For Iraqi Sisters, Staying Home Presents Dilemma

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Isra al-Rubaie is a member of NPR's Baghdad staff. She lives with her two sisters, none of them married. Until recently, they lived with no men in the house in one of Baghdad's most dangerous areas. They were one of the last Shiite families in a Sunni neighborhood. The three sisters struggled to keep the family home, facing a stark choice: leave forever, or risk becoming casualties of sectarian violence.

NPR's Jamie Tarabay tells their story. Out of respect for their safety, all names have been changed except for Isra's.

JAMIE TARABAY: It's a perfectly good house with imitation Spanish tiles on the roof and stepping stones doting a path through the tiny yard. In many ways it looks like a small row house in just about any city, but this is Baghdad. The most attractive thing about this house is that it sits in the middle of a relatively safe neighborhood.

(Soundbite of footsteps)

TARABAY: Isra and her sisters rented this house several months ago. They hoped they'd never have to live in it. It's a bit dark inside. It's filled with chintzy sofas and marble floors. It's grandiose, overbearing, and they all hate it. Menar(ph), a pediatrician, explains.

MENAR (Sister of Isra al-Rubaie): We used to live in a (unintelligible) house. Although it was old but more suitable for our living.

TARABAY: Their old but suitable house tugs at their emotions every day. Their attachment to the place is fierce because everywhere they look - in the garden, out the upstairs window, down the hallways and through the rooms - the sisters saw their parents. Both their mother and father have long since passed away, but Isra and her sisters held on to more than just the memories. They saved clothes, documents, even their mother's pots and pans from the kitchen.

Ms. ISRA AL-RUBAIE: All the years that we lived in that house with the bitter and sweet memories that we had in there.

TARABAY: Isra fears what the sisters have been able to save isn't enough.

Ms. AL-RUBAIE: And, of course, we are not selling the house. You leave it for any - maybe for good. We may never be able to come back, and so you lose the whole - it's not only the bricks and the walls or the ceilings, it's the whole. It's your world, in fact.

TARABAY: These three sisters are intelligent, well educated and successful. They're also very strong willed. Their family home is in what used to be a mixed neighborhood. Now it's controlled by Sunni militiamen. Until a few days ago, Isra and her sisters were one of only three Shiite households left. The sisters tried to go about their daily lives.

Each day Farah drove to the technical college where she teaches electrical engineering. Menar took the bus to a hospital in the district of Kadhamiya, while a family friend drove Isra to the NPR office every morning.

Farah was always the first one back since she still has a car, but she'll be selling it soon. They all used to drive. But now that's become too dangerous. The situation is slowly stripping the sisters of every emblem of their independence. Living alone, Menar says, has only made things worse.

MENAR: It is difficult because we have to depend on ourselves. Yeah, previously, when my father was living, he bring everything we need. So I knew we lost him, so we face the situation that to we have to do everything by ourselves. Yeah, I know, so what can we do?

TARABAY: In better days their Sunni neighbors would come to the sisters at night with medical emergencies and Menar would tend them. Farah says their standing in the neighborhood helped them last as long as they did.

FARAH (Sister of Isra al-Rubaie): My parents, they were very good. All my (unintelligible) at my mother. She used to help others, especially at night is when the situation is very difficult.

TARABAY: Over the last few years, the sense of community has died. Old favors forgotten as sectarian tensions flared. Other Shiite families fled the area, but Isra and her sisters continued to hold out. Menar says the three were hoping something would change and the neighborhood would become safe again.

MENAR: Well, I think we are good with others. But you know someone that you think that he is good, and you did for him something. But he can hurt you.

TARABAY: Menar is less self-conscious than her sisters. All three cover their hair when they're outside, but Menar pulls her headscarf off the moment she arrives home. Menar doesn't think though the sisters are as independent as they seem.

MENAR: We remember that we are in a community that's difficult for women to be alone. You need someone, especially the men. (Unintelligible) have a car. When I have something wrong with it, I, by myself, need to go to - but it's not suitable. I mean, I always go to repair my cars, and I know there are persons who repair the car.

FAH: But I've started to go to that places. If I ever had a choice for me, I want those(ph).

MENAR: Anyway, do you repair your cars. I know I need some persons. I depend on them.

TARABAY: The sisters banter and bicker as they move about the small kitchen preparing lunch. One stacks the plates saved from their mother's kitchen and takes them to the table.

(Soundbite of plates stacking)

TARABAY: Isra spoons one of the dishes on to the platter.

Ms. AL-RUBAIE: They drive me crazy all the time because they're very neat and clean. They want to keep everything tidy. So I joke about it all the time.

TARABAY: They moved things into the new house slowly and discreetly. Isra would ask her driver to pull into the garage of the family home, where they could load carpets, electrical items, clothes into the car without alerting the neighbors.

Ms. AL-RUBAIE: We have this (unintelligible), I would think. I mean, in a certain way (unintelligible). And by the way, if you go down this alley where we are now, you'll find our cousins who have all - who were forced to leave their houses. It's six families.

TARABAY: Still, Isra and her sisters defied advice and pleas from friends and family and stayed in their old but familiar house. They would talk every day about leaving for the rented house, but each time they decided to stay on.

That changed one day earlier this month. As the sisters were getting ready for their day, they heard gunshots and then a speeding car in front of their house. Isra went outside and found her Shiite neighbor dead in the street. It was then that the sisters decided to leave.

Ms. AL-RUBAIE: This is my mother's purse - very old one. My father's purse, too.

TARABAY: Even though she doesn't consider this rented house her real home, Isra has filled her bedroom with many of her possessions. The sisters spent a few nights in the new house when they first took it over earlier this year. Sitting on a single bed, Isra remembered what it was like on that first night.

Ms. AL-RUBAIE: It was really horrible, really, really horrible.

TARABAY: This week, the three sisters packed as many of their belongings as they could and moved into this small but fine row house in this relatively safe neighborhood. This time they know they have to stay.

Jamie Tarabay, NPR News, Baghdad.

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