by Deno Trakas
“I don’t know much either—I didn’t even know his name was Mike until we got back to the States—I always called him Garrison. I only know about the one job he helped me with, and I can’t tell you all the details. I wish I could, but—”
“We understand,” John said.
“I’m glad you see it that way. I’d probably be pissed, and I’d have a million questions, and I’d want to blame someone, or sue someone, or kill someone. But—”
“We don’t feel that way,” he said.
“I do,” Vivian said, annoyed with her brother for being so amenable. “I want to know what happened. ‘Killed in the line of duty’ is all they said. I want to know what that means, and I want to know how they could let it happen, whoever the hell ‘they’ are.”
I nodded. “As I said, I’d feel the same, but let me tell you a few things that might help. Recently Mike worked in a very dangerous place, and he was damn good at his job. He helped me get a friend of mine out of jail where she had been tortured and would’ve died, so he saved her life, and he saved mine, twice, and he saved the lives of another friend of mine and a man who was a colleague of his. All of us made it, but because he, Mike, was our leader, they targeted him—he was shot and died instantly.”
The sister’s anger dissolved into grief, and she began to sob and fell into her brother’s arms. He hugged her and cried too, silently. Julie gave me a look, but I nodded and held up my hand to indicate that yes I was telling them some things, but no she didn’t have to worry. Then the sister blurted out, “Why didn’t you bring him home?”
“I wish to God we could’ve, but when it happened we were on a boat, and we were going to be stopped and searched, and if they’d found his body . . . we were sure we’d all be killed, so we had to bury him at sea. We did it with as much respect and dignity as possible. We also knew that we’d made it that far only because of him. He was the bravest man I’ve ever known. I’m glad I have the chance to tell you that because it helps me honor him, and I hope it’ll help you as well.”
The brother took a deep breath, nodded once, firmly, and said, “Thank you, it will.”
The sister looked at me and nodded too, and I noticed for the first time that she and Garrison had the same dark, suspicious eyes. I remembered Oman saying he might make Garrison a woman in his novel, and I was looking at her. “I’m going back to South Carolina today, but if there’s ever anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate to call. Really.” I started patting my pockets to find paper and pen, but Vivian produced them from her purse.
“Are you sure you won’t come to the house?” the brother asked.
“I’m sure, thanks. I took a week off from work and I have to get back—my plane leaves in a couple of hours.”
I told my story once more to Richard and Emily, leaving out names and some other key details, over a late Saturday night supper at their house. They’d put Maria down after she gave Uncle Jay a kiss, and the three of us sat around their kitchen table eating from a platter of nachos and drinking beer. They seemed impressed by the need for secrecy, fascinated by the danger and exotic details, amazed that Oman had gone with me, amused that I had used the reverse of Richard’s name on my fake passport, which I showed them, disdainful of my fake mustache, and concerned about my current well-being.
“How’s your arm?” Emily asked.
I tugged my collar out and looked down at my bandages. “I won’t be playing tennis any time soon, but it’s no big deal.”
“You seem different, Jay. You look thin and subdued, but I guess that’s to be expected after what you’ve been through,” Emily said as she leaned back against Richard’s chest and pulled his arm around her shoulder.
“Yeah, I feel different, but I haven’t quite figured it out. While it was happening, it was all new and strange and dangerous—it’s still hard to believe—but the tense scenes happened fast, and all I could do was follow orders and try not to screw up so we could get Azi out, and stay alive in the process. But now . . . now all I can think about is honoring the death of my friend and helping Azi get better. When my father died, I felt shock and grief, you know, the usual—it wasn’t fair, he was too young, he was a good man, and so on—but this guy was in his twenties, and he died saving people he didn’t even know. I mean, why him and not me? The mission was my idea. I don’t want anyone ever to tell me that everything happens for a reason because that’s bullshit. And Azi—she’s been hurt so badly, and it’s my fault.” I shook my head and swigged my beer.
“It’s not your fault, Mano. It’s those fucking terrorists”—
“Watch your language,” Emily said.
“Okay, it’s those motherfucking terrorists,” he said, and she elbowed him in the stomach. “And it’s the motherfucking CIA that screwed up in Athens.” She elbowed him again. “You saved Azi. I don’t want to hear you whining about ‘It’s all my fault.’”
“Okay, but that’s how I feel.”
“And I don’t want you getting all morose on me,” Richard said. “I need a friend to laugh at my jokes. You’re no good to me if you don’t laugh at my jokes.”
“Maybe some day, Ricky, but not tonight.”
“Okay, so how about comps?” he asked. “I’m sure they haven’t been much on your mind in the last few days, but you’re still planning to take another shot in February, aren’t you?”
“I won’t rule it out, but my heart’s not in it right now. They seem like torture, academic torture, and I’m taking a firm stance against torture these days.”
Neither of them responded except to nod. Richard dug up some cheesy tomatoes with a tortilla chip and shoveled them into his mouth. “But chances are good that the questions will be easier next time. And the payoff is pretty big. In the big picture”—
“Yeah, I used to talk to my students about the big picture, and I thought I was clever using it two ways to talk about literature and life, but it was bullshit. I didn’t know any more than they did. Now I do—at least I think I do. I feel like my life has been stretched out to fit the big picture, and I want to shrink it back to my normal small self. Maybe I’ll just wait tables and write a book.”
“If you do, I want to be in it,” Richard said. “Give me a part with lots of sex.”
Emily elbowed him again and said, “Only if the sex is with his lovely wife.” He gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek and then wiped it off with a napkin.
“Maybe I will.”
“Are you serious, Jay?” Emily asked.
“Hell if I know. Maybe I’ll join the CIA. Or maybe I’ll call Ham—he’ll be unemployed soon—maybe he can get us jobs picking peanuts, or whatever you do to peanuts, on Carter’s farm. That has its appeal.”
“I’ve got it,” Richard said. “Open a restaurant like all the other Greeks. You can call it ‘Jason’s Beer & Baklava.’”
This time I laughed and it felt good, loose. “Only if you wash dishes—I’d need a wetback dishwasher.”
“Come on, be serious,” Emily said. “What are you going to do, Jay?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I might be serious about the CIA. When I think about my friend, I think about how important his work was. I don’t have what it takes to be an undercover agent like him—I can’t imagine how hard it must be to learn a foreign language and culture the way he did—but even if I sat at a desk at Langley, I’d be doing something more useful than teaching the rules for semicolons.”
“I’m sure the CIA doesn’t know how to use semicolons, and somebody ought to show them,” Richard said.
“Yeah, maybe. I don’t really know much about the organization except for the rumors you hear about assassinations and shit like that—I don’t think I’d be a very good assassin.”
“Maybe you could be their moral compass—they don’t seem to have one,” Richard said seriously. “Maybe you could stop them from using torture.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Or maybe I could help them figure out why so many Muslims hate us. I know all of them d
on’t, my students don’t, except for Saad. But the militants somehow persuade the masses that we’re the Great Satan. Azi said once that it’s just jealousy, but I’m not sure. We need to figure that out or the conflict will only get worse. One of these days Saad’ll come back, and, God forbid, he and his terrorist buddies’ll have real weapons. We need to be able to assess threats like that and stop them. And we need to protect people like Azi who might be targeted.”
“Yeah, that’s scary,” Emily said. “They’re crazy.”
“The fanatics are,” I said, “but most people in the Middle East are just like us.”
Emily understood her mistake, gave me an apologetic touch, and said, “Do you think Azi’s going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. Only time will tell.”
“That’s right. And you don’t have to decide your future tonight,” Emily said.
“No,” I said, “thank God.”
“By the way,” Richard said, “Sheldon has been asking about you.”
“Do I have to talk to him?”
“Yeah. Maybe he’ll tell you that you get an automatic pass because of what you’ve been through, you know, the way you’re supposed to get A’s in all your courses if your roommate commits suicide.”
“That’s a myth.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he doesn’t know it. If you tell him your story, I’m sure he’ll cut you some slack. I think he’ll tell you that you need to take only two exams, maybe just one, and you can do that in February, or in the fall, or whenever.”
“I’ll think about it.”
The next day, I told my classes I’d had to go to the Middle East for the funeral of a very close friend, and I apologized for missing so many days and being such a lousy professor. Like most college students, they didn’t seem to mind cancelled classes, and they used my guilt to try to talk me out of a final exam. I said I wouldn’t go that far, but I’d make the exam easy.
I considered dropping in on Dr. Sheldon . . . but didn’t. Maybe later. I just picked up my week’s mail—department memos, end of semester grade forms, and textbook orders—the paperwork of this job that I had to do or dump forever, went up to my office, and sat at my desk, which was weighted with two Norton anthologies, one of which was open to the section on contemporary poetry. Could I really give up five years of postgraduate work? The study of literature? I flipped a few pages and came across Anne Sexton’s “The Truth the Dead Know,” which I’d never read before. I didn’t love her poetry, but that title jumped out, and the poem resonated with me. What is the truth the dead know? That death is stone? And what is the truth for us, the living? That we aren’t stone, that we’re alive, that we’re floating, that, like Gatsby, we have to paddle with our dreams against the current?
I wished I could write something profound or entertaining based on my experience, but I didn’t think I had the skill, or vision. I was just an ordinary guy who got swept up in an extraordinary event. A nobody caught in the push and pull of history.
No fanfare, no cheer, not even a yellow ribbon greeted Azi, the hostage, the heroine . . . only me, standing in front of the umbilical tunnel connecting the terminal to the plane. When Nadia and Azi emerged, I held out my good arm to both, but I focused on Azi. She was dressed in new clothes—jeans, white blouse, and suede jacket—and she had put on make-up, red lipstick, but I could still see the scars on her eyelids, and despite her days in the doctor’s care, she looked pale and thin. I lied, “You look fantastic. How do you feel?”
“Better.” She smiled like a corpse made up to look content with death.
Nadia said, “She will be fine, but she have infection, you know, and a-NEE-mia, so we must feed her pills and cheeseburgers.” Nadia put her arm around her friend’s weak shoulders like a brace.
“Did you have any trouble?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
“No problem,” Nadia said.
With my good hand I picked up the bag Nadia had been carrying and walked between them down the corridor. I asked for details of their week in Kuwait, which, evidently, had been uneventful. Nadia did most of the talking, of course, and when we reached the baggage claim, she changed the subject. “Remember this Jay—Azi is only woman at airport in all history with no suitcase.”
At the apartment, Nadia took her bags to her room and came back out to find me and Azi standing like new furniture whose place has yet to be decided. “Sit, sit. Something to drink? I see what I have.” She headed for the kitchen.
“Nothing for me,” I said and sat on the sofa beside Azi; I held her hand tentatively, like a seventh grader. For a year I’d yearned for her to return to me . . . but this was a different Azi, and I felt both presumptuous and awkward.
Nadia called out, “Azi, I have Diet Pepsi. That does it. Sorry. I go to store.”
“Pepsi is o-kay,” she said.
“Why don’t I run to the grocery store for you?” I offered.
Nadia came in, picked up her purse, and said, “No, I go. You two keep put, talk, make decision for tomorrow. I be back in a jiff.” And she was gone. Maybe she had planned this all along—to leave us alone.
A jiff, time, that was all Azi had. She didn’t have her own clothes, school, job, family, country—she had two friends and lots of loose time. She sat slightly forward—how long would her back hurt?—and slid a look at me, but not in the face, as if her gaze was too heavy to lift. So many emotions—guilt, embarrassment, rage, relief, sadness, joy, affection, worry—choked me like weeds and flowers tangled together in my throat. Azi could help me if she talked—she had said only a few sentences to me since our reunion in the visiting room of the jail—but of course I could hardly expect anything of her. I just needed to be patient, to help her, but I didn’t know how or where to begin, and I felt strange, tight, sitting in Nadia’s apartment with Azi, so I said, “Let’s go outside—do you mind?”
“Okay.”
We stepped outside into the pastel twilight, the sky brushed with impressionistic strokes of pink, purple, and gray, and I took a deep breath of the crisp air, scented of pines and wood smoke. “It’s nice out, don’t you think?” I asked and helped her sit on the front steps of the apartment building.
“Yes, very nice.”
We sat for a minute, taking it in with all our senses. I looked into her neutral eyes and she looked back. “I’m sorry,” I said. She shook her head but I kept going. “I’m sorry I got you into this crisis, I’m sorry they hurt you and almost killed you, I’m sorry you’ve lost your home and family. It’s my fault, I was trying to be a big shot because I knew the President’s assistant, and I thought I could help, and”—
“Stop, Jay.” She took my hand in both of hers. “Is no your fault, is enemies of Sadegh. You help me, you save me.”
“But you wouldn’t have been taken hostage if I hadn’t asked you to meet me in Athens.”
“That is CIA problem, no you. No more talk about it.”
“Okay.” Of course she would say that, and of course I wanted her to say that. I wouldn’t let myself off so easily, but I wouldn’t nag at her with the subject if she wanted to put it behind her. “So, what are you going to do tomorrow?” I asked. “Have you and Nadia made any plans?”
“Yes, we go for to shop for the clothes.”
“Do you need money?”
She shook her head. “No, thank you, Nadia give me, but I need job soon.”
“Have you talked to your mother or father?”
“No, I think too dangerous. I no want for to make for them trouble.”
“Right. Of course. Do you think you’ll be in danger here? Will they come looking for you?”
“I think no, but . . .”
“What if the other students see that you’ve returned and tell others back in Tehran. Maybe you should change your identity, use the one on your new passport. Maybe you and Nadia should move.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Is many decisions.”
“What about school?”
“When I have m
oney.”
“I can give you the money I saved this summer—it’s almost a thousand dollars. Maybe I can get more from my friend in Washington, some kind of restitution for what you’ve been through. And you’re welcome to stay with me if you want. Of course you might not want to have anything to do with me.”
Azi turned to me, her legs nudging mine; she put her hands on my cheeks and looked me in the eyes as if she’d lost something in them and was trying to find it. “Thank you Jay, but you no have to do everything, you no have to do sacrifice your life for me.”
“It’s not a sacrifice. I’ll do everything I can for you because I love you.”
I thought she’d smile, maybe hug me, but she didn’t. She frowned and squeezed my face. “Look, Jay—I am no I. I am ugly.” She took her hands away and put them on her breasts. “I am no woman. I have no feeling. I am empty. I want for to wear chador for to disappear. I want for you to love Nadia.”
I shook my head. “Nadia and I haven’t been together since—”
“She love you. She tell me.”
I shook my head again, surprised, confused, felt an ache for Nadia and an ache for Azi, like a bruise under a cut. I took Azi’s hands from her breasts, put them together and held them. “I know who you are, I know what you look like, I know you’ve been hurt physically and emotionally, but you’re still the beautiful woman I fell in love with when you were in my class a year ago.”
Still, her gaze stayed hard without any trace of smile to soften the edges, not around her red mouth, not around her wounded eyes. “You talk pretty, Jay, but I want for you to talk truth. Last year, here, and in Athens, on first night, you love me, I love you, we dance, we talk poetry . . . but now is different, everything different. Yes? Talk truth.”
“Yes, of course it’s different—we’re both different, especially you, but”—
“I want for you free to love other woman.”
“But I don’t want another woman. I want you.”
“You want other Azi, you think I take the medicine and eat the cheeseburger and be other Azi, but no.”
