“Is this how one reads a book? Aren’t you a disgrace as a person of letters?”

“I am. I’m a disgrace. I’ve known this for some time as a person of letters.”

“But why bury it? Why not simply throw it away? Were you leaving it for someone to pick up?”

“This is what it’s really about, isn’t it? You think I left a book in English for someone to pick up. You think there are some secret codes in there?”

“No, I’m just curious at your very odd behavior.”

“I didn’t destroy it because it’s a good book.”

“How do you know? You say you didn’t read it.”

“One knows a good book after half a page. I didn’t have the heart to just throw it away or burn it. And it was too heavy to carry around when the enemy is out there wanting to cut your head off with his constant Allahu akbar from a quarter klick away. So I buried it, hoping one day someone would retrieve it and appreciate its words of wisdom.”

“Like what? Tell me one of its wisdoms.”

“Like one character in the book talks about how war is always in a state of becoming.”

“I don’t understand this.”

“It kind of means you can never win. No one can. War is perpetual motion. Even after it’s over. You think you’ve won, then a few years later your win turns into a loss. Once you enter combat you’ve signed away anything good in this world. Men who don’t understand this simple equation have a habit of turning the world to shit.”

“This Marcel Proust gentleman says all that?”

“I’d like to believe he does. But I’m not so sure he actually says it. I haven’t read the book, don’t forget.”

“Yet in Syria you join the men in the fighting instead of doing your job, which is reporting. Don’t you think your behavior does not at all match what you say Mr. Marcel Proust says in his book?”

“I didn’t say I’m a shining example of good behavior.”

“So you admit you did wrong by going to Syria?”

“Not at all.”

We went silent for a moment. He was exasperated with me, and so was I.

“Why did you do it?”

“Because there’s a loss in meaning in this world and I thought I’d find it there.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“Death. It’s the only thing that matters. The only constant. If you can give your death some meaning by becoming a martyr, then your death becomes significant. You will not have lived in vain.”

“This is bullshit talk coming from you of all people.”

“I know. But I’ll take it.”

* * *

I ate twenty-five miniskewers of barbecued liver. H’s questioning had gone on for another three hours. He had decided to touch on all the “problematic” points of my life in one sitting. We went back over old, long-resolved territory. He wanted to know why, of all the places I could have picked to live in Tehran, I’d chosen to live across from a synagogue. Wasn’t that an odd choice? And what were the chances of that even happening? It was not unlike his fixation with the Marcel Proust book, searching for significance where there wasn’t any. Two years before, when I’d finally gotten around to putting together my only short story collection, he had called me in to insist I change the location of the protagonist’s apartment in one of the stories.