Ali Raouf Abdel Zaki,
Salaam Alaikum. I wonder if we will ever meet again.
You cannot read my words. My eyes pass over the last record of you that I have kept, all these years. It contains a few addresses, some names, hurried notes from strangers, little maps directing you where to go. The fading blue scrawls on this sheet of paper give me no comfort, nor do your notes hiding in the margin, written in frantic Arabic. I had them translated, only to learn the words have no meaning. Were you a deceiver, Abdel Zaki? Forgive my caution. I often look back on the day we met. I remember the despair of those who could not help you, and I regret the ignorance of those who could not speak to you. I regret this, and I resent the feelings of hopelessness that rise up in my stomach and stifle my lungs, when my mind drifts back to that day. There can be no other explanation but to… no, was it not possible... no, no! A thousand times, no. I will not condemn you and submit to shame, submit myself to this blindness of convenience.
I only ask, do you remember?
I found you at the desk of the security agency, wiping your brow, glad to have the sun off your back, shaded from the sweating streets. There was patience here, before the flurry of words unleashed in the heat. You were first in line, and I was behind, beneath you, invisible perhaps. It did not occur to me what could have happened before this instant, but I knew the tension in the room had been slowly mounting. You wanted answers. You asked for a lawyer, a computer, directions, your hepatitis blood results, the location of your son. Not in that order, but in a jerky careless chaos. One must work up to such demands, in the presence of the state. “Min Fadilak, Min Fadilak!” you pleaded again and again but their words were foreign, and the authority behind the table could not trust your face or your gruff, pained accent.
“Whut is yur bizness, sir?” said the woman, slitting her eyes, curling her lips. Her hair was pulled back taut, it stretched her face and drew my eyes to her jaw, a pointed unmoving V.
“I need to know, please, this information, please.”
Would it have mattered, would you have believed it? What lies behind the table, what shameless fabrications of the truth, we spin. I could not imagine a greater torture.
No one could understand where you wanted to be. You dressed well. Your identity was overflowing from a bunchy dark purple denim jacket, retro, threaded in Singapore. Your sweat smelled of vegetables and tobacco. Your shoes were scuffed and dusty, like your face. I did not know why, but I wanted very much to touch your nose.
Things turned out for the worst on that day, Ali. Despite all that you would have me believe, I could not be your son. In that moment of inspection, you took my hand, you wanted me to be your freedom. Your eyes reached out, but we had little knowledge of your language. You became a mad howl, shouting for help, cursing perhaps, and we were all helpless there in that stuffy entrance. It was as if you had arrived from another planet to do urgent business, and you were unimpressed with our technology. What was it that you wanted?
“Wee can’t help yew, sir!” cried the receptionista at the table, for the seventh time.
I was there to see Joe. Joe Yoblonski. A man with a gun gave me his card once: “Corporate Recruiting Manager” it whispered, in fine italic font. Joe managed a security agency for State buildings and offices. I could have taken you to the Sheriff. Not the one with the ten gallon hat, the Sheriff of Lands. You must have been searching for the Registrar of Identities.
Just think! We could have abandoned them, made a fast break and a stiff drink for the road ahead. But no, we were barking up impossible dreams. You were focused on the moment. But the only place I knew was the Sheriff’s office, the only thing I understood was land title registration. It is not where I would have taken you. The results would have been exactly the same.
You were used to believe these places in your dreams existed, but you could not chase lonely paths through the network, not without an identity. They would only steal you from your children, Ab. They did not tell you where you could find them.
No, Ab, the strangers around us were not honest like you. There is no life for the faithful in a world that shows no hospitality. We are but tramps in a world that refuses to excuse our existence. You did not ask for money, or food, or shelter. You simply wanted information; access to the treasury of words and numbers that remain locked away in a blinking box. The voice of the authority behind the table was never meant to be revealed. She was mystified, trying to empty your identity into little digits on her screen, but no, she was not successful. Ab, you did not realise the irony of the moment. As they were cutting up your dignity, they feared you, because everything about you could not be represented. You could not see what I saw. The shaking beads of sweat on their faces, the empty blinking eyes of data fields… these things you could not have seen.
In the stuttering uncertainty, you reached for something deep within your jacket, and eyes seized your every move. They trust no one, accept nothing. You waited for their muscles to untense. With no destiny to mold, no papers bearing gold, they would betray you with suspicion. Without a word, you deposited your entire briefcase of papers on their desk. I bent down and began to pick up the ones that had fallen to the floor. I could not have seen your eyes, but the rage was bursting on your face, and without speaking, without a word, you asked them: what am I worth?
You were given the shove, the boot laced with gracious words, politely pleading exile from the property of the state.
“Yew hafta speak aienglesh!” she howled in distress for the seventeenth time, as you hobbled out the door, getting smaller through the doorway. You were the vanishing point in my perspective. You looked left, you turned right, and I never saw you again.
I would never judge you Ali Raouf Abdel Zaki, and forgive me if I have done so.
