“Bawbaw?”
“Yes?”
Esmail sits up in the bath. His dark hand appears on the porcelain beside my arm, but he does not speak.
“What is it, Esmail?”
“Aren’t we being thugs? Hurting that woman for her house?”
My face grows immediately warm. “No.We have done nothingwrong. Nothing.”
“Nakon,Behrani.” My wife’s face turns upward from the floor, a pale shape in the darkness. “Your son speaks only truth. You should have never kept this girl’s home. Youhave done this to us—”
“Khafesho! Shut up!” I stand but have no place to move. I look down at the floor and into the bath, at the shadows that are my wife and son. “Do you think I do all this for me? Icould live in the street.I do this for you, Esmail, because I am your father and you will take what I give you. Do you think that woman out there is blameless? This gendeh who comes here drunk to die? Do you think she did nothingto help her lose her own home? It is Iwho have done nothing. I simply purchased a property that can give my son a future. Is it I who has locked us in this toilet? Is it I who forced us from our old life, Nadi? Tell to me.What is it I have done except provide for my family? I think of nothing else. Ever. Ever,Nadereh. Only this. Only you. So close your mouths, both of you. You will show me respect or—”
“What,Behrani?” My wife stands quickly and I hear her fast breath, smell in it the old tea and obgoosht. “Will you call SAVAK? Tell to them we are not respectful? Do not throw these stones at us; they are lies. You want this home for you. You.You could never live in the street because there no one would respect you, Behrani, and you need everyone to respect you, even strangers must respect you. Here your uniform means nothing and this is killing you—”
“Do not talk to me of this when it is you who made us spend all our money to impress people we do not know—”
“For Soraya, yes. For her.”
“But you—”
“But I nothing. I want only my children to be happy, Behrani. I do not care of anything else.”
“Maman, Bawbaw, pleasedon’t fight, pleasedon’t make noise.” Es-mail is standing in the bath, his tall body only darkness against the tile wall beneath the panjare. His voice is high with fear and I feel my rafigh, Pourat, forced to watch his own son stand against such a wall; my anger leaves me as quickly as water from a broken urn.
“Yes, joon-am, you are right. We must keep our heads. Lie down and rest.”
“I can’t, Bawbaw. What are you going to do?”
“Shh, Farsi only,” I whisper. “Lie down.” I sit upon the bath’s edge while my son carefully rests his feet once again on the wall of faucets and knobs. Behind me, Nadereh seats herself upon the closed toilet and exhales loudly. She rests her face in her hands and I am certain she has brought on one of her headaches, but for the moment I do not care.
“Bawbaw?”
“Joon-am.”
“Were you a Savaki?”
“Of course not. You know I was not. Please do not even think this.”
“But you knew them, right?”
“Yes, I knew some of those men.”
“Did you meet them at Shahanshah’s palace?”
“No, my son.” I again see Pourat’s nephew Bijan as we sat around the vodka and mastvakhiar, the reflection of firelight in his drunk eyes, eyes as dark and indifferent as a dog’s.
“You know Soraya’s new brother-in-law, Bawbaw?”
“Yes?”
“He said it was SAVAK’s fault we got kicked out of our country, because they killed too many people. Is that true?”
“I do not know, Esmail. Rest. Tomorrow we must have our energy, our concentration.”
“What are we going to do?”
I breathe deeply, allowing my answer to come with my breath. “We pretend that man is in charge of the situation, that is what we do. We let him think this, and when he is not looking, we defeat him.”
“How?”
“Courage. He is attempting to frighten us away, but we will not be frightened, will we, joon-am?”
“I’m not scared.” Esmail folds his arms in front of him.
“Good, good. But pesaram, my son, tomorrow I want you to appear frightened. I want you to do whatever that man tells to you.”
“Why?”
I do not tell my son my primary reason, that I fear my child may attempt something youthful and heroic that may provoke Burdon to rash action. “Because if he thinks he has frightened us, he may feel secure to leave us alone.”
“You mean he thinks we’ll be too scared to try anything even when he’s gone?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“No problem, Bawbaw-jahn.”
I kiss my son on his head. His hair smells of the sea. “Good night, my son.” I sit once more upon the floor beside the bath. Esmail is quiet a few moments. Nadereh lies silently down upon her towels.
“Bawbaw?”
“Shh-shh. Sleep. Rest.”
“Soraya’s brother-in-law said the Shah ordered SAVAK to kill families, the kids too, just because the father read certain books.”
“Soraya’s brother-in-law is stupid. He knows nothing. Now please, sleep.”
“But he also said—”
“Saket bosh, sleep.”
“Okay, Bawbaw. Good night.”
Outdoors the night is still and I do not know if the fog has disappeared or not, but I suspect it has not. No sounds of any kind come through the panjare, not the call of a bird, not the working of an insect, not the fall of a dead pine twig in the woodland across the street. Not even the bark of a dog down the hill in the village, or the passing of a lone automobile, and so I of course imagine the entire land covered in a thick fog blanket, one that hides and protects and disguises, one that allows lies to live on untested. How can I tell to my son I have heard dozens of these stories as well? How can I tell to him that I drank vodka with a Savaki at the Pourats’ home? How can I tell to Esmail that I am sorry for yelling at him without my voice betraying this heat in my face, this feeling in my blood that if it was only me in this locked toilet and not my wife and son, then I would finally be receiving what I deserved, that the time had come for Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani to stand at the wall, to stand at full attention and face his accusers.
L ESTER PULLED INTO THE PARKING COMPOUND BEHIND THE HALL OFJustice just as Lieutenant Alvarez was locking his jeep, his short hair combed back wet from his postrun shower, his briefcase hanging against his ironed pant leg. Lester parked out of sight in the motor pool between two K-9 cruisers and waited for Alvarez to go inside. It was only a quarter to eight, fifteen minutes before Internal Affairs opened, and Lester wanted to give the lieutenant time to hear his voice mail, to get Lester’s message from last night. He checked himself in the rearview mirror; his own hair was wet from the Purisima spring at the fish camp, and he’d nicked his chin shaving without a mirror. He’d pushed a folded bit of toilet paper against it to catch the blood, and now it was a dry red speck on his face. His eyes were small and bloodshot from no sleep, there was a light scratch on his nose from the backyard hedge he’d shouldered his way through last night, and the slacks he’d pulled from his suitcase needed ironing, though the blue short-sleeved polo shirt he wore looked all right. Anyway, it didn’t matter. This slightly disheveled look might even help his story, which was the truth: My wife and I are having serious problems, Lieutenant. I just couldn’t get away, sir. Though Lester still didn’t know what he was going to say about the colonel.