Exiles in America(138)

when I’d rather not. I thought you and I were good friends.”

“We are, Jane. We’re great friends.”

She shook her head. “No, Daniel. Not this week. I’m very pissed at you.

Aren’t you old enough yet to keep your pecker in your pants? We’re not in

our twenties anymore. The seventies are over. I just hope the dean and presi-

dent don’t hear about this. Or the board of trustees and state legislature.”

“You can’t worry about them, ” said Daniel dismissively.

“Well, I do. All the time. I have to. It’s my job.” She stared at him in frus-

tration. “Forget it, Daniel. You have a helluva lot on your plate already. I’m

out of here. Goodbye.”

Daniel watched Jane hurry off, feeling confused by her, annoyed. He did

not want to feel guilty. He wanted to be pleased with himself for defending

Abbas, for not backing down. He decided to go find Abbas. He suddenly

needed to see his friend again face-to-face.

Abbas wasn’t in his office. His classroom was open but deserted. The door

to his work studio was closed. Daniel heard something being dragged across

the floor inside. Abbas must be working again, which was a good sign.

Daniel knocked. The dragging stopped. “Who is it?”

E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a

3 1 5

“It’s me. Daniel.”

A long silence followed. Daniel wondered if he should knock again or go

away. Then the door opened, and there stood Abbas in his bib overalls and

thermal underwear shirt. He was frowning, his face smudged black with

whiskers, not a five o’clock shadow but more like a five-day shadow. He

hadn’t shaved over the weekend. His chin and cheeks echoed the crew cut

with its widow’s peak. “Yes?”

“I just came from a department meeting. It was all about you. I thought

you might want to know.”

There was no change in Abbas’s expression. He looked very tired. After a

moment he stepped aside and let Daniel come in.

The room looked starker than before, more austere, and Daniel realized

there was no music. Abbas was always playing something on his boom box,

but not today. Then Daniel saw four or five raw wooden stretchers against the

back wall, like the stripped bones of paintings, square skeletons of art. No

wonder the room felt bare. A finished canvas from last semester lay flat on the

floor: the big green one with Osh’s red handprint.

“Do they know what happened on Friday?” asked Abbas.

“Most of it. The FBI talked to everyone last week. Which made them all

suspicious. But have no fear. I defended you. I assured them you won’t blow

anything up.”

It was meant as a joke, but nothing was funny anymore.

“They believed you?”

“Yes. Plus the FBI told Jane you were safe. They have amazing faith in

their government.”

Abbas nodded, then returned to the painting on the floor and lifted up

one end. He’d been working on the back, using a screwdriver to pry the heavy

staples holding the canvas to the wood.

“But they know I was arrested?” he said.

“You weren’t arrested. You were held for questioning. That’s all. For a

very long time. But yeah, they know that.”

Abbas gouged at one staple, then another, raising them a half inch or so.

“But after the police touch a man, he is no longer clean. They know I am not

one of them. I am a foreigner, a fanatic, a crazy towel-head.”

3 1 6

C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

Daniel wasn’t sure how to respond. “No, they don’t think that. They’re

probably more alarmed to learn you and I had been fuck buddies.”

“Little potatoes,” grumbled Abbas. “As if it matters to anyone.”

Which couldn’t help but sting, even as Daniel told himself the man was

right.

Abbas continued to gouge and pry with the screwdriver. When he reached

the corner, he put the screwdriver in his pocket and took out a pair of pliers.

He pulled at the loosened staples like a dentist extracting teeth.

Daniel saw a stack of flayed canvases on the floor near the sofa, four or five

squares of densely painted fabric with raw white borders. They looked like

the hides of gaudy patchwork animals.

“Why’re you taking your work off its stretchers?”

“I am cleaning house. Separating sheep from goats. Good paintings from

bad paintings.”

“Which are these?” Daniel pointed at the stack.

“The ones good enough to save.”

Daniel went over to look. It was the recent work, the abstract studies of

magnified letters from the Koran. On the top of the pile was the pale creamy

orange canvas with a title like “Surrender to God.” Daniel did not like these