The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(25)

Cha-cha-cha, I thought. Cha-cha-cha, cha-cha-cha.

In years to come he would whisper it at parties as the cake paraded by or mouth it across a restaurant table at a sibling’s birthday dinner. On our wedding night, Danny winked at me when the cake came out and we both knew what he was thinking. My mother always said how amazing it is that things seem so absolute when you’re young. But the sand slides down in chutes until the dune craters are all full. Inevitable, the magazines write, and we shake our heads with somber nostalgia for the grass and its crickets. We always will.





The Emerald City

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Date: Jun 16, 2003 at 10:56 PM

Subject: melting! (the Green Zone hit 108°)

Laura darling,

I stopped carrying my gun today. To be honest, we don’t really need them. It’s like we’re all inventing our adventure—crawling through the Baghdad gardens like the seeds are mines, like the bruised pears might blow our damn legs off. Wolf still carries his M-9 on the boulevard, belting it to cargos like his comic book idols. (The nerds in the Coalition Provisional Authority are keen on the war glory stuff.) I’m no wannabe soldier, though; I don’t have to tell you that. Not joining the Army is just about the best decision I ever made. I stopped romanticizing this place long before the juniper trees blossomed and they reopened the Green Zone swimming pool. I eat Afghan bananas in an office in a palace in a peace zone for God’s sake. Outside, it’s just a bunch of bodies slamming against stones, lurking in desert hidey-holes until their human fuses explode.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you, if that means anything. There’s this river here, Laura, this river that bends through the irony of Saddam’s old statues and monuments and other marble tyrannies. The Arabs call it “Dijla” but every Bible reader east of Persia knows it’s the Tigris—pouring through the sand straight from Mesopotamia. Probably the first thing to get a name when Civilization started pointing and writing. Well when it’s hot and the guards don’t have a captain around, they let some of us down to sit on the blast walls by its bank. Wolf and Michael bring beers and laugh about the Texans or talk about college. But when I look at water, I think of New Hampshire. The way you smelled like blueberries and pine when we’d sit on that dock.

I’m so self-indulgent, Laura! But I suppose you’re used to forgiving my poetry. God knows the soldiers would crack up if they read this. It’s funny enough that a skinny architect ended up redistricting Iraq. But it’s nice doing something that (theoretically) helps the world. I was sick of designing parking lots and industrial boringness. But you know that.

Truth is I don’t know what to say, really. The Green Zone’s hardly exciting these days, especially not for us civilian office slaves contracting for the CPA. Perhaps I should just pretend to be your lost lieutenant, sniping terrorists with your picture at my breast.

Mostly, we just battle time. Sweating through zip-off pants and moving like moths to the air-conditioned pockets of this place. They finally moved my department out of the hotel offices and inside occupation headquarters in Saddam’s old palace. (Now it’s all diplomats and policy snobs.) I’m still living in that trailer, though. But despite the heat, it’s not so bad. I’ve set up this shelf and managed to buy a coffee maker off a friend who works in the kitchen. There’s a Pleasantville quality about it all—the matching trailers lined up with manicured grass and palm trees. Even the roads are surreal—Hummers driving at slow-motion speed, obeying the zone’s 35 mph cap.

My work’s the same. I’ve officially been promoted to Deputy Secretary of Housing Reconstruction and Redistribution, but titles don’t mean much around here. I’ll finally have my own translator though (thank God). I think the Iraqis are starting to realize the permanence of things. Last week, Wolf and I checked on the Shi’as we moved into one of the In-Zone complexes and hardly any families had unpacked. This woman boiled chickpeas on a suitcase counter, forbidding her children to unzip their duffel bags. She was just stirring this pot, stirring and stirring and shaking her head. Wolf gave the kids Tootsie Rolls, but she threw them back at him. I looked her file up later and it said her husband died in the bombing.

These people don’t get it, Laura. They don’t get that our trailers won’t leave come September. Then again, I’m not sure the CPA really gets this either. I’m starting to think we’re here for the long run. Which is hard when I tend to garrulous musings on blueberries and pine.

Look, Laura, I’m sorry if this is weird. I know we said we’d leave things ambiguous—but when you didn’t show up at my good-bye party, I wasn’t sure what to think. If you want me to stop writing, I will. Really, I will. Just know that I’m thinking about you. Know you’re my tether outside these walls.

Is Manhattan hot? Have the Japanese invaded or is it still too early in the summer? I’d tell you more about this strange country if I could, but I’m caged up. They’ve built us this greenhouse and won’t let us out.

Anyway, my fan died, so I should probably sleep before I melt. I swear this whole desert’s going to melt into glass by August. But don’t worry about me, Laura, really don’t. It’s safer than the city in here, I promise.

Your long lost soldier CPA officer, Will

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