The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina Khadra, John Cullen Page A

step out into the open was an Iraqi. He signaled to us to stop the car in front of a road sign that was standing in the center of the highway. I followed his instructions.
    “Cut the engine,” he ordered me in Arabic. “Then put your hands on the steering wheel and keep them there. Don’t open the door, and don’t get out until you’re told to. Understand?”
    He was standing well away from the car and pointing his rifle at my windshield.
    “Understand?”
    “I understand. I keep my hands on the steering wheel, and I don’t do anything without authorization.”
    “Very good. How many are you?”
    “Three. We—”
    “Just answer my questions. And don’t make any sudden moves. Don’t make any moves at all, you hear me? Tell me where you’re coming from, where you’re going, and why.”
    “We come from Kafr Karam, and we’re going to the health clinic. One of us is ill and he’s cut off a couple of fingers. He’s mentally ill, I mean.”
    The Iraqi soldier aimed his assault rifle at different parts of me, his finger on the trigger and the butt against his cheek; then he took aim at the blacksmith and his son. Two GIs approached in their turn, tense and alert, their weapons ready to transform us into sieves at the least quiver. I kept my cool. My hands remained on the steering wheel, in plain sight. Behind me, the blacksmith was breathing hard.
    “Watch your son,” I muttered. “Make sure he keeps still.”
    “Shut up!” a GI shouted at me, looming up on my left from I didn’t know where. The barrel of his gun wasn’t far from my temple. “What did you just say to your pal there?”
    “I told him to keep—”
    “ Shut your trap! And keep it shut!”
    He was a gigantic black, crouched over his assault rifle, his eyes white with rage and the corners of his mouth wet with frothy spittle. He was so enormous, he intimidated me. His orders exploded like bursts of gunfire and left me paralyzed.
    “Why is he yelling like that?” the blacksmith asked in a panicky voice. “He’s going to scare Sulayman.”
    “Zip it!” the Iraqi soldier barked. I assumed he was there as an interpreter. “At the checkpoint, you don’t talk, you don’t discuss orders, you don’t grumble,” he recited, like someone reading an amendment. “You keep quiet and you obey every order completely. Understand? Mafhum? You, driver, put your right hand on your window and slowly open your door with your left hand. Then put both hands behind your head and get out, very slowly.”
    Two more GIs appeared behind the Ford, harnessed like draft horses, wearing thick sand goggles over their helmets and bulging bulletproof vests. They approached us, aiming their rifles from their shoulders. The black soldier was hollering loudly enough to rupture a vocal cord. As soon as one of my feet touched the ground, he yanked me out of the car and forced me to kneel down. I let him manhandle me without resistance. He stepped back, pointed his rifle at the rear seat, and ordered the blacksmith to get out.
    “I beg you, please don’t shout. My son is mentally ill, and you’re scaring him.”
    The black GI didn’t understand very much of what the blacksmith was trying to tell him; the fact that someone would address him in a language he didn’t know seemed to infuriate him, and so now he was doubly angry. His lacerating screams made my joints twitch and prickle. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up or I’ll blow your brains out! Hands behind your head!” Around us, the impenetrable, silent soldiers kept a close eye on our slightest movements. Some of them were hidden behind sunglasses, which made them look quite formidable, while others exchanged coded looks. I was astonished as I looked down the barrels of the weapons pointed at me from all sides, like so many tunnels to hell. They seemed vast and volcanic, ready to bury us in a sea of lava and blood. I was petrified, nailed to the ground like a post, incapable of speech. The blacksmith got out of