The Inheritance of Loss

Nineteen

"Biju! Hey man." It was Saeed Saeed oddly wearing a white kurta pa-jama with sunglasses, gold chain, and platform shoes, his dreadlocks tied in a ponytail. He had left the Banana Republic. "My boss, I swear he keep grabbing my ass. Anyway," he continued, "I got married."

"You’re married?!"

"That’s it, man."

"Who did you marry???"

"Toys."

"Toys?"

"Toys."

"All of a sudden they ask for my green card, say they forget to look when I apply, so I ask her, ‘Will you marry me for papers?’"

"Flakey," they had all said, in the restaurant where they worked, he in the kitchen, she as a waitress. "She’s a flake."

Sweet flake. Heart like a cake. She went to city hall with Saeed – rented tuxedo, flowery dress – said "I do," under the red white and blue.

Now they were practicing for the INS interview:

"What kind of underwear does your husband wear, what toothpaste does your wife favor?"

If they were suspicious, they would separate you, husband in one room, wife in another, asking the same questions, trying to catch you out. Some said they sent out spies to double-check; others said no – the INS didn’t have the time or money.

"Who buys the toilet paper?"

"I do, man, I do, Softy, and you should see how much she use. Every two days I am going to the Rite Aid."

"But her parents are letting her?" asked Biju, incredulous.

"But they LOVE me! Her mother, she LOVE me, she LOVE me."

He had been to visit them and found a family of long-haired Vermont hippies feeding on pita bread spread with garlic and baba ghanoush. They pitied anyone who didn’t eat their food brown, co-op organic, in bulk, and unprocessed. Saeed, who enjoyed his basics white – white rice, white bread, and white sugar – had to join their dog, who shared his disdain for the burdock burger, the nettle soup, the soy milk, and Tofutti – "She’s a fast-food junkie!" – in the backseat of Grandma’s car painted in rainbow colors putt-putting down to the Burger’n Bun. And there they were, Saeed and Buckeroo Bonzai, two BigBoyBurgers spilling from two big grins, in the picture taken for the INS photo album. He showed it to Biju, taking it from his new briefcase specially bought to carry these important documents.

"I like the pictures very much," Biju assured him.

There was also Saeed with the family at the Bread amp; Puppet theater festival posing with the evil insurance-man puppet; Saeed touring the Grafton cheese factory; Saeed by the compost heap with his arm around Grandma, braless in her summer muumuu, salt-and-pepper armpit hair shooting off in several directions.

Oh, the United States, it’s a wonderful country. A wonderful country. And its people are the most delightful in the world. The more he told them about his family in Zanzibar, his faked-up papers, of how he had one passport for Saeed Saeed and one for Zulfikar – the happier they got. Stayed up late into the zany Vermont night, stars coming down coming down, cheering him on. Any subversion against the U.S. government – they would be happy to help.

Grandma wrote a letter to the INS to assure them Zulfikar of Zanzibar was a welcome – no, more than that – a cherished new member of the ancient clan of the Mayflower Williams.

He slapped Biju on the back. "See you around," he said and he left to practice kissing for the interview. "Have to look right or they will sus-pect.

Biju continued on his way, tried to smile at female American citizens: "Hi. Hi." But they barely looked at him.

The cook went back to the post office. "You are getting the letters wet. Taking no care."

"Babaji, just look outside – how are we to keep them dry? It is humanly impossible, they are getting wet as we transfer them from van to office."

Next day: "Post came?"

"No, no, roads closed. Nothing today. Maybe the road will open in the afternoon. Come back later."

Lola was hysterically trying to make a phone call from the STD booth because it was Pixie’s birthday: "What do you mean it doesn’t work, for a week it hasn’t worked!"

"For a month it hasn’t worked," a young man who had also been in line corrected her, but he seemed content. "The microwave is down," he explained.

"What?"

"The microwave." He turned for affirmation to the others in the office. "Yes," they said, nodding; they were all men and women of the future. He turned back. "Yes, the satellite in the sky," he indicated, pointing up, "it’s fallen down." And he pointed at the plebeian floor, gray concrete all stamped about with local mud.

No way to telephone, no way for letters to get through. She and the cook, running into each other, commiserated a moment and then he went on sadly to the butcher and she went to get some Baygon spray and swatters, for the insects. Each day of this fecund season scores of tiny souls lost their brief lives to Lola’s poisons. Mosquitoes, ants, termites, millipedes, centipedes, spiders, woodworms, beetles. Yet, what did it matter? Each day a thousand new ones were born… Entire nations appeared boldly overnight.