Addional information on Abbas Khider

prison again, the smell of damp, the smell of weakened flesh of captive people. Was it the same
prison? Had we just gone on a day trip?
The guards removed our handcuffs. I was back in the large section of our prison. There were only
about twenty of us now. Where were all the other prisoners? The section had been full of people,
nearly three hundred. No-one knew a thing.
In the evening a guard came and looked at us surprised, his mouth gaping open.
“Do you realise that you’re blessed?”
“What?”
“You’re still alive.”
“What do you mean? Does that mean that the others...?”
“Yes, they were killed in the desert. That tyre saved you.”
I swear on all car tyres, the next miracle followed soon. In Iraqi slang, we call prison “behind the sun”.
It seemed clear to me that I would never reach life “in front of the sun” ever again. To walk out from
the dark side into the brightness of light bulbs seemed to belong to the realm of impossibility. But
the day came when the government called an amnesty of all political prisoners. Because my charge
was so minor and insignificant, along with all the other minor, insignificant prisoners, I was allowed
to see the light of the sun once again. The significant, major prisoners had been killed a long time
ago. I waited a month for my release. It was such a long month, longer than a decade. But at long last
I was again, “in front of the sun”. I got in a taxi and shortly afterwards was standing in front of the
door of my parents’ house. I knocked. My mother’s face appeared.
“Yes?”
“Hello!”
“Hello.”
“How are you?”
“Fine, and you?”
“Fine, thanks. Don’t you recognise me?”
“No, who are you? Are you looking for one of the boys?”
“Do you really not recognise me?”
“No!”
“It’s Rasul.”
She looked at me speechless, took a deep breath and fell unconscious to the floor. She didn’t
recognize me! I’d left with a dark brown tan and a good weight of 85 kilograms; I’d come back
Edition Nautilus
Schützenstr. 49a � D 22761 Hamburg
www.edition-nautilus.de
22