Ma’mun’s face lit up and he took the sheet, muttering, “May God recompense you well, sir!”
As usual Danana ignored the thanks and said, “Anything else?”
The students remained silent so Danana turned off the recorder and the meeting was adjourned. Nothing remained, according to the usual routine, except distributing the newspapers among the students. But Danana’s cell phone rang suddenly, and as soon as he answered it, the expression on his face changed from ordinary welcome to intense interest. Then he ended the conversation and jumped to his feet, saying, as he gathered his things hastily, “I have to leave at once. A high-ranking official has arrived in Chicago and I’ve got to welcome him. Take the newspapers and don’t forget to close the apartment door and turn off the lights.”
Chapter 6
Dr. Muhammad Salah had not expected anyone to visit him at that hour. He had just finished having dinner with his wife, Chris, and together they had finished off a bottle of rose wine. Then she sat next to him on the sofa; he patted her head affectionately and passed his fingers through her soft blond hair. She let out a soft moan that he understood, so he moved away a little and began to read some of the papers he was holding. She whispered wistfully, “You have work tonight?”
“I have to read this paper because I have to explain it to the students tomorrow.”
She fell silent for a moment then sighed and got up, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered affectionately, “Good night.”
He listened to her footsteps as they receded on the wooden staircase. When he heard the bedroom door close he put the paper in his briefcase and poured himself a drink. He had no desire to drink but he wanted to while away the time until Chris was fast asleep. Then he came to suddenly when the doorbell rang. At first he didn’t believe it was actually ringing until he heard it ring again, clearly and emphatically this time. He got up reluctantly and looked at the wall clock: it was after eleven-thirty. He remembered that the intercom had not been working for a week and that he had asked Chris to get someone to repair it, but she had forgotten as usual. When he was only a few steps from the door, a disturbing idea occurred to him: had the intercom been deliberately sabotaged? He remembered many similar details that he had read in the crime pages of the newspaper about groups of criminals watching houses and cutting off burglar alarm systems before attacking them. Usually it happened this way: a perfectly innocent-looking girl would knock on the door at a very late hour asking for help. As soon as the owner opened the door the home invaders would attack him. He did his best to dismiss the disquieting thought, but he couldn’t. So he stopped in front of the little safe in the wall near the entrance and pushed the secret button. It opened and he took out the old Beretta handgun that he had bought when he first came to Chicago. He’d never used it but took care of it and kept it in good condition. He felt some trepidation when he listened to the click of the bullet chamber. He moved with agility toward the door, his right hand feeling the cold metal with his finger on the trigger. Now, with just one movement of his finger he could shoot the person behind the door if they had evil intentions. He approached with extreme caution and looked through the peephole and at once his hand, still clutching the gun, relaxed. He put the Beretta away and opened the door and shouted enthusiastically while grinning, “Hello, what a surprise!”
Ra’fat Thabit was standing in front of the door, slightly awkward with an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry to disturb you, Salah. I tried calling but your telephone was turned off and I had to see you tonight.”
“You’re always disturbing, Ra’fat. So, what’s new there?” he said, laughing as he pulled him by the hand. This was their way of joking with each other: sarcastic and somewhat cruel, as if the cruelty masked the affection they felt for each other, their thirty-year friendship as comrades-in-arms. They had been together through sorrows and joys and tempestuous times that had created a rare kind of understanding between them, so much so that one glance from Salah now at Ra’fat’s face was sufficient to make him realize that his friend had a serious problem. His smile vanished and he asked him anxiously, “What happened?”
“Make me a drink.”
“What would you like?”
“Scotch and soda with lots of ice.”
Ra’fat began to drink and speak. He spoke fast and passionately, as if getting rid of a heavy burden. And when he finished, he kept his head bowed for a while. Then Salah asked in a serious and understanding voice, “Did Sarah actually leave?”
“She will, this weekend.”
“What did her mother do?”
“I avoid talking with her as much as I can so we won’t have to fight. But of course she supports Sarah.”
Silence fell again and Ra’fat got up to fix himself another drink, his tired voice mixed with the clinking of the ice cubes. “Don’t you find it strange, Salah? That you father a little girl and you grow attached to her and you love her more than any other person on the face of the earth and you do your utmost to provide her with a happy life. And as soon as your little girl grows up, she turns against you and leaves with her boyfriend at the earliest opportunity.”
“This is natural.”
“I don’t find it natural at all.”
“Sarah is an American girl, Ra’fat. Girls in America leave their family home to live independently with their boyfriends. You know that better than me. In this country you cannot control your children’s personal lives.”
“Even you say that? You are talking exactly like my wife. You both really irritate me. What can I do to convince you both that I accept the idea that my daughter has a boyfriend? Please believe, just once and forever, this fact: I am American. I have raised my daughter with American values. I have got rid of, for good, Eastern backwardness. I no longer make a connection between a person and their genitals.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“But that’s what your words meant.”
“I am sorry if I’ve upset you.”
“You don’t understand me, Salah. That’s all. I don’t interfere in Sarah’s personal life, but I don’t trust this creep with her, not for a single moment.”
“If Jeff is a bad person, Sarah will discover that one day. She’s entitled to have her own experiences, by herself.”
“But she’s become a different and unfathomable person. It seems to me sometimes that she’s another girl, not the Sarah that I carried in my arms as a baby. I really don’t understand her. Why is she treating me so cruelly? Why does any word I say provoke her? She will be very calm and nice and suddenly for no reason she’ll have these outbursts of rage. Besides, her face is pale and she’s in poor health.”
“This is the nature of youth: changes in feelings, going from one mood to the opposite mood. Even her cruelty with you is natural. Do you remember how you treated your father when you were a young man? At that age our desire for independence from our parents makes us cruel toward them. Her rudeness toward you does not mean that she no longer loves you. She’s just rebelling against the authority that you represent.”
They talked for a whole hour in which they repeated what they said in different ways. Then Ra’fat got up and said, “I have to go.”
“Do you have classes tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Okay then, sleep well, friend, and in the morning you’ll discover it’s a simple problem.”
Ra’fat left and Salah closed the door behind him then went up the stairs leading to the bedroom, trying not to make any noise, so as not to wake up Chris. He took off his silk robe and hung it on the clothes rack and sneaked quietly into bed next to her. There was a faint light from a small side lamp that Chris left on at night because she was afraid of the dark. He stared at the ceiling and saw the shadows as if they were ghosts prancing about. Suddenly he felt pity for Ra’fat. He understood him well. Ra’fat couldn’t stand the idea that his daughter was in love with another man. He was in the grips of deathly jealousy toward Jeff. That was the truth. Dostoevsky has written in one of his novels that every father in the world harbored deep-seated hatred for his daughter’s husband no matter how much he pretended otherwise. Ra’fat’s problem, however, was much more complicated: he couldn’t bear the idea of his daughter having a relationship outside marriage, for despite his harangues in defense of
