Hassan Blasim - The Corpse Exhibition - And Other Stories of Iraq

In the morning the man woke up smiling, then he saw his smile in the mirror. It seemed to have stayed stuck there after the dream. Once, in an unusual discussion with a member of the Association for the Defense of the Luckless, he said:

“I didn’t want my wife and daughter to see me smiling like an idiot for no reason. It was an insignificant smile. It was wide, but it didn’t show my damaged teeth. My lips were sealed like the lips of a clown. I rubbed my face with soap and water, but the smile was still stuck there. I brushed my teeth three times, but it stayed there like indelible ink. I thought, ‘Maybe it will disappear as the day proceeds, as the snow melts on a sunny morning.’ I don’t know how such thoughts occurred to me. Then suddenly I felt intensely hot, although the season was winter. I put on a light sports shirt printed on the back with a picture of a black crow standing on a basketball. The ball was marked like a map of the world. I put on a clean pair of jeans and my black winter coat. I resolved to solve the mystery of that smile. The wife and daughter have put up with much — I worry I might drive them mad — because I’ve had a succession of disasters in this world. I’m not luckless, so stop sticking that stupid label on me.

“The snow was dancing down. It was amazing and beautiful. For the first time the sky was so munificent, when it yielded all these jewels to me. I had known feelings like these before. You wake up and smell a morning, then you think, ‘Life still suits me.’ There are disguised moments of sadness that hide in various clothes and smells. You get drunk and weep and think you have cleared away a large rock blocking the channels of your day, which had come to an end with a painful blow. A man I don’t know passed close by me, wearing a heavy winter coat, a woolen scarf wrapped around his neck, and on his head a black hat, on which the snowflakes had gathered. He kept looking and turning toward me with a smile as he walked in the opposite direction. I wanted to return his smile. I passed my fingers along my lips. So I didn’t need a new smile. I made do with turning toward him quickly to offer him in return that dream smile of mine.

“I went into the Chinese restaurant to have some tea and check up on the smile in the mirror. I saw two old lesbians doing the crossword puzzle. I sent my wife a second message on my phone, telling her I would be back a little late and would go straight to the shops to buy the vacuum cleaner. I had to find a solution for the damned smile. I thought of going to the hospital. Perhaps I’m ill and the smile is just an alarm bell. But instead of that I found myself going into a cinema and buying a ticket. I felt a nasty fever spreading through my body. There were some girls under a large poster of next week’s film. What stood out was Dracula’s fangs and the blood running down from the corners of his mouth. There was a smile on the face of this monster. The girls sat down as though they were in class at school. All of them gave me stiff looks, with a tinge of fear. Then they smiled in turn, from right to left. I was sitting in front of them. I took off my coat and turned my back on them so that they could clearly see the basketball and the crow. Don’t ask me why I did that. Do you have an answer to this damned smile? Then I checked on the features of my face in the mirrors in the foyer. I confess I was somewhat satisfied with this new smile. At least I don’t have to contract my face muscles in order to smile, as other people do. I forgot to tell you that one of the old lesbians told me to keep this beautiful smile because the Finns are gloomy in winter and look depressed, which makes the winter darker and more dreary.

“The film was a disgusting, fast-paced tearjerker. The heroine set fire to her house with her husband and children inside. Now she’s screaming and sobbing in front of the fire and the neighbors have their fingers on their mouths as though they are about to vomit. The elegant lady sitting near me was drowning in tears. She turned slowly toward me and muttered in shock, ‘The pig!’ I turned to her in disbelief. Then she looked at me again but this time disdainfully. She began to look back and forth like an imbecile between the disaster of the heroine in the film and my beaming face. She looked as though she were revolted and wanted to slap me because of my smile. I wanted to explain to her, ‘I’m not smiling at what happened to the woman and her house, lady (although she’s a bitch like you). I woke up this morning and found this smile had been forced upon me.’

“I ignored the woman and tried to pretend I pitied the woman in the film, who took a revolver out of her belt and fired a bullet into her head amid a crowd of people, who quickly dispersed when the fire engines arrived.

“When the lights came on in the cinema, the elegant lady stood up and insulted me, this time out loud. ‘Animal, son of a bitch!’ she shouted.

“The audience turned toward me, but all they did was smile as they looked at my face. Were they smiling at the insult, or at the crow on the ball, or because I answered the woman’s insult with my cold smile? I have to get rid of this smile as soon as possible. My wife called me; I lied and said I was still looking for a suitable vacuum cleaner.

“The snow kept falling, and it sparkled even more when a light wind rose and made it fall at a slant. I was frightened and confused, thinking that this smile might appear when some disaster happens. What if a bus runs over someone now and his guts come out of his ass? Surely there would be a panicky crowd. What if they noticed my smile as I joined them in watching this free spectacle? Without doubt they would give me a thorough beating. How would I explain to them that my smile had nothing to do with what had happened? Or who would put up with you smiling in his face when, for example, his baby was dying of hunger in front of his eyes? Could you calmly explain to him that you are smiling in derision at life, which produced this child without reason and then took it away with a kick in the guts, also without reason? Wouldn’t the father and mother of this child stab you and tear apart this hard-hearted animal? I hurried off to a bar nearby. The body must be protected, not the thoughts. What if you were to lose control over the inherited communal gestures that unite us in fear and in happiness?

“I felt a stomach pain when I went into the bar, which was suspiciously crowded. The Finns start drinking early in the day. My arrival in the bar set off a smile-fest, but the smiles gradually waned and turned into laughs and intermittent comments that were, technically, quick insults. At first I didn’t understand why the bartender hesitated when I ordered a beer. Then he said, ‘You should drink up your beer quickly and leave.’ In turn I looked at the other customers, angry at such an unfriendly reception. What kind of bar is this? I said that out loud, but as you know, I was smiling in spite of myself. Perhaps they had the notion that I was just a tame animal that had taken more than his fair share. There were four young men with shaved heads in black leather jackets. Only then did I realize that this was a neo-Nazi bar. They were making fun of my daring or my stupidity, looking at me between one drink and another and making ugly jokes and insults. Then one of them stood up, took out his cock, and waved it in my face. Everyone burst out laughing, including the bartender. I thought I would keep myself under control, drink the beer quickly, and escape this filthy trap. But I was stupid. I pretended to be brave and indifferent. I sat there like a captain smiling on his ship. But the bartender, that son of a whore, asked me to leave at once, for fear of problems. Of course, I was delighted with this expulsion. And so I left the Nazis’ bar like a frightened mouse.