by Rawi Hage
Timing, my friend, timing. It is all in the timing. You warn the old man first. It will give him a chance to leave. He hides, and then we tell Tony. Tony will go to the store looking for the old man, and when he finds Joseph gone, this will confirm everything. I see I still have a few things to teach you.
Then we will have to find out where Joseph Khoury is hiding so we can collect the money from him before we kill Tony.
No, you will drive him to his hideout.
And my sister? You think Tony will save her if he hears something like that?
When you take the old man to his hideout, you take your sister as well. She will be working that day at the store.
She won’t come.
You will make her come.
What if the old man wants to leave the country instead of paying the money?
He won’t. He is too old for that.
I’m not sure if this will work, I said.
It will. How long have you known me? Things have always worked out, right?
Genevieve listened to my story without saying anything. Now she asked, Did your sister know about your scam?
Of course not.
She was not aware of it at all?
No, she was not.
Someone knocked at the office door and apologized for the interruption. Genevieve stepped out. She came back and said: I’m sorry, but I have to go. There is an emergency at the hospital.
The hospital? I asked.
Yes. You know which one I am talking about?
The one?
Yes.
Give my regards to everyone there, I said.
I am sure the staff remember you.
I meant, give my regards to the patients, whoever, whatever, wherever they are.
Make an appointment at the desk and I will see you next week, said Genevieve. And she ran out of the room and slammed the door.
THE NEXT EVENING, when the girl entered her father’s restaurant, we exchanged looks, fast and brief. I quickly buried my head in my work again. As she walked by me, I kept my eyes on the floor and caught a glimpse of her skirt and feet. I heard her father calling her by her name, Sehar. They exchanged a few words in Persian. I tried to think about what I could fetch from the basement, what might need to be fixed, arranged, filled. Then I went to the owner and said, There are boxes of supplies that need to be stacked on the shelves downstairs. Would you like me to empty them?
He nodded. The man barely talked to me. He barely acknowledged my existence. If he agreed with me about something, he would never give me the satisfaction of a Yes! or, What a brilliant idea! And if he objected to something I did, he directed me to do something else.
I waited for his daughter to come out of the kitchen with her daily plate of food. I crossed paths with her, showing her that I was on my way to the basement. Downstairs, I opened boxes with a cutter, took my time placing cans on the shelves, then folded each empty box and tucked it in the corner. I was almost done and Sehar hadn’t appeared. She must be eating still, I reasoned. I took the broom and started to sweep the floor.
The boss came halfway down the stairs so that only the lower part of his body showed. His talking shoes called me back up. He wanted me to help the waiter pull two tables together for a large party with a reservation that evening. Upstairs, Sehar was almost done eating, and I could hear her shouting something to her father. He responded in a full clear sentence, longer than usual. His voice sounded calm. She laughed and kept on telling him something. He ignored her, as if she was taking up too much of his time, and went back to the kitchen, sniffing slowly as he went.
When he was inside the kitchen, I waited until the other waiter went to get more lanterns and then I tried to get Sehar’s attention. She noticed me but did not smile. She called me over to her table and said in a loud, bossy voice, Go bring me some sweets and some tea from the kitchen.
Would you like sugar? I asked.
Yes, you should always bring sugar with Iranian tea.
I meant with the sweets, I mumbled, and gave her a large smile.
She laughed and said: Bring me two brown sugar cubes. Brown ones, you hear, brown like my eyes. She smiled mischievously.
And I thought, She shouldn’t have said that. Any hint of flirtation and I am out the door. It would take only one encounter like that to make her father realize that his daughter’s laugh is accompanied by a sweep of the hair, a slightly longer look than usual, a fluttering of eyelashes, a bend of the neck, and that she even imagines stories that make her touch herself in dark alleys, below the stairs, under pyramid-like quilts. But I lucked out. The owner was still in the kitchen and the dishwasher’s water was running, covering up the sound of young, luscious body fluid drizzling above silky plates and silver spoons.
After her afternoon tea and biscuits, Her Highness dipped her toes down the dark stairs. I did not waste time. I followed her right away. While she was in the bathroom down there, I gathered all the empty boxes, piling them in the corner. I cut a piece of rope, made a small knot at the end of it, passed it around the boxes, made another knot around the first knot with the other end, and pulled on the rope until it squeezed the boxes together.
I am good with ropes. It was finding a structure to support the rope and my own weight that had failed me that day in the park. But what if my plan had worked, and my windpipe had snapped with the sound of crunched-together boxes? I would have made a nice sight against the white landscape. I wore my red jacket that day. Just picture, a large red fruit swinging from high up in the tree. Just imagine how it would have looked from afar. No one could have missed it. And from afar the rope wouldn’t have been visible at all. All that anyone would have seen was a red dot against the white horizon, suspended above the earth. Maybe that is all that is supposed to be left of our lives: a glimpse of beauty, an offering for those who are still trapped, a last offering to console them in their mundane existence.
The bathroom door opened. Sehar came towards me and asked, What are you doing here?
Working and singing.
I do not hear any singing.
It is in my head.
What are you singing?
A song from the new Boys in Black CD.
Oh my god, you listen to them?
Yes.
I love them. Which song is it?
I can’t remember the title, but I have the whole CD at home.
Their last album?
Yes, the whole album. Cool cover and lyrics.
Bring it here next time, she said. I want to see it.
Why don’t you come to my place and we can listen to it?
And Sehar put her hands on her waist and said: Wow, the busboy is inviting me to his palace! How exciting. She said this with irony, her body swaying under blue-black shiny hair. And what would we do there? Anything exciting? Like, washing dishes maybe? How fun.
I thought we could listen to the CD and watch what happens.
I think you’ve watched enough.
Not enough, never enough, I said, and smiled and looked her straight in the eyes, half begging, half suggesting, and fully waiting for a nod from under the stairs despite the risk of expulsion from paradise and the cuts of kitchen knives.
She was silent as she looked straight back at me. Her lashes were long, and her eyes reflected a small rectangular patch from the neon light behind me. It crossed her brown pupil like a streetlight in a store window, or an alien’s eyes shining behind a mask. She squinted and said: Where do you live on this earth?
At Pinnacle Street, I said.
That’s near my school.
Come after school, then.
Well, maybe. Leave me the address later.
Tuesday?
Sehar did not answer. She ran up the stairs. I opened the freight door, dragged the boxes by the rope up the stairs and through the back alley, and put the whole bundle next to the large metal garbage bin.
ON MONDAY I WENT to the music store on St-Catherine Street. I asked an employee for the latest C
D by Boys in Black. I opened the case, slipped the cover booklet into my bag, and on my way out threw the CD in its case into the bag of a woman who was leaving the store. I followed her outside, and continued to trail her all through downtown. She shopped, walking from one window to the next. When she sat in a restaurant, I sat next to her. I ordered coffee, acting as suave and polite as I could, speaking French and rolling my R’s. The woman even looked my way and gave me a smile. I smiled back at her. I took off my jacket, and while my hand was still inside my sleeve I slipped that hand into her bag and pulled out the CD case. I actually held it in my hand, making sure she could see what I had pulled out of my pocket, then I got out the CD booklet and read it. After a few minutes I pretended to go to the bathroom and instead walked out of the restaurant.
On Tuesday I got up late and went into my kitchen. Roaches ducked for their lives. I walked back to the bathroom, peed, and returned to the kitchen with a newspaper in my hand. I attacked the invaders on the head with news and headlines. I spotted a particular one with light-coloured stripes, like an albino roach. It was fairly big and faster than the rest of the herd. It slid, almost gliding above the surface, more than it walked. It was skilful in its manoeuvres, confident. At one point it faced me and stood there, waving its antennae towards me like a TV receptor on a roof on a windy day. When I lifted the newspaper to pound it, it disappeared. I looked into the sink and saw its last white stripe ducking down the drain. I immediately opened the faucet and watched the water run down, imagining it chasing the albino in a gigantic flashing wave, rushing towards the glittering striped creature through the howling abyss. Then I cleaned the dishes and buried the cadavers. I fixed my bed, tucking in my sheet like the flag in a ceremony for dead soldiers. I opened the window to freshen the air and revive the atmosphere. I cleaned the toilet bowl and the sink. I closed the window, took a shower, dressed, and opened the window again. I positioned the Boys in Black CD on the floor below the window, turning the faces on the cover towards the light. The slight shininess of the plastic reflected the light, and I was afraid that the glare would efface the singers’ faces. So I played with the angles until I evaded the sun and those smiling boys with the pierced ears and noses became visible again. Then I waited.
Just after 3 p.m., my doorbell rang. I went out into the hallway and saw a school backpack mounting the stairs.
I am here, I said.
I got lost, Sehar said. This building is confusing.
She entered my apartment. I waited for her to pick up the CD, but she was more interested in the walls and in assessing my few sticks of furniture. She looked at the bed and the desk, and then she glanced out the window. A view, she said sarcastically.
Well, here are the boys, I said, and handed her the CD.
Cool, she said. Can we play it?
My CD player is in the shop, I said. I think I’ll get another one soon.
She laughed and threw the CD on the bed.
So, what are we doing here?
Tea, I said.
Tea, she repeated and barely smiled.
I told her to sit, and she looked out the window while I gathered tea from a kitchen drawer. I was out of sugar. I excused myself, took the stairs, and knocked at the door of the Pakistani family downstairs. The wife opened, half veiling herself with the door, peeking out at me like a Bollywood heroine from behind a palace window.
Sugar, please? I asked.
She nodded, closed the door, and wordlessly opened it a moment later, a small bowl of sugar in her hand.
I danced up the stairs. In my kitchen, the water was boiling. Good timing, I thought. Timing is important. I offered Sehar tea.
I do not have much time, she said, and wrapped her fingers around the mug.
Well, then. Have you ever had sex? I asked her.
No. But I’ve kissed boys.
Did they touch you?
A little.
I do not want to touch you. I just want to watch you touching yourself.
I am not sure if I can do that . . . with you here, looking at me . . .
I won’t look at you, I said. We can both face the wall and pretend that neither of us knows what the other is doing.
Sehar stood up, went into my bedroom, and got under the bedcover. I closed the curtains. A feeble light laminated the white wall. I sat on the chair near the bed. We both faced the wall, although first I saw her hand slowly disappear under the bedcover. There was silence. I turned my head and saw that her eyes were closed. Her knees lifted the sheet like a tent. I imagined her fingers steadily rotating and her mind projecting on the wall images of boys and young hairless singers.
I can’t do it, she said after a minute. She looked at me. Are you crying? Oh my God, your eyes . . . This is weird! I can’t do it. I have to go.
She pulled up her panties, got out of bed, fixed her skirt, opened the door, and ran down the stairs.
AFTER SEHAR LEFT, I took back the sugar bowl to the Pakistani family downstairs. The woman opened the door. This time none of the children stuck their heads into the doorway. When I asked the woman where her husband was, she said, Factory. A baby started to cry from inside. She slowly, apologetically, closed the door. I ran back upstairs. I opened the curtains in my bedroom and for some reason I felt an overwhelming urge to pull out the professor’s letters. They all had the same type of envelope, yellow with an aged feel. The paper inside was rough and thin, the handwriting impeccable, large and clear. Each letter started with the words Mon cher — no name, just Mon cher. In the first one there was a lengthy description of the writer’s long walk on the beach, details of the sky, the blue water. She (I determined that the letter writer was a woman when she accused the breeze of lifting her skirt and carrying her away) described an older couple who were walking hand in hand, and how seeing that made her feel happy; le sable qui se lève avec le vent reminded her of something, her childhood, her grandmother, a stroll among the flowers. Everything seemed to be about the past, the writer’s own past. The letter dripped with Proustian memories: Le visage mélancolique, les textures, l’innocence, les pas, le vieux monsieur avec un chapeau. The subject was her feelings or some romantic escapade. The professor was never mentioned, or addressed for that matter; the letter was a monologue about the writer’s own emotions, her transcendent state of being, with the professor a receptacle for her temps perdu. Poor professor, I thought, how deprived and left out he must have felt, excluded by all these préoccupations avec la nature, le vent, les hirondelles. What a lousy lay she must have been, imagining him to be someone else when he was on top, and something else again when he was on the bottom.
In the second letter, the writer seemed to reply to something the professor must have hinted about money, poverty, and their relationship. But everything was dismissed in a smooth, complacent romantic phrase: Ah, les artistes et l’argent, toujours la souffrance pour l’art et l’amour, and the letter proceeded to talk about a luscious meal that was presented to the writer by le chef René lui-même, sur une terrasse sublime avec une vue très agréable. Le poisson frais et la dame au visage ridé. The professor must have eaten his shoes from envy and hunger. The writer signed only L. at the end, not even a return address. She reminded me of Sylvie, a piano teacher I had met at the gourmet store where I worked before my rope incident. I used to deliver Sylvie’s groceries. One time she offered me wine and pâté — or was it foie gras? — and I woke up the next morning in her sensual silk sheets.
Sylvie did not walk, she floated, her expensive silk nightgown trailing behind her as if it came with its own breeze. For her, everything had to be beautiful. She had to live a permanent life of beauty, and everything that surrounded her had to have a nostalgic or poetic meaning to it. Her soft voice, her stylish dresses, her good manners concealed a deep hidden violence and a resentment of nature’s indifference to her ephemeral existence. We always met in sophisticated places. There were always dinners, cocktails, theatre. I soon became fed up with her make-believe life. I was bored. I hung
around for a while because of the food, the wine and cheese. But any hint of misery from me, of problems or violence, was automatically dismissed and replaced with something happy, light, or pretty. Everything was described as charmant, intéressant, d’une certaine sensibilité, la texture. All her friends, too, lived in a state of permanent denial of the bad smells from sewers, infested slums, unheated apartments, single mothers on welfare, worn-out clothing. No, everything had to be perfect, every morsel of food had to be well served — presentation, always presentation, the ultimate mask.
I slept with all of Sylvie’s friends. It was easy — all I had to do was call them and ask something about un regard que j’ai senti de votre part et je voulais savoir si je m’imaginais des choses. It worked on all of them. Stabbing one another in the back was fine as long as it was for romance, a story — in short, something presentable. One night when we all went for a dinner at a French restaurant, I stole their wallets, walked through the restaurant kitchen, and took off out the back door. I took the cash, tossed the empty wallets in the gutter, and went down to the Copa, sat at the bar, and drank.
Of course, Sylvie and her friends knew that I had done it. They knew perfectly well that it was I who had slipped my hand into their leather bags. None of them said a word; not even their boyfriends dared to confront me. They knew that I would slash their tires, enter their homes, poison their dogs, and break their stereos. They knew because I had showed them my scar. I made up stories about it. The preppie boyfriends felt that they were in the company of a noble savage, and they liked it. One of them, Jean-Mathieu his name was, the son of some big-shot industrialist, invited us once to his apartment in Île Ste-Hélène. He lived in one of those expensive apartments with faux shantytown architecture. While everyone was dancing and sniffing coke downstairs on the kitchen counter, he called me upstairs to his room. He closed the door, went to his closet, and said, Regarde, mon ami. Ça, mon ami, c’est pour ceux qui want to mess with me. He pulled out a Magnum, a beauty of an arm, all silver. It must have been worth thousands of dollars. He pointed it at my face and started to laugh. The fucker was high. His hand extended, he was smiling at me, playful.