Read Online House of Sand and Fog by André Dubus III - Free Book Online

office position, and that is what I must do with my room, arrange it with a proper desk and chair and a telephone and perhaps a typewriter as well. But first I must become a seller; I must double my investment with a buyer very soon. And of course this must be handled more delicately than anything else. I cannot push Nadi too far too quickly, asking her to pack and move again so immediately. Perhaps I should wait a month or two for her to settle herself here, away from all the lying and play-acting of our life at the high-rise of our ruling pooldar. But will it not be more difficult, after I sell the home on the open market for a fair price, to ask her to move once again? But then I will of course be able to show her eighty or ninety thousand dollars in our hands, the opportunity to purchase another auction property to sell for profit or even begin a business of some kind right away.
    I regard the slope of the roof above me, the sky growing quite dark, and I decide to telephone a najar as well, a carpenter, to give a price for the building of a widow’s walk. I can then refer to this bungalow as Waterview Property, and in the meanwhile, my wife and I may sit together in the early evenings so high on the house and hill, to look out at the sea, and the sky.
     
    T HE NAJAR IS a polite young man, not quite thirty years, and he has given to me a price of eleven hundred dollars for the construction of a widow’s walk. We will not be able to enter this from inside the home but must walk outdoors to new stairs in front of the kitchen window in order to reach the roof. There is no other affordable way to construct it, the najar assures me, so I accept this compromise, but I will not inform Nadereh of her window.
    This morning, Monday, while my son rides his skateboard down the hill of Bisgrove Street to explore the town of Corona in the sunshine, I spend time here in my new room organizing it as an office, and I have no time to waste. As soon as I rid my desk of all unnecessary papers and boxes I begin immediately to write an advertisement for the sale of this house. I study the language used in other realty advertisements of the town’s newspaper, and I use the same for my own, yet I do not feel I am qualified to name a price. So many of the homes advertised sound no larger or more well-maintained than this bungalow, and they are in “quiet residential areas” as well, but the prices for these homes are well over one hundred seventy thousand dollars. My fingers begin to shake; I am once again in amazement at the low price I paid for the home and I imagine if I could sell for even one-fifty I would more than triple my investment. Outside my door and down the hallway, Nadi works in the living-room area. From time to time I am able to hear her voice as she speaks to herself. It is a habit she has always possessed and I am pleased to hear it for it only comes when she is deeply involved with a project or task of some kind.
    Early this morning she rose from her bed with the rest of us, her son and I. She for us prepared toast and tea, and when she poured for me I thanked her and she said: “Haheshmeekonam, Behrani,” which is the proper response, though I have never cared for her using my family name when addressing me. When we were younger she called me Massoud-joon or, often, Mass. But for many years now—since the revolution I am quite certain—my Nadi has called me Behrani. One evening in our large apartment in Paris, on the Right Bank of that dirty but beautiful river the Seine, Nadi had a long telephone conversation with one of her sisters in Tehran. After hanging up she began immediately crying. I gave her a few moments of solitude, then I went to comfort my wife but she pushed me away and yelled very loud in Farsi she should have never married me, a kaseef soldier! None of her family were forced to leave the country; their names were not upon a death list, just her because she married me and the filthy kaseef air force