In the fifteen years since I’d lived in Los Angeles, my parents had visited me three times, but this, in 1992, was the first since I had bought my new house. My father had met Clark, my supervisor. He had wanted to. Since he didn’t understand much about computers, he equated programming them with magic, and he wanted to meet the arch-magician, the high priest of binaries. And now Clark had suggested he give a dinner for my parents in order to meet my mother, whom he had heard so much about.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ll be fine after a nap. He’s your boss. It can’t be that casual.”
I chuckled. “It’s different over here, very laid-back. They don’t take their dinners that seriously. I’m not sure they take anything seriously.”
She finished her coffee. “Well, we have to.” She stood up and began walking to the bedroom. “After all, I’m getting old, and I want to spend more time with my son. So I’m going to insist that your boss, what’s-his-name, give you more time off. You’ll visit Beirut more often. We’ll do all that after my nap.”
I expected my father, who watched her get up, either to mention his concern for her or to make a quip about my infrequent visits, but he did neither. He followed her into the room.
While my parents napped, I stayed in the kitchen reading The Handmaid’s Tale. I noticed a sputter of movement outside. A second glance showed a brown falcon on one of the branches of my avocado tree. Its beak was a striking, unnatural red, but then it bent its expressive head and tore off a sliver of flesh and feathers. The falcon had caught a city pigeon. Blood dripped from the carcass onto a lower branch. Momentary bright red streaked before the wood sucked the color in, turning it into a darker brown. A few drops fell on a leaf — poinsettias and Christmas.
I didn’t know what to do. Wake my parents? I wanted to call someone, Fatima or Lina: Look. I can see a falcon having a pigeon feast in Los Angeles. Who would have thought? I called Animal Control. “Hi,” I said. “This might sound strange, but I have a falcon in my yard.”
“So?” replied the Animal Control operator.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t it seem strange that there’s a falcon in my yard?”
“There are hundreds of falcons in L.A.,” she said.
Once, when I was a young boy — I must have been six or seven — my father took me on a business trip to the United Arab Emirates, where the corporation’s partner was one of the ruling princes. On the third and last day, the prince drove us out of the city for an excursion. That was my first encounter with the desert. Sand dunes everywhere; no plant could survive, no living thing should in that barrenness. Giant oil fires billowed black smoke that mocked the heavens. We rode for a few hours, until we reached a cluster of tents that had been set up to host us. An impressive meal was served, and my father glared at me to ensure that I wouldn’t slip and ask for utensils. I didn’t eat much, because I couldn’t figure out how to scoop the rice into my mouth with just my fingers, much to the amusement of our hosts. After lunch, as the scorching sun cooled, the prince decided to show off his falconry skills. He perched one of his three falcons on his leather-laden arm. Even blindfolded, it looked proud and regal. His servants unleashed a pigeon into the skies, and the prince unhooded his falcon. The predator took off and majestically dived into his prey’s path. Claws dug into the helpless pigeon. The prince asked me, “Would you like to feel what it is like to have a bird of such magnificence on your arm?”
I was frightened. My father suggested I was too young. The prince boasted that he was younger when he flew his first falcon. One of his servants put a long, fingerless leather glove on my right hand. It was much too big and loose. The prince coaxed the falcon onto my forearm. The falcon’s eyes were mean and menacing. I shivered. The falcon dug in his claws, and the glove offered scant protection. I felt a sharp pain. The falcon jerked and flew off, screeching as it ascended. The prince couldn’t catch the leather leash in time. The falcon soared high and far.
The servants panicked, running around on the desolate sand with no apparent purpose. The prince shouted loudly and incomprehensibly. My father bent on one knee and removed the ineffective glove. Bright red bubbled from three punctures in my arm.
“Your son frightened my falcon,” the prince said.
“Damn your falcon to eternal hell,” my father replied. “My son bleeds.”
When my father woke up from his nap, I told him about the falcon and wondered whether he remembered the one in the Emirates all those years ago. He couldn’t recall a thing. I brought up all my markers — the desert drive, the grandiose flames of oil rigs, hands forming rice balls and flipping them into open mouths — but he dismissed my recollection. “I’d have remembered something like that,” he said. “Your arm was hurt?”
Uncle Jihad used to say that what happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of those events affect us. My father and I may have shared numerous experiences, but, as I was constantly finding out, we rarely shared their stories; we didn’t know how to listen to one another.
“It is time.” The woman sat under the second willow. “We must act without delay. Are you ready?” The emir’s wife lowered her voice so she would sound serious and resolute. “Of course I am. The dark one and his evil mother must disappear.”
“So they shall. Tomorrow, when the sun extinguishes itself in the sea, invite Fatima to tea. If you are able to remove the amulet from her person for a moment, I will make sure she never plagues your life again.”
“What about the boy?”
“The boy will be no trouble. I can handle him easily.”
“All you ask of me is to invite Fatima to tea and remove her amulet?”
“You must invite me as well.”
“I do not understand.”
“Invite me.”
“Will you join me for tea tomorrow evening?”
The woman smiled, and even though her face looked like that of an ordinary peasant, the emir’s wife was frightened.
I was wrong. The dinner party wasn’t exactly casual. Joyce and Clark had invited three other Ellisen employees and their spouses for dinner in their yard. Joyce, a good chef, had gone overboard. When she told us we were to sit outdoors, my mother announced, “Dinner in the garden. How lovely!” After which everyone referred to the yard as the garden.
A damp warmth soaked the evening air. Clark wiped his brow and moved his chair next to my mother’s. Usually, at any social event with my co-workers, we relied on Joyce and the other spouses to provide a spark. We, programmers all, weren’t known for our conversational charm. Tonight, though, my mother, still dazzling at sixty, held court. My parents’ aging had shifted their party roles. My mother, who used to be more reserved at social gatherings, had become more vivacious; my father, more reticent. Women used to fawn over him at get-togethers; he showered them with attention and listened rapturously to their concerns. He no longer listened as much. At some point, my mother had decided to make this evening memorable, and she was well on her way. As it had always been, gay men — in this case, Luis and his boyfriend — fluttered about her radiance like moths, and she basked. The women fawned over her now, while their husbands pretended to hold themselves back. I gave them until the third glass of wine before they unleashed their adulation.
The evening light dropped an octave lower, and my mother went into high gear, without budging from her throne. Her idiosyncratic laugh — a noisy, sharp aspiration — filled the night.