Rawi Hage - Carnival

I asked Mary if she had someone, a friend, I could call. Parents, anyone.

No, she said. They are all gone. Dead. I’ll pray, she kept on saying. I’ll pray, because Jesus loves me.

There must be someone I can call besides Jesus, I said. Jesus hardly ever replies to calls, not for the past two thousand years.

Father Smiley. Call Father Smiley.

What is his number? I asked.

I don’t know.

Where can I find him?

In the church, she whispered.

Which one?

St. Mary’s Church.

I’ll find it, I told her.

THE CHURCH WAS closed. I went around to the little house beside it and knocked on the door. An old woman answered. I guessed that she was the secretary, judging from her glasses and her busy desk. She made me wait and then, eventually, she showed me into the priest’s office.

Mister Priest, I said.

Call me Father John.

Mister John, I said. It’s Mary. She is not well. She sent me here to see you.

Which Mary?

Not that one, I said, pointing at the icon on the wall. The angelic Mary with black hair, I said.

Her family name?

I’m not sure, I never asked, but we are friends and she is not well.

Yes, but like I said, my son, there are many Marys. I myself know several.

What if I called her Reading Mary? She always has a book in her hands. Glasses, nice. . well, nice smile, I guess.

Yes indeed, said the priest, and lifted his index finger towards the ceiling. I know who you are talking about now.

She is not well, I repeated.

I’ll come with you. Are you driving?

I am in a taxi.

Right. Let’s hurry up then, we wouldn’t want the driver to hike the fare.

WHEN WE GOT to Mary’s, the priest sat down next to her, held her hand, and said, How are you, my child?

Father, she said, make them go away. They are all devils. They are everywhere, Father. They are all talking and moving around me at the same time. The voices. .

The priest took me aside and whispered: She needs to be taken to the psychiatric hospital. I know someone I can rely on there.

When the priest asked her to come with him, though, Mary refused to leave the apartment. They are out there, Father, she kept saying.

Have no fear, I told her. Just hold on to the Father’s cross and zap them away.

The priest frowned at me, but my advice worked. Mary hugged the old priest with one hand and held the cross with the other and pointed it towards the neighbours’ doors and at every corner of the stairs and in the lobby. We managed to walk down the street and get in the car and drive.

At the hospital, Mary was helped out of the car by an attendant and she was taken away through a glass door.

The priest followed behind her, but I was not allowed to go in. I watched my Mary disappear.

BURIAL

EARLY THE NEXT morning, I picked up a clown from the street. Or at least I thought he was a clown, walking with a wobble and a smile. He was drunk but I didn’t notice: even I, a guesser who had grown up among performers and impersonators, failed to see the tragedy beneath the disguise. The clown entered my car and collapsed on the back seat. I tried to wake him but he chuckled and cried and then passed out. I feared that he had died, until I finally heard him puff and snore. I was happy he was alive, so I took off my jacket and covered him.

I drove aimlessly until I arrived at the city shore. I left the clown sleeping in the car and walked towards the river and lit a cigarette. When the bearded lady died, after a long and painful illness, I kissed her beard and left her in her bed, then I bought a shovel and returned in the middle of the night. I wrapped her in a quilt, carried her small body on my shoulders, and laid her in the back seat of my delivery car. I drove outside of town. I passed the cemeteries and all I saw was rows of marble and a legacy of stones. The herd always lies together but the Jinn passes through the night alone, the Arabs would say. I stayed in my car and waited for the dawn. I made a hole in the ground. I climbed a nearby tree and swung like a monkey; I hoofed the ground like a horse, sprinkled dust like an elephant, and mourned like an owl. I dropped the quilt like falling curtains, I applauded for the final act, I turned off the sign on the top of my roof, I covered the rearview mirror with a little piece of cloth, and I drove back to the city alone.

When I went back to my car, I saw the clown walking towards the water. He dropped his pants in an attempt to merge his body fluids with that of the river’s moving current. I waited until he was done, then I whistled.

He walked back to the car and got in.

Where you are going? I asked.

He could barely mumble “the Dream Inn” before he passed out again. I drove him to the Dream Inn Hotel. I gently woke him, took him to reception, and left.

I WENT STRAIGHT home and lay on the carpet. The phone rang.

Yes, I said, bitter at the interruption of my brewing fantasy. I was about to join the Red Brigades in Italy. The Italian minister was in the back of the van, all tied up and about to die. The woman beside me, driving, had pulled over and handed me a number. I’d stepped out of the van and into a phone booth and, just as I imagined the police sirens were coming towards me, I realized that it was the phone in my house ringing.

I answered as I buckled up.

Hello, a voice said, this is Miss Such-and-such (I didn’t catch her name) from the diocese. I am calling you on behalf of Father Smiley at St. Mary’s Church.

Is Mary okay? I said.

Well, I believe so. But it is the Father who wants to speak with you.

Let him come then and speak, I said.

Well, he is in the hospital.

With Mary?

No, I believe Mary has left the hospital.

To go where? I asked.

I think the Father needs to talk to you concerning a few matters, she said, ignoring my question.

Fine, I said. Which hospital?

He is in St. Mary’s Hospital.

Not the church of St. Mary but the hospital of St. Mary. Am I correct?

Yes, Miss so-and-so said.

Okay, should I meet him at the St. Mary’s Restaurant inside St. Mary’s Hospital?

No, you can go straight to the room.

The number of the room?

It is 107.

Perfect.

Thank you. God bless you, she said.

I hung up the phone and went back to the van and discussed it all with the Red Brigades girl.

Plan B? I said.

She nodded and looked seductive in her assertive way.

I’ll show you how to get to St. Mary’s Hospital, I said. We could always drop the minister there.

And the manifesto, the ransom? she asked.

I’ll see if the Church will pay it, I told her. The Vatican’s citizens are wealthy.

I took my car and flew below the clouds. When I spotted the hospital, I locked my wheels and took a kamikaze dive towards the lot. I walked inside nonchalantly and took the stairs and entered the room.

I hardly recognized the priest. He looked as if he had been kidnapped by aliens and tied up in plastic wires, and he also looked frailer and older than he had the last time I’d seen him. Behind him sprouted a jungle of flowers and a row of get-well cards picturing bowed heads, a collection of Marys, and crosses and little houses. I went straight to the window and checked on my car. I had left it parked in the Doctors Only lot as a protest against favouritism and privilege. So far, the car was still there, safe. I stretched my neck and looked out the window, but I didn’t see any tow trucks coming my way. Nothing alarming, only an ambulance siren rushing towards the emergency doors.

There were two nuns in the back of the room whom, at first, I didn’t notice, or smell, for that matter. When do you think the priest will regain consciousness? I asked them.