But I worried. I felt powerless; I was angry at our weakness, at our vulnerability to intimidation of this sort from our — admittedly much larger — neighbor to the east. Yes, we had nuclear weapons, and yes, our soldiers would not back down, but we were being threatened nonetheless, and there was nothing I could do about it but lie in my bed, unable to sleep. Indeed, I would soon be gone, leaving my family and my home behind, and this made me a kind of coward in my own eyes, a traitor. What sort of man abandons his people in such circumstances? And what was I abandoning them for? A well-paying job and a woman whom I longed for but who refused even to see me? I grappled with these questions again and again.
When the time came for me to return to New York I told my parents I wanted to stay longer, but they would not hear of it. Perhaps they sensed that I was myself divided, that something called me back to America; perhaps they were simply protecting their son. “Do not forget to shave before you go,” my mother said to me. “Why?” I asked, indicating my father and brother. “They have beards.” “They,” she replied, “have them only because they wish to hide the fact that they are bald. Besides, you are still a boy.” She stroked my stubble with her fingers and added, “It makes you look like a mouse.”
On the flight I noticed how many of my fellow passengers were similar to me in age: college students and young professionals, heading back after the holidays. I found it ironic; children and the elderly were meant to be sent away from impending battles, but in our case it was the fittest and brightest who were leaving, those who in the past would have been most expected to remain. I was filled with contempt for myself, such contempt that I could not bring myself to converse or to eat. I shut my eyes and waited, and the hours took from me the responsibility even to flee.
You are not unfamiliar with the anxieties that precede armed conflict, you say? Aha! Then you have been in the service, sir, just as I suspected! Would you not agree that waiting for what is to come is the most difficult part? Yes, quite so, not as difficult as the time of carnage itself — said, sir, like a true soldier. But I see that you have paused in your eating; perhaps you are waiting for fresh bread. Here, have half of mine. No, I insist; our waiter will bring us more momentarily.
Given your background, you will doubtless have experienced the peculiar phenomenon that is the return to an environment more or less at peace from one where the prospect of large-scale bloodshed is a distinct possibility. It is an odd transition. My colleagues greeted with considerable — although often partially suppressed — consternation my reappearance in our offices. For despite my mother’s request, and my knowledge of the difficulties it could well present me at immigration, I had not shaved my two-week-old beard. It was, perhaps, a form of protest on my part, a symbol of my identity, or perhaps I sought to remind myself of the reality I had just left behind; I do not now recall my precise motivations. I know only that I did not wish to blend in with the army of clean-shaven youngsters who were my coworkers, and that inside me, for multiple reasons, I was deeply angry.
It is remarkable, given its physical insignificance — it is only a hairstyle, after all — the impact a beard worn by a man of my complexion has on your fellow countrymen. More than once, traveling on the subway — where I had always had the feeling of seamlessly blending in — I was subjected to verbal abuse by complete strangers, and at Underwood Samson I seemed to become overnight a subject of whispers and stares. Wainwright tried to offer me some friendly advice. “Look, man,” he said, “I don’t know what’s up with the beard, but I don’t think it’s making you Mister Popular around here.” “They are common where I come from,” I told him. “Jerk chicken is common where I come from,” he replied, “but I don’t smear it all over my face. You need to be careful. This whole corporate collegiality veneer only goes so deep. Believe me.”
I appreciated my friend’s concern, but I did not take his suggestion. Despite the layoffs, the utilization rate at our firm remained low in January, and I sat at my desk with little to do. I spent this time online, reading about the ongoing deterioration of affairs between India and Pakistan, the assessment by experts of the military balance in the region and likely scenarios for battle, and the negative impact the standoff was already beginning to have on the economies of both nations. I wondered how it was that America was able to wreak such havoc in the world — orchestrating an entire war in Afghanistan, say, and legitimizing through its actions the invasion of weaker states by more powerful ones, which India was now proposing to do to Pakistan — with so few apparent consequences at home.
I also, after six weeks of attempting not to communicate with her, finally called Erica, and because her phone was constantly off, followed up by sending an email. I would like to claim my message was brief, a polite hello that was for the most part respectful of her request for silence, but in truth I spent many hours composing it and it was perhaps the lengthiest I have ever written. In it I told her of what had been happening in my life, both at work and at home, and the turmoil through which I was passing; I also told her how much I missed her and that I did not understand where or why she had gone. It was some days before she replied. “I’m at a sort of clinic,” she wrote, “an institution where people can recover themselves. I think of you, too.” She invited me to come and visit her; it would be easier for her to attempt to answer my questions face-to-face.
The clinic was an afternoon’s drive from the city, a converted villa set in fifty acres of secluded countryside overlooking the Hudson River. I was greeted by a nurse in the reception area. “You must be Changez,” she said. “Erica has told me a lot about you.” “I am,” I said. “How did you know?” “Eyelashes like a Maybelline ad,” she replied, “that’s what she said.” As I considered this unlikely description, the nurse explained that Erica had been waiting for me but became a little nervous and went for a walk, asking the nurse to explain a few things on her behalf. “So she will not see me?” I asked. The nurse smiled. “Sure she will, honey,” she said, “but people get embarrassed sometimes when they’re in a place like this. She thinks it won’t be as awkward for you both if I talk to you first.” She patted my hand. Then she added, “I’m like the shower you take before you jump into a swimming pool.”
What I had to understand about Erica, the nurse told me, was that she was in love with someone else. She knew it would be tough for me to hear, but I had to hear it regardless. It did not matter that the person Erica was in love with was what the nurse or I might call deceased; for Erica he was alive enough, and that was the problem: it was difficult for Erica to be out in the world, living the way the nurse or I might, when in her mind she was experiencing things that were stronger and more meaningful than the things she could experience with the rest of us. So Erica felt better in a place like this, separated from the rest of us, where people could live in their minds without feeling bad about it. “But eventually she will have to leave here,” I said. “Perhaps she will want to be with me then.” The nurse shook her head. “Maybe,” she said, “but right now you’re the hardest person for her to see. You’re the one who upsets her most. Because you’re the most real, and you make her lose her balance.”