by Rawi Hage
I can crank it myself, I said.
Let the boy do it! he shouted with pride, and hugged my shoulders. Here, soon you will be an uncle. And he kissed my sister on the cheek and grabbed her hips. She moved her face away from his whisky breath, his unbalanced feet, his scratchy moustache, and nicotine-stained teeth.
And we will teach this baby boy how to use a gun, right? He caressed my sister’s belly.
Our time is up, said the shrink. But I want to hear all about it on our next appointment. How is Thursday for you?
TAXPAYERS, THE SHRINK SAYS. Ha! I thought as I finished my chocolate in the alley. Well yes, yes indeed, I should be grateful for what this nation is giving me. I take more than I give, indeed it is true. But if I had access to some wealth, I would contribute my share. Maybe I should become a good citizen and contemplate ways to collect my debts and increase my wealth. That would be a good start. And who still owes me money but that loud string-plucker with a chicken beak and the fatherless soul of a musician? And then I remembered that every Friday the forty-dollar thief by the name of Reza played at an Iranian restaurant on the west side of the city. He hated it. He thought playing at a restaurant was the worst kind of job for a talented, respected musician like himself. But now I knew how to track him down.
On Friday evening I went to the restaurant. It was a fancy restaurant with all the ornament necessary to transport you to the East. It surrounded you with dunes, lanterns, and handmade carpets that matched the brown plates flying from the waiter’s hands onto woven tablecloths.
I sat at the bar. The owner came over and asked suspiciously, How can I help you?
I am waiting for the musician, Reza, I said. Still the owner looked suspiciously at my clothing that clashed with the fancy surroundings. Reza saw me, but he ignored my presence and continued playing with the other Iranian musicians. When they stopped for a break, he came to me, leaned towards my face, and quietly whispered, You should never come here unless you are going to sit and eat. He said this with aggravation.
Pay me what you owe me, brother, and maybe I will sit and eat.
What I owe you is not enough for you to have a tea here. And you come dressed like that.
Pay me and I will leave.
Okay. I am getting paid at the end of the evening. Do you want to go away and come back around eleven?
No, I have no place to go around here. I am not going to pay bus fare twice, and it is very cold outside.
Okay then, stay here. I’ll tell you what: Sit at the end of the bar, and do not look at the women like that. People here do not like it when a bum like you is checking out their wives and daughters like that. I will get you a drink. Just wait and be invisible.
Reza walked towards the owner, bent his large body towards the man’s ear, and apologetically rubbed his hands together, explaining everything with a smile. They talked in Persian, both glancing my way from time to time. Finally, the owner approached me and snapped in a dry voice, So, what would you like to drink?
A Coke, I said.
The owner nodded, agreeing that I had made a good choice — the cheap choice and the respectable choice. But what I really wanted was a good glass of whisky on the rocks. And what I really, really wanted was to sit in the middle of the bar and rotate my liquor in time to the soft music, maybe a big fat golden ring on my finger, my chest gleaming under a black shiny shirt, my car keys dangling from a gadget that could open doors and beep and warm the driver’s seat despite the cold snow. I wanted a gold chain around my neck and a well-dressed woman with kohl under her eyes, and a late-evening blow job that began in a big fancy car and ended on an imported carpet with a motif of peacock tails fanning shades of purple against my hairy Arab ass.
Instead, the owner went behind the bar and got me my drink himself, calling me over with a nod as if signalling to one of his waiters. You stay here, he muttered.
I sat on a bar stool in the corner, close to the kitchen, and twirled the ice in my drink with a plastic straw. The soft music in the background, the dim lighting, the glowing red from the lanterns, and the gold atmospheric ornaments made me think of the story of the virgins who had lost their lives in the king’s castle before Scheherazade distracted him with her tales of jinn and fishermen. I wondered whether, if I had happened to live back then (wearing a different outfit, naturally), I could have saved any of those women. Maybe I could have been the saqi who slipped a few poison drops from my ring into the king’s wine. And as I watched him writhe in agony from the spell in his stomach, right before he fumbled another innocent girl, I could have stuck a dagger through his silky purple robe, opened his poisonous entrails, and watched his eyes flicker in awe and disbelief as he anticipated the next and final episode. The smell of food from the kitchen brought me back to the land of forests and snow. And then all I wished was to crawl under the swinging door and hide under the stove, licking the mildew, the dripping juice from the roast lamb, even the hardened yogurt drops on the side of the garbage bin. With my pointy teeth, I thought, I could scrape the white drips all the way under the floor.
When Reza was done playing, he came and sat with me. We were both silent. He leaned on me and said, they are closing in another half-hour. When I get paid, we leave. We watched the employees folding the tablecloths, sweeping up glass, turning the chairs upside down on the tables, sucking the carpets with electric hoses, and mopping the kitchen floor. All the crumbs, all the loose bits of food that had jumped during the evening from the cook’s knives and tilted plates — all that had flown and landed on the ground, all that had sizzled and escaped the rims of giant pans, all that had been transported by gravity and chased by giant brooms and battered by wet sweeping, all that had been expelled into the hollow of drains in thin, calm waves of grease and water — now fell into underwaged fists and made me sob.
The owner came out from behind the bar and silently took my glass from me, opened the cash register, called over the musicians, and paid them one by one.
When that was done, I approached the owner with humility, my back hunched, my hand below my chin and close to my chest. I said: Excuse me, sir. May I ask you something?
He barely nodded, not looking at me.
Sir, I am looking for a job.
The owner automatically lifted his head at this, and looked me in the eyes. Do you have any experience? he asked, and then bent his head back towards his money.
Yes, I do. I can work as a waiter, I said.
I have waiters, he replied. Do you speak Farsi? Some of my customers want to be served in Farsi here.
No, but I can work as a busboy. I am very good at it. I have the experience. Ask my friend Reza here. I worked in a fancy French restaurant here in Montreal, Le Cafard, on Sherbrooke Street.
Reza was annoyed at me for saying that. I could see his raised eyebrows. He stood up, turned his back, and walked towards the door with his instrument case, zipping through the erect upside-down legs of the chairs on the tables.
Come back on Tuesday, said the owner. We can talk.
Thank you, I said, and retreated by walking backwards, my face to his highness, my turban bowing repeatedly, until I reached the royal gates, and opened them from behind my back with an awkward twist of the wrist of my left hand, in the process fumbling against the glass with its Visa card stickers that reminded me of the world outside and the cruelty of the cold.
Outside, Reza was silent and brooding and nervously smoking, and smoke shot out of him like straight arrows, splitting their exit between his nostrils and his tight lips. Finally he couldn’t hold in his words any longer. As soon as the last of the smoke had left his chest he ground his voice at me: How could you do that? First you come in just like that, to this respectable place, dressed like a bum. And just look at your shoes. And then, and then — he stuttered with anger — and then you ask the man for a job and you tell him to check with me as a reference. Well, if he had asked me, I would have told him what a deranged, psychotic, spaced-out case of a petty, unsuccessful thief
you are.
Give me back my money! I shouted at him. You are the only thief here. How many meals did you get from those Canadian women with your sad stories?
Reza took off his gloves, biting them with his teeth, and dug his fingers into his tight pants and pulled a few dollars from his pocket. He counted his money and gave me a twenty-dollar bill.
Forty, I said, and I was ready to kill for it. You owe me forty. And I was about to pull out my curved dagger, poison his drink, make sure he was dead, and then escape towards the sun on a rug woven by flying camels.
Ah, right. Forty. Relax, here is your money, said Reza. Now I am meeting Shohreh in the Crescent Bar. Are you coming? And by the way, I shouldn’t pay you after what you did to that innocent girl.
Who? Who? I said.
You know who. Shohreh! he shouted. You took advantage of her.
Hypocrite! I shouted back. You always wanted her for yourself. Well, too late, musician of doom. She is mine now.
Mine, Reza laughed. No one would keep you, deranged man.
Carpet musician, I retorted.
Fridge thief. Are you coming or not? he asked and walked away.
Yes, I am coming, I said. Because I am sure she wants to see me tonight.
WE ENTERED THE BAR and I saw Shohreh sitting at a table with a man, an older man with a moustache and grey hair. Reza looked around for his drug dealer. When he found him, he bought some “baby powder,” as he put it, and then he came back my way. Do you want a line? Just to show you what a nice guy I am.
I will consider it interest on my money, I said.
Ungrateful bitch, Reza said, and wobbled his way to the bathroom. I followed him. He pulled out his credit card, sprinkled the powder on top of the counter’s white ceramic, and cut it into vertical lines. He pulled out a brand new five-dollar bill, rolled it up tight, and gave it to me. I stuck the money in my nose, and like a rhino I charged and snorted a line before the elephant beside me could change his mind. As I moved to the tip of the second line, Reza leaned his big body over my shoulder, pushed me against the wall, and dove like a kamikaze towards the shiny white counter. He vacuumed up the rest of the white stuff, opened the door, pinched his nostrils, and swayed his way out of the bathroom onto the dance floor.
I walked towards Shohreh’s table, very awake, with a numb upper lip that felt as solid and stretched out as an elephant’s trunk. As I passed the bar, I picked up a few peanuts and clapped my hands, and continued through the crowd to my love. Before I reached her table, however, Shohreh got up and met me. She took my hand and we started to dance. I danced with confidence, my forehead lifted high towards the sparkling mirror ball that beamed over us with its happy light.
Who is the guy? I asked Shohreh.
A friend.
He looks more like an uncle.
No, he’s just a friend.
Well, he just sits there, brooding through the loud boom-booms, smoking like he is about to recite poetry.
Well, actually, he could be a poet.
Ah! So he is a poet.
Do you want to dance or ask questions?
I am dancing.
Good.
While I danced, I looked at the man. Our eyes met. He turned his head, crushed out his cigarette, stood up, and walked towards us. He laid his hand on Shohreh’s shoulder and said something in Persian to her. She answered with a brief nod, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he left.
Reza danced alone. He was happy and energetic, and like a bear his large body secured a void around it. When I squeezed Shohreh towards me and slipped both hands onto her torso, she pushed me away and danced alone. And then slowly she drifted away, and disappeared into the middle of the crowd.
I walked to the bar and bought myself a drink. A hand rested on my shoulder and someone laid a kiss on my cheek.
Farhoud, you man-killer, you should buy me a drink first, I said to him.
He laughed and asked: Is Shohreh here?
Yes — over there. I pointed at the dance floor. Farhoud danced towards Shohreh, and when she saw him she jumped up and down with joy, and moved into his arms.
Though I was filled with energy and the music became even more intense and energizing, I did not dance. Instead I went and sat at Shohreh’s table on the same chair the poet had occupied. I smoked and watched the women dancing. Many were young and good-looking. I searched the dance floor until my eyes alighted on a woman dancing barefoot, her shoes swinging in her hand. She laughed and danced in a circle of girlfriends. I watched her and smoked. When she left the dance floor, I stood up, followed her to the bathroom, and waited at the door. When she came out, I faced her with a smile, blocking her way as she tried to squeeze her shoes between my ankle and the wall. She looked at the floor. She pushed her right shoulder against mine. In my high state, with my elephant’s head and my ever-growing numb lips, I dipped my arm, swung it like a dangling lasso, and seized her wrists. She stopped pushing and lifted her head. Her face rose from beneath her hair, delicate, cautious, and still.
I like the way you dance barefoot, I said. Excuse me, I did not mean to scare you, but I saw you dancing without your shoes and it reminded me of dancing gypsies.
Do you know any gypsies? she said.
Yes, my sister is one.
Your sister, but not you?
I can’t dance like her. So I guess I do not qualify as one.
I dance like a gypsy?
Yes. Will you take off your shoes again?
I will.
I wish I was a gypsy like you or like my sister, I said.
Well, you stole my arm like a gypsy, she said, as she slowly pulled away her arm and walked towards her friends. She must have told them about me because they all looked my way. They formed a shield, a circle of human hair balancing on heels. Some of them were barefoot. In the middle of the circle of sweat and flesh that flashed and disappeared through strobes of light I saw those girls laughing, and I felt ashamed to be a hand-thief and a gypsy-lover.
I looked away, and I saw Shohreh’s wide brown eyes watching me. I knew she had seen everything. She turned her head away. I went and sat next to her, and she ignored me. She stood up immediately and went to the bathroom.
Later that night, I walked Shohreh back home. She lived down the hill, towards the train tracks. She told me that she had ambivalent feelings about trains. When a train passed in the evening, she said, it made her sad.
When I asked her why, she held my chin and said, Well, there are some feelings that are only one’s own. Then she ran towards a snowbank and threw snowballs at me.
I chased her and we threw snow at each other. I caught her by the coat and wrestled with her in the snow, both of us breathing hard, our eyes locked onto each other’s. I crucified her wrists and moved my face towards her lips, but she moved her face away and said, Let go. Let go, she repeated, shaking her neck in the snow, dodging her face away from my lips.
I pressed her some more, and she turned and shook her whole body violently. Let go, you bastard. Now!
I still held her, not letting go. When I tried to hold her face between my palms, she liberated one of her hands and scratched my face, cursed me, and threw ice in my eyes. She pushed me into the snow and shouted, You fucking bastard, you fucking bastard, you let me go when I tell you to! And she ran down the hill and disappeared, cursing me in Persian into the cold night.
THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY morning, the sun shone again and I tossed off my quilt. I watched it suspended in the air for a moment before it fell again and joined its own shadow. I searched for my slippers and hurriedly washed my face, brushed my teeth, and covered myself in layers of underwear, cotton shirt, socks, and jacket. There were no cockroaches to be seen today. The brutal temperature must have driven them down south to the boiler room, looking for warmth and comfort. I searched for my shoes, but could not find them. Only one place left for them to hide: I slipped under the bed and crawled across the floor, but found only one shoe. So I took a deep breath and squeezed myself under
the dresser to find the other shoe. I laid the pair out on the cold floor and cleaned off the dust I had collected on my body everywhere — even on my chest and eyelashes.
As I walked towards the clinic for my appointment, I was still picking dust off my clothing and my face. I stood outside the window of a clothing store and looked at my reflection, now appearing like a ghost against layers of displayed and suspended cloth. I turned and shifted against the store window and watched my reflection clad in the latest fashionable cuts and colours. I captured the last dustball and held it in my fingers with a mixture of amusement and cruelty. I let it fret against gusts of wind and then released it, watching it leave confused, pain-struck, and disoriented in the whistling air, which sounded like mournful trains and sirens of war howling at the sight of fighter planes that descend and ascend and tumble in the air and land and freeze on the ground like insects with metal wings, like a child’s toys in the bath brought back to the surface by the small hands of an invisible hero or tossed out and hidden under a wooden dresser until they are forgotten and invaded by dustballs, deserted in favour of the call for food and the threats of giant mothers.
When I told the shrink that I had arranged a job interview at a restaurant on Tuesday, she was delighted. She clasped her hands against her chest, her eyes open wide like a mother looking at her child onstage in a kindergarten play, a child dressed as a bee and buzzing around a flower with another child’s face, singing springtime songs.
Tell me more, she said, smiling. That is such wonderful news. It will be such a good step for you to reintegrate into society.
Well, nothing is definite yet, but I feel I would like to work in that place. To start, I know that I would have food to eat, and the under-the-table tips would be good, something to add to my welfare cheque.
You must tell me if you get it. This will be a good step, a very good step in your assessment, she added. Now, where were we on our last session? Yes, here, I wrote a few notes after you left. Your sister . . . you were telling me about your sister and her husband, I believe.