Esmail shifts his weight to his other foot and I touch his arm and squeeze. An automobile passes by the bungalow and down the hill. Burdon suddenly straightens and with his unarmed hand waves us from the room. “Leave, please. She needs rest. Go.”

LESTER WATCHED THE YOUNG BOY LEAVE THE ROOM LAST. HE WAS ALMOST as tall as Lester and his hair was thick and black. Lester wanted to look down at Kathy one more time before he left the room but he’d just made the mistake of letting the colonel step into the hallway where he’d left his iron pry bar, so Lester hurried into the corridor only to see the colonel and his wife and son moving quietly single-file toward the counter bar separating the living room from the kitchen. The candles still burned on the living-room floor and for the first time Lester saw the food there, the pot of white rice, the dish of what looked like beef stew, the bread and yogurt and radishes. Three clean unused plates. His belly felt as dry and empty as an old wineskin hanging on a line in the sun. The gun was suddenly heavy, almost obscene in his hand, as if he were exposing himself.

The small family stopped at the short counter bar between the two rooms, turned and faced him, waiting for his next order, it seemed. The boy wore only socks on his feet and he was standing on the linoleum of the kitchen not far from a shard of glass. Lester needed to sit and just think a minute. He found he could hardly look into any of their faces. He waved his gun in the direction of their food on the floor and told them to eat. “Just, sit down and eat.”

The colonel looked like he was going to say something, but then he kept quiet, turned, and led his family to their dinner. The son took his plate from the counter and he gave Lester’s gun a long look before he sat down. Lester pushed the safety on and just stood there a minute, maybe more, half in the dark hallway, half in the light of the kitchen, his head about as unclear as it could get without getting drunk. His face was a windowpane and the inside was covered with buzzing flies. And nothing was clear. Nothing. Kathy would pull through. He had known that before he’d even called the emergency room; if she could still recognize him and speak after taking all those pills, then not enough had been absorbed into her blood before she threw up. And he had no doubts about the throwing up because the entire hallway still smelled like it, so ripe it was sour. And when he’d just kissed her in the bedroom he had smelled the booze too, the gutrot scent it carries after being broken down in the stomach. Her cheek had been soft and dry and he’d wanted to lie beside her and hold her, as if holding her could begin to fill in the details for him, how this morning at the fish camp had led them to her stolen house in Corona tonight, to her doing what the Iranians say she’d done, to him standing there in her hallway while this family of exiles ate quietly on the floor in front of him, his loaded service pistol in his hand, a weighty reminder that this is where the ground met his feet, this is where Kathy was, so this is where he would be too. And there was no real reason to not believe these people. Lester had known this when Kathy turned her small, slightly puffy face to him, smiled a still-drugged smile and said, “You’re here.” Then in the bedroom she had cried looking right at him, her sweet, jaded face full of shame, and Lester had no more doubts the Iranians’ story was true. This knowledge was a dark ball of sap in the pit of his stomach. He watched the Behranis eat slowly and quietly, using the back of their forks to push rice and stew onto their spoons, dipping radishes into yogurt, taking turns glancing in his direction but not quite all the way at him. He was tired and his eyes stung a bit. The kitchen smelled like spiced tea. The linoleum floor was covered with the broken wood and shattered glass of the back door that was now wide open. Against the wall beside it was a broom, and Lester held his service pistol to the light, pulled the hammer back to quarter lock, then reached around and pushed the weapon into the rear waistband of his jeans. He glanced down at the Behrani family, all three of them looking up at him from their candlelit meal on the floor, and he walked over the linoleum, took up the broom, and began sweeping, the 9mm a steel hand against his lower back.

IT IS IN THE MOMENTS LESTER V. BURDON IS SWEEPING FROM THE kitchen floor the broken window glass that Nadi leans to me closer, her eyes open wide with urgency, and whispers in Farsi, “Boro, invite him to eat.” Which, after having witnessed him put his pistol on double safety, I was intending to do.

I stand so that I am able to view him upon the other side of the counter, standing in the light of the kitchen as he empties the glass and wood debris into our plastic garbage container. Upon his hand is a gold wedding ring I did not before notice.

“Mr. Burdon,” I say, and my face grows hot for I did not intend to use his name, but it is too late; it comes from me as naturally as my own air. He looks directly into my face and he slowly taps the pan of dust upon the rim of the trash bin. He appears to be close to making some sort of decision. I invite him with us to eat. But he tells to me to sit and he does not join my family but moves to the counter bar and looks down upon us, the handle of his weapon revealed at his back. He looks beyond me to the framed photograph on the wall of myself, General Pourat, and Shahanshah Pahlavi. He seems to be studying it, his eyes smaller, his lips beneath his mustache squeezed tightly. I do not care for his expression. It is one of judgment and who is he to judge me? But I do not show my feelings. The smell of the samovar’s tea has filled the bungalow and normally, at this point in the evening, Esmail would return to his bedroom and video games, and Nadi would rise to clear the soiled dishes, to fill our cups with tea. But she does not move. Nor does Esmail. I can feel my son watching me. I take a breath and sit as straight as I am able. “Sir, my wife would like to serve to us tea.” But this is all I say. I will not request his permission for her to rise, and I regret having said to him sir, but I could not use his name again only to risk reminding him I went to the trouble to discover it. His eyes leave the wall and he regards first me, then Nadereh. He nods his head, and Nadi gathers our plates and rises. Lester V. Burdon glances at my son, then again he rests his eyes on me. They are dark and set deeply into his face. His hair and mustache are dark as well and it occurs to me he looks very much like Nadereh’s younger brother Ali.

“What happened?”

I hesitate, for I do not know if he is inquiring of my reporting of him, or if he is referring simply to Kathy Nicolo.

“When did she come here?”

“Late in the afternoon. My son was with friends. My wife was resting. I do not know how long her automobile was in the drive before I saw it.”

He inquires what she was doing, asking this quickly, as if testing my story for the soft ground of a lie.

“She was weeping.” I lower my eyes to the loaded pistol in his waistband. “And she was aiming that at her heart. She was attempting to pull the trigger, but its safety mechanism was engaged, you see. I took it from her and helped her into the home.”

Burdon’s eyes have softened, and he looks directly into my own but I do not believe he is viewing me, but something else, a memory perhaps, a memory of him and Kathy Nicolo, or perhaps simply a vision of what I have just reported to him.

“That’s what happened,” Esmail says. “My father wouldn’t lie. He never lies.”