‘You have two days. If you don’t have the money then, we will be visiting your mother.’

They left him bleeding in the alley. Hassan shivered on the ground, curled up in pain. There was no other way out. He would have to contact Bibuni and tell him about Mina’s tablet.

Chapter 7

December 4th, 2004. Evening

Mina sat on a flat rock, watching the villagers at work, taking photographs and writing in her diary. The sun had almost dipped below the horizon. She felt conflicted; she loved this beautiful country but her relationship with it was uneasy. ‘Probably like any second-generation immigrant returning to their country of origin,’ she thought.

She felt angry when she observed dispossessed men and women walking by her in the bombed streets. There were so many people with makeshift houses, jobs and lives. Although she had not seen any bombings or gunfights, the bullet holes in every other building said it all. A sense of utter ruin was everywhere. It literally hung in the air, burnishing the whole country with an intense sadness.

On the other hand, she knew perfectly well that road-side bombings and kidnappings were carried out by terrorists. It was as if the US had stumbled into a hornet’s nest, between the Kurdish separatists who used the war to further their own agenda against the Turkish government and the Christian Armenians who probably wondered how long they could survive in an increasing ‘Muslim versus the West’ conflict. People of various denominations and sects fought each other constantly since the end of Saddam’s reign.

Those who had been oppressed under Saddam’s regime, longed to rise stronger after their lengthy ordeal. After Saddam, the power vacuum had been quickly filled by the US, but it could not last. America would have to leave soon, before the people’s frustration and resentment turned to uncontrollable anger.

Yet, the presence of American troops in Iraq did not deserve to be compared to the tyranny of living decades under Saddam Hussein. Mina’s parents had left Iraq long before the first Gulf War in 1989 but she remembered her father saying at the time, ‘Bush is calling for the Iraqi people to rebel against Saddam, but he won’t step in to get rid of him. Bush is no idiot, he won’t get involved in internal Iraqi politics because he’s got no-one up his sleeve to replace a tyrant. Iraq is not ready for democracy, not as we experience it here. Tribalism, corruption and internal wars cannot be dealt with through formal debate.’

‘Not yet’, thought Mina, ‘Not yet’. She really hoped that things would improve sometime soon.

The heat had gone, and there was a slight chill in the air. It was time to return to the village. Jack gathered his maps and various calculation sheets and then started rounding up the villagers. They all looked tired but happy after a rewarding day’s work. Jack joined Mina and walked by her side, silent but contented.

‘Are you satisfied with the amount of water at the village’s disposal? Will it be enough to supply everyone?’ she asked him.

‘Hopefully. I still have to make further calculations when I return to the village. I’m so pleased we found this water pocket, but I’m slightly worried about the distance from the village and its altitude: as you know, in a qanat the water flows under its own gravity. I really hope it works. I told you how we couldn’t set up a water system all the way to the Tigrus, but what’s worse is that there is no point connecting our water pipes to the Mosul water system’.

‘Why is that?’ she asked, genuinely interested.

‘Two reasons. The first is that during the summer, there is hardly any water in the water network anyway, so people tend to use water-pumps.’

‘And the second?’

‘Purifying and sterilizing the water would cost too much.’

‘I hadn’t realised the situation was that bad in Mosul.’

‘God yeah. The pipes are at a lower level than the groundwater. The pipelines are fractured and lots of stuff has got into them that shouldn’t be there. You can’t imagine the amount of germs and infectious diseases that have appeared in Mosul in recent years.’

‘That’s a bleak image of Mosul,’ she replied.

‘Yeah. Listen, as you are staying overnight in the village-’

‘Am I?’ she asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘Well… yeah. Your car’s broken. I’ve lent my jeep to a friend in the next village and no taxis will drive outside Mosul at this time of night. It’s too dangerous.’

‘It’s just that I didn’t plan…’ she started.

‘Oh I’m sure Muhad’s mother will lend you everything you need. You can stay with them.’

He stuck his hands in his pockets and mumbled ‘I’d invite you to stay at my place, but everything is very traditional out here and unmarried men and women simply don’t sleep under the same roof.’

‘I know. It’s much better like that,’ she replied.