House of Sand and Fog: A Novel

by Andre Dubus III

  Lester closed his eyes, felt sleep waiting for him there behind his eyelids and in his limbs, a heavy dark warmth, and he opened them again; he knew the shooting of the colonel’s son would add a decade or more to any conviction. And even if he was found guilty of lesser charges, his life in law enforcement was over. He wanted to see Kathy. The patrol cars would be at her place in Corona now, more men in French blue moving in on her, escorting her from her house, most likely charging her with everything they were giving him. But she hadn’t answered, so maybe she’d left already. Maybe she’d dropped Mrs. Behrani off at the hospital and just kept driving. But he hoped that wasn’t true. He hoped at the very least she was waiting for him somewhere. He wanted to see her right now. He wanted to stretch out beside her and rest his cheek on her bare breast, smell her smooth olive skin, hear the beating of her melancholy heart. He wanted to push himself all the way inside her and tell her not to worry, don’t worry about anything.

  Lester closed his eyes again, but when he did he saw the colonel’s son standing there in the sunlight pointing the gun at him, his brown eyes moist with fear, one hand raised like he was getting ready to break and run, something Lester was certain the boy would have done if he’d known the truth, that the pistol was empty and useless. But Lester had denied him the truth to save himself; he had let fear have its way and now he could only imagine that it had been otherwise, that the boy dropped the weapon and ran through the coffee crowd and away, his lean arms pumping, his thick black hair jerking slightly, people getting out of his way, Lester wrestling himself from the colonel just to watch, watch that one boy fly to someplace better than this. And he thought again of the men who’d shot Esmail, practically boys themselves, letting their fear rule them as well.

  After what seemed a long while, Lester’s body began to feel like part of the bunk. He was breathing deeply through his nose, and as sleep began to take him he mouthed a prayer for Esmail, for his full recovery, and he saw himself holding and kissing Bethany and Nate. Then he was in a boat on some river and Carol and Kathy were lying beside him and there were thunderheads in the sky but there was nothing to do about them, and so Lester closed his eyes, one arm beneath each woman. Something rumbled far off in the eastern sky. The air began to turn cool. He breathed in the smell of fish scales and perfume and damp wood. One of the women let out a whimper, as if in the middle of a bad dream, but Lester just settled deeper into the bottom of the boat and waited, waited for the river to take them where it was going to anyway, to the inevitable conclusion of all he had done and failed to do, the air cooler now, almost cold, the boat beginning to rock.

  THE SKY WAS BLACK AND TURNED TO BLUE JUST BEFORE A RIBBON OF bright coral opened like a cut on the horizon. At the edge of the parking lot, on the other side of a tall wooden fence, were juniper trees planted in a yard. The grass was thick and short, and there was a sandbox and swing set and jungle gym all made from dark beautiful wood—redwood, or maybe cedar. The house was beige stucco with a sienna tile roof and a low wide deck only a step off the ground, no railing, and four white plastic chairs around an umbrella table. Beside them, a child’s plastic wading pool covered with smiling spouting blue whales, and I watched from the other side of the fence, two stories up, each swallow a hook in the stitched belly of my throat.

  At seven, a male nurse brought me orange juice, coffee, and a bowl of soupy Cream of Wheat. But I didn’t touch it and not long after, the back door of the house opened and a tiny brown-haired boy came running off the deck to the sandbox and blurred. I wiped my eyes. He put his hands in the sand, then lifted them over his head and let it sift down onto his hair. His mother set a mug of coffee or tea on the umbrella table, her long red hair catching the sunlight. She wore shorts and a loose T-shirt, and when she stepped off the deck and squatted at the sandbox I could see her thigh muscles. She was laughing, frisking the sand out of her son’s hair, then she turned and went back to her coffee, sat at the umbrella table and started to read. The little boy sat with his back to the fence and the hospital on the other side, his thick hair sticking out in curls behind his ears. I stared at the miniature blue-and-yellow-striped shirt he wore, at his small bare arms and hands, at how big his head looked on his shoulders. Each swallow was thumbs crushing my Adam’s apple all over again, and so I swallowed more than I needed, pictured the toddler in the yard growing into a boy with blue jeans and a red bike, then a teenager with a skateboard or maybe a beat-up car, and I swallowed twice and finally saw him as a man, a tall young man with a wife and child of his own. He’d drive up to that house across the parking lot and visit his mother and father—but the image wouldn’t stay and instead I kept seeing Mrs. Behrani’s son as I last saw him, climbing out of my car into the sunshine, glancing at Lester the way I’d seen high school boys wait for instruction from their coaches.

  The boy lifted a truck over his head, dropping it onto something metal I couldn’t see. The mother glanced up at the sound, then went back to her newspaper, and the door behind me opened and the deputy sheriff stuck his head in, saw me sitting at the window in my hospital gown. He looked at me like he was trying to figure out what else I might be doing besides sitting, then he closed the door.

  Yesterday, in another hospital, I woke to see Lester standing at the foot of the bed, my throat swollen and so dry it had cracked. His uniform was clean, his dark hair seemed too short, and he’d shaved his mustache, but I wanted him to come closer. I tried to speak but a nurse put her fingers on my wrist and told me to stay quiet. She was old and slender. I looked back at Lester, but it wasn’t him. This man was younger. His black hair was almost shaved and his eyes were not brown, but blue. I tried to sit up but the nurse put her hand on my shoulder, then showed me the button, and I pushed it and the mattress raised me forward and the nurse left the room. The deputy walked around to the side of my bed. There was another man in the chair behind him, older, with sandy hair and a tanned lined face. He had a piece of paper in his hand and he stood, introduced himself and the younger deputy, then opened it and read what I was being charged with: Aggravated Kidnapping, False Imprisonment, Brandishing a Weapon.

  The young deputy leaned forward. My nose felt stopped-up, but I could smell his aftershave. “We know you’re not able to talk right now, Mrs. Lazaro. Would you like us to call your lawyer?”

  I remembered the screech of tires in my driveway, the front door swinging open. I had expected to see Lester first, but when I saw the colonel, his bald head silhouetted against the sunlight in the yard, I knew he was alone and then I couldn’t move and his hands were around my neck, shaking me, my hair in my face, and I couldn’t breathe and a buzzing darkness was rising up inside my head.

  I nodded at the deputy. He handed me a small notepad and pen and I wrote Connie Walsh’s name and number, then: What about Behrani? What’s he being charged with?

  The young deputy read my note, then showed it to the older one, who looked right at me, his eyes green and full of something that made me look down at his arms, at the thick tufts of hair on them. “Mr. Behrani’s deceased.”

  I was lying down and they were standing there but the room felt so suddenly still and quiet I started to feel too far away to see and hear what would come next. I took the pad from the young deputy: What? I wanted to ask about Lester. Why hadn’t he come back? Then I thought if they were calling me a kidnapper they had to be calling him one first, but I couldn’t be sure so I didn’t write any more. They didn’t answer me anyway. The older one seemed to be in charge. He stepped away from the bed and told me to get the facts from my lawyer. Then the younger one called Connie Walsh’s office and explained where I was and what I was being charged with. I heard the crimes again, and except for Brandishing a Weapon, pulling Lester’s pistol out of my bag at the gas station, I had a hard time matching up Kidnapping and False Imprisonment with me. The older deputy held the door open for the younger one, then they were gone.

  There was another bed in my room, but it was empty with no sheets, just a whit
e plastic mattress cover, a TV suspended in the corner of the ceiling, the dark screen watching me: The colonel was dead. On the serving table was a pitcher and a short stack of paper cups. I poured water into one and drank, each swallow a spiny sea urchin in my throat. My window shade was pulled and I could hear the sounds of traffic nearby. I scooted to the side of the bed. I was dressed in a hospital johnny with nothing underneath. I moved to the window but my legs felt shaky. I opened the shade. Ten feet down was a flat tar roof with big air-conditioning or heating units on it. And on the other side was more building and windows. In one of them was the colored flickering of a TV. I couldn’t see the sky but the daylight was overcast. I wondered if it was morning or afternoon. My neck was stiff and I could hardly look down or to the right and left. I remembered seeing the colonel’s yellowed teeth grinding together, the flare of his nostrils, feeling my feet lift off the ground. I got back into bed and lay down, but it suddenly felt like a dangerous place, as if the bed were a thousand feet off the ground and if I turned over too fast or even reached for water, it would tilt and fall to rocks below; if Behrani was dead, I was sure Lester must’ve killed him.

  Less than an hour later the deputies came back, told me I’d been classified a flight risk and was being transferred to San Mateo County Hospital. The older one rode in the back of the ambulance with me. He sat across from my gurney chewing gum, looking around at all the medical equipment. Sometimes his eyes would look into mine. The sky was growing dark as they wheeled me here and at the elevator an older woman with too much blush on her cheeks held the doors for us and she smiled down at me and said, “You are going to be just fine, dear. You’ll see.” There was a smear of lipstick on her front teeth, which were perfect and false, but I wanted to believe her.

  The older deputy stayed here in my room until the nurse left, then he stood close to the bed and looked down at me like he was waiting for me to finish answering a question he’d never asked. I swallowed and had to close my eyes a minute. When I opened them he was shaking his head like I’d disappointed him. “Les Burdon and I used to be partners before they divided us up into single units. He was sheriff material, but he’s all through now, I hope you know that. They’ve got him in Protective Custody, but that won’t last. They’ll throw him to the hounds.” He stepped back from the bed and moved to the door. “There’ll be a man outside till you’re okayed to leave, then you’re going right to holding in Redwood City. Think about that.”

  He left and I looked up at the white rectangles of the ceiling, the fluorescent light. I closed my eyes and swallowed what felt like a dozen thumbtacks, and I wanted that sandy-haired married deputy to feel it too, feel the colonel’s thumbs breaking through his Adam’s apple like it was cardboard; I wanted this old friend of Lester’s to be at the fish camp when Lester put on his uniform and had me drive him to talk to the colonel; I wanted this friend to be in the house waking up to the whole family locked in the bathroom; and I wanted the deputy to be standing in the bedroom his father left him as Lester held his gun to the colonel’s neck in my car. None of these things I asked for. I didn’t ask for any of them.

  A nurse and doctor came into the room. The nurse was younger than me. She smiled and introduced the doctor, a short man with silver hair and thick glasses that made his eyes look tiny. He read the clipboard at the foot of the bed, then came closer and put two warm fingers against my throat. My eyes began to fill up and I must’ve made a sound because the nurse took my hand and held it while the doctor looked down my throat with a tiny flashlight, then patted my shoulder and said my soft tissue was healing well and it would be best not to speak a word for at least two full weeks. Then they were gone, their white coats disappearing behind the door, and I didn’t feel mad anymore; maybe I didn’t deserve the deputy’s judgement of me for things I never did, but now I felt even more that I didn’t deserve the warmth the nurse just showed me, holding my hand like I was a victim in all this. Because I knew that wasn’t true. Neither picture of me was true.

  My door opened and a round Chicana woman brought in my supper on a tray: a glass of water, a bowl of clear yellow broth, and a dish of vanilla pudding. She smiled at me and I could see a gold cap on one of her front teeth. She left the room and Connie Walsh stepped in. Her dark hair was shorter than when I last saw her, cut close to the sides of her head, which made her pretty face look older and a little harsh. On her feet were brand-new running shoes and I started to smile but my face felt funny, my lips thick and twisted, and I couldn’t look right at her.

  She didn’t say anything, just stood there, and I felt her looking at me. She put her hand on my shoulder, pushed my food tray closer to me, and asked if I could sit up. I pressed the button, and once I was up, glanced at her, at her dark eyes that took me in with nothing but concern. I thought of Mrs. Behrani, how she looked at me like that too, and I felt I was with an old friend, one I was going to let down, if I hadn’t already.

  Connie Walsh handed me a spoon. “How much do you know?”

  I shook my head and pointed to my throat. She apologized and waved her hand in front of her face, opened the briefcase in her lap, then handed me a yellow legal pad and a pen. I pushed my supper tray to the side and wrote: They said Mr. Behrani is dead. Where’s Lester?

  She read the note before I’d finished turning it to her and looked at me a second, her lips slightly pursed. I wrote: What happened?

  She took the pen and pad and began to write, then stopped and shook her head at what she’d just done. I smiled and she started to smile too.

  “Is Mr. Burdon your boyfriend?”

  I nodded and I wished I could hear my voice as I answered yes.

  “He’s in custody in Redwood City.”

  I looked at her and waited.

  Her eyes went to my supper. “The boy was killed.”

  My whole face felt squeezed, the air pulling back in my throat.

  “Evidently he’d gotten ahold of Mr. Burdon’s pistol on a busy street and was pointing it at him.” Connie Walsh’s voice was calm and controlled but she was looking at me like she’d only begun. “He was shot by police officers.”

  This boy who this morning was walking so tall and straight down the hall, his black hair still mussed from sleep. I reached for the paper and pen, my fingers hot and thick: I thought Mr. Behrani was dead. The colonel.

  Connie Walsh looked at me like she’d been waiting for the conversation to reach this point and now that it had, she wasn’t quite ready for it. She was leaning away from me slightly, her hands on her knees. I nodded for her to talk but even before she started to I couldn’t look directly at her anymore; I focused on her hands, on her knuckles, which were wider than her long thin fingers. Her nails were short, some with tiny scratches on them, and for a second I saw her on her knees after work digging in a garden, but then she was telling me everything, her hands coming together, her fingers intertwined, Mr. and Mrs. Behrani lying dead in my old bedroom, Connie Walsh’s voice talking of detectives reconstructing the scene. “They want to talk to you, Kathy.”

  Now I looked at her, but it was like seeing someone through the wrong end of a telescope. She wasn’t talking anymore. She seemed to be waiting for me to try and speak, or write something, but her face was too far away to read, just an oval of flesh that was now asking me to write her everything, to write what the colonel did to me and when, to write how involved I’d been in holding this family against their will. “Write me everything, Kathy. Write me the truth.”

  The word was a black bat flittering between us. I looked down at my own hands, at the cleaning calluses on my palms. I saw again Mrs. Behrani standing in her kitchen, pressing her hand to the side of her head. I thought of the pain she must’ve been in, and I hoped it wasn’t the last thing she’d felt. Connie Walsh’s voice was more relaxed now and she was getting up, telling me she was late for an appointment but would be back tomorrow to read the facts. That’s how she referred to what I would write. She touched my hand a second, then was gone.
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  I drank a spoonful of broth. It seemed to bathe my throat on the way down, but I didn’t drink any more. I imagined the Behranis laid out on a morticians’s table: the colonel, his suffering wife, his loyal son. My stomach drew backwards inside me and I sat up fast, my mouth filling with saliva. Connie Walsh’s notepad and pen fell to the floor and I left them there, moved to the chair by the window and sat. I breathed long and deep through my nose and mouth till I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up. Outside the window the parking lot was dimly lit with only a few streetlamps, and at the far corner cars passed on the road, their headlights and red taillights visible. In the hallway outside my door was the soft squeak of nurses’ shoe soles as they passed by, the metal wheel roll of a food cart or gurney, the talking and laughing of three women at the nurse’s station, a woman’s voice over an intercom calling a doctor to ICU, then more talking, an elevator door sliding open and closed, the flushing of a toilet in a room not far from mine, then someone humming, the flap of a wet mop hitting the floor, the humming a man’s voice, the tune unrecognizable; and I was unrecognizable. I could see my reflection in the window, a small shadowed face, hair flattened in the back. I looked like a sick child. But I felt dirty. My throat was dry and it was harder to swallow than ever, but I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on the facts for Connie Walsh but I kept thinking of Lester in Protective Custody, sitting alone in some cell separated from the rest of the prisoners because he’s a cop, the kind they would never understand, a man who would avoid shooting an armed Filipino boy, the kind that had risked his job to try and get me back into my house.