"Amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches, in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his presence where he no longer was"

Gabriel Garcia Marquez- "Love in the Time of Cholera"

 

"There are times when I close my eyes and try to imagine myself sipping a cup of coffee in our garden … the scented fragrance of our Gardenia tree fills the air and evokes long sweet memories, while waves of calmness and peace start washing over me. It's a beautiful sensation even though our life in Baghdad might have been anything but peaceful!"

My friend Rima, an architect living in Austria, commenting on an article I had written about Iraq. "Mind you, I do miss those days badly, but I know too well that even if the tension lessens one day; I'll still not go back to living there … I just can't!" 

Rima's words struck a chord with me because it's exactly the way I'm feeling. I'm obsessed with Iraq, I think about it night and day, but whenever someone mentions going back; my heart races, my stomach convulses and voices start screaming in my head: "No, I don't want to!" In the beginning, I used to think it was only me, but now that I know of many friends who share the same symptoms; I guess it's bigger than me … it's a phenomenon, or maybe a syndrome

***

"It's been fifteen years since I left the country, I thought it was time I'm less bound to it; but obviously … I was wrong!" My Christian friend Yousif, an architect as well, living and working in Michigan, wrote to me. By pure coincidence, he stumbled upon mutual friends on Facebook, and they gave him my email address

 
"It's haunting us, like a stigma, it will never cease following us no matter how far we traveled … I call it the curse of Iraq!" Yousif's brother-in-law recently died in a car explosion, his family thought they should leave Baghdad before it's too late and so they came to live with Yousif in the US

"After a while, you get along with living as a foreigner in a strange land. We face discrimination here and there, but even so, this strange land is much more caring and friendly towards us and our families than our own motherland" Yousif is now married to an Iraqi girl he'd met in the States and has a four-year-old daughter who hasn't set foot in the land of her ancestors

***

"I used to watch all the news summaries on television and distressed badly over the suffering of my people in Palestine. I had terrifying nightmares of wailing women and bleeding children each and every night and it was really wearing me out until my father came to me one day, he said it wasn't fair doing that to myself. If I can't do a thing to change it; then I'd better leave it all behind me. It must be the will of Allah and we should all succumb to it!" A Palestinian taxi driver told me on my way from Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan

His words sounded negative at the time, or in a way, cowardly, but on second thoughts; this ongoing self-torment I'm living in may not be any less craven! But speaking of Amman; I was invited to have lunch with an old friend who just came back from a short visit to Baghdad. Curious to know about life there, I went to Alaa's place and found him extremely distraught at how much the city has changed in a few years' time and how ugly it's become

 
I asked about Ayad, whose house had been confiscated by some militiamen, a.k.a. insurgents, terrorists … etc. He fled Iraq to work in Indonesia, while his old parents are residing in Lebanon now. Ayad's father had had a passion for European and Oriental antiquities, he kept dozens of them in their house … all had been plundered! Alaa said he couldn't have gone there but he heard the bastards are still holding the place

"The world only talks about the so-called liberation, the war on terror, the new elections and Iraqi politicians' decadence ... all the big monumental topics that have been making the news around the world for seven years now. No one mentions the sad stories of the dear ones we had lost, the bitterness of losing our own memories and personal belongings, they just don’t care!" Hind, Alaa's wife, said while serving traditional long-brewed black tea

 
The couple has managed to sell some property back home to buy a new apartment in Amman. Hind says she panics whenever one of her sons mentions going back to Iraq

***

Summer of 2005, more than two years after the last war. I was still in our house in Baghdad, no power and the heat unbearable. Soaked in my sweat, and barely able to breathe, I dragged myself to start our small grumpy generator, and sat down to celebrate the fading breezes that fell down on me from the ceiling fan's blades

 
My cell phone rang, a distant call … through the noise of the generator and the shooting coming from adjacent streets, I hardly recognized the voice of Ammar calling from London

 
"Ali, listen to me! I have big dreams for Iraq, I'm thinking about a foundation that would look after talented students in the universities, you are an artist and I need you to help me" I wiped the dripping sweat off my face with my sleeve, which I found out, was wet as well! I really didn't know what to say, I even lacked the energy to smile. Ammar had no idea that many students had already left their universities, girls in particular. Going there has become a big risk many families couldn't have taken

We are the same age; Ammar and I were both eleven when Saddam waged war against Iran, nineteen when it ended, twenty-one when he decided to invade Kuwait, twenty-two when the Coalition Forces declared an unprecedented devastating war on our country, to be followed by over a decade of heartless global sanctions. We were thirty-four when the Americans finally decided to take over Iraq … one difference though; I've witnessed all those wars, Ammar hasn't!

Shortly after the first war had broken out; his late father decided to send all his children to resume their studies abroad. He wanted to save them the agony of living in a hectic country … a farsighted decision, I have to say. Ammar finished his MA degree in mechanical engineering and had been living and working in London for years, and thus his words sounded ridiculously wishful to me, but I think I know now how he must have felt at the time, because less than a year after that burning summer night, I was fed up with life in Iraq and could bear no more. On Valentine's Day, 2006, I too decided to leave … and I still hate that date

We met in Amman a couple of months ago, Ammar brought along his wife and son, they all live in the UAE now. We had a good hearty talk, mainly about our memories in school, but for the first time in a long time, Ammar, I noticed, never came across his favorite topic of going back to Baghdad. Instead … he was seriously considering settling in Dubai

***

I guess there are thousands of us scattered all over the world, trapped in that ugly zone of confusion … unable to turn the page on our past and yet, not willing to go back home either. Only God knows if we ever get to break free from that schizophrenic cycle of love and hate, of longing and resentment and of hurt and nostalgia one day

Meanwhile, we go on responding to it each in his own way, and while Yousif dedicates long hours every day in Michigan, seeking his old friends on Facebook, chatting and reminiscing memories of the good old times in Baghdad; Rima, on the other hand, decided to grow a Gardenia plant in her fifty-square-meter Viennese apartment. She wrote to me: "I'm so excited, I keep looking at her and caressing her leaves, my children are jealous of all the attention I'm giving her!"

The plant finally bloomed, but unlike Rima's Gardenia in Baghdad, whose fragrance had usually permeated the entire garden; she had to stick her nose to the new flower every time she wanted to enjoy its seductive smell. I remember our good Sudanese gardener in Baghdad used to tell me a Gardenia is one nasty plant that only thrives on blood meals … the more blood it's fed, the better it grows and the stronger its flowers scent!

 
It is only in Iraq, the cradle of civilizations, a country where humans have been generously slaughtered since time began and where their blood had been irrigating the soil along with the rivers Tigris and Euphrates that Gardenia trees produce radiantly perfumed flowers that are unlike any other flowers in the world, for they have been dearly nourished. I told Rima she'd better stick with her Austrian blossom for the fragrance of Iraq, like all the precious things in life, only comes at a costly price, and maybe it's a price we can no longer afford to pay.