The circus used to organize parades whenever we arrived in a small town and the Shakers were invited. The circus was often accused by the Church of being sinful, decadent, and even satanic, and the ringmaster thought the Shakers could give us some legitimacy.
Anyway, the gypsies played and we all danced around the fire. A Shaker with a long coat came to me, and held my small hand, and they tossed me from one to the other. And when the music stopped, the man whispered in my ear, Come with me, child, and you shall be saved. I got scared and ran and took refuge between the monkeys and the dogs until the bearded lady came and said, No one will take you from us, and we both cried as we caressed the dogs and held the baby monkey in our arms.
And what has happened to those Shakers now? Zainab asked.
I am glad that I’ve got your attention; I didn’t know that you were so fond of dancing people, Zainab. Well, to answer
your question: annihilation, disappearance! The government regulations changed and the dancing Shakers couldn’t adopt anymore. Their community slowly regressed in numbers until their wish came true. This lesser world is all about reproduction, as you might well know. Those who cease to duplicate simply die.
I could give you a book to read on the subject, I continued. It might well help in your dissertation. There is no harm linking all these religious beliefs to the same delusional source: the original fear and disappointment of men . . . but I know that a pure, enlightened person like you will resist stepping into my obscure world.
I have to go, Fly.
Wait, let me walk with you and tell you about another branch of these heretic extinct Christians. This might interest you. These were called the Cathars, and in some circles they were referred to as buggers . . . it was said that they refused to have vaginal intercourse. They only had anal sex and that was an alternative means of contraception, their way of undermining the holiness of the body and assuring that no other souls were brought back to this false, degrading world. Their orgies must have been loud and magnificent. You see how all religions undermine our anatomy?
Not all religions. Islam has no problem with the body. As a matter of fact, the body is cherished, cleaned, loved.
Hidden, I added.
I know what you are referring to, Fly. Maybe we should draw a veil over this conversation, to make use of your own insinuation. But then . . .
Enough, stop it, Fly, Zainab interrupted. I really have to go now. I don’t want to miss another train. Please go up and sleep. You must be tired from driving all night. Go get some rest. Your mind is wandering and, if I might say so, you seem a bit delusional.
And so Zainab left and I stood still, watching her rushing in the direction of the train station. Her hair was wet and she held a bag over her shoulder.
MIRROR
MARY CALLED AS
I was about to climb into bed. She said that she was moving out of her husband’s place and she asked if I could meet her. I put my clothes back on, went down to the garage, and drove the car out.
When I got there, she was waiting outside with only one small bag in her hand. She was crying. She got into the front seat and we looked in the mirrors at her husband, who was standing at the front door smoking and watching his wife leaving him.
I should have sat in the back, she said.
I don’t think he would remember me. My place? I asked.
I prefer to get a hotel room, she said. But could you stop by your place first and pick me up a few books for the night?
We drove to my apartment and she waited in the car. I came down with a bag of books and then I drove her to a small hotel downtown. When I asked her why she wouldn’t stay the night with me, she said that she had to learn to be alone. We arrived and I took her up to her room. I pulled out a bottle of whisky that I’d brought from home and I left it for her on the table next to the bag of books. Food? I asked her. She shook her head no. Should I call you later? I asked.
If you like, she said, and started to cry.
ON THE WAY
back I picked up a passenger in front of a different hotel. The porter waved at me and I was surprised that he did, because all those fancy hotels are rigged. The spider drivers have it all secured in a web of bribes and corruption.
The porters and the receptionists are at the heart of it. When a client asks for a taxi to the airport, which is a substantial fare, the receptionist informs the porter, who in turn calls the dispatcher, who is also in on it, and the dispatcher calls one of a few chosen spiders to take the client to the airport. The driver gets the big fare and everyone gets a little something. These few spiders have their rigs set up in most if not all of the big hotels in town, and they all make good money. But once in a while, if the spiders are too busy or too late, the porter is obliged to pick up a taxi on the fly. And this time it was my luck.
I parked and let the porter in his Sherlock Holmes attire open the door for the client. As I was loading the suitcases into the trunk, Sherlock came to my side, blocking the view from the hotel, and stretched out his hand. It remained there, extended, until I took his open palm in my hand and said to him, Elementary, my dear, elementary.
I closed the trunk, got in my seat, and drove the client away.
The passenger was a bit quiet. So I talked about the rain.
Rain doesn’t bother me, he said. It is sweat that I fear.
Indeed, I said, I think I know what you mean. Not to be too philosophical, but I agree with you: it is what surfaces from the inside that counts.
You say philosophical, but I would attribute your comments to religion.
How interesting, I said.
Well, Jesus.
Jesus? I replied.
Matthew 15:
It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man
, the man in the back seat of my car declared so eloquently.
Well, well, revolutionary, I said. There goes all that meticulously prepared celestial food down the drain. What an anarchist of an anorexic commie that Christ was!
Are you a believer, my friend? Do you believe in the lord Jesus, king and saviour?
To tell you the truth, I am not too keen on kings and royalties . . . but to come back to your question, I ask, does Jesus believe in himself?
Jesus believes in the Father and the Holy Ghost.
And the Father believes in his own father and so forth, I mumbled, imagining an endless family tree of Godfathers and forefathers and a legion of prophets and holy ghosts moving up and down the branches and clapping their hands between their acrobatic performances that somehow always ended with a fistful of peanuts or a banana peel.
Are you married, brother? the man asked me.
No.
Girlfriend?
Never, I said.
You are not one of those, are you?
Gay, you mean. Not yet, but a fortune teller assured me that I might have a life-changing encounter one of these days.
The fortune teller meant it in the religious sense, I hope. Have you ever considered having a family and kids?
No.
Do you ever think about your old age?
Yes, I said. It is all planned.
I hope not alone?
No, I know exactly how it is going to be, if I am lucky. I’ll grow old, I’ll sell my books, and give my bed to the Salvation Army. By then, I imagine, I’ll already have grown a beer belly and yellow toenails. I shall get a ticket to an old island in the south, live among the locals with the little money that I have saved. Sunbathe and drink rum until the banana regime comes and chases me out, or until the regime chases itself out for lack of any other thing left to chase, whichever comes first.
You should get married and have kids, the man said to me, then you’ll know the meaning of life. Who do you think will take care of you and visit you when you are sick and old?
The chambermaid and her mother, I said. The young local girl that I’ll marry in the south. Like I said, it is all in the plan. I’ll be supporting her and her whole family, her gambler of a brother, and her father, who, incidentally, will also become my future domino game partner and who will make fun of my age every time he wins a game, calling me Papa Turko. I’ll be best friends with her mother, with whom I’ll see eye to eye on issues of marriage, cooking, and old age. I’ll make sure that the fridge is always full, that the white sheets of the bed are run now and again through the washing machine that I’ll have bought my young wife for her birthday. My wife, who lost her first husband in an illegal caravan crossing to the north, was in danger of starving with her two kids until I came along from the snowy pole with a dog by the name of Rudolph and offered her a secure life in return for company, good meals, and a tolerant attitude to my sagging old man’s breasts, my belly button’s disappearance under the flesh of my falling beer belly, and, as I’ve previously mentioned, my yellow toenails . . . and that, my friend, would be the sweetest company any chariot driver ever dreamed of in his old age. What a glorious ending, sir! What a reward for a hard life of solitude and wandering. Imagine that I could sit every day on the beach, with the sea in front of my eyes and the white laundered sheets flapping behind my back. I will lie down and watch the passing tourist boats with a drink in my hand, I’ll appear before them in my ridiculous swimsuit that covers the tumbling parts of my decaying body. And, if I am lucky, I’ll die watching the ocean against the backdrop of a white movie screen with memory fragments and episodic replays of my life bouncing on the washed bedsheets as they dance through the turbulent blows of life.
I still think that you should get married and settle down before it is too late, the passenger behind me said, as I drove and watched the road and the rain, as I listened to the sound of the wipers’ monotonous swings. The same rhythm, the same dance, the same swing of the pelvis after dinner and between the news breaks and the sway of the nocturnal toothbrush, the same keys, same breakfast, and same
The doorbell is ringing, darrrrling
, the same dog with its monotonous tail swings to welcome you after your car engine has stopped above the same spot of oil on the ground of the same garage. We arrived at the airport. The rain had stopped and the wipers rested.
I unloaded the man’s luggage from the trunk. He paid me and we shook hands, and as he was about to turn and depart he said to me, Good luck with your solitary existence. But remember, my son, the Lord’s path is always open.
So long, I replied, may we all have one good flight before we rest among flowers and the orbits of hungry worms.
He left and I turned back towards the city and drove through the empty roads, and I rejoiced at the privilege of a ride through the falling rains.
THE DEALER CALLED
my apartment. When I answered, all he said was, Tonight we are on.
So I waited for him once more. He came down wearing shades though it was late in the evening. He got in and sat in the back seat, quiet. I watched him in the mirror and waited for instructions. He waved his hand and I drove straight ahead, and when we reached the end of the street he said, Left and right and straight to the port area. He wasn’t talkative at all. But then he said, You can go home early tonight. It is just a meeting.
We arrived.
Good, he said. Park behind the container here. Then we waited and we both watched in the rearview mirror.
A big car came from behind and pulled up next to us. There were two men inside. I tried not to look. The less I know, the safer I’ll be, I thought.
Stay here, the dealer said. I’ll be back.
So I turned off the engine and opened a book to read, but the light was dim and I didn’t want to turn on the interior light. Carefulness and survival instincts made me welcome the dark. I will give it fifteen minutes, I thought, and then I will leave. It was an overcast night, there was no moon to be seen, and there was a fence between my car and the river. I don’t often listen to the radio, besides it drains the battery when the engine is not running, but some of those spiders pass their lives driving and listening to talk-show programs. With time, if they spend enough years in this land, they start complaining about foreigners just like themselves and lazy people and the government’s waste of money. And though none of these drivers pays any taxes, they start walking like big taxpayers and old men with large umbrellas who feel justified in their sense of entitlement because they fought old wars and gave half their money to the nation state. Buffoons, some of these drivers are. They like to have those voices in their heads.
Once, in Café Bolero, Number 115 stood up and grabbed the public phone in the hallway next to the bathroom and he kept dialling until he got on. The waitress turned up the volume and everyone in the café got quiet, and then the right-wing anchor, with his little-girl voice, interrupted 115, first corrected his English, and then asked him, Where you are calling from? And he followed that with: I thought you were calling from India, pal. How did we let you in here? Everyone laughed and thought it was a good joke, but I left the restaurant, sat in my car, and cried.
A light beamed from behind me. I thought it was the dealer come back to interrupt my thoughts, but then a man in a guard’s uniform knocked on my window. I could see the silhouette of his partner in my mirror, standing behind my car on the other side. I slowly rolled down the glass and made sure he could see that both my hands were on the wheel.
What are you doing here? This is private property.
Whose property? I inquired, for no reason.
It is the port authority’s property. There is a sign back there. No one is allowed in after 8 p.m.
Well, the sign must not be lit, or I would have seen it.
You are trespassing. Licence and registration, please.
I had just handed him my licence when another car pulled up. The dealer stepped out, walked towards us, and said, He is with me.
The security guard immediately handed me back my papers and the dealer got into the car. As I was about to drive away, the dealer asked me to wait. He lowered the window and called the man back. Thursday, he said. The guard nodded and turned away.