Their reactions are interesting. The woman is as delighted as a child. A problem to solve! For me! Already her mind is producing a checklist—fax the office, call about reservation in St.Agnes, expenses will cover a hotel for tonight, will probably miss the first two lectures tomorrow, check programme for speakers and email request for speeches as a courtesy, they’ll notice her absence and she knows things wing back at you like boomerangs in this business if you’re not courteous—
From the man you get, Fuck.
But these are just the top layers, the crust on the crème. Underneath, sweetness and tingling. Because it is all inevitable now, they can see it as clearly as you—this drink, the next, a lingering sobering considering supper in the marine-themed restaurant (so humorous for an airport!), the slow walk (as through a park at night, the wrought-iron gates, the scent of flowers, the turn in the path, the heavy moon, oh!) back down the length of the terminal, past the newspaper shops, book shops, smoked-salmon shops, T-shirt shops, coffee bars, maple-leaf-shaped-chocolate shops, foreign exchange, duty-free, Airport Improvement Tax consoles, to the glass doors of the Best Western which suckers right onto the airport like a leech. The dutiful enquiries—fog, you say? only one room available, you say?—the complicitous glance, the squaring of shoulders for the concierge’s sake, as though to say: As business associates, we’ll grin and bear it. The woman takes the key.
But you, you are unaccountably sad. You don’t want what’s coming next. Maybe it was Pet’s spell (MORTALITY***MORTALITY***MORTALITY circling Pet’s head like a halo, like a cinema marquee), or the sight of a skeleton making love to another skeleton, or the specks of living dust in their food and in their eyes. All around you! you want to tell them. Look all around you!
But, science. So you watch them fuck. It’s an odd little show.
Your sadness becomes acute as you wonder if you should have paid more attention to other things, to details, to the glances and hesitations and tones of voice, the paving stones on this too-familiar road. You wonder if you’ve missed the story on these two (at each other like scavengers, now, the joy of glut) with your God’s-eye views, your impatience, your probings and unpeelings, your fickle, flickering curiosities too easily satisfied. What have you really learned? You glance into the future, as far as you can, and see! the bright lines of their lives untwist and fray away from each other, phosphorescent worms tunnelling away into separate darknesses, soon now, oh, very soon. They have not manoeuvred themselves into a winning situation, these two. But you, could you not have spent more time with the man, explored the seeds of his rage and pain, his seedy lusts? Could you not have spent more time with the woman, found ways into those cool vaults, picked the slick locks?
You wish you could go down there, sit down with them and lay out the situation, say, What the fuck, guys? What made the two of you want to get into a thing like this? Is it a pheromone situation? Do you know how unlikely this was? Do you? This would really be breaking all the rules, but suddenly you think: what price rules? You imagine the dash to the driver’s seat. (None of this “bridge” bullshit. You have a driver’s seat. Leather! Yes!) You imagine the plunge through the atmosphere, feet-first and hair streaming stars, landing your smoking screaming craft alongside their jets—it is an airport, isn’t it?—striding up to their room, all ten feet of you, gathering your robes around you as you sit yourself down on the end of their bed, gesturing elegantly with your very long fingers, and saying: Look. Can I level with you? I know what’s been going on here but I have these burning questions about your motivation. My species is a cool, rational, totally superior species, no shit, but unlike you we’ve kind of lost touch with our baser natures. You understand, I’m a scientist, it’s for science. It’s in the spirit of pure inquiry. What do you mean, how do I know? Six eyes, a spaceship, an exoskeleton, plus I just walked through your bedroom wall and Mr. Genius here wants credentials?
He’s gotten himself into her again. You watch his back, the regular surge and fall, surge and fall, as of breaking waves. You understand the ocean is beautiful to some people. But even if you could ask, they couldn’t answer. They don’t know themselves any better than you. All you can do is watch, admire the weird coupling compulsion until it bores you, and then change the channel. So you flip. (Pet is back on your lap; Pet has never really liked the nature shows anyway.) For a while, down in Bombay, you watch the world’s leading mathematical physicist work on his unified field theory, and he’s this close, man, cool as kulfi.
ANOSH IRANI
NOTES FROM THE WOMB
127.
I am inside my mother’s womb. It’s warm in here.
126.
My world is full of blood. I wonder what mother looks like from the outside.
125.
Mother talks to herself a lot. She wants to peel off the lines on her face one by one.
124.
I can leave anytime I want. All I have to do is stop breathing.
123.
Does mother think this sticky rope will prevent me from escaping?
122.
If I am a tiny, ignorant fetus, how come I know the square root of death?
121.
When I am eleven, I will jump off the roof of the Bombay Stock Exchange. Hundreds of brokers will follow. We will all hit the pavement together in a gorgeous smattering of skulls. But I will be the only one that travels upwards again.
120.
Why do my words somersault into a parade of clouds?
119.
Look, I float. Perhaps I am a being of light and lightness.
118.
My head is very soft. I can mould it into any shape I want. Just before I am born, I will give it a good thump. My parents will think I am deformed.
117.
At night I comfort God. He has nightmares about me. I promise him I will not become a killer.
116.
Why is there is so much violence inside the womb?
115.
I will grow into a knife, an instrument of silence.
114.
Tiny micrograins of pills float towards me. Mother wants me dead. I swallow them all.
113.
To her I am just a sound.
112.
I call mother’s name in blue. She turns white when I do this.
111.
She wants a white piece of silk to cover me with in case I am stillborn.
110.
Whenever she forgets to eat, I start munching on bits of her tissue.
109.
Father smokes a lot. I inhale deeply and let the smoke freeze my brain.
108.
Mother wants a girl. So I curl up and stay silent. Let her think I’m dead.
107.
At times like these, I turn to the future for some cheering up. Here’s a tidbit that might be of international interest: twenty years from now, Iran will be the only nuclear power in the world.
106.
And Afghan women will play soccer with the heads of their husbands.
105.
Mother threw up last night. She must have found out I’m a boy.
104.
I find it hard to wake up in the morning. There is not enough light. I beg light to enter the womb but it is afraid.
103.
Nights are different. I dance in blood. Then lick my toes clean.
102.
My hands are curled into a fist. I start punching red water. It feels good. I hit myself and it feels even better.
101.
My tiny palms open. I want to grip something sharp and plunge, plunge, plunge. So this is how killers are born.
100.
I like numbers. They are always correct. Old God without emotion.
99.
Can I get you something, mother? Aspirin, tea, a soul? Tea, you say. Tea with a silver pistol to stir it?
98.
I lied to you before. I will not jump off the roof of any building.
I will be pus
hed off by a girl named Lola. She is the same age as me. I can talk to her this very moment. She is in her mother’s womb, too. She tells me she will be born blind.
97.
I tell Lola there’s not much to see anyway. She calls me a liar. She says she can never trust me for as long as I live. We’re off to a bad start.
96.
Lola, where are you right now? In Ibiza, she replies. In Rangoon.
In Calcutta. In Tel Aviv. She says she can be in several places at once because her mother reads maps all day.
95.
Hold me. I’m scared. The truth foams at my mouth and calls itself Child Snow.
94.
When I am a year old, I will speak. The moment I utter my first word, I will no longer be a child. I will begin festering.
93.
When I am newborn, I will be small enough to fit in a ceramic pot. I am brown in colour. I will even look like baked clay.
92.
Mother, your hair winds around your neck in waves. Your hair, it smells of a long death.
91.
I can see myself in a reflection on the walls of mother’s liver. I am a made-to-order cherub.
90.
I have enough fight in me to giggle in the face of bombs. If only mother could see me now: a silver grenade-pin between my soft, pink gums.
89.
I do not talk much, do I?
88.
But they will pull me out shouting and screaming.
87.
I wonder what father’s womb would be like.
86.
Mother, your face is white. Like the hospital sheets you will soon cry on.
85.
I wish I could smile. I need balloons filled with love in all colours. Except red. Red balloons are filled with blood.
84.
I have heard father discuss cigarette brands with mother. He only smokes Gold Flakes. She pretends to be interested.
83.
Lola tells me she was conceived by force. She wants to bring peace to her mother, but Lola’s mother keeps rubbing her own belly, wishing it would get smaller and smaller.
82.
My own mother consumes gold shot after shot. She stares at the walls and swallows gold. I get the feeling I’m not wanted at all.
81.
She reads books too. Each time she discovers a new fact about babies, she bursts into tears. The world is afraid of children. Who wants to be born into such a horrible place?
80.
Lola just told me that there will come a day when cancer and Alzheimer’s will no longer exist. But hernias will be contagious.
79.
Wombs are tombs that so many of us have died in.
78.
When mother sleeps, I am wide awake. I try to soothe her sore heart, but I am too little to reach it. It will continue to ache for as long as I live.
77.
When mother cries, I rock back and forth like an old man in an easy chair.
76.
Lola says that at her birthing, she will blind herself by closing her eyes extremely tight. I ask why. Lola says she never wants to see her father’s face.
75.
Lola and I will become friends. We will cut our hands with blades, stare at the walls, and sing nursery rhymes.
74.
Mother wants me to know that if she gives me away, it is because she is not capable of loving me.
73.
I prefer lies.
72.
I now have a brother. Her words have cut me in two.
71.
Who am I? I am my mother’s wound.
70.
What year is it? Perhaps I could strangle the centuries and force God to start all over again. His own children have forgotten him. They have sent him to an old-age home called heaven where he counts stars and thinks mountains are building blocks that tumble into the valleys.
69.
I feel for God. How would you feel if only the dead visited you?
68.
How would you feel if no one could bear to look at you because you are too bright?
67.
I’m a midget Nostradamus and this is what I have to say: There will come a day when suicide bombs will be available in supermarkets.
66.
I was a writer in a previous life. I wrote a story about a clockmaker who grew an extra hand each time he repaired someone’s clock. The story never got published.
65.
Here’s what some of the literary geniuses of the past are doing right now: Chekhov is currently working as an anesthetist in a plastic surgery clinic in Florida. He saw a play called The Cherry Orchard and hated it. Bukowski is six years old in an orphanage in Bombay. The nuns keep showing him The Sound of Music and it’s killing his soul. Luckily, Carver’s with him, making mundane observances like “the nun raises her hand and then brings it down again.”
64.
Someday, heaven will be full like jails. Only then can we rejoice.
63.
I just heard a shriek from Lola. Her mother punched her own belly. Lola finds it hard to breathe. She asks me if she should make the effort to live. I am about to answer, but it’s too late. Lola says she has made up her mind. She will live until she is one hundred years old. Just to spite the world.
62.
I suddenly want to tell my parents I love them. Mother, if you give me away I will find you. Father, if you cannot afford to keep me, I understand.
61.
What colour am I? I know my skin is brown, but when I am held up against the light, will people be able to see through me?
60.
I wonder what my skeleton looks like. Will my bones shine as much as my skin does? If I had teeth, I would bite into my flesh and find out.
59.
Father tells mother that he could leave me at the doorstep of an orphanage. At least I will have lots of friends, he says. God will look after me because I am an orphan. Does father not know that God never visits orphanages? They make him sad.
58.
What if I were a little girl fetus? Would my thoughts be any different?
57.
Mother keeps staring at falling leaves. They are boats, she says to herself. Boats flying in the air. Rain will flatten the boats and turn them into leaves again. Dead wet leaves. Mother needs to cheer up. I feel like popping my head out right now and bursting into song.
56.
I long for trees. Long trees, dead on their backs. If I wanted them alive, I would have said tall. Trees have lost faith in us. Their roots are spreading underground deep and fast, and one day, on Thanksgiving, they will rip through the tiled floors of our homes and choke us.
55.
Lola smiles in her mother’s womb. She thinks of how her hair will move in the breeze as she pushes me off the Bombay Stock Exchange, the way her skirt will fly and the soft hairs on her legs will tingle. She will not feel a thing when I am gone. I think I’m in love.
54.
When I am born, I will look at the faces that greet me with warm eyes. “I am here,” I will announce, “to warn you of my charm.” As they pick me up, I will steal their watches and wallets.
53.
Beware. My ashes should not be mistaken for baby powder.
52.
A decade from now, people who commit suicide will be reborn the next instant, automatically, with twice the number of problems and excessive body hair.
51.
When mother was chopping onions this morning, she wondered what would happen if she just plunged the knife into her stomach. Would I feel anything?
50.
I hold my umbilical cord in my hand. It is my first magic trick. I will make it easier for them to pull me out. I shall send my umbilical cord out first and ask them to tug hard.
49.
Help me, Lola. I can’t sleep at night. Lola replies, I never sleep at night. I will keep my eyes open for nine months because they will be shut for lif
e, she says. I want to be blind too, Lola.
48.
Dawn cracks. Cracks my skull. Fills it with mornings, with the warmth of trembling aspen.
47.
Father, when you drop me off at the orphanage, do not stare at me too long or whisper goodbye. Just pat my soft head a couple of times and trudge your way.
46.
When I grow up, I will buy an asylum. I will own all the mad people in it and set them free. They will wander the streets and talk to trees, sparrows, churches, and potholes. The world will finally be the way it should.
45.
How old am I? The months have passed and I have changed positions. I wish my parents did too. They still have a list of all the orphanages in the city.
44.
I will be a clown when I am five years old. I will work at night when the wind is howling. Little children will hold on to their pillows and I will peep through their windows and shine a flashlight on my bleeding gums. They will be too scared to brush their teeth in the morning.
43.
Don’t blame me for being this way. I have nothing. I am a carnival of dancing knives.
42.
I know the words “I love you.” They are sold in multiples of three and wear thin like famine each time they are uttered.
41.
At the age of seven, Lola and I will walk through a garden. All the trees will have nightingales in them with their vocal cords cut. I will start crying. But Lola will throw money at them and ask them to sing nursery rhymes. Can you blame me for being madly in love with Lola?
40.
If I had a twin, he would be nothing like me. That’s how generous I am.
39.
I am well acquainted with pain. It moves very slowly at first, and convinces you it will make you stronger. Then it strikes a blow so hard you find even snow heavy to lift.
38.
I have my own little moon in here, bouncing along these womb walls, dipping itself in blood, and turning to a crescent when I scream for knives.
37.
I hear voices all the time. Wardens telling me I will be locked up as soon as I am birthed. I tell them I like isolation. Look at me now. No chains and still I choose to stay.
36.
I want to smile like mother. Walk slowly like father. It shocks me how human I am.
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