From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel by Alex Gilvarry Page B

surrounded by a few upturned milk crates. In the back, next to the small kitchen area, was a bathroom visible through hollowed-out walls. I could see Yuksel in front of the toilet with his back turned, shaking off. He reminded me of a snake in a cage, a great boa. “Hee,” he seethed as he looked at me over his shoulder. He was smiling. Ahmed said something to him in Arabic, but Yuksel didn’t respond. Once he flushed and came out of the bathroom, revealing himself to me in proper daylight, I saw that the little devil was still smiling. A birth defect, I would later learn—a permanent smile that made him appear as if there were some joke going around. It made one feel very self-conscious, though in truth, he was a shy man, and moved past me quickly into the front room with his head down, concealing that demonic grin.
    “Don’t mind Yuksel. He’ll be working in there while we have our breakfast.”
    “Is there something wrong with his face?” I asked, in the politest tone I could muster.
    “He’s just happy. Come, take a seat at the piano.”
    Ahmed went to the kitchen area, where he prepared some coffee. His odor began to dissipate. I sat at the piano as directed, resisting the urge to press on the keys. Even while not being played they seemed to produce music with their silence. I pressed my foot down on one of the pedals and felt the piano’s drone.
    “I play myself,” Ahmed said. “Mainly show tunes. Go ahead, try me. And I’ll tell you if I can play it.”
    I decided I would humor him. “How about something from
West Side Story
?”
    He stopped what he was doing suddenly, and his face turned rather serious. It frightened me.
“
Dare is a place fur’uzz,” he sang. “Anyplace fur’uzz
.
” His fingers lightly tapped the air.
    It occurred to me that this didn’t prove he could play the song, or the piano. “Soomewheeeeerre. Soomehooooww.”
    “Nicely done,” was all I could think to say.
    “See, I told you I could play anything.”
    “Indeed.”
    Ahmed poured the coffee and brought it over to the piano.
    “Boy,” he said, “since we’re going to be in business together, allow me the privilege of your full name.”
    “I was named after my father, actually. Boyet Ruben Hernandez.”
    “It already sounds famous! As I said last night, I have no doubts about the limits of your success. You’ll go far, my friend. Here’s to you.”
    I raised my coffee, then took a sip.
    “Now may I inquire—and forgive me if I’m being rude—where you are from. Wait, don’t tell me. This is a little game I like to play. I call it ‘country of origin,’ just like it says on the passports. I will start with your accent, or lack thereof. I detect a slight U.S. colonization in your speech. You’ve learned an American English, not British, from a very early age. Perhaps even simultaneously with your native tongue. Your English is nearly flawless, but there is a slip in the pronunciation of your Fs as Ps. Only sometimes. It’s your tell.”
    I must say I was insulted. I took pride in how I’d been able to suppress my native tongue. Ahmed came closer, beckoned me tostand, and began to size me up. “Then there is your height. You’re a petite one. A man-child. But you have a big spirit. An unnameable proudness without a hint of entitlement.” He latched on to both my arms and smoothed them over. “There are your hairless arms, and under your shirt, a chest bare like a woman. Your legs are smooth too, as if you just shaved in a warm bath moments ago.” I swallowed the bitter taste of Colombian bean. He leaned in closer to where I could feel the baked air of his nostrils. He examined my face from the front and then the profile and said, “No beard, a whisper of a mustache. I know your people well. No one can say ‘
puck
it’ with more brio than the
P
ilipinos. Am I right?”
    I nodded, relieved as he let go of my arms. He patted me on the shoulders and returned to the kitchen.
    “I spent a lot of time