The Men in My Country

31

meet the professor for coffee, Amir for ramen. I ask each one separately to go see the The Age of Innocence, thinking only one of the two will come through, anyway. Inside the dark theater, I hold the professor’s hand, conscious of how he’s watching, utterly rapt as imploded lives unfold on the screen and Newland Archer unbuttons Ellen Olenska ’s glove and Newland Archer says he has missed out on the flower of life. And when the film ends, I let go of the professor’s hand and I remember hearing a famous French writer’s definition of tragedy : the poorly timed. With Amir The Age of Innocence is a mistake from the start: a movie subtitled in Japanese words he cannot read, the spoken English too fast for him to understand. Plus, the film’s ornate setting and slow moving plot is dull beyond belief to Amir. I should have suggested an action flick—something other than a period piece, something that would be easy to watch, something that moved fast and didn’t rely on so much verbal nuance. Let’s go, I say, after watching Amir squirm for half an hour in his seat. Outside the theater, Amir opens his arms wide like he’s just been released. Omoshiroi? I ask, teasing him. NO, he says. Not at all. NOTHING about that was interesting! We walk around town afterward, afternoon turning to dusk, and Amir holds my hand and tells me I’m pretty and sings me songs in a minor key. The songs could be childhood lullabies or jingles for soapsuds from Iranian TV. All I know is that they sound like gifts from the gods through this man to me. I ................................................................................ 104 I tell Nozaki we have to go see The Age of Innocence, that he will absolutely love this film. But our timing’s off, the film is gone, and we agree to see a Hollywood legal thriller instead. We plan to meet at the theater, one of my favorite places in town— an old theater with a huge screen and wooden seats and a sticky unceremonial concrete floor. But when I arrive outside the theater there are all these men waiting in line and they all have the same dark hair and they all look to be between youth and middle age and I stand there staring and looking for Nozaki becomes painful, all these Japanese men blurring together, becoming part of some monolithic and maddening whole like those children’s books with look-alike boys. Where’s Waldo? Where’s Nozaki? I start to panic, to imagine Nozaki has crashed his car, that he is dead now and who will tell me? Who am I to tell? Finally Nozaki appears , looking tired, dark circles under his eyes. He touches my arm and a shiver runs through me. Relief. He is alive. I couldn’t see you, I say. Sorry, he says. I had a client that took some time. I want to tell him, I thought you’d died. I almost started to cry. But we’re late for the movie now and the theater is packed, so we rush in and find two seats and within minutes, the thriller takes over and Nozaki falls asleep and I close my eyes, trying to remember the last time he touched me, trying to remember the last time we touched. This man might as well be dead, this man will always be asleep. To me, he is always just beyond reach. Is this when it started? Is this when things began to go wrong? I could go back further. History compels. What do you want from me? I asked Nozaki one evening in a bar. I mean really, what do you want? I was not trying to script this. I wanted to know. Because clearly there’s something I’m missing here. Everything and nothing, he said. An answer that could mean anything, a blow-off or a beautiful haiku. I wonder what I want from Nozaki, too. For him to move with me to the United States while I study and write? I can’t see him changing apartments, let alone moving across an ocean to start a new life. He’s 105 nearly forty years old, has a profession, and a cat. His sister lives down the street from him. Do I want for him to...