by Rawi Hage
Madame Fiora was known for her closeness to other women—and it was true that some women in the neighbourhood loved her. Others looked at her as an arrogant giant with a deep disdain for religion and belief, an eccentric foreigner who shamelessly sent her husband to buy groceries while she lingered at home with her books. They resented her brusque manners, her intimidating aloofness when she disapproved of someone. Her two grown sons lived abroad. Their Spanish citizenship allowed them to travel freely all over the world, without the hassle of camping at the doors of embassies, begging for visas, as every Lebanese citizen endured during war. One of Madame Fiora’s sons was a doctor, the other a photographer who spent his days in artistic circles, reading, drinking and smoking hash, weed, anything he could get his hands on.
Madame Fiora was a fierce atheist. Her contempt for religion was overt—and often offensive to her neighbours. After the outbreak of the war, as religious zealotry became fierce, her life had became more secluded. But in a basement shelter during the bombings, she had befriended a widow by the name of Janette Chalitta and become her most loving companion. She gave advice to Janette and, with her height and her strength and demeanour, protected her friend from men’s belligerence, abuse, advances and sexual insinuations.
The surviving priest asked Monsieur Fiora about his wife’s refusal to accompany him to church on Sundays, and he confessed that his wife did not believe in God, that she was a heathen. And then he disclosed that she frequently beat him up. He knelt in front of the priest and wept.
You must take control of the situation, the priest said. You are the man of the house. Do whatever you have to do. It’s your house.
A few days later, Monsieur Fiora bought a gun from a militia kid. He went to Abou-Antoun’s café, ate a bit of bread, some labneh and olives, and then he drank arak until a late hour. He walked home, opened the door, and before his wife had the chance to interrogate him about his drunkenness or where he had been, he pulled out the gun and aimed it at her. He pursued her through the house and shot her five times.
Madame Fiora was heard screaming for help, fleeing from one room to another. A neighbour banged on the door. Monsieur Fiora opened it with a Smith & Wesson in his hand.
It’s over, he said.
The local militiamen were called to the crime scene. One of the thugs slapped Monsieur Fiora repeatedly. Then he was taken to militia headquarters and locked in a makeshift cell in the bathroom. His sons were informed of what had happened by telex, and both caught the next flight from Barcelona. They demanded to see their father. The militia refused them access, and informed them that their mother’s body was in the morgue, awaiting burial. No one knew where to bury this unbeliever, this woman who had beaten her husband. At last, her widowed friend and lover, Janette Chalitta, pleaded with the clergy to allow Madame Fiora a proper burial, but they stalled, giving her convoluted excuses about the scarcity of lots, the backlog of dead. And then one of them hinted at Madame Fiora’s overt atheism.
It was Pavlov who, that morning after leaving the grocer’s, and out of respect for Madame Fiora’s body, sought out the two sons. They were both staying in the family home. It had been cleaned of the blood of their mother who, while wounded during the chase, had crawled over carpets and under dining room chairs trying to escape her husband. When Pavlov knocked at the door of the house, he stood silent, calm, his eyes lowered, his hands joined in front of his stomach in a sign of reverence—an indication that he, the man who called himself Pavlov, did not possess the arrogance of the authorities nor the intrusiveness of the neighbours.
He introduced himself as an undertaker and the son of an undertaker, and asked if he could come in.
The sons stepped aside to let him in, curious.
Once seated in the living room, Pavlov asked if they had decided yet on a burial.
The sons confirmed that the Church was blocking them from using the cemetery.
Were they open to the possibility of privately cremating their mother’s body? asked Pavlov.
The son who was a doctor was reluctant, suspicious. But the bohemian son was open to the idea—even excited by it. A long discussion ensued, over drinks, on the merits of fire versus earth. The Bohemian became drunk and agitated, and went on a philosophical rant about the futility of religious rituals. He insisted that his mother was an atheist, and that in one of their phone conversations she had told him she didn’t care how her body was disposed of after her death. The doctor dismissed his brother’s arguments, accusing him of lying. But finally he accepted Pavlov’s proposal—on condition that he could witness the burning of the body himself to make sure that he received their mother’s ashes and not those of an imposter or a dog—or a goat, for that matter.
Pavlov informed the brothers that all would be done with the utmost discretion. In any case, he said, the location of the crematorium was kept secret because of the threat of violence and retaliation from an underground society of dangerous people.
At this, they shook hands and agreed on a plan.
Following Pavlov’s instructions, the doctor withdrew a large sum of money and went to meet the head of the neighbourhood militia. After that, he met the local priest, paid him handsomely, and received his mother’s death certificate and authorization for repossession of the body. The sons declared solemnly that their mother would be shipped back to Spain, to be buried in the Basque country of her birth.
Meanwhile, the Bohemian found a dealer, a thug by the name of Faddoul, who sold him some hash, and who owed a debt to Pavlov, because Pavlov’s father had buried his parents and Faddoul had never paid up.
A couple of nights later, Pavlov acquired Madame Fiora’s body from the hospital morgue and drove up into the mountains, with the two brothers following in their father’s car. It was past midnight and the roads were unlit. The brothers were unfamiliar with the terrain but managed to follow the trail of the deathmobile’s lights. When the little convoy arrived at the house in the mountains, the three men carried the body inside. The doctor asked to examine the body to make sure it was their mother’s, and the Bohemian asked to be given time to roll a joint and smoke it before the bag was unzipped.
Pavlov nodded, and the three of them went outside and stood by the door. The Bohemian offered the doctor a puff, but his brother refused. Pavlov took the cigarette and inhaled, his eyes shut, then exhaled and extended his arm to pass it back. He went to the kitchen, searched for alcohol in the cupboard, and brought back three glasses and what remained of the bottle of whisky. They drank. The doctor poured a second round, then they all retuned to the house to face the dead mother.
Pavlov delicately unzipped the bag. Madame Fiora was naked inside it. Her breasts were falling sideways over her arms, and her face had the severe expression of someone who had seen death marching towards her.
Pavlov could tell from their faces how the dead had encountered their end. There were those who looked surprised, their necks curved like a question mark; there were those who wore expressions of nonchalance, judging by the relaxed pose of their hands; there were others who had anticipated their long-awaited ending, and had impassive faces of boredom, perhaps even relief. Those who were murdered looked stunned—unlike the suicides, whose faces carried the angst of the universe, overwhelmed yet defiant in a fuck-you-all farewell. The lucky ones were those who died peacefully in their sleep, their faces serene and calm.
After the opening of the bag, there was silence. The doctor mumbled the name of his father two or three times in anger. The Bohemian glanced at his mother, said, It’s her, and zipped up the bag again.
Pavlov opened the furnace door. Together, they all slid the body inside. Pavlov released the gas and ignited the fire. Light flickered over the brothers’ faces. When the bag caught fire, Pavlov closed the door and walked away, leaving the sons in the presence of their burning mother.
* * *
The rumour was that Monsieur Fiora escaped custody during the re-enactment of his wife’s murder. The man who murdere
d his wife had escaped! The official account was that, on the way back to militia headquarters after the re-enactment of the crime, bombs started to fall. The fighters found cover inside a building, and that was when Monsieur Fiora took flight.
In the re-enactment, the police had asked him to walk down the road as if coming home from Abou-Antoun’s restaurant on the evening of the crime. They had handed him the little leather briefcase he always carried, containing his personal documents and his gloves. They had even made him wear his one-hundred-percent lambswool hat, the one he had worn for thirty-five years, and which Madame Fiora’s father had given him once upon a time in Spain. It was surprising that his father-in-law had given him a hat at all. When Monsieur Fiora had first encountered the man, his future father-in-law had been furious. His daughter had brought home a Moor! He wouldn’t look Monsieur Fiora in the eye. He told his daughter that he detested the Moors because they had fought as mercenaries with Franco. But then one day this very man had walked up to Monsieur Fiora and hugged him and given him the hat. Then he had said, Now I know you’re not a Moor.
Yes, Monsieur Fiora had escaped—the militia admitted this. He had escaped because of the falling bombs! But the truth was that Monsieur Fiora was handed over to his sons by the head of the local militia, who had arranged for the farcical re-enactment of the crime after the sons bribed the men in charge.
After being handed over, Monsieur Fiora spent the night at Pavlov’s, in Pavlov’s parents’ room. That evening, the doctor entered the room where his father was sleeping, and through the door Pavlov could hear him shouting at his father. Meanwhile, the Bohemian smoked in the living room. Then the doctor stormed out of the house and his brother followed.
Late that night, Monsieur Fiora knocked at Pavlov’s door. He asked if he could have a cigarette and something to drink. Pavlov went to the kitchen and found a bottle of arak. He poured himself a glass and offered one to Monsieur Fiora. They smoked and drank and sat quietly.
After a few rounds, Monsieur Fiora asked, What is your name?
Call me Pavlov.
Well, Pavlov, my sons made me sign my will, leaving them everything, the house, the money in the bank, everything, Monsieur Fiora said. My wife wanted me dead and now my sons want me dead. I am dead. He started to cry uncontrollably.
Pavlov refilled the old man’s glass and went back to his own room, leaving his guest alone and crying, in a house that over the years had witnessed the fall of many tears.
* * *
The two sons showed up early the next morning. Pavlov had a coffin ready, with a bottle of water inside and some food. Monsieur Fiora was put inside it, and instructed not to move or make a sound. Consider yourself a mummy, his doctor son said. Pavlov and the sons drove to the port, and handed the casket over to a shipping agent along with the death papers of Madame Fiora and the permit to repatriate a cadaver. At each step along the way, someone was given a bribe: the agent, the port officials, the boat’s captain. It was agreed between the sons that the doctor would accompany the coffin on its journey.
Once they passed into the open sea, two sailors witnessed the opening of the coffin on the deck. Terrified, one shouted and crossed himself while the other held a rigging knife. Identify yourself! he demanded of Monsieur Fiora. Right on cue, the captain showed up and calmed the sailors down. Both started to laugh—and then the younger sailor laughed for such a long time, he became hysterical and his laughter hit the waves and skimmed the water and hovered and stayed there for a while before it abruptly stopped. Monsieur Fiora stood up, climbed out of the coffin and breathed the fresh air. He smiled as he held the railing and looked at the horizon.
After a moment, he entered the cabin and asked for some water. He drank this, then walked out on the deck again. His wool hat was on his head and he folded it over his ears. His son provided him with a jacket, in a gesture that made him cry.
A few hours later, the doctor released his mother’s ashes over the sea while his father wept on deck.
The next morning, the father was nowhere to be seen. The captain and his sailors searched high and low, but Monsieur Fiora had vanished.
The doctor stood out on the deck and told the captain that his father must have thrown himself overboard. A suicide. He studied the horizon and smoked until the ship arrived in Spain.
THE HYENA IS IN HEAT
One day, as Pavlov stood at his window above the road, he imagined Rex the dog looking his way. That night, he dreamed of the dog barking at him, and a few days later he thought he saw Rex at his door. As he opened his door, he saw the shadow of a dog rushing up the stairs to settle on the balcony. So Pavlov joined Rex there.
Man and dog heard moaning coming from the cemetery. The hyena is in heat, Pavlov whispered to Rex, and her fighter is thrusting between her thighs. Dog and man listened to his cousin’s mating cries, and even sniffed the air for wetness and heat. He could picture his cousin with her palms flat on the ground, above the buried skeletons and the sharp pebbles that wild animals endure when the weight of their body presses on their paws.
He walked to the fridge, still thinking of his cousin’s knees sweating above the burial ground.
And there they are, he said to the ghost dog. There they are, the hyena and Son of Mechanic. Fucking in the domain of the dead, oblivious to all those who have passed, all those who existed, all who once gorged and defecated and are now devoured by vermin and mud.
It must thrill the mechanic’s son, Pavlov continued. He must be bewitched by this little laughing daughter of death. Attractions reveal our deepest love for violence, as you know. This mechanic’s son is surely enchanted by the idea of the gravedigger’s daughter offering him her thighs. Look at him! Swinging his testicles like holy incense above the altar of the dead, his hands pulling and pushing her hips back and forth to the cycle of moons and ocean tides, panting heavily like Marathon, that famous Athenian, racing towards his own death to deliver news of victory. And I have good news for you, my dear Rex: he is stretching her back and forth as if rolling out dough, with equal parts love and repulsion, fucking back and forth with the retreat velocity of a cranking gun, ejaculating onto the fecund earth, to fertilize the skulls of the dead and lubricate their moistureless organs…
A humorous couple, Pavlov said.
And the dog repeated, A humorous couple indeed.
I have never witnessed such an act of transgression against death, he said to the dog. Have you?
The dog shook his head.
Yes, fucking at the graves of all those dead people who are no longer capable of seducing, moaning and caressing. Or maybe fucking in memory of those who once seduced, moaned and caressed? A heroic act, then, I hear you say. One that transcends all the tears, music, pain and agony, which for years has paraded past our window.
Well, indeed, this heathen fucking is beautiful, Pavlov leaned in to whisper in Rex’s ghost ear. This animalistic urge that overcomes all rituals, respect and ancestral worship is perhaps the most truthful act of both of our species. I tell you, Rex—and I hope you will not feel betrayed by what I am about to say—in this moment of esteem and admiration, I regret slapping my cousin in the face that day. She is, after all, the product of a long lineage that turned our road into an arcade for the procession of coffins, and a passageway between existence and extinction.
Maybe, Pavlov declared to the halo above Rex’s head, my cousin is no longer satisfied with witnessing death. Maybe she aspires to join the immortals such as Hera or Athena. Maybe she seeks to elevate herself and become a flesh-loving Goddess, with offerings buried at her feet and under her soft, fertile belly, her fingers open against the ground and beckoning in the direction of the abyss and ecstasy. What courage, what beauty and truth! An act of future reproduction above past decay. The immediacy, the proximity of the cycle of birth and death have never been as united as they are in this moment. And what, my dear Rex, could be more comforting and truthful than contemplating fucking near all these decaying remains? Oh, the brillian
ce of it all. Unification, unification…
Furthermore, the dog pointed out, there’s no difference between death and birth if one apprehends them with the same joyful intensity of wagging tails.
The little girl I remember, with snot falling from her nose, often in tears and dirty clothes, has asked her lover to turn me into an offering, Pavlov whispered in admiration. An offering to bribe the gods. And why not? he proclaimed to the dog. We all sacrifice something in our relentless quest for deification! It has always been an exchange. And what exchange doesn’t entail a loss or a sacrifice?
Or a cross, the dog said, and smiled. Then added: Apotheosis! A human obsession, and a disease.
Pavlov nodded thoughtfully. Yes, Rex, well said. The very same word came to my mind. My cousin was seeking her own apotheosis. A sacrifice in order to bribe the council of the gods. So the hyena sent her Helot, that fighter, to kill me at my window. She wanted a human offering, but in the end she settled for a dog as a sacrifice.
Which reminds me to pour some ice on your headless remains. Stay! Pavlov ordered the dog. Do not move. And stop shivering.
WATCHING
The next morning, Pavlov knocked at the door of the house where the Bohemian was staying. He paced as he waited for the door to open.
The Bohemian let him in. They both sat in silence for a while, until at last the Bohemian handed Pavlov money for his services. The Bohemian looked sickly, Pavlov noticed. He was skinny, belonging to that breed of men who, due to their nocturnal habits, ruinous existence, drinking and chain-smoking, never gain weight. Pavlov knew this kind well: self-haters at permanent war with themselves until death comes to solve their irreconcilable differences. Their long monologues were sometimes prophetic and substantive—at the same time, they were all too aware of their minuscule role in the cosmic comedy and their inescapably low status. But they had neither the strength nor the will to repair whatever was broken in them. They tended to be pathetic huggers and ferocious kissers, and their laughter was followed by a long fit of coughing and spitting. Nudity in all seasons was a must. They welcomed you into their homes in their underwear, or an open shirt and unbuckled pants. Everything in their world stayed open—their windows, their smoking nostrils, their toe-revealing slippers; they were the enemies of curtains, shut bathroom doors, closed closets.
