Things Shall Remain Between Us

“Ready?”

Sometimes he has an ethereal smile like that, emanating from his face out of so much love. I say to myself that there’s nobody like him. No one has this face so deeply advanced in love, lost in tenderness, stunned by the force of this love. A face sent from outside the world, as if it were a poem of flesh and paper, of ink and blood. With two charming dimples, a smile that goes to the furthest reaches of joy, and the light, all of the light, in the night of his eyes.

My heart rushed at me, as if it were beating in my ears. I heard its reverberations coming to me from a far-off place, a place deep inside me.

I took a deep breath and whispered, “Ready!”

“What are you going to read?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Don’t scare me, please. The ‘force of nonexistence’ and ‘end of the world’ and stuff like that has to remain between us.”

“How possessive of you!”

We entered the room. The same room.

“Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

The place where we’d met for the first time—before an impossibly beautiful year, like a dream fleeing the reality of place and rudeness of time. With the difference that today I was sitting to his right, on a long wooden podium, to read poetry, my poetry. My poems, my little creatures, will wrap my voice around their shoulders and soar into the air. They will be liberated. I am setting them free today, weaning them, granting them their wider existence outside of me. Today was their independence day.

I was surprised by how many people there were. I whispered in his ear, “There are more than thirty people here!”

“Usually we have fifteen at most.”

“Strange!”

“It’s thanks to the announcement. Do you see the woman there, in the brown shirt?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my mother. She’s here to check you out, so be nice.”

“Are you serious?”

“Completely. She’s my mother and she came because of you.”

I lifted my eyes and quickly lowered them. She was looking at us with a knowing smile on her lips. Intelligence radiated from her face. A woman in her late forties, with milky skin, lines spreading out around her eyes, a small mouth, and keen glances. She made me nervous.

“She’s beautiful.”

“I know what you’re getting at. Just say it: why didn’t you inherit your mother’s good looks, Isam?”

“Isam . . .”

“I had to say it.”

“Have I thanked you enough?”

“For what?”

“For everything.”

“You’re happy?”

“Very happy.”

“Then yes, you’ve thanked me enough.”