Rawi Hage - Carnival

Customers came in and out of my car. Some were silent, some were polite, a few were busy talking to each other about the Carnival and work and life. I encountered the usual old lady with groceries, the lost tourist, the businessman.

Then two guys, a couple, I assumed, got in, softly bickering with each other. It is hard not to listen to others’ quarrels. A quarrel imposes itself on your hearing. A quarrel is made of little ultrasonic waves that can be heard and felt through earplugs, dreams of distraction, and even, one might say, the low, ever-present humming of reverberating erections.

In this case, it was a quarrel about money. The older, bald guy seemed to be supporting the younger one, who, from what I gathered, was an opera singer.

You insult me all the time lately, the young man said.

No, you are sensitive, very sensitive lately.

I am poor and my career is going nowhere. Who wants to be an opera singer in these times except crazy romantics like me? So I have a right to be sensitive. I am sensitive.

You are constantly irritated. You have the right to be sensitive in your art, but not with your lover.

My keeper, more like it.

No one is asking you to stay, though I would be sad if you left.

No, you wouldn’t, you would just keep some other young man.

I am not keeping you in any way.

Well, you know I will be on the street if I leave you. And you know I have nowhere to go in this city. You are keeping me.

You are keeping yourself.

Well. Then, if I have a choice, I should just take it and make do. Taxi, stop here, please, the young man said.

Taxi driver, go on, do not stop, the older man said.

Stop, please, the younger man said.

Driver, carry on, the older man said.

Stop, please! the young man shouted.

Carry on, I am paying your fare, driver, said the older man firmly.

I have to stop when a passenger asks me to, I said, it is the law. I wasn’t actually sure that it was, but I make my own laws to encourage people to flee their confinements and chains. I stopped at the next corner.

Don’t go, the older one said, as he held the young man’s hand.

The young man started to cry. You know I left everything for you, he said. You made me come here. And live with you. You promised to support me until I got on a roll. You know how important it is for me to sing onstage. And I have the sense that you’ve lost patience. You want me to leave.

All I want is to make you fly, my love.

Don’t call me that. Not now.

My love.

You’re making me cry.

My love, my love, my love.

See, now my whole face is full of tears. I hate tears. But you like tears and you never shed any.

The older man started to look for his handkerchief. I turned and offered them my box of Kleenex.

Thank you, driver, the young man said, and they both giggled and then laughed and held each other in the back seat of my car.

The older man paid. And then he took some more money, a large tip, and handed it to me.

This is for your trouble, he said, and I watched them both leave under a full moon and over the wet streets.

TARGET

THE TIP BROUGHT my night’s total to about fifty dollars. I had given myself a target: once I reached a hundred, I would call it a night and go back home, check in with the spider on the wall, call Mary, and then read a book and masturbate.

I possess an arsenal of books, a stack of which can be found on the lowest shelf, next to my carpet, within reach to incite my tendencies to sin and to awake my fist into motion. That particular shelf contains a respectable and varied literature that once belonged to the bearded lady. Books such as L’immoraliste, L’histoire de l’oeil , and La chatte , all of them serving me well in times of escape and need. There are also some that I inherited from a professor who left me his vast library. Thus I am able to reach for such studies as An Unhurried View of Erotica, by Ralph Ginzburg , The Housewife’s Handbook on Selective Promiscuity , by Rey Anthony, and Restif de La Bretonne’s Pleasures and Follies of a Good-natured Libertine. And for a less highbrow selection of work, which I assure you is as effective and as pleasing at times, I help myself to any of the following: The Adventures of a Nurse Called Lily, The Maid with the Golden Whip ,or A Stroll on Red Boulevard .Or, to move to a selection ofreligious and ascetic pleasures, The Private Diary of a Crusader’s Wife and The Holy Howl . But my favourite, as yet, in this area of studies is exemplified by The Flogging Trilogy , which can also be found on this most accessible shelf. The trilogy exists in three impeccable first editions: The Art of Flagellation for the Perverse, The Art of Flagellation for the Perverse and Pious ,and, finally, The Art of Transcendental Flagellation, which in my opinion would be a masterpiece were it not for the long and unnecessary treatise on how to acquire an oxtail and shape it into a whip.

But before I had the chance to ignite my engine and drive home towards my flamboyant collection and lie down on my father’s carpet and “read,” a man entered my car. He smelled of expensive cologne and he wore a high white collar, a silk suit, and an eccentric-looking hat that blocked my view of the rear window. What is this, it must be a theatre night, I thought to myself as I drove my car through high and low streets, as I crossed under sporadic city lights and the open, inviting curtains of bedroom windows.

Driver, the man said, in what sounded like a fake British accent, or was it a South African accent, or maybe an Australian accent, who knows and who cares about these subtleties anyway, they are all the product of the same boats and empire — have you ever been in an accident?

Yes indeed, I said. Many, as a matter of fact.

Do tell, driver.

Well, I said, once I was waiting at a red light right next to another taxi. Across the intersection, halfway down the block, there was this lady in a long fur coat and a fur hat. She was in high heels and was waving at us. And when she waved, all her jewels shone and sent us ultraviolet signals. You see, she didn’t specify which taxi she wanted. Obviously she didn’t care. She would get into the first cab that reached her. She was like evolution: she had no preference besides speed, performance, and availability. I glanced at the taxi driver beside me, and he gave me the finger. Now, the other driver had an advantage: he was on the sidewalk side of the street. But I told myself that I’d rather die than let this fucker, excuse my language, get the fare.

Foul language is fine with me. Just go ahead and fuck all you want, the man said.

Indeed, I replied. So when the light turned green, I stepped on the gas. I was ahead but, like I said, he had the advantage, so I swung my car to the side to block my adversary’s way. He braked, but he still hit me on the back door, on the side where you are sitting now, in fact. We stopped and got out of our cars. He took a swing at me. It was unexpected. I went back to my car and got a certain feathered stick I carry with me in case of emergencies, but he had already pulled a knife and was coming at me. I swung the stick and hit his shoulder but he was close enough to slice me right here, on my hand; you can’t see the scar because of my horse tattoo. I swung my stick and I bashed the shit out of him, sir. You should have seen him drop his knife and start begging. I looked for the lady, but she was hurrying into another car. So I drove straight to the house of a friend of mine who is a nurse. He cleaned the wound and stitched me without anesthesia.

Did that hurt? the man asked.

Yes, it did.

So let me ask you, driver, how do you feel about pain?