Novel: The Interpreter – Chapter-27

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The Interpreter-Sindh Courier
The original cover of novel (The Interpreter)

‘The Interpreter’ is the English version of Arabic novel ‘Al Tarjuman’, authored by Ashraf Aboul Yazid, an eminent writer and poet of Egypt

“A Coward Has No Life!”

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

I looked through the window at two clouds that seemed to be whispering to each other a story. I wished that someone I loved would listen to my story with the same attention. A story that’s more than twenty years old.

All I remember of that distant day is that I couldn’t reach my wife, “Fawaz,” a second time.

I had to leave Kuwait heading toward Saudi Arabia, to then travel from Riyadh to London, where she was waiting for me. I wanted to see her giving birth to our son, who we had decided to name “Khalid.”

Dali-Book-Chapter-27-Sindh CourierIt was past two in the morning when we were driven by the driver, “Dawas.” He told me he knew the road to Buraidah by heart. My worry about “Fawaz” added to my sadness as I fled my country, and I cried when our car neared the border, as if I would never return.

We reached the first checkpoint, and it was unguarded. We thought it was easy, but then the second checkpoint was also clear of Iraqi soldiers, so we felt hopeful. However, our hope shattered when armed soldiers emerged from the third checkpoint.

Unfortunately, “Dawas” tried to escape, but a bullet came from behind, exploding his head and dropping him to the ground, lifeless. He didn’t move after that. Two other young men were with me, and they pulled us out, lined us up side by side as if they were preparing to execute us.

From a distance, I heard the voice of the group leader, angry and shouting. When he came closer, only a couple of meters away, he ordered us to kneel and raise our hands. Then he addressed us in a threatening voice:

“You killed the sons of Iraq, you killed the brave men treacherously; none of them contacted us at the previous checkpoints. You’ve fallen for your treachery, and you’ll get what you deserve, you Kuwaiti fools.”

Fortunately, the patrol that arrived just moments before the execution was led by soldiers from the previous checkpoints. The officer confirmed that we hadn’t killed anyone. He paced around us several times, his gaze shifting between his soldiers and the body on the ground. Then he looked at “Dawas'” body and said, as if justifying the murder with the bullet to his back:

“A coward has no life!”

They bound us, and we were sent in an open military truck to a place where they collected prisoners taken from Kuwait to Iraq, and then placed us on buses with blacked-out windows. The prisoners were not all Kuwaiti; I noticed some Egyptians, whom I recognized by their accents. Strangely, in the midst of this calamity, they were still telling jokes, their eyes brimming with tears, laughing and crying at the same time!

I paid attention and realized that we hadn’t traveled far from the border when they dropped us off in a place that looked like a school. Every few days, they would call out the names of some of us whom they confirmed were military personnel, line us up, and force us to watch executions of those men. They would order us to dig the graves of our brothers and bury them. Hundreds were executed by the Iraqis in the first two months of their treacherous invasion of Kuwait.

Days and nights blended together until an order came from “Saddam,” as we heard, to transfer us to Baghdad, to be used as bargaining chips in the midst of the war. They took us to a place later revealed by the guards to be called “Al-Khadhra,” adjacent to the Military Court building in Baghdad.

We weren’t the only prisoners there; there were other groups distributed in similar shelters, as one of the guards, who showed us great sympathy, later told us, especially since their condition was not much better than ours.

I began losing my natural senses. Perhaps I no longer smelled anything after the foul odors settled in my nose. The food they gave us dulled my sense of taste. The bread tasted like dough, and the soup in the bowl looked like mud.

It seemed that an explosion had hit the building and shelter during the war because I found myself days later, after fainting, being treated in a hospital. My leg was broken and in a cast, and my hand had various burns. The ward was surrounded by military guards, and among us were Kuwaitis and Iraqis, partners in treatment, victims of a war that didn’t discriminate between the aggressor and the victim. After a few days, we were transferred to a prison where we didn’t see the light.

We tried to escape, and it was a big mistake. We were fleeing from a large prison to one even bigger. They tortured us badly when they caught us hours later and returned us to a place more desolate, colder, and darker, until I feared I would lose my sight.

We heard stories about other prisoners who had tried to escape. The guards would bring them back, alive or dead, throw them in front of us, and then shoot them, even the dead ones. Each bullet took away my hearing, so much so that I would touch my ears and press my hands over them, trying to sleep without hearing the gunfire. We lost the ability to count the years that gnawed at our lives without anyone holding them accountable.

Until the Second Birthday of My Life

Majid, the guard, had heard about a Kuwaiti reward after the news spread that our government was offering a million dollars to anyone who could provide information leading to the location of our missing prisoners. Majid and a friend of his—whose name I can’t recall—agreed to smuggle us and scatter us among several relatives’ homes. They promised that, in return, we would help them obtain the reward.

Majid obtained copies of our official documents, including a picture of my passport, which he had found with one of the senior guards, following a paid recommendation from a fellow prisoner who wasn’t fortunate enough to survive to see that moment.

Weeks earlier, Majid had sent the photos with a pilgrim returning from Najaf, heading toward Kuwait. We waited until a Red Cross worker came to meet me, accompanied by Majid.

When I saw my face in the mirror of the car that took us from our hiding place to the Red Cross headquarters, I didn’t recognize my features due to the long beard. My back had curved from the poor conditions and cramped spaces of the prisons and hideouts, and I limped slightly from a broken foot. All of that made me look like an elderly, short, and thin man, especially since I knew I had been there since 1990, and today was December 19, 2010.

At the Red Cross office, they contacted a Swiss man who worked with the National Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs in Kuwait. “Frank,” as his name was, arranged for a DNA test to confirm my story: that I was a Kuwaiti who had been captured twenty years ago.

Frank told me that they would verify my account and that they would first transport me, using a Jordanian passport, to Amman, then I would travel to Kuwait. He said I would meet with the officials at the committee, and they would arrange for my family to meet me. They asked me not to disclose any information until it was all arranged:

“This is highly sensitive, Mr. Badr. No doubt your family has suffered all these years, but the shock will be overwhelming if it isn’t done as we’ve arranged. You need to meet with the specialists at the committee first and foremost.”

On the way from the airport to the Fourth Ring Road, the scenes seemed to me as if I were seeing a new country. True, I recognized the water towers, but everything else seemed new. I felt like a stranger, even though my face was clean-shaven again, and my eyes were comfortably behind sunglasses.

In the early days at the medical facility, my time was divided between physical therapy, psychological treatment, intensive nutrition sessions, skin care, and eye drops. There was no television or radio, just calm music playing on the radio.

Most of the time was spent in the room. When I did go out, it was either to the bathroom or to the large garden with high walls, a giant iron gate, and palm trees that nearly obscured the sky. I felt like I had escaped one prison only to find myself in another, and I began to doubt that I was actually in Kuwait, despite all the details of my escape, travels, and the people I had met.

The only sounds that reached me from outside the facility were the microphones for prayer calls. I could now see the minarets of the two nearby mosques under the friendly clouds from my room window. There were two prayer times: the first from the Sunni mosque, a few minutes before the Shiite mosque’s call, and the second from the Shiite muezzin, who called to prayer as they do in Tehran. My sense of being a stranger grew stronger, and I wondered if I had really arrived in Kuwait.

A few days later, the director of the National Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs came to visit me, congratulating me on my survival and safe return to my homeland. He then told me that the time had come for me to meet my family. They had a week to arrange this meeting. I felt a sharp pang of anxiety. I had a strong desire to see “Fawaz” and my son, whom they told me everything about at the committee, how he had succeeded and even reached a master’s degree. I learned that my father had passed away five years ago, but thankfully, my mother was well. That was all the information they gave me—very little, even after they had confirmed my identity.

After the director left, I decided to escape from this new prison at the earliest opportunity. (Continues)

Click here for Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25, Chapter 26

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About the Author 

Ashraf-Aboul-YazidAshraf Aboul-Yazid is a renowned Egyptian poet, journalist, novelist, travelogue writer and translator. He is author of around three dozen books and Editor-in-Chief of Silk Road Literature Series.

 

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