Floodlines – Saleem Haddad

Zainab settled into her seat. She felt a kinship with the anxious energy that suffused airports, the transience and limbo, the possibility of missed connections. The plane took off, thrusting her into the back of her seat. Out the window, Dubai was a glimmer of glass amidst the endless sand. She pulled out the document Nizar had sent the previous evening and glanced through the pages: the family history.

It began with a story about her grandmother, Fatima, on a wintry night in Turkey. She read the first paragraph three times, but her mind would not focus. Admitting defeat, she nestled her head against the leather seat and closed her eyes. August 1980. They ask about the Lebanese students. She and Andre have been dating for seven months. “What about them?” They see through her defensiveness.

“Do they talk about politics?” “I’ve told you, I don’t know politics.” Veiled threats are made. Her family will be informed about her romantic dalliances, it is suggested, but Zainab is unmoved. Ammo Kuteiba had retreated into the shadows of their lives ever since he laid hands on Ishtar. The next day she is let go from her job at the Embassy.

A decision from higher up, she is told. She will be poorer now, but she feels lighter, freed from the moral dilemma gnawing at her conscience. When she tells Andre she lost her job, he suggests a short break. “How about Cyprus? We can find a nice hotel by the sea.”

“My mother will not approve.” “We’ll come up with a lie!” They stay in a low-budget hotel in Limassol, a few minutes’ walk from the beach. They buy tacky beach towels and a frisbee from a nearby stand and eat ice- cream and peanuts. They drink ice-cold beer and smoke endless cigarettes on the sand. When they make love, it’s with the windows open, and without the moral quandary that burdened the sex they had in Baghdad.

Free of shame, of negotiating privacy, they follow their lovemaking with long, indulgent naps, with the curtains pulled back and the windows open, allowing the hot breeze of sea and exhaust fumes to envelop their naked bodies. In the evenings they eat fish. Andre knows how to select the freshest ones. His father taught him what to look for; the cloudiness of the eye, the redness of the tissue behind the gills.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Copyright © 2026 by Saleem Haddad First Publication 2026 by Europa Editions All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is available ISBN 979-8-88966-165-8 Haddad, Saleem Floodlines Cover design by Ginevra Rapisardi Cover image: Untitled, 1974 by Nazar Selim. Courtesy of Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), Beirut OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS PART I ARCHIVE FEVER PART II PRISONS OF HOPE PART III CARCASSES OF HOME PART IV WHERE THE RIVERS MEET SELECTED HISTORICAL TIMELINE AUTHOR’S NOTE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR OceanofPDF.com For Adam (habs) OceanofPDF.com People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

—JAMES BALDWIN OceanofPDF.com FLOODLINES OceanofPDF.com PART I ARCHIVE FEVER “Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. Later on they do claim remembrance when they show their scars.” —La Jettée OceanofPDF.com I NIZAR July 2014 need you to visit Ishtar.” His mother’s voice was clear. Nizar asked her to repeat herself anyway. “I need you to get the family story out of her.” Nizar looked down from the edge of his balcony.

Three floors below, the concrete felt welcoming in its hardness. “I want nothing to do with her.” “Nizar, I have no one else to turn to. I’d like to arrange this exhibition while your grandmother is still with us, and I don’t know how much time —” Nizar heard the flick of his mother’s lighter at the other end of the line. “Look, I’m just asking for this one thing. Get her to tell you the family history and write it down for me.”

“Why don’t you just pay her to do it?” Zainab sighed. “Because I know my sister. She’ll take the money, find some way to say that it’s morally reprehensible to force her to narrativise or to simplify, and then not do it.” “I haven’t spoken to her since that dinner,” he said, resenting how easily his mother forced him to unpack memories he had long ago sealed off. “I suspect she’s in a fragile state.” “She’s always in a fragile state.”

“This ISIS stuff has really . . .” Zainab interrupted herself and took a deep drag of her cigarette. “Anyway. Do you have any upcoming work trips, habibi?” He looked over to the flats across the canal. In one, an old man in a bathrobe typed steadily at his desk. “I don’t do that kind of work anymore.”

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 976161d4fa513e57
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,770,531 bytes (3.596 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9798889661658
• Pages: 290
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 478.44 minutes
• Total Words: 95,689
• Total Characters: 543,937
• Average Words per Page: 329.96
• Average Characters per Page: 1875.64

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