It was then that Baker burst out, saying angrily, “What you’re saying is nonsense. Do you understand? Here you are a student, no more and no less. If you don’t have time for your studies, quit.”
Baker turned and left. Danana ran after him trying to pacify him, but he dismissed him with a wave of his hand. From that day on Danana became a heavy psychological burden on Baker, who, despite his long experience, didn’t know how to deal with him. He would attend regularly for a few days and then would miss several classes and neglect his lessons, coming back every time with a new story about a problem that one of the students had had that forced him to travel to Washington, or about a student suddenly falling ill that he had to check into a hospital. At this point we have to understand that the problem was much more serious than Danana’s preoccupations or his neglect of his lessons: the academic record that Danana had attained in Egypt was extremely mediocre, for it was his relationship with the secret State Security police— which had started when he was an undergraduate — that had earned him his promotions, and not his work. Every year the security apparatus exercised tremendous pressure on professors at the medical school in Cairo University to give Danana high grades that he didn’t deserve. Then the pressure continued to appoint him as an instructor, and then he got a master’s degree and finally got this scholarship. But his true level of competence was exposed in Illinois and he was not able to keep up with his studies. Professor Baker was shocked at Danana’s ignorance of some basics of medicine, so much so that he told him once in disbelief, “I can’t understand how you graduated with Tariq Haseeb and Shaymaa Muhammadi. Their academic knowledge is far superior to yours.”
Two full years passed and Danana covered only very little in his research. He was supposed to present his results this week but he missed class three days in a row. On the morning of the fourth day, Baker was working in his lab when there was a knock on the door, then it opened and Danana appeared. Baker ignored him and went on with his work. When Danana began the recital of his usual excuses, Baker interrupted him without turning toward him. He said calmly as he looked with one eye inside a glass test tube as if examining the barrel of a gun, “If you do not submit the results of the research this week, I will ask to be relieved of supervising your dissertation.”
Danana was about to speak but Baker silenced him with a gesture of his hand. Then he said as he withdrew inside the lab, “I have nothing to say to you. It’s your last chance.”
“Welcome.”
“Would you allow me to treat you to a cup of coffee some where?”
I saw his face in the soft corridor light. He looked tired and pale.
It seemed he hadn’t slept since yesterday and hadn’t changed his clothes, which looked wrinkled and a little dirty. I said to him, “If this has something to do with last night, I’ve forgotten it.”
“No, it’s bigger than that.”
I was tired and wasn’t ready for more arguments and problems. I said, “Can I accept your invitation some other time? I am still hung over.”
“Please, I won’t keep you long.”
“Okay, come on inside. I have to get dressed.”
“Take your time. I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
After about a quarter of an hour, I was sitting next to him in his red Jaguar. I leaned back in the comfortable seat, feeling as if I were a leading man in a foreign film about car racing. I said, “Your car is wonderful. I imagine it’s very expensive.”
He smiled and replied calmly, “I make good money, thank God.”
The dashboard had so many meters it looked as if it were part of the cockpit of an airplane. The head of the gearshift was in the shape of a big metal fist. Karam grabbed it then moved. The engine roared loudly and the car dashed off at an enormous speed. I asked him, “Do you like car racing?”
“I am crazy about it. As a child I dreamed of becoming a race car driver and here I am, realizing some of my old dreams.”
Something deep down in the tone of his voice was different from what it had been yesterday. It was as if he had been performing a role onstage but now he was talking to a friend after the show. He asked me in a friendly voice, “Have you been to Rush Street?”
“No.”
“Rush Street is the young people’s favorite street in Chicago. It has the most popular bars, restaurants, and dance clubs. On weekends, young men and women come out to the street to dance and drink until dawn, a kind of communal celebration of the end of a week of work. Look.”
I looked to where he was pointing and saw several policemen on horseback. They looked strange against the giant skyscrapers in the background. Karam said, laughing, “In the late hours of the night, when drunkenness and revelry reach their peak, Chicago police resort to the mounted detail to disperse the drunks. When I was young, an American friend taught me how to provoke a horse. We would drink and go out on the street, and when the mounted force came to disperse us, I would sneak behind the horse and prod it in such a way that it would neigh and get agitated and gallop away.”
He parked the car and locked it. I walked next to him, dazzled by the neon lights glittering on and off endlessly, making the whole street look more like a large nightclub. Suddenly we heard a voice behind us, “Just a moment, sir.”
I stopped to look at the source of the sound, but Karam grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear, “Keep walking. Don’t look behind and don’t talk to anyone.”
His tone was stern, so I acquiesced. He moved faster, with me in tow. Before long there appeared beside us a tall, thin young black man, his hair cascading down his shoulders in intersecting braids. He was wearing bracelets on his arms and chains on his chest that jangled as he moved. He said, “Hey, man. You want some pot?”
“No, thank you,” Karam answered quickly, but the young man persisted,“I have some excellent stuff that’ll make you see the world as it is.”
“Thank you. We don’t like pot.”
Karam stopped and so did I. We remained standing on the sidewalk as we were. The young man walked in front of us, jangling until he disappeared down a side street. It was then that Karam started walking again, saying, “You have to be careful with those guys. They’re usually under the influence and one of them might fool you with this pot business until you take out the money from your pocket, which he would then snatch and maybe hurt you.”
I remained silent and he asked me, “Are you tense because of what happened?”
“Of course.”
He laughed loudly and said, “What happened is quite ordinary. People face it here every day. You’re in Chicago, my friend. Here we are.”
We entered an elegant two-story building with a lighted electric sign saying piano bar. The place had soft lights throughout and there were tall round tables scattered all over. At the end of the room there was a black man wearing a tuxedo and playing the piano. We sat at a nearby table and Karam said, “I hope you like this place. I prefer quiet bars. I can no longer stand noisy dance clubs. It’s a sign of old age.”
A beautiful blond waitress came over, and when I ordered a glass of wine, he asked me in surprise, “You still want to drink? I haven’t recovered from last night’s drinking.”
“Me too, but one or two glasses will make me okay. This is a well-known way of getting over a hangover — to drink a little the following day. Abu Nuwas said, ‘Treat me with that which made me sick.’”
Dr. Karam picked up a piece of paper from the table and took out of his pocket a gold pen and said, “Wasn’t Abu Nuwas the poet famous for his poetry on wine during the Abbasid period?”
“Exactly.”
“Can you repeat that verse? I’d like to write it down.”
He wrote it down quickly then said as he put the pen in his pocket, “I’ll have a drink like you to get rid of the headache.”
We were avoiding looking at each other, as if we had suddenly remembered the quarrel. He took a large sip of whiskey and sighed, saying, “I am sorry, Nagi.”
“It was I who wronged you.”
“We were both drunk and we fought and it’s over. But I’ve come tonight for something else.” He was carrying a small valise in his hand. He placed it between us on the round marble table, then put on his gold-framed glasses
