“Perhaps another time,” the Egyptian said. “Forgive me, my friend. Now that you are no longer striking me, I was just trying to make polite conversation. I was a professor in Egypt before I immigrated to Holland. My wife and son accuse me of being a professor still. They’ve spent their lives listening to me lecture. I’m afraid they no longer tolerate me. When I get a chance to teach, I take it.”

“You were a teacher in Holland, too?”

“In Holland?” He shook his head. “No, in Holland I was a tool. We decided to leave Egypt in 1982 because we thought our son would have more opportunities here in the West. I was an educated man, but my education was an Egyptian education and so it was worthless here. I built roads until I ruined my back, then I got a job sweeping the streets of Rotterdam. Eventually, when I could no longer even push a broom, I went to work in a furniture factory in west Amsterdam. The plant supervisor made us work fourteen hours a day. Late one night, when I was falling asleep on my feet, I made a mistake with the circular saw.” He lifted his ruined hand for Gabriel to see. “During my recuperation I decided to put my time to good use by learning to speak proper Dutch. When the factory manager heard what I was doing, he told me not to waste my time, because one day soon all the allochtoonen would be going home. He was wrong, of course.”

A gust of wind blew pellets of snow into their faces. Gabriel turned up his coat collar. Ibrahim slipped his hand back into the pocket of his overcoat.

“Our children heard all the insults that were hurled at us by our Dutch hosts, too. They spoke better Dutch than we did. They were more attuned to the subtleties of Dutch culture. They saw the way the Dutch treated us and they were humiliated. They became angry and resentful, not only at the Dutch but at us, their parents. Our children are trapped between two worlds, not fully Arab, not quite Dutch. They inhabit the ghurba, the land of strangers, and so they seek shelter in a safe place.”

“Islam,” said Gabriel.

Ibrahim nodded his head and repeated, “Islam.”

“You still make furniture for a living, Ibrahim?”

He shook his head. “I retired several years ago. The Dutch state pays me a generous pension and even a bit of disability because of my two missing fingers. I manage to do a little work on the side. It’s good for my self-respect. It keeps me from growing old.”

“Where do you work now?”