The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(27)

I’m so sleepy I’m about to sleep literally but I thought to send this so you know I’m thinking about you. Write me back I read your letters a hundred timse when you write me back.

Will

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To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Date: July 19, 2003 at 10:23 PM

Subject: last two weeks

Laura—

I’m sorry I didn’t write you sooner but things have been crazy around here. I’m sure you’ve seen it all on the news (the media’s eating it up) but I’ll tell you the story sans public opinion concerns. The insurgent truck crashed through the defense and into the Canal Hotel at around 4:30. I was outside (about a half mile away) but every window on Yafa Street shattered in unison. Everyone heard it. I guess curiosity killed precaution because the streets started flowing with smoky, squinting eyes. It’s messed up, but people were relieved when they found out it was only UN headquarters. 22 are dead but they got it wrong about the wounded—more like 200 than CNN’s 125. With their High Commissioner for Human Rights (ironically) suffocated in rubble—rumor has it that the UN’s going to be out of here by August. I wouldn’t be surprised.

I started carrying my gun again. It’s stupid, but I do it anyway. There was this woman, Laura, and her arm was literally hanging to her body. She was supporting it with her other hand and just walking. Walking away from the hotel, wide-eyed and stricken dumb. She was walking, Laura! Not running, not screaming, just pacing her way down Yafa like the slow-moving cars. I go to sleep seeing that woman’s arm and then I wake up and strap my M-9 to my belt. Deep down I know I’m just being stupid. It’s not like a gun can stop a car from blowing up.

Everyone’s on edge. I caught Wolf reading the CPA safety booklet at lunch and Michael keeps jerking his head into stillness like he’s heard some unheard bomb. Haaya’s the only one who seems unfazed. (“This is a war.”) We’ve been spending more time in fieldwork and less time in the office. We finally finished screening and documenting the peasants who poured into the Green Zone apartments in the aftermath of occupation. Groups of fourteen and fifteen are crammed into two-bedroom units, but in-zone space is sacred compared to the slums outside the walls. Problem is, now everyone’s suspicious of anyone and everyone whose skin isn’t pale. The new housing we’ve been fixing was ready for move-in the day of the crash—but Bremer pushed us back three weeks. It’s probably for the best, anyway. People are teeming to get inside the walls and background checks have half the office with headaches.

There’s more bad news. Reports of Sunni massacres have started leaking in via civilian slums. Apparently the Iraqi police are behind it. (DO NOT share this information with anyone.) This is why we need to redistrict! If we concentrate the Sunnis we can get the GIs into effective patrols—the CPA notion that desegregation will “address the crisis at its roots” is an ignorant pipedream. This isn’t goddamn Jim Crow, it’s 1400 years of holy war! It’s Sunni men, pillowcased and shot by the Tigris at four am! The Iraqi police patrol by day and ride with the Mahdi army once they finish evening prayer. With access to residence rolls by block, their work is practically done for them—(even I can tell Sunni from Shi’a by last name).

Haaya and I watched the helipad again last night. The orange groves behind the palace have become a routine for us. The days are starting to blend together and it’s these moments that get me out of bed. The winds come at night and if we focus we can smell salt from the Caspian. Haaya’s been teaching me Arabic. Burtuqal, orange. Nakhla, palm tree. Jundi cheb, boy soldier. Every night, more and more troops fly in and ship out. We watch the lines and line up our peels on the grass. She told me about her family’s death for real on Wednesday and I told her about Kyle’s overdose and the time I almost dropped out of school. Companionship is everything, Laura. (The heat seems to foster clichés, but it’s true.) Wolf and Michael started bunking together, they don’t talk much, but they play those combat games on their laptops when they can’t sleep.

I miss New Hampshire, Laura. Real trees and fish and hammock chairs. How’s the city? Have you seen Shakespeare in the Park yet? I tried to explain this to Haaya by comparing it to pre-Ottoman mosques. I wish you’d tell me more in your messages. Hearing from you really breaks up my day.

—Will

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To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Date: Aug 2, 2003 at 1:11 AM

Subject: hello

We got news from outside today. (A CPA officer got authorized to meet with an imam who couldn’t come inside the Zone.) He was walking down a crowded sidewalk in the central city when an old man carrying two bags of groceries was accosted by a young guy, demanding his food and money at knife-point. Pedestrians stopped to watch, regarding the interaction with normalcy. The old man reached into his pocket, but instead of withdrawing his wallet, he took out his gun, switched off the safety, and shot the man straight in the chest. Some of the pedestrians cheered, others spat, and the old man picked up his groceries and continued home. There’s Iraq for you.

Haaya suggested we work separately today. I had office work to do and she wanted to speak to some men in the slums outside the new housing. I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea, but she insisted. I’ve been a mess all day—distracted, exhausted (writing e-mails when I should be working). I suppose I’ve come to rely on her more than I thought.