And each day Samara wondered how much longer things could continue.
Then came the day the world stood still.
The day the planes crashed in New York, Pennsyl vania and Washington, D.C. “What madness,” Muham mad whispered as they watched news reports. “Now more people will suffer, Samara.”
Their sadness was compounded when they learned that two student friends they’d met in London, stock traders, had died in the towers. In the time that followed, the people of Iraq grew uneasy as the United States focused its anger on Saddam.
The attack unleashed a global storm of accusations and debate over Iraq.
Some eighteen months after the hijackings, fears in tensified as foreign jets screamed over the city. Huge lineups formed at passport offices, people scrambled to leave Iraq, others hid valuables and moved to the coun tryside.
Muhammad and Samara knew that the majority of poor people who could not afford to leave the city would need help most if things got worse.
They were determined to stay.
Everywhere in the city, Iraqi soldiers had set up heavily armed checkpoints. The streets became deserted as the United States and other nations marshaled forces in Kuwait while Washington issued ultimatums to Saddam.
Saddam ignored the deadlines.
The bombings began in the night.
Shock and Awe.
Sirens sounded, tracer fire lit up the sky which boomed with a distant thunder that grew louder as it pounded them, explosions shaking the very earth under them. The noise became so loud Samara’s clenched teeth banged together and her rib cage vibrated.
As Muhammad shielded her, she held Ahmed in her arms and prayed.
In the aftermath of the bombings, dark clouds rose over the capital.
The smoke and smells of a burning city under siege filled the streets with funereal, apocalyptic haze.
Large sections of Baghdad had been destroyed.
One morning, while going to help at a hospital overrun with wounded, Samara was waiting at a traffic checkpoint in front of a building that had been razed. She spotted a tiny object amid the rubble on the street and went to investigate.
A small human foot.
It appeared to be a little boy’s foot because it was still in a sandal that had a little blue football on it.
The foot was about the same size as her son’s.
Samara covered her mouth with her hand.
What are we doing to each other?
It was not the first body part she would see on the streets of her city.
Within weeks U.S. forces had taken Baghdad; and in the months and years that followed, life changed. Many people were jubilant over the demise of Saddam and the promise of a better Iraq, but extremists called upon Iraqis to kill the foreign soldiers who’d invaded their home land.
The country struggled to recover and rebuild against never-ending violence. Factions fought factions, in surgents continued to wage war against occupying troops. The stream of car bombings, suicide bombings, sniper attacks, hostage takings, mines, booby traps and gun battles ensured that blood gushed through Baghdad’s streets.
Much of it innocent.
The nightmare worsened when several foreign sol diers were killed after insurgents ambushed them near the edge of Samara’s neighborhood. Muhammad and Samara were part of the civilian medical response team that rushed to the scene to offer aid.
Later, word spread that the anguished troops had vowed revenge. That a massive retaliatory operation was coming.
Days passed without activity.
It was deceptively tranquil, and dread gripped the neighborhood before it came.
Unleashed with sudden fury.
Explosions and gunfire began at three-thirty one morning, ripping through the entire neighborhood as if hell had descended upon them.
Everything happened with such terrible swiftness.
Muhammad went outside to assess what his neigh bors knew, when a teenager warned him that it was not over. “Revenge squads” were going door-to-door hunt ing for the ambushers.
After Muhammad had returned to protect Samara and Ahmed, a patrol smashed open their door. In an instant, soldiers seized Muhammad, beat him, then pulled Ahmed from Samara’s arms. They dragged them into their living room, bound them to chairs, shouting insults and swearing as they smashed their faces.
Ahmed was crying.
Samara screamed for him in the chaos.
Outside, the night screeched with gunfire. Tracers and explosions lit the sky, while inside, the house was in darkness.
Intense flashlights stung their eyes as the soldiers accused them of being the insurgent ambushers.
When Muhammad begged, explained that the sol diers should recognize them as medical staff, he was beaten.
Samara couldn’t see the soldiers’ faces under their camouflage, couldn’t see their shoulder flags. Most of the interrogation was in Arabic, but she’d detected English speakers, along with the reek of alcohol.
She pleaded for mercy and was punched.
Then all of her clothes were torn from her, leaving her naked in the chair.
Muhammad protested. He was kicked, forced to watch as soldiers pinned Samara to the floor. A soldier lifted her exposed buttocks, opened his pants and raped her.
Samara screamed.
In the strobe of tracer fire, she saw Muhammad, help less, while the soldiers forced him to watch. Then Samara saw the horrible confusion in her son’s small eyes. Ahmed was crying as she prayed that none of it was real.
Ahmed looked so tiny in the soldier’s grip.
Like a toy about to be broken.
Then a second soldier took his turn with her.
Then a third.
Ahmed screamed.
Outside, the explosions and gunfire became more intense. Suddenly the walls of the living room disinte grated as rounds stitched across them.
“The shit’s getting too close,” one soldier said.
American? British? Australian? Contractors?
“Shoot them! They died in the crossfire! Let’s go!”
A soldier seized Muhammad, dragged him to Samara and pressed his gun to the back of his head.
She looked into her husband’s eyes.
His face exploded, splashing warm cranial matter on her skin.
Ahmed wailed.
“Shut the fucker up! Let’s go!”
Gunfire popped.
Then a brilliant light flashed in the house and it was as if the earth split open.
It was the last thing Samara remembered before everything went black.
23
