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Farewell to Baghdad

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Igor MATVEYEV

Farewell

to Baghdad...

(novel)

A tragic story of a Belarusian girl who fell in love with an Arab and went to

Baghdad in the 70-ies of the last century

PROLOGUE . FEBRUARY 21, 2000. AMMAN

  
   A sign with inscription in English and Arabic "International Airport of Queen Aliyаh" flashed in the lights of the car.
   - Madam..., - the driver gingerly touched her shoulder.
   She opened her eyes. It took her several seconds to fully wake up and realize where she was. A fluorescent clock dial on the dashboard showed three forty-five.
   - Madam, we're almost there.
   She opened her bag, took out a packet of "Pine", slim and long white-filtered Korean cigarettes. She lit one and deeply dragged on it. Excellent cigarettes. She took to them in the last years and probably breaking this habit would be hard. Really, these cigarettes will be the only thing she would miss in Belarus.
   Ten minutes later the taxi drove to a brightly lit parking lot. She produced a hundred dollar note and handed it to the driver.
   - I have no change...
   - It's okay. Just help me with my luggage.
   - Sure, madam.
   The driver opened the boot and took out a small brown suitcase and a bag. She followed him into the entrance hall.
   - Could you find out where the international telephone is? - she asked.
   The man nodded and made his way to a Jordanian policeman standing in the distance under a big portrait of King Abdullah II. The policeman listened and waved his hand to somewhere upstairs.
   - It's on the first floor, Madam. Well..., - the driver paused not really knowing what else to say. - I wish you a happy flight.
   - And I wish you a happy journey back home. And - and thank you for everything, - she said putting in her thanks much more than was required by a mere formula of politeness.
   - For what?
   - You know.
   He turned awkwardly and started to go away - an old, grey-haired man wronged by life.
   She opened her handbag to get the notebook and once again her glance fell on thick wad of dinars in it. Long long time ago, which now seemed like an eternity back, in another airport a wad of other bank notes was lying in her bag - also useless like the one she had now. At these memories she smiled sadly.
   - Wait! - she called after the man.
   The taxi-driver stopped and looked at her questioningly.
   - Here... take it. I won't need this any more...inchalla.
   - Thank you, madam, - he put the money in his pocket.
   ...She dialed the Baghdad area code, then, checking in her memo book, started to dial "Mashexport" representation office. On the third digit her finger paused. It's four o'clock in the morning! No, she should call Korneyev directly home. She looked in the memo book again. 717-42-48.
   The receiver was picked up at the fifth ring.
   - Hallo! - a sleepy voice answered.
   For several seconds she tried to collect her thoughts.
   - Speak up, I don't hear you...
   Through background noises and crackling Korneyev's voice came so weak and faraway, as if he was on the opposite side of the globe or in the outer space.
   - Listen carefully, - she began. - Birukov is dead.
   She hoped Korneyev would not recognize her voice.
   - What? How do you mean? Who's speaking?
   - That's not important. His body is in the morgue of Saddam Hussein Medical centre...
   - Look here, lady! I don't know who you are, I don't know where you're calling from, but I know for sure, that Birukov has gone to Mosul, - the man objected with great irritation.
   - Birukov was shot at Karrada-street near "Ready Food" store.
   - Who's speaking? - he asked again.
   - I told you: that is not important. Help his wife - she needs it! - she raised her voice.
   - Who are you?
   - Damn it!! What difference does it make?! - she exploded. - Write down the address or try to remember it: Mansur, Mutenaby apartment block, 47. The woman is in the cellar of the house.
   She hung up and took a deep breath. Forgive me, Valentina. Forgive me, Victor. For me it was the only way out.
   She wearily closed her eyes. Is it - is it really over?
  

PART 1. FAREWELL TO MINSK!

NOVEMBER, 7, 1976 . МINSК

   Once again it was the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution with inevitable demonstration in the morning and a dancing party in the evening much anticipated by young people. The official part of the evening ceremony with the traditional report on the great victories on the road to communism was made as short as possible, and now `Smokie', a British pop group, was yelling their way into the assembly hall of Minsk polytechnic institute, amplified by a couple of column loud speakers positioned on two chairs under slogan `Long Live 59 th Anniversary of the October Revolution!' About three dozens of boys and girls were shaking in the small area to a rock and roll tune, touching each other with elbows and other parts of bodies.
   Lena immediately paid attention to a tall dark man of about thirty. He didn't look like a student and somehow stood out of the crowd of Lena'a fellows. He had black curly hair, short moustaches and surprisingly blue eyes - this she could discern even through semidarkness and clouds of cigarette smoke rising to the ceiling; despite strict prohibition by the Institute administration, students were heavily smoking right in the hall. The man stood near the wall with such a lost look on his face, as if he was an absolute stranger at this festival of sincere emotions and youth, and reminded her... of a child who lost his parents in a big department store. At least, such unusual comparison came to Lena's head, and she immediately felt something like pity or sympathy - or, perhaps, simultaneously both?
   - You like him? - Natasha nudged her with her elbow. - By the way, the guy's from Iraq. Some kind of a graduate student, or a perspective scientist, I don't know. Came here two weeks back.
   - How do you know?
   - From intelligence sources, - her girlfriend laughed. - Some girls tried to make his acquaintance - no way.
   - Perhaps he doesn't speak Russian? - supposed Lena.
   - As a matter of fact, he does. And surprisingly enough, his Russian is not bad. No, there must be some other reason. Maybe he is a woman hater. Or vise versa - he left in Iraq half a dozen of his wives. The Koran permits, you know.
   - Woman hater, you say? - Lena jerked her shoulder and, cutting her way through the dancers, made for the handsome stranger. She immediately understood that she was not the first. Some girl was already approaching `a graduate student, or a perspective scientist'. Lena stopped half-way.
   The man said something briefly, and smiled apologetically. The girl paused for a second, then directed her steps to another boy. Well, looks like he doesn't dance. Hmm... But he won't dare to say no to me! - Lena stubbornly thought.
   - Can I ask you...?
   The dark man looked at her and smiled somewhat perplexedly. The girl suddenly realized that her question sounded a bit suggestive, and expressed herself in a different way:
   - You dance?
   - No... well, that is, yes, I do, - his Russian had a very slight, almost unnoticeable accent. - But I dance differently. We don't dance like this.
   - We - who...? - Lena began looking at Natasha askew. Her girlfriend was following the course of events with obvious curiosity.
   - I mean Iraqi people. We don't listen to Western music as much as you do. And we don't dance like you do. Anyway, I came here just to have a look, - he added with a guilty smile.
   - You wanna learn to dance our way?
   The man shrugged his shoulders indefinitely.
   - As they say, silence is a sign of agreement, - Lena stated and started to pull him to the center of the dance floor.
   Of course, nothing came of it. The loudspeakers exploded with chords of `Money, Money, Money', a recent ABBA hit, and the number of dancers nearly doubled. Lena and her new acquaintance got pressed to each other. She felt his strong muscular body, smelt light odor of a male eau-de-cologne. This was a different and unknown to her eau-de-cologne - not that cheap variety her fellow students used. More often than not they smelt of cheap wine (popularly known as `ink').
   Pity, it isn't a slow dance Lena suddenly thought. Then he could embrace me on quite `legal grounds'. In the course of four and a half years of student's life she couldn't take a serious fancy to anybody. There were admirers, there were quick love affairs but real love never came. But now something happened to her suddenly. She didn't even know his name, but she felt that she was irresistibly drawn to this man.
   - Well..., - she began, getting ready for an impromptu lesson.
   At that very moment the dark man got an accidental but tangible enough blow from the elbow of one of the dancers who got carried away too much. Jokingly Lena's partner raised his hands and smiled.
   - I give up. At your dances er... how to say it in Russian?...only the strong survive. Just like in your city buses. Let's go get some fresh air instead, I can hardly breathe here.
   They went out. The evening was warm and, despite autumn, not rainy.
   - My name's Ahmed, - the man introduced himself.
   - Mine's Lena. Where did you learn to speak Russian so well, Ahmed? - she asked just to start a conversation.
   - At Baghdad University. We had a real good teacher. His grandfather emigrated from Russia to Iraq at the beginning of the century.
   - You live in Baghdad as well?
   - Yes. My parents have a big house in Mansur.
   - Mansur - what is it?
   - One of the districts of Baghdad. It's very er... how to put it correctly? - prestigious?
   - Prestigious, - Lena confirmed. - Or fashionable
   - What? Fa-sha-na...? - I can't pronounce it from the first , - he laughed.
   Lena also laughed.
   - That's the word your teacher at the University probably didn't know of, did he!
   - Baghdad is a very big city, - Ahmed went on with enthusiasm. - Do you know, that it stretches for 70 kilometers in one direction and for more than 50 in the other? Can you imagine how much time it will take just to drive around it? And to visit all its museums and see its monuments?
   - Frankly speaking, I can't. Even in Moscow I was only two times, - she said with regret. - My parents were just passing through.
   - Then I invite you to Baghdad! - Ahmed said solemnly and gingerly took her hand.
   - Okay, but it's too late to go there now, so we'll postpone our trip till tomorrow, - the girl said mockingly, then changed the topic: - You have brothers or sisters?
   - Yeah. People in Iraq have many children. I have two brothers and two sisters.
   They talked for a long time. Time flew imperceptibly, then Lena suddenly realized it was already too late. Natasha disappeared somewhere. Going alone for several blocks to the hostel didn't seem a very bright perspective, but Ahmed proposed to accompany her. She agreed willingly. In the company of this man she felt easily and comfortable. They were walking along the streets brightly lit with festive illumination and having small talk. He didn't try to embrace her on the way, didn't try to kiss her goodbye. He didn't ask her for a date either.
   After that she liked him even more.
  

OCTOBER, 11, 1999. BAGHDAD

   A clerk with a bored look on his face was sitting under a big portrait of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader was in a military uniform, his chest decorated with all conceivable Iraqi awards.
   The man raised his head
   - Oh, it's you again..., - he said with obvious lack of enthusiasm.
   - What about my problem? - Lena asked trying to keep her voice from trembling.
   - Nothing new, - the man aimlessly shuffled some papers and put them on the other end of his desk. - Exit visas are not temporarily issued.
   - Temporarily? I came to you for the fifth time in just six months! - she nearly shouted - And you call it temporarily?
   - Madam er... Аzzаwi, do you sometimes watch TV? Do you listen to the radio? Do you at all know what situation is arising around Iraq now? Have you heard the latest statement by Clinton?
   Only as it was presented by Iraqi television, nearly escaped her lips.
   Instead she said:
   - Then maybe you will kindly advise me what to do?
   The phone rang. The clerk picked up the receiver, listened for several seconds and answered:
   - Not at all, I'm free. I'll come right now. Yeah, in a couple of minutes.
   Unhurriedly, clearly playing on her nerves he dialed some number.
   - Salam. Is Hasim there? No? Where is he? Okay, I'll call later, - he placed the receiver on the cradle.
   - Then maybe you will advise me what to do? - the woman repeated.
   - I will. In difficult times you should be with your country, Madam Azzawi, - the man said coldly and without another look at the woman he stood up.
   That is not my country! she wanted to yell in his face. For twenty odd years it has not become mine! After the death of the only person who linked me to it, what else can keep me here?! And you know quite well that I have a Russian passport!
   A sudden guess struck her. Hinting at the tense situation, this clerk, involuntarily made her realize what could happen in the near future. After expulsion of UN inspectors from the country Saddam Hussein was anticipating a new strike from America any moment now. And then all foreigners in Iraq will be detained again to play, if necessary, the part of "human shield" at industrial enterprises and military objects. This had happened during the Gulf war eight years ago. That's why they stopped issuing exit visas! And you, bloody hypocrite, knowing the real reason appeal to my patriotic feelings!
   The circle has closed. There's nobody to help her. For them I am a foreigner, who got a Russian passport at the embassy. For Korneyev - just an interpreter who used to work once at `Mashexport' temporarily hired like any other local Arab charwoman. The relations with Ahmed's family had been completely severed; his father blamed her for everything that had happened. The only person who could help her was Tariq. But he went to Italy on business and became a defector.
   - Thank you , - Lena Azzawi turned and left the office.

NOVEMBER, 10, 1976. МINSK

   Three days later they met in the students' canteen.
   Having queued-up for half an hour and paid to the cashier, Lena stepped two steps away not to block the cashier's desk and tried to find a vacant place in the overcrowded room.
   All of a sudden she noticed a man waving his hand from a corner table trying to get her attention. It was Ahmed. She nodded in recognition and balancing her tray like a circus equilibrist directed her steps in his direction.
   - Hi!
   - Hi! Sit down, Lena, I have already finished, - he said helping her to clear the tray with standard set of dishes - borsch, a cutlet with fried potatoes and fruit compote.
   She took his place. Ahmed leaned to her and quietly, trying not to be heard by the students sitting at the same table, and said:
   - You know, I wanted to see you again.
   Me too, she thought.
   - What - what will you say? Can we meet some time?
   - So after all you want to learn to dance our way? - Lena joked.
   - No, I want to see you.
   The students at the table were listening to them not bothering to hide it.
   - You guys probably know the saying "When a person eats, he is deaf and dumb"? - the girl venomously queried. - Deaf, remember!
   The boys flushed and lowered their heads over the plates.
   - That's better. Ahmed, could you come up to our den..., sorry, I mean, to our hostel today? Say, by seven o'clock?
   - Sure, I can, - he said with obvious joy.
   - Then see you in the evening.
   - See you.
   ...As it usually happens in such situations time was dragging by unbearably. After the lunch Lena came into the Institute library and took the text books necessary for tomorrow's test. Sitting at the table she tried to make some notes but just couldn't concentrate her thoughts. That is, there were thoughts - but of a different kind. You got it, girl! - she thought and having returned useless books made for the hostel.
   Her roommate was not there. She threw herself on the bed and stared into the ceiling. If she would use a clichИ and compare her life to a book, then it looks like the Destiny is going to write in it a new chapter, a chapter quite new and different from the ones that passed before. Or is it already being written? To say the truth, these previous chapters were not chapters at all - rather an overextended foreword, a prologue. Childhood, school years, youth, first infatuation - not forgotten but already so remote... Nothing special, really. Everybody has the same routine. Only now, after that chance meeting at the dancing party, there appeared the first lines of this new chapter - the chapter which is called Love. Female instinct prompted Lena that Ahmed liked her too - otherwise he wouldn't have accepted her invitation for a dance, like he did to the girl before her. And after their meeting at the canteen, after his words `I want to see you', no, not even these words - after his look that could not lie, she became absolutely sure that their relations would go on. And it's gonna be a long and serious affair. Serious - to what extent?
   Lena looked at her watch, it was half past four. Why did she say seven o'clock? Why not six - then she would have to wait for an hour and a half only! Why not five - then they would see each other in just half an hour! Damn it, what's the matter with her? Is she really falling in love with him - head over heels right before the state examinations!
   She was back to earth. She jumped from the bed and opened the wardrobe. What would she put on for her first date with Ahmed? There wasn't much to choose from, but still...

JULY, 10, 1978 . BAGHDAD

   - Hussein addressed the nation on TV and radio, - Ahmed informed her when he returned from work. He kissed his wife on the cheek and placed his briefcase with papers on a small table in the anteroom. Lena noticed that he was preoccupied with something.
   - Well, what of it? - she shrugged her shoulders. .
   Iraqi Vice-president Saddam Hussein became extremely active lately, his name was mentioned on TV and in newspapers much more often than that of the President Ahmed Khasan al-Bakr himself. Hussein constantly delivered speech after speech, calling on the Arab nation to unite and branding imperialists and Zionists. He also frequently paid state visits to other countries. It was rumored that al-Bakr is seriously ill, and the transfer of power to Hussein is only a matter of time.
   Ahmed placed his finger on the lips, showing that they should not talk here. She should have accustomed to the fact long ago. In this country not only all telephones were tapped, but in most houses of state officials, scientists and persons working at defense industries there were bugs.
   She nodded and followed her husband outside. They sat down on a carved bench under a huge date-palm, the excellent crown of which completely hid them from the blazing midday sun. Before speaking, Ahmed attentively looked around.
   - As it appeared, subversive communist elements were discovered in the army, - he said in a low voice. - Several days ago there was er...purge? Is that the Russian word for it?
   Lena nodded mechanically.
   - And that means new rivers of blood. They always said that the military can't stay away from politics, - Ahmed went on. - That party activities in the army is allowed - on condition that it is the Baath party. - He grinned. - Remember, you told me an anecdote about Brezhnev once? He came to a market place to buy a water melon. The seller gave him one and said: "Chose any water melon you like, comrade Brezhnev!"- "How can I chose if you give me the only one?" - Brezhnev asked with surprise. "You are also the only one, comrade Brezhnev, but at each election we pretend to make our choice and elect you!" See, we have the same situation here: you can be a member of any political party - but it must be the Baath Socialist party. Absolute freedom of political choice, just like you have in the Soviet Union!
   - But you are a member of the Baath yourself, Аhmed!
   He smiled crookedly.
   - Of course, I am. Otherwise I wouldn't have made such a career!
   Ahmed looked around again and, having noticed nothing suspicious, asked quietly:
   - Can you guess what kind of work they proposed to you last month?
   She looked at him perplexedly, unable to understand what her husband was getting at.
   When Lena arrived to Iraq in January, 1978 without а diploma but with a certificate which stated that she had attended five courses of the polytechnic institute with specialization in "repair of industrial refrigerator units", she immediately realized that getting a job with such a miserable piece of paper would be an immense task. Not that she really needed to work. Ahmed was getting enough not only for daily needs, they could also put away or make some considerable purchasing "Our women stay at home, look after the house and the children," - Ahmed stated from the very beginning. "When we have children then we'll see", - Lena retorted, and he yielded. However week passed after week, she made rounds of big and small enterprises of the Iraqi capital and everywhere her services were declined. These were not direct refusals, though. She was politely asked to leave her address and a phone number, promising to call her in case of need. But not a single call ever came. What made things worse her knowledge of the Arabic was still rather poor. That is, Ahmed taught her three or for dozens of most frequently used everyday phrases, a couple of hundred words she learned herself, but that was, naturally, not sufficient for the work at an enterprise. As for English which easily came to her both at school and at the Institute, the Arabs were not interested
   Then, after some time, all of a sudden she got a letter from some Baghdad Refrigeration Center. She was invited for an interview. She was already four month pregnant and Ahmed made quite a scene but Lena somehow managed to calm him down. At least, she could have a look at those who, at last, became interested in her. Next day Ahmed drove her to the indicated address in Al-Sadun street.
   A fat Arab in spectacles who introduced himself as Mr. Abdul Kerim, invited her and Ahmed to his office, treated them to some tea, asked Lena several polite questions about Russia - Ahmed was acting as an interpreter - then proceeded to business.
   - I read your papers. Well, let's give it a try, - he took out of his desk several drawings with inscriptions in English and Arabic.
   - You know this type of equipment?
   Lena scanned the drawings. There was nothing special about them. She was familiar with such things since her institute years. These were French trailer refrigerators dating back to twenty of twenty five years before.
   - Quite an outdated piece of equipment, - she noticed.
   Mister Kerim spread his hands and smiled guiltily:
   - Madam Azzawi, Iraq is not such a rich country as to afford buying all this new and sophisticated machinery. Can you start repairing these refrigerators? Please, bear in mind this is utterly urgent. They were just standing there useless for many years, but now...er..., - he stopped short. - Anyway, they should be returned to service. Of course, your efforts will be paid.
   - But I can't be responsible for the running gear of these trailers, - Lena warned him.
   - Oh, don't worry, - the Arab calmed her. - I know that you are not a motor mechanic. That'll be taken care of. We'll give you two aids, an experienced electrician and a fitter. Each morning we'll send a car to your house.
   - How can I talk to them? - she asked.
   - Your aids speak English a little. Besides, we'll give you an interpreter.
   It was temporary, but taking into account her pregnancy it was just the suitable job for her. Lena also hoped that if she showed herself, then maybe in future this cooperation would continue. When their talk was over Mister Kerim stopped them for a minute near the door and said:
   - Madam Azzawi, I'd like to ask you for a favour. There's no need to tell anybody about what you are going to do here. I would even say, it is not recommended. A deal? - he smiled broadly. - No, there is nothing super secret about it, but I ask you. Do you agree?
   The girl nodded. She was not very surprised. Iraq was contaminated with virus of spying mania which resembled Stalin era in the USSR. Even a typewriter should be registered here. She had had to come to police and secret service quarters several times, answering endless questions and filling in numerous forms. When Lena was asked if she was a member of the Communist Party, she honestly answered that she was a member of the Young Communist League, a branch of the Party for people under thirty. In the eyes of the official she read unconcealed disapproval. Ahmed afterwards scolded her severely for such a stupidity. Once he opened a drawer and took out a pistol which was lying under some documents and showed it to her. Lena hadn't even suspected her husband possessed one. "Yours? What for?" - she asked surprisingly. "I must have it. I am in defense industry. If I am attacked by agents of imperialism, I'm gonna shoot them!" - he answered rather sarcastically. "Well, one never knows, - she continued his joke. - Maybe it will really be the case! One our classical author once said, that if in the first act of the play there's a gun on the wall, in the third act it will surely fire!" Then she couldn't imagine that one day her words will become a sinister reality
   At last she got lucky! In the course of two weeks Lena left home at 7 o'clock in the morning and returned only by six or seven in the evening, tired but happy. For the first time she felt that the years spent at the Institute were not useless, that her knowledge were at last needed by somebody. On completion of the repair works Abdul Kerim thanked her and gave her two bundles of dinars. That was in the beginning of the last month.
   And now these strange words of Ahmed.
   - What do you mean? - she asked.
   - I am afraid that those refrigerators which you repaired, were meant for dead bodies.
   Unexpectedness of his words made her give a start.
   - W-what? For dead bodies?
   - Exactly. You don't know how it can be in this country. And I - I've been living here for thirty two years. When they start to look for enemies of the state, they usually do find them. And they - what's the word? - liquid... liquid date them as soon as possible.
   - Liquidate, - she corrected Ahmed mechanically. She noticed long ago that when he was excited he pronounced some Russian words incorrectly. - But - but why do you think...?
   - Because I know. Quite by chance I saw with my own eyes one of these trailers entering the grounds of a military unit - the ones which are situated at the outskirts of Baghdad, near the highway to Samarra. For what purpose did it come there ? To bring ice-cream for the soldiers? On the previous night there was much shooting there. What a strange coincidence, don't you think? Where the second trailer went I don't know...
   Lena covered her face with her hands, and started to rock from side to side as if she was heaving a toothache.
   - Horrible, it's so horrible...
   Аhmed gently embraced her, already regretting that he had decided to share his misgivings with her.
   - It was the same in your country, - he said softly. - Stalin sent to camps hundred of thousands and they surely perished there. You yourself told me once that your grandfather was in er... what do you call it? - GULAG.
   - Why... why did they choose me?
   - No idea, - he answered. - We can only suppose. You are a foreigner, you don't know Arabic - therefore, if you guess, you will hardly tell anybody. Moreover, you don't have any relatives or just mere acquaintances here.
   - It's so frightful... so frightful, - she repeated.
   It was her first shock on Iraqi soil.
  

NOVEMBER, 10, 1976. MINSK

   She couldn't invite him to the hostel. Lena's curious girlfriends would infiltrate her room under every plausible excuse never leaving them alone. Going to him wasn't worth it either - unless she would want to smell the odours of fried herring, `specialty of the house' for Vietnamese students. Besides, such a visit to a lonely man wouldn't go unnoticed and would look rather suggestive. A restaurant? But sitting in the overcrowded stuffy room and talk, trying to outroar yelling music didn't seem a very good option to her. First, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't be standing for a long time in the line of those who desired to have a `civilized rest'. Second, she had no idea how expensive this visit to a restaurant may be for Ahmed. Of course, they could try to get to a cafИ, but... Finally, Lena honestly confessed to herself that she just wanted to be alone with him. Still, there was one more option...
   When she left the hostel at exactly seven o'clock, Ahmed was already there. He was standing near the entrance in a nice suede jacket and light trousers. The students, mostly girls, passing by cast curious glances at him. He awkwardly shifted from one foot to the other, and Lena noticed with satisfaction that he absolutely lacked habits of a philanderer, a heartbreaker of girls' hearts. She noticed it in that first evening, though.
   As if in confirmation of her thoughts he looked at her somewhat perplexedly and said:
   - Good evening, Lena. Probably, it should be my initiative - but I simply don't know what to suggest you?
   - Well, then it should be mine. Let's go to the cinema
   - To the cinema? - he could hardly conceal his disappointment.
   - That's right. Nobody will trouble us there, - Lena said with confidence.
   - How can it be? There will be many spectators there.
   - Of course. If a film is a French or an American one. But we will chose something er...so to say, domestically produced. Then for sure we will find ourselves in a half-empty auditorium. Come on.
   They crossed Lenin Avenue, and Lena dragged him to a news-stall. It was being closed, but she somehow persuaded an elderly saleswoman to sell them a copy of "Minsk Cinemas" weekly. Then, she stood under a lamppost and started to scan the schedule of evening film shows.
   - Okay, - Lena said with satisfaction after a minute. - We'll go to the "Central".
   - Er...central - what?
   - That's the name of the cinema. "Central".
   - What is on there?
   - We are extremely lucky, Аhemd! - the girl exclaimed. - The film there, it is just for us!
   - What's the title of it?
   - What difference does it make? As we say, there are good films and there are Dovzhenko films.
   He didn't understand the joke.
   - Dovzhenko? What is it, "dovzhenko"?
   Of course, she could not explain to him in short that the movies produced by the Ukranian Dovzhenko film studio could be mainly described as bullshit. So she said:
   - I'll explain later. Let's go to the trolley-bus stop. The show is at half past seven, so we must hurry!
   Still, they were late for the newsreel. They bought tickets for one of the back rows and waited in the hall for the documentary to end. Lena's assumption proved to be correct only by half. There were not more than three dozens of spectators - but they also had opted for the back seats. They were mainly young couples. I'm not the only one who is so smart! - she thought merrily. Okay, we'll seat in front.
   They sat at the third row. The lights went out. The title of the film was sickly-sweet - "Only a Piece of My Soul", it was really produced by Dovzhenko film studio and told about a kind but lonely old man who was desperately trying to be as good as he could be to everybody, but callous people around him seemed not notice it. Surely by the end of the film the misunderstood man was to die. The idea of the film might be good but the implementation of it caused overwhelming boredom. Not only Lena and Ahmed felt this way. Soon enough, during the most tragic moments in the life of the main hero, from the back rows there came whisper and laughter - and that during the most tragic moments in the life of the main hero
   - Do you often go to the cinema in Iraq? - Lena asked.
   - Not very often. From time to time - with my friends...
   - With what friends - with girls ? - she continued jokingly.
   Аhmed did not accept her playful manner. For some time he was silent.
   - I had a girl... once, - he said slowly at last. - She died - in a road accident.
   - I'm sorry, - she touched his hand lightly.
   - It's okay. That happened long ago. We were dating for a long time, we planned to marry, but... Since that time I didn't have anybody - I never met anyone like that girl again.
   - Was she beautiful?
   - She was beautiful ... like you, - Аhmed brought her fingers to his lips.
   Nobody ever kissed her hand. In senior classes of the high school guys wanted to embrace her, kiss her on the lips, the most impudent tried to feel her all over. The admirers at the Institute were more sophisticated - and more obvious - inviting her to a restaurant, then to their apartment or to a room at the hostel "to continue the pleasant evening". This of course meant that she was very attractive in purely physical sense and as a woman she couldn't be but flattered, but... she wanted something more. And only now, in this dark auditory at a boring film she found the exact definition of what was always lacking in men. It was tenderness. Real tenderness, not affected one. Because this was not just a polite gesture from Ahmed - it was tenderness she was longing for.
   From that minute her life has changed.

JULY - AUGUST 1979. BAGHDAD

   On July, 16, Saddam Hussein completely took over the power in the country and on the next day for the first time he spoke in public both as the Iraqi president capacity and as the Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Lena and Ahmed were sitting in front of the TV set.
   Exactly one year has passed since those frightening events - shooting of soldiers and officers accused of subversive communist activities in the army - of which Lena was an indirect participant.
   - ... transfer of power from one leader to the other in such a natural and constitutional way as it has happened in our country, in our Party, is unique both in ancient and in modern history, - Saddam Hussein was saying from the rostrum. He was dressed in a dark official suit and white shirt with a tie. - Yes, it is unique but not surprising because it results from immaculacy of our Arab nation, from greatness of Islam, from the principles of the Baath Socialist Party.
   - Well, that's clear enough, - Ahmed said in a low voice.
   Lena anxiously looked at her husband.
   - What? What's gonna happen to us?
   - Let's go outside.
   They went out. Ahmed tapped his pockets one by one, found a packet of cigarettes and smoked. He was silent for some time, obviously trying to collect his thoughts.
   - What will happen to us, you ask? Well, he will start to revenge himself upon everybody who had disagreed with him in the former government, eradicate sedition, discover plots and strangle his opponents. At the same time he'll start to gather round himself the people devoted to him. As for us personally - nothing's gonna happen to us.
   But Ahmed was mistaken.
   On the next day the statement came about an `antigovernment plot' discovered in the country. It was claimed to be prepared by several dozens of high-ranking officials. Strange as it may seem, all of them were members of the Baath Party.
   Most of them were arrested and the court, quick and unjust, set to work. Less than a week later the verdict was pronounced. The organizers were sentenced to death, others `got away' with imprisonment up to 15 years.
   Two days later Ahmed came home late in the evening. At the sight of her husband - pale, peaked and depressed - Lena's heart missed a beat.
   - Has anything happened?
   - Yes, it has.
   - What?
   He waved his hand wearily.
   - Switch on the TV set.
   Lena went into the room and switched on `Sony', a wedding present from somebody of numerous Ahmed's relatives.
   - ... and then it was decided that the execution of the death sentence should be assigned to their former Party comrades. Such approach is based on the Baath Party principles, and only in this way the morale of its members can be bolstered up, and the Party leadership can pull them together still more closely. Each local Party cell sent its armed representative to Baghdad. The traitors were executed. President Saddam Hussein highly...
   - What - what's this all about? - Lene murmured. By that time she understood spoken Arabic quite well, though political terminology was still rather difficult for her.
   Ahmed wearily sank into the sofa. For some time he didn't speak, perhaps, not knowing what to start with. Then, without raising his head, he began talking - slowly as if if each word was made of lead
   - ... I was taken straight from my office. They put me into a car, and said I must fulfill my Party duty. At first I didn't understand where we were going to. But when we drove into the prison compound I started to realize. There were already many people in the courtyard - mainly, civilians. All of them were armed. One hundred, maybe two... Probably they were brought there from all over Iraq. Maybe some of them came voluntarily, I don't know. I was given an old carbine..., - he stopped short.
   She started to guess at last. Ahmed, her tender, loving, dear Ahmed was going to tell her how he was killing people. Oh, God, that is much more shocking than those refrigerators for corpses!
   He raised his head and for the first time looked at her. There were tears in his deeply sunken eyes.
   - ... they were brought out into the courtyard, all twenty one of those who were sentenced to death. Their hands were tied behind. They were put against the wall. The people started shooting. The bullets were flying so densely, that the bodies were literally torn into pieces.
   - And you - you were also shooting at them? - her voice sounded so strange as if it belonged to somebody else.
   - I raised the barrel and fired above their heads, - Ahmed said deafly. - So I used up all the cartridges. But somebody noticed it. They gave me a new charger, but... by that time all of them were already dead. They were lying in pools of blood. I won't forget it till the end of my life... Then I was told that I would have big problems because I hadn't done my Party duty.
   She sat down on the carpet at his feet, took his hand and pressed it to her cheek.
   - You've done well, Ahmed. Let the executioners do their duties.
   - Thank you, Lena.
   Two days later Ahmed was expelled from the Party and discharged from his work.
  

FEBRUARY, 3, 1977 ГОДА. МINSK

  
   Their romance was discussed all over the Institute and when Lena Kondratyeva was called to the dean's office she new almost for sure for what purpose and was only surprised it didn't happened earlier. She incidentally had heard once that about ten years ago some professor, a Jew, after a long battle with authorities insisted on his departure for Israel and left. There was a big scandal at the Institute, several of big shots were dismissed or expelled from the Party.
   After the second pair of lectures Lena Kondratyeva was called to the dean's office. She knew almost for sure the reason for it. The girl went down to the first floor, knocked on the door and entered without waiting for the reply. The dean, Pavel Sergeyevich, stood up from his desk and gave her a friendly smile.
   - Be seated, Lenochka.
   The girl sat down on the edge of a chair.
   - Ludmila Pavlovna, would you be so kind as to take to the accounts department lists of students who will get increased allowances in the second semester? - the dean asked an old spectacled spinster who was sitting by the window at an electric typewriter.
   The woman nodded understandingly, took some papers and left.
   For several moments the dean, and elderly man of about fifty with graying hair was silent, not knowing how to tackle a delicate issue. The girl waited looking at him expectantly.
   - You know, Lenochka, you are one of the best in our faculty. Maybe even the best. You have good references from all our lecturers. We all appreciate that you are fully engaged in extracurricular public work for the benefit of the Institute, that you are an active member of the YCL , - he smiled guiltily. - Forgive me this bureaucratic language. These clichИs really overpowered me in my present capacity. But I want to... er..., - he wavered, then, without pausing for breath said: - You must think about your relationship with that student from Iraq, - he looked in a piece of paper, - Ahmed Azzawi. Otherwise, it can go too far. But it's not too late now.
   - What should I think about me relationship?
   - We... just think about it properly. That country is of course friendly to us, still it is a capitalist country. Another society with another moral. And you were brought up quite differently. You are a Soviet girl. Right?
   Lena didn't answer.
   The day before there was a phone call from the KGB. "Damn it, Comrade Seregin! - shouted a man who introduced himself as colonel Cherkasov. - What's going on in that Institute of yours?!" - "Nothing..., - answered the dean in a broken voice, feeling what the talk would be about. "Nothing, you say!? And your student has a love affair with a citizen of a capitalist country! They are seen everywhere together! Our office can not intervene directly, or else they start again hollering about abuse of human rights, but you can influence her through the Party channels. You have it a Part Committee at your Institute or not?" - "We have, - Seregin assured him. "Then prove it! - demanded the colonel. - So, Comrade Seregin, if something goes wrong you will have only yourself to blame. Expulsion from the Party - that will be a minimum for you, believe me!" And Cherkasov slammed the receiver.
   After the talk with the KGB man the dean had a sleepless night, and the next morning he appeared in the office weary and pale.
   Seregin proceeded to the most unpleasant part of his talk with the girl.
   - I even heard that you're going to marry him. I hope it's just a rumour and...?
   - No, not a rumor, - Lena cut him short. - I love him, and I am really going to marry him.
   The dean sighed, took a paper clip out of a plastic glass and started to bend and unbend it aimlessly.
   - What about your parents?
   - You misunderstood something, Pavel Sergeyevich, - the girl said archly. - It's me who is going to marry him, not my parents.
   He pretended not to notice the caustic remark.
   - And they are not against?
   Alas, they are against. They are so much against. Mother went into hysterics. Father almost had a heart attack. But you don't have to know about that, Pavel Sergeyevich.
   The dean, having received no reply, asked a new question:
   - And where are you going to live then?
   - In Iraq.
   Pavel Sergeyevich sighed.
   - In five months our graduates will have an assignment. You have chosen a profession quite rare for women, and you had a right to reckon on a very good job, here in Minsk. Frankly speaking, taking into account your excellent studies, we were preparing a very good place for you. But now..., - the dean was silent for a while. - Please, understand that I'm not trying to scare you - it's just a warning. Our state was teaching you, mind, free of charge, moreover it was paying an allowance to you - and you want to thank it in such a way? No, it won't go, my dear. It may happen that you will not get any diploma at all - just a certificate, a piece of throwaway paper saying you really were our student once. That means the five years of your perfect studies will go, so to say, down the drain. Just think about it Yelena...mm... Sergeyevna, and think well. It's not too late yet, - he repeated.
   ...Ironically, on the same day an official visit to the USSR of Iraqi vice president Saddam Hussein was completed. Both Parties, of course, assured each other of their fraternal feelings.
  

DECEMBER 31, 1979. BAGHDAD

   Аhmed couldn' t get a job anywhere and their savings were melting away with every passing day. His father, a member of the Baath Party with twenty years' track record, was a staunch supporter both of the present regime in general, and of Saddam Hussein in particular. Therefore, the old man didn't approve of his son's behavior in the prison courtyard. The pride didn't let Ahmed approach his father for help. The relations between father and son stopped.
   To save the remaining money they dismissed their housemaid. In autumn Lena somehow managed to get a job at a miserable enterprise proudly called Arab Water Treatment Centre. The salary there was low, the job boring, but Lena simply could not stay at home any longer, constantly feeling Ahmed's sad and guilty glance on herself. At least, that was better than nothing.
   - Who on Earth could imagine that being a strong and relatively young man I would stay at home doing nothing, and my wife would be earning our living! - he said once.
   Instead, Lena tenderly kissed him. Her intensive studies of Arabic with Ahmed yielded results - besides being able to explain herself rather fluently and fully at the markets and in shops now, she also mustered a good deal of technical terms.
   The head of her branch was a taciturn elderly Arab by the name of Amal Shakir. In the morning he would come to her room, shortly greeted her and put on the table a new portion of drawings and diagrams to be copied or redrawn with the modifications indicated with red ink on the original. From time to time drawings were brought by Huda, a young pale girl permanently wrapped in a dismal grey headscarf. There also was Ali, the chief's driver, an electrical engineer whose name Lena never remembered, and a boy of about fifteen who was cleaning the rooms and making tea. The staff accepted their new employee rather reservedly. Taking into account unemployment level in Iraq that was understandable. Her contacts with them never extended further polite "salam", "goodbye", and "Madam Azzawi, would you pass the calculator, please".
   New Year was approaching, but somehow there were no joyful emotions in her heart.
   On that day at about 10 o'clock Mr Shakir called her to his study. She was at a loss, it was never the case before. Putting aside just another drawing, she hurried to the chief.
   Shakir was sitting in a deep leather armchair and watching TV. Saddam Hussein was delivering a speech. Several times Lena her the word "Afganistan".
   - Please, be seated, Madam Azzawi, - the man said. - Do you know what happened last night?
   Her heart began to pound anxiously.
   - No, Mr Shakir.
   - Your troops invaded Afghanistan.
   - Our... troops?
   - Yes, yours. Russian troops or, if you wish, Soviet. It's only verbally that your Brezhnev stands for peace but in reality his deeds speak otherwise. President Saddam Hussein condemned this aggression. Our country was the first to do so in the Arab world.
   She was silent. In the previous night Ahmed had slept badly, tossing and turning for a long time, and in the morning she decided not to switch on the TV set to avoid waking him up. But even if she did know - what would be the difference?
   - Would you like a cup of tea, Madam Azzawi?
   She shook her head. .
   - In 1968 my brother was working in the Iraqi embassy in Czechoslovakia, - Shakir went on after a short pause. - In August of that year the Soviet Union occupied that country. He saw Chechs throwing themselves under the Russian tanks... You know, Madam Azzawi, I don't have anything against you. You are an industrious employee and a competent engineer. But - but please, try to understand: Afghan people are our brothers, we helped them and we will help them. And you... of course, you can't be blamed for everything that's going on in your country, but put yourself in my place. Now my employees for long will regard you... well, not as an enemy but... how should I explain it to you better? - it could have been the case with Iraq as well - Russians can easily attack us! And you are, so to say, a representative of the aggressor! You arrived in our country from there! How will they treat you after that? We, Arabs, possess a very deeply cultivated feeling of solidarity. We are in sympathy with our brothers fighting Zionists in Palestine, we support...
   - It's clear, - Lena cut him short and stood up. - Can I go now?
   - Of course, we will pay everything which you have earned for the last month, even give you the dismissal pay, - Mr Shakir also rose from his armchair. - I hope you understood me correctly.
   - I understood you correctly, - she said in a flat tone and turned to the door.
   She didn't expect such a New Year's present.
   Why, oh why, does this country slap me in the face just like the one I left? She was contemplating on her way home.
  

FEBRUARY, 7, 1977. IVATSEVICHI

  
   On the day Lena Kondratyeva submitted to the authorities necessary documents for departure to Iraq, her father, a major of the Soviet Army Sergey Kondratyev was summoned to his regiment headquarters. There he was informed that he is going to be demobilized from the army. On account of his age limit.
   In the room Kondratyev saw the regiment's commander colonel Leonov, captain Vorontsov who was in charge of officers' political education, and an unknown man in civilian clothes. Kondratyev easily understood that the last one was from the KGB.
   Leonov didn't even ask him to sit down, making Kondratyev realize that their talk will be a short one.
   - Your service has already exceeded all age limits, - without any introduction he said rudely. - Am I right, Alexei Vasilyevich? - he addressed Vorontsov, who was standing by the window and gazing indifferently at a gloomy landscape of a provincial Belarusian town.
   The man nodded.
   - So it's high time you gave way to young officers and...
   - Excuse me, Nickolay Ilyich , - interrupted him Kondratyev, who understood perfectly well that he had nothing to lose. - But you are older than me. That means very soon you'll also go? To plant flowers at your dacha and look after your grandchildren?
   The colonel maliciously stared at him with narrowed eyes.
   - I see you're shooting out your neck, Comrade Kondratyev? Well, I didn't hear it. Let me be frank with you. We would probably have given you some more time. But under the present circumstances...
   - What circumstances are you talking about!? - shouted the mayor without restraining himself. What circumstances!? Are we still living under Stalin regime? Damn it, it's not 1937 now! Yes, I understand that my daughter could have found herself a fiancИ here, but if that happened the way it happened - is there any crime in it? And what does it have to do with my military service?
   - Comrade Kondratyev, cut the hysterics, will you? - Leonov said coldly. - Maybe, a glass of water? Calm down and think. Iraq is a friendly country, bit it is a capitalist country. You are a military man, a major of the Soviet Army, you are...well, you were serving in a secret unit. Must I repeat to you, that the issue of vigilance is always the order of the day? It's no secret that our country is still in hostile surroundings. Defensive capacity of the Soviet Union...
   Kondratyev hardly restrained himself from shouting in his face: "Stick your bloody defensive capacity up your ass! Do you really think that prior to departure of my daughter I'm gonna reveal to her all military secrets at large!?" Instead he said:
   - I was only seventeen, when I ran to the front. I was wounded...
   - Nobody's going to detract from you your previous merits, - coldly said Leonov. - Do you agree, Аlexei Vasilyevich?
   Captain Vorontsov nodded listlessly.
   - I will lodge a complaint about you to the First Secretary!
   - As you wish. You may even write to Comrade Brezhnev himself.
   Kondratyev shut his teeth. Bustards, dirty bustards... Yesterday his brother Victor, a famous painter, phoned him. He was supposed to go to Austria to settle the problems concerning a personal exhibition of his paintings in Vienna. But without any explanations his trip was cancelled.
   - Lena, stupid girl, what have you done! - he murmured.
   - What do you say?
   - I say: that is the country I've been serving all my life! - snapped Kondratyev maliciously. - I mean, I served!
   And sharply turning on his heels he left the room.
   The KGB man looked attentively after him.
  

SEPTEMBER 1980. BAGHDAD

   The relations between Iraq and its eastern neighbour, Iran, were worsening with every passing day. Shut-el-Arab, a borderline river in the region of the Persian Gulf, for many years was the source of permanent discord of the two countries, and even the agreement signed in 1975, according to which the center of the riverbed was to be regarded as the delimitation line, hardly improved the situation. Iraq continued to lay claims to two big ports on the left bank, Abadan and Horremshekr.
   For some time both sides exchanged threats, but soon it became clear that from the verbal battle they would proceed to the real one in no time. Iraqi press stopped using the word "Iran" and introduced the term "Persian clique". On April, 1 there came an attempt upon the life of Iraqi Prime Minister Tariq Azziz. As it appeared, it was carried out by an Iranian living in Iraq, and the relations between the two countries became still more tense. The spiritual leader of Iran Ayatollah Homeini openly called on the Iraqi army to revolt against the existing regime. Trying to avoid possible activities of the fifth column in case of the war, Saddam Hussein expelled from the country tens of thousands of Iranians or people who had Persian roots. By autumn massive movement of troops and military equipment of both countries began in the borderline areas.
   Lena noticed that the quantity of grocery products in shops considerably diminished: the authorities were probably trying to accumulate a certain reserve of foodstuff, necessary for wartime. More military personnel appeared in the streets, inspection of documents became quite usual. Several times air-raid warning sirens shrieked, fortunately, it was just a drill. That sound reminded Lena of war movies, she saw in abundance in the Soviet Union, and she could hardly bear it. She was far from politics, she had no idea who was wrong and who was right, and, frankly speaking, she didn't care. When the mobilization of reservists started she couldn't but ask herself: what if Ahmed would also be drafted? There was a slight hope that now he could be called back to his old job. But that didn't happen.
   On September 22, 1980 the Iraqi army crossed Shut-el-Arab and invaded Khuzestan, a province in south-western Iran. Newspapers and radio reported that Saddam Hussein himself was on the first tank which crossed the border. Heavy and lengthy combats ensued.
   Lena's worst expectations came true. A week after the war started Ahmed was drafted to the Popular Army - a reserve of the regular Iraqi army created in the beginning of the 70-ies. Once he managed to call her on the phone and tell that they were undergoing hasty military training in the outskirts of Baghdad and after that they would be in all probability sent to the front. His voice sounded wearily and depressed.
   She was swept over by a wave of pity.
   - Ahmed, I love you. And I'll be waiting for you.
   - I love you too, Lena. I'll be back.
  

JANUARY 16, 1978 . МОSCOW

   Mother's friend, who had a dilapidated `zhiguli' car, agreed to take her and Lena with her luggage consisting of a suitcase and two bags to the railway station. They came one hour before the arrival of Brest-Moscow fast train, because later the driver was busy somewhere else. Mother didn't wait fro the train to come. She kissed Lena good-bye and said dryly: "Write to us. If possible, give us a ring from time to time". There were no parting directions, no tears. All the tears had already been cried up, as for partings directions, there was no use to give them to the willful daughter who all the same would act her own way? Then mother went by the same car.
   In these last days before her departure the family surrounded her with a wall of icy silence and alienation. The parents even had expressed no wish to meet their future son-in-law, and Ahmed couldn't come to Ivatsevichi because any movement of foreigners in the Republic packed with military units and equipment was considerably restricted by the KGB.
   Lena's father gave up hope of persuading her daughter to wait at least till she gets the diploma. Now he was talking to her through clenched teeth and that in case of absolute necessity. Most of the time he locked himself up in his room leafing through newspapers and magazines. Obviously, he was taking his retirement hard. Lena heard with half an ear that her uncle Victor also had some problems with a personal exhibition of his paintings in Austria. She understood everything - but couldn't do anything about her love for Ahmed. The days she spent with him in Minsk were the happiest days of her life. Perhaps, it was the Love that is given to a person once in a lifetime - and at that not to all of them.
   They began to talk about their marriage only one week before Ahmed's departure.
   - By the way, can it happen that I'll become a third or a fourth wife in your harem? - she asked part in earnest and part in play. Your beloved wife - уet the fourth one?
   - You'll always be the only one, - he stated very seriously, not accepting her joke
   At first they planned to get married in the Soviet Union, but officials demanded of Ahmed such a heap of certificates and documents of different kind that the original idea was cancelled. Lena had no doubts that all these obstacles were created purposely.
   He left one month ago, as the term of his deputation to the Polytechnic Institute was over. Lena settled all the matters with her cold alma mater , returned to Ivatsevichi and began to prepare for the trip to Iraq. She drew out all the money she'd managed to save for four years of work in summer students' construction teams, put aside a part of it for an air-ticket, another one - for a trip to the Iraqi embassy in Moscow, and the remaining amount - quite small - for purchasing presents and souvenirs for numerous Ahmed relatives.
   Lena became overwrought, haggard, started to suffer of insomnia and hardly went out of their apartment to avoid any `cross examination' of gossiping friends and acquaintances - in a small town like Ivatsevichi rumors were spreading with supersonic speed. Strange as it may seem, the Iraqi visa was obtained without any problems, getting foreign passport before that had appeared much more difficult. One way or another, it was a happy end of all her ordeals.
   ...In the frosty morning of the next day, Lena arrived at `Belaruskaya' railway station in Moscow. Taxi-drivers charged exorbitant prices, and Lena didn't know how to get to `Sheremetyevo-2' airport otherwise. She only knew there was no Metro there. When she said to one of the drivers that she would pay the meter, the man looked at her as if she was half-witted. Another didn't even listen to her. So she had to give up.
   Half an hour later she was at the international airport.
   - A handcart for luggage? - Lena was immediately approached by a young joyful boy in a blue uniform with inscription `Sheremetyevo'.
   Lena briefly calculated the approximate cost of such a service and shook her head. Only later she realized that there, in Iraq, her Russian rubles would be useless.
   She filled in a form, assuring custom authorities in writing that she was not trying to smuggle either narcotics, or gold, or weapons of any kind. Then she dragged her luggage to the check counter. The official asked her to open only her suitcase, felt the folded clothes there and signed the form with a squiggle.
   - You may go.
   For the tenth time she was scrutinizing her air-ticket, indistinct Iraqi visa with an eagle and Arabic characters in the passport, looked at the electronic panel, wondering why there is no information on her flight. At last, the long-awaited announcement came:
   - Passengers flying to Baghdad by flight 620 of "Iraqi airways" company are kindly requested to register at the counter number...
   Again the girl dragged her things, stepping with difficulty in her boots on a fashionable high platform.
   ... It was her first ever flight, and she was really afraid - especially in the first minutes, when, accompanied by a shrill whistling sound of the engines, buildings, trees, roads suddenly started to rush downwards, diminishing with every second. Her ears were blocked. Lena gripped the arm of her chair with both hands and involuntarily shut her eyes tight
   - You just swallow up, girl.
   Lena opened her eyes. Next to her a man of about fifty was sitting. He had an expensive sheepskin coat. It was unbuttoned and revealed a dark blue suit and a perfect cream-coloured shirt with a tie.
   The girl swallowed a couple of times and indeed the unpleasant feeling in her ears was gone.
   - First time?
   She nodded and, probably, blushed, as the man added in a calming tone:
   - Well, that's quite a natural reaction of a human organism to a high altitude. Pardon this banality, but humans are not birds. By the way, do you know when a man tried to fly for the first time?
   - No, - Lena confessed.
   - As far back as the XVIth century, and here, in Russia, at that. A serf built a certain flying device with wings and jumped right from a bell tower! He was decapitated, and his apparatus was reduced to ashes. And only many years later Peter the Great prophesized: "Not we, but our great-great-grandsons will fly like birds".
   - Are you a historian? - Lena asked. All of a sudden she felt easy and comfortable. Her fear was gone.
   The man smiled.
   - Do I look like one? No. I specialize in Arabic dialects. I'm going to a international symposium on linguistics in Baghdad. You?
   - I'm also going to Baghdad, - she said, and pausing for a fraction of a second she added: - To my husband.
   The man nodded knowingly.
   - Is he a diplomat? An official at the embassy?
   Lena decided not to dissuade him.
  

FEBRUARY 25, 1981. A SECTOR OF IRAQI-IRANIAN FRONT

  
   Ahmed was sitting at the bottom of a wet trench, covering with his palm a cigarette from the drizzling rain. How he wished a cup of hot coffee! Fierce fighting for Abadan was going on for the third week running. The town was nearly destroyed by bombings and gun- fire, but the Iraqi troops couldn't capture it. With the beginning of winter and rainy season tanks and heavy machinery got stuck in the thick mud and became an easy target for Iranian aircraft. What made things even worse, Iranians opened one of the dams to the north of Dizful and flooded the area. Iraqi field engineering battalions had to start construction of temporary roads.
   Despite victorious reports it was becoming clear that the war will be lengthy and hard. If, as Baghdad radio reported, only in the first days of the war the enemy had lost about two hundred its aircraft, and Iraqi air force hardly went into action at all, then how could enemy planes bomb our capital? - Ahmed was wondering. And where is our anti-aircraft defense, which he devoted so many years of his life?
   Once Saddam Hussein himself came to the front-line - as they said, to decorate those who distinguished themselves in the battle-field. The Iraqi leader was in a camouflage uniform, with a holster on this belt. He went to the command post accompanied by high-ranking officers. About five minutes later Iranians opened a hurricane of fire at Iraqi position. Ahmed thought it couldn't be a mere coincidence - probably they knew about the movements of Hussein. Decoration ceremony was cancelled and Hussein hastily left by an armoured troop-carrier.
   In his thoughts Ahmed was returning to Lena. In December he managed to send her a short hurriedly written letter, but he was not sure if it reached the addressee. Censorship could have stopped it for reasons known only to it. For many months he had no idea whether his wife is okay, and whether their house is still standing. Who knows, maybe Mansur lies in ruins already? Is Lena alive at all? No matter how hard he was pushing this terrible thought away, it kept recurring.
   Ahmed regretted that immediately after his draft to the Popular Army he didn't insist on Lena's going to his parents - even despite his strained relations with them. He would be better now to realize that this fragile Russian girl who had already gone through so much, was taken care of. And what...what if he was killed? She'd be lucky if she would be able to get out of the country without any problems. But what if this war would drag on for many years?
   What irony of fate! he was thinking. Those doomed people in the prison courtyard couldn't be saved in any way and his shooting above their heads meant nothing. And if he agreed to participate in that slaughter, and he wouldn't be dismissed from his work, he wouldn't have gone to the front where he was supposed to kill not twenty one people but much more! Of course, if they didn't kill him first.
  

JANUARY 16, 1978. BAGHDAD

   Time flew imperceptibly during the conversation with her new acquaintance.
   In about forty minutes black-haired Arab stewardesses rolled in on trolleys early dinner - or late lunch. Only now Lena felt, how hungry she was: she hadn't anything to bite either in the train, or in Sheremetyevo airport, as her thoughts at the time were on anything but not on food.
   There was fried fish with rice in plastic rectangular plates, covered with shining foil, with unfamiliar spicery in neat small packets, orange juice, there was coffee, tea, rolls with jam and butter. Lena's neighbour was eating seriously and intently and the girl didn't dare ask him whether it was a specimen of oriental cuisine, or just traditional feeding of air passengers. After the meals Lena felt that her eyes are closing by themselves - anxieties and nervousness of the passed days, half-sleepless night on a train took their toll. She fell asleep to the monotonous roar of the motors.
   She opened her eyes when somebody gently touched her shoulder.
   A stewardess.
   - Fasten your seat belt, please, - she said in English.
   - We're approaching Baghdad, - said Lena's neighbour.
   - Already?
   - Already. You've overslept the most interesting thing, - he smiled at her.
   - Really? - asked the girl very seriously.
   - I'm joking. You know, any flight takes place over the clouds, so you don't see anything at all. Ours was no exception. So you did the right thing, you didn't miss anything.
   Low clouds made it impossible to see anything below, even when the plane started descending. But in a minute it came out of the clouds and Lena saw a gray ribbon of the runway, groves of palms beyond its limits, several hangars and people pottering about near them. And farther on a huge brown smear was spreading to the very horizon - Baghdad. The horizon for some reason was not exactly horizontal, but then she guessed that their plane banked performing roll-out.
   Chassis of the plane touched the concrete and Lena felt slight jolt. The engines let out a roar for the last time, and the plane started to taxi to the airport building.
   Several pot-bellied liners passed by the illuminator. On one of them she managed to read an inscription "Saudi Arabian airlines". Hum...Saudi Arabia. Where is that? The girl wondered fleetingly.
   Movement of the plane stopped. The passengers were rising, and , buttoning their jackets and overcoats were making for the exit.
   Lena was surprised at the quantity of military in the hall of arrival. Not long before her departure she saw a TV news report on a coup d'etat in some African republic. And the picture before her eyes now, very much reminded her of the one she saw on television. The girl stopped, not knowing where to go and what to do next.
   Her companion seemed to feel her confusion.
   - Let's go to passport check. Over there, to the free counter, at the left.
   He confidently carried her along and said something in Arabic to a clerk in a glass booth. The Arab smiled and nodded.
   - Give me your passport.
   Lena's companion handed the two passports to the clerk.
   The man briefly looked at Lena, then at him comparing the passport photos with the originals, then stamped the passports and returned them.
   - You stay close. I'll help you pass the customs inspection. After all you are a wife of an embassy official, and they don't get inspected.
   In her mind the girl thanked the fate for their chance meeting on the plane.
   For a quarter of an hour she was waiting for her luggage near the circle conveyor strap, and all that time she was looking through the glass partition separating arrival area from the entrance hall, trying to discern Ahmed in the crowd of those meeting the passengers. Ahmed was supposed to be there; the air ticket had been bought in advance, and she informed him of that three weeks before the flight. And just before her departure for Moscow she phoned him again.
   But Ahmed was not there. Or she just could not discern him? Or he could not discern her?
   - Take your things and come with me, - her companion said.
   He skirted the people gathering near the customs area and came up to one of the policemen. After having talked a couple of minutes with him, he turned to the girl:
   - You may go.
   - And you?
   - As for I don't have anything at all to be inspected. Just a briefcase with papers.
   They passed through the glass partition and entered the entrance hall.
   - They are already waiting for me, - Lena's companion remarked pointing to a grey-haired Arab in a European suit who was holding a rectangular piece of paper with inscription in drawing ink: `Mr Ershov'. Lena's companion raised his hand attracting his attention.
   - Mr Ershov - that's me, - he explained. - Unfortunately, we didn't make the acquaintance of each other. And now, alas, it's too late... Is your husband meeting you? If not, I could...
   - Thank you, it's okay, - the girl thanked him.
   - Goodbye, then.
   And the man, waving his hand at parting, mixed with the crowd.
   Passengers and those who were meeting them gradually dispersed, the big hall became almost empty. There was no sign of Ahmed.
   She had talked to him on the phone the day before yesterday. He said he would surely come. What could have happened? The car broke down? Or he got the arrival time of the plane wrong? Or had he suddenly fallen ill? Or got into an accident?
   All kinds of stupid thoughts were coming to her head.
   And what to do if he...doesn't come at all?
   She scolded herself for that quite unexpected and blasphemous idea.
   She looked at her watch. Forty minutes had already passed since her arrival.
   A soldier came and asked something in Arabic. Ahmed had taught her several phrases but because of her confusion and excitement they immediately slipped out of her mind. She shrugged her shoulders and said in English:
   - Sorry, I don't understand.
   The soldier moved away.
   Well, she started to already attract attention.
   But the next moment her heart leaped up with joy. Through the glass doors she saw a blue Opel coming to the entrance - Ahmed used to tell her that his parents had an Opel of this very colour.
   The next second he was already running into the hall.
   - Lena! Lenochka! I was detained for a whole hour in that ... what do you call it in Russian?... traffic plug?... or traffic jam? right in the middle of Baghdad! Forgive me, darling. Do forgive me...
   She rushed to him knocking over her suitcase, dropped her head on Ahmed's shoulder and burst out crying.
  

FEBRUARY 25, 1981. A SECTOR OF IRAQI-IRANIAN FRONT

  
   More than once he thought about his own death. So many hastily trained `soldiers' purely civilian like himself, had died right before his eyes! They hardly learned to properly hold weapons in their hands and fall on the ground at `air!' warning and were absolutely unable to withstand regular Iranian army which periodically counter-attacked their position.
   The day before he saw the death of Hasim Bashir, a young cheerful hairdresser from Kerbala. They had got acquainted in the training camp near Baghdad. Hasim was a talkative man, and soon Ahmed knew that Bashir's wife was pregnant with their third child, that his elder brother was working in Syria, and that Hasim himself was dreaming of going somewhere, to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, after the war and earning money for buying a house of his own; he and his wife were living now at his parents' place.
   - Never in my life I had anything more dangerous than a razor in my hands, - he confessed once to Ahmed. - I don't know how I will shoot at live human beings.
   - Well, shooting at the dead ones doesn't make much sense, does it? - Ahmed cracked a gloomy joke.
   During the attack Hasim was nearly cut in two with a burst from a large-calibre machine-gun. His bowels fell out of his torn stomach on the dirt wet ground. Steam was rising from them. Ahmed leaned over the mutilated remains and nearly vomited. He immediately realized there was nothing he could do to help Hasim. He unbuttoned the dead man's military jacket, or what remained of it, took out his personal ID, wet from blood, and, with his submachine gun atilt, ran after the attacking line of the soldiers.
   On that day almost two dozens soldiers of his company were killed. If the Iranian machine gunner had moved the barrel of his machine-gun an inch or two more to the left, then Ahmed who was running beside Hasim would have fallen, packed with bullets, on the ground. No, probably Allah prepared for him some different end - and at different time.
   The rain stopped.
   - Get ready for the attack! - the command was shouted at them.
   Ahmed checked the magazine of his old submachine gun with a chipped butt, pulled the lock.
   - Forward!
   He jumped over the breastwork, slipped in the liquid mud, then ran after the others. Just in front of him a broad back of Rashid Sharki, an elderly teacher from Samarra, was hopping up and down. A treacherous thought occurred to Ahmed that if Rashid would keep on running right in front of him the way he was doing now, the bullet designed for Ahmed would get Rashid Sharki.
   The shells started to explode left and right, as the Iranian artillery battery opened fire at the area, already shot in many times.
   ... This one is mine, Ahmed thought with a surprising calmness a fraction of a second before a shell exploded three meters to the right of him and reduced the lower part of his body to a bloody mash of meat and fragments of bones.
  

FEBRUARY - АPRIL, 1978. BAGHDAD

   In reality their honeymoon lasted only for four days, as that is the period paid for the newly-wedded in Iraq by the government. This money covers a stay at any luxurious hotel in Baghdad. Generally, the term is only three days, but Ahmed's superiors had decided to encourage him as one of their best specialists. Lena didn't feel any regret for their wedding journey which never happened, as she was sure that all their trips with Ahmed lay ahead.
   In several cars, packed with Ahmed's relatives, as well as musicians invited for the ceremony, they came to the `Palestine' hotel. After several fiery traditional dances performed to the loud sound of the drums directly in the parking lot, Ahmed picked up Lena in her bridal snow white veil and easily carried her to the entrance. They were followed by applause, camera flashes, laughter and kind wishes.
   - Well, we are alone now, - he whispered in her ear in the lift and kissed the girl tenderly.
   Their suite was at the fourteenth floor. In the mornings, tired of the nights full of making love, they went out to the balcony and admired the scenery of the Iraqi capital. To Lena who never saw anything except their two-room apartment in Ivatsevichi and squalid institute hostel, their suite seemed a real royal palace: here they had a colour TV set, a refrigerator, two air-conditioners, a telephone, a bathroom, and the hotel staff which was on duty round the clock, was ready to fulfill any of their whims.
   They never made love in Minsk and now Lena was sure she would become pregnant very quickly. It was here in "Palestine" that they began to talk about children to the soft rustle of a ceiling fan.
   - Let there be a boy first, - whispered Ahmed tickling her ear with his stiff moustache.
   - Let him be the first, - she agreed. - Or a girl.
   - Or... there may be two of them at a time. And then - then we will have many more children. Like my parents.
   And they kept on dreaming, fondly caressing each other.
   The four days flew by in a flash. With deep regret they parted with hospitable `Palestine'. But the hotel personnel, probably, regretted even more, as Ahmed threw tips to them with both hands.
   In March they bought a house in Mansur; part of the money was given by Ahmed's parents, part was his own, saved during his bachelor life. His work in the design office, involved in development of new anti-aircraft systems, was paid quite adequately.
   Several times Lema phoned her parents. Mother dryly informed her that everything was alright, that she was still working at the dining-room, and that father got a part-time job of a road signs painter at a road construction company.
   Soon Lena found out that she was pregnant. After that, Ahmed was virtually carrying her in his arms, didn't let her take anything that was heavier than one kilogram, and several days later, despite her protests, he hired a house-maid to boot. Rana, a country girl of about eighteen, was a relative of one Ahmed's colleagues.
   For days on end Lena was watching American movies on TV, read "Baghdad Observer" in English, or devoured detective novel cheaply bought at a book market.
   - I've become a real capitalist, - she complained jokingly to Ahmed once.
   - Well, do you like it? - he asked, kneeling in front of her and touching her stomach which had already started to bulge.
   - To tell the truth, it's rather boring, - she admitted stroking his tough hair. - I want to work. Otherwise, what I'd been studying those five years for? You know, we, Russians, are probably, workaholics.
   - Er... worka - what? What does it mean? Never heard such word.
   - Have you heard about alcoholics?
   - Oh, yes - Ahmed smiled and tapped his throat. - You mean these?
   - Right. Only, alcoholics can't but drink, and workaholics can't but work. Well, let's go get lunch. Rana had said half an hour ago that it's ready. You know, she doesn't let me even come close to the kitchen!
   ... In September she gave birth to a boy. The prematurely born child died two days later.

FEBRUARY 3, 1981. BAGHDAD

  
   First she heard sinister howling of a diving bomber, then a terrible explosion that made the floor tremble. Shattered glass fell somewhere. Lena realized that this time a bomb fell quite closely.
   Air raids on Baghdad had become a quite common occurrence. When Lena and Ahmed were examining this house before purchasing, she was very surprised to find there was a cellar - storage of potatoes and all these pickles or home-made jams were, as she thought, a purely Russian phenomena. But Ahmed explained that in Iraqi houses cellars serve quite a different purpose: during war-time they could be used as bomb-proof shelters.
   Hearing the sound of sirens she didn't run any more at breakneck speed to the store room where there was a square wooden hatch on the floor leading to the cellar. Frankly speaking, Lena didn't believe this unreliable brick shelter was able to really protect her, vice versa if the walls and the roof fell down on it, when the house was hit by a bomb or a missile, getting out of the cellar would be a difficult task. Besides, Mansur was bombed not more often than any other district of the capital. Public air-raid shelter was situated one block from their house. Lena was there only once, during one of the first air raids, and it made quite a gloomy impression on her: it seemed to her that these two or three hundred people sitting here shoulder to shoulder on rough plank-beds under several layers of reinforced slabs were already buried here. Ventilation was poor, in a stuffy pitch darkness children were crying, women were praying and wailing. Ah, you can't die but once...! Lena decided and since then started to stay at home.
   ...The sound of the aircraft died away. In darkness - as power supply was cut off during the air raids - Lena stepped up to the window and moved the curtain to the side. Having noticed through the silhouettes of palms dancing tongues of flame she realized that in that there was a fire in the adjoining street. An fire-engine, screeching brakes at the turn, sped by, then two ambulances.
   Lena went outside. People were running to the scene of fire. She went in the same direction. An apartment building, the ground floor of which was taken by a cafИ and a perfumer's shop, was in raging flames. Part of the building was destroyed, its faГade here and there caved-in and in the opened rectangles of apartments purely domestic appliances and pieces of furniture were seen: refrigerators, gas stoves, wardrobes, sofas and chairs. Some of the furniture was on fire. From under the debris screams of wounded people were heard.
   Firemen in canvass overalls started to hurriedly unroll hoses, aid-men with stretchers were running to the tumbledown building. A crowd started gather around the scene, some people really wanted to help, others came just to have a look. Human curiosity is inextirpable even during a war.
   Several minutes later first corpses were discovered - that of a girl of about twelve years old, an elderly woman, a semi-nude old man. The bodies were put on the asphalt pavement near the ambulances. An aid-men led a man with blood-stained head out of an intact entrance.
   - Маdam Azzawi! - somebody gingerly touched her hand.
   Lena turned and looking at a young pale woman in a dull dress and black headscarf couldn' t remember where she'd seen her before. It was that headscarf that made her recall. .
   - Huda? You?
   - Me....
   During her short work at Arab Water Treatment Centre Lena didn't establish any relations with its employees except purely business ones. She remembered more or less Huda, with whom she had been communicating more often than with the others, the remaining had just become obliterated in her memory.
   - How come, you are here? I've never seen you in Mansur before.
   - My cousin lives here, - Huda explained. - Recently he came back from the front. He was wounded and got a sick-leave.
   For some time she was silent, then tentatively said:
   - You know, Madam Аzzawi, when you left... I was very sorry, really. They were unjust in firing you.
   I didn't leave, they made me leave, Lena wished to correct her, but she just didn't want to discuss it. She felt that the girl was sincere in her feelings, and felt sympathy for her.
   - Thank you, Huda.
   - Is your husband at the front?
   - He... he is missing. I received only one letter from him, and that was way back in December. He wrote that their unit was near Abadan. After that there was nothing.
   She had phoned Ahmed's parents several times, but they didn't know anything either. They just informed her that they got a letter from him in December - approximately at the same time as Lena. Then she found out a necessary telephone number at the Ministry of defense and somehow managed to get through as the number was constantly engaged.
   - You'll have to wait for some time, - her invisible but obviously tired interlocutor told her. - We are flooded with similar requests. Ahmed Azzawi, you say? I'm putting it down. Where was he drafted from? Okay, give me a ring after one week.
   After one week the same voice informed her that Ahmed Azzawi is not listed among the dead. Lena took a deep breathe of relief. But the next moment this feeling was gone, as the voice said:
   - He is considered to be missing in action since February, twenty second.
   - What - what does this mean? - her voice trembled.
   - This means that now he is not listed among the living, either, Madam Azzawi, - the tone of his voice was a bit softer now. - Maybe he was taken prisoner, maybe he was picked up unconscious at the battlefield without any documents. So don't make any hasty conclusions. Only time will tell.
   Lena hang up. She did not become a widow - but she was not a wife, either.
   - Everyone's gone to war nowadays, - Huda sighed. - In our office Ali, and Saddam have also been drafted.
   Lena remembered neither of them, but nodded out of politeness.
   - And you - do you work, Madam Azzawi?
   She shook her head.
   - It's good that we've met, - Huda continued. - Recently, I was just thinking about you. You know, my sister works at the main military hospital - well, the one that was renamed as Saddam Hussein Medical Centre. All the male hospital attendants have gone to the front, so many nurses are required. Do you want me to talk to her?
   Lena nodded. Ahmed's savings were coming to the end. His elder brother, Tariq, with whom out of the entire family, Ahmed had kept the most friendly relations, twice came to her leavingsome money, but that couldn't go on forever.
   Several days later Huda phoned Lena and informed her that she could start work at the hospital.
  

FEBRUARY, 27 1981. BAGHDAD

   Salah Bakhtiar threw a bloody scalpel on the tray and tore the gauze mask from his face.
   - Sew him up, - he briefly said and went out of the operation room.
   In the corridor he heavily sank onto a sagged leather couch and lit up a cigarette. It was for the first time in his life that he encountered such a hard case. Moreover, he was sure there wouldn't be any more cases like this in his practice surgical practice - for a very simple reason that chances to survive after such a wound are nil. And the fact that this poor fellow still survived only meant that for some reasons known only to Him merciful Allah decided to keep that soldier in this world a bit longer. But can this be called life? Both legs were amputated, pelvis smashed into fragments, and Salah had to virtually put these pieces together like a mosaic, many of the internals severely, huge loss of blood... To crown it all, a jagged shell splinter tore cornerwise the soldier's face upwards and lodged in the temporal bone. Only time could tell how this head wound would influence brain functions.
   The operation room door opened again, and Amal Saud, Bakhtiar assistant came into the corridor, removing his rubber gloves on the way.
   - Sit down, colleague, - Salah tapped with his palm worn leather of the couch.- A cigarette?
   - Thank you, doctor Bakhtiar, - Saud shook his head and wearily sat down beside him. - I'd rather have a cup of coffee.
   For some time they both were silent.
   - You know, Аmal, - Bakhtiar began, shaking off ashes directly on the floor. - I was just thinking: during these three hours that took us to carry out this operation, which surely had to end with the death of this guy, we could have done four or five successful operations. And those people could go either to the front again or, better still, could return home and live a normal life for many more years. But the way it happened, without timely surgical help one or two of them might have died. So I am asking myself: did we have the right to run this hell-bent venture? From one side of these scales - almost sure death of one person, from the other - life of several others. But even if he did survive, what about existence afterwards? Can we call it life at all? Till the end of his days he will remain, as Americans call it, `a vegetable'. No to say, that for all his relatives and close friends he will become a heavy burden... Well, what would you say?
   Saud was silent for a long time. He was looking at his swarthy hands with long, like musician's fingers.Finally he said:
   - I can say only this, doctor Bakhtiar. For somebody this soldier even in such awful condition still remains as dear as healthy and able-bodied man. It's the way life is arranged, that's why we are called human beings. And if we refused him this only chance out of a thousand, and then, by chance, met his mother or wife - how could we look into their eyes?
  

FEBRUARY, 27 1981. BAGHDAD

  
   Her father used to say that there is no superfluous knowledge - but Lena never agreed. . "Do you mean to say that if, for example, I learn Japanese it will come in handy one day? - she asked him archly. - Does it mean that a trip to Japan is quite a real thing for me in future? Or the Japanese will come in flocks to our Ivatsevichi?" Father didn't know what to say and started to get angry. In any case, the nurse's skill taught to her at the military chair of the Institute, really came in handy.
   From morning to late evening she had to dress wounds, immobilize limbs or put them in plaster, give injections. Wounded came in great numbers, more and more with each day. There was not enough place in the wards and the beds were placed in the corridors and in service rooms. Lena got used to the smell of puss and blood, to the smell of unwashed bed-sheets and sweaty underwear. And the most horrible thing was that got used to the smell of death.
   Medical supplies and dressing materials were not enough, as well as skilled doctors, and wounded soldiers were dying. Lena made herself not to feel any emotions. For so many times she, giving an impassive look at a dead man's face, threw a sheet at it, and then with the help of another nurse loaded the body on a wheeled stretcher and moved it to the morgue! She was afraid of only one thing - that somebody in another hospital will throw a sheet on the face of her Ahmed! A person missing in action could be found not only dead but alive as well. He could die later. But she hoped.
   She often had to stay the nights but was even glad of that: since Ahmed left, the house always met her with gloomy silence. She made friends with some of the soldiers from the convalescent ward. Probably, her accent amused them, as many of those whom he she was talking with, smiled and inoffensively corrected her pronunciation. These young people had won the major battle of their life beating death, and now they didn't try to hide their feelings. She told them about Russia whatever she could, as the word "Belarus" meant nothing to them. She told them about Russian nature, about thick waste-deep snow, and when she mentioned the winter temperature in Siberia can rise up to minus fifty and birds sometimes freeze to death in their flight, they simply didn't believe her. Many soldiers were illiterate and rather coarse, still they were simple and kind people and Lena felt sympathy for them. Looking at those helpless boys, most of whom was of the same age as herself, she sometimes thought that maybe it was her unreleased motherly instinct. She understood that all of them were cannon fodder - just like Russian soldiers in Afghanistan, or Americans in Vietnam, or other soldiers somewhere else. She understood and accepted only one war - the one her father ran to as a seventeen year-old boy.
   Several time she asked them about Ahmed, but nobody seemed to hear of him or see him. Still everybody was trying to calm her as best as he could. Having come home, Lena virtually dropped from fatigue. Quickly taking a bite, she threw herself on the bed and immediately fell asleep. There were no dreams. Only once, in a hot sticky nightmare she saw a man with a face disfigured by horrible scar. He was lying on the bed wound with some pipes and wires as if it was a character from a science fiction novel. His body was covered with a bed-sheet, and at the hip level this sheet abruptly dropped down at the hip level, as if there was nothing below his waist.
   Half a man, really, thought Lena in her sleep. She came closer, reached out - and instead of the man's legs her hand touched emptiness. She screamed of horror - and woke up. In novels she always read about cold sweat, but her sweat was warm and sticky. Like blood. But why does it have to be Ahmed? - she asked herself trying to calm down wild beating of her heart. No wonder, with her present work she might have seen in her sleep something even more shocking
   ...On the next day she was drinking coffee in a small service room adjacent to the storage facilities where they kept linen and different hospital implements, when Huda's sister Intisar came in. Lena made friends with her almost from the very beginning. Despite the fact that they were nearly the same age, Intisar started to call her `Madam Lena', right away
   - How horrible, Madam Lena! They brought wounded soldiers from near Abadan, - she informed. - So many awful wounds have I seen lately, still I can't get used to it! Merciful Allah, one soldier has only the upper part of his body; all that is below his waist is smashed with a shell explosion. Doctor Bakhtiar ordered to take him to the operation room immediately, as the most serious case. Perhaps, it's a shame to say so, but it would be better for him to die at once, all the same he will not survive.
   - He also has a wife and children, Intisar, - reproachfully remarked Lena. And then she suddenly added: - And... and my Ahmed was somewhere near Abadan.
   The girl smiled guiltily.
   - Yes, it was very stupid of me to say so, Madam Lena. Excuse me...
   - It's alright, - Lena drank up her coffee and moved the cup away. - And the lists of those wounded soldiers - have you seen the lists, Intisar?
   - No, Madam Lena, but I can have a look.
   - Okay, there's no hurry.
   - No, now, - Intisar was obviously trying to make up for her blunder, and she quickly left the room.
   Several minutes later she returned.
   - No, Madam Lena. Azzawi is not in the list.
   Lena recollected her nightmare.
   - And... by chance, don't you remember the name of that soldier... well, the most serious one you were talking about?
   - No, I don't, - guiltily admitted the girl and repeated: - But there was no Azzawi there, that's for sure!

FEBRUARY 28, 1981. BAGHDAD

   - Madam Lena, could you make me a cup of coffee? - asked doctor Bakhtiar who met her in the corridor. - I had two difficult operations today, - he explained apologetically. - And one more is coming.
   - Sure, doctor Bakhtiar.
   - Then bring it to my room, please. I'll come there, just in a couple of minutes.
   Lena liked that taciturn, too serious surgeon of middle age, which had been assigned to the Medical center quite recently. They said, he had been studying in the United States, had a long practice there and that he was one of the best not only in Iraq, but, perhaps, in the Middle East in general.
   She heated up water on the electrical stove, threw one and half teacup of instant coffee, added milk and sugar. Then she put the cup on a tray and came up to the second floor of the main building. She pushed the door of Bakhtiar's room with her shoulder and entered.
   The man was sitting at the desk looking through some X-ray shots.
   - Thank you, Madam Lena.
   She turned, opened the door - then paused in the doorway. Why, she didn't know herself. Bakhtiar, cup at his lips, glanced at her questioningly.
   - You want to ask something, Madam Lena?
   - Doctor Bakhtiar, do - do you remember the name of the soldier you operated on the day before yesterday? - the question came unexpected even for herself.
   He hesitated.
   - Hmm... if I am not mistaken, Madam Lena, the day before yesterday I had six operations. Unfortunately, two of the wounded died. One of them - right on the operating table.
   - I mean the one..., - she stumbled. - The one with his lower part...torn away...er..., - she was trying to find smoother definition, - damaged?
   - Ah, that one. Perhaps, the most difficult case in my career, - he nodded and sipped from his cup. - I did all I could, and he is alive. So far. The rest is in the hands of Allah. But I never remember the names of my patients? What for? Particularly now, when there are thousands of them. But why are you asking about him? All the wounded soldiers who were brought here the day before yesterday, were from the same sector of the front, that is from near Abadan.
   Lena didn't know what to say.
   The surgeon looked at her attentively.
   - You've got somebody at the front?
   She nodded silently, and wanted to leave.
   - Wait. Doctor Saud must know.
   Bakhtiar put the cup on the table, picked up the receiver and dialed an internal number.
   - Amal, would you be so kind as to find out from your papers what's the name of that soldier we operated on the day before yesterday - I mean the one most serious of them, with a smashed pelvis? Take your time, I'll wait.
   Lena was standing at the door, feeling excitement sweeping over her.
   - Sorry, could you repeat it, please? Ah, Hasim Bashir. Thank you.
   The doctor replaced the receiver.
   - Well, his name is Hasim Bashir.
   It was with some difficulty, that she suppressed a sigh of relief.
   - Thank you, very much, doctor Bakhtiar.
  

МАRCH, 3 1981. BAGHDAD

   Well, her doubts over the identity of that seriously wounded soldier which threatened to grow into an obsession, were over. Hard and monotonous hospital days nearly eradicated all thoughts of him from Lena's memory. Only once she incidentally asked Intisar:
   - How is that soldier, with amputated legs?
   - He's in coma, Madam Lena. After the operation he didn't recover consciousness, - was the answer.
   Most seriously wounded soldiers were placed in two wards on the ground floor of the old wing next to the room of intensive care. Expression "most seriously wounded" was an euphemism for definition "hopeless": almost every day corpse of dead soldiers were brought from there to the morgue. Lena was on duty there for a couple of times, when she encountered a problem she never even suspected of. Very often she couldn't make out what a wounded soldier was asking about as his complaint was in made in weak and unclear Arabic, sometimes even in whisper, while she got used to crisp and distinctive pronunciation of Ahmed. And she had thought she already had no problems with spoken Arabic now!
   When she honestly confessed to this, Madam Borsaid, the senior nurse, said: "Well, I understand, Madam Lena" and she didn't dispatch her to these wards any more. But Intisar was there quite on duty quite often.
   On that day Intisar came to work with her eyes red from crying.
   - What happened? - Lena asked.
   - Our father died, - the girl answered.- They phoned me half an hour ago from the hospital. Huda doesn't know yet.
   - What was the matter with him?
   - Cancer, - explained Intisar wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. - He was suffering so much last two years. We saw, that he..., - her voice trailed off.
   Lena embraced the girl. Intisar told her how dearly they loved their father as mother died in their early childhood.
   - You go home, Intisar, - she said softly. - You have to... well, you just go. I will be on duty for you.
   - But I...
   - I know. Today you are on duty in that ward of seriously wounded. I'll manage, don't worry. You go, I'll tell Madam Borsaid myself. .
  

MARCH 3, 1981. BAGHDAD

   If she only knew that her recent nightmare would come alive in this ward!
   Out of about twenty soldiers Lena immediately singled out that man.
   ... A stump of a human being was lying on the bed - she couldn't find any other definition. His head was completely wrapped up in bandages, only a narrow slit for eyes remained. They were closed. This piece of body was covered with a sheet. To the waist. Below there was nothing. And this immediately reminded her of that night dream. But this piece of a human being was alive: near the bed the was a dropper, and from a bottle fixed to the rack, some colourless liquid was flowing down into the arm, lean and pale, and prickled from multitude vein injections. The other hand was weakly hanging from the bed. Lena leaned over the wounded man, took the hand to put it back on the bed - and shrank back as if struck by a lightning.
   On the forefinger she noticed a small triangular scar.
   The tray with tampons dropped from her hands and striking against the edge of the bed hit the floor with much noise.
   The last thing she saw was a surprised and anxious look of doctor Bakhtiar who was doing his morning round.
   ...It was back in Minsk that Ahmed told her this funny story from his childhood.
   Once mother bought a jar of imported banana jam. The children were dearly loved and had no constraints in the family, that's why as soon as mother left on some business they grabbed the jar and started to devour its contents immediately, one by one dipping their spoons. When it came to Ahmed's turn some jam was left only at the bottom of the jar. The boy inserted his hand into the narrow gorge and...
   And soon enough found out that getting his hand out is impossible. At first it seemed funny to the children and they started to laugh at their unlucky brother. But the time was moving on and Ahmed's hand still remained in the jar. He started to cry. Then the eldest brother, Tariq, suggested they smash the jar with a hammer. He assured his brother it would be painless for him as Tariq would strike the glass not the hand. He took a hammer from a storeroom, and Ahmed shut his eyes tight. Either the glass was very strong, or the blow was very weak, but the jar remained intact. Tariq decided to make a second blow a bit stronger.
   And he did - Ahmed screamed of pain. The hammer not only hit the hand as well, but several fragments of glass also stuck into the skin. One of them left that triangular scar on his finger.
   ... When she opened her eyes, she saw doctor Bakhtiar leaning over her and thrusting a piece of cotton soaked with liquid ammonia under her nose. There was an expression of anxiety and sympathy in his look.
   - You felt unwell, Madam Lena? Sudden weakness? Giddiness? No surprise with the work like that. Those nightshifts every other day. I'll ask Madam Borsaid to give you several days of rest, you deserve it like no other. Now, let me help you...
   Taking Lena by the armpits he lifted her up.
   -That is... Аhmed.
   - What are you saying?
   - Ahmed, that is my Ahmed, - she was murmuring.
   - Who? That soldier? - doctor Bakhtiar nodded towards the crippled soldier. - No, madam Lena, you've mixed up something. His name is er... Bashir. Seems to me a couple of days ago I made enquiries about him on your request. Yes, Hasim Bashir. Just look here, - he pointed at a piece of cardboard fastened to the foot of the bed.
   - This is Ahmed, - the girl repeated stubbornly.
   - Why do you think so?
   - Look, - Lena pointed to the right hand of the soldier. - Ahmed's got a scar on the forefinger. He told me how he got it.
   The doctor took the feeble hand and carefully examined the finger.
   - Yes, a scar. Well, what of it? Is it such an impossible thing that Hasim Bashir has it as well? In our life there may be coincidences even stranger than that, Madam Lena..., - seeing that the girl wanted to object, the doctor said: - Okay, how old is your husband?
   - Thirty three...
   - And see what is written here, will you? - He pointed to the card again: - "Hasim Bashir, 24". How can you explain that?
   - I... don't know.
   - Аnd I do know. You should have a good rest, Mаdаm Lena.
  

MARCH 3, 1981. BAGHDAD

  
On that day he regained consciousness for the first time.
   He saw a gray low ceiling, cut by the cracks running in every direction, wiring laid directly over the plaster, a bulb in a fly-blown bowl...
   He slanted his eyes.
   On the beds some unknown people were lying covered with sheets.
He remembered that last attack, and the broad back of a soldier who was running in front of him, and the explosion after which dense and pitch dark blackness fell upon him. But he couldn't recollect one thing - who he was. That is, he was watching himself as if an onlooker: some man with a submachine-gun is jumping out of the trench, slipping in the mud, and starting to run on the ground covered with shell-holes, then sees a dazzling flash which splits the misty morning in two, then falls face down in the dirt... And then again - the man is jumping out, running, falling down, jumping, running, falling down... What was after that and what had been before that he didn't know. As if he was born in this trench and died there, two steps from it, hit by a hail of shell splinters.
   A man in a white hospital gown with pleasant but tired face leaned over him. His look is attentive and kind. He is saying something as his lips are moving.
   - Can you hear me?
   It took him some time to understand the meaning. Yes, he can hear. But how to make the doctor understand this?
   - If you hear me, give me a wink.
   His lids raised, then lowered, then again raised.
   - Good, very good, excellent! Your name is Khasim? If your name is Khasim, give me a wink.
   So his name is Khasim? Okay, his name is Khasim.
   - You were unconscious for a long time, but now you are recovering. Do you understand me? You are getting better, Khasim.
   He understood.
   - Do you see, Madam Lena, that you were mistaken, - said the doctor to somebody, standing beside him. - This is quite a different person.
   Who is that girl with sad eyes? It seems to him he'd seen her before. Or not he, but that other man who was watching him, that onlooker? Everything got so mixed up. Or that onlooker and he - is one and the same person?
   - Well, the dynamics is absolutely positive, - the doctor went on. - The rarest case, after such a wound... Move your right hand, Khasim. Now left. Excellent. I think that very soon we'll remove the bandages off his face. If the wound heals up well, then we'll remove the sutures.
   He moved on to the next bed.
   For some time Lena was looking at the wounded soldier trying to overcome contradictory emotions that had swept over her. Now that this maimed creature had reacted to quite another name, should she have doubts any longer? Should she torture herself with all these thoughts? Probably, no. And yet...
   She caught an attentive look of doctor Bakhtiar, who was watching her from the far corner of the ward. Leaning over the soldier, the girl started to adjust his pillow.
   The doctor turned away and proceeded to the next patient.
   Lena was already going to leave, but all of a sudden, looking at Khasim for the last time she saw that he was staring at her without pause. His eyes were the eyes of a man who was trying to recollect something.
   It was this intense stare that made her do what she did the next moment.
   She leaned over him again and quietly whispered in Russian in the bandaged face: - Аhmed, do you remember me? I am your Lena.
   No response. It's not him. Finish.
   She straightened.
   The next moment the body under the bed-sheet strained and moved. Out of the soldier's eyes two big transparent tears rolled out and fell on the grayish bandage.
  

JANUARY - МАRCH 1982. BAGHDAD

   His memory was like a page with text abundantly smudged with ink, where only a few coherent lines or phrases can be read, but the general idea is extremely difficult to reconstruct.
   "Partial amnesia" - that's what doctor Bakhtiar called this phenomena, and said that this is quite a frequent consequence of a serious head wound. To her question whether he will regain his memory completely, he said evasively:
   - All is in the hands of almighty Allah. Never give up hope, Madam Lena
   Until he was allowed to talk, it was herself who did all the talking.
   She told him how they met, fell in love with each other, how he was waiting for her at the Baghdad airport on a cold January morning. She told him about the magical four-day honeymoon, when it seemed to them that their whole life would be full of honey.
   But she never mentioned those ill-fated refrigerators, Arab Water Treatment Centre, Ahmed's expulsion from the party and his quarrel with his father.
   And he - he was talking with his eyes. And looking into them Lena saw that he understands. And he tries to recollect.
   - Madam Lena, do you have children? - doctor Saud asked her somewhat confusedly, when she started to question him about Ahmed's condition.
   She shook her head.
   - It's a pity. To crown all the...mm... problems that your husband have, there'll be one more. You'll have to realize, that he'll never be able to... mm... to have sex with you. I'm very sorry.
   Lena understood what he meant on the same day, when she started to clean his naked mutilated body with wet sponge. In the inguinal region not covered with plaster, she saw with her own eyes that the shell fragments really left him not a single chance.
   As doctor Bakhtiyar promised, the bandages from Ahmed's face were soon removed, and now a curved wide diagonal scar was `decorating" it, obliterating for good his regular handsome features. It took her some time to get used to looking into this new pale face without shuddering. She forced herself to see in it her old Ahmed Azzawi, whom she asked for a dance at the Institute party so many years ago.
   Both sumps got healed, but several more months were required for the broken pelvic bones to knit. Until that moment, Ahmed's body was placed in a special cast. Doctor Saud warned Lena that Ahmed would never be able to walk using prosthesis, as they couldn't be fixed to whatever was left of his lower part.
   - A least, here in Iraq we don't have such prosthesis. But you can think of a wheelchair, - he added. - Maybe even with an electrical motor.
   In the beginning of January Lena took Ahmed home from the hospital. Now it was their house that became one. It took her several weeks to teach him how to sit, to hold a spoon, to eat without spilling the soup, without smearing porridge over his pajamas and the bed sheet. Learning to speak all over again took Ahmed several weeks more.
   - Le-na, - he slowly pronounced one syllable after the other. This was his first word. - My Le-na.
   He reached out and touched her cheek. His glance fell on the bed sheet which showed nothing but the flat surface below his thighs.
   He tapped the white cloth uncertainly.
   - Where... I don't have legs, do I?
   - You were seriously wounded, Ahmed. Your legs had to be amputated, - she said without looking at him.
   - I don't have... legs? - he repeated as if he didn't catch the meaning of her words.
   - Yes, Ahmed. You were wounded.
   - But now... how can I...?
   - Everything will be alright, - she kissed him tenderly. - You are alive, that's the most important thing - and I still love you.
   Once, having gingerly touched his face all over, Ahmed asked to bring him a looking-glass. For some time he was scrutinizing his reflection, then started to say something.
   - Is it...? - he didn't finish.
   What did he want to say? "Is it me?" "Is it possible to love such a creature?" Lena never knew. She gently pried his fingers open, took away the looking-glass and pressed her lips to his dark hair.
   In the morning and in the evening she wiped his body with a sponge, and later, when he became a bit stronger she started to carry him to the bathroom. His Ahmed who used to weigh eighty plus kilograms, lost almost half of it. Several times in a day she turned his helpless body to avoid pressure bed sores. You wanted a child - here it is, she thought once bitterly.
   His parents came several times, accompanied by the younger sister. The other sister was married to a Turk and now lived in Istanbul. Both brothers were at the front. Tariq, the elder one, telephoned them from the front a couple of times. Lena extended the wire and placed their telephone on a bed-side table. She was extremely pleased to see colour on her husband's pale cheeks after the talk with his brother. She always felt that the relations between Ahmed and Tariq were especially warm and hearty. Ahmed's mother, a grey-haired stout woman, always short of breath, were continuously crying looking at her son. Father tried to hide his feelings as best as he could, but Lena saw that he suffered as much as his wife. Only his trembling fingers with which he was counting his amber beads gave him out.
   Father suggested to hire a nurse and left some money. Lena took the money, but rejected the idea of a nurse.
   Once she asked Ahmed why in his pockets they found documents of a certain Hasim Bashir.
   - Hasim Bashir, - he repeated slowly. - Let me think.
   He closed his eyes trying to recollect the events.
   - Yes, we were there together... A young guy, seems to me he was Kerbala. He died. And me... probably I took his papers to give over to the platoon commander. I don't remember anything else.
   Lena had to reconstruct those events herself - as she saw them in her mind. Perhaps, Ahmed really took the papers of the dead soldier, but didn't manage to give them whoever it was required to. When he was wounded himself, orderlies carried him from the battlefield and, having found Bashir's ID decided that it really was Hasim Bashir. That's why they didn't look for any other papers, or maybe Ahmed's documents were in his trousers and were torn into pieces, when that explosion fractured the lower part of his body.
   Days were dragging by - grey and monotonous, filled with bitter thoughts and despair. She had to bid farewell to her dreams of motherhood - forever. Ahmed's hands embraced her at nights but those were not urgent and demanding male embraces she had known before. He kissed her, but the kisses were not the same either. Because embraces and kisses of two loving people end in fusion of two hot impassioned bodies. And this she was never to experience again. Then Ahmed fell into shallow uneasy sleep, and she lay wide awake with her eyes open. Real love which is always composed of two elements - spiritual and physical - was now out of her reach.
   Somehow she managed to conceal her feelings. But for how long she'd be able to - Lena didn't know.

AUGUST 1984. BAGHDAD

   The war was going on for the fourth year. Newspapers and television regularly informed about successes of Iraqi troops at the front, about enormous superiority in all types of military equipment and personnel, about heavy losses suffered by the enemy, thousands of Iranian prisoners of war. But if this is really so, why is the war still going on? Lena was pondering. How come, Iranian troops quite recently managed to approach to Baghdad by mere fifty kilometers?
   She remembered well those horrible days of last winter. The residents of the capital were daily taken to the suburbs to dig trenches and erect defensive installations. Several times Iranian troops were using on Baghdad their long-range artillery. The shells exploded in neighboring blocks. One of the missiles, launched one morning from Iraq, hit a primary school in the outskirts of Baghdad; more than thirty pupils died. Iraq immediately made a statement denouncing criminal regime of Ayatollah Homeini.
   - I don't think our missiles and bombs distinguish between peaceful population and the military, - remarked Ahmed sarcastically.
   At the sound of air alert Lena with difficulty lowered her husband into the basement. There were wooden plank beds in it, installed there at the beginning of the war. She sat down beside him and, at a weak candlelight, pressed to each other, they were waiting for the raid to end. Lena could not stay in the house any more, like she used to do at the beginning of the war. Ahmed could understand it in his own way and think that being depressed at the thought of remaining a childless woman till the end of her life, she was now looking for death.
   They listened to military communiquИs and asked themselves: what's gonna happen if Iranians really occupied Baghdad? Once they heard a report about four hundred Iraqi soldiers captured in Khuzestan, who were executed by shooting within one hour. They did not know whether it was true or just a sample of propaganda.
   - I don't think we treat their prisoners of war any better, - Ahmed remarked with a crooked smile.
   The Iranian offensive on Baghdad was stopped with the help of military aircraft procured form the Soviet Union, and though the enemy repeated the attempts to capture Baghdad three times more, it didn't succeed.
   Now Ahmed had a wheelchair, bought with the cash benefit money given to him for severe injury. Every day, despite his evident reluctance, Lena took him for a walk. She pushed the wheelchair along the paths of their neglected garden and told him what she had seen in the city. Once she witnessed whipping of a merchandiser who increased food prices despite strict prohibition of the authorities to do so.
   - Savages, - Ahmed muttered through the clenched teeth, when he heard the story.
   These walks were not long: Ahmed insisted on that from the very beginning. Lena understood why - they only stressed his helplessness. Besides, column of mercury in the thermometer rose to almost fifty and even the crowns of rampant palm trees could not save from sweltering heat .
   One day Lena saw a shop of German electrical equipment a wheelchair with electric motor and experienced a burning desire to buy it for Ahmed. She thought that if he started to drive it on his own and choose the routes himself - even if it was in their garden - he would gradually like being in the open air. But he met her proposal with a bitter smile.
   - You say, a wheelchair with a motor? And where am I going to travel in it - to Najaf or Kerbala? Or to Nassiriya? Or maybe I start driving it around Baghdad as if in our `Opel'?
   She didn't return to this subject anymore.
   On the other hand, Ahmed took to reading and was ready to swallow books from morning till night indiscriminately be it romantic novels or historic researches. They didn't have many books of their own, but on his request Lena went to his parents and loaded a whole suitcase with books. In the evenings they tuned in foreign radio stations - the ones which were called in the Soviet Union `enemy voices' or `voices from over the hill' . They were listening to whatever was going on in the world - and in Iraq. Hussein's regime jammed most of these stations in Arabic, but in Russian they were coming through without any problem. It was from one of these stations that they heard about Iraqi troops using chemical weapons in the war.
   - Hem...one of course can be a patriot of his own country, but at times it gets rather difficult, - was Ahmed's jaundice comment.
   Approximately once in every six months Lene phoned home and in an even voice informed her mother that they were doing fine, that Ahmed had been wounded but now was recovering. It was mother's possible question about children, that she feared most of all. The telephone was always beside Ahmed, and she couldn't take it away for him not to think that she had some secrets from him. Unfortunately, mother did ask that question one day.
   Casting a furtive look at her husband, Lena answered that so far they had no children.
  -- It's the war, mother, - she explained briefly. - We'll think about children later.
   She noticed that the face of Ahmed who was pretending to read somehow hardened. Lena hastily tried to change the subject.
   - How is father? Are your pensions, your and his, enough to live on?
   Mother answered that the pensions are enough, though they have to somewhat limit some of their demands, that her salary at the canteen had been raised, but the prices also went higher, that her cousin from Volgograd recently came, that father developed some heart problems.
   When the talk was over, Lena took him by the hand and quietly said:
   - I do know how you feel, Ahmed, and I understand you can't help thinking about that. After the war we will really think about children: we will take a child from children's home. And if there are some difficulties here, we'll do it in the Soviet Union. Believe me.
  

APRIL 1989. BAGHDAD

   The news was an unpleasant one. In the beginning of April, having phoned to Ivatsevichi, she found out that her father had a stroke. He was paralyzed almost completely and lost speech. Now they are two, she thought involuntarily
   - The doctors said I should be prepared for any eventuality, - mother was saying. - Lenochka, do come here. Come with Ahmed. It's so hard for me now. Aunt Liza's been helping me so far, but still I'll have to leave my work at the canteen to look after him.
   Mother didn't call her diminutive `Lenochka' for a long time. As for Ahmed she never mentioned him at all, let alone inviting him. It's one of the two, Lena thought. Either mother decided to forget all so called `mortal offences', or father was really very bad. Or both.
   Ahmed who was listening intently to her part of the conversation, looked at her attentively.
   - Something's happened, Lena?
   - Father is bad. He is paralyzed and he lost his speech.
   For a minute he was silent.
   - You should go to Russia.
   With what money? - nearly escaped her lips. But Ahmed understood.
   On the next day Tariq came. He brought some imported medicine and a thousand dollars. After the end of the war he managed to get a job in a flourishing oil company and earned huge money.
   Later Lena guessed that when she was not at home Ahmed seized the opportunity and phoned his brother.
   - That's for the air ticket - there and back. And don't delay with your visa.
   - But we will never be able..., - she began.
   Tariq waved his hand in annoyance.
   - Don't talk about that. Please understand, Lena, It's my brother's duty to his wife. A husband must work, and if he, for some reason, can not do it, the woman must not suffer.
   He took her to the kitchen and quietly said:
   - But don't leave him, Lena. Please. He will not bear it. He still loves you. I understand, a young woman wants..., - he did not finish.
   They decided to hire a nurse in her absence.
   When on parting she kissed his dry hot lips, in his look she read a silent question. Will you come back? his eyes asked.
   - I'm not a traitor, Ahmed, - she said simply.
   On April, 20, eleven years after her arrival in Iraq, she was again standing in the Baghdad International airport, which now, as all the rest, was named after Saddam Hussein. But there was a difference, and quite a substantial one. Then she was overwhelmed with bright hopes of eternal happiness of living with the man she loved, and now - with bitter recollections and uneasy premonition of imminent death of her father.
  

MAY 1989. IVATSEVICHI

   He died one week before her arrival.
   Mother, with red eyes, embraced her on the threshold and started to cry again - bitterly, inconsolably.
   - He... he wanted to see you. I was reading it in his eyes. I showed him your photographs, both your childhood shots and the ones you sent from Iraq. He forgave you, Lenochka. He forgave you.
   They went to the cemetery. Lena put several flowers on the fresh sand hillock and silently stood over it. Life is a eternal choice, eternal sacrifice of one thing for another, Lena thought looking at the red plywood obelisk with and old photograph. Having found love of Ahmed, she lost the joy of communicating with her father. She suddenly recollected the day of her coming of age. Then father having obtained the permission for a day's leave from his unit came to Minsk from Ivatsevichi to congratulate her. They were celebrating in a cafИ at Victory square eating pastries and drinking lemonade.
   In the evening, when they were having tea in the kitchen mother asked her gingerly:
   - Нow are you there, Lenochka?
   - Everything's alright, mother. Ahmed has recovered, he's already working at the same place, - lie is always easy, when it can't be checked. - We have a car, a house.
   - What about children? You said that after the war...
   - Children..., - Lena sighed. - That's more difficult. You know, mother, I don't want to talk about this.
   Mother had changed considerably. If eleven years ago, the wrinkles on her face, the face of a forty-two years old woman, only started to appear warning of the approaching old age, now they really existed deeply cutting into forehead and cheeks, running like cracks from the corners of the eyes. Lena felt a deep sympathy for her as for a woman who will not live up to see her grandchildren. But even more deeply she was sorry for herself - now that she was thousands of kilometers from Ahmed she could confess to it herself.
   She was struck with the squalor of the present life in the Soviet Union. As if a hurricane ravaged the country. When she was leaving, everything, at least on the surface, was in order. Now on the air and on television, two words unknown to Lena, constantly rang - "perestroika" and "zastoy" ( stagnation). Brezhnev and two subsequent Party general secretaries, Andropov and Chernenko, who passed away too quickly, were not scolded probably only by a lazy journalist or a functionary. Gorbachov was trying to save the sinking ship called `Communist Party'. The country was shaken with strikes, all money was gone somewhere and people were not getting wages for months, shops struck visitors with empty shelves, there appeared some purchase coupons, stubs and customers'cards without which it was impossible to get anything even if one had money. Lena remembered lines of people in the beginning of the seventies - but it was import boots, bananas or instant coffee that was in shortage at that time. Now there was shortage of virtually everything starting from laundry soap and finishing with vodka or petrol. And the lines became longer by several times. Out of all holes beggars and prostitutes crawled out like cockroaches. Lena thought that Iraq, even after eight years of war, looked better.
   Everywhere private sales outlets, stalls, kiosks sprang like mushrooms. Moneyless people rushed to Poland to buy and resell whatever they could. Going abroad became easier. At least, that's one positive thing about all this chaos, Lena thought.
   She had absolutely no wish to meet anybody. Most of her former friends managed not only to get married and have children, but to already divorce. What could she answer them when asked a very natural question: "And how many children do you have, Lenka? I bet already four or five?"
   There also was another question which could be asked by any of her former friends or classmates and which she was afraid to ask her herself. Has she really found what she was looking for more than three thousand kilometers from Belarus?
   The same went for her former fellows from the institute.
   However, Lena couldn't avoid any contacts at all. About three days later, there was a phone call in the apartment.
   - Lena? - a woman voice was heard in the receiver.
   - Yes.
   - I was your classmate, Svieta Reznikova. Remember?
   It took her some time to recollect red-haired Svietka, who was sitting next to her in the classroom. Svieta used to crib homework in maths from her. Almost the entire class used to crib from Lena, though.
   - Yes, I do, Svieta. Hi! - she said politely.
   - I noticed you from the bus and wondered whether it was you or not? When did you come?
   - On Tuesday.
   - Нow's life there?
   - Okay, - Lena replied briefly.
   - I envy you, Lenka, - Reznikova went on. - You're kinda foreigner now. One can say, you've seen the whole world. As for me, I went to Poland only, a couple of times.
   - Well, Iraq can hardly be called `the whole world'.
   - Anyway..., - Svieta sighed. - As for me, I only went to Poland a coupla times. As a shuttle.
   - As a ...what?
   - A shuttle. You really don't know? Ah, well, probably you don't. You know, when all these problems began, they stopped paying people their salaries and all that, everybody tried to wiggle out as best as they could. And for us the easiest way out was to go to Poland. Buying here, selling there - after all, some money, meager as it were. But personally I didn't manage to become a businesswoman. The first time it was more or less okay, but the second time I could hardly pay what I'd borrowed. And the jitters of course...God forbid! All these bags and sacks and crazy custom officials... Well, this is not interesting for you, of course. Better tell me about yourself. What about your private life? How many children?
   - No children.
   Of course, she could have lied, but it was Lena's mother who would have to take the consequences.
   - Why? - Svieta asked but then hastily added: - Of course, that's none of my business. Sorry.
   - It's okay. You know. There was a war there. With Iran. For eight years. And we decided we'll have children later.
   At least this type of lie was quite safe for her.
   - As for us, Victor and me have two. You remember Victor Doroshevich - that lanky basketball-player?
   Lena hardly remembered leggy Doroshevich who really took a fancy to Svieta. Not only to her, though.
   - That means that your married name is Doroshevich now? And the children are quite grown already? - she asked mechanically without any interest whatsoever.
   - Sasha is going to school this year, - Svieta informed her former classmate with secret mother's pride. - And Natasha, daughter, is three.
   This is called simple woman's happiness, Lena thought with a wry smile. And what kind of happiness do I have?
   She phoned Ahmed, knowing that he was waiting for her call, told him that her father had died and she's coming back soon.
  

АUGUST - ОCTOBER, 1990. BAGHDAD

   - ...provisional government of Kuwait requested Iraq to support the revolution carried out by democratic forces of the country. And President Saddam Hussein has decided to render military assistance to our brothers. For this purpose...
   Ahmed switched of the transistor and smiled crookedly.
   - Provisional government? H'm... Where did it come from? Switch on the TV set.
   Lena switched on "Sony". On all three channels they broadcast military news items accompanied by martial music, and as always Iraqi president himself flickered here and there, dressed, for the occasion, in camouflage uniform. News came every half hour, and soon Ahmed and Lena soon heard the official version of the events. They claimed that revolution had taken place in Kuwait and some provisional government came to power which asked Hussein for help.
   - War. It's war again. Eight years of bloodshed and a quarter of a million of lost human lives is not enough, - Ahmed commented maliciously.
   In the evening, when audibility on the transistor was better, they listened to the "Voice of America". UN Security Council immediately denounced the actions of Iraq and resorted to economic sanctions against the regime of Hussein, and the USA, Great Britain and their allies started military preparations.
   Literally several days later it became clear that the so-called `fraternal help' for Kuwait looked more like authorized plunder. On the counters of Iraqi shops there appeared a great quantity of Kuwaiti goods - everything from cigarettes and medicine and finishing with cars and electronic items. Original Kuwaiti labels and price tags had been torn off or painted over.
   - You know, many things are sold for knock down prices, - Lena said to Ahmed. - But I - I really couldn't force myself buy anything. This is like buying stolen things...
   - What a shame! They will despise us in the whole world after that, - Ahmed remarked.
   Tariq, who visited his brother quite often,
  

(That's it, folks! In case you are interested email igor_matveyev@mail.ru)

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