The next day he made a work space in the second-floor bathroom and modified the fan to an exhaust hood over his work surface. My curiosity grew.

He read a lot too, and although I tried to read with him, abstract political theories didn’t hold my interest. I preferred stories, human dramas. Sometimes we cuddled on the sofa for hours, watching television or doing nothing at all. Other times he read aloud to me. It started with an essay by an American named James Baldwin. It was a letter to his nephew, Big James. “Go back. Can you please read the last line again?” I asked.

“You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger.”

There were others in the world who, like us, were seen as worthless, not expected to aspire or excel, for whom mediocrity was pre-destined, and who should expect to be told where to go, what to do, whom to marry, and where to live. Mr. Baldwin tells Big James:

“Here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world.”

Bilal continued reading, but my mind lingered on that sentence because I knew that, despite everything, I was loved. I was loved hard. At once and forever against the loveless world. I missed my family. Um Buraq too. But I was home here.

“Habibi, I’m sorry, can you reread that last bit? I was thinking about previous lines.”

“I know what you mean. Reading Baldwin ought to be slow. Every sentence beckons not only the mind, but also one’s heart, history, and future.” He paused.

“… if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived.”

“Do you think that’s how we’ve survived?” I asked.

He put the book down, thought for a moment, and looked at me. “I don’t see how else anyone can survive colonialism. Understanding our own condition, I think in saying ‘loved each other,’ Baldwin doesn’t just mean the living. To survive by loving each other means to love our ancestors too. To know their pain, struggles, and joys. It means to love our collective memory, who we are, where we come from,” he said, and after a silence for both of us to soak up that thought, he continued reading.