Chicago, Alaa Aswany [first e reader .TXT] 📗

the midst of the problems, but Danana had not. When several days of the new month had passed, his worries increased and he was beset by apprehensions. He even suspected that she had initiated the problem between the two of them deliberately to withhold that monthly sum or to blackmail him with her demands or, more dangerously, to establish the principle that her father’s money was negotiable, that she would give it if she was happy and withhold it if she was not. All those considerations made him change his methods; so he stopped his harassment and whenever he saw her would say right away “peace be upon you,” then look at her with an understanding, loving glance tinged with a little reproach. Yesterday he took a further step and sat next to her in front of the television. She was watching an Adel Imam movie and he began to laugh out loud as a prelude to speaking with her. But she ignored him completely, as if he were not there. So he gave up and went to bed.

In the morning he got up, washed, and performed his ablution and his prayers, then sat in the living room drinking tea and smoking. After a while Marwa appeared and no sooner did she see him than she turned around to leave, but he said right away, “Please, Marwa. I want to talk to you about an important matter.”

“May it be good, God willing,” she said with an impassive face. He got up, got close to her, and held her hand. She jerked her hand away and shouted, “Don’t touch me.”

“Listen, good woman, you’ve wronged me and behaved insolently toward me. I’ve given you this time to come back to your senses.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I am advising you just for God’s sake. What you are doing is forbidden by the canon law. True, I hit you. But I used my legitimate right.”

“Keep your religious sermons to yourself. What exactly do you want?”

“Nothing but good things.”

She smiled derisively and said as she searched in her handbag, “I know what you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want the money? Here, take it, please, but don’t you come near me after that.”

The money was several one-hundred-dollar bills folded together. Danana took it with a nimble move of his hand, and then sighed and said as he slipped the bills into his wallet, “May God forgive you, Marwa. I will not hold you accountable for what you’ve said. Obviously your nerves are strained. I recommend a hot bath, then a two-prostration prayer to end hardship. That will do you a lot of good, God willing.”

At exactly eight o’clock on Saturday evening, I was standing in front of Dr. Graham’s house. I had put on my best clothes and carried a bouquet of flowers in my hand. It was a small one-story house surrounded by a narrow garden, with flowerbeds lining both sides of the walkway. A graceful and beautiful young black woman (she looked like Naomi Campbell) opened the door. She had on a simple outfit: a white T-shirt and blue jeans. Behind her stood a black boy, about six years old.

“Hello, I’m Carol McKinley, John’s friend, and this is my son, Mark.”

I shook hands with them and gave her the flowers. She thanked me warmly as she smelled them. The furniture was all dark wood in the English style, simple and elegant. Dr. Graham was sitting in the living room, relaxing his large body on the sofa. In front of him was a cart table on which were arranged bottles of liquor and glasses. I presented him with a simple gift, a plate inlaid with mother-of-pearl from Khan al-Khalili. He welcomed me and offered me the chair opposite him. The boy approached and whispered something in his ear. Dr. Graham nodded and kissed him on the cheek and the boy ran inside. Dr. Graham turned to me, and smiling, asked, “What would you like to drink?”

“Red wine.”

“Isn’t wine forbidden in Islam?” Carol asked as she opened the bottle.

“I believe in God in my heart. I am not strict. Besides, religious scholars in Iraq, during the Abbasid caliphate, permitted the drinking of wine.”

“I thought the Abbasid caliphate ended a long time ago,” commented Dr. Graham.

“It has indeed ended. But I love wine.”

We all laughed and Carol said in a gentle voice as she sipped her drink, “John told me you’re a poet. Can we hear some of your poetry? That’d be wonderful!”

“I don’t know how to translate my poetry.”

“Even though your English is so good?”

“Translating poetry is something else.”

“Translating poetry is treason,” said Dr. Graham, and then added earnestly, “As a poet, your study in America will offer you a good opportunity to understand American society. Perhaps you’ll write about it one of these days. New York has inspired the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca to write beautiful poems, and we are waiting for your poems about Chicago.”

“I hope so.”

“Unfortunately you’ve come to America at a time when it is swept by a reactionary, conservative current. There was a time, which I personally experienced as a young man, when there was another America, more humane and liberal.”

He paused for a moment to pour himself another drink and then went on, his voice acquiring a more profound tone. “I am from the Vietnam generation. We were the ones who unmasked the deception of the American dream and exposed the crimes of the American establishment and fought it ferociously. Thanks to us America in the 1960s witnessed a true ideological revolution when progressive values replaced traditional capitalist ideas. But, unfortunately, all of that is now gone.”

“Why?” I asked, and Carol replied, “Because the capitalist system was able to renew itself and co-opt elements opposing it. The young revolutionaries who rejected the system have now become soft, bourgeois middle-aged men, their utmost goal a successful deal or a higher-paying job. Revolutionary ideas are gone. Every American citizen now dreams of a house with a