Shrapnel: «fragment de bombe éclatée, hérissé d’arêtes et au bord très coupant»

Que peut-on connaître d’une ville à peine sortie de la guerre (Bagdad) dont on est condamné à rester en marge pour des raisons de sécurité?

Ses bruits. La plupart du temps inquiétants, comme des déflagrations.
Ses pannes d’électricité.
Ses chats faméliques.
Les gardes du corps chargés de votre sécurité.
Des «scènes de rue» derrière les vitres épaisses d’une voiture blindée.
D’autres gens vivant aussi sous protection rapprochée dans des quartiers résidentiels et qu’on cesse bientôt de voir par souci de sécurité.
Le récit d’attentats qui s’y multiplient contre des commissariats, des mosquées, des hôtels, des marchés.
Tous les repères depuis lesquels on peut faire une cible parfaite.

Qu’y apprend-on?

À apprécier la compagnie d’un lézard.
Qu’on peut renoncer de son propre chef à envoyer ses enfants à l’école de peur qu’ils ne se fassent kidnapper ou massacrer, ce qui, la violence s’intensifiant, revient bientôt au même.
Qu’une explosion peut faire vieillir prématurément une maison.
Que la guerre a une odeur excitante et que la «jubilation barbare d’être vivant» ne concerne pas seulement le combattant.
Que le plaisir de l’excursion ou même de la simple marche en ville peuvent devenir des plaisirs rares.
Que l’arme sert indistinctement à tuer ou à célébrer une victoire.
Qu’on peut en arriver à confondre le tonnerre avec le bruit d’une détonation.
Que celui qui peut faire abstraction de la réalité en s’abandonnant au plaisir de la lecture ou de la musique est chanceux.
Que Chiites et Sunnites peuvent s’entendre, comme par exemple pour l’appellation d’un pont «qui sépare les Croyants des Incroyants»
Qu’en remerciement d’un bon dîner, on peut offrir des sacs pour cadavre.
Que «les vieux codes d’honneur arabes n’ont plus cours», puisqu’on peut tuer par plaisir.
Que la question: comment peut-on en arriver à tuer son semblable? peut devenir une question lancinante et perdre tout intérêt face à cette autre: comment se comporte-t-on dans ses derniers moments, avant d’être criblé de balles ou décapité?
Que, quoi qu’il advienne, on aura toujours besoin de jardiniers.

VALÉRIE LOBSIGER, Site auxartsetc. La plate-forme culturelle pour Zurich et sa région


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Elisabeth Horem: Snapshots of Iraq

Accounts of life inside Iraq from a non-military, non-journalistic perspective are rare these days; all the more reason then to take note of Elisabeth Horem’s Shrapnels. En marge de Bagdad (Orbe: Campiche, 2005). [1] The Franco-Swiss writer (born 1955), who herself for many years worked for the Red Cross, lived with her diplomat husband in Baghdad between 2003 and 2006 and provides here an account of her experiences during the first year of her stay in a country at war both with itself and its occupiers/liberators.
Horem, who has lived in several European and Middle Eastern countries, continues the long tradition of Swiss travellers such as Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961), Ella Maillart (1903-1997), Nicolas Bouvier (1929-1998), and Laurence Deonna (born 1937), but her situation provides a striking contrast with the wide-open spaces and freedom evoked by such writers. Written in the third person in a series of short chapters, some of a few pages, some barely half a page in length, Horem’s account gives us a series of flashes or impressions of the country in which she is living but with which she necessarily has very little contact.
Une ville [...] qu’elle ne connaîtra pas vraiment, elle le sait dès le début, parce qu’elle ne pourra sortir que très peu, jamais seule et jamais librement, condamnée à rester pour toujours en marge de cette ville. p. 13.
Whereas travel literature habitually evokes notions of discovery, openness, movement, meetings and communication, the prevailing feeling here is of imprisonment, claustrophobia and lack of freedom. As she knew would be the case, the writer gets mere glimpses of Iraq from her protected compound or through the windows of her armoured car (‘des vitres qu’on ne baisse jamais et qui ont presque cinq centimètres d’épaisseur’, p. 20) and the only Iraqis she ever meets (apart from those who frequent ‘international’ social circles) are her bodyguards, gardeners and domestic workers.
Relations between travellers and inhabitants of a country are often a little unnatural, a combination of interest and self-interest, and here of course the contrast between the writer and her Iraqi acquaintances is stark: although her husband has not chosen to be there, she has chosen to join him and during her time in Iraq will benefit from high levels of protection not available to ordinary Iraqis. During the posting it will of course be possible to escape to neighbouring countries for a holiday (p. 107), something many Iraqis can only dream of, and at the end of their stay she and her husband will leave Iraq and its ongoing problems behind. The restrictions under which Horem lives also make this an untypical piece of travel writing since casual conversation with a person on a bus, information gleaned at the market, slightly risky but not life-threatening adventures are impossible. Here every trip out from her protected bubble is potentially dangerous and has to be carefully planned, even a shopping trip becomes a military operation, for, given the danger, she comments on one occasion that ‘ils n’entreront que dans cette boutique-là. Il faudra bien qu’ils y trouvent ce qu’ils cherchent’ (p. 152). Thinking about the journey to Persia undertaken by Ella Maillart and Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-42) in the late 1930s, Horem even begins to wonder if ‘real’ travelling is still actually possible in the twenty-first century:
[...] peut-on encore voyager dans cette époque enlaidie? Elle est en Irak mais elle n’en voit rien, n’en verra rien ou peu s’en faut. Une expérience, certes, mais le Voyage, dans tout cela? p. 70.
Horem gives us a good sense of how it feels to live in fear and under restrictions, showing great sensitivity about the difficult lives of the Iraqis she encounters or hears about (p. 90 for example, where she expresses concern about having made her driver late home). Her comments remain however restrained, there is no political standpoint and no sentimentalisation; she is a fine observer of what she sees around her and in spite of the limitations, the reader gets a good feel for the prevailing mood and the worsening situation. She is a particularly good observer of small details, aspects of daily life which one fails to notice but which become evident when they disappear; thus she remarks on no longer needing money since she doesn’t go anywhere to spend it (p. 29), being able to walk freely (p. 34), receiving a letter (p. 38), calling such things ‘ces choses dont on se déshabitue’ (p. 131). Her role as ‘observer’ is extended to photography, another activity very common amongst travellers, but which in the case of Horem has to be restricted to the boundaries of her home (p. 48). She also provides an interesting reflection on ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, aware that her vision of Iraq is so limited that it is impossible for her to really know what is going on and whether the stories she hears are true, exaggerated or invented. Thus she has heard about kidnaps but isn’t sure if all she hears is accurate; she rehearses what to do should a grenade land in the vicinity (p. 58) but it feels like play-acting and she knows that ultimately she is isolated from real experience by her protected and comfortable lifestyle. On another occasion she is reduced to commenting that ‘elle l’a vu à la télévision’ but cannot say any more since ‘elle reste parfois deux, trois semaines ou même plus sans franchir le portail de la maison’ (p. 148). As her account progresses, we certainly get the feeling of a gradual worsening of the situation; thus as the months pass she comments that ‘personne n’invite plus personne’ (p. 125), ‘le cercle de leurs relations se restreint toujours plus’ (p. 142), ‘elle sort de moins en moins’ (p. 148).
Whilst thus being a valuable ‘témoignage’ on recent events in Iraq, Shrapnels is a lot more than a simple ‘récit de voyage’, for it transcends both travel literature and politics and possesses genuine literary value. Horem’s sensitive picture of the sufferings of the Iraqi people does not require a political stance in order to be effective and her limited viewpoint in fact neatly underlines the impossibility of ever really getting ‘the full picture’ and knowing ‘the truth’. Importantly, she is not averse to questioning her own protected, comfortable life and, as many Swiss writers have done in times of wars in which Switzerland was not involved, admits that her ‘observer’ status makes her uncomfortable, confessing that her days are ‘scandaleusement tranquilles’, her experience leaving her ‘partagée entre le bonheur et la honte’ (p. 147). Life in Baghdad will test her in many ways, not least in terms of forcing her to revisit long-held views (such as on the death penalty) which she has never previously questioned. As a contribution on several levels – insight into Iraq, travel literature but also importantly literature – this account thus has a lot to commend it and deserves to be more widely read.

JOY SHARNLEY, French Studies Bulletin

1. Republished in the Campoche Collection (2006). Other novels by Horem include Le Ring (1994), Congo-Océan (1996), Le Fil espagnol (1998) and Le Chant du Bosco (2002). She has also written a collection of short stories entitled Mauvaises rencontres (2006). For more details on Horem see Histoire de la littérature en Suisse romande, edited by Roger Francillon, 4 vols (Lausanne: Payot, 1999), IV, pp. 185, 443-4. For journalistic accounts see for example the websites guardian.co.uk/iraq and Lemonde.fr. In France important work on Iraq has been done by the Franco-Iraqi anthropologist Hosham Dawod (CNRS); see his many articles in Le Monde  as well as works such as La société irakienne. Communautés, pouvoirs et violences (Paris: Karthala, 2003) and Tribus et pouvoirs en terre d’Islam (Paris: Armand Colin, 2004).


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« Dans cet avion, tu penses particulièrement à une femme que tu ne connais pas, auteur d’un merveilleux livre, Shrapnels, en marge de Bagdad, dont le début se passe justement dans l’avion qui l’amène, d’Amman à Bagdad, retrouver l’homme qu’elle aime. La découverte récente de ce bijou littéraire t’a marquée, car il t’a semblé que sa vision de la ville, le temps qu’elle a pu y vivre, cloîtrée, enfermée dans sa résidence, obsédée par la sécurité (comme toute épouse d’un diplomate occidental), aurait dû être à l’inverse de la tienne, alors qu’au contraire elles te paraissent proches. Cette proximité, servie par la précision de ses mots et la puissance de son évocation, t’a troublée au point qu’en lisant son récit, tu as retrouvé la torpeur et l’excitation, parfois aussi le désespoir d’être à Bagdad. Et tu t’es même surprise à envier cette femme qui, n’ayant évolué pendant trois ans que dans sa maison, dans son jardin, et de temps à autre, mais toujours derrière les vitres du véhicule de fonction blindé de son époux, à travers le reste de la ville, réussissait à capter somptueusement l’atmosphère de plus en plus pesante de la capitale, le huis clos étouffant, mais d’une beauté dérangeante, quasi maléfique, de cette ville-bunker où se nouent et se dénouent tant de drames. »

ANNE NIVAT, Extrait de «Bagdad zone rouge», pp. 50-51, Éditions Fayard, Paris, 2008.


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The Diplomat’s Wife

A surprise ambassadorial posting for French author Elizabeth Horem's husband could have been time spend shut away in the Swiss embassy in Iraq. But the collection of short stories—'Shrapnels'—which emerged from the experience show the face of Baghdad even the most intrepid of journalists fail to capture.
The French experience of the Second Gulf War has not been a particularly edifying one in terms of its public image. While the worst that was said of French efforts to prevent the conflict from come to pas—“cheese eating surrender monkeys” unworthy of having the noble fried potato named in their honour—was rejected by most right-thinking people, there was nonetheless a perception that France was keeping its cultured hands clean, enjoying an innocence and morality of absolutes that could not exist in aftermath of 11 September 2001.
Running parrallel, the image many have of the diplomatic wife, bejewelled and inert, is not a charitable one, nor is it easily reconcileable with what we imagine the harsh realities of a posting to Baghdad to be. When her husband, a Swiss diplomat, was assigned to the Iraqi capital one week before the start hostilities in 2003, French author Elisabeth Horem shattered both these stereotypes as thoroughly as American bombs ended the sluggish Mesopotamian peace of Saddam Hussein’s capital.
“We found out he was being posted to Baghdad while we were en route to Switzerland for a holiday. Our kids had both finished their Baccalaureate. He was told he had to leave in three days and we just turned around. Initially we were told there would be no problem with me accompanying him. But when the war properly broke out, they said no way. He fought to have me with him.”
Horem’s husband was issued a legal writ which forced him to guarantee that his wife wouldn’t cause any "mischief," which we was forced to sign. “I didn’t have to sign anything – I wasn’t really asked!
“Our house wasn’t in the 'zone verte', in the international zone. Thankfully. We did not want to be cut off from the Iraqis. And, of course, there is always added danger when you have to queue at a checkpoint to get into an international zone."
This put Horem in a very unusual situation: she didn't see what other diplomats saw – and they could not comprehend the situation in the way she did. In no small part, this contributed to her writing on Iraq: “We were the only foreign house in our neighbourhood. I did not have much contact with other diplomats. I was, for the most part, the only wife there, and for meetings they tolerated only useful people, not extras. Of course I sometimes saw the other diplomats, but with all the necessary added security my additional presence would require it wasn’t always possible. There was zero room for spontaneity, and yet on the other hand you always needed to be careful about divulging plans, always saying you were going a different route and leaving at a different time.
“Thanks to our guards nothing ever happened. I feel awkward when people commend me for our bravery. We weren’t brave compared to the Iraqis, like our employees, who go to work every day, who go shopping and walk through the city. That’s real bravery. We were protected.”
Horem’s narratives, contained in a collection entitled Shrapnels, are neither hard-hitting exposés of anguish and injustice, nor coffee table tales or stay-at-home studies conducted through bulletproof glass. Existing somewhere between the two, they dispassionately tell what has to the most well kept secret on the planet – the story of Iraq.
“Shrapnels contains true facts taken from my diary but changed, adapted to a fictional format. There is nothing invented in there, but names have been changed, details altered. It is a writing that re-humanises something that news and journalism often have the opposite effect upon by simply listing facts and figures. It is a testament to the atmosphere that was lived, to render that atmosphere sensible. It is written about one year, and its style follows a cycle of four seasons.
"While our close protection bodyguards were South African, those guarding our house were Iraqis, who all came from different parts of the city and brought us the rumours from their streets. It is alongside these renditions that I constructed my perception of the events outside my home."
She is keen to stress the difference between her writing and that which appears in the dailys across the globe: “People always expect me to talk and write in a journalistic way, to describe this situation and that person exactly, but that is not my style. I am a novelist, a fictionalist. However, writing a novel in Baghdad was impossible. I couldn’t be there and write of anything other than Baghdad. So Shrapnels is a collection of short stories, the only way I could write of Baghdad as I lived in it.
“It was such an intense situation. But my writing is not from a historian’s point of view; it’s not journalism. It is personal, subjective. I was totally isolated in my home. I couldn’t leave because of security, so I can’t speak about Badghad and the news stories. I was in the eye of the storm, a false heart in the city.”
Horem’s writing is full of contrasts, with imagery that conveys a naïve sense of fantasty combined with a wide-awake awareness of politics and tragedy. The cover picture of Shrapnels, echoes this distillation of truth through art: it bears her own photographs taken of the roof of her house. “The yellow light has not been adjusted,” she says; “you always saw the city through dust.
“I chose the name Shrapnels because shrapnel is everything that explodes, all the particles remaining afterwards – plural because it is a book of short stories, a collection of fragments. Some are as short as a few lines, the longest is a few pages. They are a collection of sensations, of noises. I was shut in, but you could always hear the noises of the war.”
Not everyone has met the book with critical aclaim. She explains: “some have accused the book of being cold and distant. It is written in the third person: her/him. It does not contain many descriptions of personal circumstance or individual character, nothing to refer to my husband’s diplomatic status. It allowed me to maintain a distance, to avoid adopting that pathetic tone often found in such narratives.”
It seems an unnecessary defence of her and her work for Horem to make, given that she never approaches an expression of her experiences in such "pathetic" terms. She is at all times wholly candid, even effusive; but nothing is sugar coated.
“One day we went driving and were shot at. It was the first time someone in our party was killed. A man got into a taxi, and, revealing his belt of explosives, said he wanted to go to the best place to kill the most people. The taxi driver asked him to get out, and the suicide bomber got out of the car, morose. He had been in other taxis, had chosen that one taxi above the others because that driver was deemed worthy of sharing his fate and dignity as a martyr.”
If her stories don’t manage to break the silence of Iraq, where soldiers’ diaries and journalists’ ramblings have dominated, Elisabeth Horem will have nonetheless rehabilitated the French engagement with Iraq, as well as that of the diplomat’s wife.

KATIA SAND, PARIS GOURTSOYANNIS, The Journal Issue


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