Redeployment(68)

“No, you don’t,” she said. “Or why are you telling these stories?”

“What are you?” I said, grinning. “My therapist?”

“Maybe,” she said. “That’s how this feels.”

“Fucking with insurgents saved lives at Fallujah. And then I probably saved lives afterwards, telling the truth about what would happen if you f*cked with us.”

“So is that what got you kicked out of your father’s house? Saving lives?”

“No. Not saving lives.” I stopped, then started again. “It was over Laith al-Tawhid. If there’s one guy I killed, that’s the guy.”

Zara didn’t say anything. I picked up the hookah and pulled on it and got nothing. The coals were dead. I felt nervous, even though she’d been good to me. Patient. But if I kept going and told her the story, I didn’t know if she’d understand. Or rather, I didn’t know if she’d understand it the way I did, which is what I really wanted. Not to share something, but to unload it.

“When I got back,” I said, “there was no big ceremony. If you’re not part of a battalion, you come back on a plane with other cats and dogs, soldiers from different shops. I did my redeployment stuff, and then I went home.”

I looked down at my hands, then back up at Zara. I didn’t know how to tell her what coming home meant. The weird thing with being a veteran, at least for me, is that you do feel better than most people. You risked your life for something bigger than yourself. How many people can say that? You chose to serve. Maybe you didn’t understand American foreign policy or why we were at war. Maybe you never will. But it doesn’t matter. You held up your hand and said, “I’m willing to die for these worthless civilians.”

At the same time, though, you feel somehow less. What happened, what I was a part of, maybe it was the right thing. We were fighting very bad people. But it was an ugly thing.

“When I’d left for the Army,” I said, “the living room had just three paintings on the wall—two icons, and one Matisse print of fish in a bowl. They’re my mother’s. Now alongside them there’s a framed American flag, and one of those 9/11 medallions that supposedly had steel from the World Trade Center but later turned out to be a scam. It was home, but…”

“You didn’t belong there anymore?” said Zara.

“Maybe not,” I said, “I don’t know. My dad was standing there in a suit. My mom had a little cross hanging from her neck. She got more religious when I went over. She prayed every day. And she told me if I wanted, she’d make me some kosheri, this lentil-tomato dish I love. And she put her hand on my back and started rubbing my shoulders, and I felt if I didn’t do something, I’d start crying.”

I kept my eyes on my hands, telling Zara the story. Looking at her would be too much, though maybe I could have let her see how I was feeling. Maybe she’d have pitied me. It wouldn’t have been entirely manipulative. I felt sad and lost. Somehow it felt the same as that day in my parents’ house, with my mom rubbing my shoulders and me thinking about what I’d been through and how much I would never tell her because it would only break her heart.

“But my dad,” I said, “he wouldn’t have it. ‘The boy’s back from war,’ he told my mom, ‘we should take him out for a real American meal. Outback Steakhouse!’ He thought that was a real funny joke. I didn’t know how to take it. Serious Copts are supposed to eat vegetarian about two hundred days out of the year—no food with a soul—and it was close to Christmas. But my mom didn’t say anything and so we went. My dad ordered a steak to show me it’d be all right. My mom and I had salads.

“We got through dinner with small talk, but when we got home my mom went off to work—she’s a nurse—and that left me and my dad alone. He sat me down in the living room and said he’d make me coffee. Then he handed me a few sheets of paper with a rubber band around them. He said, ‘I sent an e-mail out to the guys in the office, and they all wanted to thank you.’ He looked so happy and proud. It didn’t feel like basic. I wasn’t a disappointment. I’d been to war. And I’d missed him.”

I looked up at Zara and her eyes met mine. The darkness gave her a softer look than she had in the daytime.

“The paper,” I said, “it was printouts of e-mails from his Muslim friends at work.”

“He had Muslim friends?” she said.