The Poor and Burning Arab

I

MY uncle Khosrove, himself a man of furious energy and uncommon sadness, had for a friend one year a small man from the old country who was as still as a rock inwardly, whose sadness was expressed by brushing a speck of dust from his knee and never speaking.

This man was an Arab named Khalil. He was no bigger than a boy of eight, but, like my uncle Khosrove, had a very big moustache. He was probably in his early sixties. In spite of his moustache, however, he impressed one as being closer to a child in heart than to a man. His eyes were the eyes of a child, but seemed to be full of years of remembrance — years and years of being separated from things deeply loved, as perhaps his native land, his father, his mother, his brother, his horse, or something else. The hair on his head was soft and thick and as black as black ever was, and parted on the left side, the way small boys who had just reached America from the old country were taught by their parents to part their hair. His head was, in fact, the head of a schoolboy, except for the moustache, and so was his body, except for the broad shoulders. He could speak no English, only a little Turkish, a few words of Kurdish, and only a few of Armenian, but he hardly ever spoke anyway. When he did, he spoke in a voice that seemed to come not so much from himself as from the old country. He spoke, also, as if he regretted the necessity to do so, as if it were pathetic for one to try to express what could never be expressed, as if anything he might say would only add to the sorrow already existing in himself.

How he won the regard of my uncle Khosrove, a man who had to say something at least, is a thing none of us ever learned. Little enough is learned from people who are always talking, let alone from people who hardly ever talk, except, as in the case of my uncle Khosrove, to swear or demand that someone else stop talking. My uncle Khosrove proba bly met the Arab at the Arax Coffee House.

My uncle Khosrove picked his friends and enemies from the way they played tavli, which in this country is known as backgammon. Games of any sort are tests of human behavior under stress, and, even though my uncle Khosrove himself was probably the worst loser in the world, he despised any other man who lost without grace.

‘What are you grieving about?’ he would shout at such a loser. ‘It’s a game, isn’t it? Do you lose your life with it?’

He himself lost his life when he lost a game, but it was inconceivable to him that anyone else m ight regard the symbols of the game as profoundly as he did. To the others the game was only a game, as far as he was concerned. To himself, however, the game was destiny — over a board on a table, with an insignificant man across the table rattling the dice, talking to them in Turkish, coaxing them, whispering, shouting, and in many other ways humiliating himself.

My uncle Khosrove, on the other hand, despised the dice, regarded them as his personal enemies, and never spoke to them. He threw them out of the window or across the room, and pushed the board off the table.

‘The dogs!’ he would shout.

And then, pointing furiously at his opponent, he would shout, ‘And you! My own countryman! You are not ashamed. You debase yourself before them. You pray to them. I am ashamed for you. I spit on the dogs.’

Naturally, no one ever played a game of tavli with my uncle Khosrovc twice.

This Coffee House was a place of great fame and importance in its day. In this day it is the same, although many have died who went there twenty years ago.

For the most part the place was frequented by Armenians, but others came too. All who remembered the old country. All who loved it. All who had played tavli and the card game scambile in the old country. All who enjoyed the food of the old country, the wine, the rakhi, and the small cups of coffee in the afternoons. All who loved the songs, and the stories. And all who liked to be in a place with a familiar smell, thousands of miles from home.

Most of the time my uncle Khosrove reached this place around three in the afternoon. He would stand a moment looking over the men, and then sit down in a corner, alone. He usually sat an hour, without moving, and then would go away, terribly angry, although no one had said a word to him.

‘Poor little ones,’ he would say. ‘ Poor little orphans.’ Or, literally, ‘Poor and burning orphans.’

Poor and burning — it’s impossible to translate this one. Nothing, however, is more sorrowful than the poor arid burning in life and in the world.

Most likely, sitting in this Coffee House one day, my uncle Khosrove noticed the little Arab, and knew him to be a man of worth. Perhaps the man had been seated, playing tavli, his broad shoulders over the board, his child’s head sombre and full of understanding and regret, and perhaps after the game my uncle Khosrove had seen him get up and stand, no bigger than a child.

It may even be that the man came to the Coffee House and, not knowing my uncle Khosrove, played a game of tavli with him and lost, and did not complain; and, in fact, understood who my uncle Khosrove was — without being told. It may even be that the Arab did not pray to the dice.

Whatever the source of their friendship, whatever the understanding between the two, and whatever the communion they shared, they were at any rate together occasionally in our parlor, and welcome.

II

The first time my uncle Khosrove brought the Arab to our house, he neglected to introduce him. My mother assumed that the Arab was a countryman of ours, perhaps a distant cousin, although he was a little darker than most of the members of our tribe, and smaller. Which, of course, was no matter; nothing more than the charm of a people; the variety; the quality which made them human and worthy of further extension in time.

The Arab sat down that first day only after my mother had asked him a half-dozen times to be at home.

Was he deaf? she thought.

No, it was obvious that he could hear; he listened so intently.

Perhaps he didn’t understand our dialect. My mother asked what city he was from. He did not reply, except to brush dust from the sleeve of his coat. Then in Turkish my mother said, ‘Are you an Armenian?’ This the Arab understood; he replied in Turkish that he was an Arab.

‘A poor and burning little orphan,’ my uncle Khosrove whispered.

For a moment my mother imagined that the Arab might wish to speak, but it was soon obvious that, like my uncle Khosrove, nothing grieved him more than to do so. He could, if necessary, speak; but there was simply nothing, in all truth, to say.

My mother took the two men tobacco, and coffee, and motioned to me to leave.

‘They want to talk,’ she said.

‘Talk?’ I said.

‘They want to be alone,’ she said.

I sat at the table in the dining room and began turning the pages of a yearold copy of the Saturday Evening Post that I knew by heart — especially the pictures: Jello, very architectural; automobiles, with high-toned people standing around; flashlights flashing into dark places; tables set with bowls of soup steaming; young men in fancy ready-made suits and coats; and all sorts of other pictures.

I must have turned the pages a little too quickly, however.

My uncle Khosrove shouted, ‘Quiet, boy, quiet.’

I looked into the parlor just in time to see the Arab brushing dust from his knee.

The two men sat in the parlor an hour, and then the Arab breathed very deeply through his nose and without a word left the house.

I went into the parlor and sat where he had sat.

‘What is his name?’ I said.

‘Quiet,’ my uncle Khosrove said.

‘Well, what is his name?’ I said.

My uncle Khosrove was so irritated he didn’t know what to do. He called out to my mother, as if he were being murdered.

‘Mariam!’ he shouted. ‘Mariam!’

My mother hurried into the parlor.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Send him away — please,’ my uncle Khosrove said.

‘What is the matter?’ she said.

‘He wants to know the Arab’s name.’

‘Well, all right,’ my mother said. ‘He’s a child. He’s curious. Tell him.’

‘I see,’ my uncle Khosrove groaned.

‘You, too. My own sister. My own poor and burning little sister.’

‘Well, what is the Arab’s name?’ my mother said.

‘I won’t tell,’ my uncle Khosrove said. ‘That’s all. I won’t tell.’

He got up and left the house.

‘He doesn’t know the man’s name,’ my mother explained. ‘And you’ve got no business irritating him.’

Throe days later when my uncle Khosrove and the Arab came to our house I was in the parlor.

My uncle Khosrove came straight to me and said, ‘His name is Khalil. Now go away.’

I left the house and waited in the yard for one of my cousins to arrive. After ten minutes, nobody arrived, so I went to my cousin Mourad’s house and spent an hour arguing with him about which of us would be the stronger in five years. Wc wrestled three times and I lost three times, but once I almost won.

When I got home the two men were gone. I ran straight to the parlor from the back of the house, but they weren’t there. The only thing in the room was their smell and the smell of tobacco smoke.

‘What did they talk about?’ I asked my mother.

‘I didn’t listen,’ my mother said.

‘Did they talk at all?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ my mother said.

‘They didn’t,’ I said.

‘Some people talk when they have something to say,’ my mother said, ‘and some people don’t.’

‘How can you talk if you don’t say anything?’ I said.

‘You talk without words. We are always talking without words.’

‘Well, what good arc words, then?’

‘Not very good, most of the time. Most of the time they’re only good to keep back what you really want to say, or something you don’t want known.’

‘Well, do they talk?’ I said.

‘I think they do,’ my mother said. ‘They just sit and sip coffee and smoke cigarettes. They never open their mouths, but they’re talking all the time. They understand one another and don’t need to open their mouths. They have nothing to keep back.’

‘Do they really know what they’re talking about?’ I said.

‘Of course,’ my mother said.

‘Well, what is it?’ I said.

‘I can’t tell you,’ my mother said, ‘because it isn’t in words; but they know.’

III

For a year my uncle Khosrove and the Arab came to our house every now and then and sat in the parlor. Sometimes they sat an hour, sometimes two.

Once my uncle Khosrove suddenly shouted at the Arab, ’Pay no attention to it, I tell you,’ although the Arab had said nothing.

But most of the time nothing at all was said until it was time for them to go. Then my uncle Khosrove would say quietly, ‘The poor and burning orphans,’ and the Arab would brush dust from his knee.

One day when my uncle Khosrove came to our house alone, I realized that the Arab had not visited our house in several months.

‘Where is the Arab?’ I said.

‘What Arab?’ my uncle Khosrove said.

‘That poor and burning little Arab that used to come here with you,’ I said. ‘Where is he?’

‘Mariam! ‘ my uncle Khosrove shouted. He was standing, terrified.

‘Oh-oh,’ I thought. ‘What’s wrong now? What have I done now?’

‘Mariam!’ he shouted. ‘Mariam!’

My mother came into the parlor.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘If you please,’ my uncle Khosrove said. ‘ He is your son. You are my little sister. Please send him away. I love him with all my heart. He is an American. He was born here. He will be a great man some day. I have no doubt about it. Please send him away.’

‘Why, what is it?’ my mother said.

‘What is it? What is it? He talks, He asks questions. I love him.’

‘Aram,’ my mother said.

I was standing too, and if my uncle Khosrove was angry at me, I was angrier at him.

‘Where is the Arab?’ I said.

My uncle Khosrove pointed me out to my mother — with despair. ‘There you are,’ his gesture said. ‘Your son. My nephew. My own flesh and blood. You see? We are all poor and burning orphans. All except him.’

‘Aram,’ my mother said.

‘Well, if you don’t talk,’ I said, ‘I can’t understand. Where is the Arab?’

My uncle Khosrove left the house without a word.

‘The Arab is dead,’ my mother said.

‘When did he tell you?’ I said.

‘He didn’t tell me.’

‘Well, how did you find out?’ I said.

‘I don’t know how,’ my mother said, ‘but he is dead.’

My uncle Khosrove didn’t visit our house again for many days. For a while I thought he would never come back. When he came at last he stood in the parlor with his hat on his head and said, ‘The Arab is dead. He died an orphan in an alien world, six thousand miles from home. He wanted to go home and die. He wanted to see his sons again. He wanted to talk to them again, He wanted to smell them. He wanted to hear them breathing. He had no money. He used to think about them all the time. Now he is dead. Now go away. I love you.’

I wanted to ask some more questions, especially about the Arab’s sons, how many there were, how long he had been away from them, and so on, but I decided I would rather visit my cousin Mourad and see if I couldn’t hold him down now, so I went away without saying a word — which most likely pleased my uncle Khosrove very much, and made him feel maybe there was some hope for me, after all.