The Gentleman

In Thailand. In the hotel.

I am outside the tomb. The tomb is inside me.

The hotel looks like a magical castle in an old fairy tale, surrounded by beautiful greenery that creates an enchanting halo around it. The smell of the sea in the air, relaxed faces and lowered voices, and orchids in every possible corner. Does there exist on earth a place dripping with this frightening fecundity? I pulled my hand from his and walked through the hotel and its passageways. I wanted to pick everything up with my eyes and hide it inside me.

I had to hide this place and save it, to put it in the empty jam jars under my bed so I could keep it. I was afraid the beauty would seep away. I felt my eyes filling with tears.

“Do you like it?”

“Are you kidding?”

I think I smiled for the first time since we’d gotten married.

“Thailand always amazes you” read the slogan printed at the bottom of the paper napkin in my hand. I nodded in agreement and decided to keep it. I folded it several times and hid it in the zipper pocket inside my bag, thinking, I’ll collect so many napkins, I’ll put them in empty jam jars, I’ll save everything!

I moved like a sleepwalker. The hotel employee opened the door of our room with a white magnetic card and we entered. Leather sofas made of cane, a low table in the center of the salon, a twenty-inch television. On the white bedsheets pulled taut over the sides of the mattress they had made a heart out of red rose petals. On the television screen glowed the words: “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. al-Farid.”

The hotel employee politely lowered his head and excused himself after telling us that the resort was giving us a free reflexology session. I waited impatiently for him to leave so I could spread out on the wide bed and rest my cheek on the soft sheets. I lay down on my stomach, inhaled the scent of lavender from the sheets, and noticed the piece of chocolate resting on the pillow. I put it under my tongue and hid the wrapper in my bag. For the first time in many years I wasn’t forced to close my eyes in order to see beauty.

Faris hopped onto the bed and its legs rocked like a ship in a storm. He laughed. I laughed too. He spread out on his back next to me. I pulled in my arms and legs and sat up. I started to get up. Stay, Fatima, he said. I have to go to the bathroom. Stay a little while. He laced his fingers between mine. My mouth went dry, my heart pounded. I looked at the window: what if I jumped now and ran?

“How long are you going to be so skittish?”

“I . . .”

“It’s been three days. Three days!”

I said nothing.

“I’m a real gentleman, don’t you think?”

He smiled vaguely. My eyes blurred. My heart retreated. Everything disappeared. Faris is a gentleman, a real gentleman. He waited three days. He’s a real gentleman!

He picked up some rose petals and pressed them into my palm, then squeezed my palm in his hand.

“I like you.”

He brought my palm close to his cheek, brushed it against his face, his chin, his neck. He felt like velvet.

“I’m lucky.”

Faris is lucky, the pumpkin is ripe, the melon turned out to be sweet, the seller didn’t cheat. He won the lottery.