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Chapter 5
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Frankenstein in Baghdad, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Lies, and Storytelling
Good vs. Evil
Power, Authority, and Social Divisions
Family, Friendship, and Home
Superstition and Religion
Summary
Analysis
One morning, two police tankers arrive in the neighborhood. The soldiers, which include one U.S. military policeman, interrogate Faraj the realtor, who is walking toward his office. They ask him about an event that took place in one of the houses. Faraj is scared of the Americans, because he knows they can make people disappear at will and are accountable to no one. He nervously tells the soldiers that the house is his, and that he has been renting it. He produces some papers to support his claim.
Although Faraj is able to take advantage of lawlessness on a local level for business purposes, his fear of the Americans suggests that the lack of a fixed, reliable justice system can also harm him. This suggests that the local population is subject to arbitrary rules over which they have no power: they did not elect the foreign forces that are currently ruling over them and that can determine the course of their life at will.
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Then, Faraj sees the bodies of four dead beggars. Each man holds the neck of the man in front of him, as though they were all strangling each other. Faraj feels sorry for their violent deaths and wonders who killed them. He concludes that if Hazem Abboud had taken a picture of this scene, he would have been rewarded by an international prize. As people in the neighborhood begin to gather to observe the scene, the policemen unfasten the beggars’ hands so that they can remove the bodies from the neighborhood.
This eerie, disturbing scene turns violence into a symbolic spectacle. The beggars’ positions symbolize violence in Iraq: local armed groups are intent on killing members of their own country, yet this only leads to a string of violent acts, with no resolution in sight. Faraj’s comment about photographing the scene suggests that even horror can become a spectacle, or a source of entertainment. It serves as implicit criticism: such “international prizes” might shed light on the horrors taking place in a variety of countries, but it does not actually provide a solution to their problems.
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In the meantime, another beggar is watching the scene. He recalls what took place the previous night. He had been drinking when he heard screams. Fighting frequently erupted among drunk beggars, angry and desperate at the state of their life. When light from a passing car illuminated the scene, the man saw five people holding hands in a circle. Later that afternoon, he recounts this scene to Faraj, who believes that he can use this story to increase his power among authorities. However, Faraj gets angry at the beggar for being drunk, adding that the government should implement sharia law to keep people from drinking.
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Frightened by Faraj’s outburst, the beggar nevertheless tells him that one of the men was a horrific man with a large mouth. He insists that there were indeed five beggars, not four. The four beggars, he explains, wanted to grab the fifth man’s throat, but ended up killing each other. In the city, at the same moment as Faraj exclaims that this makes no sense, Brigadier Sorour Mohamed Majid inspects a file he has just received, called the “four beggars.”
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In the meantime, in the al-Haqiqi offices, Saidi tells Mahmoud to accompany him on an errand. Saidi frequently creates suspense in this way, refusing to give more details about his activities, but taking Mahmoud to places frequented by important politicians. On such occasions, when looking at himself in mirrors, Mahmoud dismisses his reflection as insignificant. Instead of his own self, he sees Saidi’s network of contacts.
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Saidi tells Mahmoud that they are going to visit an old friend of his, so that they can collect information to use against the Americans and the government, responsible for so much insecurity in the city. Mahmoud is surprised to hear this, because he believed that Saidi was allied with the forces in power. Mahmoud’s friend Farid says that Saidi “believes in the future” because Saidi knows the future will bring him personal success, not because the country will be better off. However, Mahmoud prefers not to pay too much attention to his friend’s words.
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In a neighborhood that Mahmoud does not recognize, Mahmoud and Saidi reach an imposing gate. They enter a peaceful, tree-lined street, far from the commotion and police sirens rocking the rest of the city. After parking next to an American Hummer, they enter a building, where they are led to a fancy office, permeated by the smell of an apple-scented air freshener. Saidi hugs a short, balding man, who shakes Mahmoud’s hand. This man, Mahmoud learns, is Brigadier Majid, head of the Tracking and Pursuit Department. Mahmoud wonders what the object of this department’s activities might be.
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For two hours, the three men chat amiably, and Mahmoud discovers that Brigadier Majid and Saidi are old friends who went to middle school together. They are now engaged in a common enterprise, working for “the new Iraq.” Although Brigadier Majid had a high function in the army during the Baathist regime, he was able to avoid de-Baathification regulations and receive a special post. His goal is to serve the Americans by monitoring strange crimes and to prevent violence from erupting. The Tracking and Pursuit Department is kept secret, so that its members can stay safe.
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Mahmoud wonders why his boss Saidi trusts him to take part in such confidential conversations. He realizes that, given his editor’s wealth and power, Saidi is just as likely to be killed as any politician, and whoever accompanies him would also be likely to die. Mahmoud concludes that Saidi must be either brave or completely ignorant.
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While insisting that nothing he tells them can be published, Brigadier Majid tells the two men that the Department relies in part on the work of astrologers and people who communicate with spirits. He does not reveal whether or not he actually believes in this, but he argues that the Department’s objective is to decrease violence and prevent a civil war. Mahmoud is terrified by this thought. Meanwhile, Saidi asks whether he should buy a printing press, to which Brigadier Majid replies that he should avoid doing so.
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Brigadier Majid tells them about the four beggars who strangled each other, which he believes is a crime meant to send a cryptic message. He notes that the department has received news about criminals who are immune to bullets and do not die or bleed. As he says goodbye to his visitors, he laughingly asks them who would even believe them, were they to publish what he has just revealed to them.
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That evening, Mahmoud recounts the day’s events in his digital recorder. He is confused by the fact that, on the way back, Saidi mocked Brigadier Majid’s dependence on fortune-tellers yet still asked his friend whether or not he should buy a printing press. Mahmoud concludes that Saidi is trying to gather as much information as possible about the country’s political state, so that he can feel safe traveling around the city. Mahmoud is also shocked by the light tone with which the two men discussed the civil war, as though it were a movie. He concludes that he should stay close to Saidi to ensure his own survival.
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Mahmoud also reflects that neither Saidi nor Brigadier Majid is fully faithful to their allegiances: Saidi used to be an Islamist, while Brigadier Majid used to be Baathist. Mahmoud does not understand why Saidi made fun of his friend on the way back: Saidi said that Baathists were obsessed with apple smells and made a joke about the chemical weapons that Baathists dropped on Halabja, which also had an apple smell. Mahmoud was disturbed by this joke. Later, he decided to ask Abu Anmar about the “four beggars,” and understood that people in the neighborhood believe that the killer strangled these men before placing them in this theatrical position.
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Mahmoud concludes that the Brigadier was in a delicate position, spying on his citizens in the same way people spied on him, in part because of his relationship to the old regime. However, the Brigadier receives support from the Americans. Mahmoud concludes that two groups face each other: the Americans and the Iraqi government, against terrorists and antigovernment militias. Anyone who is against the first camp is immediately labeled “terrorist,” Mahmoud notes. He reflects to himself that, despite their self-promoted image as patriots, both Saidi and Brigadier Majid are collaborating with the Americans.
The next day, when Mahmoud leaves his room at the hotel, he runs into his friend Hazem Abboud, who tells him that someone was killed that morning, and that the police have now taken over the neighborhood. The murder victim is the local barber, Abu Zaidoun. Someone killed the old man, who suffered from severe dementia, by stabbing him in the neck with a pair of scissors in his own shop. People in the neighborhood remember Abu Zaidoun’s Baathist convictions, which led him to force young men to join the war. Because of these actions, he had many enemies, although no one knows who his murderer is.
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At the man’s funeral, people emphasize Abu Zaidoun’s positive qualities, giving him dignity by relegating his cruel behavior to the first years of the Iran-Iraq War. By contrast, Elishva refuses to forgive the old man. When Umm Salim tells her the news, Elishva realizes that Umm Salim has forgotten her promise to sacrifice a sheep at Abu Zaidoun’s death. 20 years ago, the man had sent her son Salim to war, where he was killed, and Umm Salim seems to have forgotten her desire for vengeance. Elishva, by contrast, believes that revenge will give her motivation to stay alive.
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In the meantime, at Aziz’s coffee shop, two men turn on a digital recorder and ask Hadi to tell them the story about the Whatsitsname. Aziz gives Hadi a silent warning, and Hadi understands that these men are members of a security agency, who could arrest him. Therefore, Hadi tells them that the Whatsitsname has died and leaves the shop precipitously. Confused and angry, the two men leave the shop a moment after.
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When Hadi returns to the coffee shop later in the day, Aziz angrily tells him to stop telling the story of the Whatsitsname. He invokes the murders of the four beggars and of Abu Zaidoun to insist to Hadi that his stories are likely to put him in danger. He says that the Americans could capture him and make him disappear at any moment. Terrified by this prospect, Hadi secretly resolves to keep the story of the Whatsitsname to himself from now on. Aziz tells Hadi that multiple witnesses have described the criminal as a horrific-looking man with a mouth that looks like an open wound. Others have described his body as covered in sticky liquid. The criminal has also been shot without showing any apparent wounds.
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Aziz concludes that Hadi’s stories are scaring people. Moved by fear, Hadi goes home, realizing that it might be possible for lies to turn into reality. He understands that, apart from his friend Aziz, no one would look for him if ever anything happened to him. In the evening, Hadi sees American soldiers in his neighborhood and decides to spend the night drinking alone in his home. He raises his glass to ghosts, including people who have died. Suddenly, the door opens and a tall figure approaches. His face is covered in stitches and bears a wound-like mouth.
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