When he and his sycophantic entourage first appeared at the house, the workingwomen were all atwitter, how wonderful, how fabulous, they would climb one or two rungs up the ladder of desirability, if not respectability. Auntie Badeea, however, was not impressed by the boy, like his grandfather, she wrote, that boy doesn’t have enough blood coursing in his veins to sate a mosquito, which alarmed me, since no Egyptian who valued her skin should insult the president, and the aunties were quickly disabused of their infatuation, the president’s grandson was no Uday or Qusay Hussein, he did not torture any of the girls for pleasure, he was just a brat, and worse, a bore, and worst, a tightwad. Once the boys even brought an Israeli in young and trendy civilian garb with a not-so-subtle military demeanor, they preened more than usual, look at how modern we are, the boys declaimed, grandstanding, showboating, and flaunting, the Israeli humored them, seemed amused, and he certainly tipped his girl more than any of them, and they all departed into the late night laughing.
Auntie Badeea had had enough, but what could she do, she asked, not much, she wished to kill them with her bare hands, risking her manicure. The ubiquitous Arab shame, she called it, having to endure eternal humiliation in your own home. When the boys appeared next, she prophesied the end of their empire, Fools, she told them, your time is nigh, and they laughed. They shouldn’t have.
Not too long after I received that letter, a bereft young fruit peddler in Tunisia doused himself in paint thinner and set himself on fire. On that day, Auntie Badeea sent me an e-mail, it was time, she wrote. It took a while for a demonstration to get organized but it did, I was late getting to work the day it started, I swear, Doc, it was the first time I was late in years, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the wavering transmissions on the television, I switched from CNN to BBC to ABC, I had Al Jazeera blaring on my computer screen, that first day, Doc, that first day was miraculous, pride pricked every morose cell in my body, dignity filled my soul, I knelt by the chair in the living room and wept until I laughed and laughed until I wept.
In yet another letter, Auntie Badeea told me she was doused with a water hose, not paint thinner, but aflame she was, in her seventies and no longer wishing to bow or kowtow, The police wanted to stop this body with a measly water cannon, she wrote, this body had endured Suleymah’s massages at the hammam, believe me, the water barely made my fat jiggle, let them come with bullets. They did the next day, they shot at the crowd and the crowd grew bigger, from thousands to millions, we had ourselves an honest-to-goodness revolution.
An Arab is an Arab is an Arab, Satan said, such a sucker, you fooled yourself once more, didn’t you? O Satan, take pity on my long misery.
Within a few weeks of the beginning of the Egyptian revolution, Auntie Badeea began to tweet, every demonstration, every arrest, every shot, every beating she shared with the entire universe and its foreign constellations, the revolution got rid of one president, then another, but the arrests kept on, the tortures never abated, A permanent revolution is what we need, tweeted Auntie Badeea, quoting Trotsky. She still had not given up hope, but I did. Revolutions are a Lernaean Hydra, Satan said, why do you think Death likes them so much, you cut off one head and two take its place, when you’re getting fucked over, it matters little if it’s the president or the general, you can throw as much tea as you want into the harbor, you’ll still have to bend over, baby, eternal justice for the rebellious.
I gave up hope, I gave up, when Mubarak was pardoned by the military government, with each bomb that Assad dropped on his people, with each suicide bomb in Baghdad or Benghazi, in Barca or Cyrene, a razor blade cut through another vein. I bled whatever pride the revolution had engendered. Hope might be the thing with feathers but in the Middle East we hunt those birds for sport.
I could have saved you so much trouble, Satan said, but you never listen to me.
I know thee, stranger, who thou art, how great my grief, my joys how few, since first it was my fate to know thee.
Procrustes
I dream of him, Doc, I do, Procrustes, do you remember what I told you about him? The Greek who waylaid travelers—well, he offered his hospitality to passing strangers, come in, come in, join me in a meal and rest your weary legs, I have a special mattress, no, an iron bed, one that fits the exact measurements of every man, magical, yes. Once the guest was in the bed, if he was too short, Procrustes took out his smith’s hammer and stretched him to fit, if too tall, he chopped off the excess length. He had the bed for the perfect man, searched for such a one to fit, why bother with a glass slipper, I ask you, Doc, he was an anthropometrist, just like you. We, your boys, had to be a certain height and weight, never varied, one size fits all, you were a specialist.
In this morning’s dream I’m back at l’orphelinat de la Nativité in the infirmary iron bed surrounded by white, including the hood and wimple of the nun nurse except she was an unshaven man under the garb, obviously Procrustes himself since he carried a silver smith’s hammer, bang, bang, he’d make sure I was dead, except his thick Greek lips were trembling, just like my mother’s when she had a decision to make, should she put on the red dress or the green dress for this evening’s entertainment. Around his neck, the only color in the room, hung a long coral necklace that reached below his belt and swung like a pendulum. When I woke up, I wondered why the school’s infirmary, I fit that bed, the one that was unlike the others at school, I felt comfortable there.
We slept in school beds that were all the same and I used to look forward to being ill in the infirmary because no one troubled me much, except for the nun nurse with the slightly ducklike nose who checked on me twice a day at most, but I could not remain there for long, as I was always sent back to my hard bed with everyone else. The nuns, those learned torturers with shrill instruments, had rules and laws and regulations that all us boys had to follow in order to make perfect men out of us, they taught us to add and subtract and sing French, to read French history and literature, and à la Yeats, to be neat in everything in the best modern way. Ye sons of France, awake to glory—well, enfants de la Patrie manqués we were, all of us, bottomless crucibles of sin, they would bleach our tawdry hearts, blanch our sooty souls, they would scour away the lees and dregs of barbarism, lest we thought we could someday return to our aboriginal ways. The collars almost choked us as we matured, but it was for the best, all agreed, because truly, who would not want to be civilized, we dressed alike, walked alike, studied alike, and when the civil war started most of us joined fascist militias in order to keep Lebanon pure and not Arab. The French still sing about spilling impure blood in the “Marseillaise.” Most of the other boys joined militias, but not me, the militias would not have accepted me, you know, Doc, every now and then I may have been able to pretend that I fit the bed, but I was never able to sustain the deceit.
It was summer, through the infirmary window I saw the Mediterranean, the blue in the west unraveled the luminous threads of saffron signaling the descending night, but I wished to stifle the beauty of the world since my head throbbed with delicious pain, hark, hark, the lark at heaven’s gates shrieked, hark, hark, my soul, and the saints appeared before me at the end of the bed, all haloed and incandescent. I believe it is time you met us, Saint Catherine said, all of us in glory, she sat next to me, held my hand, and began the introductions, one by one, as if they were the von Trapp children saying good night at the Nazi party. This is Saint George, born in Lod, Palestine, the city of Zeus, he defeated the dragon of the lake in Libya, at first my idiot heart was terrified and I remained as still as a lizard, and this is Saint Blaise, the Armenian bishop with his crossed candles, he was tortured, scourged, and beheaded, he had the face of a generous accountant, Saint Erasmus loved Lebanon because that was where he hid from Diocletian for a while, except he made my stomach cramp since his intestines were wound around a windlass, Saint Pantaleon in a checkered doctor’s coat who survived burning, a molten-lead bath, forced drowning, and stretching on the wheel, until he was finally beheaded, and
then the Sicilian Saint Vitus with his palm leaf, and the giant Saint Christopher who looked even taller because of the child with the coral necklace on his shoulder, and Saint Denis carrying his own head, and Saint Cyriac who had conjunctivitis in both eyes, Saint Agathius the Greek wearing his soldier’s vest, Saint Eustace who saw a shining cross nestled in a stag’s antlers, Saint Giles of Athens who suckled on the milk of a hind, Saint Margaret of Antioch who conquered Satan in the form of a dragon, and last, though by no means least, we have the beautiful maiden Saint Barbara, beheaded by her own father, Dioscorus, who was immediately struck by lightning, fire from Heaven.
My migraine, soft sift in an hourglass, dissipated. The saints and I chatted, shreds of conversation, scraps of poetry, fourteen saints they were, twenty-eight healing hands that touched me when I needed solace, help me, Doc. But no traveler fit the bed of Procrustes, he adjusted them all to death, and the secret as to why not a single man had the right measurement was that he had two iron beds, not one, he placed each traveler in the bed that did not belong to him, and do you think the nuns had just one bed? Of course not, they slept on different beds from ours, but we must pray to the same God. Liberté, egalité, fraternité, ce n’est pas sérieux, we’re only kidding, allez-y, you boys must pursue civilization, not that you could ever attain it, bitch, please, the endless pursuit is where thou shalt remain, look up to us, lift up your eyes and look to the heavens for it is there that you will find us. And then the gargoyle nuns gave me my own ill-fitting bed.
Unpitied
Querulous skylarks settled their squabbles in the bamboo grove right outside my window, in my neighbor’s yard, Behemoth on his haunches on the duvet watched with unrestrained longing, desire full of endless distances, tremors of his mouth, spasms of his jaw, whispery wistful meows. I ached for him, damn you, feathered things, frolic elsewhere, end his torture. On the screen of my laptop, I read the last words of a three-year-old Syrian girl, mortally wounded, besmeared with immortal blood, I’m going to tell God everything, she said. Wonderful, I said to the Facebook news-feed, just wonderful, make sure to tell that son of a bitch his firmament of Hell still stands, still spouts cataracts of fire upon his unchosen people while his privileged practice yoga asana, the forgotten suffer their drones and missiles, unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved.
As it was in the beginning, said Satan, lying on my bed, so shall it be in the end, so shall it be first, last, midst, and without end, basically you’re screwed, Jacob, you know, the supremacy of Western civilization is based entirely on the ability to kill people from a distance.
I could not bear it anymore and jumped Satan, wanted to pummel him, but who was I kidding, I had never thrown a punch and never would, he laughed as I struggled to hold the angel of light. Next to us Behemoth watched us instead of the birds, imperturbable, refusing to budge. In one swift motion, Satan turned me over, sat on my midriff, held my arms down next to my head on the pillow, brought his face down next to mine, You can never win, Jacob, he said, and kissed me. Call me Ya’qub, I told the Devil Iblis.
Satan’s Interviews
Death
“Father,” Death said, “I am peace incarnate.”
“Do tell,” Satan said.
“Bloviating Virgil wanted souls to be tormented for one thousand years before they suffered enough, were purified enough, to be permitted to drink from Lethe and find peace. Your ancient Roman poet considered a thousand years’ sad exclusion from the doors of bliss quite acceptable, if not outright glorious. Now, he was a reed-and-papyrus kind of guy, grandiloquent and verbose, whereas I am modern, one hundred and forty characters and quadruple microprocessors, that’s me. I offer peace on demand, instant gratification. Step into the future, leave memories behind, welcome to the land of latest. Want a sip? Go ahead, please. Democratic and ecumenical I am. New and improved, I am Lethe brownies. Eat me.”
Barbara
“If one can’t kill the savage or castrate him,” Barbara said, “what is to be done? How does one convert a Muslim?” While she spoke ambrosial fragrance filled the room, sweetness of the Lebanese mountains, jasmine and lavender, pine and a hint of cedar, scents that belied her irritation. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, Mary, Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow when your chastity belt stops any kind of flow?”
The seat of all saints looked most like a throne with Barbara in it. Her back remained regally straight, her demeanor rigid, a modest crown upon her head. The peerless academic with fishwife tongue held a miniature tower in her lap, no more than a foot in length, yet impeccably detailed, down to the three tiny windows of the top room, the Trinity.
“Those fucking nuns kept trying to shove Mary down those poor boys’ throats,” Barbara said, “and those were the Christian lads. Our Jacob arrived a Muslim, allegedly; he needed a megadosage, a supersized Mary with fries. Why cut off a boy’s balls when you can freeze them right off with an icy virgin?”
The smell of orange blossom and lemon trees wafted from her; one could practically lick the sour sumac in the delicious air. Satan did not need to goad Barbara, who commenced her sumptuous diatribe as soon as she appeared—no tea required, no apple, just venom.
“And it wasn’t Jewish Mary from Bethlehem that these nuns worshipped. Theirs had nothing to do with ours. Once the West appropriated our religion they turned our poor mother into a frigid altarpiece, no trace of humanity allowed. Their Bethlehem sounded more like Stockholm. Mary became their arctic suppository. They came to our lands with their corrupt religion, the nuns, the missionaries, and the popemobile. Worshipping Catherine or Margaret was uncivilized. The mountain saints? Heretical! You’re no Christians, the nuns told our boys, bend over so we can shove our higher catechism up your ass.”
Perfume of sweet gardenias and tuberoses fanned out from her pure form like gentle breaths. Her halo shone brighter than the brightest star. Her hair was a dark black, her cheeks a sparkling strawberry red.
“Sleep on, blessed brown people,” Satan said. “O, yet happiest if ye seek no happier state, and know to know no more than what we tell ye.”
“Belief should develop organically, and it did in our mountains, but all these new religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, all of them were forced upon us from far away. Generations of boys and girls were raised broken and unwhole.”
“Why do you think the nuns did their worst damage through Mary?” Satan asked. “I’m not sure I follow that.”
“Original sin,” Barbara said. “Ave Maria and all that, Ave derived from Eva, inverted because Mary restored what Eve lost. To the nuns, to those disciples of a sanctimonious god, Mary was the antithesis of sin, the boys its embodiment. The Mother of God was supposed to wash clean all the brown races. You know, the French mother superior walked around with a rolled-up map of the Levant in her pocket that she continuously stroked while speaking to the boys, it comforted her, provided her with solace, it pleased her to caress the world she was about to release from darkness. I loathed that soulless bitch. On my feast day, Lebanese children wore masks and went door-to-door in the villages asking for coins or sweets, a ritual that had gone on for hundreds of years. Within one generation, these stupid Europeans erased it. Only the old people remember now—old people and our poet. He remembers now.”
Death
“Barbara is still raging,” Death said. “All her fire has gone into her temper. That indignant virago has been angry since she lost her head.”
“Can you blame her?” Satan said.
“Of course I can.”
“Effulgence in my glory, son beloved. You have always been so unforgiving.”
“I am naught if not forgiving, Father,” Death said. “Barbara is the one who isn’t. Should she have held a grudge when her father decapitated her? Of course. Should she still grasp it tight to her bosom more than a thousand years later? Of course not, but she’s a Semite through and through, Levantine to the core. They lip-synch the same tired songs every day. The same mitered man who removed her from the liturgical c
alendar had made Mary the mother of the Church. Should she still be hating him some fifty years later? Please.”
“Which one was he?”
“Paul VI, John XXI, Rocky IV, who cares? They’re all the same to me. I forgive them all. Even that French mother superior. She gulped her Lethean cup with the relish of those who desperately cling to their assumed innocence.”
At the Clinic
Poems in Sharpie
We sat in silence, four in the waiting room, five if you count Iblis but let’s not, but then he said, For idle hearts and hands and minds the Devil finds a work to do, tell a joke or something. Blondie was peeling another orange, the slight shadow of stubble on his jaw reminded me of someone, not Deke, I couldn’t think who at first, but now I realized it was Jim he took after. I missed Jim, I missed you and Jim and Pinto and Chris and Greg and Lou and how I was with you in my life, who I was. My phone buzzed, a text from Odette that said, I’m waiting for you, fucker, accompanied by a picture of all five feet of her smiling, a loud new streak of red in her hair that matched her pants, arms akimbo, looking like a perfervid mini Superman, I couldn’t help myself, I began to laugh.
The Angel of History Page 21