Life on Sandpaper

by Yoram Kaniuk

  We were hungry. Hanoch went out and brought back hot dogs, French fries, and brown beans, and he made an omelet. The elder Karamazov said, Why didn’t he mention Vienna? Vienna crossed his mind, replied Oved, but he didn’t want to take it away from you. You will be the representatives in Vienna. We ate. We listened to music on the radio. Valerie danced a little and came on to Oved. She wasn’t pretty but she oozed sensuality and eroticism, if not actually sex. She looked like a handsome young boy while still maintaining a careful femininity. Two hours later Paul came back. He spread out business cards on the table that he’d just had printed at a press in Hollywood he’d worked with for years: “Paul, Oved, and Yoram Inc” “Flowers and POY Inc” “All Kinds of Flowers, Ltd—POY” and a few more besides. The only one to get excited by the cards was Oved. He said, Why not Abu Shalouf, Paul, and Yoram Inc? Paul wrote it down. We’ve got to think, he said. Meanwhile it had gotten late and everybody was leaving. Two days later Oved came and said he was going to Guatemala City in a few days time to see the flowers. Paul got excited and said he was going too. Oved said, You don’t know what a hard journey it is. You’re soft, Paul, and you’ll break down on me on the trip. Paul said that he’d been in the Haganah too, maybe he hadn’t fought in the war but he’d heard bullets whistling by his head and had been a sergeant, and an Italian bomb had fallen next to the shoe store that belonged to his family on Allenby Street during World War Two, and he was going and that was that. In the end Oved got a big brown Mercury and Paul, Valerie, and me all decided to go together. The day Oved announced that everything was set but complained how low we were on cash, I met up with Nick Conte and told him about the trip and he said it would be hard but that he had a friend at MGM who had lots of diamonds and was married to the same woman for the third time now and who wanted to buy him and her a suitable burial plot with candelabras and music and sculptures of all the dogs they’d ever owned but that he was out of work at the moment and so had asked Nick if he knew of anyone going to Central America because the currency there was weak and there was three-figure inflation and lots of middle-class people were looking for diamonds to invest in because the banks weren’t safe and the price of diamonds was soaring.

  I told Oved. We drove to the valley where Mr. Smith lived, whose real name was Cohen but who had settled on an American name of equal rarity and we sat down with him; a big house, two pools, one for him and the other for his wife, and she said that the most wonderful thing was to get married every few years, the same woman to the same man. He trusted us and we drove to Paul’s friend who had been a diamond merchant in Tel Aviv and before that in Warsaw and then not so much of a diamond merchant in Treblinka, but the kids who used to find diamonds in rectums and sell them to the SS used him as an expert appraiser and so both he and they had survived. The small, tubby man wearing a thirties pinstriped suit, a wide, side-buttoned collar, and what they called high-but-toned shoes—Jimmy Cagney wore ones like them and the guy loved Cagney—scrutinized the diamonds for a long time through a magnifying glass and with his pinky nail and pronounced them good, nothing special, but worth thirty thousand dollars, But you should know, he said, that you can’t insure them because they’re unreported, and we said, It’ll be fine, and one morning we set out to make Paul rich. Oved told Paul that at the Mexican border they were checking all non-Americans—Me and Yoram, he said, have got green cards, and Valerie is a citizen, but Paul wasn’t yet, and so at the border crossing he had to hide in the trunk.

  It was a bit difficult for Paul to scrunch up into the trunk but greed won out and he probably lay there all squished calculating the riches awaiting him and about half an hour past Tijuana Oved let him out. He was dazzled by the light and smells and sat next to Oved with me and Valerie in the backseat. It was a long trip but the scenery was rich in contrasts. The north had stone houses in the Spanish Colonial style. A gigantic waterfall. Canyons. Bays. Boats. Noise and poverty vying with great wealth. We stopped in villages that looked like Europe. We stopped in Indian villages that looked like they were from the first century. Mayan villages. See: any book about the history of Mexico and its antiquities and the richness of its scenery. See: Acapulco, with its beach leading to its mountains that vanish into the sky. Deserts, wildernesses hidden in thick vegetation or sometimes dying from drought. Magnificent haciendas facing tumbledown villages and haciendas in ruins, souvenirs of the Pancho Villa revolution. Whorehouses and cantinas. Restaurants in the cities and food lines in the villages. See: the boulevards. See: the stones of every color. See: the beauty of Mexico in any book about the beauty of Mexico. We’re not tourists, said Oved when I asked him to stop by a waterfall or a house built and decorated in an ancient style, and I kept quiet. Every now and then we stopped, we slept and ate in little inns. By this time Paul was sick. The food was killing him. The flies. The mosquitoes. Fear of the Indians. The Mexicans in their sombreros. The mariachis were killing him. He said it sounded like the same song all the time. The dirt roads caused him no end of suffering and he lost weight, about half a pound a day, but he had plenty to lose, and after a few days—I didn’t count—we reached Mexico City. We passed through delightful neighborhoods where the rich drove Cadillacs and there were beautiful girls with bandannas on their heads and lots of churches and monasteries, and when we reached the city center Oved warned us that it would be difficult and told us to hold on tight.

  Cars flew by through the city, which was crisscrossed by narrow streets, one on top of the other, and since the streets were only wide enough for one vehicle at a time, whenever two cars tried to pass each other, they would both end up climbing the walls of any adjacent houses—just seconds before a head-on collision. There were a few traffic lights, but nobody took any notice of them. People wanting to cross the road looked lost and exhausted; There are people, said Oved, speaking from his own experience, who grow old at those intersections, and only when they die do the cars stop, so their relatives can collect them for burial. I went to see the Diego Rivera and Siqueiros frescoes and was less impressed by Rivera than in the days when Mexican communist painting had captivated us in the Israeli youth movement. I wanted to stay looking at the Siqueiros frescoes but Paul pleaded that we go on. Many eyes gazed from cars that didn’t move but simply idled, and trains passed by above. It was hard to get out of the city—all the exits were confusing. Abu Shalouf managed it, however, and we drove from village to village, stopping in towns here and there, here and there saluted by policemen to whom Oved tossed coins. More and more Indians. Less and less beauty and splendor. More wildness. White treeless cities at the feet of mountains. After four days of driving we were almost in the mountains ourselves. The scenery changed. The peaks arched above us and Paul asked, What’s that over there, and Oved replied, More mountains, and Paul said, How do we get around them? And Oved said, We don’t get around them, we drive up them. Paul asked if you could breathe at such an altitude and Oved said that most travelers said it was fine but then again it wasn’t too easy for the ones who couldn’t breathe up there to come down again and tell us about it. Paul was destroyed. We were tired and Oved said that before we started the climb we’d better have a day’s rest.

  We reached a white, picturesque Indian town and found something resembling a boarding house. Oved explained to the owner what we wanted and the owner was happy and said that very few strangers had passed through in recent years and he rented us an apartment with a huge adjacent porch and there were two fans there possibly dating back to the last century and it was hot. Very hot. Very, very hot. Paul sat sweating in an armchair that collapsed under his still excessive weight. Valerie took a shower and when she was done she came out naked to the porch to wrap herself in the pleasant wind that had started blowing. I fell asleep and woke up to a loud commotion. I looked out at the naked Valerie and in front of the boarding house I could see a swarm of people: men and women, priests and children, and they were all staring at Valerie, who just looked back at them serenely. They seemed less incredulous than open
ly aroused. They whispered. Sang with emotion. The priest brought a flute and his flock sang hymns. A boy lay on his back and screamed: Diablo! Diablo! Paul got out of his armchair—this was before it collapsed—and went out and yelled at Valerie. She told him it was none of his business if she liked to stand naked in the heat with the wind caressing her all over her body. Soon most of the people outside had taken off, just leaving behind a few old-timers, smiling, many of them toothless, the women buzzing and giggling, and a couple of hours later the men returned. They were carrying a large salver with a pig’s head decorated with flowers and its genitals sitting next to its eyes and one of the men, finely dressed, and who didn’t wear bones in his hair like some of the others, and who spoke Spanish and not Mayan or another Indian dialect, delivered a speech, and Oved translated for us. The man said that this was a big day for the village. Once, he said, a movie had come here. That was ten years ago. Horses galloped across the screen and there was a white woman who fled from the horses. For years they wondered what had become of her, and now they could see that she had returned. He said that everyone had missed her, and those who hadn’t yet been born had heard the legends, and everyone in the village adored her. He said they wanted to buy her. We’ve brought a pig’s head. A wonderful delicacy. And we’ve brought its genitals too, which are particularly delicious. If we gave them the white she-devil, we were told, we’d get the salver and beads as well as the head, and if necessary they would even throw in one of their women, who could cook anything we might desire. Oved explained that Valerie wasn’t for sale. The man pleaded. Some of the men fell to their knees and prayed to Valerie with outstretched arms. Some wept. The women giggled. The children fondled their genitals. A wailing lamentation rose and increased until it became a ferocious roar. One man tried to lift the pig’s head onto our porch but was gently pushed back by Oved. The lamentation continued. They wouldn’t leave us alone. Valerie went inside then and fell onto Oved and kissed him passionately and he, embarrassed, went into a room with her. I stood bewildered on the porch, looking at all the people. They didn’t leave until morning.

  In the morning we got dressed, most of the crowd had dispersed. The distinguished man, his clothes crumpled now, asked if two pig heads would help, and Oved said we wouldn’t sell even for ten, and the man said, We don’t have ten heads anyway. Then the man bowed and said—and Oved translated—We’re not animals, we are ancient Americans and people of honor, and if you come again the priests will sing for you at our church.

  We started driving up the mountains and the air became thinner, rarified, and it was indeed difficult to breathe. Paul, who’d managed until now to concentrate on his future millions, became scared. He started coughing, looked ill, looked like a broken man, and I was afraid he was going to die on us. He gradually shriveled and all that seemed to remain of him was his outline, his dry screeching voice, whereas Valerie slept like a baby. The road was narrow and winding, over a void. The clouds would sometimes gather in the chasm below and sometimes rise toward us. On the brink of real despair Paul asked Abu Shalouf, When will we get there, and Oved, uncertain of the answer, said, Soon. And then Paul asked the question that led to his utter defeat, he asked if the route we’d take home would be easier. Oved delayed his response as long as he possibly could, and then, almost whispering, said to Paul, We’re coming back the same way. Paul asked: Why? And Oved answered: Because there’s no other way. Above us we saw people crouched wrapped in serapes working in the tobacco fields, the height was dizzying and Paul thought for a while, Oved’s words sounded so dramatic to him that they took him some time to digest, and then he asked, Do you mean to tell me that there’s only one way there and back, and Oved answered, Yes. And then Paul dared to look down. We were so high up that it was difficult to discern what was going on down in the depths. And Paul, close to fainting, asked, And what happens if there’s a car coming up from the other direction? Oved said, It’s difficult to explain, but you’ll find out soon. And sure enough, after a while, during which Paul lay passed out on the floor of the car whimpering, a truck, not a car, loomed up in front of us. Oved stopped and the truck also stopped. Oved and the driver acted as if they’d spent their entire lives getting two vehicles across a road that only accommodated one. Oved looked back the way we came and spotted one of the turnouts hidden along the way. He reversed and began guiding our car into the little side path. And then Oved and the other driver commenced evasive action. The truck turned a little and Oved turned a little. Paul got out of the car and stood there shaking all over, half our car was hanging over the chasm and then the truck pulled up closer. For twenty minutes the two drivers played this game of mountain roulette and again and again we hung over the chasm, alternately trying to get more of our car our more of the truck into the turnout. Paul shouted, shaking all over, poor thing, What would happen to me if you guys fell in while I was standing over here? I told him that there was nothing to be done and if he was left on his own he’d have to go on on foot and then all the millions would be his. He asked Oved what would happen if his maneuvers with the truck didn’t work and Oved, as he drove, explained: Look down into the valley, do you know what it’s called? And Paul said he didn’t and Oved said, It’s called the Valley of the Crosses, because if you look carefully you’ll see the crosses marking the graves of the ones who didn’t make it. Paul didn’t look but Valerie and I looked down, way down, and sure enough we could see crosses scattered among the boulders. Finally the truck went on its way, but not before Oved and the driver exchanged a few joyful words in Spanish, and we forced Paul back into the car. He wailed that he wanted to go home. Or he said, Drop me off and I’ll fly the rest of the way. Oved said that it was all mountains around there and the nearest city wasn’t near at all and there’s nowhere to fly from until we reach Guatemala City. Paul yelled: Why didn’t you tell me, Oved? And Oved said he’d warned him that it wasn’t going to be easy. We continued on our way, holding Paul tightly so that he wouldn’t jump out of the car. Here and there the track widened into the quarried mountain, now and then we encountered a car and another truck and Paul almost faded away entirely, that fat man disappeared into himself and could no longer be seen at all, all that was left of him was a shell, burning with fever, thin, sobbing, and then occasionally reviving as though in some delirium and shouting at Oved through the clouds in his brain: Oved, how many wreaths can you fit onto a truck? And onto a ship? And Oved would hurl numbers at him and go on driving.

  I don’t recall now how long the trip lasted. I remember we slept at a small inn on the mountain where the air barely reached and Paul lay there half-dead and muttering astronomical numbers, and eventually we came to a valley, still at an enormous altitude but not quite as high as where we’d just been, and we checked into a small hotel and ate and bathed and Valerie was happy and we stayed the night and a day later we were close to Guatemala City. Paul started feeling better. He combed his hair and seemed in good health. What was left of him anyway. His initial enthusiasm was restored—Paul’s ships, and Yoram’s and Oved’s, crossed the ocean again, planes flew wreaths from here to there, enormous cash registers registered, but what about income tax? Where will we pay? In the States or Guatemala? What’s going to be left after we pay our agents? Perhaps we should concentrate on funeral displays, what did we think? And we drove into town and Paul looked around amazed at the beautiful houses, the Spanish-style palaces, the weird churches. I looked at the beautiful city. Mighty in its beauty. Solitary in its sublimity. We drove. About an hour later Paul said, Tell me, Oved, that church with the big cross, didn’t we see it earlier? And Oved said, Maybe, but most of them look the same around here. And we continued driving around in the city for about two hours until Paul yelled: We’ve driven past this house five times, five times! I’ve been counting since the third time and I remembered that it was the third time, Abu Shalouf—where’s the flower market? And Oved looked around, distantly, as though none of this was really happening, and checked the landscape quite thoro
ughly, and said sadly: The market’s been moved.

  I was sitting next to Paul, Valerie was sitting next to Oved, and Paul fell forward, writhing, trying to speak but choking and starting to move like a Chasid in prayer, mumbling something and finally screaming, You son of a bitch, to get me to laugh at your lousy jokes you haul me through the mountains for seven days in search of a made-up market? Tell me, was there ever a market? Oved said, There was, but apparently it’s been moved. Poor, lost, thin, sick, dreaming, depressed Paul, who’d yet again seen one of his schemes collapse, broke into sudden, wild laughter, and Oved put the car into gear and sped toward a hotel that wasn’t particularly large but nevertheless very impressive, painted pale green, and shouted something, and a light-haired man came out. Oved said, Hi, what’s new, we’ll talk later, take care of him, will you? He’s losing his mind. Oved said to me, Say hello to the Dutchman, and feeling sorry for Paul who was convulsing in the massive arms of that bulldog-faced man, who was about six foot four, I asked Oved what the man’s real name was, and Oved said, We’re friends, I have a room here. He’s always waiting for me, but no one knows his name. He can read upside down, and can read a letter that someone sitting in front of him is writing. He calls himself the Dutchman, but he might be Belgian. I met him at Seymour’s. Seymour’s job was to clear derailed trains off the tracks. In return he got anything that fell out of the trains, and he kept it all in his warehouses and then sold the stuff wholesale: Sardines. Guns. Tanks. Small aircraft. Chairs. Kitchen utensils. Refrigerators. Air-conditioners. Parrot cages. Once there was a train carrying wine and he made off with tens of thousands of bottles. And once a shipment of the pinkest pants in the West. The Dutchman used to visit Seymour to buy animal cages from him and we met there. The Dutchman has a separate balcony for the girls I imported for him from Italy. Valerie disappeared into her room and I into mine and the Dutchman took care of Paul who mumbled and spat and laughed and cried; the Dutchman brought a Jewish doctor who happened to be nearby, since he’d just dropped his eldest son off at a neighboring whorehouse. He was a pleasant man and spoke a little Hebrew and treated Paul for quite a while and told us in the hotel’s kitchen that Paul had suffered a psychotic attack and wrote a prescription for some pills. It’ll pass, it’s not severe, he just needs to rest for a few days, eat well, and not see anyone by the name of Abu Shalouk, I said Abu Shalouf, and he said, Yes, is he an Arab? I said he wasn’t, his name is Oved. Ah, Oved, ovedet, ovdim, ovdot, he said, reciting the Hebrew declension, and left after having a cup of coffee and said that he’d go for a walk and come back soon to take his son home because his wife had prepared an eighteenth birthday feast for him. The whore he’d left his son with, who wasn’t up to the standard of the Dutchman’s Italian women but the doctor didn’t want to ask a favor of the Dutchman because to ask for a whore for the boy was all right but the Dutchman was liable to ask for a bottle of wine afterward, the whore, he said, who isn’t even Jewish, was a present from him and the boy’s mother. Paul locked himself up in his room and got treatment from the Dutchman and Oved suggested I not ask what kind of treatment. A beautiful Italian woman is potent medicine. Valerie hung out with some young people who were staying at the hotel and found out from the Dutchman that they were fugitives from the States because the States and Guatemala didn’t have an extradition treaty.