Lifted by the Great Nothing: A Novel (32 page)

People whispered about Max––about Rasheed and Coach Tim, about his relationship with a woman fourteen years his senior. And black. He didn’t listen much to what they said. The less he listened, the closer they approached, observing him like some fascinating but potentially dangerous animal, daring themselves to get as near as they could.

Nadine broke Max’s heart in his first year of college. She told him she would always be in his life, that her home was his home, but that the physical aspect had to end. Her resolve to keep their relationship platonic has endured seven years, during which time she had a bright-eyed daughter named Elise with a good man she didn’t stay with. There was nothing particularly sad about Nadine and Elise’s father not staying together. Nadine was sure she wanted a child, but less concerned with whether she and the child’s father would have a lifelong romantic
partnership. They live happily apart now, and he takes Elise on alternating weekends.

Max has tried to not let their separation be a source of hope. But he can’t help it. As of late, he is convinced that Nadine’s resistance to his romantic bids have lightened. She recently accepted his invitation to a formal dinner that she laughingly refuses to call a date. He knows it is flirtation when they argue over this point on the phone. He knows it, and remains openly and insistently in love with her.

Now Max is home from the grocery store, where the little girl’s headache was explained. He bends down at his doorstep and picks up a package from Nadine. The package contains two videos. They document the opening of Mr. Yang’s camukra flowers: one fourteen years ago, the day Max choked on that taffy, and the second of Mr. Yang’s latest camukra, blossoming successfully, an event Max attended yesterday.

The first video is from the perspective of the tripoded camera from that summer of 1996. The camera stays on the flower until it falls. Then the shot is of a window that faces Max and Rasheed’s house. Though it’s out of focus, you can make out where the Yangs’ property meets the Boulos’s yard, and a slice of their brick chimney.

You can hear the cries get more dramatic, and hear Rasheed shouting for Max to calm it down, please, calm it down. Finally there are the aftereffects of Coach Tim slugging Max in the solar plexus. The guests applaud as Rasheed bawls and Max sucks for air.

For the past fourteen years Mr. Yang’s been cultivating another camukra flower. This second recording is from the perspective of Nadine. She stands a couple steps up on the staircase that leads down into the Yangs’ kitchen and scans the
heads of all the neighbors and friends. Leslie and other members of the church are there. Tim, who’s gotten into photography, is firing away with a sleek-looking camera that looks a lot like a rifle. Robby, now in his early thirties, wears a suit that is too small. An old Asian man is talking to him, using a lot more hand gestures than is probably natural. Robby is bored. His mouth dangles open as if he’s snoring.

Nadine focuses in on Max, and he smiles at her before returning his attention to the flower. The Yangs look exactly as they do in the first video, except that all of their hair is paper-white. The whiteness makes their faces appear smoother and more radiant. The guests are hypnotized by the small potted flower, moments away from opening. Nadine zeros in on the closed petals, then back out again. She finds Robby, who is now standing next to Max. When Robby sees he’s being filmed, he tries to hide the pleasure it obviously brings him. Both excited and embarrassed by the idea, he fixates on the camera with timid liking.

Nadine says, “Say hi, Robby!”

Robby says, “Hi, Robby!” Nadine laughs, and he opens his mouth to say something more, but changes his mind. He giggles at Max before turning to face the flower with him. Nadine keeps filming the back of his head, saying, “Too good for the camera, huh?”

Someone in the crowd cries out,
“Wasai!”
And it has begun.

Nadine zooms in through Robby and Max’s shoulders and gets a good shot of the flower. It unsticks its petals in little jolts of separation before growing on smoothly. It yawns so widely that it looks like it’s about to turn inside out, but then stops and begins closing, curling inward, dying. The people watch like mesmerized infants, witnessing what could only be magic. The glistening red and purple and white and brown drain from the petals. Its center dehydrates and grays with extraordinary speed.
It bends down as if politely running out of breath, and finally drops limply. Hanging by its tired stem, it reaches for the ground. The weight tugs the roots and pulls up on the soil. Everyone claps and cheers. They exclaim how gorgeous it was, how unforgettable. Wow, just wow.

Max rewinds and replays the life dozens of times, forward then backward. The flower wakes with a jerk of animation. The stem unrolls, thickening with fluid, hardening, digging roots back down into the soil and raising its heavy head. The flower fills with color, the neck arching back, its nose in the air. It rounds its posture into a crescent and thrusts out its jaw. Crouching and blanching into a pale green, it closes into pre-nascent sleep. Playing it over and over, he watches it open and die, close and live, bowing up and down like a gracious opera singer. He can’t help but marvel at the love and time and admiration that went into one short life. He feels it. He feels it skipping across his skin. It chills, pierces, aches, lifts—and then begins to let him go.

I have looked forward to writing this part well before finalizing the novel. I’m grateful to have so many people to thank. Firstly, I am indebted to the time and support of the Michener Center for Writers. Without which this book wouldn’t have been remotely possible, and without which I wouldn’t have had generosity and encouragement—lifelines to this young writer––redefined for me by treasured mentors, particularly Elizabeth McCracken, Jim Magnuson, Michael Adams, visiting writer Naomi Shihab Nye and alumnus Philipp Meyer, who never once spoke of
if
this book would be published but always
when
.

I’m obliged to both my agent, the faithful Ryan D. Harbage, and to my scrupulous and kind editor, Lea Beresford, for heroically standing by my work. There’s nothing quite like strangers who fight for one of your inventions.

The following people actually volunteered (!) to read sections––if not all––of early, and very shaky, drafts and returned to me
with invaluable feedback and wisdom: Abe Koogler, Karan Mahajan, Corey Miller, Taylor Huchison, Eamon Aloyo, Greg Koehler, Thomas Kim, and my inspiriting sister, Kenza.

I’m also deeply beholden to the following for their insightful conversations that directly informed the world of this novel (most of whom couldn’t have known it at the time): Catherine Geyre Dimechkie, Mrs. Nada Maaluf of al-Nada building, Hussein Balshi, Nadya Kaddoura, Talal Dimechkie, Riad Dimechkie, Rana Jabbour, Anthony Browne, Cory Gustason, Tiffani Allen, and Sahand Arshadmansab.

Most of all, I thank the woman and brilliance who lets me keep my orbit around her every day, Nana Afua Mensah.

Karim Dimechkie was a Michener fellow. Before that, he taught English in Paris. This is his first novel. He lives in New York City.

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First published 2015

This electronic edition published in May 2015

© Karim Dimechkie, 2015

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ISBN: HB:      978-1-63286-058-3

           PB:       978-1-63286-060-6

           ePub:    978-1-63286-059-0

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Lifted by the great nothing / Karim Dimechkie.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-63286-058-3 (hardcover) – ISBN 978-1-63286-060-6 (paperback) – ISBN 9978-1-63286-059-0 (ebook)

1. Lebanese Americans—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fiction. 4. Lebanon—History—Civil War, 1975–1990—Fiction. I. Title. PS3604.I4647L64 2015

813′.6—dc23

2014033821

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