Radius Islamicus

by Julian Samuel

  “You’ll have a scotch I know. You’re not sure you lived in this area?”

  “Thank you. A scotch, yes. Seems like I forget things, but they’ve come back to me. I am glad you’re around this kind of group memory loss. Gives me confidence in our friendship.”

  I look into the apartment from the door.

  “So this is where you live. Thank my lucky stars you have abstract paintings. I get fed up with living with all those hillbilly landscapes in our home in Uricville. They try to look so modern. Let me move in with you. I know I’m very handsome, and don’t worry, I won’t tell the home about our meeting. Not unless you take your clothes off right now.”

  She puts my coat on a hanger and slips it into the closet. Please, have a seat. A pause follows. I sip the scotch looking down at the Afghan carpet. I recognize things immediately: Kandahar. And, then, another sip.

  “Well, Dr. Macleod, we certainly have an understanding, don’t we?”

  “Understanding?”

  “I love your company. Is that too simple to be reasonably acceptable? Do tell me if that is the case.”

  “One wonders. Pleasure in each other’s company? Youth and aged beauty.”

  My niceness toward Linda works. She invites me to her apartment for tea again and again. Youth needs age.

  “I can still drive. Someone lent me a car. Lucrece’s daughter? It’s someone’s car that I’m driving. Is it mine?” This makes her laugh. Electra complex? Doubt it. You see, I am not overweight, so it’s not surprising she would not be repulsed by me. Sort of an upper-middle-class neighbourhood.

  “I almost did not recognize you, I’ve never seen you with your hair down before,” I say.

  “Come in.” As usual, she helps me with my coat. “

  You’re having less and less difficulty getting here, I hope.”

  “Came right here. I parked the car a few blocks away, because I wanted to walk.”

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Scotch not run out, has it?”

  “Are you sure you want something that strong?”

  “Yes. Please.” Our conversation wanders. She is not nosy at all. Even though she had heard rumours. It was me and my knowledge of things that made her want to while away six or more afternoons with me. Would I like something to drink? She’d always ask. Just a touch, I would say, always. She can have my money if she wants it: I’ve no one in my life at the moment. My visits go on a few more times, then we take a break for a year. Don’t know why. A lover she had? I did not miss her. But when I started to see her again at her house, the pain of not having seen her made me cry. She held me in her arms. I have told her everything about my life, and why I love returning to this part of Montreal. And, yes, I can leave you a shitload of money when I die. I already met with my lawyer. I’ve no one else to leave it to. No brothers. No sisters. No children.

  At times during the day here, I see myself in my past, or perhaps its my past self that intrudes in my peace by the river. Should I share this panparahistoricism with Linda? I will in due time. My newspaper clippings read me in my favourite chair, black leather, newsprint reflected brightly in my glasses.

  My Dearest fellow murderer,

  Am I wrong to assume that you’d love me forever? Is there some cruel arrogance in saying this? But doesn’t this recognition mean that I’ve always loved you or that I’ve recognized in seeing your love for me a longevity in us? How else can I explain this historic attachment to you after all these years? Not a single day without you in my life in those years that passed in your apartment beside a park with the dark, curly-haired Italians training for the World Cup. There is not a single day that I don’t think about you. There will never be a day without you. Will you ever forgive me for not desiring you as much as I did in the beginning? You must find a way to forgive me. Why won’t you find a way to forgive me?

  I want to see you every day. But how the cold winds blow. Are you sure you can’t make a little room for me in your life? Life is so short. Please. Please? Will it really be too painful for you to make a little room? Maybe the pain will go away. Are you scared that things in this context will be superficial and meaningless? But we are in our seventies now. You don’t know how much I wanted to age with you. But how could I have lived with you? A ridiculous question. You’ve seen how I ended up, haven’t you? I dreamed that you came to see me when I was sleeping. I was watching them play cricket; cricket is another word for terrorism.

  Constant aloneness, that’s what I have now in this last stop: long emphasis on the nesssssssss. Must try to make you laugh; that way you’ll remember. Am I being mean in expressing my desire? I see depth to us. Nice music we listened to. Even though you claimed to have full understanding of it. Of course, I could only understand it partially.

  A love that never dies. Can you please reach me?

  With reverence,

  yours,

  Joseph

  I show and discuss the above letter with Linda. It brings us together. We’re walking outside the home, on a narrow stony beach around the tiny lake.

  “I get the impression, I get the impression that you need to know more — about me, I mean if we are to remain friends. You should.”

  “We’re going to remain friends, yes. There’s nothing nosy about me wanting to know what happened in your past life, is there?”

  “I don’t think you’re nosy. Yes, I organized the London trauma — big word for such a small series of things. You’re not shocked, are you? I’ve willed your silence, and you’re in my will. Deathbed confession. That’s what you’re getting, without the deathbed. Is it legal to promote hate against a people — Moslems? My object was to frighten the European chancelleries — scare the sausages out of them.”

  “Noble. Can they do anything now?”

  “There is nothing the authorities can do now. They can’t base a trial on the diaries of one of the fools I hired. You have difficulty accepting who I am and why the playing field is not even.”

  “What if he testifies against you in court? What government gave you money to do this?”

  “He? Who? Court? Proof? Governments? Crap. Three of my fellow organizers are in this home now. Things aren’t how they appear, are they? We are years down the line. In fact, I am sure that that’s the bastard who wants information — has been calling so often. Maybe he really is a writer, as he says he is. Fucked if I know. Why did I do it? Political convictions enveloped in the desire to get rich — is that what you think? But mostly to get rich quick. Most TV westerners think there isn’t any money in terrorism. But there is. You heard part of the conversation with Anver, or was it someone else? I get confused. You know I get confused.”

  “Who paid you? Hey, why don’t I write your life story? Then I could get rich as well. You make things up, don’t you?”

  “A rich regime paid me — Damascus, Teheran, Islamocosmomondo. An Arab regime, an enlightened Arab country, that’s how the world saw it. What does it matter now which regime paid? Don’t worry. Who paid Thatcher — the Queen of Western Terrorocotta? Are you sure you want to know who paid? Are you working for Old Folks Homeland Security? I am about to die in the next few months — the government — a Middle Eastern country, which has 349 days of sunshine. How’s my disease? What did the doctors say: what’s the report?”

  “Can’t really tell until we get the results. Wish we had more sunshine here. You’ve several years to live. In theory. Which country was it?”

  “I don’t care about the results. I’m not suffering. I can’t feel it eating away. The pills work wonders.”

  “Any regrets?”

  “Regrets? What’s that? Explain the concept. What’s that?”

  “Who was Gorgana?”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Was she Usha? Tatjana? Someone else?”

  “I don’t understand. You tell me. Who was Gorgana?”

  33

  Ezekiel 44.7

  I’ve walked over to Anver’s room. I s
it down beside him and look out onto the river and lawn. I have to kill him: I think he is leaking. Poor fool doesn’t know what is coming.

  “We’ve had a good intelligence harvest,” I say. He looks like he understands what I’ve said. We’re both old, yes, but we’re in the ultra-modern era for aging. Eighty equals an athletic sixty with or without bladder cancer.

  I’m sure that somehow Anver, while eating pig fat, is leaking information to journalists. But then again I am not sure. I can’t be a hundred percent sure but somehow, he could show the world what we did. And what are the consequences of the exposure? Nothing much. We are going to paradise within the next five years. How to fix this? I want to tell him that I agree that we should do a geezer operation — just a last one — and we could conduct it on a small synagogue or a place that makes gravestones for Jewish clients.

  “Anver, should we do one last one?”

  “What? You changed your mind?”

  “I was thinking of that place near rue Mordechai Vanunu, in the Plateau area of Montreal — you know the place that makes those gravestones. Why don’t we do our last operation together?” I say.

  “Why don’t we get Water, Electricity and/or Sanitation?”

  “We don’t have money to do much except something old-fashioned and cheap. I can promise you the standard thermoluminescence, but with much lighter material than we used to use — the new stuff is like walking in with a paper envelope — bang to the bastards. We’re gainfully employed again. Happy?”

  “I don’t mind; glad you’re into this — what do we do?”

  Linda comes in and says hello. Does either of us need anything or is everything ok in here?

  “All is well with us. Thanks. Linda, today I am eightyfive.” Linda smiles and leaves, and we continue planning.

  “We have some supplies — all modern stuff — we put it right inside, you pretend you’re going to buy a large gravestone for a relative.”

  “But the last name on my ID is not something Berg. And Anver is not too correct-sounding, is it? What do you suggest I say when I’m placing the order? And how big is the thing and does it have enough pop?”

  “Say it’s for Hymiebergsteingoldandsilverberg — that should cover all the bases. And, yes it does have enough power to bring the hidden Imam into view.”

  “How did you get such a pop machine? But that’s a long last name, isn’t it?”

  “Do you want to do something or not? Order two with the Hebrew inscriptions — something from Ezekiel — perhaps Ezekiel 44.7 and use your credit card.”

  “Are you sure? My credit card? Anver Mohammad on my credit card? Joseph, you make me laugh. And what if one of us gets injured? They’ll trace it back to the home, won’t they?”

  “Use cash. They’ll ask for a down payment. Give them cash. Credit card later on.”

  “But no one knows what cash is. This is not professional. How do we pay? Can we pay later? I mean, they’ll take months to chisel out Bergsteingoldsilver.”

  “Yes. Months. Causing death is professional. I think they have machines to carve in the words.”

  “Ok, Joseph. We’ll do one last one terrorist event before we get to heaven.”

  “No sign of getting caught yet. I don’t suppose they will catch us now, do you?”

  “So here’s the summary: Tuesday, we do a walk-by but don’t order anything. Friday we walk past, then walk back, then walk in and order stones from them. Then on Sunday 3 November, during the city elections, we do it.”

  “But the gravestone-making place is right beside the kindergarten,” Anver says.

  “Well, then it’ll be a good day for the kiddies.”

  “Let’s change it to Monday then?”

  “Ok, we’ll do it Monday — but that way we don’t get to interrupt the city elections, do we?”

  “You can’t get everything you want. Do you want some kids or do you want to screw up the city elections? The owner of this gravestone place sends money to Israel, which makes graves, not gravestones. Anyway, if you want kids, then we do it Friday.

  When we do the ordering we can leave the pop device, much smaller than the earlier days. The person taking the order will not notice that we’re leaving something. We’ll do this when we are being given a tour of how the shop makes the stones for the dead. So we walk in, have a general chat with them. Tell them we’d like to see where the work is done, out-of-interestism. They will show us their workshop. When they look away we leave the bomb. We walk out. Then a few seconds later. Bang goes the weasel: Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

  “Who are the diplomats? The kids belong to diplomats?”

  “Yes, the kids are extensions of the diplomats.”

  Our raillery continues but soon ends.

  On Friday we catch the train at Lucien-L’Allier, then we get off at Lionel Groulx and continue on the Green Line in the direction of Honoré-Beaugrand. We get off at St. Laurent and take the 55 Bus north to Napoleon. I ask my lifelong friend Anver to walk over to the gravestone makers and past the kindergarten. He does this; he has no idea I am going to push the buttons on my cellphone. A nostalgic yellow-white flash arches up in a pure S form, then a pure white light performs yet another S shape in the afternoon sky. S is the complex conjugate of S. And then a nostalgic bang: I have my Islamic ear protectors on, so I feel nothing at all. The gravestones, now light as light as birds, fly upward into the sky, seeming to following the smoky S curve and land directly on him. I thought I just heard a squish sound, but I didn’t. I have my Islamic hearing protectors on.

  That evening the reports say several were killed and blah blah and the remains of an older man, who through Allah’s mercy and my timing, was destroyed beyond recognition. His departure from this world was attributed, not to the blast, but by being crushed by two gravestones falling directly on his head and shoulders from the Christian sky. The stones for Silverberg and Goldberg were the heavy birds who came home to roost on poor Anver’s shoulders, head, and ribcage all crushed beyond belief. An innocent old man, simply walking past the grey gravestones. Of course, the bleeding kids from the kindergarten next door were enough to make me feel guilty but only for a few seconds. As the kids are being taken to the hospital by noisy ambulances, I start to think about the kids in Kabul. The Saint Urbain bus takes me to the home for aged, successful terrorists. I thought I heard a kid’s arm fly off into the cosmological yonder, but an arm hasn’t a mouth so it must have been my imagination. From the bus window, I can see a baby’s talking arm following the bus, but this must be RTG — routine temporary guilt. I have so much guilt. One of the kids was the son of a blue chip diplomat, so we fulfilled our commitment as set out in the Vienna Convention — one bird, a few gravestones — a fist in the dam of idle conversation. Milquetoast we’re not.

  34

  Milt Jackson on the River Ravi

  I put on some music from my childhood: John Lewis on piano, Milt Jackson on vibes, Percy Heath playing bass, Connie Kay drums, the Modern Jazz Quartet, a little something called “That Slavic Smile.” It will last 8:01 minutes. At 5:23 minutes into this masterpiece, John Lewis’ hands will hit an octave, Milt Jackson will play a few sequences acknowledging his historical masters, the great black and white blues men of the Delta; and the piece will flow into a whimpering tender ending. These musicians have all been dead since the last century.

  I replay “That Slavic Smile.” At exactly 5:23 minutes into the song, and on an octave, I sit down and open a drawer near my bed. After placing a fluorescent blue pill of Viagra One on my tongue, I swallow some water and put the glass down on my white bedside table and continue slowly walking around Tatjana Lucrece’s sleeping body. Every year, they come up with a newer, better version —next year it’ll be Viagra Two — and more expensive. Pharmaceutical bastards prey on us aged, as we prey on time.

  The new and advanced memory pills tell me that I remember sex. The Viagra tells me I still have a willy. Memory plus engorged penis equals Ta
tjana Lucrece. Seems rudimentary. I am rudimentary, but the world around me is more so. Icebergs are rudimentary.

  Milt Jackson’s vibes tinkle in my mind. The home is silent. Tatjana is sexually desirous of me: She wants me. Proof: She touched my hand once at dinner. Night descends as I walk down the aged hallway with mediumpriced paintings by local, very local, talent. What could be worse than a hack who copies the impressionists? I’ve enough memory to know what impressionists are.

  What if she is not feeling like a screw? I pass the kitchen in a mood of sexual over-confidence. Priapic. No cluttering pots and pans, and I am not listening to the water evaporate off the tips of forks, knives and spoons. No donkeys from the Arab world wandering in the kitchen. Male and female food servers in light green gowns — where are they? Glorious, dark silence. I love the quiet of the home at night. However, there’s the question of the blithering telephone, which one can hear if one tries. In the background a nurse chats into the phone. I think I hear the word “Mohammad.” Of course I ignore it, thinking that it would take too much recall strength to attach a face to the word sounds.

  Tatjana’s left her door ajar, or was it the nurse? If she remembers anything, I’ll say Tatjana and I cut a deal. What’s the administration going to say? At any rate, I am, providentially, in her room. There’s a small light in the electrical socket and the curtains have been left open. Enough light enters so that I can see a clear outline of her body and face. Tiptoeing toward the bed, I watch her sleep, her face-wrinkles drooping to the floor. Nurse Linda gave me the pills. Saint Salt Peter the patron saint of droop. And no, they don’t put it in our food. Tatjana is beautiful from where I stand. My love for her is as deep as it was for Usha, because we understand each other. Usha, that drinker of Earl Grey, that scenter of rooms, that personalizer of unpersonalizable rooms, was my best friend in the western part of the home.

  Peacefully, she lies in a soft object called sleep. Why has she forgotten about sex? Has she? How do I know this? Does her bed have wheels on it? No, a normal bed; she’s not that sick yet. Usha: alive one minute, prattling on with stories about Cairo, Oncle Ibn Maurice, the mosque of Ibn Tulun, the next silence. Thin-lipped Usha — whose lips I once touched after breakfast. Usha, the bird woman who called starlings to the window, just to prove she could do it. And they came: effusive starlings, flapping, waking up the entire home like a noisy parliament of old birds.