You Exist Too Much

by Zaina Arafat

  One night I drove to a Persian restaurant in a rich D.C. suburb to pick up dinner. I walked in and spotted her at the counter. “I asked for three chicken-and-beef combos,” she said to the man behind the register, raising her voice, “and one lamb. Very simple, I’m not sure how you managed to screw it up.”

  I started inching toward the door but she turned around before I could leave. “Oh, hello!” she said.

  I waved awkwardly.

  “It’s just that,” she fumbled for her wallet, “I have guests staying over.” I nodded, unsure of what I was supposed to say. “Usually it’s my husband who handles things like this,” she continued.

  My order was already waiting, and once hers was ready I helped carry it out to her car. I carefully placed the plastic bag of Styrofoam containers on the passenger seat and then buckled them in. I let her leave the parking lot first.

  When I arrived back home, my mother was on the phone. After she hung up, she came into the kitchen, where I was pouring cucumber yogurt onto my rice. The ambassador’s wife just called, she told me. I froze, the stream of yogurt slowing to a drip as she continued. “For some reason she wanted me to know that she’s having a bad day today,” my mother said. “And then she asked about you.”

  “Did she tell you I just ran into her?” I asked.

  “You did?”

  She leaned over and reached for a piece of chicken from my plate, her hair brushing against my arm. I could feel her eyes on me as she chewed, then swallowed. “Interesting.”

  •

  The Sacrifice introduced me to Agos from El Salvador. Agos was boyish and still had baby fat, and she was warm like a grandmother. When she introduced herself to the guys in my building and told them where she was from, they nicknamed her the Savior.

  The Sacrifice, the Savior, and I quickly established ourselves as a trio, going for long lunches after class, riding to bars and nightclubs on the back of each other’s bike. We bought a pet hamster, Mr. Bandera. We got matching piercings through our upper ear cartilage, metal rods that all got infected within a month. We always knew where to find one another: at Caffè Giubbe Rosse, the coffee shop in Piazza della Repubblica where the Futurists used to congregate. Whenever I overslept I’d get there midway through class and attempt to read the paper in Italian, usually giving up in favor of the International Herald Tribune. I came to know the regulars, including an Iraqi playwright named Ahmed who’d fled his country after the war and was lucky enough to end up in Tuscany. We’d speak occasionally, sometimes in Italian, mine still rudimentary, and sometimes in Arabic. He asked me why I chose to live in Italy, and not Palestine or Jordan.

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling a pinch of guilt for being in Italy and not the West Bank, volunteering with refugees or resisting the occupation, or at least something related to my heritage. Every country outside of my own felt like a luxury, and at twenty-three, I wanted to indulge. In a way I felt I deserved to.

  “I have no responsibilities here,” I said. “And no ties to anyone.”

  He smiled, and his white beard spread like smoke. “You’ll find that having someone who has a claim on you, and who you can claim, it’s one of the greater things in life.”

  •

  One night, after a double shift at the coffee shop, I met my mother and the ambassador’s wife for dinner. I’d rushed to get there, mopping the floor in a hurry, forgetting to restock the condiments counter and toilet paper in the bathrooms. By the time I got to the restaurant, they were already eating dessert. I’d been starving when I left work, but when I sat down at their table I no longer felt hungry. Still, when the ambassador’s wife offered me half of her chocolate ganache, I pretended as though I was.

  Her driver had brought her to the restaurant, and as we were paying we decided that I would drop her off on my way home.

  “My son’s been having trouble in school,” she said as we slowed to a stop at a traffic light. “He barely passed his classes this year.”

  I told her I wouldn’t worry if I were her, that junior high’s a tough time.

  “I bet you were a good student.”

  I laughed as I put on my blinker. “I was kind of a troublemaker,” I told her. “I didn’t really have that many friends in school, so my main form of entertainment was driving my teachers crazy.”

  “I can’t imagine that,” she said. “You seem too sweet.”

  We inhabited a heavy silence for the rest of the ride. I attempted to make small talk, commenting on increased traffic and new housing developments, but she didn’t respond to any of my remarks, just nodded in my peripheral vision. When we pulled up to the house, I turned to face her. I said good night.

  “Do you want to come inside?”

  I thanked her and said no, the expected response to the formality.

  “Come. For a cup of tea.”

  I felt anxious as I put the car in park and turned off the engine. My heart beat faster—had I seen too many movies? I followed her past a security guard and giant blue hydrangeas. A Sri Lankan housekeeper opened the front door as we approached and took her purse as she walked through. In the foyer, a crystal chandelier lit the room from what felt like miles away. “Ampy, make Lipton,” she said to the housekeeper. She looked at me. “Do you prefer something else?”

  I shook my head. We sat down in the living room, me on the edge of the sofa and she in a leather armchair. I tried to think of something to say. Finally I asked how long she had lived in the house.

  “A few years. Since my husband got the ambassador appointment. We were living in a smaller place before. Easier, I think.” I gave a look that must’ve suggested confusion. “You need a lot of help in a place like this,” she continued as Ampy walked in with a tray and placed it on the table. “And it’s hard to find good workers in the States. They always want things—more money, time off to go back to their country. So we had to bring Ampy from overseas.”

  Ampy said nothing, just stirred sugar into the tea and handed her the cup and saucer. The ambassador’s wife took them from Ampy’s quivering hands, then blew the rising steam from the cup before taking a tiny sip. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?” she asked, putting the cup back on the tray and standing up. She brushed imaginary dust from her pants.

  A shiver zipped through me. I stood and followed her to the kitchen. There was a granite-top island with half a dozen burners in the middle, pots and spatulas hanging above it. It looked like a restaurant kitchen. We barely stopped before she directed me through the next doorframe and into the dining room. She turned on the light. I stood in the doorway attempting to appear interested, though by then I was too anxious to notice anything. She flipped the switch off, and I followed her back through the living room to the foyer, to the bottom of the staircase that led upstairs, lined with framed family photos. She walked up a few stairs. I followed.

  “This was in Courchevel,” she said, pointing to a cluster of frames, “when my son was still a baby.”

  I tried to focus on the picture, on her son in his ski suit and goggles, but all I could think about was how close we were standing. Our upper arms touched and my teeth chattered. Unintentionally I dropped down a stair.

  I told her I needed to go. She said nothing. I repeated it, that I needed to go home. I had no idea what was propelling me, but I was certain that I wasn’t in control, that it wasn’t me inching closer to her, and closer. I felt my spit dry up, abandoning me. She was still a step higher as I strained to reach her mouth. Before my lips touched hers, she pulled back. Her blue eyes seared through my brown ones. “I’m sorry,” I said. What had I just done? “I’m so sorry.”

  She then took my hands, and again, and I let her lead. I stared up at her as we ascended the stairs, my stomach dancing. We got to the top and I peered down the hallway, which was punctuated by a series of doorways. She brought me to the last one, to a room with a canopy bed and a dresser on each side. One of them was covered with perfume bottles, makeup brushes, compacts. The other hel
d just a box of tissues and a comb. “Our room,” she said, reminding me that she was married, she had a husband. She kissed my cheek and I felt myself get excited. Ashamed, I looked away. She then took my chin and turned my face so that we were looking directly at each other. Again she kissed me. Her breath inside my mouth was hot, I could taste the chalkiness of her lipstick. She placed her palms on my shoulders and pushed me gently toward the bed. As the backs of my knees hit the frame, I instinctively scooted up along the side of the mattress. She climbed on top of me, her arms straight and her hair spilling onto my shirt. “I haven’t done this in a while,” I said, “but I’m not sure I should tell you that.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, “you don’t have to say anything.” She smiled, and gently touched the tips of her fingers to my face. “In fact, better if you don’t.”

  •

  Our trio took a train to Venice one weekend in early October. I had just started working as a production assistant at a Berlusconi-owned television station, getting paid under the table since I didn’t have a work visa, so we could afford a hotel room over a hostel. Agos slept on the couch, and the Sacrifice and I shared the bed. The Sacrifice fell asleep right away the first night. She breathed heavily and slowly while she slept, like an infant. I stared at the ceiling and thought about nights I’d spent sleeping in my mother’s bed after my father moved out. I’d lie awake then too, listening to my mother’s breathing, wondering if my father would ever live with us again, how long I would get to occupy his spot. For much longer than I’d expected, it turned out. I lay listening to the Sacrifice exhale until the rhythm of her breaths eventually lulled me to sleep.

  •

  After that first night, I only saw the ambassador’s wife at her house, usually in her bedroom, after she had come home from whatever gala, whatever dinner, whatever event. Her husband was overseas for most of the summer, so she would accept the invitations on his behalf. By the time I arrived she had usually changed out of her evening wear. She’d be in her robe or her nightgown, sometimes in long-sleeved cotton pajamas, which were always disappointing. Didn’t she want to impress me? I would spend hours getting dressed for her. I told my mother I was seeing someone new, which I was—a guy from the coffee shop, but just until ten or so. I needed him to counterbalance her. I’d make sure he got his orgasm before leaving his house and rushing to hers. Ampy would let me in without saying a word. I would climb the stairs to the master bedroom, and I’d stand in the doorway as she sat at her vanity mirror, removing makeup. “Why are you just standing there?” she asked once while blotting Lancôme Effacil onto a cotton ball.

  I fidgeted and told her that I didn’t want to impose.

  She put down the cotton ball, glared into the mirror, and squinted. “All this, and you don’t want to impose?”

  What is all this, I wanted to ask, and why did I feel completely incidental to it? But I was afraid that asking for interpretation or definition would disrupt things. I was afraid that any verbal acknowledgment of what we were doing would somehow get back to my mother. So instead I stayed quiet, just as she’d instructed. I walked toward her. She was still staring at her reflection as I placed my hands on her shoulders, leaned over, and kissed her cheek.

  •

  After work I would pedal fast to the Sacrifice’s house with vodka, ricotta cheese, little toasted squares, Nutella. Usually I’d find her sitting on the veranda, smoking cigarettes. “You’re too young to be such a heavy smoker,” I would say.

  “Shut up,” she’d respond, lighting one for me.

  We spent weeks planning her nineteenth birthday; she’d requested a dinner at Il Tavolo, three-star Michelin ranked, followed by dancing. “Can you make the reservations?” she asked. Eventually I stopped learning Italian and started learning Dutch. “Hey,” I called out while she was on the phone with her sister back in Holland. She looked over at me and I said, “Badkamer!” Bathroom.

  We’d been playing a game for the past few weeks where I would call out inane Dutch vocabulary, and she would praise me. This time she burst out laughing, her laugh throaty, then she mouthed, “elephant shoe.” I had taught her that trick, that when you mouth those words, it looks like I love you. I watched her practice it, her lips forming a pout each time she got to the word shoe.

  In November, Karim came to visit with his friend Martin, who also happened to be Dutch. I brought the Sacrifice along almost everywhere we went, and if she wasn’t there, then I was talking about her, telling stories about things she’d done, funny things she’d said. “Are you in love with her or something?” Karim asked.

  “What?” I felt my cheeks redden. I had never told my brother about Kate, or that I was attracted to women. I couldn’t imagine how he would react to it; the thought of him knowing was mortifying. “Of course not,” I said. “Actually, I was thinking Martin might be interested, since they both live in Amsterdam.” I turned to Martin.

  “Um, no thanks,” he said. “She seems like kind of a brat.”

  After their visit I got evicted. Apparently, guests weren’t allowed in the apartment complex, and renter’s rights seemed to hardly exist in Tuscany. I considered leaving the country. My entry visa had expired, and even with my job I was barely making enough to live on. Maybe it was time to go home.

  The Sacrifice cried when I told her this. “You can’t leave,” she said.

  “But I don’t have an apartment anymore,” I said. “And I could barely afford the one I had.”

  “Then you can live with me,” she said. “You can share my room!” I felt my chest tighten, and immediately I thought of Kate. During an argument toward the end of our relationship she tried to break up with me, but I begged for another chance. “But I’m Catholic!” she said. I was able to muster a laugh through my tears. “And I’m Muslim! Isn’t that worse?”

  She then offered up a compromise: we could continue to live together, to share a room, a bed, even, but no sex. In desperation I accepted, and the torturous situation helped me slowly wither away.

  I looked up at the Sacrifice. “Okay,” I said.

  That evening I got my stuff together and hauled it to her place. I dragged my suitcase up the stairs to the bedroom and then lay down on one of the two single beds. “Why don’t we push them together,” she said, “and make one big bed?”

  We stayed up most nights talking and watching movies on a laptop in our makeshift full-size bed. I told her about Kate, only I referred to her as “Jeremy,” concerned that I might scare her if I told her the truth. She told me about her last boyfriend, how while she enjoyed the sex she didn’t know if it was possible to form an emotional connection with a man. “Sounds like you had that with Jeremy, though,” she said. And I nodded quickly, unable to look her in the eye.

  •

  At the coffee shop I was delivering the wrong drinks, mixing up orders, forgetting to froth the milk or add cinnamon. “I said iced,” customers would complain. “Not extra hot.” I’d smile as their words bounced off my brain like flies off a window screen, refusing to allot even minimal mental space to anyone other than the ambassador’s wife. I pictured our future ahead: lots of traveling. We’d swim in the Mediterranean, make love while tan and salty, eat mussels and drink Sancerre. All of my fantasies were steeped in simplicity and abstracted away her husband, her son. My mother.

  “Tell me a secret,” she demanded one afternoon.

  I asked what kind of secret she wanted. At the time, she was my biggest secret. I struggled to think of something else. I started wetting the bed my freshman year of high school, I told her.

  “What?”

  “I had to go to a doctor about it,” I continued, her interest shrinking my inhibitions. “And he sent me to a psychologist who told me I did it because I was afraid.” I laughed, hoping that she would, too.

  She didn’t. “Afraid of what?”

  I hadn’t expected her to ask for details—she rarely did—and I hesitated before answering. “I used to hate going to bed because my par
ents would always wake me.” My mind wandered to shattered glass on their bedroom floor, patches of water staining the white walls. I recalled my father’s bloodied teeth as he elbowed his way in front of my screaming mother to tell me what she’d done. “He hit me first!” she would cry. “Call the police!”

  I remembered Karim and me riding in the back of a cop car to the station at three a.m. We sat in a waiting room, not knowing where exactly they’d taken our parents. We held each other and wept until someone came and offered us blankets and candy that neither of us wanted. When we returned home the following morning, I went to our neighbor Heather’s house instead of to school. I needed sleep but couldn’t bear to be near my parents, so I napped in her bed while she went to class. The next day at school, an official-looking man pulled me out of homeroom and asked me questions about my mother. He kept telling me our conversation was private, that I didn’t have to worry about him telling her. But I didn’t say anything, because what if he did tell her? What would she do to me then?

  I looked up and realized that the ambassador’s wife still hadn’t said anything. “Anyway,” I said. “I guess I was afraid even while I slept.”

  A few days later, I was in the shower before work. My mother was standing at the bathroom sink, blow-drying her hair. As I stepped out and reached for a towel from the rack she asked, “What are those scratches on your back?”

  I peered over my shoulder, examining my backside in the mirror as my heart pulsed. “Oh,” I said, trying to sound relaxed, “I think it’s just from work.”