Finding Nouf (41 page)

"Yes, and you don't have to come."

"But I'd like to." She eyed him—strangely, he thought—and licked her ice cream. "Think of me as a professional escort, in case any women should throw themselves at you. They'll think I'm your wife."

He felt himself blushing. Idiotically. "Women don't throw themselves at me."

"Yes, they do. You just haven't been paying attention."

"I'm so happy you've come back!" Dr. Jahiz led them down a carpeted hallway and into an examination room. "Did you say that the desert was troubling your eyes?"

"Yes." Nayir guided Katya to a chair near the door and then spent an awkward moment climbing into the patient's seat. "I think it's the dust, aggravating my vision."

"Of course." Jahiz dimmed the lights and switched on a lighted wall chart of letters arranged into columns. "Let me tell you, it's always the dust!"

Nayir studied the chart but found that he couldn't read any of the letters. "Actually, I have the most trouble seeing in the city, I don't know why. I can see everything in the desert."

A phone rang in the outer room, and the doctor slumped. "Excuse me—I'll be right back."

When he was gone, Katya raised her
burqa,
crossed her legs, and laid her hands together on her knees.
She wants something,
he thought. He wondered how he knew that. It wasn't an action he'd seen her do before, but it felt universal, like the gesture for "I'm choking."

"I wanted to invite you to dinner next week. My father and I are planning a little party, just a few people, and I'd like you to come."

Nayir raised his eyebrows politely, but his gut yanked him hard in the opposite direction. Dinner? With her
father?
No, no, he wasn't ready. Not for that.

"It would mean a lot to me," she said, looking rather sheepish. "I know it might seem strange, but other people will be there, and my father would like to meet you."

Nayir nodded, although it might have been a tremor.

"And like I said, other people will be there." Katya raised an eyebrow.

In the antechamber, Nayir could hear Jahiz's aggravated voice. "Well, you'd better stop the drops at once! No, don't apply heat, it's swollen,
ya Allah!
Who ever heard of putting heat on swelling?" Katya was waiting for his response. There was no way around it. Not only did she want him to meet her father, but she wanted him to meet her father's
friends.
The sleeve of his robe got stuck on the arm of the phoropter and he spent a slow, grateful moment prying it free. Jahiz's voice filtered in: "Yes, go ahead and put some ice on it. I'll tell you what, if you can find a cube of ice in this whole damn desert that will stay solid long enough to reduce the swelling, then next time you come in, I'll give you a pair of Gucci sunglasses at a discount price ... Yes, you have my word. Gucci!"

"Which evening were you going to have this party?" Nayir asked.

"Thursday night."

"Aaahhh, I have dinner with my uncle on Thursdays."

"Oh."

"I'd like to come, but it would upset my uncle. He has no one else, and—"

"I understand." She nodded. "I do."

Instead of relief, he felt bad for having disappointed her. "Let me talk to my uncle," he offered.

"All right," she said, smiling.

The doctor returned, and Katya flipped down her veil. Jahiz sat in a rolling chair and kicked himself toward Nayir like an energetic crab. "Now remember to breathe calmly," he said. "This won't hurt."

Gratefully, Nayir turned his attention to the doctor. Aside from the occasional discouraging remark—"My goodness, a negative five in the left eye! Must be hard to read anything, eh?"—he found the process relaxing. It was dark and still. The complex instruments, handled delicately and in reverential silence, gave him a sense of universal well-being. The doctor could fix his vision. Thanks be to Allah,
anything
could be fixed, in the proper hands.

A negative five!

He remembered the camel's leg, and it made him think of Othman, of his desperate love for Nouf, and of Nouf's feelings in return.
She wanted to be like the grouper.
But the Nouf of his mind was free already, jetting down the freeway on a Harley-Davidson. She wore a scarab-like helmet, alligator gloves, and a man's white robe. The robe whipped around her ankles as she skirted tractor-trailers and SUVs, a lunatic Bedouin on a space-age camel.

Jahiz stood up and closed Nayir's chart. "We'll get started on your glasses—it should only take an hour. While you're waiting, perhaps your sister would like an examination too?"

Nayir glanced at Katya. Her head twitched in what might have been a no.

"No, thank you," Nayir said, getting out of the chair.

"You know"—Jahiz's eyes had a cunning look—"not many women get their vision corrected. Men prevent them from doing it. It is only the strong and
liberated
woman who comes in for an exam."

Even though Katya was veiled, hands tucked into her sleeves,
Nayir could read her sudden hesitation. Slowly she turned toward him as if to say,
Not a bad idea!

"After all," Jahiz went on, "with veils on their faces all day, women only want to see the world, you know. And clearly, my friend,
clearly.
"

Nayir looked at Katya's
burqa,
rising gently with her breath. She wanted to say something, she was thinking about it...

"I think," Nayir said, "that she already has perfect vision."

He imagined he saw her smile.