LITMIR.BIZ

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you now, aren’t I?”

      “After you’ve already killed the idea.”

      “I can always revive it. Fred made another run at it today.”

      “Well?”

      “I told him I’d think about it.”

      “If you don’t like what you’re doing, what are you going to do? Quit?”

      “I’m not that dumb.”

      “Sometimes I wonder.”

      “I need to find something where I can grow in a different direction.”

      “What are you, a houseplant? What are you talking about?”

      “I’ve been thinking international. That’d be a challenge, not to mention great fun.”

      “Wonderful. Then we’d never get to see you.”

      “From the tone of this conversation that might be for the best.”

      “What a mean thing to say! And the children, just getting to the age when they need a father around.”

      “Don’t bring them into this, damnit. I do pretty well by them or haven’t you noticed.”

      “You don’t have to swear.”

      “I’m not swearing,” I said, smiling and reached for her hand. She yanked it away. “Anyway, there are ways around this.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Most of our international news comes from our foreign bureaus. Wouldn’t you like to live in London for a while? Or Rome? Or Paris?”

      “What about Paul Junior?”

      “What about him? He’s doing great. Anyway, those places have excellent doctors, every bit as good as ours.”

      She narrowed her eyes. “What if I said that’d be just fine.”

      “That would surprise me.”

      “Goldman has offices all over, I’d have a professional life. The kids, it might be good for them. It didn’t hurt me, living abroad, though I was older.”

      “And we’d sit down to dinner together most nights. It’d sure beat being Deputy Assistant Associate Editor of This That And The Other Thing.”

      She was quiet for a moment. “My parents... they’d be devastated.”

      “On the other hand, they love to travel. And we’d get back here plenty often. I’d make that part of the deal. Think of it as a quality time kind of thing.”

      She put her hand on top of mine. “I’d need to think about it.”

      “Don’t worry, it won’t happen tomorrow. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone.”

      “That’s an improvement.”

      “See, I do respect you after all.”

      “Whenever it suits you, my dear.”

      I HADN’T TALKED WITH HAMID for some time. When I called he said he’d be in New York in a few weeks and suggested we get together with Ed Said. After strolling the campus for a while, we linked up with Ed at a restaurant on Broadway, on the river side of the campus. It was interesting to see how warmly Hamid and Ed greeted each other – big hug, kisses on the cheeks, the whole bit. Ed and I got along well but it was reserved, cerebral. He began by asking about Hamid’s current project.

      “With luck and the help of Allah, by mid-next year I will be finished.”

      “So much for your one-a-year fetish,” I said with a smile.

      “I fear I’ve had my first taste of writer’s block.”

      Said nodded. “I don’t know any serious author who doesn’t from time to time. Good for the soul, actually – it helps keep the ego in check.”

      “The poetry has been more complex than I had expected. I’ve had the short stories in shape for some time but I am aiming for a unified whole and that is difficult.”

      “Has writing in Arabic made it harder?” I asked.

      “Yes, but in an odd way. I was rusty and that slowed me down, of course, but when I got going I found the imagery so rich, it was as if pictures were exploding all around me. Limitless possibilities. I found myself chasing leads every which way, like one branch of a tree leads to three others which leads to nine others and so on. What I’m coming up with is very good but it has been a struggle to contain it.”

      Ed nodded. “A wonderful problem to have. I imagine it gives your editor fits.”

      “He has been very patient.”

      “And you, Paul, what are you working on? You set a high standard with your oil industry articles.”

      “A little of this, a little of that. I’m working on a piece contrasting the candidates’ positions on energy policy. I also have something I’d like your opinion on, both of you.”

      I pulled several sheets of paper from my briefcase and handed them over. “I’m not sure where I’m going with this, except it is giving me a lot of distress.” The paper was headed “Catalog of Terrorist Attacks: 1968 - 1983.” I had put together a list of terrorist acts with names of the responsibles, location, outcome and date. I first became interested in this in the context of American labor violence. Hamid will remember those discussions in Berkeley. When I began I assumed for the last decade or so Arab groups have outpaced everyone in this dubious competition, but that’s not what I’m finding.”

      Said nodded. “The list shows a rather more even distribution. The IRA, Canadian separatists, Basques, Corsicans, even South Moluccans, for goodness sake.”

      Hamid nodded. “We, I should say they, the Arab terrorists, are clearly outnumbered.”

      “All I can think of,” I said, “they have a flair for the spectacular. It’s one thing to blow up a mailbox in Québec, quite another to hijack a jet with two hundred people aboard.”

      Said stared at Hamid. “You said ‘we,’ Hamid. Why is that?”

      Hamid shook his head. “I don’t know. I certainly don’t support terrorism. Crimes against innocent people are crimes no matter what. I suppose at one level it’s my us-versus-them mentality. Abstracting from the violence if you will.”

      “But you can’t abstract from the violence,” I replied. “That’s the essence of the deed.”

      “Let me play devil’s advocate,” Said interjected. “Assume crimes have been committed, assume the victims are innocent, assume the victims are powerless to prevent these crimes, assume lastly no government exists to promote their interests. With me so far?”

      I nodded.

      “Other than self-help, how do such people gain redress? When a government is unable to protect its people, worse yet when government is itself the problem, and here I speak of Israel, is it surprising people do these things?”

      I nodded. “It’s one thing if you live in a democracy, but lacking means to change a bad situation, self-help is more understandable.”

      “Sounds like your Declaration of Independence,” Hamid observed.

      Said nodded. “I doubt many Americans have looked at that document since high school. They’d be shocked how subversive it is. Fine as a museum piece, but when you’re top dog you don’t want to hear about rights of the oppressed or abusive government. But back to self-help. As Exhibit One, Paul, I present my Palestinians. The only possible moral outcome is a negotiated settlement between what I call the two “communities of suffering.” The Israelis deserve a home, I grant you, but so do the Palestinians. For centuries they had a home and it was

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