House of Sand and Fog: A Novel

by Andre Dubus III

  The colonel’s wife was screaming something in Persian, the boy too, and Lester turned to see them both standing in the darkened hallway over Kathy, who was on her back in a robe which was parted to the sash at her waist, one of her breasts exposed. Her eyes were half open, looking up at the ceiling with either great interest or none at all. Then the colonel stepped from the light of a side room holding an iron wrecking bar, but with one hand, like he was simply transporting it someplace else, and his wife was screaming even louder, crying now, and the boy stood perfectly still and so did the colonel because Lester had him centered in the tip and notch of his gun-sights. He was yelling at the colonel to drop it, drop it! Though he meant for him to only put it down because if he dropped it it might hit Kathy, but he couldn’t yell anything else. His heart was beating in the grip of his hands, in the squeeze of all his fingers except one, and it was a pained effort to keep that one from pulsing against the trigger, pulsing until there was no more screaming, no one standing over Kathy half naked on the floor, even the woman, and the young handsome boy.

  AGAINST THE WALL I REST THE IRON WRECKING BAR AND I LONG FOR putting my body between Lester V. Burdon’s raised weapon and my wife and son, but I cannot do this without stepping over the nearly conscious body of Kathy Nicolo, and this I am quite certain the tall yelling deputy sheriff will not allow. My blood is thick and cold within me and I feel my arms have become mere threads. Lester V. Burdon keeps his weapon aimed directly at my heart and he is yelling many things at once. Questions and orders. What did you do to her? Step back! Pick her up! Shut up! This last to Nadi who is screaming uncontrollably, and he points the gun and she falls silent, clutching our son who has become completely still and quiet, watching the man and the gun as if from a great distance.

  I attempt to begin explaining things, but I can only open my hands and say, “Listen. Listen.” And he aims the weapon back at me, the flowers behind him appearing like evil wings. But then Kathy Nicolo makes a sound and Lester V. Burdon stops his yelling and watches as the girl moves her head once from side to side, her heavy eyes focused on the air above her. “Les? Don’t, don’t.”

  “Move!” Mr. Burdon waves his weapon at us, and my wife and son and I retreat to the rear of the corridor as he kneels at the woman’s side, his back against the wall, his weapon resting on the carpet in his hand. He pulls the robe securely over her chest, then he places his hand upon her forehead, speaks her name, asks if she is all right. In the light from the bathroom, the color of the young woman’s face is not good, like green olives immersed too long in water. She turns her head to Lester V. Burdon, and her strangely small and dark eyes do not appear to see him. She smiles weakly. “You’re here.”

  “Yes, I’m here. I’m here.” He pushes away the hair from around her face. I feel the time has come to speak but I must choose my words carefully. It is clear he loves this Kathy Nicolo; I must not have any disrespect in my voice. She has closed her eyes, a tentative smile upon her lips, and Lester V. Burdon regards us immediately. “What did you do to her?”

  I take in a breath to speak, but Esmail steps forward. “She took a whole bottle of my mother’s sleeping pills. You want to see?” And without waiting for a response from the armed Mr. Burdon, Esmail retrieves the empty prescription bottle from the bathroom sink and then returns to his mother’s side, holding the bottle out in front of him for Mr. Burdon’s inspection.

  “Bring it to me.” Burdon raises the pistol but does not point it at us. His voice reveals some emotion: fear. And I too am filled with it as my son stops at Kathy Nicolo’s bare feet and gives to Burdon the bottle. He must narrow his eyes to read the label in only the light from the kitchen, the candlelight from the living-room area, and in English I ask my son to return to us, but he stays at the feet of Kathy Nicolo, as if it is important he wait there.

  Burdon lowers the container. “How many? When?”

  My wife tells to me in Farsi the bottle was nearly full, perhaps thirty to forty tablets.

  “English!”

  “My wife is saying in the bottle there were thirty tablets, but Kathy Nicolo was in the bathroom a very short period, perhaps only a half hour’s time, and my wife has made her lose her stomach. She has vomited the pills.”

  Burdon looks down at the young woman once more. He pulls from her chin and mouth a strand of hair, then rests his palm on her forehead. I feel the moment has come to continue. “She also attempted to shoot herself with that pistol.”

  He regards me very quickly, the skin above his eyes drawn in tight lines, and I am careful not to use his name. “I discovered her with it in her automobile. She was quite upset. She had been drinking a great deal.”

  Lester V. Burdon looks from me to Nadi, to Esmail, then at me once more, his lips open beneath his mustache, as if this piece of information must enter his mouth as well as his ears. But then he shakes his head and stands. “Bullshit. Bullshit.” And he orders us to carry Kathy Nicolo to a bed.

  There are tears in Nadi’s eyes, but she appears relieved to be allowed movement again. She quickly administers to Kathy Nicolo, closing the robe around her bare legs, securing the knot more tightly at her waist. In poor English she directs me to take the arms of Kathy Nicolo while she and Esmail see to the legs. My back is stiff but I squat low behind the woman’s head and place my hands beneath her upper arms. She opens her eyes, but again, they are quite small and dark. We lift and begin to carry her into Nadereh’s room, and Lester V. Burdon is so close behind me I am able to hear his breathing. He tells to us to be careful, very careful, and in his voice there is still the menace of his anger and disbelief, but also his fear for the well-being of the young woman. But what concerns me more than these is this man’s probable knowledge of my visit to his superior officer. If he is capable of breaking into our home, of pointing a loaded weapon at us, what more can we expect of him?

  My mouth is quite dry, and as we lay Kathy Nicolo upon Nadereh’s bed, I attempt to look into the faces of my wife and son but their eyes are on the task before them, Nadereh gently lifting Kathy Nicolo’s feet so Esmail can free the light blanket beneath. They cover her to her shoulders and Lester Burdon orders us to step away from the bed. We obey. He sits upon the mattress beside her and he touches her face, speaks her name and inquires if she is awake. The young woman opens her eyes and smiles once more at him, but her eyes are wet and she begins to weep and says nothing, simply weeps.

  Only a few moments before, when Nadereh and I were attempting to walk the woman down the corridor, we argued in Farsi of phoning the hospital. I had reached the decision we should, but my wife of course panicked and began screaming we will be arrested for stealing this woman’s home, Behrani, for harming her, for the pistol, for—then she lost her grasp of Kathy Nicolo’s arms and shortly thereafter Lester V. Burdon was upon us.

  Now we watch as he strokes his lover’s hair. Her eyes close and she appears to sleep once more. Her cheeks have a yellow hue, her lips a washed-away saffron. I prepare myself to step forward and speak, to recommend to Mr. Burdon he telephone the hospital, but he has already risen and picked up the receiver. He looks in our direction, then he places upon the bed his weapon and depresses the necessary telephone buttons, their computerized beeps the only sound in the room. He requests the emergency room nurse on duty, pulling from his trousers pocket the empty prescription bottle. To the nurse, he does not identify himself but simply states the facts. He tells to her the brand name of the drug. He gives the approximate height and weight of Kathy Nicolo. He tells to her how long a time he believes passed before she vomited. And he nods yes, she is responsive but still quite drowsy. He listens to the nurse, looking from Kathy Nicolo’s sleeping face, to us, to the empty pharmaceutical bottle in his hand. He thanks the nurse and completes the telephone call without ever having identified himself, and I no longer possess hope we will be going to the hospital, to the bright lights and many faces of a public place.

  Burdon once more retrieves his weapon, but as he views Kath
y Nicolo he allows it to hang by his side like a forgotten artifact. Nadereh pushes her elbow into my ribs, but she says nothing and I do not turn to her although I am certain she is seeing this moment as a time for appeasement and reconciliation, and I should speak. But my better judgment is against this; in the lamp’s light near the bed Burdon appears lost, gom shode. There are shadows in the cheeks of his face, and his eyes are narrowed in what I believe to be not only concern for Kathy Nicolo, but deep and painful surprise and confusion as well. No, in this moment he is weak. And it is the weak who are truly dangerous.

  Esmail shifts his weight to his other foot and I touch his arm and squeeze. An automobile passes by the bungalow and down the hill. Burdon suddenly straightens and with his unarmed hand waves us from the room. “Leave, please. She needs rest. Go.”

  LESTER WATCHED THE YOUNG BOY LEAVE THE ROOM LAST. HE WAS ALMOST as tall as Lester and his hair was thick and black. Lester wanted to look down at Kathy one more time before he left the room but he’d just made the mistake of letting the colonel step into the hallway where he’d left his iron pry bar, so Lester hurried into the corridor only to see the colonel and his wife and son moving quietly single-file toward the counter bar separating the living room from the kitchen. The candles still burned on the living-room floor and for the first time Lester saw the food there, the pot of white rice, the dish of what looked like beef stew, the bread and yogurt and radishes. Three clean unused plates. His belly felt as dry and empty as an old wineskin hanging on a line in the sun. The gun was suddenly heavy, almost obscene in his hand, as if he were exposing himself.

  The small family stopped at the short counter bar between the two rooms, turned and faced him, waiting for his next order, it seemed. The boy wore only socks on his feet and he was standing on the linoleum of the kitchen not far from a shard of glass. Lester needed to sit and just think a minute. He found he could hardly look into any of their faces. He waved his gun in the direction of their food on the floor and told them to eat. “Just, sit down and eat.”

  The colonel looked like he was going to say something, but then he kept quiet, turned, and led his family to their dinner. The son took his plate from the counter and he gave Lester’s gun a long look before he sat down. Lester pushed the safety on and just stood there a minute, maybe more, half in the dark hallway, half in the light of the kitchen, his head about as unclear as it could get without getting drunk. His face was a windowpane and the inside was covered with buzzing flies. And nothing was clear. Nothing. Kathy would pull through. He had known that before he’d even called the emergency room; if she could still recognize him and speak after taking all those pills, then not enough had been absorbed into her blood before she threw up. And he had no doubts about the throwing up because the entire hallway still smelled like it, so ripe it was sour. And when he’d just kissed her in the bedroom he had smelled the booze too, the gutrot scent it carries after being broken down in the stomach. Her cheek had been soft and dry and he’d wanted to lie beside her and hold her, as if holding her could begin to fill in the details for him, how this morning at the fish camp had led them to her stolen house in Corona tonight, to her doing what the Iranians say she’d done, to him standing there in her hallway while this family of exiles ate quietly on the floor in front of him, his loaded service pistol in his hand, a weighty reminder that this is where the ground met his feet, this is where Kathy was, so this is where he would be too. And there was no real reason to not believe these people. Lester had known this when Kathy turned her small, slightly puffy face to him, smiled a still-drugged smile and said, “You’re here.” Then in the bedroom she had cried looking right at him, her sweet, jaded face full of shame, and Lester had no more doubts the Iranians’ story was true. This knowledge was a dark ball of sap in the pit of his stomach. He watched the Behranis eat slowly and quietly, using the back of their forks to push rice and stew onto their spoons, dipping radishes into yogurt, taking turns glancing in his direction but not quite all the way at him. He was tired and his eyes stung a bit. The kitchen smelled like spiced tea. The linoleum floor was covered with the broken wood and shattered glass of the back door that was now wide open. Against the wall beside it was a broom, and Lester held his service pistol to the light, pulled the hammer back to quarter lock, then reached around and pushed the weapon into the rear waistband of his jeans. He glanced down at the Behrani family, all three of them looking up at him from their candlelit meal on the floor, and he walked over the linoleum, took up the broom, and began sweeping, the 9mm a steel hand against his lower back.

  IT IS IN THE MOMENTS LESTER V. BURDON IS SWEEPING FROM THE kitchen floor the broken window glass that Nadi leans to me closer, her eyes open wide with urgency, and whispers in Farsi, “Boro, invite him to eat.” Which, after having witnessed him put his pistol on double safety, I was intending to do.

  I stand so that I am able to view him upon the other side of the counter, standing in the light of the kitchen as he empties the glass and wood debris into our plastic garbage container. Upon his hand is a gold wedding ring I did not before notice.

  “Mr. Burdon,” I say, and my face grows hot for I did not intend to use his name, but it is too late; it comes from me as naturally as my own air. He looks directly into my face and he slowly taps the pan of dust upon the rim of the trash bin. He appears to be close to making some sort of decision. I invite him with us to eat. But he tells to me to sit and he does not join my family but moves to the counter bar and looks down upon us, the handle of his weapon revealed at his back. He looks beyond me to the framed photograph on the wall of myself, General Pourat, and Shahanshah Pahlavi. He seems to be studying it, his eyes smaller, his lips beneath his mustache squeezed tightly. I do not care for his expression. It is one of judgment and who is he to judge me? But I do not show my feelings. The smell of the samovar’s tea has filled the bungalow and normally, at this point in the evening, Esmail would return to his bedroom and video games, and Nadi would rise to clear the soiled dishes, to fill our cups with tea. But she does not move. Nor does Esmail. I can feel my son watching me. I take a breath and sit as straight as I am able. “Sir, my wife would like to serve to us tea.” But this is all I say. I will not request his permission for her to rise, and I regret having said to him sir, but I could not use his name again only to risk reminding him I went to the trouble to discover it. His eyes leave the wall and he regards first me, then Nadereh. He nods his head, and Nadi gathers our plates and rises. Lester V. Burdon glances at my son, then again he rests his eyes on me. They are dark and set deeply into his face. His hair and mustache are dark as well and it occurs to me he looks very much like Nadereh’s younger brother Ali.

  “What happened?”

  I hesitate, for I do not know if he is inquiring of my reporting of him, or if he is referring simply to Kathy Nicolo.

  “When did she come here?”

  “Late in the afternoon. My son was with friends. My wife was resting. I do not know how long her automobile was in the drive before I saw it.”

  He inquires what she was doing, asking this quickly, as if testing my story for the soft ground of a lie.

  “She was weeping.” I lower my eyes to the loaded pistol in his waistband. “And she was aiming that at her heart. She was attempting to pull the trigger, but its safety mechanism was engaged, you see. I took it from her and helped her into the home.”

  Burdon’s eyes have softened, and he looks directly into my own but I do not believe he is viewing me, but something else, a memory perhaps, a memory of him and Kathy Nicolo, or perhaps simply a vision of what I have just reported to him.

  “That’s what happened,” Esmail says. “My father wouldn’t lie. He never lies.”

  Burdon regards Esmail. It appears he wishes to tell to my son something, but he does not speak. Nadereh places a cup of hot tea before Mr. Burdon, then serves us as well. I put a sugar cube into my mouth and drink. I then remove the sugar so that Mr. Burdon will not think me rude when I must speak again. I see
the question he is perhaps ashamed to ask.

  I answer it for him. “She was quite drunk.”

  “How drunk?”

  I can see he does not like my use of words. His eyes become hard again and I tell to myself I must stay cautious and respectful. I am thinking I have never seen a woman as mast as Kathy Nicolo, only prostitutes, gendehs in South Tehran. “She could not walk without help, nor could she speak very well, sir.” I look down at the sofreh, but only for the briefest of moments; I do not wish Lester V. Burdon to mistake my gesture of respect as one of shame for the young woman. Nadereh sits beside me. She drinks her tea quite slowly. But when Mr. Burdon speaks again it is in a tone less interrogating. He inquires when Kathy Nicolo took the Halcion pills and I tell to him after she slept in my son’s room. “It was my wife who discovered her in the bath and she forced her to lose her stomach immediately.”