Subway Chances

"daakat, fa lammastahkamat halaqatoha, foregat, wa kunto athonnoha la tofrago"
this is transliterated arabic for an old saying, which means:
"it got tighter, and when its rings choakingly sealed up all the way, they let loose, and i thought they couldn't possibly loosen up"

that's what you say when you feel that things couldn't get any worse, any drier, any less forgiving. you remind yourself that this too shall pass.

today i ran into a woman i fantasized about for 10 years.
i ran into her on the subway.
in new york city.

i was supposed to be in bed, but they were showing the apartment i am staying in to a potential buyer. so i had to get out for the hour. i had the option of hanging out downstairs in the lobby, or going to barnes and nobel, but i decided not to put off my dental check up any further. i wanted to go to one of those free clinics. i got dressed and walked to the Lincoln subway station.

i didn't fuss about missing the train that just took off. i waited. things come around for those who wait.

i stepped into the car and there she was, even if it's only in my pathetic perception, the perfect woman for me. this woman of 28 has been to the middle east and knows my hometown. she speaks my language like a cab driver.

she's a delicacy. a beauty, with her fair blond hair, blushed cheeks in need of no make up. her light blue green eyes keep a look of innocence and curiosity. her style-- she had dressy pants and a shawl thrown over her shoulders, earth colors and an over-used messenger leather bag. an unexpensive yet classy look that means she's an approachable human being, not a specimen of corporate tyranny, not a glossy cover girl.

i remember watching her once, 10 years ago, eat at the Yachting Club in Giza. I dedicated the scene to my memory, so that i would replay it to myself should i need to remind myself of table manners. i recalled it three days ago at jean georges in Colombus Circle.

i drew her in charcoal once for my art class, and i hit myself for ending up with a distortion of her beauty. it's very hard to draw people you obsess about or know too well. you get subjective. you think you're doing them justice but you end up spending too much time thinking about them (and not about the canvas) to get a decent resemblance.

i had to count till 10 before i summoned up the courage to ask if it was really her. the train was moving, and i couldn't possibly know what stop she would get off. but she stood there, her back to me, as if waiting. what was i to lose? a little bit of self-inflicted humiliation if it wasn't her? i'm over my adolecsent hesitations. here goes...
"Excuse me," i called with the un-original phrase so that she would turn around. she looked at me puzzled by this stranger.
- "Are you Sarah Havens?" i asked
- "Yes?" she answered with a confused look. how could you know my name, stranger?

i explained the coincidence, and that i worked with the international office back in 98, at the American University in Cairo, where she was once a student.

- "So you moved here and now live in New York?"
i said that i was leaving end of June or early July.
i noticed that she glanced at my lips twice as i talked. good news.

- "What do you do now?" i asked her
- "Actually, i'm a lawyer, going to work." she smiled at the boring idea of a desk job.
when i asked what kind of lawyer, she said that she was just a "baby lawyer". i later googled her, and realized that she is representing several Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo bay. http://nymag.com/news/features/17337/index3.html http://www.fotofest.org/guantanamo/galleries.htm

she gave me her card so we could meet again. i thanked the gods, and made a mental note it was 50th street that she got off.

the hopeless romantic in me had to smile at the incident. I'm now left asking myself, why did this happen? Pure coinsidence that i had to get out of my place at that hour and take that very train, and that very car? Chance that this is the icing on an appetizing cake i have been savoring for a couple of weeks now: a good place to live with no rent money to pay, a new job with a good salary in Amsterdam, going home after 2 years of not seeing family and friends, adding new pieces to my portfolio, being treated to the most expensive restaurant in new york ($380! was that real?) ?... all this coming after a year or so of a bad break up, unemployment, sleeping on people's floors and facing rejection from companies and friends time and again until i grew numb.

When i finally made it to the dental clinic, they told me they only treat children. I was not one bit disappointed. the train ride was worth every second.

(written May 2008)