The Last of the Angels Read Free

inside the crush of people or at the front. The neighborhood’s dervishes brought their swords and lances, which they brandished, striking in time to the ululations of the women or whenever anyone cried, “God is Most Great!” There were also three or four—among them the thief Mahmud al-Arabi, who broke into houses by night (outside of the Chuqor neighborhood, naturally)—who brought their revolvers, since they felt responsible for their community’s inhabitants. They fired into the air until the mosque’s imam forbade them from doing that. They stopped firing but kept their revolvers in their hands. Many children had stained their faces black with soot so that they resembled Africans or afreets. Others, who wore goat heads attached to skins that reached down to their feet, butted the air with their horns. At the same time some shaykhs sprinkled rose water from small bronze vessels with long necks over the assembled people. Others carried pictures of al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the dragon-slaying saint, the child king Faisal II, King Ghazi, and Kemal Atatürk. Indeed, there was even a framed portrait of the renowned artiste Samanchi Qizzi—taken from the coffeehouse in the great souk.
    Finally the demonstration set off, but where was it heading? No one knew. It traversed the Chuqor neighborhood, back and forth, entering alleyways and bursting out of them. When they saw the soot-stained faces and the goat heads, women watching from rooftops thought the procession was a prayer for rain and started pouring water over the heads of the demonstrators for good luck. After they had crisscrossed the neighborhood, someone shouted, “Let’s go to the company and present our complaints!” Another person cried, “No, let’s go to the barracks and present the matter to the government!” Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, the mosque’s imam, who was marching in the lead with the neighborhood’s shaykhs beside him, stopped to deliver a speech that everyone remembered for a long time. He said, “It is unreasonable to think we can march from here to the company in Baba Gurgur to present our petition to the Englishman and his wanton wife, who is a Christian. We would die of fatigue before we reached there. Moreover, God and His Messenger have forbidden Muslims from bowing their heads before infidels. If we go there, we will be forced to act in a submissive and subservient way when we appeal for merciful treatment from a harlot and her procurer husband. This approach would ill befit the honor of the Chuqor neighborhood. I have heard others demand that we head for the barracks or the palace, but how is the government involved in Hameed Nylon’s firing? It’s the English who fired him, and they’re not our fellow countrymen. Only red Communists pick fights with the police and the government, and praise God we’re not Communists or Muscovites.”
    When the Imam Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri reached this point in his speech, voices from enthusiastic members of the crowd asked, “What should we do then?” A profound silence reigned while the imam responded. His answer was decisive and dumbfounding this time: “We will turn toward God.” The multitude did not quite comprehend the meaning of this lofty phrase. Therefore, he added, “It’s true that Hameed Nylon was sacked, but the affliction is even greater than that, for we are all threatened by the drought, since not a single drop of rain has fallen. If God does not show compassion by sending His clouds over the city of Kirkuk, we shall starve to death. So let’s all go to the open area in al-Musalla to pray to God and His Messenger for the advent of rain and the diffusion of goodness and blessings to everyone.”
    Thus, to the beating of drums and the rattle of tambourines, people carrying their green flags and their placards demanding justice for Hameed Nylon headed to al-Musalla Square,