Rawi Hage - Carnival

They won’t recognize you, I said. Lit from the back, you’ll look like a silhouette on a stage. They won’t see your face.

But he didn’t listen to me.

He slammed the door and walked in front of my car with the bag in his hand. His shadow swayed in the dark.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Zee, in his splendid role as the drug dealer. What a marvellous performance, and now here it comes, the back flip after the last delivery. . and what a delivery!

A pair of headlights shone on Zee from the audience’s side, and I saw the car advancing. It stopped and Zee got in. And a few minutes later he got out and started walking back without the bag. A man stretched out his gun through the passenger window and I heard shots and could see Zee no more. He must have fallen to the ground. I saw the car moving towards me. I immediately switched on my lantern. I imagined that everything that started with the letter T could provide safety and emanate neutrality. Terrified, I searched for words that started with T. I recalled tenderness and tears , then I switched to less emotional, more action-oriented phrases such as take a breath, take a dive, take a hop, take a shit, take flight !

But then I realized that Zee had the keys to my car. So I simply ducked under the dashboard and waited for the killer car to pass. Well, I hoped it would, and to my surprise it did, in so great a rush that I knew no man could leap from such a cosmological velocity and land intact with a gun in his hand. It would be impossible, incomprehensible: even killers are not capable of surviving such infinite speed.

I waited until I didn’t hear a sound. Like a seal in the ocean, I stuck my head up and peeked, then I opened the car door and walked the muddy road towards the place I’d last seen Zee.

He was lying on the ground with his face buried in the mud. I rolled him over and I saw the whiteness of his eyes inside a face that was covered with soil. I poked him and whispered his name, but he was gone, dead.

I searched his pockets and found my car keys, and then I opened the inside of his jacket and pulled out his wallet. I counted out what was due to me, which I assessed should include insurance, modelling, risk management, entertainment, subordination fees, gas, windshield washer liquid, insults, waiting time, a shoeshine, penalties for damage to the welfare of society, and, naturally, the taxi fare. In short, after a quick mental addition, the total came out to the exact and full amount of money contained in the wallet. I ran to my car and drove in reverse to the next street, then I wove through the town’s alleys, aiming for the highway. I sailed out of the Island and into the city.

WREATH

UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I cut my night short and decided to go home. As I drove up in front of my building, I saw the janitor coming out, wearing a black suit. He had shaved and his windy hair had settled. I almost didn’t recognize him without his leather jacket. I stopped and watched him walking towards a long black car that was blocking the garage entrance. Under the illumination of my headlights, he walked to the passenger side of the black car and opened the door. An elderly woman slowly got out, holding his hand. Her thick black stockings and church-lady shoes extended towards the sidewalk, out from under her bell-like skirt. She stood up and reached for the janitor’s neck, he bowed his head clumsily, and she kissed his cheek. The old woman was crying. My Kleenex box was about to fly ahead of me, its layers ready to scoop up the tears, but the lady pulled a handkerchief out of nowhere and dabbed her cheeks. The janitor glanced at my car but did not seem to recognize me. Later on, on my way up from the garage, on the first floor I encountered several large wreaths propped up in the hallway.

I went straight to my apartment to lie down on the carpet. I unbuckled my belt, but the presence of death was too near, too vivid to allow me to imagine gladiators, sailors, or women in need of rescue. I stood up and walked to the cupboard, looking for alcohol. Nothing was there. Fuck it, I said. When short of drink, seek the Arab. I will knock at Zainab’s door.

As I was buckling my belt, I remembered a Saudi prince I once drove around for a while. I had met him in the pool joint of a fancy hotel. I was sharking at the time, while also driving my cab. I had picked up the game in no time. When I was a kid, the contortionist had taught me how to twist and how to hustle.

I let the prince win a few times and then gave it to him. Soon he was out of cash. He offered me his Rolex, but once I realized that he was a Saudi, I told him that between us brothers material things shouldn’t matter and fed him some fraternal flattery, et cetera. . He immediately bought it. So I drove him to a “refreshment” bar and told him that my taxi was at his service. The man drank whisky like a fish and fucked like there was no tomorrow; as soon as he had exited the Kingdom, the drinking and the orgies had started. That is all these heretic Westerners are good for, he would say. I made a deal with Linda and provided his highness with pleasures, and then, one day, his two royal cousins came from London and business really thrived.

I would pick up Linda and her friends from the corner and wait in the parking lot of their hotel until they were done. It worked out very well because the Bedouins have a preference for women on the plump side, and this brought prosperity and equal-opportunity employment to everyone. In a single evening they would empty the room’s minibar multiple times, swap the women between them, and fuck and sing all night.

The girls would come down giddy and drunk and showered with gifts and golden watches. One must admit, the oily nomads are the most welcoming, hospitable people on the planet. They treated those women very generously and the women welcomed it. Sometimes they would all decide to go dancing and I would have to get another taxi. I would call Mani the Sex Spider or Number 79 or whoever was available at the Bolero. . One day, three Saudi princesses, the sisters and cousins of the men, showed up to visit. They all decided to go to an expensive French restaurant. I took the boys in my car, and Number 79, a good-looking Nigerian with broad shoulders, handsomely defined, cut biceps, and a big, bright smile, arrived to take the princesses. He opened the door and eyed one of them and smiled at her. Late that night, before he drove away, the princess pretended she had left something in the car, and she leaned over the front seat, gave him a big tip, and asked him to meet her at another hotel.

At the appointed hour, he came back all dressed up, cleaned, shaved, and wearing cologne. Inside the hotel bar, the princess was already seated, waiting for him. The driver didn’t recognize her at first, because she was wearing a short skirt and high heels and smoking behind a whisky glass. She waved him over, bought a drink or two, and took him upstairs, where they drank and fucked all night. She was head over heels in love with him. Her screams of ecstasy rang and echoed all over the town. The next day, I brought them cocaine from a dealer on Main Street and they sniffed and fucked all that night as well. Before the princess went back home, she gave the driver a cheque and a postal address and asked him never to call, but to write.

Number 79 wrote to her, each time with a different story asking for financial support or help. War stories, family sagas, the death of his mother, the breakdown of his car, and in no time, he would receive a cheque in the mail to assist him with his troubles. His biggest coup was to ask for lawyers’ fees because he was about to be deported, and if he was deported he would be dragged into the army and forced to fight, and he could well be killed. Immediately, a big fat cheque was couriered to him.