by Rawi Hage
Pips even made deals with the undertaker. He promised him that, once in a while, a client would come to him wanting to upgrade a loved one’s headstone to something more expensive. And Pips would take a cut. The contents of some envelopes read The white stone, change the white stone, or simply the fountain, I am happy here, or Grandpa. From inside the wardrobe, I tried not to breathe heavily, not to sneeze, not to laugh or feel sorry.
For a while business thrived and we ate well. Pips walked around in a new suit and bought the bearded lady flowers from the shop. And then, one day, the bearded lady cornered me with a stick and a rope, and I confessed that the money had come from the wishes of old ladies and the desperation of orphans. That it was collected from mothers in tears and extracted from old husbands who had no one left to talk to. The bearded lady cried and said only clergy and charlatans would promise to secure the welfare of the dead. She told me that we might be jokers, tricksters, rope walkers, and buffoons, but we had never been the kind to swindle desperate believers with falsehoods. And she held my hand and said, The best of them fall when they are in despair; they spend the rest of their lives and their fortunes on seances and dark chambers, waiting for the table to rattle, for the glass to speak. Listen, my son, all we’re allowed to sell is the wonders that we see, the acts that we witness, and the plays that we perform. Now close the curtains and go to your room before the door opens and hell breaks loose.
Late that night Pips appeared and the bearded lady grabbed him by the skull and pounded him to a pulp. She called him a swine and packed his clothes and threw him into the street. She cried all night, she climbed into my bed, and I swept away her tears and kissed her beard.
HUNGER
THE DRUG DEALER came out of the strip bar, sat in the back of my car, and said, Okay, let’s call it a night. Drop me at the next bridge, the blue one. I’ll show you once we get there.
But then he became friendly and talkative and I wondered if he’d had a few drinks and a lap dance or two. Hey, Fly, where you from, he asked from behind his shady cool glasses.
From everywhere, I said.
Yeah, like you’re from China or Timbuktu. But really, are you from here?
I grew up among the animals, I said.
So you are one of those farmer boys; we do business there too, he said. My grandfather was a farmer, but his kind, the God-fearing, churchgoing farmers are all gone. Now they all have TVs on their roofs and orgies in their barns. The flux, Fly, man, the flux of time. If everything goes tits up, there’s always the farm and the cows . . . speaking of which, are you on for long drives outside of town?
Anywhere the wind brings the barley and the dough, I said.
That is my man, Fly is the man. Fly, are you gay?
No, I said.
No offence, but I am asking because the other day you said you had no girlfriend, so I didn’t know if you meant, like, no girlfriend but a boyfriend or if you’re just into ascetic living, deprivation, or masturbation. You know these things can be tricky.
No, no girlfriend.
But you do get laid, don’t you? Not with animals, I hope. Are you into kink, chains and shit, classy whores, white pussy, pink pussy, Chinese pussy, black pussy? Because I could set you up. Just say the word.
Much appreciated, I said. But you know how it is with mixing business and pleasure.
It can be pleasurable, the dealer said. My girl is my accountant, manager, fashion consultant, and my whore, if you know what I mean. Hey, we were never properly introduced. You are Fly, I know. Call me Zee. Zee as in “zee one, zee only Zee,” and he laughed . . . And thank you for asking me my name, Fly, now that we are friends. That was very polite of you, Fly. Very polite, Fly.
I looked in the mirror and smiled. He smiled back.
You do high, Fly?
Not on the job, I said.
I’ll leave you something for tonight. You know, something nice for your long-looking nose. Turn left here, we are close . . .
Before he left my car, Zee handed me a capsule with a bit of cocaine inside. I immediately went home for fear that the taxi inspector would be feeling sentimental. I knocked on the Romanian’s door. She opened and said, Yes?
I have something I thought the doctor might be interested in, I said.
Like what?
Pharmaceuticals.
You’re selling pharmaceuticals to a doctor? she said.
Yes, you know, I’ve noticed that he has this habit of passing the back of his hand below his nose, and I happened to have something for this medical condition.
What condition, she asked.
You know: the itchy-nose, bug-eyed, permanent sniffle condition. I noticed it as he was giving me a lecture on the benefits of good consumption. Of food, that is.
Okay, cut the joking, what do you have?
Nice white snow.
How much.
A cup of coffee. Inside, I added.
She let me in.
I gave her the capsule.
She went straight to a table in the middle of the room.
We both sat on the edge of the bed and she spread out some cocaine and lined it into a few rows.
Do you have a bill on you? she asked.
I handed her one. She rolled it and immediately went down on it. Then she swept her nose and said, What do you want for this?
I have a good friend who is like a brother to me. I want him to be able to consult a doctor. And I also want to talk, if you have a minute.
She picked up the capsule, put it in a side drawer, and said, The leftovers I am saving for the doctor. Now what do you want to talk about?
History.
I don’t know anything about history, she said.
Your history, I said.
What am I, a tree? Do you think I am so old that you can ask me about my history?
Life, I said. Your life.
My life? What for? Why do you want to ask me about my life if you can have something else?
I can’t.
You mean you can’t do it?
Well, no, yes, I can, but I prefer to be alone.
So what do you want to know?
Tell me about your house.
You are in my house. Look at this tiny dump. You have the same size house as me.
What was your childhood house like?
Oh, that house. I don’t know. Nothing special. You know how it was in those communist places.
Where was it?
Why? If I told you the place, would you know it?
Well, I might. I grew up in the circus and we crossed many lands.
Well, that’s funny, she said. The place I grew up in, everybody called the Circus.
Oh, I knew we had something in common! I rejoiced. What colours were your tents?
Well, no, not that kind of circus. Actually it was called the Famine Circus.
Yes indeed, I heard about it from a Romanian magician who also played Dracula now and then.
Dracula is from Transylvania, she said. I come from Bucharest. What did you hear about it?
I heard that a dictator built a large complex and a large palace, which caused the nation to starve.
Yes, that’s it. Now what do you want?
I just wanted to make sure that the doctor gets his gift. And that you are happy.
What is it to you, my happiness?
Does he pay you?
Pay me for what? she shouted.
Does it cover the food and the rent? I asked.
Get out, you crazy man. Get out now before I call the police. Crazy man. Crazy! she shouted, and she pushed me out of her apartment and slammed the door in my face.
Expelled, offended, hungry, I left.
TEMPLES
I ENTERED MY apartment and squeezed myself through the history section at the entrance to the
kitchen. I made myself a small sandwich with a bit of olive oil and goat cheese. I ate it and then moved towards the carpet on the ground. Transylvania seemed too bloody, too morbid and full of fangs for me at the moment. Besides, it was daytime and the vampires were still asleep. So I wondered which event in history I should recall. From all the filth and violence that we talking apes have caused since our descent from the branches and our expulsion from the banana paradise, which seance of lust, horror, and blood should I choose to rectify today? Which plain, mountain, or river should be my battlefield, and what history should I exorcise to further the evolution of bacteria into a gentler, dancing ape? As I lay down, an image of red rivers of clay passing between the cedars took me back to the ancient Levant, where, for every virgin who left the temple of Baal after offering her lips, breasts, and collection of orifices to the gods, thousands more would be born to walk across the Canaanite’s land and fill her place. I, handsome, half-naked Adonis, lying on the carpet, I am no Greek, as those Europeans mistake me for, and the wild boar that killed me had no land but that demarcated by his piss on tree trunks and stones. And the Greeks were not Europeans, because they never gave a fuck about Günter and his pale-skinned tribe. The Greeks always looked and marched towards the east, through the olive trees of the Assyrians, down to the Egyptian deltas, and towards the boastful Persians, their arch-enemies. So here I was, fancying myself on a carpet below a vineyard, drinking wine and waiting for the Greek diner-owner Bacchus to accompany me on my long trip to the temple. Before the Mongols, the Arabs, the Hebrews, or the Hellenics; before Telly Savalas, that bald-headed actor, I, Adonis, walked these lands in peace. Our temples were filled with our obedient daughters, who waited to be deflowered by a stranger. Those were our customs. Only afterward would they be permitted to marry and to begin a family. Those were the Cannanites’ norms, I repeat. Some parents even bribed strangers and priests because no man came forward. Offerings always involve blood, and ours came from between the thighs of our women, where everything started, where all originated. It was the blood of a virgin that coloured my thighs and the river beneath my feet.
After I left the temple, I walked out to the high valley and up the Kadisha mountains of the Lebanon range. A wild boar smelled the blood on my thighs and charged at me with his tusks. I bled and watched the river turning red all the way through the valley and down to the Mediterranean Sea. There was an instant bloom all over the land: cedars sprung like uncircumcised male genitals, and water gushed like springs between the Nile and the Euphrates. Everything seemed to thrust and climax with the beat of howlers and ejaculators who covered the land with white semen, evermore to be mistaken for sacred snow.
MARY (AGAIN)
I WASHED MYSELF and called Mary. She sounded a bit incoherent on the phone. She talked about her husband, who had threatened that if the necklace was not returned . . . and she was crying, telling me I’d stolen from her and betrayed her. I assured her that I still had the necklace and would bring it back to her. I asked her to wait for me.
I took my rescue plane and flew towards her place. She hadn’t eaten in a few days, she said. And her hair was not washed; it looked lumpy. She was skinny, with bags under her eyes. I gave her the necklace and the medicine. She threw the medicine against the wall and said, This is shit. It doesn’t work. I am not crazy, I don’t need any pills for my head.
I held her, she seemed frail. I opened the fridge and took out a container of yogurt. I smelled it and tasted it and spooned some into a glass bowl and gave it to her.
I can’t leave the house, she said. I am afraid of all those creatures in their masks and their masquerades, smiling. They creep me out.
It is the Carnival, I reminded her.
No, it is hell. They are all demons underneath. I pray that they go away. I pray all the time. The virgin will help me. I will pray to her.
I asked Mary if she had someone, a friend, I could call. Parents, anyone.
No, she said. They are all gone. Dead. I’ll pray, she kept on saying. I’ll pray, because Jesus loves me.
There must be someone I can call besides Jesus, I said. Jesus hardly ever replies to calls, not for the past two thousand years.
Father Smiley. Call Father Smiley.
What is his number? I asked.
I don’t know.
Where can I find him?
In the church, she whispered.
Which one?
St. Mary’s Church.
I’ll find it, I told her.
THE CHURCH WAS closed. I went around to the little house beside it and knocked on the door. An old woman answered. I guessed that she was the secretary, judging from her glasses and her busy desk. She made me wait and then, eventually, she showed me into the priest’s office.
Mister Priest, I said.
Call me Father John.
Mister John, I said. It’s Mary. She is not well. She sent me here to see you.
Which Mary?
Not that one, I said, pointing at the icon on the wall. The angelic Mary with black hair, I said.
Her family name?
I’m not sure, I never asked, but we are friends and she is not well.
Yes, but like I said, my son, there are many Marys. I myself know several.
What if I called her Reading Mary? She always has a book in her hands. Glasses, nice . . . well, nice smile, I guess.
Yes indeed, said the priest, and lifted his index finger towards the ceiling. I know who you are talking about now.
She is not well, I repeated.
I’ll come with you. Are you driving?
I am in a taxi.
Right. Let’s hurry up then, we wouldn’t want the driver to hike the fare.
WHEN WE GOT to Mary’s, the priest sat down next to her, held her hand, and said, How are you, my child?
Father, she said, make them go away. They are all devils. They are everywhere, Father. They are all talking and moving around me at the same time. The voices . . .
The priest took me aside and whispered: She needs to be taken to the psychiatric hospital. I know someone I can rely on there.
When the priest asked her to come with him, though, Mary refused to leave the apartment. They are out there, Father, she kept saying.
Have no fear, I told her. Just hold on to the Father’s cross and zap them away.
The priest frowned at me, but my advice worked. Mary hugged the old priest with one hand and held the cross with the other and pointed it towards the neighbours’ doors and at every corner of the stairs and in the lobby. We managed to walk down the street and get in the car and drive.
At the hospital, Mary was helped out of the car by an attendant and she was taken away through a glass door.
The priest followed behind her, but I was not allowed to go in. I watched my Mary disappear.
BURIAL
EARLY THE NEXT morning, I picked up a clown from the street. Or at least I thought he was a clown, walking with a wobble and a smile. He was drunk but I didn’t notice: even I, a guesser who had grown up among performers and impersonators, failed to see the tragedy beneath the disguise. The clown entered my car and collapsed on the back seat. I tried to wake him but he chuckled and cried and then passed out. I feared that he had died, until I finally heard him puff and snore. I was happy he was alive, so I took off my jacket and covered him.
I drove aimlessly until I arrived at the city shore. I left the clown sleeping in the car and walked towards the river and lit a cigarette. When the bearded lady died, after a long and painful illness, I kissed her beard and left her in her bed, then I bought a shovel and returned in the middle of the night. I wrapped her in a quilt, carried her small body on my shoulders, and laid her in the back seat of my delivery car. I drove outside of town. I passed the cemeteries and all I saw was rows of marble and a legacy of stones. The herd always lies together but the Jinn passes through the
night alone, the Arabs would say. I stayed in my car and waited for the dawn. I made a hole in the ground. I climbed a nearby tree and swung like a monkey; I hoofed the ground like a horse, sprinkled dust like an elephant, and mourned like an owl. I dropped the quilt like falling curtains, I applauded for the final act, I turned off the sign on the top of my roof, I covered the rearview mirror with a little piece of cloth, and I drove back to the city alone.
When I went back to my car, I saw the clown walking towards the water. He dropped his pants in an attempt to merge his body fluids with that of the river’s moving current. I waited until he was done, then I whistled.
He walked back to the car and got in.
Where you are going? I asked.
He could barely mumble “the Dream Inn” before he passed out again. I drove him to the Dream Inn Hotel. I gently woke him, took him to reception, and left.
I WENT STRAIGHT home and lay on the carpet. The phone rang.
Yes, I said, bitter at the interruption of my brewing fantasy. I was about to join the Red Brigades in Italy. The Italian minister was in the back of the van, all tied up and about to die. The woman beside me, driving, had pulled over and handed me a number. I’d stepped out of the van and into a phone booth and, just as I imagined the police sirens were coming towards me, I realized that it was the phone in my house ringing.
I answered as I buckled up.
Hello, a voice said, this is Miss Such-and-such (I didn’t catch her name) from the diocese. I am calling you on behalf of Father Smiley at St. Mary’s Church.
Is Mary okay? I said.
Well, I believe so. But it is the Father who wants to speak with you.
Let him come then and speak, I said.
Well, he is in the hospital.
With Mary?
No, I believe Mary has left the hospital.
To go where? I asked.
