Free In the Language of Miracles by Rajia Hassib Page B

for only a few weeks before its usefulness became clear to him. Areas of the Internet that Khaled had shut himself out of, K.A. could potentiallyenter, unnoticed. Suddenly, and after two months of abstinence, Facebook became a possibility again.
    His new Facebook page contained a picture of him in profile, the sun shining so brightly in the background his face was visible only as a dark silhouette, the shade of his skin undecipherable, his features one dark mass. Those whom he befriended on Facebook could see a couple of other pictures in which he was recognizable but his surroundings were not: self-portraits of him out on his hikes, with backdrops of trees and open meadows. His face, a dark tan that could have easily passed for any ethnicity, from mixed to Hispanic, was not antagonistic. People did not object to his face, he learned, as much as they objected to his name. And his initials, though they were still his, could imply any name. Karlos Aguilar, with roots both in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Khristos Agathangelos, standing in the front yard of his Mediterranean villa in the Greek isles. Or, his favorite, Kevin Anderson.
    Garrett was the only one of his friends who knew of his Facebook page, and even he learned of it by accident. Sitting in Garrett’s room one day, Khaled had logged on to his account but forgot to log back out before letting Garrett on the laptop. On the floor, a bunch of Garrett’s CDs sprawled in front of him, Khaled was taken aback when Garrett, his laptop on the desk in front of him, yelled, “Dude, you call yourself
Ka
? That’s brilliant!”
    Khaled, too startled to make sense of what he’d heard, blurted, “What?”
    â€œ
Ka!
Your Facebook page. Hey, how come I’m not on it?” Garrett turned to him.
    â€œI didn’t want anyone from school to find out.”
    â€œBut I don’t have anyone you wouldn’t want on there. I unfriended Bud and his Buddies a long time ago!”
    â€œNot just Bud,” Khaled said, smiling at Garrett’s name for Bud Murphy and his gang. “I just didn’t want anyone to find out.”
    Garrett shrugged. Khaled, eager to change the subject, asked, “What did you mean it was brilliant?”
    â€œYou seriously don’t know what
Ka
means? And you call yourself Egyptian?”
    â€œThey’re just my initials,” Khaled said, bewildered.
    â€œ
Ka
: The ancient Egyptian name for the human soul. The part of you that makes you alive. You seriously didn’t know that?”
    Khaled shook his head.
    â€œMan. Your culture is wasted on you.”
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    The blog’s biggest achievement—besides allowing him hours of indulgence in entomology—was connecting him with Brittany. He logged into his Facebook account one day and found a friendship request from her. His heart pounding, he had read the unfamiliar girl’s short message: Nice blog. Cool pics of the monarch. Immediately accepting her request, he spent days obsessively browsing her numerous photos, elated at the bliss of having a girl interested in insects seek his friendship. When he found out she lived in New York, he was dumbfounded. Ehsan would have deemed this fate.
    Days later, he hopped on the Amtrak to New York. It took all his strength to shoot down the panic that had paralyzed him for days ever since he’d known Brittany lived close enough for them to meet. Sitting in that train, he spent the entire forty-five-minute ride assuring himself that he could do this. He could go seek out a young woman he did not know and introduce himself. Pursuing a logic that he would later remember with a mixture of fondness and embarrassment, he told himself he was, in fact, being a good Muslim. Hadn’t Ehsan always told him that
Islam
shared the root of
surrender
and that a good Muslim therefore always surrendered his will to God’s? Who else but God would have steered Brittany