Augustino and the Choir of Destruction (21 page)

flagrante delecti
, she never would be purified, and the fact she defended all the laws promulgated for the freedom of perverts was a crime, this woman was no longer his mother, nor the wife of his father Mohammed, in our society, my father's and my cousins', these evil elements are eradicated, it was just law, Lazaro would be a fighter for all laws designed to purge all that was harmful or degenerate in this world that his mother had chosen, renouncing her own in the process, on the beach appeared groups of people strolling nonchalantly, no doubt people who'd been partying all night, thought Lazaro, filled from their banquets at all the tables he had to wait on disdainfully in his white apron, saying to the masters of the house, I'll just get the seafood you ordered, when he'd rather throw it at their feet, and their son looking down at him with false candour, underhanded no doubt under those slant eyes, what did this over-praised son know about child graves in neighbourhoods near the front lines, kids armed in towns under siege, nothing, not a thing, it was far away in some vague and dirty place abandoned to packs of dogs so hungry they would, they did, devour spent projectiles, no windows left in the houses, except maybe metal shutters and bars through which you could see still more packs . . . of kids wielding weapons, playing with them the way others might a guitar, lining them up along their bodies, what did he know about any of that, this papa's boy and his friends laughing by the pool or on their surfboards in the afternoon, while Lazaro was out on the shrimp boat with coarse men, no truce in the captured towns, the strident noise of loudspeakers in the night, to no longer belong to this race, to flee from them and nonchalance on the beaches, on the water's edge, look at them forming into groups to watch the boats sail past, elsewhere groups were forming for guerrilla tactics, in mountains or near the frontlines, and pretty soon they'd hear yells of attack right by their houses, let's go, strike now, for there is joy in blood, but in their pools, out on the sea, in their gardens and at their well-laden tables, they wouldn't hear any of the shouts, and here they were, huddling together for protection, forging shelter down there, the mountain camps were waiting to welcome Lazaro at the Irano-Turkish border, the march would be long and hard through fog and snow, some find their joy in blood, Lazaro thought in his boat, the sound of the water keeping time with the movement of his oars, it's everyone's tribal need for vengeance come true, they feel glorious humiliating prisoners taken in combat, dragging them by the feet along a muddy road, you poisoned wells with dead goats, you're nothing but a Taliban, they don't see the face turned upward and begging to live, blinded by the joy of blood, they force the man to take off his pants, then assassinate him over and over again, bloody legs inert on that muddy road, the prisoner's chest filled with multiple holes, it's a land of unjust suffering, it's my land, desperate combatants with the same colour eyes as me, the same colour skin, Lazaro's brown hands kept a calm rhythm as they rowed, fixing the shore with his gaze, eyes closed off and fleeing the shadows there, the people waiting on the wharf, like those prostitutes on the quays since early nightfall, soon to flaunt their disgrace in broad daylight, not one of them, he thought, really deserved to live, and Chuan, who had convinced her husband to come down to the beach with her, said, let's go find our friends, knowing full well that Olivier was still thinking about his article on the fifties and the long fight for racial equality, what was it they said back then, separate but equal, that was before school integration in Boston, so Olivier could never be torn away from the seriousness of his thoughts, even on a day of celebration, he was one of those who can never forget, but Chuan thought forgetfulness a nobler faculty from which a compassion could emerge, perhaps even a form of generosity and magnanimity, she'd taken him by the hand, you know what I'd still like to have in the garden, she told him, knowing he wasn't listening, but always enthusiastic when she talked about her floral arrangements, compositions she pictured in full detail, a cascade of images she rejoiced in, it would be a harmonious cascade of daisies called white swans and cinquefoil — that supposedly look like lambs' ears or lobes — over by the fountain, wouldn't that be charming, we'd also have tulips, and at nightime, those white flowers would all shine like the moon and perfume the air, we'd have borders of amaryllis, and Olivier thought that for him, angels were black angels, victims of arson in the night of October 16 in their house in Baltimore, but where would he be without Chuan's floral pieces, her patience, her gentleness, what would he have done, a man forever living in the furor of the past or his ability to keep that lifelong fury going, without Chuan and Jermaine, all he possessed after what Chuan called the existence of things destroyed, yes, of course, he said, all those flowers would shine and smell sweet in the night, you're right Chuan, and we could have a rosebush near the patio table, next to where the yellow frangipani flowers would bloom, there's where we could have cocktails, and you could have your awful after-dinner cigars with Bernard and Christiansen when our friends come in the autumn, and winter would still be luminous, this is our future Olivier thought as he listened to his wife, there is always a future as long as we live, too bad we have so little faith, yes, you're absolutely right about those white flowers, Chuan, he said again, breathing in the sea air, and you know, I think this night has come off beautifully, a fine party that our friend Esther will never forget, Olivier was feeling a sort of contentment with life, yes, that's what it was, not simple forgetfulness or erasing of memory, Chuan's richness and generosity were enlivening, he thought, and after saying he'd see the doctor, just a brief visit to get his eyes checked, Samuel's teacher said he'd be back for the evening rehearsal, Samuel didn't know where Arnie Graal was now, not in the set-storage warehouse, nor below stage, where Samuel was used to seeing him, nowhere, the sudden absence, a separation, was announced today on a colour telephone screen, thought Samuel, a fun menu over an integrated digital camera, a message list, this colour-burst of technology suddenly blended into black when Arnie wrote to Samuel his student, don't try to find me but don't cancel my production of
A Survivor's Morning
in Berlin this fall, for you are my successor now, I told you one day I would lance the abscess, well it's done, I'm going blind and won't be able to dance anymore, I also told you my
A Survivor's Morning
was conceived for those leaving us, but I do not want to leave like those I accompanied with my twenty dancers, my choir of women and children, I don't want that because my whole life has been like a song, even when I worked in the hospital laundry at night, a song, because I danced all day from Amsterdam to San Francisco, as you will do later on, be bold and never stop dancing, Petite Graine, you said when you lost Tanjou, a family friend, as I lost my dancers in my last choreography when the walls and windows in my towers blotted out their shadows one by one, leaving us only with cut-out shadows, you prefer not to love any more, not Veronica, nor any other woman, always afraid that a beloved face will be swallowed up tomorrow or some time afterward, like these walls of icons, you said, all burnt up with Tanjou, you're wrong, Petite Graine, you still have a lot of growing up to do, for in life, persecutions live among us, and you yourself don't know if you're on the side of persecuters or among those who could be persecuted for crimes committed by other generations, as you (286) told me too, your parents brought you into the world for happiness, so never stop loving or dancing, Petite Graine, don't try and find me, I don't want to fall like those I accompanied in
A Survivor's Morning
with the choir of women and children, I want to be left alone and listen to some major works I've worked on: Stravinsky and Prokofiev, you can add some weightlessness to the Berlin performance of
A Survivor's Morning
, so there's no groping about, be brave then, Petite Graine, little seed of a man, go, persist, be tenacious, could it be true, thought Samuel, he'd never see the student Tanjou again, nor the itinerant Lady of the Bags, perhaps not his black dancer-friend Arni Graal either, Arnie had always said he did-n't like being alone, an eye check-up with his doctor, they said, and Samuel would never again see the flamboyant artist in the theatre, nor in the set warehouse where Arnie hung out alone, nor in the murky depths below stage where he designed and conceived his shows, never hear his baritone voice, was it that of a preacher whose auguries were too direct and disturbing, with his bone amulet shining beneath his black shirt, but where would he go with everyone expecting him each night, how could you go on and love when the breath that has given you love and dance has left you, how could Samuel transpose an art that was not his own but Arnie's, Arnie who had taught him everything, the dizzying heights of his dance steps, the long fall past the walls where the faces and bodies reappeared, Arnie's blind fall to the concrete streets, to whom would Samuel explain that tied and bound bodies with covered faces slept with him at night, and that they were all living, their hands had been tied, and Samuel could hear them breathing beneath the rough fabric over their faces, they slept and breathed, Samuel thought, a convulsive sleep, were they awaiting interrogation, having nowhere to live, or were they ghosts held in chambers waiting to be whipped and tortured when they awoke, even they did not know why they were there, but wordlessly they begged Samuel to lend them blankets and the glass of water by his bedside, for they were thirsty but could not drink, they were hungry but could not eat breakfast with him, how can you go on like this, Samuel thought, when you think you're fast asleep in your sheets, you dream you're walking on water, weightless or almost, water finding its way, unwavering, beneath your feet, and suddenly heads fall from the wall onto your sheets, bodies wander some way off, tied and bound or sometimes seated with their feet out in front of them, closely watched by dark shadows, that must be how they've been photographed or filmed, if the eyes in these heads went out and the mouths cried out, I don't want to, no, I don't want to, call someone, I don't want to, call my mother, my son, isn't anyone in charge here, how can you go on with the rolling and rubbing of those heads in your sheets, and even when Samuel left his apartment and ran down the stairs into the street, they were still there, all those naked bodies seemingly nailed to the front doors, as though the city were a prison colony, it rained and snowed on these soaking bodies, whether single or stickily clumped together in obscene positions they didn't want to take, a shiver of fear ran through them all, up against door-and window-frames, pitifully tied to one another with electrical wire, and when Samuel awoke they had all disappeared, he searched through the sheets to see if there might be a head still unstuck from its body, the eyes begging him to let them live, but when he opened the blinds onto the street, he saw it was a beautiful summer morning, Veronica had written to him saying, come back, and his mother urged him to come home for a few days and see Vincent, who would soon be coming home, almost cured too, his mother wrote, Samuel, better to count the days when Vincent feels well than the others, then he can react since he's been in the mountains, he coughs a bit less, and he swims now too like all boys his age, I still won't let him go out to sea with Marie-Sylvie, though, I'm sure it's too soon, his last attack really scared all of us on Papa's boat, then walking in town, if Samuel were never again to see Tanjou or perhaps even Our Lady of the Bags, who'd been replaced by someone else, a girl without sweetness who had brushed him aside with some choice words on his way out of a store on some avenue where opulence reigned supreme, as she said, but it was true, so why blame her for saying what she thought, she who slept in cardboard boxes and dirty alleys, Samuel stopped by to say hello every day to her who'd been buried under the rubble with Tanjou, Our Lady of the Bags, and suddenly with the blossoming of the lilacs, tulips and roses in the parks, who could tell if what was tomb-scaffolding yesterday, or now had the appearance of smoking ruins with so many dead, might not be a fortress or fortification where, instead of a glass citadel provoking more attacks, trees and gardens and the perpetual flowering of lilacs and tulips and roses might rise skyward, so nothing would be bastioned and devastated anymore, this smiling geometry would take over the city, lush green in the sun, thought Samuel, and Petites Cendres turned back, all dishevelled and sad and still without his powder until Decadent Friday, he thought, when the bar was deserted, though you could still hear music in the street, a few notes from a piano and a man singing in a smoky tavern with nobody in it, just a sweeper picking out a few notes, haven't you got anything for me, Petites Cendres called out to him, no, nothing, he said, hey listen to this song, son,
Unchain My Heart
, oh let my heart not be in chains anymore, son, and yours neither, hey, where you going, it'll soon be time for the churches and temples to open, better go pray, son, I ain't touched coke since I got old, not like in the old days when I played in Cornelius' band at the Club Mix, look at the scarecrow I turned into with that powder, don't do like me, Petites Cendres, everywhere they threw me out, even the Club Mix, now all I do is sweep up other people's garbage, don't let your heart be chained, son, that powder's the devil, I'll score some before 11:00 this morning, Petites Cendres said, I've got a customer waiting at the hotel, huge guy, monster belongs to an S-and-M crowd and masturbates alone with his porno films while he's waiting for me, he'll be ready when I get there, what gets him off is us Blacks, insulting us and messing with our heads with a lot of sharp demands, that's what he wants, the sweeper repeated again, don't let your heart be chained, I wanted to be Ray Charles, and look what powder's made me, skin and bones, it swallowed everything I had, son, don't you do like me, I'm lucky I can barely play a few notes, listen,