Baghdad Central (29 page)
Khafaji hangs up. He has no plan. He throws the butt on the ground and wonders how to get Mrouj. Khafaji stands up and takes one last look around the office.
Suddenly, the door opens, and three men in uniform walk in. Khafaji reaches into his pocket and feels the pistol. He
walks over and speaks in a voice loud enough to cover all fear. “Good morning, please come in. Gentlemen, please.” Khafaji extends his hand to the ranking officer and introduces himself.
“Inspector Khafaji, I'm Captain John Parodi of the 267th MP.”
“It is about Citrone, isn't it?” Khafaji tries to sound concerned.
“I understand you were there last night. You're the one who discovered the body, right?”
“I was. It was horrible.”
“Where did you go? By the time we showed up, they couldn't find you anywhere.”
“I went to the hospital.”
Parodi looks at another man and says, “Make a note of that.”
“Look, Khafaji, that was not the right thing for you to do. We've got a mess on our hands. Citrone might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I doubt it. We have to assume they knew who Citrone was. And now we have to work backwards to understand how.”
“Who was he then?”
Parodi doesn't say anything. He looks over at the computers and the other men walk over and begin to power up each machine. The man sits down at one and unrolls a pouch of small tools. He types until the screen lights up, then he works on the machine with a screwdriver and another tool Khafaji has never seen before.
Parodi's gaze returns to Khafaji. “We have reason to believe Citrone's death is linked to the targeting of interpreters.”
Khafaji nods and Parodi keeps talking. “We have two tasks here, and they are at odds with one another. We need to secure protection for our 'terps. And we need to investigate
them to find who's working for the other side. My men need to go through this office, starting right now. We're hoping you might be able to help us. I'm sorry we have to put you under scrutiny, but that's how it is.”
“Of course, sir. I'm at your service. Let me tell you what I know. It's not much. I've been brought in to help rebuild the police force. I'm just going through old files and identifying potential recruits from among the ranks of police officers with experience.”
Khafaji pauses. As he narrates, he realizes two things: that once again, the only things they'll know are what he's about to tell them, and that once again, none of this is very convincing. “We knew that the difficult work was ahead of us. I've only been here a few days.”
Parodi looks at Khafaji intensely. Khafaji holds his gaze, and adds, “Now that Citrone is gone, I'm not sure what is going to happen.”
At least these last words are true. When I am done with this conversation, Khafaji thinks, I am leaving for good.
“I understand, Inspector Khafaji. But I will do my best to make sure your efforts have the support they deserve. Obviously, it's not my jurisdiction. I don't have the authority to do more than convey that to the right people.”
For the next hour, Parodi asks Khafaji to explain what he has been doing. He asks questions about money. He asks questions about Ford. He mentions other names, and asks about people Khafaji has not met. He asks questions about a girl named Zahra Boustani, and then about interpreters. Khafaji doesn't say anything untrue, but he also doesn't say anything about Zahra or the interpreters.
When Khafaji tells Parodi that the question of his own salary hadn't even been settled, the interview starts over.
Parodi makes notes and begins asking the same questions again. Throughout, Parodi implies that Khafaji and Citrone worked together day-to-day, and Khafaji never bothers to correct him. From the corner of his eye, Khafaji watches the two other men turn the office upside down. Gently and methodically, but upside down. One of them sits at the computers, plugging in devices and trawling through files. He unplugs one computer and sets it aside. He does the same to the others. The other man wears latex gloves, moving through filing cabinets, desks, and wastebaskets. At Citrone's desk, he uses other keys to open all the drawers. He buries his head inside, and with a small flashlight peers under the desk. Finally, the man at the computers asks the other for help. Together, they begin carrying small loads of electronic equipment out the door.
Parodi's questions come around again to the issue of money, and not to Khafaji's salary. Khafaji meditates on his one single thought:
Today is your last day
.
Ford walks in a different person. A man, almost. Ten years older than he was yesterday. Yesterday, he might have passed for a teenager with shaving problems. This morning his sideburns are white. His face is ash gray. His eyes blood red. Abruptly, he wraps Khafaji in a bony hug.
It is only then that Khafaji understands that Parodi had been waiting this whole time to see Ford. He, Khafaji, was only an extra as far as they were concerned. And now his part was over. This was not unwelcome news.
Another man steps in and introduces himself. “Inspector Khafaji? I'm Bernie Olds, CPA security. I'll be taking over the police project until we get a replacement for Citrone. You'll be working with me. Grab your stuff and come on down the hall. I'll tell you what's going on when we get there.”
Khafaji goes over to his desk and fills his pockets with packs of cigarettes. He picks up his box and follows Olds down the corridor. He tries to appear casual, but has to set the heavy box down long before they arrive at the office. Olds helps Khafaji pick it up and together they carry it the rest of the way.
The meeting with Olds is rushed. In his mind, Khafaji has already left. Each minute seems like hours. Khafaji is so busy thinking about his next steps that he does not exactly hear what Olds is telling him. “For the moment, the work in Baghdad is being put on hold. You're being temporarily reassigned to a working group in Kirkuk until this is all cleared up. We're leaving tonight at 1900.”
“I need to pack my bags,” Khafaji mumbles.
“Go and pack, then. Be here by 1800 at the latest.”
Before he knows it, Khafaji shakes Olds' hand and walks out the door with his heavy box. He manages to walk out of the palace before he has to set it down. Walking toward Ibn Sina Hospital, he has to set it down again every hundred yards or so. Finally, a soldier offers to help, and carries it all the way, even into the lobby. Khafaji gives the young man a Rothmans and they go outside to smoke together.
Long before Khafaji sets the box down at the reception desk on the fourth floor he sees the commotion. When he tries to pass the desk, he is stopped by the nurse, who reminds him to sign in. Box clutched to chest, Khafaji walks into the melee. There are so many people crowding into Mrouj's room that at first he cannot step inside.
The room is filled with balloons and roses and flooded with bright lights. The air is hot and stuffy. Men stand around holding video cameras, microphones and electronic equipment. Khafaji tries to look over their shoulders, but he cannot see his daughter. The curtains around her bed are shut tight. Beside the bed on the other side of the room, an American reporter sits awkwardly, smiling and holding the hand of the other patient, an older Iraqi woman with two black eyes and an oxygen mask. The woman is awake, but not lucid. She looks at the men with the cameras and flashes a thumbs up sign, and the reporter asks the cameraman, “Did you get that?” He nods. “OK, let's get the doctor back in here.”
Someone shuts off the spotlights, and the temperature of the room begins to drop immediately. Only then does the reporter's smile fall into a scowl.
A man walks out of the room. Politely, he points to the box in Khafaji's hands and tells him to step back into the corridor. Two others press by Khafaji, pushing him out of the room. One man holds a clipboard and shouts down the corridor, “Where's the doctor? We need him now.”
Khafaji slips back into the room. Stepping over toolboxes and backpacks filled with equipment, he nearly trips. One man catches Khafaji, another catches the box then hands it back to Khafaji. Khafaji notices the reporter pointing at him. Khafaji opens the curtain and closes it quickly behind him.
Khafaji sets down the box, and then looks at Mrouj's sleeping face. She looks weaker than yesterday. Worse in fact. There's no mistaking the yellow of her skin. Khafaji looks for a chair to sit on, but sees none. He puts his hand in Mrouj's. Outside, the noise in the room grows louder. Khafaji finally loses his patience.
When he steps out from the curtain, Khafaji finds the reporter standing next to him. “Hello. I'm Caridad Macmillan. They tell me you're here visiting your daughter.”
Khafaji stares at the woman but says nothing.
“We're doing a story on Iraqi patients. The human angle. Some good news for a change. Could I talk to you about your daughter's experience?”
Khafaji looks around the room and simply murmurs, “No speak English.” He reaches around her for a chair. The reporter tries to engage him again, but gives up as soon as the doctor walks into the room. With a harried smile, the doctor first nods at Khafaji, then looks at the reporter. “OK. We can do it now. Let's go.”
The reporter tells her assistant to bring the others back to the room, but the doctor interrupts her. “If you want to
interview me, you need to start right now. You've got five minutes.” He looks at his watch, then goes over to the old Iraqi woman in the other bed. She looks up at him with a pale shade of confusion in her eyes. The doctor strokes her arm, checks her pulse and then says, “It'll be all right,” as the cameras begin to roll. The old woman does not understand the words, but she understands what they mean.
When the reporter gives a signal, the man with the clipboard repositions the doctor on the other side of the patient, opposite the reporter. She turns her smile on again, just as the lights flash on. In an instant, the temperature in the room begins to rise.
“In the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds, there is no weapon more powerful than medicine. And on this frontline, the frontline of healing, American doctors are paving the way for the transition to peace in the new Iraq. We're here with Dr Lewis Stone, one of the many American doctors treating patients in Baghdad.”
The doctor nods and smiles grimly.
“Could you tell us about your typical day, Dr Stone?”
“Besides the mass trauma, it's not that much different from a day at home. Seeing patients, figuring out how to bring them the care they need.” His lips are pencil thin.
“So tell me what is different about working in Iraq, Doctor?”
“Well, one thing that is different is that many of my patients here suffer complications from chronic diseases that are perfectly treatable.”
The reporter's smile never dampens. “What sorts of diseases?”
He now looks directly at the camera for the first time. “Well, at home, I rarely see patients who have something like a kidney or liver condition that is allowed to go untreated
for years. But it's one of the most common things you see here. You've got to ask yourself why that is.”
“Why is that, Doctor?” She grins.
“Because for thirteen years we prevented these people from receiving the simple care they needed. For every Iraqi patient I'm seeing today, hundreds of others died in the last decade â simply because they could not get the basic medicines they needed. These problems were all caused by the sanctions system. And who put those in place, Caridad? We did. The American people did.”
“But they must appreciate the care you're giving them now.”
The doctor is no longer smiling at all, and no longer talking to her. “I am not sure if âappreciate' is the right word.” He looks at the old woman, who struggles to smile as she gazes up at the reporter. “Caridad â imagine being poisoned. Imagine I poison you every day for ten years. I keep on poisoning you to the point that now you're on your deathbed. Then imagine I magically come one day and tell you I've got the antidote. Would âappreciation' describe your feelings toward me?”
The reporter's smile never fades, though confusion shows in her eyes. But before it can spread, the doctor looks at his watch and announces, “And now I have to get back to work. Thank you very much for your interest. My patients need their rest, so please leave now.”
He catches Khafaji's eye, then walks over. The two men wait as the crowd exits the room. And then they are alone.
“I am very glad you came, Mr Khafaji. Mrouj's condition is not so simple.”
“What's wrong, Doctor?”
The doctor draws back the curtain and feels Mrouj's wrist. He looks at her face for a minute then answers, “What's
wrong is that we were hoping to reverse the deterioration quickly, but we haven't been able to. She responded favorably to some of the ACE inhibitors and ARBs and it looked like her condition was stabilizing.”
Khafaji looks puzzled and the doctor explains. “Those are two classes of medication used to treat kidney disease at these levels.”
“So what is happening?”