Children are a rare sight in our hotel, and for good reason. This fortress-like compound surrounded by tall, gray blast walls and husky guards with assault rifles is no playground. Another journalist once told me the only child he expected to see here would be a little boy pedaling down a deserted hallway on a tricycle, a la “The Shining.”
For the past couple of weeks, however, children have been fixtures in our third-floor quarters. Some came with their parents – our friends and co-workers – to say goodbye before fleeing Iraq. Others are the sons and daughters of Iraqi colleagues who are temporarily living with us after having been displaced from their homes in violent neighborhoods.
Among our pint-sized guests this week was 4-year-old Danya, the daughter of our colleague Yasser Salihee, who was shot to death by a U.S. sniper in the summer of 2005. Danya’s mother has since remarried. Her husband is a kind and thoughtful Iraqi journalist who exhibits the same affection toward little Danya as he does to his own 6-month-old son, Mahmoud.
The couple dropped by this week to say farewell before heading to New York, where Danya’s stepfather has been admitted to Columbia University’s graduate program. We don’t expect them to return.
I’ve known Danya since she was a year old, and often have wondered how this adorable, curly-haired girl has fared in the aftermath of her father’s death. The last time I saw her was when I paid my condolences to the family and found Danya silently nibbling a cookie in a house cloaked in grief and fury.
Two years later, Danya is now an energetic and clever girl who adores her new little brother. The siblings share the same gray-blue eyes and smooth, fair skin. I fought back tears as I watched Danya smother Mahmoud with kisses and grab his chubby hands to wave “bye-bye.” She is such a mirror image of her late father that some of our Iraqi staff members locked themselves in their rooms to avoid even a glimpse of her.
Shams, the 4-year-old daughter of one of our longest-serving drivers, visited the office on the same day as Danya. She is as bright and happy as her name, which is the Arabic word for “sun.” Shams was not the girl’s original name. Her father initially had called her Christina, in honor of a favorite foreign journalist he’d worked with before joining our bureau.
As the violence worsened and basic services stopped, however, anything foreign became synonymous with the U.S.-led occupation. Moderates fled, leaving Iraq in the hands of religious extremists who don’t exactly approve of names derived from Jesus Christ. Seemingly overnight, Christina became Shams.
Shams ran up and down the hotel corridors, reveling in a brief reprieve from the prison-like home to which she is confined for weeks on end with her beautiful young mother as a companion. They live in Saidiyah, where gunfights, car bombings and sectarian displacements are everyday occurrences. Shams and her mom have spent their entire summer indoors (two hours of electricity a day; water twice a week) painting their toenails with matching glitter polish and dancing to Arabic pop music.
Shams also had visited to say goodbye; the family is setting off on a holiday in Syria and Lebanon. The girl with huge chestnut-brown eyes gazed longingly at the hotel pool through a window blurred by a layer of blast film. Her vacation is long overdue.
The pool, the sparkling, Olympic-sized centerpiece of the hotel, has a magnetic effect on all the children who visit us. Khaldoun, the 13-year-old son of one of our Iraqi correspondents, has been living with us for about a week – ever since an explosion in the family’s neighborhood killed two babies. He now shares a hotel room with his mother and older sister; their eldest brother was shot to death in crossfire.
Afternoon swims, under the supervision of the male Iraqi staff members who’ve adopted him as the office mascot, seem to be the highlight of Khaldoun’s days. Otherwise, he sits in the newsroom with headphones on, watching Harry Potter movies on a laptop. He patiently runs errands for his mother, or plays pranks on curmudgeonly staff members.
Khaldoun is brilliant and his English is so impeccable that we joke we’ll put him to work as a translator if he sticks around. Yesterday, when I was in a foul mood and frustrated with interviews that didn’t materialize, a faint knock came at the door. It was Khaldoun, offering a cup of strawberry ice cream.
And then there was Deema, darling Deema. She’s almost 2 years old and her mother is one of my closest friends, a former Iraqi correspondent whose family recently returned to Baghdad after a disastrous attempt to find refuge in Europe. It’s been a year since the family was displaced from their home, and they haven’t slept on a bed since.
Deema was born on my birthday in 2005 – the same day I left Iraq and moved to Egypt. I’ve seen her intermittently on reporting trips since, but it had been several months since I’d last gotten to play with her. The toddler I remembered has become a miniature version of her mom, all sweetness and laughter.
One night this week, when the hotel had grown dark and its motley crew of inhabitants had retired, the women of the bureau sneaked downstairs to take Deema for a midnight dip in the pool. She was a natural water-baby, and displayed a fearlessness that alarmed her mother. Deema didn’t have her swimsuit, so she splashed naked except for her diaper, which grew so soggy and puffy that she waddled around like a duck.
Stars twinkled in the velvet sky above us as Deema kicked her legs, delighting in the sprays of water she sent straight into our eyes. She was so thrilled that she clapped her little hands and sang every song she knew, from “Happy Birthday” to that “I love you, you love me” ditty by Barney, the purple dinosaur.
From time to time, a low-flying helicopter roared overhead, drowning out her giggles.
