When my father died, the construction of his dream house, in the Al-Mansour district, was only one-third complete. In the meantime, we were living in a rental house that we had to leave after he passed away, so we moved in with my grandparents.
Life for us — my mother, my sister, and me — changed dramatically from one day to the next, and it took almost two years before things were somewhat settled again. My mother found a job at a German company, hired a driver to take us to school and help her get around since she didn’t drive, and continued the construction of the house.
I don’t think she ever imagined that she would be able to take over this task on her own. But the decision was made for her the day a contractor rang the bell at my grandparents’ house and offered to finish building the house within one year. Well, instead of one, it took a total of three years until it was finally (more or less) done.
The day we moved, the house was still not finished. The construction work was completed, but it was still missing some window panes, paint, facade finishing, air-conditioning units, electrical fittings, parts of the kitchen, and a few other things. Still, my mother decided it would be easier to live in the house and manage the work directly rather than oversee it from my grandparents’ home, which was almost an hour’s drive away. Moreover, we no longer needed the driver since our schools were within walking distance of the new house.
The contractor, Abu Qasim, was not happy with her decision. He said he could not leave a woman and her two young daughters alone in an unfinished house that anyone could easily access. He insisted on providing us with a bodyguard until the construction was completely finished.
On the day we moved in, one room had been made ready for us. It had window panes, and the opening for the air-conditioning unit had been closed off from the outside with an empty aluminum water tank. The tank was, of course, very easy to move, but it would have made an extremely loud noise, so we thought that was secure enough. In the garage, an iron bed had been placed for our personal guard, who arrived in the afternoon and introduced himself. Unfortunately, I no longer remember his name, but I do remember how surprised we were: he looked about eighty years old and didn’t seem much of a defender. I was convinced that if anyone in the house needed guarding, it was him, not us.
Anyway, the old man stayed for the next two months, until all the doors and windows were finally secured. At night he slept in the open-air garage in front of the house. During the day he moved around, talking to the painters and installation workers, and enjoying the three meals my mother served.
For the first two weeks it wasn’t easy to cook because the kitchen wasn’t ready, so my mother had to prepare meals on the stove that was placed on the veranda in front of the kitchen. For lunch she made a big pot of murga (a meat, tomato, and vegetable stew) and an even bigger pot of rice. It was enough to feed the three construction workers, the guard, and us.
Since my mother was also not sure about the old man’s ability to defend us and also to protect us after he left, she placed an old, still-full two-liter bottle of Moët & Chandon behind the entrance door. In case any intruder dared to enter, we could use it to hit him on the head with it. Her second and truly powerful weapon was a whistle.
This whistle, other than the bottle that was never used, was often in action to ruin the eardrum of anyone who tried to harass us by calling and then saying nothing, or breathing heavily into the phone. Once the whistle mode was activated, the caller would immediately end the harassment.
I am proud of my mother and will always be amazed at how she managed to raise us, work, and finish the house in a country so different from her own, and in a language she worked so hard to master.
The house was not perfectly finished, but it was perfectly filled with love and coziness. Some of our friends even called it the Austrian oasis in Baghdad. Especially at Christmas time when the smell of cookies filled the air and the Christmas tree was fully decorated.
She managed to build a home for us in a country shaken by wars, where almost every household had at least one gun — if not a small military arsenal for self-defense — yet we felt completely safe in our home with nothing more than love, an old bottle of Champagne and a whistle.
*The image in the title is a photo of a painting of our house in Baghdad by Olaf Osten.
