Free American Taliban by Pearl Abraham Page B

return, she took her seat, and though she slipped out of her red coat, she rewrapped the thin pink scarf around her neck. Her lips, fuller than any lips he’d kissed before, appeared sort of sulky, and he liked that. But did Muslim girls kiss? What would she do if he leaned forward and did it? And what about Katie? Couldn’t he meet a girl and just be friends? He forced his eyes away from her lips.
    She had on a girl’s pale blouse with a peter pan collar, a cardigan, and jeans, held in place by a glitter cowboy belt. Her shoes were red velvet Chinese slippers with a thin band at the ankle and embroidery at the toes. She was delicate and serious at once, both girl and woman, and it seemed he couldn’t help himself. It didn’t matter what his mind advised; his eyes returned to her lips. And sitting with her here, alone for the first time, he wished to be past this awkward newness, onto something deeper. Then he stopped himself. He had a tendency to rush the best parts of life.
    He took a breath and started slowly.
    How are your classes? he asked. I never got to ask.
    So far I think I like literature better than history, but that’s probably because the reading is better. For history I have to read Gibbon, or I should say parts of Gibbon, and for my class on the Middle East, Hitti.
    Short or long? John asked.
    Short, Noor said. I don’t think any professor could get away with assigning the long one. Isn’t it like nine hundred pages?
    I just started it, and I’m liking it, which makes me think I might want to read the longer one. I don’t know. It was on my reading list forever, but once I got started, it moved fast. It’s not at all like the boring textbooks I read for high school.
    Noor agreed to give Hitti a second chance. Really, I should like it, since it’s for a course in my concentration.
    Sounds like you know what you want to do after graduation.
    Journalism, Noor said. I want to be a foreign correspondent in the Middle East.
    The havaj arrived, and Noor took up her spoon and stirred. John picked up his cup, but Noor reached across the table and guided itback to the saucer. You want the mud settled before you start drinking, she said. And you?
    Um, John said, and released his cup. I guess you could say scholarship, but I don’t have a, like a career plan. That’s why I deferred college. So I can figure it out.
    Noor smiled, but only slightly. She wasn’t a girl who laughed needlessly.
    So what are you reading besides Hitti? she asked.
    Poetry. I’m into this Sufi poet, Ibn ’Arabi.
    Noor reached into her green schoolbag, brought up a thin black notebook, opened the flap, and recited,
    My heart is capable of every form
    It is a meadow for gazelles and a monastery for Christian monks …
     
    John joined her, though he stumbled here and there for the next word. Their translations differed. John’s had a camel in it, Noor’s a caravan. Still, they finished together.
    Love is my religion and my faith.
     
    Noor’s lips were slightly parted now, and John brought his fingertips to his own, then reached across the table to hers. And they were warm, they were yielding. So he lifted himself up on the arms of his chair and touched her lips with his.
    That’s for knowing it. I hoped you would.
    She drew her black eyelashes down, obscuring her eyes, and said nothing, but out of the corners of her eyes, she glanced right then left, without moving her head. To see if anyone had seen? John looked. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone. Seated at this tiny table in the growing bluedark, they were as good as alone.
    He told her about his new CD, recorded in Morocco. I got it in the mail last week. It has a rendition of the poem, in French. Mon coeur est devenu capable. I’ll play it for you.
    I’d like that. She picked up her cup. You can taste now, she said.
    Cinnamon, he said, sipping. And nutmeg. And something else.
    Cardamom, Noor said. Good?
    John sipped again. Surprisingly, he said.
    I’m glad you like it,