MEMORIES from the EAST

by Abdulla Kazim

  He giggled. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? I guess you’ve heard enough about me from Li. We may look hard, but we are human after all. Yes, I have made wrong decisions throughout my life, but part of me still cries when I’m alone. I long to see Li’s mother now, but I am bearing the results of the decision I made to separate from her.”

  I kept silent and looked off the roof. The car park below seemed very peaceful and tranquil. Breezes were blowing from the east, not as gentle as the smell they brought with them, but gentle in their own right. Gen was feeling cold, I could see. He kept patting his arms and blowing on his palms.

  “If I fall down drunk, take me home, son.” He coughed and blew out a spit on his left. Then he mentioned his home address.

  “Sure,” I said, watching him shiver like a hen. I didn’t really listen totally to his home address.

  He might be a good person inside, I thought, but my anger towards him still lingered in my heart for what he had done. He might have reached out a kind hand to thousands, but to me he was a devil who ought to come to extinction. He started drinking more heavily and murmuring a mixture of words that would have made no sense to any rational person. My inner self trembled as I looked at him with hard eyes filled with the lust for revenge. The image of my father appeared in front of me holding the heart of my mother, and a sudden craving emerged with it for a loving warm parental hug. My parents might still have lived together. They might not always be fully happy, but no couple can live happy together for a lifetime. There are always ups and downs in a marriage. To hell with all the kind deeds Gen might have done!. Who would give a damn if a murderer distributed flowers? I couldn’t allow myself to believe in Gen’s alleged kindness to others. I might have enjoyed that warm hug from my parents if Gen had not been introduced in their path.

  He started to mumble, giggle, and sing some old song, and he was moving his hands and shoulders in a weird dance. I stood and looked over the edge of the roof. A noisy plane was lighting up the sky, which apart from the plane seemed so clear and pure. Tiny stars and a half moon were adding touches of beauty to the dark garment of the night. I took a deep breath. The cold air caressed my throat and lungs and brushed a wet layer on the surface of my eyes. I looked down off the roof. The asphalt was clear and clean.

  “Gen, Gen,” I shouted to catch his attention. “Come over here. See how this couple are having sex.” I feigned a surprised look pointing down off the roof.

  From the side of my eyes, I watched Gen push himself up and stand with difficulty. He wobbled with the few steps he took and stood next to me. He smelled bad again. I guess it was the result of the bad chemistry his body emitted when mixed with alcohol. He narrowed his eyes and pushed his chin ahead.

  “Where?” he asked, and he trembled as his body’s weight shifted to one foot and then back onto both feet.

  I took a step or two back and saw him standing there in front of me. He took another sip from his bottle and placed it on the edge of the wall and then leant on the wall with his palms. The wall of the roof came up just to his hips, and Gen started to lean forward carelessly. But he wouldn’t just fall and grant my wish to see him dead. I couldn’t imagine him dying so easily of purely natural causes.

  My hand reached out shaking towards his back, and my ears could hear only bubbles coming out of his mouth. My head was busy with things I cannot recall now, but my heart was empty of any real pettiness. It took me one gentle hesitating tap on his upper back to make him tremble and flip over the roof. How fragile he was despite his fit body! The sound of low laughter came to my ears, but soon it started fading into a long gasp. No further sound came but the crash of the body turning into a corpse as it collided with the ground. I looked over now, and for the first time the real image of that dark red blood sparkled in my eyes as well as on the ground, where it was lit up by the post lights.

  I spotted a middle-aged man approaching the bar with his hand around the shoulders of a very young girl. The white bushy hair of the former and the silky black hair of the latter were a bad combination. They looked like a couple that I would have expected to be father and daughter, but as I stared, they didn’t seem to share the sacred bonds of parenthood. The old man started reaching his hand down the chest of the girl and rubbing it there. The young girl sat on the pavement, or she was asked to do so, to be exact. Then she released a small scream as she caught sight of Gen’s corpse. The old man, alarmed, turned his head, gave a look at the corpse, and then turned back to the girl whispering. The whispering turned within a couple of seconds to real sex, with the corpse lying just a few steps away and the blood trickling out in a slow thin river.

  I turned back. My head was heavy. I walked quickly to the narrow door of the roof and went slowly down the steps. The colourful area of the night club disturbed my eyes and hurt my vision, but I tried to keep my composure as I walked out of the club. Once I was steps away, I added picked up speed and kept going from one narrow road to another. In the end I was lost and couldn’t see where I exactly was. At one corner I paused and let out a rush of vomit. I felt cold all of a sudden, and I crossed my arms to fight it and kept walking. In a dirty dim-lit narrow street I let my body crawl down the wall and take rest there. I closed my eyes. My ears listened to the abnormal motion of my heart. I don’t know for how long I was unconscious of time. Eventually there was a tap on my bent knee. I opened my eyes slightly to meet the darkness of the area, and then the figure of a girl started forming on my left.

  “Hey,” she said repeatedly till our eyes met. “Are you drunk?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you carry any money?”

  I raised my eyebrow but didn’t answer.

  “I can give you a quick blowjob for any amount you can offer.”

  I raised my head a little and met her partially covered chest. My nose was disturbed by the heavy cheap perfumed lotion she had on. I instantly realized she was a prostitute.

  “You can help me take a taxi. I will pay you.”

  I provided her my home address and she disappeared for a couple of minutes to come back shouting that a cab was waiting. She helped me to stand, and I thanked her as we walked. As I entered the cab, I pushed some amount of money into her hand without realizing how much.

  Unknown fear was dominating me all over. In my dark room, I buried my head under the pillow and shut my eyes tight.

  28

  My cell phone kept ringing continuously. I reached out and searched for the source of the noise, only to find it at last in my pocket. Without looking at the caller, I answered, and Li’s voice came from the other end, sad and thick.

  “My father is dead,” she said and then wept.

  Memories of the previous night flooded back into my mind.

  “Is… is he?” came out my mouth unconsciously.

  “Yes,” she said. She told me about the funeral arrangements and asked me to attend.

  I recognized myself now as a murderer, but I wouldn’t reveal it to her, not in my life. My heart was squeezing in my chest, and I could see that I had lost all sense of life and beauty around me. I couldn’t eat that whole day, and yet I was determined to attend the funeral the next day to satisfy Li. I wished to keep my strength as long as possible, but the knowledge that you are a murderer is as hot as burning in hell.

  I swallowed some fruit that I found in the fridge, but I threw it up later in the toilet in the form of thick liquid. I wasn’t guilty of committing that crime, and neither am I now. I believe it was the right fate for Gen; his crime against my family was punished, and he had forfeited his life. But the heart is weak, and that feeling of having stolen the right to exist from someone troubled me. When you kill someone, you kill his future and put an end to all his unachieved dreams and planned deeds.

  At the funeral, my face wasn’t the only strange face. There was a variety of different nationalities. I saw how influen
tial Gen had been. My eyes could barely meet anybody else’s, knowing that I was the murderer of the man whose funeral it was. As soon as she saw me, Li walked fast towards me and wrapped me in a tight embrace. I admit now, as I recall her in that black garment, that she looked even more beautiful than ever, but I couldn’t see her beauty at the time. I attempted to put my hands on her back to return the embrace, but my hands were shaking. I am a criminal. I lowered my hands back to my sides. All of a sudden, the grandma appeared. She stopped when she saw me and threw me an angry glare. When Li opened her hands around me, the grandma was gone.

  “It is okay,” I said with a smile. Her eyes were red with tears.

  The funeral functions went on, and I preferred to stay alone, away from the crowd. At one point, the grandmother was just in front of me. I winced at the sight of her grim face.

  “Have you had your revenge on us now?” she asked in a creaking voice.

  I wondered for a while what she was implying, but then I realized she knew about my crime.

  “Yes.” I looked at my shoes and then turned my eyes back on her in a challenging manner.

  “Leave us know. Leave Li and go away.”

  Looking past her short figure, I caught sight of Li talking to another girl. I would miss her, I thought, and I would bring great sadness and depression on her. I apologized to her in my heart and walked out, dropping my cell phone in the nearest garbage bin. At that moment we separated forever. At that moment I gave her one more wrong perception about love and trust.

  Less than five months now remained out there for me, and yet I was fading earlier. I had lost more than five kilograms and was not at all in good shape. Coughing accompanied me always, sometimes in a strong way. I thought many times of killing myself early, but something inside prevented me, telling me to wait a little longer. I listened to that tiny voice for the sake of the promise I had made to myself to die when I was twenty-nine. But for whatever illness or defects I got, I wouldn’t seek any treatment. If my life was to stop at some point, I thought, I wouldn’t interfere by putting it back on track.

  I was abandoned, and I realized what an insignificant shadow I was. Loneliness never weighed as heavily on me as it did at that moment, and my confidence had never been weaker. It is when you need care that you discover your weaknesses. How different am I from my father! I guess I am like him for having a crime imprinted on my hands. We both committed a crime to satisfy our idea of vengeance. I am a criminal on the loose. My belief that I was a mistake of life grew even stronger.

  29

  One Friday morning I woke up to a violent coughing session. I felt myself dying, suffocating, to be honest, as less air circulated in my lungs. My chest was horribly painful as I tried to inhale deeply. Only the initial process of inhaling was possible without agony. I sat up sharply on my bed, my eyes illuminated by the view of the sun through the dust-tinted window. Though the young sun was just waking up as it first rose over the horizon, even in its weakness it burned my eyes. I closed them tight and lowered my face, with my hands clenched to my chest. Slowly, the pain started fading away. How much I hated living!

  I didn’t wish to wake up, but sleeping wasn’t any more peaceful. Nightmares always distracted me from enjoying any tranquillity with myself. I could see and feel only death. My soul was full of bruises, so that I believed no remedy could redeem its tranquillity. All the ambitions that I had enjoyed quenching my lust upon had been melted and flattened to the ground. No sky beheld me anymore; earth overwhelmed me with its graves. It is not about all great things you do in life. It is whether all the things you do can bring you true happiness.

  That morning, after a long time rolling around sleepless in bed, I went to a nearby park to sniff in some fresh air. The park was empty of all but a few people jogging, all of who were elderly, and a couple holding hands on a small bench, looking at the blue sky without speaking but with a smile on their faces. A group of birds suddenly appeared in the sky and landed in the park in beautiful accord. They spread out across from where I was sitting on my bench, picked out with their beaks whatever they sought, and then, unlike the form in which they landed, they flew away in arbitrary order.

  I lowered my head, feeling far more relaxed than I had at home, and I closed my eyes. All my swollen memories were gone now, and tranquillity captured me with its rapture. I felt that I was dying in such peace that surrounded all my senses.

  But then loud noises suddenly disturbed everything and blew away my feeling of peace. I opened my eyes to see a group of people, three males and one female. I was upset with the loud conversation they were having, disturbing my wonderland. Two of the males were helping each other with the video camera, which was focused on the other male figure, whose muscular body was caressing the girl, whose hair was beautifully highlighted. They were shooting some sort of movie, I guessed, and I was about to leave the scene when the face of the muscular guy stopped me.

  “Bojing!” I said to myself.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. He had a bigger figure than the person I remembered, and his face, which had once borne some pimples, was so clear and shiny now. Just to confirm it to myself, I said his name out loud, and he turned to me.

  “Gerald! It cannot be. Gerald!” He left the girl and walked to me. He shook my hand hard.

  “Oh, no, not again, Bojing.” The camera men sighed and lowered the camera and murmured something to each other, pointing at Bojing.

  “Just wait, guys.” Bojing said. “He is my best friend, and we haven’t seen each other for years, don’t you see that?” Then he turned to me again. “I am sorry, Gerald. I have to finish this movie. Shall we meet again?”

  I nodded with a big smile.

  “Can I have your number?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any cell phone. I was about to buy one.” The latter statement was a lie.

  “You take mine.” He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket and borrowed, without permission, a pen from the top pocket of one of the camera men. He handed me the paper. “Call me today, tonight, any time.” He tapped on my shoulder and waved to the cameramen to resume shooting, while he took his position with the girl.

  The shooting resumed. Bojing’s hand rubbed the girl’s back and then slowly went down on the top of her ass. The girl tittered, or just acted so. They all went out through the gate of the park, where a small van was awaiting them. I don’t think that I ever considered Bojing as a best, or even a close, friend, but I was truly happy for him that he had become an actor.

  I went and bought myself a new cell phone and a SIM card. I waited till evening, sitting on my bed doing nothing but looking through the window, having had only a piece of croissant and hot chocolate the whole day. At the first sign of dusk, I took the piece of paper from my pocket where the number was written. I turned it over and found it a supermarket receipt. I dialled the number, and it was instantly answered. He asked me to meet him in a seafood restaurant, giving me the address.

  Within two hours we were having baked squid.

  “This beard of yours and the black marks under your eyes… you look different. You’ve lost weight also, haven’t you?” Bojing said.

  “Life wasn’t so loyal to me,” I simply replied.

  He licked his thumb and then picked another piece of squid. “You know you can come to me for any assistance or help.”

  “You have gained more muscles, I see, and… wow, you are an actor. You seem to have reached your dreams.” I smiled and opened my eyes wider with a surprised expression.

  “I have been training harder and eating more. It is my job requirement.” He adjusted himself on the chair and gave a quick glance to his left. His eyes were looking down, and there was a slight pale shadow of unease on his face. “An actor, yes.” His voice dropped all of sudden. “I am a porn star, Gerald.” My gaze was still on him, but the smile on my face faded away
at this news. “Life wasn’t so loyal to me either. I have worked harder and harder, but no future has seemed to approach my dreams. Any agency that approached me for a modelling audition offered me a very low income.” He swallowed and brushed the edge of the table with the tips of his fingers. “Well, I am making enough in this business, and it is spreading wide all over the world.”

  A moment of cautious silence fell between us. I thought of the business Bojing was involved in. What sort of opportunities might it offer and what future lay ahead for him?

  “But still you are an actor,” I said, and I giggled trying to give him some encouragement, even though I didn’t really agree. “Who has the right to judge whether it is right or wrong!”

  He looked at me and faked a giggle. I could see the spark revive in his eyes, and his usual smile reappeared on his lips.

  “You wouldn’t believe it, Gerald, the sort of girls who take part in this business with their full consent. Many are so young and so cute that you, I believe, would feel terrible seeing them getting fucked for cash. It is such a strange business. The world is very shallow about money, you see.”

  I don’t know whether he realized that he himself fell perfectly into that category of cash-shallow people.

  “How many holes have you tried so far in the job?” I asked jokingly.

  “How many holes? Mm, I guess fifteen in total with ten girls. You got me, right?”

  “Have you enjoyed them?”

  “I am gay, you know. I don’t enjoy sex with females.”

  “Do they know about it?”

  “Me being gay? Why, should they? I’d prefer to fake heterosexuality and nail females than show my true form and get pounded repeatedly by unworthy males.”

  I laughed. “What was that shooting this morning?”

  “Every porn movie has a starter, an opening that prepares the viewer for what is coming next, and that was what we were doing this morning. The girl is hot, isn’t she? She asked me about you and mentioned that you are handsome. She was thinking you are a porn star as well, but I denied it. You could work as a porn star, Gerald. Did you know that? Though you look a bit sick now, your complexion still retains its charm.”