Lifted by the Great Nothing: A Novel (19 page)

He went to bed. She felt so far off. It was as if achieving his dream of having Nadine simultaneously took her away from him. Why couldn’t he stop thinking so melodramatically? He obviously wasn’t seeing the situation clearly. And what situation, anyway? Was there a situation, or was he just being a spastic? The best thing for him to do would be to take a little space from her to process it all, cool off, and then he might be able to go back to acting naturally. He gave himself three days.

At the end of the first day, he was morbidly offended that she didn’t make any effort to see him. It shouldn’t have surprised him, really. In all the years they’d been friends, she hadn’t come over since his father kicked her out, and had never called. He’d always understood it to be out of avoidance of Rasheed, but now it felt like a larger sign. She couldn’t have called one single time? He wasn’t even sure she had his phone number. Who had he been kidding? They’d never been real friends. He was just the kid next door who had a flattering crush on her.

He determined a new approach. He would become a callous sex machine. That’s what men were supposed to be anyway. He’d go over there and they’d have emotionless sex and he’d thank her and leave, saying he’d be back for more when his body thirsted for it. There. That’s right. But on account of this plan being stupid, he made himself hold off on seeing her for a second, even more painful day.

And on that day, as if his nerves couldn’t have been bundled any tighter, he received a letter from Kelly. He’d never gotten personal mail before. There was no return address. He ripped it open and unfolded the letter, and a check made out to him for five thousand dollars fluttered to the kitchen floor.

Dear Max
,

I think about writing you this all the time. So why now, right? My newborn daughter, Angie, is sitting on my lap, and when I look into her eyes I see the answer. It’s so clear to me just how overdue this explanation is. I’ll spare you my details, but basically, when I barged into your life, I had nothing. I was such a wreck. Your dad said I could stay at his house for as long as it took me to get back on my feet. I couldn’t believe it. We hardly knew each other. So what was the catch, right? Well, the deal was that you needed a mother. He gave me an allowance,
and the more attention I gave you, the more money I got. Seemed simple enough at the time. I was young and dumb and was able to convince myself that I was doing good by you. He and I got really close really fast. I guess you end up trusting people you share lies with. The idea of having a friend he told everything to was a total novelty to him, and he ended up sharing the story about your mother getting killed. I got kind of obsessed with it, and when I asked about more details another time, certain things didn’t match up to the first version. I kept pressing him and the story kept changing and eventually your mom was the bad guy and it was her fault that his family was slaughtered
.

The final story, and the reason I’m writing you, is that your mom was not killed at all. She got away. Her name is Samira Jabbir, and she was eventually caught for her involvement in the Palestinian resistance, and put in prison for a number of years. She lives somewhere in Lebanon now. The truth really freaked me out, and I let it show. He realized he shouldn’t have told me so much. He understood this weird illusion we were creating for you couldn’t work anymore because he and I had different lying thresholds. He thought I would accept your mom’s job even after learning she was still alive! He’s so angry with her for what happened to his own family, he’s killed her off in his mind, and I guess in yours too. I couldn’t stomach this lie, and so he wanted me gone. He thought if there was no more money I would leave on my own. That supposed eviction notice was part of his strategy. When I demanded to see it, I found out there was nothing to see. You’re still in the same house, aren’t you? He ended up paying me off to leave. He has this trust fund in your name that your mother’s parents put money into every
month. There’s some good news—turns out you’ve got loaded grandparents. To find out whether this is all bullshit or not, show him this letter. He’ll definitely lie, claim I’m a lunatic or something, but you’ll know the truth the second you see his face while reading. Your dad confirmed he knew your mother was still living in Beirut four years ago. Who knows why or what lie someone’s been feeding her all these years. But speaking as a mother myself, I can guarantee you she’s been dreaming of her baby for the past seventeen years. I can’t imagine the pain she has endured. Enclosed is a fourth of the money I owe you. I intend on paying it all back just as soon as I can afford it
.

Good luck
,

Kelly

P.S. Your real name is Hakeem. It means “wise” or “intelligent.” And I think you live up to it completely. It was when “Reed” brought you over to the U.S. that he gave you the name Max, probably to make it all the more difficult for her to find you.

His mom had never been a real person to him. He’d never even asked for her name. She had only been “your mother” or “my mom,” a character in one of Rasheed’s stories, the story that was supposed to explain Rasheed’s sadness.

His mind split into at least two. One read the letter again and became frantic. The other mind observed the first mind’s shock, stunned but without thought or opinion or feeling. The stunned mind observed the frantic one in the same way it watched a movie or read an article about something outrageous happening far away.

The stunned mind slowly sympathized with the frantic one, but was still not upset exactly. This more detached mind knew
that the word
mother
stood for an idea of great importance, but couldn’t feel that importance right away, wasn’t touched by it. It began to worry that this word, this Idea of Mother, wasn’t rattling its world or creating any real urgency as it should. The word didn’t cause Max to drop the letter and run to Lebanon.

Why should it?

Because you’ve been cheated. You deserve to know your own goddamn mother. That fucker lied to you about your own mother!

It’s that word again,
mother
. Mother. Such a strong and sacred word, I know. Why should that word hold so much power?

Because it’s not just a word anymore. It’s her body that fed you. She is in your veins. She is in your face, she is the beginning of you, the roots you’ve been severed from. Your instincts are mashed together with hers. And she must love you. To her,
son
is the word that holds the most importance. You are the most important word that’s ever been in her mouth.

Of course I deserve to know her. How could he have done this? Why? Why would anyone raise their child this way? Wait. This is coming from Kelly. We don’t trust her.

Kelly was right about everything else. He is racist. We were not evicted. She’s not lying. If you don’t have the guts to go find your mother now, then at least confront him with this letter, see what he says. You have to. No matter how he handles it, she’s right, you’ll know by his reaction.

When Rasheed came home, he gave Max a flat smile. His back curved with fatigue, he trudged into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out the orange juice. His mustache was no longer the neat triangle it once had been but a bristly old broom, and his eyes drooped like a hound dog’s. He gazed at the cabinets next to the fridge for a while, dreaming, longing for something—maybe rest.

“This isn’t the life I wanted to give you, Max,” he said, as though he knew what Max had in his hand. “I wanted more.”

“Hakeem?” Max said, standing.

His father looked up. Max held the letter out, and Rasheed approached warily. He read through it standing, flipping it back to the front to stare at that again. He didn’t raise his eyes from those pages for what felt like an hour.

Max wanted both to run away and bash him to pieces, to reclaim a sense of control or at least understanding by breaking it out of him. Anger glided up his throat, and it required all his strength not to scream and swing.

“Hakeem?” Max repeated.

“Trust me, it was right. It was the best I could do.”

Trust me? What could he even mean by that? Max saw his father as absolute enemy now, the man who would destroy him if Max didn’t destroy the man first. He uttered a single word that he would never have predicted saying to anyone, ever, let alone his father. A word that astounded Max the moment it existed outside him. A simple command: “Die.”

For a moment the muscles in Rasheed’s face failed, like when he came down with the flu. Then they reawakened, inflated. He lunged toward his son and, in one swift and precise motion, struck him for the first time in his life, backhanding him across the cheek. Max’s head torqued hard to the left, and his neck’s kickback realigned his face with his father’s. He felt he was no longer in real life but caged inside his imagination. His cheek hummed, and his right eye gauzed over. It was like looking through a fly’s wing. He turned and walked into the living room to lie on the couch. He squinted up at the white ceiling, too soft to stand up and go after Rasheed because it was all still unfathomable.

Later he got up and went to Nadine’s. As soon as she opened the door, he hugged her for too long. The heat of her body felt
like the origin of life. She asked what was the matter. He didn’t want to talk. He stepped in, took her hand, and leaned down to kiss her.

She turned away. “Maybe we should just hold off on that. Let’s concentrate on getting things to feel normal again. Are you okay? You look like a ghost. Come into the kitchen with me.”

He walked right past her, through the living room, past the kitchen, into her bedroom, and stripped off his clothes. When she came in after him, she flicked on the light. “You’re naked.”

“I know. Tell me what to do.”

“Put your clothes back on.”

He shook his head no.

“Max. I just think it got complicated, you know?”

“It’s not complicated. Please tell me what to do like the other day.”

And he saw her, for the second time, pity him. This time it was so much worse. She bent down to pick up his underwear and handed it to him.

He took the underwear and then kissed her neck. She just stood there. He said, “Please.” He yearned for her to draw him near so he could rest his head on her breasts a while. He hugged her again, but she didn’t hug back this time. She only said his name. He closed his eyes, and an unwanted scene played in his mind. It was a closeup of his father eating. Rasheed would take too many big bites in a row without swallowing, and when he wanted to speak, he pushed as much food as would fit into one cheek and the rest into the other. His face bulging like a chipmunk’s, he was fully capable of telling a long story, or speaking to someone on the phone. It made Max sick now. He opened his eyes, and Nadine asked him again to come into the kitchen to talk.

He said, “I’m fine. Just, maybe you could sit down here?”

She thought about it, and then sat on the bed. He dropped to his knees at her feet and told her to teach him how to use his tongue again. She tugged his hair playfully a little, generously trying to make light of the situation, saying “No way.” Before she could stand, he placed his hands on her thighs to keep her down. He closed his eyes again and repeated, “Please.”

Rasheed’s stuffed mouth shoved its way back into his head. The image consumed him with irritation. He replaced it with that of pushing his tongue deep inside Nadine, then his lips, and then pictured putting his nose inside her, then his face. But his father’s chewing intruded on his fantasy again, and an aggressive nervousness frenzied him, his eyes flared open, and he dove his mouth at her crotch, with the overwhelming urge to eat or be eaten, to break through her jeans and store himself inside her, to belong, to be kept. Owned.

“Stop!” she said. “Jesus, Max, what the fuck? Enough.” She stood up and looked down at him. Naked and on the floor, he could see in her eyes how disgraceful he’d become. She said, “Get dressed and come into the kitchen. We need to talk.” But he couldn’t, he’d already begun crying. He put on his pants, gathered the rest of his things, and went home.

Nadine didn’t go after him. He paced around his living room, looking out the window at her house every few seconds, saying to himself she’d better not follow but, of course, further injured that she didn’t. After a half an hour of this, he went to the backyard, climbed up to his tree house for the first time in years, and lay on the floor. His breathing sounded like screaming. He could feel a broken piece inside him. It boated up and down his throat and stomach, searching for its origin, a justification for being. He didn’t know how long that broken piece had been moving around in there. He’d noticed it before, in small flashes, but it had always dissolved when he telescoped all of his love into a single other person: first his father and then Nadine. It
was during the gaps in his relentlessly focused love—which lasted long enough for him to hate himself—that he felt the piece grow big and sharp. And at this moment he did not feel love for anyone. He felt only fear. He saw how easily Nadine could take herself away, and how small and worthless it made him.

He finally fell asleep in there. Waking up in the middle of the night, he remembered the letter. His mother. Maybe he missed her. Maybe he’d missed her his whole life. The more he thought about it, the clearer it became that the letter was a blessing. He started to understand that he’d won something big. Magical. His mother was alive. What was he waiting for? She’d been looking for him. She would be as devoted to him as he could be to her, would put that broken piece back where it belonged and mend him. She would leave no room for his lying father. His father deserved forgetting. And he wouldn’t need Nadine in this pitiable and enervating way anymore.

That morning, after a fruitless Internet search, there being dozens of Samira Jabbirs in Lebanon, most of whom didn’t have phone numbers or photos published online, he decided to launch himself into the quest in a real way; to leave this suffocating house, this suffocating street. He deposited the check from Kelly and went to the post office to order a passport. His plan was no more intricate than to fly to Beirut, locate a phone book, and solicit all the Samira Jabbirs of Lebanon. Time to be bold.