House of Sand and Fog: A Novel

by Andre Dubus III

  I feel a heaviness in my fingers, a heat in my chest and face. “But I now own the home.”

  “Is the sale final?”

  “Of course. I paid for it cash, I have a bill of sale.” I open my valise and withdraw all the paperwork from the sale of the home. The woman lawyer examines them a moment. She sits back in her chair and looks into my eyes as directly as would a man, a man of influence and status. “Are you willing to sell the county back the house? I’d see to it they made it as comfortable a transaction as possible.”

  “Please to me listen very carefully, Miss Walsh. The only comfortable transaction possible is if the county tax office pays to me one hundred and seventy thousand dollars for the property. If they pay me this, I will move, but only in the autumn season. My wife is sick and she needs a summer’s rest. I also will require time to find a new home.”

  “Mr. Behrani, you paid a quarter of that.”

  I stand and step away from the chair. “The market will already pay me this. I believe this is something you should discuss with the gentlemen at the county tax office. Good morning, Miss Walsh.” I offer my hand to this woman lawyer. She takes it very briefly and she stands as well.

  “The rightful owner of that house is living in a motel, Mr. Behrani. All her belongings are locked in storage. Why should she have to wait any longer than necessary to get back into the home that was wrongfully taken from her?”

  Again, I feel the blood in my chest, my face, behind my eyes. Who are these people? To whom do they think they are speaking? “Of course you do not understand what I have said: I am the rightful owner of this property. I am being wronged. You have heard my offer. You are fortunate I have decided to sell the property at all.”

  I leave quickly and without another word. The downstairs café is full of people seated at small tables drinking coffee, eating pastries. There is music playing, one of the European composers, and men and women who have dressed in only T-shirts and blue jeans look up at me as I pass them by. They view my face, my suit, the valise under my arm, and as I return their eyes back to them, they look away as if I have come to collect something they cannot pay.

  I SPENT THE LAST OF THE AFTERNOON IN A LAWN CHAIR AT THE DEEP end of the motel’s pool. No one else was around and I closed my eyes to the sun, smoked, sipped a Diet Coke, and kept tapping my good foot on the warm concrete; I couldn’t relax: I still didn’t like the way Connie had sounded on the phone earlier; she’d said she’d seen the “new owner” this morning and the good news was he was willing to sell the house back to the county, but the county still had to admit their mistake, want to rescind the sale, then actually buy it back. She sounded tired and put out, like she had nine other things on her mind. She told me to call back at the end of the day, then she made herself sound cheerful and told me to stay optimistic, we’re just warming up. I didn’t like how she put that; if I was going to move back into my house this weekend, shouldn’t we be heated up pretty hot already? Still, I was glad to hear the Arab family was willing to sell and move, and I was trying to concentrate on that piece of news.

  A shadow moved over me and I looked up into Lester’s smiling face. I hadn’t heard his car pull up. The top two buttons of his uniform shirt were undone and he stood with his fingers resting on his hips.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey, yourself.” He squatted, his leather holster creaking slightly. He took my hand and kissed it. “Let me take you on a proper date tonight, Kathy.”

  His eyes looked hopeful and I couldn’t help myself. “We gonna fight over the check again?”

  “No, because you’re going to let me pay.”

  “Only if we go someplace nice.”

  He smiled under his mustache. “That was my plan.”

  “My lawyer says the Arabs will sell my house back.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “A bunch of other bullshit has to happen before I can move back in though.”

  “With the county?”

  “Yep.”

  “Still, it’s progress.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself.”

  “Then we should celebrate.” He leaned forward and kissed me. His mustache tickled and he tasted like one of those eucalyptus lozenges, though I didn’t think he had a sore throat or cold. I hoped I didn’t taste like somebody’s ashcan. He stood and asked if seven-thirty was okay and I said I’d be ready, should I dress up?

  He nodded and smiled and I watched him walk out to the motor lodge parking lot, get into his Toyota station wagon, and drive off. I wondered what he’d tell his wife about tonight, about where he was going and who with, and I wondered again what I thought I was doing, having been with a married man only once before, back in Saugus, Mass., for one night when I was still using. He was a bar customer, a salesman who dressed in custom-tailored suits, silk ties, and even gold cufflinks. We all thought he overdid the wardrobe, but one night Jimmy Doran let him stay after hours while we cleaned up and soon four or five of us were doing lines and drinking and moving to the sound system. After a while the salesman was making moves on me and the Enemy Voice in my head was a cooing dove.

  ALREADY NADEREH IS DRESSED AND IN THE KITCHEN AREA SLICING eggplant for one of the many dishes she will prepare for tomorrow evening’s dinner party. But it is only Friday morning, no later than eight o’clock, and I sit at the counter with hot tea and toast.

  “Nadi-joon, do you not think you will be able to cook one meal in one day?”

  “Khawk bah sar, Massoud.” Dust on your head, she to me says. And she smiles as she turns to rinse her hands in the sink’s water. Before her, the kitchen window is only partially blocked by the staircase to the new widow’s walk, something I was grateful to see, for Nadi has said nothing of it. The najars completed their work yesterday not long after the lunch hour. I was so pleased with the final appearance of it, the long straight rails of the staircase, the strong wide boards of the walk, the railing there too, that when I wrote the young najar his final check I included a fifty-dollar bonus for such a professional job well done. I was of course still feeling the beneficial effects of the visit I had made to a lawyer in downtown Corona that afternoon, a very short gentleman wearing a silk bow tie who, for one hundred fifty dollars, heard the details of my situation, examined the paperwork of the sale from the county, and then advised me there was nothing anyone could do against me. The property belonged to me now and I could do with it what I wish.

  Last evening Nadi, Esmail, and I stood on the new structure and watched the sun disappear. It was a ball of bright saffron sinking into the sea, turning the water purple, the sky orange and green. Nadi put her arm around our son’s waist and she began to tell him of the beauty of the Caspian, did he remember any of it? But, for the first time, there was very little evidence of pain in her voice when she spoke of our old life, and I put my hand upon her shoulder and listened to her speak to our son and as the sky and ocean colors slowly darkened I felt a certain regret that I must sell this property that has brought my Nadi back to herself. But I felt also all the more determined to make it worth my troubles, to earn back at least three times my original investment. For two days I have heard nothing from the woman lawyer in San Francisco. Nor have I heard from the county tax office. And this is as it should be; I will not contact them. They have heard my offer. And if they refuse it, I can turn to the open market. Yesterday I received two telephone inquiries regarding the home and I have made appointments for showings on Monday.

  I rise from my breakfast and go to the door for my shoes. I see that Nadi has hung something new on the wall above the sofa. In a gold frame it is the prized photograph of myself and General Pourat addressing Shahanshah at a Persian New Year’s celebration at the Imperial Palace. The king is dressed in the finest of European suits while Pourat and I are in full uniform, our hats in our hands, smiling at something complimentary the king has said of our air force. Also in the photo are three men, a foreign minister from Africa and two large Savakis, their hand
s folded before them, their faces and eyes empty of all humor. I know Nadi has hung this picture not only for Soraya’s benefit, but for her own as well, for of course Soraya’s new relatives have already seen the photograph at our expensive apartment in Berkeley. They have investigated us and they know the caliber of people we are, but I suppose Nadi must remind them, so they do not regard this small bungalow and perhaps forget.

  My wife rinses radishes and cucumbers in the sink for a meal we will not eat until tomorrow evening. I wish to tell her to slow herself, to rest; our daughter is already married and we must no longer break our backs. But I know my Nadi. My lack of concern will worry her further and then she will insist we paint the walls and hang new drapes before tomorrow. No, for this moment I leave her to herself. I will drive down the hill into Corona and purchase tasteful outdoor furniture for our widow’s walk, and perhaps I can find what is called a love seat for the young husband and wife, my lovely daughter who I last saw two weeks past, stepping into the rear of a limousine dressed in ivory satin, her long black hair tucked up upon her head beneath a spray of baby breath flowers which she wore like a crown.

  IN ONLY TWO NIGHTS AND TWO MORNINGS LESTER BURDON WENT from being a distraction for me to the main movie, and I wasn’t even sure how that happened, though I know it started when he picked me up right at seven-thirty Wednesday night wearing polished black cowboy boots, black pants, a gray tweed jacket, and a white shirt buttoned at the throat. His hair was combed straight back and his mustache looked less crooked. He was so handsome I immediately doubted how I looked; I’d changed only twice, finally ending up in black rayon slacks, a white dress blouse, and a short rust jacket I always liked because when I buttoned the bottom it pulled into my waist and made me look like I had more of a bust. I wore my black dress pumps and the pressure of the right one felt almost good, like a fresh bandage. I had put my hair up too and now I wondered if I looked womanly enough, but Les took me in like he’d never seen anything so perfect before and on the drive up the highway for San Francisco under the setting sun I wondered if he left his house dressed like that, what did he tell his wife?

  The Orion Room was at the top of the Hyatt Regency close to the long wharfs of Embarcadero Street. The restaurant took up the whole top floor and was surrounded by carpet-to-ceiling windows that leaned out at a slight angle. A large square bar was in the middle of the room and three bartenders were working back there now, their shirts and ties and faces bottom-lit with green light. The bar was full of well-dressed men and women laughing and talking over the music of the piano player, who sat on a raised platform, a dim light on him as he played and sang an old song I couldn’t name. The mâitre d’ led us past crowded candlelit tables and I tried not to limp as much as my foot still needed, which was hard to do in heels and I was sure everybody must be looking. Our table was small, covered in white linen, and it was right up against one of the glass walls. I could see the tops of skyscrapers looking gold and pink in the dusk light, the blue stretch of the bay, but the whole picture was moving and I had to sit down in the chair the host pulled out for me.

  “It’s a revolving room,” Lester said. “Would you rather go someplace else?”

  I looked at him, then back out the window. He was right. Already I was seeing less of the tall office buildings and more of San Francisco Bay, a half-dozen tiny white sails, the yellow hills of Berkeley on the other side. I laughed. “This is weird.”

  “Do you like it?” Lester was smiling, though his eyes were in a squint like there was only one answer he could really handle.

  “Yeah, I like it.” And I did once I got used to it. Our waiter showed up fast, his blond hair so short he could’ve been in the military. He asked what we’d like to drink and when I ordered a mineral water Les did the same. After the waiter left I lit up a cigarette. “You don’t have to go without because of me, Lester.”

  “Oh, I don’t miss it. I’m not a big drinker anyway.”

  “Me neither. I mean, I wasn’t.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “Only when I did lines. That’s what almost killed me.”

  Lester’s brown eyes looked more deep-set than ever.

  “You’ve done them too, haven’t you, Officer Burdon?”

  Les shook his head. “’Fraid not.”

  The young waiter came with our mineral waters. He handed us tall menus, then recited the night’s specials. I watched him walk back to the main dining area, then I looked over all the full candlelit tables to the piano player, who wasn’t singing now, just playing something slow and sad, and I turned and looked back out the window. This time I could see the Bay Bridge to Oakland, the long gray cables in the twilight. “Have you ever done anything against the law, Lester?”

  “That’s a strange question.”

  I blew smoke at the glass. “A conversation starter. We’ve already slept together and I don’t even know your middle name.”

  “Victor.”

  “Lester Victor?”

  “Not very musical, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t.” I sipped my mineral water. “Well?”

  “Recently? Or a long time ago?”

  “How recently?”

  He glanced down at the tablecloth. The restaurant was turning to the east now, our windows facing out over south San Francisco, so Lester’s face was shadowed. “It’s pretty big.”

  “How big?”

  “Big enough not another soul knows about it. Can you handle that?”

  “You mean can you trust me?”

  “I already trust you, Kathy. Do you want it in your lap?”

  “Do I have to keep it there?”

  Lester smiled. “I guess not.” He looked once around the restaurant then leaned forward and said in a low voice: “I planted evidence.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded, slowly, like he was trying to see how I felt about this.

  “Not our schoolteacher boy in blue.” I felt an almost electrical current in my arms and face.

  Lester smiled again, a little sadly, though.

  “Well?”

  “There was this guy out near the reservoir, this little runt who used to beat up his wife like it was a pastime. He was an engineer or something, a teetotaler, but he’d go off the deep end and take a belt or a piece of garden hose to her. We never found out what exactly. The neighbors would call us, and my partner and I would show up on a hot night, talk ourselves in, and there’d be these bloody welts on her arms and legs, but they’d both stand there together, sometimes arm in arm like it was nobody’s business. I’d take her off to the side and ask if she was staying quiet out of fear of him, but she just looked at me with these big wet eyes like she didn’t know what I was talking about. This was before the domestic violence law, Kathy, when we couldn’t bring the batterer in unless the victim filed a complaint.”

  “You think she liked it?”

  “My partner thought so; I didn’t. Anyway, at least once a week we’d get called out there and after a while I couldn’t stand the sight of them, especially him. Bastard had the longest, skinniest neck you ever saw.”

  I let out a laugh, and Lester did too.

  “We had something on him, though—he had a prior conviction for possession of your old habit, and I didn’t agree with my partner, I thought she was scared to death. So on one of those hot tedious nights, I excused myself to go to the john, where I stuffed two eight balls in their closet behind a stack of towels.”

  “No way.” I felt a tickle rise in my throat.

  He raised a finger to his lips. “My ex-partner doesn’t even know about this.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “A recovered Lincoln the day before.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We didn’t have a warrant, so when I got home that night I put in an anonymous call to the department, then slept like a baby. They both got picked up, but because of his prior he got some time. A few months later I drove by the house to check on her, but the new res
idents said she’d moved.” He shook his head. “She was scared to death of him.”

  “Shit, Lester, you just do what you want to do, don’t you?” I slipped my shoes off under the table. My right sole pulsed but didn’t hurt much.

  He smiled carefully and sipped his mineral water.

  “But what if you were wrong? What if she did like it?”

  He sat back a little, cocking his head at me. “You really believe that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Would you like that?” His voice was sincere, naked, and it was hard not to play with him a bit.

  “No, but I’ve known some real sickos.”

  “But how much better are they going to get if we allow them to live like that?” There was that tightness in his face again and I didn’t know if it was covering something hard or soft. The piano player was singing an upbeat Sinatra tune, and a busboy brought us warm rolls in a linen-covered basket. I broke one in two.

  “So how come you need to wear this cape and mask, Les?”

  “That’s a good question.” Lester sliced into a roll and buttered it. Our waiter showed up just then and asked if we’d picked out an appetizer. I thought he was doing a nice job trying to get the final bill as high as possible for himself, but we decided to skip the appetizer and ended up ordering two of the night’s specials instead, the chicken Provençale for me, swordfish with lemon caper sauce for Lester. He started to hand the wine menu back unopened, but before the young waiter disappeared I told him to bring us a decent Napa Valley chardonnay.

  “What’re you up to?”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “I ordered it for you. I know you want some. So, what’s the illegal thing you did a long time ago?”