Holy Cow

by David Duchovny

  41

  AND DID THOSE (PIG’S) FEET …

  (see Blake, William)

  There are two holy of holies in this part of the world. For the Muslims, it’s Mecca. And for the Jews, it’s the Wailing Wall.

  As Joe led us into the Old City in the general direction of the Wailing Wall, we walked through some well-manicured residential neighborhoods on the way, and wherever we were, pleasant people sitting in the cafés gave us no smiles and pedestrians got out of our way or muttered things under their breath. “This is a bacon-free zone. It’s heaven.” Shalom giggled. “Eat me? They don’t even want to touch me.” He grabbed a menu from one of the outdoor cafés and read out: “See that, no ham, no bacon, no me! Kosher heaven, bitches!”

  “But doesn’t it hurt your feelings a little to be so reviled?” Joe asked him.

  “Sure,” Shalom said, “it hurts to be hated by my own people, but it’s a damn sight better than the alternative.”

  Joe spat. “Sorry, bad habit, gonna quit. Really gotta quit the spit. I admire how you don’t need the applause of the crowd. I’m learning from you, pig. I have to be my own camel.”

  I was getting the willies myself and I could see that Tom was too, because, while it’s true these people wanted nothing to do with Shalom, my brisket and Tom’s reputation as being to die for on rye were still most definitely on the Israeli menu. I was starting to sweat. It seemed like we were just going from wall to wall to wall. Luckily, at least for the moment, Shalom created a kind of treif force field around us and no one came near. I honestly didn’t know how he was going to live like this for the rest of his life. And even though universal disgust was keeping us safe at the moment, I could tell Shalom’s pig heart was slowly breaking.

  More and more people started to give the swine downright hostile looks. I got a bad feeling there was no way they were going to let him near the Holy of Holies. As a response to the evil eyes cast his way, Shalom’s favorite rejoinder was “Bite me” or “I taste like chicken,” and that amused him to no end. As we moved through the market, or “souk,” I could feel resentment building as palpably as when you feel a coming storm in the change of desert air.

  A few of Joe’s old friends came up to him, nudging him on the hump. Clearly they hadn’t seen the desert recluse in ages. “I’m gonna stay here and tell these guys about my conversion. The Temple Mount is that way and the Wailing Wall is just up there.”

  “To the Wailing Wall!” shouted Shalom.

  Joe turned back to us and whispered, “Uh-oh, that might’ve been the straw that broke my back.”

  The tipping point. A man across the street shouted, “Swine! Devil! You will not go near the Wailing Wall!” Apparently, pigs were associated with devils in ancient lore. Maybe the cloven hooves? I don’t know, but soon there was a growing crowd advancing toward us.

  “Jesus…” muttered Tom.

  “Wrong word,” Joe said. “Let’s get you out of here!” And we all turned back in the direction we had come. And ran for the desert.

  42

  NOBEL CAMEL

  “To the plane!” Tom yelled. “Let’s blow this clambake!” Four legs are faster than two, and we easily kept ahead of the angry mob, but when Joe got us back to the break in the wall, there was that same crowd of stone throwers loitering on the other side a short distance away, only it had tripled in size and added some adults. Now we were close to being trapped on both sides.

  The Muslims started throwing stones again, and the Jews on the other side, thinking they were being attacked, threw stones back at them. Unfortunately, most of the rocks from both sides landed near us. Now it was Tom’s turn to say to me, “It was nice knowin’ ya.”

  For the moment, Joe was able to shield us from the fusillade with his bulk and hump, but some hits were drawing blood. Joe looked at me, his eyes as big as mine, and said, “It feels good to be on the side of good now. Good feels good.” He smiled and turned to Shalom. “Whatever I say in the next few minutes—don’t take it personally. The personal is political and the end justifies the means. Up with the workers!”

  He rose up. I had no idea what he had in mind. He turned back a last time. “Oh, and when I say ‘run,’ you better run like your ass is on fire.”

  “What is wrong with you people?” Joe bellowed, and though the people couldn’t understand him, there is something about an animal in distress that even the stupidest, most prejudiced, most nationalistic human can intuit.

  “You Jews inside the fence!” He turned now. “You Muslims outside the fence—why throw stones? You agree so much more than you disagree, but you are blind to your own common ground. You both love the same god and you both hate the same pig!” The stones began to fly at a slower rate now.

  “If you cannot come together in love, come together in hate today, against a common enemy, embrace in the brotherhood of pig hatred!”

  Shalom muttered, “Say what?” Joe winked at him and spat in his face. “So sorry.”

  One Muslim man shouted, “That’s right! You, you dirty Jews, you hate this pig?”

  “Can’t stand him,” answered one of the more menacing-looking Jews. “What about you filthy Muslims, you detest swine?”

  “They smell,” said the Muslim.

  “They’re stupid, lazy, and fat,” said the Jew. One Muslim threw a stone that hit Shalom. Joe held us with his stare. “Not yet,” he said.

  A strong-armed descendant of King David and Sandy Koufax slingshot a rock that clipped Shalom again. Joe shouted, “That’s the spirit! Do not attack one another, attack the pig! Man is not the problem! Pig is the problem!”

  “I don’t think I like you anymore,” deadpanned a visibly shaken Shalom. “And you weren’t a very good model. You didn’t really look like you smoked. Just sayin’.”

  By now the crowd of Jews had spilled through the fence and was met by the crowd of Arabs circling toward them, affording us a momentary sliver of daylight to see an escape route. But a look from Joe told us to hold. Surprisingly, instead of fighting, Arabs and Jews tentatively shook hands and clapped one another on the back, cursing Shalom all the while. A man in a keffiyeh and a man in a yarmulke locked arms. “Kill the pig,” they cried in unison. They joined forces in one mass behind us, aiming their projectiles at us. Mostly they missed, but a stone hit me in the hindquarters. These men may have been devoted to their god, but luckily their aim sucked. They were getting closer, however. Maybe thirty yards away now. And the desert was filled with sharp-edged rocks. They had infinite ammunition.

  “Now,” Joe said.

  “Now what, Einstein?” asked Shalom.

  “RUNNNNNNNNNN!”

  We ran. We ran like horses, like cheetahs, like the wind. We ran and we didn’t look back. I don’t know when the crowd gave up chase, it must’ve been somewhere in the desert. We knew the two-legged ones could not keep up, but we weren’t taking any chances. We ran like our asses were on fire all the way back to Ben Gurion Airport.

  43

  MOHAMMED’S RADIO

  (see Zevon, Warren)

  Luckily our little plane was still in the quiet corner of the tarmac where we’d stashed it, and we were able to run to it and board without any further incident. Tom took off in seconds like a pro and banked hard left as Shalom looked down at the country he thought would save him.

  (A note from my editor here. She asked me to take out “all the religion stuff” because people take religion very seriously. As a cow, I don’t understand that, but I certainly mean no offense. I told you already that Mother Earth is our god, and the only thing that offends our god is waste and pollution, not words and pictures and jokes. I have nothing but sympathy for reverence of God in the abstract. Love of God and life is as natural as the force that holds the planets in their dance. But I’m telling you the story of what happened, my story. And I can’t leave anything out. My editor says, “Sugar, there’s no way Hollywood will make a movie about a Jewish pig in Israel being stoned by Muslims. Too many hot buttons. Too
niche. Too indie. We have to think tent pole. Not Sony Classics. Can’t the pig go to New York, you know, and meet a girl? Kind of like Babe meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding?”

  I guess he could, but that wouldn’t be the truth, you know? And I certainly didn’t want to watch, let alone write, a rom-com love scene between Shalom and the lady of his dreams that he cute-meets on the streets of Soho in the rain.)

  Anyway, since we were traveling in—okay, since we had stolen—one of those small private planes, there was a Box God screen on every seatback (fancy), and it played a live television feed. So after we’d had some hot nuts and cold mimosas, we began to watch the news on the screen as there were some breaking reports coming in from the Middle East. Apparently, Joe and Shalom had inspired that tiny group of Arabs and Jews, just a handful really, beyond the common ground of hatred, and the two sides were talking again, with rumors of brotherhood spreading in the region. Who knows—today they embrace in shared hatred, maybe tomorrow they just embrace. Just a beginning, but because it was a slow news day, the networks were making a big deal of it. They showed an old modeling photo of Joe on CNN with the caption “Peacemaking Mystery Model.” MSNBC broadcast a shot of Shalom with the caption “Savior Swine.” And, of course, Fox weighed in with “Hamnesty????”

  “You’re famous,” I said jokingly to the peace pig.

  “Yeah, who knew.” Shalom sighed heavily. “I don’t know if I could’ve made it there anyway, don’t know if I’m enough of a mensch to live the rest of my life wandering the land like Cain. I think maybe I like to be liked too much.”

  “Well, I like you,” I said. “Ya filthy swine.”

  Shalom managed a little smile. After a few moments, he added, “I think they’re all meshuga.”

  And then he looked out the window down at the greening desert where he’d fantasized he might find safety and happiness, once again a pig without a homeland.

  44

  MUMBAI, MON AMOUR

  An hour into the flight, the “captain” came on the PA. “Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are currently cruising at thirty thousand feet in a clear blue sky, gentle winds out of the east at five miles per hour—I anticipate smooth sailing. In about seven hours we will arrive at our final, I said final, destination.” Here he paused for dramatic effect. “Mumbai, India.” Mumbai, the largest city in India, more than 18.4 million people, formerly known as Bombay, also known as Kakamuchee or Galajunkja. Rolling those magical, exotic names around in my head sounded like a lullaby. Mumbai aka Kakamuchee aka Galajunkja. I closed my eyes and slept the deepest sleep I have had since I was a calf napping by my mother’s side.

  When I awoke, we were already making our final descent into Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport high above the Arabian Sea. Now it was my turn to look out the window at my own promised land. I could make out some of the seven islands that are Mumbai. From my window, I could already see it was a land of contrasts, the filthy shantytowns giving way to gleaming new buildings and high-rises. It looked like the past and it looked like the future—a living contradiction. I felt I had never seen such riches and such poverty, such squalor and such beauty. I started to get a little nervous as we floated down to land.

  Wheels touched tarmac and we made our usual getaway out the back of the airport. We were getting quite skilled at that. We began walking toward where we figured people lived, which was not difficult here because it seemed people lived everywhere, like dandelion seeds scattered on the hot, heavy wind. The country was teeming with life, difficult, colorful life. Ramshackle houses that looked like they would be washed away in the next monsoon squeezed next to ramshackle houses that looked like they had been washed there by the previous monsoon. Some paved roads, but just as often, a dusty or muddy trail, which I have to admit I preferred. Felt good to feel some dirt beneath my feet, and Shalom loved himself some mud, of course. Everything was stark contrast here, beginning with the brown earth set against the Day-Glo colors the people favored for their flowing dress. Tom had an eye for some strange, vibrantly colored birds he had never seen before, one beautiful bird in particular. He said, “Oh my, my, is that a Pavo cristatus?”

  “A pava-what?” I asked.

  “The Indian peahen, Good Lawdy, Miss Clawdy. National bird of India. As I live and breathe. Top drawer, A-list all the way. But no female on the planet can resist a private jet. Stand back and watch a master at work.” He ambled over to this beautiful, vain bird and opened with “By any chance, are your parents aliens? ’Cause, damn, girl, you are out of this world.” The peahen squawked, turned tail, and strutted away. Shot down. Poor Tom, he could fly now, but he was still a turkey with the ladies. To save face, he paused a moment, and then yelled after the peahen, “I’ll call ya!” He came back to Shalom and me. “Got her digits,” he lied. “Air Turkey in full effect.”

  As we approached Dharavi, one of Mumbai’s largest slums and one of the most densely populated areas in the entire world, I started to second-guess myself—what if it had all been a lie? Everywhere I looked, people seemed worse off than animals, and animals were being treated even worse than in the States. Even the dogs. Dogs! Man’s best friend? They all looked skinny and mangy and beaten down, and no one was petting any of them. What if cows were not revered in this country? What if they used and abused and ate us like they did in the States? Had I been a fool? Was I going to die thousands of miles away from my home and my bones never reunited with the bones of my ancestors?

  My first clue came when we tried to cross a busy intersection. I stood waiting for the light, terrified of the cars and bikes, railway buses, auto rickshaws, and black-and-yellow metered taxis that careened by even more crazily than they do in the States. I put one hesitant hoof onto the road and, all of a sudden, the oncoming traffic halted like I had a Box God wand in my hand and had just put the world on pause. I looked to see if the light had changed, but it hadn’t. I looked over into the eyes of the drivers inside their cars, and they were looking back at me with a mixture of love, reverence, and patience. I told Shalom and Tom to jump on my back. (I was back to walking on all fours all the time again—I could be a cow!) I began to cross the street. Not one car honked impatiently, and they waited for me to be safely on the other side before starting up again. A dirty man in rags came and put his forehead on my forehead and stroked me, murmured lovingly, and then went on his way. This would happen hundreds of times in the next few days. It was true. It was all true. I was a queen.

  “It was true. It was all true. I was a queen.”

  45

  SINGH A SIMPLE SONG

  I could go wherever I pleased, and no one tried to touch the pig or the turkey while they were on my back. I was given candies to eat, and sugar, which I’d never had—they were delicious. In soothing tones, the Mumbaikar spoke Hindi and Bambaiya to me. I piggybacked Shalom and Tom as we sightsaw. We saw temples and skyscrapers; we saw the beautiful Victoria Terminus, renamed but still a symbol of colonial oppression. “This is it!” Shalom cooed. “We hit the jackpot. This country is cowcentric. We are golden gods!” A little girl came up to me with finger paints and put bright colors on my face, made me up to look like the most beautiful Bollywood movie star. I had to check to see if my heart was still beating because I was sure I had died and gone to heaven.

  We gorged on sweets made of rice and milk and were given the softest places to lie down. Even the poorest folk, who had nothing, gave us some of that nothing. I had never seen such poverty, and all in a city with the sixth-highest concentration of billionaires in the world. And yet what the poor had, they shared with me even if they didn’t share with one another. Humans can be very generous, though not often enough with other humans.

  I had nowhere to go, nowhere I had to be. I just wandered. I didn’t need to find a home, because anywhere I stopped or lay down was my home. This was truly and literally my country. When I looked into the beautiful big brown eyes of the people, I felt I could see my own reflection.

  I
spent months this way, or was it years? It was like that Lotus Eaters episode in Homer. The three of us—eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping, being worshipped. Shalom had put on like twenty pounds in the time we’d been there. Tom finally looked like a turkey the day before Thanksgiving, plump and juicy. Being worshipped felt good, a lot like feeling loved, though not quite, not quite. It was like a wonderful-tasting, rich meal that left you a little dazed and stupid afterward. Nonetheless, Shalom took to saying, “What a mitzvah. I’m happier than a pig in shit.”

  46

  THE CHOWPATTY GODDESS

  We took to hanging around a cool spot by the Arabian Sea called Chowpatty Beach. I was drawn to it ’cause it sounded like “Cow Patty Beach” to me. It had wide sand vistas and a carnival feeling at night. Shalom achieved a deep brown, Bain de Soleil tan, and said, “Miami Mi-shmami. Who needs Flah-rida?”

  Tom learned how to swim. Nowadays, he could fly, he could swim. He said, “I could very well be a duck. I might be a duck trapped in a turkey’s body.” We were sleepy and stupid with sloth.

  One sunny afternoon, identical to all the other sunny afternoons, I spotted a herd of loitering Indian cows. My people. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was for bovine company, their feel, their smell, the sound of their lowing. No offense to the pigs and the birds, but there are down-home-feeling things you get from your own kind that are necessary from time to time. I broke into a trot to say hello. “Hello, cows, cows, hello. Greetings and salutations. So good to—”

  “Who are you?”

  Stopped me in my tracks. Spoken in a tone I had never heard from a cow before, haughty, disdainful, cold—almost human. “My name is Elsie Q,” I said. “I’ve come from America.” None of the cows made any move to greet me or sniff me. “These are my friends Shalom and Tom…”

  “We are sacred cows,” the matriarch said. “We are the goddess Prithvi, we are Kamadhenu, we are the source of all that is plentiful, all that is good. The milk for the child, the dung for the crops.”