Ahmed’s phone sounding an alert. He’s hunched over his screen, right leg jammed stiffly out. Allegedly, he took a bullet in his calf when he, too, passed through Tripoli. He says he got caught in a firefight between rebels and Gaddafi loyalists. Probably he just fell off a motorino. I stare at him as he digs at his bald head, exposing a sweat-ringed armpit. I’m doubly irritated to realize I’ve been performing for him.
Ding. I clear my throat. Nothing. I pause, let some silence enter the room. Ding. I glare down at the next question. If Sarwar went to pick olives in Calabria, he could rent a room this winter and wouldn’t be homeless.
Instead I read aloud, deliberately, “If Ahmed went to pick olives in Calabria, he could blank some money to rent a room and...” He stays hunched over his phone, oblivious. I write the question on the board. I read it again. He glances up, grimaces at me.
“What you say?”
“Welcome!” I say, jocular and basso. “You’re here already, get involved!”
“Pick olives? Why I pick olives?”
“It’s… It’s just an example.”
“Ah!” He points, as if catching me out. “You ask you use my name? You ask my, how you say it… my persimmon?”
“This isn’t an asylum interview. I’m not… Anyway, it’s permission, not—”
“Ah, I’m joking! I’m having joke with you. You don’t see? Joke, my friend.”
Once, Ahmed came up to me, head hung low. What’s wrong? I asked. My friend, he in the hospital. Oh, I’m sorry, I said, I’m so sorry, thinking his friend, like Mamadou, had been beaten up. Then Ahmed grinned wickedly. Why you sorry? He a doctor!
“Right, very good. Good joke. Very funny. Okay, does anyone know the answer? If Ahmed went to pick olives in Calabria, he could blank some money to...”
Tareq starts to answer, but Ahmed cuts him off. “No, never. Me pick olives? No, I am translator, my friend.” He waves dismissively at the rest of the class. “Not like these.”
Ignore him, I think. Don’t take the bait. I answer the question for them, push on to the next one: If Mamadou worked on his resume, he _________ get a job cleaning toilets at the church. We’re actually hoping to employ Mamadou this way. But, out of irritation or sheer stubbornness, I read out again, “If Ahmed worked on his resume…”
Ahmed grins mirthlessly, wags a finger at me. “Ah, my friend, I see. I see you.”
“I think is…” Tareq begins, “could?”
“Excellent!” I ladle on the encouragement. “Molto bene! Fantastico!”
Ahmed claps sardonically. “Good, good. Star student, very good answer.”
Tareq looks both hurt and confused. Older men—Ahmed has twenty years on Tareq—are supposed to command, and bestow, respect. When Ahmed first started coming to the center, he had a little group of acolytes. He bragged he’d been all over Europe, had even gotten into the UK, where he’d worked for ten months at a kebab shop run by a distant cousin. Plenty of guys wanted to know how such a miracle had been wrought, even if we were constantly telling them trying to ride the top of a truck through the Chunnel, as Ahmed claimed he had, was suicide. He got deported, of course. Soon enough, he undermined himself here. He told everyone he was Afghan, but all of the Afghan guys said he spoke Farsi like an Iranian. And the Iranians insisted he was Pakistani, knocking him even further down the ranks of who did and didn’t qualify for asylum. He said he’d been everywhere. He just ended up coming from nowhere.
“What you want, teacher man?” he says to me now, grinning wolfishly.
I break away from him, write on the board, If Mamadou could go home, he _________ help protect his parents from the war, and start to read it aloud.
“No,” Ahmed says, “you use my name.”
“I thought you didn’t like it.”
“I give you my persimmon.”
I don’t conceal a laugh. “Fine. ‘If Ahmed could go home, he blank help his—”
“No.”
“What now?”
“My parents. My father, he sick. My mother, she dead.”
This brings me up short. “I’m sorry.”
“What, you kill her? She old. Why you always say sorry?”
“Okay, sorry. I mean, well… Let’s just… Tareq?”
“Ahmed would help his parents!” Tareq answers. “I want help my parents, too. If I get job, I save them, too.”
“Good!” I say. “Excellent! Excellent use of the first conditional!”
“Bravissimo, bravissimo,” Ahmed mutters. He leers at Tareq, his face twisting up as he claws at his calf. He just told me his mother’s dead in a voice like he was reading from the paper—isn’t there a fucking ounce of affection or decency in him? I glance at the clock. Twenty-five minutes till I can jump on my bike, escape this stinking place, order my first prosecco in Piazza della Madonna di Monti. I scan my worksheet, see how far we have to go, and skip ahead.
• • • •
“Right, the third conditional,” I begin. “Okay, so, we use this to talk about things that might have happened in the past….”
Even for a native speaker, third conditional is tough: things that did or did not come to pass, how life might be different if they had or had not. I write out the formula—past perfect, past participle—go over it three times. The guys blink back at me. Ahmed grimaces like the Bocca della Verità. I’ve jumped to the hard stuff, I realize, to catch him out—to remind him that there are things, many things, that I understand and he does not. I write on the board and read aloud, rapid-fire: If Ahmed had known there was no work here, he _________ gone home to his country after a year.
“You know the price to come here?” he says. “Home? No, never.”
If Ahmed hadn’t been fingerprinted at Lampedusa, he could have _________ for asylum in Germany.
He bats the idea away. “Ich hasse es, Deutsch zu sprechen!”
If Ahmed hadn’t lost his mobile, he _________ asked for the girl’s number.
“Why I want call woman? Already got enough problem.”
If Ahmed had married a European girl, he _________ received citizenship.
“Then I go out of Italy, my friend. I go!”
If Ahmed had studied English harder, he _________ be so lonely.
“Lonely?” he says. “How I could be lonely? Ten roommates. Six hundred people in my camp. My friend, I’m not lonely.”
I see Sarwar about to ask and preempt his question. “Alone,” I say. “Just one. All alone.” Then I remember the Italian. “Solo. Da solo. Solo io.”
Ahmed’s acolytes—a quiet, fierce-looking group—used to gather near the prayer room to play chess. Just by the tone of Ahmed’s voice, I could tell he was bitching: the shitty camps, the endless trays of rice and egg and reheated pasta, the Carabinieri always hassling you for your documenti, the Americans always smiling and telling you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Over winter, Ahmed and the rest of them grew out their beards. People started whispering that they were Talib, they were Daesh. It scared us. Just like that our community could become a haven for the disgruntled, the radicalized.
Then the weather got warm, and Ahmed’s buddies took off, probably to pick tomatoes or melons in the south. When his flock departed, so did his beard—he looked even older than before—but our mistrust lingered. The Afghans and Pakistanis froze him out, and he wouldn’t stoop to socializing with Africans. He was always sitting in the chess corner by himself, waiting for someone to come along and play.
“My friend, my friend,” he says now, “what the cheapest way to Paris?”
“I don’t know,” I say gruffly. “Why should I know? Let’s focus, everyone.”
Maybe Ahmed’s mother wouldn’t have died, I write on the board, if he’d _________ home and looked after her.
There. Let’s see how he likes that one. First conditional: for things likely to happen, for what’s possible. Second: to make plans, to dream dreams, even near impossible ones, and chase them down. And the third conditional: for the things we rue, that we wish against all wishes had been different, for the crushing weight of all of our regret. It’s language that it might actually help Ahmed to learn.
But Tareq, of course, jumps in. “If Ahmed gone home he looked after her.”
Ahmed scoffs. “Bravo, amico. Bravo.”
“If I were you, Ahmed,” I tell him point blank, “I’d shut up about now.”
Even the beginning students hear the sawtooth in my voice. They fall even more silent. The fluorescent lights sizzle above us.
Finally, Sarwar pipes up: “What mean, ‘If I were you?’”
“If I had your life,” I explain brusquely. “If I were in your position.”
Watchful, bewildered expressions all around.
“If I were you. We use this to give advice. These are the things I would do.”
“You tell me what to do?” Tareq ventures.
“No, no, you don’t have to do it. It’s just a suggestion. Advice.”
“What mean ‘ad-vice’?” Sarwar asks.
“It’s when I…” God, I’m struggling, casting around for the Italian, not finding it. “It’s when I suggest something.” Why am I even here, and not out where I so easily could be, should be, enjoying this beautiful city? I’m thirsting for that first prosecco, but all I can taste is Ahmed’s fucking b.o. “It’s when you don’t have to do something, but it’d be good if you did. You see? It’s like, shit, what’s the word for—”
“Consigli,” Ahmed translates. “Advice e consigli.”
“Ah, certo!” Sarwar says. “Consigli! Io so.”
Ahmed flashes me another strained grin. Was he waiting to step in, enjoying watching me flounder? Is his problem with me? Or with the whole fucking western world? I stumble through the next question, leave some words out, accidentally write in the answer to the one after that. Then Ahmed’s phone starts dinging again.
“Turn that off, please,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Un momento.”
“Turn your phone off.”
“It my friend. He in the jail.”
“Because he’s a guard. I get it. Very funny. Turn it—”
“No, he really in the jail.”
“Ahmed, turn it off now.”
I’ll kick him out. No, I’ll ban him from the center altogether. Why let him back in? He’ll just keep making trouble. Ding. Some you can never reach. Lost in the desert, stranded at sea, they’ll take the water you offer, spit it right in your face. It’s guys like Ahmed who talk others into driving trucks into innocent crowds, into strapping on suicide vests and walking into concerts. Ding. Ahmed becomes every refugee, every dark figure looming on our doorstep, engorging our fears, getting our most craven demagogues elected, making the truly vulnerable suffer along with him, making it so we, even if we have everything, simply can’t afford to open our hearts. Ding. Not to everyone. No, never to all of them. Even if every last goddam one is a bona fide victim or—ding—“Ahmed, would you just”—ding—“Fucking Christ, Ahmed, get out, just get—”
I stop myself. Outside, I hear the low, shabby din of the rest of the center, the muffled voices and cries. The clock ticks like a bomb. The guys sit blinking at me. Ahmed makes a show of turning off his phone.
“Would you?” he murmurs, abashed for once. “What this?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say roughly.
“Would you help me?”
“What?!” I all but bark out. “What is it this time?”
“No, this my question. Would you help me? This conditional?”
“It’s polite.” I have to push way down to calm myself. “A polite way to say something. To ask for something.”
“But where the ‘if’?”
I scrawl on the board. Would you help me (if you can)? “The ‘if’ is implied. It’s there,” I say. “But it’s not there.”
Not a great answer. But Ahmed seems pleased. “Yes, good, polite. Very good.” He starts humming to himself. “My friend, when the singers begin?”
“What singers?”
“They tell me famous singers. From America.”
“I don’t know. Look, we’re nearly… Let’s just—” The last question is still up on the board: Maybe Ahmed’s mother wouldn’t have died if he’d _________ home and looked after her. I just write in the answer then quickly rub it all out.
“What mean ‘looked after’?”
“Never mind, Sarwar. We’re done, everyone. Finished. All finished now.”
The guys file out. I don’t have the energy to explain to Sarwar. A domani, I tell him. And he’ll be here tomorrow, and all the days after that, even if he never gets anywhere. I nod to Mamadou as he goes out, slipping back into French as he rejoins some other Malians. We’re trying to find him a new camp. But tonight he’ll sleep outside again, curled in on himself, remembering that first boot to his ribs.
Tareq lingers, hoping for some extra tutoring. Maybe one day he’ll become a waiter. Or open his own restaurant. A shop, a hotel. He’d be the perfect refugee—educated, eager, deferential—if he were actually a refugee. Economic migrant. Truly, that shouldn’t matter. Yet, today, I just can’t. I wipe off the rest of the board, start straightening the desks. Tareq tries to help.
“It’s all right,” I say impatiently. “Non grazie. A domani, a domani.”
• • • •
Out in the common room, it’s borderline chaos: the clatter and shouts around the foosball table, the rumbling of some dubbed action movie playing in the TV nook, the undifferentiated roar of fifteen different languages all clamoring at once.
I’m ready to leap on my bike and fly away to Piazza della Madonna di Monti. I’ll get a few pages written before Rob, Danielle, and Jessie join me, to get drunk and loud like all Americans abroad, reveling in the ease and power of our shared, globe-stomping language. I’m about two seconds from getting out when Ahmed catches my eye. Fuck.
“My friend, my friend, you don’t like my jokes?”
“Listen, sorry,” I say, again. But, then, how can I even trust that his mother’s really dead? “Anyway, sorry about the—”
Ahmed waves it off. “You stay for the singers?”
“There are no singers.”
“No, the singers, the singers. Look.”
He points to the cluster of college kids Rob was showing around earlier. They’ve dispersed to the ping-pong and foosball tables. A few are playing with the guys. I see their T-shirts now. Whiffenpoofs of Yale, A Cappella A-Round the World, Spring 2017.
“Famous singers,” Ahmed says. “From America.”
A famous college a cappella group wouldn’t be enough to make me cross the street (or maybe to the other side). But perhaps they’re good enough to impress a foreigner, especially one who has nothing to do but wait for the next tray of rice and egg or else just roam the streets. I picture Ahmed out in the June heat in his long coat and realize that, despite what he said about an overcrowded camp, he, too, is sleeping rough.
“They want to sing,” he says decisively, “they sing.”
As if on cue, the kids turn away from their games and congregate at the front of the room, swinging into place with aw shucks grins, as if they all just, well, howdy, happened to find one another here. “Today we’ve got a great treat, a great gift for you all,” Jessie says. “A wonderful performance from our friends,” Rob says. “All the way from Connecticut, gli grandi cantanti, il Whiffenpoofs!”
The basses start up some doo-wop thing while the others vocalize around Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl.” A few of the guys glance up from foosball or their phones, but most seem uninterested or simply exhausted. Ahmed, on the other hand, is staring at the Whiffenpoofs with glee.
They go for the chorus—“Uptown gir-lll, you’ve been living in your white-bread world!”—and Ahmed starts clapping along. Then he does a few steps of some Middle Eastern dance, a wild grin stretched across his face. For a moment, I see a flash of a much younger man, a man like Tareq. He makes a few more turns and lets out a loud, startling whoop. The Whiffenpoofs smile appreciatively, if stiffly, and a few even try to join in with Ahmed’s dancing. For a moment I’m weirdly jealous; music knots strangers together faster than any language. Then Ahmed turns to me, and his face drops back into its familiar, inscrutable mask.
He comes over and says in a low voice, “They sing for money?”
“No, it’s free. They’re here performing for free.”
“Ah, so they have money. They take piety on us.”
“Huh? Oh, pity.”
“Yes, yes, pity.”
“No, they’re here for…” But I don’t really have an answer.
“What you do for money? How much they pay you teach here?”
“Nothing. I’m a writer.”
“I see, I see. Maybe you write my story, make some money?”
“Don’t worry. Refugee stories aren’t selling. They say they have all they need.”
The Whiffenpoofs hit a final crescendo. Then, abruptly, the song and dance is over. Ahmed crosses the room again to shake all of their hands. “Would you help me?” he asks each one in turn. “Would you help me?” Rob catches my eye and gives me a thumbs up that, somehow, depresses me more than anything.
I gather my things for a hasty exit. But I find myself drifting toward Ahmed as he, too, is leaving. He lobs a desultory “You got five hundred Euros?” at me.
