I went back into the house. I heard the low Persian music. The air smelled like tea and flowers. I walked over the carpet and down the hall and I could feel my father like he was standing there in the dim hallway in his beige Nicolo Linen uniform, a smoking Garcia y Vega between his fingers, his eyes big behind his glasses, looking at me like he always did, like I was a rare bird he was still getting used to seeing in his own front yard.

When I stepped into the darkened bedroom, Mrs. Behrani was lying as still as I’d left her. Her hands were crossed over her stomach, and her sleeping face looked pale in the shadow of the room. I wanted to do something for her, though I didn’t know what that could be. On the cassette player a young woman’s voice was reciting what had to be poetry, and there was a backdrop of drums behind her, that, and men letting long open-throated sounds out of themselves. My eyes were used to the dark now and I could see the rise and fall of Mrs. Behrani’s breathing, her hands on her stomach. I remembered the way she looked at the bruises on my arm like it hurt to see them. I remembered her face as she washed my bleeding foot, then laid it on that thick white towel, her eyes full of warmth. I thought about wetting a cloth with cool water, laying it on her forehead, but for all I knew that could make a migraine worse. So instead I went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of ice water, set it near the tape player on her bedside table. The glass tapped against the base of the lamp and she squeezed her eyes as tightly shut as if someone had yelled in her ear. I stood as still as I could. Her face began to soften again and I tiptoed out of the room and went into the kitchen.

The back door was shut, shards of broken glass still in the lower windowpanes. There was a trash container in the corner and I carried it to the door and started to pull the glass out. The big pieces were easy to get free, but for the smaller ones I had to use a butter knife I’d pulled from Mrs. Behrani’s dish rack. I squatted on the floor and dug the broken bits from the frame. Sometimes the knife scraped against the glass and made me shiver. I felt dirty: my skin and hair, my teeth and eyes and tongue, my lungs and stomach and the blood in my veins, still laced with what I took last night. I thought about taking a long hot shower, but then I would have to step back into these stolen clothes and Lester had already been gone close to an hour and I didn’t want to be in the shower when they came back.

But I had to do something. I pushed the trash container back into the corner and stood there. On the refrigerator was taped a color photograph of the Behranis’ daughter and her husband, I guessed, holding hands in front of a luxury hotel, all canopy and marble columns and gold fixtures on glass doors. The sun was on them, and they were dressed in matching polo shirts and baggy shorts. The husband wore glasses and was small, a camera hanging from his wrist by its strap. The Behranis’ daughter was petite and beautiful, her smile posed but toned-down somehow, like she didn’t want to flaunt too much what she knew she had. And looking at her on my refrigerator, I felt old, worn-out, and cheap. I wanted Lester here, but not because I wanted him to hurry up and finish all this; I just needed to see him look down at me with those sweet eyes and that slightly dumb-founded smile under his crooked mustache, like I was the answer to every painful question he’d ever asked himself and he still couldn’t believe I was his. I hoped he still felt that way. I hoped this past night and day hadn’t changed that.

I WANT ONLY MY SON.

They have sat me upon a soft chair in a new office and they ask the same questions they asked me moments ago, and I answer, but I want only to go to my son. They have freed my wrists and a large detective offers to me a wet towel for my hands, but I refuse it. The men regard one another for they fear my son’s blood. I look down upon my red fingers. The skin has tightened as the khoon has dried and I do not want it to dry. I fear washing it from my hands.

I stand. “Please, I must—”

Lieutenant Alvarez enters the room. One of the detectives rises from his seat. “Burdon corroborates the whole deal, Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant does not look at the detective, keeps his eyes on me only. “Mr. Behrani, this is your recourse.” He begins to speak to me of pressing charges, but I see only the movement of his lips, the fashion in which his shirt collar presses into the flesh of his neck.

“Please, hospital. Where is the hospital, please?”

The lieutenant points to the large window overlooking the parking compound of officers’ automobiles, the shops along Broadway Avenue in the sun, a large gray building among others. He tells to me this is where I must go, and there is the offer of an escort, a deputy to accompany me, but I cannot urge my legs for walking quickly enough. Soon I am among the people upon the sidewalk and I begin running. A woman steps away as I pass by and her face is frightened. It is the blood, the khoon, on my hands and shirt, my bloody peerhan. It is that I am running, but I see only the face of Esmail as he held the heavy weapon on the man who would rob us, my pesar’s eyes so dark with the question of what he should do next, the fashion in which he regarded me, his father, and I told to him, “Keep the gun pointed at his heart, do not be afraid.”

There is across the street a sign for EMERGENCY. Into the khiaboon I am running and an automobile screeches to a stop. Another driver sounds his horn, and then another and another and I turn and curse them in my language, disgracing their mothers and grandmothers and sisters as whores. My throat aches and in my eyes there is a stinging sweat. A Mercedes-Benz drives very close by me and I hear the shout of a man inside but I do not care. I spit upon these people. I spit upon this country and all of its guns and automobiles and homes.

But inside the hospital it is cool, clean, and quiet. A kind desk woman looks directly at my son’s blood and directs me to the area for emergencies. The corridors are wide and gray, shining from the light tubes above. The air smells of cotton bandages and floor cleaner. And I feel I cannot breathe. I follow the large signs for EMERGENCY. There are now many people in the corridors, some are in chairs with wheels and a husband or wife pushes them. Others walk with flowers and small children. They see the blood upon my hands and peerhan and look immediately to my eyes. And there are many sounds and voices and footsteps but I hear only my breath and I see my son’s face as I pressed down upon his wound, his eyes were open but he no longer seemed to see me and I told to him to hold on, to keep his feet upon the ground, to grip his toes to his skateboard for he is descending very fast down a long hill and he need only hold on. Do not let go, Esmail-joon. Do not let go.

I am breathing with difficulty, speaking with a tall nurse who has as many years as I. There are deep lines in her face, and she does not fear the blood on my hands as she leads me to a sink and tells me to wash and I do not hesitate. Soon we are in the elevator and as we move upwards towards my Esmail, she holds a clipboard and asks me for the name of my son, my name, our address. I tell to her 34 Bisgrove Street, Corona, California, this property that is still completely my own, Burdon in the custody of his own officers; he has lost and I have won—the nurse two times asks a question of insurance but I do not speak: I must see Esmail. I must see him very carefully, I must see him.

The doors open and I walk along the empty corridor following the tall nurse who does not press me any further but only leads me. There is a sign for Surgery, a small waiting area with magazines and cushioned chairs, a window overlooking the streets and buildings below. The nurse tells me to please sit and she disappears behind a heavy door. But I cannot sit. Nor can I stand still. I walk back and forth over the thin carpet, and I see the magazines, the colorful covers of famous men and women, the rich and beautiful, and I remember my hand in Shah Pahlavi’s; his palms were smooth as the face of babies and on his smallest finger there was a ruby ring as large as a grape.