Chicago

by Alaa Al Aswany

  After 9/11 Ra’fat came out publicly against Arabs and Muslims, using language that most fanatical Americans might be reluctant to use. He would say, for instance, “The United States has the right to ban any Arab from coming in until it is certain that such a person is civilized and does not think that killing is a religious duty.”

  Hence the admission of Nagi Abd al-Samad was a personal defeat for Dr. Thabit. In a short while, however, he decided to forget the whole matter. He lifted his right hand from the steering wheel and pushed the button of the CD player to listen to the songs of Lionel Richie, whom he adored. He thought of spending a quiet evening with his wife, Michelle, and his daughter, Sarah. He remembered the special bottle of Royal Salute scotch that he had bought a few days earlier and decided to open it tonight because he needed a good drink. After a while he arrived at his house, a handsome white two-story building with a beautiful garden and a backyard. He was met by his German shepherd, Metz, who barked loudly for a long time. He went around the house as usual to reach the garage. To his surprise he saw the lights on in the dining room, which meant they had company. He was annoyed, since Michelle had not told him that she was expecting anyone for dinner. He pressed the remote and the car locked automatically, then he closed the garage door and pulled the bolt to make sure it was securely locked. He walked slowly toward the house, trying to guess who the guest might be. He hurriedly patted Metz and got away from him, then entered through the side door and crossed the corridor carefully. Michelle heard his footsteps on the wooden floor and hurried toward him and planted a kiss on his check, saying merrily, “Come quickly. We have a wonderful surprise.”

  When he went into the dining room Jeff, Sarah’s boyfriend, was standing next to her. Jeff is about twenty-five, thin with a pale face. He has beautiful blue eyes, delicate pursed lips, and smooth chestnut-colored hair arranged in a long braid down his back. He had on a white T-shirt, blue jeans stained with colors in many places, and old sandals from which his dirty toes were visible. Jeff came forward to greet Ra’fat as Michelle’s voice announced in the background, “Jeff has finished his painting this evening and decided that we’d be the first to see it. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Great. Welcome, Jeff,” said Ra’fat, having noticed after a side glance that his wife had had her hair done, preened, and put on her new corduroy pants. Jeff came forward to shake hands with him, laughing as he said, “Let me be frank with you, Ra’fat. Your opinion matters to me, of course, but when I finished my new painting I thought only of one thing: that Sarah be the first to see it.”

  “Thank you,” whispered Sarah as she pressed his hand and looked at his handsome face in admiration. Michelle then asked, as though she were interviewing him on television, “Tell me, Jeff, what does an artist feel when he finishes a new work?”

  Jeff raised his head slowly, looked at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and was silent for a moment, then extended his arms in front of him as if embracing the world and said in a dreamy voice, “I don’t know how to describe that. The most beautiful moment in my life is when I put the finishing touches on a painting.”

  His words touched the two women very much and they kept eyeing him fondly and in admiration. Then Michelle said, “Now, what do you think, Ra’fat? Should we have dinner first or see the painting?”

  Ra’fat was very hungry, so he said calmly, “Just as you wish.” But Sarah clapped and exclaimed merrily, “I can’t wait one more moment to see the painting!”

  “Me neither,” said Michelle as she led Ra’fat by the hand to a corner of the room. Jeff had placed the painting on an easel and covered it with a shiny white fabric. They all stood in front of it for a moment, then Jeff stepped forward, reached out with his hand, and pulled the edge of the fabric in a quick theatrical flourish. The painting was unveiled and Michelle and Sarah exclaimed at the same time, “Wow! Splendid! Splendid!”

  Sarah turned around and stood on tiptoes and kissed Jeff on the cheeks. Ra’fat meanwhile kept looking at the painting, nodding slowly, as if trying to understand it more profoundly. The whole canvas was painted dark blue, in the middle of which were three yellow blotches, and on the top left was one red line almost invisible against the dark background. Sarah and her mother competed in heaping praise on Jeff while Ra’fat remained silent. Michelle asked him softly, but with a touch of rebuke, “Don’t you like this magnificent painting?”

  “I am trying to understand it. My taste is on the conventional side.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jeff, his face clouding over suddenly.

  Ra’fat answered apologetically, “Actually, Jeff, I prefer the old way of drawing because I understand it better; the artist, for instance, drawing a portrait or a landscape. As for drawing in the modern art style, I frankly don’t understand it.”

  “I’m sorry that your understanding of art is so archaic. I thought your American education would have taught you more about art. Art is not to be understood by the mind, but appreciated by the feelings. And by the way, Ra’fat, please don’t use the word drawing in front of me because it upsets me. Drawing is something we learn in grade school. Art is much greater than that.”

  Jeff was very upset but he breathed deeply and turned his face away disapprovingly, then began looking at the two women, forcing a smile to appear, as an artist who had been harshly insulted but who decided to forget the insult because he was magnanimous by nature. Michelle was moved so she raised her voice, chastising her husband, “If you don’t understand art, Ra’fat, it’s best you don’t talk about it!”

  Ra’fat smiled and didn’t answer. After a short while the four of them sat down to have dinner: Jeff next to Sarah and Ra’fat next to Michelle, who opened for the dear guest a bottle of good Bolognese wine.

  The two lovers engaged in an intimate whispering conversation as Michelle looked on, visibly pleased. “Michelle, are the problems over in the hospice?” asked Ra’fat loudly.

  “Yes,” Michelle responded tersely, obviously preferring not to talk about that subject. But Ra’fat went on, addressing the lovers to distract them from loving. “Listen to this interesting story. You know that Michelle works in a hospice in Chicago that helps patients with incurable diseases who are waiting to die.”

  “Helps them how?” Jeff asked, feigning interest.

  Ra’fat replied enthusiastically, “The goal of the hospice is to make the idea of death acceptable and painless for dying patients: they bring clergy and psychologists to talk to them so they’ll lose their fear in facing death. Naturally many of the hospice patients are rich. Last week something interesting happened to a wealthy patient whose name is. ”

  “Childs, Stuart Childs,” muttered Michelle as she chewed her food.

  Ra’fat went on. “He was on the point of dying and the hospice administration sent for his children and they came by plane from California to be at his deathbed and take care of the burial, and so on. As soon as they arrived at the hospice, however, the father’s health improved suddenly and he got over the crisis. This happened twice; do you know what his children did? They got a court injunction against the hospice in which it was stated that the hospice prognostication system was woefully deficient, because every time they had to get away from their jobs and businesses and bear the brunt and expenses of travel to attend their father’s death, they were surprised to see him alive. They warned the hospice that if it were to happen again, they would demand considerable damages to compensate them for wasting their time and money. What do you think of that?”

  “Very uplifting, Ra’fat,” Jeff said sarcastically, then yawned audibly, and Sarah burst out laughing.

  Ra’fat ignored the sarcasm and added, “The Eastern mentality would interpret this behavior as ingratitude on the part of the children, but I view it as proof of respect for time in American society.”

  No one commented on what Ra’fat said; the two lovers got busy whispering anew and Jeff said a few words in Sarah’s ear and she smiled and blushed. Michelle was busy cutting
her meat. Ra’fat got up, wiping the corner of his mouth with his napkin, saying with a lukewarm smile on his face: “Forgive me, Jeff. I have to go upstairs to my office. I have some work to do. See you this weekend to continue our discussion about art.”

  Ra’fat waved and climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor. As soon as he closed the door of his office he went directly to the cabinet near the window and took out the new scotch bottle. He fixed himself a drink with soda and ice, sat in his rocking chair, and sipped slowly, feeling that first biting taste that he liked. Soon a feeling of relief came over him. There was no work to be done; he had lied to them because he couldn’t stand sitting with that Jeff anymore. Ra’fat smiled bitterly and thought, as he poured his second drink: Oh, God! How did intelligent, talented Sarah fall for this insignificant person? And why does Mr. Jeff feel so confident? He deals with people as if he were van Gogh or Picasso — where does he get this sense of importance? He’s just a high school dropout and a runaway. Even the gas station where he used to work has fired him. Now he’s living in Oakland with vagrants and criminals — an unemployed would-be artist and unbelievably insolent. I tried to start a conversation with him, just trying to be a good host, but he mocked me and yawned in my face. What a jerk! What does Sarah see in him? He is so dirty, he bathes only on special occasions; how come she’s not disgusted when she kisses him? He splashes canvases with his nonsense, and these two foolish women treat him like a genius. He’s not content with that; he wants to give me lessons in art? What insolence! Little by little, the drinks eased his irritation and he felt relaxed. He closed his eyes and sipped the drink with great relish. Suddenly the door opened hard and Sarah and Michelle came in and stood in front of him, obviously itching for a confrontation. Michelle asked him, “Where’s the work you left us to do?”

  “I finished it.”

  “You’re lying.”

  He looked at his wife in silence then asked her, pretending to be worried, “Where’d Jeff go?”

  “He left.”

  “So soon?”

  “He had to leave after what you’ve done. He has pride, like the rest of us. Do you know he waited for a whole hour to have dinner with you?”

  Ra’fat bowed his head and began to shake the glass in his hand to melt the ice. He decided to avoid the confrontation as much as possible. But his silence aggravated Sarah’s anger, so she stepped forward until she faced him directly and pounded the table so hard the flower vase shook. Then she screamed in a tone that sounded hysterical and strange to him, “It’s not right to treat my boyfriend this way.”

  “I didn’t do anything improper. It’s he who descended on us without an appointment.”

  “Jeff is my boyfriend; I have the right to welcome him any time.”

  “Enough, Sarah, please. I am tired and I want to go to bed. Good night,” said Ra’fat as he got off the chair and headed for the door.

  But Sarah kept shouting, “How dare you insult my boyfriend like that. I hate how you treat him. It was so nice of him to come and show us his new painting and you ended up insulting him. But you won’t be able to insult him again. I have a fantastic surprise for you. Would you like to know what it is?”

  * * *

  Nagi Abd al-Samad’s Journal

  The soldier fights his enemies ferociously, wishing to annihilate them all. But if he were destined, just once, to cross to the other side and to walk among them, he would see one of them writing a letter to his wife, another looking at his children’s photos, and a third shaving and humming a tune. What would the soldier think then? Perhaps he would think that he was deceived when he was fighting against those good people and now would have to change his attitude toward them. Or he might think that what he saw was just a deceptive appearance, that those peaceful men, as soon as they took their positions and readied their weapons, would turn into criminals who’d kill his family and seek to humiliate his country. How much like this soldier I am!

  I am now in America, which I’ve often attacked, shouted for it to fall and burned its flag in demonstrations; America, which is responsible for the poverty and misery of millions of humans in the world; America, which has supported and armed Israel, enabling it to kill the Palestinians and steal their land; America, which has supported all the corrupt, despotic rulers in the Arab world for its own interests; the evil America I am now seeing from inside. I am gripped by the same dilemma experienced by that soldier. A question persists in my mind: those kind Americans who treat strangers nicely, who smile in your face and like you the moment you meet them, who help you and let you go ahead of them and thank you profusely for the slightest reason? Do they realize the horrendous crimes their governments commit against humanity?

  I wrote the section above to start my journal then crossed it out because I didn’t like it. I’ve decided to write simply what I felt. I wouldn’t publish this journal and no one else would read it but me. I am writing for myself, in order to record points of change in my life. I am now moving from my old world, the only world I’ve known, to a new and exciting world filled with possibilities and probabilities. I arrived this morning in Chicago. I got off the plane and stood in a long line until I got to the passport officer, who examined my papers twice and asked me several questions with a suspicious and hate-filled look on his face before he stamped my passport and let me in. After only a few steps into the terminal I saw my name written in English on a sign carried by a man over sixty. He had Egyptian features and a smooth brown complexion, was totally bald, and wore glasses whose silver frames gave his face a rather formal look. His clothes were elegant and well fitting, indicating a refined taste: dark blue corduroy trousers, a light gray jacket, a white shirt with an open collar and black athletic shoes. I approached him, pulling my suitcase. His face lit up and he asked me, “Are you Nagi Abd al-Samad?”

  I nodded. He shook my hand warmly and said, “Welcome to Chicago. I’m Muhammad Salah, professor in the department of histology where you’ll be studying.”

  At the end of the sentence I detected a slight accent in his Arabic. I thanked him profusely, saying I appreciated his generosity for leaving his family on his day off to meet me at the airport. He made a gesture with his hand in the American way, as if he were chasing away a fly, as if to say that thanks were not needed or deserved. He tried to help me carry the suitcase to the car, but I refused, thanking him. He said as he started the car, “We Egyptians like to be welcomed with warm feelings. When we travel, even a short distance, we like to have somebody meet us, right?”

  “Thank you very much, Doctor.”

  “That’s the mayor’s duty!”

  I looked at him quizzically and he laughed loudly then said merrily as he turned the car on the curving road, “Egyptians here call me ‘the mayor of Chicago,’ and I do my best not to lose the title.”

  “Sir, have you been here a long time?”

  “Thirty years.”

  “Thirty years?” I repeated in astonishment. We were both silent for a moment, then he said in a different tone of voice, “The president of the Egyptian Student Union in America was supposed to meet you, but he begged to be excused for circumstances. He’s your colleague from Cairo University Medical School.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ahmad Danana.”

  “Ahmad Abd al-Hafeez Danana?”

  “I think this is his full name. Do you know him?”

  “All graduates of Qasr al-Ayni know him. He’s an agent of the secret police.”

  Dr. Salah fell silent and looked slightly upset. I felt sorry and said, “Sorry, Doctor, but this Danana got me and many colleagues arrested and detained during the second Gulf war.”

  He remained silent, his eyes on the road, then said, “Even if that were true, I advise you to forget it; you should start your scientific journey having got rid of all your old quarrels.”

  I was on the point of answering him, but he quickly asked me, to change the subject, “What do you think of Chicago?”

 
; “It’s big and beautiful.”

  “Chicago is a fantastic city but it is treated unfairly. Its reputation in the world is that it’s a city of gangsters. But the truth is, it is one of the most important centers of American culture.”

  “There are no gangs?”

  “In the 1920s and 1930s the Mafia was quite active here, during the days of Al Capone. But now gangs in Chicago are similar to those in any other American city. On the contrary, Chicago is safer than New York, for instance. At least here the dangerous neighborhoods are well known, but in New York, the danger is all over the place; armed men might attack you anywhere in the city. Would you like a little tour?”

  He didn’t wait for my answer. He left the expressway and for half an hour he showed me around Sears Tower and Water Tower Place, and drove by the Museum of Contemporary Art, slowing down so that I could see the sculpture that Picasso gave as a gift to Chiago. And when he drove on Lake Shore Drive he pointed, saying, “This is Grant Park. Doesn’t this spot remind you of the Corniche in Alexandria?”

  “You still remember Egypt?”