Water in the desert

I was with an Eritrean refugee. Four of his brothers had recently been beheaded. He didn't know a soul. Everything to him was alien and unreal. Only days earlier he had been granted political asylum and this was supposed to be the celebration. He was short, my companion, so small and studiously unobtrusive that most of the other people in the bar couldn't actually see him. Half-familiar faces kept nodding at me almost sympathetically as if I was alone and therefore in need of company. I kept pointing downwards, to them as though towards some mysterious bladder complaint. They didn't get it. (The bar was extremely crowded.) Later I kept sticking an arm out to prevent the passing traffic from knocking my companion over. But though he was short in stature, let me tell you, he was towering in spirit. He also said to me that night that he was superstitious and that my helping him would bring me luck. The windows were open and people were flightily discussing art. Their world and his seemed painfully apart. We spoke of the desert and I told him how a Bedouin soldier once told me after firing off a few innocent rounds in the desert with me that the moon was sad that night and how when I asked why the moon was sad he said it was sad because he - the moon - had come from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. (This was during the run-up to Gulf War One and the Saudis were hosting over 500,000 American-led allies.) My Eritrean companion drank whisky - which he said his religion forbade but integration required - and again he said I would be lucky. Across the bar and through the crowds at that moment sat a dark-haired and attractive woman on a stool looking at me. I excused myself momentarily and bravely asked what the woman did. She looked at me a while and said she was an artist.