by Rawi Hage
I tell you, though, we had to train these workers. Like I said, some of them are nice, but some are angry and disappointed with life. They come to this land thinking that they have made it, escaped the misery of their homes, but then they get stuck in awful jobs. I mean, my job is hard too, but I try to keep it clean and interesting, as much as I can. But these men, they are immersed in blood all day and it is cold in those factories, with hard conditions and long hours. After they finish their shifts, they go back to their complexes and shower and sleep; that is all they do, that is all there is. Some have been doing it for years. Once they threw a party at the dormitory and they invited us. The food was amazing. Some of them were very good cooks. They all dressed up and, when we entered, they came one by one and kneeled and kissed our hands and offered us flowers and wine in plastic cups and they treated us like queens. When we first started the project, some of them were aggressive. Their lives had gone from one humiliation to the next. But later, they learned to respect us and love us. The smart ones among them try to save a bit of money or send it back home, and they do better because they have some sense of accomplishment, the small reward of knowing that their relatives or family are better off. But others, at the end of the month they get drunk and blow it all on poker machines, booze, or drugs. At first we refused many of them. Drunk, rowdy, we would just say no. Maggie, my partner in this, whom I adore, knows the working class. She grew up in a destitute small town. She watched her father and uncles lose their jobs. She taught me a great deal about how to handle these guys. She is so impressive. She shouts at them and they become like little boys.
Once, a Moroccan guy entered Maggie’s room. All macho, sure of himself, well-built, and dismissive. He acted boastful and condescending. He barely said a word to her, and then he took off his clothes and pointed to the bed.
Maggie said, We are going to talk first.
Okay, he said.
Good, I see you understand English. So here it is: I am not going to sleep with you because you have no respect for women.
He was very surprised, maybe because no woman had ever talked to him that way.
In Morocco, you guys treat your women like dogs, Maggie said to him. Here, even a prostitute like me has to be respected.
Une putain de raciste, he called her.
Well, okay, I am a fucking racist and that is how it is, she said. Now you pick up your clothes and leave or I’ll let someone come and kick you out. We are charging you close to nothing out of the goodness of our hearts. If I was a racist, I wouldn’t come all the way here to make your miserable life a bit more bearable. We girls could be somewhere else, in fancy hotels with champagne, charging five times more for this. It is out of the goodness of our hearts that we come here every month. And all your friends know it and they are appreciative. Now pick up your clothes and get out.
Now this tall Arab stood up and looked at the ground, and tears started to run from his eyes. He tried to apologize. But Maggie grabbed his arm and said, That still won’t save you. Come next month with a better attitude and we’ll see. I tell you, the Arab left like a little baby who misses his mother.
We do it as an offering to the poor, Sally said. There is something grand about degrading one’s body for a higher purpose. I’ve grown to love these workers. They come, happy to see us. Their smiles are wide open. It is the highlight of their month. I have one Mexican, he kneels on the bed every time and prays before he takes off his clothes, and again after we are done. And then he kisses my hand and crosses himself and leaves. He doesn’t speak a word of English. But I understand what he does. He and I are the same. I do it out of humanity and he sleeps with me so he’s able to carry on with his life, so he can support his family back home. But when I do my escort shifts, things are different. The moment my phone rings, I become a different person. I am not me, I become, how can I put it . . . temporary, oblivious, separate . . . my body has no importance, it’s only a passageway, I say to myself. The car from the agency comes, I go to the meeting place and face those customers. I have more problems with those bureaucrats and rich men than I’ve ever had with the factory workers. But if I have any trouble, I press a single button on the phone and the giant driver from the agency is at the door, breaking it down in a second.
As time went by, I got to see what a lovable, intelligent, and ordinary person Sally was. I slowly started to get attached to her and she knew it. And then one night, while working as an escort, she met a handsome young lawyer. After they were done, he paid her and she went back to the limousine trembling and crying. She assured the giant driver that she was fine. She arrived home and she called me. She was scared. I don’t know what got into me, Fly. I did a stupid thing. Here is this intelligent, rich, young, beautiful lawyer. We talked and I slept with him without any protection. I don’t know what got into me, she said again. I’ve never been so reckless. I called the driver to tell him that I was extending the hours, I even covered them myself. I didn’t want to leave. I think I am in love with this man. He refused to give me his number. I guess he is married, like so many of them, or maybe just judgmental. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, Fly, she said.
The next Thursday, I waited for Sally outside the club but she didn’t show up. I asked the bouncers, who knew me by then, and they said that she’d quit. I called her phone and it was disconnected. I went by her place and asked around. The caretaker told me she was gone. She had paid her last month’s rent and left, he said.
I never saw Sally again. For months, I looked all over for her. I even went to the meat-packing town and found the motel at the end of the road. I bribed the receptionist. He was a big, unshaven Turk. I bribed him because I know the histories of empires and their subjects; the Ottoman Empire was notorious for a system based on bribery, I read all about it in a book written by a British traveller and I still have the book in my library: to be precise, on the second shelf from the bottom at the entrance to the bathroom, with the rest of the orientalists’ literature.
When I asked the Turk about the Magdalena girls, he said that the fiesta had ceased. The three girls didn’t book the rooms anymore, and the workers had stopped showing up. Except for a tall Arab, he said, who comes at the end of the month, rents a room for the night, and sits on the ledge of the window and smokes.
THE BEARDED LADY
WHEN MY MOTHER woke up, that day my father left, and didn’t see the camel and its saddles, she fell to the floor and pulled her hair and screamed. The dog, the chimp, and the horse circled around her and scooped up her tears, patted her arms, and licked her face into consciousness. The strongman carried her to bed, and I watched as the bearded lady caressed my mother’s face and covered her forehead with wet towels. My mother became so weak that I started to eat my meals, take my naps, and do my homework in the bearded lady’s tent. And when I asked about my mother at night, before my bedtime, La Dame, as the bearded lady called herself onstage, would say, Your mother is in a parallel world. Eat and let me tell you a story.
She began reading to me from French classics. We wept for Cosette in Les misérables, we laughed at Le malade imaginaire of Molière, we read Les fables de La Fontaine to the monkey.
Once I saw the bearded lady taking a shower and I asked her why she had a penis like mine and breasts like my mother’s. She came close to me and said, Because I am everything. Men want to be men and women want to be women, but there are those who are both and neither at the same time. One day when you grow up, the world will tell you that there is only this or that. When you leave and live among those people who applaud and cheer your mother and me on the stage, you will notice how different we are, and what a magical childhood you had. Here in these circuses and carnivals we all love each other with our oddities and queernesses. People leave us alone because we mesmerize them with tricks, tickle them with feathers, tie them up in wonder and hope. We never let them know that we read books, that we love everyone and accept everything, that ou
r bodies are free, that we travel, resist, and fight and that we give refuge to convicts and revolutionaries, that we have saved gypsies and Jews. We never let them know that we untie ropes, that we train horses to dance without the weight of armour or swords, and we keep it a secret that the strongman loves the cannon man, that they cook dinner for one another, that they share the same bed, and that every time the cannon man is up in the air with smoke trailing from his feet, the strongman waits on the other side to catch him if he falls. And, my little child, do not tell a soul that we are knowers and non-believers. We know that after this grand act of life nothing is left but the dust beneath the elephants’ feet and the sound of the monkeys’ clapping. When they come to you with prophets and promises of heavens of honey and milk, remember that we are no more than flowers having our last glance at the world before we die, with grace and with gratitude for the wonders we witnessed, for the magic box we built, the animals we loved, the carpets we flew, the stars that we encountered after the spectacle ended and the spectators were left to lament and to wait for the coming of their phantom trains to take them to their imaginary heavens . . .
Then, late one night, my mother wailed and shouted and ran between the tents. She tried to open the locks of the cage and throw herself to the lions, but the lion tamer came to her rescue and covered her naked body with a quilt. And again I stayed with the bearded lady, whom I loved and whose beard I kissed every morning before she offered me bread, butter, and milk.
One day, my mother gained back her strength and went up on the ropes and hanged herself. She was discovered because of the dogs’ howls, and because the chimp pointed to the sky and the elephant walked in circles around the large tent, trumpeting an end.
I know that my mother was buried somewhere between the Danube River and the heel of the Italian peninsula. I remember holding the hand of the bearded lady and marching behind the band of gypsies, the elephants and the horses in coloured feathers above dancing hooves. Her coffin was carried by the clown, the strongman, the cannon man, and her favourite white horse. We walked in silence, and then the music began and got loud and we all danced with umbrellas in our hands.
Wanderers, tent makers, and animal herders have the privilege of dying anywhere, the bearded lady said as she gave her eulogy. The earth is their land and all the roads are their burial ground.
Above the open grave, my little left hand was squeezed in the bearded lady’s palm, and my right grasped a handful of dust. I threw it over my mother’s remains and the gypsies played again.
The next day, the circus packed up and moved on. On the way, we were stopped by border guards who blocked our roads and mocked our ways. The officers tried to steal the horses but the clown distracted them and the magician made all the animals disappear. And then food became scarce and the animals’ bones bulged against their sides. They all slept in hunger, they all whimpered, and our money ran out. Finally, we came together and the owner of the circus gathered some sticks and threw them into the bottom of the magician’s long hat. One by one we drew them out. I was handed a gun and five bullets. I walked to the stable and I shot the biggest horse.
After six days of horsemeat and feeble fires, the mime drew sad faces and the strongman gathered everyone and said: We all must depart upon our different paths. We’ll take the horses to Ireland and set them free, the dogs to Spain, and the elephant and the chimps to Africa. The rest of you should go wherever you see fit. The world has gone mad and our way of life was bound to change.
The bearded lady packed our bags and told me: I’ll write to my distant cousin in the Americas. He lives in a city where a carnival takes place.
HAT
AFTER WE HAD all wept, sung, and danced our goodbyes, the bearded lady wrapped me in new clothes, a hat, and new shoes. We took a boat from Marseilles and sailed through the Mediterranean and then into and across the Atlantic.
On the boat, we encountered a magician who was doing all the tricks we knew so well. The bearded lady and I stood there and smiled as he performed: the Floating Wand, the Protocol of Knots, the Lantern of Diogenes, the Frame of Cards. And when he was done, the two of us went to him and asked if he could perform for us, in private, the Enchanted Bank Bill, or the Wreath of Flowers in the Hat, or the Magical Bell and the Butterfly.
The magician laughed and introduced himself as Mr. W. Frinkell. And when the bearded lady asked his real name and offered to feed the birds in his hat, he said, Call me Pips, and we all shook hands and I, who was rehearsed in the art of illusions and sleeves, offered to assist him with his next show. I picked up his tall hat and collected the riches while the handkerchief turned into birds and the stick turned into flowers and the horizon into a sun and the hat into the world. At night, as we walked along the deck, he told the bearded lady, I’ve been around the world, and the sweetest people I’ve ever met are dwarfs and misfits.
During the rest of the crossing, I would wake up in the middle of the night and see that the bed I shared with the bearded lady was empty except for me, but I was happy because I knew that Pips would take care of La Dame. He would love having her in his bed as the sea rocked the boat and splashed the deck and the little round windows with water and fish and every other kind of creature that originated from the sea.
Pips decided to travel with us the rest of the way, and when we arrived in the Carnival city the three of us shared small rooms with a communal bathroom. Pips found a few birthday gigs and a restaurant where we performed some nights, but then, suddenly, poverty hit us and hunger surfaced again from beneath our clothing and hats, it settled in our mattresses and covered the tablecloth, and we all went looking for jobs. I wore a turban on my head and a long robe that reached past my feet. I stood on corners while Pips shouted, The Surmise Boy, ladies and gentlemen! He will guess your age and weight and the remaining number of your living years . . .
The bearded lady couldn’t find a job because people here want everything to be clear: men are men and women are women and those who are in between are left to the vultures and the crocodiles. We were barely surviving, and one day Pips held me and said, Listen, kid, I have another trick up my sleeve, but you have to help me without our lady knowing. He showed me a book on “spiritism,” as he called it. He flashed the book in front of my eyes. I read the title, The Book of Mediums and the Secret World of Beyond and After. When I tried to grab it, Pips pulled it back and said, You will read it someday.
With the little money we made on the street, Pips rented a room and proclaimed himself a spirit medium. We fed on old ladies who had lost their husbands, mothers who talked to their missing sons in the jungles of war or the sunken ships below the seas, and we summoned lost lovers, wives, dogs, sons, and daughters from the beyond. When new clients called for an appointment, Pips, to look important and sincere, would ask for a reference, and then he would ask for their names and the year of their birth and tell them that he would be in touch soon. And I would go to the library and research past addresses, occupations, and lives. Then, in the afternoons, Pips and I would stroll to our clients’ childhood places: we would note trees and watch kids play, we would observe the colours of window frames, the meadows, or the electric poles nearby. We went to the local bars and coffee shops and made conversation. It was easy to evoke the dead, because their traces are everywhere. Their past lives stretched and covered candy stores, benches, water fountains, dirt roads, and dusty graves. The dead, Pips would say, are what we make of them.
Pips and I dimmed the lights in the rented room, hung velvet drapes, and skilfully positioned the dancing tables and talking chairs. We bought a cheap skull and passed thin ropes through it. And I let my own dark spirit hide behind the wardrobe door to pull the rope and make the skull talk and shiver. We built a wooden box, placed a bell inside it, and positioned the box under the table. Whenever the box was kicked or nudged, the bell would ring. Just when the spirit was about to respond, Pips would hold the client’s arm and ask everyon
e to move back from the table, hold hands, close their eyes, and let their bodies fall forward. From there he would faintly jiggle the table with his head, making it shift and squeak, and kick the box.
Later we oiled the wardrobe’s door so that when it opened, no sound could be heard. Before the client came into the room, I would slip inside the wardrobe with a few sealed envelopes. During the session, Pips would ask the client, let’s say it was a lady, to write a question to the deceased. She would insert it into an envelope, seal it, and Pips would take it from her and ask her to close her eyes and concentrate. From inside the wardrobe, I would exchange envelopes with Pips, right under the lady’s nose. Then Pips would ask the lady to open her eyes and read the answer of the spirits. The messages we wrote were always vague, a reference to a place that we, Pips and I, eerie humans that we were, had visited the day before.