The Participation
I looked upwards on the long walk to school. Grey clouds crowded the sky, pushing into each other, not leaving space for the sky to appear. My heart beat fast when I remembered the monthly physics examination. I was sure I'd made a serious mistake, but couldn't estimate how serious or how many marks I might lose.

When I turned towards the school gate, Bassim, one of my class mates, was standing on the corner as usual, filling his hair with gel, putting a red flower on his stylish sweater, opening the first two buttons of his shirt. He was waiting for the female students who used to walk past to their school so that he could exercise his daily hobby of flirting.  

I went in and sat alone in the class. I was a bit early.
'Good morning, Mustafa,' said Sadik, the class philosopher.
'Today we get the results of the physics examination,' I said. 'How were your answers?'
'I can't remember,' he said. 'Actually I don't care about the out-of-date school curriculum. It's only ten percent of everything I read outside school.'
'Everything you read? Like what?' I said.
'Like this one. You can borrow it.' He showed me an old book.
'Who is the writer?' I asked.
'It's Jean-Paul Sartre, a famous Marxist philosopher,' he answered. 

The word Marxist made my heart fall down onto the ground. Although I didn't know exactly what it meant, I had heard it many times as synonymous with communism. The communist party members had all either been killed or jailed, or had escaped.

'I don't think I'm interested in such subjects,' I said, avoiding his eyes. 

'Al Salam Alaikum, brother,' said Bakher, my desk colleague. 'Did you manage to sit by yourself yesterday and hold yourself accountable, like I told you?' he added before his bottom had even touched the seat.
'Please don't start. Are you a student or a preacher?' I said.
Our conversation was interrupted by the teacher's arrival and the English class began.  

'Well done,' the English teacher said to me at the end of the lesson. 'The paragraph is good but you still need some practice in pronunciation. There are English/Arabic dictionaries which can help and they're relatively cheap, about six dinars.' 

I started to count: six Dinars divided by my daily pocket money, which was two hundred Fils. I'd have to save for thirty days to buy it.

I remained at my desk in the break-time between lessons. The good smell of frying rose from the canteen beneath our classroom. It was better to sit there than to collide outside with all the young members of the Arab Baath Socialist party who had been chasing me recently, trying to make me join up. They never seemed to get bored of the same question: 'Why are you still not participating?' They couldn't understand my apology either: 'I don't have time for such nonsense.' They had more than enough idiots for such things. But me, I have to save my time and money to achieve a better future, unlike Bassim, the lounger, and many like him who are only interested in hunting girls at the school nearby; or Bakher who was talented in showing us his devoutness with his black rosary and beard; or Sadik who believed himself a philosopher after reading a couple of books. I thought, for no particular reason, as my stomach rumbled, of my mum sleeping on one side of her bed while my little brothers slept on the other. 

When the physics teacher entered the class, the monthly examination evaluation was under his arm. My heart began beating fast again as I imagined getting my evaluation in the presence of the other students and having to face their gloating looks. 

There was no choice; I had to possess something like indifference or courage to overcome the situation and face the sarcastic comments I expected from them. 

Suddenly, Mr Jasim the head teacher entered the classroom like a storm. He swooped like an eagle, holding his stick which was known as "the little old lady".

'Excuse me,' he said. 'I need to take a few minutes of your lesson.'

The teacher nodded his deference.

'Because of my position as highest ranking member in our leader's party, the Arab Baath socialist party, I'm pleased to tell you that the membership percentage in our school is the highest in Baghdad,' said Mr Jasim. 'It is now 98%, but I'm looking forward to making it 100%. There are still some who haven't applied for participation.' Mr Jasim spoke with unusual calm. 

There was a moment of silence. 

'Who is not participating yet?' he asked, looking at the far end of the class.
Sadik, Bakher and I raised our hands.
'May I know why not?'
We kept silent. Nobody wanted to speak first. Mr Jasim pointed his stick at Sadik.
'I don't think participation is mandatory,' Sadik said.
'No, but you still need to answer the question,' said Mr Jasim.
'I want to join but I can't because I don't have time,' said Sadik.
Mr Jasim gestured to Bakher.
'Same here,' said Bakher, looking directly at Mr Jasim.
'I'm still thinking about it,' I said before Mr Jasim could point his stick at me. 'I'll give you my decision later.' 

'Nobody said participation is mandatory,' said Mr Jasim, 'but with the critical situation the country is now in, anyone who decides not to be in the party will be considered a hostile person and against the party principles and the country.' 

There was another moment of quiet. It felt endless. I looked down, but when I raised my head, my eyes met Mr Jasim's eyes. They sparkled with anger.
'Bring your bag and follow me.' I couldn't believe he was talking to me. 

'The way to the director's room felt like an endless journey.  

'Close the door,' he said, sitting at his old steel table.
I stayed beside the table holding my bag.
After another endless moment of silence, he said, 'You know, son, that you are the best student in this school?'
My heart began to slow.
'Are you sympathetic with the great revolution and the leader's party?' he asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'Excellent,' he said. He put an application form and pen on the table.
'But I want to be free,' I said, looking at the ground.
'Freedom is one of the party's aims.'
'I mean without participating in any parties, if it's not mandatory,' I said.
'It's not mandatory but worse than that, you bastard' he said. 'Let's talk frankly. Do you have any foreign relations?'
'What do you mean?' My legs began trembling.
'Are you in another hostile party?' he said.
'Not at all,' I said.
'These reports confirm that you have suspicious connections,' he said, showing me some hand-written papers. 'Luckily for you I'm the party leader here and I'm keeping these in my drawer. But I'm not going to keep them forever.'
I kept silent. 

My ear began to buzz when he slapped me.
'Sign!' he shouted.
I felt dizzy after the third slap.
'You are a bastard coward,' he said. 'You don't care for your widowed mum and your orphan brothers.' He put the pen in my hand.
'Sign now or I begin using the stick,' he said.
I couldn't see the application form when I signed, maybe because of the dizziness or the tears that gathered in my eyes.
He took the form and put it with the reports, then threw himself into his chair.
He looked very tired as he untied his necktie. Sweat drops were flowing down his cheeks.

'You can go back to your class now,' he said. 'By the way,' he added as I turned to the door, 'I just wanted to show you how the security department welcomes people who're arrested, especially political cases.' 

I stopped on the pathway back to class to wonder how to hide the slap marks on my face, which I could feel by touching. I thought the best way was to look at the ground and turn away from their stares.

The teacher was holding the evaluation sheets when I took my seat. He called each student's name and then his mark, then gave them the exam paper.
'Bassim - 30%.
'Sadik - 88%.
'Bakher - 75%.
'Mustafa - 100%.' 

I took the sheet and looked for the question I thought I'd got wrong. The answer was right but the method was different. Just luck, I thought.
'Are there any comments or objections about the evaluation?' the teacher asked.
I raised my hand.
'You really are damned,' shouted Bassim. 'What do you want? He can't give you more than a hundred.'
The class burst out laughing, including the teacher.
'I don't deserve full marks,' I said. 'I think I made a mistake.'
The teacher took the sheet and started to check it. The students' murmur grew louder.
'Shush,' said the teacher, knocking on the blackboard. 'There is no mistake. You just solved the question by a new method. I think it's worth explaining.'
He wrote both methods on the blackboard and explained the differences.
I noticed a change in the teacher's face when he handed the sheet back to me.
'Take care of the class,' said the teacher to Bassim. 'I have to see the head-teacher. I'll be back in few minutes. Don't make a noise like kids,' he said to the class.

Bassim, who was at the last desk at the bottom of the class, began to strut until he reached the blackboard. Then he knocked on the blackboard and started to imitate some of the teacher's habits making the students laugh.
'Turn your face away,' said Bakher, who was sitting beside me. 'Don't let this monkey see your face.' 

Then Bassim started to imitate me. 'I don't deserve full marks,' he said, which made the students turn towards me smiling, but when they noticed the marks on my face, they gathered around me directing lots of questions at the same time. 

'No need for any explanations,' said Bakher. 'Everything is obvious. This brave guy refused to participate and then got punished.' 

'I think this related to cowardliness more than anything else,' said Bassim, which made all the students turn towards him. 'Don't look at me like that. This guy is excellent, but only on paper. He's afraid of reality, of living in the present, regardless of the subject, whether it's participation or anything else.'
'Anything else like what? I asked him.

'For example, do you have the courage to stand at the corner and flirt with the girls the way I do?' Bassim asked.
The students burst out laughing.
'Shut up,' said Bakher. 'Don't listen to this monkey, Mustafa.'
'Don't listen to this religious goat beside you, Mustafa,' said Bassim.
'At least we know Bassim is using his brain for something,' said Sadik.
The school bell interrupted the conversation.

I stood alone in the long corridor which overlooked the schoolyard and watched the students. I tried to remember if there was a mirror anywhere in the school. I wanted to see how bad the marks on my face were. I didn't want my mum to see them.  

My eyes fell on a glassy notice board on the wall. I went to see if it would reflect my face even if wasn't very clear. I couldn't see anything. The clouds were still blocking the sun, but I kept looking at the glass as if I was reading something. Bassim was still inside the class, singing a foreign song, something like kuku jumbo or shaila kuku. He didn't know the English words, but I did. 

The delicious smell coming from the canteen below triggered in me sweet dreams of a better future rather than pangs of hunger.

Coward, coward, coward. The word started to buzz in my ear. 

Just at that instant, the sun shone through the clouds and fell on the glassy panel, and I started to see my face. The left side was swelling. 

'What are you looking at?' said Sadik.
The notice board was empty.

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