In my office I unwrap my uniform shoes, black and shiny and free of dust. I tie them securely with a double knot, then rise and slip into my jacket, each shoulder heavy with red-and-gold epaulet, my breast pocket covered with the ribbons, emblems, and badges of my service.

I secure the middle buttons and I stand at full attention, Genob Sarhang Behrani, Honorable Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani.

I pull paper from its box upon my desk, and in the kitchen I stand at the bar counter and begin to write in my mother language:

Soraya-joon,

I have done all that I could. Do not be sorry for us. Your mother and I await you upon your return. We love you more than we have loved life.

After your dear brother name your first son.

Bawbaw

An automobile passes on its way down the hill and I must hurry for I recall the lieutenant’s orders as I left for the hospital, his request for a patrol car to be sent here. For the shooting of a boy they are efficient; for the rescuing of a woman held hostage they are late.

I take the second paper and write in English that I, Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani, leave to my daughter this bungalow and all of its contents as well as my automobile and all monies remaining in our accounts. I print my full name upon the document, then sign it.

This should be sufficient, but now I am troubled by the words “all of its contents,” for I cannot leave the body of this gendeh and killer to my daughter, who I am quite certain will sell this bungalow as soon as she is able. I take up the pen and write again in Farsi at the bottom of my letter:

Soraya-joon, live here if you like, but if you sell it take no less than one hundred thousand dollars.

I place both papers upon the refrigerator door, securing them with a magnet beside the honeymoon photograph of my daughter and son-in-law. They stand in the sunlight. They appear quite happy. I kiss my finger and press it to Soraya’s heart.

I am too warm in my uniform. I feel the sweat at my forehead and neck and beneath my peerhan. There is very little time remaining. I stoop upon my mother’s carpet, position my hand beneath Kathy Nicolo’s arms, then lift and drag her into the kitchen area across the floor and outdoors onto the rear grasses. She is quite heavy, her hair loose upon my arms. I drag her through the tall hedge trees to her automobile. The air has grown cooler, but my eyes burn with sweat, and I lay her upon the earth beside the bungalow and open the rear door of her auto. There is the tired smell of cigarettes, and the seat fabric is still warm from the sun that is no longer. I look down upon her. Her mouth is open, one hand twisted beneath her. I think of Jasmeen, my dear cousin. I lift the whore and pull her onto the seat and bend her knees to shut the door and I think of what I will tell to Jasmeen, that I loved her always, that Kamfar and I wept for her. And I will embrace Pourat. I will kiss both his eyes and tell to him how I have missed him.

There is very little time. Inside the bungalow, I pull from the cabinet beneath the sink the roll of tape we used for our moving boxes. In my office I retrieve the plastic covering of my uniform. Then I enter the darkness of my wife’s room, my heart once again thrusting inside my chest. My face and neck release sweat, and my uniform is fitted too tightly at the upper back; it is all the work here I have done, it is all those days in the heat and dust and fog, a garbage soldier working with men who before would have bowed their heads if I passed by. I sit upon the bed. I pull sufficient tape free of its roll, the sound like the cracking of ice over a frozen lake, what I felt beneath my feet as a boy with my father in the north mountains. I hold with both hands the tape and lean to kiss Nadi once more. Her lips are still warm but I feel if I do not hurry she will have left me behind. I apply one end of the tape to my knee, and my fingers shake as they did when I first undressed my wife on the night of our wedding, our new home silent as it is now.

I take the plastic covering and place it over my head and face. But there is a small hole near my mouth and I must double the layer and now I see only a vague dimness as I take the tape and secure it firmly around my throat and neck. My breath draws in the plastic immediately and I expel it with my tongue. I lie down beside my Nadi. I reach for her hand but cannot at first find it and my heart leaps against my chest, then I find it, small and cool, soft with expensive creams, and I am for the moment calmed. I close my eyes and mouth and breathe deeply through the nose, but the plastic quickly fills it and I again open my mouth to complete the breath but the plastic is there as well and I force it away with my tongue, drawing in more air, all that I will need, I tell to myself, holding it in, my chest weakened by its fullness. I feel Nadi’s shoulder pressed to mine and I regret not having played music on her new player. I have a sharp desire to hear it, the poetry of Dashtestani, the ney and domback, the beckoning music of home. I release my breath, its sound a wind in my ears, the plastic slipping from my nose and mouth but then returning with the insistence of the sea, covering all the sand prints left behind, filling all the holes and channels. I attempt to force the plastic out once more, just once more, but the ocean is rising with the moon, its pressure growing in my chest, my heart and lungs beginning to burst beneath the weight of an unseen hand, my body struggling as it sinks into the bed. The plastic becomes iron against my face, and my arms float weightlessly as I attempt to pull free the tape but my fingers do not function correctly, fluttering uselessly against my throat and chin. I no longer have legs, and there is a terrible sound in my ears, the deafening pitch of low-flying F-16s, my chest beginning to fracture, my abdomen heaving, heaving—something beginning to open and release, a warmth filling me, vodka and fire, the hot wind of a desert sky, the earth falling away beneath me.

 

LESTER’S CELL WAS A STAINLESS-STEEL SINK AND TOILET, A STEEL WRITING desk, and two iron bunks recessed into the wall. Above each mattress was a small rectangular window, its bulletproof glass fogged so that all Lester could see was daylight, and the floor was eight feet wide and twelve feet long, the ceiling thirty feet above him, three iron girders painted as white as everything else. Lester sat at the edge of the bottom bunk, both hands resting on his knees. His eyelids were heavy and burned slightly, and his mouth hung partly open with fatigue. He was too warm wearing both jail-issue shirts and he lay back on his bunk, staring at the myriad of holes in the steel bed-frame above him. At the Hall of Justice, he had sat without his shirt in a hardback chair and heard himself tell the truth about everything, his voice low and subdued as he kept seeing the boy spin, his arms hanging loose as rope as he let go of the gun and landed on his side, one arm stretched out, almost pointing, the way toddlers do to something they recognize but can’t name.

Someone had handed him a glass of water and Lester drank it down all at once. In the small room were two deputies, two detectives, and Lieutenant Alvarez standing with his back to the bright window, his face in shadow. The detectives were asking Lester about the Behrani family, their imprisonment overnight, Lester pointing his service pistol at them, moving the son and father against their will to Redwood City. They asked him about Kathy. Was she at the Corona address right now, holding Mrs. Behrani against her will? And Lester’s voice sounded almost normal. “No, she’s waiting for us to get back, that’s all.” Lester looked down at his hands, imagined Mrs. Behrani hearing her son had been shot. He imagined hearing his own son had been shot, how he would immediately picture the worst, little Nate’s smooth face contorted and pale as too much blood left his body too fast. “Is the boy all right?”