after nine that night that, dishes finally done, the ancient, rust-trimmed machine humming, the oldies ensconced again in tales of their late lamented, I was able to step along the cul-de-sac far enough toward the main road to catch a signal on my cell phone, and to call the Shahid house.
Saturday night. I imagined the phone ringing in their living room, the globed chandelier low on its dimmer switch. I imagined Maria, twiddling at her piercings and scoffing popcorn in front of the TV, while down the hall Reza’s sleeping breast rose and fell in the colorful parade of jazz musicians. I knew their lives so well. But no: after the third ring, he answered.
I could picture him rising up from the creaking armchair, reading glasses dangling from one hand, blinking—his white shirt crumpled, the sleeves rolled halfway up his darkly matted forearms.
“Skandar?”
“Yes?” I could tell he didn’t know it was me.
“It’s Nora. Nora Eldridge.”
“Of course!” A pause. His tone unreadable. “How are you, my dear Nora?”
“You know,” I said, trying to sound jolly, light, “it’s been kind of a tough week.”
“Yes.” A statement.
“I kept thinking our paths would cross. The dinner party night—when was it?—I thought I might see you …”
“I’m sorry. I was delayed—held hostage, you might say, by my ambition. Always a foolish thing to succumb to. Sirena makes fun of me for it.”
“Are you doing okay?”
“In what sense?” He sounded careful, which annoyed me. Didn’t he see that we were both on the same side?
“I just meant—it’s a lot, right? Sirena’s away, you’re on your own with Reza—”
“Ah, yes. Thank you for asking. Maria’s courses are over now, so she has all her time. It’s been okay.”
“Great.” This wasn’t the exchange I’d hoped for. But I reminded myself that I needed to be fearless, to be honest, so I wouldn’t be making up fictions in my head. I wanted to know the truth. “Have you found it hard at all—the other?”
“The other?”
“The night in the studio. Are you okay about it?”
“Ah, my dear. How could it be okay? What words are there? My dear Nora, as we said, there are times when—how did you put it?”
“When you break through the mirror, I think I said. Like Through the Looking-Glass.”
“Yes. And as we said, it’s such a rare gift, but it’s also …”
“Separate from life?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s a true way to put it. Separate from life.”
“We both know that protecting Sirena and Reza is the most important thing—”
“Protecting them?” He sounded genuinely surprised. Possibly worried.
“All I mean is that they never need to know, right? We’re agreed on that, right?”
“Yes. Absolutely agreed.”
“Does she suspect anything, do you think?”
“Suspect? I don’t think so, my dear. It’s something separate, it was the heart’s expression, a true moment. But it’s not a story, sadly, because it can’t be.”
“I just mean—”
“We shared something precious, and nothing will undo that. As we’re agreed about what this means, it doesn’t concern Sirena in the slightest. And you know, I don’t think Sirena has any concerns, right now, except a very pressing worry about whether she can finish her installation in time and in a way she can be proud of. I think that right now, she’s only thinking about that.”
Later, I wondered whether what he was telling me in that moment was that for some time she hadn’t been paying him any more attention than she’d been paying me; that he’d been put out, or worse, by her neglect, and that he’d sought diversion, or temporary consolation, with me. Maybe he didn’t even know that this was what he was saying.
I took a deep breath. “Can I ask you something? About her installation?”
“What’s that?”
“Skandar, what do you think it’s saying?”
“Saying?” It sounded as though he was smoking a cigarette.
“What do you think she thinks it means?”
Skandar was definitely smoking a cigarette. He took a moment to reply. I shivered in the dark on the tarmac near the main road: it might be May, but the night breeze off the sea was cold. “Why do you ask such a question? This isn’t a question you’d ask about your own work … It’s meaningless. Each person can—and will—give their own answer—that’s what she wants, and surely you also?”
“But think about it: it’s a collection of signs, right? And they might combine in different ways to create several different interpretations, right? But they wouldn’t be infinite, would they? I mean, there’s a limit to what’s plausible, a meaningful interpretation, don’t you think?”