Betrayed Read online

  Then came the pictures that the whole of Kurdistan had never imagined—images of Saddam Hussein’s statue being pulled down. In no time, it seemed, those families who had fled were pouring back into Dohuk. The fall of the statue was the tangible sign to the Kurds that the tyrant had been defeated. The sound of car horns echoed through the streets, guns were fired into the air. People danced and cheered. My father gathered up his AK-49—a sophisticated version of the omnipresent AK-47—and let loose a volley of celebratory shots in the street.

  ‘Praise be to Allah!’ he cried. ‘Praise be to the Americans!’

  I heard my grandmother tell him: ‘I wish your father was here for this day.’ For my paternal grandfather, who had passed away in 1996, had, like my own father, been a Peshmerga. Like my father, though, I was told he had a temper that was easily aroused.

  The Kurdistan Government organised a big party in a central park to which everyone was invited. There was a band which sang freedom songs and even dancing, while the Kurdish flag—red, white and green with an image of the sun in the middle—fluttered on a tall pole. The local TV played songs by a famous Kurdish political singer, Shivan Perwar, who came to prominence after the 1988 chemical attack. For once, there was no mention of the Koran on the local networks. The screens were filled with war news and pictures of people dancing. My fat her cried with happiness at footage of Peshmerga fighters shaking hands with American soldiers to the north of Dohuk. There was talk of the allies setting up a provisional authority. Saddam’s reign was over, although he had disappeared.

  ‘They’ll find him and he will get his punishment,’ said my father, as life began to return to some form of normality. I knew that the Americans had set up bases in the region and I thought that if I could reach them they might be able to help me, somehow, to escape back to their world, back to normality. But there was no way, of course, that I could reach them and no assurance that they would be able to help with their focus on the aftermath of the war. Beside the war was not really over. Pockets of fighting were breaking out everywhere. There was an added difficulty. If I broke away from the house and contacted the Americans and became delayed for any reason I could not bear to think what my father would do to me. I had never forgotten his threat that if I ever brought shame in any way to him again he would have no hesitation in killing me.

  I lived with that threat daily because I had no way of knowing whether Diyar’s hatred of me would simmer away to the point when it boiled over and he went to my father with the secret I had relayed to him. My father was often cleaning his gun and he had asked me on several occasions before the war to go fox hunting with him in the mountains. I had always declined because I simply didn’t want to be alone with him when he had a weapon in his hands. It would have been easy enough for him to turn it on me in a flash of anger, for any reason.

  As the Americans set up their northern bases, my grandmother and my father travelled to the telephone exchange to tell their relatives overseas that they were safe and well. My father did not call Baian and although I was allowed to go with them I was allowed only to speak to cousins that they telephoned. My mother had not bothered to send any messages inquiring about my welfare; not that I expected her to. If anything, I believed she should have arrived months earlier as the war clouds were looming to get me out of Iraq, but that never happened. How I longed to speak to my young sister, Bojeen. So often against the thunder of distant bombs did I bring out a photo of her and cry over our separation. She must have been bewildered at having had to return to Germany without me two years earlier.

  The months rolled by as I continued my daily routine at the house. Mothers came and mothers were sent away with my continued refusals. My father made reference now and again about how I was not getting younger and hinted that time was running out before he would insist on my taking a husband.

  Once or twice during the summer I would travel with my father, Jamilla, his mother and two or three of his sisters for a picnic in the hills. We would lay out a rug under a tree and eat our bread and meats and sip fruit juices. I breathed in the fresh air taking as much as I could into my lungs, for I did not know when the next time would come around, if ever.

  Then, as the winter of 2003 began to set, he took me for a drive through the snow-capped mountain ranges, pointing out that it was in those icy conditions that he had run from the hills in his bare feet on hearing the news that I had been born. That was how my journey had begun, for the loss of his shoe with his personal information inside had resulted in the entire family fleeing from execution.

  The Americans were still fighting pockets of resistance north of Baghdad as December came—and hunting for Saddam Hussein. His evil sons, Udai and Qusai, had been killed in a bomb attack in July after a tip-off about their hideout in Mosul and how the women in Kurdistan had rejoiced that these evil rapists, who threw women from helicopters, were dead. But Saddam remained at large—until 13 December when he was found hiding in a hole on a farmhouse near Tikrit. The following day Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, made that famous announcement to a crowded press conference in Baghdad: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!’

  There was another round of wild rejoicing throughout Kurdistan. Saddam would go on trial and there wasn’t a soul who did not believe he would receive the death penalty.

  Returning from the telephone exchange one day with my father, my grandmother told me that a male cousin, Vahel, who lived in Texas, was coming to Kurdistan to work as an interpreter at an American base near Dohuk. He would be posted there for a year. Two years younger than me, I had last seen him when I was 12 when I came to Dohuk for a visit with my mother and he was still living in the city. Since then, his family had managed to emigrate and he was now a US citizen.

  I was sitting at the window when, in a gap at the foot of the gate, I saw a pair of desert boots, instead of the usual black shoes that Kurds wore, and then the gate swung open and there he was, in his full US military uniform. I was first at the door to greet him. At first he wondered who I was and I had to tell him.

  ‘My, my,’ Vahel said in the Texan accent he had adopted, ‘you’ve grown into a real woman, Latifa!’ I cringed at his words, fearing my father or grandmother would hear them and think badly of me. Vahel was the first person I’d spoken to in English since I’d been with David. We didn’t hug, just shook hands. As we started conversing in English, my father came forward to greet him and immediately began talking to him in Kurdish. He was not going to allow me to speak English in his house. The unit Vahel was attached to, an administrative part of the military, had taken over a large house—one of several they had commandeered—and he was very happy there; good food, good accommodation, good people to work with. How I envied him.

  I said nothing to him about my problems, but I believe he read sadness behind my smile. Several days later, Vahel returned to the house with a proposition to put to my father. He had learned that a school run by Muslim converts to Catholicism was teaching children the English language and there was a position for someone who could speak good English. If my father and then I, in turn, agreed, he said he could probably arrange for me to take the job. The position had become vacant for the most astonishing reason. The majority of teachers were converts to Christianity, but this fact was not broadcast. However, the English teacher had remained a Muslim and had been ‘caught’ saying her prayers during school time. The principal had told her that no Muslim prayers were allowed and she was asked to leave. I was amazed that the school had not been burned down!

  To my surprise, my father agreed I could take the job. But he didn’t know about the school’s Christian background. He explained to his mother, ‘If she’s doing nothing but talking to children, then that’s all right.’ I would be earning $US200 a month for just four days a week from 9am to 4pm. Of course, I, too was saying my prayers daily, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it.

  I was picked up by a staff member and enjoyed my first day at the school, using colours and numbe
rs to help the children learn English. I even got the youngsters, aged from six to ten, giggling as we played musical chairs to set them at their ease with me. The other teachers commented that my class seemed to be particularly happy but asked if I was keeping the children to their lessons. I told them that learning could be fun and I noticed that they, too, began introducing games. After a couple of weeks, a play was put on by the older children in the school and it was during a break that the school principal said there was a young woman, Haveen, among the audience I might be interested in meeting. She was an Australian Kurd!

  Unbelievably, she was also from Liverpool, four years younger than me. A very pretty girl, she told me a story that was not exactly new to me. Her parents had brought her to Kurdistan, retained her passport and she would not be allowed to leave for Australia until she married and took her husband with her. On her return to Sydney, though, she planned to divorce her husband.

  How I enjoyed listening to her descriptions of the area that I knew so well. The Westfield shopping centre had expanded to the point I wouldn’t recognise it, and there were now many Kurdish people in the Liverpool area. One vital question I had to ask her, without revealing my own situation, was: ‘Are you a virgin?’

  She looked at me in bewilderment. ‘Of course I am—I don’t want to be murdered.’

  Her answer alarmed me, for it brought home once again my own perilous position.

  While I enjoyed teaching the children, I found I was getting constant migraines. I believe it was a combination of my own stressful position, the general noises of the school after the relative silence I had been forced to live in and the fact that Americans were close and I had no means of trying to get to them to ask for help, even if they could to anything for me. My father, too, was asking me if I was maintaining my daily prayers at the school. I told him the truth, that praying during school hours was not allowed, which was why I wanted to quit. I told him I did not want to miss my daily prayers.

  ‘I’m proud of you for putting Allah first, ahead of your job,’ my father said. His words were a big plus for me, for it was my intention to continue to win his trust. I could hardly believe my ears—but then he read my prayer activities as another sign that I had sunk deeper into Kurdish culture and that the next step might be marriage. I believed that the closer the ragged bond grew between us, my father might become more flexible about my movements.

  But there were times when he would just snap at me, a flare-up that I had no doubt was sparked by my unmarried status. Sometimes I would catch him staring at me with tight lips, his eyes slits, like a man holding back fury. I became so worried about his up and down moods that I began to take precautions for my safety at night. Fearing that he would creep into my room and smother or strangle me—as some fathers had done to their ‘wayward’ daughters—I stood a bowl containing some of my jewellery, on edge against the door, so it would crash down on the marble floor and wake me if he tried to creep into the room. Etab, my cousin who had been burned and shot in the desert, and I shared the same great grandfathers, so my father had his blood coursing through his veins. Honour killing was in the family. Would I be next? Always, over and over again, that question returned to me.

  Depression overcame me. I couldn’t face going to school. My body and mind felt as though a great weight were pressing down upon them. When the staff member called to pick me up as usual I told him I was unwell—and to pass on a message to the principal that I felt I couldn’t return any more. Later that day, a teacher turned up at the house to beg me not to give up, telling me that the children were missing me but I shook my head sadly.

  The following day she was back with pile of cards signed by the children, all imploring me to return. ‘We love you and miss you, Aunty,’ was the general message. I was deeply touched but I believed it was wrong to carry my depression into that classroom of innocent young children.

  So once again I was back to my household duties, sharing them with Jamilla. It was painful going into town for the shopping with my aunties, for the Americans were everywhere, doing their own shopping when they were off duty, driving around, smoking, laughing, grinning at the women who did their best to avoid their eyes. Except me. I did my best to attract their eyes and often they would meet mine, but they had obviously been well briefed on the local custom—make a fleeting glance if you dare, but don’t take it further and above all, don’t touch!

  Does God really answer prayers if you pray hard enough? I believe he does because I prayed every day and night that the arrival of the Americans would bring some relief to my soul-destroying daily routine. A male cousin, Vasheen, came to the house with my Texan cousin Vahel, smiled at me and told me: ‘We’ve been talking about you, Latifa. And we might have some good news. But first we have to ask your father.’

  Always my father. I was an adult, but everything depended on my father. It was several hours before my father called me in to the men’s room in the absence of my cousins. There was, he said, a job going as an interpreter with the Americans, with a unit called the 416th Civil Affairs, whose job it was to liaise with local communities. He would give me permission to work with them as long as there was a woman who would be working with me and my safety could be guaranteed. He had been given those assurances by Vahel and the answer was now up to me. I had to fight back the urge to shout: ‘Yes, yes, of course I’ll take the job!’

  Instead, aware that I must always remain in my father’s good books in case anything went wrong, I replied: ‘I’d love to take it, as long as I can continue with my daily prayers. They are most important to me.’

  That answer pleased him and he said I could start as soon as the opening could be arranged. But he had one further message for me, which turned my heart cold.

  ‘While we are appreciative of the Americans and what they have done in defeating Saddam Hussein, do not give them any personal information about yourself. Do not get involved in any close conversations with them. Keep your business strictly that—business. If I hear anything about you that is not appropriate, anything that displeases me, I will kill you without question.’ Once more, the threat.

  The following day Vasheen drove me to a large house that the unit had taken over. At the gate, we were met by another of my cousins, Riving, who was also employed by the military. He got us past the guards at the gate—where snipers looked down from command posts—and as we entered the compound, which was completed surrounded by sandbags and razor wire, I could see that it embraced not just a large villa but several other houses as well. Sandbags were piled up against the windows. These people were well prepared for any late assault by straggling members of Saddam’s army or guerrillas determined to make a last stand.

  I was introduced to the colonel in charge, a burly, grey-haired man in his 50s who appeared bemused at seeing a Kurdish woman without her headscarf—I had taken mine off and had adjusted my hair to hide my bald patches. He made me welcome and I felt immediately comfortable in his presence.

  He began showing me around the main villa, where the offices were housed. In one office, where sandbags were again piled up at the window and where there were maps on the wall, personnel were sitting around a large desk, most of them dressed in a brown T-shirt, military issue. They said ‘Hi’ and raised hands as I was introduced to them. This is where I would be working for most of the time, I was told. When a lieutenant came in, he took one look at me and said: ‘Whao—and who is this?’ It was just wonderful to hear someone speak of me in such a warm, jocular way—in English! When he heard me speak and learned I was Australian he raised his eyes in amazement—and so did the others. It was hard for them to understand that an Australian woman, who was also a Kurd, should be ‘hanging around’ Kurdistan when there was a war going on. It was too difficult to start explaining to them that my presence there was against my wishes. My cousin Riving was still with me and I did not want to risk him passing anything of my conversation with the Americans back to my father.

  They fired many questions at
me, though. What the hell did that stuff called Vegemite really taste like? And there were the inevitable questions about kangaroos and crocodiles and sharks. I felt so homesick, but hid my sorrow.

  It was arranged I would start in two days time, a Saturday, after the day of prayers. My father wanted to know few details about the actual work I would be doing but insisted on knowing who I would be working with. I put his mind at ease by lying that there were Kurdish housekeepers in the office and, as icing on the cake of my lie, I told him there was even a prayer room.

  He informed me that he had arranged for a taxi driver to pick me up each morning and collect me again at the end of my day’s work. The driver was a cousin called Mohammed, who was also, chillingly, the brother-in-law of the murdered Etab. I felt it wise not to question why he was chosen.

  There were seven military men and one female in the military villa where I would be working. They were very accommodating and showed me around the place again, just as they had on my introductory day. I ‘clicked’ with the one woman, Joyce, a black American, who set about telling me all the problems she had with her husband, mainly because he was back in the US and she was in Kurdistan.

  My duties were photocopying, answering the phone and typing data into a laptop. I settled in well because everyone was so friendly, but the day came when I was asked to do an interpreting job—two of the sergeants needed to speak to the mayor of Dohuk, who couldn’t speak English. I was concerned about going into town with two men, but this was my job. If my father got to hear about it, I would have to bear the consequences.