Exiles in America(21)

“Damn, damn, bloody damn!”

“We had a date!” said Daniel. “Did you forget?” He was angry or he

wouldn’t have said “date.”

“No. I do not forget. I come over here dressed for the clubs”—he pointed

at a small stack of folded clothes on the sofa—“and then I think, I have an

hour. I can fix this. And so I put on my work clothes and go to work and I lose

track of time. Now I am in the middle and cannot quit.” He nodded at the

door. “Go on without me.”

Daniel knew how easily one can be swallowed by a picture, but he still felt

insulted that Abbas could choose work over an afternoon with him. “No

way,” he said. “It’s no fun doing Norfolk alone.” He immediately stepped

toward the canvas for a look.

There was a parade of figures on a burnt sienna background. The figures

suggested calligraphy, elegant squiggles of Arabic struggling to become bod-

ies. And it was oil paint, not acrylic, so the colors had a solid, luminous qual-

ity, even under fluorescent light. Plump snails of pure color sat on Abbas’s

palette on the floor, a raw square of plywood, not mixed or blended together

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

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but applied straight to the canvas. A bouquet of brushes stood in a glass of

turpentine by his foot. His toes were spattered with paint.

“How long will you be?” asked Daniel. “I don’t mind hanging.”

“An hour? I can promise I will finish in an hour.”

If he were anything like Daniel, an hour could stretch into two. But Daniel

didn’t want to leave.

“Or you can come back later,” Abbas suggested.

“No. Let me hang here. Then I can make sure you finish.” And he could

watch Abbas work.

“Do you mind? Because I want to finish this. But I also want to go to Nor-

folk and meet sailors. Life is full of trade-offs.”

“I’ll say. Go ahead. I’ll be fine.” Daniel was already walking toward the

wall to study the handful of sketches tacked there.

If Abbas had been looking at Daniel’s work, Daniel would’ve been para-

lyzed with self-consciousness. But Abbas automatically went back to work.

So few people used oil paint anymore that it was a memory aroma now,

like a forgotten soup or stew made by a favorite grandmother. Under that

smell was another forgotten scent, the pleasant stink of cigarettes. Daniel saw

the empty coffee can full of butts and ashes. The smoke detector hung open

on the ceiling, gutted of its batteries.

The sketches on the wall looked like pen and ink, but no, they were also

paint. Crucified on white paper, the simple brushstroke figures really did look

like letters, not Arabic but an alien, extraterrestrial alphabet.

“Pay no attention to those,” said Abbas. “They are only thoughts.”

A finished canvas on stretchers leaned against the rear wall. The top half

of the canvas was greenish blue, the bottom half saffron yellow: sky and

beach. An abstract family of four figures battled a large, angry, abstract fish.

The colors were delicious, clear and direct. Nothing was muddy or over-

worked.

If he wanted to be mean, Daniel could’ve said, “Oh, it’s like Klee turning

into Picasso” or “Giacometti meets Clemente.” Because you can always use

famous names to dilute another artist’s identity. But the truth of the matter

was, despite the echoes, the work was fresh and alive—both the finished and

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

the new piece. Daniel had seen only slides and reproductions, which did not

fully capture the man’s gift for color and texture. The things themselves were

richer, more beautiful and mysterious. There was a Middle Eastern quality,

too, although that may have been an effect of the music on the boom box.

Just then the CD jumped into a new track, a bongo-driven thing that

sounded more Indian than Middle Eastern.

“This isn’t Iranian music,” said Daniel.

“Oh no. Iranian music is all funeral and military marches. Very grim. This

is Bollywood. The soundtrack of Lagaan. ”

“Nice,” said Daniel, and it was, a jumpy weave of rhythms and counter-

rhythms, so catchy that Daniel half expected the figures in the fish painting to

start dancing.

“Iran used to be a beautiful land,” said Abbas. “Lush and fun and foolish.

But no more. Religion has ruined it.”

“You were a teenager when you left?”

“I was fourteen. Before the revolution. But I have been back to visit my

brother. A sad, sad country.”

He duckwalked around his canvas, as agile as a gymnast. No wonder his

body was so lean and taut. An empty easel stood in the corner; he preferred to