Man of the Hour Read Online Free PDF

uncomfortable with all this brotherly interest. It wasn’t unusual, traditional families not wanting their kids to go out into the world. Some of it was just cultural differences. But occasionally he wondered if the relatives secretly wanted to hold the kids back so they could feel better about their own lives.
    “Can I ask why you’re the one who’s talking to me about this and not your parents?” David furrowed his brow and leaned in so close his shoulder almost touched Nasser’s ear.
    Nasser reared back from the contact. “Our mother is dead,” he said, greatly agitated. “Someone has to look out for my little sister.”
    “So what about your father? I talked to him last year.” David found himself wanting to defend the old man after hearing Elizabeth’s story.
    “My father.” Nasser pursed his lips and pulled hard on his tie. “My father is not the one to protect my sister. He is married to an American woman with no morals and he has daughters with her who are allowed to eat pork and watch filth on television! I’m sorry to say this to you, but it is the truth. My father is not a devout man. He tries, but it is not enough. Someone else has to be responsible.”
    Then all at once, Nasser fell quiet, turning and looking out into the hall.
    His sister had just walked by with her best friend, Merry Tyrone, a stylish black girl who wore short skirts and chunky shoes and didn’t like people knowing how smart she was.
    “You see this?” Nasser clapped his hands in frustration. “She’s not wearing her hijab today.”
    “Her what?” asked David.
    “Her head scarf. This is what a proper Muslim girl should be wearing.”
    “Oh.” David looked down at the top of Nasser’s head, as if trying to see inside it. “Come on, Nasser. Your sister’s a good kid. She’s not going to get in any trouble.”
    “Oh no? Look at this.” Nasser started to dig through his briefcase. “Look what I find in her room.”
    He began pulling things out. A copy of Cosmopolitan, a J. Crew catalogue, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Color Purple with various sections dog-eared and underlined in red ink. Her permission slip for Tuesday’s field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
    “You see?” he said. “Haram. Haram. Haram!” He pointed to each item. “None of this is permitted.”
    Haram. The word sounded like an engine revving. David sat back as if he’d just gotten a faceful of fumes.
    “Nasser, I don’t know what to tell you.” He sighed, arching his chin at the ceiling and rubbing his throat with a knuckle. “This is the modern world. I don’t like everything about it either, but you can’t put on blinders and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
    “But don’t you see how this is harmful to a young girl?”
    “Well, I don’t know.” David didn’t want to say he’d assigned some of the reading himself. “Do you think it’s possible you’re overreacting a little?”
    “No, this is not possible.”
    David watched Nasser’s fingers slip between his shirt buttons, as if he were trying to control some terrible pressure building up inside of him. So tight, so held in. Did he want to say something else?
    “Really, Nasser. I think it’ll be okay.” He tried to sound reassuring.
    “So you don’t help me keep her home from college?” Nasser asked with glistening, almost brimming eyes. “Is that it?”
    David saw he was wrong about this guy. Before, he’d suspected Nasser was merely jealous of his sister’s grades, her ease in assimilating. But something larger was at stake: here was a young man genuinely frightened by the late twentieth century. In fact, David remembered, that had been Nasser’s problem as a student. He was too scared to step outside his familiar frame of mind and try out new ideas.
    “I’m afraid I can’t make anybody do anything they don’t want to do,” David told him. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you wanted to discuss?”
    He studied Nasser’s face again. Amazing.