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50 pages 1 hour read

Ahmed Saadawi

Frankenstein in Baghdad

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013

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Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 12 Summary: “In Lane 7”

Abu Anmar is now down to two permanent guests, one of whom rarely spends the night, and no longer has real guests. He tells Hazem that he’s renovating, but he does not tell him that he had to sell the furniture through Hadi just to cover the bills. He looks across the street at Faraj, jealous and frustrated at Faraj’s success.

Later, Faraj invites Abu Anmar in for tea. He tells him that he’s aware of his financial straits and offers to go into business with him—he would take on the cost of renovating the hotel, and the two would be partners in the business. The two argue for an hour, but in the end, Abu Anmar rejects Faraj’s offer. Back at the hotel, Abu Anmar reminisces about taking over the hotel many years ago and wonders if he is coming full circle. After some thought and discussion with Hazem, he decides to make a counterproposal to sell Faraj the entire hotel instead.

The Whatsitsname has not visited, and knowing this calms Hadi and restores his usual jovial self. The last time he visited was shortly after his followers’ civil war; he told Hadi that he was looking for real believers and that he was now taking revenge on anyone who insulted him, not just avenging the deaths of his various body parts.

Some of Majid’s men come to visit Hadi, claiming to be from the traffic department. The men search his house, then question him about the crimes being committed by the Whatsitsname. Hadi grows frustrated and shouts at them for interrogating him over coffee shop talk; in response, the men beat him until he vomits. After a while, the leader of the interrogation decides that he’s not likely to be a threat. The men steal the money they find and whatever else looks interesting, strip Hadi naked and cut him to ensure that he bleeds, and then leave. All the while Hadi believes the Whatsitsname is going to swoop in and save him, but he doesn’t. 

Chapter 13 Summary: “The Jewish Ruin”

Umm Salim visits Elishva to warn her about Faraj, who slapped a charity worker and yelled at her earlier; she is concerned that Faraj is going to try to steal the house from her and tries to convince Elishva to come live with her and let her handle the house. Elishva wonders if Umm Salim is trying to steal the house instead.

The Whatsitsname helps Hadi back into a mattress in the courtyard, though he tells Hadi that he deserved the beating. Some time later, some men come to inspect his wounds. As it turns out, Abu Salim watched the interrogators come and go, and once they were gone, he called his children and some nearby men to help Hadi. However, Hadi is unwilling to answer a second round of questions and gets angry with them. He dreams about reinventing himself and starting over “if he could sleep peacefully that night and if he could wake up alive and well in the morning” (198).

After helping Hadi back into bed, the Whatsitsname returns to Elishva’s house and talks to her about his difficulties. The Whatsitsname is no longer sure of his mission; he considers just allowing himself to decompose and disappear but simultaneously feels that his unique talents and abilities mean that he should continue to fight for the innocent. He tells her about some of the horrible things he’s had to do in the name of continuance and survival, but she doesn’t appear to understand, and he eventually departs.

The next day, Aziz visits Hadi and brings him breakfast. He encourages Hadi to inspect his house, which Hadi has not yet done, and Hadi discovers for the first time that his money is missing. He pulls the now-broken plaster icon of the Virgin Mary free and discovers a candelabra and Hebrew writing behind it. Deacon Nader Shamouni arrives in the neighborhood to reach Elishva, who has not been to church. He informs her that her daughter Matilda is coming to Iraq to take her back to Australia, but she doesn’t believe him. He himself is planning to move soon and asks if he can pick her up to take her to church on Sunday; however, busy with other preparations, he does not attend mass himself and forgets to pick her up.

Chapter 14 Summary: “Tracking and Pursuit”

In his office, Majid watches Farid discuss the Whatshisname—aka Criminal X, aka the One Who Has No Name—and thinks that catching him will be his ticket to celebrity. Majid has a terrifying thought, though, as he remembers that bullets don’t kill the criminal, and therefore there is nothing stopping him from attacking them in their offices.

Meanwhile, the senior and junior astrologers discuss the same conundrum. The junior astrologer is frustrated by discussions of fate, as he wonders what the point of their efforts is if they can’t stop him. The senior astrologer argues that divining fate is God’s way of suggesting it can be changed. The junior astrologer pretends to go to bed and then waits for the senior astrologer to leave for a smoke. He takes a special bag of red sand to help him make spiritual contact with the Whatsitsname, sending him a message through cell phone vibrations.

Chapter 15 Summary: “A Lost Soul”

Mahmoud dreams of Nawal. When he wakes up, he orders a sex worker, Zeina, whom he asks to claim to be Nawal. At first she laughs off the request, but Mahmoud grows more and more insistent, eventually becoming angry and rough with her. She smokes on the balcony for a while and then returns and yells at him for not calling her by her name.

That morning, Mahmoud went to find Hadi at Aziz’s coffee shop. There, Aziz tells Mahmoud to leave Hadi alone and that the Whatsitsname is actually Hadi’s old friend Nahem. Mahmoud is confused, but Aziz explains that after Nahem’s death, Hadi was changed, and when he began telling stories about the Whatsitsname, it was clear he had taken Nahem’s story and changed the details. Aziz can’t answer all of Mahmoud’s questions, but still, Mahmoud believes the essence of his version.

Meanwhile, at the magazine, some men turn up asking questions about Saidi, who is out of the country. Mahmoud calls Saidi, shaken, but Saidi tells him to have his secretary handle them since she knows how. When Mahmoud calls her the next day, he discovers that she has resigned.

A couple of days later, Nawal turns up at the magazine. She takes some files from a locked desk drawer and warns Mahmoud to be careful but says that she can’t talk there. Mahmoud walks her to the exit, initially intending to just let her leave, but then he changes his mind and gets in the car with her. Nawal tells Mahmoud that Saidi is evil, and that though they had been working together, she put a stop to the project once it reached a dead end. She feels that Mahmoud might be able to help her finish the film. Mahmoud agrees but also tries to come onto her; Nawal pushes off his advances and insists that their relationship should only be a working one. Nevertheless, Mahmoud convinces himself that Nawal really does want to sleep with him.

When Mahmoud and Nawal part ways, Mahmoud, drunk, realizes curfew will start soon, but he’s not sure how to get back to Bataween so late. He calls Saidi’s driver, Sultan. When Sultan arrives, he warns Mahmoud about Nawal, as he saw him with her earlier; Sultan claims that Saidi is out of the country to escape a false case she is bringing against him. He tells Mahmoud that he is relaying this information because he’s leaving the next day to take Saidi’s mother and sisters to Amman, where Saidi is waiting. After Sultan drops him off, Mahmoud tries to call Saidi’s number in Beirut, but he gets a message saying the number is out of service. 

Chapters 12-15 Analysis

Mahmoud’s evolution into Saidi continues even as it becomes less and less clear that Saidi is a person who should be emulated. The transformation is often troublesome, driven by vanity and Mahmoud’s desire for Nawal more than anything else. For example, Mahmoud becomes rough with Zeina when she doesn’t immediately play along with pretending to be Nawal, and despite her anger, we never get the sense that he cares that he hurt her. This encounter foreshadows his later encounter with Nawal herself, when he convinces himself that Nawal wants to sleep with him despite her repeated insistence that she does not. Mahmoud is beginning to see what he wants to see, both in himself and in others.

Elsewhere, many characters come to realizations that help them to reach turning points, although not necessarily good ones. Abu Anmar finally recognizes that he is no longer able to sustain the Orouba and is selling the furniture so that he can pay his bills and keep the lights on—earlier, he lied to himself and his guests that he was renovating, but here he accepts that this isn’t the case. The result is bittersweet, as he has to jump through hoops with Faraj and ultimately succumb to him, but at the same time, he is able to sell on his own terms. (Moreover, his choice to sell at that moment becomes prophetic in the next section: He leaves Baghdad just before Bataween is leveled, and Faraj is left with a worthless property.)

The Creature’s decision not to rescue Hadi demonstrates his continued confusion over his relationship with his creator. As he notes, he could have easily killed the men interrogating Hadi; however, doing so would have guaranteed his arrest later on. He still dislikes Hadi—he tells him as he lays him back on the mattress that he deserved the beating—but he also feels protective of him, at least to some extent. These conflicted feelings echo the tortured relationship between the Creature and Victor in Frankenstein, as the Creature both loves and hates his creator. However, the incident also shows that Hadi’s relationship with his surroundings is complicated, as Abu Salim immediately calls together a network of people to help heal Hadi and get him back on his feet.

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