Rain over Baghdad: A Novel of Iraq by Hala El Badry

become part of my world or that I would give it that much importance and care about it to this extent. I didn’t believe that I would be able to follow up on my belief that our Arab world was really one world that should be integrated. I had arrived at the office early in the morning as usual when I heard voices inside. I found a group of Egyptian peasants whom the director introduced to me saying, “Abd al-Barr, Sabir, Bashandi, and Muftah from al-Khalsa village. We are interested in their experiment, as you know, and publish their news all the time.”
    I greeted them. Abd al-Barr said, “Why haven’t you visited us till now, Sitt Nora?”
    I said, “God willing. Ustaz Hilmi has promised to arrange a trip soon.”
    I noticed that the whole group fit the common stereotype of peasants that I had met before: simple, goodhearted, and wary. Abd al-Barr, however, was slightly different. Was it because he talked easily and took over the conversation most of the time? I don’t know. For some reason, I just did not feel that he was a real peasant.
    A few days later we were visiting a number of Egyptian intellectuals working at the Academy of Arts. Some of them expressed a desire to visit the village. The director set it up for the following Friday afternoon.
    I arrived at the office with Hatim, then the guests started arriving. I was meeting some of them for the first time: the journalist Durriya Awni, the actress Nadia al-Saba‘, the critic Ahmad Abbas Salih, the Iraqi painter Layla al-Attar, Nasir Fathi, director of the Middle East News Agency in Baghdad, Mahmoud Rashid, the film director, and his wife Samia. On the way I dreamed of the smell of the ovens and the freshly baked fitir mishaltit and homemade crackers, of aged cheese and cream. We arrived at al-Khalsa shortly before sunset. I didn’t find any children in the street or shouting soccer players or someone playing hide-and-seek. I didn’t see any firewood stacks on the roofs, and no cattle on the road. I found white one-story houses with large gardens in front and a deathly silence. It was a ghost town. I did not feel that I had entered an Egyptian village, but rather a suburb near a city in any country. We went to Abd al-Barr’s house where we met his children and his wife Sharbat, who had on a short dress with floral patterns and whose hair cascaded down her shoulders, which made me all the more certain that somehow she was not a peasant.
    After we drank tea we went out for a walk in the village streets. I knocked on one of the doors. A peasant woman with a pleasant fresh face and brown complexion opened the door and invited me in, saying, “Welcome, welcome dear. You bring the fragrance of Egypt with you!”
    Her husband, Abu Ahmad, came. I sat between the two of them. I felt that it was an authentic household reminiscent of its southern peasant roots. She said to me, her face glowing with happiness, “I got married eight years ago but God did not bless me with any children. My husband has grown-up sons from his wife, God have mercy on her soul. When I came to Iraq, I got pregnant. It was a pregnancy after a long anticipation.”
    Laughing, I said, “You got pregnant after you crossed the sea!”
    She said, “You know that, too? But you are a city lady!”
    I said, “But I am Egyptian.”
    Abu Ahmad said, “It’s going to be a boy, God willing, and I’ll name him Gamal Abdel Nasser.”
    I left them to their dreams and went to another house. The group dispersed throughout the village. I knocked on a door. A middle-aged man came out with his wife and children in tow and invited me in. Inside I saw a girl wearing a new satin dress. I asked her, “Are you a bride? How old are you?”
    She smiled shyly and said, “Yes, and I am sixteen.”
    I cried out, “That’s impossible! You must be eleven or thirteen at the utmost. Why did you marry her off at such a young age?”
    The mother said, “Circumstances, ma’am, I swear by God.”
    I said in alarm,