“I told them that you were perhaps one of the world’s greatest physicists,” Abe Rosenfeld said very casually to Nurul Islam, when they were settled in the car heading out from Boston’s airport.
Nurul Islam raised an eyebrow at him.
“I had to tell them something,” Abe explained apologetically, to Nurul’s broad amusement. Abe Rosenfeld was not one for superlatives or even the mildest flattery. Not even for Einstein, going by a famous instance at Princeton, and who was Nurul Islam of Pakistan in comparison to him?
“Well, thank you, even if you didn’t mean it,” Nurul replied. “But why would immigration detain me? Do I look like a radical to you? Don’t I look respectable, a middle-aged professor in my tweed jacket and tie, my fresh haircut and half of an English accent?”
Not quite accurate, of course. His passport and his features often provoked England’s gatekeepers at London Heathrow to detain him a mite longer than normal, and a lot longer when a fresh batch of immigrants arrived from the former colonies. He’d never had a problem entering the United States before.
It took a moment before Abe said with a wry smile, “Could be that wild mustachio of yours.” Then he added, “Or it could be the ‘Islam’ in your name. You know, the Nation of Islam and so on. Malcolm X. It’s nothing, I wouldn’t worry.”
Nurul brushed his famous moustache, which had the look of two black jets shooting off in opposite directions from his face and matched his thick crop of curly hair. He was somewhat stout in body and wore on this November day a wool overcoat and red paisley scarf.
It was fall 1971.
“You wouldn’t worry,” he retorted to the other’s nonchalance. “But evidently I have to … I thought that was all over, the student riots, the race riots …?”
“Not quite over. We still get an occasional flare-up on the Square.”
Nurul watched Abe: the crumpled baby face, the red hair greying. The well-worn brown jacket. The posture already bending. And barely forty. They had their differences due to their temperaments – Abe had been called a logician, Nurul a magician – and there was their unstated rivalry, but they shared mutual respect, and surely some affection? Nurul sometimes wondered what Abe’s private thoughts were, outside of physics. Abe was not political, which was admirable – give him a paper and something to write, and like a child doodling with a crayon he would be lost to the world, contented – and often come up with something truly startling. Recently though he had allowed himself some public opinions. So, for that matter, had Nurul. As we age and lose our mental agility we pick up our causes.
Outside, it was dark and wet, the highway mesmerising, a brilliant train of moving lights, like a beam of elementary particles made visible, each vehicle a bundle of energy. A quantum. At each exit, some of this vehicular beam separated off, deflected by a suburban force. He knew this route well, he thought he knew Boston, at least Cambridge, reasonably well, which was why the detention at immigration had been an annoyance. The Prudential Building glittered familiarly in the distance, its radio mast winking intermittently on top; the MIT dome glowed dimly on the other side of the Charles, and Nurul thought of the people he knew at the institute. They’d offered him a position once during a previous visit. Come, they said, and Rosenfeld will be just down the river at that Ivy place, and the two of you together can produce the miracle, unify the four forces in the universe. That was old Viki Weisskopf’s offer; a paternal figure, the great Wolfgang Pauli’s student, still aching for his Nobel. And if Abe entices me to join him there, down the river? Nurul had teased. All right, better stay in London then.
“You don’t mind the Holiday Inn?” Abe asked. “It’s close enough for you to walk to the department, if you want to. Or be near all the action on the Square. You’re always welcome to stay at our home, there’s plenty of room, but I assume you’ll need your privacy.”
He looked pointedly at Nurul.
“Yes, thank you, the Holiday Inn is fine. And I’ll have dinner in my room tonight, don’t worry about me, old chap.”
To spar tomorrow they had to approach each other afresh from a distance, their equations their feints. Nurul’s thrust and jab to Abe’s enticing, calculating chain … was that quite accurate?
There were messages awaiting him at the hotel. Academic acquaintances with invitations to speak, random students desperate to meet, a proposal for a radio interview. Invitation from the Quincy mosque. His room door having closed behind the tipped bellboy, he stared regretfully at his bulging briefcase leaning against the centre table – it would not be possible to catch up on anything tonight. His work was his hashish, he often said. Even if it was merely to glance at the contents page of a student thesis, or a learned paper he had been asked to referee for a journal. Keep him away from work and he started having a reaction, that depressed feeling in the pit of his stomach. Time was fleeting. Is forty too late?
He washed and came out in his long shirt, he took out his small prayer mat from his bag, gently unfolded it and laid it on the floor; then with his ancient skullcap – which he also unfolded – on his head he carefully, almost joyfully, fell down on his knees to pray. Y’Allah, forgive me for having missed the last one, but you know that I didn’t forget you. You don’t expect me to go down on my knees in the aisle of the plane, do you. I know you don’t. After his prayer he ordered his supper – how can you not have hamburgers in America? With root beer and shoestring fries. Finally, he sat back on the armchair and phoned Sakina Begum. Here was a different sort of parrying.
“You forget me as soon as you’re away.” Affectionate. Chiding. Possessive.
“My dear, I thought you’d enjoy your independence.”
“Don’t be so clever. You know I can only enjoy my independence with you here. And your two sons and daughter need you. Muni misses you.”
That hooked him.
“And how is my darling little Muni?’ His voice changed. “Is she there?”
“Yes, she’s here. Speak with her.”
And he spoke tenderly with his daughter, five years old, and momentarily was a child himself, then again an adult, and made the requisite promises to bring presents and play badminton with her as soon as he returned. He should make time, the thought came. He didn’t move so well these days, didn’t take care of himself, one hazard of his itinerant life of the mind.
Excerpted with permission from Everything There Is, MG Vassanji, Context/Westland.
