Rawi Hage - Carnival

SPIDERS (AGAIN)

I STOPPED BY Café Bolero. These spiders are getting fatter by the day, I thought to myself. They sit and eat those large, greasy portions that make them talk louder and sit tighter in their car seats. I ordered coffee and joined the loudest table. Number 17 was waving his hands and talking about this country and the difference between here and there, but Number 67 interrupted him and said, Listen. Yes, there is no democracy where we come from, but at least things get done fast and, if you know the right people and you know how to talk to the person in charge, you get respect.

Let me tell you this story, 67 said. One night I took a nice-looking lady into my car. She looked very rich and I was driving her to a wealthy area. She asked me where I was from.

I said, I am from Tunisia, the most beautiful country in Africa. We call it “Tunisia the green.” Do you know where Tunisia is? I asked her.

She said that she had been there, and that she had made the mistake of trusting a merchant who sold her a carpet in the souk. I said, Tell me what happened. She said she visited Tunis and went to the market to a buy a nice carpet for her house. All the carpet merchants tried to make her come into their stalls. They threw the merchandise at her feet.

Then this man in a nice suit appeared, and he spoke English with a British accent. Please come with me, he said, and he gracefully held her hand and led her into his store. He told her that in his youth he had lived in England and studied history, but that after his father died, he had come home to take care of the family and the family business. He invited her to sit down, he brought her tea and sweets, and he showed her a few carpets. His daughter came with a flower and put it in the lady’s hair. His helpers at the store flipped the merchandise one after the other, and after she had seen many, she settled on a red Persian carpet. . everyone says they are Persian but they are all made in Turkey. . anyway, the problem was that she couldn’t carry it on the airplane. It was too heavy and too big. The owner of the store told her that he could send it by guaranteed mail, and he showed her the papers of a shipping company that reached everywhere, even Japan, because many people from Japan came and bought from his store. . The owner asked her to leave a deposit of fifty percent and to pay the other half when she received the carpet. He said that he trusted his clients and she could send the balance by money order or wire transfer once the item was safely delivered, and he handed her a business card.

The lady went home. A few weeks passed and nothing came. She called the number but it was not in service. She had given the guy eight hundred dollars. Nothing. The man stole the money, that’s it.

I asked her if she remembered the name of the store. She did. We had arrived at her house, and I told her that in a few weeks I’d be going to visit my family, who lived in Tunis. I can get your money, ma’am, I told her. But if I bring eight hundred, I’ll keep two hundred for myself. She thought about it and said, At this point, I have nothing to lose. She went into her house, and what a house, a classy lady, and she got me the business card and the receipt, and she wrote down her number. I will call you when I am back, I told her, and then we said goodbye.

When I arrived in Tunisia, it was the end of the month of Ramadan. Everything was closed. So the first week after my arrival I spent Eid with the family. The week after, I put on my good clothes and went to the main headquarters of the police station. I asked for the commander, Mahmoud.

The man at the desk asked, Who would you be?

I said, Tell the commander that I am an old friend of his little brother Mansour.

The commander himself came out of his office and took me to his desk. Mansour, his brother, had left Tunisia and they hadn’t seen each other in many years. I knew Mansour because we were roommates here in this country for five years. He is like a brother to me.

The commander immediately sent for tea and sweets. We talked about Mansour and his life. I told him, I don’t think your brother has changed a bit since he left Tunisia. He still wakes up every morning and eats bread and salt and olive oil. He still, every morning, puts on Oum Kalthoum, moves his head to the songs like this, drinks his tea, and walks in his plastic slippers. The same slippers he brought with him from Tunisia.

The commander was laughing with tears in his eyes.

That night, he took me to his village to meet his mother and the family. After we had a delicious meal, the mother asked if I could carry some good olive oil from the village to her son overseas. I said, My bag is full but, for Mansour’s eyes, I’ll carry the world.

Three days before my departure from Tunisia, I visited Mahmoud in his office again. Commander, I said, I am part of the family now, and Mansour is a brother to me. Before I leave, I have a small favour to ask.

If anyone is bothering you, if there is anything you need done in this town, just say the word! the commander said.

I handed him the business card and the receipt the lady had given me and I told him the story of the carpet merchant. I said, Small, thieving merchants like this man make me and your brother look bad in those foreign lands. They throw our names and the reputation of our country in the dirt. Before long, all these foreigners will be telling each other, Don’t go to Tunisia, those Tunisians are thieves. In the name of this glorious country and of our friendship, I am asking if there is anything you can do, Commander.

The commander stood up, banged his fist on the metal desk, and shouted through the door to his assistant. Ten minutes later, I was riding in a convoy of five Jeeps with twenty police in them, heading to the old souk. I sat next to the commander and, once we arrived, I saw all these policemen running through the streets and closing all the shops except one. I tell you, the whole souk was closed in minutes! I walked down the middle of the souk, right beside the commander. Someone called the owner. I saw this old man in a suit coming out from behind a stack of carpets and bowing his head like a dog.

The commander showed him the card and the receipt for the carpet. First he slapped him and then he gave him a lecture on cheating and dragging the country’s name down the drain. He slapped him in front of all his employees and his whole family. His wife was wailing and his grandkids were crying. Two minutes, I am telling you, it took two minutes, and the owner of the store came back with the eight hundred dollars. The commander asked the carpet merchant to write a letter of apology to the lady. I said to the commander, Let him write it in English if he is truly what he says he is, a big shot from England. Liar, he was a liar. He probably couldn’t even write it in Arabic.

The first thing I did when I came back here was call the lady. She was so impressed that she gave me an extra hundred. I made three hundred dollars, just like that.

WHEN NUMBER 67 had finished his tale, he leaned back and gloated, and I thought that his posture looked pathetic. I looked at the table and saw that his plate was empty, with only a few crumbs lingering on the surface. And now this admirer of dictators and petty tyrants was picking his teeth.

So I turned my face towards him and said, The only person in that story who should write a letter of apology is the banana republic commander of that police state.

What banana are you talking about? 67 replied. You think we are bananas? The only banana I see is the one you are sitting on. And a few of the spiders laughed at me.

That’s okay, I said, I don’t mind a banana up my ass, because I am just warming it up for your virgin sister. And calmly I took a sip of my coffee.