He picked up a shell and examined it before tossing it down. “I reasoned with him.”
“Sam was never a reasonable man.”
Jalal shielded his eyes and scanned the water for the kids. Kristen spotted him, and he returned her wave. “I guess Sam is not the same man you married.”
“No, he’s not,” said Azadeh. They walked on for a while before she broke the silence. “So, who is Renee, really?”
He glanced over at her. “Just some local girl.”
She smiled. “A girl who seems very comfortable in your house.”
“Do not make it a big deal, Aza. We just talk.”
“How long have you known her?”
He stopped and bent down to pick up a stone. “I am not sure. Three weeks? Does it matter?”
“How did you meet her?”
Jalal shot her a glare and flung the stone into the surf. “She walked by the house one day.”
“And?”
He threw his hands up. “We frequent the same restaurant. I see her along the beach. Sometimes she stops by the house. We talk. End of story.”
“She’s young.”
He looked skyward, sighing. “Yes.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Okay.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m not judging you. It’s been two and a half years.”
The pity in her voice was more than he could take. He shook off her hand and walked away, down the beach, immediately ashamed of his reaction. Azadeh did not follow. Why did she put up with him? A few yards away, he climbed partway up a crumbled cliff and watched her walk back toward the kids. Like a shadow, Azadeh never left his side in the first weeks after Meredith’s accident. She had literally kept him alive. Some days he blessed her for that, on others he cursed her. If only to please her, he wished he could be happy again.
Jalal insisted Azadeh and the kids spend the night. He took them out for dinner and though Ryan lobbied for pizza, they out voted him in favor of seafood. As a consolation, Jalal let Ryan drive back to the house. Later, after two cutthroat games of Phase 10, Azadeh and Kristen settled in the guestroom while Ryan and Jalal flipped a coin to see who would be stuck sleeping on the sofa. Ryan won the bed, but seemed in no hurry to claim it. Jalal sensed Ryan wanted to talk about the divorce. He grabbed two cold beers and motioned for the boy to join him on the porch.
As soon as they took their seats, Jalal handed him a bottle. “Do not tell your mother I gave you that.”
“Got it,” said Ryan. “But this is not my first beer, you know.”
Jalal laughed. “I had a feeling it might not be. I may be old, but senility has not wiped out all memory of being your age.”
“I don’t think of you as old. I mean, I know you’re older than Mom, but you don’t seem like it. You’re still cool.”
“Thanks.” Jalal tipped the neck of his bottle in Ryan’s direction. “So, how is your life?”
“Oh, you know.”
“Do you like Coelho?”
“It’s okay.” Ryan took a long swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll like it more when my friend Eric comes down to visit.”
“Indeed.”
“We can hang at the mall, check out the girls.”
“Sounds like a plan.” They sat in silence for a minute, drinking. Jalal waited for Ryan to speak his mind, but it was late, their bottles were half-empty, and Ryan evidently needed a push. “Did you want to talk to me about something?”
Ryan took a drink, and then another. “Did you know my dad’s a fag?”
Jalal froze with his bottle halfway to his mouth. Oh, hell. He had thought Ryan needed to talk about the divorce. He lowered his hand. “That is a harsh thing to say.”
Ryan stood up. “Just forget it, okay?”
Jalal grabbed his arm. “Sit down. Please.” He waited until Ryan settled and then, hoping he was doing the right thing, he told him, “I suspected … but only recently.”
“Does Mom know?”
“I do not know. What do you think?”
Ryan shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t want to know.”
Jalal nodded. “Maybe not. Or maybe she is not ready to discuss it with you.”
“Got it.”
“What your father does … or is … has nothing to do with you,” said Jalal. “You know that, right?”
“Sure.” Ryan drank the last of his beer and set the bottle down. He stood up again. “I think I’ll get some sleep.”
“Enjoy the bed,” said Jalal.
“Awww, man. I don’t mind the sofa, really, it’s no big—”
“It was a joke, doofus.”
Ryan tapped his fist on Jalal’s shoulder as he passed behind him. “Thanks for … you know.”
“No problem.”
Jalal finished his beer. Such power fathers have over their sons. Had Ryan only humored him? Did he know what Jalal had told him was bull? Maybe the boy was stronger than he had been at that age. Maybe Ryan would grow up just fine in the shadow of his father. The sound of the door opening again startled him. He turned his head expecting to see Ryan.
Azadeh stepped out onto the porch. She carried two glasses in one hand and an uncorked bottle of wine in the other, probably his most expensive red. She sat down in the chair her son had vacated, passed the bottle to Jalal, and held out the glasses while he poured. After he took one from her, she leaned down and picked up Ryan’s empty beer bottle. “Corrupting my son?”
“I only gave him—”
“Relax. I’m teasing you.” She sat the bottle down. “Don’t you think I remember when we used to sneak wine and hide in the attic to drink it? We were both younger than Ryan is now.”
He smiled. “Partners in crime.”
“What one of us didn’t think of, the other did.” She took a sip. “My god, we drank some horrid stuff.”
“Is that why you punish me by drinking my best now?”
She smiled. “It’s not my fault you developed a palate.”
For a moment, they sat drinking together in silence.
“I sensed Ryan wanted to talk to you,” she said, “so I stood at the door and listened.”
“You heard everything?”
“I’m not an idiot, Jalal. I’ve known about Sam for a while.”
Jalal let out a long breath. “I did not suspect until a few months ago.” In March, when he had gone up to Seattle for Maman’s birthday, he had sensed it. Unable to point to anything specific, anything concrete, and aware his natural dislike for the man might be coloring his impression, he had said nothing to Azadeh, but he renewed his advice to divorce Sam.
“Sam hid it well,” she said. “Even I never suspected until about five years ago. He really did try to be straight. It didn’t work, of course, but we’ve finally started talking about it. He was unhappy and started blaming me … taking it out on me.” Jalal opened his mouth, but she motioned for him to be quiet. “I didn’t lie to you. Sam’s anger never turned physical, and I think he probably hated himself for the emotional abuse. He just chose the wrong way to handle the situation.”
“How did treating you like dirt handle anything?” Aza’s admission of keeping her suspicion to herself for five years made him feel slighted, then guilty. Five years ago, Meredith had been his whole life. He was the one who had done the slighting.
“He loves the kids, Jalal. I never doubted that. I think he even loves me in a way.” She took a sip of wine. “He wanted a happy home; he just didn’t want a wife. He says he thought if he treated me like dirt, acted like he couldn’t stand the sight of me, I wouldn’t question why we no longer slept together. For a long time, I thought he had another woman … or women.”
“Then why did you stay?”
“I had no money of my own. I had two children.”
“But you also had me,” Jalal told her, “and the rest of the family. Staying made no sense, Aza. You wasted all those years.”
She nodded. “It took me a long time to realize that
. Doing things that make no sense to keep from facing the truth seems to be a trait we share. Don’t you think?”
Jalal said nothing.
After a few minutes, Azadeh set her empty glass on the porch railing and rose. She stepped behind his chair to rest her hands on his shoulders and kiss the top of his head. “It’s time to face your truth baradar-jan. You can’t afford to waste any more of your life in grief. You already wasted two years over your misunderstanding with Baba.”
With that reminder, Azadeh had followed up her loving kiss by kicking his heart. Two women in one day, first Renee, now Aza, had brought him to his knees with shame. He would give anything to forget how he had once felt about Baba, but wanted never to forget the night that changed.
He had been lying on the bed reading, when Meredith finally came upstairs. “You do not have to wash every dish in the house for Maman, you know. She does not expect it.”
“She deserves it. I’m not that much help to her in the kitchen, otherwise.”
He closed his book and smiled at her. “Surely, it could not be that you fear missing some fascinating story if you go to sleep while any member of my family is still awake.”
“They are fascinating to me, thank you very much.” She stepped into the bathroom. “Oh! Jalal, I forgot to bring up a glass of water. Will you go down and get one for me?”
He glanced at the table on her side of the bed. “You already have a glass, right here.”
Rubbing lotion into her hands, she came to the doorway. “That’s stale water. And I want ice.”
Jalal rolled off the bed and pulled on the shirt and jeans he had taken off twenty minutes earlier. “If you were not so beautiful …” Before he was halfway down the stairs, he could see a light coming from the kitchen. He smiled, thinking his mother had tricked Meredith into going to bed, then sneaked back down to start some dish for breakfast. But it was not his mother he saw when he entered the kitchen. His father sat reading at the table. The overhead light accentuated the silver in his hair and Jalal felt a twinge of panic. Baba was getting old.
“Meredith needs a glass of water,” Jalal said as he crossed the kitchen. Before he reached the cupboards, Baba began to speak.
Your voice
rakes
over me
like talons
Jalal froze. “Why are you reading that?”
“Because you wrote it.”
His face stony, Jalal turned to look at the book, now closed and lying on the table before his father. “Well … is my work as bad as you expected?”
Baba motioned to the chair across the table from him. “Sit, please.”
Jalal shook his head. “Meredith needs—”
“No,” said his father. “She does not.”
Jalal’s jaw dropped in surprise, then snapped shut in anger. Meredith had set him up. He strode to the table and stood clutching the back of the chair.
“To answer your question, Jalal, your work is as good as I expected.”
Jalal’s heart slammed around his chest like a racquetball, leaving him too breathless to speak. He stared at the last man in the world he could imagine reading his poetry. The only man in the world he ever longed to have read it.
“Did you not imagine I would read everything you published?” asked Baba.
“I do not understand.”
“Those may be the truest words you have ever spoken to me, Jalal.” He motioned again for Jalal to sit and this time he obeyed. Baba gestured toward the book. “You see me as your enemy,” he said. “I cannot deny I have treated you with a firm hand, but there is a reason.”
“Yes. You thought I had no talent!”
Baba shook his head, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “That is not the reason. Not that you ever gave me an opportunity to know if you had talent. For many years, I had only your mother’s word on that.” He pushed his half-empty coffee cup away. “Will you have a drink with me?”
Jalal leapt to his feet. “What do you prefer?”
“I prefer single-malt and a cigar, but your mother forbids me to have either.”
The line between Jalal’s brows deepened. Was his father joking with him? He had no idea how to respond. “Uh … wine, then?”
“I think that would be best … unless you are prepared to face your mother’s wooden spoon in the morning.”
Jalal selected a wine and fumbled with the corkscrew. He had never before sat alone drinking wine with Baba, but the joking unnerved him more than anything else. The house was too quiet, the kitchen lights too bright, the scenario utterly surreal. He returned to the table and set the bottle and the glasses before his father.
His father poured. “Your writing talent comes from your mother’s side of the family, you know. I can take credit only for your astounding good looks.” He smiled and handed Jalal a glass. “Your mother was the only good thing my father ever gave me. Better than the carpet dealer’s daughter, no?”
In spite of his discomfort, Jalal smiled.
Baba raised his glass. “May your mother have every good thing she deserves, enshallah.”
“Enshallah.”
“Now,” said his father, “let us talk as men.” He looked down and laid his hand on Jalal’s book. “I know you think I have dealt with you harshly, been cruel to you. I knew you did not want to work in the family business. Your brothers, they think only of making money—yes, like me. I knew you wanted to write. But I was afraid for you.”
Jalal’s eyes widened.
“Yes. Afraid you were choosing too hard a road. Afraid you might not have enough faith in yourself and fail. Afraid you might have a little success, but not enough to support yourself.” Baba paused to take a drink from his glass. “I wanted you to have another career, another talent, to fall back on.”
Jalal had to admit that part was accurate. He had lived on the money he made from his investments, not from his writing. But the bit about his father’s fears was bullshit. His hands curled into fists. “You are the one who had no faith in me,” he told his father. “You expected me to fail. You wanted me to fail. Then you could drag me back here and keep me under your thumb like you do Farhad and Navid. You told me that if I chose to write, I would be dead to you!” Now, he was trembling, but only partly in anger. He had gone too far. He had ruined the closest moments he had ever shared with his father.
Baba looked perplexed. “I never said that to you,” he said, shaking his head. “Never.”
“I heard—”
His father raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was upset at your decision. I worried for you, but I never … I would never say those words to you!”
Jalal, seeking precise recall of that night, swirled the deep red liquid around his glass. He recalled standing at the top of the stairs, voices from behind a closed door, his hurt and humiliation. “I … I heard you say them to Maman … the night I flew in from New York. The night I told you I was going to quit my job.” He looked up at Baba. “You did say that.”
“To your mother?” His father’s whole face furrowed as he struggled to remember that conversation. After a moment, he said, “Ah!” and for a second his face relaxed before it creased in pain. He shook his head slowly. “No. No. No. You heard it wrong. I said, ‘Jalal will be the death of me.’”
Jalal sucked in a tiny breath of hope, believing Baba’s words for a few seconds. No! Baba was lying. He had to be. I could not have misunderstood. “Then … why did you not speak to me for a year?”
Again, his father looked at him in disbelief. “Jalal, what are you saying? I left a thousand messages on your phone. You never returned any of them. And when your mother and I told you we wanted to come to visit you in New York, you suddenly decided to come here instead … for three days. Even then, you said only a few words to me the whole time.”
Jalal dropped his gaze to his father's hands. There might have been phone messages. A few. Maybe more. But you hate me! There was no other way to explain a whole lifetime of his father’s coldne
ss toward him.
“Do you ever wonder why I am the only one you fight with, Jalal?’ He pointed to the book between them on the table. “Why just the sound of my voice angers you?”
Jalal said nothing.
Baba refilled both their glasses. “I did not want you to fail. You are my son. I know a little bit about you. I want to tell you a story. Look at me.”
Jalal lifted his eyes and sat up, pressing his hands flat against the tabletop. His father smiled at him. “When you were born, the midwife said to me, “‘Allah has given you a handsome son, Agha-jan.’ And then she shook her finger in my face. ‘But you will have to fight to keep him.’” Baba grimaced. “Bah!” he said and waved a hand as if swatting at a fly. “I did not believe in that. Superstition. Nonsense. You were a fine, strong boy. Then, a few years later, you became ill and …” His father looked into his eyes, then down at his glass and, for a moment, the silence closed in around them. Jalal sat still, afraid to move. Afraid to say anything. Afraid he would break the spell.
Baba tipped up his glass, drained it, and poured another. “We had the best doctors, the best treatment, and still you did not get better. The doctors said to me, ‘The medicine is good, it can cure him, but the boy seems resigned to dying.’” Baba slammed a fist on the table. “You would not fight, Jalal-jan! You would not fight to live.”
Stunned, Jalal could only stare. Was this true? Why had he never heard this part of the story before?
“I protected your mother,” said Baba. “I could not tell her what the doctors said. I stayed by your bed, night and day, and I whispered in your ear. I ordered you to be a man. I threatened you against breaking your mother’s heart. I forbade you to die! Khudā na-kunad!” He shook his fist, his chest heaving. “I had to be hard as stone. I had to anger you, to make you hate me enough to stay alive.”
Jalal’s heart pounded, rocking his whole body. “You fought for me,” he said.
“I fought for you because you are not a fighter. This is why I fear for you. This is why I have held you in a firm hand.” Baba pushed back his chair and walked around the table to stand behind him. He laid his hands on Jalal’s shoulders. “Pesar am.”
The Brevity of Roses Page 18
