...accept the offer

I woke up in this room I had just entered for the first time the day before. I am in one of two beds that form a right angle with the cement corner. Windows open to the alleyway below where if one looks at the right time, one can watch some of those excitingly feminine ways the young unmarried neighbor goes about the kitchen. She's an excuse to blow smoke politely out into the air, rather than fogging up the room with that sooty odor. A rug warms the floor under my feet, but I am most thankful for the fan that hangs above the door and hums with a repetitive crick. Without her, the Augustine Arab sun would bake us whole.

Outside the window, which looks somehow alive with the mystical curtain dancing sensuously about it, there are the flat roofs and water tanks and hanging laundry so familiar to this Middle East. An elaborate minaret rises dramatically from all the sharp architecture around it, but it too is that beige color that paints every other structure. The uniformity absorbs the sunlight and stands out from the smoggy browns of further earth.

I am in Sahab, Jordan, a small city outside of Amman, the capitol. In the moment I take to watch the curtain, and perhaps capture her spirit in a picture, I thank God that of all the cultures I was stranded in, it was an Arab one.

Last time I checked in I was on some street, and that's indeed where it all began. Muttering Let's see what happens, I said a prayer of need and gave up all my plans for whatever might come my way. I walked down the street toward traffic. I knew there stood in glory a great old Roman Theatre in Amman, and so I figured I would go there, since I had wanted to visit it before, but didn't get the chance. So I make it to the end of the street looked up and down it, and settled in to wait for an empty taxi to drive by.

Meanwhile, at that moment of surrender, two half-Jordanian, half-European young women were driving around talking about boys and how they would never marry another Arab. It was at the precise moment when they crested a hill when one of the two said,

"Why aren't there any good foreigners around here."

And they looked up and saw a bearded vagabond with two pieces of luggage looking worse for the wear, I am sure. They had to do a u-turn to work up the courage but in another moment they pulled over, slowed down and opened the right-side window.

“You need a ride?” The timing was miraculous. People may encourage you to display a bit more caution than I when traveling abroad—and certainly in the Middle East on high alert—but I asked for some divine intervention and a car pulled up. There isn’t much room to weigh options, let alone decline an offer. I said yes and climbed in.

These two were Diana and Linda and they giggled at their own courage. They told me without shame that they had pulled over because I was a non-Arab and perhaps it would be love-at-first-sight. And so I was recognized, not for looking like someone, but for looking not like someone.

I was taken to the theatre for the ladies had to return home to their families. It was Eid after all. But I took Diana’s card and she said she’d come and get me later. Her friend had just returned from a Director’s conference at Julliard in New York City and had a spare room. I looked forward to meeting an Arab who does what I love for a living, thanked Diana for the ride and the room, and climbed out.

The Roman Theatre was absolutely gorgeous and I stood at the base of her broad, ancient beauty and imagined players moving about in their fashion. I thought of Seneca, the brilliant tragedarian, and his macabre Oedipus being staged here. My feet sank into my history as I looked around at the scene coming to life before me. I walked around and touched these stones that supported feet two-thousand years old. I sat in timeworn seats and disappeared into a crowd, rapt and horrified at the despair of Medea as she slits the throats of her own children in vengeance. Then we are laughing at the farce of Plautus whose wives and lovers interact with the wrong Menaechmi.

But I am pulled out of history by three young men I greeted outside the theatre. They had followed me in and began a conversation with me. We climbed to the top of the theatre and sat there for a couple hours. And in learning what I was doing in Amman and what my favorite Arab meal was, he invited me over to his house for it. I gratefully said the only thing to say: “yes.”

But I had lodgings that evening so we eventually parted ways, Diana picked me up and took me to her friends where I spent my time engaging contradictory nihilistic philosophies and too much smoking. I met Mohammed, my host, and passed out after a long day.

The next afternoon, I left the director’s house, thanking him for the hospitality and took a bus to visit my new friend from the theatre—also a Mohammed. And that is where I woke up the next morning, in Mohammed Hasan's humble home.

Mohammed is the oldest male in the household by tragedy: his brother Hitham passed away in his sleep undeterminably within a year of his father dying in a car crash. I saw the pictures of the mangled car and the sleeping brother after his autopsy. This family has many reasons to be in grief.

Mosa and Rania

But they welcome me heartily, providing me with a bed, food, company and even some clothes I need. Rania is the youngest and she is sweet and serves me with joy at all times. Mosa is the younger brother who eats and eats and is fat and jovial, but likes to make trouble. Then there are two other daughters who I barely saw in the two days I stayed there, for they had to remain hidden and covered. They cooked for me and cleaned the room I stayed in, but when I was around, they locked themselves in their room. Such is the custom when a non-believing foreign man is under your very roof. Mohammed’s mother, however, did not have to hide. She was a kind woman with some English to work with, she was hospitable and sought to all my needs. She also took some delight in being the only mother with such a foreigner in her home, and many guests “happened” to swing by over the days. Sahab is no tourist attraction.

That first night, though, as I lay in the bed, with everyone around me, talking and playing, Mohammed first noticed something. I didn’t fit on the bed, and he said that it was just like Hitham, his brother. He was tall too. In fact, we were pretty similar in height, and I stood to confirm this suspicion. I assured him that it was no problem about the small bed and we finally slept.

In Hitham's alley, in his pants

But that comparison kept coming up. His mother noticed it in my facial structure and the color of my eyes. They gave me his favorite pair of pants to wear because I had nothing long enough to cover my knees and it set the resemblance in deeper. And as I spent all my time with this family I found myself becoming a kind of brother to Rania and Mosa, the friend to Mohammed that Hitham was, and the son their mother misses so much. But it was in small ways, or so I thought. Mohammed relaxed in the false idea that he wasn’t the head of the household anymore; he could shelve that while I was around. Rania and Mosa always sought out my attention and laughed with me, took silly pictures with my camera and sat out on the roof-deck with me as the sisters went about business inside. And we all ate together in a circle on the floor.

Mohammed Hasan, me and Mohammad Rizeq, our friend

But our mom looked at me from the locked chests of her eyes. She showed me pictures on her old phone and glanced up at me in double-check. She asked me to encourage Mohammed to do better in school and to work harder and to come home when he says he will come home and say thank you, for goodness sake. Her expectations are very high and she’s missing the help to get him moving. She even offered one of her daughters as a wife, if I would convert. And as I finally prepared to leave she went through old clothes of her son’s and husband’s, and in a quiet way she relived some memories. I saw her store special items back in the closet, undoubtedly because of the memory they coat. I gratefully took what was offered and said a bittersweet farewell. 

And I left, and once again they were missing a son. I wouldn’t have thought so much of it until that very moment of departure when Mohammed and I walked out of the alley onto the street. Approaching us was a young man who looked up at me, and his expression melted into a kind wonder. His eyes went wide and his mouth slacked slightly. He recognized me. But as we greeted each other, it faded. He swore he had seen Hitham standing next to his younger brother, walking out of the house as they had done many times before, but knowing him to be dead for unknown reasons, he might have believed, even just for a moment, that an equally unknowable reason could have brought Hitham home.

I suppose that did happen, though, and humble, sweet tears greet my eyes when I think of Um Hitham at home longing for a return of her son that will never happen, but did. Even for just two days.

So, sorry it wasn’t love-at-first-sight Diana and Linda; I guess I am too Arab for you after all.