Of elusive WMDs & femme fatales

There is an all-consuming, almost feral quality to Escape from Baghdad, one that lends itself almost perfectly to its setting. After all, this is a novel set in a post-invasion Baghdad where — almost like a tableau — a war is being played out between a loose nexus of militias, remnants of the Baathist regime and the United States’ forces. Saad Z. Hossain’s debut novel navigates these actors and acts spectacularly. Escape from Baghdad! is one of those wondrous books that will appeal to readers who may be stuck in a genre or style. Hossain takes the best of literary genres — sci-fi, magical realism, historical fiction — using everything from djinns trapped in jars to medical mysteries involving storied figures from the past. “War sometimes has a purifying effect. It shakes loose all the human garbage that exists on the fringes of society,” says one of the characters in the book. Escape from Baghdad! is theoretically about these human garbage-esque characters who exist on the fringe of society and the fringes of war. It combines all of the real-life surrealism of the 2003 war — a hunt for the elusive weapons of mass destruction lingers on in a country where overnight a tight-fisted regime made way for a loose nexus of militias with even looser affiliations — all willing to turn upon and to each other depending on their interests. As one of the characters muses: “In a vacuum, if the skin of power was donned quickly enough, if those first few rivals were put down fast, if those first adherents did not falter, then it all became real.” Escape from Baghdad! begins with the adventures of Kinza and Dagr, strongmen minted in the post-war era, described as “purveyors of medicine, gossip, diesel and specialty ammunition,” who, after taking a former government interrogator Captain Hamid captive, are taken in by a legend he tells of the Mosul hideout of Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein’s former foreign minister, that is full of gold. The trio end up encountering the “Lion of Akkad” — a mysterious, otherworldly, superhuman-like character — from among whose possessions they go on to steal an even more mysterious watch. In their quest to vanquish this “lion” they end up killing the son of a local militia leader who now wants to have his revenge. Kinza and Dagr, with Captain Hamid in tow, are now on the lam, trying to manoeuvre their way in a place where loyalties and strongholds are constantly shifting. Their escapades are guided by the brash Hunter S. Thompson-esque character of “Colonel” Hoffman, an apparent black-ops soldier just as notorious inside the fortified green zone as he can be inane outside, though he has mysterious levels of access within the myriad remnants of Iraqi bureaucracy and the new militias and gunrunners. Hopped up on a potent mix of uppers, downers and adrenaline and the luxury of immunity, Hoffman staggers around, almost summing up, in a nutshell, the brashness of the “invader” persona whose boss is still obsessed with finding WMDs and once ordered an airstrike on a model tank. Kinza and Dagr end up seeking refuge in the warren-like home of three aged, mysterious, almost witch-like women with a watch they can’t seem to figure out while trying not to be caught out by Hassan Salemi, the militia leader whose son they killed. Hossain’s turn of phrase guides the characters into this magical, drifting place: a Baghdad in flux. Hamid, for example, is the “Mother Teresa of black holes” and a night time scene starts off thus: The darkness in the streets was a smear of tar, a discombobulating colorant turning harmless daylight noises into the snickering of hyenas.

While Hoffman is trying to look out for his boys Kinza and Dagr, he ends up in an imbroglio courtesy an encounter with the acerbically honest and glamorously dangerous Sabeen. A classic femme fatale, Sabeen poisons Hoffman on their first meeting, which does little to detract his lust for her. Sabeen is then the guide of sorts of another trio that comprises her, Hoffman and former Iraqi spy Behruse, who set out on another journey that delves into the labs and diaries of a scientist on the cusp of revealing something that binds everything — the watch, the mysterious “lion” and even the foundations of a security apparatus. The intersection of these two threads is almost seamless; as if the narratives are taking place in neighbouring lanes. Hossain’s storytelling — the language, the jabs, the vivid descriptions — is worthy of applause. There are moments of sudden, guilty laughter and thrilling scenes leading up to a big revelation. Escape from Baghdad! is also blissfully devoid of the moralising, the “with us or against us” mantra which dominated the post-2001 global landscape and also crept into fiction. It has none of the sanctimonious nature of Robert Langdon, the protagonist of the historical thrillers by Dan Brown, who seems more caricature than character. Instead, Hossain lets the narrative and his characters illustrate the futility and inanity of war, as in a brilliant conversation Hoffman has with a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. There are only a couple of moments where Hossain makes an explicit point; in one scene, Sabeen snaps at Hoffman: What kind of person makes up ridiculous lies about a random country, invades it, destroys all its civil institutions, brands all its citizens as terrorists, causes a civil war, and then pretends everything is alright

Thankfully, Hossain never sets out to answer that question. His characters take on that task with such irreverence that it makes one wish fervently for a new novel by Hossain.

Saba Imtiaz is a freelance journalist and the author of Karachi, You’re Killing Me!