At a bakery down the block from Hillu's tailor shop, two Shiites, a man and his uncle, told their story of fighting against Saddam in the ill-fated Shiite uprising of 1991. In the southern city of Nasiriyah, where they lived, they fought for 37 days, said Ali Muhammad as workers holding large trays of cookies moved gracefully through the shop.

After it was over, 10 members of their family had been killed. Another eight, all members of the opposition Shiite Dawa Party, had been murdered by Saddam's henchmen. The family fled to Baghdad and began working in a bakery in Sadr City, then called Saddam City. Now families follow some of the same patterns, only this time in reverse.

The bakery smelled of sesame. Almost everyone was smiling.

"I feel like my mother delivered me for the first time," said Abdel Ali Jasim, Muhammad's 46-year-old uncle. "It's my birthday."

But this is a Shiite area, insulated from the outside by Shiite militias that are much more effective than government forces and are sometimes a part of them, too. Life here flows somewhat more easily than in Sunni areas.

Still, car bombs regularly shatter the calm. In response, Iraqis of both sects attempt to draw circles around the chaos in their own minds. As a result, they tend to generalize, coming up with conspiracy theories, to make the violence easier to explain and accept.

"If we got rid of the terrorists, there would be no country better than Iraq," Jasim said. "It's the non-Iraqis that are against the Shiites."

Abdul Aziz, who refuses to state her sect, saying only that she is a Muslim, lives closer to the center of the war. Her area, Mansour, is one of the most heavily contested by the Shiite and Sunni militias now.

In September, her son Omar was shot and wounded, she thinks because of his name, which is Sunni. Her other son was detained by the police. She was able to secure his release because she spoke English, and an American soldier agreed to help her find him. She has since moved one of them to Syria.

Saddam may be gone, but the fear that succeeded him is what defines her life today.

"Where can I live, if Baghdad is divided?" she said in English. "In the Shiite sector or Sunni sector? I have to run away. It's not a place to live in anymore."