Between Two Worlds by Zainab Salbi

glaring. Their room was all white then, with white closets and white furniture and white walls. The bed was empty, unmade and messed up, as if she had been sleeping restlessly and gotten up to go into the bathroom. She didn’t answer my call. Then I caught sight of her on the floor on the other side of the bed. She was sprawled awkwardly on the Persian rug in her white nightgown, her arms and legs and hair askew. Around her were pills—pink and blue, white, yellow—bright pastel colors on the burgundy pile of the rug, and empty plastic bottles.
    I was so scared. I ran to her and pulled her up into my arms. She was breathing, but her body slumped heavily as I tried to hold her up. “Mama, Mama! Wake up, Mama! Can you hear me, Mama?” I could see her eyes trying to open, but there was no focus. The skin on her beautiful face was slack, her face whiter than I had ever seen it. Was she going to die? “Baba!” I cried, but he didn’t answer, so I ran to get him. It was dark. The lights were out. All I could see was the shifting bluish light of the television and the sound of the TV coming from the family room. I found Baba sitting on the blue sofa, a glass of whiskey at his side. I ran over to him, but he seemed almost as numb with whiskey as Mama was with pills. Finally he came back with me and looked in a daze at Mama on the floor. I sent him to telephone for help while I stayed with Mama. I sat there with her head in my lap and kept her awake, cooling her face with a wet towel, brushing her long hair with her hairbrush, and telling her not to die, please not to die.
    Uncle Adel arrived and he and I managed to get Mama to his car. Baba stayed home. When we got to Uncle Adel’s house, I refused to let Mama out of my arms. I would not, would not, would not, let go of her. We took her into the bathroom, and Uncle Adel brought milk to force her to drink so she would vomit the pills. But she couldn’t seem to swallow, so Aunt Najwa brought me a funnel from the kitchen, and Uncle Adel held his baby sister, tears streaming down his face, as I poured milk down her throat. I had stopped crying. I was utterly focused on getting that milk down her throat. I was on a mission to save her life. I held the back of her neck as she had held mine when I was sick, and finally she vomited the awful pills.
    By the time the doctor arrived, Aunt Najwa and I had washed her and changed her clothing and put her to bed. I put on a clean nightgown Aunt Najwa gave me and crawled into bed with Mama. I put my arms around her and held her all night like a mother holding a sick child, listening to her breathing, afraid I might lose her again if I fell asleep. Mama had tried to kill herself. Why, Mama? Why? Don’t you know how much Haider and Hassan and I need you? Don’t you know how much I love you? By the time I finally slept, I felt like all the child had been wrung out of me. I had seen a side of adulthood I wasn’t ready for, something that reeked of sour milk and whiskey and pain, but I had no answers and no one would ever really explain what had brought it all on.
    Mama slept a long time and awoke weak and exhausted from the ordeal. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but she looked embarrassed and funny.
    She just kept saying, “I’m sorry, Zanooba. I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.” She patted my hair. Then she said something I will never forget:
    “I feel like a bird in a cage,” she said. “Don’t ever let yourself be a bird in a cage, Zainab. Promise me, honey. Always be a free spirit.”
    “I promise, Mama,” I said.
    But I didn’t understand. She was telling me not to be like her, and until that night I had never wanted to be anything else.
    From Alia’s Notebook
     
    One night, he sent for us and we were partying by the Tigris River. There were only a few of us around him that night, and Saddam was drinking whiskey as if it were water. Every hour one of his bodyguards came to whisper something in his ears. At