Leila had worn a long black dress and a wool jacket, high heels, and just a touch of makeup. The only thing I’d seen before were her hoop earrings, which she’d worn once to the office. She breezed past the guard outside the dorms and smiled at me. I think she was a little bit shy about her outfit, maybe as much as I was about mine.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
We walked down the road together, toward the club at the Hyatt — it was called the Orient Express — maintaining a safe distance between one another, not saying a word. The only conversation between us was the clack of her heels and the squeak of Yonatan’s leather shoes. Her scent wafted toward me. I looked down, trying to quiet the unrecognizable feelings inside me. What is she feeling right now? I wondered. Does she feel regret, like I do? Why is she not the same easygoing, funny Leila, the rambling Leila I hung out with yesterday in the office?
“Leila,” I said, realizing it was the first time I had said her name aloud. I didn’t even know why I said it, maybe I just wanted to speak her name.
“What?” she asked, turning to me. I shook my head, showing I didn’t really have anything to say, and I looked back down at the sidewalk.
Leila insisted on reimbursing me for the tickets but she let me buy her an orange juice. I got myself a Coke. We were among the first people to arrive at the club. The music of Wadih El Safi played in the background but no one danced. We sat next to each other and still said nothing. Breaking her usual habit, Leila did her best to avoid my gaze. A considerable amount of time passed before she spoke.
“I’m sorry that I’m acting this way, but you have no idea what kind of interrogation my roommate put me through when she heard I was going to the party. She acts like a police officer, watching my every move, listening to everything I say, and reporting back to my parents afterward. She’s disgusting. I can’t stand her. ‘Are you going alone? Who are you going with? Why are you going, anyway? Don’t you have work to do? What are you wearing?’ It’s my first college party, I bought the clothes today. I went to the mall and got the dress. I’m twenty-one years old, can’t I get some clothes and go to a party? Who does she think she is?”
The club started to fill up. Compared to what the students were wearing, I started to feel underdressed. I had never seen this side of campus life. I didn’t know anyone other than my roommates when I went to the university. Leila’s mood improved, she smiled and started talking more. “I just hope my roommate doesn’t come in here looking for me with her hijab,” she said, laughing. I felt good. The place was crowded and loud and the music started to get more rhythmic. More and more couples moved onto the dance floor. It started with Shadi Jamil, classic high-country stuff, then Sabah Fakhri, and from there to some very danceable Egyptian pop. It was obvious to me that Leila wanted to dance. She was moving to the music and singing along. I didn’t recognize most of the songs, which surprised Leila. “What, you don’t know who Amr Diyab is?” she asked.
I don’t know how to dance. I’ve been to very few weddings, and that’s where everyone learns to dance. In Jaljulia no one knew us well enough to invite us to any weddings, and in Tira we were simply not invited. I stood on the dance floor, not moving a muscle, while Leila moved gracefully before me. She smiled the whole time and it did not seem that she minded that her partner was just standing there like a lump of clay. Slowly I managed to convince myself that no one was watching me, that everyone there had something better to do than watch me dance, and I began to move my body. I imitated what the men around me were doing and I kept a safe distance from Leila, reminding myself that she was a colleague. All of a sudden I froze, realizing that someone was watching me. The guy next to me moved, and past him I saw Khalil. He raised a bottle of beer, offering me a silent cheer, and then burst out laughing. Shadi and Walid were sitting beside him. I didn’t move. I could just hear their comments and their sniggering. I could read the ridicule in their eyes. Leila noticed that something was bothering me, looked over at their table, and then turned back to me, still dancing, and made a who cares? shrug with her shoulders and a scrunching up of her face. She tried smiling again and went on dancing but she realized that I was no longer there, on the dance floor at the Orient Express. Five minutes later I told Leila I was leaving, and did not wait for a response.
Leaving Yonatan’s place and walking toward the bus stop on Herzl Boulevard, everything became clear. Enough. This cannot go on. I’ll put an end to it today. I had a clear vision of exactly how I was going to change my life. Images of the revolution played in my mind. I was done turning the other cheek. Why should I let those jerks dominate me? How had I let myself be so stupid, leaving Leila like that?
Ruchaleh’s white car pulled into the bus stop. “You going to the office?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you,” I said and got in.
If she says anything about the clothes, I won’t so much as apologize, I told myself. I’m done being scared. Completely done. If she says one word, I’ll get out of the car and never come back to her son’s stinking attic. I don’t need this crappy job.
But Ruchaleh did not mention clothes. She said nothing the entire time. She drove quietly, as always, her face very much like Yonatan’s, her gaze, like his, fixed nowhere and everywhere. In my head I heard Metallica’s slashing guitars, my soundtrack for the morning’s revolution. I imagined myself in the office, standing tall, head and shoulders above everyone else, yelling, putting them back in their places, and they, my colleagues, cowering, silent, the smiles wiped off their faces, understanding that their days of toying with me were over. Or maybe I should forget the office and go straight to Leila’s dorm? I’ll buy flowers and wait for her by the entrance to the building. I’ll stand there for all to see, even her roommate with the hijab and I’ll give her the flowers and I won’t even whisper when I say, “I love you.”
“Thank you,” I said to Ruchaleh as she pulled the car up to the front of the building. I walked differently. I could feel it in my feet and hear it in the sounds of my shoes. I felt like a new man, strong, proud, unafraid, marching toward a revolution with a spade in one hand and a rifle in the other.
It was eight in the morning and I had a solid two hours before anyone would come into the office. I imagined Khalil coming in first, smiling at me and saying, “What, just like that you leave a girl hanging?” I won’t say a thing to him. Not a word. I’ll wait for everyone to show up, wait for them to start their day, their usual gossip and sniggering, and then, when they pull out their change for the breakfast run, I’ll throw it back in their faces and launch my attack. I won’t be defensive in any way. I’ll stay on the attack, my face burning with rage. I’ll show them who’s a wimp. I’ll show them how lame it is to think every girl in the world is just a pair of legs and an ass. I don’t care if Walid’s there or not. I won’t yell at him, but I’ve got no problem letting him hear what I think of my colleagues. I could see them sinking into their chairs and me going back to work as though nothing had happened, my chest threatening to burst with pride.
“A battle,” I heard my mother’s voice say, just as she did whenever I stood before her, bruised but not crying, and she knew I had been beaten up again on the way back from school. “A battle,” I could hear her say, “is like when two people bite each other’s fingers. It hurts both of them but the loser is the one who admits it first.” (Only later did I learn that she had been quoting from some Vietcong revolutionary whose book she had on her shelf.)