55 pages • 1 hour read
House of Sand and Fog
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BetaPart 2, Chapters 45-49Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2
Part 2, Chapters 45-47 Summary
Lester leaves the house early in the morning to meet with Lieutenant Alvarez, leaving a note for Kathy explaining the situation in case she wakes while he’s gone. As he walks into the Hall of Justice, he runs into his friend Doug, who owns the fishing cabin. Doug challenges Lester about abandoning his marriage, saying, “All those years between you two, you’re trashing them” (292). Lester kindly but resolutely tells Doug to back off and walks toward Alvarez’s office.
Kathy wakes up feeling confused and sick. She hears the Behranis speaking in Farsi and walks out into the hallway, where she catches Lester returning home. They hug, then Lester shows her the note and explains that the family is locked in the bathroom. He confronts Kathy, asking why she doubted their relationship and what drove her to drink, threaten the gas station attendant, and attempt suicide twice. Kathy replies, “I just want things to change” (296), then says she wouldn’t have behaved so rashly if she had been sober.
Kathy is pleased that Lester has made such a dramatic commitment to their future and overjoyed to be so close to having the Behranis out of the house. Lester leads the family out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, where Behrani calls the county to say he is interested in rescinding the sale.
Behrani drinks tea in the kitchen with his family and tries to act like he has a plan, for Esmail’s sake, even though he is at a loss for what to do next. In narration, he explains that he’s viewed his time in America as a trial that he needed to endure until he found a way out. He views this situation with Lester as a final test he must overcome.
Meanwhile, Lester makes a call to enquire whether anyone had identified Kathy’s car during her robbery the previous evening. Afterward he orders Behrani and Esmail to come with him.
Part 2, Chapter 48 Summary
As Behrani and Esmail prepare to leave, Lester remembers his meeting with Alvarez, which went better than he had hoped. After apologizing, the lieutenant sent Lester on his way with a stern warning. Presently, Lester is nervous about how unafraid Behrani seems. He worries Behrani is merely biding time until he can call for help.
Lester realizes that there’s no way Behrani will let Kathy have her house back. He tells her that the new plan is to convince Behrani to rescind the sale, give her the money he paid, and allow him to keep the profits from the eventual sale of the house on the open market. He tells Kathy they’ll need the money to flee and start over elsewhere.
Lester makes Behrani move Kathy’s car, which has been associated with her robbery, so that it isn’t visible from the road. Then, pointing his gun at Behrani’s head while Esmail sits in the passenger seat, he forces Behrani to drive his car to Redwood City, where they have arranged to rescind the sale. Lester reveals his new plan to Behrani, who agrees to the suggested arrangement. They continue in silence toward the county tax office.
Part 2, Chapter 49 Summary
Kathy, who is keeping watch over Nadi, reveals in narration that Lester unloaded all the bullets from his gun before taking Behrani and Esmail to the county tax office. She feels that she is headed down a path of no return and realizes that her already strained relationship with her family won’t survive Lester’s planned course of action.
Nadi worries Lester will hurt Esmail, but Kathy assures her he won’t. Nadi feels a migraine coming on, and Kathy helps her to bed and finds her medicine. Kathy sits in her car to smoke and waits for Lester to return.
Part 2, Chapters 45-49 Analysis
Much like Behrani’s pride is pitted against Lester’s uneasy control, Kathy’s lack of agency is put to the final test. Waking up to find the Behranis locked in the bathroom and Lester desperately assuring her that everything will be all right, Kathy finds herself in a situation that is out of her hands, unlike some of the conflicts that have caused her to stumble. Dubus expresses this through Kathy’s description of the scenario in terms of fate, or cosmic coincidence.
For instance, when she recognizes Lester sitting at the edge of the bed, she says that “he was every boy [she] had ever fallen for—lean and dark and over the edge” (294). This suggests that Kathy believes her current situation is the inevitable culmination of everything that has happened over the course of her life.
At this point she is in a purely reactive state. Although she still expresses genuine affection for Lester, she recognizes some major flaws in his plan to take Behrani’s money and start a new life, namely that it is unrealistic. Additionally, Kathy chafes at the deputy’s mistreatment of the Behranis, Nadi in particular. She reflects, “I never wanted this problem solved bad enough to scare a woman as sweet as Mrs. Behrani,” and laments that Lester has put her in the unsavory position of watching over Nadi “like a prison guard” (312). Despite these reservations, Kathy’s nature prevents her from taking the one action—alerting the police—that could save herself and the Behranis. While Behrani’s prideful nature leads to a much more contentious deadlock with Lester, Kathy’s lack of self-assurance is just as tragic a character flaw as the colonel’s pride.
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