He spun my mind like a prayer wheel

I was reading Copleston's version of Spinoza when the doorbell rang. Two dishevelled sweat glazed illshaven Indian maintenance men had been summoned with a phone call from my wife. I had stepped on the grid over the drain in one of the bathrooms and broken it. (What does this have to do with Al Ain for a reader who expects stories and info about Emiratees and Bedouins in the desert for a Natural History channel kind of armchair anthropological account? Indians? Yes, Indians and Pakistanis are the largest group of foreigners in this Gulf country where the majority of the population is made up of foreign nationals.)

A highly exhortatory almost stentorian machine gun rapidity of pidgin English erupted from one of the Indians' mouth when I showed him the drain. He had queried me in what I thought was a veiled j'accuse, though it could have just been my paranoia -- the thought had occurred to me that he was inquiring about whether I had broken it, in which case I would be responsible for it (the logical conclusion of one who has lived in the States under the terror reign of slum landlords and chicanery artists) and would have to pay.

I peered back at him like a dumb animal in the zoo peers at a spectator, though not to the extent of unashamedly masturbating or bearing its ass to the glee of the spectators.

Again the same cadences for the same period of time as the previous utterance came out of his mouth.

"This. Only," I said as I pointed to the drain in the floor.

The other Indian kind of grunted with a few words to the first. He probably thought I was really stupid because I couldn't understand English.

We agreed that tomorrow was a good time for them to return with a new drain. My minimalist Phillip Glassian English got me through.

Mary came in and greeted the men and said she had another problem for them to solve, her project to cover the balcony to prevent dust and leaves from entering the tiny space we used to use to hang our clothes to dry until it filled with dust and leaves. I disagreed and broke into broken Arablish.

"Fouk covered [quick downward sweep of the hand to indicate the vertical opening of the balcony], covered, mafee shams."

"Don't listen to my husband, he doesn't know," my wife said to the Indians. The other Indian broke out in gigglish laughter in marked contrast to his almost stentorian voice. I walked out of the room in embarrassment.

The usual exchange of 'mafee mushkilah' ensued and the gentle twaddle of the Indians' heads from side to side indicated a nod.

After they left, my wife laughed at me, "You're studying Arabic and you can't even talk to them."

"I said 'mafee shams'! You don't even know what 'shams' means!"