The Angel of History

by Rabih Alameddine

  My sense, as though off your ass I had drunk

  Some dull opiate that emptied all my brains

  And all my senses Lethe-wards had sunk.

  No, no, said Satan, we’re not to mention that damned river.

  I followed Ferrigno’s callipygian semaphores, up and down with each step my eyes kept track. His pen dropped, I began to lunge for it, but it swung from a string that connected it to the clipboard he held against his sizable forearm that had a barbed-wire tattoo, I flashed on an image of Auntie Badeea pulling thick thread through vegetables, making rosaries of peppers, sights and sounds of my early years reconfigured for my modern world, with each step now my head would shift from the pendulum pen to Ferrigno’s sliding butt muscles as if I were at a Wimbledon final. My cell phone vibrated, Ferrigno heard the buzz, didn’t glance back, I knew it was another text from Odette but I did not want to look, I did not want to be connected to anything, I wanted the wet wool of my mind sheared, I desperately needed to pee.

  Ferrigno waited outside the bathroom, he was grinning when I came out, he leaned his head through the door, I guess a black ink pen would have been better, he said. I like this guy, Satan said, he’s mocking you, as all should. Nah, I told Ferrigno, brown is just fine, I’m limbering up, once I get going, your ass will be wiping poems all night. His ass is a kneaded eraser, Satan said, we need to get him to drop his pants.

  At the entrance to the waiting room, Ferrigno told me he would be back for me when the doctor was ready. See, Satan said, he’s playing with you, even he knows you’re not insane, let’s go home. The waiting room was empty and quiet, no one, the bespectacled lady was probably getting counseled. I looked at Odette’s texts: the first was, Please don’t shut me out, you fucker, and the second was, I’m your best friend and I’ll mess you up if you don’t tell me what’s going on, and the third was, Now, bitch. So I did, I asked her to please not interfere, said I was a bit depressed, that I was having hallucinations, not dangerous, but disturbing enough that I needed to get rid of them, that I was waiting to see a doctor, and that I would not pick up if she called because of where I was, and no, I wasn’t going to tell her where that was. As soon as I pressed the last send, I felt lighter, even Satan’s snickering couldn’t weigh me down.

  You look tired, Satan said, I told him I was, that I did not think I would have trouble sleeping in this uncomfortable chair even though I was without my two primary sleep aids, Behemoth and a YouTube recording of a vacuum cleaner, the Hoover WindTunnel. I don’t know why I find the sound comforting, Doc, when I was a child in Cairo, my afternoon naps coincided with the rhythmic beating of carpets outside the bedroom, I was used to sleeping to that sound, but no one beat carpets anymore, a shame, though lo and behold, I found that not only did a vacuum cleaner remove dirt more effectively, it summoned Hypnos just as well as a beating, and there were twelve-hour-long recordings of all kinds of household machines online, welcome to America, now go to sleep.

  Maybe I should have told Ferrigno that a black ink pen would be better, I had a fountain pen once, beautifully lacquered, with a silver nib, belonged to my father, a Christmas present he deigned to offer me from afar when I was twelve, I filled it with real, honest-to-goodness ink from an inkwell, encaustic the color of night sky, deliberate, slow to dry, so very patient. Disloyal I was, my infidelity marked me, I do not even remember when I abandoned the pen, ink, black like the inside of my head, the precise color of sorrow. Not only do we drink from the black river, we drop bodies into it as well, objects we once loved, tools we once used, rusted treasure litters the bottom of Lethe. I took the brown Sharpie out of my pocket, Praise be, Satan said, and I pulled back the left sleeve of my shirt, upon the hairless skin of my inner forearm I wrote:

  When Death came to visit me

  I had nothing to offer

  My cupboard was bare.

  Jacob’s Journals

  Veil

  I have become invisible, Doc, it was not always this bad. When I first arrived in this country, I was ignored but not necessarily by all, you saw me, Greg saw me, as did a few others, I was young and fulfilled some erotic fantasy for a small number, pedophilic, if you ask me, but I’m not complaining, dark, small, and exotic, let’s fuck him, yes, please. For most though, I might as well have been wearing a veil, to all patrons of trendy bars I was invisible, and it became much worse. I walked the roads, in cheerful daylight or at night, none paid attention. Have you ever noticed that in the English language we use attention as if it is currency, and it is, is it not? Buy me some. Heloise begged Abelard to pay the debt of attention he owed her, and you owe me. The other day, though, a woman saw me, she was coming out of the supermarket, I was going in on my way home from work, she glanced at me before holding out her green reusable shopping bags for me to carry, I ignored her, kept walking through the electric door, didn’t look back.

  Auntie Badeea would not wear a veil, every Cairene of her time understood that forward was the only way forward. My mother covered her face when she was in Yemen, but once in Cairo, she wore a veil only if an American or a European wanted to dally with a stereotype. I saw a veil only rarely in the Cairo of the sixties, and never in Beirut—well, not a real one.

  In the summer of my first year at l’orphelinat de la Nativité, when half the kids and most of the nuns went on vacation, I was doing homework—even that first summer, I grew to hate what we called les devoirs de vacances, they were unbearably unfair. Evening, I was tired, the old rectory’s windows were quite decorative but would not open, constrained heat made even the books sweat, I slumped over my notebook and fell asleep. I knew not to do that because when I napped on a book or an open binder I usually woke up with reverse text inked on my face, which I actually loved, loved deciphering my face in the mirror, but I would be mocked by anyone who saw me, and truly I could not afford to be noticeable in any way, I lived in the safety of not being seen. I woke up suddenly, did not have time to check if my face had added a written patina, a flicker of light out the window caught my attention, it was a flicker of a woman in silver between two pine trees that raised a protective cupola above her, I considered that she might be one of the remaining nuns, but as I walked up to the window, the glass smudged and dusty, I knew it was not so, not just because I didn’t recognize her, she wore a habit like our nuns but hers included a veil that covered all but eyes that seemed to be contemplating the moon, which unveiled its peerless light and threw its silver mantle over her.

  The woman frightened me. I watched her through the window before I gathered enough courage to leave the rectory, I remained a safe distance away, and she remained motionless gazing at the sky, between the pines that wept odorous gum and balm, I was behind her, she could not see me. Yet in a resonant clear voice she said, I did not think we would come out of our hiding place, I told her it was the library, not my hiding place, and she said that she knew what it was, she had been there many times. It was then that she turned around and faced me. We can approach, she said, but I refused to uproot myself from where I stood, so she left her spot under the pine nebulae and walked over, glided, and when before me in all her glory, she reached out and caressed my cheek, and I was no longer scared, I would follow her to Hell and back, do whatever she asked of me, I would love her, a seraphic love, of course. I felt seen for the first time, by expressive eyes that no painter of portraits could ever capture, intelligent eyes, sparkling, penetrating, and the oddest color, the yellowish green of an unripe guava. We have grown up, my little Ya’qub, she said, and I told her I was still short, and she said, And we shall remain so. She was beautiful, I did not need her to lift her veil for me to know that, but then she did, she lifted it and kissed me on my forehead before she returned to her place between the pines to gaze at the constellations, those dark creatures outlined by stars.

  She wished to be alone, so I left her, but upon entering the main house, I encountered the French mother superior roadblock, where I was intercepted and cross-examined. Where have you been,
little man, she asked me, and I told her I was studying in the library but then I saw a woman under the pines who I thought might be the Virgin Mary, since everyone at the school knew that she appeared quite often in Lebanon, but of course, the ever-baleful French mother superior, her skin as white as stream stone, looked doubtful, there was no reason that the Mother of God would grace an Arab speck like me with her presence, so she said, Did you ask her if she is our Blessed Mother, and when I admitted that I had not, she sent me back out to do so. The veiled woman was no longer under the pines, which seemed to irk the French mother superior no end, she sent me to bed with a dismissive command, The next time you see the Mother of Hope, ask her what kind of penance she demands from you for being a liar.

  The woman visited a number of times that August, mostly in the rectory while I was reading or studying, I did not ask if she was the Virgin, did not have to, I knew she was not, I knew she was one of us. I had to wait for the following semester before Sœur Salwa explained who Saint Catherine of Alexandria was and why the Roman Catholic Church no longer believed in her existence while it kept the inconsequential Italian Catherines, Sœur Salwa spat every time she mentioned a Catherine from Siena or Bologna or Genoa, the Church took away Barbara and Margaret, Cyriac and Agathius, they removed our Christopher’s sainthood but kept that of the idiot from Milan, the Church slew the fourteen, martyred them once more and again. The Mother of Hope might have been born one of us but she no longer deigned to spend time in the colonies, she preferred to get her pedicures on Via Veneto. But Catherine, my Catherine visited me, and at first, our conversation was minimal, I would read while she perused the books, she confessed that she had read them all, and when she did speak during those early months, she sounded like my father’s postcards that used to arrive in Cairo, or my mother’s letters, Study hard, my son, pay attention in class, be diligent, studious, and earnest, always do what you’re told.

  On the first day that Sœur Salwa secretly taught us about our saints, Saint Catherine came to the rectory, as soon as she opened the door and saw me, she recognized that I knew her, I asked her, I said, Are you Saint Catherine, our sacred martyr, and she smiled, and an inchoate halo formed before my very eyes, she did not even have to nod, to acknowledge, to respond, she no longer needed a veil in my presence, she was known to me.

  Betrayal

  I don’t think you know how Greg and I met, Doc, I never told you and I can’t imagine he ever would have, he was so decent. Why did you keep me for all those years? I hated you that night, loathed you, I knew you were screwing other boys, you insisted on an open relationship, even I began to fool around with others when you no longer cared to make love to me, but it was just kissing and making out, I mean, I knew you were doing a lot more than that, but I was not ready yet, but then you brought that boy home, I was making you dinner for crying out loud, okay, it was spaghetti but still, I was boiling water with salt and a touch of olive oil in the kitchen. Sorry, you said, we had nowhere else to go, which was patently untrue, you liar, you could have gone to a bathhouse, but no, you had to make me see, make me understand, and I did, he was so deliciously cute, I hated you, you had your arm around his shoulder like a boy holding his favorite Christmas toy, sight hateful, sight tormenting, you two imparadised in each other’s arms. You took him into your bedroom, yours, no longer ours, you closed the door, I was holding the colander in the kitchen, staring out the small rectangular window above the plastic dish drain, unable to move, as if I had just woken up with sleep paralysis, temporary though that might be, I was shuffling frantically within minutes, I grabbed my keys, my wallet, and walked out of our home.

  I did not know where I wanted to go, had no plan, wished only to be away from you and that inconsiderate whore you brought back with you, I walked and walked, my steps moving more quickly than me, from one neighborhood to another, from salutary to sleazy in less than five city blocks, found myself in the seedy and needy neighborhood south of Market Street, I refuse to call it SoMa. You should see what it looks like now, Doc, a dandified eunuch, that’s what they turned it into, everything seems new, the city’s memories have been cordoned off, there’s a Whole Foods store, our history elided by the fashionable, there are dainty boutiques and designer bistros, Folsom Street Fair has become a fetish mall sponsored by Wells Fargo, Wholesome Street Fair. But it was not so then, I was in front of the Eagle, not sure what pulled me in that night, I never cared to before, always thought that leather men looked like a parody of masculinity, why would anyone want to wear so much cow, it went deeper than that, I believe the Nazi aesthetic offended me, but no matter, I went in.

  What can I say, right time right place, or wrong time, or whatever, I was there, I was like a jumpy child alone at an intersection for the first time, look left, look right, look left again, step onto the pavement. Men, men, men in that nest of iniquity, bikers, truckers, those pretending to be, all with facial hair, shaggy beards and trimmed, all white men, made whiter by the black leather ensembles, and by me. The bartender looked me up and down, a short distance, but then welcomed me a bit too effusively, fresh meat and all that, I wished to order a gin and tonic with a lime twist, but I knew not to, just as I knew not to ask my mother for that lace embroidered face mask when I was a child, American beer it was, and a shot of Jäger.

  I had no intention of doing much, I swear, I had never considered that I might enjoy a place like that, let alone its patrons, but I was not going to let these men think of me as an innocent lamb, I was no Agnus Dei, I would be the sophisticated observer of this tribe of aboriginals, an ethnographer of its rites and rituals, I would record their behavior for later examination under better lighting, fool that I was, Shakespearean fool. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. I sat on a shelf beside the pinball machine, nursing the insipid beer, watched men in couples and in groups, arms encircling each other, kissing and touching while they talked, groping butt and crotch, I watched. So many handkerchiefs in back pockets, different color codes that I could not crack, the leather men were less loud, none of the frenetic exhibitionism and braggadocio of other gay bars, yet they preened in uniform, sporting the handkerchiefs like peacock tails, an invitation to debauchery in your ass pocket.

  A group of five to my right passed a joint around, they all turned my way at the same time, someone must have mentioned the ethnographer, one extended his hand, I inhaled a couple of drags of the joint and returned it. A man led another in full rubber body suit and an ominous-looking head mask across the room by a chain, the master sat on a bar stool and his chained partner knelt on the grimy floor beside him, a ritual of the primitives being played, under the fluttering dim light the master seemed to grow taller in his chair. The air was thick, resinous with tobacco smoke, marijuana, and a miasma of carnal pheromones that I absorbed with all my senses, my being, my mind murky, my erection unrelenting. And I saw him. At first glance, he did not seem different from the rest, the requisite leather jacket and chaps, Levi’s, motorcycle cap, but on his side was a coiled black knout, I paid that no mind, an accessory, I thought, an egregious error of judgment. The manner in which he devoured me with his minatory eyes, the slanting leer of his lips, the flickering of his black mustache, I knew not how to resist had I wanted to, the Budweiser sign above my head must have changed to one screaming Use me, abuse me, fuck me, dump me back in my home country. He flicked his head, a signal saying, Come here, but I did not understand or I would have crawled over, not until he sneered in frustration did I figure out what he wanted, and I was about to slide off the shelf when he ambled over, angry, the room watched his approach, my eyes were forced to track him, up, down, his eyes, his highlighted crotch slightly bleached, he took the bottle of beer from my hand, downed the contents in one chug, grabbed my arm, and pulled me off my seat.

  I would have followed him, but it was not to be, there was an interruption, catlike, Greg jumped from the group of five on my right and grabbed my other arm, knout man felt the tug, turned around,
saw Greg holding me, and literally growled, while Greg with a stoner smile simply said, Fuck off, but it sounded more like Fockoff. There I was, two handsome, manly men tugging me, one on each arm, about to fight over me, my mind so muddled all I could do was grin at Greg and ask, Are we Irish? Greg shook his head in puzzlement, I had this effect on men when I was young. Knout man squeezed my arm harder, it hurt, he hissed at Greg, Let go of what’s mine or I’ll kill you, Greg seemed unperturbed, he repeated, Fockoff, which only increased my certainty that he was Irish, at which point the four in his group jumped into the passion play insisting that knout man leave me be, one shoved him but he still hung on to me, it seemed all the patrons of the bar including the once-welcoming bartender surrounded us and as a Greek chorus chanted, Leave the boy alone, asshole, You’re not welcome here, You’re a sick weirdo, Get the hell out, and knout man’s hand released its grip but not Greg, who pushed me behind his back until the evil man left the building, threatening and cursing, his walk toward the exit much less masculine.

  The bartender told Greg’s group, You guys take care of this one, and then to me, And you had better get smart real quick. Greg and his cohort explained that knout man’s last trick ended up in the hospital for four days with both internal and external injuries, worse, according to a man in the group, knout man did not even visit once, much worse, according to another, knout man was a cop, a hat trick of offenses, eighty-sixed from the Eagle after that night.

  I hung on to my knight in shining armor, my hand held his arm for the entire time we stood in the circle at that bar, I did not consider whether he found me attractive that evening, or whether he cared to take care of me, I was going home with him, he had no choice that first night: he saved me, ergo he owed me. I followed him through the dark night, oblivious to anything but him, his red hair, his mustache, wondering what color his pubic hair would be, was he uncircumcised, I stepped around winos and druggies, stepped over smelly lumps covered in filthy blankets, breathed in the stench of souls, walked and walked.