Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family
Tamara Chalabi

A lyrical, haunting, multi-generational memoir of one family’s tempestuous century in Iraq from 1900 to the present.The Chalabis are one of the oldest and most prominent families in Iraq. For centuries they have occupied positions of honour and responsibility, loyally serving first the Ottoman Empire and, later, the national government.In ‘Late for Tea at the Deer Palace’, Tamara Chalabi explores the dramatic story of her extraordinary family’s history in this beautiful, passionate and troubled land. From the grand opulence of her great-grandfather’s house and the birth of the modern state, through to the elegant Iraq of her grandmother Bibi, who lived the life of a queen in Baghdad, and finally to her own story, that of the ex-pat daughter of a family in exile, Chalabi takes us on an unforgettable and eye-opening journey.This is the story of a lost homeland, whose turbulent transformations over the twentieth century left gaping wounds at the hearts not only of the family it exiled, but also of the elegant, sophisticated world it once represented. When Tamara visited her once-beautiful ancestral land for the first time in 2003, she found a country she didn’t recognize – and a nation on the brink of a terrifying and uncertain new beginning.Lyrical and unique, this exquisite multi-generational memoir brings together east and west, the poetic and the political as it brings to life a land of beauty and grace that has been all but lost behind recent headlines.

TAMARA CHALABI

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace

The Lost Dreams of

my Iraqi Family

To my dearest ammooooo, Hassan Chalabi

Contents

Maps

Family tree

Chronology

Prologue

Book One: Fallen Pomegranates

December 2007

1 Duty Calls: A Busy Day for Abdul Hussein (1913)

2 Stacking Rifles: Hadi and the War (1914–1916)

3 All That is Good Will Happen: A Marriage Prospect (1916)

4 Sugared Almonds and Jasmine: Bibi and Hadi’s Wedding (1916)

5 A Giant Broken: The End of the Ottomans (1917–1918)

November 1999, Beirut

Book Two: Replanting Eden

September 2005

6 Café Chantant: The British in Baghdad (1918) 77

7 Rebellion: Fighting for Freedom (1919–1920) 86

8 A New King for a New Country: From Mesopotamia to Iraq (1920–1921)

9 Fesanjoon, a Royal Luncheon: Faisal Visits Kazimiya (1921)

10 Banished: Out of Kazimiya (1922–1924)

11 Accidents of Nature: The Baghdad Boil (1925–1926)

12 In Between: A Home Between Two Cities (1926–1929)

13 Stolen Hopes: A Young Life Lost (1928–1929)

14 Bursting Energy: Hadi’s Growing Empire (1931–1933)

15 Prison: Uninvited Guests at a Feast (1935–1936)

16 Carefree: Growing Up in the Golden Age (1936–1938)

17 A Dark Cloud: The End of a Generation (1938–1939)

18 A New Home: The Shadow of Death (1937–1939)

October 2006

Book Three: A Dangerous Garden

May 1993

19 Mountains and Floods: Domestic Changes (1939–1941)

20 Blood and Salons: Mounting Tensions (1941)

21 An Education Overseas: Mixed Fortunes (1941–1945)

22 Love in Strange Quarters: Of Marriage and Other Unions (1946–1947)

23 The Girl on the Bridge: Anger on the Streets (1947–1949)

24 Precious Things: Towards a New World (1950–1951)

25 Storm Clouds Gathering: Family Feuds and Revolution (1952–1956)

26 Defiance: A Crisis and a Key (1956)

27 Revolution: Slaughter of a Family (1958)

February 2005, Sadr City

Book Four: Fields of Wilderness

December 2007