Burning City

by Ariel Dorfman

  Iggy didn’t answer. He looked like he was about to but just smiled at Heller instead. Heller smiled back, even though he still had not gotten over the surprise of having his general manager sneak up on him. He continued to stare at him, wondered how Iggy always managed to just appear. Something in his manner, a controlled cool, something Heller liked.

  “Do you know about your father and Dimitri?” Iggy asked.

  “What about them?”

  The New Jersey skyline across the water was slicing the sun in middescent.

  “Why do you think you ended up at Soft Tidings?”

  Heller sighed. “Yeah, I know how I got the job. My father and Dimitri go back. I get it.”

  “I don’t mean how you got the job,” Iggy said. “I asked, ‘Why do you think you ended up at Soft Tidings?’ ”

  Heller didn’t know what Iggy was talking about.

  Iggy put out his cigarette, lit another.

  “Dimitri was exiled to Siberia after he was let out of prison. This was many years ago, back in the Soviet Union. I wasn’t born yet; he didn’t marry until he came to the States. Dimitri has never really told me more than a little about it. He’s my own father and even I can’t get very much out of him. But I don’t need him to tell me, I can see it sometimes. I think you can, too. . . .”

  Heller didn’t indicate one way or the other.

  Iggy regarded Heller closely, looking for an answer. When he didn’t get it, he continued: “There was no way for Dimitri to know what was happening on the outside. No messages, letters, phone calls, nothing . . . An entire year of this—no letters, no phone calls. You know the only way to receive news in a place like that . . . ? Visitors. And in Dimitri’s case, the visitor was your father. . . .”

  Heller finally let the interest show on his face.

  “That’s right, Heller. I don’t know how your father got there, how he found out the story, or who sent him. I only know that he must have taken an incredible risk to get the news to Dimitri. And I know the news was that Dimitri’s mother had died—my grandmother was dead. I never met her.”

  Heller gazed out over the water.

  “And one thing I know for certain, because Dimitri actually told me . . . It was your father who gave him the hope to make it through. Dimitri told me that if the news had come in any other way, from anyone else, it would have killed him. Do you see where I’m going with this, Heller?”

  Heller had it figured out but didn’t like where it left him. He stood, picked his bike up off the ground.

  “Dimitri never forgot that, Heller.” Iggy tugged at his cigarette. “And he found a way to turn pain into business, happiness into money. Started off online, then realized the importance of a face to go along with the message, especially in these times when nothing seems real. News with a personal touch, Heller—my father may have established Soft Tidings, but your father inspired it.”

  Heller suddenly felt as though he had been cheated into something. He refused to look at Iggy, at anybody else around them. Straight down to the ground, and when he did speak, it wasn’t in the spirit of conversation. “The question you really meant to ask me is, Why did anybody end up working at Soft Tidings?”

  “It all starts somewhere, Heller,” Iggy told him, breathing smoke. “This morning, when you came back from delivering that message to Durim Rukes and I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for you . . .”

  Heller wondered what would come next.

  “I saw you standing outside from the office windows,” Iggy said, putting out his cigarette. “No big mystery there, Heller. I’d look elsewhere for the unexplained. . . .”

  Heller didn’t stick around for any further words or revelations. He walked away, bike alongside, gliding smoothly over the neatly paved brick walkway. The sun had sunk past Manhattan eyes, leaving behind only an array of colors to prove it had ever been there in the first place.

  chapter twenty-three

  It was evening again, and Heller was tired, lost in his thoughts.

  He felt defeated, and the prospect of home didn’t seem very real to him.

  It never did.

  He trudged up the steps, felt he was working against a down escalator. Up past the third floor. Behind one of those doors he heard moaning and the rattle of dinner plates on a dining-room table. He shook his head, covered his ears, tried not to think of Silvia and Rich.

  Once on the fourth floor, Heller took the last few steps to his grandparents’ apartment and dug around for his keys. From inside, he heard voices, loud and boisterous.

  He put his ear to the door, heard someone telling a story:

  “This happened late at night to a friend of mine. . . .” The voice was muffled through the wood. “My friend was wandering the streets of the city where we had been born. A policeman stopped him. ‘Why are you wandering the streets so late at night?’ he asked.”

  Heller frowned, pressed closer.

  “My friend’s only response was, ‘Sir, if I knew, I would have been home hours ago.’ ”

  Heller turned the key and opened the door to a burst of laughter.

  Salim was seated with Eric and Florence.

  Not knowing what else to do, Heller just remained where he stood, neither one of his grandparents noticing him.

  “Aha,” Salim proclaimed, lifting himself out of his chair. “Here he is!”

  Heller’s grandparents turned to see him standing immobile in the doorway.

  “Oh!” Florence exclaimed. “Heller, welcome home, darling.”

  “Mr. Adasi came to check on how you were doing,” Eric added.

  “How I’m doing?” Heller asked, bewildered.

  “After last night,” Eric clarified.

  “Oh, those are the same clothes you had on yesterday,” Florence fussed. “If Silvia ever saw you dressed like that—”

  “Excuse me . . . ,” Heller said through tight lips, fists bundled at his sides.

  He turned without closing the door behind him and plodded down the stairs with obvious frustration. The space in his head was almost filled to capacity after the day he’d had, and the earlier headache now resurfaced with a low buzzing sound in his left ear.

  Heller was undoing the chain to his bike when he heard the door to his apartment building open and footsteps approach.

  “I think you’ve spent enough time with that bike today,” Salim advised.

  “Actually, no,” Heller said, voice hoarse. “I think I’ve spent far too much time with you today.”

  He could feel Salim, could see him standing motionless. . . .

  Heller stood and turned on him. “Why did you have to go and tell them about last night! I go through a lot to make sure they know as little about me as possible!” Heller paused, breathing hard. “I thought we were friends.”

  “If you don’t want them to know about you, then don’t put yourself in a position where a friend has to take you home and get you to bed. Of course they knew about last night—they let me into your house last night.”

  Heller instantly regretted opening his mouth. “You brought me home last night?”

  “Do you think you flew?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Now you see why people drink to forget.”

  Heller swallowed, trying desperately to remember what happened after they had left the bar. “Yes, that part makes sense to me now.”

  “And if anybody here should be angry right now, it’s me.”

  Salim pulled out a wad of money. Heller’s money, the seventy-five Iggy had given him. Minus seven. He held it up for Heller to inspect.

  Heller couldn’t keep the guilt off his face, thought about lying, then gave up.

  “Do you feel sorry for me?” Salim asked.

  Heller thought about it, then nodded slowly, ashamed.

  “Is it because of Nizima, Heller?”

  “It’s because of everything. . . .”

  “Everything?” Salim asked in disbelief. “Everything can’t be going th
at badly for me; I’m still here. . . . But pity doesn’t help a situation like mine, and charity has no place in a friendship like ours.”

  Salim tossed Heller the roll of money.

  Heller snatched it out of the air. He looked at it, not wanting to put it back into his pocket.

  It was a cool evening. Close to crisp.

  “If you were to buy us dinner,” Salim suggested, “I wouldn’t have a problem with that.”

  Heller sighed. “I’m sorry, Salim.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  The pair began to walk down the street, side by side.

  “Do you have any special place in mind?” Heller asked.

  “I do now. . . .”

  An ambulance rolled past, lights quiet. Resting.

  chapter twenty-four

  It was a small, lively, half-lit Turkish restaurant.

  Salim and Heller sat at a secluded table, eating kebabs and falafel balls. A musician sat on a table substituting for a stage, strumming his guitar, singing words Heller couldn’t understand. Almost everyone else in the place was singing along, familiar with the song, close to home. Heller didn’t know how to behave, how to act; felt as though his skin were glowing, drawing attention to him.

  Still, the food was perfect.

  “Did you remember to lock your bike?” Salim asked through a mouthful of lamb.

  “Yeah,” Heller said, taking a bite of pita bread. “Well, I didn’t manage to unlock it, so . . .”

  They kept eating.

  “So.” Salim wiped his mouth with a napkin and served himself more falafel. “Where are you going, Heller?”

  Heller swallowed his food. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Well, you are certainly getting there in a hurry.”

  Heller stared at Salim. “Do you find that nobody ever understands a word you’re saying? Honestly?”

  “Very few people understand me.”

  “Well—” Heller played with his dish. “I think you’re the only person who understands me.”

  “I don’t.”

  Heller’s face dropped.

  “Well, not always,” Salim amended. “Were you born on that bike, Heller?”

  “My girl’s in love with another guy.”

  “My girl is married to another guy. She is probably dancing with him right now. . . .”

  Heller put his silverware down.

  Salim stared past him, watched the guitar player tune his instrument.

  “Salim . . . ?” Heller ventured. “You really don’t remember the first thing you said to Nizima? My father remembers the first thing he said to my mother, remembers how he felt and everything.”

  The musician began to play a song. Slow and melancholy, a progression far removed from Heller’s world, and he could see the notes swirling around Salim, finding a home in his ears, resting on his clothes, seasoning his food, cooling his drink.

  “Ondort binyil gezdim pervanelikde,” Salim recited in a low voice. “Do you remember that from last night?”

  “Yes,” Heller said truthfully, voice low, realizing something was about to happen.

  “I have professed love for fourteen thousand years —that is what it means. That is what I felt when I first saw her. I thought of this song. . . . I thought my soul must have been waiting through all of time for her. . . .”

  The music continued and Heller recognized the words now, recognized Salim somewhere in there.

  “I had gone back there from Istanbul. Back to my mother’s people, the only safe place for me. I had never gone there, but my mother always told me stories. In her language. In Kurdish. Only at home, though, because everywhere else it was forbidden. She couldn’t even give me a Kurdish name. The other men I live with in the apartment can’t know, but back then I made myself believe that part of me wasn’t Kurdish.

  “But when I saw Nizima, I finally knew who I was. I thought I knew who I was. She was fourteen and promised to another man. We kept our love quiet for years. She told me she would not marry him, though she knew what would happen to her, what can happen to a dishonored woman. And I thought that if her father found out, he might kill me.

  “Still, Nizima’s father was smarter than that. . . . He sent his sons to Istanbul to find out.”

  “To find out what?”

  “After her brothers returned, Nizima came to me. It was a moonless night, and now I am sorry that I can hardly remember her face the last time we spoke. Because she told me that the police were coming. That I should go, that I should leave Turkey and go. That I should send money and that she would follow. And I wonder if she didn’t say that to save me, so her father wouldn’t have to kill me. . . .”

  Salim sighed. His breath was caught by the melody, whirled in the air.

  “Now, after having brought myself to this city through every trick possible, every day running the risk of being deported, after having sent her all my money, after all this . . .” Salim tapered off.

  The music continued, the restaurant following suit, everyone involved in their meals and conversation.

  Heller didn’t know what to do with this sort of emotion. Didn’t know how to deal with it outside of work; didn’t know if he could go beyond the walls of the apartments that made up his day.

  “You couldn’t ask her to return the money?” Heller suggested tentatively.

  Salim shook his head. “The money doesn’t matter.”

  “Can’t you go back?” Heller asked.

  “No.”

  Heller chewed on their conversation.

  A waiter happened by and Salim stopped him with a gesture, requested a glass of red.

  “Another glass, Salim, are you sure?” the waiter asked.

  “God will understand,” Salim told him.

  The waiter nodded, went on his way. The glass of wine was at the table seconds later, and Salim swirled it, pensive, sadness reflected in the lights of the restaurant.

  “She’s still thinking of you,” Heller said.

  “She’s dancing with her husband,” Salim said quietly.

  Heller shook his head, convinced. “I think he’s dancing with her.”

  Salim gave a single-syllable laugh, smiled. “You’re a smart boy.”

  “Not really,” Heller said, awkward, picking up his silverware and continuing to eat.

  “You have insight,” Salim insisted. “You have insight, and insight isn’t a gift if nobody listens.”

  “You listen . . . ,” Heller said.

  “I understand you. . . .”

  Heller bit his lip.

  “And it isn’t easy when the rest of the world doesn’t, Heller. When their ears and eyes are sealed off to what’s right in front of them, blinded by distraction.”

  “So what do I do?” Heller asked.

  Salim took a drink of his wine, put his glass down. “If you wake up to find your house burning down, do you try to escape as fast as you can, rush out of the house in a frenzy? Or do you slowly make your way out, even through the flames?”

  “I run out of the house.”

  “That’s what you do. That’s what everyone does when the world boils over. What should be done is simple; and that is to slowly walk through the fire. Take your time. Slow down, because the smoke will char your lungs, your skin will burn, and the flames will finally devour your house either way. . . . Slow down.”

  “Slow down,” Heller repeated.

  “Make her see you.”

  “What?”

  “She hasn’t seen you yet.”

  Their eyes locked somewhere in the middle of the table.

  They ordered dessert and coffee before Heller asked for the check.

  chapter twenty-five

  They were sitting on Heller’s roof, later, each one in his own rickety lawn chair, looking over the rest of the neighborhood. The sounds of the city tickled their ears. In the distance, the buildings of the financial district climbed upward to heaven, hiding the Statue of Liberty from view. Neither one had spoken for nearl
y an hour. Quiet and introspective, thoughts playing tag outside their heads.

  Salim extended his arm, offered Heller a drink of wine from a bottle purchased earlier. Heller looked at the bottle, groaned, shook his head.

  Salim laughed, took a pull.

  They continued to sit in silence under a half-full moon.

  chapter twenty-Six

  The sun was just rising.

  Heller was still lying in the lawn chair, eyes closed, one minute away from waking up. All around him, birds hopped, cleaned their feathers, called to one another. Light crept up through pale mist, chalk blue sky and orange horizon. Sounds of the night shift heading home, crawling into unmade beds, setting their alarm clocks as their neighbors’ went off.

  Monday in Manhattan.

  On some corner, several blocks away, an explosion tore through the air, someone’s car backfiring.

  The birds all scattered, a dark cloud for an instant, then dispersing.

  Heller opened his eyes. He squinted into the morning air, rubbed his eyes. Looked to his left. Salim was gone. Empty bottle of wine next to his chair.

  “Good morning,” Heller murmured to himself.

  He stretched.

  The water cascaded over Heller.

  Steam rose from his feet, formed drops of condensation on the shower tiles, curtain, walls, and ceiling of the bathroom. The drops made soothing sounds against Heller’s skin, streams flowing out of his hair, down his face, cleansing him. The past two days of sweat and drink collected at his feet, swirled down the drain.

  Heller relaxed, gave himself an extra ten minutes to remain in his liquid cocoon.

  Thought about Salim.

  Thought about Silvia.

  His mind wandered from there, and soon ten minutes were over.

  The mirror looked unfamiliar.

  The reflection, Heller’s face staring right back at him; it was as though the two of them hadn’t seen each other in a long time. A distant reunion years later. Heller fixed his hair, tried combing it back, to the side, parting it in the middle.

  Gave himself a mohawk.

  Heller checked the calendar, if only to make sure that he hadn’t overslept a couple of years over. It was still July 9, 2001.