House of Sand and Fog

by Andre Dubus III

  But now I must consider how I may protect myself and my family, and I grip tightly the steering wheel that I am forced to even think of these things. I have no weapons. There is only the Cossack dagger I purchased from an Azerbaijani at a summer bazaar on the Caspian Sea, and that I use as a paperweight. Perhaps I was not wise to report this Burdon. Should I have left matters as they were? Simply attempted to forget the man’s threats and proceeded with selling the property? In Tehran, my driver Bahman carried a pistol and of course I had a private weapon of my own, though until the fall of our society I had no need for it, a gift given me by an American defense executive in Tel Aviv to celebrate the completion of a large sale of F-16s to the Imperial Air Force, a silver-plated .45-caliber pistol. In its handle grips was etched an American cowboy on a rearing horse, and the night we fled Tehran I kept that weapon fully loaded in the waistband of my trousers. Once we arrived in Bahrain I wanted no legal delays in our flight to Europe so I was forced to sell the pistol. But now I wished to feel its weight in my hand, the cowboy and horse against my skin. But then what, Genob Sarhang? Do I shoot this Lester V. Burdon if I am to see him again? Or do I simply point the weapon at him so that he is forced to reveal his own and we both shoot one another? No, man beehoosham, I am so very stupid; this line of thinking will bear no fruit, only destruction. And I am not my uncle from Tabriz.

  Near to San Bruno I leave the highway and drive for the mall to purchase wood glue for Nadi’s table. It is close to the noon hour and I have a thirst and a hunger as well, the sun hot upon my bald head as I walk through the massive parking area. I am reminded of last spring, our thirty-day fast of Ramadan, when I ate one small meal only before sunrise and then again only after nightfall. These days I was still working as a garbage soldier and when the fat radish Torez would stop the truck for lunch I would only rinse my mouth with water, then spit it out. Nothing more. The old Vietnamese Tran offered to me a portion of his rice but I quietly declined. Having been an officer for so many years, I was not accustomed to the effects of physical labor combined with Ramadan’s hunger and for the first days, especially those that were warm, I would feel weak, my limbs heavy and sluggish, and if I moved too quickly, the grass and highway would spin a moment in my head. One afternoon, after watching me for ten days go without a midday meal, Torez asked me to his truck where he offered me a large meat and cheese sandwich. I thanked him, explaining our religion, that Ramadan comes every year for us, the ninth month of our Muslim calendar. He nodded quietly as if he respected this answer, but then he told to me: “Suit yourself, Camello. But go tell Allah I have a crew to run, man.” The Panamanians and the pig Mendez said nothing to me in those days, for I think they could see I had something they did not, a belief in more than today’s work and tonight’s wine. Although in my country I would not be considered a religous man, but simply one of the many comforted by its ancient practices. After those first ten days, the midday hunger and weakness disappeared, replaced by a lightness in the body, a clarity in the head, a wide and open space in the chest. As I worked stabbing bits of trash with my spear, shaking them into my yellow plastic bag, I had visions of what this country might yet offer my family: Soraya was still in the season of hastegar and I imagined her contentedly married with many children of her own. In my mind, Esmail was a young handsome man in a finely tailored suit. Perhaps he was a successful businessman, engineer, or doctor. Yes, a surgeon of some sort, a savior of the sick. I saw Nadi and me living in one of the white stucco mansions in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights. As in our previous life, we would have a driver. Our home would be surrounded by high walls covered with vines and blooming flowers. In my fast, all these things seemed more possible, especially in America where—as in no other country—hard work, sacrifice, and discipline can be rewarded one hundredfold. But then my imagination would become almost a fever in its lightness. To complete our happiness, Pourat and his wife and children would be alive once more, dining with us in our home, all of us; Soraya and her husband and children, Esmail and his family, Nadi and I, all seated at a grand sofreh upon a floor of the finest Isfahani carpets; we would drink French champagne and eat the finest chelo kebab; we would laugh at Pourat’s jokes and riddles, his gentle teasing of the children. Nadi and Pourat’s wife would embrace each other in joy while Pourat and I would retire to the balcony overlooking the city to smoke Cuban cigars and speak of the old life we no longer needed.

  Inside the air-conditioned mall, I sit at a white plastic table in front of the many food concessions and eat a Japanese lunch of fried beef and noodles, and I know in my heart that this is no holy vision of Pourat and me on a balcony in America; it is a lie, a dooroogh born of heat and hunger and thirst and a need for my old life that is sometimes so strong I feel I would do nearly anything to retrieve it. But I cannot, no more than Pourat can rise from the dead to extract the revolutionaries’ bullets from his wife and children and then himself. And I am haunted once again with a picture of my dear friend’s body hanging by its feet above the tarmac, the tails of his suit coat covering his head, blood dripping from the sleeves. I rise without finishing my meal. I walk through the corridors of the mall in search of a hardware store.

  I WAS RELIEVED WHEN I DROVE UP AND DIDN’T SEE THE COLONEL’S white car in the driveway. I rang the doorbell, hoping she hadn’t gone with him, wherever he went, and at the same time I was mad all over again that I was actually having to ring my own doorbell.

  I could hear Middle Eastern music coming from inside the house, from behind a closed door, a man singing high to a backdrop of Arabian guitars. Sitars, I guess. I rang the bell three more times, then started knocking on the screen door. I put my hands and face to it and peered in. Their silver coffee table was on its side up against the couch, two of its legs broken off and lying next to it on the carpet. I thought of Les, his visit here last night. But the rest of the living room and kitchen looked clean and organized, the stools pushed in neatly beneath the counter. On top of it were three vases full of flowers, and part of the kitchen floor I could see had a gloss to it. “Hello? Excuse me, is anyone home?”

  The music stopped and I heard one of the bedroom doors open down the hall. Then I heard the colonel’s wife’s voice, her thick accent: “Please a moment wait. Excuse for me, please.”

  I could hear her hurry down to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. I wanted a cigarette, but didn’t want her to see me smoking, looking as needy and hungover as I felt. The aspirin had dulled my headache but left my stomach burning. I had to pee. I started to rehearse what I was going to say. I tried to remember the right way to pronounce her name, the way Les had said it, but all I could come up with is the way I remembered first hearing it from the carpenter on the roof: Barmeeny. And were they Arab? Or Iranian? And what was the difference? I decided I would try not to call her anything at all, just get to our problem. When she finally came to the door almost ten minutes later, my bladder was so full I wanted to press my knees together.

  She opened the screen door smiling. She wore a different designer sweat suit this time, maroon with silver lettering in Italian stitched on the sleeve. Her short thick hair was flattened on one side of her head, like she’d been sleeping on it, and I could see she’d put some eyeliner and mascara on in a hurry. Her lined skin was pale, but her smile was warm and she apologized in that accent for “keeping me to waiting.” She asked about my foot.

  “Deed your friend to leave more tools?”

  At first I thought she was referring to Les, but then I understood; she really didn’t know what was going on at all. But the pressure between my legs was bad enough I didn’t think I could start explaining everything without going to the toilet first. I told her my foot was fine and with a pathetic smile on my face asked if I could use her bathroom again. She said yes, yes, of course, holding the door open for me.

  When I came back out she had set a plate of red grapes and feta cheese on the counter.

  “I am apologize for this mess. I cannot offer you sof
a for sitting.”

  “That’s okay.” I stood at the counter and reached for a grape, slipping it into my mouth.

  “Would you to like tea?”

  “No, thank you very much, Mrs. Barmeeny—I need to tell you something; I’m not a friend of the carpenter you hired. I’ve never even seen him before.

  “My name is Kathy Nicolo.” I put out my hand and the colonel’s wife took it. Hers was smaller than mine, and so soft I could feel my cleaning calluses against her palm. I let go. “My father was Salvatore Nicolo. This was his house and when he died he left it to me and my brother.”

  She stood very still, one small hand resting on the countertop, and she shook her head once. “I do not understand.” Her eyes were a little shiny and there were deep lines around her mouth.

  I ate two more grapes, more for the juice than anything else, and looked into her drawn, still face. “See, the county evicted me from this house by mistake. Your husband bought it, but now the county has admitted they screwed up and they’ll give it back to me, but your husband has to sell it back to them first and he won’t.

  “They want to give him his money back, but he wants four times what he paid, and I have no place to live. I can’t afford a motel anymore. I can’t. I have no place to live. Do you undestand?”

  Slowly she looked away from me, pulled one of the stools out, and sat on it, her back straight, her legs crossed as ladylike as if she were wearing a dress. She rested her hands in her lap and looked right at me. “Will they make us return for our country?” Her voice sounded thicker than before, and higher, like there was phlegm in her throat.

  “Who? The county?”

  “A policeman came to here last evening. He told to my husband he will deport us.” Her eyes began to shine, but she kept sitting straight and still. “Please, you do not for understand, they will kill us. Please, they will to shoot my children.” She began to blink, then covered her face with both hands and pressed her chin to her chest. At first she made no sound at all; there was just the up and down movement of her shoulders, but when she got her breath she let out a long moan, and I reached over and touched her knee, small as bird bones. There was a box of Kleenex on the lamp table beside their family picture and I took some, and patted her small thin back, telling her not to worry, no one was going to deport her. But she didn’t seem to hear me or understand. She held her hands to her face and cried. I patted and looked around my old living room, at the family portrait, the broken silver coffee table on its side against the couch, the framed painting of the swordsmen on horseback, the black-and-white photograph of the colonel with the Shah of Iran.

  She straightened up and thanked me, taking a tissue and wiping under her eyes. I sat across from her, feeling a little hopeful all of this might get worked out after all.

  “No one wants to deport anybody, Mrs. Barmeeny. I was just hoping if I talked with you, you might be able to convince your husband to sell the house back to me—I mean the county.”

  “Please, you are very nice girl. Please—” She reached behind all the flowers on the counter and pulled out a blank writing pad and pencil. “Write for me everything. I want for to understand for discussing with my husband.”

  I thanked her and squeezed her hand, the one with the wet tissue in it, and I started to write everything I’d just said. At the top of the blank page was someone’s Middle Eastern writing. The letters were beautiful, long curving lines and loops and ovals, some with two or three dots marked in or around them, others underlined with a long snakelike curve. It looked exotic to me, and somehow the sight of it gave me even more hope as I wrote in very plain English, in neat block print, my situation. And while I did, she told me how hard it had been for her husband since the family left Persia, that he was a very important man there. He worked his whole life to be in that position and then came the revolution of the people and all was lost. “But he is good man. He wants for his family only the best, this is all. But these things I did not know you have told to me. You are nice girl. We never want cause trouble for people.”

  It was hard to write and listen at the same time, but I didn’t want to offend her in any way so I kept looking up every line or two to nod my head. She said she’d called her country today because it was her youngest sister’s birthday, who she hadn’t seen in over fourteen years when her sister was only nineteen and now she is a wife and mother with three children, nieces and nephews she has never met, only received pictures of in the mail. She got quiet then. I glanced up at her and saw she was staring at the broken table on the floor, her eyeliner a faint smear on her cheeks.

  I finished writing, and handed her the pad of paper and pencil. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Barmeeny. Am I pronouncing your name correctly?”

  “It is Behrani.” She smiled, her dark eyes bottomless, like she’d seen everything in the world at least once. “Do you not have husband? Children?”

  I could see she was sincere, the rest of her face still and expressionless, as if I was a small animal she didn’t want to scare away with any sudden movement.

  “I was married, but we never had kids.” I glanced over at the family portrait of her and the colonel, the two children in front of them, their handsome young son, their daughter dressed in white, her hair black and shiny, her eyes like her mother’s, her teeth clean and straight as she smiled into the camera. “Yours are beautiful, Mrs. Behrani.”

  “You could be twin of our Soraya. You look as her, you see?”

  I couldn’t believe she’d said that. I was probably fifteen years older than her daughter, and even at twenty or twenty-one I never had the kind of light this girl let off. And it wasn’t just her physical features; there was an air about her, even in a photograph, of being something special and knowing it, one of the chosen, and at that age I was married to a welder from Charlestown, both of us snorting white snakes until I guess we felt chosen. But every morning the kick was gone and left us thick-tongued and stupid, not even wanting to touch each other. But Mrs. Behrani was smiling at me, and I could see she meant what she said. She asked if my family was Greek, or Armenian.

  “Italian.” I stood to see myself to the door. The day had turned gray, the sun gone, but Mrs. Behrani squinted her eyes and held her fingers to her forehead. She was telling me in her thick Middle Eastern accent how much she loved the Italian people: Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, but I was already starting to brood; I would never have what her daughter did, her clean and respectful past, her comfortable present, her promising future; I wanted to get into my car and drive, but Mrs. Behrani was telling me how she once met Sophia Loren at a party on vacation to Italy long ago, so I waited, smiling and nodding my head..

  SAN BRUNO WAS UNDER THE SUN, BUT THE STREETS OF CORONA ARE in a fog from the beach, a cool mist whose presence has convinced me to nap as soon as I return to the bungalow. I did not rest well last evening upon the sofa, and I of course was up with the morning birds to wake Esmail for his new newspaper route, so I felt sleep coming for me even as I purchased necessary items at the hardware store; glue for Nadi’s table, three new property for sale signs on wooden stakes, and a long iron wrecking bar. It is a useful tool to own and I believe because of this fact I was able to purchase it without thinking of it as a weapon.

  At the base of Bisgrove Street, I halt the auto in front of the utility post I attached my notice to last evening and I use the wrecking bar to drive into the ground one of my new signs. I tell to myself I must return to draw an arrow upon it, one that points up the hill towards the bungalow, but this I will do after resting. Simply the effort of swinging the iron over my head has fatigued me further, and as I drive up the hill I am hoping—for this moment—that my wife is still in her room with her melancholy music and her self-pity, that Esmail has taken the BART train to visit his skateboarding friends in Berkeley, that I may lie upon the carpet in my office to sleep until I am rested. But Nadereh is not in her bedroom. She is outdoors, standing upon the step speaking with a woman whose back is to the road.
The woman wears short pants and the bright blue T-shirt of a tourist, but I recognize her red automobile parked beside the woodland and I accelerate and swing my Buick loudly into the driveway. Both women turn their eyes to me, their faces masks, as if I have caught them openly discussing a precious secret. I stop the car so abruptly it rocks once forwards and backwards but my feet are already upon the ground as I approach my wife and this gendeh, this whore. Nadi says loudly, “Nakon, Behrani, don’t.” But I have put both hands upon Kathy Nicolo, squeezing her arms, pushing her back across the lawn, her face heavy with cheap cosmetics, her lips parted to speak. She attempts to pull away, and my voice comes through my teeth: “Do you think you can frighten me? Do you think you can frighten me with that stupid deputy? Coming here and telling lies?” I shake her, the hair falling into her face. We are nearly in the street and Nadi screams behind me to leave the girl alone, velashkon! But I shake the woman again, squeezing her bare arms with all my strength, pushing her backward. “Who do you think I am? Tell me that. Am I stupid? Do you think I am stupid?”

  The woman is crying quietly, as if she cannot get enough air to breathe, her brown hair across her face. I want to break her, I want to push her against her automobile. Nadi’s screaming grows louder, and I hear her running into the street behind me, but I do not stop. I pull open the car door, and push the crying gendeh onto the driver’s seat. She bumps the back of her head upon the roof, and just after she pulls inside her bare leg I slam shut the door and lean into the window, my face only one or two centimeters from hers. I am breathing with difficulty. “In my country, you would not be worthy to raise your eyes to me. You are nothing. Nothing.”