My New American Life

by Francine Prose

  Why not? Lula wanted to ask. Why shouldn’t Alvo have been there? Was jealousy the problem? Was it Alvo’s criminal past? Alvo’s criminal present? Lula’s lying was the problem. Did Lula’s minimal alteration of the truth make Don think that she didn’t know why he’d chosen a hard life over an easy one, or what was at stake for him and this country? Did Don believe that her efforts to help a guy she had a little crush on was a threat to the Founding Fathers and the American way of life? Don was a hero. Case closed. Lula respected him for being brave and honest and always ready to help the underdog. Would Don refuse to keep working on her green-card case because she told a tiny white lie to save her Albanian brother? Don would go on helping her. Don was in every way—well, in most ways—a saintly human being.

  “Look,” said Don. “I know. People do crazy things for love. If this is love. Is it love, Lula?”

  No! Lula wanted to say. Or was it? She didn’t think so. This was hardly the moment to analyze the depth of her feelings for Alvo.

  “You know a concept I’ve been having trouble with lately?” Don said. “No, why should you? Well, the fact is, I’ve been having trouble with simultaneity.”

  “Simultaneity?” said Lula.

  “Two things happening at once,” Don said.

  “I know what the word means,” said Lula. It was maddening that at this late date Don should question her English. Did he correct Savitra’s grammar? Savitra grew up in Great Neck.

  “What I mean,” said Don, “is that at this very moment, this kid I met down there last week, this boy, this child, younger than Zeke, for fuck’s sake, the usual story, they confused him with some jihadist piece of shit, they don’t believe he’s fourteen, the warrant says he’s twenty, he looks older than his age. Now he looks like a little old man. They grab him off a Yemeni street and fly him blindfolded and shackled to Guantánamo, where he’s been tortured and starved. He spit bacon back in a guard’s face, he started acting up. They gave him electroshock until he seized so badly he’s paralyzed down one side of his body. He’s a kid. He’s alive right now, Lula, and maybe right now he’s being punched around after days and nights without sleep, at the exact same moment that you and I are sitting in this comfortable high-rent office and you’re bullshitting me to save the ass of some loser whose only saving grace is that he comes from your country and at some point you wanted to fuck him.”

  “Losers are human beings too,” said Lula.

  Don said, “He’s not your cousin. He’s not political. And he did the crimes.”

  Lula said, “I don’t know what he did. What if he stole something? Everybody steals. Compared to the crimes you deal with, what’s theft? In grade school we learned that property is theft, and then they stopped teaching that, they said it was too right-wing. By the time I got to university, property was good, the more property the better, preferably real estate. Not having property was theft, or anyway, it gave you a reason to steal. Someone emptied a cash register? Okay. No one got hurt! The dog recovered! Let my cousin pay back what he stole. I’ll make sure he does. Why take away fifteen years of his life? His whole life is what it will be. What kind of justice is that? Supermarket-owner justice. Aren’t you the one who talks about the big lies and the small ones? You Americans and your freedom to give speeches about the truth. You don’t know how free you are. In another country, you could piss me off and I could turn you in, or I could turn you in because I wanted your real estate, and they’d send you away to a labor camp, and that would be that.”

  Don said, “Are you finished, Lula?”

  Lula shrugged.

  Don looked at his watch. “I’m sorry about your friend. But I’ve got enough on my plate. I could do twenty years of nonstop habeas corpus before I got around to a breaking and entering case. Unless it was Watergate, maybe. But look, Lula, I’ve always liked you. And you’ve done wonders for Stan’s kid. That poor boy was a basket case before you arrived. Or anyhow so Stan says. I don’t doubt him. You’re talented, smart, you’re a scrapper. The country needs people like you. We’ll forget this whole incident happened. Everyone makes mistakes. We’ll just forget it and never mention it and work on your legal status. Then you can become a court interpreter or a lawyer or whatever, and the next time your boyfriend robs a store, you can defend him yourself.”

  Lula said, “It’s not so easy to forget.”

  “You’re young,” said Don. “You’d be amazed at how much you can forget in twenty years. I hate to bring this pleasant chat to an end. But our five minutes are up. I’ll call you if I hear anything about your green card. It’ll be a while. Be patient. Give my love to Stan and Zeke.”

  Lula wanted to ask him not to tell Mister Stanley. But she couldn’t ask, and besides she knew he would tell Mister Stanley. The whole story would come out. Mister Stanley would be furious, and this part of her life would be over. More proof, as if she needed it, of how your secret hope for a change in your circumstances could turn around and bite you. She shook Don’s hand and thanked him, and though she assured him that she could find her way out alone, he remanded her into the custody of the same scrubbed boy.

  Only in the elevator did she remember that Genti was waiting. The SUV slithered across the street, and she climbed into the passenger seat.

  “What did your boy say?” Genti asked.

  “He says he’ll do what he can,” said Lula.

  “Good work! Should I pick you up tomorrow? We can go to court together.”

  “I have errands to do on the way,” Lula lied. “I’ll meet you there.”

  “See you in court, ha ha,” Genti said.

  “Funny joke,” Lula said.

  That night, she waited for Mister Stanley to mention the phone call from Don. But the subject never came up. How was Zeke? Had he done his homework? Hadn’t Don said that he and Lula could just forget it? Maybe there was still a chance that everything could work out all right.

  The next morning, Lula got through the line fairly quickly and hurried to the courtroom, where two elderly Filipino gentlemen were shouting at each other, while the judge shouted at their lawyers to make their clients quit shouting. What had happened to Alvo? Despite what Genti said, Lula never imagined his case would be settled so fast. Why hadn’t Lula let Genti drive her into the city?

  Lula left the court and rushed down the hall, looking in other courtrooms, searching for someone she could ask about Alvo. A guard sent her to another guard, who sent her to a desk, where a woman sent her to an office, where someone gave her a number to call. Exactly like Albania.

  It was possible that she would never know how Alvo’s story ended. Possible that, for Lula, the story would end here. When she called Alvo’s cell phone, a recording apologized: The number was no longer in service. Lula looked around wildly, further alerting the guards who’d already noted her terroristic dash from courtroom to courtroom.

  She left the building and went home. Maybe Genti would stop by and give her an update. By now, they had probably figured out that Don hadn’t lifted a finger on Alvo’s behalf.

  No one stopped by. No one called.

  Late in the afternoon, Zeke came home. His posture annoyed her. His fake smile annoyed her. The cigarette ash on his black jeans annoyed her. The way his hair sucked up all the light in the room annoyed her. Poor Zeke. Poor little baby. Ginger was his mother. How Lula’s heart must have hardened for her to feel anything but love and kindness and compassion.

  She said, “You want some hot chocolate?”

  Zeke said, “Did I do something good that I don’t know about?” His gratitude was depressing. It was scary how easily he could grow up to be Mister Stanley. Under the black dye and piercings was his father’s son. But what was so bad about that? Mister Stanley was a decent, well-intentioned person.

  “You didn’t do anything especially good,” said Lula. “You are good.”

  “My dad pays you to say that,” said Zeke.

  “This is me talking, not him.” A voice inside Lula’s head seemed to b
e giving some sort of speech about how grateful she felt for the time she’d spent with Zeke and for how much he’d helped her adjust to a new country. Why was the voice so solemn? Because she was hearing herself deliver the eulogy for her life with Zeke. Lula went to the window, where, she knew, the desolate sprinkle of snow would make her feel even more unhappy.

  She said, “We have extra pizza in the freezer. We don’t have to go out.”

  “Are you all right?” asked Zeke.

  “I’m catching a cold,” Lula said. “Dr. Lula prescribes hot chocolate.”

  Lula recalled seeing cocoa mix at the back of the kitchen cabinet. The packaging was designed to look vintage, and by now the contents probably were. But thanks to the scientific miracle of preservatives, the hot chocolate was delicious. Had Ginger made cocoa for Zeke? Zeke was not about to let the memory of his mother ruin his precious hot-chocolate moment with Lula.

  A little later, Lula heated a pizza and left it out for Zeke. Mojitos were too much work. She could live without one. She went to her room and lay down. She slept and woke in her clothes. She thought it was nine in the morning. It was nine at night. She couldn’t face Mister Stanley. They could skip the nightly check-in. Sooner or later Don would tell Stan about this guy Lula was lying about, and how she’d tried to make Don lie too. Her luck wouldn’t last forever. It was already leaching away.

  She took the last of Ginger’s pills. After a while she checked her watch. Hours had gone by. Had she been lying awake in the dark, or had she fallen asleep? She felt achier but less stupid. Smart enough to register the fact that someone was knocking on her door.

  “Lula,” yelled Mister Stanley. “Can we talk downstairs?”

  Mister Stanley was disappointed in her. Mister Stanley had been deceived. Mister Stanley had expected more of her. How could Lula have so betrayed his confidence and trust, consorting with thieves and criminals, endangering the welfare of the innocent boy he’d hired her and paid her generously to protect?

  Over and over Mister Stanley said, “You brought a criminal into my home!”

  The worst part was that Lula could see it from his point of view. She’d been naive and reckless. She should never have let the three guys into the house. She would have liked to tell Mister Stanley that, but another drawback to habitual lying was that no one believed you when you switched to the truth.

  Apparently this was too serious for a kitchen conversation, which revealed a flaw in Mister Stanley’s thinking. Nothing was too important for the kitchen. Her granny had died at her stove. But tonight Mister Stanley summoned her into the bookless library, the workless office, the dank ceremonial chamber where she hadn’t been since he’d hired her and took her there to tell her the rules. Be home in time for Zeke, no drinking or smoking, no driving farther than The Good Earth, make Zeke eat vegetables, etcetera. Lula had broken every rule except the one against smoking, which Zeke broke himself. And the rule against letting him drive farther than the market, which there was still time to break. Mister Stanley had never thought to make a rule against driving Alvo’s Lexus.

  The library smelled like old people, like old clothes in old closets. It was the principal’s office, where bad children were sent. Americans, with their big houses, their special rooms for special events. If her father wanted to have a talk, which he never did, he’d have taken her out to their favorite garbage-dump shooting range. How she missed her papa! There was no one to defend her against Mister Stanley’s charges. So what if they were justified? Lula was only human. Humans made mistakes. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. She’d just been unable to resist the lure of risky entertainment.

  Lula watched Mister Stanley pace the room, ranting. If he would only shut up and listen, so much could be explained. Alvo and his friends had practically home-invaded her, practically held a gun to her head and made her ask Don to help. Alternately, she could confess. The gun was Alvo’s. Lula had lied when she’d said it was Ginger’s. She’d been afraid the truth might involve police and trouble with immigration. But Alvo wasn’t a killer. Zeke was never in danger. Ginger had been the danger, sneaking around the house. And Lula had been so forgiving after Mister Stanley’s wife had threatened them with a knife. How could Mister Stanley reduce Lula’s loving relationship with Zeke to the cheap materialism of a service he’d paid for? Had he paid her extra for making Zeke hot chocolate? She cared about Zeke, she’d been kind to him. Zeke had been a basket case before Lula arrived.

  And while Lula was numbering the wrongs committed against her, how could Don have betrayed her to Mister Stanley? What about attorney-client privilege? Did Don think that Lula never watched TV? Wasn’t Lula entitled to this legal or basic human right, if not yet as a citizen then as a human being? There were probably grounds for a lawsuit here, if she’d had a green card and a hefty American trust fund.

  Lula would have felt worse about her boss’s accusations, but she kept being distracted by the way that anger had created or perhaps just unleashed a whole new Mister Stanley. Purple instead of mushroom white, outraged instead of apologetic, he seemed to have expanded into a physically larger presence. Had he occupied this much space with Ginger? It was shocking how long you could live with someone and know nothing about him. Who would have suspected that Mister Stanley could devolve into a jungle creature driven wild by animal instinct to protect his lair and his young? Not once in his tirade did he say “one” instead of “me,” and with every word his voice descended from his sinuses deeper into his chest. The idea of Mister Stanley as an untapped reservoir of unsuspected qualities filled Lula with regret. She wouldn’t be here long enough to discover even one more hidden aspect of his character.

  But Zeke was the one she would really miss. Maybe she and Zeke could stay friends. She could visit him at college. An abyss opened beneath her, a landslide set off by her inability to picture the place from which she’d leave to go see Zeke.

  If the mild Mister Stanley had a problem with eye contact, his spitfire incarnation’s gaze was a high beam directed at Lula. But at last Mister Stanley blinked and stopped and waited for her to respond.

  Lula put everything she had into the ultimate Mr.-Stanley-pleasing shrug. She tried to infuse her rising shoulders with a thousand years of Balkan history, with the what-else-is-new of invaders, murder, pillage, and exile, the what-can-you do of failed monarchies, empires, promises, and scams, the what-do-you-expect of Communism, of decades when you couldn’t know anything, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t say anything, when all you could do was shrug and teach your children to shrug. She turned up both palms with the you-can’t-tell-me-anything-I-don’t-already-know world-weariness of a person who’d spent the formative years of her childhood under the paranoid leadership of a psychotic dictator, a person who had seen economic collapse and rioting and chaotic violence and everywhere gangsters in control, in the open and from the shadows.

  She said, “Zeke was never in danger. Not from Alvo, anyway.”

  “How can you be sure?” Mister Stanley wanted her to have been sure.

  “I’m sure,” said Lula. “Trust me.”

  “I wish I could,” said Mister Stanley.

  “Then fire me,” Lula said.

  “Not so fast,” said Mister Stanley. “We’ve had enough drama in this house. Let’s think about alternatives. Take our time. Mull things over.”

  The way he’d said “mull things over” filled Lula with despair. She said, “I should probably quit.”

  “What makes you think you can quit?” Mister Stanley said, his voice rising again. “Have you considered your chances of finding another sponsor after you asked my childhood friend to sacrifice his integrity, to risk his career, to help some thug you let into my home while my son and I slept?”

  “He’s not a thug,” Lula said. “Are you saying you won’t sponsor me if I don’t work here?”

  “No,” said Mister Stanley. “I’m not saying that at all. Though it might be more tricky. Legally speaking. Let’s sleep on it. Let’s revisit
the subject tomorrow night when I come home. There’s nothing like twenty-four hours to clarify one’s thinking.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning, Lula waited until eleven, an hour by which even the most pampered plastic surgeon’s wife was certain to be awake. Still, Dunia sounded groggy when she answered the phone. A more thoughtful best friend might have asked how Lula was.

  Dunia said, “Please God, somebody shoot me now. I am so hung over.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Lula said.

  “Old school,” mumbled Dunia. “You sound like my granny.”

  “You and Doctor Steve been partying?”

  “What Doctor Steve?” said Dunia. “Doctor Steve was another lifetime.”

  “Excuse me?” Lula said.

  “The marriage is over. It’s going to be annulled. Which makes everybody happy. Steve’s family included. Steve’s family especially. No ugly divorce courts, no bloodsucking lawyers, no scandal. Just a big cash settlement direct-deposited into my bank account. It turns out that Doctor Steve and the versatile Jorge my driver were having a little extramarital something on the side. I don’t even want to think what special perfume Steve brought him. How could I not have known? Remember I told you that Steve liked me to talk Albanian during sex? The part I didn’t mention was that he made me talk Albanian in a low growly voice. Pervert Steve wanted to imagine he was having sex with an Albanian guy! Speaking of which, whatever happened with that Albanian guy you went out with Christmas Eve?”

  “Not much,” said Lula.

  “It’s probably better,” said Dunia. “Anyhow, no more Steve. What do they say? If it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true? If it looks like a fish and smells like a fish, it probably is a fish. You know me. I’m an honest person. I’m not the blackmailing type. Steve was thrilled when I agreed not to ask for half of everything he’s got. Which I probably could have gotten, if I was scheming or greedy.”