Jasmine Tree

Life in Iraq has become like the type of life I have once read in a Lebanese novel titled 'Jasmine Tree'. With my teenage naïveté, nine years back, Jasmine Tree sounded, in a way like one of those sappy romantic novels that usually have bitter ends. Only it wasn't, as it played out to be. Nine years ago, my heart ruptured at Selma's bereavement; she lost the Palestinian husband who was the love of her life and the father of her two children. I figured it was the theme the writer wanted to communicate at the time. Nine years ago, "Jasmine Tree" sounded like so dumb a title for a love story, where Jasmine is only mentioned sporadically. It never occurred to me that in nine years' time Jasmine Tree will recount the story of Iraq instead of Lebanon.
A friend of mine once described how sad her dad was when Saddam took over his old school to build the mansion in Harthiyya - now deemed one of the infamous torture dungeons. "He used to show me the tree he planted every time we passed by", she told me with bitterness similar to the one my late granny expressed every time she remembered her home and orchard in Karrada (or Krerida as she liked to call it) which the ex-regime decided that it was the perfect spot for his residence – now just another spot housing tanks in the Green Zone.
Things have taken an awful lot of turns in my life. I sometimes find it hard to remember the things, names, faces and places I've seen as a child. Normal Iraqi kids usually go to one primary school, one junior high, and one high school. Not in my case, I had to change school almost every year. I've lived in four different houses. That's why I had no walls or front yards to engender nostalgic feelings within me. That's why I don't have a friend who knew me since my kindergarten years. That's why I felt like I must find things to entangle myself with; things as communal as the statue of Abu Jaafar Al-Mansur, street walls, the ice cream shop, the air that I breathe. As luck would have it, the statue was blown up; the walls have been covered with black shrouds and posters of men with black turbans, the ice cream shop is now selling cosmetics; and the air is now polluted.
At his death bed, Selma's husband made her promise to take the children back to his house in Palestine, where the Jasmine Tree still engraved in his memory stands. He had always brooded and pinned his hopes on getting back to the only place he considered home. Sadly for them, their house has been confiscated, but thanks to Selma's US passport she managed to go to Palestine and see the Jasmine Tree, of which she took buds for her children to grow in their own yards.
Given the ongoing Iraqi Diaspora, Selma's husband must learn that he was lucky after all; his grandchildren's yards, though in America not Palestine as he planned for, wafted with Jasmine fragrance. In contrast, the Iraqis have nothing to show their grandchildren, for they have already promised them that this is not where they belong, their home is across the borders, where their memories must start from a scratch. Though I was bitter about my being different from other kids who have lived all their childhood years in one place, which will be a nice memory to save when they're old and gray, I have never wished for them to be like me. I wanted them all to have the Jasmine Tree I have never had. Now all that's left for me is the polluted air which cannot be captured in snapshots or saved in jars. And even that I know I should leave behind, for my life must start across the borders, where I'll have to go with the flow and pretend that I won't miss what's within these dotted lines I've always called home.



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