by Sinan Antoon
“I set out studying medicine and I finished the first stages for two years and then I switched to economics. I did a master’s in economics and business management at Johns Hopkins.”
“How come?”
“Why not? There are plenty of doctors.”
“Yes, and plenty of economists.”
“It was one of the best decisions I ever made. My family were upset at first, but now they’re pleased.”
“Where are they now?”
“In Amman. They left in 2000. I insisted they leave and I rented a house for them there. Where are your family?”
“In Virginia.”
“When did you leave?”
“In 1993.”
He talked about his education and how the first years were easy and enjoyable. He said his father sent him enough money and he was living the good life. But the situation changed after sanctions because it became impossible to transfer any money, and the Iraqi dinar was worthless anyway. “My father said, ‘It’s over, my boy. We can’t go on. You’ll have to rely on yourself.’” Adnan had to work for the first time in his life and went through some difficult years. He didn’t find a job in his field after graduating. But he began to write a monthly report on the economic situation and the prospects for investment in the Middle East. He made use of email, which was in its infancy at the time, and started to send the report to hundreds of email addresses on a list he had compiled of people who worked on investment in “emerging markets,” as he called them. He received messages of thanks and encouragement from a considerable number of those to whom he sent his reports, but without any offers of work. He continued to write and send out the report regularly for a year and a half before the manager of a well-known investment fund contacted him and invited him to New York. He came to New York from Baltimore, and after the meeting the man offered him a job with his team. He moved to New York and worked with him for four years, gaining experience and forming a network of relationships in the world of Wall Street. Then he received the attractive offer of a prestigious position with Goldman Sachs, so he worked there. When he did well they asked him to move to their office in Dubai. When he got around to talking about Dubai, I had reached the last piece of beetroot. I put the goat’s cheese that was left on it, and there was also a piece of walnut stuck to it. That was really delicious, I said to myself, but the price, at sixteen dollars, is criminal. He poured more wine for me and for himself and said, “Now you tell us, doctor. How did fate bring you to New York?” I was reminded of the song that goes “Doctor, forget my first wound. My new wound your eyes can see.”
I told him about my trip from Virginia to California without saying anything about my disagreement with my father. I said only that I wasn’t willing to work with U.S. government departments or Arab embassies, so I worked as a private tutor to students learning Arabic as part of Middle East studies. “So you’re one of those idealists,” he said. “There’s a saying. If one isn’t a leftist in his twenties then he has no heart. But if he’s still leftist in his thirties, then he has no brains.”
“I wasn’t in my twenties at the time. Now do you want to listen or do you want to philosophize?”
“Apologies, doctor. Please continue.”
I told him about my trip to California with Lauren and working on the almond farm that her father owned, that I worked in the fields in the beginning and drove the machine that shook the trees and gathered the almonds, and that I then moved to the factory to oversee the hulling, shelling, and packing. I told him how much I enjoyed my years in California because I loved the peace, the isolation, and the rhythm of work. Although it was sometimes physically exhausting, it made me feel that I was part of the earth and in harmony with the seasons. I never had insomnia in those years. I slept like a log. I still miss the beauty of the almond trees when they awoke from their long slumber in the cold season between December and February, after they had recovered their breath and absorbed what they needed from the ground. I told him that bees would be brought specially to pollinate the trees and that the trees would speak in pink and white from late February to early March. Then the nuts would grow until they started to dry out at the end of July. From the middle of August to October the trees would be shaken, and ten days later the almonds would be gathered. The waiter brought the main dishes and the bottle of wine was empty, so he asked whether we wanted another. When the waiter brought it, Adnan told him to pour it without him tasting it. “Good, so what took you from almonds and California to studying for the doctorate?” he added.
“Be patient, I’m coming to that. You’re going to be surprised because there’s some similarity between our stories.”
I told him that I spent my spare time reading and translating to improve my English and at the same time to keep up my Arabic. The works of Abu Nuwas was the only Arabic book I had taken with me, so I began to translate his poems. I sent a collection of them to an academic journal that’s interested in translation and is published by the comparative literature department at Berkeley, which was an hour and a half from the farm. The academic in charge of editing the journal contacted me a month later to praise the translation and to tell me they were going to publish two of the poems. He was in charge of publishing a series of translated poetry collections at University of California Press, and he advised me to submit a proposal to publish selections from Abu Nuwas’s poems with an introduction. He told me I would need to look at some scholarly references to write the introduction, and he invited me to visit him at the university, promising to help me get a visiting researcher’s pass so that I could borrow books from the library. I took advantage of his generosity and set about translating more of Abu Nuwas’s poems. I also wrote a long introduction on his importance and on poems in praise of wine and debauchery. I sent it to him and he liked it very much and suggested that I turn it into a project for academic study. He said that the comparative literature department gave grants and I could apply to obtain one. I had to take the Graduate Record Examination and get high scores to increase my chances. I had never thought of going into the academic world, but luck was on my side. I was awarded a scholarship on condition that I teach Arabic. So I finished my master’s at Berkeley, and after that I was emboldened to apply to do a doctorate in four universities. I was accepted at Harvard with a grant. After that I taught for two years at Dartmouth, where I finished my dissertation before moving to New York University.
I asked him about our other colleagues at school and what they were doing. He said that Ali Abdilkhaliq was working as an oil engineer in the United Arab Emirates. Nash’at al-Dabbagh had become a doctor like his father, emigrated to London in the late 1990s and was doing cosmetic surgery for rich Arabs and their wives. “He’s a millionaire thanks to them. He takes fat out of their asses and puts it on their faces and lips!”
“Fat from their asses, or silicone?” I said.
“It’s all the same shit,” he said.
But the news that took me by surprise was that Zaid al-Titinchi, who had been with us in the same class, had been an undersecretary in the Ministry of Communications for a year and a half in the government of Ayad Allawi but had lost office when the government changed. “Zaid who used to play soccer with us?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I know he was a good guy and very smart but what qualifications did he have? He’s the same age as us.”
“He did engineering and he’s bright. His father founded one of the new parties.”
“Well that’s the most important qualification,” I said.
“He’s still better than others,” said Adnan.
I remembered how good Zaid was at mimicking the teachers, especially Mudhar, the fat math teacher who, whenever one of the boys made a mistake, would ask him, “Where do you live?” as if where he lived had anything to do with his ability to grasp mathematical formulas. I reminded Adnan of Mudhar and we spent a while going over shared memories from our school days. There was Fouad, the biology teacher who spoke classi
cal Arabic peppered with strange expressions and overused the word bughyatan to mean “in order to.” Adnan raised his glass and said, “My God, I’m so happy to see you.”
“Me too.”
“And for your sake I gave up the happy ending,” said Adnan.
I didn’t understand what he meant so I asked him. He said big corporations offered their customers a complimentary package after successful negotiations, and it usually included a massage session in the spa with a pretty young woman who would be slim and half-naked and who could make a man feel he was in paradise. When she was about to finish the massage, she would ask the customer if he wanted a “happy ending.” But he had given up the happy ending that day in order to have dinner with me.
“And you usually take the happy ending?” I asked.
“Of course. Only an idiot wouldn’t take it.”
“But didn’t you say you never cheat on your wife?”
“This doesn’t count as cheating. I don’t touch the girl with my hand. She does the massage and then throws in an extra. My little friend stands up and greets her and then shoots his load.”
The waiter waited till we’d finished roaring with laughter and then asked if he could take away the empty plates. He took them and came back with the dessert menu. I studied it and asked for the tiramisu with Arabic coffee (the menu called it “Greek” coffee), while Adnan ordered a crème brûlée with a cappuccino.
I asked him about the deal that he had concluded with such success, and he said that besides working for Goldman Sachs, he had set up an investment company in Baghdad a year earlier and intended to open a branch in Irbil. The purpose of his visit to New York was to give a presentation to persuade a number of major investors to finance his company, which would buy and sell shares on the Iraqi stock exchange. He said most of them were hesitant and wary because the situation was unstable, but he had succeeded in persuading one big investor to enter a partnership with him.
“So there’s a stock exchange in Iraq?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s a small exchange, but active.”
“Fine, but what’s the use of investments and shares now if the infrastructure is in ruins and the basic necessities of life still haven’t been fixed?”
“When there’s investment, everything will follow.”
“That’s the same old ‘trickle-down economics’ story—hand everything over to the big companies and the financiers, and gradually everyone will benefit. But in the end only the elite benefit.”
“So now you’re an economist? That’s not your business.”
“It doesn’t take an expert in economics. Things are clear.”
“So what have you all done for Iraq?” he said angrily. “Go on, tell me. Just negativity and grumbling. When you stand up in the lecture hall at university and philosophize, is that going to give Iraqis bread to eat?”
“And who told you I benefit Iraqis or that I’ve ever claimed to do so?” I said.
“So you want us to leave it to the riffraff?”
“And what’s the difference between thieves from the Alwiyya Club and the riffraff thieves?”
I rose from my chair, threw my napkin onto the table and walked to the bathroom. The further away I went the angrier I felt. I was surprised I had remembered the Alwiyya Club like that, on the spur of the moment. Then I remembered the day when we decided to skip our last two classes and play hooky. Titinchi’s son suggested we take a taxi and go to the Alwiyya Club. I had heard them talking about the club and about the swimming pool they went to in the summer, but I had never been inside. I thought I was going to go in with them as their guest. When we reached the club, which was next to the Sheraton Hotel, we got out of the taxi to go in. They greeted a man called Abu Emad who was standing at the gate. I don’t know how the son of a bitch knew, but he asked me, “Are you the son of a member?” I was a little flustered and said “no.” The other boys told him they were taking me in as a guest and they would register my name in the book. But the man said, “It’s not a guest day today and only members who are over eighteen can take guests in.” It was an embarrassing situation, so I said, “You go in and I’ll go home, no problem.”
The bathroom walls were turquoise and there was pleasant music coming from the speakers. As soon as I approached the wash basin a black man standing next to it opened the water tap, then took one of the small white towels placed next to him and then got ready to give it to me once I had finished washing my hands. As I put two dollars in the bowl in front of him, I asked him about the music. “Sorry, I don’t know, sir,” he replied. I came out of the bathroom and asked the hostess. “It’s fado,” she said. I had heard about this genre of music that originated in Portugal. I had decided not to go back to the table. I walked to the main door and went out into the street. I thought of the check but I remembered that he had invited me. Let him pay with the money he would plunder from Iraq. I regretted that we had clashed before the tiramisu I had ordered arrived. I walked back to my apartment, stopping on the way at a shop on West 3rd Street to buy a Flake chocolate bar. I remembered a line that appeared in the ads for another brand of chocolate, but it would also apply to a Flake: “Sometimes chocolate is your best friend.”
THE COLLOQUY OF THE TWINS
We were neighbors in our mother’s womb, and we were born as exact copies of each other. Even our mother was uncertain which of us was which. She often couldn’t tell us apart. Grandmother suggested she tie a colored thread around the wrist of one twin to distinguish her from her sister, so she tied a red thread around my wrist, while leaving Hadil’s wrist free. When Grandmother asked her why she’d tied it around my wrist, she replied that I was a minute and a half older than Hadil. Many years later Grandmother gave us chains made of 18-carat gold. Each of them was engraved with the owner’s name to show whose it was. Mother insisted on dressing us in the same clothes, as usually happens with twins. Even the way she combed our black hair left no room for any clue that would make it possible to tell us apart. Everyone who met us was amazed at how similar our features, voices, and gestures were. We grew tired of hearing the same remarks from strangers and relatives and replying to the constant question: “Are you Asil or Hadil?” But time, or something else we don’t quite know, contrived to bring out a simple difference with consequences that would gradually become more obvious. When we graduated from grade four to grade five of primary school, Father bought us a small electronic organ. At first we argued over it because each of us wanted to have it all to herself. Then Father got angry and hid it in his room. He threatened not to let either of us touch it and said he’d decided to give it to his nephew. But he later calmed down and changed his mind after Mother proposed a compromise that would satisfy everyone—that we should take turns on the organ. We did that successfully under her supervision. Once I had learned which keys played which notes, and after some fumbling, I managed to play a tune that I knew. Hadil took to the organ enthusiastically at first, but her enthusiasm and interest waned after simple attempts ended in failure. Maybe she didn’t have enough patience or willpower. Or maybe her ear wasn’t musical enough, unlike mine. She gave up asking for her share of playing time on the organ and left it to me. I started to spend many hours with it. Father was delighted with my talent and bought me a bigger one two years later. Naturally the family’s admiration for my playing and the fact that they gathered around me in a circle on family occasions when I played the songs they requested provoked Hadil’s envy, though not beyond the bounds of “normal” envy. Hadil tried to draw but she grew bored of it after a while. But she did get high grades. By chance I saw a program on television about the music and ballet school in Baghdad, and I very much liked the way the school was organized. I found out that I could fulfill my dream there, learn music, and play with an orchestra like the one I had seen on television. Mother was watching it with me, and I asked her to enroll me in the school after the sixth grade. When I brought it up with Father, he was reluctant to agree and skeptical about how useful stud
ying music would be for my future. But Mother explained to him that the curriculum at the school included, besides the musical curriculum, all the usual subjects as in other schools, and that when I had a secondary school certificate from the music and ballet school, I could go to university and specialize in another field, so he was convinced and agreed. I passed the entrance exam, which was much easier than I expected. I chose piano, of course. The keys were much bigger than I was used to with the little electronic piano, but my fingers danced across it with an agility and a confidence that amazed the examination board, and I was accepted immediately. I enjoyed the studying, which was tiring because my working day was much longer and the school was a long way from home, so I came home exhausted. Hadil, meanwhile, made up for her envy by making fun of me and my sufferings. I did well, and in the graduation year the piano teacher, Mundhir, chose me to play in front of a delegation visiting from Germany. He asked me to play a short piece by Schubert, his Impromptu in B Flat, and I did so. I had played it dozens of times before. They clapped warmly for me when I finished. One of the three members of the delegation embraced me and took me by surprise by asking whether I would like to study in Berlin. In my confusion I just smiled, and the German woman thought I hadn’t understood what she said. So she repeated the question and asked Mundhir to translate. “Asil, they want to give you a scholarship to study at the Music School in Berlin,” he said. I couldn’t control myself and I clapped for joy. On the way home I was worried Father might not agree to me going away alone, but I trusted in my mother to persuade him in the end. And that’s what happened. I left four months later. Hadil didn’t hide her jealousy from me, but she cried when I said goodbye to her.
Berlin opened doors for me, and I was supported by a woman called Rebecca Ullmann, who taught there, and who had helped set up the bursary for young musicians from the Middle East to study music. In Berlin I discovered that she was one of the best piano players in Europe. Even so, starting in Berlin wasn’t easy. I had to learn German quickly and get used to Berlin’s bitter cold and the lack of sunlight in winter. The teaching system was strict and the competition was fierce. But I excelled and I was chosen to play at the final concert of the first year. I went back to Baghdad in the summer to spend the vacation with my family. In the second year I started to play beyond the confines of the school when Ullmann nominated me to take her place with the Berlin Quartet when she had to have surgery. The Berlin Quartet was my stepping stone to other opportunities. I took part in the international Bach competition that is held in Leipzig every other year and won with my playing of his Partita No. 2. The audience gave me a standing ovation that lasted three minutes. Invitations poured in for me to play in Vienna, Paris, and New York.
