What did I bring with me from Iraq? I brought 25 years of exile in 4 different countries – Bulgaria, Lebanon, Czechoslovakia and finally London. In each place I began from zero. Every time I entered a new country I felt as if I was going into a dark room, where I couldn’t measure distances and where I didn’t know what might jump out at me from the darkness. Throughout all these long, seemingly never-ending years, my mother was attached to my soul as I moved from place to place. My mother, who drowned in sorrow when my brother died in the Iran-Iraq war (he was 20 years old) and when her daughter died at 37 in the Gulf War (1991). I hear her distant voice on the telephone. And she always asks, as many other mothers ask, “will I see you before I die?” This question of hers haunted me from country to country and was always present, whatever I was going through. And, indeed, my mother died and with her, the answer to her question. She left in my heart a burning pain, which I have borne for many years and will continue to bear for many more. Where are we going? The only things that remain for me of my mother and of my country are this picture, a handbag and these slippers, which I received after she died. In the handbag, I found a pocket-knife and an old pair of scissors. Perhaps one day I will be able to use them to cut through the rope of exile.