Reading Online Novel

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?

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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.

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“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.”