Alaa Al Aswany - Chicago

“Do you have any problems at school?”

“No, thank God.”

“What’s the problem then?”

She spoke in a soft voice, as if talking to herself, “I am completely alone here, Dr. Tariq. I have no friends or acquaintances. I don’t know how to deal with the Americans. I don’t understand them. All my life I had a perfect score in my English language classes, but here they speak another kind of English. They speak so fast and they swallow some of the letters so I don’t understand what they say.”

Tariq interrupted her, “You’re feeling homesick, and being out of place here is quite natural. As for the language problem, we’ve all faced it at the beginning. I advise you to watch television a lot so you’ll get used to the American accent.”

“Even if my language improves, that won’t change anything. I feel I am an outcast in this country. Americans shy away from me because I am Arab and because I am veiled. At the airport they interrogated me as if I were a criminal. At school the students make fun of me when they see me. Did you see how that policeman treated me?”

“That’s not your problem alone. We all face unpleasant situations. The image of Muslims here suffered a lot after 9/11.”

“What have I done wrong?”

“Put yourself in their place. Ordinary Americans know almost nothing about Islam. In their minds Islam is associated with terrorism and killing.”

They both were silent for a moment, then she said, “Before coming to America, I complained about how difficult it was to live in Egypt. Now, my dream is to go back.”

“We all feel homesick like you. I myself, even though I’ve spent two years here, miss Egypt a lot and I go through hard times, but I say to myself that the degree I’ll get is worth all this hardship. I pray to God to give me patience. Do you perform your prayers regularly?”

“Yes, thank God,” she whispered and bowed her head. He found himself saying, “By the way, Chicago is a beautiful city. Have you been out and about?”

“I only know this campus.”

“I am going out to do my shopping for the week. Why don’t you come with me?”

Her eyes grew wider; it seemed she was surprised by the offer, and then she looked at her flannel gallabiya and stuck out her foot and jokingly asked him, “In my slippers?”

They both laughed for the first time. Then she asked him, as if she were reluctant, “Are we going to be late? I’ve a lot of studying to do.”

“Me too. I have a long assignment in statistics. We’ll be back soon.”

He sat waiting for her in the lobby until she changed her clothes. She returned a short while later wearing a loose-fitting blue dress that he thought was elegant. He noticed that she had got over her dejection and seemed almost cheerful. They spent the evening together: they took the L downtown and he showed her the Sears Tower and Water Tower Place and she seemed as happy as a child standing next to him in the glass elevator at the famous Marshall Field’s store. Then they went back to the mall and bought what they needed. Finally they took the university bus back to the dorm. They talked the whole time: she told him how she cherished the memory of her father and of her love for her mother and two sisters. She said that despite her missing them she called them only once a week because she had to be careful how she spent every dollar of the meager scholarship. She asked him about himself and he told her that his father was a police officer who was promoted to assistant director of Cairo Security before he died. He told her how his father raised him strictly and beat him hard when he misbehaved. Once, while in preparatory school, his father forced him to eat in the kitchen with the servants for a whole week because he had dared to announce at the table that he didn’t like spinach. Tariq laughed as he remembered then added fondly, “My father, God have mercy on his soul, was a school unto himself. He meant this punishment to give me a lesson in manliness. From that day I’ve learned to eat whatever is placed before me without objection. You know, my father’s strictness has done me a world of good. All my life I’ve excelled in school, and had it not been for nepotism, by now I would have been a great surgeon. Thank God anyway; I’ve done very well in school. Do you know how high my GPA is? It’s three point nine nine out of four.”

“Ma sha’Allah!”

“American students often seek me out to help them understand the lessons, which makes me feel proud because I am Egyptian and better than them.”

Then he leaned back in his seat and looked in the distance, as if remembering, and went on. “Last year in biology class I had an American classmate named Smith, known throughout the university because he’s a genius who has maintained excellence all his years as a student. Smith tried to challenge me academically but I taught him a lesson in manners.”

“Really?”

“I floored him. I placed first three times. Now, when he sees me anywhere, he salutes me in deference.”

He insisted on carrying her bags and accompanied her to her apartment on the seventh floor. He stood there, saying good-bye; her voice shook as she thanked him. “I don’t know what to say, Dr. Tariq. May God recompense you well for what you’ve done for me.”

“Can you call me Tariq, without titles?”

“On condition that you call me Shaymaa.”

Her whispering voice almost made him tremble. As he shook her hand he thought how soft it was. He returned to his apartment and found the lights on, the statistics book open, the cup of tea where he had left it, and his pajamas lying on the bed. Everything was as he had left it, but he himself was no longer what he used to be; new feelings were raging inside him. He got so worked up that he took off his clothes and kept pacing the apartment up and down in his underwear, and then he threw himself on the bed and began to stare at the ceiling. What had happened seemed strange to him. Why had he acted that way with her? Where did he get the courage? For the first time in his life he had gone out with a girl. He felt that the person sitting next to her on the L was somebody else, not himself. And even now, he believed that his meeting her was a delusion, that if he looked for her now, he wouldn’t find her. O God. Why was he attracted to her like that? She’s just a country girl of mediocre beauty like dozens of girls he used to see every day in Cairo. What made her stand out? Did she arouse him sexually? True, she has two full, delicious lips, good for fantastic uses. Besides, her loose-fitting dress sometimes clung to her body, against her will, pronouncing two well-formed breasts, but she could not be compared at all to the American coeds at Illinois or the Egyptian brides-to-be whose hands he had sought in marriage. It was also impossible to mention her in the same breath as the naked beauties who stoked his desire in the porn movies. Why then did she appeal to him? Was it her fragility and vulnerability? Was it her crying that won his sympathy? Or did she make him nostalgic for Egypt? Yes, indeed. Everything about her was Egyptian: the flannel gallabiya with the little flowers, her beautiful snow-white neck and delicate ears with the rustic gold earrings in the shape of bunches of grapes, the khadduga slippers that revealed her small, clean feet with their well-trimmed nails left without nail polish (so her ablution would be complete), and that subtle clean smell emanating from her body as he sat next to her. What attracted him to her was something that he felt but couldn’t describe, something purely Egyptian like ful, taamiya, bisara, the ringing laugh, belly dancing, Sheikh Muhammad Rifaat’s voice in Ramadan, and his mother’s supplications after dawn prayers. She represented all that he missed after two years away from home. He got lost in thought until the stroke of the living room clock sounded, whereupon he jumped out of bed and remembering his statistics assignment shouted, “What a disaster!” He sat at his desk, placed his head between his palms, concentrated to get out of his dreamy state, and gradually started working. He finished the first problem correctly then the second and the third. When he finished number five, he was entitled, according to his revered tradition, to eat a small piece of basbusa . But, to his surprise and for the first time, he had no appetite for basbusa. The point of the lesson had become quite clear to him, so he finished several other problems in about half an hour. It occurred to him to rest a little but he was afraid he might lose his enthusiasm, so he kept working until he heard the doorbell ring. He got up lazily, his mind still filled with numbers. He opened the door, and there she was in front of him. She was still in her street outfit and her face, in the soft blue light that lit the hallway, seemed more beautiful than ever before. Shyly she said as she extended her hand with a plate covered with aluminum foil, “You’re undoubtedly hungry and won’t have time to prepare dinner. I made you two sandwiches. Please, enjoy.”