"Tell me how you got here," you assign them, early on. The topic provides a high personal interest. Good practice with the tricky past tense. And it's easy to answer without straying too far outside core vocabulary.
"How did you got here, Mr. Martin?" Nawaf baits you.
The whole class becomes a sea of colluding head bobs. "Yes. Yes. We all want to know."
"Nothing to tell," you tell them. "I came here to make sure that your subjects and verbs all agree with each other."
"What job have you done before being our teacher?" Nawaf asks.
"What did I do before coming here to teach?"
"Yeah. You said it."
"A lot of things. Most recently, I trained Asian businessmen to survive Chicago."
The sly bastard persists. "Why did you change your jobs?"
"Now why in the world would that interest you?"
"It's very interesting, Mr. Martin," the very interesting Zarai chips in.
"Well, for a lot of reasons. But we're not going to get into that."
"It's a secret?" Nawaf taunts.
"That's right. Yes. It's a secret."
"Top secret?" Zarai smiles at you from beneath her head wrapping.
You smile back at her. "Tip-top secret."
They say that you know more about this place on the day you first touch your foot to it than you will ever know about it again. And they're right. Each day that passes leaves you more confused about this stew, let alone the recipe that produced it. You understand Shiite versus Sunni, Maronite versus Orthodox, Druze, Palestinian, Phalangist, AMAL, the radical Party of God and their fanatical cell the Holy Warriors. But the fourteen other religions and splinter factions plunge you into the same despair that your students feel when confronting irregular English verbs.
This al-Jumhuriyah al-Lubnaniyah: even the name is a maze. The country's politics, like some unmappable Grand Bazaar out of Ali Baba, cannot be survived except by chance. Here civilization's ground rules disperse into the mists of fantasy. Standing agreements, tenuous at best, collapse back into the law of armed camps, each local militia staking out a few shelled blocks. No one is allowed to cross from zone to zone, not even the Red Crescent. Your students scrape by in a decaying landscape, one of those postapocalypse teen movies that so intrigue them.
But for all that, the streets still seem safer than Chicago's. Tomorrow feels more affirmed here, this city's pulse more surrendered to hope and devotion.
You learn a few words: Na'am, shukran, merhadh, khubuz. Yes, no, thank you, bathroom, bread. You begin to fantasize about meeting a woman, perhaps even a woman in head covering. About taking a crash course in the rules of her grammar.
Then the real woman calls you. Dead on schedule. Just as one of you recovers some semblance of health, some solidifying core of self-esteem, the other one calls to crash it. At least now, the two-dollar-a-minute taxi meter and the audible satellite lag protect you from extended conversation.
Or they would, if she weren't wild. Cost means nothing to her. Her words come through the phone like a violent cough. "Taimur. Tai. Thank God you're alive. You have to come back. Tonight. Now."
Too pathetic, even for retaliation. You can't even rouse yourself to decent brutality.
"I don't think so," you singsong into the receiver.
"I skipped my period."
You recover before the satellite link can click. "You skip every other month, Gwen. You're a high-strung, finger-pointing, street-brawling drama queen who never menstruates in the middle of a fight. Which is pretty much all the time."
Too many adjectives, and you've lost another round. Lost her. Lost yourself. Lost the person you were trying to become by coming here, one who refuses to return knee-jerk hurt for hurt.
She starts to sob, but softly, horribly. You hear her give up on the hope of consolation. And that, where nothing else could, makes you want to console her. Succor, once more, becomes your secret sickness. Your awful, tip-top secret.
"Gwen. Don't start. We can't do this again. We both promised." "I need you, Tai. I can't do this by myself."
"Cut the theater, Gwen. You're fine. Give it another couple of weeks." "I've given it eight!'
It blossoms in you again, in the space of a second. Full-blown, the old, loving parasite you carry around inside, awaiting its chance to graze. A pillar of purity rises in your chest, so righteous it can't even be called anger. "Don't you think you ought to call the father, then?"
"You, Taimur. You. Don't you remember? Our long goodbye?" The weekend window when she seemed almost happy, knowing you were already gone. "Nobody before. Nobody since…"
The words are whiplash. And yet: they must be bluff. Florid, desperate, sadistic, even by the standards that the two of you have perfected.
"Gwen. As far as I remember from high-school biology, sperm must actually meet egg in order to—"
"Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I knew we shouldn't have… I told you that we shouldn't…"
"What you said was 'Sex with your ex is asking for trouble.' In a soft, slinky voice, if I remember correctly."
She starts shrieking, the performance over-the-top, incredible. "Come home, Tai. I can be better. You can."
The accusation maddens you. You: better. You, who she always punished, just for being you.
"I need you. I can't do this. Come home. Now."
The now is hideous; it gives the game away. You don't bother to tell her: you are home. Or as close as you're going to get, for the foreseeable future. You place the still-pleading stream of hysteria back into the cradle. And you don't pick up on the ringing phone again, for several days.
You leave the compound sometimes, between classes, for fried fava beans or a breath of air. A non-cigarette break. Escape from Butt Central. Staff doesn't like it, but no one can stay cooped up forever. You keep close, always doubling back after a few minutes.
Today, a knot of men a little younger than you mill around on the pavement outside school, examining a flat tire. Someone approaches for help. You walk toward him and he shows you something. And the something is metal, and a gun. And then he is not. Not asking for help.
"Please enter the car. Fast, fast."
Three of them persuade you of the idea. They're all shouting quietly, a Chinese fire drill. An improvised skit of confusion. One ties your hands behind you. Another shoves your head down to clear the car roof, just like in the cop shows. Too fast even for fear. A crazy mistake that'll have to wait to be straightened out. Wait until they remove the greasy rag they tie around your face. Wait until they settle down.
The engine starts. The car lurches forward. There is no flat, you realize, your thoughts even stupider than this crisis. The one sitting next to you pushes your head to the floor.
On your way down, he presses close to your ear. "Don't worry. Don't worry. This is just political." The comic diction comforts you. These men are amateurs.
On the floor of a dark car. Someone's foot rests on your temple, just for the thrill of disgracing you. They drive at least an hour. Maybe two. Time enough to catch up with your own pulse rate, with what's happening to you, your fatal stupidity. You give in to the heat of the floorboard, to the nail of the shoe on your skull, the sponge bath of terror. You start to quake. The rope around your wrists keeps your arms from banging together.
The car traces an enormous circle. They are playing some insane charade of distance, doubling back, trying to throw you off. You want to call out to them to get where they're going. You're long since lost. But every sound from you elicits a hiss and a heel crush.