I said no.
Matthew had a point-and-shoot camera, with photos from the previous few months in Iraq, and offered it up to the commander to prove we had spent our time in Iraq in the company of Iraqis, not Americans. He scrolled through the memory card: Shaima and Ali, an Iraqi couple we had been following during the lead-up to their wedding for a feature story, Matthew smiling along the side of the road in Baghdad, pictures from the day the contractors were killed in Fallujah. Memories.
At that moment our car reappeared, and the commander motioned for me to get out and retrieve our things. My legs were rubbery. I gathered in my arms all our gear: my waist pack with my IDs and one of my passports; my cameras; a backpack with my computer, satellite phone, and a two-year American passport I occasionally carried when I needed to apply for visas while in the field. It had inadvertently been tucked into an interior pocket of my backpack, which was among Matthew’s belongings. The masked men drilled their eyes into me and watched me carry everything from one car to another, still confused by my existence.
The commander snapped at them to help me.
I placed our bags in the minivan near us and sat back down beside Matthew. The commander walked away for a second, as did the men with their guns pointed at us. Matthew slipped his passport to me, and I put both of ours into my underwear, beneath my abaya. I thought of the time when $7,000 made it through Iraq in my underwear when Elizabeth and I were held up at gunpoint. It was one place they just wouldn’t go.
The commander returned with the guards, and he looked over my stash of cameras, pleased that I was actually a professional photographer. He asked to see the contents of the digital cards on my two camera bodies. I had woken up at 6 a.m. and spent the morning in Sadr City, photographing the Mahdi Army outside Moktada al-Sadr’s office, the other insurgents dancing, their faces wrapped, their weapons in the air.
“Where is this? When was this?” The commander’s interest was piqued.
I explained that the Americans had killed several people in Sadr City the day before, and I went to photograph the funerals and the protests at dawn that morning in Sadr City, in Baghdad.
“Where are your press IDs?”
It was more important for us to show proof of being journalists than to worry about which companies we represented. I reached into my bag and pulled out my press identification cards from Turkey and Mexico. Matthew, who had hidden his IDs in his sock when they first led him into the minivan, took off his shoe, pulled his New York Times ID out of his sock, and handed it over to the commander. He studied the IDs. Even after seeing these, they didn’t question our nationality again.
The situation seemed to be easing, and I finally raised my eyes. I looked around the car. The gunmen were still perched in the front seat, peering at us from behind their weapons, and I noticed the one on the right relax. I took the liberty of staring for a few seconds and then offered a weak smile before returning my fingers to my temples to rub the sides of my face.
Matthew muttered under his breath, “Stop rubbing your forehead. Relax.”
“Shut up,” I said. “I am nervous, and it is better if they know they are making a woman nervous.”
Khalid was back in the car, and I was relieved to have his familiar, fat presence nearby. One of the gunmen mumbled something out loud, and Khalid translated: “Please tell the woman we will not hurt her.”
See? I thought. The forehead rubbing worked.
A man came from inside the house, carrying a dented silver bowl a bit larger than a fist, and handed it to the commander.
The commander offered the dripping bowl to Matthew and me. “Drink.”
In Iraq, offering water was a sign of hospitality—a decisive moment when one went from being an enemy to a guest. I took a sip and turned to Matthew. “Drink as much as you possibly can.”
I knew we would live.
The commander, pleased with his new friends, then said, “We want to offer you Pepsi as a sign of Iraqi hospitality.”
We smiled.
Before the Pepsi emerged from the house, all the men surrounding the car started scurrying around the grounds of the headquarters.
“We are about to launch an attack on the marine base nearby,” the commander said proudly. “Watch, we will fire rockets.”
Before the words escaped his mouth, piercing booms ripped through the air above our heads, punctuating the silence. The commander instructed us to leave the village at once.
? ? ?
GAREIB ESCORTED us out of town. We were driven in the minivan back to the main road into madness. Insurgents rallied around a rocket launcher, firing off successive rockets. Others unloaded bullets from their Kalashnikovs into the air. They had lost interest in us.