“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. “Godhas 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 HOUSINGcomplex, 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 THEother, 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.