Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel

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I wouldn’t have been able to write my family’s story and expose its shame if my father hadn’t encouraged me to do so while cutting my hair in his Madrid club. “Write whatever you want,” he said. “Nothing will happen worse than has already happened. This world is all fucked up.”

At the time, I didn’t comment on what he had said, forced as I was to focus on his razor, which nearly took off the skin behind my ear.

The story began on the day that my father, Noah, went with my sister Istabraq to the doctors in the city, seeking treatment for the illness that had made her waste away and ooze yellow diarrhea into her clothes. She kept eating carob powder, which the old wise women had prescribed, but that didn’t help at all. Her body became skin and bones, and her breasts drooped down, even though she was only fourteen at the time. She turned a pale yellow, like the leaves of tobacco.

All the same, she seemed more beautiful than the other girls her age in the village because she was kept out of the sun in the fields, which dyed everyone’s face the color of old wood. My mother wasn’t able to give her any hard work on the farm, so Istabraq was limited to performing small chores in the house, such as making the beds, washing the dishes, sweeping the floors, and hanging out the laundry. Istabraq had been born a twin, but her sister, Sundus, died at nine months. They had been so, so small, squirming in the cradle like two rats drenched in milk. We had all expected Istabraq would die too, but she kept on living. She remained skinny and pale, but she was beautiful and had a good heart.

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