Nick Lawrence, New York 2006
Several months later Victor Kamara entered my home. If there is a hint of menace in the phrasing, a suggestion of breaking and entering, that is not wholly inaccurate. On one of those fall nights when winter is no longer a distant possibility, when one is suddenly aware that night is falling faster, and the electric-lit glow of one’s flat becomes a world of its own, Victor Kamara arrived uninvited. He stood at our door stamping his feet and blowing in the cold. I had the fleeting fear he had come to kill me.
“Who is it?” Erika had come up behind me.
“It’s Victor, darling. Victor Kamara,” I said quickly.
Did I mention that my wife is a person of great self-possession? When I met her, I considered her cold, but she is quite the opposite. She is deliberate and very, very strong.
“Please come in,” Erika said, giving me an admonishing look that, and at the same time, let me know she understood there might be, as one might say, a situation.
“You must be freezing,” she said to Victor. “Can I get a drink? A cup of coffee? Tea?”
“Thank you so much,” Victor said. “Nothing, please. I’ll only be here a moment.”
“Please. Come in. We were watching television but just about to shut it off.”
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
“You’re not interrupting anything,” she said.
As Victor obediently followed her into the living room, I realized that I had always visited Victor on his turf. I watched Victor take in the woodwork, the Bokhara rug, the custom-built bookshelves lining the wall. Bohemian luxury, Erika and I joked, assuaging our discomfort by talking about how we thrilled we were to finally have a home after years of camping in hotel rooms and aid worker apartments. Victor’s gaze rounded the woodwork and fastened on me. He could read my discomfort on my face.
“Aidan, please turn off the television and go up and do your homework,” Erika said, opening the door to the living room.
“Mom….”
“Now,” she said.
Aidan shut off the sound but not the picture. I saw him looking at Victor with unusual attention.
“Aidan, this is Victor Kamara,” I said. “A friend of mine from Africa.”
I wondered if Victor had heard the tiny pause before the word friend.
Aidan stood, pushed away a bit of hair flopping in his eyes, and shook hands with Victor.
Victor looked at Aidan with a keen attention.
“What grade are you in?” he asked.
“Eighth.”
Victor nodded. “My youngest son is a year behind you.”
“Seventh.”
“Yes. Seventh grade. He studies World History.”
“We did that in sixth,” Aidan said.
“You’ve got geometry on your plate at the moment,” Erika said.
“Random,” Aidan said. “I hate it.”
Victor, Erika and I smiled at each other in the beleaguered way of parents. Erika picked up the remote from the table.
“Nick has such a crush on this woman. Do you know her? The one with the short hair?”
“It’s her charts,” I said. “The graphs. Dazzling stuff.”
Erika smiled, shaking her head as if she was humoring me. We were performing for Victor. Doing our married couple routine.
“I’m comforted by the fact that he makes us all watch her,” she said. She was talking Victor, not the rest of us. “No sneaking off in dark corners.”
“She’s a lesbian, Mom,” Aidan piped up.
“Honey, I know that. We all know that. I’m speaking metaphorically.”
“It’s a euphemism,” Aidan explained to Victor. “The part about the short hair.”
“Your father is being polite,” Victor said. “It’s a rare occasion. Savor it.”
Erika laughed. She looked at Victor with fresh appreciation. Erika possesses what a romance novelist would call piercing eyes; very dark in her sculpted face. When she was amused, the sharpness was transformed into something bright and fast and unquantifiable. That look, that look alone, spurred you to work your hardest to amuse her.
“Go,” I ordered.
Aidan gave us a mournful look. Erika took him by the shoulder.
“I’m so glad to meet someone from my husband’s past,” she said.
“I’m impressed that Nick has found a woman whose intelligence is equal to his,” Victor said. “That can’t have been easy.”
Erika smiled, inclining her head. I could tell that Victor’s well-considered compliment had landed. I also knew how quickly Erika would discard it and concentrate on what it told her about Victor. Giving me a little wave with her free hand, she headed upstairs.
“Aidan is…precocious,” I apologized, gesturing at the couch. Victor sat on it gingerly. His social charm had evanesced along with his audience and he merely looked uncomfortable.
“He seems like a good boy,” Victor said. “Is he thirteen?”
“Fourteen.”
“My youngest is around the same age. We’re fighting a battle with James.”
“Difficult age.”
“I love him best,” Victor said. “I think he knows it, and takes advantage of the fact. Such a troublesome boy. But very bright.”
Victor’s eyes, sunk deep in their hollows, reminded me of how he had looked in the helicopter depot. Once again, Victor Kamara was my friend. I was surrounded by the glittering darkness, the smell of Grand Mare, the clasping yellow fog, the sharpness of jet fuel, the mingled odors of rotting trash, woodsmoke, and human flesh.
“So now you’ll be taking him back to Grand Mare?”
No point beating around the bush. I hadn’t come through for him, and it seemed more ethical to simply acknowledge it.
