The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

galibayya tunic over my T-shirt as we left the apartment. The evening was still new, and a wet, dewy scent had settled over Maadi. We walked through the dust to Road Nine, a genteel tree-lined street where old and new wealth mingled. Though antiaristocratic in most things, Omar was picky about dentists.
    â€œIt’s the third part of a root canal,” he explained to me as we walked. “I had the second part just before you arrived.”
    â€œYou must have been in pain.”
    â€œI was.”
    â€œI couldn’t tell.”
    â€œI didn’t want you to think I was a weakling.” He grinned. I held back a smile, happy at this small sign that he cared what I thought of him.
    Since Omar and I weren’t married, engaged, or related, deciding how to arrange ourselves in the dentist’s waiting room was an interesting thought experiment. First, I sat down on a couch across the coffee table from Omar. This, I thought, was appropriately ambiguous. Spotting a man who looked inclined to chat me up, I got off the couch andsat down next to Omar instead. I felt a little thrill of vindication when he turned toward me protectively.
    â€œYou look nervous,” I said.
    He shook his head, mouth set in a grim expression. “It’s like a phobia,” he muttered. “A dentist phobia.”
    â€œYou know what I’ve found helps in situations like these?” I asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPlaying word games. You know, like I name a celebrity, then you name another one whose first name begins with the first letter of the first celebrity’s last name. It takes your mind off things.”
    â€œI don’t get it.”
    â€œOh, you know, I say Gary Oldman and you say—”
    â€œOmar Sharif?”
    I paused. “There is no letter ‘sheen’ in English. I can see the bilingual element is going to cause problems.”
    â€œWhatever. This isn’t helping.”
    I hid a grin with my hand. An assistant called Omar’s name and he followed her into the examination room, shooting me a pained look over his shoulder. As soon as he was gone I felt isolated, shifting under the open stares of the other patients in the waiting room. Hoping to look busy, I flipped through a couple of Egyptian beauty magazines that lay on the coffee table. Somewhere in the bowels of the office a drill started up. I tried not to giggle as I thought of Omar, so collected and dignified, submitting meekly to the dreaded dentist. This was, by far, the weirdest nondate of my life.
    Four years ago—no, two years ago—I could not have envisioned this, I thought. I could not have guessed that Iwould
stop
drinking at twenty-one, or that a dentist’s office could become the scene of a clandestine romance. I had come to Islam and to Egypt without plans or expectations. I did not know who I was going to become, having made choices that steered me so dramatically off the path I was raised to walk. Everything from 9/11 to the Arab bad guys in action movies made me worry that those choices would lead to tragedy. Instead, they had led me to someone who was familiar from the moment he appeared on my doorstep, someone who cared enough to translate this confounding new reality into a language I understood.
    Omar emerged an hour later looking shaken but relieved. “
Yalla?
” He held the door open for me and smiled when I looked back at him.
    â€œThis is—” He trailed off, following me outside into the damp heat. “I’m really glad you came. Thank you.”
    I could feel his hand hovering over my shoulder. Part of me wanted to stop suddenly and collide with his outstretched fingers, so he could touch me without feeling at fault. But this was not the way. I kept walking, and made a decision.
    During a break in training the next day, I asked Omar if I could talk to him in private after work. I kept my voice and my posture carefully neutral; if we were overheard there would