Let’s not talk about it. It didn’t work out. He shrugged his shoulder as discreetly as he could, meaning: You’re just hopeless. That was a serious mistake. I tilted my head in a resigned: Well, what can we do? C’est la vie. While we were exchanging gestured messages, he was charming my new friend. “No, not Saudi Arabia—with my skin? No, not Algeria either, not Morocco, but a little place called Sidi Bou Saïd, the most beautiful whitewashed town on the Mediterranean south of Pantelleria . . .”
She was won over. For a second I saw us having dinners together, rides to Walden Pond next spring, Sunday evenings Chez Nous listening to Sabatini’s free guitar recitals followed by the one-dollar films at the Harvard Epworth Church.
“I am glad I had a chance to meet you,” he said, “because I may never see you again.”
Blank stare. Why?
“I’m leaving.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“For good,” he replied.
A quizzical gesture from my eyes meant: When?
“In one week.”
And then, as he’d always done whenever taking his leave, he abruptly wished us bonne soirée and walked away. He figured I needed to be alone with her.
I watched him walk around the horseshoe bar on his way out of the Harvest, then, once he’d stepped outside, stop, cup his hands around his mouth, and light a cigarette. Having lit it, he ambled out toward Brattle Street, pacing his way ever so slowly, pensive and hesitant, as though unsure whether to go to Casablanca or just linger a while longer and take in this spot for what could very well be his last time.
“Strange character,” she said.
“Very strange.”
“Friend?” she asked.
“Sort of.” I caught sight of him once again, as he turned around the patio on his way to Casablanca, and from there most likely heading back to Café Algiers. Something told me to take a mental picture of him threading his way through the back courtyard toward Casablanca. Then I forgot about the mental picture. I was thinking of other things when it occurred to me that perhaps I’d been spared tearful goodbyes, the hugs, the flimsy jokes to undo the knot in our throats. It felt like giving a dying friend massive doses of morphine to avoid a mournful and conscious farewell.
Why had I said sort of when it should have been clear to me that he was the dearest soul I’d met in all my years at Harvard?
HE CALLED ME three days later. I was in my office with a student discussing her paper. He knew the drill. “I’ll ask you questions, and you answer yes or no.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Can you see me soon?”
“No.”
“Can you see me in one hour?”
“No. Teaching.”
“Can I come and pick you up in two hours?” This I certainly wanted to discourage. “No.”
“I’ll call you later tonight then.”
When he called me that evening, he told me that earlier in the day he had needed an interpreter for an interview with Immigration Services. Why hadn’t he told me so? “You couldn’t talk, remember?” At any rate, it didn’t matter, since Zeinab had gone downtown with him and served as his interpreter. Except he would have preferred a man from Harvard. Going with a woman who also happened to be an Arab might have sent the wrong message, what with his annulment and all that. It turned out to be a perfunctory meeting. They were closing his case.
“Do you have time for a quick drink with a few friends tonight?” he asked.
It sounded like a farewell gathering.
“Tonight I can’t.” I made it seem I wasn’t alone. I pretended to miss the passing allusion to farewells.
“Then it’s possible I may not see you. I may have to leave tomorrow. But it’s not certain.”
“Did they give you a plane ticket?”
“Immigration is not a travel agency.” He laughed at his own joke.
“But why won’t those bastards tell you when you’re leaving?” I was making it seem that my suppressed anger was directed at the immigration folks, and that I needed to confront their outrageously incomprehensible behavior before dealing with the lesser matter of bidding a friend farewell forever. All I was doing was making noise to prevent him from asking me once again to join him for drinks with his friends.
He knew. He was far better at this than I.
It took me a few moments to face the terrifying fact that what I wanted to avoid at all costs was tearful goodbyes. I did not want him crying. I did not want to cry myself. No hugs.