The Weight of Nothing

by Gillis, Steven;

  “You’re doing nothing?” I couldn’t resist.

  “There is nothing new,” he stood then and tossed several DA onto the table, turned and walked outside. I followed after him, past crowds of men coming from afternoon prayer and children who buzzed and dashed about at my knees. For an older man with stunted legs and shoes protruding from the cuffs of his pants like two tethered weights, Timbal moved at a surprisingly brisk rate, and eventually I called out, “Where are you going?” He didn’t answer. We rounded a corner and went down a series of side streets with several more shops, then toward an open market where Timbal purchased a copy of both El Moudjahid and the International Herald Tribune, explaining only as we started off again that his driver, Mullah, was shopping for supplies and should be done by now.

  Leaving the market we found Mullah standing beside an old two-door Chevy sedan. Tall and sorrel-colored, his flesh a smooth shade of coffee brown, Mullah was dressed in beige pants and a faded navy blue jacket, black sandals, and a red fez covering much of his dark hair. He greeted us with a half bow, and glancing at me, asked his employer something in Arabic I could not understand. (“Meen irragill dah, essiyed Timbal?”) The car was box-shaped, lemon-green with wide tires, a flat roof, dented trunk and fender. Several satchels of groceries, paper products, bottled water, and wine along with other assorted supplies were in the rear seat. Timbal answered his driver, then turned to me and said, “If you’re free, come for dinner. Afterward Mullah will drive you back.” I agreed at once and began helping move much of what was on the seat into the trunk.

  We drove south, away from the city for some forty minutes, beyond Tipasa and Blida, angling east off the main road just past Medea, down a dirt lane between a dense cluster of trees and back through open space. Distant mountains filled the horizon, and angling north after a while, we cut onto another road that led to the foothills and a hutch house standing in solitary construct. The supplies were unpacked, the groceries carted in and set atop a thick wooden table, the jugs of water and gasoline lined along the front wall. The house consisted of a single room, a kitchen area off to the right, a tiny refrigerator running on a gas generator out back, the connecting cord slipped through a hole drilled beneath the rear window. A wood-burning stove centered the room, a silver tube rising out of its rear and up through the roof, the shaft supported by wires and bolts. A mattress covered by a blue quilt was laid out in the far left corner, books, paper, and pens stacked nearby, and mosquito netting hanging overhead. A red oil lamp sat to the right of several flat white pillows. On the opposite side of the room was a cushioned chair, a closed sketch pad and box of charcoal, an easel with brushes and paints, and three large canvases turned to face the wall.

  Mullah tended to the stove. A pot of marga with chicken and darker meats, carrots and onions, salt and turnips and other assorted vegetables and seasonings was placed on one of the burners to reheat. I thought about calling Niles and looked around for a phone. “The nearest line is in Medea,” Timbal said, then produced a cell and helped me get through to the Sahel where the clerk informed me in broken English that Niles wasn’t in and jotted down my message. We ate our meal seated at the table, and afterward took glasses of rum outside, where I was educated on the surrounding areas, what villages lay over the hills, their religious and political, nationalistic and historical affiliations. The sky was infinite and as the night darkened filled with thousands of bright white stars.

  Timbal leaned against a large rock, his head tipped back, his wild hair tucked beneath a grey knit cap, and staring up at the sky, sipped from his glass. Despite how alternately melancholic and combustible his mood, he seemed now nearly at peace, and envious of his calm, I wondered what it would be like to remain here in the desert. I imagined taking over for Mullah and running Timbal’s errands, driving him wherever he needed to go, mastering the language and customs, learning to make myself happy and lick my life like barley sugar, to shape and sharpen it as never before. (My hand at the time was reaching back and touching a residue of stone.) “It’s beautiful here,” I said to Timbal. “AU things considered, finding this spot must be a comfort to you.”

  My remark did not go over the way I intended, and turning to look at me, Timbal’s mouth drew up tight on his cragged face. “Comfort is hardly the right word, Mr. Finne.”

  “What I mean is, at least you don’t have to think about being somewhere else.”

  He shifted around on the rough surface of rock, his eyes with a sobering look of weary objection. “You’re wrong,” he said. “I think of being somewhere else all the time,” his smile was now sad, and drinking more rum, he set his glass down between his feet and rubbed at the top of his knit cap, his shoulders turned away from me. “You’re young,” he spoke while rolling his neck back as if his muscles ached, then shifted again and moved closer to me. “Old enough to know better, but naive enough still to think a man winds up where he does of his own accord.”

  “I understand,” I said. “And yet here you are. I mean, you’ve chosen to be here now.”

  “Have I? In what sense? Like someone who’s lost a leg and chooses to buy one shoe?” he reached for his glass. “Choice is relative, Mr. Finne. The ability to select a course of action is precious, but there is always history beyond the immediacy of our decisions. I’m here now because whatever else I prefer is no longer an option,” he placed his heels against the front of the rock and waved his hands once in the air.

  I considered what Timbal just said, interpreted his gesture as proof that he, too, was now a disciple of Nothing, and inspired by the rum replied, “It is all history, isn’t it?”

  “Every tree has its root, Mr. Finne.”

  I told him then about my father and how his fixation on becoming a musician led to my mother’s death. I drew analogy to Timbal’s own situation, how his decision to expand his art created a consequence he never imagined, and sipping more of my rum, I confessed my calamity with Liz and how, “Life should come with a warning label: Dangerous Occupation.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Simply that.”

  Timbal frowned. “You resent the fact life involves choices?”

  “It’s not the choice that bothers me, it’s the repercussion.”

  “Guaranties only come at the Five and Dime.”

  “All the more reason for caution.”

  Timbal shook his head, bent down once again and set his glass in the sand. He did not say anything for several seconds, did not look at me but stared instead in the direction of Blida. When he did at last address me, it was while coming from his rock, his shoulders raised on his squat frame, his height barely reaching my chin yet somehow looming larger as he removed his hat from his round head, the hairs beneath bursting out in all directions like wild snakes set suddenly free, and asked, “What then do you propose? What is your alternative?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Of course.”

  “No, I mean not anything. What it comes down to,” I tried to explain, “is understanding the nature of the universe and how all things conspire to leave. (Look at Liz, I thought to say. Look at my mother and your wife.) It’s a juggling act,” I continued. “An endless process of trying to outmaneuver the inevitable. A person can try keeping their balls in the air indefinitely but at some point, despite our best intentions, everything comes crashing down.”

  “You sound like Chicken Little,” Timbal rubbed his head once more.

  “Except the bird was wrong.”

  “And what then? You believe it’s better to avoid the tumble than take any risk at all?”

  “In the end, yes,” I raised my glass. “The trick is learning to keep out of harm’s way.”

  “But you can’t go about hiding under a rock and call that living.”

  “It isn’t hiding.”

  “Mr. Finne. If I behaved for one minute as you suggest I never would have painted a single canvas. What you’re describing is a dodge.”

  “If that’s true, then why are you he
re?”

  Timbal’s frown became a scowl. “I’m here to recover my wind.”

  “To do as little as possible, isn’t that what you said?”

  “I lost my wife. Mourning is a natural course.”

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized for any inappropriateness in my reference. “And still,” I said, “you seem to have settled in.”

  “Is that what you think? Because I’m here you assume I’ve taken to the void like some anchorite to a new religion? Listen carefully, Mr. Finne. A man can’t avoid making history, even if he does nothing. Things happen no mattet what. Hindsight is always picture-perfect and wishing my fate might have gone differently will not bring my Sally back, nor does it suggest I was wrong to paint as I did. If all things that might cause us harm were summarily averted, there would be no world to speak of, just ice and sand.”

  “And still you’re here.”

  “Again with that. I’m here, yes.”

  “Where the hounds stopped barking, you told me.”

  “To regather my wits.”

  “For over a year.”

  “Time is of no significance.”

  “Away from everything familiar.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And eager to appreciate nothing.”

  Once more, Timbal looked at me as if my statement offended him. He pushed his face closer to mine, his mouth open, pausing in apparent contemplation of what to say next. A second later he turned and placed his knit cap back on his head, reached out and grabbed hold of my sleeve, dragging me into the house. I didn’t struggle against his grip, went willingly and in stride as we cut across the floor, past the stove and around the table, over to Timbal’s easel and the three canvases propped up with their fronts facing the wall. Timbal released me and set his hands against the sides of the largest canvas, lingering there a moment while catching his breath and murmuring something that sounded almost like a prayer. (The incantation had the rhythm of music, beyond interpretation to my dead ear.) He shifted the painting toward me then and stepped off.

  I saw at once an extraordinary work. Within a background of orange and blue, the canvas was centered by the head of a woman painted in a synthesis of Impressionism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism I’d never quite seen combined that way before. The woman’s eyes were at once sparkling and mournful, the position of her head tipped back just a bit and turned to the left, her mouth opened as if whispering or blowing a kiss. Her nose was set in a Bacon-like sort of twist that made her face all the more diverting while the color of her cheeks had the density of flesh. I took a single step closer, staring at Sally’s eyes while saying to Timbal, “I thought you weren’t painting anything new.”

  “I’m not.”

  “But?”

  “Mr. Finne.”

  “Why come to Algiers then?” I took another step forward, confused and asking, “What about escaping the hounds and putting distance between yourself and all the rest?” I stared into the center of Sally’s face, at her beautiful blue and water-dazed eyes that gripped and gazed out at me with their own sweet warning, and went on to mention the ticket I had to see Liz in Spain and why I wouldn’t go, recounting my need for nothing and wanting to forget.

  Timbal stopped me there and said, “If you’re so in love with nothing, Mr. Finne, I’m confident Mullah and I can accommodate you. A quick smashing of your skull, a hole dug in the hills. It can all be over in no time, if that’s truly what you want.”

  “You don’t understand,” I dismissed his threat and made another feeble attempt to explain. “I don’t believe in the same things you do. It doesn’t work for me. Nothing makes me happy,” I swore, only the statement sounded specious, awkward and misguided when presented as a vow.

  Timbal moved toward me, lowered his voice, forced me to listen while insisting, “It’s all excuse,” and referring to my ticket said, “At the very least, you have passage. You have an available route.” He slumped forward, looking suddenly weary and sad, only to regroup a moment later, and reaching for one of his brushes, brandished it in front of my face. “Nothing is impossible!” he pronounced.

  Startled, I backed into the center of the room, almost colliding with the stove, the warmth of which bled through my shirt. “What I’m saying,” I began again, distracted as I glanced beyond Timbal’s shoulder and caught sight of Sally’s face, her lips appearing now to mouth the word What?, I could no longer look away, and seeing me staring, Timbal tossed his brush into its box and went quickly to the painting of his wife.

  I wiped my face, a streak of sweat beneath my eyes running down my cheeks as Timbal removed the tacks holding the canvas to the mounting frame, undid the sailcloth and rolled the painting up. “Here,” he said and thrust out his arms.

  “What?”

  “Take it,” he pushed the canvas into my chest.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m giving it to you.”

  “But?”

  “Go on, go on.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Of course, I am.”

  “But why?”

  “Because, Mr. Finne. You think you know what you want? You think to know what’s best? Go ahead then and spend some time with Sally. Live with her for a while and see what you wind up thinking then.”

  CHAPTER 15

  ALL THINGS THAT RISE

  What the darkness lacks is music.

  Oz, in Algiers, performed on bended knee, in the center of a long row of other men drawn at dusk to prayer. Barefoot and head bowed, he repeated the incantations of the imam: “Allah-hoo Akbar. Ashhadoo alla eelaha illa Allah. Ashhadoo annah mohammadan rahsooloo Allah. La eelahha illa Allah. (God is great. I witness there is but one God. I witness that Mohammed is his prophet. There is no God but him.)” All the men inside the mosque shared in the routine, each participating in the ritual in order to confirm their unerring devotion to Islam. Men of such commitment could be counted on in their capacity as humble servants to execute those deeds for which they were chosen. It is the blessed way (Allah Akbar!).

  Outside, in the time before Oz entered the iggameh, Niles listened as the elmoazzin called the men to evening prayer. Perched high up on the minaret, the elmoazzin paced around the balcony, his voice rich and resonant, ringing out like a songbird exhilarated by his chance to perform. Aziz sat on the curb beside the American. Unsure what would happen now, he looked at Niles in profile, observed the odd discolor and what appeared a worsening fever, drawn nonetheless by what the Amreekanee said to him earlier about forgiveness and how able he was to sit and observe, waiting so otherwise calm and roosted at the roadside like a child watching a parade. “It is because you are of one mind,” Aziz told him, and apologized again for thinking otherwise before at the beach. “It’s because you are here in Algiers. Unlike the West where people constantly question their fate, one has a clearer sense of destiny in the East. The focus here is not on the Self but on a greater whole. This is what you are feeling, my friend, the ease of knowing and serenity of being sure.”

  Niles didn’t answer, remained staring across the street at the men disappearing inside the mosque. Much of the afternoon had already been spent in similar conversation, with Aziz going back and forth over every possible concern and Niles assuring him that he came solely to be healed, confining his morning walks to this very spot and how he knelt in his own prayer then and watched Oz come and go. “You don’t have to stay with me,” he reminded Aziz as the other men enter the iggameh, their holy devotion put on display, and pushing the cuff of his right sleeve up, he stared at the first trace of scar, convinced here, too, was adoration and how much the cleaving and blistering of his flesh was equally a matter of faith.

  Just then Oz arrived from the opposite end of the street and entered the mosque. Niles stood and moved from the curb to the street, his fever warming his head, his body all but liquid as if he was once more submerged in the sea. He crossed into the path of men who barely seemed to notice him, shifting only in th
e last moment as if to avoid a cool shadow, the hint of a specter, the fear of ghosts. The chants from inside the mosque were a steady buzz Niles and Aziz listened to as they stood by the door. Niles’ thoughts were mosaic, all dreamlike wisps of visions he experienced there in curious waves. (Jeana’s face pressed toward him through a milky pane of glass, her features more irresistible than ever though he couldn’t quite get beyond the fog.) After half an hour the votaries completed their prayers, slipped on their shoes, and returned outside. Oz appeared in the middle of a small group, walked a few blocks east with the others, then parted company and went on alone. Although he hadn’t planned to do as much, Niles followed from a short distance, Aziz further behind.

  One by one they left the main road, crossed through the empty marketplace onto an isolated stretch of street. Soon the route looked familiar, the narrow alleyway Niles had walked to each of the last few mornings, only a few yards from the house where Oz rented a room. Niles closed the gap between them from fifty feet to twenty, more deliberate in his pacing now, drawing near enough to see tiny clouds of dust kick up in the dark beneath Oz’s feet. “In a minute, in a second,” he thought, his fever causing his shoulders to shake, the contents of his camera bag jostling, the intensity of the shudder inspiring an odd sense of joy, a peculiar pleasure bordering on happiness. It was as if his body, after threatening to betray him, had chosen that moment to conspire with him in a unified complicity, cuing him to stay focused. (“I must be conscious without deception,” he quoted Camus, “without cowardice—alone, face to face.”) Close enough then to cast his own shadow over Osmah, he thought of another line from the book, an encouraging passage that reminded him that it was, “his own will to happiness which must make the next move…all his violence there to help him, and at the point where he found the nerve, his love will (again) join him and fill him with a furious passion to live.”

  Oz turned and the blade passed through the softest flesh of his throat, an arch that dug and split the top of his breastbone, creating a vacuumlike seal requiring all of Niles’ strength to draw out and thrust down a second time with equally deadly force. (“Forgiveness,” he called out as the blade descended again.) Osmah bent frantically back, like a wild child dipping beneath a bar, his head tipped to receive Niles’ offering as a communicant taking benediction on the flat of his tongue. His shoulders sagged, his hips and knees breaking at an angle that lowered him several inches as his arms flailed at his sides for balance. His face beneath Niles was now that of a boy and nothing else, his expression fearfull, as bewildered as Jeana and P. Kelly no doubt in their final seconds, unable to comprehend the nearness of death.