Exiles in America(155)
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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
Daniel hurried up the stairs, glad it was over, wanting to get away before
they did further harm to each other.
In the kitchen, he heard a jingle like keys climbing the stairs. He turned
around, hoping it was Zack coming to apologize. But no, it was only Jocko, his
tags ringing as he crept up from the basement. He must have been napping in
a corner. He guiltily cut his eyes at Daniel, as if sorry to overhear such a stu-
pid, ugly quarrel.
The sound of the TV came back on. Apparently Zack preferred to feed his
depression with bad news rather than come upstairs and finish this. But what
was there to finish? They had talked themselves out of their life. They had re-
vealed the lie of their years together. What else could they say to each other?
46
The phone rang, and it was Hassan, calling from Tehran.
“I have terrible news. There has been a traffic accident. They are dead.
All of them. My brother, his wife, and their beautiful children.”
Zack jolted forward, sharply sucking in air like an inhaled cry. He franti -
cally looked for the phone—he must have dropped it—to ask Hassan for de -
tails. Who was driving? How fast? Had there been another car?
But there was no phone. He was sitting up in bed, in the dark, which
meant he’d been asleep, which meant he’d been dreaming. The violent deaths
were a dream, only a dream.
He lay back down again, not into peace and sleep but into grim, gray
melancholy. The relief of knowing the traffic accident wasn’t real lasted less
than a minute before his depression returned. It’s one of the worst feelings in
the world, waking up depressed. Usually Zack didn’t even have a bad dream
to explain it. Luckily there was a little daylight in the window. He got up and
went to the kitchen to start the coffee. He preferred starting his mornings
early anyway, without Daniel. A week had passed since their argument. They
were still angry with each other, but it was a buried anger, a neglected anger.
Daniel didn’t want to discuss anything serious, and Zack didn’t press, for fear
it would bring their anger back to life.
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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
Zack needed to tell someone about his nightmare, but there was nobody
to tell. Daniel hated hearing about other people’s dreams, even in the best of
times. He didn’t deserve to hear this one. Zack went into his office, turned on
his computer, and typed an e-mail.
Elena: I just had a terrible dream where you and your family died in
a car wreck. Could you please write to me and let me know you’re
okay? Zack.
There was still no word from the Rohanis. Elena’s electronic mailbox re-
mained open, but Zack didn’t know if she had access to it. Writing notes to
her was a neurotic compulsion, like writing to the dead, but he couldn’t stop
himself.
He showered and dressed and sat in the kitchen, drinking his coffee and
eating his cornflakes, listening to the radio, which was turned down low so it
wouldn’t disturb Daniel. The fat crows croaking in the trees out back com-
peted with the sinister whisper of news. Between NPR in the morning and
CNN at night, the war came a little closer each day. No wonder Zack had
dreamed about death. The radio mentioned again the major antiwar march
scheduled for this Saturday in New York, where hundreds of thousands were
expected despite the bitter cold. Zack knew he should try to get up there, but
he couldn’t bring himself to do much of anything nowadays outside of his
usual, sad, well-established routines.
f 2
“So it was three weeks ago they vanished, and I keep waiting to feel better, but
I don’t. I feel no joy, no energy. No, that’s not true. I can be angry. I feel only
anger or fatigue. Which leads me to believe I’m clinically depressed. Yes, I
know, three weeks is nothing. Which is why I didn’t want to prescribe any-
thing to myself until I discussed this with you.”
Zack sat with Roy Chadha in his office in Building 2, sharing a pot of En-
glish tea and talking. He had already filled Roy in on recent events: how
Daniel and Abbas had stopped seeing each other, how Abbas’s brother had
come to town, followed by the FBI, and how the family had fled to Iran. It was
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
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strange hearing the emotional mess of the past months reduced to a relatively
simple story line.
Roy kept nodding and smiling, a gently amused, philosophical cat smile.
“How very interesting. And modern, too. When Anna Karenina committed
adultery, she destroyed her family. Now when people do it, they extend their
families, double them.”
Zack frowned. “But we’re not doubled. Half of us is in another country.”