“But I heard through the window everything that cop said. Why did he say she was the real owner?”
“Because they are all fools, that is why. The county tax officials made a mistake and took from the wrong person her house. Now she wants them to buy it from us so she may return here.”
“Then we should return it, shouldn’t we? Why don’t you give it back to her? We can live someplace else.”
I do not wish to discuss further these details with my son, but he regards me so intently, his dark eyes upon mine, I feel the time has come to give him something more of the burden I carry. “Pesaram, my son, I am sorry I withheld from you the truth, but that woman’s house wastaken because they thought she did not pay her taxes.”
“But you knew they made a mistake?”
“Not when I purchased the house. But now I am quite willing to sell this home back to them so they may return it to her.”
“Then why did that cop say he would send us back to Iran? Can he really do that, Bawbaw?”
“No. We are American citizens, they can do nothing to us.”
“But—I don’t understand.”
“The tax bureaucrats will only pay to me what I paid to them. You see, they will not allow us to earn the profit we deserve, Esmail. I am therefore forced to sell it to someone else. We have no choice.”
Esmail is quiet a moment. He looks beyond me at the wall. “But what about that lady?”
“I have told her myself she should sue the county officials for enough money to buy ten homes. With a good lawyer, Esmail, she could be very pooldar over this.”
“But that day in the yard she told me her father gave it to her before he died.”
I stand. “Her fight is with the men who took from her this place, Esmail-jahn, not us. We have done nothing wrong here. Remember what I’ve told you of so many Americans: they are not disciplined and have not the courage to take responsibility for their actions. If these people paid to us the fair price we are asking, we could leave and she could return. It is that simple. But they are like little children, son. They want things only their way. Do you understand?”
Esmail looks upon the floor, nodding his head. “I feel bad for that lady, Bawbaw.”
“You have a good heart, Esmail, but do not forget this woman is refusing this new opportunity before her.” I replace the chair beneath the desk. “I am pleased you have taken this newspaper job.” I lean forward and take my son’s face in both hands, kissing his forehead and nose. I smell traces of dried Coca-Cola upon his lips. “Soon all of this will be behind us. Wash your face before sleeping. Shahbakreh.”
HOURS LATER SLEEP has still not come to me. I lie upon a blanket on the floor of my office in the darkness, but I am unable to rest. Earlier I knocked upon Nadereh’s door but she did not answer, though I am certain she heard me over her music. But this is not what keeps me restless. It is that man’s final words to me, his threats of contacting Immigration. Of course he can do nothing to the Behranis—we are all citizens now—but there is Soraya’s new family; her husband has applied for his green card, while his mother and sister are still waiting to be granted asylum. But I did not tell him of the existence of my daughter, so perhaps he will miss this altogether.
These thoughts increase the speed of my heartbeat. The muscles in my back and neck become tight. I think of this Gonzalez telling me there are many things he can do. Late in the night an automobile passes by and I rise and walk to the dark living-room area in my underclothes. My bare leg knocks against the extended leg of the table, and I curse it on my way to the door. Its lock is secure. I turn on the exterior lamp, seeing nothing but a few flying insects, the small lawn beyond. I leave on the light and make my bed upon the sofa.
I WAS SMOKING BEHIND THE WHEEL OF MY BONNEVILLE WHEN LESTERmarched back down Bisgrove under the streetlights, ripped the House for Sale sign off the pole, then got in. I drove off, holding my question about what happened until we were on our way. When I did ask, Les glanced over at me, his hands on his legs, looking almost like he knew I would ask and sort of hoped I wouldn’t.
“This guy’s obviously not right off the boat.”
“What do you mean?” I flicked my cigarette out the window, my heart beating somewhere in my throat. We were riding out of town for the shortcut to San Bruno on the Junipero Serra Freeway. Earlier we’d decided to go to my storage shed and get some things to make life at the fish camp easier���a box of candles I hadn’t opened since Christmas, glasses, plates, silverware, and the small hibachi barbecue Nick used to grill mushroomburgers on in the backyard. Fog was beginning to roll in from the beach and my headlights lit it up in front of us as I plowed through. “Well, tell me what happened,Les.”
“He knew to ask my name, Kathy. I had to lie to him.”
I didn’t know how to read his voice. Whose fucking idea was this? Was he blaming me? I turned onto the lighted freeway where the fog was only a mist and I stepped on the gas. “So what did you say to that Arab prick?”
“He’s not an Arab, he’s Iranian. I think he’s probably got money coming out of his ears, too. Or at least he used to. There’s a picture of him on the wall with the Shah. The Shah.That guy had his own mint.”
“What did you say to him, Lester?” My hand felt tight on the wheel. I wanted to scream. Les looked at me, then out the window.
“I swear to Christ, Lester, if you don’t hurry up and tell me what happened back there I’m going to drive us right off the road.”
“I gave him an ultimatum.”
“What?”
“I told him I’d call Immigration on his family, and I hinted I could get nastier than that if he didn’t clear out.”
“You saidthat?” I let out a nervous laugh, accelerating to pass a muddy farm truck. “What did he do?”
“He asked me to leave, but I know I rattled him.”
“Did you mention me?”
“Not by name.”
“Shit, Les.” I laughed again.
“You can tell he’s used to giving orders all day long too. I think you were right—he probably buys up seized property just to make a killing. I did the right thing. He’s scum.”
“You think he’ll call the department?”
“Not really. It’s his word against mine. Besides, as far as he knows, I’m a Mexican named Gonzalez.”
We both laughed hard, though what he said wasn’t that funny. I was starting to feel like anything was possible again, and I think he probably did too. And that’s what we seemed to have with each other, wasn’t it? The feeling we could start out new again, clean, all our debts cleared.
At the storage shed in San Bruno, he held the flashlight while I went through my things for all we needed. We could hear a live band at the truck-stop bar next to the El Rancho Motel, a woman singing at the mike. I put the pillows and folded sheets in the backseat, and everything else in the trunk. My fingers were black from the hibachi and I went back inside the shed and wiped them off on some newspaper. I called out to Lester that I didn’t want to go back to the camp yet. He said he didn’t either but he couldn’t go anywhere in his uniform. I took his flashlight and found one of Nick’s blue button-down shirts. It was wrinkled and probably too big for Lester but he put it on anyway, the waist baggy when he tucked it in, the sleeves too short. He took off his gun belt and put it in the trunk, then stood there in just his police pants and those black shoes and that wrinkled shirt. I laughed. “You look like a laid-off security guard.”
He laughed back, put me in a gentle headlock, and kissed my forehead.
We didn’t drive far, just across the street to the truck-stop bar, which was crowded for a Monday night, mainly with truckers in work jeans, their T-shirts stretched tight at the gut. Some of them sat at small black cocktail tables with the wives or girlfriends they kept on the road, women who were dressed just like the men, some in matching T-shirts from rodeos or traveling carnivals. The floor, walls, and ceiling were painted black and the main light came from the theater lamps hanging over the band and the short plywood stage and small parquet dance floor. That end of the room was all red, orange, and green and the rest of us were in the shadows.