Frankenstein in Baghdad Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR

  Frankenstein in Baghdad

  “A remarkable book from the heart of terror, where violence dissolves the divide between reality and unreality.”

  —Thomas McGuane

  “Frankenstein in Baghdad is a quietly ferocious thing, a dark, imaginative dissection of the cyclical absurdity of violence. From the terrible aftermath of one of the most destructive, unnecessary wars in modern history, Ahmed Saadawi has crafted a novel that will be remembered.”

  —Omar El Akkad, author of American War

  “Horrifically funny and allegorically resonant, Frankenstein in Baghdad captures very well the mood of macabre violence that gripped Baghdad in 2005.”

  —Brian Van Reet, author of Spoils

  “Weaving as seamlessly from parable to realism as a needle weaves a tapestry, Frankenstein in Baghdad perfectly captures the absurdity, mayhem, and tragedy of war. Mahmoud the hapless journalist, Hadi the unwitting Dr. Frankenstein, and Elishva the mother are all profoundly human and appealing, our guides to a rare glimpse of the human beings on the receiving ends of our wars. Funny, bizarre, and captivating, this is a must-read for all Americans who are curious to see the war at last from an Iraqi point of view.”

  —Helen Benedict, author of Wolf Season and Sand Queen

  “A haunting allegory for sectarian violence.”

  —The New York Times

  “Matter-of-factly, Saadawi sets out a reality—Baghdad in 2005—so gothic in its details . . . that, when the novel makes a turn to the supernatural, it barely shocks.”

  —The New Yorker

  “Frankenstein in Baghdad courageously confronts the bizarre events set in motion by the violence after the American occupation of Iraq. . . . It’s a painful and powerful story that goes beyond the limits of reality, in an attempt to reach the essence of the cruelty of war. . . . [Saadawi’s] lively style is reminiscent of horror movies and detective stories, with touches of black comedy.”

  —Hassan Blasim, author of The Corpse Exhibition, in Publishers Weekly

  “Expertly told . . . A significant addition to contemporary Arabic fiction.”

  —Judges’ citation, International Prize for Arabic Fiction

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ahmed Saadawi is an Iraqi novelist, poet, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. He is the first Iraqi to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction; he won in 2014 for Frankenstein in Baghdad, which also won France’s Grand Prize for Fantasy. In 2010 he was selected for Beirut39, as one of the 39 best Arab authors under the age of 39. He was born in 1973 in Baghdad, where he still lives.

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  Translation copyright © 2018 by Jonathan Wright

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Originally published in Arabic by Al Kamel, 2013.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Sådåawåi, Aòhmad author. | Wright, Jonathan, 1953—translator.

  Title: Frankenstein in Baghdad: a novel / Ahmed Saadawi; translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright.

  Other titles: Fråankshtåayin fåi Baghdåad. English

  Description: New York, New York: Penguin Books, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017008182 (print) | LCCN 2017018410 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143128809 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143128793

  Classification: LCC PJ7962.A293 (ebook) | LCC PJ7962.A293 F7313 2017 (print) | DDC 892.7/37—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008182

  Cover design: Jason Ramirez

  Cover illustrations: Engravings from Denis Diderot, Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert, Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, volume 3 (plates). Paris, 1763.

  Version_1

  Yet I ask you not to spare me: listen to me; and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands.

  —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

  The king ordered that the saint be placed in the olive press until his flesh was torn to pieces and he died. They then threw him out of the city, but the Lord Jesus gathered the pieces together and brought him back to life, and he went back into the city.

  —The Story of St. George, the Great Martyr

  You who are listening to these recordings now, if you don’t have the courage to help me with my noble mission, then at least try not to stand in my way.

  —The Whatitsname

  Contents

  ACCLAIM FOR FRANKENSTEIN IN BAGHDAD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  EPIGRAPH

  LIST OF CHARACTERS

  FINAL REPORT

  CHAPTER ONE: The Madwoman

  CHAPTER TWO: The Liar

  CHAPTER THREE: A Lost Soul

  CHAPTER FOUR: The Journalist

  CHAPTER FIVE: The Body

  CHAPTER SIX: Strange Events

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Ouzo and a Bloody Mary

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Secrets

  CHAPTER NINE: The Recordings

  CHAPTER TEN: The Whatsitsname

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Investigation

  CHAPTER TWELVE: In Lane 7

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Jewish Ruin

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Tracking and Pursuit

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: A Lost Soul

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Daniel

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Explosion

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Writer

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Criminal

  List of Characters

  Abdullah: Mahmoud al-Sawadi’s brother, who lives in Amara

  Abu Anmar: the owner of the dilapidated Orouba Hotel in Bataween

  Abu Jouni: the janitor at the offices of al-Haqiqa magazine

  Abu Salim: an elderly neighbor of Elishva and Hadi; the husband of Umm Salim

  Abu Zaidoun: an elderly barber and ex-Baathist, held responsible for sending Daniel off to war in the 1980s

  Adnan al-Anwar: a journalist at al-Haqiqa magazine

  Ali Baher al-Saidi: a prominent writer, and the owner and editor of al-Haqiqa magazine

  Aziz the Egyptian: the gossipy owner of the local coffee shop

  Daniel: Elishva’s son, who disappeared in the Iraq-Iran war

  Daniel (junior): Elishva’s grandson, the son of her daughter Hilda, who lives in Melbourne

  Elishva: an elderly Assyrian Christian widow living alone in Bataween

  Faraj the realtor: a small-time real estate manager who acquires properties in Bataween

  Farid Shawwaf: a journalist who writes for al-Haqiqa

  Hadi the junk dealer: creator of the Whatitsname

  Hammu: the receptionist at the Orouba Hotel

  Hasib Mohamed Jaafar: a hotel guard whose soul animates the Whatitsname’s body

  Hazem Abboud: a news photographer and Mahmoud’s occasional roommate

  Hilda: one of Elishva’s daughters in Melbourne; the mother of Daniel junior

  Father Josiah: Elishva’s parish priest

&
nbsp; Luqman: an Algerian man who lives in the Orouba Hotel

  Mahmoud al-Sawadi: a young and ambitious journalist at al-Haqiqa

  Brigadier Sorour Mohamed Majid: the head of the mysterious Tracking and Pursuit Department

  the Mantis: a gangster politician in Amara

  Matilda: one of Elishva’s daughters in Melbourne

  Nader Shamouni: the deacon at Elishva’s church

  Nahem Abdaki: Hadi’s late partner in the junk business

  Nawal al-Wazir: a glamorous middle-aged film director

  Ninous Malko: the head of an Assyrian family that stayed for a while in Elishva’s house

  Sultan: Ali Baher al-Saidi’s personal driver

  Umm Raghad: the madam at a local brothel

  Umm Salim: an elderly neighbor of Elishva and Hadi; the wife of Abu Salim

  Veronica Munib: a middle-aged Armenian woman who cleans the Orouba Hotel

  Zaid Murshid: a journalist at al-Haqiqa

  Zeina: a prostitute with a superficial resemblance to Nawal al-Wazir

  FINAL REPORT

  I.

  WITH REGARD to the activities of the Tracking and Pursuit Department, which is partially affiliated with the civil administration of the international coalition forces in Iraq, the special committee of inquiry set up under my chairmanship, with representatives of the Iraqi security and intelligence agencies and observers from U.S. military intelligence, has come to the following conclusions:

  a. On September 25, 2005, under direct political pressure from the Iraqi side, the activities of the Tracking and Pursuit Department were partially suspended for the purposes of the inquiry, and the committee summoned the department director, Brigadier Sorour Mohamed Majid, and his assistants to testify. They briefed the committee on the nature of the work they had been engaged in since the formation of the Coalition Provisional Authority in April 2003 and up to the time of the inquiry. It is clear that the department had been operating outside its area of expertise, which should have been limited to such bureaucratic matters as archiving information and preserving files and documents. Under the direct management of Brigadier Majid, it had employed several astrologers and fortune-tellers, on high salaries financed by the Iraqi treasury, not by the U.S. authorities. According to Brigadier Majid’s testimony, their only purpose was to make predictions about serious security incidents that might take place in Baghdad and surrounding areas. It is not clear to the committee to what extent these predictions helped avert security incidents or whether they had any practical benefits.

  b. The committee established that a number of files preserved in the department had been leaked from inside. All those working in the department were subsequently detained for questioning.

  c. Through an examination of the computers used in the department, it was discovered that documents had been sent by e-mail to someone referred to as “the author.” Upon further investigation, this person was identified and arrested at his place of residence in the Fanar Hotel on Abu Nuwas Street. No documents related to the Tracking and Pursuit Department were found in his possession. “The author” was found to be in possession of the text of a story he had written drawing on material contained in documents belonging to the Tracking and Pursuit Department.

  d. The story is about 250 pages long, divided into seventeen chapters. Experts from the committee examined the text and concluded that it does not violate any provisions of the law, but for precautionary reasons they recommended that the information in it should not be published under any circumstances and that the story should not be rewritten.

  II. Recommendations

  a. The committee recommends that Brigadier Sorour Mohamed Majid and his assistants be transferred from the Tracking and Pursuit Department and that the department revert to its original work of archiving and documentation. Those employed as astrologers and fortune-tellers should be laid off. The question of the mistakes the department has made over the past few years must remain under review, and the documents relevant to the department’s activities must be preserved.

  b. The committee discovered that the personal information in the identity papers of “the author” is incorrect. It therefore recommends that “the author” be rearrested and questioned in order to learn his real identity and any other information relevant to the work of the Tracking and Pursuit Department, and also to identify the people in the department who cooperated with him and to assess the extent to which this matter poses a threat to national security.

  Signed: Committee Chairman

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE MADWOMAN

  1

  THE EXPLOSION TOOK place two minutes after Elishva, the old woman known as Umm Daniel, or Daniel’s mother, boarded the bus. Everyone on the bus turned around to see what had happened. They watched in shock as a ball of smoke rose, dark and black, beyond the crowds, from the car park near Tayaran Square in the center of Baghdad. Young people raced to the scene of the explosion, and cars collided into each other or into the median. The drivers were frightened and confused: they were assaulted by the sound of car horns and of people screaming and shouting.

  Elishva’s neighbors in Lane 7 said later that she had left the Bataween district to pray in the Church of Saint Odisho, near the University of Technology, as she did every Sunday, and that’s why the explosion happened—some of the locals believed that, with her spiritual powers, Elishva prevented bad things from happening when she was among them.

  Sitting on the bus, minding her own business, as if she were deaf or not even there, Elishva didn’t hear the massive explosion about two hundred yards behind her. Her frail body was curled up by the window, and she looked out without seeing anything, thinking about the bitter taste in her mouth and the sense of gloom that she had been unable to shake off for the past few days.

  The bitter taste might disappear after she took Holy Communion. Hearing the voices of her daughters and their children on the phone, she would have a little respite from her melancholy, and the light would shine again in her cloudy eyes. Father Josiah would usually wait for his cell phone to ring and then tell Elishva that Matilda was on the line, or if Matilda didn’t call on time, Elishva might wait another hour and then ask the priest to call Matilda. This had been repeated every Sunday for at least two years. Before that, Elishva’s daughters had called irregularly on the land line at church. But then when the Americans invaded Baghdad, their missiles destroyed the telephone exchange, and the phones were cut off for many months. Death stalked the city like the plague, and Elishva’s daughters felt the need to check every week that the old woman was okay. At first, after a few difficult months, they spoke on the Thuraya satellite phone that a Japanese charity had given to the young Assyrian priest at the church. When the wireless networks were introduced, Father Josiah bought a cell phone, and Elishva spoke to her daughters on that. Members of the congregation would stand in line after Mass to hear the voices of their sons and daughters dispersed around the world. Often people from the surrounding Karaj al-Amana neighborhood—Christians of other denominations and Muslims too—would come to the church to make free calls to their relatives abroad. As cell phones spread, the demand for Father Josiah’s phone declined, but Elishva was content to maintain the ritual of her Sunday phone call from church.

  With her veined and wrinkled hand, Elishva would put the Nokia phone to her ear. Upon hearing her daughters’ voices, the darkness would lift and she would feel at peace. If she had gone straight back to Tayaran Square, she would have found that everything was calm, just as she had left it in the morning. The sidewalks would be clean and the cars that had caught fire would have been towed away. The dead would have been taken to the forensics department and the injured to the Kindi Hospital. There would be some shattered glass here and there, a pole blackened with smoke, and a hole in the asphalt, though she wouldn’t have been able to make out how big it was because of her blurred vision.

&
nbsp; When the Mass was over she lingered for an extra hour. She sat down in the hall adjacent to the church, and after the women had set out on tables the food they brought with them, she went ahead and ate with everyone, just to have something to do. Father Josiah made a desperate last attempt to call Matilda, but her phone was out of service. Matilda had probably lost her phone, or it had been stolen from her on the street or at some market in Melbourne, where she lived. Maybe she had forgotten to write down Father Josiah’s number or had some other excuse. The priest couldn’t make sense of it but kept trying to console Elishva, and when everyone started leaving, the deacon, Nader Shamouni, offered Elishva a ride home in his old Volga. This was the second week without a phone call. Elishva didn’t actually need to hear her daughters’ voices. Maybe it was just habit or something more important: that with her daughters she could talk about Daniel. Nobody really listened to her when she spoke about the son she had lost twenty years ago, except for her daughters and Saint George the Martyr, whose soul she often prayed for and whom she saw as her patron saint. You might add her old cat, Nabu, whose hair was falling out and who slept most of the time. Even the women at church grew distant when she began to talk about her son—because she just said the same things over and over. It was the same with the old women who were her neighbors. Some of them couldn’t remember what Daniel looked like. Besides, he was just one of many who’d died over the years. Elishva was gradually losing people who had once supported her strange conviction that her son was still alive, even though he had a grave with an empty coffin in the cemetery of the Assyrian Church of the East.

  Elishva no longer shared with anyone her belief that Daniel was still alive. She just waited to hear the voice of Matilda or Hilda because they would put up with her, however strange this idea of hers. The two daughters knew their mother clung to the memory of her late son in order to go on living. There was no harm in humoring her.