I clapped and Wendy began to dance. She moved according to her notions of belly dancing. She kept shaking her arms and chest nervously as if trembling. She looked like a child mimicking adults, eliciting laughter and affection. She looked at me as she was dancing and sent me an air kiss that made her charm irresistible. I got up, embraced her, and showered her with kisses. We made love while Fairouz’s voice filled the whole place with ecstasy as if blessing us. When we were done, we lay down, naked in each other’s arms. I kissed her nose and whispered, “I’ll always be in your debt.”
“If you don’t go easy on the tenderness I’ll cry from compassion.”
“I’m really grateful. You’ve brought poetry back to me after a whole year of loss. This morning I started a new poem.”
“Wonderful. What’s your new poem about?”
“You.”
She hugged me hard and I whispered in her ear, “Wendy, you’ve saved me from feeling miserable. You made a beautiful dream for me.”
We remained embraced and I felt her breath warming my face. Then she backed off gently and said as she got up, “Even beautiful dreams come to an end. I must go.”
She planted a quick kiss on my forehead as if in apology, then went to the bathroom and came out fully dressed. I had got lost in contemplation so I jumped up, saying, “Wait. I’ll accompany you to the L station.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Why do you always refuse to let me walk with you?”
She looked ill at ease and hesitated for a while then said, “Do you remember Henry, my old boyfriend I told you about? He is a receptionist here at the dorm. I don’t like him to see us together.”
“Why do you care, if your relationship is over?”
“Please don’t get angry. If I still loved him, I couldn’t love you.”
“So why are you afraid that he would see us together?”
“I’ll tell you frankly. Henry is Jewish and the fact that you’re an Arab will give him an opportunity to cause us problems.”
“What’s he got to do with us?”
“I know him well. He won’t tolerate that at all.”
“I can’t believe that in America we have to keep love hidden.” She walked over to me, kissed me, and said, “All I want you to be sure of is that I love you.”
~~~~~~~~~
I didn’t insist on escorting her so as not to cause her any trouble. I knew her ex-boyfriend and had had dealings with him more than once in the receptionist’s office. He used to treat me in a normal, one could say affable, way. But since Wendy started visiting me in my apartment, I noticed that he looked at me in a hostile manner. I asked him once if there was any mail for me, but he didn’t answer. When I repeated the question he said rudely without lifting his head from the papers he was reading, “When mail comes we will send it to you. There is no need to ask me a hundred times every day.”
I left in silence. I did not wish to get into a fight nor was I ready for one. I asked myself: How did Henry find out about my relationship with Wendy? I remembered that in his office there was a monitor showing the whole building from inside. That was it then. Wendy was his ex-girlfriend and it was natural for him to keep her under surveillance to find out which apartment she was going to. I made a point of avoiding him and confined my dealings to the kind black woman receptionist who had the morning shift.
Matters, however, did not stop at Henry’s door. It seemed he spread news of my relationship with Wendy in Jewish circles at the university. Some second-year students began harassing me. I was attending the general course on histology with them. I was the oldest student, and in the past they had treated me with respect, but they suddenly turned. Whenever I passed by them they would whisper and laugh. I ignored them at the beginning, telling myself that perhaps they were laughing for reasons of their own and that I should resist negative thinking so that my relationship with Wendy might not give me a persecution complex. But their harassment grew worse: whenever they saw me, they followed me and repeated provocative words. The most insolent among them was a tall, skinny young man with red hair and slightly protruding upper teeth who wore a small black skullcap on his head. He played the clown for the benefit of his friends. Whenever he saw me he would shout loudly “
“I am Egyptian.”
“Why are you studying histology? You think it is useful in breeding camels?”
They all burst out laughing. That time I couldn’t control myself. I held him by his collar and shouted, “Speak politely or I’ll break your head.”
I was holding him with my left hand while my right hand was free. That was to my good fortune because he punched me in the stomach, but I jumped backward, which softened the blow. I pulled him toward me then aimed a punch at his face with my right hand. My fist was fast and the punch was strong; it made a muffled thudding sound and his nose began to bleed profusely. His defeat was now certain, so he started wailing, “You’re a barbarian. I’ll get you kicked out of the university for this.”
His friends split into two groups; some spoke with him and others looked askance at me. I don’t know how the university police appeared on the scene. They took us all to the security office. In front of the old, completely white-haired policeman, my adversary said that I had been following him and harassing him for some time and that he insisted on his right before the law because I had assaulted him. I kept silent until the officer questioned me. I told him what had happened and said calmly, “Yes, I actually hit him because he insulted my country and made fun of it.”
“What did he say about your country? Try to remember the exact words.”
He bent and wrote down everything I said. Then he looked pensive and said in a calm voice, “Listen, both of you, according to university regulations you have committed two violations: you (and he pointed at him) used racist language to denigrate your colleagues, and you assaulted one of your colleagues. If I finish the report against you, both of you would have a disciplinary hearing.”
A profound silence prevailed. I started imagining myself going back on the plane after being expelled from the university. I came to as the officer, who smiled and looked kind for the first time, was saying, “It’s possible, of course, if you both wanted, for the matter to end amicably, if you both exchanged apologies now. In that case it would be enough if you both pledge not to do it again.”
The other did not give me an opportunity to think. He came over to me and said in a loud voice, “I’m sorry.”
His apology was devoid of any remorse. He just uttered the words, as if playing a role in a play, as if he wanted me to understand that in reality he was not sorry for what he had done, but that he had to apologize for fear of the disciplinary board. I looked at him for a moment and said, “I’m sorry too.”
The harassment bothered me, but I didn’t let it take up too much of my time. I had gotten used to my new life and my morale improved. I took up my studies regularly and seriously and almost finished my new poem. My dates with Wendy washed away my sorrows. More important, I found a great friend. I will always be indebted to Dr. Karam Doss for the wonderful times we spent together. We met on weekends at Graham’s house, and during the week he would often call me to have a drink together in Rush Street. I discovered that he was a wonderful human being, extremely modest and sensitive, a true artist. We listened together to Umm Kulthum, about whom he was quite an expert: he knew the story of every song and when it was broadcast for the first time. He loved Egypt so much that he followed everything going on there with the utmost interest. We spent long hours discussing conditions in Egypt. He spoke enthusiastically, which made me share ideas with him as soon as they occurred to me. On Sunday evening we were, as usual, drinking at Dr. Graham’s house. I waited until we had a few drinks to get us going, then asked Karam, “Have you heard about the demonstrations in Cairo?”
“I saw them yesterday on al-Jazeera.”
“What do you think?”
