He doesn’t mention her until page 212, and even then, you get the feeling he’d rather not have (though their association inevitably becomes part of the story, since it contributed to his early departure from Iraq). Mr. Klaus worked in anonymity for several months in Kurdistan but was eventually tracked down by an intrepid reporter for The National Enquirer, who threatened to publish a story detailing how Ms. Clinton’s beau was in danger in Iraq. “It was an amazing piece of reporting,” said Mr. Klaus. “And to his credit, the reporter sat on it.” Only to be scooped by the Globe, which ran a cover story declaring “Chelsea Clinton Collapses: Lover Caught in Iraq Bomb Blast.”
“There was a bomb. I wasn’t there,” Mr. Klaus said. Around this time, an Oprah rerun broadcast his picture to all of Arbil. “It was an exercise in globalization,” he said dryly.
When strangers started calling Mr. Klaus from the lobby of his hotel, his Kurdish security detail advised him to get out. He left three classes before the end of the term, and immediately called his parents after crossing the border. “And then-girlfriend,” he said.
Now the only immediate peril he faces is the possibility that his most famous relationship will upstage his writing (“If people take the book as the book itself, then that’s a great thing,” he said. “But …”). Then there was the Manhattan monsoon raging outside.
“I love New York when it gets like this,” Mr. Klaus said, gesturing toward the storm. “No matter what people do, they’re all walking down the street together. It’s something people from outside the city don’t understand.” When he’s not in Cambridge or traveling to various war zones throughout the Middle East, Mr. Klaus stays with family friends on 18th Street, and he’s not immune to the city’s more superficial pleasures. “I love shopping!” he said in a rare burst of spontaneity. “I’m obsessed with Elizabeth Street.” His brown loafers are Prada, he noted, though he couldn’t help but add, “In this region called Hawraman, on the border of Iran, they make these great cloth-sewn shoes, and they’re much, much better than Prada” Sadly, he noted, “You can’t wear them in the rain.”
