IGMS Issue 43 by IGMS

Author:IGMS
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Hatrack River Enterprises
Published: 2015-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Even all these years later -- even in this strange place -- there's very little that escapes my memory of my subsequent conversation with Professor al-Wahab. Other recollections -- of my time in the desert, or around the compound -- although true to the spirit of what happened, contain embellishments -- dramatic license if you will.

I hope you can forgive me that.

I think if Professor al-Wahab hadn't magicked me away me from the desert, I would've become, not a mathematician, but a storyteller.

However, with regard to our exchange, I need not embellish anything for it is still as clear as spring water in my mind.

"Come in, come in," he said, a little too jovially, after he'd led me down the hallway to his room in silence. He tinkered with his dusty blinds, and the last gauzy rays of the afternoon spilled in between the slats. I stepped in, the smell of fragrant tobacco rich in the air. Professor al-Wahab shifted a stack of papers off a deep-seated armchair beside the window, and gestured for me to sit down.

"Well," he said, turning round the beautifully carved chair that sat under his walnut desk. "Where to begin?"

Everything in Professor al-Wahab's room was steeped in history or craft, from the polished beech abacus to the finely filigreed hookah. There were no standard-issue furnishings or empty spaces -- no sign that this was anything but a permanent arrangement for him.

"You don't know this, Ismail, but when I came here six years ago I was happily married man." He leant back, opened a drawer, shuffled around for something. "Ah, here it is." He studied the picture, before passing it to me.

It was a photo of Professor al-Wahab with a woman and a boy. They stood in front of one of the pyramids, all sunglasses and smiles, the boy nestled between the adults.

"My wife and son. Amir would be twelve now."

The man in the picture looked like a different man to the one sat before me. Professor al-Wahab now reminded me of the elderly men and women of my tribe with their haggard faces. And he didn't have the harsh winds that blew off the Rub' al-Khali to blame.

"Do they live in Egypt?" I asked.

He looked at me hard, tears welling in his eyes. "I don't know."

How could he not know the whereabouts of his family? Had they befallen some terrible calamity?

Professor al-Wahab fished a starched white handkerchief from his breast pocket, and dabbed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Ismail. I didn't mean for you to see me like this."

I didn't want to dwell on Professor al-Wahab's naked emotions, so I asked, "Did they have to leave?"

"Ismail, you don't understand. I left them." He got up, walked over to the window. "When I first came here I told my wife that it would be for three months, six at the most. But I didn't anticipate the buzz -- the sense of possibility -- that this place fostered. There was none of the usual academic turf wars. Everyone shared everything they had.

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