ZBORT GLUBB

by Steve Street
 
 

At first the trainer, Mahgoub, thought the American to be hopeless. He knew how to hold a racquet but had no sense of stroke: he either flubbed the ball into the net or rocked into it from the wrist, often lobbing it over the fence. Mahgoub asked for fifteen pounds for the hour, and the American simply paid it. Obviously not a serious man. With some of the extra money Mahgoub bought ball-point pens for his nieces, celebrating his luck.

But a few days later he received a telephone call at the club, something that had never happened before. Mahmoud, who took the call, had no American language, but the man said Mahgoub, Mahgoub, Mahgoub, until Mahmoud sent a ball boy to find him and bring him to the ticket kiosk at the front gate, where the telephone was. Several ball boys gathered around the windows of the kiosk to watch him talking. Yes, he said into the heavy black receiver. Five o'clock on Thursday.  One hour, maybe two. Fine. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Thursday evenings Mahgoub visited his father, but he could take a later train.

In three weeks the American had developed a reliable forehand and a surprising crosscourt backhand, flinging his racquet up and over in a way that delivered deadly topspin. The ball would skid when it hit the clay, bouncing no higher than your socks. The American could control the ball more often now but not his smile, his shoulders, his heart. From the way he walked back to the baseline Mahgoub knew what to expect on the next point.

"Gud," Mahgoub would call. "Very gud." He had taught several Englishmen before, and he knew Americans spoke a similar language.

The American perfected an outrageous service motion: he would dangle his racquet from a loose wrist, then cock his arm back and bring his racquet around over his head, elbow bent like a hook. Mahgoub showed him how to draw back the racquet with his toss so that both arms were extended, then bring the racquet up, out, and over, like a whip. But the American couldn't do it, or wouldn't, and eventually he made his own serve work instead. It took advantage of surprise, because his jerky motion was like a mechanical toy, so ingenious and engrossing as to catch you off guard when the ball came over the net, faster and faster as the weeks went by.

Sometimes they drank lemuun  in the wicker chairs between courts, sipping and watching others play. "Gud," Mahgoub would say, pointing to a player, or, "Not zo gud." His vowels were deep, his consonants thick, and he knew that what he said sounded nothing like the American’s words, but the American seemed to understand, nodding and smoking a Cleopatra that Mahgoub would have declined, fist to breast. Foreigners could afford better cigarettes, so he was puzzled. A Marlboro he might have accepted, or a Winston.

The next time it would be he who paid for the drinks.

During Ramadan the American neither offered nor ordered any drinks, though Mahgoub told him to go ahead if he was thirsty. The American was no Muslim, however. In the sudden absence of traffic sounds after adhan  he laughed but not with joy, as if this was something he alone had discovered, something funny. Of course it was  rather funny, but it was expected: Mahgoub tried to explain that after fasting all day, at sunset everyone began eating and drinking instead of driving and honking. The American had so little Arabic that it was difficult. He laughed again, and they resumed play. They'd just started a set, which meant that Mahgoub would be taking his own Iftar  late. His tongue felt like chalk in his mouth, but he won enough games to give the American his money’s worth. By the time Mahgoub got back to his uncle's house the new streetlights were on, but there was still plenty of food left, though the meat was all gone.

In winter the American began bringing guests. He’d become a member himself, Mahgoub discovered, one of the few foreigners allowed to join. A few years ago Abdullah had trained an Englishman who was a member and who, upon leaving, had given Abdullah a radio. Now Mahgoub had his own foreigner. He pointed this out more than once to Abdullah, who had had none for some time until the American began bringing others.

Some of those he brought he knew well, and some he didn’t: Mahgoub could tell from the way they were together and the sound of their voices. Some returned on their own, working with Abdullah or even Mahgoub but usually playing together. Some of them were women. Some of the women could beat the American, and still he continued to bring them. It didn’t seem to bother him.

But no other foreigner came as often as the American did, and he kept his Thursday evenings with Mahgoub, though usually not for more than an hour now. He’d ask to work on specific strokes, such as his backhand, not the slice but an ordinary two-handed one they worked on until it became dependable, or his forehand, which still wobbled a bit. Or Mahgoub would feed him volleys at the net.

The American lost weight. At first he’d been fat.

On one of the Thursday evenings, over lemuuns he had paid for, the American reached over the wicker table between them and patted Mahgoub’s head. It did not seem like a pass, though with foreigners that was always a danger, but more like the pat one might give a dog, while thinking of other things.

“Laa,” Mahgoub said, drawing back.

He could see Abdullah, between points on the next court, looking over. He could feel the indentation in his hair left by the foreigner’s hand, and the sweat from it. The sweet smell from a corn cart outside the front gate soured and took on substance, like fingertips to his nostrils, choking his air off.

“Laa, laa, laa,” he said, shaking his head at the clay between his feet.

The foreigner brought his arm in, looking at him curiously. Then he shrugged and finished his lemuun. He pointed at the court with the head of his racquet.

“Yallah?” he said.

“Yallah,” Mahgoub said, launching himself from the wicker.

By the call at sunset, their habitual quitting time, he had played up from 0-2 to 4-3, though they would finish the set, also a habit. Mahgoub, serving, took every point but one and in the last game took them all, and the American never touched him again except to shake hands over the net.
 
 

Mahgoub felt cool spots where the water was evaporating between his fingers and toes and on the back of his neck. Shoes in his left hand, sole to sole, he stepped over the wooden sill, right foot first. Facing the mihrab  he spoke: Bism-allah wisallahtu wisallahmu rasulallah allahum, he began. When he fell silent he bowed from the waist, his hands on his knees. Standing, he brought his hands to the sides of his face. Allahu akbar, he said aloud. His lips moved silently. Allahu akbar, he said again. He bowed and knelt and placed his palms on the ground, then his forehead. In the center of his forehead, barely perceptible yet, was a spot the size of a lime, where the skin had begun to harden and darken. After a minute he rose. Allahu akbar, he said. He did all this several times. He said other prayers. Then he turned his head to the men on either side of him. “Salaam,” he said to them.

He felt fine.
 
 

Ticket prices were raised for foreigners only. No one could say why.

The American was not pleased. He held up fingers splayed like angry suns to show how many more pounds he’d paid. He was with three other foreigners, one with red hair that Mahgoub recognized and two women.

They played mixed doubles. Mahgoub had no lessons, so he watched from the shade of the banyon tree in the tiled patio behind and a few feet above the courts. The American, used to covering his own backhand, kept running into his partner, a yellow-haired woman who was playing in jeans but knew better than the American where to stand. The second time he knocked his racquet into hers she whirled around, her mouth in an angry line, and brought her head up. Through the chain-link fence her eyes met Mahgoub’s, his glass of tea halfway to his lips, and her face changed.

She was very, very beautiful.

Then she turned toward the American and began talking and laughing. He laughed too and divided the court with a mark in the clay he   made with the rim of his racquet head. The mark was much closer to her sideline than to his, and she rubbed it out with her shoe and made another mark with the rim of her own racquet, closer to the true middle of the court. The other two were laughing as well, with a good laughter that was joyful, not mocking, and when a breeze came off the river a dove on the tiles flapped its wings and rose over the pool, and Mahgoub thanked God.
 
 

Despite the price hike they kept coming. The yellow-haired woman became the American's most frequent partner, often twice or more a week. She wore shorts now but would not shower. She would arrive in the shorts and she would leave in them, waiting on the patio while the American dressed before their game or, afterward, showered.

"Hello, Mahgoub," she might say. She would smile.

"Hello, Madame," he would answer. She would laugh.

On the court she was good, but the American was playing with confidence now, his strongest game yet. His service motion was no smoother but he could place his serve now, making the chalk rise. At the net too he'd become very quick. If he won the first set against the yellow-haired woman he'd win the second. If he lost the first set however then he often lost the second as well. Rarely did they play three sets. As summer approached they spent more and more time in the chairs, sometimes as much as on the courts, asking ball boys to bring them lemuun. She was a Frenchwoman, Abdullah said.

When the American missed a Thursday Mahgoub couldn't buy his train ticket, so he missed seeing his father that week. The next week his father didn't say anything, but his mother was angry. He told her about the American, but still she was angry. The American came the next week but not for lessons and not on Thursday, and Mahgoub began saving for his ticket as soon as he had money for it. It was winter, and the courts were often empty, and he began delivering lemuun s courtside, like a ball boy. Usually by Wednesday he had enough. The American still asked for him sometimes. Maybe once or twice a month they played together now.

Once, on his service, the American tipped a ball from the edge of his racquet into the school yard on the far side of the courts. Mahgoub went to the fence to ask somebody to return the lost ball, but it was a Friday: nobody was in the school yard. The balls were the American's.

"I will go," Mahgoub said.

He set his racquet against the fence post and began to climb, fingers through the wires of the fence. The toes of his old shoes were too soft, one of them already split wide open, and several times he lost his footing, landing once with both feet. His stance reminded him of something, he couldn't remember what.

Again he tried to climb.

"Mahgoub!"

The American was beneath him, shaking his head as if he were  addressing an infant. He held up a canister of new balls he'd taken from his bag. "Mish laazim,"  he said. "Andi gideed."  His Arabic had improved. He wagged the canister from side to side, smiling widely, and Mahgoub, understanding, dropped to the ground.

His stance was a crouch, and now he knew what it reminded him of:  a cartoon he'd watched on television with his young nephews. Recently he’d begun to see it on juice cartons, too.

"Zbydair Mann," he told the American.

At first the American didn't understand.

"Zbydair Mann. Zbydair Mann." Mahgoub jumped onto the fence again, then off, crouching, extending his wrist to shoot an imaginary web. "Zbydair Mann."

When the American did get it he laughed hard, looking at Mahgoub in a new way. Abdullah, coming over from an adjacent court to see what the commotion was, got it immediately and stomped into a crouch with his wrist out. Ball boys ran over and did the same, crouching with their arms out. "Zbydair Mann! Zbydair Mann! Zbydair Mann!"

Everybody was pleased -- especially Mahgoub, as it had been his joke. He and the American resumed play.

Before the American left, toward the end of summer, he sought Mahgoub out. The yellow-haired woman waited by the pool, bathing her face and neck with her towel. Until the manager had spoken to the American about it she had liked to wet her towel in the pool, dipping a corner in. Now she either carried a bottle of Baraka with her or ordered one, then poured the water into the towel and bathed her face and neck and arms, sometimes even her legs. Members looked away and ball boys hid behind trees, snickering. Some of the members laughed, too, at the way she raised her limbs to scrub them. Then from her bag she'd draw a blue plastic bottle and rub white oil into her skin. Usually by the time the American was back from his shower she was glistening like a chicken on a spit.
 
 

On the day the American said goodbye she was doing all this in the background when he came down the steps to the courts. Mahgoub was playing fourth for Doctor Mustafa and his two sons, and the American waited by the net post, watching until they switched courts. Mahgoub was afraid the American wanted a game, and he began to cross by the opposite post until he couldn't pretend he didn't hear his name.

The Doctor and his sons stopped and waited.

"I am leaving," said the American.

"Good bye," said Mahgoub.

"To my country. Not return. Xalaas." The American said all over  with his hands: spreading them, palms down. He had learned a few things.

"Ah." Mahgoub waited. In addition to the radio, Abdullah had received a pair of shoes. He shifted his stance so that the American might see where the sole had come loose.

"Good bye, Mahgoub."

It was the Frenchwoman's voice. He saw her shiny teeth through the chain link. She waved down at him.

"Good bye, Madame. And Messieu. Good bye."

Still, he waited. But all the American had to offer was his hand and foolish smile.

Full of resentment, Mahgoub muffed two points. His partner, the doctor's son Ahmed, glanced over, displeased. Mahgoub bounced on his toes, preparing to receive service.

"Yallah," he shouted buoyantly to show that he had recovered, then shouted it again, for his own sake. "Yallah. Thirty love!"