The International Writers Magazine:Different Worlds

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Natalia • Kevin Patterson When my mother first heard I was going to Damascus, Syria, she called Tariz Alli. Tariz, an old friend of the family, had fled Iraq, way back in the day, back when Saddam Hussein was just another colonel, in just another corrupt regime. Tariz said "Ahhhh, Damascus, lovely city. Kevin will be fine just as long as he does not talk politics with anyone and he does not date any of the local women."

Syrian women have the long dark eyelashes of the bedouins, the high cheek bones and sharp features of the Italians, the thick hair of the Greeks, the haunting eyes of the Armenians, the posture and style of the Persians, their skin mixes the colors of every civilization since Babylon. Beautiful women, The problem was that those girls were old fashioned, like old-testament old fashioned. One of the girls I dated did not have a clitoris. Her father had cut it out when she was a baby. Like I said old-fashioned.

But when I got there all I knew was that they were beautiful. The first thing I taught myself to say was "Ma baref arabi, ......." (I don't speak arabic....) but I am looking for a friend to teach me."
This always worked well for me in Mexico. But in Syria the first girl I tried it on, Natalia, showed up, much to my disappointment, for our "study session" with real books, sat me down and started with the alphabet. Ah Ba Ta Fa
Natalia was divorced from an arranged marriage at 21, all she would only say to me was "He was mean to cats, Kevin. How could my father expect me to love a man who was mean to cats?"
Divorced at 21.
One night after class we were sitting around the park when someone she knew, a young man around her age, came up and they started talking. It kind of looked like they were arguing but I could not be sure. I whispered. "Natalie, I don't know what is being said, I don't know if you are having an argument or not, and if you are, I don't know what it is about, I don't know what my role as an outsider, as a foreigner, as your companion, as your friend is here. If you need me to do something I will do it, but you have to tell me because I don't know what is happening." Natalia, said "No Kevin, don't worry, it is ok." They finished. We left. Natalia was happy, she could barely contain her smile. This from a girl who normally behaved as if all the joy had been stolen out of her life.

She said "That is the second man my father has arranged for me to marry since my divorce. My father is proud because he is from a good family. But tonight," and here she beamed, "He said I was a whore, a slut, because I am walking around with you a foreigner, a 'faranji.' He said he was going to go back to Aleppo and tell my father, my mother, my family, my friends, the whole community, the whole city, that I am a whore. " She smiled, "Maybe now my father will leave me alone."
Talking politics in a police state, that was the easy part.
© Kevin Patterson Jan 2005
ahweh.cafe@gmail.com
www.ahwehcafe.com


Three Girls and A Baby - © Kevin Patterson

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