“Our kitchen?” my mother said playfully. Though they were engaged, they did not yet share an apartment in New York. Grabbing her hand, Izaan tugged my mother out of the stall and down a passageway. It seemed they were going toward the center of the market; the stalls were less tidy, darker. Inexplicably, my mother felt scared. “Izaan,” she said, “I want to go back.”
My mother’s face would change as she told the rest of the story. It would take on a faraway look, as if she had forgotten she was speaking to me. She seemed to be trying to make sense of the story herself.
“Your father told me to follow him,” she’d say. “And so I did.”
Izaan led her to a ruined building. Inside a crumbling doorway, my mother heard the chanting of prayer. “I have made mistakes, some very big mistakes, but that time is over,” he said. He kissed her—
She would shake her head. “Anyway, that’s the story of the knives. He told me he would buy me the best knives in the world when it was time,” she said. As my mother took out her chef’s knife, she always said, “See? Your father was right after all.”
My father had been true to his word—after he had sold his first poem to the literary journal The Cottonwood Review, he had gone to the Stamford mall and bought my mother the most expensive Wüsthofs. The Cottonwood Review paid Izaan thirty dollars and five free copies of the magazine; the set of knives had cost four hundred fifty dollars. But it was the thought that counted—Izaan had arrived and could buy his wife the best.
I always felt that she was leaving something out. What “big mistakes” had my father made? When I asked, my mother said that it had taken my father a while to figure out who he wanted to be.
“What do you suppose she meant by that?” asked Jane.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess that’s why I remembered the story. It never really made sense.”
“Did anyone else ever talk about your father making big mistakes?”
“I don’t … No,” I said. As I spoke, the room grew hazy. I knew there wasn’t really any smoke, so I tried to stay calm. But what if the building were on fire? I felt my lungs, too large, in my rib cage. I wheezed, trying to get enough oxygen.
“Lauren? Our session is almost over. Are you feeling all right?”
I sat up straight, the smoke dissipating. “I’m fine,” I said. “I just … I can’t think of what to say next.”
“You don’t have to say anything. You can use this space to be with your thoughts, if you like.”
I shuddered. With my thoughts was the last place I wanted to be.
“What do you mean by that?” said Jane.
“What?” I said.
“Being with your thoughts, you said. You said it was the last place you wanted to be. What did you mean by that?”
“Oh, jeez,” I said. “My thoughts! They’re so …”
Jane cocked her head, giving me the interested-sparrow look.
“They’re so … They hurt,” I said.
“Your thoughts hurt you?” said Jane.
“I think if I let myself feel it all,” I said, “I’d be in so much … It would hurt so much. Too much. So I just … I go on. I make plans and watch TV.”
Jane looked down. She seemed sad. She looked back up and said, “Are you feeling all right to leave?”
“Yes, sure,” I said. “I’m fine.”
11
That night, after work, I headed to the Elephant Room to meet Gerry and listen to some jazz. I found a spot outside Manuel’s, and as I locked the car, I peered into the dim restaurant, watching a man lift a nacho to his mouth. Up Congress Avenue, the capitol building was illuminated, glowing against the evening sky.
I crossed the street and opened the door to a staircase. I could hear horns as I descended, and I breathed in the smells of whiskey and floor wax. Sitting in front of the stage, sipping a drink, was Gerry. He wore jeans and the blue sweater I’d bought him for his birthday. He leaned across a candle toward a very pretty woman. The woman told a joke, wrapping wheat-colored curls around her finger, and Gerry laughed. He looked happier than he’d looked in some time.
“Hey,” I said, approaching the table.
“Lauren,” said Gerry, standing, “this is Rose.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Rose.
“Likewise,” I said. “What are you guys drinking?”
“Scotch,” they said in unison. I ordered a beer. Rose, it turned out, was a jazz singer. When the set began, she sat on the edge of a wooden stool, leaning toward the microphone. Her voice was low and sultry.
“Maybe you’d be happier with someone like Rose,” I said to Gerry after I’d had a few beers.
Gerry put his arm around me, but said, “Maybe.”
That night, when I thought he was asleep, I whispered, “Gerry, why do you stay with me?”
He tightened his hold on me and whispered back, “You make life more interesting. And you love me.”
I was silent, letting his kindness settle over me like a blanket.
12
There is a deep blue place between wakefulness and sleep. I have always been afraid of that place—it’s where bad memories reside, I believe, or thoughts that have no purpose. Lusty desires for old boyfriends. Things I’m mad at myself about. Fears, worries about bombs and gunshots and what happened to Jack Nicholson in The Shining happening to me, leaving me in a creepy mansion with a maze garden jabbing away at an old-fashioned typewriter. Images of all my teeth falling out, or all my hair, or my fingernails.
What I love about sleeping pills is that they let you avoid that place. You go from wide awake to zonked in one fell swoop. I had almost forgotten about the deep blue. And then, around the middle of October, the pills stopped working.
I began walking Handsome to the Capitol Building and back, which took up much of the night. I picked up breakfast tacos on the way home and warmed them up for Gerry, who said he’d rather have me in bed than a bacon, egg, and cheese with salsa. Nonetheless, he took the tacos, and I climbed under the sheets for an hour or so.
I was unmoored without my brother. It was as if a bandage of some kind had been removed, and I was raw and exposed. When I met with my therapist, I told her I was afraid of the deep blue. “Instead of sleeping,” I said, “I lie there remembering things.”
“What sort of things?” Jane asked.
“Things from when I was little,” I said. “But I don’t want to think about that stuff.”
“What do you remember?” said Jane.
“Oh, jeez, like my walk to kindergarten.”
“Tell me,” she said.
I couldn’t see what the point was, but I told her about strolling through Holt’s small downtown. There was a crossing guard in front of the library, a heavy man with a ruddy face. He wore a bright blue uniform complete with a hat. I could see him as I spoke to Jane Stafford: the brass buttons, the shiny black shoes. He held an octagonal sign, flashed it straight when he wanted us to halt at the corner of Oak Street.
“I haven’t thought about Holt in years,” I said. “Why would all this come back to me now?”
“Sometimes your mind waits until you’re ready,” said Jane.
“I can’t seem to turn it off,” I said. “I remember the whole freaking town.”
“Go on,” said Jane.
I told her about the apartment building where divorced families ended up, puzzles with missing pieces. I was taught that living there was somehow disgraceful. Real families—families like ours—lived in houses with yards. “My father must have been the one who gave me that idea,” I said. “I think he wanted us to know that we were better than other people, even though he was unemployed. Well, he said he was an artist, but … there he was, an Egyptian man in the white-bread suburbs. It must have been … hard for him.”
“Why do you think it was hard for him?”
The room started filling with smoke again, and Jane was looking at me. “I feel like the room is filling with smoke,” I said.
“Smoke?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s like … I can’t see.”
“Take a deep breath, Lauren.”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” I said weakly.
“Lauren,” said Jane. “You’re fine. You’re safe.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I’m really not feeling very well.”
“Tell me,” said Jane.
“It’s still all smoky. I can’t breathe in here,” I said. “I’m so hot.”
“You feel warm?”
“This isn’t working for me,” I said.
Jane was silent.
I sat up straight. “This couch, it’s so big. You know what I mean?”
She furrowed her brow.
“I don’t mean to hurt your feelings,” I said. “But I think this couch is just too big. And all this talking, it’s just making me feel kind of nauseated.”
“I see,” said Jane Stafford.
“I think I’m going to take a break,” I said. “From all this …” I waved my hands around, trying to clear the smoke. “The more I dredge up all this old … I appreciate all you’ve done for me. Honestly, this isn’t your fault.”
“Lauren—” said Jane, but I was already halfway to the exit.
“I’ll mail you the co-pay,” I said, and then I walked quickly to the kitchen, which was also smoky, wheeled around, and found the correct door, which let me out.
13
As I drove away from my therapist, I felt terrible. A black hole seemed to be yawning open in me, something I knew I needed to seal again, and fast. “Black hole?” I said to myself in the rearview mirror. “What are you, Mr. Spock? What is this, the starship Enterprise? Redirect to starbase!” I laughed, and the sound was high-pitched and hysterical.
I needed to pull myself together. I didn’t want to feel whatever was coursing through me—I just wanted it to stop. I thought about booze and how it helped to transport you, even as you sat still on the bar stool. Drinking did for me what old age seemed to do for Gramma: it made me less present in a world I wasn’t so crazy about anymore. I could be elsewhere, numb.
I drove to the Elks Lodge off Barton Springs Road, which was one of the last places in Austin where you could actually smoke cigarettes indoors, so my vision problem would not be as pronounced. I had sold a ramshackle 1/1 to the bartender, so when I pressed the intercom and said, “I’m here for Jerzy,” the Elk-in-Charge let me in.
“Well, well, well,” said Jerzy as I entered. He was in his mid-sixties, a muscular Vietnam vet. I had shown him apartments and carriage houses for six years before he went for his Zilker fixer-upper. “It’s Lauren the Realtor! What can I do for you, honey?”
“How about a drink?” I said.
He slapped the top of the bar. “That’s my girl,” he said. He lit a cigarette and offered me one. I accepted, and the unfiltered Marlboro almost made me gag. An elderly man at the bar said, “You know what BPOE stands for, sweetheart?”
“Best people on earth,” I exclaimed, the nicotine making me feel both giddy and ill. Jerzy had asked me this every time I took him house-hunting.
“Damn right,” said the man. “I’ll have a Jim Beam,” he added.
“Make it two,” I said. “And maybe a cheeseburger with onion rings?”
“Burger and a Beam,” said Jerzy. “Coming right up.”
After a few drinks and half a cheeseburger, I went back to my car. The good thing about a Dodge Neon with tinted windows is that you can lie down in the backseat, if you’re so inclined, which I was.
When I closed my eyes, I saw my mother the day before she died, sunbathing next to the tree house, shiny with baby oil. Her body was tan in an aqua bikini, and her hair was held back in a rubber band. She was squinting, resting a large square of cardboard covered in aluminum foil underneath her chin. I saw my own girlhood toes, painted purple. I remembered the way I had once felt: safe, bored, sunburned. These were the waning minutes of the life I’d thought would always be mine.
14
Again I lay awake past midnight. Gerry slept with his arms around me. When I sneaked from Gerry’s embrace, Handsome rose from his dog bed, expectant. I climbed from bed and went into the living room to find Handsome’s leash. My head hurt, so I swallowed a half dozen Advil.
The moon was dazzling. Handsome trotted happily as we made our way south toward downtown. The air felt like a warm swimming pool. I walked along my street, noticing the fresh paint on the bike messengers’ house and the way a couple down the street had strung lights and placed folding chairs in their small front yard: preparations for—or remnants of—a party. Though I had once loved being home with Gerry, now I was more comfortable out of my house, on the move.
I crossed under I-35, giving the people who lived beneath the bridge a wide berth, and made my way to Congress Avenue. Turning left, I had a clear view of the Capitol Building. It was two A.M., which was ten A.M. in Baghdad; I wished my cell phone could call Iraq. Then I thought, Well, why not try?
I sat down at the bus stop at Congress and Tenth. I rummaged in my wallet until I found the phone number of Ibn Sina Hospital. Under the bright sky, I dialed. This was going to cost a fortune, I knew. But I suddenly had to talk to Alex. He was the only one in the world who would understand what I was feeling—this soupy fear and dread. Without Alex, I was carrying the heavy memories alone.
I waited, pressing the phone to my ear. But I had mixed up the digits, it seemed. I couldn’t get the string of numerals on the scrap of paper to connect to anyone, just annoying beeps and a recorded statement: “We’re sorry. The number you are trying to reach is disconnected or no longer in service.” The message was in English, so I figured I must have the access code wrong. I called the Verizon operator, but she put me on hold. I listened to a recording of Barry Manilow singing “Can’t Smile Without You” and “Mandy.” Finally, I cut the line.
Handsome was yanking at his retractable leash, ready to move on. We had made it down Congress almost to the river when I remembered the guy who lived in Le Dome, Unit 302. I was feeling reckless. I walked to Le Dome and looked up. There was a window lit on the third floor. His name came to me, unbidden: Arthur.
I stood there for a while. Why not just go inside? I thought. Why not have a drink with a handsome balding man? Why not a rollicking night of sex? I deserved some joy!
Before Gerry, I’d had lovers—short-lived physical relationships with guys who were messed up in one way or another. Heavy drinkers, manic wackos, the kind of men who told me they loved me after a night and never called again. I felt strangely safe with people who were broken. I knew what to expect from them.
Loving Gerry was different. I found myself counting on him, believing in him, dreaming about babies and wedding rings. It was unnerving and dangerous and very, very stupid.
I whispered a message to Arthur, who was likely typing in his boxer shorts. Did he have a gut? I couldn’t remember. And honestly, who cared? Come to the window, I thought. All you have to do is come to the window and you can have me.
Nobody came to the window. As I was about to murmur another message, the light on the third floor went out. I looked at Handsome, who was confused. I realized it was time to go home.
When I let myself in the door of my purple-and-yellow house, a bag of warm tacos in my hand, I saw a message light blinking on our old answering machine.
I pressed the button and heard my brother’s voice. “Hey there,” he said. “I’m thinking of you guys. I’m sorry to call so late. I just happened to be near a phone, so. Well, anyway. It’s … it’s getting hard here. It’s very disheartening. I’m doing my best, but Jesus … Lauren, I miss you. I love you. Bye.”
I played the message three times, and then I lay down on the floor and cried.
15
It might have happened right then, while I was on my carpeted floor, sobbing and then falling—finally—into a dreamless sleep. It could have been while Gerry carried me to bed, gave me a back scratch, and sang “It Had to Be You.”
Maybe it was while he showered and I lay in the sunlight, smelling Irish Spring soap and feeling Handsome’s heavy head on my tummy. I lay on my expensive mattress, and two Iraqi men drove to either side of Ibn Sina Hospital and detonated cars full of explosives, demolishing the building and everything inside.
The news came the way I’d always feared: a phone call that showed up on my caller ID as RESTRICTED. It was late afternoon, and I was watching First Time Home Flippers. I answered the phone tentatively.
“Miss Lauren Mahdian?” said a man’s voice in an accent I couldn’t place, maybe French.
I said, “Yes?”
“This is Laurent Janssen with Médecins Sans Frontières. I am calling about your brother, Dr. Alexander Mahdian.”
I hit mute on the television. The man was talking about my brother and two suicide bombers and an explosion.
“An explosion?” I said.
“It is a terrible tragedy, a terrible mess,” said the man.
“A mess?” I said.
“At present, we are tending to the bodies. We believe that most inhabitants of the hospital did not survive.”
“What are you telling me?” I asked. I rose, screaming into the phone, “What are you telling me?”
“We have not identified your brother at this time,” said the man. “We will keep you informed of any developments. You have my deepest sympathies.”
“It was a bombing?” I said.
“It was a bombing, yes,” said the man.
“They bombed Alex’s hospital?” I said.
“They bombed the hospital, yes,” said the man.
After I had hung up, I fell back onto the couch and tried to feel something—some communication—from my brother. Was he dead? Did it hurt? I felt that I should know. But I did not know.
It had been only hours since his phone call. I had been planning to call him back at nine A.M. his time, which was midnight my time. I’d already emailed, telling him to be near the phone. His message was still on the machine! Alex could not be dead.
Close Your Eyes Page 7
