Then I wrote letters to the gas and electric companies explaining my situation, telling them to bill a Mr. Barmeeny instead of me. I drove back to the post office to mail them but when I dropped my mother’s letter into the box I felt as if I’d just heaved my last sandbag against rising water and there wasn’t much time left.
It was barely one o’clock and I had six hours to kill before I met Les back at the camp. I thought about going there early to make us a nice dinner, surprise him, but then I pictured myself trying to build a fire in the stove, not having an oven to use. And my specialty was casserole dishes; lasagna, veal and eggplant Parmesan. I decided to go to a movie instead, one or two weekday matinees at the mall Cineplex in Millbrae off the Camino Real. Last night, as we were drifting to sleep, my cheek on his shoulder, I asked him his kids’ names again. “Bethany and Nate,” he said, his voice full of gratitude. Then I asked him where his house was and when he said it was in Millbrae, in a housing development you had to drive by to get to the mall, I told him I’d probably driven past his house a dozen times, maybe I’d even seen his wife.
“Carol,” he said.
“Yeah. Carol.”
But now, instead of passing through San Bruno for the highway to Millbrae, I drove into foggy downtown Corona, then right up the long hill of Bisgrove Street. I wanted to pull over beside the woods across from my house and just look at it a few minutes, maybe remind myself of what was mine before I went off to numb my afternoon away in a dark theater. And I guess I didn’t really expect to see anyone there, but a station wagon was parked by the woods so I could only park near the house and I didn’t want to do that because there were people standing in my yard looking at my home: a man and woman and a young boy, maybe eight. He had his hands in his shorts pockets, and he was kicking one foot into the grass. His father’s hand was on his shoulder and they were all looking at what Colonel Barmeeny was pointing out to them, the new deck on my roof. The bald Arab wore a tie and a short-sleeved dress shirt that looked very white in the grayness. He glanced at me in my car, but then turned away as if he hadn’t seen anything. He was talking fast, officially, though I couldn’t hear his exact words through my open window. He looked back at me one more time before he led the young family up the steps to the roof for a view that must be foggy. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and a sick laugh rose up from my stomach: the fucking bastard was trying to sell my house!Then I just honked my horn, leaning on it with both hands. I looked straight ahead and I could feel the steering wheel vibrate. Two houses up, a woman stuck her head out her front door and stared. But I kept my weight on the wheel, letting that sound tear through the air until my wrists started to ache, and I let go and yelled through the window, “He can’t sell you that house! He doesn’t own it! He’s trying to fucking stealit! He’s trying to sell you a stolenhouse!”
The man was half-smiling like he didn’t know if this was a joke or not. He looked from me to Barmeeny, then back at me again. His wife stepped closer to her son, and the colonel’s face was still as stone. I pushed on the gas, sped up the hill, and turned around at the dead end. I drove back and honked the horn again. The colonel was standing near the railing talking to the man and woman, and now he nodded his head and pointed in my direction as if my noise proved some point he was trying to make. But I didn’t care what he said; I kept going, my hand pressed to the horn all the way down the hill.
N ADEREH RETURNED FROM HER AFTERNOON WITH SORAYA IN HIGHspirits. After their luncheon they had shopped, and Nadi was quite excited to show to me my new shirt and tie, the pants and sweatshirt she purchased for Esmail. She also pulled from her bags more tape cassettes of Persian music and she put one of them into the machine while she set about preparing our dinner. The music was most recent, and I did not like it. There were still the old instruments being used—the tar, kamancheh, and domback—but electric guitar as well, and the singer sounded to me like a whining child; I was surprised Nadi had chosen it. I watched her fill the rice pot with water from the sink, moving her head slightly in feeling with the music, and I pressed the machine’s off button. Nadereh turned her head to me immediately. “Nakon, Massoud. What is wrong for you?”
“You must not spend so much money, Nadereh.”
“It is not so much money,” she said in Farsi, smiling. “There are school sales now. Even your clothes, Behrani.” She walked to me, drying her hands upon her apron. She kissed my cheek, then pressed the music on once again and resumed her cooking. And I knew I could not tell her my worries. I knew I would prefer to have her this way, cheerful and innocent as a child.
BUT THERE WERE flames in my stomach, and now, after dinner, I sit upon my widow’s walk at the new table under the umbrella looking down over the rooftops and streets of Corona to the gray fog that enshrouds the beach and the sea. It is two or more hours to nightfall. I drink hot tea, strong from brewing in the samovar since morning, and I can hear my wife in the house below washing dishes in the kitchen sink. The sky and ocean are so gray and white as to be inseparable. I sit and think. I must weigh my options regarding this Kathy Nicolo, but my hand trembles, my mind roaming elsewhere, to Jasmeen, my cousin, who was nineteen years old and very beautiful. Her voice was low for a woman, but her body was long and thin, her hair quite thick and black, and when she thought something was humorous she would laugh without reservation, letting her teeth and bright eyes be seen by anyone. But she had an affair with an American oil executive, who they say was rich and quite handsome. She committed this in a townhouse which one of her own neighbors cleaned three times per week. Soon, all the village women knew she had given her girl’s flower away without marriage, without the blessing of God and the holy mosque, and to a married foreigner from the west. And it took a full month for the news to reach her father, my uncle, and her two brothers. My uncle was a trader in carpets, though not highly successful, while his only brother, my father, was a respected lawyer who would one day become a judge. When my uncle finally heard the gossip of the old khanooms, he did not believe it, but Jasmeen was not capable of telling lies well and so he knew it was the truth and he beat her. For two weeks he kept her locked in the home. He began to drink vodka nightly, at first with the neighborhood men, but he could not bear their silence so he drank alone, usually at his shop in the back room where the carpets hung from the walls or were stacked in long rolls in all four corners. My uncle rolled his own cigarettes and I imagined him smoking his black Turkish tobacco and drinking in the stillness and quiet of his office, the walls threatening to collapse upon him. He would return home very late, often in the early morning, pull Jasmeen from her bed, and beat her with his fists, crying, “Gendeh! Whore!” My aunt would sometimes attempt to stop him, but he would beat her as well, calling her, “Modar gendeh! Mother whore!”
On the first morning of the third week, his eldest son, Mahmood, returned home from the bazaar after having overheard five market women speak of the Behrani family, of the shame their kaseef daughter had brought upon their heads. It was a cold winter morning, and my uncle had not yet left for his shop. He sat by the woodstove with his tea and bread, though he took neither; he had once again not slept through the night and was still mast, drunk. My aunt had left the home early with Mahmood and she was at the bazaar, while my cousin Kamfar, the youngest child, sat at the wooden table with his morning’s schoolwork, and it was his brother who rushed into Jasmeen’s room and pulled her out. She was dressed in long white nightclothes, her hair loose and wild upon her shoulders, her small face bruised and swelled from the beatings. He brought her before their father and yelled he must do something. The family is disgraced, Bawbaw! We are all disgraced, because of this stinking GENDEH!Jasmeen struggled with her brother, cursing him, but he would not release her, and my uncle looked away from his son and daughter and stared into the fire as if he could not hear or see or smell anything around him. At last he stood. He left the room, and returned with his German-made Luger pistol. Jasmeen was still attempting to free herself from Mahmoud’s hands, but when she saw her father and his gun she began to scream until it seemed she could not breathe. She began to cry Kamfar’s name, but when he stood, his father pointed the gun and ordered him to stay seated. He took Jasmeen by the hair, and with his eldest son’s help, dragged her outdoors.