9 January, 2018
Sarah Mollie Silberman
holds an MFA from George Mason University and lives in Virginia. Her stories have appeared in Booth, CutBank, Nashville Review, Puerto del Sol, Yemassee, and elsewhere.
9 January, 2018
holds an MFA from George Mason University and lives in Virginia. Her stories have appeared in Booth, CutBank, Nashville Review, Puerto del Sol, Yemassee, and elsewhere.
9 January, 2018
For Izzy
The day that my insides
became my outsides (the brown mess clotted
under my freckled nose
lips curdled with curious disgust)
I stared at my older sister your mother
as she brushed her wet hair
in the bathroom
One one-hundred, Two one-hundred
to the same rhythm as yesterday
like nothing had changed
I stood on the sepia tile and counted
Four one-hundred, Five one-hundred
My face was red-hit
like the insides that had recently
become outsides
I thought she would be able
to read what happened
in the crimson air over my head—She could read
so much else that happened
in the air over my head
like my insides were outside
I waited for her to see that I was a woman,
that now she should start teaching me
how to curl my hair and smell like summer
Six one-hundred, Seven one-hundred
But she glared over with question marks for eyeballs
Why are you staring at me
My mother your grandmother must have mouthed
what happened in my underwear
because your mother my sister
suddenly made me a ruby necklace of her arms
you poor thing, you poor thing
and I might be imagining it, but I think she cried
insides pouring outside
Eight one-hundred, Nine one-hundred
She drove me to the Pacific Ocean
like the salt and the waves could clean
my blood stained outsides inside
As the waves went back and forth,
I began to count
Ten one-hundred, Eleven one-hundred
all the wounds and all the blood
I didn’t know about yet
9 January, 2018
is a Pushcart Prize nominated author, a finalist for the 2016 Claire Keyes poetry award, and winner of the 2017 Lumina Poetry Prize. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of The Passed Note. Her work has been published by Penny, Banshee and QU, among others. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband and their seven bookshelves.
9 January, 2018
He was dissecting a cat when I arrived for the interview. The lab-coated doctor sat hunched over the splayed legs of an immobilized gray kitty. I looked away. This wasn’t what I had signed up for. He was supposed to be a neurologist, not a vet.
“You the gal they sent to take Mary’s place?” He spun his stool around to face me, the sharp instrument still in his hand. His words were broken by a slight accent. I glanced toward him, relieved to find that his long torso blocked all but the cat’s tail.
“Yes, Mary, your secretary,” making clear that the typewriter was my tool, not the scalpel. Whatever would I do if he asked me to assist him? I was an English major, for goodness sake. “You need a typist while she’s on maternity leave, right?”
The doctor tossed his lab gloves into a bin and shut the door between lab and lobby, leaving the dead cat and the smell of formaldehyde behind. A Swede with thinning gray hair, glasses, and a narrow face, he was tall in an awkward, gangly kind of way—like an adolescent boy whose trousers, no matter how new, always land inches above his ankle. His name was embroidered in red script above a pocket stuffed with pens. My eyes passed over his bulging Adam’s apple and landed on a grin.
“She’s part of my research project.” The doctor nodded toward the closed door.
I’d just finished my college freshman year and was working Saturday mornings as a receptionist at the EEG lab of the university’s medical complex. Filling in for the doctor’s secretary was a fulltime summer post with a much-needed salary increase. As far as I could tell, my older sister Sandy was the sole breadwinner in our family, and how much could a twenty-two-year-old secretary earn?
Mother was enjoying the single life in Miami Beach where she’d gone to reclaim her runaway second husband. Any jobs Mom held during her four-year-and-counting stay barely covered her own living expenses. Our father had left a decade ago. His ten-dollar weekly child support checks disappeared on the stroke of our eighteenth birthdays without even a goodbye note… kind of like his earlier departure. My full scholarship covered tuition, but we’d turned down a student loan meant to cover the rest. Debt wasn’t something our family did. Luckily, I was able to live at home.
“I’ll show you around,” he beckoned, walking ahead in his size big shoes. I followed, wobbling in my two-inch heels. It was the mid-sixties and young women in the Midwest didn’t sport jeans or pants yet, but wore skirts, blouses, and even stockings if it wasn’t too hot.
The quick tour revealed a reception area offering a desk, file cabinets, and one cracked leather armless chair for the random visitor. Patients were seen at the medical school’s clinic. A worn, brown carpet led into a tiny office that boasted a narrow window offering an encapsulated view of the high-rise buildings that made up the venerable medical complex. The desk was populated with stacks of paper, journals, and books. A credenza stood similarly cluttered, but for a framed photograph peeking out from the piles as though vying for the doctor’s attention. It showed a younger man, one arm circling the shoulders of a curly-haired woman, and the other holding a gap-toothed little boy.
“My wife and son. He’s 14 now,” he offered, pausing to acknowledge his family. “They’re in Stockholm all summer.” Looking back at me, he waved his hands around the space. “And this is where I do all my great thinking and writing. Your job is to keep me organized and type up my notes.” Would he be joining them? This was to be a summer-long position. And I needed to get all those paid weeks in. A muffled siren from outside signaled the arrival of an ambulance.
“When can you start?”
* * *
I soon settled into a routine. Each morning I’d leave the apartment my sister and I shared and walked the few blocks to the Delmar bus, my brown-bag lunch in hand. A written assignment in the doctor’s scrawl would welcome me to my desk. I’d start pecking away on the IBM Selectric, stopping to take an occasional phone call. During my lunch hour, I’d roam the gentrified neighborhood shops, landing at the local Left Bank bookstore—browsing but not buying. Libraries were my go-to place for books.
I missed the camaraderie of the EEG lab: Laughing with the young female technicians, or greeting apprehensive patients who were about to have their scalps treated like pin cushions to map brain activity for migraines, epilepsy, or worse. Here it was just the doctor and I. He’d be in the clinic most mornings and in the afternoons, he holed up behind closed doors reading. As I had been forewarned, the doctor was not much of a conversationalist. “Hello,” “goodbye,” or explanations of assignments were his offerings. So, I was surprised when I returned from a lunch stroll to be welcomed by his loud greeting and a vase of yellow roses.
“Your boyfriend dropped those off,” he announced from his desk chair as I entered, as if he had been waiting for me to return. Wow. Billy had never given me flowers. We’d met early during my freshman fall semester. With oval brown eyes, dark hair, and olive skin, he was a Jewish Omar Sharif who came equipped with still-married-to-each-other parents, a three-bedroom ranch house, and membership at the local synagogue. By that summer we’d begun our journey skipping down the yellow brick road to happily ever after. We’d made it past holding hands to making out in the vinyl-clad front seat of his car. And now he’d sent me flowers.
“Uh, I didn’t bring you flowers, Renee,” Billy declared on the phone when I called to thank him that evening. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t have liked to. Why would that guy tell you that?”
That guy with the M.D., PhD?
“Must be his weird sense of humor,” I puzzled. What was I to do? Scold the doctor? Laugh with him at his prank? Relax and enjoy the flowers? Should I feel flattered? Other than high school dance corsages that always pricked when pinned on, no one had ever given me flowers. Much less a dozen roses. I said nothing. Over the next few days I‘d watch the buds stretch and bloom, petals open wide to embrace a brief life, their perfume filling the office. Later when hardened, curled leaves dropped onto the patient notes I was typing, I tossed the flowers, washed the vase, and placed it on top of the file drawer. An arrangement of pink roses arrived the next week and I was greeted with the same story. Should I ask Billy again? Maybe he actually had sent these, not wanting to be outdone by the doctor?
“No Renee, I did not get you flowers this time either. I’m sorry. I love you, but I don’t have money for roses right now. I’ll pick you some from my mom’s garden if you want. You sure you want to work for this guy? What’s with him?”
“Oh, he’s harmless. Just having fun. Likes to joke. The work’s easy; the pay is good. Should cover all my textbooks and supplies.”
I didn’t add that I loved getting roses and enjoyed the attention. After the second dozen roses had died, I found a collection of Winnie the Pooh books on my desk, still wrapped in their original cellophane. The day before I’d completely missed the doctor’s reference to Eeyore when describing a patient.
“What, you don’t know Pooh and Tigger and Christopher Robin?” This gift the doctor acknowledged. I read the entire four-volume collection of charming stories that night. Years later I would read them to my young daughters.
The surprises continued. One morning I walked out of my apartment building and the doctor was out front in his ‘60s Chevy sedan, waiting to drive me to work. He lived in a nearby suburb where many professionals owned homes because of the good public schools. My sister and I were in the apartments clustered on the fringes—many populated by medical students on a budget.
“I got a late start, so I decided to save you some bus money,” he explained, leaning over to open the passenger door. Had he gotten my address from my job application? No matter. Maybe I wouldn’t mention the ride to Billy. He might not have understood how nice it was to be driven somewhere without having to ask. Our family had never owned a car, unless you counted the few months we lived with our stepfather before he too walked out. Sandy had just started saving for a Chevy Nova.
Growing up, destinations had been limited to those on bus, or streetcar lines, or within walking distance. My attendance at social events or club meetings was dependent upon begging a ride from friends, knowing I couldn’t reciprocate. My surprise at seeing the doctor’s car, despite its mud-splattered tires and scratchy seat covers, turned into delight, not skepticism. I was reminded of those long-ago Sunday afternoons when my father pulled up to the curb in his ‘50s lime green Plymouth, with the rounded roof, for one of his twice monthly custodial visits. I’d dash out and jump into the front seat eager for the fun adventure to begin. Until the day he stopped coming.
“Thanks!” I slid in. The doctor didn’t say much on the short trip, but it didn’t matter. The car ride was much better than the crowded bus where I’d stand, hanging onto an overhead strap, bouncing off other passengers at every jolt.
My longest conversation with him occurred when he invited me to lunch midway into the summer.
“Do you like Miss Hulling’s Café?” he asked as he popped out of his office, another unanticipated gesture. His morning pick-up hadn’t recurred, though I’d still paused and looked.
“Sure!” I could easily abandon the American cheese sandwich and banana I’d packed that morning. We walked the few blocks; I had to hustle to keep up with the long strides of this man who was at least a foot taller than I. Grabbing our trays—mine piled with roast beef, mashed potatoes, and a chunk of corn bread; his with bratwurst and sauerkraut—we sat down at one of the Formica tables. The red plastic chair squeaked as I pulled it close.
“So, is Billy a good boyfriend?”
Luckily the potatoes slid down my throat, silencing my gasp.
“Um, yeah.” Not really sure if we shared the same definition of good boyfriend. “Yes!” deciding to sound more enthused as I buttered the bread. “We like the same things. Movies. The Muny opera.” Did the doctor even know about the summer musical troupe?
“Do you go to the Muny?” I asked, trying to redirect the conversation.
He shook his head. Should I ask him about his wife? His son?
“Tell me about Sweden,” I cut up the roast beef, ignoring the unfamiliar smell of pork from his plate.
“Oh, it’s lovely. You should go,” gripping his knife and fork in the reversed manner Europeans use. He popped a chunk of meat into his mouth.
I stirred the mashed potatoes with my fork feeling their hot steam on my face.
“So, is Billy romantic? Does he send you love letters?” He reached for the salt shaker.
Love letters? Did a Valentine’s card count? Billy sent as many letters as flowers. “Uh…no.” Was Billy romantic? We kissed often. He said he loved me.
“Love letters are beautiful.” He attacked his sauerkraut. “You know Swedes believe in free love.”
Free love? This was a few years before the 1968 summer of love, and flowers in your hair. I was an eighteen-year-old virgin sipping lemonade.
“You finished? Let’s get some ice cream.” He scraped his chair back. I followed through the revolving door.
As we launched onto the sidewalk toward the local Velvet Freeze, the doctor took my hand. His large fingers wrapped around mine with an unexpected gentleness. I hesitated and looked up. He was staring straight ahead and hadn’t missed a step. Should I drop his hand? Would he be angry? Did I want to? I wasn’t frightened, just surprised. Sexual harassment wasn’t in anyone’s vocabulary back then. Rape wasn’t mentioned out loud. The words weren’t screamed on headlines or TV; social media didn’t exist. Doctors were educated professionals. I felt safe. The summer sunshine offered comfortable warmth, not the usual sizzling, unbearable heat common to the Midwest. Orange day lilies in full glory lined the curb. Men, women, and children strolled the wide sidewalk. What did they think of us? A graying suited-up man holding the hand of a teenage girl? Or did they even notice? Were we such an oddity? For a doctor and his employee, the behavior was an anomaly. But a father out with his daughter? How sweet.
I ordered a chocolate nut fudge ice cream cone; he had chocolate mint.
The next morning, I arrived at 9:00 as usual, called hello to the doctor, who grunted a good morning. An envelope with “Renee” on it, written in his familiar script was on my desk. I opened it.
“Dearest,
‘Each morning I listen for the sound of your footsteps coming down the hall toward the office. I eagerly await the moment you open the door. Your arrival fills me with such joy and tenderness. I so love your blue eyes, your soft blonde hair. I long to kiss your pink lips.’”
The letter dropped from my trembling hands landing next to that day’s stack of patient notes and the doctor’s instructions. I grabbed my purse and yanked open the office door, heard it click shut behind me. My heels clattered on the hardwood floors as I ran to the elevator and rode down to the first floor, relieved to find the red and white city bus still at the curb, promising me a ride home. I displayed my student pass to the driver, turned down the aisle, and collapsed into one of the empty seats before me. As the bus groaned away, I looked out the front panoramic window at the giant buildings comprising the complex: a consortium of hospitals, clinics, and one of the most revered medical schools in the country. I was a mere speck in that landscape. Leaning my head against the cracked black leather seat, I cried. For the money? For the roses? For me?
9 January, 2018
is a memoirist whose essays have appeared in the 2016 anthology Tales of Our Lives: Reflection Pond (Knowledge Access Books) and another is forthcoming in Coachella Review. She has also presented her work at the annual “Celebration of the Muse” event honoring female writers living in the Santa Cruz, California. A retired attorney, she currently is a volunteer writing instructor at the Santa Cruz County Jail.
9 January, 2018
Characters: Sara–American woman, 20-40 years old. Khalid-Egyptian man, 20-40 years old
Setting: The top of the great pyramid of Egypt. Full moon.
Time: Night.
(Night. Full moon. On top of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Spooky and beautiful at the same time. The top of the pyramid is an uneven surface of worn stone blocks, forming two or three playing levels. The surface area on top is larger than one would think. Many of the stones are covered in graffiti. A moment of moonlit peaceful silence, then Sara emerges, climbing up over the edge to the top. Out of breath, she looks around, realizes she’s made it, raises her arms in victory!)
SARA
(In a loud whisper…)
YES!
(Spins around gleefully.)
YES! Awesome! Been there! Done that!
(She checks the view from front of stage.)
My God!… Check… this… out!!
(She rushes back to where she first appeared, loud whisper over edge…)
Cal! Come on! This place is incredible! (Pause.) Cal? Where are you? Cal!
KHALID
Quiet! They will hear you!
SARA
What’s wrong?
KHALID
I’m taking a rest.
SARA
You’re not still scared?
KHALID
No, I’m not still scared.
SARA
Then come on. I’m on the top.
KHALID
I’m more scared.
SARA
Come on. Only six more feet and you can say you’ve done it.
KHALID
Up. Only six more feet up but how many feet down?
SARA
Hand me the backpack.
(She pulls up the backpack.)
Ok, now grab here and put your foot in that crack.
KHALID
Show the flashlight.
SARA
We can’t. They’ll see us.
KHALID
Maybe they will rescue me.
SARA
You big weenie.
KHALID
Weenie… what is this?
SARA
(Sara lies down, reaching over.)
Give me your hand… ok, put your foot there… left, left. No! Right foot but move it left. Got it?
KHALID
Yadi el nila ana eih kan gabne fi el hebaba di! [Oh shit, what the hell am I doing in this mess?!]
SARA
What?!
KHALID
My new jeans! They are cut open.
SARA
Oh my god, we’re all gonna die! Ok, come on, one, two, three… heave!
(He comes sprawling over the edge onto the top. Lies stunned, afraid to move.)
You did it! See, no problem. Check it out. Amazing! Ladies and Gentlemen, you’ve read about it. You’ve seen it on TV. You are now, in fact, standing atop one of the Seven Wonders of the World… The Great Pyramid of Egypt.
KHALID
How are we going to get down?
SARA
Open your eyes.
KHALID
Everybody says going down is even worse.
SARA
Come on, get up or… (Tickles him.)… Gootchy-gootchy-gootchy…
KHALID
Ok, ok, stop it. Don’t fool around like this!
SARA
Gootchy, gootchy!
KHALID
It’s dangerous!
SARA
Look how far you can see.
(She opens backpack, takes out water bottle, tangerines, chocolate. Khalid looks down.)
KHALID
Oh my God!
SARA
I told you! You can practically see all of Cairo. The stars look so close.
KHALID
The ground looks so far.
SARA
Ohhh… Do you want me to hold your little hand.
KHALID
People fall off here every year.
SARA
Come over here. I’ve got chocolaaate!
KHALID
You don’t know. They do! Crazy fools… like us. Dead!
SARA
It’s magical up here.
KHALID
Backs broken. Heads open. Ha tilai’i emkhakh fi khul hetta. [You’ll find brains everywhere.]
SARA
Quiet.
KHALID
The government covers this up so it won’t frighten tourists. I’m Egyptian so I know these things. Smashed like bugs.
SARA
Ssshhh! Listen…
KHALID
(Jumps up scared.)
What? What?!
(Stumbles.)
Oww, oww!
SARA
Listen!
KHALID
(Pause, whispers…)
I don’t hear anything!
SARA
Beautiful, isn’t it? The music of the stars.
KHALID
My God… I’ve twisted my ankle.
SARA
Look at that moon… it’s huge!
KHALID
They’re going to have to send a helicopter to bring us from here. We’ll be arrested, then fired. Maybe they will cancel the film crew’s permit for the pyramids or maybe for all of Egypt. How would you like this? The whole film crew kicked out of Egypt because we break the rules.
SARA
Come on, enjoy the moment.
KHALID
Look at the moon, listen to the stars! Do you think I’m enjoying this damn moment?
SARA
Doesn’t it make you want to kiss?
KHALID
(Dead stop.) You are serious?
SARA
(She nods. He leans in and is just about to kiss her when she jumps away, prepares to flee.)
But first you gotta catch me!
KHALID
Oh my God.
(He gives up and slumps down.)
SARA
Come on! Let’s play scarab, scarab, who’s got the scarab! I’ll be Cleopatra and you be King Tut.
KHALID
They were from different centuries.
SARA
You’re from a different century.
KHALID
I’m not going to chase you around the top of the pyramid! It’s dangerous.
SARA
You chased me all the way up here.
KHALID
I didn’t chase you.
SARA
What do you call it?
KHALID
I volunteered to help you.
SARA
You’re afraid of heights.
KHALID
So?
SARA
I practically had to carry you.
KHALID
I’m sorry you feel this way.
SARA
Admit it, you’re attracted to me so you did the macho thing and followed me up here.
KHALID
(Examining the embarrassing hole in the crotch of his jeans.)
These are real Levis! My cousin brings them all the way from China!
SARA
You probably figured you get me up here all alone, a full moon, a million stars, a loose American woman.
(She leans over to get a playful look at the hole in his jeans.)
KHALID
Don’t look!
SARA
“Come with me to ze Casbah, where we will make beautiful music together.”
KHALID
(Pause.) What is this Casbah?
SARA
You’ve never heard of the Casbah?
KHALID
It is for music?
SARA
The Casbah is where you’re supposed to take me on your magic carpet to kiss me, ravish me, make me wear see-through silky things and write bad checks.
KHALID
Wait, maybe I know it. In the Cairo Trade Center?
SARA
I’m devastated. Don’t you ever watch cartoons? Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? Flying carpets! Men with big mustaches and long curvy knives shouting, “open sesame” and sweeping women off to their harems!
KHALID
Maybe this is Yemen.
SARA
And what about Anthony and Cleopatra? My god! They probably stood right here! And the English Patient? This is supposed to be the land of mystery and romance!
KHALID
I like this movie very much, the English Patient.
SARA
And you’re telling me that my life-long romantic fantasy is just another urban myth.
KHALID
Sorry? I don’t understand.
SARA
Well at least you chased me up the Great Pyramid. How many women can say that?
KHALID
I didn’t chase you.
]SARA
So, you’re saying you don’t want to kiss me?
KHALID
(Pause.)
Of course, I want to kiss you.
SARA
See!
KHALID
But that isn’t why I climb here.
SARA
And I was getting all weak in the knees.
KHALID
You laugh at me. I am a joke, yes?
SARA
I didn’t say that.
KHALID
Yanni, because I am afraid. You make fun of me.
SARA
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rag on you.
KHALID
Ma’alisch. [Doesn’t matter.] It is nothing. I am a big boy.
SARA
Really. I’m sorry. Peace, Ok?
KHALID
Sure, sure. Peace. It’s ok.
SARA
It is beautiful though, isn’t it? Like the dark side of the moon. Spooky and beautiful at the same time.
KHALID
Enti zayy il amer. [You are like the moon.]
SARA
What?
KHALID
Maybe like you. You are like the moon.
SARA
Ohh… you sweet talking man. Maybe you do have potential.
KHALID
Shofti baa’. [See!] Like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic!
SARA
Oh please!
KHALID
I love this movie! (Holds arms out like the famous scene.)
SARA
Cal…
KHALID
Kate Winslet! So beautiful!
SARA
Cal!
KHALID
Sixteen times I have seen this movie!
SARA
I can’t get romantic thinking about Leonardo Di Caprio.
KHALID
No?
SARA
No.
KHALID
Oh.
SARA
So… what would happen if they caught us up here? Arrest us?
KHALID
My god, I don’t know. Make us pay a million pounds baksheesh. Which I don’t have.
SARA
Why’d you come up here then? If not for little old me.
KHALID
(Pause.) I wanted to see if I could do it.
SARA
Because you were afraid?
KHALID
Yes.
SARA
That’s so fantastic! It’s very empowering to overcome fears. Fear is just of the unknown. You know what I mean? We’re scared of what we don’t know. Like the dark. Like death. Like Egypt!
KHALID
You were afraid from Egypt?
SARA
I was about to pee my pants. I got the call for this job and my first thought was, “No way, Jose!” I’m too young to be massacred.
KHALID
Egypt is not like this!
SARA
It was fear of the unknown! My god, all we ever hear about the Middle-East is hotels bombed, tourists slaughtered, and guys with funny beards shouting, “Death to America!” Like everybody hates us.
KHALID
We don’t hate you!
SARA
Exactly! And I love it here! The people!
KHALID
Egyptians are the friendliest people in the world!
SARA
The history, sailing on the Nile, Siwa! I’ll never forget Siwa as long as I live. Running down those sand dunes. The oasis. All the little kids shouting, “What’s your name?” “What’s your name?” It’s changed me. The way I look at the world. If I had listened to everybody else I’d still be sitting in Silver Lake, clutching my latte, scared of anybody in a turban. What’s ironic? I feel ten times safer here than walking around LA. And certainly more welcome.
KHALID
Il ham du lileh. [Thanks to God,] I was here before you know.
SARA
Wait! Here? On top?
KHALID
Not all the way. When I was little. For school trip. They give permission for students to climb.
SARA
You’re kidding. How old were you?
KHALID
Maybe ten years. I didn’t want to and my friends make fun of me. Calling me names. So, I try but I got sick.
SARA
Uh oh.
KHALID
I think I drink too much Pepsis. I… ragaat… (Mimes throwing up)… I don’t know it in English.
SARA
Throw up? You threw up?
KHALID
Yes. On the Great Pyramid.
SARA
Oh, you poor thing. You must have been scared to death.
KHALID
So maybe many can say they have climbed the pyramid but I think I am the only one who can throw up on it.
SARA
Ohhhh… was that the most afraid you’ve ever been?
KHALID
I don’t know.
SARA
That was my favorite scene from the English Patient. Remember? When he asks her that? “What’s the most afraid you’ve ever been?”
KHALID
Most afraid?
SARA
(Looking into Khalid’s eyes.)
And her heart’s pounding and she looks in his eyes and says, “That’s the way I feel right now.”
KHALID
(Blowing it.) I don’t remember this scene.
SARA
You have to!
KHALID
It is from the English Patient?
SARA
Yes! When they were in the bathtub together? After he ripped her dress off?
KHALID
I think the censors, maybe they cut this scene.
SARA
That was the best part! He had this great apartment in the old part of Cairo. Totally went native. Carved wood.
Slow, steamy fans. This huge bathtub. Brrr… it still gives me a shiver. Although maybe it’s just the wind.
KHALID
You are cold?
SARA
A little.
KHALID
I’m sorry. Here… (He tries to put his jacket around her.)
SARA
No, no really. I didn’t mean that.
KHALID
No. Ma’alisch [Doesn’t matter.]
(He puts it around her.)
I am used to this.
SARA
Thank you.
(He sits closer.)
SARA (Con’t)
Hey, look! A shooting star!
KHALID
Where?
SARA
There… you missed it. Make a wish.
KHALID
I wish we get down alive.
SARA
Something good.
KHALID
I wish I have seen this bathtub scene.
SARA
I’ll bet.
KHALID
I wish to know you more.
SARA
That’s better.
KHALID
You think this is possible?
SARA
You still haven’t answered the big question.
KHALID
What?
SARA
The most scared you’ve ever been. Now? Sitting here on the edge of the world with the crazy American woman?
KHALID
No. You are crazy but I am not afraid from you.
SARA
Come on, what then?
KHALID
I don’t know.
SARA
I may have to tickle you again…
KHALID
Ok, ok… maybe… maybe it is when I am a student… at the university. I like to draw, you know?
SARA
You’re an artist?
KHALID
No, not really. Cartoons. My friend had a website, a blog.
SARA
Like a comic strip?
KHALID
No, no. Political. Political cartoons…about what was done at the university… and here in Egypt.
SARA
Uh oh.
KHALID
The police come to my house in the night and take me to the jail.
SARA
Oh shit. You’re kidding.
KHALID
They tell me stop. If I want to continue at the university, I must stop.
SARA
They threatened you?
KHALID
I sit for many hours with my eyes covered. Blind fold. My friend was also arrested, beaten. I was very afraid.
SARA
Jesus.
KHALID
For me. For my family. I prayed very hard. I think they will beat me too but finally they let me go. My father, he is very angry.
SARA
I guess!
KHALID
He slaps me. Here in the mouth.
SARA
He hit you?
KHALID
He is very angry from me.
SARA
Why?
KHALID
I think he is afraid too. The government is very powerful, very serious. Not for cartoons. Not for laughing.
SARA
I’m sorry.
KHALID
I don’t think they would do this in your country?
SARA
My god, sometimes our country is a cartoon. Or a made for TV Fox movie. “Mission accomplished!” “Axis of Evil!”
KHALID
Ah yes… Bush.
SARA
Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan.
KHALID
This is wrong. This invasion.
SARA
Well, no shit, Sherlock.
KHALID
You agree with this?
SARA
Anybody with a brain agrees with this.
KHALID
What about Israel?
SARA
What about it?
KHALID
Invading Lebanon, Palestine. Taking their land. Bombing the poor peoples.
SARA
Nobody should bomb anybody.
KHALID
But you are American.
SARA
And?
KHALID
America gives them the bombs!
SARA
You agree with everything your government does?
KHALID
Of course not.
SARA
So, why would I? It’d be like me blaming you for all the rude remarks I have to listen to from men in the streets here.
KHALID
This is a bad thing. Shebeb rewesh. [Flashy young men.]
SARA
Shebeb assholes! I mean what is this?… (Long disgusting kissing noise.)…Why do Egyptian men do that? Is that genetic or just genital? “I want practice make love you.” Why do women have to listen to that?
KHALID
I think they watch too much western movies.
SARA
Right. If that was the case then men in the States would be ten times worse and, believe me, at the moment I’ve got a whole new respect for their gender sensitivity.
KHALID
I’m sorry. I am ashamed for Egypt when I see this.
SARA
Do Egyptian women have to put up with this?
KHALID
I think maybe we eat now.
SARA
Chicken.
KHALID
No, only chocolate and mandarin. Please? Ok, peace?
SARA
How do you say peace in Arabic?
KHALID
Salaam.
SARA
Salaam?
KHALID
Bazzapt. [Exactly.] Peace. Sit please… I am your tour guide. Sit!
(She does.)
I studied Egyptology you know. Yanni, I know all about pyramids. I think you don’t know there are 97 of them.
SARA
No way.
KHALID
Giza, Saqquara, Dahshur, Abusir, many. Maybe more still buried.
SARA
Wow.
KHALID
That way is Saqquara and Dashur. During the day, you see them from here. There, Cairo.
SARA
Looks like an ocean of light.
KHALID
Sixteen million peoples. See there… the Cairo Tower that Nasser built… and there is the Sheraton and the Hilton.
SARA
Major landmarks.
KHALID
Yes. And here the Sphinx. In Arabic called Abul Hol. “The Father of Horrors.”
SARA
Whoooaa…
KHALID
And that way desert… all the way to Libya. Forty days by camel.
SARA
Right.
KHALID
No, no. I’m serious. Forty days and, maybe for us, 1001 nights. We put our camp under the stars, yes? The camels grazing. The oud and flute playing. Incense. Our tent with many rich carpets made of finest wool.
SARA
Sure. And we’re eating sheep’s eyeballs and I’m wearing one of those slinky, red belly-dancer things we saw at the bazaar.
KHALID
Meshi Khalass, [Ok, sure,] as you like… and black khol for your eyes. And I will buy for you the same perfume Cleopatra wears.
SARA
And I’ll feed you grapes that I peeled with my own teeth.
(She demonstrates on a tangerine.)
KHALID
You dance barefoot on the sand and then we will, how do you say it? Enjoy the moment?
SARA
Dream on sucker!
(Playfully mashes tangerine in his mouth.)
After you wouldn’t play hide the scarab?
KHALID
I wait for more stars to fall and make this wish.
SARA
Did you really study Egyptology?
KHALID
Like my father. This is why he names me Khalid. Khalid means immortal. Like the pharaohs. Like the pyramids.
SARA
Wait, what’s your name? I thought it was Cal.
KHALID
Khalid, but you Americans call me Cal. This is easier I think.
SARA
Oh my god. I’ve been calling you the wrong name? Why didn’t you tell me?
KHALID
Mish mushkilla. [No problem.] No problem. Maybe it is difficult for you.
SARA
Duh! Stupid American! Calling you Cal, like some Texas used car dealer.
KHALID
Ma’alisch. [Doesn’t matter.] Really!
SARA
(Tries to pronounce it.)
Ok, Khalid?
KHALID
Khaaalid.
SARA
Khaaalid?
KHALID
Mumtez! [Excellent!] Your Arabic very beautiful.
SARA
So, then Khalid, how come, if you were destined to be an Egyptologist, you’re working on a movie crew?
KHALID
This is first time for me. My cousin knows the assistant director. When I leave the university, the only job I am offered is tour guide. But after the Sinai attacks there is no work for me.
SARA
Sinai… oh my god! That hotel. I saw it on TV. Over and over I saw it.
KHALID
These are very bad men. Not real Egyptians. This is not the right way of Islam.
SARA
Same all over I guess. We’ve got our own share of crazies back home. Oklahoma, Texas militias, Cheney. (Pause.) The world should be like this… peaceful… quiet.
KHALID
Beautiful.
SARA
Sitting here I feel like I belong. Like I’ve been here before.
KHALID
Maybe you were a queen here in another life. Very beautiful wife of Pharaoh.
SARA
More like kitchen slave in the Pharaoh’s palace scraping leftover peacock off the royal plates.
KHALID
I’m serious. You look very Egyptian.
SARA
Right.
KHALID
I think Egyptian women are the most beautiful in the world.
SARA
And I think the moonlight’s starting to affect your brain.
KHALID
And your name, Sara, is very Egyptian. [Sara in Arabic rhymes with bar… Sar-a]
SARA
Really?
KHALID
Yes, of course. Many girls here have this same name. You pass for Egyptian.
SARA
I guess I ought to… my family moved from here a long time ago.
KHALID
Really? You are serious?
SARA
Ever heard of the Exodus?
KHALID
Exodus? What is this?
SARA
When all the Jews left Egypt, and went to Israel. You know Moses? The Red Sea? The Burning Bush? All that?
KHALID
What are you saying? I don’t understand. You are Israeli? (Laughing.) No.
SARA
No, but I’m Jewish. I’m going to visit Israel after I leave here.
KHALID
You are Jewish?
SARA
Yes.
KHALID
Why?
SARA
Why am I Jewish?
KHALID
Why don’t you tell me this?
SARA
Well… mish mushkilla. (Imitating him.) I think maybe it is difficult for you.
KHALID
Jewish?!
SARA
Why should it matter?
KHALID
So, you think the Israelis are right in everything they do!
SARA
I don’t think anybody’s right in everything they do. I admit I used to be a bit prejudiced but now I see that there are two sides.
KHALID
There are no sides! They are wrong!
SARA
God. Mr. Open-Minded.
KHALID
(Accusatory.)
Why do you go to Israel?
SARA
I have relatives there. I want to see them. I want to see Jerusalem.
KHALID
The Israelis have stolen Jerusalem. They are the terrorists.
SARA
Maybe they have, maybe they haven’t. I really don’t know. But I think it’s only fair to go see for myself instead of just listening to everybody else.
KHALID
Jewish, Israeli. These are the same thing. Of course, you are on their side!
SARA
I’m not on anybody’s side!
KHALID
Keeping Palestinian people prisoners in their own country?
SARA
I’m keeping an open mind! Can’t I have an open mind? Can’t you have an open mind?
KHALID
It’s not us. It’s them.
SARA
It’s us. It’s them. It’s us. It’s them. I get so sick of that. Don’t you?
KHALID
What do you know of this? Nothing! My friend, she is Palestinian. When she is young, her family is taken from their land. Everything! Their house destroyed! Her father now has no job. No money. Nobody to hire him. He becomes very angry and his wife leaves him. What of this? Hunh? All is taken from him because of the Jews! Because they want his country! You think this fair? This is open-minded? This is two sides?
SARA
Khalid…
KHALID
Why doesn’t America stop this?
SARA
I don’t want to fight with you.
KHALID
Because the Jews control America!
SARA
Well, my god, so much for international relations!
KHALID
I think maybe it is not a good idea I be here with you.
SARA
So now suddenly you have to hate me cause I’m Jewish? What happened to the thousand and one nights? Hunh? Same perfume Cleopatra wears?
KHALID
I didn’t know this before.
SARA
I knew you were Muslim and it didn’t matter to me.
KHALID
You don’t understand.
SARA
Oh brilliant! Great comeback!
KHALID
I’m sorry. I am leaving.
SARA
Good. Fine. Take a hike. Who’s stopping you?
KHALID
My jacket.
(She removes jacket, throws it over the side.)
Hey! Hey! My god! You are crazy.
SARA
I’m an Israeli terrorist! Remember?
KHALID
I don’t know why I come here.
SARA
To overcome your fears, wasn’t it? Only I don’t think you’re doing a very good job of it.
KHALID
I’m going. (Starts to leave.)
SARA
And to think… you almost kissed a JEW!
(She turns around and sits down, huddled up, staring out at audience. He looks over the edge, looks back at her, looks over the edge… sits down and puts head in hands. Long pause…)
Afraid?
KHALID
You have the flashlight.
(She grabs it out of the backpack like she’s going to throw it too.)
No! Please… please.
SARA
(She hesitates then puts it down on the rock.)
Take it!
KHALID
(He goes to pick it up very carefully as if she might attack him.)
What about you? It is harder going down.
SARA
What do you care?
KHALID
I think we must go together. It is safer this way.
SARA
Safer for who?!
KHALID
Please, I am responsible for you.
SARA
No wonder Cleopatra killed herself.
KHALID
You don’t understand, this is difficult for me.
SARA
I think sometimes that people love to suffer. You ever notice that? It’s like a worldwide contest to prove who’s suffered the most. If you’ve suffered the most, then
somehow it puts you in the right! The Palestinians have suffered so they must be right. The Jews have suffered so they must be right. It seems to me like everybody’s suffering and nobody’s right!
KHALID
(Pause.)
Sometimes I don’t know what to think.
SARA
I really liked you!!
KHALID
I like you also! (Pause.) You are shaking. You are cold again.
(He touches her shoulder, she shakes him off.)
SARA
No!
KHALID
Sara…
SARA
I thought you were leaving.
KHALID
Please… It’s crazy but I still want to kiss you.
SARA
Oh yeah? And what if your friends found out? You’d get thrown out of the Arab League or whatever. World’s friendliest people!
KHALID
It’s not so easy to suddenly change.
SARA
What do you see when you look at me? Hunh?
KHALID
Please…
SARA
What do you see?!
KHALID
Sara. I see Sara.
SARA
Sara the Semite? Sara the loose American woman?
KHALID
I see Sara that is very friendly, very kind to people working on their first movie.
SARA
That’s all? A minute ago, it was Sara, Queen of the Desert!
KHALID
That is also not afraid from anything. Not from the pyramid… not from Egypt…not even from me. (Pause.) I’m sorry.
SARA
Don’t say it unless you mean it.
KHALID
I do!
(No answer from Sara.)
We have a saying in Egypt. “Min el alb lilalb.” … From heart to heart.
(No answer.)
From my heart to your heart… I’m serious. I mean it.
SARA
(Pause.)
Say it again?
KHALID
Min el alb lilalb. (Pause.) It’s very strange I think… if we would kiss now it will mean more than before… yes? Before it was just… how did you say? “Hide the scarab”? Now it is serious. Now it is political. How is this? How can a kiss be political? But you are right… if my family knows this thing… that we are here… my friends…
SARA
Maybe they should all get their heads out of their asses.
KHALID
(Shocked.)
What do you know of my friends? You say this?
SARA
Well?
KHALID
And my family also? Heads in ass?!
SARA
No.
KHALID
My mother? My father?!
SARA
Cal…
KHALID
I love my family. My friends.
SARA
I’m sorry!
KHALID
We are close! Egyptians are very close!
SARA
I know that.
KHALID
I am to give them up because they don’t think as you?!
SARA
No!
KHALID
Maybe you are right! Maybe we are too angry about the Jews. But this is many years. Many wars!
SARA
I know, I know…
KHALID
And the Israelis too! The Americans! They also must pull heads from ass.
SARA
Yes.
KHALID
The British! And the French!
SARA
And the Iraqis? The Palestinians?
KHALID
(Pause.)
SARA
Hello?… Suicide bombs?
KHALID
This is wrong also, this bombing.
SARA
You think? Maybe?
KHALID
But what else can they do?!
(She gives him a look and turns away.)
Ok, yes! Khalass! Enough! Everyone, everywhere pulling heads from asses. This is best, yes?
(Sara nods.)
Including me.
(Sara nods.)
… You think maybe in this “Casbah” there are no politics?
(Sara shrugs.)
… Peace? Ok?
(He tentatively touches her. She pulls away…)
SARA
Tomorrow too?
KHALID
Yes.
SARA
Or is this just some treaty of convenience?
KHALID
No!
SARA
And your friends?
KHALID
(Pause.)
This peace is harder.
SARA
Maybe like going down the pyramid by yourself with no flashlight.
KHALID
Maybe we should just jump. It is easier I think.
SARA
Aww… you want me to hold your little hand?
KHALID
Yes.
(She thinks about it and doesn’t. Pause.)
Sara?
SARA
Khalid?105
KHALID
I think this is the most afraid that I’ve ever been…right now.
SARA
Good line.
KHALID
Peace… Ok?… Please?
SARA
(Pause… nods.)
Salaam… I wish…
KHALID
What?
(She shrugs… No answer.)
Me too.
(Pause.)
Maybe we wait for another star.
(They both look up at the stars.)
END
9 January, 2018
is a New Haven, CT playwright and director. Prior to New Haven, he taught playwriting at The American University in Cairo, Egypt. Coash has won numerous playwriting awards, including the Osborn Award from the National Theatre Critics Association, the Clauder Competition, and an Edgerton Foundation National New Play Award. His plays have been produced worldwide. Coash currently teaches playwriting at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Writing Program.
9 January, 2018
make eye contact when I nod
as I recognize the Spanish
word for lunch.
He makes special jokes
for the Spanish speakers.
I know enough to know that.
He stands at the front of the bus,
in English tells us the Mayan word
for Jaguar, the four types
of cenotes, the ways we
will experience the fresh water
source of the Yucatan—zip line,
canoe, snorkel. Later, he helps me
with a body harness, tightening
straps around my tanned thighs,
my waist. He gets low to adjust
my helmet and speaks in Spanish,
asking if I am scared and I nod,
because I do not understand
more than two of his words,
but his dark eyes match mine
and today I must be dark
enough to pass for belonging.
9 January, 2018
Alexis Kruckeberg is an M.F.A. candidate at Minnesota State University, Mankato where she teaches composition and creative writing. She has served as a reader for The Blue Earth Review and Bull: Men’s Fiction. In her spare time, she cooks more food than is necessary for two people and daydreams about Mexico. Her poetry has appeared in Polaris, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Into the Void, and is forthcoming from CAYLX.
9 January, 2018
I wear my brother’s grief
with the story of
my past: the character
in a hospital
gown spinning around
pretending to flip
pancakes, being told:
“You will not remember
this.”— People still
claim: “He does not
remember much,” but
no space held there
for me to reply, no
air to fly, ground to
land or stand and I
want to dance it off,
this resting in the valley
of post-surgery memory—
forever a distance
cut between me and
the world—in me,
the disease cut out,
drowned into nothing,
but where does nothing go
in the body and what
does it look like?
It looks like a young boy
on the playground not
being picked but picked on,
nothing in the shape of
a head without hair,
varicose veins, saran wrap
over a broviac, until
the boy’s older brother
makes it something,
standing up and stepping in
and the bully backs away,
vanishes, because these
are things I do not remember,
it’s just the story of grief
I wear when I hear
my brother has cancer.