Ramadan Ramsey

by Louis Edwards

  Ramadan flopped onto the foot of the bed. Ahmet swiveled his desk chair around and sat down. A long lock of hair fell across his face, masking one of his eyes, and Ramadan wondered, What does Ahmet have to hide? Then, confirming the suspicion, he draped his hair behind his ears and said, “Ramadan—I tell you a secret.”

  “Okay.”

  “I am not going to fight in the war.”

  “But . . . I don’t understand. Everybody’s saying you are going.”

  “I know, I know. I let them think that. I said it once. Okay, maybe more than once.” Ahmet smiled slyly, tongue lingering in the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know. People believe what they want to believe. Don’t you think?”

  “I guess so.”

  “If you tell them the truth they no believe . . . or they think you crazy. So, yes, everybody believe I am going to fight in the war—but that is not the truth.”

  “What is the truth?” Ramadan felt his chance of going with Ahmet to Syria fading away, the improbability of it all being exposed by something as unavoidable and simple as the truth.

  “Well, like I say, people believe what they want to believe. Even you. You are people, too, Mr. Ramadan.”

  Ramadan wished he could refute Ahmet. But Magic was just a word on a shirt. The Magician was just a card. He really was just a person—“people.” “People” got taken to the American Embassy in the morning. “People” got sent back home before they were ready. Before they had a clue about what to do once there. That truth was bearing down on him with the intensity of Buster Keaton’s glare, which he could feel even with his back to the wall.

  “I know,” he conceded.

  Ahmet said, “The truth is . . . Well, I already tell you the truth. I tell the truth to anyone who come in my room. Look behind you—Booster Keaton. He is the truth!”

  Ramadan turned around and saw Buster Keaton peering at him, poised to leap off the wall and further ransack Ahmet’s untidy room. A man who could ride a train like that, or even think about doing that and then put it in a movie, might be able to break out of a two-dimensional state and come lunging right into your world. In a flash, Ramadan saw it: a pillow flipping high into the air, catapulted when Buster lands, the top sheet, floating almost to the ceiling, before landing on Ahmet’s head, costuming him as a Halloween ghost; then Buster on all fours, scampering to a halt, stopping just in front of Ramadan, his face and Buster’s but inches apart, both panting with fright at the implausibility of their encounter, and finally, simultaneously screaming: “Ahhhhhhhh!”

  He shook off the fantasy and cleared his throat. Turning back to Ahmet, he shrugged. “What?”

  “Don’t you see, Ramadan? Is me! When you look at Booster Keaton, you look at me. I must be Booster Keaton!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “How to say my story? In school . . . my marks, they are very bad. I no tell Baba. He will say, ‘Your grades look like your room, Ahmet!’ And, yes, this is correct. But I know this already. I no need him to tell me this thing. I know what I must do. My best professor, he tell me already. ‘No worry, Ahmet. Do good with the thing you love. Make the high mark in your student film, and you will graduate.’ So that is what I must do, Ramadan. You see? Make the best mark on my film. My film! I make my movie of The General. Only with my style. My story.”

  “But what does that have to do with people saying you are going to Syria, when you really are not going to Syria?”

  “Not go to Suriye? Who say I am not going to Suriye?”

  “But—” Ramadan scratched his head in his confusion. “But you just said—”

  “I am going to Suriye! I must go back.”

  “Go . . . back?”

  “Yes. I already go.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes—two time!” Ahmet put a finger to his lips and shushed Ramadan. Then he whispered, “Baba no know. Mehmet no know.”

  “And you say I’m a bad boy.”

  Ahmet smiled. “Hmm—but I need to go one more time. Soon. Very soon. Before everything is destroy. Not everything. But almost. My English . . . I mean—before Aleppo is destroy. But I do not go to fight. I go to finish my film. You see, in the film, I am the main character. Like Booster Keaton in The General, I must ride into the war.”

  Ahmet pointed again at one of the posters, an illustration of Buster Keaton and his train in the foreground and a panoramic battlefield scene in the background. “When I write the script, I think . . . I need a war like Booster Keaton’s war. Like the American Civil War. And then I look at the TV one day while I still write the film, and I see it on the news. Suriye! A civil war! I see the fighting on the internet. I watch all the refugees come here—to my country—to escape the war. It is only twelve hundred kilometers away. And I understand—this is my war. My movie war. My civil war!”

  Istanbul to Aleppo—750 miles. Only 750 miles. Ramadan understood, and he mumbled, “It’s my civil war, too.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. But, Ahmet, it is a real war.”

  “I know! Is terrible. But that is why it will be beautiful, for my film. Nobody in my class will have nothing so real as the war. So I write the story. Booster Keaton, he always say about the film story, you just need the beginning and the end. Everything in the middle will take care of itself. I believe I know what he mean. Film is like life. We born. We die. But in the middle—anything can happen!”

  “Yes, I believe that!” Sitting here with Ahmet was proof enough for Ramadan.

  “So I get footage before the war with me in Syria. Then I get footage from the internet after the bombing starts. I also make things happen with special effects. Nobody know but me. Like magic.”

  He tapped Ramadan’s jersey for emphasis. “You know the CGI?”

  “No.”

  “Computer-generated imagery.”

  “Do you know CGI?”

  “Well . . . not really. But I can change some things to look real in the computer, in the digital film. Fake CGI. I have many, how you say, tricks.” After a pause, he asked, “What time?”

  Ramadan looked at his phone. “Almost midnight.”

  “Come, I show you. Quick, quick! I must go soon. I have to meet Nedim.”

  “Nedim? Nedim from Istiklal?”

  “You know Nedim?” Ahmet pulled his chair to his desk and opened his laptop.

  Ramadan sidled up beside him. “He sold me this jersey.”

  “Of course. Mehmet take you there.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nedim is good friend,” Ahmet said. “He will sell me something, too.”

  The computer lit this dark corner, and the desktop was a leaf-bed of loose pages—some plain white copy paper, some lined yellow sheets, all with scrawls of fine black ink or fuzzy gray pencil (none of it legible to Ramadan). Notebooks with fraying corners poked out in places, and pink and green Post-Its sprouted everywhere.

  Ahmet pecked at his keyboard, and a program zipped open. At his commands, a series of videos played, one after another, as if to dazzle his audience of one. The images streamed forth with color and motion so bright and manic that Ramadan started with surprise—more so because at the center of the action was Ahmet, or rather Ahmet as the character he was portraying in his film. There was nothing distinctly different about him; he was wearing the exact same outfit he had on right now—a faded T-shirt, blue jeans, and black high-top sneakers. But a heightened quality of movement (even more evident than in his manner on the balcony) told Ramadan he was watching a performance. This Ahmet was not Ahmet.

  “In my movie, I—how you say?—spoof three of the best Booster Keaton films. The General, of course, which is the greatest. But also College—because I am college student, you know? And then I put in a little bit of Sherlock Jr. Why that one? you ask me. Ahh . . . because my movie is just like the fantastic Sherlock Jr., a mystery. Everything is a mystery, Ramadan.”

  Ramadan watched as Ahmet’s finger traced movements the movie version of himself was making on the scre
en: running in slow motion through a tunnel while trying to dodge a spotlight that kept darting to where he had just been; kicking a soccer ball against a brick wall; falling asleep in a classroom, while watching a film.

  “See . . . here I am in my real class, my eyes about to close . . . slowly . . . slowly . . . The professor is showing us The General on the screen in the background . . . there!”

  Ahmet pointed to the upper right corner of his monitor, and Ramadan saw the real Buster Keaton in action for the first time. In the foreground, the movie-Ahmet was nodding off, head bobbing, as his eyes pantomimed drowsiness. He reminded Ramadan of Emir fending off sleep at the dinner table a few hours ago. “You look like your dad.”

  “No.” Ahmet leaned in toward the screen and frowned. “Hmm . . . is strange. Is maybe the camera angle, I think.”

  “Who is filming you?” Ramadan asked.

  “Kadir, my classmate. He is not so great. Just okay. He is the reason I must go back to Syria. He lost all of the footage from last time. Scenes on the streets of Aleppo near the Citadel. It is all a dream, you know. While I am—how you say?”—and Ahmet closed his eyes and made three quick snorts.

  “Snoring!” Ramadan chimed in.

  “Yes. Most of my film take place when I am snoring. I go back and forth between the snoring me and the action me. Why? Well, I am making the big, big symbol about how people sleep while the world fall down all around us, Ramadan. When I am big, big movie director, the critics, they will look at my little movie and say, ‘Oh, that Ahmet Adem, he was already think big when he make his student film. You can see he is already on his way to be the great artist.’” Ahmet laughed, amused by his own daydreams.

  “But . . . ,” he said, “my movie will still be funny, you know, like Booster Keaton. You do not hear me snore, because it is a silent film, like Booster Keaton movies. What happen when we sleep is quiet. When the train sound blow, when the bomb go off, when people scream. Sleep make everything quiet. So my technique is good, I think.”

  “What’s the name of your movie, Ahmet? And what’s the mystery?”

  “Okay . . . you ask very good questions, Ramadan. Very, very good. And the answer to these two questions is really the same thing! The Sultan of Silence!”

  “The Sultan of Silence,” Ramadan repeated. Then he looked, alternately, at the wall of posters and at the footage on the computer screen, paused on a close-up of the movie-Ahmet. Giving Ahmet a side-eyed look, he said, “That’s a good title, but it’s not a mystery. The Sultan of Silence . . . is Buster Keaton!”

  Ahmet smiled. “That is what I thought. But that would be too easy.”

  Ramadan looked back at the image of Ahmet frozen on the screen and pointed to it. “Then it’s you—you’re the Sultan of Silence!”

  Ahmet arched an eyebrow and shrugged. “Is this true? Maybe.”

  “It’s you . . . I know it is! You’re the Sultan of Silence.”

  “I do not think—besides, I do not look good in a turban.” Chuckling, he added, “It is still a mystery. I am an artist, Ramadan. I look for the truth. We will see.”

  As Ahmet shut down his computer, a cell phone began vibrating and humming somewhere on the desk under the pile of papers. “Ahck!” he said, clearing away several pages. “Is Nedim . . . to tell me I am late.”

  When he finally uncovered the phone, he said, “This is why I came back . . . I forget my phone.” He looked at the screen with surprise and answered. “Kadir?”

  That was the only word Ramadan understood, but it became apparent from Ahmet’s tone that he was unhappy with whatever Kadir was saying. After three or four contentious-sounding comments, Ahmet stood up and paced the narrow strip of floor between the desk and the bed, almost stepping on Ramadan’s toes. At the end of the call, which lasted only a couple of minutes, he stood still in the middle of the room. He swung his hand back, and Ramadan had to duck to avoid an accidental blow.

  “What happened?”

  “Kadir, he tell me we cannot leave tomorrow. His family is going to their old village to celebrate Eid. He want us to go after that.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Eid is Sunday.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Ahmet faced him and heaved a long sigh. “Everything is wrong with that, Ramadan. It will be too late. You watch the news? Aleppo will be part of the war soon. I don’t want to be there for no stupid war. Every day we wait will make the trip more dangerous. Even tomorrow was not the best time. The time to go is now. We should really leave tonight!”

  Ramadan jumped up. “Then let’s go tonight!”

  “What?”

  “I can help you. Let me be your cameraman. I take pictures all the time with my phone. I’m good—plus, sometimes lucky. But I can do it.”

  “Of course you can do it. Is easy. Even Kadir can do it. But you are just a boy. Is . . . crazy.”

  “I told you when I first saw you—I want to go with you. Remember? I need to go!”

  “You need to go? But why? I no understand.”

  Ramadan pulled out his phone and scrolled through his camera roll. He showed Ahmet an image he had saved there. The Citadel: The Love of Aleppo.

  “Why do you love Aleppo?”

  “I don’t know if I love it or not, but I want to see it. It’s my father’s home. I want to find—”

  He almost said it. It would certainly have been the truth, or at least part of it. But “I want to find—” was all he could say. And yet, somehow this fragment was a complete thought: I want to find!

  With that, he remembered something else—something he had already found. He gestured for Ahmet to hear him out. “And look,” he said. “I found this . . .”

  He picked up his backpack from the floor and dug frantically into an inner pocket. When his fingers touched the edge of it, he looked at Ahmet and said, “You said everything is a mystery.”

  “Yes. I believe it is. No—I know it is.”

  “Well, I don’t know if everything is a mystery or not.” Then Ramadan pulled out the letter and handed it to Ahmet. “But—I think this has something to do with mine.”

  Ahmet looked at the front of the envelope and read aloud. “‘Adad Totah . . . Ram . . . part . . . Street . . .’ Is someplace in America?”

  “Yes. It’s in my neighborhood. But turn it over,” Ramadan instructed. “There is another address, I think. Only I can’t read it.”

  Ahmet flipped the envelope over. “I see. It is Arabic.”

  “Can you read it?”

  Ahmet slid the tip of his finger over the inky markings, tracing the script. He said with a half-smile, “A woman write this.”

  “You understand it?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It is address, like you say, in Suriye.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Ramadan . . . I . . . I know this street.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. Is near the university, the University of Halep . . . Aleppo. My friend Sami go to school there.” Ahmet opened the envelope and slid the letter out. He flexed its folds, and read silently. “Is from this woman . . . to her husband. A letter of love. Where is the photograph she talk about?”

  “Inside.” Ramadan took the photograph out and gave it to Ahmet.

  “Okay. I see. It is a very old picture.” Then he went back to reading the letter. “Oh, no!” he said.

  “What? What does it say?”

  “Oh, man . . .” And then Ahmet read aloud, translating, “‘Do not lose this photograph, the way you lose things. It is the only picture left from our special time in Cairo when we knew we would be together forever.’”

  He shook his head and looked at Ramadan. “But then he lose the letter. What happen to this man, this Adad?”

  “I don’t know. There was a storm. A bad storm. I don’t think he ever came back to the store—or if he did, he forgot the letter.”

  “But why do you have this letter, Ramadan?
The letter of Adad and Zahirah?”

  “Za-who?”

  “Zahirah. His wife. The wife of Adad Totah. The one from Aleppo who send this letter to her husband in America. Is Adad and Zahirah in the photograph. In love. In Egypt. A long time ago. Is this your parents?”

  “Uh . . . no. But I think they are my family. I’m not sure. But they know who my father is. And they can tell me where he is.”

  “You don’t know where your father is?”

  “Not really. Somewhere in Syria, I guess. But now with the war . . .”

  “Ahck . . . Ramadan! Ramadan, Ramadan, Ramadan!”

  “What—what, what?”

  “Don’t you see what this mean?”

  “No . . . what?”

  Ahmet waved the letter in his right hand and the photograph in his left. “This is a good, good story!”

  “But it’s not a story. It’s real.”

  “Okay—it is a real good story.”

  “It is?”

  “Oh, Ramadan, I forget—you have this letter, but you don’t know what it say. If you understand Arabic, then you will understand everything that is happen to you.”

  “I will?”

  “Yes. Well, you will feel it . . . in a different way. More deeper, I think. I explain. You see . . . Zahirah, she want this picture. Very, very much. It is from when she was young and beautiful and in love and there was no war in her country. And she knew her life would be great because of this day. Sometimes one day can change everything—who you are, what will happen, everything. This is the photograph of her dream. A dream that came true. Even if her husband—the dumb one, the dumb Adad—go back to her after the bad storm, he forget to bring back her dream. We know this, because here it is in my hand! Oh, I bet she scream at him when he come home with no photograph!”

  Ramadan watched Ahmet tighten his face, contorting it, visibly transforming, somehow hardening and softening at the same time. Then he spoke in a higher pitched voice than his own, channeling femininity and scorn. “Oh, Adad, you stand here in front of me, back from America without the picture I tell you not to lose, crying about the storm, but I now give you storm, too! It was our picture of love. Of love, I tell you! Do you know what this mean, Adad? This mean you do not love me like I love you! That is what it mean, Adad. That is what it mean! You leave the picture of our love to fade away in America—to wash away in the storm!”