Chicago

by Alaa Al Aswany

  With the same determination, Tariq Haseeb continues his holy march every day with the exception of Sunday, which he devotes to chores that might distract him from studying the rest of the week. He does his grocery shopping at the shopping center and his laundry in the apartment building, vacuums his room, and cooks for the week, keeping the food in paper containers that can be easily reheated. It is this military precision that has enabled him to achieve the difficult goal of staying at the top. He placed first in his Cairo primary school, third in preparatory school, and eighth nationally in the general secondary school certificate with a 99.8 percentile. After that Tariq maintained the grade “excellent” throughout his five years in medical school but did not have the right connections, so he was appointed to the histology department rather than the general surgery department as he had dreamed. But it didn’t take him long to overcome his sorrow, and he devoted himself to work anew, obtained an MS in histology with distinction, and was nominated for a scholarship to obtain a doctorate from the University of Illinois. In his first two years there he maintained straight As.

  Does that mean that Tariq Haseeb does not have any fun?

  Not true. He also has his little pleasures, such as the basbusa tray whose ingredients he gets from Egypt and which he takes delight in making himself. He places it on the kitchen table, and when he is pleased with the way he studies he decides to reward himself by devouring a piece of basbusa commensurate in size to the work done. He also has a recreational hour that he takes pains to observe every night, even during examination periods. It is divided into two parts: watching pro wrestling and fantasizing. He cannot go to sleep before watching on the sports channel a complete match of professional wrestling. From the beginning he roots for the bigger wrestler. When that wrestler rains blows on his rival’s face, causing him to bleed profusely, or when he picks him up by the waist and throws him down on the floor of the ring or when he locks his head with his huge arm and slams it on the edge of the ring, as if it were a melon about to explode, Tariq claps and jumps up and down in sheer ecstasy and shouts as if he were an adoring, ecstatic fan at an Umm Kulthum concert in Cairo: “Wonderful, mountain monster! Drink his blood! Break his head! Finish him off tonight.” By the end of the match, Tariq collapses on his bed, out of breath, sweat pouring from his pores, as if it were he who’d fought the wrestling match. But he would by then have satisfied something deep inside him (being partial to strength, perhaps, because he is thin and has been in poor health from a young age).

  After the delight of wrestling comes the moment of fantasy, the secret pleasure for which he yearns so much that he pants and feels his heartbeat shaking him to his foundations as he takes the CD from its hiding place in the lower desk drawer. He places it in the computer drive, and soon a magical world of utmost beauty reveals itself to him: graceful, voluptuous blond women with soft and delectable legs and extremely splendid breasts of different sizes with aroused erect nipples, the mere sight of which transports him beyond sanity. Then strong muscular men appear with long, swollen, and erect organs, built as if they were giant, well-wrought steel hammers. The women and men soon start making love harmoniously, accompanied by a cacophony of orgiastic screams, with camera close-ups of women crying from sheer pleasure and biting their lower lips. Tariq cannot stand this excitement for more than a few minutes after which he dashes to the bathroom as if in a race or putting out a fire. He stands in front of the sink and gets rid of his pleasure and little by little he calms down and regains his equanimity, then takes a hot bath, performs his ablution and his evening prayers — both mandatory and optional — and finally pulls a woman’s nylon stocking that he had brought with him from Egypt over his head so that in the morning his hair would be smooth, thus covering, as much as possible, his bald spot, which, unfortunately, is constantly expanding.

  At that point a day in the life of Tariq Haseeb would come to an end. He would turn off the light and lie down on his right side, in emulation of the tradition of the Prophet, peace be upon him. He would whisper in a submissive voice, “O God, I have submitted myself to You and turned my face toward You and left all my affairs up to You. I have entrusted my back to You, out of desire and fear of You. There is no recourse and no succor for me except in You. I believe in Your book that You have revealed and in the Prophet You have sent.” Then he’d fall asleep.

  THE MORE PRECISE THE MACHINE, the more subject it is to damage. One hard blow to the most sophisticated computer is enough to render it inoperable. Tariq Haseeb received just such a blow last Sunday. In order to understand what happened, we must first examine how Tariq behaves with women.

  When a man likes a woman he seeks out her affection with tender talk or gladdens her heart with flirtation and praise, or just makes her laugh and amuses her with interesting stories. This is the nature of humans and animals too; even in the world of insects, if a male wants to have intercourse with a female, he must first fondle her antennae gently and softly until she softens and accepts. This law of nature, unfortunately, does not apply to Tariq Haseeb. He is the opposite of all of that: if he likes a beautiful woman he starts to treat her aggressively and tries to embarrass and harass her in every possible way. And the more he likes the woman the more vicious he is toward her. Why does he do that? No one knows. Perhaps it is to hide his excessive bashfulness before women, or because his attraction to a woman makes him feel weak in comparison to her, so he tries to overcome that by mounting a crushing attack against her. Or because, in the eagle-like loneliness in which he lives and his relentless fight to get to the top, he internally resists any feeling that might distract him from his work. This strange quirk in Tariq’s character has ruined several prospective engagements that he had undertaken with the best of intentions but which all ended in regrettable incidents. The most recent had happened two years before his coming to the States on this scholarship, when he went with his mother to ask for the hand of the daughter of a retired army general. The visit started amicably: cold drinks and pastries were served and courtesies exchanged. The young lady, Rasha, was a graduate of the Spanish department in the College of Languages. She was very pretty: she had long, smooth black hair and a captivating smile revealing snow-white, perfectly arranged teeth. She had two enchanting dimples on both sides of her alluring white face. As for her figure it was luscious and curvaceous, filled with vitality and sending off lustful vibrations in the air that made Tariq lose his concentration for a few moments as he imagined himself possessing the bride-to-be’s body, and doing such things to it. But his admiration, as usual, turned into an aggressive inclination that he tried to control at first, but he failed and gave in to it and it swept him overboard. The father of the bride, as usually happened on such occasions, was talking about his daughter lovingly and admiringly. Somewhat boastfully he said, “Rasha is our only daughter and we’ve done all we could to give her the best upbringing and education. Praise God, all her life she was in language schools, from nursery to secondary school.”

  Tariq looked at him with his bulging eyes for a few moments then asked him with a mocking smile on his flushed face, “Pardon, pasha, what school exactly did Mademoiselle Rasha attend?”

  The general fell silent for a moment, taken aback by the question, then answered smiling, still willing to be tolerant, “Amon School.”

  Thereupon, Tariq found himself in front of the goal, so he kicked the ball hard. With a light laugh on his face that he tried to hide in order to double its impact, he said, “Pardon, General. Amon School was never a language school. Amon is an experimental school, that is, a regular government school but with nominal fees.”

  The general’s face showed signs of distress which soon turned into resentment, and he got into a heated debate with Tariq about the difference between experimental and exclusive language schools. Tariq’s mother tried to intervene with pacifying words and secretly gestured to her son several times with her eyebrows and lips to be quiet. But his viciousness was out of his control. He cruelly started to
refute the arguments of the father of the bride, having decided to deliver a final, crushing blow. Sighing, as if he had already tired of discussing self-evident platitudes, he said, “With all due respect, sir, what you’re saying is absolutely wrong. There’s a big difference between Amon School and language schools. Language schools in Egypt are few and well known and one cannot enroll in them easily.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the general, his face now red with vexation. Tariq took some time before delivering his coup de grace. “I mean exactly what I said.”

  Several moments of silence passed during which the general exerted a great effort (almost audible as hyperventilation) to control his anger. Finally he turned to Tariq’s mother sitting to his left and said in a tone of voice fraught with meaning as he fidgeted, indicating the end of the visit and the engagement, “We are blessed and honored, dear lady.”

  The return trip seemed too long. There was heavy silence in the taxicab. Tariq’s mother had put on her best outfit for the engagement: a long dark blue suit and a bonnet of the same color adorned with sequins and crystal beads. She wanted her son to be engaged before he traveled on the scholarship, but every time he behaved like this and ruined the engagement. She had given up on giving him any advice; she had told him many times that he was a respectable and highly regarded catch, that many a girl would love to have him as her husband, but that his combative ways left people with the impression that he was aggressive and strange, so they were afraid of him for their daughter.

  “Did you see these liars, Mother? They called Amon School a language school!” he said suddenly, as though he sensed what his mother was thinking.

  His mother looked at him for a long while then said in a soft voice in which were mixed rebuke and kindness, “It wasn’t worth all the fuss, my dear. The man just wanted to brag about his daughter, which is natural.”

  Tariq interrupted her sharply. “He can brag as much as he likes, but he shouldn’t lie to us. When he says that Amon School is a language school, it means that he has little regard for our minds. I cannot let him get away with that.”

  ON SUNDAY EVENING TARIQ HASEEB woke up from his siesta and said to himself that he’d finish the statistics assignment then go out to do his week’s shopping. He applied himself to solving the problems, thinking hard and writing down the numbers then eagerly checking the back of the book, hoping every time that his answer would be correct. Suddenly the alarm sounded throughout the building and a voice came over the public address system warning that there was a fire in the building and demanding that the tenants leave their apartments immediately. Tariq’s mind was full of numbers, so it took him a few moments to realize what was happening, and he jumped up and rushed down the stairs in the midst of the panicked students. The firefighters spread throughout the building, making sure that every floor had been evacuated, and then they pushed certain buttons on the walls and immediately nonflammable steel doors were lowered in place. The students gathered in the lobby; they were excited, laughing nervously and whispering anxiously. Most of them had gone out of their apartments in their sleepwear, which gave Tariq (despite the gravity of the situation) a rare chance to check out the girls’ bare legs. Three persons appeared, coming from the farther end of the lobby, and little by little their features became recognizable: two Chicago policemen, one white on the short and heavy side, the other a tall, muscular black man. Between them walked Shaymaa Muhammadi in the flannel gallabiya she had had no time to change. They reached the reception desk and the white policeman took out a sheet of paper and said loudly in a formal tone of voice, “Young lady, this is an affidavit that you will sign to be responsible for any damages that might come to light in the future because of the fire you caused. You also have to sign a pledge that this won’t happen again in the future.”

  Shaymaa stared at the white policeman as if she didn’t understand, whereupon the black policeman, looking like someone about to tell a biting joke, said, “Listen, my friend, I don’t know what kind of food you eat in your country but I advise you to change your favorite dish because it almost burned down the building.”

  The black policeman laughed unabashedly while his partner tried to decorously hide his smile. Shaymaa bent and signed the paper in silence. Before long the two policemen exchanged a few words and left. A short while later it was announced that the danger was over, and students began to go back up to their apartments. Shaymaa, however, remained standing in front of the reception office. She looked deathly pale and kept shaking and breathing heavily. She was trying to compose herself, as if she had just awakened from a terrifying nightmare. She felt that she was no longer in possession of her soul, that everything that was happening was unreal. She felt particularly humiliated that the firefighter had hugged her, and her back still hurt from the pressure of his hands. Tariq Haseeb stood scrutinizing her slowly, then circled around her twice, exploring, as if he were an animal sniffing another animal of an unknown species. From the first moment he felt attracted toward her, but his admiration, as usual, turned into extreme resentment. He knew her name and had seen her before in the histology department, but he enjoyed pretending that he didn’t know her. He approached slowly and when he was right in front of her he fixed her with a scrutinizing, disapproving, suspicious glance that he used to use on Cairo Medical School students as he proctored them during their written exams. Before long he asked her haughtily, “Are you Egyptian?”

  She answered with a nod from her tired head. Then his questions, bulletlike, rang out in quick succession: What do you study? Where do you live? How did you cause the fire? She kept answering in a soft voice, avoiding looking at his eyes. Silence fell for a moment, which Tariq thought was appropriate after his lightning attack. He said sharply, “Listen, sister Shaymaa. Here you are in America and not in Tanta. You have to behave in a civilized manner.”

  She looked at him in silence. What would she tell him? What she’s done is proof of her stupidity and backwardness. She was about to answer him when he approached her, ready to pounce on her, to silence and totally crush her.

  Chapter 4

  Professor Dennis Baker raised his hand in favor of admitting the new Egyptian student, as did Dr. Fried-man, who counted the votes with a cursory glance and bent over the paper to record the department’s vote to admit Nagi Abd al-Samad. The meeting was adjourned and the professors left. Ra’fat Thabit got in his car to drive home. He felt so vexed at the result of the vote that he tightened his grip on the steering wheel and sighed in exasperation. He thought: Egyptians will ruin the department. That’s the truth. Egyptians cannot work in respectable places because they have many negative qualities: cowardice and hypocrisy, lying, evasiveness and laziness, and an inability to think methodically. Worse than that: they are disorganized and tricky. This negative view of the Egyptians is in line with Ra’fat Thabit’s own history. He emigrated from Egypt to the States in the early 1960s after Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the glass factories owned by his father, Mahmud Pasha Thabit. And despite the iron fist of the regime at that time, he was able to smuggle a large sum of money out of Egypt with which he financed his new life: he went to school and got a doctorate and taught in several American universities in New York and Boston. He then settled in Chicago thirty years ago and married a nurse, Michelle, obtained American citizenship, and became American in every respect: he no longer spoke Arabic at all, thought in English, and spoke it with a cleverly acquired American accent. He even shrugged his shoulders and gestured and made sounds while speaking exactly like Americans. On Sundays he’d go to baseball games about which he had become such an expert that his American friends often consulted him if they had disagreements about its rules. He would sit in the park, wearing his cap backward, following the game intensely and enthusiastically while sipping beer from the large glass that never left his hand. That was the image that he loved of himself: to be a complete genuine American, pure and without blemish. At receptions and on social occasions, when someone asked him, “Where’
re you from?” Ra’fat would promptly answer, “I’m from Chicago.”

  Many people accepted this answer simply, but some of them, sometimes, would look at his Arab features suspiciously then ask, “Where were you before coming to America?”

  At that point he would sigh, shrug his shoulders, and repeat his favorite sentence that had become a slogan for him: “I was born in Egypt and I fled the oppression and backwardness to justice and freedom.”

  This absolute pride in everything American coupled with contempt for everything Egyptian explains everything he does. Because Egyptians are overweight and they lead unhealthy lives, he stays svelte. And even though he is sixty, he still cuts an attractive figure: tall with a graceful, athletic build. He has only a few wrinkles in his smooth complexion and his hair is discreetly dyed in a convincing manner by leaving some gray in the temple area and the front of the head. The truth is, he is handsome with an inherited aristocratic bearing that shows in his clothes and the way he moves. He resembles to a great extent the actor Rushdi Abaza, except for a tentativeness and sluggishness that detract from the magnetism of his face. Because he is proud of his country’s accomplishments, Dr. Thabit avidly acquires the latest American technology, starting with his late model Cadillac (the down payment for which he paid with his honorarium for some lectures he gave last winter at Harvard), the latest cell phone, a shaver that sprays aftershave, and a lawn mower that plays music while trimming the grass. In the presence of Egyptians in particular, he loves to show off his modern gadgets and then ask them sarcastically, “When will Egypt be able to produce a machine like this? After how many centuries?” Then he bursts out laughing in the midst of the embarrassed Egyptians. When an Egyptian student in the department excels, Ra’fat must needle him. He goes up to him, shakes his hand, and says, “Congratulations for excelling in spite of the wretched education you’ve received in Egypt. You must thank America for what you’ve achieved.”