family. It’s Aisha. My real name is Aisha.
The last wife of the Prophet, I say. The youngest and most favored.
Her eyes open wide.
How do you know that?
For the first time in the more than quarter century since graduation, a college course actually pays off. God bless Berkeley’s social science requirement, the anthropology department’s course in Comparative Religion, and the lectures of Professor Lance Thorneycroft, a specialist in the cultures of native Americans who devoted four hours to Navajo sweat lodges, six to Hopi shamans, and eight to the Kwakiutl of the North Coast. Christianity and Judaism each received two hours. Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam got one. The distribution didn’t faze us, for we particularly loved the prof’s stories about the potlatches of the Kwakiutl. Part of it was the name, which my buddies and I liked to shout back and forth, emphasizing the first syllable, making us sound, or so we thought, like ducks calling to one another. We offspring of immigrant families on hustle in the new world found something enormously fascinating about a tribe of people who burned their possessions in public to express disdain for the material world.
I can’t remember what word the professor used for the religion, but the title of our textbook was Mohammedanism. I know for certain because it still sits on my bookshelf a few feet away from where I write, with its short biography of the Prophet, a brief history of the religion spanning thirteen hundred years, and selections from the Koran which took me into a world as alien as the one in the chapters of When the Jewish People Was Young, the book I was forced to study during my two year Sunday School career, a volume full of the trials, heroes, prophets, and kings of the ancient Hebrews and their angry God with his tiresome and repetitious injunctions and threats. If he’s so Almighty, I remember thinking at the age of eight, if he can create the world in six days, I mean if he’s God and he knows everything, how come he doesn’t realize that people are going to trash his laws, so why doesn’t he relax and stop complaining and thundering so much? You can imagine that the stories of the Prophet and his many wives drew more than a few wisecracks from my friends and I, but if I could recall any of them, I wouldn’t dare disclose them even in a work of retrospection, for today our words would lead to public demonstrations, the burning of the American flag, angry calls for jihad, the raising of the national alert level a color or two.
I don’t, of course, say any of this to Aisha. Only that I studied Islam in a college course on religion. Only that I found it rather interesting.
How unusual, she replies. Most Americans know so little about Muslims and care even less. I wonder if it’s the same in Spain?
Pretty much, I say, without really knowing. So tell me, this is your first time here? First time in Madrid?
First time in Europe, she says.
Now there’s an assumption in what you say. An important assumption. Is Spain really part of Europe? That IS the question. Louie the Sixteenth of France said Europe ends at the Pyrenees. The Spanish say it begins there. Every ending is of course a beginning, so maybe they are both right. Come have a drink with me and I’ll tell you all about the controversy and everything else you need to know about Spain.
Aisha shakes her head. She’s not thirsty. She doesn’t have the time. She must get back to the hotel.
Don’t be hasty, I say. When I was a historian, Spain was one of my fields. If I can tell you about Felipe Tres and this plaza, think about how much I know about the rest of this country. I’ve been coming here for decades. Kings and queens, wars, traditions, art, music—I can lecture about them all. And if you’re not interested in history, and I wouldn’t blame you if you’re not, I can help you with tourist stuff, recommend restaurants, keep you away from overpriced clip joints and disappointing sights. An hour conversation and you’ll be able to dazzle friends with your vast knowledge of Spanish history and culture.
You do sound like a professor, she says. I never took much history but I always liked being a student. Except for the exams. I never liked exams.
No exam, I promise, touching my hand to my heart. Only a drink and a lecture on a topic of your choice.
One drink. One lecture. One short lecture, please. I don’t have much time.
I lead Aisha to table on the terrace of the closest café. Does she want a glass of wine? No thank you. Sherry? No. She prefers coffee, her brief responses spoken in a tender voice with one of those slight accents which suggest coital activities in some exotic land. I put aside my desire for a glass of sherry and order two café con leche.
What does one say to a Muslim woman? Beats me. I don’t remember ever talking to one before. Too bad I don’t know some jokes beginning A funny thing happened on the way to the mosque, or Two mullahs walked into a bar, but they wouldn’t do that, would they, and if they did nobody would make a joke of it. In the struggle between the clever and the banal the latter is less dangerous. I ask where’s she from.
Los Angeles.
I mean originally. Where were you born?
How about East LA?
No, not really. I heard you answer the one armed man. You don’t speak Spanish.
Lots of those who do think I’m from there.
Coy is not my favorite attitude. Before I can decide how to move the conversation forward, a good looking, dark haired young man, mid twenties or so, approaches, leans over the table, ignores me, and begins to speak directly at Aisha in Farsi, a language whose sound has become familiar to we who live in West Los Angeles ever since the Ayatollah Khomeini’s antics sent hordes of Iranians into exile and so many settled near UCLA that Westwood Boulevard, with its halal restaurants, has been officially named Little Tehran.
Hearing Aisha respond in Farsi makes my heart sink. I know. I know as well as you do: these days we are all supposed to embrace every tradition in the world. I do, believe me, I value every single last one. But let’s face it: we all have preferences in food so why not in cultures? Here’s my confession: were I asked to rank them, I would place Iran somewhere near the bottom, just below Kyrgystan, a country about which I know not a single fact beyond its name. Why Iran? Let me assure you it has nothing to do with those TV images of fists shaking at the Great Satan during the hostage crisis of 1980, though as a supporter of radical movements I was annoyed when religious fanatics hijacked the revolution and pushed out its secular and socialist elements. More off putting is the attitude of Iranian waiters and airport limo drivers (and all limo drivers to LAX are Iranian), who stick their noses skyward as they inform you they were rich business men and engineers back in Tehran, not to mention cousins of the Shah. To this I add the experience of my friend Russell Levine, who invested in a computer parts business owned by an Iranian named Ahmed and soon learned that the chips they were able to wholesale cheaply had been stolen from the warehouses of the manufacturers by distant relatives of his partner. When Russell moved to dissolve the partnership, Ahmed pulled a revolver from his desk drawer, waved it around, then fired three shots into the ceiling.
Nobody dissolves a partnership with Ahmed Sherazi, he yelled. If there is any dissolving to do, Ahmed Sherazi will do it. I spit on your partnership. I spit on your family. I spit on your ancestors. I spit on you.
As the young man’s voice edges from friendly towards harsh, Russell is on my mind. But who knows? Maybe that’s the way Farsi is normally spoken between natives. Aisha sounds less sexy than in English when she attempts to interrupt a couple of times, but the guy doesn’t bother to listen or even slow down. I attempt to change the dynamic by introducing myself, My name is Benjamin, I’m . . . but neither of them takes notice. Okay. Maybe he’s a long lost friend. A distant relative. They haven’t seen each other in years. They’re too excited at this reunion to pay attention to a stranger. Then again, maybe not. His voice grows increasingly unpleasant and Aisha’s responses seem a bit sharper. I touch her arm: Can I help?
She pulls away, stands up, and says something in a tone which has to be Farsi equivalent of Get lost! The guy gestures with his right arm, turns and marches away from the table. Aisha sits down.
I wait a while before saying: Apparently this is your