Free House of Sand and Fog by André Dubus III

America, in New York.”
    The handsome Savaki shook his head in a pretended show of modesty. I leaned forward. “And what did they teach you there, young Mr. Pourat?” I did not try to disguise the contempt in my voice, and my use of the word young, javoon, came out sounding like an insult, but I did not care; General Pourat was my oldest friend, the vodka was warm in my belly, I was a colonel. The handsome nephew looked directly at my eyes. “They taught us techniques, Genob Sarhang.”
    “What sort of techniques?”
    The young man surprised me; he glanced at his uncle to see if he should answer. Pourat nodded slightly, the light of the fire behind him in his eyes.
    “Torture, Genob Sarhang.”
    “They teach you this in America?” said another gentleman, a big radish of a bureaucrat named Ali.
    “Among other things.” The trace of a smile passed over the young man’s face.
    “I have heard some stories,” said Ali. “We all have.” He regarded General Pourat and cleared his throat. “I heard of a man in the Tudeh Party who was forced to watch his wife raped at the city prison.”
    Young Pourat waved his hand as if at a fly upon his nose. “That is only effective for so long. If you want real information, you must take their children. Make a subversive watch his little one lose a hand or arm and they will tell you everything.” He smiled, his eyes on his vodka cup upon the floor. “But the difficult part of the work is knowing whom to arrest.”
    Two men laughed.
    I had heard these stories as well. We all had. But I felt the vodka inside me turn cool. “Do you enjoy your work, Mr. Pourat?”
    The Savaki narrowed his eyes immediately. “Enjoyment has nothing to do with it. I serve Shahanshah, sir. I can only assume you do as well.”
    The musicians had just completed a song and the room was quiet. A dry log crackled in the fire, then shifted in the coals. I felt the heat of my heart drop to my hands and for a brief moment I imagined my thumbs buried in the young policeman’s eyes.
    General Pourat clapped his hands twice. “All right, all right, enough of this talk. You two surprise me. You are colleagues, you should act as such.” He turned to the musicians. “Play something festive!”
    The general poured us all more vodka, and the moment passed. Soon I was mast, half drunk, with the others and we lay back upon our elbows on the carpet to smoke cigars and listen to the music. Occasionally I would look over at the young torturer and see him gazing into the fire, his eyes empty, and I wished he would leave our group early and not come back, for I did not like to be reminded of the secret police and all the people they made disappear in our land, these students and professionals, wives, mothers, husbands, fathers, children, illiterate cargars living in small homes of mud and wood scraps less than a kilometer from the grand palace with all of its fine ornaments imported from around the world; I did not like to think once again that America, with whom I did close business in the purchase of fighter jets, had such a hand in all this; I did not like to think this was the manner in which our king retained his throne and our way of life; but, most of all, I did not want to accept that General Pourat was correct when he said the young policemen and I were colleagues, so, once more, I drank more vodka than I should have, and the rest of the evening I did not dip my two fingers into the same bowl of mastvakhiar as the young torturer Bijan.
    “Behrani?”
    My wife stands in the doorway. Since moving, she has dressed each morning in lady’s cotton trousers and a loose pullover shirt in which she can work. Over the last few months she has lost too much weight. She wears a gold costume jewelry belt to hold her pants up and her hips look as slim as a boy’s. But she has applied cosmetics to her lips and eyes, and her thick hair is pulled up and back with a scarf.
    “Yes, Nadi-jahn?”
    “When must we move