Every Man in This Village Is a Liar_ An Education in War - Megan K. Stack [59]
What are the repercussions, we ask.
Actually, she says, it’s like a point system. The first time, if you mess up, say they know you said something bad about flower, you get called in. They might give you a warning. The second time, they might give you a beating. The third time, you’re going to prison. Roughly like that.
Nora closed her mouth as the waiter drew near. The girl at the next table wiggled her shoulders and sipped through her straw, eyes locked on her boyfriend. The music pumped on.
After the United States invaded Iraq, my job got more complicated. Suddenly it was a tiresome problem, being an American. My nationality invaded every interview. If I wanted to talk about agriculture or mosque renovation, we’d end up dissecting America first. Every Arab had a detailed critique of U.S. foreign policy, and no intention of missing his chance to unburden all that outrage into the ear of an honest-to-God American. If I were strategically smart, I’d listen sympathetically to the complaints about America’s basic moral unseemliness, my silence a delicate, implicit apology. And then, after I’d scraped and nodded and mm-hmmed, I could wedge in a few questions. Stay cordial, I’d remind myself. You catch more flies with honey.
But I couldn’t always do it. I didn’t have the patience.
“You don’t really have a democracy in America. I know you’re not free to write what you see. You can only write what the government allows you to write. You don’t have to pretend with me. I know how it works.”
“America used to be a great, powerful country. Now you let the Israelians run everything. The government and the business, too. The Israelians knew about September 11. Why is America so blind?”
“How did the United States elect this Bush? We thought Americans were intelligent but now we see that they are not.”
Sitting there, I’d get agitated. I didn’t rub this man’s nose in his country’s corrupt, cruel leaders, or remind him of the shame of living quietly inside a dictatorship, impotent amid torture and censorship. I did not force him to represent his government. And yet I could not expect the favor to be returned, because my own government dripped with strength. As a citizen of an invading power, I could be called to account. My leg bounced wildly, my eyes narrowed, I dropped the pretense of taking notes. When you stop writing, people always notice.
“Write this down, please,” he intoned condescendingly.
“I don’t need to. I’ve heard it before, and it has nothing to do with the story I’m working on.”
Then a flash of shame, seeing myself through his eyes, brittle and snappy. I’d try to smooth things down.
“Look, I understand what you are saying. But we are not in Baghdad and I am not here to write about the invasion of Iraq. I’m writing about this other thing. So please, I am asking you, can we talk about that instead?”
It was hard to stomach. People who lived under the thumbs of dictators could look at America with a gleeful sneer: Look how your strong country has been drawn into a trap that will cost you dearly. Now we see that America, too, is criticized by the international human rights organizations. Now we see how America can sap its own strength. Now we see how the mighty stumble.
But there was always Nora. I’d find her leaning in the marble corner of some hotel lobby, in the shadow of lily stalks. Her car was with the valet. She did not so much drive as slide through the city, slipping crookedly over lanes, giggling when the horns honked. Somebody would pull up and wave. “Oh, it’s a friend of my father’s.”
As soon as we were in the car, she was spilling out the things she’d saved to say. “Did you