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

“Me too, but I am not comfortable with our friendship.”

“Why?”

“Every day I get more attached to you, but we’ve never talked about the future.”

She was surprised by how forward she was being. Was this the shy Shaymaa, now receiving a man in her home and talking to him like that?

“The future is in God’s hands,” he said in a soft voice in a final attempt to avoid the subject.

“Please appreciate my position. You are a man and you won’t be faulted no matter what you do. I am a girl and my family has strict conventions. Everything we do here in America will reach people in Egypt, thanks to the offices of good people who, as you know, are quite numerous. I don’t want to bring shame on my family.”

“We are not doing anything wrong.”

“Yes we are. Our relationship flies in the face of tradition, in the face of the principles I was raised on. My father, God have mercy on his soul, was an enlightened man who supported women’s education and right to work. But that does not mean I should be lax and compromise my reputation.”

“Your reputation is beyond reproach, Shaymaa.”

She went on as if she hadn’t heard him, “Why are we going out together? Why are you here now? Don’t tell me it’s collegiality because collegiality has its bounds. We have to use our heads and not be driven by emotions. Listen, Tariq, I am going to ask you a question, and I hope you’ll answer it frankly.”

“Go ahead.”

“What am I to you?”

“A friend.”

“Just a friend?” she whispered in a soft voice.

His heart shook and he said in a quavering voice, “You are a very dear person to me.”

“Only that?”

“I love you,” he said quickly, as if it had got away from him, as if he had been resisting for some time then suddenly collapsed. The atmosphere changed in an instant. It was as if he had uttered a magical word that opened all kinds of doors. She smiled and looked at him with the utmost tenderness and whispered, “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

They kept looking at each other in disbelief, as if they were clinging to that unique moment, knowing it wouldn’t last, and not certain what to do once it had passed. She got up, carried the tray and empty cups, and then asked him in a voice that was the sweetest he had heard since he met her, “I’ve made a dish of Umm Ali, would you like some?”

She didn’t wait for his answer but headed for the kitchen, and then came back carrying the plate. She was moving confidently and coquettishly as if, just now, she was feeling at the peak of her femininity. Tariq stood up to take the plate from her, but suddenly he extended his hand and held her wrist. He pulled her toward him and got so close to her that his hot, panting breath chafed her face. She pushed him away with all her strength and shouted in a choking voice, “Tariq! Are you crazy?”

CHAPTER 15

Behind the green curtain covering the window, in the room stacked with books and filled over the years with pipe tobacco smoke, John Graham kept a dark brown box covered with old brass ornaments. He would lock it carefully and forget about it for long periods of time. Then it would occur to him suddenly to lock the office door from inside and panting, drag the large box to the middle of the room. He would squat, take out the box’s contents, and spread them in front of him, on the floor, his whole life unwrapping itself before his eyes: black and white photographs of himself as a young man; newspaper clippings from the 1960s carrying headlines of important events; angry, antigovernment revolutionary flyers; leaflets showing pictures of children and women killed or maimed during the Vietnam War (some so horrendous he couldn’t, even after all these years, look at them for a long time); colorful, hand-painted invitations to demonstrations or open-air rock concerts; the program for Woodstock; buttons bearing the famous love and peace sign; and an Indian musical wood instrument that he used to play well. But the most cherished of the contents was a metal helmet that he took off a policeman during a violent clash in a demonstration. In the old photographs Graham was a slim young man with an unkempt beard and long hair gathered in a ponytail, wearing a loose-fitting Indian shirt, blue jeans, and sandals. Those were the “park days,” as he called them. He ate and drank, slept, and made love in Chicago’s famous parks: Grant Park and Lincoln Park.

John was one of the angry youth rebelling against the Vietnam War, who rejected everything: the church, the state, marriage, work, and the capitalist system. Most of them left their homes, their families, their jobs, and their studies. They spent the night discussing politics, smoking pot, singing and playing music, and making love. During the day they demonstrated. In August of 1968 the Democratic Party held its convention in Chicago to nominate its candidate for the presidency of the United States. Tens of thousands of young men and women demonstrated, and in a historic spectacle captured by cameras and beamed throughout the world, they lowered the American flag and raised in its place a bloodstained shirt. Then they brought a big fat pig, wrapped it in the American flag, sat it on a raised dais, and declared that they would nominate it as the best candidate for the presidency of the United States. One speaker after the other praised the pig-candidate in the midst of derisive cheers, whistles, and applause. Their message was clear. The government establishment itself was corrupt to the core, no matter which person was at the top: the rulers of America were sending the sons of the poor to Vietnam so that their profits might multiply by millions