Then, as if this was an idea I just wanted to try out to see how it fit, I pressed the end of the barrel to my breastbone, my eyes closed, the ship beginning to break up, my thumb against the trigger, everything coming to a fine dark point in my head.

I HAVE WRAPPED ONE TABLE LEG IN TAPE AND BEGIN WRAPPING THE other, its glue falling in droplets to the newspaper. My fingers are sticking, and the pain in my neck now rises up through the back of my head. I know I must lie down and rest, but I must first finish securing the table leg or it will set wrongly. From Nadi’s locked room comes once again the music of Googoosh, this too-sweet sugar, the music of romantics ignorant of any history but their own. But at this moment, I find it more comforting than silence, better than the marching of my thoughts that do not end, those tired directives from myself to continue with the strategy I know is best for my family.

I think of my Soraya, so zeebah, of such beauty her name is no longer Behrani but Farahsat. I feel a pinch in my heart at the memory of her shame of us, of me, of the dinner we held for her and her quiet husband and his family. My head aches. It feels squeezed as if between two stones. My knees and back are stiff and tired. I feel so very poor, so old. But I will not be misunderstood by my own blood; I must telephone Soraya and arrange a time for us to meet, to eat lunch or dinner together, father and daughter only. Perhaps we will stroll along Fisherman’s Wharf with the touring people in the city, her slender arm hooked inside my own, as I tell to her, as I tell to her what? What do I say to my daughter? Please do not look down upon me because I no longer have a powerful position in our society? I am not to blame our society no longer exists? It is not my fault we are in America now where only money is respected? Please daughter, make an attempt to forget how we once lived, put it behind you, and do not shame us by talking of it as if we are nothing at all now without recalling what we once were? We are your mother and father. Do not forget this.

I wash my hands at Nadi’s kitchen sink, splash cold water upon my face, and I know I am a liar, for these words in my head are as hollow as a crippled man’s wooden leg: I do not believe them myself; this small bungalow is not even the size of our outbuilding in which Bahman parked our automobile in the capital city. Perhaps Soraya was right to belittle it with her nervous recounting of who we really were, who her father was. But I must rest now; I am not yet beaten. Perhaps I must lower my price to secure a buyer more quickly. If I only double my investment with a sale, that will still be one hundred thousand dollars in our pockets. Surely, in this country, that kind of seed can yield a tree.

Outdoors the day is gray and there is fog hanging in the dark trees of the woodland across the street. The front lock remains engaged, and I am not certain Esmail has carried his key with him—he never carries anything in his pockets—but I cannot leave the door free for him; I will simply have to awaken to his knocking. I leave the long wrecking iron in the corner beside the door, and I am turning for my office when I see what my eyes do not believe they are seeing: behind my Buick Regal is the red automobile of the beggar Kathy Nicolo. I did not hear her arrive. She must have done so while I was washing at the kitchen sink. She sits inside her car, her eyes closed, her head resting on the neck support of her seat, her chin tilted upward, her throat long and white. Her black hair is tangled, and some of it rests upon her cheek, and I am feeling strangely because I did not hear her arrive and because at this moment she looks so very much like my long-dead cousin Jasmeen that for a moment I do not know where I am or what is the day, or how it is I came to be here. Is she sleeping? Is she this illogical?

But I feel little as I step outside into the cool gray air, only fatigue and confusion and a deep feeling in my heart that perhaps what I see before me is a dream. The woman Kathy Nicolo has not moved, her head still rests upon the seat and her eyes are shut, but as I draw closer she begins to weep silently, turning her face from side to side, her mouth open in words that do not come. Then she grimaces, her eyes squeezing closed and her shoulders curving forward. Her body becomes loose, her shoulders fall back, and she continues to cry, shaking her head and moving her mouth as if she were attempting to persuade someone yet unseen to do something quite urgent. She appears younger to me as she weeps, with not many more years than my Soraya, and I feel a tenderness as I move closer, a momentary regret at having treated her before so roughly, for having pushed her into her auto as if she were a man. However, I must tell her firmly that she must leave. Once more she makes a face, and the feeling I am in a dream increases for I see both of her hands upon a large automatic pistol, its barrel pushed to her heart, one of her thumbs pressing against its trigger which is evidently locked by its safety mechanism. Then I feel a witness to my own hand as it reaches inside the open window and twists the weapon from her grasp. She opens her eyes. They are reddened and she blinks them as if coming out of a deep sleep, but then she regards me and the pistol and she cries openly, her hair falling across her eyes and mouth. I press the release button, remove the fully loaded magazine from its grip, then pull back the sliding mechanism for any bullet in the chamber. There is none. My hands tremble as I deposit the ammunition clip into my pants pocket, as I push the pistol into the waistband of my trousers, and open the door to help this Kathy Nicolo from her automobile. The interior smells of benzine and she of liquor and cigarette smoke. She pushes my hands away and cries more loudly, but there is little strength in her and I lead her from the car, guiding her to the door, for she is drunk, mast, and once inside, standing unsteadily in the living-room area, my arm upon her elbow, she begins to speak through her crying, her hair hanging before her face. She speaks of not caring about this house any longer, simply not caring about anything. She talks loudly, the fashion in which the very drunk do, and I wish for Nadereh to come from the music behind her closed door and witness this, see this very nice intoxicated girl who was attempting to shoot herself in front of our home. My legs have become soft and I need Nadi’s help, but I am fearful to leave this Kathy Nicolo even for a moment by herself. She cries more quietly now, swaying upon her feet like a marionette. I lead her slowly into my son’s room, sit her upon his bed, and lay her down, stooping to lift her bare legs upon the mattress as well. To me she turns her face, wet with her crying, and she says, “I just—can’t we just—” She weeps. But soon her chin lowers and she appears to relax deeper into my son’s pillow.

“Nicky?”

“Nakhreh,” I answer in Farsi. Then in English: “You must sleep now. You must rest.” I place Esmail’s chair in front of the bed and sit. The pistol is uncomfortably tight against me and I pull it free, hold it in my hands. I smell the lubricant on its surface and I think of Tehran. Where does a young woman acquire a weapon such as this? She appears to be sleeping and I consider for a moment removing her Reebok shoes, but I do not. I watch the young woman sleep, watch her mouth open slightly as she does. Beneath her brightly colored Fisherman’s Wharf T-shirt her breasts barely rise and fall, and I regard the pistol in my hands, see Jasmeen falling to the ground, her long hair untamed, her hand pressed between her breasts, her white gown growing as red as saffron.

THE WOMAN KATHY Nicolo remained sleeping throughout the afternoon and into the early evening. I at first considered to tell Nadi directly, but my wife’s door was still shut to me, Googoosh singing her away from her headaches and into a melancholy sleep. And no immediate good would come from her knowing our present situation. The panic of the weak never helps the strong. I poured for myself tea from the samovar in the kitchen and sat at the counter bar with the unloaded pistol and I once again began to weigh the alternative courses of action before me.