He speaks in Arabic. “I know, you already told me.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure if you’re listening. Your uncle will kill you if he finds out that you’re gay.”
He clears his throat and says, “Don’t worry about my uncle. He can’t control my life.”
The water boils and I rise from my seat and pour some coffee grounds into the pot. I let it simmer before I bring two tiny cups to the table. When I place one in front of Rami, he gently touches my wrist; my eyes tear. I sit across from him again and we drink. Rami takes slow sips and I swallow the bitterness quickly, too quickly, and I singe the roof of my mouth. We don’t say anything for a long time. Then Rami tells me that Gaza never felt like home to him. Could never feel like home. He says with a certain sadness that it will be a long, long time before Palestinians ever find their true dwelling. They are like a bunch of fireflies in a dark sky, shining bright, making their presence known, but they just keep floating in the darkness and can never set roots anywhere. “Air all we got," he sighs, now speaking in English. They have no land. He’s not sure if Palestinians and Israelis will ever be able to live side-by-side in peace. He’d like to hope they could. But he doesn’t know and I don’t know either. He speaks in Arabic again. “Maybe in a hundred years from now things will change for the Middle East and there will be peace like there is here in Canada. Funny, Arabs and Jews look so much alike, even share some of the same food, although some would argue that!” He stops and laughs, then goes on in a serious tone. “But despite some similarities, there are too many differences. There’s been so much bloodshed, so many bombs, so many lives destroyed, so much hatred. This is why I left. I knew I’d always feel displaced. So why feel displaced when I can come to the new world and start a real home for myself here. That’s why I left. I know Montreal can be a home for me. It’s already starting to feel like one, especially since I met you.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t know me all that well. We’ve only met.”
“But there is something between us, Amir. I feel connected to you. Can’t you feel it too?”
I want to tell him, yes, but don’t. Instead, I reach across the table and cover his hand with mine. When I turn and look out the window into the sky, I squint and search for those fireflies.
But I let go of his hand quickly when Denise enters the kitchen, wearing a bathrobe and nothing else. Her small breasts are slightly exposed as she puts her hands on her hips and asks, her eyes widening, “What are you doing here? It’s Rami, isn’t it?”
Rami pushes back the chair and puts on his winter coat, ties the scarf tight around his neck. “You got good memory. Yes, ismee Ra… my name’s Rami. You Denise?”
She nods then sits where Rami had sat and lifts his tiny cup and swirls whatever coffee is left in it. “It’s one in the morning, Rami. Shouldn’t you be home?”
“Oh, yeah, home.”
“Yes, home. This is mine and Amir’s home, not yours," says Denise, her normally kind face contorting.
“Denise, please," I plead.
She glares at me. “What?”
“You’re being rude.”
Rami stands by the doorway now, digging his hands into his pockets.
“I’m not being rude!” snaps Denise. “It’s late and we shouldn’t be entertaining visitors at this time.”
“He doesn’t know a lot of people. I’m trying to help him with his English.”
Rami finally speaks, “Yes, Denise, Amir good teacher. He teach me English.”
“Yes, I can tell. He teach you good English," she mimics.
“That’s enough, Denise. I’m going to walk Rami home.”
She stands up quickly; the chair falls back on the floor. “It’s late! He can walk home alone or take a cab. The hell you’re going out this late.”
“What are you? My mother?”
Denise doesn’t say anything further, only rushes out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I follow her and stand at the bottom of the staircase and shout, “You’re fucking jealous! I can’t believe you’re fucking jealous!”
“Fuck off, Amir!” I hear her yell back before slamming the bedroom door.
Angrily, I struggle to put my coat on. Rami stands in front of me now, puts his hands on my shoulders and tells me to stay. I watch him open the door and walk unsteadily into the cold, snowflakes sticking to his woollen coat.
I stomp upstairs. Moonlight pours into my room when I open the door. Denise is there, standing in front of the window. “I’m sorry I overreacted. Can you forgive me?” she says, now standing across from me and leaning into my body, resting her hands on my chest. I step back and sit on the edge of the bed, resting my elbows on my thighs, rubbing my sleepy eyes with my hands.
She kneels in front of me and touches the material of my pants, then traces my penis.
Gripping her wrists, I hold her hands up in the air; they tremble. “Don’t. It’s late like you said.”
She sighs, rises to her feet and slumps next to me. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to kick your friend out.” She continues, “Things have been so chaotic since my mother died.” She inches closer and kisses me on the lips, roughly.
I clutch her shoulders. “Stop.” Standing up now, I pace the room with my hands on my waist. “We should take a little break.”
“I don’t understand. Where’s this coming from?” She lowers her head then looks up again. “Do you think I’m beneath you or something? I don’t have a university degree like you do.”
“No, no, that’s not it. What good is my degree here anyway? I’m a lousy dishwasher.”
“And I’m a lousy shop clerk. You do think I’m beneath you, not good enough to fuck anymore, don’t you?” she repeats louder.
“That’s not it at all.”
“Then what? You never stopped my advances before. Is it Rami? What’s up with that guy anyway? He suddenly appears in our life and is always around, late at night, by the way. Do you like him or something? I saw…” she stops.
“What?”
“I saw you holding his hand.” She looks hurt.
“That’s crazy. I wasn’t holding his hand," I say angrily. “Leave Rami out of this.” I point to my chest. “I’m not good for you. I’m trouble like my mom always said.”
“Fuck your mom!”
“Shut up!” I holler. “You don’t know my mother, so don’t curse her.”
“She really screwed you up, didn’t she?”
“Shut up! You want to fuck. Okay, let’s fuck.” I shove her onto the bed, fling off her bathrobe, and she slaps my face several times, then kicks me in the groin. I grasp my crotch and stumble to the opposite side of the room, where I fall against the wall and bury my face in my hands. I don’t look up when I hear Denise’s frantic footsteps on the floor, don’t watch her pull on her bathrobe and falter when she opens the door. “I’m sorry," I whimper, now glancing up. Denise looks back, her cheeks wet, then slams the door. Lowering my eyes, I watch the moonlight whitewash the hardwood floor.
Sixteen
AMIR LIVES ALONE IN a modest dormitory room with old hardwood floors. He has a bed, a small desk piled with scraps of paper, a tiny bookshelf. Reading is his salvation. He reads every book he can get his hands on. Mahfouz. Gibran. al-Shaykh. Hemingway. Joyce. When he’s not studying or preparing for a class, he reads. On the beach. On the bus. In a small sidewalk café. Now he grasps The Old Man and the Sea in his hands and walks to his morning class. Preoccupied with the story, Amir bumps into a classmate on the way into the lecture hall. When he glances up, he sees a young woman with beautiful long black hair and big brown eyes. He’s noticed her before in this American literature class. She introduces herself. He closes the book and shakes her hand; his palm is sticky but she doesn’t seem to mind as she holds tightly. Her name is Dina. She tells him how much she enjoys reading Hemingway’s stories. They sit next to each other. Amir takes sideway glances at her. And she catches him once and smiles back. After class, he takes a deep breath and
asks her out for coffee, not expecting she’ll accept his offer but she does.
They date for three months. On weekends, they head to the sea and bask in the sunlight, their young tanned bodies pressing together but never quite connecting. She is a good girl. She lets Amir lightly cup her breasts but never lets him undo her bikini top when no one is around. He sighs, falls on his towel and looks up at the sky. He wants to soar in its vastness and he longs to travel overseas. Leave this place, even this beautiful girl who teases him with her curvacious thighs and bosom. He sits up again and puts his arms around Dina, pulls her close to him. “You can touch, Amir, only touch," she whispers in his ear, then pushes him away like a hateful lover and adds, “with my clothes on. I’m saving myself for marriage.”
“What if I give you a promise ring?” asks Amir, falling back on the towel.
“Promises can be broken but not me. You’ll have to wait. That’s all I can say.” She sits up straight, folds her arms across her glorious breasts and hides them from him. The day is ruined, Amir thinks, and sulks as he rises and shakes the towel. She lets him hold her hand on the way home but he doesn’t hold it as tight as he had earlier. He walks her to her dorm room, pecks her on the cheek and promises they’ll meet up soon. But they don’t. They stop dating altogether. Amir goes to the beach alone, gazes at the sea and the sky and plans to leave this broken beautiful country that tempts him with dreams of peace and possibilities, which are killed with bullets and bombs. The division between East and West Beirut spreads wider every day until the gap prevents any movement. Homebound people are afraid of being kidnapped, or torn apart by artillery. Life becomes unpredictable. He still ventures outside, sits by the sea and dreams. But the smile on his face disappears when he hears a distant explosion. Frightened and worried, he jumps off a boulder and races back to his dorm, past soldiers at checkpoints who don’t bother to ask for his name.
The next day, he visits his parents. It’s Sunday and he always returns home for lunch on that day. Walid no longer lives in the apartment building but Amir shudders every time he passes his door. He tries not to think about what happened to him but sometimes it’s hard to prevent the painful images from worming their way into his memory. There is an old man who lives in Walid’s former apartment. He mutters under his breath when Amir walks past him. Amir ignores him and unlocks his parents’ apartment door. His ears are immediately assaulted by his mother’s loud voice roaring over the oven fan, shouting about something his father had done, something about giving money to his sister. “You think we’re rich or something? I work hard all day and earn money so you can give it away to your sister," she says bitterly.
“It’s my money that I give her, not yours," his father sighs. Amir’s shoulders slacken. He used to feel sorry for his father but doesn’t anymore, not after he’d whipped him with a belt until Amir’s skin had bled. There is no sympathy in his heart when he walks into the kitchen and sees his father looking humble and old while Amir’s mother berates him. They stop bickering for one second to greet him. He leans in and kisses his mother on both cheeks then his father. Then he walks into the living room and chats with his brother Naji who tells him he has a new girlfriend. Amir smiles when he thinks of his brother’s ways with women. Even as a young child, he had girls around him. Amir, on the other hand, wasn’t as attractive to them. Awkward. Nervous. Maybe. But attractive, no. When the meal is ready, Amir heads to the dining room. While they are eating, he tells his family that he wants to move to Canada after he graduates from university.
“Canada?” his mother says, raising her right eyebrow. “It’s too cold. You’ll freeze. Stay here. This is your home. Your family is here.”
“Haifa," Amir’s father says. “He’s old enough to go wherever he likes. It’ll be good for him.”
Sitting back, Amir stares down at his plate of stuffed grape leaves and his mother’s homemade yogurt. He knows he’ll miss her food but he won’t miss the screaming. “Aunt Georgina said she’d sponsor me.”
Amir’s mother cringes when she hears her sister-in-law’s name.
“It’s time I started my own life. I can’t have a real life in Beirut. There will be more opportunities in Canada for me.”
His mother grunts. “You’ll end up a taxi driver like your aunt’s husband. Or worse, you’ll become a dishwasher!”
Amir takes a long breath. “That will never happen.”
“You wait and see. You’ll be washing dishes or driving a cab," insists his mother.
Ignoring her, he picks up a cigar-shaped grape leaf and stuffs it into his now gaping mouth.
Seventeen
I OPEN THEN CLOSE my mouth when I see Denise in the hallway, carrying a cardboard box in her arms. I offer to help but she pushes me aside and says, “I don’t need your help.” She can’t bring herself to look me in the eyes. I don’t blame her, not after what I did to her. She shouldn’t have loved me, I keep telling myself, as if this is justification. Denise is moving back to her family home. From my window ledge, I watch her as she carries box after box to her father’s car. As the last package is placed in her father’s station wagon, I notice Denise staring up at me. I sit up and wave, hopeful she will forgive me and wave back, but she doesn’t, only looks away quickly, her head straight, eyes focused on the road ahead, her father’s old car sputtering a trail of smoke.
Later on, I head to the restaurant for the night shift. When I enter the kitchen, the cooks stop talking all at once and ignore my hello. Then Salem stands across from me and explains that I’m no longer welcome here. We argue. The owner appears minutes later, drawn by the rising voices, mostly my own and Salem’s. “What’s going on?” the owner barks. “The customers can hear you. Everyone get back to work!”
Salem obeys and I’m surprised by his acquiescence.
As the sink fills with water and soapsuds, I remember how naïve and young I was when I had told my parents that this country had many opportunities for me. I’m a dishwasher, just as my mother had predicted. I drive my fist into the hot water and almost screech but hold my anger. I turn and glare at Salem who gives me the finger then continues chopping some onions and garlic cloves. I almost pray he misses and cuts the finger off.
By the time my shift is over, it’s a little past midnight. From across the street I see Rami’s green Chevy. He waves and calls out to me. I cross the intersection and bend over, lean on the edge of the unrolled window. “Hey, Rami, it’s been a while. I’m sorry about what happened the last time I saw you. Denise shouldn’t have treated you like that. I’m sorry too that…”
“No worry. Your girlfriend want you herself. Three crowd, no? This American saying?” he says, smiling.
“Your English is getting better everyday. She’s not my girlfriend anymore.” I feel sad saying these words.
“Sorry. You okay?”
I nod.
“My inglize bad. I want say more but don’t know how. I practice. I someday be good English speaker like you, Amir. Enshallah.”
“Aywa.” I nod. “God willing.”
“You teach me. Maybe go for dinner soon. This okay?”
I blurt out, “How about tomorrow night?”
“Friday night? Ma baaref.” He rubs his goatee.
“Oh, you don’t know. You probably have plans.”
Changing his mind, he replies, “No, no plan. I go with you. I pick you at your place.”
“Let’s walk instead.”
“But too cold!” he shivers. He flutters his fingers in the air now. “Come in car. I drive you home.”
I turn and look back at the restaurant. “Your uncle won’t like that. I better go.” I stand up straight but Rami clutches my wrist and insists I get in the car.
“It too cold. You freeze walk home. Get in. I don’t care what uncle think.”
I hesitate but then open the back door and slide in. We are quiet while we wait for Salem and as soon as he gets into the passenger side, he turns and sees me in the backseat. “What the fuck are you doi
ng here? Get out!”
Rami shifts the car into drive and zooms away. There is no time for me to get out nor any way for Salem to push me out.
We drive in silence until we finally reach my place. Salem leans out the window and takes in the outside of my house. “I never noticed how shitty your place is. You should go back to Beirut. A building spotted with bullets is better than this dump.”
I don’t say anything but touch Rami’s shoulder as I slip out of the car. I watch from my porch while he disappears into the Montreal night with his uncle still cursing about me.
The next day, my hands are shaking as I wash the dishes. I keep thinking about my dinner with Rami. I flick my tongue over my dry lips and take deep breaths. Is this a date? I ask myself. Am I actually going on a date with another man? My hands shake again and I nearly drop a dish. The cooks are busy speaking to each other but I ignore them and think about what might happen after our dinner. Do I even want something to happen? I think about what had previously taken place on my bed and, horrified, I rush out of the kitchen and into the washroom, where I bend over the sink and splash cold water on my face. I take a paper towel and pat my cheeks and forehead. I haven’t felt this nervous since… since Walid. I slide down the wall. My fingers stroke the dirty floor.
The Lebanese Dishwasher Page 9