“Please,” Shafiq said, kissing Jamila’s hand and then lowering himself to kiss her feet. “Please. I know it was wrong. But it was not—” here Shafiq began to cry, dry but still real sobs, “it was not out of disrespect. It was only because, she, well…” He didn’t dare say he loved her, but he had to say something. “Kathmiya is a blessing, a blessing in my life.”
Jamila listened.
“I want to see her and meet my son.”
“Aren’t you going to America?”
“Not if she’ll let me be in their life. If you’ll let me. Or if you want,” he began promising wildly, “I’ll disappear forever if I can just meet them once.”
As soon as he said it, he knew this was too much. It would probably ruin his chances, but he had to backtrack. He stood up.
“No.” He looked into Kathmiya’s mother’s probing eyes. “I may travel to America but I could never forget her or our son. I won’t disrupt her life but I will always be there, I will try to help her in any way I can. Say I was her teacher, say I was her employer, say whatever you want but let me stay connected to Kathmiya and our son. Please.”
Shafiq was putting everything on the line, from his true feelings to his future to the expectations of his deeply traditional family, but he had to insist on this point. “I was thinking of going to America, but I will always be Iraqi. Always.”
“You are a man,” Jamila said slowly, as though deciding as she formed the words, “of honor.”
Honor. What they had all lived through in its name, what they had all nearly lost. Kathmiya’s mother was praising him, but Shafiq couldn’t relax yet. “Please,” he asked, falling down in front of her again.
“You can see her—but just to say good-bye,” Jamila ruled. “Kathmiya is finally safe and I cannot let her run off with you into danger. But I remember. I understand.”
“So I can see them?” Shafiq looked up.
“Once.”
“I—What do you mean?”
“Once before you go to America,” Jamila instructed. “After that, you can write letters, maybe we will have visits, and no matter what, we will keep contact.”
The meeting was set. Kathmiya and America.
Shafiq packed quickly: cotton shirts and one good suit and underclothes and pants and pajamas and his fringed prayer shawl, along with a folder full of his college documents, all in the heavy leather suitcase that his father had bought from an Indian import dealer.
Then he carefully wrapped a dozen black-and-white photographs, some posed at the photographer’s studio with a Persian rug hanging in the background, others more spontaneous: Ezra and Naji on the roof; Reema sticking dough to the blistering sides of the rooftop oven; he and Omar on their street; Aziza being held by Kathmiya, the sparkle in her eyes now shining in Shafiq’s own.
Jamila stood guard at a distance while Shafiq walked with Kathmiya and Ali in a neighborhood alley.
“I love you. I have always loved you,” he said, straining against the impulse to embrace her. “And I love him now too. He’s beautiful.” Shafiq was filled with a sweet happiness he could not imagine walking away from.
Kathmiya beamed, ever more stunning in the glow of new motherhood. “Just like you, just like I wrote,” she said, her own large eyes moist with tears.
“Ali, my son.” He stared at the boy. What did it mean that the child would never learn to do Kaddish? Surely blood ties were transcendent even without religion. “I did sadaka for you,” Shafiq said. Kathmiya smiled.
Ten paces away, Jamila shuffled her feet. It was understood their few moments together would soon be over.
“Kathmiya, I wish I could stay to be with you and to see Ali grow up, to maybe—one day—”
But she cut him off. She had made her peace with Jamila’s decision. The promise of knowing she might see Shafiq again salved the wound of their separation. It may only be temporary, she reassured herself. Jamila had already said Shafiq was a man of honor, not like Kathmiya’s father.
There was a chance that her husband would outlive her, a chance that she would never leave Iraq, and even a chance that Shafiq might never come back, but Kathmiya was certain he would remain true.
“Shafiq, you are always in my heart.”
“Yes, and now I’m here with you,” he said, stroking his son’s small cheek while trying to memorize every aspect of the tiny, miraculous being. “I am not here to say good-bye to you. I am not leaving Iraq forever. I am going to America, yes, because I want to be a better man. But—” he was aware of Jamila hovering nearer.
Shafiq knew what he was about to say might sound hopelessly idealistic, but he trusted Kathmiya to understand. “There will be a different future for you, for me, for our son. The war is over now. The world is changing. Someday all of us can live in peace, and I can come back to Iraq, to rejoin my family and return to you. We can be together again.”
Jamila started walking over. Kathmiya reached into her dress pocket and handed Shafiq the pink sapphire ring. Brimming with feeling, he slipped it on her right ring finger, then leaned down and brushed his lips against the sleeping boy.
“You are always in my heart,” he said, as Jamila positioned herself between them.
“Always.”
Shafiq’s entire family and Salwa were on hand to wave him off at the Margeel station.
Reema wept. “You are so strong,” she said. “Leaving my house. Leaving my country.” Tears flowed like Iraq’s twin rivers down her still-youthful face.
“My son,” Salwa said, holding Shafiq tight.
Everyone swarmed the America-bound teen for hugs. Marcelle even offered a warm farewell. Ezra was grinning. But none of their good wishes or affection or love could outweigh the terrible absence of Naji. My favorite brother. How will he find me? His name had not been mentioned for a long time, but Shafiq had to break the silence. “Naji,” he said to the group. “When he comes back, I’ll be here. Or I’ll take him to America. Or something. But please, please, let me know when you hear from Naji.” He looked quickly away so they wouldn’t see the emotion on his face.
The ache of parting pressed down on his chest. Shafiq thought of Kathmiya again and closed his eyes briefly in order to remember hers.
Kathmiya had been conceived in love. This was an understanding Shafiq and Jamila shared. And Ali, too, was similarly blessed.
He hugged Reema, who kissed him through tears. Then Roobain leaned over and whispered, “I want to see you again, but don’t come back.”
Shafiq kissed his father’s hand, the ultimate gesture of respect, love and appreciation. But he knew in his heart that no matter how bad the situation got, he would someday return to see Kathmiya and Ali again.
At the travel agent’s office in Baghdad the following day, Shafiq obtained a KLM ticket: Baghdad-Rome-Amsterdam-Glasgow-Newfoundland-New York.
With a few hours left in Iraq, Shafiq went to see his Uncle Dahood. By then in his seventies, the old bachelor owned the house where he lived and rented rooms to different tenants, including women who did the cooking and cleaning that a wife would. The modest, low structure stood in a dusty neighborhood and featured a large interior courtyard alive with a small tree, one old donkey, and two dirty goats.
Uncle Dahood, wearing an old-fashioned robe-like zboon, was sitting on the floor of his unfurnished room, scraping the cement off of a pile of bricks so he could use them again.
He remained seated on the bare floor as Shafiq approached, thinking about how his uncle had taught him to raise pigeons. Back in those days, Shafiq’s summers were spent largely in the house or at the neighbors’, and the sight of the birds being released into the open skies overhead had satisfied some of his longing to be free.
“Uncle Dahood, I came to say good-bye,” Shafiq said, feeling still like a boy. Although headed to what he thought of as the most modern place on earth, he remained in awe of his uncle’s quiet, determined strength. “I’m going to study in America.”
“Is it far?” Uncle Dahood asked, separating the crumbling cement from the sun-weathered yellow bricks.
“Very far.”
“Will I see you again?”
“In-shall-lah,” Shafiq replied using the Jewish pronunciation to say God willing.
Shafiq was leaving his uncle behind, but he would never forget all that he had gained since receiving a special gift of two perforated boxes containing his first birds. Surprised by a sudden rush of emotion, he kissed his uncle’s rough hand with silent but strong appreciation for the life lessons it had so naturally imparted.
“Allah wi-yaak,” Uncle Dahood replied. May Allah be with you.
The crowd that accompanied Shafiq to the Baghdad airport was more like an entourage surrounding a star. The fact that someone they knew was going to America was enough of a rarity for cousins and in-laws and associates alike to interrupt whatever it was they were doing that weekday and make their way to the airport.
The group gathered on a veranda overlooking the runways, where a few planes were parked.
They were treating him like a diplomat, like he represented all of their aspirations and potentials. But Shafiq did not want to bathe in any adulation. He wanted to play stickball with Omar. But there was no time for that. Only for a tight hug.
“My brother,” Omar said, “this is from my family to you.”
“My brother.” Shafiq accepted the package. “Do I open it now?”
“On the plane,” Omar said. “Think of me.”
“Omar, I will always think of you.” Shafiq held the gift gently to his chest and bowed toward it reverently. Even America could not compete for this affection.
Inside the plane, Shafiq felt a terrific buzzing in his heart. As other passengers settled into their seats, he wanted to jump out of his own. Where was he going? What would it be like? As mystified as he was at that moment, setting out on the forty-five-hour journey to America, he knew he would soon be enlightened to life there. He would gain the power to decode the unfathomable.
With a few minutes to go before takeoff, Shafiq carefully opened the small package Omar had given him.
A book. The book. The Prophet.
Hajji Abdullah’s prized possession, and Omar’s only family heirloom except for its companion volume, A Tear and a Smile. Shafiq experienced both when he realized Omar had broken up the pair of books in order to ensure that each boy got half of the whole, just as they always felt they were.
Inside, a photo marked a page. Shafiq had seen the image in Omar’s house and cherished it. He and Omar, just about ten years old, were pretending to fence with sticks. Looking at the scene, he could almost feel the bark rubbing on his palms, taste the salty summer day, hear the laughter ring.
After absorbing the image on the photo, Shafiq carefully returned it to the place it had been holding in the book of poetry.
And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.”
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
Shafiq felt a pang spreading from the center of his head toward its crown as he realized he was really leaving Iraq, his family, Omar, Kathmiya and Ali. The ache gripped him until he read the next verse:
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
Suddenly he felt released. Out the window, the runway appeared to be moving away from him.
As the plane took off, Shafiq thought of how he and Kathmiya used to watch his birds flying through the sky. She is with me now, he thought, preparing to soar.