At the now defunct for-profit Solex College in Chicago, during a break between classes, Haval showed up at the urinal next to me with his head shaved. We were colleagues but had never spoken. I had been jealous of his dapper suits and lustrous black hair so I said, “Nice haircut.” His eyes flashed, and he responded, “I just came back from Mecca.” I knew I’d found a brother.
As we got to know each other, I learned he had assisted the U.S. military in Iraq, his home country. When that made him a target for extremists, he left, sought asylum, and found himself getting a master’s degree in English in Kentucky on the long path to citizenship.
Handsome, always the best dressed at our college, skilled, and beloved, Haval taught me to play classical music during moments of reflection in the classroom to open up emotion, creativity. Now whenever my students free write, I put on “Clair de Lune” by Debussy, whose rises and falls mirror narratives, life, I think.
I asked why he’d gone to Mecca. “I needed to go. I felt someone was calling me.” He explained that the umrah is a purification. For his pilgrimage, he put on a white cloth that symbolized equality and walked seven times counter-clockwise around the Kaaba, the black cube at the center of Muslim prayer from all over the world. It felt like heaven. Wishing I could go with him some day, I asked what he brought back to Chicago from Mecca, and he answered, glowing, without pause, “Love.”
