One day, my driver was late. I waited for him and when he showed up, he apologized and told me that he was thankful because as long as I wasn’t mad at him for being late, he’d be able to share his breakfast with me. After a long stare, I told him that it was fine, and that I don’t usually eat in the morning.
Perhaps this is how he is used to treat people, offering them food, I thought to myself. He drove me to work without a word and that was it, he never mentioned food again.
After a week or two, I came to realize that my new driver was usually astonished. He would react in surprise when I told him good morning and he doubted my words when I thanked him for dropping me home after work. He didn’t say much else.
He once asked me if he annoyed me. I asked him why he got the impression that I’m annoyed. He said “2emekaletly enno mazajek
I usually read in the car, and one morning I was reading Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper. Halfway through the ride, he asked me what I was reading so I told him the name of the book. “What is it about? I haven’t read this one.”
That was the day I realized that he’s not a driver, he’s an intellect, that when he asked me if he annoys me, he was reading my body language, and when he seemed surprised, it wasn’t because my mom told him I’m an introvert, but rather because he was observing my attitude like a reader observes some words.
He was a Syrian refugee who fled his country after being captured and locked in prison. He told me stories and showed me pictures of his homeland. He told me about his home library that got destroyed by regime shelling across Damascus. We discussed Poe and Anis Mansour and he seemed like a literature treasure to me.
At times, when I used to ask him about his neighbors in Syria, he told me that he was feeling guilty, living in a country that is considered secure compared to Syria, while others have to walk for hours to be able to sleep or eat.
A month ago, he left and moved to Turkey because he couldn’t picture himself working as a driver in Egypt any longer. It felt impossible for him to drive down the streets that look like chaos almost all the time.
I’m not sure what bothered me more, the fact that I’ll go back to being dependent on creepy taxi drivers, or the fact that my home country is pushing everyone away like a recluse freak. But what I’m sure of is that we take responsibility for those who demand for their freedom, because we are so great at criticizing others, such as Israel, but we always come up short whenever other Arabs call for help.
