DAY 43
AUTHOR’S AFTER( THE END OF THE WORLD )WORD

I search for The Man everywhere. I try to find him in my imagination, in the walk-in closet. I listen for him in the silence after I make love to my wife, but he is long gone. He invaded my story at the very end when I was most vulnerable as a writer and creator and made me true to my word in The Author’s Preface.

I promised to make you feel like you lost something at the end, like you were robbed of a sentimental possession, and then he let me set fire to a story that found baptism in a flame. Some ashes remain, of course, like the surviving Messenger and the relationship between Kashif and his daughter’s mother. They may rise again one day, or fade away. Or simply remind their author that he is alive and could write again.

My wife will not appreciate this part of the story and perhaps my children may question it one day in their rebellious years. As I mentioned in my Preface, I stole the story.

I was doing my M.A. in Windsor at the time when I met her. You see, when you are accepted into a Master’s Program you are provided the privilege of earning some of the tuition back with a teaching position. Each of the Master’s candidates is brought in to see the Dean of the Department, one on one.

In my meeting, Dr. Q, a very skinny, angular faced academic with a slow voice, presented the truth to me. As I sat before her desk, she began with small talk.

“How do you like The University of Windsor thus far?”

“I am adjusting and enjoying my courses.”

“Yes. Yes.”

She removed my transcript.

“Your portfolio of writing must have been impressive.”

“As I’m sure were all of the others.”

“No, you see, they accepted you into the program despite your overall average in your final year of undergraduate work. It is below our cut off.”

“Yeah, well my father had a major accident and I spent most of my final year in the hospital watching over him in a coma.”

Her smile was strained and her nod forcefully understanding while she listened. Everything in her corner office was stained wood. Oxford stained wood.

“Nonetheless, you do understand we don’t have a teaching fellowship for you. We only have twelve fellowships and you are thirteen.”

I wasn’t stunned or even insulted at the time. I didn’t even know the fellowships were paying jobs, to be honest.

“You can work part-time on the weekends in The Writing Development Center down the hall. We have some Visa students at the school, or English as Second Language students who will need help writing essays. It doesn’t pay as much as the fellowship.”

She revealed all of this with iceberg white teeth and a heavy, lipstick smile.

“That’s fine. I’ll work in the Writing Development Center.”

My first student on an early Saturday morning couldn’t speak English. She was dressed and jewelled, perhaps overly so for so early a session. Her hair was shiny black straightened and her eyes the match with exquisitely ornate eyelashes. Her skin was flawless and painted expertly to complete the portrait. When she walked into the closet of a room I was more than captivated. I could hear my breathing.

“Hello, and welcome.”

She stared at me and raised her hand embarrassingly.

“You don’t speak English?”

She nodded no.

My first student as a teacher and she knew nothing more than Hi and Bye.

I recommended she watch soap operas. This was my out-of-the-box first lesson as an English teacher. I remembered how my grandmother couldn’t speak English, but she knew exactly what was happening on The Young and the Restless. The words matched the melodramatic expressions in soap operas. After a few weeks of this unorthodox therapy, Leia understood small talk. She learned how to write quickly and it made me believe I was a good teacher.

I slept with her before the submission of her first essay. I was in love with her. I was in love with her simplicity and her miraculous beauty.

I remember a night in particular when I chose to listen to her speak in her sleep. I marvelled that she spoke in English and not her native, Arabic tongue.

She woke up and her face had changed once she realized I was there. Drool had escaped her bottom lip to wet the pillow and she was embarrassed. I could tell she considered it unladylike, the manners instinctive within her, embedded by a higher force beyond the reprimand of a parent or an overbearing school teacher.

She stared at me with the assumption I had heard more of her confession.

“My father was a notorious terrorist. He died so I could live here.”

She placed her hand on my chest and in its softness I felt my world tremble.