Living With The Fear

(4 of 4)

Nafret worked for the British consul before the first Gulf War closed the embassy. She would like to find a job again, but her family will not allow her to venture out into the city. So she has no respite from the tedium of her days. She can go to the neighborhood food market only when her husband, busy most days at his job at a radio-installation company, can escort her. But buying tea and soap isn't much of a treat. She has not been able to shop for clothes at the nice stores across town in Karrada for more than a year. If she travels just a few blocks to visit friends, she must make elaborate arrangements to be picked up by her husband in his car. Taxis, which are often driven by thugs or terrorists, are far too dangerous. Women who used to go out wearing gold jewelry and makeup no longer display even wedding rings outside the house. Though many women among Iraq's educated middle class now don head scarves as protection from the dirty looks of religious extremists in the streets, Nafret refuses. "That's not my style, and I won't do it," she says. She is bitter about the restrictions that "freedom" has brought her and repeats the cynical saying often heard from Baghdadis: The terrorists are free to shoot us in the streets, and we are free to stay locked up in our houses. "If you can't do anything," she says, "you can't say it's life."

The doctor says he tries to keep the family's spirits up and encourage positive thinking. But that's virtually impossible. "People are so fed up," he says, worn out by the struggle just to survive. His son-in-law stares impassively at him as he argues that the new government can do better in restoring security because its leaders are Iraqis and, unlike the Americans, understand Iraqi society. Nafret mutters her skepticism. Her husband breaks in with a fierce declaration: "They must!" For families like the Radhys, it's that simple.