The Answer

It's a Thursday afternoon in late August. The year—I should mention this, shouldn't I? The year is 1993. I'm sitting in the grass on Old Campus with my roommates Michael and Jake, waiting for First Year Orientation to begin. A cloudless day, painfully bright, smelling of mowed lawns and sweat; the sun burning the backs of our necks like an angry eye.

In the middle of one of those strange conversations freshmen have when they first meet—breathless confessions punctuated by abrupt, uncomfortable silences—I cast about for somewhere else to look and see a tall Hispanic boy standing a little distance from us, arms folded, scowling at Connecticut Hall through thick square glasses.

I'm not a gregarious person. I've never been especially social. But it's the first week of freshman year and already I'm a little lonely, sensing that Michael and Jake will stop speaking to one another, and me, in a month. Hey, man, I say, leaning towards him on one elbow, trying to look relaxed. Are you in Trumbull? What's your name?

He sits awkwardly, as if he doesn't have much experience lowering himself to the ground. Despite the heat he has on a pair of stiff new jeans rolled up at the ankles and an untucked, long-sleeved dress shirt. Dark patches of sweat like Rorschach blots stand out against his collarbones. Rafael, he says, once he's arranged himself with legs folded. His voice is nearly drowned out by the faint music blaring from a window on the other side of the quadrangle. I'm from Delaware, he says. Wilmington, Delaware.

Baltimore. Just down the road from you.

He doesn't smile, or nod, or change his expression at all; his mouth hangs slightly open, waiting to see what I will do next. In the corner of my eye I can see Michael and Jake giving one another significant looks.

So what room are you in?

He turns and points to the window just above mine.

213. But there is a problem. I have to change.

What's wrong with it?

We have only one bathroom.

There's something strange about his way of speaking: he hesitates an instant too long after each phrase, as if mentally translating from another language. Not a Spanish accent—it seems Eastern European.

There are girls across the hall, he says. I have to share with them.

So what? Jake speaks this time. So do we. So does everyone. It's Yale policy.

He folds his hands in his lap and stares down at the grass between us. I'm a Muslim, he says. It's not proper.

Jake bites his lip, chews his lip, trying not to laugh.

Well, there must be something they can do, I say. They can find you a different room somewhere. Did you tell them that when you sent in your roommate forms?

His eyelids dip slowly and he fixes me with a sour look, an old man's tired frown. Yes, he says impatiently.

Shouldn't that be the end of the story? I'm here, his face says. Isn't that enough for you? Do I have to explain myself again, every step of the way? Across the lawn a whistle shrieks and eight hundred of us stand all at once, trying not to appear too eager, tugging out the legs of our sweaty shorts. Rafael stays seated, and I next to him, in a half-crouch, a helper's pose.

And then he stands up and dusts himself off and twists away.