Passion Play

by Jerzy Kosiński

  In the examination room, a young black nurse told Fabian to prepare for the enema he required before the examination. She asked him to take off his boots, jeans and underwear. Half-naked, he felt old and inept, his shame fused with self-pity. She asked him to lie down on his side on a cot as she inserted a nozzle. He could barely hold the fluid rapidly entering him. About to finish, unconcerned, the nurse told him to retain the fluid for five minutes. He turned around and saw her shapely calves and knees, her thighs firm under the uniform. He wondered whether, in approaching her outside the hospital, he would do so as an obscurely humiliated patient, as the invulnerable man he felt himself to be in his VanHome, or as a potent athlete sitting on his horse in a polo game.

  Alone in the brightly lighted toilet, he noticed that his pubic hair had begun to go gray. This surprised him: the last time he had consciously examined himself—how long ago, he could not recall—the hair was all black.

  Back in the examination room, he found the doctor, young, unusually good-looking, exuding the self-confidence and strength of a winning player. Fabian, naked except for his loose and dangling shirt, crawled clumsily onto the examination table. His thighs spread wide by the pedal-like traps clamping his feet, his braced knees and elbows exposing his buttocks below the doctor’s face, Fabian thought of himself as a woman explored by her gynecologist, then as a man entered in sodomy by his lover.

  The doctor put on rubber gloves. Applying lubricant to a pipelike instrument, he noticed his patient’s uncertain glance. “Afraid of the sigmoidoscope?” he asked.

  “Of pain,” said Fabian.

  As the sigmoidoscope entered him slowly, his muscles offering little resistance, he felt discomfort, then pain. The doctor moved out of Fabian’s view.

  “Does it feel sensitive?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t. I do.” replied Fabian.

  The mascot Fabian always kept on the dashboard of his VanHome resembled a heavy-duty letter opener. It was an aluminum blade, long, tapering and curved, dull, but crowned by a large knob of shining chrome. No visitor had ever guessed that the mascot was an artificial hip joint, used to replace an irreparably shattered or deteriorated one. It was there to remind Fabian of his fear of surgery. He recalled one of his uncles, a celebrated scholar and writer, whose lectures Fabian often had attended as a student. In the course of surgery for a minor growth in the ear, the surgeon’s hand slipped and injured a nerve. Fabian’s uncle came out of the operation with one side of his face drooping, unable to close one eye tightly, his mouth drawn down to the side, so that food and saliva dribbled from its loose corner when he ate and his words slurred when he spoke. When corrective surgery failed to remedy his deformity, Fabian’s uncle resigned from the academy, then volunteered for the war. He never returned.

  When Fabian had to have his tonsils removed, his parents, whose only child he was, insisted that the operation be performed by a famous surgeon, an eminent professor in the medical school. Then seventy years old, he operated only on serious cases and had not performed a simple tonsillectomy in decades. But he agreed to operate on Fabian for the benefit of medical students who would observe his performance.

  A large auditorium was transformed into an operating theater. Fabian sat bound in the operating chair, his head extended backward, his mouth fixed open. Under local anesthetic, he felt no pain, only fear and discomfort. The surgeon began the operation, with a microphone under his chin, describing to his students each step of the process, his choice of move and instrument.

  Suddenly, Fabian coughed. Taken aback, the professor dislodged and dropped to the floor a clamp that tied off a blood vessel. From the open vein, blood flooded Fabian’s throat. He began to choke. Reaching for a spare clamp on a portable tray, the nervous assistant knocked the tray down. Another assistant ran out to bring clamps from another operating room.

  The students gasped in shock, then watched in silence. The surgeon grabbed Fabian’s tongue between the thumb and forefinger of one hand and pulled on it; with the fingers of the other, he palpated under Fabian’s throat, as if readying for an incision there. Mindless of his students, he alternately screamed at Fabian to keep on breathing and shouted instructions to his assistants.

  The surgeon’s sweaty face and trembling hands were now only inches away; Fabian, his throat swollen with blood, finally caught his breath. In that moment, streaming through the auditorium like an Olympic torch bearer, the assistant appeared, spare clamp in hand; the simple surgery resumed.

  At the wheel of his VanHome, Fabian tracked in the mirror above the dashboard—the mirror no longer ready to be bribed by vanity—the changes nature had worked in his face. With probing fingertips, he worried the beady transparent eruptions around his nose and in the wrinkles of his forehead. Minuscule globules of fat, faintly visible threads of sallow grease jetted out from their wells, spiraling, reluctant to leave. He rolled the waxy substance between thumb and forefinger until it turned pasty. Then, with precision, he plucked the random gray hairs from his scalp. Some refused to submit; the broken top discarded, the lower half curled defiantly backward as though to root itself doubly in his scalp.

  In the midst of an eyebrow, he noticed one hair longer, thicker, darker than the other hairs. Fabian hesitated before pulling it out. The defiant hair might have grown from a particular cell that had rebelled against the pervading rhythm of his body. If the hair were plucked, would the aberrant cell revolt, and a cancer metastasize? He pulled the hair out; for a moment the eyebrow itched as if the cell, annoyed by his intervention, communicated its resentment at violation.

  He repeated it with the hair that had chanced to grow on his chest. When he pulled it out or shaved it off, he wondered whether the growth of a single hair was an occurrence as unique as the onset of a cancer—or of a thought, of emotion? With all its formidable array of impersonal power and technology, science was able to explain only occurrences that formed a whole class, the genesis of whose origins and behavior—universal, uniform—could be determined and predicted in advance. But science could not explain, or explain away, the unique. What if the single hair he had pulled out was just such a one-time occurrence?

  Frame by frame, the documentary of aging unreeled in his imagination: the bad faith of the balding patch, the descent of graying hair, the betrayal of the lashless eye, the juiceless eyeball, the waxless ear, the dry, freckling skin; the snares of pus in sputum, of bile in urine, of mucus in feces; the reflection that debauched the spirit.

  Even though he combed his hair to mask the bald planes that flanked both sides of the widow’s peak at his forehead, the receding hair diminished the impact of his face and emphasized the shape of his skull. In each hair lost, in the unannounced arrival of each wrinkle or swollen pore, in sagging flesh, he saw nature cut close to the bone.

  Fabian puzzled over whether he resented going bald because it was so obvious an announcement of the process of aging within. As his looks had never done much for him one way or another, he believed that the fewer people he attracted, the deeper the hold he had on those he did attract. What if now, because of time and loss, he might attract none? He continued his scrutiny of decay. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of lusterless teeth, now yellow or shot with blue-black mottling, a few tarnished silver fillings against a flare of gold. His gums were pale; like old chewing gum, they had lost elasticity, hardened, receding to bare more and more of each tooth’s eroding root. Struck with the precariousness of his mouth, he pressed the lower front teeth with his thumb; no longer firm, they shifted slightly, almost imperceptibly. One day, without warning, when he collided at polo with another rider or was unseated by him, they might simply fall out. He kept a log of the steady remolding of his face, particularly when fatigue set in, the folds in the eyelids thickening, the overpliant chin sagging with flesh.

  At such moments, Fabian saw his spirit as remote from his body. His attempts at mechanical perfection, his horsemanship, his polo, were acts of violence committed by the spirit against an unwill
ing, submissive body. But now, his body, once only the expression of his spirit, had become a form for aging, nature’s own expression.

  Like any other creation, he was also to be changed according to nature’s own timetable; like a ruin, any ruin whose walls crumbled away from life, he might be the setting for a striking drama.

  Fabian was about to enter his VanHome when a middle-aged man came up to him briskly, one arm raised in salute. He was Hispanic, lithe and wiry. A sweeping hat, its brim cocked at an extravagant angle, crowned his eager, vigilant eyes as he read the Sign INTERSTATE WILDLIFE CRUISER.

  “Hey, wildlife man,” the man called out jauntily, “you need a farmhand? Body servant? Wet nurse? Meat for the lions? Anyone, or anything?”

  “What if I do?” Fabian replied. “Are you, sir, meat for my lion?”

  The man’s hand shot out. “I’m Rubens Batista, once of Santiago de Cuba, now of these here freedom-loving United States.” Fabian took the hand, its fingers a riot of ornate rings.

  “That’s some fancy rig, Mr. Wildlife,” Batista said, surveying the VanHome with admiration. “Never seen anything like it. A real palace on wheels,” he declared, stroking the VanHome’s aluminum siding.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Fabian said.

  “So am I. And those mustangs in there must sure like it.”

  “How do you know about my horses?”

  “I heard them horsing around inside. And I smelled them.”

  “Smelled them?”

  “I smell a lot of things.”

  “What else do you smell, Mr. Batista?”

  “I smell a rich caballero, all alone in his big bed on wheels, who might be able to take advantage of my services.” Batista jogged in place as if about to dance. “Those I horse around with call me Latin Hustle.”

  “Latin Hustle?”

  “The fastest footwork you’ll ever see, Mr. Wildlife.”

  “And where can I see your footwork, Mr. Batista?”

  At once, Latin Hustle was all business. “At a place, where you can find yourself some household help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “A man, a woman, even a whole family. People from voodoo land,” he said, “just fresh from Haiti, just aching to work for you here.”

  “And you’re hired to get that work for them?”

  “I am. By people who brought these voodoos here,” Latin Hustle explained. “I take a finder’s fee, of course!” His teeth gleamed.

  “Why can’t these Haitians get a job by themselves?”

  “The voodoos can’t get anything by themselves. They don’t speak English, Mr. Wildlife. They’re not-” he paused-“strictly legal. Strictly speaking, they’re illegal aliens,” he announced briskly. “And there is no way back for them, no way. Get it?”

  “I get it. I was once an alien myself,” Fabian said. “Where are these people—and where’s the sale?”

  “A couple of miles away. A different place each time a new shipload comes in, on the fishing boats, by way of Florida. That’s two or three times a month, if the sea cooperates.”

  “Let’s go,” Fabian said.

  “At your service, Mr. Wildlife. Just follow me.” Latin Hustle tipped his hat rakishly to Fabian. He swaggered across the street to where a silver Buick Wildcat was parked, then slipped behind the wheel. Fabian climbed into his VanHome and waved that he was ready.

  With Latin Hustle in the lead, he picked his way first through the city’s dense and rushing heart, frantic with business, then swept by rows of theaters and chic movie houses punctuated by some of the city’s most stately hotels.

  It was not far, less than three miles, before Fabian, guided by Latin Hustle, turned abruptly into a wasteland of sprawling decay. Burnt-out houses, their windows smashed and gaping, tottered on the fringes of vacant parking lots, strewn with the rusting shells of cars.

  Latin Hustle signaled Fabian to stop in front of the dilapidated fortress of a scarred old apartment house, the entry to its courtyard garlanded with a ring of battered garbage cans flowering with an overflow of stinking refuse.

  In the sullen light of the courtyard, Fabian confronted a herd of people, perhaps a hundred, mostly dark-skinned, the men in clusters, smoking, some of the women nursing babies, the children silent or playing dully. The atmosphere was somber, the clothes drab, patched, hanging and bulging in odd places.

  The appearance of Fabian’s VanHome had caused a stir. A white man in a crisp gray business suit greeted Fabian. Even before Latin Hustle was able to introduce his prize catch, the white man made it clear that he was one of the entrepreneurs.

  “My name is Coolidge,” he began, sizing up Fabian and his VanHome. “That’s the biggest motel on wheels I’ve ever seen. I’ll bet it takes lots of horsepower to keep it running.”

  “I bet it takes a lot of manpower, too,” Latin Hustle interjected.

  “Well, manpower is what we deal in here,” Coolidge said, taking Fabian’s arm as he turned to assess the crowd.

  He steered Fabian through the mute herd parting to make way for them, as well as for several buyers coolly appraising the Haitians.

  “How does the law feel about all this?” Fabian asked.

  Coolidge looked at him. “What was that you said?”

  “All this,” Fabian said. “Isn’t selling people against the law?”

  “Nobody sells people,” Coolidge stressed with a touch of pedantry. “We sell opportunities. To people who need work or to people who need people.”

  “But these Haitians are here illegally,” Fabian insisted politely.

  “What’s legal or not legal is for the law to decide,” Coolidge declared, unshaken. “The law couldn’t stop hundreds of thousands of these Chicanos, voodoos, Dominicans—you name them—at the border. Now it’s too late for the law.”

  “You mean to say that the police, the Immigration people, the unions, the welfare agencies, the press, that they all don’t know what’s going on right here in plain daylight?” Fabian asked.

  “To know is one thing, to do something about it is another,” Coolidge came back smoothly. “The law doesn’t have enough men and means to round up all these people, all over the country, to get them a lawyer, to put them one by one on trial for breaking a law they don’t even know exists, to translate into English what they say and into voodoo what the law says, to prove them guilty, to hear their appeals, to try them again, to deport every one of them all the way back to Haiti or Mexico or Colombia. It’s just too big a job. The law would rather chase after marijuana. That’s easier to catch.”

  “These voodoos, all they can say in English is ‘Give me a job,’” Latin Hustle intoned.

  “We help them find food, shelter and work,” Coolidge went on. “After all, somebody has to help them.”

  Fabian looked at him directly. “How much does such help sell for?”

  “If you take one person, that costs more than, say, a couple. Taking a whole family, particularly with young kids—well, there’s a real bargain for you.”

  “How much would it be for these two, for instance?” Fabian asked. He pointed at a couple, dark-skinned, the man short and aging, in his fifties, the woman, probably his wife, a bit younger, yet wrinkled, her eyes tired. The couple caught his look and sign; they shuffled with animation, eagerly ogling him, showing their broken and decaying teeth in forced smiles.

  Coolidge threw a brisk professional glance at the two. “Now, a couple like that can still work miracles on a farm or an estate.”

  “Voodoo workers, miracle workers,” Latin Hustle echoed.

  “What would happen if I took them?” Fabian asked intently.

  “They know they’re yours for keeps. Signed, sealed, delivered, Mr. Wildlife,” Latin Hustle explained.

  “You mean that’s all there is to it?” Fabian asked.

  Coolidge shrugged his shoulders. “What else is necessary?”

  “Do I need work permits for them? Social Security, insurance, some kind of official certif
icate?”

  Coolidge patted him on the shoulder. “Relax, my friend, you worry too much. Our voodoos aren’t after your welfare.”

  “It’s jobfare they’re after,” Latin Hustle crooned.

  Coolidge nodded in agreement. “Remember, only a week ago they were starving in Port-au-Prince.”

  “Now you could be the prince of their port, Mr. Wildlife,” Latin Hustle went on.

  “You give them work—you own them.” Coolidge was catching Latin Hustle’s fever.

  “What if I change my mind later—and won’t need them or want them anymore?” Fabian asked.

  “Then it’s all up to you. You might pass them on to a good neighbor,” Coolidge said slyly, “or call the police and have them deported. Or ask us to get rid of them for you.”

  “Call me, and I will do it for you,” Latin Hustle volunteered.

  Fabian looked at the couple again. The ingratiating smiles faded from their faces as they sensed that they had been passed over. They seemed suddenly impassive, numb with indifference.

  “Let me sit on it,” Fabian said quietly.

  “Don’t sit too long,” Coolidge warned him brusquely. “When the sea gets rough, a lot of them just go down on the way.”

  “And as they go down, the price goes up,” Latin Hustle chimed in.

  Coolidge walked away, waving his hand in dismissal. Fabian saw him moving on to another potential buyer, a powerfully built man. Several airline tickets bulged out of the pocket of his jacket.

  Latin Hustle looked speculatively at the man and at the tickets.

  “There’s a cat who knows why he’s here. Even before he buys his voodoos, he gets the tickets to put them on the plane. I bet they’ll be fixing up his farm tonight.”

  Fabian began to wander through the crowd again, Latin Hustle at his heels, though with diminished interest.

  “But there are no young women here,” Fabian said casually.

  “Would you be interested in a young woman?” Latin Hustle asked nonchalantly.

  “What man wouldn’t be?” said Fabian, drifting toward his VanHome.