The Girl from Baghdad by Michelle Nouri Page A

of death for many of my family members; the second Gulf War and the Iraq War completed the task, sweeping away what little was left of the capital and the rest of the country after many years of fighting. In 2003, the entire world saw the arrest of Saddam Hussein and the bodies of his sons, Uday and Qusay. I do not know if they deserved this treatment. They were probably guilty of the atrocities they had been accused of committing. However, years before, at school, I never imagined that I would be examining the picture of a swollen face to find what remained of my happy adolescence.

    At school Dani and I became inseparable. She was the daughter of an Iraqi attorney and his Syrian wife. Her family was rich. Her driver chauffeured us to school every morning and, on the back seat, sitting next to each other, we would plan our day. We couldn’t wait for class to end so we could run out of the big doors and parade around in front of the older boys. They sat in flashy cars in front of our school, waiting for our show. Our school was very famous and they came deliberately to look at the girls. Of course, they weren’t allowed to do anything else.
    My curiosity for the opposite sex exploded during that time. I was still young, but no longer a child. In my parents’ closet, my dad hid a copy of Arabian Nights . I knew it was there and that it was something we shouldn’t touch. One afternoon, aroused by inquisitiveness and temptation, I took it out to read; I wanted to know why it was so dangerous that it had to be hidden. I was alone in the house. I grabbed the book and lay down on the couch. I slowly started turning the big, glossy pages. Some had illustrations, but at a glance, nothing seemed strange. After a while, however, my eyes came across a phrase in the middle of a page. I started reading. I discovered it was all about sex. I continued reading. I was in the middle of an erotic scene. ‘A child, playing with her cousin, accidentally …’ The more I read, the more I felt my face burn. My heart beat faster. I feltI was doing something dangerous and prohibited. Feelings of excitement, shame and fascination flooded through me. Suddenly the veil that separated me from a prohibited world fell, allowing me to see it with uncovered eyes.
    The mysterious electric energy wasn’t just concealed between the pages of that book. Every day, when we left school, the eyes of the boys came to us like magnets. Before exiting through the front door of the school, Dani and I would stop in the downstairs bathroom to take off our uniforms and put on more feminine clothes, sometimes dresses we had stolen from our mothers. Some of the boys waited outside and smoked cigarettes, coughing loudly. A few of them kissed and touched each other in a very risqué way, jokingly, making us laugh and turn red with embarrassment. We saw their reflections in the mirror as we made up our eyes with kajal . Dani laughed and elbowed me. I finished putting on my lipstick and I dragged her outside.
    During the break, we used to go to a secluded corner of the courtyard to spy on the boys through a hole in the wall. Dani had a crush on the son of a famous architect, a boy a little older than us. One day, during one of her inspections, with her eye pushed to the hole in the wall, she started screaming and pulling my sleeve.
    â€˜I can’t believe it! It’s him, Michelle, he’s here in front of me!’
    â€˜Be quiet or the entire school will hear you! Let me see,’ I said, pushing her aside. ‘He really is a handsome boy! And look at his car!’
    â€˜What do you think? Do you think he’ll still be there when we go out?’
    â€˜Maybe. If he’s still there it’s a good sign,’ I replied.
    The school bell rang, calling us back to class.
    When school was dismissed, we found the young man lounging outside the front door. He was there again the day after, and the day after that. After a week