No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

Everything Is Okay

Each day we taped, Arthur talked for several hours. The sun faded behind the hills and the room became dark. I didn’t want to interrupt by suggesting a light. Eventually we sat in utter darkness. The kids were asleep, the house quiet. Arthur wanted to take a drive. We went outside to my car and he stood on the driver’s side, befuddled and confused.

“Tell me,” he said, “why is this wheel here?”

Relating his story had returned him so firmly to Europe that he expected the steering wheel to be on the opposite side of the car.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’re in America. It’s okay.”

“I hate okay,” he said. “In this country, everything is okay. I talk to my daughter, she says the baby is okay. Her husband is okay. The new job is okay. Everything is okay but I know nothing. In Europe okay was the first word I learned. They said, do you speak English, and I said, okay. Then I learned fuck you. The next time somebody says something is okay, I’m going to say fuck you.”

“Okay.”

“Fuck you.”

Arthur laughed for a long time.