by Deno Trakas
I told him a brief version of what I’d been through, told him about Nadia, and the boys.
“That’s pretty cool, Nicky. You’ve brought the Middle East conflict home to Columbia, but you’ve got a Kuwaiti princess to keep the peace—not bad.”
“Yeah, I guess, but what I want is Azi. I haven’t even gotten a letter.”
“Hmm. Doesn’t sound good.” He gave me a sympathetic grimace, a friendly punch on the arm, and went to the kitchen for more beer.
When school started I threw myself onto it as if it were a raft that could keep me afloat, keep me from drowning in self pity over Azi. I wrote papers, graded papers, prepared lessons for my freshmen, invited them to my office for conferences, and tried to teach them to think critically, which was a struggle for those whose concentration was focused on getting drunk and laid. I sympathized more than they knew.
But some of my students were bright and serious, and sometimes my lessons seemed to take hold. One day in class we were discussing Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” and someone who had read the story in high school told the others that the woman was pregnant and the man wanted her to get an abortion. “Yes,” I admitted, “probably, but what’s it about under the surface?” Blank faces. “Come on, take a chance.”
Someone in back mumbled, “Elephants.”
“I heard that. What kind of elephants?”
“White.” A couple of snickers.
“Yes, white elephants. What does that mean? Does Hemingway mean the hills look like white elephants?” They thought yes, but they also thought that couldn’t be right—it wasn’t deep. I answered my own question. “In fact, the woman says, ‘they look like white elephants,’ but is that all? Is he using the term both literally and figuratively? What is a white elephant?”
One of my better students said timidly, “Something you give away that you don’t want.”
“Yes. Does that fit the story?”
“The man gives the woman a child. He doesn’t want it.”
“Good. Does she want it?”
“She wants it, but only if he wants it, only if he’s willing to make a commitment to her. She wants to marry him, but he doesn’t want to get tied down.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “The story doesn’t say that.”
“You can just tell from their different attitudes.”
“Good. What’s another term for attitude?” No response. I knew I was stretching here but went on. “What’s this chapter of the book about?”
“Point of view.”
“Exactly. This is a perfect story to illustrate point of view because it not only uses an unusual objective point of view as a technique, but the story is about point of view, about how this man and this woman see their relationship differently. And, by the way, isn’t it always so?” Some heads nodded. “So, remember to look under the surface, look for details on the surface, but then don’t forget to zoom out for the big picture.”
After class I went back to my office to finish Lost in the Funhouse before my Weird-Shit course. Danny, my office mate, a tall, thin, spook of a person who wore, except in July and August, a full-length black wool coat, sat at his desk with the window and door closed, two cigarettes smoldering in the ashtray, a third between his stained, trembling fingers, and smoke so thick that looking at it would give me cancer of the eyes. When he saw it was me, he barely nodded, just a nervous twitch in my direction. Without breathing, I said Hi, got my stuff, and went to the library to read.
I hadn’t quite finished the book by class time, but I left my bookmark out so Dr. Sheldon couldn’t tell. The course content was non-traditional American novels since WWII—Barth, Hawkes, Pynchon and the like, hence the nickname Weird-Shit. The books were difficult, intellectual, as much about the act of writing as about people with problems, but Sheldon knew what he was talking about and came to every class well prepared. If you didn’t get good notes from him, it was because you didn’t write fast enough. Or you were distracted. But my fear of the abyss of my ignorance helped me to concentrate for an hour three days a week rather than let my mind drift to Iran and Azi.
At the end of class Dr. Sheldon asked me to follow him to his office and invited me in. Except for the literature-packed bookshelves, the office looked like a judge’s chambers with its wood paneling and heavy drapes. Sheldon—presiding judge, graduate director, endowed professor of American Lit, noted scholar—was one of my role models. He was tall, lanky, red-faced, energetic, and approachable; his red-brown hair was combed, not coiffed, and his suit was conservative, not elegant. He looked fit, and I believed the rumor that he was a two-handicap golfer. Settling behind his desk, he motioned for me to sit, and I did. “How would you like to write an article for me, Jay? I’m in charge of a special edition of The South Carolina Review on regional novelists, and I need someone to go up to Spartanburg to interview Oman Lare. You know him, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we sort of grew up together, but he was a grade ahead of me, and I haven’t seen him in a couple of years. And I haven’t read his latest book.”
“I can loan it to you. There won’t be any payment for the article, but I can reimburse you for expenses. And of course you’ll get a publication for your resume.”
“When will you want it?”
“Well, I have to have everything done by August, so I’d like the essays to start coming in by the first of June. Why don’t you think about it and let me know tomorrow.”
“No, I’ll accept now. I appreciate the offer.”
“Don’t mention it. I think you can do a good job or I wouldn’t ask. And, by the way, if you reach him, ask him if he’d be interested in coming here to give a reading in the fall, say October or November.” He pulled one of Lare’s books off a shelf and took a sheet of suggested questions from a drawer. He instructed me to talk to his secretary about making calls and arranging the interview. I didn’t need the extra work, but I could hardly turn down a publishing opportunity when so many PhD’s weren’t getting jobs and all we ever heard was “publish or perish.” And I liked Oman. And I needed to go see my mother anyway.
On the elevator down I started reading Fair Game, about a college kid who takes a year off from school and sells elephant ears at county fairs. I sat by the reflecting pool and finished the first chapter in which he gets seduced by the fat lady—a lot of description of flesh and sweat and breathlessness. He ends the passage, “You don’t know the meaning of ‘getting laid’ until the fat lady sits on your stick.”
At the end of January, a small story broke with some unexpected good news: when the embassy was overtaken in November, some of our people escaped and were given shelter in the homes of Canadian diplomats; in a wild scheme concocted by the C.I.A, involving a fake film company that wanted to make a movie in Iran, our people were freed. American officials downplayed the escape, probably because they didn’t want to piss off the militants, and Sadegh helped by blaming the whole thing on the Canadians.
January became February, hard, brittle, and cold—in the teens and twenties at night, struggling to hit forty by afternoon—which complemented the austere lifestyle that my T.A. salary could afford. I ate mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and canned vegetable soup, splurged on 59-cent cheeseburgers, but was always hungry, gave up beer, well, almost, rode my bicycle instead of driving, rarely turned on the heat in my apartment, and told Nadia I couldn’t go out. I paid less attention to the news but tried not to miss Ted Koppel. Bani Sadr, a moderate, a scholar, not a cleric, defeated Ghotbzadeh and others and was elected President of Iran, but after a few days of puffing up with hope and expecting a change in the crisis, I, we, this powerful, impotent country, realized the Ayatollah and the mullahs were still in charge and the hostages were not going to be freed. However, the first letters from the hostages began to arrive here, and so did my first from Azi.
Dear Jay,
Thank you for nice letters. They came to me many days and now I write to you. I hope it go to you.
Thank you for shirt and book. I wear shirt in house all time. I read book and try to understand beautiful poems.
I hope you are fine. I am fine but everyone here is angry with United States Government. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Most people are believing Imam Khomeini, he is great man here. He say America want to destroy Islam. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Sadegh say Americans in embassy are fine. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. He is like son for Imam xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx.
I go to University here, but it close xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I wear chador on street. Hezbollahi xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I wear chador to be nothing.
Here is english translation from persian poem, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires.
I hope that you write to me again.
Sincerely, Azadeh
I was surprised by the solid black lines drawn by hand with a black marker. Were all personal letters to the U.S. being read and censored this way, or was Azi singled out because of her relationship to Sadegh? I was also delighted and depressed. Delighted to hear from her, to know she was okay, to know she wanted to stay in touch. Depressed because my letters to her had been hot, bursting with emotion, long, and this was cool, thin . . . she hadn’t even signed it with love. I’d had no reason to be hopeful, but I gave up anyway. She wasn’t coming back, she was trying to accept her new life in Tehran, and she was sending me that message.
The winter was also difficult because it marked a year since my father’s death. I missed him, his tough affection, his steady encouragement, his pride in my education, and I thought of him often as I jogged through the Shandon neighborhood, his death with me like a dull ache. We should have done this together instead of work at the grill, I’d say to him. And how about Heaven? I bet nobody jogs in Heaven. Do they get fat? I’d think of rizogalo, rice pudding, that my grandmother used to make just for the two of us, which would make me hungry, and if I had a dollar I’d stop for a cup of pudding at the chicken place on Devine. Then I’d run again, changing my route at whim, not caring about distance or time, and I’d think about calling Mom. I needed to, had to, didn’t want to.
Then the ice storm hit and Nadia called.
“Jay, I am afraid shitless. The lights turn off and everything. I think it is end of world.”
I laughed. “It’s just an ice storm, Nadia. Most of the city has lost power, but it’ll probably be back tomorrow. Do you have candles and blankets?”
“Candles and blankets yes, but I’m afraid.”
Impulsively, although I’d planned to grade some papers, I told her that if I could find my flashlight, I’d come over to keep her company. She protested that it wasn’t necessary, but I hadn’t been to see her in a couple of weeks, and a little rescue mission appealed to me, so I insisted. I put on a few layers of clothes, boots, and an old Army parka, blew out the candles at my place, and headed out. Rather than slip and slide the frozen roads in my Toyota or on my bike, I walked to her apartment.
The sleet had stopped but not before covering everything with a half-inch of ice. All the bushes and trees that still had leaves sagged under the weight, and the only sound was the cracking of limbs. The falling limbs took down power lines, so all streetlights were off in the area and the earth and sky were dark, but the ice sparkled, reflecting light from some unseen source, and Devine Street was hauntingly beautiful. Maybe this was the end of the world as Nadia feared—if so, it wasn’t a bad way to go. One of my favorite poems, Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” came to mind:
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if . . .
That was all I could remember verbatim. For some reason it made me think of Azi—she seemed to be near, watching from a darkened window, letting me pass by. I kept looking from side to side as I walked.
At Woodrow and Devine, a crew from the power company worked on fallen lines. The green flashes from a broken transformer, complemented by the yellow flasher on top of the truck, cast an eerie light show onto all the glazed surfaces, and as I approached I felt as if I were on the set of Close Encounters. One of the workers yelled at me, “Watch where you’re going, buddy, or you’ll fry your ass.” He pointed to a black cable, which I would have casually stepped over if he hadn’t yelled. I detoured, staying clear, and continued on my journey.
Finally I made it to Nadia’s apartment building, which was dark except for candles and other makeshift lights showing through curtains. When she opened her door, the threshold was flooded with the soft light of dozens of candles that she’d lit in her living room, a different world altogether from the one outside. I must’ve looked half-frozen—I guess my hair had some ice in it and I moved stiffly—because she began to whimper and pet me. Actually, I felt fine and said so. She hugged me and led me in.
Nadia’s apartment was still warm compared to outside, so I began to peel off my clothes. With my coat, sweater, gloves, and shoes in a pile on her floor, I was still undressing and she started to laugh. “You make good show, Jay. Take it off.” She whistled, and I danced a few steps, unbuttoned my flannel shirt—I still had on a T-shirt—and flung it away. As a joke I unzipped my jeans and inched them down, showing her my long underwear. “Yes, yes, take it off,” she said, clapping, so I kicked off my jeans too.
“That’s all,” I said, flopping down on her sofa. “Your turn.”
“O-kay. You wait.” She disappeared into her bedroom and came dancing out a few minutes later. As I clapped, she peeled off her sweater and slacks, revealing long underwear and a T-shirt much like mine. She even pulled her shirt up above her stomach and shook her hips, like a belly dancer from Alaska, funny but sexy too, and I felt my blood rise. Then she stopped and plopped down beside me. “This make me hot,” she said, flapping the front of her shirt.
And then we were kissing, and then we were lying on the couch, and then our hands were removing the last of our clothes, and my hands were on her breasts and hers were on my butt and I was on top of her and her legs were wrapped around me and her eyes were closed and then mine were closed and she was Azi and all my senses were desire, and if the world were to end tonight, it would end in fire.
CHAPTER 5
In the morning there was light: the lawns scintillated; the trees bloomed like huge dripping crystals that split the sunshine in a thousand directions; the power lines sagged from pole to pole like heavy glass rope supporting the city in delicate suspension. Nadia and I were casual with each other, somewhat guarded. I wondered what the sex meant, for her, for me. She probably had the same questions. There was Azi, of course. As her image appeared in my head, I felt a wave of affection, then guilt, then defensiveness, as if someone had put a handful of drugs into my coffee, their side effects hunger and confusion. We didn’t talk about these things—we just said good morning and what should we do for breakfast, and then we drove her car slowly to the Hardees at Five Points, where the electricity had been restored.
Immersed in the sensual pleasure of eating warm, fluffy, buttery biscuits with strawberry jelly, I absentmindedly called Nadia Azi. I didn’t even realize it at first, but she did, and she stopped eating and looked at me, more sad than angry. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay, Jay. I know you love Azi.”
“I don’t know what I feel for her. It’s been two months and I’ve gotten only one casual letter. I think it’s time for me to let go.”
She reached across the small table and covered my hand with hers. “No, Jay. She still need you. I feel like shit if I think I have broken you off.”
“It’s not just you, Nadia. I don’t think she’s ever going to come back—you said it yourself a month ago—and if that’s true, I need to get on with my life.”
She hesitated, worked her mind through the weave of our relationships, a
nd finally said, “Don’t go too fast, okay? Don’t say nothing now. I mean, you don’t know what will happen, yes?”
“Truer words were never spoken,” I said.
“Truer words were never spoken,” she repeated. “Damn right.”
In the depth of winter, after months of angry rhetoric from Iran, President Bani Sadr announced that the Ayatollah had approved a plan involving a U. N. commission that would visit Iran to investigate the crimes of the Shah and might result in the release of the hostages. That night, President Carter gave a press conference in which he confirmed that a scenario was being developed and negotiations were underway, but they were complicated, and we shouldn’t expect a quick resolution. I shared the mood of the country—Finally! It’s about damn time!—and enjoyed the bounce of optimism, and Carter enjoyed a bounce in the polls in his primary race against Ted Kennedy. Carter had already won decisively in Iowa, where the farmers liked the farmer, and his chances in Maine and New Hampshire were looking better and better. I was glad for him, he was my man, but of course my main concern was Azi and the hostages—they were so closely linked in my mind that I often thought of her as one of them.
Nadia and I had spent a fine, end-of-winter evening drinking hot chocolate and eating apples, cheese, and French bread on the small patio of her apartment, then I’d ridden my bike home to finish a paper for Sheldon. I’d wheeled the bike into my living room—where I’d kept it since my duplex neighbor’s bike was stolen a month earlier—when a hard object clobbered the back of my head and knocked me to the floor. The next three or five or ten seconds were blank, but then the pain broke through, and I felt shoes kicking me in the head, back, thighs. I curled up to protect my ribs and covered my face with my hands, but I thought I saw a bunch of legs, but they could have belonged to one, two, or three guys, brown slacks, black shoes. All I could hear was the shuffle of feet on the shag carpet, their grunts, and my own grunts of pain.