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

BEFORE TAKING OUT HIS KNIFE HE SAID, “After studying the client’s file you must submit a brief note on how you propose to kill your first client and how you will display his body in the city. But that doesn’t mean that what you propose in your note will be approved. One of our specialists will review the proposed method and either approve it or propose a different method. This system applies to professionals in all phases of their work — even after the training phase has ended and you have taken the test. In all phases you will receive your salary in full. I don’t want to go into all the details now. I’ll brief you on things gradually. After you receive the client’s file you cannot ask questions as you could before. You have to submit your questions in writing. All your questions, proposals, and written submissions will be documented in your personal file. You absolutely may not write to me about work matters by e-mail or call me on the phone. You will write your questions on a special form that I will provide you with later. The important thing is that you now devote your time to studying the client’s file carefully and patiently.

“I want to reassure you that we won’t stop dealing with you even if you fail in your first assignment. If you fail you’ll be transferred to work in another department at the same salary. But I must remind you once again: Giving up the job after you receive your first salary payment would be unacceptable and would not succeed. There are strict conditions for that, and if the management agrees to sever relations with you, you would have to undergo many tests, which could last a long time. In the archives we have files we preserve about volunteers and other agents who decided to terminate their contracts on their own initiative. If you’re thinking of doing that, we’ll show you some examples of the experiences of others. I’m confident you’ll be able to persevere with the work and enjoy it. You’ll see how your whole life will change.

“This is your first present; don’t open it now. It’s your pay in full. As for the documentaries about the lives of predatory animals, you can buy them and we’ll cover the expenses later. Pay particular attention to the images of the victims’ bones.

“Always remember, dear friend, that we are not terrorists whose aim is to bring down as many victims as possible in order to intimidate others, nor even crazy killers working for the sake of money. We have nothing to do with the fanatical Islamist groups or the intelligence agency of some nefarious government or any of that kind of nonsense.

“I know you now have some questions that are nagging you, but you will gradually discover that the world is built to have more than one level, and it’s unrealistic for everyone to reach all the levels and all the basements with ease. Don’t forget the senior positions that await you in the hierarchy of the institution if you have an imagination that is fresh, fierce, and striking.

“Every body you finish off is a work of art waiting for you to add the final touch, so that you can shine like a precious jewel amid the wreckage of this country. To display a corpse for others to see is the ultimate in the creativity we are seeking and that we are trying to study and benefit from. Personally I can’t stand the agents who are unimaginative. We have, for example, an agent whose code name is Satan’s Knife, that I wish those in charge would get rid of as soon as possible. This guy thinks that cutting off the client’s limbs and hanging them from the electrical wires in the slum neighborhoods is the height of creativity and inventiveness. He’s just a conceited fool. I hate his classical methods, although he talks about a new classicism. All this lightweight does is paint the client’s body parts and hang them from invisible threads, the heart in dark blue, the intestines green, the liver and testicles yellow. He does this without understanding the poetry of simplicity.

“When I tell you some of the details I see that puzzled look in your eyes. Calm down, breathe deep, listen to the rhythm of your secret spirit calmly and patiently. Let me explain some points to you more clearly to dispel some of the misapprehensions you may have. Let me waste some time with you. What I tell you may be just personal impressions, and another member of the group may have a quite different opinion.

“I like concision, simplicity, and the striking image. Take Agent Deaf, for example. He’s calm, and he has a smart, lucid eye, and my favorite work of his was that woman who was breast-feeding. One rainy winter’s morning a crowd of passersby and drivers stopped to look at that woman. She was naked and fat, and her child, also naked, was suckling at her left breast. He put the woman under a dead palm tree in the central reservation of a busy street. There was no trace of a wound or a bullet on the woman’s body or on the baby’s. She and her baby looked as alive as a brook of pure water. That’s a genius we lack in this century. You should have seen the woman’s enormous tits and how thin the baby was, like a pile of bones painted the color of bright white baby skin. No one could work out how the mother and her child were killed. Most people speculated that he used some mysterious poison that has not yet been classified. But you should read in the archives in our library the brief, poetic report that Deaf wrote on this extraordinary work of art. He now holds an important position in the group. He deserves much more than that.

“You must understand properly that this country presents one of the century’s rare opportunities. Our work may not last long. As soon as the situation stabilizes we’ll have to move on to another country. Don’t worry, there are many candidates. Listen, in the past we offered new students like you classical lessons, but now things are much changed. We’ve started to rely on the democracy and spontaneity of the imagination, and not on instruction. I studied a long time and read many boring books justifying what we do before I was able to work professionally. We used to read studies that spoke about peace, studies written with really disgusting eloquence. There were many naive and unnecessary analogies to justify everything. One of them was about how all the medicines at the pharmacy, even plain old toothpaste, were produced after laboratory tests on rats and other animals, so it would not be possible to bring about peace on this earth without sacrificing laboratory humans as well. Old lessons like these were boring and frustrating. Your generation is very lucky in this age of golden opportunities. A film actress licking an ice cream might give rise to dozens of photographs and news reports that reach the most remote village ravished by famine in this world, this grindstone of screaming and dancing. This at least achieves what I call ‘the justice of discovering the insignificance and equivocal essence of the world.’ How much more so a corpse displayed creatively in the city center!

“Perhaps I’ve told you too much, but let me tell you frankly that I’m worried about you, because you’re either an idiot or a genius, and agents like that excite my curiosity. If you’re a genius, that would be gratifying. I still believe in genius, although most members of the group talk about experience and practice. And if you’re an idiot, let me tell you before I go a short and useful story about one idiot who naively tried to mess with us. I didn’t even like his nickname—‘the Nail.’ After the committee had approved the way the Nail proposed to kill his client and display his body in a large restaurant, we waited for results. But this guy was very slow about finishing off his work.