I went outside to my backyard. It was March then, and chilly. The ground was hard and I stared at it. Nicky was a good lover. He didn’t fuck like those men. He didn’t direct me like a rag doll to probe. It had always seemed mutual to me. But what was so clear to me for the first time was this: when all was said and done, Nick Lazaro had to have total control.
It was close to noon and the sun was getting too hot on my legs and face. I stood and brushed the sand off, and after a fast-food lunch of a fish sandwich and Diet Coke, I drove back to the storage lot to look for that signed tax statement again. But there were no air vents in the shed, and even with the doors swung wide open, it was so hot in there my tank top and shorts were stuck to my skin in just a few minutes and my throat needed another cold drink. I padlocked the door, put the air conditioner on in the car, and just started driving. I was kicking myself for not taking a shower before checking out of the El Rancho. I turned into a gas station, filled the tank on my gas card, and gave myself a cat bath from the sink in the ladies’ room. Then I changed into a clean cotton pullover, bought more cigarettes, and drove twelve miles south on 101 to the mall Cineplex. There were ten movie theaters there and I was planning to sit the afternoon away in at least three of them.
I DO NOT KNOW IF IT WAS THE GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE MY NADI DRANK,or if it was because Esmail had fallen asleep early before his television in his room, or if it was simply the joyful news of the real estate appraiser who I hired to come here yesterday, the news I thank God for and cannot yet believe, that this bungalow is worth four times what I paid for it and the appraiser sees no difficulty in our finding a buyer for it, especially with the new widow’s walk that will overlook the sea. Perhaps it was that, or the new cassette player I purchased for her at Japantown in San Francisco late yesterday afternoon, I do not know. Man nehmee doonam. All I can be certain of is yesterday God kissed our eyes, and last evening my wife invited me to her room for only the third time in the years we have lived in America.
We lay together in the darkness listening to a new cassette of a singer reciting the rubaiyats of Fayez Dashtestani. Behind this a man softly played the ney, a shepherd’s flute, and soon she pulled me to her and it was almost too much; I felt I was a young man again, lying with my new bride. Nadi held my back so tightly and I saw again my father on our wedding day carrying the fat sheep to the doorway of our new home. It was summer and very hot and because of the west wind there was dust upon our fine clothes. My father wore a suit of black, and his forehead and cheeks were shining with sweat as he carried the sheep under his left arm, the long knife in his right hand, and he knelt and held the sheep at the open doorway, the sheep beginning to bleat, struggling and kicking beneath my father’s weight, Nadi squeezing my hand in both of hers as my father pushed the blade deep into the sheep’s throat, pulling it free, letting the blood fall onto the threshold of our new home, Nadi’s father squatting and rubbing the blood into the wood with his fingers, behind us the women and men clapping and a hot wind blowing over us all, Nadi’s breath upon my neck, the crowd pushing us into the dark house past the dying sheep, its rear legs twitching and jerking in the dust.
The shepherd’s flute continued. My wife moved to rest my face upon her shoulder and she rubbed her fingers gently on the skin of my head as if I were her own child.
Soon the music ended and she was asleep, but I could not sleep. I went to Esmail’s room and turned off the television, then I covered him with his sheet. Even curled there, his body took up nearly all the bed. He is growing so quickly, faster than did his sister Soraya, that standing before him in my robe, I felt proud and frightened all at the same moment.
And now I wake upon the living-room sofa just before the sun and I feel a sadness that I did not stay in bed with Nadereh, for I do not know if last evening will come again anytime soon. And I remember Soraya when she was a girl. Her legs were long and thin and brown, and her mother forever had her wearing a pretty dress of some kind. One evening upon my return home, when she had no more than seven or eight years, I remember my daughter stepping out onto the rear veranda to greet me. I heard her laughing and I looked up from the auto and saw her standing at attention in her yellow dress, her tiny knees barely touching one another, wearing the visored hat from my old sarvan’s uniform. The captain’s hat was of course so large it fell forward and covered her eyes and I remember that lovely gap between her two front teeth as she laughed and saluted, even though she could not see me or anything else.
She is now a man’s wife. At this thought I rise from the couch, dress, and take my tea outside to the rear lawn. The tall grass is slightly wet and it begins to itch my bare feet as I walk around the bungalow with my hot cup. It is still quite early. Stars are visible in the sky. Today the young najar begins construction of the widow’s walk, and I do not know if it was perhaps a mistake to begin advertising the sale of the home before the job is complete. I lower my eyes to the dark woodland across the road and I stop still, for parked there beside the trees is the appraiser’s red automobile. I feel a sudden lightness in my chest and a heaviness in my legs; I am certain he has driven here to inform me it is all a mistake, this bungalow is not worth anything. But as I step over the hard cool road I am embarrassed at my fear, at my doubt; the car is quite new-looking and not the appraiser’s at all, and of course he would not drive out for business at so very early in the morning. Pourat many times told to me I was not a man of faith and of course I was forced to agree with him. It is why I am forever expecting disaster around the corner from God’s smile.
There is a slight movement within the automobile. I approach and peer through the window glass to see a young woman sleeping upon her back in the front seat. She is dressed in short pants and a shirt without sleeves. Her arm rests over her eyes. I look in the rear window, but she is alone. Once again I shake my head at how these American women live. I look once more at her naked legs and feet, then I return to my yard with my tea.
T HE SKY IS DARK AND NICKY IS ON A BROWN HORSE STANDING IN Astream. I’m there too, knee-deep in water. He sits in the saddle, looking down at me the way he did the morning he left, like it’s too late to do anything and he’s made up his mind to leave right away before he gets too sad about it all and won’t be able to move. Except his horse won’t move. It keeps looking at me with its big eyes. Every time Nick jerks on the reins the horse opens its mouth and lets out a high-pitched whir. And when Nick kicks its ribs with his heels it sounds like a rock hitting a hollow tree. I put my hand on the horse’s damp neck and look up at Nick, then everything changes and he and I are sitting on a couch somewhere, both smoking, me pleading about wanting a baby, Nick sitting so still and quiet, looking straight ahead like I’ve just asked him to drink cyanide. I can hear the horse outside, the whirring and knocking. But who’s the rider?
Who is the rider?
I opened my eyes and sat up in the front seat of the Bonneville. I could taste last night’s cigarettes and I turned the ignition key halfway to light up the digital clock. It wasn’t quite eight in the morning but already the sun was coming warm through the windshield and on the maroon upholstery and me. The woods were thick and shaded as always, and deep inside were spots of sunlight. Then I heard the sound that had been in my sleep, and I turned and looked across the street at the house. Two carpenters were up on the roof above my kitchen.