My Friends

“[A]s I stand here on the upper level of King’s Cross Station, from where I can monitor my old friend Hosam Zowa walking across the concourse, I feel I am seeing right into him, perceiving him more accurately than ever before, as though all along, during the two decades that we have known one another, our friendship has been a study and now, ironically, just after we have bid one another farewell, his portrait is finally coming into view.”

Khaled Abd al Hady’s observations of his friend Hosam Zowa offer insight into their ineffable connection. Khaled’s elliptical sentence structures and use of appositives enact the movements of his mind as he attempts to make sense of his and Hosam’s relational evolution, introducing the theme of The Enduring Bonds of Friendship.

“Perhaps now that he was in London, at the in-between place, and had heard himself tell me of his plans and no doubt sensed my lack of enthusiasm, the true nature of what he was embarking on suddenly felt exposed: the fantasy that he could go to America as though it were another planet and none of the old ghosts would be able to follow him.”

Khaled inhabits Hosam’s consciousness in this passage in an attempt to understand his friend’s decision to move to the States. His use of the word “fantasy” to describe Hosam’s dreams of a new life, free from his past, captures Khaled’s belief that Hosam will inevitably struggle with The Entanglement of Past and Present, just as Khaled has done during his many years in London. While Hosam hopes to start a new life in the USA, Khaled suspects that it can never be that simple and that he will be haunted by “ghosts” of the past no matter where he goes.

“Go after him, I tell myself. I remain in my spot, inside this coat and this minute, as time folds all around me. The entire age of our friendship is contained in this instant. London, the city I have been trying to make home for the past three decades, thinks in certainties. It enjoys classifications. Here the line separating road from pavement, one individual from another, pretends to be as definite as a scientific fact.”

Khaled’s internal conflict at the train station illustrates his fraught relationship with Personal Versus Political Identity and his complex regard for his London home. Khaled is physically rooted in one position and place, yet his mind is moving elsewhere.