Bekim is not an Islamic fundamentalist. He is not a terrorist or a celebrity. He is an ordinary man who makes a living by performing daily an ordinary job--one wrongly categorized as appalling and disgraceful.

He is a garbage collector on a sanitation truck.

Few from Bekim's far away homeland could boast of such a respectable and stable job, so Bekim feels no shred of humiliation for collecting garbage in America.

Bekim is a short man--bony, olive-skinned with prominent cheekbones and dark, slitty eyes, a big nose and a shy smile under a well-groomed, dignified mustache. He came to America to gather money so he could make an offer of marriage back in his village. In Gulpazar, his native hamlet hidden at the foot of snow-capped mountains, the custom prevails. The bride must be purchased from her father with a respectable dowry. This is why there are so many unmarried girls and so very few young men in the village--most of the bachelors had left for foreign lands to gather money to come back and win their brides.

Bekim followed the custom and promised Aisha he would return as soon as he put enough money aside to pay for the wedding.

Bekim's work is simple. Each morning except Sunday, at six in the morning, he leans from the side of the green and white truck to empty garbage bins left at the end of driveways by busy people who were mostly still in their beds at that hour. Bekim picks up the waste containers, then lowers them to the carrier which automatically empties them. The contents disappear in gnawing jaws of steel where they are ground up and compacted.

When the metal beast's belly is full, the garbage is unloaded at the station--sorted, processed, and incinerated.

Bekim works his shift with Sabri, the truck driver. Sabri's family back home waits by the mailbox for the money he sends home on payday.

Their route is precisely controlled and rigorously calculated. They navigate their route twice a week--on the suburban streets assigned to them.

Sabri is so used to the route that he knows exactly when they will finish the job. At noon on Mondays and Thursdays, for example, they stop at the end of the same street--a dead end lane by a fenced park where neighbors walk their dogs.

The last house has been serviced, so they pull off their overalls and wash their hands and faces with clean water from a plastic drum. Then they spread a mat from the truck's cab and pray.

After offering their sincere devotion to their deity, they put out food packages and eat together, as is appropriate.

In the final house on the route lives Mrs. Thiess, a woman about forty-five years old with weak and wilted dull-gray blond hair--wearing a pair of thick spectacles. She is widowed and lives alone with two cats, which share the three rooms of her home. A tiny courtyard surrounded by professionally trimmed hedges is visible in the back. The house is like all the other houses in the neighborhood.

Every Monday and Thursday, the woman sits on her porch and watches the two men. She does not supervise or look for their mistakes, but instead, seeks their company. The company her cats provide does not satisfy; she is lonely.

They exchange each time a few words--general observations about the weather.

Deep down Bekim missed the sun. The relentless burning sun of his native land parched the dirt streets in his village, ripened the pomegranates and dried the figs.

One Monday, Mrs. Thiess invites them to join her for a cup of hot tea. The day is cold and cloudy. Bekim's skin felt tight and tingly and frozen so he accepts the invitation.

"Go in by yourself--you are younger and have no family," his partner whispers.

Bekim is baffled by Sabri's suggestion, but he does not want to refuse the kind invitation, so he crosses her threshold to follow the woman inside. He finds it strange that usually he knew her as a round figure muffled in thick sweaters, yet today, though it's bitterly cold, Mrs. Thiess wares a thin silk gown with large floral printed poppies on a blue background. From underneath, bare legs are visible.

When Bekim enters the kitchen a whistling kettle and a plate of chocolate cookies awaits for him.

"This year, summer does not want to come," says Mrs. Thiess.

Bekim quickly agrees. "Right," he says while sipping from a cup of boiling-hot tea, burning his lips. "In my country, it's always hot. The sun shines all the time. I think it's a great place to live. Yes, it's great, but here it is different."

After this brief dialogue, an awkward silence enters the room. The woman watches him with a mouth curved in a mysterious smile. More confused, he silently admires the geometric design of the kitchen floor tiles, not knowing what else to say. After finishing his cookie and emptying his cup of tea, he stands up preparing to leave, but Mrs. Thiess makes a step toward him. Raising her arms, she throws them around his neck.

Her face flushed with a crimson glow. She bites her pale lips.

"I want to enjoy summer in November," she says.

They make love on the kitchen table, and then in her bedroom again. Since her husband died, no other man had wrinkled her sheets.

After finishing, Bekim dresses quickly while peeking through the curtains at the garbage truck.

From behind the steering wheel of the garbage truck, Sabri gestures.

"Hurry up."

Bekim walks through the house, then standing on the porch and looking back at the woman close to his face, he says with fond kindness:

"For us,Thursdays will always be summer."

Bekim the garbage collector was neither a smooth talker nor a meteorologist, but about Thursdays, he was right. On the following Thursday, warm air blew in from the mountains.

Clouds in the sky washed away and the sun melted the ice.

Every Thursday, she waited for him in the kitchen with a whistling kettle and a plate of chocolate cookies. After emptying her trash bin, he came into the house for a cup of tea. After a cookie, he enjoyed the sight of her dressing gown sliding from her shoulders and falling onto the gleaming tiles of the kitchen floor.

Sabri laughed at him, but Bekim knew he did nothing wrong. Quite the contrary. When he was just a boy, an old dervish told him:

The sin Allah finds hardest to forgive is a man refusing a woman's invitation into her bed.

Whether this rule applied to men and women all around the world, Bekim did not know.

But he knew summer every Thursday was good.