He had first discovered it in the snow, which did not fall often enough in Seattle to not be seen as a miracle when it did. They had all thought that it was the snow itself, his sister and his cousins, when they had gone walking through the neighborhood at night. They had thought that it was the snow that made the streets beautiful. But Babak had seen it differently. The snow brought out the beauty of the houses, because in the snow at night, a guy knew that the people were home, and it was knowing what the structure of a house meant to the people inside that did it. It was being able to imagine just enough of their living to see all the things the house was to them. He had gone back out there a few days later after the snow had melted and seen that he was right.
Since then he had gone every Sunday night, walking through the neighborhood late. It was important to do it on Sunday night, the time when others were turning in on themselves. Their inward was his outward. It was the best time to go walking because they were who he dreamed they could be. It was in the houses. Almost like he was talking directly to them. I know, they said, the people have gone out and tried to make a world again and now they are back home. They are trying. You’ve got to give them that.
Babak gave them that, he gave it to the people in every one of the houses in his neighborhood, and when he came home, he felt tired and full and spent, like a man who has just discovered what giving is.
His father would be asleep, but his mother would be sitting at the table, eating yogurt and apples and reading the newspaper. She liked to let everybody else read the Sunday paper first, and then read it by herself at night, so she could take it in with a sense that the world was large and demanding but it was small and familiar too.
She would be happy to see him.
“How was it?”
“Good.”
There was something about the way he went walking at night that made her think of her youth and of Iran. She liked the way the night looked when he was walking. She thought of poetry and of Forough Farrokhzad, and she felt sorry for him that he didn’t live somewhere like Iran where nobody would think twice about a boy who went walking at night. They wouldn’t be joining him necessarily. They were watching their satellite T.V.’s with DVD players just like Americans were. But nobody would think twice.
“What did you see?”
“Houses.”
“How did they look?”
“Peaceful.”
The boy did not think twice about not living somewhere where nobody would think twice. He was going to walk. That was the best part of it, his mother thought. He didn’t know why anybody would think twice.
One day the woman who lived in the house across the street was putting boxes in her car. She came to their door. Babak saw that she had her little daughter with her and he saw that the woman had been crying.
The woman asked Babak if he would help her put some boxes in the car. “I’m leaving,” she said.
The woman lived in the house with her mother and father. Babak had never seen the little girl’s father.
The woman began to cry as they crossed the street.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right,” Babak said. He looked at the little girl. She was hugging her mother’s leg but she didn’t look surprised to see her mother crying. He thought that he should not ask her what it was. He was just a boy. He did not feel that way when he was walking through the neighborhood at night. He had felt like a man then, able to let in all the stories of the people in the houses, only it was only because he didn’t know them and they were all going toward sleep.
Babak helped her put two boxes in the back of her car.
“I want to tell you why I am leaving,” she said. “It is my father.” She looked at the little girl. “I am not going to be one of those women who does not talk about it. I am not going to be one of those women who pretends that something isn’t true.”
Babak felt like he was at the top of tornado as she spoke, and when she stopped, he would fall to the ground. Everything fell along with him. Houses and streets and worlds. He did not believe that he would ever get up again. He looked at the woman’s house and it looked dead. It looked worse than dead. It looked like it was dying and wouldn’t admit it. He was going to have to admit it for them and he didn’t know if he could.
He helped the woman with one more box and she thanked him and put the little girl in the backseat. She got in the car and said goodbye and drove away. Babak walked back across the street to his house.
Well, he thought, I’m through with houses. I’m through with thinking I know them. It was not just the woman’s house that looked dead and dying. It was all of them. All of them looked ugly and mean. All of them were keeping something out. They were a place for people to hide and to do the things they could not do if they were not hidden. It was like that in the day and it was even more like that at night.
On Sunday night when he did not go walking, his mother asked him about it, even though she had heard about the neighbors and she knew.
“I do not want to go,” Babak said.
“Are you upset about the neighbors?”
“Yes.”
“The woman did the right thing to leave.”
“I know.”
She cut up an apple and spooned a bowl of yogurt. The way the boy did not go walking at night made her think of her youth and of Iran, of poetry and of Forough Farrokhzad. She watched him swing from one end to the other. She wanted him to know that he was coming from a swinging place, that there was nothing wrong with swinging, that it was the only chance of finding the middle place, where things could get done. It was a good way to be alive and it was a great way to be young and alive. She did not tell him that it was only one house. She ate the apple and the yogurt and she did not say anything else.
