The Drawing of Haniya

It was 7:35 and gray, an unsettling gray, a gray deprived of normal sunshine and the quiet ebullience of her gentle friend. She'd not had a Friday morning in two years when he wasn't there, when he didn't walk through the steel and glass doors of the diner somewhere between 6:55 and 7:00. He sat at the furthest booth the first time she poured his coffee and took his order, and every Friday for the last two years he would sit at the same booth in the back, cheerfully and quietly waiting to greet her.

"Haniya." It took more than a month for her to respond with anything more than a smile, and another month still to respond, "Gideon."

Occasionally he'd come on a Tuesday or Wednesday, but always on Friday, his black notebook in hand, his oversized Ticonderoga Beginners pencils randomly stored inside a dark brown velvet sheathe, each one sharpened to a fine black point.

After two months of Fridays at Yasmine's Diner Haniya had begun to spindle a ticket with his order before he arrived, knowing exactly what he ate for breakfast; two eggs over-easy, two sausage patties, Persian potatoes (kuku sibzamini) and English muffins with strawberry preserves.

She poured his coffee slower than she did for any other customer. She knew, from the first time she refilled his second cup, that he was staring at her, at her hands, her hijab, her dark face and full eyebrows. And she'd long since begun to swim in his stare, to melt in what for others may have seemed an uncomfortable or inappropriate gaze.

His voice had the rough texture of sand paper, leather, and campfire smoke, ala Harry Belafonte, engaging, soothing, brutal. She loved listening to him talk, even if it made her want to clear her own throat as she walked away.

He drew portraits in the little black notebook. When she was busy with other customers or waiting on orders from the kitchen he watched her and she would glance back at him with a smile and shrug her shoulders. She knew he was drawing her. She finally asked to see his book.

There were portraits of his deceased wife, his daughter, his pastor from the pulpit. Each drawing felt intimate, some more abstract and quirky.

"Who is this? Not your wife."

"A friend," Gideon replied, with no hint of embarrassment. "Just a friend."

They shared stories over time, of immigration and foreign travels, of family and sickness and death and hardship. They talked of faith, of differences and fears and bigotries, those that engulf the dark souls of mostly ignorant people. As time went on their conversations drew them closer together and they knew they were sharing things they shared with no one else.

Haniya was 23, Gideon was 63; she was an Arab from Iraq, he was a black man from Louisiana. She loved Alanis Morisette and Billie Holiday, he listened to Miles Davis and Beethoven. She was studying landscape design and engineering, and money was always an issue. He'd been all over the world, first in the military, then with Doctors Without Borders as a thoracic surgeon. She knew, for him, money was never an issue.

He'd asked her to dinner before and there were always reasons why she couldn't or wouldn't go. The differences were obvious, but he didn't seem to notice nearly so much as she did.

Finally, after two years and one week she said yes.

He had trout meuniere and she had poached salmon at the Dock Cafe overlooking the lake. Later, at his home, in his bed, the night was tender and illusory, ethereal, like a dream you want to remember afterward but can't, more exploration and catharsis than anything.

That was Sunday. The week floated by for Haniya like a broken down dam, the juices of creativity bursting in her head as she finished up a large-scale project of gardens and fountains for a small-scale client.

At 8:02 on Friday morning a woman walked through the door of Yasmine's, a forty-ish attractive woman who seemed to spot Haniya immediately. Haniya was certain she'd seen her before, a woman familiar for all the wrong reasons.

"Haniya? I'm Alicia. Gideon's daughter. When you have a moment can you come sit with me?" She went to the same booth at the back of the diner.

No matter what was to be said Haniya knew it would rip the bones from her back.

She'd already waited the longest hour of her young life.

Alisha handed her a brown folder with the black notebook of portraits and photographs inside, with almost ten pages of Haniya. There was also a check for $20,000 with her name on it. "He wanted you to have it. He wanted to make sure I gave you this as soon as possible. I tried to come before today but there've been so many arrangements to make."

Few words were spoken. Both cried together, one losing a father just a few years after losing a mother, the other losing a friend and lover in a world where both had grown increasingly difficult to find.

Tears filled her sleep, and over and over again, during the long days and nights of seeking answers and some kind of wisdom she tried to hear his rasping voice, tried to remember a thousand Friday mornings and one evening of beautiful, total abandon. She knew life had to go on. She knew she'd been given a gift, of soul and body and mind.

What was it he'd quoted? Quoted as though he'd written it and written it just for her. They were words from the Greek poet Aeschylus, “And even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”