Something You Didn't Know

Read Among The Ghosts: Heroes and Grand Plans: AT the end of a long week, I went searching for her tomb. I spoke first to the priest at the Armenian Orthodox Church, who pointed me to a cemetery down the road. I went there, and a toothless old blue-eyed lady pointed me to the next one. Then, in the quiet of a compound off clamorous Tehran Square, I found her.

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell — or Miss Bell, as the Iraqis still call her — is interred in the Anglican Church's cemetery in a raised tomb. It's dried up and crumbling in the Iraqi sun. The British delegations that used to pay homage stopped coming months ago because of the danger. A ring of jasmine trees and date palms planted last year by Ahmad Chalabi's daughter, Tamara, "in recognition of Gertrude Bell's historic contribution to Iraq" are mostly dead.

"The soil is too salty," said Mansour Ali, the grave keeper, jabbing a finger at the earth.