children returning to a room full of the electricity of their father quarreling
with his lover.
Osh began to hop around to the music.
“No, like this!” cried Abbas, and he lifted his arms over his head and gen-
tly spun around.
Osh copied the movement exactly, a willowy shadow of the grown man.
Abbas showed him a set of hand gestures—like hula hands—and Osh re-
peated those, too. Father and son began to dance in swaying, twisting move-
ments that were more about arms and torso than they were about feet. The
dance looked too loose to be traditional, but like a mix of things picked up
from movies and weddings. Osh did not stomp around like a little boy but
moved with eerie, precocious grace. His face took on the solemn pout of a
child deep in make-believe.
Abbas did not even glance at Daniel, but he seemed to be saying: Look at
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
2 1 3
me. See, I love my children. His dance wasn’t entirely spontaneous, but it was
sincere. Daniel was both moved and disturbed to watch Abbas dance with his
son, wagging his ass in a shameless way no Western father would ever move
around a child. Daniel eyed the shape swinging in the seat of overalls and
couldn’t help remembering its look and feel. He still wore the memory of the
sphincter around his finger like a wedding ring. It was an obscene thing to
think about a man in the company of his children, yet Daniel insisted on
thinking it. He didn’t want the kids to make him feel guilty, but they did.
Mina stood by the sofa, watching with her big eyes and pinched sparrow
face, a small version of her mother, as disapproving as Elena. She was always
odd man out here, wasn’t she? Then Daniel realized: She doesn’t disapprove,
she feels excluded. Was this her choice or her father’s or Muslim tradition?
But they weren’t devout Muslims.
He stepped over to Mina. “I don’t know how to do this dance. Can you
show me?”
She looked up at him with a sour, skeptical squint.
“Like this?” He held his arms straight out on either side of him.
“No! This,” she declared and lifted her hands over her head with her el-
bows at right angles.
He did the same—it was a surrender gesture—and began to dance with
her, snaking his hands in the air the way she snaked hers. He tried smiling at
her, but Mina wouldn’t smile back. She wouldn’t even look at him.
What did she know? Nothing, he hoped. But she must feel the change that
Daniel brought to this family, the tension he produced in her parents, the si-
lences and bad moods.
“Mina. Like this,” cried Abbas, and he performed one of his pirouettes for
his daughter, which she duplicated.
Daniel did it, too, like a do-si-do done by a telephone pole in an old Dis-
ney cartoon, but then he realized the movement was for her, all her, and he
had no business taking it for himself.
Soon Mina was dancing with her father and brother, drawn by their grav-
ity away from Daniel. Which was only right. Daniel had brought her into the
dance, but it was her father she wanted, her father she loved.
2 1 4
C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
Abbas smiled at her and at Osh, but not at Daniel. He seemed to forget
about Daniel. He concentrated on dancing with his children. Which made
him look even more beautiful, more lovable.
Daniel wanted love from Abbas, but all Abbas could give him was sex. Just
sex. Daniel had no business confusing this family or himself for the sake of
just sex. He should go elsewhere for sex. It was that simple. He should leave
these people in peace.
“I got to go,” he called out over the music.
“Goodbye,” said Abbas indifferently. He didn’t stop dancing.
Had Daniel hurt his feelings? He hoped so. “Bye, kids.”
“Bye,” said Osh.
“Bye bye,” said Mina, more warmly, but she was probably just happy to
see him go.
Daniel went out into the hall, Lagaan still playing at his back. He hurried
to the other side of the building and his office. He unlocked the door, turned
on the light, and switched on his computer. He found a chat room almost im-
mediately.
Just sex, he told himself, the sooner the better. Bad sex would be prefer-
able to good sex, since bad sex would get the virtuous taste of sacrifice out of
his mouth. He loved Abbas and he loved the man’s children and he was walk-
ing away from them. He felt very moral right now; he didn’t trust the sensa-
tion. There had to be somebody in town on a Sunday afternoon who just
wanted to get his rocks off. But no, everybody must be watching football on
TV. The few names that popped up on the screen were mostly in D.C. The
best he could do was Richmond, an hour away, and it was Sugar Bear 13,