Exiles in America(152)

icons like tongues, penises, and hearts.

The paintings were fun and playful, like sex. Sex with Abbas had been fun

and playful. Yet somewhere, sometime, Abbas had stopped wanting to play.

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

He wanted to be serious, in painting, too, taking refuge in Arabic letters—the

literal letter of the law. Why?

Daniel sat on the green couch and stared at the images. He missed Abbas’s

body. That was all he knew of him: his cock and tongue, his anus, his hands,

his smile. Remembering sex did not help Daniel see the man. He didn’t have

a single photograph of him, not even a snapshot, only these strange pictures

from inside the Iranian’s head.

The terra-cotta gingerbread man, for example. Was that Abbas? It was

covered in other bodies, full of other selves, a body of bodies. They marched

through him like a broken alphabet. There were so many damn Abbases.

There was the Abbas who gladly took Daniel in his arms. The Abbas who

happily danced in this room with his children. The Abbas who could paint

such beautiful paintings and then abandon them. The son of a bitch didn’t

even bother to write a note saying goodbye.

Daniel wanted to cry but didn’t. He was cooler than Zack, tougher. But

Zack was right: he was still in love with Abbas. It was easy to miss until after

the fact. This love had never been hurt-me obsessive, like the infatuations of

his twenties, or ego-driven, like the romantic sideshows of his thirties. No, this

was gentler, subtler, more middle-aged. Daniel knew to expect nothing from

this extra love, knew it wouldn’t save him—he didn’t think he needed to be

saved. And yet he missed it badly. It had made him feel anxious, excited, phys-

ical, alive. Now that it was gone, he felt dead.

So who was Abbas? Daniel didn’t have a clue. He wanted to forget him,

which would mean destroying these paintings. But not yet. They were too

beautiful. And Daniel couldn’t help identifying with them. They were labors

of love, yet Abbas had abandoned them when he fled into his new abstrac-

tions of God and country.

Daniel left the paintings on the floor, locked the studio, and went out to

his car. It was an hour drive down to Newport News, but there was another

piece of Abbas that he wanted to visit while his wounds were still fresh.

The mosque on Warwick Boulevard was a round, white building like a

hatbox, a structure that made no sense until one recognized it was an old car

dealership with the showroom windows painted over. Daniel sat in his car in

the parking lot, unsure if he should go in or not. A marquee sign remained out

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

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front, no longer announcing what makes and models were on sale but dis-

playing a verse from the Koran: “Those with God are not too arrogant to wor-

ship.”

Daniel got out and drifted up the sidewalk to the glass doors to peek in.

Other people were arriving, all men, a few with their sons. It was after five,

and they were getting off work. Half of them were African American, the

other half new Americans: Pakistanis, Turks, Palestinians, Saudis, and a soli-

tary Asian man, maybe Indonesian.

The Asian stopped beside Daniel. “May I help you?”

“No, thanks. I was just curious. Just passing by.”

The man’s face lit up. “This is your first time? Please. Come inside. All are

welcome in God’s house.”

Daniel followed the man into a front hall lined with shelves, a honeycomb

of pigeonholes full of shoes.

“All we ask is that you show respect by removing your shoes,” said the

man. But he was studying Daniel hard, as if seeing him for the first time. The

light was better here. He abruptly nodded and hurried off. Had he just real-

ized that Daniel was Jewish? But in white-bread Virginia, a Jew looked as

Other as any Muslim. Maybe he saw that Daniel was gay. Or thought he might

be FBI.

Now that he was inside, however, Daniel wanted to stay, although he was

reluctant to remove his shoes. He remained in the front hall, looking into the

main room while men trooped by in their sock feet. He expected someone to

ask him to leave, but nobody said a word. Nobody seemed to notice him. He

was invisible here. He clasped his hands at his waist, bowed his head, and

watched.

Two dozen men arranged themselves in three neat rows on the purple

indoor-outdoor carpet inside, all on their knees, presumably facing Mecca. A

man in a white fringe beard and a gray suit worn over a white turtleneck got

up and began to chant. Some of the men chanted back, others didn’t. Then

the rows touched their foreheads against the carpet in unison.

Daniel had hoped to learn something about Abbas, but there was little to

see here. The service was orderly yet loose and casual, like yoga. Men wan-