Surrender
Brian O’Hare
He’d woken on the too-short couch, legs stiff and bent beneath him. Above, the curtainless window exploded in white light, the winter sun flooding the small living room. In the other room, a parlor possibly in a more genteel era, a set of French doors dividing the space—he heard Gordon, rooting through his possessions, cursing to himself. Francis buried his face into the cushions.
“Stop making so much goddamn noise.”
“I’m looking for my satchel.”
“Americans don’t carry ‘satchels’.”
Francis burrowed beneath his Marine-issue ‘All Weather’ coat—like the trench coat Bogart famously wore as melancholy cantina owner Rick Blaine in Casablanca—that he’d been using as a blanket, since his discharge the week before. Gordon flung open the French doors, boots slapping heavily on the wood floor. He loomed over the couch—draping a scarf artfully around his neck, like some B-team existential poet, a suburban Camus.
Francis removed the coat from his face, took in Gordon; his satchel. “They make those for men too?” Gordon ignored him.
“Would you mind heading over to Lily’s this morning? The guy who runs the halal cart on Eighth and Twenty-Third has been harassing her.”
Francis sat up.
“Some Egyptian. Or something. Last week, she’s leaving for work, he follows her, making this sound with his teeth—a sucking sound.” Gordon demonstrated. “Some Egyptian thing. Anyway, the other day? He cornered her in the doorway of her building.”
“Call the cops.”
“Because he’s Arab?”
“Because he’s harassing her.”
“As if the cops would do anything. Welcome to New York.”
“Have a little talk with him then.”
Gordon made a sound midway between a laugh and a snort, as if this were the most preposterous suggestion in the world.
“I have to be at Pratt by 7:30. I’m teaching. Anyway, I can’t just threaten everyone who looks at Lily funny.”
“Ah. You want me to threaten him.”
Gordon sighed with a practiced exhaustion.
“No. I didn’t say that. You were just in the Gulf. I thought you might have some…expertise, whatever.”
“I have no expertise, whatever.”
Francis lay back and squinted at the blank sky. A not unpleasant image of Lily in her junior partner uniform appeared: pinstripes, stockings, heels. Professional. Just this side of brusque. Brains too. The ‘whole megillah’ as his father would say. Gordon’s voice, infused now with a theatrical impatience, interrupted Francis’ vision.
“I have to go. I’m late.”
Francis stretched involuntarily, Lily and her junior partner uniform dissolving into sparks of light.
“He speak English?”
“Don’t you speak some Arabic?”
“Yeah. I can say ‘Hands up.’” Francis raised his hands in mock surrender. “Erfah edak.” The image of Lily crackled stubbornly in Francis’ head, like a campfire refusing to die.
“Maybe I’ll head over there.” The bony finger of a tree branch tapped against the window like an accusation.
“Good. I’ll see you at Odeon at 6:00. We’ve got drinks with Annina Nosei, Basquiat’s first gallerist…” Gordon’s voice muffled as Francis disappeared again beneath his coat.
*
The March wind struck Francis as he stepped onto 8th Avenue, leaving him momentarily dazed. He looked for the World Trade Center to orient himself, the buildings sparkling and wavy-bright through tear-filled eyes.
The cart, somehow smaller and more pitiful than he’d imagined, rocked in the wind, perfumed with bacon grease and river bottom. The sidewalks were choked with New Yorkers grimly getting where they were going. Francis marched toward the surprisingly delicate cart, wondering how it survived such an environment. Covered in pictographs—chicken and rice, lamb and rice, lentils and rice—like modern hieroglyphics, the cart glowed florescent in the sober gray. He rehearsed possible speeches in his head, stopping suddenly: Why was he doing this? That Gordon was manipulating him crossed his mind. It wouldn’t be the first time. And then he thought of Lily, thrilling at the promise of her gratitude.
Inserting his face into the small window, Francis startled to discover not the leering reptile he’d imagined but a youngish woman, an expectant look on her face.
“May I help you?” she raised a perfect eyebrow. This woman was beautiful. Struck dumb, Francis managed to point at a coffee and bagel combination, studying the pictograph as if it held meaning beyond “Enjoy a cup of Good Morning!” She poured his coffee. Handed it to him. No-nonsense. Matter-of-fact.
“Very hot. Be careful.” Her English precise; her warning vaguely maternal, affecting in a way he couldn’t quite place. Francis imagined her studying a book of English grammar in between customers, the image oddly endearing. She turned her attention to the bagel.
He held the cup and took a cautious sip. The caffeine hit, giving him the confidence to rest a proprietary elbow on the small counter. He watched her work, her movements graceful in the snug cart, with just enough room to turn slightly left and right. She worked quickly, efficiently, infused with a New York specific hustle, the ancient enterprise of the immigrant.
A buttery warmth, reminiscent of other mornings, other kitchens, radiated from the small space. He studied her face as she worked, her skin a sovereign bronze, eyes large and impossibly black, of seemingly endless depth, spaced wide on her delicate face, somehow serious and welcoming at the same time, their undeniable intelligence lending a certain nobility to the mundane task of toasting a bagel for a stranger. Aware of his attention, she smiled politely, thrusting the hot bagel at Francis. He flushed, placing his coffee on the counter, as if building a wall to hide behind. Frowning, Francis dug his wallet from his pocket: a collection of credit cards and small pieces of paper, bound by a thick rubber band from beneath the mailboxes in Gordon’s building. He placed the wallet on the ledge, next to the coffee, as he searched for cash. She watched without expression, the picture of patience. He finally looked up, smiling blankly:
“I’m out of cash…”
In his embarrassment, Francis remembered a checkpoint on the Coast Highway. The Saudi guard had smiled at the WM, or ‘Woman Marine’ truck driver, and instead of simply waving them through, made a crude ‘V’ with his fingers, a ‘reverse peace sign’ as she later described it, simulating sloppy cunnilingus with his swollen tongue. Francis took in the cart’s name: King Tut Halal. Beneath it, a mocking parade of cartoon Egyptians danced stoically. Eyes of Horus watched him, unblinking and judgmental—he felt a flash of anger.
“Where’s the King?”
“Excuse me?”
“The bossman. King Tut. He around?”
“It is just the name of the cart. King Tut. From Egypt.” She cocked her head. “You have no money?”
“No. I don’t. Did you not understand me…?” He took in her face, surprise giving way to confused hurt.
“But where’s the guy? Who works here?” Her hand tightened on the bread knife. “You related?”
Her face hardened, mustering an unexpected toughness, causing Francis to retreat into his coat. He summoned the courage to look at her. On her face he saw the Cairo girlhood, the overflowing Queens apartment, the heartbreak and disappointment that would’ve snapped Francis in two like a dead branch.
“My cousin? You have business with him?”
Francis looked away, down Eighth Avenue toward the World Trade Center, unable to withstand her eyes. He briefly thought of apologizing; fleeing to the safety of Gordon’s couch. Instead, he plowed forward, like a good Marine.
“My friend’s fiancé. She lives in that building over there…”
He nodded toward a colorless deco building, maybe eight stories, with clean lines, a blocky eagle, meant to convey solidity, above the entrance to a bank branch. The building offered no comfort, no empathy, impassive in that way only New York buildings could be impassive, seeming to make the sidewalk even colder.
“…your cousin, whoever, has a habit of following my friend’s fiancé down the street…”
She cut him off. “He is in Egypt. The money?”
“I don’t have it, okay?” He paused. “You tell him: stay away. Because if I hear otherwise, that he’s harassing her? Well, I don’t know…” He stopped just short of making an actual threat. “That apartment right over there…” Francis aimed an accusing finger toward the building.
“Understand?” He sipped his coffee. It was cold.
“Oh, I understand. Very well. You must leave.”
He raised the paper cup in mock salute, pouring the coffee on the sidewalk, pinkie upraised in sham sophistication.
“Your coffee sucks.”
He flung the cup with a snap of his wrist. It fled with the wind, down Eighth Avenue. Without any idea of where to go, Francis executed a perfect ‘right-face’, heading in the direction of his coffee cup. He felt her eyes on him, hating him.
He didn’t care.
*
He awoke to roaring daylight, like truth itself. The tree branch tapped accusingly against the window. For a long moment, he lay stung with guilt, as the previous morning replayed in his mind. At best, he was an ass. At worst, a bully. And, as if in karmic retribution, Francis’ wallet was missing. And it could only be one place.
*
Francis walked with what he hoped was confidence down the same loveless sidewalk, past the same trash pirouetting hopelessly, the same impassive buildings, towards the now familiar cart. In his mind, he’d rehearsed apologies; justifications for his behavior, abandoning them as he approached the small window.
“Good morning.” Jesus. He sounded like a cop. Exactly the wrong tone. She looked up from the sink where she washed a cutting board.
“I was here, yesterday morning…” Francis paused, absorbing her stony silence. “I wanted to apologize.” He looked at her expectantly. She fixed her head, as if trying to place him.
“I have the money I owe you…” He held up a five dollar bill as proof.
She shook her head, wiping her already spotless work area. “I don’t want your money.” Then, as if surprised at his still being there, said: “It must be nice. To think so well of yourself. To have everything so easy for you.” She indicated her workspace. “Now please. I am working.”
Francis shifted, removing a small piece of paper from his coat pocket, carefully pronouncing the Arabic words written in pencil: “Ana aasef giddan.” I’m so sorry.
She looked at him with something resembling pity in her eyes, her laughter filling the small cart. Followed by something in Arabic; something needing no translation. He nodded in agreement, raising his hands in surrender. “Erfah edak.”
Francis placed the money on the counter, underneath a napkin dispenser and turned to leave. She leaned out of the cart, waving his rubber-band wallet.
“Excuse me…”
With elbows placed primly on the small ledge, she regarded Francis, shivering before her: “You meant to say ana astaslim—‘I surrender’.”
*
That night, as he lay on Gordon’s couch, huddled beneath his coat, Francis experienced an awareness that comes only as one straddles the conscious and unconscious, when one is their truest self. This woman, whoever she was, towered over him, as on a movie screen; wreathed in silvery shadows and secrets. As he drifted off, he dreamt not of her beauty, but of her quiet courage; an enviable strength he could only hope to emulate, a kind of beauty in itself. She had slipped the blindfold from his eyes. What he saw was distorted, yet somehow still recognizable, as in a fun house mirror. But instead of embarrassment, or anger, or even shame at his discovery, Francis felt strangely unbound. And while he may have surrendered, Francis realized he was no prisoner, for she had unlocked the cage.
All he had to do was walk out.
Brian O’Hare is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, former Marine Corps captain and disabled combat veteran. He’s a former Editor-at-Large for MovieMaker magazine and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Brian’s work has appeared in War, Literature and the Arts, Liar’s League, London, Fresh.ink, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Santa Fe Writers Project, Hobart and others. He lives in Los Angeles. You can follow his work on Instagram and Twitter at @bohare13x.
He writes, “What fascinates me most as a writer is the ability to revisit significant moments in life; stubborn memories that have somehow woven themselves deep into my personal mythology. “Surrender” is based on one such moment. During the Gulf War, the only Arabic phrase I’d memorized was ‘Erfah edak’ — ‘Hands up!’ A practical phrase, surely, given the circumstances, but a potentially more damaging one than ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ or ‘hello’. Fortunately, I didn’t have to use the phrase, but I did see thousands of Iraqi soldiers who’d surrendered and doubtless understood the impact of that phrase intimately. That got me thinking about the nature of ‘surrender’; that it wasn’t necessarily a term of defeat or capitulation, despite being perceived as such by my fellow Marines. Intertwined into this idea is the identity of oneself as a ‘sheepdog’ or protector—one of the reasons I’d initially been drawn to the Marine Corps. But at what point does that ostensibly noble identity become something less positive? When does one cross a line and become a bully? As much of my work is focused on demythologizing the hero myth, especially as it relates to the U.S. military and American masculinity in general, the ‘surrender’ of an American male to an Arab female seemed like an ideal environment to explore these concepts. This struggle is where humanity resides; where the act of living blossoms into something truly beautiful.”