Adam Thirlwell - Politics

Anjali, with the palm facing up, as she had observed in her educational photos, introduced the first and second fingers of her right hand. She did this very slowly. She moved very very slowly. She got nearly as deep as the knuckle. And simultaneously, with a delicate first finger of her left hand, she delicately touched Nana’s clitoris. This went on for minutes. Then she slid in her third finger. It slid in surprisingly quickly. It slid in so quickly that Anjali decided to add the thumb in too. The thumb should be lain flat above the fingers, in a position known as the ‘duckbill’. Anjali formed the duckbill. Nana moaned. She moaned, this time, in pleasure. It was, she thought, the most extraordinary thing. And Anjali pushed. She slowly pushed, curving her little finger inside as well.

Gradually, gradually, Anjali’s right hand slipped in. Her hand was inside Nana up to the base of the fingers. She was finally fisting her.

Then Moshe walked in.

They all carried on as normal.

Moshe sat on the wooden desk chair by his little black Formica desk. He sat on the chair and picked up the nearest book — unconcerned, frightened, turned on. He began to read. The nearest book turned out to be the hardback Collected Stories of Saul Bellow, as recommended, according to Anjali, by Elle. Moshe did not buy books. He thought they were too expensive. He might browse and quite like one in a bookshop but then he would look at the price and that was it. Moshe would put the book down. He glanced at the dust-jacket flap of Saul Bellow’s Collected Stories . Twenty pounds! he thought, astonished. Twenty pounds! But he read it. He read about the life of the Jewish male in America.

Nana, being fisted, looked at the picture of a Cadillac, snowbound, in Chicago, on the cover of Saul Bellow’s collected stories. It was something else to think about. She grunted. Anjali was unfolding and clenching her fingers in Nana’s vagina. And this was a fundamental pleasure for Nana. She grunted. Anjali smiled approvingly.

But Nana was finding it hard to relax with her boyfriend reading contemporary American literature while she was being fisted. And she was worried about the orgasm. She was worried that now was not the time for her to reach her first ever sociable orgasm. Anjali was pleasurable but also painful. So Nana decided that, for an experiment, they had done remarkably well. They had discovered a special treat. But now it was time to stop. ‘I think that’s enough,’ said Nana. She gasped it. And Anjali, because Anjali is gentle, I do not want you to think she was not gentle, smiled at Nana and nodded. She tucked a finger from her left hand into Nana’s vagina, at the base, underneath Anjali’s own right hand. And she pushed down on Nana’s vagina. This was to let some air out. This was to release the vacuum.

Moshe put Saul Bellow down. He laid out his arms on the arms of the chair, then let them drop over, uncomfortable, heavy. He went to make everyone tea.

13

A while ago, I mentioned the surrealists. I mentioned their conversations about sex. Perhaps surrealism is creeping in here again. This kind of situation — where a boy watches his girlfriend being fisted by another girl, while reading Saul Bellow, and then makes three cups of tea — is often called surreal. A different raconteur from me might say ‘It was all so surreal.’ In fact, that was exactly what both

Moshe and Anjali were thinking. As Moshe made tea, and Anjali relaxed, they were both wryly thinking that this was very surreal.

But what is surreal?

The person who coined the word ‘surrealism’ was Guillaume Apollinaire. Guillaume was a French poet at the start of the twentieth century. He coined it in a programme note for the ballet Parade — with scenario by Jean Cocteau, choreography by Leonide Massine, decor by Pablo Picasso, and music by Erik Satie. Six weeks later, he used the word again, in a programme note to his own play, The Breasts of Tiresias. This was his definition of a surrealist: ‘When man wanted to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. Without knowing it, he was a Surrealist.’

I am not sure this definition gets us very far. According to this definition, Anjali and Moshe were probably wrong. It does not seem very similar to the invention of the wheel — a boy making tea for his girlfriend and her girlfriend, having watched them fisting.

Apart from his poems, the most famous thing written by Guillaume Apollinaire was a porn novel, called The Eleven Thousand Rods. In The Eleven Thousand Rods, lots of people get psychopathically raped whipped and killed by a human sexual automaton, called Mony. It is not a very good novel. In it, there are lots of sentences like this: ‘When he had reached the climax, he took the sabre and, clenching his teeth and without ceasing the buggery, cut the head off the little Chinese boy, whose last spasms procured him a huge ejaculation while blood spouted from his neck like water from a fountain.’

However, some people reckon that this porn novel also defines surrealism. Apparently, this novel shows how, in reality, there is no such thing as psychological motivation, or moral consideration. It shows that, if we were authentic, we would realise that the world is, in essence, surreal.

I think that these people are stupid. Did Guillaume Apollinaire deflower Chinese boys anally and then behead them? No. This is because there was a fatal flaw in the whole argument of surrealism. It is this.

Nothing in reality is surreal. Only the ‘surreal’ is surreal.

For instance, the day after Nana was ferociously fisted by Anjali, when the menage had lasted for about two months, Papa had a stroke.

Now, I can imagine that you were not expecting this. I imagine that this comes as a sad surprise. It is difficult to expect illness. But I do think that it was possible to guess. There were Papa’s headaches on holiday. There was the clue I gave you on the gondola in Venice. There was his dizziness. I even mentioned it at the start of Chapter 2.

But whatever it was, it was not surreal. No. Nothing is surreal.

Guillaume Apollinaire, for example, did not die after a sadistic homosexual rape. No. He died of flu.

14

‘Look can you talk,’ said Nana. ‘Yeah yeah yeah,’ said Moshe. ‘Well for five minutes. Mon a break.’ ‘Well he’s fine now,’ she said. ‘They’re saying he’s fine.’ ‘No wait I can’t hear you,’ he said. ‘Wait. Well what happened?’ said Moshe.

‘It might be a tumour,’ she said. ‘A tumour a fucking a tumour?’ screeched Moshe. ‘Christ,’ he said.

‘It might be,’ she said. Moshe said, ‘Really? What? But how long’s he?’ And she said, ‘The doctors won’t say. They don’t know. But he hadn’t felt like himself for a bit, he said. Well he was starting to do all sorts of funny things. I mean at least this explains it. All the headaches,’ she said.

Moshe inadvertently checked whether he had a headache. He could not help it. He, yes, he no no no, he, no.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘he phoned me that time — I told you — and said he couldn’t make a cup of tea. I said “What do you mean?” He said “The tea bag’s gone.” I said “What do you mean?”’ ‘Where are you?’ said Moshe. ‘I’m in resepshon,’ she said. ‘I said “What do you mean?” He’d put the tea bag in the kettle, hadn’t he?’ She said, ‘It was funny he was more himself after they’d operated. He was naughtier. He kept flirting with a nurse.’ Moshe said, ‘But he’s fine.’ She said, ‘He’s naughtier. He kept complaining that the doctor only cared about her date stamp.’ ‘Her date stamp?’ said Moshe. ‘I know,’ she said.