Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,69

with a report on how well or badly my mother had slept the night before. It was like a poltergeist, her insomnia and its effects, and my father warned me of its presence the way he used to warn me approximately once a month that Fatima is not herself today. Now, in Amman, even as she beamed maternally on my arrival, I could tell that my mother needed sleep, and I hoped she’d be able to get some rest in the car. I hoped I’d be able to get some rest in the car. But shortly after we’d embraced my father took me to one side and said that while it was all right for my mother to sleep one of us would have to remain awake at all times. We were leaving in the middle of the night, in order to reach Iraq around dawn; moreover, night or day most of the journey would be monotonous—mile after mile of scrubland and dunes—so it was equally important that we be on alert that our driver should not nod off, or, in my father’s words, pull something funny.

This was the same driver who’d been supposed to meet me at the airport, and who greeted me now with an air of superior and charitably suppressed exasperation. His armored Chevy Suburban, with its tinted windows and long boxy rear, looked like a hearse. I could not have slept if I’d tried. Every uptake in speed made me start. Every pair of headlights advancing toward us seemed to push through the dark with an ominous stealth. Our driver gripped his steering wheel tightly, with both hands, bouncing his unoccupied knee and chewing his lip. He was a smoker, obviously; the car stank of it, and every spare compartment had been stuffed with cigarettes—dozens of Marlboro boxes marked CHINA DUTY FREE wedged over the visors and into the pockets behind the seats—but before we’d set off my father had asked if he wouldn’t mind abstaining. Much of the first hour of our ride I spent silently debating the pros and cons of this request. If our escort needed nicotine to deliver us safely into Baghdad, let him have it. We would not die of secondhand smoke in ten hours. On the other hand, my father, who had only recently given up tobacco himself, had paid dearly for this service: three and a half thousand dollars. Why shouldn’t he have his way?

We arrived at the border a little before four. Slowing, our driver opened the glove compartment and removed a billfold of American twenties, which, after powering down his window, he began peeling off and passing out to the border patrol officers as though they were the standard toll. Any foreigners? one of the officers asked, in Arabic.

Our driver shook his head. All Iraqis.

Now he was handing out Marlboros: two packets per officer. Then he powered the window back up and it seemed we would be waved through until one of the officers standing in the road turned around and held up a hand.

The window went back down and two more packets of cigarettes were offered through and pocketed unceremoniously. Then the officer said something about Baghdad. Our driver nodded. The officer walked away.

Sitting in one of the SUV’s middle seats, I turned around to face my father inquiringly. My mother, with her dark eyes and snug headwear, looked like an owl.

What’s happening?

They want us to take someone to Baghdad.

An officer?

Our driver nodded.

An Iraqi intelligence officer?

Jiggling his leg, our driver ducked to peer under the rearview mirror and didn’t answer.

What should we do? asked my father.

Please, said the driver. Pretend to sleep. Do not speak.

I have to go to the bathroom, my mother said quietly.

I am sorry, our driver said urgently, turning around to face us now. We cannot stop unless he says to stop. You must be quiet. Your accent will discover you. I will try to take you quickly, quickly as possible, but please: do not speak.

By now a large man with a beard and gray army fatigues was approaching. Our driver unlocked the SUV and the officer opened the passenger-side door and sat down in front of me, causing the vehicle to cant. Sabah al-khair, said the officer. Sabah al-noor, our driver replied. Good morning. We Jaafaris said nothing. Our driver relocked the Suburban, put it into gear, and resumed driving, waved off by the officers in the road. Our new passenger adjusted and readjusted his seat, reducing my own legroom by half.