He’d assumed that she was a native, but her family was Palestinian, she’d said, not Kuwaiti, and everyone who lived here knew the difference. She’d been born in Kuwait, but this didn't make her a citizen. Her father, an immigrant in the sixties, and a proud man of mixed Palestinian and Syrian blood, had arrived after oil changed the fortunes of the region and the Kuwaitis had closed all doors to naturalization, securing the largesse for the lucky few. Accorded almost none of the rights and benefits of sanctioned citizens, denied even the state-supported health care given to workers from non-Islamic countries, a bidoon was an official nobody.
“We’re very low class here,” she said. “They think of us as stray animals, especially since the war. No one wants to own us.”
“Someone else mentioned this to me, something about the Palestinians,” Theo said, trying to recall it. “The husband of my real estate agent, Jane Scarborough.”
“Jane and Hamid? But I know them! Jane sends me clients from time to time. Hamid is a distant cousin of my father’s.”
Another cat, this one long-haired and elegant, a Persian—how many cats were there?—leaped onto the table and with great purposefulness sat down directly in front of Theo, tail flicking, its snub-nose giving it an expression of mild, persistent disgust. Theo didn’t touch it.
“Have you thought of leaving?”
She looked as if she’d gone blank on the meaning of the word.
“Going someplace else. To another country.”
“But this is my home. My family is here.” There was stiff offense in her voice again. “Or do you mean that all of us should go?”
What a volatile woman. “I meant for a job. Like me coming here.”
“But I have a job. I will teach you Arabic.”
“I meant at a university, for instance. Dr. Chowdhury called you a linguist. You have to be well-qualified or he wouldn’t have recommended you. He’s not easily impressed.”
“Ah.” She shrugged off this compliment but her tone gentled. “I did teach at the university here. Until the war. But I wouldn’t work for an Iraqi and so I stopped my job then. After the war, I couldn’t get it back. It’s my Palestinian blood, you see. That fool Arafat supported Saddam. All bidoons, since the war, have even more troubles than before. The Kuwaitis don’t trust us.”
She rose from her chair and strode restlessly away from the little table. “The university isn’t a good place anyway. Not anymore. My department is run by the Egyptians. It’s like in Italy. You know this thing they call the Mafia, la cosa nostra? It’s the same with Egyptians there. Egyptians for Egyptians, and everyone else is in danger. They can’t even speak their own language. Like Abdullah outside.” She shut her eyes against the thought of him. “That’s why I was rude to you, because I’m angry with him.”
This was probably as close as she ever came to an apology. He didn’t need one.
“Anger works in this way,” she said, “to go in every direction, you cannot control it. If you could hear him speak Arabic! It hurts the brain to listen.—Why are you smiling so?”
“He said the same about you.”
“Me? He said the same about me!”
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