold back her opinion: “But how can you call that music?? It’s just screaming hysterically and ear-deafening.” Amal laughed out loud. - “It’s the modern free world, baby. Go west. Our music is going to break through, you’ll see.” Ayra sighed deeply. “Modern free world, you say? Baghdad is getting less modern than ever before. People are returning to stern religion without respect for diversity!” - “You do have a point there,” agreed Amal. “Yusuf, you know, the tall guy you just met, with the bass guitar, he has received a death threat letter on his doorsteps, clearly from people who think we are too modern.” “Really? Frightening how hatred is growing,” continued Ayra. “The Sunni Muslims against the Shia Muslims and then the riots in the north where my parents live.” - “How come? You guys in the north are so rich with oil.” - “Rich? Well, rich and poor. We’re lucky at home because my father is a government employee. But we have a lot of poverty in the north.” Amal nodded in sad agreement. - “Yeah, I hope this all will change one day. Ah, Ali is already putting the food on the plates, I’m gonna fetch them.”
A bus passed by and stopped at the halt down the street. An old lady with a cane stepped out and two women got in. They were both shrouded in a black niqab and a cloak that reached down to their feet. A young woman ran to the bus, just in time to catch it. She was modernly dressed in a bright knee-high summer dress and a colorful headscarf. Ayra ran her fingers through her hair and glanced at her worn-out jeans, one knee already appearing through the fabric. Maybe she’d allow herself something nice like that woman. Those clothes looked so bright and happy.
She sipped her Coke and watched the bus drive away while closing its doors. Suddenly a bright white flash blinded her eyes, as her eardrums were slammed by a massive bang. She cowered away and covered her eyes with her arms while the shockwave smashed the tables aside, accompanied by the sound of breaking window panes. Amal’s parked bike fell over hitting the wall, oil slowly leaking out. The scene beyond was devastating. Where a car had been parked near the bus stop, there was now a bulking black cloud that gradually enveloped the bus of which the rear side had been blasted away. An amputated wheel rolled across the street and found its destination against an opposite wall. In the front of the bus, a woman was crawling on her belly out of the half-closed door. Soon she became invisible behind the curtain of smoke. After a few seconds of bewilderment, Ayra sprung up and ran to the scene of disaster, entering the black haze where she discerned the woman, still lying half through the door opening of the bus, looking up, her hand reaching out for help. It was the nice young woman she had seen stepping in. Her pretty headscarf had crinkled itself around her neck, her face covered with trails of blood. Ayra grabbed the woman’s arms, helped her partly up, and dragged her over the sidewalk, upwind, to get somewhat away from the bruise-black cloud that was billowing itself high into the sky. Pain cut through her lungs as she plopped down dizzily, her back against a wall, coughing heavily. Sirens of the police and ambulances were approaching rapidly. The young woman had stopped breathing and was lying motionless in her arms.
New York City 27 February 2069
Xenia opened her eyes and yawned deeply when her acoustic zone started playing radio music. She was a bad riser and always found it hard to get going in the morning.
Baghdad Iraq
7 March 2014.
- "So that’s why Heller’s work is so timeless and universal. For next week, please reflect on how we can project this onto today’s society in our country. Have a good weekend.”
Amphi4 was filled with the regular eclectic bunch: The guys, some in T-shirts, some wearing a blazer; And the girls, some of them dressed modern and western, others traditionally Muslim in several variegations according to their belief.
The lecture on 20th-century American literature had finished, which heralded the start of the weekend.
Ayra stuck her book and notebook in her backpack and joined the stream of students toward the exit of the lecture hall. There was the usual murmur and laughter while some bizarre phone melodies sounded up midst the crowd. She followed the flow through the outdoor garden passage which was merrily bordered by trees, as a blue sky welcomed her with spring temperatures.
It was her penultimate year at the College of Linguistics at Baghdad University.
Living in the metropolis was quite a change against the little village in the north of the country where she grew up.
There was Amal already, waiting outside on his motorbike in his leather jacket. He waved enthusiastically at her. He had nagged her for weeks to show her his ‘super cool band’ until she finally gave in. Maybe he wanted to make a pass at her, but she wanted no more than friendship. She was not in the mood for romance, still trying to find her way in a society that was thrifting away more and more in chaos.
- “Hold on tightly baby, we’re gonna ride!”
She closed her jacket and wrapped her arms around his waist.
His finger hit the starter and off they leaped onto the street like a rocket as the front-wheel pranced two times. The back of the seat was somewhat higher than the front, giving her a free view over his shoulder, as parked cars flashed past.
She squinted her eyes in fear when she saw a curve approaching with the speed of light. He took the bend flawlessly while the world seemed to keel around her.
Amal slowed down and took a sharp right turn into a narrow pedestrian street, slaloming around indignant walkers, to find his way to another road.
They stopped in a quiet street in front of a neglected antique building.
- “My grandparents live here, in an apartment on the ground floor. I am popping by to bring some meds from the pharmacy. It won’t be long,” explained Amal.
She followed him through a ramshackle archway that led past a patio overgrown with weeds. The proud pond that once must have shone in glory, was declined to a rectangular hole in the ground, covered with yellow toadflax and remains of mosaic tiles.
Amal knocked on one of the weathered doors as they entered a dusky room.
- “Hi, grandma, it is me. Here are the heart tablets for granddad.”
- “Shhh, Amal. Granddad is having his nap,” hushed the old lady, sitting at the table. Her eyes were pale grey and stared into nothing while she spoke. Ayra figured she must be blind.
- “Who have you brought along with you?”
- “A friend. I’m gonna show her the band today.”
The old woman swiveled her head left and right as if scanning for some hidden cue.
- “Come here next to me, honey, and give me your hand, will you?”
Ayra obeyed, a little surprised. The woman’s wrinkled hand palms felt like thin leather, when she groped Ayra’s left arm, as she kept staring in front of her.
- “Your life is filled with turbulence and love, girl. And you are very bold.”
The old hands now found their way to Ayra’s wrist and palm while there was a short silence before she continued.
- “You are helping a friend, a young woman like yourself. She is hungry and in distress and doesn’t know what to do. She is thanking you for your help.”
Ayra felt a little jolt of excitement at this extraordinary encounter.
- “Is she in distress because of the situation in our country? Will we have another war?...”
The old lady trembled slightly as she examined Ayra’s hand and fingers.
- “Not our country, dear. Far, far away from here, and many, many years from now.”
- “So, I will get old?”
- “You will be old and grey like I am now, and yet, still young like the young woman you are helping.”
- “How come??...”
- “Love will melt time away, dear, like a bridge.”
The woman’s fingers kept palpating Ayra’s hand palm.
- “You will know true love and ….”
Suddenly her blind face shadowed as if shocked by something. She let go of Ayra’s hand.
- “I must stop now, dear. I am tired.”
There was a moment of silence in the room. Then, she turned to another subject:
- “Amal, how is your father? He never visits me anymore, that son of mine!”
- “But dad is no longer, grandma. You know he passed away two years ago.”
- “I had a long talk with him, last week,” the old lady mumbled in hardly understandable words. She looked very tired now.
Amal kissed his grandmother on both cheeks.
- “We have to leave now, grandma. I’ll visit you next week.”
Ayra was puzzled when she followed Amal to the bike.
- “How does she know those things?”
- “Don’t worry about a thing she said,” he assured her.
- “Grandma used to have ‘the sight’, as we call it. Once, she even helped the police solving a murder case. But now, she is dementing and everything is mixing up in her mind. Sometimes she even doesn’t recognize me.”
Ayra still sensed a strange twirl in her belly about what just happened.
Amal’s foot kicked down the gear pedal and off they roared as their noise echoed from the facades, while the wind fluttered their hair.
They ended up on a lonely street in front of an old workshop. Four motorbikes were parked in front of its closed roller shutter.
- “Here we are, baby.”
Ayra took a deep breath from her rocket ride experience and the mysterious encounter with the old woman. This clearly wasn’t going to be a regular day.
Bang! “Goal!!” She looked around in shock.
Two kids were playing soccer using a wooden garage door as the target.
Bang! A second goal echoed through the street.
A neighbor opened his upper window and began to shout down, waving his fist, while a car tooted annoyed as the boys’ game was blocking the street.
Amal led Ayra through a narrow passage next to the workshop’s roller shutter. She was curious. Amal was certainly too off-stream to play in a traditional band at weddings and birthdays. No doubt it would be something extravagant. She followed him as he opened an iron door and led her through a long corridor as the sound of a bass drum encountered her.
Amal introduced her to the gang, dressed in their leather jackets. They were plugging cables into their instruments and turning knobs on the installation. One of the guys had long hair bound together in a ponytail, the other three were bald-shaved, one of them with Chinese characters tattooed around his head.
Amal greeted the guys with a fist bump. She followed his example after a second of hesitation, but the guys made her feel comfortable, fist-bumping her spontaneously with a friendly smile. A feeling of intrigue teased her with no idea what to expect.
After some tonal twiddling, they seemed to be ready to go.
- “Okay, guys, let’s rock!!!”
Ayra gasped in shock, as the band started producing rock harder than the bombardments during the US-Iraqi war. The singer screamed in bestial agony, while the guitarist competed with his squealies, enhanced by the wild rhythm section.
After half an hour of acoustic violence, Amal decided it was time to stop and dedicate some attention to Ayra as he had noticed she was overwhelmed by their tsunami of rage.
She threw a shy glance at him, not really knowing what to say.
- “Come, Ayra, I’ll take you to Ali’s for a snack.”
It sounded like a good suggestion to her and she nodded friendly with a feeling of relief.
They said goodbye to the band and off they set, as the bike roared through the street like an angry lion.
Ali’s fast-food bar found itself in a small shopping street. Traffic looked relatively quiet for a Friday afternoon. Amal ordered two kebabs with a coke and then they sat down at one of three little tables that were neatly placed on the sidewalk. The sun was already low but the street still held the pleasant warmth of the spring day.
- “So, what you think, baby?” he asked with a broad grin while popping the tab on his coke can.
Ayra couldn’t hold back her opinion: “But how can you call that music?? It’s just screaming hysterically and ear-deafening.”
Amal laughed out loud.
- “It’s the modern free world, baby. Go west. Our music is going to break through, you’ll see.”
Ayra sighed deeply. “Modern free world, you say? Baghdad is getting less modern than ever before. People are returning to stern religion without respect for diversity!”
- “You do have a point there,” agreed Amal. “Yusuf, you know, the tall guy you just met, with the bass guitar, he has received a death threat letter on his doorsteps, clearly from people who think we are too modern.”
“Really? Frightening how hatred is growing,” continued Ayra. “The Sunni Muslims against the Shia Muslims and then the riots in the north where my parents live.”
- “How come? You guys in the north are so rich with oil.”
- “Rich? Well, rich and poor. We’re lucky at home because my father is a government employee. But we have a lot of poverty in the north.”
Amal nodded in sad agreement.
- “Yeah, I hope this all will change one day. Ah, Ali is already putting the food on the plates, I’m gonna fetch them.”
A bus passed by and stopped at the halt down the street. An old lady with a cane stepped out and two women got in. They were both shrouded in a black niqab and a cloak that reached down to their feet. A young woman ran to the bus, just in time to catch it. She was modernly dressed in a bright knee-high summer dress and a colorful headscarf.
Ayra ran her fingers through her hair and glanced at her worn-out jeans, one knee already appearing through the fabric. Maybe she’d allow herself something nice like that woman. Those clothes looked so bright and happy.
She sipped her Coke and watched the bus drive away while closing its doors.
Suddenly a bright white flash blinded her eyes, as her eardrums were slammed by a massive bang. She cowered away and covered her eyes with her arms while the shockwave smashed the tables aside, accompanied by the sound of breaking window panes. Amal’s parked bike fell over hitting the wall, oil slowly leaking out.
The scene beyond was devastating.
Where a car had been parked near the bus stop, there was now a bulking black cloud that gradually enveloped the bus of which the rear side had been blasted away.
An amputated wheel rolled across the street and found its destination against an opposite wall. In the front of the bus, a woman was crawling on her belly out of the half-closed door. Soon she became invisible behind the curtain of smoke.
After a few seconds of bewilderment, Ayra sprung up and ran to the scene of disaster, entering the black haze where she discerned the woman, still lying half through the door opening of the bus, looking up, her hand reaching out for help. It was the nice young woman she had seen stepping in. Her pretty headscarf had crinkled itself around her neck, her face covered with trails of blood. Ayra grabbed the woman’s arms, helped her partly up, and dragged her over the sidewalk, upwind, to get somewhat away from the bruise-black cloud that was billowing itself high into the sky.
Pain cut through her lungs as she plopped down dizzily, her back against a wall, coughing heavily.
Sirens of the police and ambulances were approaching rapidly. The young woman had stopped breathing and was lying motionless in her arms.
New York City
27 February 2069
Xenia opened her eyes and yawned deeply when her acoustic zone started playing radio music. She was a bad riser and always found it hard to get going in the morning.
(Out of my book: Another Place Another Time)