House of Sand and Fog

by Andre Dubus III

  Once we got all the logs in a pile in front of the porch, Lester took off his shirt and started splitting them with the ax. I went down to the Purisima with a plastic cup and filled and drank three times, then brought Lester some. The sweat was dripping off his nose and mustache and he smiled and thanked me, drank the water, then leaned over and gave me a short wet kiss. I smoked a cigarette on the porch step and watched him split wood awhile. His shoulders and back were gleaming with sweat, and veins were starting to come out in his long arms. Sometimes he would let out a little grunt as he swung the ax down onto the end of a log, then he’d kick the split wood aside, bend over to prop up another full log, and swing again. A fly landed on his face and walked across his cheek to his ear, but Lester didn’t even seem to notice it. I thought at first it was because he was concentrating so hard on what he was doing, but then I began to wonder if it wasn’t something else, if Lester was maybe thinking about his family, his wife and kids. And I hoped he wasn’t.

  I left the porch and went inside to make tuna fish sandwiches. After a few more logs, Lester stopped and walked back through the trees towards his car. Then I saw him walking back to the camp, carrying his suitcase, his dry-cleaned uniform and clothes on hangers draped over his shoulder. He was still bare-chested, the sunlight on him as he stepped into the clearing whistling some tune through his teeth. I was relieved to hear it; I really liked being with Lester Burdon. I thought how this morning I’d felt more like myself than I had in a long time, maybe since the first days with Nick. And I wanted it to be good for Les too, and when I heard him whistling, I hurried to the door to take his clothes on hangers from him, and he kissed me deep, pulling me to his slick chest.

  Up in the hot loft we took off our clothes and lay down together on the mattress. The room smelled almost like an attic, like dry wood and old furniture stuffing. But I could smell the woods outside the open screen windows too, the pine and eucalyptus, the hardwood tree Lester had cut up. And I could smell my own wetness as I lay on my back and Les licked me and I reached down and held his head in both my hands, my eyes on the rafters above me. I thought of Nicky the morning he left, the way he sat on the edge of the bed and just looked at me. Just that. Looked at me. Then I thought of my house, mine and Frank’s, of that Arab family living there, having parties there. What Les was doing felt good, warm and slightly electric, but I was thinking too much to let go into the orgasm I knew he was trying to give me. I pulled away and took him in my mouth, until he came against the back of my throat and I swallowed. I moved up and kissed him while he tried to push himself back inside me but he’d gone soft and so we lay there awhile, holding each other, our skin sticking.

  I wanted a cigarette, but I didn’t want to move.

  “My wife never did that to me.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  “What if I didn’t like it, though?”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No, I did. But what if I didn’t?”

  He kissed my upper cheek. “Then I wouldn’t like it either.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Well it’s true, Kathy.” He got up on one elbow and looked me long in the face, his mustache and eyes calling dark attention to themselves. “It’s true.”

  I kissed him, opening my mouth, and he slid back on top of me. “Man, I’m in trouble, Les. I believe everything you say.” He began to move and my mouth tasted sour and I wanted one of those tall Budweisers in the ice chest downstairs. I raised my legs up and held his back and I wanted him to let go inside me, deep inside, where everything I say has another side to it, like telling him to wear a condom when I know I don’t want him to do anything like that at all. Not at all.

  QUITE EARLY SUNDAY MORNING I CARRY TO MY SON’S ROOM A TRAY OF sugar and hot tea and I tell to him everything we face as a family. Esmail sits up in his bed with no shirt upon him, his eyes still heavy with sleep, his black hair uncombed. He drinks his tea and listens quite intently as I explain the young woman with whom he spoke on the grass Saturday afternoon. He looks away from my eyes.

  “She said this is her house, Bawbaw-jahn. And it was taken away from her for no reason.”

  “No, as I have just said, there was a reason. She did not pay her taxes, Esmail. This is what happens when we are not responsible. Fardmeekonee? Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Bawbaw.”

  I do not like lying to my son, but I am certain if he knows the woman’s home was taken from her due only to bureaucratic mistake, he will not be able to keep all of this from Nadereh.

  “We own the home now, Esmail. We purchased it legally, and that woman has no right to harass us. This is why I do not want you telling to your mother any of these things. You know how easily she can become sick with her worries.”

  “Moham-neest, Bawbaw-jahn. No problem.”

  I nod my head and drink from my tea, weighing whether or not I should tell to him more, that I had planned for us to stay here until cooler weather began but now I feel compelled to sell and leave while it is still clear no one has legal recourse against us. And I enjoy sitting here with Esmail, discussing serious matters. It has been the nature of my life’s work to keep secrets, and to bear heavy responsibility for others. But oftentimes, I feel very tired and quite alone. And of course it is an important moment for Esmail, to have his father confide in him for the first time. My son sits straight in his bed, his brown shoulders pulled back while he holds his teacup and saucer and nods his head along with me.

  “You know I must raise money for your university education.”

  “I can get another paper route.”

  “Man meedoonam, I know. And you must begin saving your money.”

  “Yes, Bawbaw.”

  “Tomorrow, people are coming to view this house for buying. If we are fortunate, we can make a large amount of money. Wish me bright eyes, son.”

  “Will we have to move?”

  “Yes, but we will have enough pool to live well, perhaps to buy more property or start a business.”

  My son stares across the room at the blank screen of his computer, but I know he is not seeing this. I begin to regret telling him my affairs.

  “Bawbaw-jahn?”

  “Yes.”

  “We were rich in Iran, weren’t we? Weren’t we pooldar?” He regards me as if he has not seen me in a long while, his mouth open slightly. I stand to leave.

  “Yes and no, son. Yes and no.”

  IT IS MY belief people feel more free to spend their money in good weather, so I am disappointed today, Monday, with its gray sky and its fog bank along the beach. From the widow’s walk I can see no ocean, only a whiteness down beneath the rooftops of Corona. Also, my first appointment telephoned to cancel, stating they had seen a property over the weekend they could not turn down. I tried to talk the gentleman into at least seeing my bungalow, but he was not to be moved.

  At noon Soraya arrives to take Nadi to lunch. My daughter is dressed tastefully in a skirt and blouse and jewelry, her black hair held back with a silver ornament. I am on the roof as she steps out of the car and waves and blows to me a kiss. This morning she told Nadi on the telephone she is enjoying decorating their new condominium in Mountain View, over one hour’s drive south of us. And she is a good daughter to have driven so far to lunch with her mother at a fine restaurant in San Francisco. I did not tell Nadi of my appointments today, and I am grateful she will be gone from the house.

  After they leave I descend the stairs to ask Esmail to do the same, to leave, but he has already disappeared, his skateboard gone as well. I suspect he is making friends with the local young people along the beach here. Now the bungalow is empty and silent and for a brief moment I feel quite lost standing in its rooms without my family. I inspect it once more for order and cleanliness, but I need not worry. Nadi takes care of every room as if we are expecting special guests each day.

  LES WOKE ME BEFORE DAWN MONDAY MORNIN
G WITH A CUP OF THAT too-hot cowboy coffee from the woodstove. The Coleman lantern was turned low, not even hissing, and in the shadows I could see he was in his uniform, with his badge and gun, his hair combed and still wet from the river. He squatted on one knee at the corner of the mattress and said he’d heated me up a basin of water to clean up in, I could stay here or he could drop me off at the Eureka to get my things.

  “Get my things?”

  He glanced down at his hands. “If you want to.”

  “I do, Les.” I nudged his back with my foot. “You’ve got a weird way of asking, though.”

  “I’m shy, Kathy.” He smiled, then stopped. “Will you know how to get back here on your own?”

  “Yep.” I dressed in front of him, then peed in the dark woods and brushed my teeth on the porch, using a cup of warm water to rinse my mouth.

  On the drive back to San Bruno, Les told me about the two lawyers he knew in town who would get me back into my house in no time. The sky was beginning to lighten, though it was gray and the beaches seemed to be one long fog bank. I sat there in the passenger’s seat with my feet up on the dash feeling almost confident that everything would get worked out. At the motor lodge Les paid the bill and carried my suitcase to my car. We kissed goodbye and promised to meet back at the fish camp by seven o’clock tonight. He said to be careful driving that luxury car of mine up the pine trail, then he was gone.

  I sat in my car a few minutes and smoked a cigarette, flicking my ashes out the window. I was starting to feel jittery, though I’d only had half a cup of Lester’s coffee, and my fingers were shaking a little as I smoked my second cigarette though I’d meant to light just one. In Group, we’d coax all our snakes and gargoyles into the room and smoke our lungs sore and our eyes bloodshot while we got “clear” on everything else. And I knew to any of my counselors back East my life wouldn’t look very manageable: I was drinking again, and smoking; I was sleeping with a man who’d just left his family, all while I was supposed to be getting back the house I’d somehow lost. I knew they would call the drinking a slip, the smoking a crutch, the lovemaking “sex as medication,” and the house fiasco a disaster my lack of recovery had invited upon itself, and on me. In RR, it would be time to turn to self-control and self-worth reminders, use my powers of reason to tell myself how lovable I was, how I didn’t need to do anything dangerous because I’d be endangering a good person, me. I knew what all the rationally recovered assholes would say, but it wasn’t me loving me I was interested in. It was Lester loving me, he and I living on Bisgrove Street, both working during the day only to spend time together at night, snuggling in front of the TV, or else going to bed early to make love. And that’s what it was beginning to feel like, love.

  Later, as I cleaned my Monday residential, running the vacuum over carpets, mopping the floor, you’d think my mind would be on my house for most of the day, but it wasn’t; it was Lester, his tall skinny gentleness, his smell—like sweet damp ground—the way he paid such attention to me. And I was thinking of kids again. I wanted to see pictures of his son and daughter. I wanted to know their ages, and their favorite snacks. I knew lots of men who’d started second families, had babies again when their first kids were almost on their own. But I was getting way ahead of us, wasn’t I?

  Around noon, I picked up my mail at the post office, then went to a shopping center sandwich shop to sift through it all while I ate. It was only ten days’ worth but it took up all of my table, and I put it in two piles, one for the trash can on the way out, one to keep. The trash pile was mostly junk mail, the other was bills: car insurance, gas, my final phone and electric. The electric bill was the most recent and I opened it and read the cutoff date for the last billing period: just two days ago. I tore into my turkey sandwich and drank down some Diet Coke, and I shook my head at how fucked-up this was. It was the same with the gas bill.

  My first thought was to call Connie Walsh again, but I knew she’d only tell me to call the utility companies and set them straight. I didn’t want to hear that. I pushed my sandwich away and lit a cigarette, looked out the window at the shopping center parking lot, at all the cars under the hazy sky. I was reaching for the ashtray when I saw the postcard in my bill pile, a glossy picture of the Hilltop Steak House back in Saugus on Route I. In front of the restaurant was a huge fiberglass cactus maybe fifty feet high, and all around it on a small fenced-in lawn were a dozen life-sized steers. I knew the card was from my mother and I took another drag and drank from my Coke before I started to read it:

  Dear K,

  Your telephone is out of order. Have you two got an unlisted?

  Your aunts won two round-trip tickets to San Francisco. I may go with them Labor Day. Send me your new number.

  Mother

  I left the sandwich shop and stepped into a drugstore for a notebook. Back in my car, I wrote:

  Hi Ma,

  I’m sorry I haven’t called you. A bad earth tremor rolled through here last week and a tree hit the phone lines down the street. As soon as they’re fixed I’ll let you know. Also, that’s good news about your coming out here but Nick and I won’t be in town that weekend. He’s taking me on a business trip. Sorry to miss you.

  K

  I wondered if I should put in anything extra about the tremor, what it feels like to be in one, maybe, but then thought no, she wouldn’t expect that from me.

  Then I wrote letters to the gas and electric companies explaining my situation, telling them to bill a Mr. Barmeeny instead of me. I drove back to the post office to mail them but when I dropped my mother’s letter into the box I felt as if I’d just heaved my last sandbag against rising water and there wasn’t much time left.

  It was barely one o’clock and I had six hours to kill before I met Les back at the camp. I thought about going there early to make us a nice dinner, surprise him, but then I pictured myself trying to build a fire in the stove, not having an oven to use. And my specialty was casserole dishes; lasagna, veal and eggplant Parmesan. I decided to go to a movie instead, one or two weekday matinees at the mall Cineplex in Millbrae off the Camino Real. Last night, as we were drifting to sleep, my cheek on his shoulder, I asked him his kids’ names again. “Bethany and Nate,” he said, his voice full of gratitude. Then I asked him where his house was and when he said it was in Millbrae, in a housing development you had to drive by to get to the mall, I told him I’d probably driven past his house a dozen times, maybe I’d even seen his wife.

  “Carol,” he said.

  “Yeah. Carol.”

  But now, instead of passing through San Bruno for the highway to Millbrae, I drove into foggy downtown Corona, then right up the long hill of Bisgrove Street. I wanted to pull over beside the woods across from my house and just look at it a few minutes, maybe remind myself of what was mine before I went off to numb my afternoon away in a dark theater. And I guess I didn’t really expect to see anyone there, but a station wagon was parked by the woods so I could only park near the house and I didn’t want to do that because there were people standing in my yard looking at my home: a man and woman and a young boy, maybe eight. He had his hands in his shorts pockets, and he was kicking one foot into the grass. His father’s hand was on his shoulder and they were all looking at what Colonel Barmeeny was pointing out to them, the new deck on my roof. The bald Arab wore a tie and a short-sleeved dress shirt that looked very white in the grayness. He glanced at me in my car, but then turned away as if he hadn’t seen anything. He was talking fast, officially, though I couldn’t hear his exact words through my open window. He looked back at me one more time before he led the young family up the steps to the roof for a view that must be foggy. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and a sick laugh rose up from my stomach: the fucking bastard was trying to sell my house! Then I just honked my horn, leaning on it with both hands. I looked straight ahead and I could feel the steering wheel vibrate. Two houses up, a woman stuck her head out her front door and stared. But I kept my weight on the wheel, letting
that sound tear through the air until my wrists started to ache, and I let go and yelled through the window, “He can’t sell you that house! He doesn’t own it! He’s trying to fucking steal it! He’s trying to sell you a stolen house!”

  The man was half-smiling like he didn’t know if this was a joke or not. He looked from me to Barmeeny, then back at me again. His wife stepped closer to her son, and the colonel’s face was still as stone. I pushed on the gas, sped up the hill, and turned around at the dead end. I drove back and honked the horn again. The colonel was standing near the railing talking to the man and woman, and now he nodded his head and pointed in my direction as if my noise proved some point he was trying to make. But I didn’t care what he said; I kept going, my hand pressed to the horn all the way down the hill.

  NADEREH RETURNED FROM HER AFTERNOON WITH SORAYA IN HIGH spirits. After their luncheon they had shopped, and Nadi was quite excited to show to me my new shirt and tie, the pants and sweatshirt she purchased for Esmail. She also pulled from her bags more tape cassettes of Persian music and she put one of them into the machine while she set about preparing our dinner. The music was most recent, and I did not like it. There were still the old instruments being used—the tar, kamancheh, and domback—but electric guitar as well, and the singer sounded to me like a whining child; I was surprised Nadi had chosen it. I watched her fill the rice pot with water from the sink, moving her head slightly in feeling with the music, and I pressed the machine’s off button. Nadereh turned her head to me immediately. “Nakon, Massoud. What is wrong for you?”

  “You must not spend so much money, Nadereh.”

  “It is not so much money,” she said in Farsi, smiling. “There are school sales now. Even your clothes, Behrani.” She walked to me, drying her hands upon her apron. She kissed my cheek, then pressed the music on once again and resumed her cooking. And I knew I could not tell her my worries. I knew I would prefer to have her this way, cheerful and innocent as a child.