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Updated: June 10, 2025
Tufik had decided at last on what he would be in our so great America. Once or twice, when he was tired or discouraged, Tish had taken him out in her machine, and he had been thrilled really thrilled. He did not seem able to learn how to crank it Tish's car is hard to crank but he learned how to light the lamps and to spot a policeman two blocks away.
"Oh, my friends, my Miss Tish, my Miss Liz, my Miss Ag, what must I say? I have not the ticket! I have been wikkid but for my sister only for my sister! She must not die she so young, so little girl!" "Tufik," said Tish sternly, "I want you to tell us everything this minute, and get it over." "She ees so little!" he said wistfully.
Part of this was due to Tish, who talked of Tufik steadily of his youth; of the wonderful bargains she secured from him; of his belief that this was the land of opportunity Aggie sniffed; of his familiarity with the Bible and Biblical places; of the search the Turks were making for him.
I was a little bit nervous with Tish gone and the sun setting and another tub of beer bottles brought in though the people were orderly enough and Tufik stood near. But Aggie began to feel very strange, and declared that the man with the sheepskin drum was winking at her and that her head was twitching round on her shoulders.
We were homesick, tired, and dirty; and Aggie, who had been frightfully seasick, was clamoring for tea. As the taxicab drew up at the curb, Tish clutched my arm and Aggie uttered a muffled cry and promptly sneezed. Seated on the doorstep, celluloid collar shining, the brown pasteboard suitcase at his feet, was Tufik.
Aggie had decided to ask the musicians to play a little slower and I had my hands full with her; so it was with horror that, shortly after, I heard the whirring of the engine and through the cellar window caught a glimpse of Tish's machine starting off up the hill. I rose excitedly, but Tufik was before me, smiling and bowing. "Miss Tish has gone for the bride," he said softly.
So Tufik went to an automobile school and stood by while some one drew pictures of parts of the engine on a blackboard, and took home lists of words that he translated into Arabic at the library, and learned everything but why and how the engine of an automobile goes. He still thought at the end of two months that the driver did it with his foot! But we were ignorant of all that.
While we were looking at the picture and Aggie was at the sink putting water in the glass that held the geraniums, Tufik having forgotten to do so, Tish's neighbor from the apartment below, an elderly bachelor, came up the service staircase and knocked at the door. Tish opened it. "Humph!" said the gentleman from below. "Gone is he?" "Is who gone?" "Your thieving Syrian, madam!" Tish stiffened.
When she wished to address either Tish or myself she held her head rigid and turned her whole body in her chair; and when she felt a sneeze coming on she clutched wildly at her head with both hands as if she expected it to fly off. Tufik was not mentioned, though twice Tish got as far as Tu and then thought better of it; but her mind was on him and we knew it.
That was the first we had known of Tufik's sister, back in Beirut, wearing a veil over her face and making lace for the bazaars. We were to know more. Well, between getting ready to go to Panama and trying to find something Tufik could do, we were very busy for the next month.
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