Raduan Nassar: Ancient Tillage

(Fusing together the glass and metals in my cornea, and tossing out a handful of sand to blind the atmosphere, sometimes I embark on slumber already slept, and through this blurry filter, I discern rudimentary dust, a grindstone, a wooden mortar, an aged masher, extended clotheslines, troughs, ulcerous and worm-eaten from the endless strain of drudgery, a dented cup, in the shadows, a clay jug, perpetually chipped at the spout, and a coffee roaster, cylindrical, smoky, darkened and lamentable, still lethargically cranking away in my memory; I keep on drawing from the well: clay pots, a gourd salt cellar on the windowsill, a diligent milk churn on the doorstep, a clothes iron out in the wind, trying to recover its fever, an agate jug, a wood-burning stove, an enormous, shallow bowl, a taciturn, iron tea pot brooding all day long over the stove; and, from the same bag, I could also take a goat-hide at the foot of the bed, a simple china dish adorning the parlour, a ‘Last Supper’ hanging on the wall, the white covers on the backs of the cane chairs, a curvaceous hat-rack, an old picture frame, a brownish wedding photograph taken with an imaginary background, and I still could draw on many other tiny, powerful fragments that I save in the same trench, as the zealous guardian of the family possessions.)

‘I hadn’t left home yet, Pedro, but Mother’s eyes already reflected her suspicion of my departure,’ I said to my brother, when the initial turmoil of his presence in that boarding-house room had subsided, ‘when I went to her, I wanted to tell her, “Mother, say your goodbyes now without knowing me, and it occurred to me that I could also say, all I did was nestle in your straw womb for nine months and be touched sweetly with your hands and mouth for many years, it was no more than that”; I wanted to say, this is the reason I’m leaving home, this is why I’m going away; so many things, Pedro, I could have told her so many things, but at the time, I could already see old artisans’ prudent hands pointing toward stones and strange, charred landscapes that calloused and thickened the soles of my clay feet; of course, I could have said a lot of things to Mother, but I thought it useless to say anything, it makes no sense, I thought, to leave an exasperated carnation stem in those poor, flour-coated hands, it makes no sense, I thought again, to stain her apron by cutting the cord, slashing the bloody noonday sun, it makes no sense, I thought once again, to tear up sheets and petals, to burn hair and other leaves, filling my drastically carved mouth with the exposed ashes of the family, and that’s why, instead of saying, “Mother, you don’t know me,” I thought it better to stay on that limestone trail, even though I was thirsty, my mouth, dry and salty, I thought it was better to remain locked up before her, like someone with nothing, and in fact I had nothing to say to her; she wanted to say something, and I thought, “Mother has something to say that I might listen to, something to say, perhaps, that should be carefully stored away,” but all I could hear, even without her saying anything at all, were the cracks in the old china of her womb, I heard from her eyes the lacerating cries of a mother in labour, I felt her fruit drying with my hot breath, but I couldn’t do anything, perhaps I could have said something, my eyes were dark, but even so it would have been possible for me to say, for example, “Mother, you and I began to demolish this house, the time has come to throw everything out of the larder window, with all the plates and flies, scrape the wood, shake the foundations, make the vigorous walls vibrate, and, with our bluster, make the roof tiles and our flurrying feathers tumble, like falling leaves”; it would have been possible for me to say, “Let us chip away the bloodstains from our stones with gentle hands, let us add wailing to this rite, the broken lament of the wooden shaker over in the chapel isn’t enough”; it would have been possible, but I’ve already told you, Pedro, my eyes were darker than they’d ever been before, how could I take up the hammer and saw and rebuild the silence of the house and its corridors? But don’t misunderstand me, Pedro, even though my eyes were dark, I, the wayward son, the cause of so much suspicion and fear throughout the family, never dreamt of roads, it never crossed my mind to leave home, it had never occurred to me to travel great distances in search of sensual thrills; understand this, Pedro, from the very beginning of my puberty I knew how much disappointment awaited me beyond the limits of our home,’ I told him, almost drowning in this certainty, taking a deep breath of the spirit of the wine, trying to pull myself together, and between insatiable swigs, I staggered over to a tall, cautious armoire and brought down a box, which I immediately set down near my brother, by that time lost in the hothouse atmosphere of my room, which made the brownish shades of his contemplative gaze drop to the floor, and when I startled him in mid-gesture by opening the box, I thought of saying feverishly, ‘Pedro, Pedro, what I need now is your silence, lift those blinds, expose your eyes, give them free reign, but restrain from exercising the characteristic family strength and caution, and curb the harsh impetus of your tongue, for I shall only revive in your damp silence, only to the accompaniment of that elusive concert, so moisten your lips, mouth and rotting teeth, along with that probe dipping into the pit of your stomach, fill the leather bag held in by your belt, allow the wine to seep out through your pores, for it’s the only way to idolize the obscene,’ is what I meant to say with the voluptuousness of a women’s garter collector, but I ended up saying nothing at all, nor did he, as he abruptly checked his vague gesture, and when I saw my brother nearly finish off his full glass in one large gulp, I thought of saying, ‘Oh, brother, we’re beginning to understand each other, since I can now see your mouth unclogging and, in your eyes, the sweet effect of the wine stimulating the flow of the blue milk spurting from your pupils, the same poisonous milk that at one time irrigated swollen, cancerous nipples,’ but there was no point in admonishing him in that rundown room of mine, the two of us were almost sloshed already, stuffed with grapes, our damp eyes, our glassy beads assiduously glued to the box I’d flipped over, and in so doing, had turned over time itself, going back to the surreptitious nights when I would sneak my burning wrath away from the fazenda , when I would exchange my soft bed at home for the hard road leading to the village, disregarding the wandering nocturnal superstitions along that short route, my flames frightening off both the silent roadside cross and the shady stories barely concealed behind the iron bars of the cemetery gate I would pass, encouraged and steadily strengthened on my outing by my profane adolescent thoughts, ‘Go ahead, Pedro, feel the weight of this most vile object,’ I said, handing him a tacky piece of thin purple velvet ribbon, a choker necklace; ‘this remnant, given to me by my first prostitute, is no more than the unfolding, the subtle prolongation of her sulphurous fingernails, the same nails that scratched my back, exalting my yielding skin, sweet paws running over my most intimate parts, “It’s a crazy shame to see this quivering boy, with such a pure face and such a clean body,” she said to me, “it’s a crazy shame to see a boy with peach fuzz like yours, with a smooth, bare chest, burning in bed like kindling; take what you want from me, keep this grimy little ribbon with you and come back to your nook, little saint,” she said caressingly, laughing and whispering luridly, but that is where I used to go, Pedro, that’s where I went when I slipped away from the fazenda on the hottest nights, to bathe in that insolent faith, I would take communion almost in my sleep, hiding myself from the gentlemen customers, and from the confident ease of all the other boys that also went there, I was awkward in the slimy comfort of those houses and would hide my white feet, clean nails, chalk teeth, neat clothing and smooth, childish face in shame; oh, brother, didn’t I lie down on the blazing tangerine earth, in that drosophila-infested kingdom, didn’t I surrender like a young boy to that orgy of assassin berries? And wasn’t it perchance a precarious peace, the peace that befell me as my body was stretched out on a mattress of poison weeds? Wasn’t it perchance temporary, that other slumber wherein my fingernails were dirty, my feet, numb, lice cut trails through my hair and my armpits were visited by ants? Wasn’t this second slumber perchance temporary, my head crowned with butterflies, fat larvae escaping my bellybutton, my cold forehead covered with insects, and my inert mouth kissing scarabs? Such drowsiness, such a stupor, such a nightmare of an adolescence! What rock is this, after all, that weighs so heavily on my body? There is a mysterious chill in this fire; where will I be taken, one day? Such white stone, such anaemic dust, such a silent field, such lilies, such tall cypress trees, such long laments, so many ringing wails tolling away at my adolescent body! Very often, Pedro, very often I used to say that there is a funereal silence in everything that goes on, a virtuous alchemy in this unusual mixture, how can this movement be so restful? Often I thought that I should not think at all, that I had already had my fill of this business of thinking, floundering in the saintly witchcraft of the infinite, that’s why I often thought I shouldn’t take the pensive route, that this should not be my chosen vice in the scheme of things, that I should at most, lay my head down on a pillow of foam, lean back on a mat of leaves, close my eyes and let myself flow with the current, my busy hands skimming aimlessly through algae forests, through floating excrement and thick mud; but every once in a while I would allow myself to escape frivolously from this sleep and ask myself, where will I be taken one day? Pedro, my brother, feast your eyes on these buried memories, on these purple mysteries, on the most playful collection from this dark well: these wilted cloth flowers, this crumpled orchid, this pair of pink garters, this bracelet, these baubles, on all of these trinkets that I always paid for with change stolen from Father; come hither into these objects that lulled me to sleep, saved only so that I could spread them out one day, objects kept buried away in this box so that one day I might dig down and spread them all over the dirt and think to myself, looking back, it was a long, long, but a very long adolescence! Pedro, Pedro the blots in my eyes led me to those denigrated houses, by restoring myself there I could rid myself of my venom, this obscure slime, this excessively panted after, feebly blasted yolk, but I never once, spying persistently through the doors and windows, I never once, peering through the beaded curtains and red glow of the lamps, caught sight of the salt, the Host, the love of our cathedral! Take this with you, Pedro,’ I screamed, ‘take all these scraps home and, tempered with looks of astonishment, tell them how you pieced together the story of the son, the story of the brother; then place an order for a very warm night, or simply a very full moon; spread aromas throughout the yard, create aphrodisiac balms; then assemble our sisters, have them dress up in revealing muslins, and have them wear strappy sandals on their feet; paint their placid cheeks in crimson, their eyelids in green, and their lashes in dark charcoal; adorn their pale, misty arms, their bare necks and their pious fingers, place a few of these simple beads on those ivory statues; see to it that the most subtle of earrings nibble at their earlobes and that carefully designed supports stimulate their breasts; and don’t forget their gestures, have them develop a languorous carriage, lay open their cleavage, expose portions of their thighs, create fatal fetishes for their ankles; revolutionize the mechanics of the body, have thick, pestilent bodily fluids flow from those newly red, debauched lips; take these gifts with you and when you get there, announce solemnly, “From the beloved brother for his sisters,” and say, this is important, say, “Be very careful, very careful in taking these things out of the bag, for, along with the presents, in payment for Father’s sermons, our wayward brother also sends heavy, scornful laughter,” come on, Pedro, put it in the bag,’ I screamed in gratified rage, witnessing the sudden change coming over him, a rust-red spark flashing through his eyes, his hand flailing through the air frighteningly, the same hand that had been so confident, so prepared to succeed our father’s hand, but all at once everything went blank, suddenly I felt his eyes shattering, my brother was discreetly lamenting my dementia, far from realizing that thus perceived I was twice blessed: before I’d journeyed only halfway into lucid darkness, but now I was fully liberated in my insanity; I wanted to tell him: ‘Temper that hand with a strong voice, restrained tenderness and the right words, run it caressingly through my hair, protect my neck, under these circumstances, this is what Father would do, severely’; it also occurred to me, as I refilled our glasses, that I could aptly encourage him by saying, for example, ‘Dilate your pupils, set your eyes agog, take my hand in yours, brother, and let’s go.’