“You have to eat something,” he said. He had a look of concern on his face. “I can bring you some wine. Do you want some wine?” he asked.
“Yes, bring me some wine.”
I wanted to send him off again because I was in the midst of my thoughts. Literature, I had been thinking, happens in advance of history; it is a form of precognition. Why else would my notebook operate as an oracle with such finesse?
Ludo returned and stood over me, silently observing. Then, finally, he asked: “Why do you spend so much time alone?”
He was looming over the bed, peering down at me. He looked huge to me then and rooted into the ground, as if there were a whole other Ludo branching from his feet into the earth, pinning him to this trifling circumference. I, in contradistinction, had been blown hither and thither by the whims of time. I had been gored to death by the bull of history. I would have needed so much more tenderness than what could be offered in a plate of food and a ten-minute display of affection. I needed to be held. I needed fresh layers of skin to wrap around my raw wounds. I needed someone who didn’t retreat so easily to show me how to love them in return.
I dug deep and grabbed hold of my voice.
“Because I can smell character. I can smell bad blood,” I said, without looking at him. “I can smell the shit that’s gathered at the center of any given person.”
He turned stoic again and stared at me with the cold remove of a stately marble statue. Who did he think he was? The embodiment of God? The questions rose like steam from the frozen lake of my heart.
Finally, I mumbled: “God is an indelicacy against us thinkers.”
“What does that even mean?” he cried out, before disappearing into the corridor.
I threw the plate of food at the door to close it shut behind him.
But just a few days later, in early March, my luck finally turned: Taüt reappeared. I took his spontaneous reappearance as a validation from the mind of the universe and, therefore, from the fumes of my father for the direction in which I had chosen to take the Grand Tour of Exile. I had spent the morning in my room hunched over Bernadette’s old desk, transcribing Maragall’s translation of Nietzsche in reverse, from right to left, a departure from my previous methodology, which had followed the Western order of reading and writing. What was my purpose? To recover the fumes of my mother, which I had likely absorbed upon her death. In other words, now that my mother tongue had been uncovered perhaps I could also uncover my mother. I contemplated the matter: Who’s to say my father had been the only one to absorb her? Or that I should consider sufficient the impoverished traces of her that I had absorbed through the absorption of my father? After all, I had been at the site of her death. My fingers were still sore from digging her grave. Furthermore, I reasoned, there was no chance I could have expelled her. Because before expelling my father, I had conversed with him, his voice had echoed through my void; no such phenomenon had occurred with my dead mother. Her fumes, I concluded, remained lodged in my consciousness, waiting to be discovered. And, if I was going to go on various Pilgrimages of Exile, I wanted her to be present to inhale the brackish Mediterranean air!
I thought about her life. Bibi Khanoum’s fate had been one of total extinction: metaphysically assassinated by the confused politics of our nation—Free women! Let them live in bondage! Cover them up but allow them to be educated! Women are our warriors! They must be hanged if they are immodest! They must be jailed if they do not expose their bodies and acquiesce to Western standards of progress!—physically pounded by the house of ruins that collapsed on her head while she was searching for food in that corpse-strewn no-man’s-land, and psychologically outmaneuvered even in death by my father’s absolutist positions, beloved Autodidact, Anarchist, and Atheist, head of our family.
As I continued with my reverse transcriptions, not only did I recover the parts of my childhood self that contained my mother but also the fumes of my father, his final residues. Flakes of skin. Balls of hair. Nails. All these, I recalled, my mother kept and trimmed for him. At one point, my father’s right ear floated up to the surface of my void. It bobbed around the dark folds of my personal abyss like an abandoned boat in a vast open sea. Who was my mother? I asked, but his ear, eroded and soft, capsized and disappeared. I placed a period at the beginning of a sentence and went into the kitchen to make myself some tea. There was no one home. I spoke aloud, addressing the many busts of Agatha’s face.
“My mother was Bibi Khanoum,” I said. “A woman with infinite patience and an uneven gait. That is all I know about her.”
Agatha’s busts nodded and smiled empathetically.
“Long live Zebra,” they whispered.
I opened the cupboard to grab a glass, a spoon, some sugar; and there, much to my surprise, in the midst of the tableware, was Taüt. He was roosting in a silver dish as if he were an exotic bird prepared by a Roman chef to be served to Julius Caesar. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Taüt!” I screamed.
He lifted his head and, drawing a deep breath, looked hard at me. His head was glowing. I removed the dish and set it down on the kitchen counter. His whole body was glowing!
“What have you done?” I marveled.
The bird looked at me smugly. He was in the pink of health. Had he been oiling his feathers? I remembered that some days earlier I had overheard Ludo militantly drill into Agatha and Fernando the proper use of olive oil, which he, I discovered while eavesdropping, bought from rare artisanal producers who cultivated the flanks of Mount Etna. “Cold-pressed virgin oil stored in dark chambers,” he said, “so as to avoid being ruined by the light of the sun.” He paused before stating firmly, “Hence it’s bright, almost neon green, glow! Do you know the value of that oil? At any moment those trees could be turned to ash in an outpouring of lava.” Neither Agatha nor Fernando could defend themselves, Fernando because of his habit of carefully weighing his words and Agatha because of her sweet disposition, which could tame a wild boar. “We’ve barely cooked, Ludo,” she said in honeyed tones. “It’s you who does most of the cooking.” I remembered Ludo’s final words: “I always use the oil with great discretion.”
My fate really did seem to have taken a turn for the better. Taüt had been on a spa vacation, dipping freely, presumably in the night, into Ludo Bembo’s precious oil, and Ludo was not home to make the discovery. I stood there observing Taüt. How had he gotten into the cupboards? Where had he been all along? How many deaths had he survived during his disappearance? How many lives had he led? Clearly, he had been spoiling himself. But what had he endured before giving himself such a lavish full-body oil bath? I would never know.
I stood there until, rather suddenly, it occurred to me that Taüt must be my mother. A thought of dizzying proportions. Why else would he have reappeared right now just as I was recovering all that was left of her? She must have reincarnated into this bird, and Quim Monzó had been keeping her for me without even realizing. Or, I thought, maybe while I’d been releasing the fumes of my father in Quim Monzó’s house, I had also released some of the fumes of my mother, and the bird—through the power of metempsychosis—had absorbed them. I hadn’t stolen him for nothing!
I scooped Taüt out of the dish. He protested and whined, but I didn’t care. I had to wash him off before Ludo returned. I had to protect whatever of my mother remained inside him. I shoved him under my shirt. I pressed him against my chest. I only let him out once I was in my bedroom with the door closed. There, I gave him a lecture. I told him that as my only remaining frame of reference he was no longer allowed to disappear. He took offense. He squatted down on the desk and fluffed his sticky feathers, which stuck out like needles.
“You look like a porcupine,” I said, and he turned and looked the other way.
I bathed him several times in a bowl of tepid water, scrubbing him with mild oatmeal shampoo. He seemed to enjoy his bath, to perceive it as a welcome extension of his retreat at the spa. He cooed and rubbed his head against my hand
. I took this as a sign that he had missed me as much as I had yearned for his haggard and unwilling company, for that bass voice of his. I went into Agatha’s bedroom, grabbed a fresh towel, and rummaged through her jewelry until I found an amber bracelet that was too small to fit her wrist.
I dried Taüt off and put the bracelet around his neck, an amulet that would serve to protect him and, in doing so, also protect the fumes of my mother.
“You look so handsome,” I said to him.
“You look so beautiful,” I said to the part of him that contained my mother.
Taüt cocked his head. His jaw dropped open. I scratched his neck.
A moment later, everyone came home. I announced the good news. Immediately, Ludo and Agatha rolled out a birdcage—huge, ornate, rusted—that they had purchased at the antiques market as a gift for me in case Taüt ever reappeared. It was clear that Agatha had talked Ludo into making the purchase. She strode forward and pushed the cage over the uneven floor with a radiant smile on her face. He, on the other hand, proceeded sternly, a severe-looking silent man whose arm had been twisted into expressing a form of kindness he found difficult to bear. He had made it abundantly clear that he felt the bird infringed upon his rights as a human. He had entered into direct competition with that bird, and this loving exercise, pursued by Agatha, had forced him into an uncomfortable position: that of preserving the bird within our company and therefore securing the possibility of an ongoing battle between the two of them for my attention. A childish man!
They made their way around the clay busts with great care while Fernando watched from a distance. “It is all upward from here,” I said, presenting them to the new and improved Taüt.
“Oh, my childhood bracelet,” Agatha said. “It looks gorgeous on him!”
I considered telling her about my mother, but I didn’t. My mother had never met the Catalans or the Spanish, let alone Italians living in Spain. I wanted to protect her. To keep her safe from the pitying gaze of strangers.
They set the cage in my room, and together said (Ludo surely having been primed by Agatha): “Voilà!”
I knew it had all been rehearsed, but I still gave Ludo a kiss for making an effort. I squeezed his hand the way he had squeezed mine on our first night out together. I felt his muscles relax under my touch.
The pair of them, seeing me deep in thought, retreated from my room. I was alone with Taüt again. Had I ever been alone with my mother? My father had been omnipresent even in death. I looked at the cage. I cringed at the thought of putting Taüt in there. What would my mother do, trapped in that opulent prison?
I searched the house for a ball of yarn and ornamental bells. I tied one end of the yarn to the frame of the bed and the other to Taüt’s right talon, to which I also secured the bells. I let him walk freely through the apartment. He spent the evening trotting from room to room. Petita followed close behind, sniffing at the oatmeal fragrance he released along the way. She was a peaceful dog; there wasn’t a mean bone in her body.
I followed their hypnotic movements, watching as Taüt crisscrossed through the apartment, folding back over his steps, leaving behind a trail of yarn like the lines one draws between stars, like the Matrix of Literature itself. I was entranced.
Finally, with Taüt restored, the fated day, the day of the gathering of the pilgrims, arrived. I had counted my money—I was two-thirds of the way through it—and asked the baker downstairs to bake me a few loaves with three As cut into them. I bought wine as well, many cartons of Don Simon.
It was an unusually blustery spring day. I was waiting for my disciples to show up in the parking lot in the very spot where the corpse had fallen. In addition to food for thought, the signs I had distributed contained the following information: The Bureau of Spatial-Literary Investigations is searching for participants interested in embarking on the literary expedition of a lifetime. Meeting to be convened on March 17 at four p.m. in the parking lot adjacent to Calle Claveria. Participants must concede to being referred to as Pilgrims of the Void. Prerequisites include: experiences of disenfranchisement, alienation, abandonment, banishment, rejection, voluntary or involuntary exile, financial or psychic poverty (defined, in the case of the latter, as the involuntary drainage of energy through the fissures in one’s fractured consciousness, a direct consequence of the aforementioned experiences), and, last but not least, physical exile (defined as a lack of correspondence between one’s mind and body). I included the Hosseini family logo on the bottom, three As followed by our timeless motto: In this false world, we guard our lives with our deaths.
I had arrived an hour early in order to forestall eager candidates from gathering in my absence to gossip about our collective objectives. I wanted them to apprehend my ruminating figure as they advanced from a distance, which would predispose them to identify me as their leader. To keep warm, I paced around in the spot marked by the famous corpse of that butt-exposing drunkard. I could still smell the fumes of his death. Even so, I managed to admire the view: the lichen-stained roofs of the houses; the trees of Devesa Park, their branches gently swaying in the midday air; the mustard dome of the post office; the three young trees of the overlook that I had aired my feelings to months earlier; and, on the corner adjacent to Josep Pla’s childhood school, a convent with an austere facade that permanently hemmed in a group of self-loathing nuns. The school was missing a roof, and there were trees growing inside it.
Just then, a few disciples arrived. They streamed into the parking lot one at a time. First, a girl with sunken cheeks and hair parted at the center, who claimed to be devout and kissed the small silver cross hanging from her neck as she introduced herself. Her name was Remedios. She had a droopy nose and her eyes were leaking; the skin beneath them was red and worn. It was clear she was going to be a bore.
After her, a drunk by the name of Gheorghe arrived. I had seen him before. He was a friend of the dead man’s and a nemesis of Ludo’s. Ludo had a bone to pick with him because, during one of his drunken spells, Gheorghe had stood on the parking lot wall and peed on the hood of Ludo’s car. Gheorghe was chubby and bald, and his ears looked as though they had been pressed against the sides of his head. He stuttered as he spoke. He had a black mole on his chin, which was the double kind, round and fleshy; naturally, the second layer wobbled as he struggled to dispense his words.
Then came Mercè, the middle-aged woman with a blond bob who hung sheets on her roof while spying on her neighbors and who, according to Agatha, had a crush on Ludo. She also had about thirty years on him. In the absence of sheets, she hid behind her hands, which is to say she spoke through her fingers, and every once in a while, during a pause in conversation, she spread them open and peeked out at her interlocutors. Nevertheless, her face lit up when Ludo arrived. I had given him an ultimatum: Become a pilgrim or forget we ever knew each other. He had acquiesced with reservations. He was learning to come along.
Ludo looked equal parts captivated and peeved. His lips were pouty, but his eyes were alert and expressive. He saluted Mercè with the warm grace of a dandy and a gentleman (she blushed, lowered her hands, and held them over her mouth like a fan so he could see her eyes), then he cast a defiant gaze at Gheorghe, who, having no memory of his drunken adventures, responded to this passive assault by nervously shaking the double flap hanging from his moley chin. He moved on to Remedios; he acknowledged her with a wry smile.
Agatha and Fernando arrived next. I waited five minutes for possible latecomers, but there were none. This was our lot. A crew of misfits. I counted their oily heads: There were six of them, seven if I included myself.
“All present?” I asked.
No one answered.
“Is this a pyramid scheme?” Mercè mumbled into the palms of her hands. She had recently gotten caught up in one and had lost all of what little money she’d had.
I assured her that it wasn’t, then looked over that sea of heads, fixed my gaze on the horizon, and, employing an oratorical manner, said: “This is a r
emedy for the ill-fated, the oppressed, and the disenfranchised, like yourselves, who knowingly or not live within the metaphysical ghetto known the world over as the Pyramid of Exile, which is shaped similarly to Dante’s triangular purgatory.”
At the word purgatory, I heard gasps of recognition. The cathedral bells tolled.
I informed them that in the Pyramid of Exile we are all desperately alone; no one is in the position to extend a hand to another.
“This world has a way of abandoning the weak to their weakness and of encouraging the powerful to further attach themselves to the objects of their greed and avarice,” I declared. “But we, the ill-fated, must resist becoming pawns in their hands. We must rebel together against the injustices assailed on us! Now, who here can define exile?” I asked, pacing the narrow spot where that hairy-assed man had died. I hung my head humbly and looked down at the ground.
Agatha, with that frank and straightforward presence of hers, said, “A depressed state of mind!”
“Excellent,” I said. “Who else?”
Mercè, looking pleadingly at Ludo, said, “A loveless life.”
Gheorghe stepped forward, encouraged. He stuttered, “A p-i-t-i-f-u-l m-a-n.”
The leaky-eyed girl said: “Earthly life. We have been locked out of the gates of paradise. All of life is exile from the sanctity of the almighty creator.”
I paused and looked at her. I could see now that she had a rash on her neck. She had a tissue in her hand, and she kept dabbing the red protrusions. How had she landed in our midst? I refrained from giving her a lecture on Nietzsche. She had no idea what the last A in AAA stood for, and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.
“Ludo,” I proceeded with an inquisitorial tone. “Any thoughts?”
He took on that stoic, arrogant look of his. He seemed ready to bolt. Then, clearly reciting from the dictionary, he delivered a pedantic outline of the etymology of the word: “Exile (v.) c. 1300, from Old French essillier ‘exile, banish, expel, drive off’ (12c.), from Late Latin exilare/exsilare”—his tone was getting progressively haughtier—“from Latin exilium/exsilium ‘banishment, exile, place of exile,’ from exul ‘banished person, from ex- “away” (see ex-)’; according to Walters, the second element is from PIE root *al- (2) ‘to wander’ ”—he was articulating each comma, open parenthesis, closed parenthesis, asterisk—“(source also of Greek alaomai ‘to wander, stray, or roam about’).”
Call Me Zebra Page 27