I, The Divine

by Rabih Alameddine

  David always came up with excuses for not attending any of the openings. He did show up for a reception in San Francisco, after I had nagged him for weeks about it. It was on a Thursday night, and that was not our night. He begged off, hinting over and over about other plans. I was surprised when he showed up. He stayed for about twenty minutes. We barely talked as I was busy with other people. He waved at me when he came in, walked around the gallery, and left without saying good-bye. For a long time after that I had to hear about how I had ignored him.

  David’s disillusion with my art matured slowly, reaching its apex with the emergence of Baba Blakshi. Baba was my response to the hypocrisy of the art world. She was never meant to grow, burgeon, and mature. A local gallery put out a call for entries in an exhibit called “Apparitions.” The curator wanted artwork dealing with the concept of visions, apparitions, and materialization of icons. I am not sure why the idea intrigued me, not being anything I would usually have considered, but from the moment I read the advertisement in the art magazine, my mind was overwhelmed with possibilities. I proposed two pieces; both were accepted. The first was the now-infamous Jesus-on-a-Tortilla. I had a local printer make a metal plate with an embossed line drawing of Jesus, taken from Head of Christ Crowned with Thorns, a painting after Guido Reni at the National Gallery in England. I had wanted a Michelangelo Christ, but the Reni had the exact insufferable suffering look I loved so much. I heated the plate and threw flour tortillas on it. The result was a stack of Jesus-on-Tortillas. This, of course, was a reference to a true story from 1978, about a woman in New Mexico who was frying her tortilla and saw the picture of Jesus on it. She had it framed. Believers arrived by the bushel from around the world to glimpse the epiphany. I gave the world a whole stack. The second piece, Jesse-in-My-Toilet was a little more intricate. I had to have a plumber build it for me. I used an actual toilet bowl, with an internal pump to recycle the water. I had black light installed under the toilet’s rim, which turned on when the toilet was flushed. Inside I had someone paint a portrait of Jesse Helms that could only be seen when the black light was on. Hence, whenever the toilet was flushed, a barely visible picture of Jesse appeared.

  David did not appreciate my pieces. He suggested this could be the end of my serious artistic career; no respectable curator would take my paintings seriously if I presented a toilet as art. I explained Duchamp and the urinal, Fountain. I was not doing anything particularly new or shocking. I simply thought it was amusing. I told David I would not enter the pieces with my name, since I had no interest in them being associated with me. I would come up with a silly name, like Duchamp did, a joke name. I came up with Baba Blakshi. My serious painting would not be affected (I was wrong, of course, but for reasons different from the ones David mentioned).

  The pieces were not only the hit of the exhibit—the other works in the show were childish—they were talked about for months afterward. There was more interest in the works of Baba Blakshi than there ever was in those of Sarah Nour el-Din. What I thought was a joke took on a seriousness all its own. Baba ridiculed the hypocrisy of the art world and the perfidious art world swallowed Baba up.

  If I were to do it again, I would not have given birth to Baba. I allowed myself to be carried away by the attention directed toward Baba, thinking it innocuous. Slowly, but surely, I began to bestow upon Baba’s work a respect it did not deserve. Baba pervaded my life, every aspect of it. Cynicism is a cruel, parasitic mistress. It seduces; like a succubus, it drains its flunky of any creative energy, redirecting all toward its own survival. Baba was nothing if not cynicism incarnate. No wonder she flourished.

  I never had control of Baba, nor did she ever remunerate my efforts. Most of her work was difficult to sell (with the exception of Jesse-in-My-Toilet, which sold in an instant for more money than any other “piece” of art I had produced). Since Baba was ephemeral, she received more attention than her creator. I finally lost Baba a year and a half ago, at my last exhibit. To further a joke that was no longer amusing, I asked a few artists to come up with Baba works. They produced a number of pieces which the gallery liked more than my originals. My Baba exhibit included nothing of mine. She is going strong somewhere now, but has nothing to do with me. The art world still loves Baba, although she does not ridicule hypocrisy much anymore. Baba’s work has become less funny and more cruel, a natural progression.

  I lost David during the transition from Sarah to Baba. He did not leave me because of it, but there was never any doubt that he disapproved vehemently of Baba. He considered her tacky, classless, and contemptible. I cannot blame him for that.

  As a young girl, I always felt my life was being filmed for posterity. I thought of myself as an actress in a documentary or a piece of cinéma verité. I imagined myself being the subject of a future episode of This Is Your Life. I even practiced it. I sat in front of the mirror, trying on different facial expressions. Shock at being considered worthy of a retrospective of my fabulous life, surprise for when they called my elementary school teacher, tears for when they called my mother, Janet, and glee for when they called my father.

  The practice sessions stopped as I grew older, of course, but my self-focus never allowed me to diverge from the belief that my life must be recorded.

  Goethe said:

  Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it;

  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

  I begin.

  If I were to write our love story, no one would believe it. My real-life story is unbelievable. I tell my friends, but they dismiss my love for you as puerile, inconsequential. I tell them what happened and they consider me foolish. Perhaps I never manage to convey how much I loved you. I say it: I love you. I love you so much, my heart aches, a physical hurt. But what does it mean really? Words, nothing but words. If I could show them how much I loved you, how much I love you still, they might see why I stayed, how I let the story unfold. If I could show them, I would be able to explain how I let the cruelest man in the world destroy any remaining dignity I might have had.

  So how? How can I describe to a passerby the way I felt about you? I can’t tell stories of what we did together. We did nothing. We never went anywhere, an entire relationship spent in my bed not having sex. Do I describe in loving prose how you look? Do I tell how you held me, how I felt in your arms? I don’t know how. It would have to be something different. I can talk about how it felt when I knew it was over.

  In front of a painting. That’s how I knew. Titian. The Flaying of Marsyas. Apollo killed the satyr Marsyas by skinning him alive. His muscles exposed, every vein and sinew seen. Repulsive. Left with nothing to hang on to, no honor, no decency, shamed. I opened myself to you only to be skinned alive. The more vulnerable I became, the faster and more deft your knife. Knowing what was happening, still I stayed and let you carve more. That’s how much I loved you. That’s how much.

  On an exceptionally hot evening early in August, I stood on the sidewalk in Beirut waiting for a taxi to take me home.

  The Mediterranean sun was still blazing and I was about to faint.

  I had recently recovered from a nasty bout of bronchitis and was just beginning to realize I should not have gone out.

  Beirut is detestable in August.

  Even the air is filthy.

  I wanted to be home, in my bed.

  It was 1976. The city was beginning to look damaged.

  I could feel the ripening sun burn my skin, pale from having spent most of the summer indoors.

  I was too skinny, my stepmother said.

  Too sickly.

  I wore a black linen dress.

  The linen was perfect for the weather, but the color was not.

  The dress was covered with tiny colorful flowers, a happy motif.

  The black was a stark contrast to my skin.

  The dress exposed my shoulders, which the sun attacked mercilessly.

  Merciless. That evening was merciless.

  I watched the cars drive by.
No taxis in sight.

  I felt a little dizzy, cursing my luck for having to be in Beirut instead of the mountains.

  I was sixteen. I should have been invincible.

  A taxi approached. It was full. Five passengers already in it.

  I felt crushed.

  The dress was French, bought from a catalogue. I loved it.

  I looked at the sea behind me, oblivious to the play of colors.

  I want to tell you my story, not to show how I was hurt, though I was. I simply want someone to note what happened, so that my love affair, four years of my life, is not relegated to some garbage heap. I don’t want you to think of me as a victim. I’m not. I take responsibility for what happened. I’m writing this to get it over with, to finally get completion for that part of my life. I want to tell you before I forget, because he has already forgotten. If there’s anything that’s killing me right now, it’s that he has forgotten. He has forgotten our conversations. He has forgotten what my room looks like. Three years we spent in that room, two nights a week, from seven till midnight, and he can’t remember. He never spent the night, by the way. He always went to sleep in his own bed, at his own house, in some other location in the city. After two years of silence, I was the one who initiated the contact, not him. I’m the one who’s open to patching things up. I haven’t been able to do anything since he left. He has filed me away, whereas I obviously haven’t found a place to file him. His words—filed me away. He learned from his mistakes with me and moved on, treating me like a no-longer-relevant memo. Well, now, it’s not filed anymore, is it? He’s so upset, he hasn’t returned my phone call in three weeks. We’ll finish this discussion Tuesday or Wednesday, he said. That was a month ago. Before that we had three months of talking on the phone and his telling me how happy he is that we’re talking again. His saying we can be friends. You still think I killed Descartes, I said. He started accusing me again of every bad thing I ever did, of how unstable I am, how unfeeling. I told him the vet was the one who suggested I put Descartes to sleep. I told him there was no hope. He thinks he loved Descartes more than I did. He says I have no heart, underneath this soft exterior, I’m hard as granite. I’m someone who abandons her son. He delivers this with an emotionless voice, controlled, venomous. What’s ironic is he’s the one who’s unfeeling, not me. I have problems playing Hearts with my computer because I worry how the other three people feel when I beat them. I know there aren’t three people there, just the computer, but I can’t help it. I’m very sensitive, I love most people, and I love my cats. Descartes was adorable, a tiny, tabby-colored Persian. I got him when he was no bigger than the palm of my hand, the runt of the litter who barely survived. One day he got sick and it turned out he had a congenital kidney problem. The vet suggested a kidney transplant for my cat. How could I put him through that? I changed vets. Descartes lasted for about six months. Then he started getting worse, until one day at five in the morning, I woke up wet. Descartes, who slept every night on top of my right shoulder, had peed on me. He peed without moving. I got up, changed the sheets and lay back in bed wondering what to do. I dozed off only to be woken up an hour later wet again. Since his kidneys were not functioning, his urine was only water, no smell. I called David and told him what had happened. He thought it was amusing that Descartes peed on me. My heart ached and he was laughing. I took Descartes to the vet, who told me it was time. He first gave Descartes a strong sedative. I asked him to leave me alone with Descartes before he gave him the second shot. Descartes was conscious, looking at me. I cried, asked his forgiveness. I am crying now as I write this, thinking of my poor Descartes. I got a call from David when I got home. As if nothing had happened, forgetting our conversation that morning, he started making small talk, his specialty. I interrupted him, maybe not as diplomatically as I could have, telling him I put Descartes to sleep. He went crazy, well, crazy for David, which means he was silent for a minute; then in a cold, venomous voice he asked, “You killed Descartes?” I knew I wasn’t going to get what I wanted, but I went ahead anyway. I wanted sympathy and understanding, to be held. He would never hold me again. He said I killed Descartes because he became a burden, an inconvenience. You can accuse me of a lot of things, but not of killing my cat. I know I’m not the nicest person in the world. I know I can be manipulative, selfish, and bitchy. But I’m not a murderess. While talking to him I realized he must be hurting because he loved Descartes and he hadn’t been able to say good-bye. I screwed up. I should have let David see Descartes before I put him to sleep. I started apologizing. All he said was, “It’s too late now.” I knew he could be cruel, but not like this. All the time we spent together, he knew so many things hurt me, yet he refused to do anything about them. He met all of my friends, of course, but he refused to let me meet any of his friends or acquaintances, never his family. Why? Because he didn’t trust me, because he felt I was unreliable, unpredictable, unstable. Yet he came back again and again. I didn’t know where he lived. He thinks I’m crazy, never missing an opportunity to remind me of my sister. I shouldn’t have told him about that. First time I call him back he tells me how well his life is going and I tell him about Lamia. I never learn. Two sisters who are murderesses. I’m sure he’s gloating about that. Why are we so cruel to each other? Why can’t two people respect each other? I shouldn’t wax philosophical when I’m drunk. I shouldn’t write when I’m drunk, but what the hell, I’m not writing when I’m not drunk. It gnaws at me that he hates my guts. Okay, I grant you, I was not the easiest person in the world to be in a relationship with. I am by nature very negative. Not all the time, but I do criticize a lot. I’m not a victim. I admit to my faults. He doesn’t admit to his. Maybe the reason I was so negative is because of the circumstances he put me in. What would you do if your lover was embarrassed by you? I want to make sure you don’t think I’m an embarrassment. I was an embarrassment to him only, for a number of reasons. I’m twice divorced and living off two alimonies. Supposedly, I also had mood swings, but I don’t see it as such a big deal. I can be happy one minute and angry the next. So what? I know a lot of people like that. My whole family is like that. Hell, we’re Lebanese. I think that was also a problem. I wasn’t just a foreigner, but an Arab. He says I attack him viciously, which is not true. Okay, so I did say he was emotionally constipated, but that wasn’t an attack, that was stating a fact. I simply point things out to him because he refuses to see what he’s doing. He gets me frustrated and I start saying things to help him see how he’s so annoying. If he got into therapy like I keep telling him to, I wouldn’t have to point all these things out. I have to take responsibility for what happened and not make the same mistakes again. It’s hard to conceive of loving another man again, and even harder to think of another man loving me the way he did. I do have to try, though. What’s frightening is that after all this, if he asked me to try again, I would in a second. This is difficult for me to admit, and worse, I admitted it to him. I told him I still loved him and he rejected me again. I don’t want to sound like the women who love too much or any of that crap. He had his good points. If he wasn’t upset, he treated me wonderfully. He was thoughtful, considerate, never forgot a birthday or an important occasion. Unfortunately, I always forgot his. He could have helped me by reminding me his birthday was coming up, but he loved it when I wronged him so he could become the martyr. He wasn’t a great lover. I was never fulfilled with him, which made me frigid in his eyes. Other women always had stupendous orgasms with him. In any case, I didn’t mind the sex. I loved lying in his arms in bed. Cuddling. He didn’t say let’s make love, let’s have sex. He’d say, let’s cuddle. We’d zip to my room, undress, our clothes flying apart, jump in bed, and cuddle. It was so romantic and I miss that terribly. He’s a good cuddler. He always said I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever been with. I don’t think that was true. I think I was the most exotic woman he’d ever been with. Compared to Buffy and Mandy, how could I not be? Hell, after the women he’d been with, Mrs. Butterworth
would be a step up. After he described his fiancée on the phone, all I could think was yuck. I think if I were with her for five minutes, I’d buy a gun. Graduated from Vassar with a “speech communication” degree. What does that mean, I ask you? Did it take her four years to figure out how to speak? Speech communication as opposed to what? Speech non-communication? As opposed to sign language? Boy, would I love to give her a sign. I bet you she flips her hair incessantly. I shouldn’t have asked him if he bought her clothes from FAO Schwarz. But it wasn’t an attack. I said it because it was funny. I can’t help it if he loses his sense of humor when he’s upset. We used to laugh at things like that. I mean, come on, her name is Dotty. From Dotty to Barbie is not that big of a jump. Everyone tells me I should think before I speak, but at least I’m unpretentious. What you see is what you get. Unfortunately, David doesn’t like what he sees. He has distorted vision, that’s all I can say. I’m not saying this because I’m drunk. I’m rarely, if ever, drunk. I don’t handle alcohol well, although I seem to be doing fine now. In any case, it doesn’t matter since there’s nothing I can say or do which would make him think I didn’t kill my cat. He’s so obstinate. I can live with everything, his unavailability, his sometimes cruelty, his callousness, his sexual dysfunction, but I can’t stand that he thinks me capable of killing my cat.