Carnival Read online

  These are the good times, when I excavate the traces of the night and all the things that were missed. People lose things and let go of things while they tell you the most sincere stories of their lives. I picked up a gambler once who wept and cried and blamed his wife for his addiction. Three nights he had stayed out playing cards and now he was going back home. When we arrived at his house, it was the middle of the night. He asked me to come inside with him. I will tell my wife to pay you and she will know that I lost it all, he said. I stood at the entrance watching the woman screaming and breaking dishes while his kids cried in their pyjamas under the archways of the doors.

  ZAINAB

  AND MY NEXT-DOOR neighbour’s name is Zainab. Studious, forever calm, quiet and smiling Zainab, the librarian type with burning lava inside that could burst in your face, ignite you, and deform you into an anatomical wonder.

  Zainab! Oh Zainab, who fears the afterlife, is never made up, hardly colourful, she plays the austere, the intellectual . . . she seems on the conservative side, but I know that behind it all, there is a riddle that has to be cracked. Everything about her seems to be saying, Listen, if you don’t look attentively, if you don’t go beyond my simplicity to detect the simmering volcano in me, you are not it. Carpet merchants, buffoons on ropes, caretakers with leather jackets, taxi drivers with eccentric mannerisms, and all those men willing to stick a feather up their ass and do the peacock rounds are entertaining, but not it.

  I could be wrong, but I assume that Zainab is looking for the brooding type who goes to caves and mountains and waits for God’s revelation through the smoke of a pack of cigarettes; or maybe even the concise type whose every word seems prophetic and profound and resonates with the majestical voice of heavenly trumpets. Or maybe a moustached man playing the lead in an Egyptian soap opera with his hair combed into a side part, posing in his castle with his long sideburns, dressed in a shiny nightgown, holding a cigarette, puffing and echoing, echoing, echoing away: Masr oum el dounia. Egypt, the mother of the universe . . .

  I often cross paths with Zainab in the mornings. She and I chat a bit, politely, and then I tell her a story or two about my night on the job. She often giggles or laughs, or else just smiles and listens, and we follow this up by discussing books and such diverse topics as the savageries of histories and the make-believes of mankind, life and its absurdities, and then literature and other pretentious intellectual matters pertaining to death and migration, among other losses, and that is when her smiles turn into contemplative looks and she remembers that she has to go back to her books and her studies.

  And usually, just before she leaves me, I ask, or insinuate, something about meeting for a coffee, or dinner and a glass of red wine at my place, or, to take things slowly, a meal at a restaurant of her choice, but each time she smiles and tells me that she doesn’t have the time. She is busy with her job at the National Library, she explains, and her dissertation takes the rest of her days.

  Zainab told me once that her degree is in Islamic studies and that the word jihad comes from ijtihad, which means to apply oneself, to question, and to reform. She even noted down the names of some writers for me, Mohamed Abdo, Al-Ghazali, but before she could add others, right off the bat I said, But Zainab, darling, God is dead! The other day I killed him myself. I hit him with my cab while he was crossing the street on a red light. I say he should have known better, him being God and all . . . And just before he closed his eyes, just before he mumbled his last prayers to himself, he said to me: Son, it was an honour to meet you, son. It was good that you killed Me now, because this whole charade of popes with triangular buffoon hats and shepherd’s sticks, not to mention the ever-multiplying lot of carpet kneelers and myopic seekers of long-vanished temples and lost tribes with a bad sense of direction, has become uncontrollable. And then, for no apparent reason, or maybe for an apparent reason, he switched to French and said, Look, my son, as you might well know, those desert lots of Semitic Arabs, Syriacs, Aramaics, Nestorians, Nabateans, and Jews got it all wrong, and the worst of it is, they took it north, south, and lateral. They made it all about food and pussy, like Hollywood fitness trainers putting a fading star on an exercise regimen and a strict diet. Those Abrahamic progeny are obsessed with nutriment mixes and covering and shaving and twisting women’s hair to regulate the cycles of the cunt . . . yes, you heard Me, I said cunt, not count . . . They got it all wrong, that bunch of archaic literates, and now they are trying to patch it with bits of poetry and apologetic explanations because they can’t see beyond the sand dunes on the tips of my giant sandals, which, I believe, as a result of this unfortunate or fortunate accident of ours, might well be found on the other side of the road . . . make sure to bury them with Me!

  And Zainab, bewildered, smiled, chuckled, and shook her head in disbelief, and she left me once again to my own mind and its ever-swirling circuit of fires and hells.

  MORNING

  EVERY MORNING, AND I want to say to you every morning, after Zainab bounces down the stairs on her ever-bending knees, on her way to school under the call of distant minarets and the faraway sound of bygone calls to prayer, every morning I open my palm towards the sun, lie down on my father’s carpet, and happily masturbate.

  I am a good neighbour and a welcoming soul. In my early-morning dreams, I invite everyone to take part in my creation and recreation of world events: the universal injustices, the pounding motion of the stars, and all of this anthropophagical existence. In my fantasies, I unveil the ludicrous, the farcical, the senseless weight of histories. I have climbed donjons and walls, slain guardians and monsters alike; I have participated in battles and jerked my hand to the systematic rhythm of war drums, the bleak tunes of marching flutes, and the blowing flags of the vagina armies ready to conquer and duplicate the universe a millionfold. I pound and pound until I hear the humming abyss of the rosy holes, the cannibalistic cunts of mammals and dinosaurs, the leaping legs of the lady frog, the latent hazy breasts of promiscuous albino sisters liberating their kind from the condemnation of the sanctus doctrinalis . . .

  There is always a box of Kleenex next to my bed, as there is inside my taxi. Also there are slippers, and mountains and mountains of books. When the fantasy is right, when the world is rescued and saved by the ecstasy of my creation, when every word is valued, every conversation timed, and every bullet hits its target, when the folly of history comes to a fitting end and short dictators are slain on Christmas Day by orphans with guns, it makes me happy and I can ejaculate far and beyond. I can spray-paint walls with thick, dewy rhapsodies and white dripping masses of abstract figures. Once in a while I ejaculate too far, hit my own eyes, and blind myself. Seeking water, I walk towards the sound of the clanging pipes, the rusty faucets of the old building, where I find myself again inside large prisons and filthy common baths, in showers devoid of soap, because it’s war, and all the prisoners, barefooted, skinny, huddle in the cold, buried by the shouts of the guards and the barks of the dogs.

  But luckily for them, those frail victims of history and man, when I finally reach the river and wash away the dirt that has got into my eye, I walk through the cold towards the barbed wire, a metal net lit from behind by the guards’ torches, and I save those poor prisoners and free the girl. (Please note that it could happen that I jerk off more than once a day.)

  But in my real life, when I meet Zainab on the stairs, we politely exchange politenesses, and with bashful smiles and downcast eyes and the distance of a few steps between us, not to mention the demarcation of a handrail to save us from temptation, I try to engage her in conversation and I ask her about her life and she asks me about mine.

  Once Zainab asked me where I came from. I told her that I grew up in the circus, but one day my father, who was a flying carpet pilot, left us to go east on a pilgrimage to find his God and His ninety-nine adjectives.

  She asked me if I was a Muslim, and I said, Yes and no, because I drink and lust, I caress pe
rforming dogs on holidays, I devour pink swine, and I never kneel to the east or to the west.

  And your mother, Zainab asked.

  My mother was a trapeze artist, I told her, a weaver of ropes, who loved for dwarves to nibble on the backs of her knees. She locked me in the back room when the clowns came to provide us with a little extra change for food and cotton candy. She told me that heaven is within our palms and that the inferno is somewhere between the desert and the northern pole.

  And then Zainab asked me my father’s name.

  I forgot that long ago, I said. He left before I had the chance to see him on the ground. But I remember he wore a turban during his flying carpet show, and then one day his carpet came to a halt and crashed in front of a thousand people. And then he thought of humiliation and death and the meaning of life.

  I still remember the tune that went with my father’s flight. It was composed by gypsy Jews and played by a band of menacing Italian rabbits. It sounded like the music that lures snakes out of their baskets to be willingly hypnotized, pacified into doing volunteer work for the boon of the man in the turban and the entertainment of humankind.

  I hate snakes and their wickedness, Zainab said.

  I love the free-spirited snake, I said. I love it because it hangs from branches to offer us wisdom. It warns us of those confining, egotistical false demiurges who order us not to butt-fuck each other under the cactus tree (spikes are known to be painful), not to ejaculate in their kingdom and stain their carpets of fluffy white clouds and giant’s pea trees. I love the snake because it dances looking us straight in the eye, it sheds its skin and leaves quietly.

  And you, dear Zainab, I asked her. Was your father a roamer or your mother a weaver of ropes?

  Yes, she said, my father roamed. He lost his home and became stateless at the age of eighteen. His land was taken and he wandered for a while. But when he met my mother, he stayed and worked and prayed and raised us well.

  And your mother, I asked.

  I won’t talk about my mother or her ordinary life, but feel free, the next time we meet, to go on about yours. And with that, Zainab was gone.

  BOAT

  MY CAR, OR what I call my boat, or sometimes my airplane, my home, or my library, is always clean, always shiny and swept and taken care of, ever ready for passengers on their way to work or honeymoons, to catch a plane or join a cruise with dancing bands and a hospitable staff of bartenders, captains, and single doctors.

  I take pride in the service I provide because I and the likes of me are the carriers of this world, the movers and the linkers. Just try to imagine the fate of any great dynasty without the donkey, the elephant, or the camel’s back. I won’t start about the horse, but do imagine where the Hyksos would be without their chariots, or the Mohammedan invaders without their hunchbacked servants, those magnificent porters of dates, swords, water, and goat’s milk! If it hadn’t been for the services of the camel, the defeated Byzantines would still be arguing and trying to determine the sex of angels while complimenting themselves on the intact orifice of Mary.

  In my car, I hide an elaborate feather duster and a screwdriver. I leave the feather duster under my seat and the screwdriver at my side.

  You see, I took the advice of my friend Mamadou, the Senegalese Spider who hangs out at Café Bolero. He said to me once, Never carry a gun, and don’t carry a knife either. Carry a thick stick with ostrich feathers on top, to keep away the filth and the troubled, and a screwdriver to stab with when needed. That way, the police can’t accuse you of violent intent. You can always claim that you were defending yourself with whatever happened to be lying around.

  Still, I drove for years without carrying either, until my car started to collect dust and fall apart, everything started to rattle and shake, and I feared that the mirrors would fall off and the doors would swing open and the very poor would come in and beg for a free ride.

  Like the homeless man I picked up once, on a night when the cold was so cold and the streets were desolate. The man looked as if he was going to collapse. He stood in front of my car, oblivious to the traffic, and the light changed over his shoulder and made him look like a glowing saint. He laid all his plastic bags in the middle of the road, raised his arms like Jesus, and begged me to take him in. I rolled down the window. He approached me and said: There, and pointed to the sky behind him, I am not going far, please, have pity on my old bones. It is cold, I have no money for the bus and I am hungry, I have to get to the shelter, they are serving soup.

  I let him in. He sat in the front. He piled the bags on his lap and they covered the dashboard and crossed his seat’s border onto mine. He had the smell of the destitute, and he talked about God and his angels. He said he had seen them that night.

  Who, I asked.

  The angels, he said, the angels. And he started to talk, and his lips flapped against each other like featherless wings, describing angels that land on a strip beside the river. His big black garbage bags rattled with empty cans, as if they were full of trapped devils and snakes. I dropped him under the bridge. He got out and immediately started to run, shouting, I will pray for you, I will pray for you, and his bags bounced off his rushing heels.

  Minutes later, when I was making change for a client, I found that the man who had promised me prayers must have slipped his hand out from under his bags and stolen my cash. And the client, who had been telling me all about his kid’s school and his wife, and who had been complaining about the high crime rate in this city, now started to go on about taxi drivers and how they never have change. I think you do it on purpose, the man said, you get a bigger tip that way.

  Suspicious, I thought, people are suspicious, inconsiderate citizens.

  They all come with large bills. They press them over our shoulders and wave them with a rich man’s pride. They get all our change and we get tired of aligning our windows with those of our fellow drivers, flashing fifties at red lights, calling, Brother, do you have change, and we resent stopping at gas stations and buying candy bars to break bills and gain the right to wash our faces in dim, filthy bathrooms with curled toilet paper carpeting the wet floors like morning confetti in the aftermath of carnivals and fairs.

  Another time, I picked up a skinny lad who wanted to go to the Garage nightclub. I knew that club. I’d been there once, but that is another story. He shivered and talked and shivered and sniffed. And when I looked in my rearview mirror again, I couldn’t see him: I thought he had disappeared right in front of my eyes. And then I checked the bottom of my boat, because I knew that he was the lightweight type who would sink in turbulent waters, and I saw a needle in his hand ready to go.

  He waited for the red light before he dove.

  I stopped the car and watched over him, small and curled, his hand extending over the back of the seat. The car behind me honked and cursed, but a green light should be neglected at times. I dropped my anchor and my boat sat still, and the horns got louder behind me. But I waited until the needle penetrated his vein. I wanted this floating corpse to have his needle land with precision and not be wasted on muscle or bone, and I wanted him to finish and to leave my car and fly, dance, live, and escape for a short while. I don’t judge those who can’t dream, those who need to pierce their arms to create different worlds under their skin, because I am fortunate in the tools of my escapes. I could, at any minute, dock my car under a bridge and, like a comic book hero, have my freedom fighter suit slapped on me in no time, fly above the ruins of men, and let my happiness come right into my hand.

  Pick it up, I said to him. Do not leave that junk in my car. Show it to me, I said.

  He did, and then he opened the door, got out, and walked to the closest wall to embrace it.

  GUNS

  THERE ARE CERTAIN kinds of men that a driver has to watch out for: Quiet men whose paths have narrowed. Those who have been taken for long rides and sickening turns. Those who bring
vomit, misery, lice, and stupor from the stained mattresses of crack houses and jails.

  Last night, I picked up a couple.

  The man looked like a mean motherfucker. His girlfriend had bags, many shopping bags. She talked and he kept quiet, barely nodding, looking at me in the mirror, then looking outside, closing his eyes, hanging his head under the weight of his girlfriend’s babbles and complaints.

  A full moon, she said. Tonight, baby, let’s go on the roof and look at it.

  And then some trivialities about girlfriends and dresses and so forth. The man asked her to shut the fuck up, but that made her shout and shake her index finger in his face. When we arrived, he paid me; he told me to keep the change and I thanked him. He barely acknowledged my thanks. Too cool, too generous, too wealthy, too above women’s bitching and the fare’s leftovers.

  I drove away, arranging the cash inside my pockets, splitting off the large bills and sticking them inside the glove compartment, positioning the coins at my side. I hate it when my pockets jingle with money. Its heaviness reminds me that my thighs will be ground into the seat for many hours to come.

  A few blocks later, I glanced in the mirror and saw the tip of a handle on the back seat. The lady had left her bags. I pulled over and searched through them. Everything was too shiny or too wide. If my mother were still alive I would have offered her the glittering outfits to wear on the ropes. If Pinky the clown were still around I would have given him the baggy pants, the baggy shirt, and the colourful hats. It is admirable how humans think of friends and family first in times of looting and quick grabs.