Rawi Hage - Carnival

And now, said the Samson Spider, those two punks turn out to be the sons of a wealthy businessman who finances the mayor’s campaign. The man is suing me for reckless driving and endangering his kids. Their lawyer wants a psychological assessment. He asked the taxi commission to revoke my licence. How much can a man take? I want to defend myself but I don’t have the money for a lawyer. I’m willing to stand in front of the judge and tell him what happened, but my wife is worried and fed up. I never see my kids. I’m always working. . She says if I lose my licence she will leave me, take the kids and go back to her parents. .

Then I, Fly, who is not a Spider but a wanderer, stopped my food consumption, looked up at the spider, and said, What company does the man work for and what is the man’s name?

His name is Mr. Sarnath Patel. He is the CEO of Dovlin Steel. A man who pillages the world and pollutes six villages and won’t give a damn about a taxi driver like me. I am ruined!

I stood up and returned my tray. The owner was outside the kitchen now. He was pouring coffee into a paper cup decorated with stripes of Greek temple columns, matching the colour of the walls and his own white apron and blue hat.

The next day, early in the morning, I went home, took a shower and shaved, and then I immediately drove to the Dovlin building. At the reception desk, I asked for Mr. Patel, the CEO. They told me to wait and then a man in a uniform came down and called me to the security desk.

What is the nature of your business? he asked.

I am a taxi driver and I am here on behalf of another taxi driver. It is the matter concerning Mr. Patel’s sons.

The uniformed man asked me to stay put. Then he stood up and left.

Half an hour later, a woman, accompanied by a bodyguard, came down and took me up to the twenty-fourth floor. At the elevator doors, I was met by two other security guards or maybe bodyguards, who showed me to a table and searched my bag. There was a book I’d picked out from my library at home, Invisible Man . For the longest time, when I was arranging my books, I had assumed the book to be a manual on magic and the art of disappearing. But the story, of a man who lives in a hole full of light, turned out to be more magical than any manual. The guard looked at the book and mumbled, Here everything and everyone is visible, and he shoved the book inside the bag with such disrespect that I had to stop myself from throwing bolts of lightning to bring the building crumbling down.

Next, I was offered coffee or water. I chose coffee but it didn’t appear. I waited for another hour. At intervals, the woman came out with faint apologies and requests for my patience. Mr. Patel is a very busy man, she didn’t cease to remind me.

Finally, Mr. Patel arrived with the woman, his secretary, trailing behind him. I immediately assessed his weight by the heaviness of his steps on the carpeted floor and I knew that the coffee would never come.

He humbly shook my hand and said: I apologize for the wait, but I have only a few minutes to spare before I leave for the airport. I was informed that you are a taxi driver, and a friend of the driver who took my two sons on a dangerous ride.

Mr. Patel, I said, I shall be brief. My friend did what he did because he was scared. We taxi drivers are under threat all the time. In our profession, we are vulnerable. I am here to ask you to reconsider and to drop the lawsuit. The truth is, your kids misbehaved, and my friend did what he did to protect himself, out of fear for his life. .

The man interrupted me. Your friend broke the law, he said calmly.

And who doesn’t break the laws? Does your grand enterprise always obey the laws when it ravages these lands from above and below? When it pollutes villages and rivers with poisonous liquids? And how many deformed faces and crippled kids should sue you back? I hissed in his face.

Without a word he was gone. His secretary ran after him in a panic. Seconds later, the two security men were beside me. They asked me to face the wall.

When I protested, one of the gorillas put his mouth next to my ear and whispered, I will only ask you once.

I walked towards the wall. He told me to lift my arms and spread my legs.

He searched my waist and passed his hand between my thighs, over my torso, and under my armpits, then he asked me to remove my shoes and socks. When they were done searching me, they told me to put my shoes back on, and both men stood very close to me and escorted me to the elevator and down to the lobby and out of the building.

I went out and cursed everything around me. I walked across the lawn. The stretch of green was wide enough to hold a chopper; long enough to watch enemies approaching, exposed; vast enough to give defenders time to sound the alarm and prepare. Lawns are the most cunning short stretches of land. Behind that innocent, well-maintained, pleasing greenery there are ruthless gates, conniving rulers, extractors of gold, and drivers of slaves. In those glass citadels and towering dungeons, I see meek creatures, hunchbacked servants, and diabolic yes-men conspiring around water coolers, stirring storms in coffee cups, carrying out orders to steal the sugar cane from the land and the water from the underground, a murderous waltz that will never stop until they dig out the last meal from the bellies of the poor.

I cursed and cursed my way off the lawn and I spat and walked out of those mirages and oases of death to reach the concrete side of things.

JESUS

THE NEXT DAY I waited for Zainab at the entrance of the building. She appeared and said, I am starting to think that you time it.

I never hide the fact that I wait for you, I told her.

Listen, Fly. I am seeing someone. And I think the person will be coming here more often. So, you know. .

Yes, I know. . is that person from here?

Yes, from here.

What is his name?

None of your business, Fly.

Circumcised?

Fly, don’t start with your childish jokes.

Just asking.

Stop it, I mean it. Besides, it is none of your business.

Ah! So you know!

Leave me alone, it is too early for your offensive obsessions.

I just want to know and then I will leave you alone, I promise.

No, not circumcised.

Ah. I am all for interfaith intercourses. They can only result in a sublime secular experience. What does this intact and complete person do?

An academic. I have to go.

Farewell, my dearest Lady Zainab, and do be safe, I said to her as I dropped my cabbie hat with the reverence of a Spanish knight in the presence of an enchanting moor.

You too, drive safe, Zainab said, with grace and chivalry.

I slept for a few hours, and then some construction started up outside. I woke up and I thought of Mary. Poor Mary. They married her to Jesus, and Jesus is an asexual circumcised revolutionary. What future is there to be had in that scenario? I wondered.

I took a shower and combed to the side what was left of my hair. I tucked my shirt under my belly, recalling all the food I had eaten the previous day. Nothing to be proud of, nothing to regret. All the advice that the doctor had given me was forgotten.

BILL

THE DEALER CALLED and so I went to pick him up at his place. His woman waved from the window and screamed: I am waiting for you, Zee baby! And she waved at me and said: Good luck to you, good man!

We drove downtown, made a few straightforward rounds. Are you up for it next week? he asked.

Yes.

Good. I’ll call you. Do you know the industrial area?

Yes, very well, I assured him.

Good. You want cash or some blow as payment for tonight?

Cash.

Right. Fly the cash man. He tapped me on the shoulder and opened the door and I watched him walking away from the car.