Rawi Hage - Carnival

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.