_The Spy (?) Who Learned from Me_

When I was teaching an evening ESL class on the upper east side at a community center, I had a lot of students from the United Nations along with the immigrants who made up the core of the program. I had students from Bulgaria, Venezuela, the Cote d’Ivoire, China, Mexico, Angola, Colombia, Korea, France, Israel, and Brazil. I also had four students from Iraq. They were all delightful.

Two of those students were in my high intermediate class: Saleh and Sa’ad. Douglas Rothschild taught them as well. They worked in the Iraqi mission to the United Nations. There were some unusual conditions attached to their jobs. For one thing, they were not allowed to leave the five boroughs of New York City without special permission. They were also not obliged to pay sales tax anywhere. They showed me a special card they carried that they would flash at cashiers and presumably, be exempted from paying sales tax. I always wondered, did the cashiers believe them? And what was to stop someone from forging such a card?

All of my Iraqi students took every chance they could to mention the deleterious effects of the US sanctions on their country.

The other students used to tease them about their many wives. Actually, I think Sa’ad was the only one who was actually married, and he had just one wife.

Saleh had a wonderful, slightly overenthusiastic manner and a big grin to match. When he got excited or wanted to emphasize something, his eyes would open wide so you could see the whites on all sides of his pupils. He was a biochemist. When he learned that I used to work at Cambridge University Press (before their inhumanly non-ergonomic windowless freezingly drafty computer station mangled my delicate frame), he asked if I could obtain for him some scientific volumes he’d been yearning for. With my worker’s comp case pending (as it still is two years later) I was no longer eligible for free or discount copies, so I wasn’t able to oblige him. Had I done so, I wonder, would John Ashcroft now be breathing down my neck?

The other Iraqi student in the same class, Sa’ad, was over six feet tall and impeccably handsome, with a well-trimmed moustache, square jaw, and very white teeth. Not only did he look like Omar Sharif, but he had old world manners — the perfect diplomat/gentleman. I ran into him by chance one day in Grand Central Station and he said “Hello, Nada. I am very glad to see you. If there is anything you need, please let me know.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by that (I’m still not), but it seemed a very chivalrous thing to say. He was often absent from class, busy with UN matters. He didn’t show up at all the next term.

Then one day I booted up my computer and on my Yahoo start page was a news item saying that an Iraqi named Sa’ad was “asked to leave” the USA because he was suspected of spying. I clicked on the item but couldn’t confirm that it was my student Sa’ad who was under suspicion.

Later I ran into Wissam, another student from the Iraqi mission, by chance (!!) in a wonderful Lebanese store on Steinway St. in Queens. When I asked him about Sa’ad, the worried, furtive look on his face confirmed, before he even uttered his affirmative answer, that it was indeed that handsome gentleman.

That was the closest I ever came to a spy or suspected spy, as far as I know.

Sa’ad, Saleh, Wissam, Ju Ma’a — I’m thinking of you.