Elias Khoury - My Name is Adam

Copyright Elias Khoury, 2012

English translation of the Work 2019 Humphrey Davies

Originally published in the Arabic language as Awlad al-ghittu, Ismi Adam

by Dar al-Adab, Beirut, 2012

First Archipelago Books Edition, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Archipelago Books

232 Third Street #A111

Brooklyn, NY 11215

www.archipelagobooks.org

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Khuri, Ilyas, author. | Davies, Humphrey T. (Humphrey Taman), translator.

Children of the ghetto, my name is Adam / Elias Khoury; [translated by Humphrey Davies].

Other titles: Awlad al-ghittu, Ismi Adam. English

First Archipelago Books edition. | Brooklyn, NY : Archipelago Books, 2019.

LCCN 2018033607 | ISBN 9781939810137 (hardcover)

LCC PJ7842.H823 A9413 2019 | DDC 892.7/36dc23

Ebook ISBN9781939810144

Cover art: Andrzej Wrblewski

Distributed by Penguin Random House

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

This work was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Archipelago Books also gratefully acknowledges the generous support from

Lannan Foundation, the Carl Lesnor Family Foundation, the Nimick Forbsway Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

v5.4

a

For Jad Tabet and Anton Shammas

Say: Are they equal those who know and those who know not?

Koran, Companies, Verse 9

THESE NOTEBOOKS CAME into my possession by coincidence, and I hesitated at length before deciding to send them to Dar al-Adab in Beirut for publication. To be honest, my hesitation lay in that ambiguous feeling that combines admiration and envy, love, and hate. I had met the writer and hero of these texts, Adam Dannoun or Danoun in New York, where I teach at the university. I remember I told my Korean student how good looking I thought he was. It was toward the end of February 2005, if my memory serves me correctly. We had gone out to eat falafel after the graduate seminar and observed the man carefully and cheerfully preparing his sandwiches. He was tall and a little on the thin side, his shoulders broad and slightly stooped. White hairs had grown among the chestnut on his head, making it look as though wreathed with a shining corona, the brightness coming, I think, from his gray eyes, which shaded into green. I told my student I understood now why she was so taken with this Israeli restaurant, and that it had nothing to do with the food but was because of its owner. I was wrong, though: that might have been the best falafel sandwich I have ever tasted. We Beirutis claim to be the best falafel-sandwich makers in the world, and the Palestinians say the Israelis stole falafel from them, which is correct, but I think both sides are wrong because falafel is the oldest cooked food known to man, being pharaonic when you really get down to it, and so on and so forth.

The name of the restaurant was the Palm Tree, and when the handsome man with the pale oval face and the dimple sketched on his chin came over to us and began talking to my student in Hebrew, Sarang Lee, answering in English, turned to me and introduced us. The man then started speaking to me in Arabic and Sarang said, in English, how much she liked his Palestinian dialect and he replied with something in Hebrew that I didnt understand.

When we stepped out again into the cold, Sarang Lee suggested a drink. I was taken aback, because I dont go out with my students; I still recall the warning given to me by my Armenian friend Baron Hagop the one to whom Edward Said awarded the title King of Sex about what they call harassment here. He said if a female student were to claim I had harassed her, it would be enough to ruin me and destroy my academic career.

I agreed to have a drink with Sarang Lee because I could tell from the look in her eyes that she had something to say. We had a glass of white wine at the Lanterna Caf, my Armenian friends favorite and the one frequented by Hanna el-Akkari, a former Popular Front fighter; we often used to go there for a drink and to reminisce about the old days, when we dreamed of revolution.

I said to Sarang Lee with a laugh, raising my glass to her, We dont usually drink wine after falafel, and waited for her to speak. She said nothing, however, and after a seemingly interminable silence, I asked her if she was in love. Immediately, the girls eyes shone with tears. I cant say for sure that she cried, but that is what I thought happened, at least. Then she said she didnt know, but that she loved me, too.

The word love set off a tremor in my heart that was immediately checked by too, since the latter meant she loved the Israeli but didnt want to hurt my feelings. Love was far from my mind, especially for a girl so much younger than me. All the same, I had found in my young students academic excellence, her shyness, and her exquisite Asian beauty, something that led me to pay special attention to her. That day, I found I had been strung along. Though strung along isnt the right term here: this girl of twenty-eight had never sent me anything but signals of ordinary admiration, such as any student might her teacher. I asked her what shed said to the old man and she smiled and said he wasnt old, hes the same age as you, my dear professor, adding, with gentle malice, unless, that is, you consider yourself old. I ignored her remark and asked what the man had said. She replied, He said that hed made an effort to speak with a Galilean accent for your sake because it was close to a Lebanese accent. She also said there was some mystery there, because, having spent her childhood in Tel Aviv, she knew Israel well but couldnt work out the mans precise identity was he a Palestinian pretending to be an Israeli, or the reverse? but that, in any case, he was a very special person.

As Sarang Lee pronounced the words very special, her eyes gleamed with love. I couldnt think of anything to say because I had a feeling something strange was going on, and indeed, at another meeting, she let me in on the secret, that the man wasnt Israeli: Its true he has an Israeli passport but hes Palestinian, from around Lydda I think, but he likes ambiguities and doesnt mind people thinking hes Israeli.

I saw no more of this man who liked ambiguities until we met again at the cinema, but my student would tell me curious tales about him, saying he was a womanizer, a true charmer. I could not have cared less for these anecdotes about the Israeli who spoke perfect Arabic, or the ambiguous Palestinian who spoke Hebrew as though it was his own tongue, or his charm. I was jealous of him, though it was an unspoken jealousy. I dont know why it occurred to me that he might be an agent of Israels Mossad and that that could be the root of all his ambiguities and disguises. That was the sole reason I wanted my student to keep away from him, but when, through a slip of the tongue, I put my foot in it and told her of my suspicions, she got angry and left the Cornelia Street Cafe. Wed taken to meeting there once every two weeks on average, it being a little out of the way of prying eyes on Washington Square, which is the center, practically speaking, of New York University, where I work.