CHAPTER 1
By Rym Bettaieb

 I

    She had a spot on her right cheek, a little spot that no one noticed; yet, she noticed it every time she looked at herself in the mirror. She wanted to forget about it, and ignore it but her subconscious did not allow it.
 
    Amira felt estranged in her little studio. She liked to hide in it every night, yet she dreaded to face her own self. Seven years had passed since she first set foot in it. A “big square,” that is what she called it. It was a small room that had a kitchen, a bed, a desk, and bookshelves all arranged in the most romantic way. The bed was the center-piece of her place, even though one person could nearly sleep on it.
 
    Her bathroom always smelled good. She called it her “revival room.” Every morning, she looked forward to taking her shower and cleansing herself in it from what was awaiting her.
 
    One morning, after taking her shower, and sitting on the chair that faced her little green backyard, she thought: “I have the feeling that this place will be visited in the future by hundreds of visitors. I bear in it my soul. I’ve cried, laughed, meditated, read and written so much in it that I feel it’ll be a cult place one day.” She finished sipping her hot café au lait, rinsed her cup in the kitchen sink, and left for the day.
 
    On her way to work, she pictured the faces that would await her in the classroom at the nearby college, and started concentrating on how she would meet them.
 
    As she walked on the lawn that separated the parking lot from the building of the English Department, she saw a young man following her from far with his eyes. He was tall and handsome. He was wearing a white shirt, black pants, and black shoes. Their eyes crossed for a moment and they smiled to one another.
 
    In front of her classroom, students were gathered waiting for her arrival. The computer lab was locked and she didn’t have the key to the room. Amira apologized to the students and walked towards the university phone located at the entrance of each building. She called the security office; a man answered, he was sorry that he couldn’t help her. He said the Office of Information and Technology was responsible for unlocking the lab rooms. She dialed the extension of the office, and unfortunately got hold only of the voice mail. She left a message and walked frustrated towards her impatient students who approached her with phrases like: "Shall we go home, Miss?”, “Don’t worry Miss, we can catch up next time.” She smiled at them and kept quiet.
 
    It was nearly five in the afternoon. Amira felt tired and exhausted. She always gave too much of herself in the class. She liked to listen to her students. Their faces represented complex riddles that she strived to unsolve. Looking into her students’ eyes brought her passion and satisfaction. She felt alive and invigorated, especially when an intellectual heat had taken hold of their minds, and they started transmitting it to one another. Her love for knowledge always caused her trouble when she encountered lazy minds. “Every one ought to think on this planet,” she glorified in her heart, “I like to see these minds in constant effervescence. I feel happy when I see excited and confused minds.”
 
    Since she liked both excitement and confusion, these two little friends made sure to be always present in her life. 
                                                                        II
 
    Amira ran to the bus stop on Green Boulevard. She couldn’t miss the Express bus that would drop her in downtown Manhattan at six in the evening. Her other class started at six thirty. She raced across the campus lawn along with other students; some of them were hers. They smiled at her every time they saw her running. She caught the campus bus on time, which took her to the front entrance of the college. When she got off, she only had to walk for three minutes in order to reach the public bus stop.
 
    The Express bus arrived. She got on it and smiled to the driver who looked at her in a semi-lethargic and semi-surprised manner. Amira liked to smile to strangers; she liked to see them get out of their state of numbness. Her favorite seat was always on the left row and by the window. One of her students sat at the front of the bus; she heard him laughing with another student. Amira took out from her brown leather bag four thick piles of papers. There were two for each English class: the assigned short papers and the in-class laboratory writing exercises. She loved to read the freshly written lab assignments. She always liked to read what people wrote the same day. It was still alive and freshly printed. The ideas she would read were the fruit of thoughts of a day she was still living.  She devoured their writing avidly while looking for answers, questions, or confirmations to her own life theories. She found a deep comfort in their simple objections, positions, paradoxes, and beliefs.
 
    Upon reaching the city, Amira stopped reading the papers. She lifted her head and contemplated the lights of downtown Manhattan. People were running in all directions eager to catch the bus, the train, or the cab that would take them home or somewhere else. Home was a remote notion in her heart. Home was far, very far. She longed for that feeling of going back to her house in her country. It was a delicious feeling to encounter familiar faces at the end of a long day of work. Suddenly, Amira felt happy that she was in the city. She was on her way to teach an Arabic class at a local university and at the thought of the eager faces that would await her, she felt peaceful and content.
 
    Teaching Arabic to American students was an extraordinary experience. She loved to communicate part of herself to them. It was a little different from teaching English composition. First of all, most of her students were adults. Second, they were all registered in her class because they wanted to learn a foreign language. Even though she had in her English classes students who loved reading and writing, some of them still showed a lot of resistance to the subject she was teaching. Since Amira loved to teach, she rejoiced when she encountered students that loved to learn. It was like osmosis for her. Her Arabic students were all drawn to learning this new and mysterious language. So, she encouraged and helped them to grasp and love it.
 
    Two years ago, Amira never thought that she would one day teach her native language in the United States. However, world events caused a sudden interest for Arabic culture, religion, tradition, and language.  Many of her students were journalists, writers, globetrotters, teachers, editors, artists, and doctors who realized that the Arabic language would help them advance in their careers. There were also students who wanted to learn Arabic for their own pleasure.
 
    Amira got off on Sixth Avenue and 14th Street. She walked one block towards Fifth Avenue, made a right and ran towards the building at the corner of 13th street. Before reaching the school building, she raised her head and looked at the street number. Thirteen. It was her number.

Rym Bettaieb is an associate Lecturer of Arabic at Columbia University in New York. She is completing her PhD in English Literature with a Concentration in Women’s Studies at Drew University in Madison, NJ.