Sons and Other Flammable Objects

by Porochista Khakpour

  His internal narrative was going nonstop—externally, he made sure to wear a calm collected smile that he hoped was sending out the message to the by-now-hysterical-and-no-longer-whispering passengers, that it was okay, it would all be okay, this happened all the time … bird + engines = all good, we’re gonna make it!

  And P.S., people: Yes, so technically I am Middle Eastern, but totally raised in LA, United States citizen, Allah hater, all-ish-American—and at this moment, people, I’d even go Republican! So don’t worry about me—we are totally going to make it!

  Except clearly they weren’t. Not to Europe, at least. What they did hear the pilot say clearly enough was that they would have to turn back to JFK—not even twenty minutes into it and they would have to go back to where they started. Nobody was disagreeing with that move. The plane lurched and lunged as it deepened its descent—making only a few more bad sounds than planes usually make, Xerxes calmly consoled himself—and when they were just some yards from the apparently emergency runway area, Xerxes Adam realized the hardest part yet was seeing the ambulances and fire trucks waiting for them to hit the ground, hit it one way or another—and at the sight of them, just maybe a half minute away from touchdown, Xerxes Adam did the thing he had been putting off not just all flight, but all day: he began to wholeheartedly cry.

  Part Ten

  Landings

  It was still pitch-dark midnight in Frankfurt at 5:30 a.m. when Suzanne’s plane landed with such grace that she did not come to until her neighbor nudged her. Then she woke with a start and the young girl, with whom she had barely exchanged a word the whole flight, apologized and then muttered, “You missed the whole thing. It’s over.”

  Suzanne awkwardly smiled and asked her how the flight was.

  “It’s always bad, isn’t it, though?” said the girl.

  Suzanne shrugged. She had, admittedly, popped half a sleeping pill—she had taken it mostly to curb the stress of the day, with Xerxes abandoning her like that, with Xerxes sick or something, with her now all alone about to face his father, then him, and then the country where the trouble was only bound to begin. She felt sorry that she had slept because the flight was the part she was looking forward to the most—not being anywhere, not dealing with anyone. It was on the ground where the problems really lived.

  The airport was big. It was white but not pristine the way she imagined the Germans would keep their airports—some parts were polished to minimalist immaculacy, other parts looked old and neglected. There were Mercedes Benzes on display in glass cases, maps of Germany, beer advertisements, fragrance vendors. She thought it was too bad she had no interest in the country or the almost ten hours of stopover time—half of which would be spent totally alone until her male companions surfaced—could be spent more wisely than, say, finding the first McDonald’s—which she did—and sitting there with her head collapsed in her crossed arms—which she also did.

  She was bored, agitated, a bit starving. She realized she should check her cell phone and see if there was any word from Xerxes. She hated to admit it but his whole plan for getting on another flight had annoyed her to the point of suspicion. How could he have been at the doctor’s so long? And then the pharmacy? And what illness? Why did she feel he would try to get out of it somehow all along? Was that really what he was doing? Or was she a horrible person for doubting her poor ailing dear boyfriend? Was the world for once exactly what it said it was? She had considered calling Dr. Arnold’s office and trying to figure out when Xerxes had checked out and what exactly he was diagnosed with, but she had no idea how to do that without sounding appalling to the office staff, who knew her and the family well. Plus, it was so insulting to Xerxes. Plus, it just made her look like a terrible scary girlfriend in a terrible scary relationship—and while theirs was many things, yes, terrible or scary she could not claim. …

  So she had dropped it. Decided, Whatever, Xerxes will come, and should he not, I’ll just go back. Fuck the Account. It could all go to waste, very possibly for the better.

  She turned on her phone, eager also to try out her new international calling plan, and immediately she saw that there was a message from Xerxes. “Suzanne, hi, well, I know you’re not going to believe this—” she closed her eyes tensely and thought, he was backing out, the bastard, he had sent her all the way there for nothing, she knew it, oh, fuck him, she felt very inclined to hang up, delete that message then and there, have a McMeal and get on the next flight back, back to a New York that she would find again without him, without that bastard … until she listened further and, to her own disbelief, had to believe it—“Well, so, we had an emergency landing. I know, crazy, after my delay today and all, and now this, you’d think some higher power or whatever doesn’t want me to—ha, sorry, no, not thinking like that—anyway! Not a big deal, nothing really, engine blew out, they say it happens all the time, nothing really, but you know, unnerving, my first flight in a while, not so easy on the nerves, but anyway, Suzanne, no worries, not a problem, they’re just putting us on the next flight, another one is taking off, surely without a hitch, what would be the odds, so it’s 10:30 now and we’re about to get on again, so I’ll just be an hour off, an hour and a half actually, sorry about all the delays, the doctor, the everything, this morning, so sorry, it’s all my fault, you’re right to think badly of it, but I feel fine and about to take off again—” and her machine cut him off. Just like that.

  She didn’t know what to think except to believe it. Unlike earlier, with his chuckle and his easy plan B, this time he sounded more … dire. His voice was breaking up—more than just a bad connection, he sounded broken. He sounded bad. And she tried her hardest not to think anything of it, not to think, for instance, that their whole trip was totally cursed, a curse she had brought on, she and her dumb ideas, that their whole relationship was maybe even cursed—after all, 9/11 had brought them together—no, she banished those thoughts. Instead she made it through the McDonald’s line, ordered a large coffee only, and went over to the airline information booth and found out that indeed there had been “plane trouble” and indeed another plane had taken off from JFK an hour and a half later.

  She told herself he would be fine. He had had his bad luck and he would make it. But the passing hours of daylight were still saturated in a deep anxiety she couldn’t deny and the bad coffee wasn’t helping. She sat down at the food court, took another half pill, put her head down, closed her eyes, and let herself fall into an ugly forced sleep that held its own … until several hours later when her cell phone ringer snapped her out of it.

  “Oh, hey!” she shouted into it automatically, convinced it would be Xerxes, without checking her wristwatch that attested to the sobering fact that it was still before his arrival time, only 10:25 a.m.

  “A-ha,” said the deep accented voice of none other than, of course, Xerxes’s father. “You are here! I just landed. What a flight … over ten hours … and not so smooth either!”

  Suzanne couldn’t find the words, the appropriate greeting. She finally managed to say, “Yes, welcome, Mr. Adam. I am here. I am alone, however.”

  “What!” he shouted. “Xerxes, where is that guy? What do you mean?”

  She did her best to downplay it—she used the phrase “plane trouble,” checked her watch, and said he was just a couple of hours away at most. Somewhere inside her, although not so deep inside, she was grateful for all the delays that would hopefully add up to cutting short the trio’s time together.

  “Plane trouble!” Darius Adam laughed. “Oh, right! He backed out, did he?!”

  Suzanne tried not to reveal how absolutely incensed that made her. “No, Mr. Adam, I swear, your son is on his way.”

  He noted the harsh register of her voice. “Okay. Okay, then. Well, so we shall meet first. Fine.”

  “Yes … fine.” She was suddenly very annoyed and very, very … afraid. This erratic man, this notorious patriach of Xerxes’s nightmares who her planning had somehow clumped them with—she was due
to be alone with him for maybe two hours. Of all worst parts in the whole mess, it was to her the worst part.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “At … at a food court,” she muttered, vaguely. She wondered if she could leave it at that and just leave their finding each other up to, say, a miracle. A miracle would certainly not get involved; there was no chance he’d find her. And Xerxes would love that: if they never did meet beforehand and were left to perhaps bump into each other in the aisles of the plane, where there would be no chance for anything more than a polite, perfunctory greeting. …

  “The one near Lufthansa? The McDonald’s and the German stuff?”

  She couldn’t believe it. She was forced to tell him it was indeed that one.

  “I see it in the distance! I am at the pay phone just on the other side of the terminal! Don’t tell me which one you are—let me guess! It’ll be hard, so crowded and all—and, well, I don’t know you—but I bet I’ll find you!” He sounded so giddy, she couldn’t help feeling disturbed.

  He hung up before she could protest—before she could say she needed a minute, she had to go to the bathroom or check on his son’s flight, or something, anything. She was trapped. He had her cornered. She had no doubt he would find her first, because she couldn’t bear to look up. He could be anyone—but so could she. The airport was buzzing with people of all nationalities and origins—everyone looked different, everyone looked the same. His odds were bad. She even turned off her cell phone—at least for a second, she told herself, she could tell him it was an accident—should he call.

  So she sat there staring into the messageless universe of her lap, trying to look inconspicuous, trying to ignore the fact that any minute the guillotine would drop. No, it would be so impossible. How could he…When too many minutes went by for her to believe he could really not find her, she eased up a bit and decided it was silly to leave her cell phone off. With a sigh, she brought it back to life … in the same second that she felt a hard—really too hard—poke on her shoulder. …

  How he knew it had to be her, he wasn’t sure—he had just known he could do it, and if he was wrong, who cared? He’d apologize to that wrong girl and try again—but when the hunched lone young lady by the German McDonald’s slowly offered him his face, he knew. And it took his breath away.

  His greeting came in the form of a gasp.

  It wasn’t just that it was her, that he had found her, his son’s woman—as that was what her shy smile and immediate rising said—but it was just that it, she, she was … the impossible.

  She was … Shireen!

  “Suzanne,” she announced and extended an arm, then quickly retracted it apologetically and replaced it with both outstretched arms, an invitation for an embrace—normally a gesture he would not have taken on, if only he had not been in such a shock, such a mind-tingling, spine-numbing, insane shock. Plus, now, how could he not, how could he not just throw himself into the arms of his long-long-lost, his always-destined-to-be-lost-but-somehow-here-found, his imaginary-girl-now-gone-real, his Shireen!

  It was uncanny. Her hair that had the same surreal rugged beauty of twilight wilderness, her eyes that were like huge bottomless saucers of black tea, her outdoorsy brassy glow—God, she was wearing a dress even, a little dress, yes, a sundress of sorts, too! Here she was, just a little older than the girl of his dreams, his his, his more-than-his. …

  How could he explain his tears? “It is very, very nice to meet you,” he muttered, trying to blink them away, rubbing his face as if from sheer tiredness.

  “Yes, it’s a pleasure, truly,” she said, smiling politely.

  Perhaps she just expected him to be off in general, he considered, because if she was noticing something was off with him, she was refusing to let him know.

  For a while, they just sat silently and then she asked if she could get him anything. “A coffee, too, perhaps?”

  “No, please don’t get up,” he said quickly. “What I mean is, don’t waste your money. I can—if you don’t want yours when it gets cold, I can have that, but I don’t even need it. I don’t need a thing. I am … so …happy.” He smiled, looking deep into her eyes, trying to see if she was seeing something, too.

  She nodded. “Well, it’s no problem, I was going to get something anyway—”

  He was suddenly panicked at the idea of her rising, should she walk away and vanish back into the other world where she used to lurk. He got desperate—to persuade her to sit, he suddenly grabbed her cup and took a deep swig. He realized the gesture must have come across strangely and so he tried to laugh. “But you see, there, I’m done!”

  She couldn’t help laughing back. “Okay then.” He was living up to everything. She looked away.

  And so they sat silently some more. He just stared at her with a big foolish beam that he prayed she wouldn’t think was creepy—Shireen, forgive me, but how can I possibly explain it all to you—but after a while, after she grew bored with feeling uncomfortable, too tired for tension anyway, she relaxed and smiled and even giggled once or twice.

  “Xerxes should be here soon,” she kept telling him.

  He nodded slowly. Yes, Xerxes. Xerxes would be here, fine. It would be fine. It would have to be. If this isn’t a sign, what was? Oh, Shireen! She had grown to live, really live, grown to be better than he could ever hope.

  She eventually said she had to go to the restroom, again alarming him so much that he scrambled for a deterrent fast. “Oh no, don’t leave! I mean, sorry, please, let’s just move somewhere else, near your bathroom, where we can perhaps …” He thought hard, thought what he should have been avoiding thinking: what he could offer her, before his son would come and perhaps ruin everything …“find a proper food place so we can have lunch maybe?”

  She paused and then said, with a sincerity he found heartbreaking, “I would like that.” And she was surprised by how she meant it, then how quickly she rushed out of the bathroom to find him waiting outside, still with a sad dreamy smile that she couldn’t fully understand—Oh, the poor lonely old man, how could Xerxes have had the heart, so sweet, such a father he is—and to show her gratitude at his suggestion, at his wanting to so badly create a nice moment for them at a time when they were so bizarrely duoed—just characters in Xerxes’s story suddenly—she took his arm, smiled even wider, to show her absolute unexpected delight at his presence, a delight that even she couldn’t begin to understand. The situation had felt bad in her and Xerxes’s hands just moments ago, but in his, suddenly, she felt sure—something about him made her so sure—that it would have to be all right.

  There would be no hope, were her first thoughts upon getting out of that cab, just pausing with her luggage in the middle of their town, their Midtown, to behold it all. No, no chance, Lala told herself, as all the reality in the world seemed suddenly concentrated in the ground beneath her feet—miracles, dreams, illusions, delusions, they would all have a rough time here. The whole cab ride there it had been evident: it was more, much more, than she could have asked for. In her head she had envisioned all that she thought it could be, but here, live, Lala could see that it was something much much more. There was barely enough room for her story, much less the story she wanted to create.

  As she stood there on the sidewalk, eyes turned up to a heavenless sky, marveling at how those giant skyscrapers didn’t even allow for any open air, people pushed and shouldered and rammed into her back and forth. One or two cursed. She didn’t care—it actually made her want to laugh. The situation was so beyond her, it was only laughable.

  She decided she was crazy to have thought there could be any real concrete hope.

  In her hotel room—a miserable closet-sized room, pricey enough and yet somehow totally dirty-looking, which she had booked only because it was a skyscraper and they were able to give her a high room on the nineteenth floor, which apparently, now that she could see it all the city, wasn’t that high at all—she couldn’t do much. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t ca
ll Darius. Or embark on the brother search. All she could get herself to do was look out her window and take it all in again and again. The City. It was truly spectacular that there were humans behind it at all.

  It was the America her schoolteachers used to hint at. Whereas California was modest-feeling yet unconquerably spread out, always green and a little yellow and even brown, with a Mediterranean climate she could too easily relate to—California, indeed chosen as the closest thing to their home—this was the real America, the America of their childhood dreams. She remembered a classmate once asking their teacher what the word America actually meant and their English teacher—an elderly Iranian lady—always claiming to have visited that continent, had declared without a moment’s hesitation: freedom. Which, even as kids, they all assumed was incorrect, but still, she had never forgotten it. The fact that this old Iranian lady couldn’t help equating the name with freedom—a word that she didn’t think she ever even honestly considered until those days before and after they experienced their own terrifying slice of the Revolution—it carved a magical place for America in her heart.