He smiles, seeing he has made me feel better. He points to the flowers and the message of God blessing the families and America. "See these? They're all for you. All these messages, they're for you, too."
He is patronizing me, I think. I am a Pakistani villager who, from natural modesty and professional need, has always diverted myself from being noticed. I deflect the feeling of mattering so much, though I do not want to turn away from it.
My eyes fall on a bouquet of purple and yellow silk irises brought by a deceased fireman's wife and children. The message reads, "To our daddy, we love you, Daddy, and we know the angels like you up there. Love, Brittany, Chelsea, and Austin" The crayon drawing is of a fireman with both pointy-toed boots going off to the left. He wears gigantic wings and carries his fire hose.
I stare, finding in this childlike drawing something that I have long been looking for—a symbol of America which endears me to it. The place is, perhaps, touched by angels, but the fractured kind with the knobby knees and the turned-sideways feet. They mean well. They shed their angel dust over the McDonald's and the Disney's and all the rows of stores. But considering their target is the tired, the poor, the results are surely not perfection. I take a sideways glance at Hodji as prime example—a dark, squat Egyptian in a cowboy hat, feeling he is the Clint Eastwood. He has watched over me for days, feeling guilty for not removing Tyler and me from Catalyst's reach, for not having the imagination to conceive of his unprecedented intentions. I cannot dissuade him from his guilt, no matter how often I say I made my own choice, and no matter how often I remind him of our life in Pakistan. Night after night for years, he protected my back, watching and calculating behind many violent extremists. I always felt safe, and I feel safe now. He is not perfect, but he is USIC. They will always watch over us, and for me, that has to be enough.
"You want to see the disaster site?" Hodji points down the street.
I can hear huge cranes and trucks moving about down there. They sound graceful and purposeful and orderly. My life is chaos. I shake my head.
"You want to go see where your family died?"
It is nine blocks away. I think I would like to walk there. But I am suddenly tired, and any new sensation, even unexpected fatigue, startles me. I walk slowly thinking about how best to budget my time of good health. Uncle is coming next week. He did not receive his forty-thousand-dollar cost of intelligence but has paid out of his own pocket to bring my aunt Hamera so they can "embrace my brother's son and be glad he still has breath." For all the wondering I have done of whether my uncle really loves me, I think now that I know. And I know he will want to see where my father died. I can see it with him, if he stays until I feel well.
I think, instead, of how to honor my father's living, instead of his death. Next week, these lesions may break out and nothing will taste good.
"Where is the nearest Kentucky Fry?" I ask in English.
Hodji turns and studies me until a grin spreads on his face. "Few blocks over."
We shift directions accordingly.
"Anyplace else you want to go?" he asks.
"Did you not mention this morning that the Yankees practice this afternoon?"
"They're practicing. The weather's awesome. Say the word if you want to go."
I say, "And I want Yankees cap. And baseball"
"Signed by whom?"
"Hmm ... Soriano."
"Done."
"And then we should make to the Gap. I need the blue jeans."
"I'm buying," he says.
"You can pick out what is most good-looking. Just don't make me look like a drip," I tell him. "I cannot appear drippy to the beautiful yellow-haired female who goes to this house place."
"I take it you're ready to admit you're going there."
I admit to nothing. I am feeling a bit more powerful and, having gotten so many requests granted, I feel it is all right to ask for one more, but in a more discreet way.
"You must miss your family. You will leave me early tonight."
"Twain's going to a party," he replies. "God forbid my kid should stay in on a weekend night and hang out with the old man."
That means Hodji will stay with me once again. I have asked him to stay at nights in the hospital until I fall asleep, and I have drifted off blinking into his strong gaze. He is married to an unendurable woman, I suppose, because he has not yet refused me. I know he will be there with me tonight. I will drift off, knowing I could awake to the beginnings of a nightmare, but it is comforting to think of his presence, his gun, his badge, his watching over me. And when I sleep he will go home, as should befit any husband.
But perhaps I will get lucky. Perhaps he will come back early, and perhaps, if I sleep as long as I feel I will need to tonight, he will be there when I awake in the morning.
Carol Plum-Ucci, Streams of Babel
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