The Angel of History

by Rabih Alameddine

  The accidental death of Mohammad the innocent, if it did happen, should not stop me from shooting so many terrorists.

  Baby terrorists glared menacingly at me from behind makeshift BabyBjörns as their minatory mothers hurtled toward me. Muslim rage. These people were always raging and fulminating and boiling and frothing. They looked like a zombie cheerleader squad. Every day was a bad skin day for the members of this tribe, who should have used more moisturizer to weather the sun and heat.

  The village cleric, who was just about to trample Mohammad, was in my gun sight. I had to admit that he was a disappointment since we’d assumed at least this one Muslim had been rehabilitated. Two years ago, we convinced our Saudi allies that their reeducation camps shouldn’t be only for failed suicide bombers, that for the good of the universe, they should expand and take in some of the freaks of their religion, and the village cleric qualified as a freak by any standard. We sent him to jihadi rehab, where he allegedly traded bombs for crayons, where he put his finger paints and pastels to paper in order to regain his freedom. You would think that art therapy wouldn’t work for Islamofascists, but you’d be wrong. Most patients were so terrified that other terrorists would find out about their artwork that they retired from suiciding.

  I wouldn’t be able to kill every single one of the terrorists because there were more of them than I had bullets, but at least those I hit wouldn’t be able to keep coming at me. I loved my bullets. At the end of the 1890s, Europeans with their modern rifles were saving Africa with almost total success—almost, because an African terrorist usually continued his charge even after being hit by four or five bullets, sometimes injuring his savior. Imagine that. The Europeans solved that problem by inventing the dumdum bullet, named after the factory in Dum Dum outside Calcutta, with a lead core that exploded its casing, causing large, horrifically painful wounds that would not heal. The use of dumdum bullets between civilized states was prohibited, of course. Europeans used them only for big game hunting and killing terrorists in undeveloped countries.

  I was ready. Just as I was about to make the village cleric’s run his last, I heard the sound of Kurt Z above me. My partner might be a pain in the aft, but he certainly had impeccable timing. I had seen the panic that vanquished these people when they heard us flying low, but I had never witnessed it at eye level. The terror was awesome. They never knew when, where, or who we were going to hit. Female terrorists screeching, trying to find their terrorist offspring who stood quailing in the middle of the melee, terrorists bouncing off each other like bumper cars. Shock and awe, baby, shock and awe. The terrorists climbed the hill and ran away, dispersed to their respective scorpion-infested hovels. I couldn’t help gloating. I repeated to no one but myself, “Yeah, baby, yeah, baby,” and it turned into a mantra that sent shivers of energy and Kundalini ecstasy up my spinal algorithms. I was yelling, “We’re number one, we’re number one,” when the Navy SEALs manifested out of thin air. Of course, I knew that the six of them dropped into the valley by parachute, but they were so professional, so efficient, so cool, that they just seemed like macho magical beings. If you asked me to choose between a unicorn and a Navy SEAL, I’d pick the latter every single time.

  All of a sudden, I felt the great men wrap hemp and cotton around me and my wings. I would allow them to do anything. The ropes around my belly felt ticklish. The chafing of the rough landing made me extra sensitive down there.

  One of the godlike guys said, “I can’t believe they make us go to all this trouble for this heap,” which was when I heard George for the first time in over twenty-four hours, but he wasn’t in my wires, he was coming out of the SEAL’s headset, and George said, “Hey, numbnuts, one of Ezekiel’s wing nuts costs more than you’ll make in a lifetime, so shut up and bring him back.”

  I should have realized that the guys in Florida would be able to resurrect me. If they could make a mushroom cloud out of nothing, if they could mine the moon for its minerals, surely they could raise me up. Up, they lifted me up where I belonged, and I expelled all the sand from my orifices, probably the same way Deborah Kerr did after her famous scene in From Here to Eternity. Up into the sky I was lifted, my wings spread, vertical, nose heading toward the clouds. I felt—I don’t know, maybe like both a god and a human. The ecstasy was so intense, I was blinded by the beauty surrounding me, and God, the real one, appeared before me, luminous and golden. “Listen, my son,” I thought he declaimed, but I couldn’t be sure because I blacked out. All light, the golden and the luminous and the ordinary, departed.

  I woke up unable to remember anything. It seemed I had retrograde amnesia. Someone had pressed the refresh button. I did feel refreshed and rejuvenated; I was born again, praise be. Baptized with a new name, I wasn’t told how long I’d been asleep. Dick and George had to reintroduce themselves.

  “Come on, Azrael,” said George. “Let’s go kick some new Muslim ass.”

  “And some old ones too,” said Dick.

  “Okay,” I said, because I was laid back and easygoing.

  I was a happy camper, but something was missing. Sure, I enjoyed bombing Jeeps and camels in Yemen, jerry-built shacks in Afghanistan, holes-in-the-walls in Pakistan, mud huts in Somalia (the best if you, like me, have a pyromania tendency), loved watching terrorists and collateral damage explode and disintegrate, I even enjoyed going to confession after each flight, but my life seemed incomplete, and because of my amnesia, I couldn’t put my viewfinder on what exactly was lacking. I prayed for guidance with my Bible study group, searched for inspiration, but nothing seemed to work.

  One day I was flying reconnaissance for my partner, Kurt Z, who was supposed to Hellfire an al-Qaeda operative, and something caught my eye. In a village that seemed hazily familiar, I noticed a beating. In the public square, or the sandy unsanitary shape that passed for one, an old man was caning the exposed buttocks of a young boy. I was shaken. I couldn’t see the face of Mohammad, but the cheeky image fired all kinds of electrons in my capacitors.

  Oh, Mohammad, there was no boy but you.

  Those buttocks were to me like the madeleine to Proust. Memories flooded my cockpit. I remembered everything, and joy filled my heart once more. I couldn’t bear to witness Mohammad’s suffering. I intervened. I swooped down, buzzing the proceedings. The ensuing alarm reminded me of the last time I saw these same villagers panicking, and this time I forgave them their past trespasses. Everyone ran around directionless except Mohammad, who looked up and recognized me. He waved and my heart skipped a beat or two.

  I heard George scream, “He’s freaking out again, Dick. He’s doing his own thing.”

  “I told you we should have put him to sleep,” Dick said. “I warned you. These Muslims are insidious, once they put their claws in you, you’re a goner.”

  I didn’t care.

  Events, however, conspired to turn both Mohammad and me into heroes. Kurt Z, who was following the terrorist Jeep, had planned to vaporize it as soon as it entered the village. The chaos of my interference forced the vehicle to change course. Kurt Z had to hurry up and Hellfire the Jeep into smithereens. The fact that Kurt Z ended up not blasting the entire village was noted by its inhabitants, who realized that I was not only a champion but their savior.

  Oh, what happy times. I was feted and lauded and garlanded with desiccated flowers—lest we forget, their land is a desert suckhole. Since Mohammad had saved me and I had saved the village, he was declared the village hero. Such love, such joy, who deserved this much happiness? Everyone lived happily ever after, but more important, everyone was able to drink a Starbucks once the franchise opened in the village. My dream came true, my vision. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Appleby’s—everybody came, everybody profited. Capitalism rocks. I wanted them to have better shoes, but the villagers couldn’t afford those, so they got the next best thing: a factory that made shoes for Nike where all the villagers could work and join the global commercial enterprise. The factory offered Mohammad a pair of black rubber moccasin
s with white piping and had them stamped with the Nike swoosh, which made the boy happy, so happy.

  We brought democracy too. You should have seen how proud the villagers were when they showed me their thumbs ink-stained violet, like children showing their parents a report card with gold stars. They elected Mohammad’s mother as the mayor. We improved the lot of women in the area. You’re welcome, oppressed women everywhere.

  All of us back in Florida were so proud of our babies, so proud that we could offer them the benefit of our wisdom and our joy.

  At ten fifteen every morning, the shoe factory allowed the first-shift employees a four-minute-thirty-seven-second break, and Mohammad, industrious worker that he was, would use that opportunity to rush to the top of our hill and wave both arms frantically as I timed my flight to be there for him each day. He looked so sweet in his uniform of red, white, and blue, even though it was still a thobe or a kaftan or whatever they called it, because, you know, we respected everyone’s tradition and all that.

  Satan’s Interviews

  Pantaleon

  “Let’s face it, I wouldn’t recommend that he return to his home countries,” Pantaleon said, his tone rushed, his words racing one another to the finish line. “Though I don’t know if remaining in this one is good for him. He should have gone to Germany from the beginning.”

  Braced on Death’s couch, cross-legged, both heels ensconced under his butt, Pantaleon still gave the impression of mad hyperactivity: spastic hand gestures, bobbing brown curly hair that veiled and revealed his eyes many times per second, the Picasso harlequin top, and the blindingly fuchsia ballet tights that highlighted every vein and sinew. Pantaleon was the gayest of the fourteen, and the happiest. Satan loved him best.

  “Please,” Satan said, “do elaborate.”

  “Depravity, darling, depravity. Let’s face it, like all true poets, ours is a depraved fuck, bless his loins. I mean, really, he has done things that made me blush. Can you imagine? Many homosexual men of his generation were delightfully wanton, shamelessly lewd, but few sank to his level—self-tempted, self-depraved.”

  “Praise be,” said Satan.

  “Glory, glory,” said Pantaleon. When he grinned, the gold in his halo took on a pinkish hue. The space around him seemed sentient. “In its heyday these United States of America could have competed with the best of them: the bathhouses of the seventies, the dark rooms, every single rest stop in Alabama. That golden age has faded now, tarnished. America is now Cerberus with all three heads licking its balls. What happened to all those leading men of the great bacchanalia? They either died of AIDS or accepted roles as supporting actors in the middlebrow drama series of hetero culture—you know, if they’re to kiss, we must have sunsets in the background. Once they were proud to explore every crevice of life in the margins, now their ambition is just to get along. Color me unimpressed.”

  A delighted Behemoth wanted to burrow under Pantaleon’s shirt, kept trying to lift the hem with the top of his head. The saint pulled his shirt out; Behemoth vanished under it, nuzzled against his skin, purred in a fetal position.

  “And Germany?” Satan asked.

  “Not just Germany. I’d recommend any place that’s still weird. Germans remain creepy, thankfully. At least once a month someone puts up a cannibalistic ad wishing to be eaten. Jeffrey Dahmer would have had an orgiastic feast. Our poet would have walked the land sporting bleeding buttocks and a never-softening erection. Such poems he could have written.”

  “Do you remember his Dahmer poem?”

  “Of course,” said Pantaleon. “He was obsessed with what happened to the poor Laotian boy. Konerak his name was, yet no one remembers the fourteen-year-old. He escaped Dahmer’s apartment, the police found the boy on the street. Dahmer told them that Konerak was his drunk lover and the police returned Konerak to be strangled, chewed, and swallowed. I think that was his best poem, the boy immigrant trying to explain to the cops that he was being eaten, once, twice, again and again, and no one listening, no one understanding.”

  “So what happened to his poems, what happened to Jacob?”

  “He matured into a poet with the soul of a priest.”

  “Yes,” Satan said. “Remind him.”

  “Is it a coincidence that our poet became chaste when gay men were being told to put their dicks back in their pants? They wanted us to wear khakis, for crying out loud.”

  “Us?”

  “Well,” said Pantaleon, his halo changing to a lush rose gold. “I partook a little, darling, only a little. How can one not? But our boy no longer did. He was spiraling down, down, down, into the dark unbottomed infinite abyss. Then the guy in the garage was the final margarita straw. I understand why he had to pull back.”

  “What guy in the garage?” Satan said. “He thinks Deke Dickhead was his final perdition.”

  “Does he, now?” said Pantaleon. “I beg to differ.”

  “Sing now,” Satan said. “Give us the voice that tells the shifting story.”

  “Well, now.” Pantaleon pulled his knee up to his chest, origamied himself into a pose from a Schiele drawing, and Behemoth under his shirt did not seem to mind. “At the time, Jacob’s need was as punctual as a cricket, and one night, not too long after Dickhead left, it chirped. He used one of those Internet sites that help you find an erect penis in a flash, and he found one that was connected to a married man who wanted Jacob to give him a blow job in his garage while the wife was asleep in the house. Of course, Jacob rushed over. The man would not speak to him, shoved him to his knees, and began to fuck his throat violently, which made Jacob regurgitate all over himself, nothing on the married man, who kept face-fucking him until he ejaculated, mixing liquids in a gullet. Once done, the man threw Jacob out on the street without a paper towel or even a tissue. Covered in vomit, Jacob could not get on a bus, had to walk all the way home.”

  “Poor Jacob,” Satan said.

  “Poor Jacob? He loved it. Humiliation was the blood that nourished his erections, shame his sustenance. That was probably what scared him. That walk home, the disgrace, the dishonor, the indignity, his desire, his longing, he couldn’t deal with it then.”

  “So he killed a part of himself,” Satan said.

  “Killed?” said Pantaleon. “Don’t be such a drama queen, darling. You can’t kill desire. You can suppress it for a while, sometimes a long, long while, but one’s longings are eternal. Trust me.”

  At the Clinic

  The Counselor

  As the world turned to darkness, I waited in the room all by myself, through the page-sized window I saw dark gray blackening from the top of one building to the top of another. Then the door opened and smacked into the wall. Sorry, she said, embarrassed, almost giggling, as she strolled amiably into the room. She casually introduced herself as Jeannie, I’m one of the counselors here, she said, bubbly voice, It says here, gesturing to the form in her hand, that you wish to see a psychiatrist because you’re having problems, let’s see if I can help first. She lowered herself onto the opposite chair, the office was so small that I could practically smell her mouthwashed breath and the hand lotion she used. Everything about her screamed high school, her chestnut pigtails, the three-tiered gingham skirt, the blue leggings, the black ankle-high boots, she was all reined-in energy, a cheerleader anxiously waiting to cheer a touchdown. Don’t be fooled, Satan with the insanely blue eyes said in my head, look at the tightness around her eyes, no makeup can cover pain if you know how to look. Her eyes were blue as well, watery blue, like a baby’s.

  What brings you to our happy home, she asked, her voice, her tone changing, she might have looked young, but in an instant she seemed less so, she had an ease and effortlessness about her that I envied, I wanted to tell her everything, everything from the beginning, not just mine, but the beginnings of this very world of ours. I can’t afford to fall apart, I said, I just can’t. Just then, a light outside the window went on and the room felt fresher. We work with metaphor, Satan said, a translucen
t slick of sweat lay on his Adam’s apple, tell her you’re afraid of remembering, terrified of this bubbling well of memory, tell her.

  How can I help, she asked, opened her notebook, uncapped her ballpoint, and leaned forward. I told her I talked to imaginary people, mostly you, Doc, my partner who had been dead for almost twenty years. She waited, as if what I had just said was not enough to certify me insane, but just in case, I emphasized that I was not insane in that I knew you and all the rest resided only in me. A seam in my mind had come undone, but the dress still held its shape.

  She smiled and scooted back in the chair, the streetlamp threw faint light upon her, if I moved my head just slightly, I could see the high stanchion the lamp dangled from outside. Do they talk back, she asked. Sometimes, I said, yes, sometimes the imaginary people talk to me, but not you, Doc, you’re just there, silent, shunning me, I live while you died. Tell me about him, she said, and I wanted to know what she meant. What could I tell her about you? I don’t know, she said, anything, maybe start with his name so we don’t have to just call him your boyfriend. What an odd way of putting it: name you and lose you, the banality of demystification.

  What was your name? His name was John, but he went by Doc, we always called him Doc, he was in med school when we met, became a pediatrician because he liked children except he didn’t like the work that much, he hated how awful the parents turned out to be, he didn’t consider that when he was in school and when he began to work he thought adults with ill offspring behaved awfully, he received the hurricane brunt of their anxiety, but then, you know, he didn’t get the chance to practice much because he became quite a bit sicker than the children he ministered to and died. How did he die, she asked, and Satan replied before I could, Heartbreak, he said, AIDS, I said, AIDS killed all of us.