George thought for a moment then said, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Sleeman, but I was planning to come and see you today in order to submit my resignation.”
“What! Aren’t you happy with us?”
“I am, Mr. Sleeman. But there’s a personal problem I can’t solve if I stay with Sleeman & Son.”
“Well, maybe I can help you solve it, if you permit me.”
“Yes, you can, Mr. Sleeman. But it’s rather difficult.”
“Let me try, at least. For I need you and I want you to stay with us.”
Politely but firmly, George put the matter squarely before Mr. Sleeman with regard to Kamal’s girlfriends and he ended by saying, “Kamal is a good person, Mr. Sleeman. I’m sure you don’t want to lose him; for I think you will, and perhaps tragically, if things continue as they have been.”
Mr. Sleeman felt he was being chastened, but he knew he had asked for it. He was silent for a while, somewhat embarrassed. He did not deny anything, he did not defend himself, he did not offer any justification. He felt he only wanted the best for his son and to keep this daring and helpful new employee of his.
“Yes, indeed. Kamal is a good person,” he said at long last. “And so are you, George. You’re helping me to see things clearly and to keep communications with my son open, I suppose, and it’s his turn now. I will leave him and his girlfriends alone. I want him to be happy and I want Sleeman & Son to continue to be successful too. Will you stay with us?”
“I will, sir, as long as I can be of service,” George said in relief.
And that is how he eventually came to be third in command at Sleeman & Son.
HARVEST OF THE YEARS
When I saw Jimmy Ferris last week in Hartford, Connecticut, I was shocked at how he looked. I had not seen him for ten years. I had been transferred by my company from Hartford to Washington, DC, to manage the head office there. He had stayed in Hartford to take care of his growing private business. We had spoken with each other on the phone a number of times since I left, and for a while we exchanged Christmas cards. But then we gradually lost touch, what with our increasing family commitments, job preoccupations, new friends and interests, and—yes—laziness!
Jimmy and I were friends, not only when we both lived and worked in Hartford, but long before that. As a matter of fact, he was my superior for several years when I was a young government employee at the Department of Statistics in Amman. Jimmy Ferris was then known by his original Arabic name, Jamil Faris, and all twelve employees in his charge at the Bureau of Population Statistics liked him. He was considerate but firm, and knew how to get the best out of all his subordinates. Although he was a dozen years older than me and was married with two children, a son and a daughter of high school age, he had a special friendly relation with me. I had recently graduated from college at the time and was not yet married. I appreciated his warm feelings toward me and his encouraging advice that I should go to the United States for graduate studies in economics. He felt that with a postgraduate degree I would do much better in life than being a government employee in statistics, and that I had the brains and the ability to rise to high positions.
Eventually I left Amman for the United States as an immigrant, studied economics at Boston University, where I earned a master’s degree, and then landed a promising corporate job at Connecticut Insurance Company in Hartford. Likewise, Jamil Faris emigrated to the United States with his family and came to live in Hartford, where he started a little fast-food business and his grown children went to Trinity College. We resumed our friendly relations when we discovered we both lived in the same city, and came to know other newly-arrived Arab immigrants in the area and many Arab-Americans established there for two or three generations. When he became an American citizen, he changed his name to James Ferris, but all his friends called him Jimmy.
“Jimmy,” I said one day. “How’s your business doing?”
“Come and see for yourself,” he said.
I accepted his invitation and dropped by his place one evening. It was a small shop with five sets of tables and chairs, and a counter with a glass front in which colourful bowls of salad and sandwich ingredients were neatly displayed. He and his wife Sandra were behind the counter and they both welcomed me heartily. When I declined their offer of a sandwich, he gave me a cup of coffee and sat with me at a table.
Customers kept coming in and going out, and Sandra served them promptly. Most of them walked out with their sandwiches into the busy mall outside; very few lingered or sat at the tables in the shop.
“You seem to have a brisk business here,” I commented.
“Yes,” Jimmy said, “especially at this hour before the movies start. When the movies end and the theatres at the mall let out crowds of movie-goers, we are overwhelmed by customers. In fact, I’m thinking of hiring help.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “You must like this better than the Bureau of Statistics.”
“Yes, I do. I’m working for myself now, not for the government. Sandra and I are thinking of opening another shop in the new West Hartford mall and possibly others elsewhere later on.”
“That’s good news. And how are your children?”
“They’re both fine. Sam will graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in June and plans to go to the University of Chicago next year to study computer science and get a graduate degree. Kate is a sophomore in arts and has two more years to go. But, you know, we hardly see them. Sandra and I are busy at the shop from seven in the morning till midnight. We’re both tired by the time we go home, and in the morning we leave before the children are up.”
“Well, that’s life in America,” I said in sympathy.
“Yes, but it is not the high quality I expected. The pace of life here is so much faster than in the old country, and it is superficial and materialistic. We’re grateful we found an Orthodox church in nearby Wethersfield to belong to, like we did in Amman. On Sunday mornings, our children go there to worship, but only one of us can go with them, because the other has to attend to the shop. So Sandra and I alternate every week, and thus we hope to keep up our religious tradition at least.”
I sensed some wistful tone in Jimmy’s speech.
“There’s a price for everything in life,” I said. “Yours is not bad at all.”
“You’re right,” he responded. “What matters for Sandra and me is to give our children the best education and to prepare them for a better life than ours. You know, I only have a high school education and Sandra likewise. It has been by dint of my wide reading that after high school in Jordan I increased my general knowledge and achieved a good position in the government’s employ. I was lucky, I suppose. But most of all, I was lucky to marry Sandra, a wonderful woman—as you know.”
“Yes, yes,” I said as I looked at her behind the counter, where she was busy making sandwiches and cheerfully serving customers.
I looked back at Jimmy and Sandra as I was leaving the shop and they were waving to me, and I noticed the big sign over the door that said JIMMY’S PLACE in neon lights.
After a two-year absence in Detroit, I returned to Hartford to resume my work in the company at a higher rank. I was married to Selma, a lovely young woman of Arab origin I had met in Detroit, and we had a beautiful baby girl we had named Susan. At Bradley International Airport, where we landed on our return to Hartford from Detroit, I saw a shop with a JIMMY’S PLACE neon sign. But Jimmy was not there, and somebody else was running it. I told Selma about my friend Jimmy and his family.
Shortly afterwards, I called Jimmy and then one afternoon went to see him at the shop in Hartford. He and Sandra welcomed me cordially and they both came to sit with me at a table over a cup of coffee. They were interested to learn all about my new family and my recent promotion at the company. Three employees were behind the counter serving customers, and their sandwich menu was now richer and included Arab varieties such as falafel, hummus, and chicken and lamb gyro.
“I see yo
u’ve improved your menu,” I observed.
“Indeed,” said Jimmy proudly. “Moreover, we now have twenty-one fast food shops in several Connecticut localities.”
“We’re planning to open two more in Massachusetts,” Sandra added, smiling.
“You’re not going to put Howard Johnson out of business now, are you?” I teased.
“Of course not,” said Jimmy quickly. “We’re offering people healthy food,” he added in a light-hearted commercial. “Let the customers choose. They’re always right.”
“We might start a Jimmy’s Hotel,” ventured Sandra.
“No, no,” said Jimmy. “That’s way beyond our immediate plans.”
“You never know,” I said. “With a wife like Sandra, many things are possible!”
“Thank God for Sandra,” he said. “But our plans are to manage the shops we have in the best manner and to maintain the high quality of our only restaurant, Jimmy’s Restaurant, on Main Street in Hartford.”
“You have a restaurant too?”
“Yes. It is the jewel of our business. And I am inviting you and Selma to dinner at my restaurant so that you may see it—and Sandra and I may enjoy your company. You see, I believe eating should be a civilized exercise. Fast food eaten on the run—using paper napkins and styrofoam cups and plates—is not my idea of civilized eating. Even if you sit down to eat your fast food with a flimsy plastic fork and knife at a bare table provided with all sorts of condiments, it is not civilized eating. There is a world of difference between that and a restaurant like mine, where you have comfortable chairs and tables covered with white tablecloths; where you have linen napkins, porcelain dishes and plates, real silverware, and crystal glasses; where you are met by a properly attired maître d’ and served by properly attired, polite, and deft waiters; and where you have a printed, rich menu and a good wine list, suggesting a well-trained chef in the kitchen and a well-kept wine cellar. The place is quiet, with perhaps light music and soft lights in the evenings. That’s civilized eating, sir, that’s civilized eating.”
“Indeed, it is,” I concurred.
I looked at Sandra’s face. Her bright eyes smiled to me as I pondered what her husband was saying. Her soft skin showed early signs of wrinkling but her face, framed by her greying hair, had a lofty expression of dignity. I looked at Jimmy and noted his firm eyes that bespoke a strong will. His receding hairline and wrinkled face told of his long life of hard work.
When Selma and I dined with Jimmy and Sandra at Jimmy’s Restaurant a week later, we had a memorable evening together. The restaurant was almost full and the people there were the elite of the Greater Hartford area. Our sumptuous dinner was enlivened by intelligent and friendly conversation. But as we drank our after-dinner drinks, I heard Jimmy make a remark that made me think he was not yet happy in his life. There seemed to be something he wanted to achieve that was not yet quite clear to him, that did not yet form a part of his inner vision of himself and his world.
“You must come and visit us in our new home,” he began. “It’s a lovely, quiet place in Farmington, half an hour’s drive from Hartford. Our friends like it, and Sandra and I think it is a nice home to spend the rest of our life in. We’ve both worked very hard and deserve some rest eventually, don’t you think so? We spent our youth, our whole life, working, planning, expanding our business, providing for Sam and Kate, educating them, creating for them the good life we want them to have, denying ourselves many things in order to achieve these ends. Now we can’t go back to live our life as we want. It’s gone. But our children are our treasure. They live a free life in this country. Each of them has a car. They have all they need and a promising future ahead. I will be the happiest man to see Sam in two years with a PhD and Kate with a master’s, and both eventually established in their professions, married happily with lovely children, our grandchildren, visiting us at our Farmington home and staying over on weekends and holidays. Our home is big enough for that. Do come and visit us.”
“Thanks. We will, Jimmy,” I said. “You certainly have beautiful dreams for the future, and you and Sandra deserve all good things.”
We never had the opportunity of visiting Jimmy and Sandra in their Farmington home, for I was soon transferred by my company from Hartford to Washington, and I gradually lost touch with Jimmy.
When I finally returned to Hartford last week on a company mission, I thought I should try to see Jimmy and Sandra, if only for good old times’ sake. I had some difficulty locating Jimmy but I was told he would most likely be at his office at Jimmy’s Restaurant.
Indeed, he was. But it was the shock of my life to see him.
Jimmy was haggard. He must have lost half his weight. His eyes were sunken and dim. His head was totally bald and his back was bent. When he stood up and came over from his desk to meet me, he faltered, and his skinny hand trembled as he stretched his arm to greet me.
I shook his weak hand and missed his previous strong grip. His voice was husky when he expressed his surprise at seeing me, but it was warm and cordial.
“Sit down, sit down,” he said. “You remind me of my youth. How are you, my friend? How is Selma? How is Susan? She must be a teenager now ...”
After I informed him about my family, I asked, “And how are you, Jimmy, and how is Sandra?”
“Sandra is at home. She’s fine. Kate is with her, she has come from Boston to visit us with her daughter, Reema, and her son, Ramsay. Her husband, Karim, is a nice young Palestinian she met at university. He has a good position at an engineering firm in Boston.”
“And how is Sam? Did he get his PhD?”
Jimmy did not answer. He looked at the palms of his empty, trembling hands. He then looked up at me and attempted to speak. His lips quivered, his chin twitched. Then he broke into a sob and burst into tears.
I stood up and went to him. I put my arm around him as he sat on his chair at the desk. I felt his whole body shaking.
“It’s okay. Take it easy, Jimmy,” I said trying to comfort him.
When he regained his composure, he wiped his tears with the back of his hands. He looked bravely at me and said, “Sam died.”
I did not know what to say.
“He was driving back home from Chicago for the Christmas holiday in his final PhD year,” he explained. “There was a blizzard, and visibility on the highway was almost nil. A young woman flagged down his car. She had a flat tire and was desperate for help. He pulled over and put her spare tire on. As he was returning to his car to resume his trip home, an eighteen-wheeler hit him, and he died on the spot.”
“Oh, Jimmy ... I’m really sorry.”
“My son, my treasure!” he said. “This is the harvest of my years.”
A moment later he added, “However, seeing and hearing and touching Reema and Ramsay, and being with them and talking to them give me some relief.”
He looked pensively at me, then suddenly gained a sense of urgency, as though he had remembered something.
“Oh, I’ve forgotten my manners,” he said. “I haven’t offered you a cup of coffee or anything else.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I had a cup of coffee just before I came here.”
“Well then. I have a better idea. If you’re willing, I’ll drive you to Farmington; you’ll see Sandra and Kate and my lovely grandchildren. They’ll all be thrilled to see you.”
“Fine,” I said as I marvelled at Jimmy’s change of mood. “This is an opportunity I’ll not miss.”
As we drove up Farmington Avenue, Jimmy talked, and I mostly listened. I was amazed at how philosophical he had become. Mature in years, and having gone through periods of hard work and painful experience, he now had a deep feeling for how valuable every single moment of life was. He gave me the impression that nothing counted in life but love and happiness. And every moment, however fleeting, that offered love and happiness had to be seized and enjoyed to the full.
Mentioning his son Sam in passing, he said, “I had him for twen
ty-five years to enjoy. Can you imagine that? Twenty-five years! The moment of his birth gave me an incomparable feeling of elation that strengthened my will to live. And from that moment on, every single new experience of his was mine, renewing my life and drawing me to enjoy its eagerness, its expectations, its wonders, its surprises. He was not meant to live longer and that definitely saddened me. But that made me also realise how much more I should enjoy the remaining days of my life with those I love, both family and friends, and how much more I should try to make them happy.”
I understood why he invited me to go home with him to see his loved ones. I was glad I accepted his invitation and I looked forward to being there with him and them.
ALL IS VANITY
Gaby and Randa were high school sweethearts in Alexandria, but after graduation, their families had plans that did not take Gaby and Randa’s into consideration.
“Nonsense,” Randa’s mother had said. “High school infatuations lead to nothing, or else to disaster. We’re leaving Egypt soon for Canada, and you’ll come with us. I’m sure you’ll find a young man after your heart there.”
And Randa did: he was the same young man, the same Gaby she had loved for two years in high school back in Alexandria, for his family had come to Canada as immigrants too. He was studying to become a chemical engineer, while she was majoring in English literature, but they were both at the University of Toronto.
They graduated together in the same year, and their parents were proud to announce their engagement, even before Gaby began working for Dupont Canada. Randa decided to go on with her education and earn a Master’s degree and then teach in high school. But she dropped out when, a couple of months after the wedding and despite precautions, she discovered she was going to have a baby.
True Arab Love Page 3