Baghdad Fixer Read Free

she’s shouting now because no one has. But there are not, I would imagine, too many people in this hospital who can understand English well, and now the woman’s voice becomes more pronounced, as if she thinks that by speaking slowly and loudly, yelling even, people will begin to understand.
     
    “My friend, Jonah Bonn was brought here. Jonah Bonn. We think he was brought here. Please, check your lists for him. Can you check that for us? Do you understand me?”
     
    I walk into the middle of the corridor and see her standing there, the foreign woman talking so loudly, and even if I had not heard her it would be clear that she wasn’t an Iraqi because her hair is almost lit by the colour of fire, a strange red I have never seen before and am sure does not occur in this part of the world. She is with another foreign woman who looks Chinese or Japanese, and a tall, freckle-faced man stands behind them. His face is half-covered by his hair, and he looks like he has not slept in weeks and needs to exert great effort to hold up his eyelids. His eyeballs bulge bigger and then recede as the woman speaks, and then he shuts his eyes tight and winces. He leans against the wall next to him. I can’t help but wonder, why is he letting the women engage in all the talking?
     
    The red-haired woman looks at the nurse she has cornered and tilts her head to one side. She makes a face like she’s about to cry and then is suddenly in control again.
     
    “He was making a film,” she says. Shouts, really. “TV film? You know, camera, film for TV? Like CNN? Al-Jazeera?” She makes a gesture of holding up an old-fashioned camera, peering through a hole in her clenched left fist and cranking her right.
     
    “No, no, no,” the hospital nurse says. “No film here. You need take permission. Go, ministry...take permission.”
     
    The red-headed woman drops her forehead into her upturned hand. “Oh God, please! We don’t want to film. What I’m trying to tell you is that we’re looking for our friend, our colleague. A reporter, you know, journalist? Sahafi ? Jonah Bonn. Maybe you have him here?”
     
    The nurse shakes her head and shrugs, looking to me.
     
    “He was working with a man with a big camera and then he disappeared,” the foreign woman pleads, moving her hands with the words, as if they will do the interpreting. “He worked for... he works for...oh, Jesus.” She speaks very slowly now. “We believe...he, Jonah, here,” she says, jabbing her two pointer-fingers towards the floor. She leaves out the verb, which annoys me, as if speaking English loudly and poorly is going to make the nurse understand. The foreign woman’s face is starting to turn a shade of red that white people sometimes get when they are angry.
     
    She puts a thumb and forefinger in the inner corners of her eyes. The freckled man behind her places his hand on her back and moves it across her shoulder blades. “This is useless, Sam. Forget it.” He moves in front of her and hunches down to put his face in front of hers, his hands tucked into his armpits. “Let’s go ask at the Red Cross or something. We can try Yarmouk Hospital.”
     
    I rush to catch the nurse, who had said “sorry, sorry”, several times and begun to walk away, and ask her to wait just one moment more.
     
    “Excuse me,” I say calmly, as though they are just lost tourists seeking directions. “Can I help you with something?”
     
    The red-headed woman looks up at me and before I can say more, she begins to cry. And then she turns her crying into a laugh that I think is meant to cover up the crying.
     
    “I’m losing it. Oh Lord,” she says, looking up at the ceiling and releasing a few tears that roll towards her hairline. She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. Her friend, the small Asian lady, puts her hand on the woman’s shoulder.
     
    “Sam...Sam, don’t worry. We’ll find him.” The Asian woman’s English sounds perfect and American, and I