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By spring Cecile was once again back in my life. She seemed gentler and more giving now, cooking lasagnas and casseroles for me and inviting me to museum exhibitions.
“You’re funny,” Cecile said once, halfway through recounting the events of a party she’d attended the night before. It was April and by then my questions had darkened considerably, but spring made Cecile optimistic. She was draped across the stained brown couch in her living room. The white skin of her legs, which hung over the arm of the couch, glowed in the sunlight streaming in from the window.
“Why?” I asked.
“You always have this pained expression on your face.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she said, “and you walk in a funny way, like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Like this.” She jumped up from the couch and walked heavily across the room, shoulders slumped, arms hanging loosely by her sides. She looked like an ape. “Lighten up.”
Lighten up. As if it was just by a click of one’s fingers that you could remove this weight.
When I returned after my second year, Teta gave me a long hug, covered my face in kisses, then ordered me to take off my clothes and jump in the shower.
“You smell like them,” she said.
“Like who?”
“Like them” — she gestured in the vague direction of the bulky laptop I had purchased at a discount from the university’s computer store — “al-ajaneb.”
“Really? What do foreigners smell like?”
“I don’t know,” she paused. “Like butter.”
She threw the contents of my suitcase into the washing machine, bought me a special shampoo that smelled of rose water and olive oil, and ordered me not to spend too long in the shower as we were running out of water. And as the last drops of water from the tank fell on my head, I rinsed the shampoo from my hair and for a brief moment felt at home.
It was during my third year in America that the attacks began. The Americans had invaded one country and were itching to stick their dicks in another. The piece of paper with my grandfather’s phone number taunted me from my bookshelf. Every morning I’d promise myself that I would toss it out, forget it even existed, and every evening I would decide to hold on to it for one more day.
Having discovered my Arabness in America, and then quickly finding it first under scrutiny and then under attack, I felt I needed somewhere to channel some of my feelings. I enrolled in an elective course called Politics of the Third World, taught by a collective of lecturers. Each lecturer had his or her own unique expertise in an esoteric corner of the globe. They were young, with deep tans, rolled-up sleeves, and battle scars from recent adventures in faraway countries with unfamiliar names.
It was in this class one morning that — from across the mass of half-asleep students slumped in their chairs — my gaze rested on the most beautiful person I had ever seen. He had a week-old beard and his hair, the color of burned eggplant, flopped across his face and into his eyes. A silver stud in his bottom lip sparkled in the harsh lights of the lecture hall. His concentration was focused on the lecturer, who was making a structural link between diarrhea in Africa and the legacy of colonialism.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Besides his physical beauty, there was a softness in how he held himself. I could see it in the way he coolly brushed his hair behind his ears as he concentrated, the way his eyes flicked down every so often to examine his nails, and the way he bit his bottom lip, making the silver stud dance from side to side. I wanted to be near someone who existed in this world with such ease. At the very least, I felt I could learn from him.
It was months before we spoke. During this time I inched, seat by seat, closer to him in class. I stole glimpses of him around campus. I waited. Waited for what? I don’t know. I was stuck in a terrible limbo of wanting to speak to him but petrified of doing so. I had no experience of actively pursuing somebody.
I began to follow him. It became my mission to find out as much about him as it was possible to know. His favorite coffee shop was Café DuPont, which specialized in organic coffee and vegan cakes. DuPont was decorated with reclaimed wooden benches, Zapatista artwork, and antiwar leaflets. Bearded men in corduroys and women in dreadlocks who smelled like wet earth spent their evenings at DuPont reciting spoken word poetry and listening to folk music. Even though the coffee was twice the price of anywhere else, I visited DuPont whenever possible to catch glimpses of him. I learned his habits and the schedule of his classes and modeled my own routine around it.
Finally we met. It was the evening of the Politics of the Third World final exam before the winter break. The atmosphere on campus was giddy with the excitement of a long holiday after weeks of stress. By then my feelings had reached a fever pitch. I knew that after tonight I wouldn’t be able to satisfy my cravings for him until classes reconvened in the New Year.
I searched the crowded exam hall but could not see him anywhere. Afterward, I walked through the bitter blizzard that had enveloped the city like a snow globe. The exam had been easy, yet I walked to the bus stop with a profound sense of failure. I stopped to tie my shoelaces, my hands red and numb from the cold.
When I stood up, he was there. Just like that, we were face-to-face. For a moment in that blizzard he appeared to be a mirage. His winter coat was unzipped, and underneath he wore a blue sweater and khakis. Up close, I noticed imperfections in his face: the mole on his neck, the slight crookedness of his two front teeth, minor blemishes on his skin.
He spoke first.
“I don’t think we’ve met.” His voice was softer than I had imagined.
“I’m Rasa,” I croaked. The sound of my voice was unfamiliar, like I was hearing it for the first time.
He smiled. “I know. I’m Sufyan.”
“That’s an Arab name,” I said, stiffening. Revealing my secret to an American was one thing, but if an Arab found out then by tomorrow every Arab would know about me. Then Teta would find out about me. The thought was too terrifying to consider for very long.
“I’m originally Arab,” he said, pronouncing his r’s as w’s, like Elmer Fudd. “But I was born and raised in the States.”
He asked me where I lived and what I was studying. He explained he was majoring in philosophy and Arabic, and that he wanted to travel to the Middle East after graduating. As he told me this he stretched and a small bit of light brown skin on his abdomen, patchy with fine black hair, peeked from under his jacket. He smiled and watched me closely as I told him about home. I studied the way he flicked his wrists as he spoke. Slightly feminine. There was hope after all. And he knew my name.
I practically skipped all the way home. The blizzard took on a dazzling beauty. The snowflakes were like falling embers from fireworks that had shot up in the sky the moment Sufyan approached me.
For the next month I thought about him. Locked up in my apartment, the memory of the few moments we shared kept me warm from the blistering cold outside. I closed my eyes to recount the memory as vividly as possible, reimagining everything down to the minute sensory details: the snowflakes on my face, the beer-soaked cheers of students cutting through the frost in the air, Sufyan’s brown eyes and shy smile. I remembered exactly where I had been standing and how Sufyan had leaned in when I spoke, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear, how his jacket rode up his hip and, for a few exhilarating moments, a strip of caramel abdomen exposed itself to my sight. I was a master of time, drawing out those minutes when Sufyan had been mine, when his attention was on me and nobody else, to hours and even days. I dissected each image and scent and sound and emotion so that I might expand the time we’d spent together.
I imagined him in bed with me. I cuddled the pillow and convinced myself it was him. I pictured him waking up and turning toward me, bleary-eyed and smiling. I thought of kissing him, navigating that silver stud under his bottom lip. I lay in bed with a smile on my face and, as I looked up at my George Michael poster, felt I finally understood why
other people seemed so carefree.
It was easy after that. I knew his habits and routines, so I made sure I was always where he was. I learned to prepare my talking points well in advance of our encounters. I read up on current events and looked up the CDs of obscure bands I glimpsed in his bag. The library database provided me with a list of all the books he had ever taken out, which ranged from early philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Ibn-Khaldun, to more modern political theorists like Antonio Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg. I followed his book selection like a reading list, flipping through them, reading them not as Rasa but as Sufyan. It was my way of bringing us closer together, because if I could think his thoughts and truly understand him, and if that felt right, surely this was meant to be.
The Sufyan project was a great distraction from the declarations of war that had poisoned the air in America. The American regime gleefully bombed countries that were similar to mine, countries that shared the same religion and language. One by one the countries fell and then they were no longer countries. I discovered that when America chooses to go to war, the invaded country becomes a situation. History and people and songs and art are swept away, and the country becomes a political event that takes on new dimensions that tell a story. An American story.
I was waiting for my coffee at DuPont on a wintry Tuesday morning when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Sufyan was smiling at me when I turned around.
“Well hello,” I said, thinking that it was not even nine in the morning and already this day, with its low sky and gray clouds, was bound to be a good one.
Sufyan opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the barista, a tall white man with yellow dreadlocks.
“Americano for Ross,” the barista yelled, holding up the white paper cup. I grabbed my drink and turned back to Sufyan.
“Did he just call you Ross?” Sufyan asked, his eyebrows closing in.
“It’s easier this way,” I said, pouring in a sachet of brown sugar. “Otherwise they’ll ask me where my name is from, want to talk about how awful it is about ‘what’s happening over there, bro,’ and then they’ll write ‘Ross’ on the cup anyway.”
Sufyan’s eyes softened and he let out a chuckle. “Next time I’ll tell them my name is Osama. They won’t get that wrong.”
I laughed and waited as he ordered his drink.
“Are you going to the antiwar protest this Saturday?” Sufyan asked.
“I wasn’t planning to go. Is it really going to make a difference?”
“All things in life, no matter how small, have some level of significance,” he said. He curled his lower lip into his mouth and played with his silver stud, rolling it from side to side with his teeth.
“Maybe I’ll go then,” I said, and he squeezed my shoulder.
Days later I thought of what he said. Even the smallest things are significant. I was certain this was a sign, that there was something important in our knowing smiles and coy conversations. He had a reason for inviting me to the protest. He wanted me closer. I could feel it. He wanted something from me and I wanted him to know that I wanted something from him, too. Oh but to say it out loud, we couldn’t. There was too much at stake. All we could do was inch closer until that moment when neither of us could deny it, when we were standing together at the edge of the cliff. We were inching closer now, and I promised myself that the next time I saw him I would push us so far out on the edge we would not be able to return.
The next day, as Cecile and I browsed for clothes at a charity shop, I asked her if she’d like to come to the antiwar rally.
“I don’t believe in protest,” she said, picking up a straw hat that was frayed at the edges. She placed the hat at an angle on her head and examined her reflection in the mirror. “Most of those people out protesting are usually just projecting their personal demons into political outrage. It’s not healthy.”
“I feel like it’s important we go,” I insisted. “People are dying out there in the world.”
“Then go, darling,” she tossed the hat back on the pile of clothes. “Go.”
I went. It was raining. I followed the crowds holding antiwar signs with photos of the American president with devil horns, until I arrived at the location Sufyan told me would be the epicenter of the protests. Tens of thousands of people were surrounded on all sides by riot police. I watched the crowds talk and chant excitedly. As my eyes drifted across their faces — some angry, some jubilant, and others simply cold — I understood that running into Sufyan by chance was not going to happen.
The wind was bitter and slapped against our faces as the crowd marched through the city. An antiwar coalition handed me a sign to hold, which said NO BLOOD FOR OIL in angry red letters. I held it awkwardly under my armpit as I marched, rubbing my hands together to keep them from going numb. I kept to myself, holding the sign but not chanting, my eyes darting in search of Sufyan.
I had been there for fifteen minutes when I noticed a young woman wearing a long black raincoat watching me from underneath a red-and-white polka-dot umbrella. She had round black glasses and dark curly hair. For a while I ignored her attempts at eye contact, but finally her eyes caught mine and she walked up to me.
“Are you Arab?” she asked. She carried her bag with incredible seriousness, and inside I could see a heavy book titled The Postcolonial Exotic.
I hesitated. “Yes.”
“I had a feeling you were,” she said, shaking my hand. She had chewed-up stumps for fingernails. “I’ve seen you at the library. Then I saw you here and thought I might as well ask.”
I told her where I was from.
“Me, too. Do you live in the suburbs?”
“I used to. I live downtown now.” I paused. “Well, I live here now. But before —”
Her eyes lit up. “I love downtown. It’s so authentic. Really I hate living in the western suburbs. Whenever I’m back home the thought of it makes me so aggressive. Want to walk together?”
Leila was two years older than me and was enrolled in a master’s program in postcolonial women’s literature. We marched together and talked about our lives back home. Leila turned out to live only a few neighborhoods from where Teta and I had lived back when Baba and Mama were around. We spoke in Arabic. It had been so long since I had spoken to anyone in that language. Our Arabic was rusty, but we persisted, throwing in English words when needed. Speaking Arabic in America made me feel like I was creating a home for myself on the cold windy evening in this crazy foreign city. We delved deep into conversation, and soon I found out Maj was her second cousin and we knew many of the same people, and only after twenty minutes did it occur to me that finding Sufyan had slipped my mind. I thought of how many Leilas I might have overlooked while being so fixated on him.
“I’m glad you’re political,” Leila said. “Most of the Arabs who come to America spend their days smoking weed and getting drunk in casinos. It’s very problematic.”
As we marched it became apparent that Leila had a well thought out critique of everything from reality television to the international feminist movement. Her conclusion was often that everything was problematic.
“Are you speaking Arabic?” A middle-aged American man with a scruffy beard interrupted us. In one hand he held a megaphone and in another a sign that read STOP THE WAR.
“Yeah,” I said, and before I knew what had happened the man shoved the megaphone into my hand.
“Chant something. In Arabic.”
I looked at the megaphone. I came to this protest to see Sufyan, and here I was holding a megaphone and about to chant to thousands of people.
“What should I say?” I asked Leila.
“Bil roh, bil dam, nafdeeki ya bilad,” Leila said, taking the black-and-white kaffiyeh she was using as a scarf and draping it across my shoulders.
“Bil roh, bil dam, nafdeeki ya bilad,” I said into the megaphone. The air was bitterly cold and I tightened the kaffiyeh around my neck.
“Louder,” Leila urged. “Chant.”
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nbsp; “Bil roh, bil dam, nafdeeki ya bilad!”
“That’s it!” Leila clapped her hands.
“Bil roh, bil dam, nafdeeki ya bilad!” Pellets of cold rain hit my face.
A TV camera rushed toward us. I stared into the camera’s blinking red dot.
“Bil roh, bil dam, nafdeeki ya bilad!”
“What does that mean?” a man with a microphone asked Leila, who had begun chanting alongside me.
“It means with our souls and our blood we will sacrifice ourselves for the homeland. It’s what people used to chant for dictators, but we’re subverting it by replacing the dictator’s name with ‘homeland.’ ” She seemed very pleased with herself for the chant. The camera shifted back to me as the crowd began to form a circle around me.
“Bil roh, bil dam, nafdeeki ya bilad!”
I raised my voice, hoping my chants would lead Sufyan to me. I chanted again, louder and louder, my fists pumping the frosty air above my head, looking through the crowds for him. But all I could see was an endless stream of people bundled up in parkas and raincoats, holding signs and shaking their fists in the air. The people who had come out in the cold for an idea and a principle, their faces wet and red, their bodies huddled together for warmth. And soon I was not thinking of Sufyan anymore. I was thinking of my teachers, of Marx and Chatterjee and Said. I chanted and I thought of power and imperialism, and I realized that it was all linked, that challenging lies and oppression was also fighting on behalf of love. And my love for Sufyan was my fuel. My feelings for him gave me the energy to blast the words out of my mouth. I pumped my fist in the air and chanted and Leila stood chanting beside me until we were lost in a daze of love and resistance.