Cooing Dove

I used to know this Syrian girl when I first went to live abroad. She was in my french class, and as this class was mostly composed of professional people, including humanitarian workers, diplomats, french teachers and interpreters, the two of us turned out to be the youngest pupils in the class, by far. Actually, she was only 17 when she arrived in the class. So, we stuck together; we walked together to the canteen at nights, did homework together, shared our feeling about being homesick, badmouthed the French together, accompanied each other to the supermarket (where we would to begin with mostly stock up on softdrinks, chips and biscuits ...), and did other stuff.

Her name was Hadil, which according to her meant "cooing" in Arabic, cooing like pigeons do. Actually, the word she used was the french "rocoulement". She liked to tell people what the meaning of her name was, but I noticed that our classmates usually didn't get it, even if she pronounced "roucoulement" very nicely, with an "r" that actually sounded sort of like "cooing". She would usually have to explain it at least twice, then people would give her an incredulous, non-impressed "Really?" and probably go home and look the word up in the dictionary.

I thought Hadil was a pretty name. It sounded a little harsh, with authentic Arabic prononciation, but one could get used to it. And I liked her; she was very genuine, extrovert and sincere, generous and warm, cheerful and light, and we had a great time toghether. She was sort of still a child, while I didn't consider myself one anymore, but that was allright; I would let my guards down with her, be enchanted, be scared, be silly when she was. She obviously came from a very privileged family and a somewhat protected environment. Her dad held a ministerial position and she had obtained a grant to come and study in France through her father’s influence. (I remember she was very surprised to learn that I was on a scholarship too, yet didn’t know anybody from the government.) Not that she was unworthy of her grant; she was very smart, sweet and astute, and she studied a lot for classes. But I was aware that, even though we had this tight and solid friendship and comraderie, we weren’t exactly on the same boat. She never worried about expenses; her parents were paying the rent (for the lovely little flat her father found her) and everything, so she would at worst complain that her pocket money (scholarship) didn’t allow for any extravagance. I was struggling to make ends meet on it, although doing okay at that, especially when I would buy coupons for the canteen where we could eat really cheap. Every so often, her dad would fly in. I wouldn’t see her then, not while he was there, but she would come to classes riding his black limousine.

I find it strange when I look at it to have felt so close to this girl. I mean, her coming from such a different culture and all. But somehow we just ended up doing everything together, always. We had great talks toghether and lots of laughs. It was awsome. I found her actually to be fairly western in her attitudes. In some ways she was more sophisticated than me, me being such a tom boy and all. I would for instance help her wax her arms (of all things!) Except that she didn’t wax with a wax, but with some sugary paste she brought from the Orient. It was great fun. We would cook it together, she’d spread it on her arms, and then I’d help her with the painful part. She offered to help me wax my arms. “Ugh, no!” I told her. There was no way I felt inclined to rid myself of the invisible down I possessed on my forearms. “As you like, but where I come from, no woman who respects herself will walk around with body hair …” Then we just laughed at our differences.

Before the end of the year though, I lost touch with her, but that’s a matter for another story. Later, I learned that she had taken on medical studies in France, just as planned, but that then, unpredictably, she had gotten married to some bloke from Syria, twenty years her senior, who had been taking french classes at our language institute when we were. I never really got that, but well, there was probably a lot in her culture I didn’t quite fathom.

She kind of stays with me still though. I can picture her giggling. An amazing friendship we had.