House of Sand and Fog (23 page)

I
KNEEL UPON NEWSPAPERS APPLYING GLUE TO THE BROKEN LEGS OF
Nadereh’s mother’s table. It has been a very tiring afternoon; I have yet to nap, or take tea, and there persists an ache in my head between my eyes and ears, a sharp pulling in my neck. After the gendeh Kathy Nicolo drove away weeping, and my wife and I were back inside the bungalow, Nadi pushed into my hand a note written by this woman who is content to rob us of our future. Nadereh stood upon the carpet, her eyes shining with anger and distrust of me, and I saw there was no keeping the truth of all this from her any longer.

“Yes,” I said in Farsi, placing the woman’s note upon the counter. “These are our circumstances. What of it?”

Nadereh was quiet a moment, her eyes upon me but her face unchanged, her head leaning downwards to the side as if attempting to hear again what I had said. Then in Farsi she cursed me, calling me a thief, a dog, and a man with no father. She became ugly, zesht, her eyes turning small, the flesh between them deeply creased. But my own fury had been spent forcing this Nicolo woman from our home and I felt quite fatigued, empty of any emotion of any sort. Enough of these emotions.

I moved aside the broken table and sat upon the sofa, my hands heavy and loose in my lap, and I felt quite far away as I waited for Nadereh to finish insulting me and my judgment, my capabilities, my lack of forthrightness with her. All of these things I let pass over me like training jets with no ammunition, for I could see she was close to the tears of fear that have ruled her since the fall of our society. And yes, soon enough she was weeping, exposing to me her ignorant belief we would now be deported from this country for stealing the young woman’s home.

“Did she say this, Nadi?” I asked of my wife as calmly as one would a child who has just fallen and struck her chin on a stone. But she did not answer me. She continued to curse me for ever being a genob sarhang, a high officer in a position of prominence that has secured all of our names upon the death list so we can never return home. From her I have heard all these things before, ever since our escape to Bahrain and Europe and now California, and I of course should have known, on this day when my wife telephoned her sister in Tehran, that she might show me continued disrespect all over again. But for perhaps the very first time, as I sat as heavy as sand upon the sofa while she continued to be as hysterical as a drunk gypsy, I wanted no more to do with this woman. I could not bear another moment. And I allowed myself to contemplate living the remainder of my days and nights without her. I would rent a small room on a quiet street, in a quiet city, and I would live as a holy man, owning only a single mattress, a simple samovar, and a few necessary items of clothing. I would rise before the sun and pray to the east. I would fast not only for the month of Ramadan, but every week as well. I would free myself of all constraints. I would become as light as dust.

But I could not listen to Nadereh very much longer; she began to call me tagohtee, selfish, and this I could not bear to hear. I stood and inquired who she thought I was working so hard for.
“Me?
I do nothing for myself,
heechee, nothing.”

For a very long while we argued like city cab drivers, neither giving way to the other, my wife insisting the young woman was very nice.

“‘Very
nice’?
She has sent an armed man to threaten us, Nadereh. Sang nan doz, do not throw these silly stones.” Again and again I attempted to explain for her I knew nothing of all this at the time of the sale, and now it is the problem of someone else, not our own.
“God
has given to us this bungalow, Nadi. We will have no other opportunity to make such money.” I attempted to explain the young woman Nicolo had an even greater opportunity to enrich herself because an entire county had acted against her. But to this Nadi would not listen. She has always been a superstitious woman, especially when dealing with people less fortunate than ourselves; in Tehran, at the bazaars and shops, she would bring extra money, handfuls of tomans, to give to any beggar that asked, the crippled and blind, those with burned faces and missing arms or hands, the victims of SAVAK. And if there was no beggar in the crowd, she would not leave her shopping until she had found one to give our money. And it is evident to me now this Kathy Nicolo has become a beggar for Nadi, one we must somehow appease, or be cursed.

And then my wife cursed
me,
barricading herself once more in her room.

I
DROVE WEST FOR CORONA. AT THE WIDE DRY TURNOFF FOR A HOUSING
complex, I stopped, slammed my trunk shut, and started driving again, thinking I only had so much time before the police came looking for my Bonneville, for the armed woman in it. My feet and legs and chest were a flock of drunk birds and I sipped my Diet Rum and smoked and drove, obeying all the traffic lights on Hillside Boulevard, my window down, smelling the Pacific Ocean now, the air cool and wet, the sky gray, Tom Petty turned so low he was more like a small voice in my head which felt wide open in the back, birds flying in and out of me.

In downtown Corona the fog was so thick I couldn’t see the water or even the sand at the beach. The one-story shops and stores stood out in the gray, and as I passed the drugstore I saw a Corona police cruiser parked around the corner, a young cop sitting inside reading something, and I felt so thin and light I thought the birds would carry me away, Lester’s gun on the seat beside me; I looked straight ahead and drove past the policeman, keeping my head still, checking the rearview mirror, but there was no one behind me and I drove through the blinking yellow light up the hill of Bisgrove Street. I wasn’t sure what I was doing or what I would do next or even how the last few minutes of this day had come to happen, but as I crested the hill I could see the colonel’s white Buick in my driveway, my lawn trimmed neatly, the widow’s walk drawing attention to itself with the new garden furniture on it, the large white umbrella opened to the gray sky. Where else could I go but home?

I pulled the car into the driveway behind the colonel’s, turned off the engine and radio, and just sat behind the wheel. My chin kept dropping to my chest, my hair in my face, my veins an alcoholic vapor ready to burn. Nothing but tequila, wine, and rum feeding me into a lava river, a huge molten mother rolling over me, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the small white house in front of me didn’t even look like my home; it looked so white and square and orderly, the shrubs under the windows thick and green and well trimmed. I thought again of Lester, his crooked mustache and sad, brown eyes. I wanted to kiss him again, and hold him, but it felt like needing to see my father again too and Dad was dead and his little retirement house was gone and a whimper seemed to come up and out my mouth, and I felt sorry I’d scared that woman as much as I did. I felt the black gun on the seat beside me, a sleeping snake that woke up, now a silent prankster egging me on, and I reached over and lifted it, sniffing its small black hole, but all I could smell was the gas on my fingers. Then it was back in my lap. I could see it through the hair in front of my face.

I waited, but no one came out of the house. I waited some more, and I suppose I closed my eyes once, but that was a mistake, a night ship rolling in the surf. When I opened them again there was the sound of birds from the woods across the street, a gentle conversation.

Then, as if this was an idea I just wanted to try out to see how it fit, I pressed the end of the barrel to my breastbone, my eyes closed, the ship beginning to break up, my thumb against the trigger, everything coming to a fine dark point in my head.

I
HAVE WRAPPED ONE TABLE LEG IN TAPE AND BEGIN WRAPPING THE
other, its glue falling in droplets to the newspaper. My fingers are sticking, and the pain in my neck now rises up through the back of my head. I know I must lie down and rest, but I must first finish securing the table leg or it will set wrongly. From Nadi’s locked room comes once again the music of Googoosh, this too-sweet sugar, the music of romantics ignorant of any history but their own. But at this moment, I find it more comforting than silence, better than the marching of my thoughts that do not end, those tired directives from myself to continue with the strategy I know is best for my family.

I think of my Soraya, so zeebah, of such beauty her name is no longer Behrani but Farahsat. I feel a pinch in my heart at the memory of her shame of us, of me, of the dinner we held for her and her quiet husband and his family. My head aches. It feels squeezed as if between two stones. My knees and back are stiff and tired. I feel so very poor, so old. But I will not be misunderstood by my own blood; I must telephone Soraya and arrange a time for us to meet, to eat lunch or dinner together, father and daughter only. Perhaps we will stroll along Fisherman’s Wharf with the touring people in the city, her slender arm hooked inside my own, as I tell to her, as I tell to her
what?
What do I say to my daughter? Please do not look down upon me because I no longer have a powerful position in our society? I am not to blame our society no longer exists? It is not my fault we are in America now where only money is respected? Please daughter, make an attempt to forget how we once lived, put it behind you, and do not shame us by talking of it as if we are nothing at all now without recalling what we once were? We are your mother and father. Do not forget this.

I wash my hands at Nadi’s kitchen sink, splash cold water upon my face, and I know I am a liar, for these words in my head are as hollow as a crippled man’s wooden leg: I do not believe them myself; this small bungalow is not even the size of our outbuilding in which Bahman parked our automobile in the capital city. Perhaps Soraya was right to belittle it with her nervous recounting of who we
really
were, who her father was. But I must rest now; I am not yet beaten. Perhaps I must lower my price to secure a buyer more quickly. If I only double my investment with a sale, that will still be one hundred thousand dollars in our pockets. Surely, in this country, that kind of seed can yield a tree.

Outdoors the day is gray and there is fog hanging in the dark trees of the woodland across the street. The front lock remains engaged, and I am not certain Esmail has carried his key with him—he never carries anything in his pockets—but I cannot leave the door free for him; I will simply have to awaken to his knocking. I leave the long wrecking iron in the corner beside the door, and I am turning for my office when I see what my eyes do not believe they are seeing: behind my Buick Regal is the red automobile of the beggar Kathy Nicolo. I did not hear her arrive. She must have done so while I was washing at the kitchen sink. She sits inside her car, her eyes closed, her head resting on the neck support of her seat, her chin tilted upward, her throat long and white. Her black hair is tangled, and some of it rests upon her cheek, and I am feeling strangely because I did not hear her arrive and because at this moment she looks so very much like my long-dead cousin Jasmeen that for a moment I do not know where I am or what is the day, or how it is I came to be here. Is she sleeping? Is she this illogical?

But I feel little as I step outside into the cool gray air, only fatigue and confusion and a deep feeling in my heart that perhaps what I see before me is a dream. The woman Kathy Nicolo has not moved, her head still rests upon the seat and her eyes are shut, but as I draw closer she begins to weep silently, turning her face from side to side, her mouth open in words that do not come. Then she grimaces, her eyes squeezing closed and her shoulders curving forward. Her body becomes loose, her shoulders fall back, and she continues to cry, shaking her head and moving her mouth as if she were attempting to persuade someone yet unseen to do something quite urgent. She appears younger to me as she weeps, with not many more years than my Soraya, and I feel a tenderness as I move closer, a momentary regret at having treated her before so roughly, for having pushed her into her auto as if she were a man. However, I must tell her firmly that she must leave. Once more she makes a face, and the feeling I am in a dream increases for I see both of her hands upon a large automatic pistol, its barrel pushed to her heart, one of her thumbs pressing against its trigger which is evidently locked by its safety mechanism. Then I feel a witness to my own hand as it reaches inside the open window and twists the weapon from her grasp. She opens her eyes. They are reddened and she blinks them as if coming out of a deep sleep, but then she regards me and the pistol and she cries openly, her hair falling across her eyes and mouth. I press the release button, remove the fully loaded magazine from its grip, then pull back the sliding mechanism for any bullet in the chamber. There is none. My hands tremble as I deposit the ammunition clip into my pants pocket, as I push the pistol into the waistband of my trousers, and open the door to help this Kathy Nicolo from her automobile. The interior smells of benzine and she of liquor and cigarette smoke. She pushes my hands away and cries more loudly, but there is little strength in her and I lead her from the car, guiding her to the door, for she is drunk, mast, and once inside, standing unsteadily in the living-room area, my arm upon her elbow, she begins to speak through her crying, her hair hanging before her face. She speaks of not caring about this house any longer, simply not caring about anything. She talks loudly, the fashion in which the very drunk do, and I wish for Nadereh to come from the music behind her closed door and witness this, see this very nice intoxicated girl who was attempting to shoot herself in front of our home. My legs have become soft and I need Nadi’s help, but I am fearful to leave this Kathy Nicolo even for a moment by herself. She cries more quietly now, swaying upon her feet like a marionette. I lead her slowly into my son’s room, sit her upon his bed, and lay her down, stooping to lift her bare legs upon the mattress as well. To me she turns her face, wet with her crying, and she says, “I just—can’t we just—” She weeps. But soon her chin lowers and she appears to relax deeper into my son’s pillow.

“Nicky?”

“Nakhreh,” I answer in Farsi. Then in English: “You must sleep now. You must rest.” I place Esmail’s chair in front of the bed and sit. The pistol is uncomfortably tight against me and I pull it free, hold it in my hands. I smell the lubricant on its surface and I think of Tehran. Where does a young woman acquire a weapon such as this? She appears to be sleeping and I consider for a moment removing her Reebok shoes, but I do not. I watch the young woman sleep, watch her mouth open slightly as she does. Beneath her brightly colored Fisherman’s Wharf T-shirt her breasts barely rise and fall, and I regard the pistol in my hands, see Jasmeen falling to the ground, her long hair untamed, her hand pressed between her breasts, her white gown growing as red as saffron.

T
HE WOMAN KATHY
Nicolo remained sleeping throughout the afternoon and into the early evening. I at first considered to tell Nadi directly, but my wife’s door was still shut to me, Googoosh singing her away from her headaches and into a melancholy sleep. And no immediate good would come from her knowing our present situation. The panic of the weak never helps the strong. I poured for myself tea from the samovar in the kitchen and sat at the counter bar with the unloaded pistol and I once again began to weigh the alternative courses of action before me.

I could of course telephone to the police and pursue criminal charges against Kathy Nicolo, charges for trespassing on my family’s property with a dangerous weapon. But upon opening the telephone book to the page listing the number of the Corona police, I found I was unable to make the necessary call for it was clear to me this woman was only intent on harming herself, and in my mind I saw repeatedly her crying face as she attempted—with great ignorance of side arms—to fire a large bullet into her breast. I put another cube of sugar into my mouth, took a drink from my hot Persian tea, and listened for a time to the muffled cassette music coming from Nadi’s room. Yes, it was weakly romantic, but it put me in mind of my boyhood home in Rasht, of wrestling under the sun in the dusty road with my fat cousin Kamfar, his sister Jasmeen watching us from behind the wall of stones before my father’s house, only the top half of her small face exposed, her large eyes smiling. I thought of Pourat’s nephew Bijan, who would speak with impunity of severing the limbs of children while I drank vodka beside him, convincing myself that my refusal to dip into the mastvakhiar with him was a sufficient moral stand for a man of my station to make. But on those evenings, I would drink enough for three men and for days afterwards would carry out my daily duties in a joyless manner, treating junior officers in a lowly fashion, and giving orders whose sole design was to show my inferiors who was truly in charge.

Three times I walked silently down the corridor to make an inspection of this Kathy Nicolo. Each time I saw she had not moved her position, but continued sleeping as still as a small child, her face turned in my direction, her eyes closed, a portion of her hair lying across her lips which were partly opened. My son’s room smelled of her now, of old liquor from the mouth, and for an instant I felt disgust rise in me. But then, perhaps like a bubble of air from deep water that dissipates once it reaches the surface, I felt no more disgust, only pity for this Kathy Nicolo, pity and a newfound pull in my heart to treat her well. In my country, there is an old belief that if a bird flies into your home it is an angel who has come to guide you and you must look at its presence as a blessing from God. Once, when Soraya was still a young girl and we were spending the summer at our bungalow on the Caspian Sea, she discovered at the base of a cypress tree a small young bird whose wings had been broken and she brought it to us. Nadereh made for its wing a wooden splint and they together nursed the bird with sugar water and bits of bread and by summer’s end they took it from its cage to our porch overlooking the sea. Soraya parted her fingers and the bird flew up and away into the woodlands. For two days our daughter cried, though at the end she told to us she was very happy a broken angel had come to bless our home.

I return to the kitchen and drink more tea. The bungalow has grown quiet. No more Googoosh, only the silence of two sleeping women. The gray fog outdoors has not lifted, and I turn on the kitchen’s overhead light. It shines upon the silver samovar on the opposite counter, upon the clean and dry plates in Nadi’s dishrack. I feel strangely content, and I am put in mind of that afternoon with the Iraqi in his shop near the Highway Department depot when we played backgammon near the window, our silence a mutual acceptance to let the blood between our two countries flow under the bridge away from us. For days afterward, working as a garbage soldier on the highway with the old Vietnamese Tran and the Panamanians, I felt a lightness and goodness in me, and even Mendez, with the long scar upon his arm and the smell of old wine in his sweat, even he could not pull hatred from me as he called me old man in his mother tongue, as he dropped his empty water cup upon the ground for Tran to retrieve.

And this feeling is within me once more. Who can say how many more desperate and drunken moments would have passed before this Kathy Nicolo found the safety mechanism and then succeeded in shooting her heart very still? Yes, pride is weak vanity, but I do feel a sense of joy at having saved life. And yes, the woman is intoxicated but nonetheless I am encouraged by her words of not caring any longer for this house. Perhaps, after waking from her sleep, after eating a fine meal prepared by Nadi, Kathy Nicolo will be willing to put that in writing, will be sufficiently able to acknowledge who her real enemy has become, and she will begin acting accordingly.

But now I must rouse Nadereh to prepare an evening meal. I must enter her darkened room with its scent of facial cream and cotton bedding, and I must sit and tell to her of the sad drunken bird I found outside our door, of the beggar angel asleep in our son’s room.