The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau Read Free Book Online Page B

has apparently become home to a sizable population of “displaced persons,” which has temporarily made it the subject of the national news cycle.
    “People would be really interested,” says the reporter. “How you came here, how you’re making a life for yourself.” Noting Jonas’s reluctance, the reporter tries to generate a certain level of excitement, and ends up sounding like a game-show host when he says, “After all, you’re a success story!”
    Jonas wants to ask about all the others, the “sizable population.” He wants to scream. He wants to tell him to go to hell.
    In the end, he hangs up the phone on him, leaving the article to be written using different sources, other people, before referring obliquely to “countless others who live right here in our own area, some of them too traumatized to speak about their experiences.”
    This time, he doesn’t bother wondering which one he is.
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    The fight lends him an air of credibility, of danger. He is suddenly someone not to be fucked with. He learns of anotherrefugee who attends the school, Hakma, a Kurd, who has lived in America since he was two years old. He does not have Jonas’s accent, but shares his dark skin and hair, and they hit it off instantly. Hakma does not remember his brief time as an infant in Kurdistan, but injustice suffuses his soul. They pal around, meeting up after school to walk to one or the other’s house and sitting conspiratorially across from each other in the cafeteria.
    Students begin to talk to him. Girls seem to like him, mostly, he thinks, because he looks so different from the towheaded boys they usually know. He has sharp features, which he claims are the product of generations spent in the wind and mountains, pale green eyes, and ink black hair. He learns to cultivate an aura of mystery, of danger, hinting at past experiences and feats without ever coming right out and describing them. Some of his classmates think it is all an act, a reputation built on air and a lucky punch, while others are reverential. He is invited to parties, and often, because he looks older, he is able to buy the beer.
    His grades fall.
    His teachers describe him as well-adjusted.
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    But there are events about which he refuses to speak.
    Paul says, “Maybe you can tell me more about that.”
    Jonas signals his reluctance in one of two ways: either hetalks purposefully about other things, real things, imagined things, or some combination of the two, or else he is silent, fixing his gaze on the floor in front of him and waiting for the subject to shift of its own volition.
    “This is important,” says Paul.
    “Did you know,” says Jonas, taking a quick, deep breath, “that as a young boy I met the Dalai Lama?”
    “Really,” says Paul.
    “Really,” says Jonas. “A brave man, Mr. Lama. Very brave. For him to travel to our village, as he did. We were not always particularly tolerant of other perspectives. But he came, paying no heed to the potential danger. He stood out, to be sure, in his red-and-yellow robes, and his shaved head. He was a sight, I can tell you.
    “It was the planting season, and I was out in the field, as we all were at that time of year. Mr. Lama, he came walking up the road, up from the river. I do not remember, exactly, whether he came by himself, or whether he was accompanied by others. Now that I think about it, though, I realize he must have had others with him, some sort of retinue. There is a fine line between brave and foolhardy, is there not? Mr. Lama would not have traveled to us alone. That would have crossed the line into foolishness.
    “But I remember him, not his accompaniment. He walked up the road in his bright robes and his shaved head, walked right out into the freshly turned field, walked until he stood directly in front of me. And he looked down at me and smiled. Then he said something to me that I will never forget.”
    “Jonas,” says Paul.
    “He said, ‘Just as the seed you sow today will