“In Iraq every friendship is a risk. You never know who might turn you in for something as small as a joke, or an offhand comment. Perhaps it will be your best friend who gets your tongue cut out. Perhaps it will be a colleague at work. Perhaps they don’t want to betray you but the mukhabarat will harm their children otherwise.”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and that’s a quote from Gina Wilkinson’s novel When The Apricots Bloom. Ally Wilson is married to the Australian Deputy Ambassador to Iraq. As the story begins she and her husband have just arrived in Iraq and choose to conceal that Ally is an American who has worked as a journalist. It’s 2002 and American journalists are not permitted in the country. Ally’s mother, who died when she was five, spent time in Iraq and Ally is anxious to learn more about her mother.
Huda, the Deputy’s secretary, is visited regularly by the mukhabarat (the secret police) who insist she befriend Ally in order to spy on embassy activities. They pay Huda for any information she gives them but also threaten to enlist her son in the military if she doesn’t cooperate.
Raina, a childhood friend of Huda, also has a child she needs to protect. Even as they play the loyalty game to Hussein, both women frantically devise a plan to get their children out of Iraq. Ally is key to their plan.
The author lived in Iraq during Hussein’s regime and was friends with someone she later realized was an informant. This is a compelling story. Would you inform on a friend who might be imprisoned (or worse) in order to save your family? You must read When The Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson.