I Have Iraq in My Shoe (27 page)

She had just said so many things that were beyond bizarre that it was incredibly difficult to take her word for anything, although it felt very wrong to even have an inkling of disbelief about her story. I was always the first to stand up and yell and scream about injustices to women, and yet here I was, questioning what had happened.
If it had been anyone else.

There was no positive side to any of this; either Nina was making the story up, and two innocent men would likely be imprisoned, if not put to death; or she was telling the truth, and it really did happen, but she had an incredibly negligent, calloused family and no one to really turn to. It was a lose-lose situation.

She would only be in Suli a few more days, and I kept thinking, “I should say something. What should I say?” I couldn’t overcome my unease with her and felt like I was a horrible person because I wasn’t offering her any support.
Shit, shit, shit, say something to her! Why can’t I be a better person?

Nina had wisely gone to Buddha Jen for support, and Jen was helping her get through the fallout. She had to suffer through what could only have been a completely humiliating doctor’s exam, with the questionable Dr. Aso. Dr. Aso was the university’s doctor, who had once responded to a female instructor’s horrible case of food poisoning by saying, “This is good for you. You will lose weight and be thin.” I had heard people say that Dr. Aso was just a veterinarian, rather than an MD, which made me wonder (A) why he was considered the university’s doctor, and (B) well, we really didn’t need a B, did we?

I truly believed that leaving Iraq would be the best thing for Nina.

Nina avoided those last few days of class and had someone fill in for her. She also, understandably, decided not to attend Student Appreciation Night, which was the end-of-semester send-off for the students who completed their course.

The party was held at a local restaurant called Castello, which was known for its pizza. We had finally expanded beyond Assos and the hummus and chicken kebab dinner. All the teachers were driven to the restaurant in the shuttle bus, and we had about a half hour to mill around and take photos before the students showed up. Things around the school had been weird and tense since Nina’s attack, and I think we were all kind of relieved to have the student get-together as a distraction.

The second Awat walked through the door I forgot about everything else. He was the first of my students to arrive, and he looked gorgeous. The previous day, he had been mulling over wardrobe options. “I have black suit, and gray suit, and blue suit…” and I said, “Oh, I love blue!” He replied, “Then I will wear the blue suit!” The Kurds were very big on suits, but being in a still-developing country the suits were made with cheap fabrics and interesting cuts.

They reminded me of the
Saturday Night Live
sketch from the late ’70s with Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd’s “Two Wild and Crazy Guys” with the tight, flared pants and the scary plaids. Awat’s suit was neither wild nor craaaazay. It was a deep Russian blue, and he was grinning ear-to-ear; he looked amazing.

My other students showed up, and as the evening went on, we had a great time eating together, laughing, and telling stories. I was really going to miss them. I was still being the appropriate teacher, and not behaving any differently toward Awat than I did toward any of my other students, except that he sat next to me at dinner, and at one point asked if he could eat off my plate. Like he did with his mother. Ucchhhh.

My male and female students had grown very comfortable around one another and seemed more like a family than just a class, which made me so proud. After finishing dinner, we were milling around when I noticed an empty room just off the main area. I peeked in and saw two comfortable-looking couches, with several cushy chairs, all surrounding a large, low coffee table. I decided that room was there just for my kids, so I brought them all in and we sat down and pretended we were the VIPs of the party.

Toward the end of the party, Pshtewan, one of my students who was raised in a very traditional, conservative household, took a moment to solemnly say to me, “Teacher. You were a very, very good teacher, and I want to say ‘thank you.’ I was surprised.” Then it was my turn to be surprised, for surprising him. How low were his expectations?

Student Appreciation Night was turning into Gretchen Appreciation Night, when Gulan, one of my non-headscarved girls in that same second class, grabbed both of my hands and gushed, “Teacher, thank you SO much.” Gulan was the “glossy one.” She was the most Westernized-looking female in the class and wore fashionable outfits and a lot of makeup and always had her hair looking just so. She continued, “You teach me so much more than just English.” I promise I did try to teach them to use past tense verbs, like “taught,” but sometimes in real-life situations they would occasionally forget. I wasn’t entirely sure what else I had taught her, but she seemed really enthusiastic about it, and that made me happy.

Then it was Peshang’s turn. He had been the bane of my teaching existence on more than one occasion. Peshang was twenty-one years old and could be a little intense and angry sometimes. He would grow borderline enraged in class if he said something that I couldn’t understand. I would say “Again, please?” to get him to repeat it, in a hopefully more understandable way, but Peshang would just repeat the exact sentence that hadn’t made sense to me the first time, only louder and angrier. There was one day where he was just an unbearable little shit, and I was operating on a very short, PMS-induced fuse. I ended the class early, and then went home to vent about the day. I told Ellen that I had just voted Peshang “most likely to become a terrorist.” I was really pissed.

One day I asked him to stay after class after a particularly fussy-baby outburst. With one eyebrow arched I looked him straight in the eyes and asked, “Do you
want
to learn English?” His eyes bugged open wide and he seemed completely shocked that I would ask that. “YES!” was his emphatic response. “I study every day! My family know I want to learn English very much!” So I said to him, “Because sometimes I get the feeling that you don’t really want to be here, and don’t really want to learn English. I want to
teach
you English, but you have to want to
learn
.”

At the end of the student appreciation party, I was shaking his hand and wishing him well and he looked at me, in a very earnest, intense way, and said, “Teacher, I want to apologize. For everything. Thank you very much.” It was an unexpected, truly rewarding moment. Terrorists are seldom remorseful, so I take back what I said.

This was really why I was here. I was strangely making a difference. Yes, I was making money, and paying off my debt, and taking vacations and buying shoes, but I was also positively affecting the lives of people who had been through some serious struggles.

Awat was one of the last students to leave, and was standing with two of my other students from his class. I was shaking hands, and saying, “Good luck!” and Awat said, although laughing a little, “I think I will cry!” I rolled my eyes, “Oh you will not. And you’re coming up to Erbil on Monday, so I will see you then.”

He nodded his head, and said, “I think I will bring you shifta!” Shifta was a traditional Kurdish dish, which was kind of like small lamb burgers. “My mom will make it!” he declared.

I stopped and looked at him with my brows furrowed and said, “No. I want you to make it.”

His eyes popped out of his head and he cried, “WHAT?!”

I repeated, “You can bring shifta on Monday, but I want
you
to make it.”

He started laughing and said, “No, no. I will help my mom—she will make it.” I was enjoying this, and really liked the idea of making him cook, since it was such a “woman” job in his culture.

“Your mom can help
you
, but I want you to make it,” I said.

He thought about this for a few seconds, then his expression changed. He looked very confident and exclaimed, “Okay! I will take pictures for proof!” I laughed and thought he was probably going to have his mom make it anyway.

I said my final good-byes to the remaining students, told Awat I would see him on Monday, and went back to the villas with the other teachers.

The next day I was checking my work email and had this in my inbox:

Oh, holy shit. My heart pounded. Jen and Ellen were shocked and then worried. “Gretchen, no! He’s Muslim! No!”

I started thinking about Monday. He was officially no longer my student. The more time I spent with him, the more I was convinced that it wasn’t just a simple crush. I thought about him constantly. I hadn’t felt like this about anyone in a very, very long time, if ever. I felt connected to him on a much deeper level. He truly could be my soul mate. He could be the Ashley to my Scarlett! Or, wait, Rhett was actually The One, wasn’t he? I couldn’t really use a
Gone With the Wind
analogy in this situation.

This was getting complicated.

The night before Nina left, a large group of us was sitting out on Johnny and Chady’s front porch, having some beers and talking. Nina came out of her villa with a large red suitcase and rolled it over to where we were sitting. Everyone immediately stiffened.

Nina chirped, “Hey there!” and we all responded with a hesitant “Hey….” Attempting to diffuse the tension and make small talk, I asked if there was anything in her suitcase. She said, “No, not yet,” and I took that opportunity to steer far away from the elephant on the porch and voice my complaint about the poor use of suitcase props in the beginning of the Debra Messing movie
The Wedding Date
. Debra Messing’s character was going on an overseas trip, and her bags were very clearly empty, and that irked me, although, in hindsight, it was a brilliant way to avoid over-weight luggage fees.

Nina responded to my nonsensical tirade by saying, “Oh, people say I look like Debra Messing.” That was not the direction I wanted the conversation to take. While everyone else remained silent, possibly marveling at how Nina looked absolutely nothing like Debra Messing, Jen, ever the diplomat, said, “Yeah, I can see that; you’ve got the red hair.” Nina quipped, “Yeah, I also get Julia Roberts a lot, but I’m much hotter than her!”

Nothing was more bizarre than this. Nothing. No one said a word. I mean, because what do you say to the girl who had recently been attacked, in the strange foreign country where you were all living, and who was now leaving, but not before telling everyone how she was hotter than several beautiful, internationally famous celebrities? This was why people were uncomfortable around her. I was at a loss.
Shit, shit, shit, say something. Make it better.

After an awkward silence I blurted out, “God, I know. People are constantly telling me I look like Angelina Jolie, and it’s
so
annoying.”

Everyone looked at me and burst out laughing. I looked nothing like Angelina Jolie, and no one was constantly telling me that I did, but I was still not sure whether to be offended by the sheer force of all the laughing. Nina, on the other hand, did not laugh. She just stood there with her big, red, empty suitcase, and a puzzled look on her face. Part of me felt like hugging her, and another part of me couldn’t wait for her to leave.

The university administration waited three weeks before addressing Nina’s attack with the faculty and staff, and even then, they didn’t really address it.

An actual town hall meeting was held, under the guise of discussing general expat safety. By this time I had gone back up to Erbil and was not able to be present for the meeting, but Ellen and Jen gave me the CliffsNotes version.

Chancellor Tom referred to the attack as “the incident,” but he didn’t really say anything beyond the fact that there had been one. Based on “the incident,” most of the new faculty and staff were anxious and wanted to know whether it was safe for them to walk around the city. Ellen and Jen said these questions were answered by the female dean of students, who Chancellor Tom was now (allegedly) secretly dating and who dressed like Joey from
Friends
when he was wearing all of Chandler’s clothing.