He could hear the Behrani family whispering in Farsi inside the bathroom, and he walked into what looked like the colonel’s office. There was a desk, chair, and typewriter. On newspapers on the floor was a silver coffee table on its side, two of its legs wrapped in masking tape. And hanging in the closet were twenty or thirty suits, some in fine leather garment bags. On the floor was a brass shoe rack six feet long and three levels high and it was full of dress shoes, loafers, white tennis and athletic shoes, three pairs of cashmere slippers, even a pair of worn work boots. The colonel’s ties hung over the closet pole between a dark double-breasted and a military uniform, cobalt blue with garish gold epaulets, both breast pockets covered with brightly colored ribbons and tags.
Lester took two silk neckties, then went back into the hallway, stood at the closed bathroom door, and began tying both around the base of the doorknob. On the other side the foreign whispering stopped and Lester held the pry bar horizontally against the pine trim to the right and left of the door, wrapping both ties around it before securing them with two double slipknots. He pulled until the iron was snug against the door casings, then stepped back to survey what he’d just done. He took a deep breath and let it out, then went into the boy’s room, shut down the computer, and moved to turn off the boy’s bedside lamp. On the table beside it was a framed color photograph of the colonel in full uniform holding a toddler boy on his lap in a deep leather office chair, the green, white, and red stripes of the Iranian flag encased in glass on the wall behind them, the man and little boy smiling widely into the camera. Lester looked away quickly and switched off the light.
In the living room, he locked the front door and pulled down the shades. Then he looked through the kitchen cabinets for coffee, even instant, but there was none, so he took a clean cup from the dishrack and put it under the spigot of the silver samovar. It was strong black tea, steaming hot, and he carried it into the bedroom where Kathy slept, the room, he assumed, that had probably been hers in the first place.
He put the tea on the bedside table next to a new-looking cassette player. “Kathy?” He touched her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Kath?” He had never called her that before, shortened her name like that, and it made him feel momentarily as if they had more of a history between them than they did. Her mouth had opened a bit, her face was turned to the side, and a thin line of saliva had run into the pillow, leaving a wet spot. Lester put his hand on her forehead and smoothed her hair back. It was thick and dry, and when his fingers touched the pillowcase she turned her head and let out a small sound, almost a whimper. Lester spoke her name again, but her mouth had gone slack and her eyes stayed closed. Her pulse was fine, though, and he sat on the bed and took off his shoes, the pistol barrel in his rear waistband pressing hard against his lower back. He could hear the muffled voices of the Iranians coming from the bathroom down the hall. The colonel seemed to be doing most of the talking, his Farsi sounding low and full of authority. A cool sweat came out on Lester’s forehead and the back of his neck.
He stepped out into the dark of the hallway in his socks. Beneath the bathroom door was a thin crack of light, and the pry bar was fixed across the casings as if the room behind it had been condemned. Lester stood there a few minutes and listened. At first he thought Mrs. Behrani was crying again, because her voice seemed to waver, but then her words came spitting out, a barrage of throat-clearing vowels and consonants the colonel was talking calmly right through, his voice coming from someplace central inside him, as if he were right at home, leading his wife and son on an expedition through familar terrain.
Lester stepped back and kicked the door hard with the sole of his foot. The silence was instant. Something fell in the sink, maybe a vial from the medicine cabinet, he didn’t know, though he did know this: this rich prick was not taking him seriously and that would have to change starting now. He pulled out his service pistol and drew back the steel slide, ejecting the live round onto the carpet before he let another slide loudly into place. He tapped the barrel lightly against the door, then paused, the silence on the other side like something he could reach out and squeeze between his fingers. His heart was beating fast and he pressed his nose to the door, smelling wood and paint. “Get some rest in there, Colonel, because tomorrow you’re selling this place back to the county. Do you understand me?”
On the other side of the door, the colonel started to clear his throat but then stopped and said nothing.
“I asked you a question, Behrani.” Lester imagined the little family crouched in various corners of the small room and his heart felt nudged by a dull stick; it would be better if the woman and teenager weren’t a part of this but it was too late to back away, to let down his guard, expose his throat to any of these people, the boy and wife included. “Tell me, Colonel, what are you going to do first thing tomorrow?”
Again, there was no answer, not even the panicked whispers from Mrs. Behrani. Now Lester pictured himself talking to an empty room, the high shower window somehow dismantled and larger than he’d thought, the Iranian family running barefoot through the fog for help. And for a moment he felt almost nauseated at the thought of everything getting away from him, everything finally coming down on him.
Then the colonel spoke, his voice dry with fatigue. “I do not know. Perhaps you will tell to me what I must do tomorrow.”
“Don’t you patronize me.” Lester pressed the side of his face to the door, the iron pry bar against his hip. “Tomorrow you are going to call the county tax office and accept their offer to give you your money back for this house. Then, while they’re cutting you a nice big check, you and your family are going to pack up your things and leave. It’s that simple. Understand?”
But was it that simple? What would happen after that? Did he just expect them to drive away and do nothing? For a brief moment Lester calculated how he might pull back from all this now, just let the family out of the bathroom, carry Kathy out to his or her car, and drive away. But they would have to leave a car behind, and Behrani would surely call the department. Then there would be new charges against Lester, far more serious: Brandishing a Weapon, Assault with a Deadly Weapon, and now that they’re all locked up in the bathroom, False Imprisonment. Charges that could be corroborated by the son and wife, charges that would not only get him terminated but arrested and jailed as well, a cop among perpetrators, and Lester felt a hot flash of recognition and dread spread out inside him, and he kicked the door hard with his bare foot, an ache flaring through his sole and shin. “Answer me, you son of a bitch.”
The colonel still did not speak, but his wife was whispering again. This time her voice was less harsh, more pleading, Lester thought. He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and took a deep breath through his nose, his anger leaving him like something precious he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back again when he needed it. And now he felt queasy with exhaustion, the remorse beginning to move in on him like a cool fog. He told himself it wasn’t smart to push the colonel for an answer right now; the ex-officer’s pride and manhood were being tested enough as it was. The night had taken on a turn that, for better or worse, Lester had to commit himself to in order to get back on track; it was like riding a bicycle fast off smooth asphalt onto a sandy shoulder: if you panicked and put on the brakes or jerked the steering, then you went down. But keep up your speed and direction, he told himself, hold your nerve, and you’d make it back on the road unscathed.
“Sleep on it, Colonel.” Lester put his service pistol on double safety, then squatted for the bullet on the floor. “You hear me? Sleep on it.” He heard the boy’s voice, high and full of questions, fear even. And that sound could have come from Lester’s own body, which felt to him suddenly thin and inconsequential, his fingers shaking as he picked up the round. This was a familiar feeling, the fear that always followed his remorse, but this time there was no arrest or booking procedure to flush his prisoners neatly and safely away. What was he planning to do in the morning if the colonel
still refused to cooperate? Force him to do it? And what was his strategy if Behrani agreed to sell the house back to the county? Just hope he and his family would then disappear? He didn’t know. Right now all he could do was hope the colonel would agree to sell the house back. That would at least start to feel like progress, and he would just have to come up with something later to carry them both safely to the next step.
Esmail stopped asking questions and Lester walked back down the hall. He imagined Nate asleep now in his bed on his stomach, his face turned to the side, his bottom up in the air. And Bethany had probably gone to their room, the way she did sometimes after a dream that scared her, that left her feeling torn from the world she understood to be hers. She was probably snuggled up to Carol right now, his daughter’s small body only beginning to fill the empty space that was his.
IT IS THREE HOURS SINCE BURDON MADE HIS THREATS THROUGH THE door. The washroom is now dark, but a soft light enters from the panjare above, for Burdon has not extinguished the exterior lamps over the automobiles in the drive. Esmail has grown more quiet than ever. He lies upon a bed of towels in the heavy bath, his feet resting upon the tiles above the faucet. I sit against the wall, my left arm on the porcelain edge so my face is only centimeters from my son’s, but his is turned and I do not know if he sleeps or not. On the floor his mother lies curled upon two towels. The air is cool and smells slightly of the sea and of Kathy Nicolo’s sickness. Nadereh appears cold and I would like to cover her, but all the towels have gone beneath her and our son.
Before Burdon came to our door and affixed some sort of lock, Nadereh was telling to me in her panicked whispering to give back the woman’s bungalow, what is the matter for you? We find another. But after Burdon’s last threat, Esmail, who was already quite shaken, looked from his mother to me, then at his mother, then to me once again, his eyes no longer shining with adventure, but dulled by the suck of bowels that is true fear. I reached for him but he twisted his shoulder away. His eyes grew wet, and in Farsi that has not developed as well as his English he asked his father, “What are you going to do, Bawbaw?”
For a miserable moment I had nothing to tell to my son, no words formed themselves at my lips. I simply stood there mere centimeters away, my son’s mouth partly open, his eyes blinking the water from them as he waited for what might happen next. It was Nadi who acted decisively: “Do not be afraid, Esmail,” she said as she moved past him and began to drain the water from the bath. “Your father is a colonel, a genob sarhang. That man in our home is not even sergeant. Your father will easily take care of this business.” She told to him to wash his face and clean his teeth, she would prepare him a bed in the bath. Esmail paused a moment, his eyes still upon me.
“Yes, joon-am. Clean yourself and rest. I have seen one hundred men like this; they are desperate for something so they use their pistol at the last moment but they are always bluffing. Do you understand? He does not intend to do anything he says.”
“But Bawbaw—”
“Shh, shh, you clean and use the toilet—your mother will not look—and you rest. I will handle this man.”
Esmail began to wash his hands and face at the sink and Nadi brushed past me to wipe dry the bath, her eyes upon me only a moment, narrow and shining, and I of course thought this was rage, rage at me for leading us all into this locked washroom. But her hands were trembling and she lowered herself to her knees and began wiping the bath in abrupt jerking movements, and I thought of the small bird Soraya discovered at the base of a tree, attempting to flap its broken wing but gaining no distance from where it began. Nadi prepared the bed for our son, directed him to it, and she said nothing more to either of us. She extinguished the light and lay upon the floor, turning her back to me with no apology. I knew her fear of Mr. Burdon, of what he may do, was so great she could not speak without betraying it to our young son, so I forgave her her rudeness. But I did not forgive her her fear.
She had less of it as Bahman drove us through the burning streets of the capital city before dawn, down darkened alleyways past the trash of American and French hotels, away from the main boulevards where students and bohemians, farmers and cargars burned effigies of Shahanshah and Empress Pahlavi, an offense that only months earlier would have brought torture and execution upon their entire family. In the rear of the limousine, Nadi held our infant son while my daughter of ten years sat upon my lap, her face pressed to my chest as she wept. I held her with one hand only, for in the other was the. 45-caliber pistol given me by the American officer. Bahman drove us directly onto the tarmac at Mehrabad, past the lighted windows of the guard booth. The soldiers were obedient, waving us through immediately, but their faces appeared quite still, as if they were beginning to understand they may be the brunt of a cruel hoax. The jet engines were already roaring in the darkness, and I was afraid for my children’s ears, especially my infant son’s, as we hurried with them up the portable stairs to the aircraft. My copilot’s wife and children were wrapped in blankets amongst their trunks and boxes and luggage. Nadi left the baby with the khonoum, Soraya with the other children, and my wife followed me back into the night, into the cry of the engine and the smell of jet fuel, to the tarmac, where Bahman handed to us our belongings from the limousine, only three trunks and four pieces of luggage. That is all we took with us of our lives. But Nadi did not complain. With both hands she carried a heavy suitcase and climbed the stairs to the plane while Bahman and I followed with a trunk, its leather handle cutting into my palm. Even then she was dressed stylishly, in a khaki safari suit, the jacket’s many pockets full of anything she could carry from our home: earrings and necklaces, diaper pins, small kitchen utensils, a handful of French coins her father had given her as a girl. She helped me with the remaining two trunks, and once inside the aircraft, as I lifted the canvas flap to enter the cockpit, she squeezed my hand then pressed to my face her palm and fingers, her gavehee eyes full of gratitude.
But what if she had known then, at that moment, the revolutionary government would not collapse but grow more strong? That our names and those of all our friends and acquaintances would be placed upon a death list? That we would never return to our country, to our families, to the houses of our birth? Would she have been grateful still? Even for that one moment? For only in this bungalow did Nadi’s old happiness begin to emerge once again. She was free of the pooldar acting of the Berkeley Hills; we were upon our own small hill with a widow’s walk to view the sea, our daughter was newly married, and Esmail left the home early each morning to ride his skateboard joyously down the long hill of the street. I was no longer a garbage soldier with the rough hands of a cargar, my head and face burned by the sun. And she no longer had to lie at the dinner parties of the Berkeley pooldar, to lie with all her teeth and tell to the wives of surgeons and lawyers and engineers, “My sarhang has been playing tennis all day in the sun, golf as well.” Because I had become an investor in real estate, a man who might once again provide an escape for his family, is this why Nadi invited me twice to share her bed?
But at this moment, in the dark, her back is turned. If I rest my fingertips upon her shoulder, she will pull away, for I know she is awake. “Please,” to our captor she said. “My husband is only good.” Perhaps Burdon understood this as a positive comment on my character, a wife attempting to expose only her husband’s best side, the side she perhaps loves most. But this is not what Nadereh was saying at all: Please sir, my husband has only his good intentions remaining. He is nothing any longer. Nothing. And so I am nothing. Please sir, have pity upon us for we are nothing now. Heechee. Nothing.
Nadi is the lamb who wishes to sleep only with the lion. And now the weak lamb cannot sleep, for not only does she fear this tall thin policeman, but she fears she has lied to her own son as well, that his father is not capable to handle this man in his house.
“Bawbaw?” my son whispers, his voice thick with congestion from the nose.
“Yes, joon-am.”
“I want to move back
to Berkeley.”
The muscles in my neck feel quite rigid. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, letting the air escape slowly, but no relaxation comes. Esmail turns over in the bath. “That was a good place, Bawbaw.”
“Why do you say this? What was good about it?”
“We had an elevator and a pool. Maman-jahn liked to sit by the window and see San Francisco. It was good, Bawbaw. Nobody wanted to take it away from us. All our friends are there.”
“I have no friends there. Those people were not my friends.”
“But you had parties with them all the time.”
“That was for your sister, joon-am. That was to help your sister complete her hastegar, to find a good husband. Now she has found one and we will not go back there.”
“But where will we go, Bawbaw?”
“We are going nowhere.” I stop speaking and in the darkness I regard the pale white of the locked door. I speak only in Farsi. “We stay in this bungalow until we are able to sell it, then we will have enough money to go many places, joon-am, to do many things.”
“But that cop, Bawbaw. He told us to leave.”
“I do not care what he told to us. He is no position to threaten anyone, Esmail. And I am quite finished with being forced from my home by thugs.” This is a word in Farsi Esmail does not know, and he asks me to explain it.
House of Sand and Fog: A Novel Page 30