{"id":6998,"date":"2011-05-30T11:36:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T09:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=6998"},"modified":"2011-07-01T10:39:18","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T08:39:18","slug":"mamoud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=6998","title":{"rendered":"Mamoud"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Nava Renek<\/a> (USA)<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click aici<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d driven myself to the airport before, but when it came time to pick up Mamoud, I was nervous, worried about the traffic, the parking, finding the right terminal and gate. We hadn\u2019t seen each other in over twenty-five years–since I was twenty and we\u2019d met at university in France where he was studying chemistry and I was, supposedly, furthering my fluency in French, but really hoping to soak up the culture in the land of Sagan, Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, writers who\u2019d been seeding my dreams since I was an adolescent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t matter that the last time I\u2019d heard from him was nearly two decades earlier on a crackly overseas phone call which ended with his request that I fill out a visa application to sponsor him to come to America.\u00a0 He never arrived, as I knew he wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 Possibly the application had been denied because of my meager income, working seasonally as a waitress, or else he\u2019d wanted something completely different. It\u2019d been a number of years since I\u2019d spoken French, so I had no idea what I might have mistakenly understood him to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A quarter century later when I heard his voice again, he spoke English with a heavy accent and explained that he wished\u00a0 to come to New York.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think he meant the next week, so I said, \u201cof course,\u201d believing that like the last time, he\u2019d never arrive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Crazy things were happening in my life: I\u2019d fallen in love with a man I wasn\u2019t married to, although my husband and I were still struggling to hold onto the only life we knew.\u00a0 How does one summon the courage to dislodge from the docking station and fly unencumbered through space?\u00a0 Neither my husband, nor I had claimed that mastery yet, so we clung to each other, both aware that it was only a matter of time before one of us let go. Bringing an old boyfriend into the mix couldn\u2019t make things much worse, I reasoned. Besides, the timing worked well.\u00a0 My husband was going on a business trip a few days before Mamoud was due to arrive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After parking, I made my way to Terminal 3, prepared for a long wait. We were only a few years past 9\/11, and the INS was scrutinizing anyone who looked vaguely Arabic, so I figured Mamoud would seem a likely candidate. I also understood how vulnerable his dark brooding looks made him.\u00a0 Twenty-five years before, when we hitchhiked around France, I experienced first hand the racism inherent in that country.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure Mamoud knew better than I what it meant to travel along the French autoroutes and twisting country lanes with a Caucasian woman, but he must have ignored his trepidations to humor me, his naive romantic girlfriend who was caught up in some post-bohemian time warp.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nineteen seventy-nine France was still teetering between the radical \u201860’s and the more conservative 80’s and \u201890’s. Back then, one could still travel \u201cen stop,\u201d sleep beneath bridges and in fields, and live on a diet of bread, cheese, and a bottle of Vin de Table.\u00a0 Europe<\/em> on $20 a Day<\/em>, the popular travel book at the time, seemed ridiculously bourgeois to me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I\u2019d been traveling with another European or fair skinned American like myself, I don\u2019t think the police would\u2019ve taken much notice. But with Mamoud, I found myself straightening each time a patrol car appeared on the horizon, knowing the car would inevitably stop in front of us, and then \u201cles flics\u201d would demand to see Mamoud\u2019s papers. My American passport with gold eagle embossed on a thick blue cover was all they needed to wave me on, while Mamoud\u2019s worn Carte d\u2019Identitie along with his passport and student visa that he\u2019d been wise enough to bring along, was always scrutinized, then shoved back at him with threatening gestures that I interpreted to mean: even though your papers are in order, we\u2019ll get you out of our country yet!\u00a0\u00a0 Mamoud never seemed to mind and would put on a cynical smile as he went through the motions, determined that the hassle the police created was not going to stop him from roaming freely around their land.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cavernous waiting area at Terminal 3 swelled with the usual chaos as throngs of travelers surged in and out.\u00a0 Neon signs advertising the various food stalls flickered and the chicory aroma of burnt coffee blended with the metallic odor of processed food.\u00a0 Groups of Pakistani men wearing winter parkas, their wives wrapped in colorful saris covered by pastel snow jackets, hovered nervously near the Custom\u2019s exit, a door that automatically slid open and shut as each group of arrivals took their first steps into the New World.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who was Mamoud now?\u00a0 How would I recognize him?\u00a0 In our brief phone conversations just days before, I hadn\u2019t asked him for a description of himself or a recent photo, as he hadn\u2019t asked one from me. From my own travels, I\u2019d learned to accept unpredictability and have faith in chance and the conflation of circumstances, knowing that things would usually turn out all right, even if I wasn\u2019t always privy to the blueprint beforehand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My friends had looked at me strangely when I told them I was meeting an old boyfriend, a man I\u2019d known for about six months twenty-five years ago when we\u2019d carried on a relationship stymied by my lack of French and his total unfamiliarity with the English language. How was a nineteen year old, possessing only an intermediate level of French able to pull off an intimate relationship, succeeding in something most people had difficultly doing in their native tongues?\u00a0 Or maybe we\u2019d sustained our connection on the unrequited feelings of not being able to fully express ourselves, when for all other reasons, our attraction should have flagged?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why was Mamoud coming to America, anyway?\u00a0 I thought it must be to obtain a Green Card.\u00a0 Why else would someone from North Africa come here?\u00a0 Perhaps he was planning to find work in the States, but if my French was somewhat accurate, I believed he said he had a good job in a hospital, although I couldn\u2019t remember if he\u2019d used the present or past tense when he told me this.\u00a0 I also thought he\u2019d mentioned something about a wife, two boys, and a new born baby girl, but at our age, everyone I knew was going through some sort of crisis, and maybe this trip was going to play a part in his?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once I realized that he was actually arriving, I\u2019d made a private pact with myself that I\u2019d do nothing to help him find work or get residency papers. My life was so far off course, I didn\u2019t have the energy to right my own boat, then save one more soul. So I rehearsed what I\u2019d say when, inevitably, the INS called me into their airport office with its duplicitous two-way mirrors and detainees chained to waiting room chairs. It didn\u2019t really matter to me if the agents put Mamoud right back on the next plane to France.\u00a0 It would\u2019ve been a slight inconvenience having driven all the way out to\u00a0 Queens, but since I hadn\u2019t seen him in so many years, another twenty-five wouldn\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even back when we were together there was a lot I didn\u2019t know about him. Where had he gotten the little money he had?\u00a0 He didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 He claimed he had a French \u201cbenefactor,\u201d an old Frenchman who\u2019d fought in the Algerian War, but I couldn\u2019t imagine what would motivate that man to take a young Algerian under his wing and install him in a small garret in an otherwise luxurious three story mansion in an ancient provincial city in central France?\u00a0 Who owned that house?\u00a0 How many other immigrants lived in the small rectangular rooms on the top floor where I shared Mamoud\u2019s single bed?\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that I hadn\u2019t asked him these questions; it was just that I didn\u2019t understand his sly smiles, slight shrugs, and what I took as vaguely different answers each time he replied.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everyday at university he\u2019d greet me at the vending machines, eager to tell me a quick story of some adventure he\u2019d had the night before or arrange our next rendezvous.\u00a0 I was his \u201cAmerican Girlfriend,\u201d and I think we both knew what that meant. Luckily for the female foreign students, most of the staid French women had left their darker skinned classmates for us. I was perfectly happy with this arrangement.\u00a0 For me at least, the Moroccans, Algerians, and Senegalese possessed a depth of sincerity that made the insipid French men seem extremely unappealing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d brought a magazine to the airport to read, believing that if I wasn\u2019t called in for interrogation, at least I\u2019d have something to do while enduring the long wait as Mamoud was grilled by my government\u2019s representatives, but instead of sitting down, I found myself drawn into the midst of the East Asian crowd, remembering the year-long trip I\u2019d taken to India with my husband fifteen years before.\u00a0 It\u2019d been a frivolous time in our lives: no children, no jobs or commitments other than staying on the road, a stark contrast to most of the struggling inhabitants of the developing countries we traveled to. Back then, we had no monumental disagreements about the divergent courses of our lives. Only the bumpy path mined with the normal responsibilities of adulthood had brought us to that end. With all our carefully crafted distractions, we\u2019d been ill equipped to deal with the mundane problems that befell us once we returned home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before long, I felt a presence behind me and turned to find Mamoud beaming as if it were twenty-five years before and we were meeting in front of the coffee machine at school again. \u201cBonjour,\u201d I greeted him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCa va?\u201d\u00a0 He asked, kissing me on both cheeks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then, with an ease I could only have dreamed of, we turned and<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

walked quickly out the door to fade into the international landscape, a nameless couple meeting at an international airport in any country in the world–no G-men pulling me aside, no suspicious looks from Arab compatriots, no plain clothes police arresting me for harboring a terrorist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As we walked to the car, I checked Mamoud out as I\u2019m sure he examined me.\u00a0 He wore Levis, a stylish ski jacket, and a white turtle neck under a heavy wool sweater, all signs that financially, at least, he was doing well. His hair was short, cropped close to his head, thinning slightly in the middle of his scalp.\u00a0 He appeared a little heavier around the jowls, but I was no longer a nineteen year old beauty myself, having never completely lost the weight I\u2019d put on during my pregnancy a decade before.\u00a0 Despite the years, his eyes still twinkled as amused as ever when we talked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019d taken only a minute for me to determine that his broken English was much worse than my rusty French, so we quickly switched over to the language we\u2019d conducted our original romance in. I don\u2019t know what magic brought those foreign words back to me. It could\u2019ve been some kind of physiological reaction where just by being with him triggered a mimetic response, dredging up grammar and vocabulary that I hadn\u2019t used in years, but by the time we reached my home, we were chatting like old friends. Even my son sensed the warmth between us and took to Mamoud as if he\u2019d known him all his life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It quickly became apparent that Mamoud hadn\u2019t come to the U.S. to stay, and I laughed at my assumption as he took out a small photo album filled with pictures of his wife and young family posing in front of their two story house in a small town near the Swiss border.\u00a0 Again, I wondered why he\u2019d come to visit?\u00a0 What kind of wife would allow her husband to take off to another continent only three months after their daughter had been born? Or, I thought mistrustfully, the “vacation” was really a cover for more nefarious acts, and I was just a pawn in an international game that had already brought death and destruction to my city? But as I scrutinized Mamoud, no matter how I looked at it, he seemed to be a middle class, middle aged man, taking a week\u2019s vacation in the United States.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never really liked to think about how badly things ended between us. It had nothing to do with the fact that the new semester was soon starting and I\u2019d bought a plane ticket to return to the States.\u00a0 I\u2019d easily have given up my studies to stay in France if it meant moving to Montparnasse or the Riviera, but the truth was, I hadn\u2019t really liked the conservative French countryside where I found the people reserved and condescending. This negative attitude was partially my fault. The only real interactions I had with the French were in the local boulangeries and chacuteries where I bought my lunch, or in the Jardin de Mail where horny men sat on benches tossing lust-filled notes at my feet as I paged through Collette in the afternoon sun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I had just turned twenty, hardly a responsible adult, and I must\u2019ve gotten tired of carrying on an increasingly complicated relationship in a language I hadn’t really mastered.\u00a0 Still, that was no reason for letting another person down, but as my semester wound to a close, I started to align myself with other Americans in my program, and together we made plans to travel through Europe by train, a luxury I knew Mamoud could hardly afford. Suddenly, the idea of speaking English with people who understood my jokes, seemed more enjoyable than say, going to Algiers, a journey Mamoud had suggested, a trip as a Jewish woman, I didn\u2019t know how to come to terms with–a choice I\u2019ve regretted for years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So tearfully, I told Mamoud about my plans, but as a consolation, I offered to meet him several weeks later at a vague address in one of the working class towns in southern France where his relatives lived. Then, relieved at unburdening myself, I boarded a train headed to Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first night Mamoud was in Brooklyn, I couldn\u2019t sleep.\u00a0 Possibly, I was plagued by my capricious betrayal of him so many years ago, but mainly my heart was racing, excited by what I took to be my amazing feat of language retention. Had all those foreign films somehow seeped into my psyche? Had my attempts at reading obscure French philosophy actually paid off?\u00a0 How could it be that a language I thought I\u2019d completely forgotten had just been lying dormant for all that time?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The next day passed easily.\u00a0 My son and I accompanied Mamoud on what I took to be the necessary first excursion when sightseeing in New York City: a ride on the Circle Line to circumnavigate the entire island so Mamoud could get a good idea of the miracle that was Manhattan–how one tiny piece of land only thirteen miles long could be home to so many different cultures. To compliment the boat ride, our next activity would be a walking tour of a few of the neighborhoods where he could experience just how easy it was for New Yorkers to slip in and out of each other\u2019s lives, in contrast to what I found to be the rigid race and class barriers in France.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d packed some drinks and sandwiches which I doled out during the three hour boat ride.\u00a0 Anyone witnessing us might\u2019ve mistakenly thought we were just another blended family. We laughed at each other\u2019s jokes, pointed to landmarks, took photographs, and ducked inside the cabin to sip hot chocolate while speaking French the entire time.\u00a0 Secretly, I was giving myself invisible pats on the back when I made another unbidden remark and felt warmed by Mamoud, who seemed to appreciate my school girl giddiness. Perhaps he was just humoring me and I was really only barely comprehensible, but he made me feel as if he understood every word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That evening, I arranged for my son to sleep over at a friend\u2019s house so I could take Mamoud to some of my favorite local bars. We drank Pernod before dinner and a bottle of wine during the meal, then explored my neighborhood hangouts while catching up on the years that had passed. I didn\u2019t feel uncomfortable.\u00a0 In fact, I felt quite normal, just as sightseeing and cooking dinner with him had felt effortless too. Because of my personal situation, I\u2019d been thinking a lot about the fickle nature of love and the impossibility of sustaining a passionate romance for a long period of time, but now I was wondering if perhaps there was something to be said for having a rondeau of lovers that could sustain a sense of excitement, something that seemed to be missing from my married life?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I look back at it now, I still have no idea why Mamoud came to visit.\u00a0 I know he didn\u2019t come to get a Green Card or to carry out a terrorist act, or play out some revenge fantasy for having been dumped years ago, nor do I think he arrived believing he was still in love with me, but we ended up sleeping together that second night and the six nights that followed, with me always listening for my son\u2019s footsteps, ready to jump back to my bedroom so he would find his mom where he expected her to be.\u00a0 Even in that tumultuous year, just as endorphins mask the body\u2019s real pain, my child, seeped in innocence and naivet\u00e9 that could only come from years of stability and comfort, seemed oblivious to the disquiet that would soon split his family apart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I enjoyed having Mamoud around that week.\u00a0 He was someone I came home to after work, chatted with in the kitchen, and snuggled up against in bed at night. My husband had been that someone, but once our marriage became impossible, we only knew how to exacerbate our problems.\u00a0 In those few days with Mamoud, I regained a fleeting sense of what it was like to be loved again, although I was certain our situation was only temporary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One night while lying beside him, I asked: \u201cPourquoi?\u201d letting the rest of the question hang in the air.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t need much time to figure out what I meant and quickly replied: \u201cTu es folle, et moi, je suis fou.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That was an answer I thought I understood. I was crazy, and he was crazy too, but what exactly was he referring to?\u00a0 Was it our months together back in \u201879 when we developed a relationship that was based on intuition and not the literal word?\u00a0 Was it the fact that after twenty-five years, he\u2019d called me out of the blue wanting to visit, and I\u2019d matched his folly by agreeing that he should come?\u00a0 Was it that we both still possessed that sense of insidious romanticism, believing that after so many years desire could be reignited?\u00a0 Or maybe his trip was just a simple act of defiance against the confines of his marriage, the racist slights he felt even as he lived successfully in France, or my own country\u2019s post 9\/11 jingoistic taunts?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I never got a chance to ask him.\u00a0 After spending a week together, he used the last few hours to buy presents for his family while I stayed home wondering how I’d feel once he was gone.\u00a0 He was going home to his wife and children, and I\u2019d be left to pick up the pieces in my own home, but I also felt that already the excitement of our relationship was waning and our time together had become \u00a0strained.\u00a0 I\u2019d forgotten about his short temper and how irritable he became when things weren\u2019t just the way he wanted, like my French accent, or my limited vocabulary which forced me to always ask him how to say more complicated things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I thought at least he\u2019d write, but I never heard from him again. Possibly he couldn\u2019t keep our secret to himself and had blurted out his guilty conscience the moment he\u2019d stepped off the plane? Or else, he\u2019d done just what he\u2019d set out to do: visited an old girlfriend who he hadn\u2019t quite forgotten.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Nava Renek <\/em><\/p>\n

385 E. 18th<\/sup> Street 5J<\/em><\/p>\n

Brooklyn, N.Y. 11226<\/em><\/p>\n

nrenek@brooklyn.cuny.edu<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Nava Renek (USA) pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click aici   I\u2019d driven myself to the airport before, but when it came time to pick up Mamoud, I was nervous, worried about the traffic, the parking, finding the right terminal and gate. We hadn\u2019t seen each other in over twenty-five years–since I was twenty and we\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[731,22],"tags":[1152,764,1116],"class_list":["post-6998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-31","category-short-story","tag-egophobia-31","tag-nava-renek","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6DakB-mamoud","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6998"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7283,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6998\/revisions\/7283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}