Elias’s father had high hopes for Syria after it gained independence from the French following World War II. While his older sons would continue in the wool trading business, Elias became the focal point for the family’s dreams, and Elias’s education became the father’s obsession. He made no secret of the responsibility he placed on the young man. Conscientiousness was Elias’s calling, but the burden of being special was a heavy one.
By age sixteen, his father was certain Elias would be accepted into one of the prominent universities in Syria or even be admitted to one of the world-class institutions in Egypt, but the thought frightened Elias. He loved to learn, and had fun in school, but he was not a competitive person. It just wasn’t in his nature. The idea of competing for one of the few coveted slots available to boys like him from families like his was not something he could wrap his mind around.
In his eighteenth year, Elias’s ticket out of a country in constant civil and political turmoil had America written on it, not Egypt. During the Easter dinner celebration, his father shuttled him into his small study and away from the dozens of family members enjoying the feast in the overflowing central courtyard. He could hear the loud conversations, laughter, and the clinking of glasses and utensils, as his father looked around and then whispered furtively. “It is no longer safe for you to stay in this country.”
“Safe? What do you mean?”
“It is too difficult to explain. I have made arrangements for you to stay with a friend of the family in the American city called Chicago. Father Marwan is a Syrian priest from the Christian quarter. He is already in America, and he will help you get established. You are to stay in America until I say it is safe for you to return.”
Elias was stunned, but he quickly realized his father’s recent brooding, the way he had been short tempered and distracted, must have something to do with the turmoil in the streets. He’d heard his mother whispering to his aunts about the dangers of “getting involved” in … Elias didn’t know what. He’d always had his nose in a book and had paid little attention to politics.
“Father, I am no longer a child. Please, explain to me why I am being sent away.”
“You are no longer a child, but you are not yet a man.”
Elias forced back the rising churn from his stomach, the same sensation when he faced a very difficult exam, or when he’d see a girl he found attractive. He called it the stirrings of the unknown, the feelings no one talked about. Father brushed them aside whenever he tried. His brothers laughed, and the women in the family never had time for such talk—at least they never had time for such talk around him.
“It is complicated,” his father explained. “The Ba’ath Party has taken control of the government. Those who supported others in a bid for a place in the government will be exposed and punished. Those with different political ideas will be rounded up. Many Christians in Aleppo collaborated with the Muslim Brothers. We are both people who believe in one God, even if a different God. The Alawites control the Ba’ath. They believe in many gods.” He stopped for a moment, looking into his son’s eyes. “We are preparing for civil war.”
“War? Here?”
“But why me, Father. Why not my brothers, too? Why don’t we all go to Lebanon? To Iraq?”
“It is not possible. Your academic abilities can take you far beyond the borders of this country. The best way to protect your God-given talents is to get you away as soon as possible until things settle down.”
“What about Egypt? What about me going to university in Cairo or Alexandria? We could all move there and be safe, no?”
“Egypt will be no safer than Syria. The two governments are cooperating. They think they can dominate the whole of the Middle East. Crazy people run these countries, Elias. But America is different. America is a very big country, very rich, and it needs workers. There, you can live unnoticed. America offers many opportunities for someone as brilliant as you. You will find your way. Father Marwan will help.”
“When will I see you again?”
His father’s long look grew somber as he struggled for words.
Just minutes ago, Elias’s stomach had been rumbling from the aromas wafting from the heaping plates of food sitting less than twenty feet away. Just minutes ago, Elias had been joking with cousins, talking about girls and music and his studies. Now his appetite disappeared and everything he knew was falling away from him.
“Maybe one year; maybe two. We do not know. It will eventually settle down. It always does.”
“But I want to stay. I demand to be of use, to help my family here.” Elias could see his father losing patience. The pupils of his eyes shrunk, turned beady, focused on him like sunlight through a magnifying glass. Then he turned away, and this made Elias even more nervous. Father was an honest man, and his eyes never diverted whether he delivered bad news or good.
Elias had more questions and he wanted answers, but he knew he would not get them now. The mystique of America, though! He knew it must be completely different from Syria, different from the entire Arab world. He thought about the opportunity, the chance to practice the elementary, schoolbook English he had learned, to live in a country that championed liberty and that had defeated the Nazis, saved Europe from dictators, the country of the Marshall Plan. Everyone knew America was the land of opportunity.
Curiosity and fear wrestled equally for his emotions. He had so many questions. But he did not wish to act like his older brothers, always boasting and brash.
“Who is this Father Marwan?”
“He is a man of the church. He is someone I trust, and he will watch over you.”
Before they rejoined the others in the courtyard, his father had one more caution.
“Do not mention this to anyone. I will explain everything to the family when the time is best.” Dread washed over Elias’s face, from his thickening, furrowed eyebrows to the sprouting whiskers shrouding the dimple in his chin. His father put a heavy hand on Elias’s shoulder. ‘And do not worry. When the feast is concluded, go to your study room and arrange all of your books, notebooks, and pencils the way you wish. I promise they will remain until your return.”
All seemed out of the ordinary in the days leading up to his departure. Elias lived a secret. Everything felt different. When he walked the streets of Aleppo, shopped at the souk, attended classes, or roamed around the Citadel, it did not appear Ba’ath soldiers were invading, or that citizens were being hauled away, or that people were acting any differently at all. Each night, Elias dreamed wild, furious dreams with excitement at the chance to live in America at war with the fear of leaving everything he loved—and the admonition to keep everything secret—all invading his most private thoughts.
He felt like a traitor, a fraud, and liberated all at the same time, chatting with his family, sitting down to dinner, running errands, acting normal, as if their lives would continue uninterrupted. In a few days, everything would be different. He would be alone in a new country. For how long, he had no idea.
His father said the Aleppo airport would not be safe. He would be escorted first to Damascus, then to Beirut, and from there he would board a plane bound for Paris, and then on to America.
As the day of departure approached, his excitement grew. He had never even been on a train, much less a plane. He remembered problems in his physics course having to do with thrust, speed, altitude, and vectors. Soon he would find out what it felt like to fly.
His fears, though they flared frequently, were always doused by his unwavering faith in his father. Unlike his brothers, who fought their father every step of the way, Elias believed in him, admired how smoothly he made his way in the world, rarely losing his temper, always in complete control of any situation. People he did business with respected him, trusted his sense of fairness, his stubborn instincts and steely resolve. If Father thought this course of action best, who was Elias to argue?
When the day finally arrived, Elias barely had time to say goodbye before he was passed from one uncle to another, one car to another, until he arrived in Damascus. His father had made sure older, more experienced relatives left nothing to chance. He stayed one evening in Damascus, and then they set out for Lebanon. His travel documents were inspected at the border and found to be flawless, and he was passed to another relative. He spent one night in Beirut, and then boarded his flight and headed toward his new life.
The few hours he spent at the airport in Paris were like a whirlwind. His French was nearly flawless, but he heard many more languages than French. More languages than he could imagine! With help from a friendly woman in a trim-fitting uniform, he made it to his gate and waited for his flight to America. To America! He could hardly believe it. He wanted to call his father and let him know all was going well, but he’d been told not to try to communicate until he arrived and met Father Marwan.
Elias had a middle seat and could not see much out the window. As the plane began to descend, his heart thudded with fear and anticipation. He began to sweat and wondered if he’d hyperventilate. And then the plane landed and everything changed. The passengers prepared to disembark, and Elias sensed the energy, the impatience. People did not move slowly here. The excitement was contagious, and he couldn’t wait to get a glimpse of his new city.
Father Marwan met him at the gate with a brisk handshake and a welcoming kiss on both cheeks. “Call me Father Moody,” he said. “It’s easier for the Americans.”
Elias followed obediently behind Father Moody as they made their way through the crowds to claim his luggage. Father Moody checked his watch stared at the mouth of the baggage claim belt as if willing Elias’s suitcase to appear. He seemed to be a man of few words, so Elias kept his mouth shut, not wanting to bother him with questions so soon.
When the bag finally arrived, Father Moody led Elias toward his car and they headed into the city. Other than asking about his father and commenting on a few sights during their journey, the priest said little. Elias asked him why he had come to America, but Father Moody brushed the question off, saying they’d have plenty of time to discuss such things. Elias looked out the window at the passing landscape even as he tried to study his host.
Father Moody, who drove with one hand on his horn, the other constantly shifting from one gear to another, was about the same height as Elias, but rounded in the middle. His jet black hair was combed straight back, glistening with the kind of hair crème Elias imagined movie stars used, something that made it always look thick and wet.
The solid stretch of buildings as they approached downtown reminded Elias of a fortress. Even though he had seen pictures of big city skylines, nothing prepared him for the actual sight. They drove down a wide boulevard called Lake Shore and the wall of buildings to the right, the blue of the lake to the left, were more majestic, more modern, than anything he’d ever seen.
As they funneled into the traffic of the narrower streets, Elias tried to remember if his father’s friend had smiled even once. He was a very serious person, but his father was a serious person, too.
During his first week, Elias stayed in a small, spare room in Father Moody’s quarters at St. George Syriac Orthodox church in North Chicago.
He was given a few hundred dollars, a birth certificate stating he was twenty-one years of age, and a green card giving him permanent residence status as an immigrant. Elias wasn’t familiar with government affairs back in Syria, but he knew getting anything official done could take months, or even years if you didn’t have a family member on the inside.
By the second week, Father Moody enrolled Elias in an intensive driving school in the morning and English immersion in the afternoon. At the end of this one-week training class, he applied, with Moody’s help, for a state driver’s license. Automobiles were not so common in Aleppo but in Chicago, there seemed to be as many cars as people. “Everyone needs to know how to drive,” Father Moody said.
As soon as he discovered he would be taking this class, Elias went to a nearby library and perused books about automobile mechanics. He had learned all about the theory of internal combustion engines, but now he’d learn how they actually worked. He studied every detail of automobile engineering and memorized as much of it as possible, even though it was in English. He could follow the diagrams in any language.
He knew he had an exceptional ability to remember what he had read and heard. He could listen to a piece of music once or twice and hear it note for note in his head for a very long time afterwards. His friends back home called his memory a gift from God. One of his brothers had complained about this unfair advantage in school, when he’d invariably come home with poorer grades and notes about behavior from his teachers. Now Father Moody called it a photographic memory, like a camera, and noted that Elias must be full of useful information.
Father Moody made a note of Elias Haddad’s photographic memory in his files, and wrote that the boy would be a gold mine, a treasure trove of the kind of information his handlers desired. But after weeks of prodding and prying, he came to the dismaying conclusion that Elias knew nothing worth writing down. Usually, the men shipped out of the country were more politically connected, or at least politically astute. None of the information promised by his Syriac compatriot in Aleppo seemed forthcoming. Something had gone wrong.
Elias was grateful. Even if Father Moody wasn’t the friendliest man, his help was invaluable. Life on Chicago’s north side was fascinating, even though he’d almost been run down in the streets several times and he found it was too easy to be separated from his money. A cup of coffee was exorbitantly priced, not to mention weak and tasteless. He was enthralled by the revealing styles and colorful clothes women wore. He was almost overwhelemed by the posters and billboards. In Aleppo, most ancient buildings and new were built of stone or painted in muted tones as if they were extensions of the rocky landscape. In contrast, everything in America was big and bright. The pace alone often made
Elias feel like he was standing still.
In the first weeks after his arrival, Father Moody would invite Elias in to his office after dinner, always asking questions in his high-nasally voice, phrasing them in different ways as he grew more and more frustrated with Elias’s answers. The priest would pace around the room, forefinger and thumb rubbing his nostrils, grunting with displeasure with each “I’m sorry, but I don’t know” Elias offered. Or he would sit and rub his rounded belly with both hands, twirling a rosary, or swinging his leg like it might come unhinged at the knee, and pose the same questions about government officials, leaders of different religious groups, members of different political factions. “I’m sorry, but I do not know,” Elias said again and again.
Finally, one evening, Father Moody slammed a fist on his desk. “Did you think you were sent over to me for your good health?”
“What do you mean, good health?”
“Your father and I, we had a deal. My job is to gather information about the home country.”
“Information? For what purpose?”
“For many purposes.” The priest paused and shook his head at the useless young man. “Example: I write a chapter about Syria for an American encyclopedia company.”
Elias couldn’t even pronounce the word.
“What is this type of company?”
“They make large books with information about many things in the world. It is like a dictionary, but about important people, places, and events. Things you apparently know nothing about.”
The strain between the priest and the boy became overbearing. Moody needed to focus his efforts on others. He needed to unload Elias and replace him with someone who could provide information his handlers expected. Chicago was heavily unionized and it was difficult for immigrants who knew little English to break through in the factories, but since Elias liked automobiles so much, Father Moody looked into getting him a job as a cab driver.
Taxi drivers occupied a unique place in Chicago. They weren’t unionized, nor were they city employees. They were independent contractors. Father Moody tapped his network of contacts, but no one wanted to hire a boy fresh off the boat. “It will take him forever to learn the city,” they’d say even as Father Moody talked up Elias’s photographic memory. Even Moody’s handlers couldn’t help. If Elias Haddad wasn’t useful, they couldn’t be bothered.
The nearest location he could get Elias on was in Joliet. Fine, Elias said, whatever would make his father’s friend happy was okay with him. He wanted to work, wanted to earn his own money so maybe he could go to college. Besides, his fascination with the hustle and bustle of Chicago was wearing off.
Father Moody found Elias a small flat near the cab company’s headquarters in downtown Joliet, so he could walk to work if need be. He would be close enough Moody could keep tabs on him, yet far enough he wouldn’t get in the way of cultivating more resourceful young men from the home country.
Elias felt guilty that he was so glad to be away from Father Moody. He liked his freedom, and spent time in the public library, studying street maps of Joliet and learning more about America. But he was often lonely. He missed his family and the courtyard full of cousins that appeared each week after church services. Then, several weeks into his new job, he dropped off a fare near a store that sold electronic gadgets of every type—cameras, tape recorders, even telescopes and binoculars—and had promptly parked, gone inside, and purchased a small transistor radio. After that, he listened to the classical radio station with an announcer who spoke low and serious in between the music selections, but also listened to baseball games, pop radio stations, and the news. His radio kept him company. And it didn’t ask him any questions he couldn’t answer.