I pull out the photo on top. It’s darkly framed in heavy wood, a gaudy state seal fighting the image for attention. The picture is familiar—a candid shot of my parents on their wedding day that used to sit on the desk in my father’s office. The event was a major affair, choreographed and formal, but in this picture they look as if they were alone. They’re staring into one another’s eyes, transported. My father is fierce as he gazes at his new bride—he looks protective and consumed. My mother is a glowing version of herself. The woman in this picture adores.
The next picture in the box erases my nostalgia.
It’s another candid shot, this one more recent—two brothers standing side by side in happier times. At least my father looks happy. My uncle looks the same as always: ill-tempered and uneasy. Every inch of him is a living, breathing condemnation of my father. His beard, groomed in the style of those worn by religious scholars in my country, practically points at my father’s clean-shaven face, accusing him of giving in to modern vanity.
The faint, bluish smudge on my uncle’s forehead announces to the world that he is more devout, that he bows lower in prayer: low enough and often enough to leave a constant bruise. I always suspected him of bashing his head against walls when no one was watching—he was far too proud of that badge of faith for it to be genuine. Next to him, my father’s faithless skin is unblemished—the devil’s own complexion, if you were to believe his brother’s accusations.
Even the clothing worn by the two men in the photo is a source of tension. My uncle, who never wears anything but a military uniform or the traditional collarless shirts of my country, used to mock my father’s silk neckties. “You look like a Western dog wearing a leash,” he said more than once over our dinner table. Each time he said it my mother ordered more ties from her favorite shop in London the next day—spiteful gifts that became a running joke between my parents.
“What did you know? What were you planning?” I whisper the questions out loud before I realize that I don’t know which man I am asking. Both of them had a head and a heart full of secrets when this photo was taken. I shove the picture aside in disgust, flipping it over so I don’t have to look at it.
But then I pick it up again. This time I focus on my father’s image, searching. I see a mouth that used to sing me silly songs, eyes that used to wink at me, and a nose that looks exactly like my own. I can’t find any hint of a monster, no matter how I try. The man in the photo is just my father—no more, no less. My father, with a dead man’s smile on his face.
I can’t get distracted now.
I flip through the documents, not even really knowing what I’m looking for. There are bank statements with grim balances and legal documents bearing looping signatures and heavy stamps from American officials. There’s also a map from home, heavily marked with red and black ink, and one page of handwritten notes.
I try to decipher the writing, but it makes no sense. The entire page is covered with long number sequences and strange punctuation. Some numbers are crossed off; others are circled. One sequence is underlined twice—angry red slashes that dent the paper with their force.
What kind of secret code is this? Even without understanding the meaning of the numbers, I know I have found what I’m looking for.
I glance at my watch, debating what to do next. On the one hand, I feel totally justified in snooping. Mine is a righteous sort of treachery if ever there was one. But if I’m caught, the notes are sure to disappear. I will lose all access to my mother’s secrets.
The fear of being cut off makes my decision for me. I race to my bedroom with the page and feverishly copy as many of the number sequences as I can before my nerves make my hand start to shake. I don’t know how long my mother will be gone, but I’m guessing she’ll keep the meeting with Bastien’s teacher very short. It’s not in her nature to be lectured or counseled, and she’s apt to walk out if she hears even a hint of criticism.
The notes are back in the box, the box under the bed, the bedspread smoothed, and my face arranged into careful boredom by the time she comes home.
“Laila, please get something started for dinner. I’m going to take a bath.” She’s rubbing little circles into her temples like she’s trying to unwind a headache. “Bastien, this conversation is not over.”
I hold my breath as she walks stiffly into her room. I can hear her moving around, opening and closing her closet door. Did I straighten the comforter correctly? Is the box exactly as far under the bed as it was when I found it? Are the papers in the right order?
By the time she comes out in her robe, I’ve convinced myself of half a dozen telltale mistakes. But she heads straight for the bathroom without even looking at me.
My first spy mission has succeeded.
SYMBOLS
While Mother bathes, I search for answers.
The internet, my modern-day crystal ball, gives me what I need almost immediately, and my gratitude is such that I have to stop myself from kissing the screen. The numbers are geographic coordinates. Latitudes and longitudes. Directions. Each sequence a giant X-marks-the-spot. I plug them, one at a time, into Google Earth and zoom into familiar terrain. Satellite imagery turns me into a virtual tourist.
The first set of numbers takes me to the coast—a remote intersection I recognize from trips to the summer palace. There are no buildings nearby, only crossroads and sand dunes. I can’t imagine why this location would be important.
The second sequence, the one underlined in red, takes me high into the mountains. Between two small villages a winding road bumps against a steep embankment. The geocoordinates point to a small, isolated turnout.
The third set of numbers takes me to a bird’s-eye view of my former home. I stare at the roof of the palace trying to visualize the rooms below. Who sleeps in my old bedroom? One of my cousins, no doubt, though I can’t guess which one. My uncle didn’t allow his daughters out of his compound much, particularly not to our home, where my mother’s godless ways might influence them. The boys were allowed to visit us with their father, but they always kept their distance, little junior generals already learning to condemn and despise.
“What are you looking at?”
I jump—I hadn’t realized Bastien was peering over my shoulder—and slam my laptop closed.
“That was home, wasn’t it? I recognize the swimming pool. And the driveway. Come on, Laila, let me see,” he whines. He’s been moody since he and Mother returned from the meeting at his school, but he won’t tell me anything except that his teacher doesn’t like him.
I hesitate, but then give in. What can it hurt?
Bastien leans into me as he looks at the grainy image. I can hear his breathing slow, practically stop, as I zoom in further. He reaches out and traces a corner of the building with his finger. “Laila, remember that tree? That’s the one I used to climb!” He’s suddenly animated, jabbing at the corner of the screen. “And that’s—” He leans in even closer, and his little body goes rigid. “Laila, that’s Daddy’s car! He’s there, Laila, he’s there!” He’s shouting, nearly hysterical.
“Shhh, Bastien!” I don’t want Mother to hear. “Let me look. Be quiet.” I elbow him aside so I can see better. I try to zoom in even further, but it makes the image too fuzzy.
It’s hard to tell, but I think Bastien may actually be right. My finger shakes as I click to zoom back out. There’s a car parked in the circular driveway—inside the gates and next to the large fountain. It’s the right color, red, and approximately the same shape as Father’s prized toy: a rare and impossibly expensive sports car that Mother used to joke he loved more than he loved her. He rarely took it anywhere—his security advisers warned against it—but he would occasionally drive it slowly out of the garage to the front of the palace just so he could hear it and feel it. He’d drive around and around the fountain, his precious few yards of freedom, and then park next to the front steps, where Bastien and I would run our hands along the sleek metal. “No fingerprints! You’re le
aving smudges,” he used to say, but he was the worst among us—petting the car as if it were a racehorse. Sometimes he’d let us climb inside, but only if we took off our shoes and promised over and over again not to touch anything.
To see it parked there in front of our old home makes me feel like I’ve been plunged into ice water. I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter, and my palms are cold and damp. Unlike Bastien, I don’t take this as a sign that Father is alive. I saw his body. I know he’s gone.
I think it means we’ve been betrayed yet again—that my uncle is driving the car that gave Father so much pleasure. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t sting so viciously. But it does. The thought of that hateful man sitting in my father’s car, running his hands over the leather, hiding the keys away in his pocket, possessing it, fills me with a rage bigger than I am. My anger stretches my skin, inflating me with hatred. It shouldn’t be his! None of it should!
And then I see the small notation in the corner of the screen. The imagery date stamp. I close my eyes and push back from the computer, wilting as the rage trails away like smoke.
I hear Bastien’s ragged, hitching breaths, and I know without looking that he’s crying. “No, Bastien. No. He’s not there. The picture is old. See?” I point to the date. “It was taken months ago. Way before—” Neither one of us needs me to continue. I put my arm around him and try to absorb some of his pain.
“It’s not fair.” He says it softly first, almost a moan, but then his voice rises to a shriek. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!” He’s screaming now, and I have to tackle him, physically wrestle him out of his arm-flailing frenzy. I hold him, pinned to me, while he sobs into my chest. My own tears fall and disappear silently into his hair.
I brace for Mother’s entrance. She must have heard Bastien’s screams; it would be impossible not to. But she never comes. For a long time we sit huddled like this, just me and my brother and a picture of what we’ve lost.
DESIRE
My tongue is inside Ian’s mouth, and no one is more surprised than I am.
We’re in the car again. I called him at home to apologize, asked if we could try the driving lesson again, maybe talk a bit. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I reassured him. “It was just … a bad day.”
He said yes, but when we got to our deserted parking lot, he was formal and too polite—all small talk and the importance of car insurance—and I was feeling too frayed, too raw, to keep up with it. I didn’t have the energy to pretend anymore. I just couldn’t.
At first I leaned toward him, slowly, trying to catch his eyes with mine, because the awkward space that had grown between us felt like something that needed to be filled. Then I moved even closer because something broken needed to be fixed.
Ian pretended not to notice. “Do you want to practice parking again, or do you want to just drive around?” He became very interested in setting the clock on the dashboard while he spoke; the numbers kept flashing no matter which buttons he pressed. “Or we could go over some of the rules—turn signals, yellow lights, that kind of thing.”
I waited until he trailed off. “Don’t worry about the clock,” I said quietly, and pulled his hand away from it.
Reactions flickered across his face. Doubt, first. Of course doubt. I keep changing the conversation on him. I know this. And then there was shyness, I think? Something hesitant, anyway. But then the corners of his eyes crinkled and a hint of a smile set in, and I could almost hear his thoughts. Why not? flashed across his forehead as clearly as if it were written in neon lights.
And then, once his lips were pressed against mine, my reasons changed. I didn’t pull away from the kiss as I swiveled my lower body out of my seat and inched closer to him—as close as the center console allowed. Now I was reaching for him, asking for forgiveness with my hands. Eyes closed, I felt for his arms, then his shoulders, and then my hands were on his face and in his hair, and his were in mine.
I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, my skin says to his skin.
Now I’m even closer, unsteady with one knee wedged against the gear stick, the other on Ian’s seat, in Ian’s space. Our kisses have turned urgent, rough even. It’s not about boredom or awkwardness or forgiveness anymore—now it’s about want. I want this kiss, and I want his hands to continue their gentle, slow journey under my sweater.
He pulls me closer and I topple gracelessly into his lap. We laugh through our kissing, our mouths never parting, and I’m straddling him, on top of him, facing him and kissing him, sometimes gently, sometimes not. Ian tenses and pulls back just slightly. His hands stay where they are. On me.
“What is this, Laila?” he asks in a low whisper, but then he pulls me to him again and it’s impossible to answer anyway.
What is this?
I’m glad we’re still kissing, still breathless and occupied, because I don’t have an answer to give. It is want—yes, mostly want—but also hope. Something about being here with him seems to fill the car with a warm glow of maybes. Does he really think I can go to college here? Stay here, have a life here? Is he a part of it, this impossible future? He tastes like hope, and his skin feels smooth and real, and his touch is so blissfully distracting, pushing everything else out of my head—
“Laila. Laila, wait. Wait a second.” He’s laughing a little, but he’s pushing me away, his hands around my biceps. He holds me at a distance, then puffs out his cheeks and exhales a long breath. “Wow. Okay.”
He shakes his head as if to clear it. “I’m sorry, I really am, but I have to ask. Um, where are we going with this? Not that I don’t like it or anything.” He grins and pushes his hair back. “I definitely do, but I guess … I guess I’m a little confused.”
I worm my way off his lap and back into my seat before I answer; I make a show of rearranging my clothes and fussing with my seat belt so that he can’t see my burning cheeks. “This is how it works here, isn’t it? We just do what we want, right?”
Ian squints at me and tilts his head. And then he laughs out loud. “Dang, Laila. You’re making me feel a little cheap here.”
Heat flares across my face once again; surely by now I’m as red as the devil. “I just meant …” Shame steals the words from my tongue. “I just thought it was okay,” I finish stupidly.
He reaches across for my hand. “It is,” he says. “It is okay. It’s more than okay. But there’s no reason to rush anything.” He lets out another short burst of a laugh, but this time it’s not at me. “God, if any of the guys at school heard me say that I’d lose my dude credentials for sure.”
He sees that I don’t understand. “You’re gorgeous, Laila. Any guy would be crazy to turn you down.” He squeezes my shoulder once with his free hand. “And I’m not turning you down. Trust me. I’m just saying … I’m just trying to do the right thing here. Because I thought that in your culture this was, like, a huge deal. I thought in your country girls couldn’t—” He frowns, and then starts again. “I mean, I thought guys weren’t supposed to— Shit. You know what I’m trying to say, right? I thought this kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen?”
“It wouldn’t happen. Of course it wouldn’t.” Now I’m the one fiddling with the damn blinking clock.
“Then why?”
“For precisely that reason.” My answer is sharp with embarrassment. “Because it would never happen back home, and because here, it can. Because here, for the first time in my life, I’m allowed to want. And I do.” I turn my face to his and swipe at the tear that has managed to escape my eye. “I want to do this. With you.”
Ian’s eyes go wide. “Wow,” he says again. “Okay. Good answer.” He rakes at his hair with both hands now, and I squirm in the itchy silence. And then his voice is measured. Careful. “I want this too. But I don’t want you to regret it. I don’t want to be the one to make you regret anything. So let’s just take things one step at a time, okay? There’s no rush.” He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses it once, quickly, before setting it down in my lap.
I nod, but I can’t look at him anymore. I can’t meet his eyes. This feels like one more example of the extremes in my life. The all or the nothing. My inability to find my way into the space between, the place everyone else here seems to inhabit. I’m either frozen or I’m exploding, when all I want to do is simmer gently and happily along.
“Are you going to practice parking, or what?” Ian is trying to pull me out of my embarrassment, so I nod again and reach for the door handle so we can switch places. Outside, the air is crisp, and as he walks around the back of the car, I walk around the front. Ian slides into the passenger seat while I pause outside. The windows are so fogged I can’t even see him sitting inside.
I wish I could just vanish, be gone before the steam on the windows clears. But I’ve already done that once, vanished from a broken life, and how many times does someone get the chance to disappear?
I take one more gulp of the cold air before getting into the car. “Okay,” I say with as much brightness as I can fake. “Let’s try this again.”
FLAMES
Two days later, I wake to the sounds of home. Gunfire and shouts echo through our apartment.
“Turn it down!” I close the bedroom door behind me so Bastien doesn’t have to wake up to the same feeling of panic that I did. “It’s early. Why do you have the volume up so high?”
Mother shush-flaps at me with one hand, her eyes never leaving the TV. “I understand the reporters better when it’s loud.”
Her English is fine, but she still has trouble understanding American accents. I join her on the couch as she adjusts the volume slightly.
She’s hunched forward, still in her bathrobe, and her hair is a mess. This unlipsticked, anxious woman barely resembles my mother. “Look. It’s the capital.”
It is, but it isn’t. The news report flashes images of a government building. The Ministry of the Interior, I think. I was there just a year ago for some sort of ceremony that involved lots of foreigners jumping into showy poses of handshakes and back claps whenever a photographer came near. But now it looks different, like someone gave it a good shaking and then dusted it with black powder.
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