Chaos of the Senses

by Ahlem Mosteghanemi

  * * *

  When I left him, I was beset by conflicting emotions – from satisfaction, to disappointment, to an astonishment that was as painful as it was pleasant.

  To go to a love tryst and find yourself with a person who has just emerged from a book you wrote, who has the same name and even the same disfigurement as one of the characters in that book, and to find that in spite of it all, you still feel the same overpowering desire for him – an experience like that is bound to leave you in a huge muddle of feelings and questions. The resulting inward chaos will be all the worse when you see that the very name you invented yourself, and worked so hard to come up with, has left your book and placed itself at the end of a newspaper article as the name of a man who has nothing to do with you, or, at the very least, would have had nothing to do with you if it weren’t for a particular astonishing detail: namely the fact that he, like the character in your book, has a disfigured arm.

  It blew my mind to think that this man was continuing a story that had begun in a previous novel of mine. It was as though he were planning to publish a single-copy, reality-based edition of the book.

  The day when he kissed me for the first time in front of his bookshelves, he had said, ‘We’re continuing a kiss that we began on page 172 of that book, and in the very same place.’

  Afterwards I went looking for page 172 in every book I had ever written, and I found that kiss: prolonged, detailed, unplanned, just the way it had happened one day between that artist and that writer.

  Then, when I borrowed the book by Henri Michaux, he had told me he was afraid he might be repeating a stupid mistake he had made in a previous book. He was alluding to the fact that the heroine in that earlier story had fallen in love with the main character’s friend . . . on account of a book.

  As for me, I noticed that I was doing some of the same things that that heroine had done after the aforementioned kiss. For example, I had borrowed a book.

  From the start everything had taken us back to that story, including the city that had brought us together. In his talk about Constantine and bridges, there was both a return to, and a seemingly deliberate retreat from, the things that artist had said in the novel. It was as though the temporal and emotional distance he had traversed had caused him to rethink and correct his views.

  Yet in spite of everything, it was still confusing. I didn’t want to believe that this man, who had been turning my life upside down for the past six months, was himself Khaled Ben Tubal, the creature of ink that I’d brought into being several years earlier, then forgotten inside of a book. I had cast him into the bowels of a printing press the way one casts a body into the sea after weighing it down with heavy rocks lest it resurface. But he’d resurfaced anyway.

  Here was someone I knew inside and out. I had lived with him for four hundred pages and nearly four years. Then we’d gone our separate ways. His life had come to an end on the last line of the book, and my life without him had begun.

  But in the time that had passed since then, which of us had been looking for the other? And which of us had needed the other more?

  A novelist was once asked, ‘Why do you write?’ to which he replied in jest, ‘Because my characters need me. I’m all they have in this world!’ This writer had been dodging the question, of course, and was tacitly admitting to the fact that he felt like an orphan. In the end, every novelist is an orphan at heart, a peculiar creature who abandons his family in order to create an imaginary set of family members, friends and other loved ones made of nothing but ink. He then proceeds to live among them, so preoccupied with their concerns and so ruled by their moods that it can be truly said that they’re all he has in this world!

  This being the case, what was so amazing about the fact that this man had become my entire family, occupying the place previously held by my husband, my brother, my mother, and everyone else around me?

  Actually, the only thing that really amazed me was the fact that, of all the characters I had created, I’d grown attached to this one in particular. It might make perfect sense for Pygmalion to fall in love with a statue he had made with his own hands and which was a paragon of perfection. But what sense would it make for a sculptor to fall in love with a statue he had failed to create, or for a novelist to fall in love with a character she herself had disfigured?

  That evening, I’d hoped that sitting with my mother would help me get away from myself. I had been neglecting her somewhat after having persuaded her to contact some acquaintances of hers in the capital, and I had planned a schedule for her that would give me the freedom I wanted.

  She was happy, or at least she seemed to be, as she talked about a distant relative of hers whose son was getting married at the weekend. She had invited us to the wedding, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine how my mother would be spending the next few days.

  My mother’s whole life was spent between one wedding and the next, one pilgrimage and the next. Wherever she went she ran into someone who was about to marry off a son or a daughter, someone who had a relative who had just come back from a pilgrimage to Mecca, or some sheikh who would invite her to a celebration of a local saint.

  Yet even with all of this she wasn’t completely happy. Her happiness was missing something, something called Nasser. Before he went away she’d been hoping to marry him off, to have a daughter-in-law she could boss around, and grandchildren she could raise and enjoy.

  Now that Nasser was gone, every wedding reminded her of him, and all she wanted was for him to come back and share with her what remained of her life. What hurt her most about his leaving was the fact that she hadn’t been prepared for it. Nothing in Nasser’s personality or lifestyle suggested that he might make such an unexpected decision.

  Ever since Nasser had left three months earlier, I’d been trying to give my mother an answer to her questions while at the same time hiding half of the facts from her. She would ask, ‘Why did your brother go away? He tells you everything.’

  ‘He was uncomfortable here,’ I would say. ‘He wanted to try his luck overseas the way everybody else is doing, but he’ll be back. He promised me he would.’

  ‘But when? In a few weeks? A few months? A few years?’

  I didn’t have any answer to give her. ‘When things settle down a little,’ I said. ‘When conditions improve.’

  ‘What conditions?’ she wanted to know. ‘What is it that he expects to improve? Didn’t you hear about what happened two days ago in Blida? I heard from a woman today that they . . .’

  ‘I don’t want to know about it,’ I interrupted. ‘Don’t tell me anything please.’

  I didn’t want my mother to ruin my night with news about death. From time to time she would call me in the evenings, whether out of boredom or fear, and all she could think of to tell me were stories more hair-raising than any horror film I had ever seen.

  There had been a sudden increase in the perverse practice of mutilating corpses lest the departed rest in peace or find their way to heaven. Or maybe it was to teach a lesson to the ‘infidels’ or people who worked in the service of the ‘infidel’ state.

  This sort of epithet was applied most frequently to security personnel or certain unfortunate traffic policemen, whose breed had nearly gone extinct over the past few months. Most of them had either been shot to death or had their throats slit, while many had been assassinated while escorting a relative to his final resting place.

  As for the ‘smart ones’ who came to visit their dead two or three days later, their assassins would lie in wait for them in the cemeteries night and day, and before they knew it they were sharing a grave with their dead loved one, since graves in this country lay open, waiting for the slightest excuse to close in on an unsuspecting visitor.

  So what could my mother have possibly added to the macabre soap opera I was already watching with horror every day along with everyone else in the country?

  Harping again on her most gnawing preoccupation, my mother suddenly asked me, ‘Did Na
sser leave an address in the letter he sent with that friend of his?’

  ‘Yes,’ I told her.

  ‘Write to him, then.’

  ‘I will as soon as I get back to Constantine. He asked me about some things that I need to check on there.’

  As a matter of fact, all he had asked me was how my mother and I were, but I wanted to put off dealing with his letter for a while. All I could think about was one thing: Khaled, just as all my mother could think about was Nasser. Now that he was gone, he reminded my mother of my father, who had disappeared just like that more than thirty years earlier. He had disappeared with a handful of other men in order to plan out what later came to be known as the November Revolution.

  Since that time, my mother had developed a fear of men who go away all of a sudden without leaving an address. They may never come back at all and if they do come back, it may be after such a long time that we’ve stopped waiting for them. There are times when a little voice near us keeps insisting – They’re coming today, maybe even right now! Then suddenly the miracle happens – there’s a hurried knock on the door, and it opens to reveal a weary man, his clothing covered with dust. He picks us up like a doll, wraps our little body in his arms and bathes us in kisses, but we’re too young to know whether he’s laughing or crying.

  There is a remarkable incident that my mother relates from the time I was five years old. It was Ramadan, and my mother was making a special Algerian pastry for our evening fast-breaking meal. I kept asking her to make some for my father, since it was one of his favourite dishes. She replied that he was gone, and that he wouldn’t be able to eat any of it. ‘But he is coming!’ I insisted with childish stubbornness. ‘So make some for him!’

  No sooner had we sat down to eat than a knock came at the door. It was my father, who had come back from the front after an absence of exactly one year. His last visit had been during the previous Ramadan. When she saw him, my grandmother burst into tears, saying, ‘Hayat told us you were coming, but we didn’t believe it!’

  In light of this memory, I expected my mother to pester me with the question, ‘When will Nasser be back?’ in the belief that I still had that sixth sense that gives children access to things adults can’t perceive. Of course, I had lost that kind of intuition long ago, along with a number of other lovely things that I had left behind as I got older.

  If I had still had it, I would have found the answers to many other questions. In the past one of these had been, ‘When will that man come back?’ Other questions were, ‘Who is he?’, ‘When will I see him?’ and ‘Where is this strange story taking me?’

  The minute I thought of him, I had an overpowering desire to talk to him and hear his voice. So I waited until my mother had gone to bed, and then I went to call him.

  His line was busy for the first fifteen minutes, which surprised and irritated me. I didn’t expect him to have anyone else in his life that he might talk to at night.

  Finally the telephone rang, and his voice came, saying, ‘How are you?’

  ‘I miss you. The line has been busy for a long time.’

  ‘I was talking to someone in Constantine.’

  ‘Is your family still there?’

  ‘No, I was talking to my friend Abdelhaq.’

  ‘You were talking to a friend at this hour of the night?’

  ‘He’s a man of the night,’ he replied somewhat defensively.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s a journalist and works nights at a newspaper.’

  ‘Is there any news?’

  He seemed about to say something, but paused. Then, as though he were hiding something, he said, ‘No.

  ‘And you?’ he asked absently.

  ‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’

  He was quiet for a while. Then he said, ‘And I want you.’

  His directness took me by surprise. Amazed, I said, ‘Really? So why did you wax eloquent yesterday in defence of the beauty of abstinence?’

  ‘Last night . . . I don’t know. I was just drunk on opposites. At times like that you can’t expect me to say anything logical.’

  ‘As for me, I have lots of things to say to you, but I’ve started to avoid being too candid. Based on things you’ve said, I’m afraid somebody might be eavesdropping on us.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he quipped. ‘What’s the use of having a secret if nobody ever hears about it?’

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ I shouted.

  ‘No,’ he insisted, ‘but don’t you think there’s something nice about love scandals?’

  I was appalled at his nonchalance.

  ‘But I’m married!’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’m constantly marrying you and murdering you.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘To legitimize loving you. I want to make you mine so that I can do all sorts of forbidden things with you.’

  ‘Do you need all of that in order to love a woman?’

  ‘Of course. I was once a man of principles. At that time you were the most delectable woman I could imagine refusing.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Now I want you without questions. There isn’t much time left.’

  After a pause he continued, ‘Come tomorrow. I want to infect you with my madness.’

  ‘Do you promise me if I come that you’ll tell me who you are?’

  ‘All I can promise you is pleasure. And you will come.’

  ‘How can you be so sure of that?’

  ‘Because there’s someone hovering around me who might steal me from you. Don’t you feel jealous of some being that might take possession of me for ever?’

  Incredulous, I asked, ‘Are you getting married?’

  With a kind of muffled sadness he said, ‘You might call it a marriage of sorts. It’s the only permanent bond that we don’t choose, and from which we can’t escape.’

  I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I concluded he was joking with me as a way of getting me to come.

  ‘All right then, I’ll be there. But beware of my jealousy. I’m a Sagittarius, and people with that sign of the zodiac make up the largest percentage of those who commit crimes of passion. I’ll bring you a report to document it.’

  ‘Come then,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Maybe I’ll be the one to kill you!’

  Why did this man insist on setting fire to my body and my notebooks? He who had always stood on the edge of the forbidden, contenting himself with a kiss, what had led him to change his convictions? Was there really another woman hovering around him? Who might she be? And how could such a thing have happened when I was talking to him every day?

  I tried to sleep, looking for answers to these questions. Then I remembered him saying, ‘The time for questions is over.’ So I hid my question marks under the pillow and began dreaming about our next tryst.

  * * *

  My mother’s preoccupation with that wedding was an absolute godsend. Knowing of my dislike for such occasions, and having despaired of my going with her, she attended it by herself and left me to get ready for my secret celebration.

  It was noon when I arrived at the house. He opened the door for me in what might best be described as a ‘seaish’ mood, in that he seemed as mysterious and unpredictable as the high seas.

  He kissed me without saying a thing.

  I sat gazing at him on the sofa opposite his. I said, ‘You have something of the sea in you.’

  ‘Was my kiss salty?’

  ‘No, but there was something deceptively calm about it.’

  He made no reply.

  Silence made us more eloquent. The vibrations that passed through us in the stillness placed us on a faultline where an earthquake might strike at any moment. And since passion is a state of silent anticipation, we both loved and feared the silences that would suddenly come over us.

  The call to the noon prayer rang out from a distant minaret. He seemed to be listening to it intently, so I didn’t dare speak to him
.

  When it was over I got up. He was busy smoking a cigarette. As I headed towards the kitchen, I said, ‘May I bring some water? I’m thirsty.’

  He didn’t answer.

  After reaching out to stop me, he pulled me towards him. Then suddenly he asked me, ‘Do you still like Zorba?’

  His question surprised me. It made me feel as though I was being accused of loving another man.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  ‘But you do. You still have a fascination with everything dazzling and deadly. You love the type of painful losses that turn logic on its head.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘Come, then. I’ve got the kind of enjoyment that will suit your mood.’

  His tone revealed a trace of derisive melancholy that I didn’t understand. I was going to ask him what he meant, but before I could speak, he had taken me by the hand and drawn me onward towards other questions.

  In an adjoining room furnished with a huge bed, one corner of whose modest carpet was covered with an assortment of newspapers and books scattered here and there, he left me standing for a few moments. He went over to a tape recorder next to the bed and spent a few minutes looking for a certain cassette tape. He placed a tape by Demis Roussos in the machine, then came back.

  Flustered at finding myself in his bedroom, I said, ‘It seems you like music.’

  As he carefully drew the curtain over the room’s sole window, he said, ‘Music makes us miserable in a better way. Have you heard that saying?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a saying of Roland Barthes’s. Are you familiar with this tape?’

  ‘I’m familiar with most of Demis Roussos’s work, and I like everything he sings, but I don’t know this tape in particular.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ he said. ‘I found it here among a number of other tapes, and it includes a song you’re sure to like.’

  I didn’t ask him which song he meant, but I had a sudden feeling that we were appealing to music in an attempt to rescue ourselves from the destruction that was bound to follow an experience of pleasure which, for more than one reason, would cause us sorrow.