I was soon on my legs, standing before Ludo Bembo’s home. The door had a hand-shaped metal knocker. I stared at that sick hand. It had a prophetic aura about it. It was moss green and freckled with rust, as if blood had been sprayed across it. I looked down at my hands. My fingers were hurting again, the way they’d hurt when Ludo and I had had sex and the way they had hurt when I’d nudged my father out of his stupor upon my mother’s death. I felt noxious. I retreated to the bench and watched the violet fog roll softly over the mountainous frontier.
The day’s rain had kicked up the faint smell of my father’s death. I leaned back into the bench and put my legs over the miniature museum. I comforted myself with the thought that Ludo Bembo would have to return home eventually. Soon, I thought, I will have to introduce myself to his friends. I found a muddied piece of old string in the dirt and tied Taüt to the bench. He had begun to strain my shoulder. I walked over to the young plane trees, which had barely taken root in their terra-cotta planters, and introduced myself to them as if they were Agatha, Fernando, and Bernadette.
“Hello,” I said to the first tree, shaking a handful of its thin and supple branches. “I am a non-Western encroaching on the territories of the West.”
I stepped back to reflect. A non-Western encroaching on the territories of the West. The phrase fell short of what I’d wanted to say. It was an approximate unit of thought, incomplete, reductive, uncomplicated. It didn’t account for the fact that the West had aggressed upon me while I was still in the East and that this invasion, the cultural assassination imposed upon me by the West, had forced an agonizing and psychologically maimed version of me to cross over into the West and contaminate its territories with the very distortions it had caused but now refused to acknowledge—that, on top of everything else, the West was gaslighting me. That’s right. I had been gaslighted by the imperial powers of the world. But, much like the New World, this tree was too young to understand. It said nothing in return. I gave it a little kick and moved on.
Taüt, whose fate was no better than a hostage’s, expressed his delight by hopping up and down on the rim of the bench as far as the string permitted.
“Hello,” I said, petting the soft foliage of the second tree. “I, Zebra, am recrossing borders I have already crossed in order to map the literature of the void and prove once and for all that any thought worth preserving in our pitiable human record was manifested in the mind of an exile, an immigrant, a refugee”—my mind and my mouth had aligned themselves to perfection—“persons fleeing from persecution, and/or otherwise homeless beings.”
The tree bowed.
“At the center of the archive of Western thought,” I continued, encouraged by the tree’s grace, “is the pain of those who have suffered at the hands of the xenophobic and militant fascists of the West and their puppets in the East.”
I looked at the tree. It was sulking empathically. The tips of its branches were pointing despairingly at the ground.
“Spain, of course, is no different,” I informed the doting tree. “Spain is the original culprit. It is singularly responsible for the establishment of the so-called New World, for the invention of the West. The Spanish of yore were expert annihilators and inquisitors, all of them.”
Just then, the moon emerged and with it a soft Sephardic tune of loss and longing rose from the Museum of Jewish History, which was directly downhill from us. The church bells at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Girona chimed in.
“Why would the Catalans, who so wish to distance themselves from Spain, want to claim Christopher Columbus as one of their own? Why would they have erected a statue in his honor at the Port of Barcelona? The ego!” I said, resuming my lecture. “The ego! It renders all of us incoherent!”
The tree bowed again. I had never encountered a more deferential tree, a tree with more moral integrity; it was dignified, wise beyond its age, destined to take its place in the highest ranks of the intelligentsia. I decided not to bother with the third tree. For once, I thought, why not end the night on a good note?
I spotted a rock in the moonlight. I picked it up. It made for a great pillow. I lay down on the bench. Taüt settled between my legs. We slept badly, but we slept.
Hours later, through my slumber, I heard Ludo’s sighs of despair. He had arrived to greet me with his petulance.
“Mamma mia, mamma mia,” he mewled.
I opened my eyes. There he was, walking in circles around the bench. His hands kept flying up to his head, his fingers anxiously working his curls or pulling at his earlobes before dropping down to rest at his sides, as stiff as sticks. I let him exhaust himself. Eventually, he gave in, sank into the bench, and stared into the distance with his dilated pupils.
“What’s this?” he finally groaned, pointing at Taüt.
It was a dreary day. It had rained on and off through the night, and the ground looked like it had been punctured. My temperature had been dropping and spiking in cycles. I gazed at Taüt, half-asleep. He looked more haggard and unwilling than ever.
“This?” I rejoined groggily. “This is Taüt!”
“Why does it look like a rat caught in a drain?”
“He,” I corrected.
Ludo rolled his eyes. In the morning light, the stone buildings of the Old Quarter looked chalky, straw colored.
“Besides, your supposition is preposterous. Have you ever seen a rat with a sulfur crest?” I turned to Taüt. “Show him,” I emitted laterally to the bird.
The creature fanned open his crest with moderate difficulty. His feathers were sticky from the dampness in the air.
“Look,” I said to Ludo. “You could take that crest to a flamingo show and fan yourself with it if you wanted. A rat!” I huffed dismissively, rubbing my temples to soothe my headache. I’d had a mild fever through the night.
A group of drunk men ambled into the parking lot adjacent to the overlook, directly in front of Ludo’s door.
“Here we go,” Ludo mumbled under his breath. He was at his wit’s end. Nothing unusual there. In the short time I had known him, one startling fact had become clear: His cup was always full, about to spill over.
“Returning from the house of the Tentacle of Ice?” I posed. His hair was uncharacteristically tousled, a clear sign he’d engaged in frigid and mechanical sex acts with her.
His mind grasped the notion with a delay. When it did, his tongue mischievously pushed up against the gap in his teeth. I had forgotten about that crack, that window into the void at the center of his wide, handsome face.
“No,” he lied, averting his gaze. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. When he looked at me again, his tongue had settled neatly on the floor of his mouth once more.
“A corpse in a coffin,” I murmured.
“What?”
“I’m referring to your tongue,” I said. “We should get it moving again.”
One of the drunks, a man with a round red face and eyes so small and shiny that they looked like they had been lacquered and squeezed, bellowed something incomprehensible into the air.
“Mannaggia a te!” Ludo said. “Bunch of loiterers!”
The drunk’s friend, a skinny man with a wrinkled face, pulled his pants down and spread his butt cheeks open. “Say it to my anus!” he yelled in Catalan.
I was pleased to see that there were holes and crevices everywhere I went. A good sign. I turned to Ludo, and asked: “Aren’t you going to invite me upstairs?”
“Upstairs?”
“I’m not your whore,” I said.
“My whore?”
“Produce your own language,” I commanded. “It’s the only way forward.”
I felt his body go rigid. His muscles clenched to his bones; his jaw clasped down. The usual.
“Listen,” I said. “You spent a great deal of time sliding in and out of my vagina in Quim Monzó’s apartment. Surely you remember?”
He nodded reluctantly. The drunk’s skinny friend, unable to get a rise out of us, pulled his pants
back up.
“The decent thing to do would be to invite me upstairs, offer me a cup of tea, introduce me to your friends. I traveled through the rain all day and night to get here.”
“It takes an hour to get here from Barcelona,” he said sternly.
“Ah,” I said. “Always the corrective.”
The swollen, shiny, red-faced man bellowed again, like a wolf at midnight. But it was morning. The day’s show had only just begun, and here we all were, taking a jab at it before it dragged us down with its dead weight.
“The early bird gets the worm,” I said.
A terrible pause ensued.
Then Ludo muttered, “You refused my love.” The words slipped out of his mouth despite himself. He seemed embarrassed by the admission, by this uncharacteristic loss of control. He sat there solemnly searching the ground, the corners of his mouth quivering. I was startled. I couldn’t bear to see him that way, as if he were about to weep.
“I’ve changed my ways,” I lied, though I knew there was a kernel of truth to it. After all, in addition to wanting to reeducate the man, I had also missed him; I had spent weeks aching bitterly because he had not grabbed my hand when I’d reached for him from the tub. And even though I couldn’t trust him due to his interference with my notebook, my life, I knew at least one of my many fractured selves wanted to.
Ludo said nothing. He sat there sulking, puckering his lips. I untied Taüt. The bird stretched his talons, first one then the other. He groomed himself with his beak. But Ludo didn’t move. He needed further persuading.
I got up and stood before him. I tried to lift his spirits the way my father had lifted mine through the interminable war. It was the only recourse I had.
“Put away your sword in its sheath,” I recited dramatically. I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. “Let us two go up into your bed so that, lying together in the bed of love”—I looked at the wise tree and bowed respectfully—“we may then have faith and trust in each other.”
“Why are you talking like that?” Ludo said, eyelids partially drawn.
I stood there and took in his face. Once the shock of seeing me sitting on the bench outside his door had passed, his expression had betrayed a terrible anguish. In response, I’d felt my face slacken and turn blank. My emotions went into overdrive and became indecipherable to me. I recognized the shifts—the pulleys of my mind hoisting my feelings and storing them in the recondite corners of my labyrinthine consciousness only to be extracted once I was well enough to cope with them, once they had turned as sour as spoiled milk. Ludo’s eyes grew damp, his face despairing. I heard my father’s guttural wails echo through my void. I thought of his anguish at my mother’s death. I remembered that in order to get my father to move, to do something, to lift those rocks off my mother, I had pushed everything inside me away. What choice had I had? What choice does anyone ever have? I wondered. We cannot all lose our strength at once. I watched Ludo remove his glasses and rub his eyes. I realized he was still there, awaiting a response.
“The Odyssey,” I heard myself say. “Read it and heal!”
Ludo let out a cautious laugh. He reached for my hand. Our tacit peace had been restored. Before I knew it, we were pushing open the door, leaving the drunks whistling in the background. We entered the dark vault of his building. He helped me carry the Mobile Art Gallery up the stairs.
His roommates were all standing there when he opened the door: Agatha, Fernando, and Bernadette. The first two had knowing grimaces on their faces. It was clear Ludo had filled them in on our encounters. Bernadette stood facing away from us. All I could see was the back of her head.
Ludo put down the miniature museum, looked at Bernadette, and leaned into my ear.
“An aberration,” he proclaimed impatiently before turning back to the group, and saying, “Everyone, this is Zebra and her bird, Taüt.”
“Zebra?” they asked in unison, emitting a pleasant hum.
“Yes. Zebra.”
He sounded like himself again: strong, unfazed, those dreamy eyes limpid and alert. I, too, had recovered, content to have a roof over my head.
“Thank you, Ludo,” I said. “It pleases me to hear my name echoed so many times because, as you know, I stand in possession of multiple selves.”
He rolled his eyes.
Bernadette turned around. She was as pale as chalk, and her eyes were wide and black. She seemed startled and quickly began moving along the walls sideways, with her back against the surface, like a crab. She disappeared into her room and quietly shut the door behind her.
“She has such polished cheeks,” I said.
“Yes,” Agatha answered softly. “She is very pure, very Catholic. She is probably on her knees now, conversing with the pope.”
I liked Agatha already. I looked down the hallway toward Bernadette’s door. Clay busts of Agatha’s face had been set out to dry on stone columns on either side of the corridor. I assumed they were by Fernando, who I knew to be a sculptor. Some were reproductions of her face in its current manifestation—the present Agatha, circa thirty-two years—while others were imagined versions of her face in old age, variations on a future Agatha, slightly wrinkled, cheeks sagging, eyes less willingly open. I apprehended her gentle and voluptuous figure. Agatha, I concluded, allowing my nose to guide me, is a well-turned-out person; she is delicate, obstinate, and she smells good. There were hints of vanilla and lavender wafting off her skin. No wonder Fernando was possessed by the impulse to reproduce her countenance.
“Fernando doesn’t speak English,” Agatha said kindly, perhaps in an effort to explain why he stood next to her with his brows knitted, as if he understood nothing. Then she asked: “Where are you from?”
“That is a very complicated question,” I replied, undeterred.
“I have all the time in the world,” she said, smiling.
Fernando’s gaze intensified. He had dark black eyes that shone with a disquieting force. It seemed his face was set in a permanent expression of confusion and disgust with the state of the world. A man of strict conscience, taciturn, noble, and principled to the extreme.
Agatha took me by the arm and led me down the hallway. She escorted me into a living room. The floor was covered in pink, white, and black tiles meticulously arranged in geometric patterns. The room had cracked walls that had been painted a soft yellow, a high ceiling, and a narrow stone terrace dressed with green shutters, which Agatha immediately opened, letting in a chilly breeze and the boisterous clamor of the drunks. The room had a view of Girona and the mountains that outdid the overlook. Ludo and Fernando hung behind. I could hear them whispering at the end of the corridor. I heard them open the lid to the Mobile Art Gallery. They gasped in horror. The combination of The Hung Mallard and the gas mask offered a ghastly blow.
I turned my attention back to Agatha. Why beat around the bush when the sensitive beings of the world are so scarce? Agatha was clearly one such being, and she was very pretty, too. She had lilac-colored eyes and high cheekbones and a wide mouth, inside which were two rows of perfectly aligned pearly white teeth that seemed to smile at the world.
“I’ll tell you where I’m from,” I said.
Her eyes widened with delight.
“Please do,” she exclaimed with an old-fashioned charm. She reached out and petted Taüt on the head. The bird fanned his crest.
“I hail from the land of not belonging, directly beyond the frontier of any nation.” I unabashedly delivered my truth. “Your home is my periphery,” I said.
Ludo intervened stiffly. “None of us are at home here. Can’t you see we’re all Italian?”
After that brief moment of tenderness, he had gone rigid again. I didn’t want to compromise my positive outlook, which seemed to have presented itself in conjunction with Agatha’s curious and welcoming nature, so I comforted myself by thinking that the two Ludo Bembos I’d been searching for, one austere and the other a hopeless romantic, had returned to my life.
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br /> Agatha sat down on the couch. She leaned into its flower-patterned surface, closed her eyes, and thought deeply about what I had just said. Ludo marched across the living room and walked out onto the terrace. I looked around. The room was sparsely decorated. There was a dying plant hanging from the rafters, a makeshift table, and a bookshelf bursting with books and papers, many of which appeared soiled. The walls were bare, and the cracks were full of gravel and dust. I noticed a filthy aquarium on the coffee table next to the sofa. The glass was covered in algae and slime; something orange was swimming through the murky water. I decided to join Ludo on the terrace. I found him clutching the banister, his knuckles white. Taüt, still perched on my shoulder, opened his beak to inhale the morning air.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”
“I’m moving in with you,” I said.
He said nothing, but I noticed his grip relax.
In the distance, the sky was beginning to open up. The fog, which had thickened through the night, was dispersing. It was rolling over the mountain range; the wind was pushing it out to sea.
“Strange way to go about it, don’t you think?” he inquired, squinting as he looked at me through and through.
“I suppose,” I said. “But I’m no stranger than you are. My strangeness is on the surface while you keep yours out of view. I applaud your methods. They are diligent, meticulous. But I have tried to warn you of the dangers associated with being cut off from your many selves, showing one face to the world while others lie hidden within you.”
“You’re one to talk.”
A yellow sky emerged, smoky at the edges where a trace of the morning mist lingered.
“We can go on like this forever, passing around the ball of blame. But it’s a terrible bore,” I declared.
“Fine, let’s change the subject. How have you been?” Ludo asked with the somber precision of a psychiatrist.
Call Me Zebra Page 22