Carnival (27 page)

The ground is wet, Otto said. Look how all has turned grey. How I hate that pale colour. The colour of evenness and submission, the colour of dormitories and hospitals and jails. For the funeral of my father, my mother bought us grey suits. She said, Kids shouldn’t wear black. Kids should be in grey, and then one day she left us. I can’t even remember where she’s buried. Do you remember where your mother is buried, Fly?

Beside a river, I said. Somewhere between the Danube and the Italian heel. There was a band playing, and everyone wore bright colours.

Bright colours, lucky you.

We passed by a river. Otto suggested we stop to look at the water. There is a good view here, we can reach it by going behind the truck stop, he said. Pull over. There are no trucks at this hour.

I parked the car and stepped out. A cold wind was coming up from the water. Otto didn’t seem to mind. He saw me shivering and handed me the bottle. Here, this will keep you warm, he said. I took a sip and we walked through an opening in the bushes. The soil was indeed wet and muddy. We stood on the edge of the river and we looked at the currents rushing towards an old bridge and a few rocks standing on the shore.

This should end, Fly, Otto said again.

This? I asked.

This, me. This person here. This small universe. This insignificant star. This ephemeral river. All of it should end.

WE ARRIVED AT
the cottage. The door was unlocked.

There must be another bottle around here somewhere, Otto said. Aisha had stopped drinking and worried about my habit, so I hid it from her. He went to the kitchen and came back with two glasses and a bottle of rum.

We poured ourselves drinks and we drank.

I asked Otto, What did you and Aisha talk about before she was gone?

Many things, he said. Her family, her childhood. She remembered reading
The Iliad
to Mrs. Rooney, the neighbour. She said that, during the battles, the Greeks burned their dead but the Trojans buried theirs. They all feared for the well-being of their corpses and wanted to protect them from birds and hungry dogs . . . Once she asked me to find a jazz station on the radio, but there are none in this area. We laughed about that . . . We talked on the days when she didn’t feel as bad, we had conversations about music and dance. She remembered a short story about a black jazz musician who played across the Atlantic in Paris for years, then one day decided to return home, only to be pursued and lynched by a mob . . . She remembered us dancing, she talked about her father. One day I asked her how she was feeling and she said she finally felt at peace, now that everything was about to end.

Let’s light a fire, Otto said suddenly, and got to his feet and went outside. He disappeared and came back with two logs in his hands. He laid them in the stove and started to make a fire, using some leaves as kindling.

We sat across from it and waited for the fire to appear. There was only smoke coming out.

The leaves are wet, Otto said. They’ll dry out soon.

It was cold and damp inside the cottage.

When the fire starts, it will warm up, Otto said.

Do you remember that tune, Fly? “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”? The great Thelonious, you used to call him. It went like this . . . Otto hummed a bar and swayed a bit. He always swayed gently when he drank.

What album might that be, Fly?

Straight, No Chaser
, I said.

You know it, brother.
Straight, No Chaser
, he said, and smiled. There is no one left but you, Fly.

And you, I said.

Otto didn’t reply. The conversation stopped when the fire started to take off, and we sat quietly, looking at the smoke.

Then I suggested we eat.

Otto waved his hand and raised his drink and I understood his gesture. He raised the glass because he preferred to maintain the quietness of the place.

You can sleep on the bed if you are tired, he said.

I shook my head in negation. But when the flames started to dance inside the chimney, my eyes felt heavy and I slept on the chair with the empty rum glass in my hand.

Otto woke me up gently and said, Lie on the bed, Fly. It is more comfortable there.

And without resisting I stretched myself out on the bed and Otto took his quilt and covered me with it.

When I heard the gunshot, I must have been dreaming, because for the past few weeks I’d been having the same disturbing dream, which always struck me as very real and vivid. It was a chaotic dream, involving cars and a rundown place that I would struggle to escape from. There were always people chasing me in the dream, though I had never once seen their faces. But this night, I remember turning to confront them and to fight and then chasing them in return . . . I woke up sweating, thinking,
They’ve killed another man.
In my dreams, the victims were always nameless men.

It took a while to make the transition back from sleep and to return to the cottage. The stove helped me reorient myself and I looked around the room, but Otto was not there. I went outside looking for him and I saw him lying in the shadow of the tree. I ran towards him, and I held him. I knelt on the ground and held his head and my hands slowly filled with blood.

I stayed there with Otto’s body in my arms. I must have knelt motionless for hours, maybe even days. I can’t remember. The hours and the minutes were speeding by at a velocity that I couldn’t comprehend. It all seemed like a swift flight of time.

I left Otto and I walked back to the cottage to get the sheet off the bed and I grabbed a shovel that was lying at the end of the porch. I covered Otto’s body and I dug into the soft earth.

I buried him and it started to rain. I went back to my car and watched the water slipping down the glass. My muddy hands steered my wheel back towards the city. I drove past meadows and trees yielding in reverence to the passage of rain. Ravens flew through the sky in many directions. Their blackness paled against the dark clouds and their sizes varied with the distance of their flight. I drove and everything around me spoke of disappearance and decay. Everything ends with a flight, I thought . . . the images of passing meadows in rearview mirrors, the dance of a bird towards the light, a horse’s last sigh before an end . . . I drove and I felt the sluggishness of my car against the cadavers of mud. I heard laughter and I laughed.

CITY

I ARRIVED BACK
in the city and drove through the last night of the Carnival. It was the last day of the month, tomorrow it would all end, but today everything seemed to hover and soar. My car flew over the Carnival streets and from above I saw men in women’s dresses. Kids in Gothic attire splattered fake blood on their faces and clothes and walked like killers. Vampires proudly showed their fangs as they crossed against the lights. I saw men with long hats, canes, and capes impersonating magicians and flying heroes. Homo sapiens with animal heads walked the alleyways with beer in their hands and sang old tavern songs in villagers’ rough voices. And on my way back towards my home, towards the east side of the river, I spotted a camel walking behind a bearded man. And I saw the city occupied by deserted tents, and the caravans of vagabonds and domesticated animals leaving.

Here they are, I said. It is time too for me to descend and say goodbye, and wander again.

I arrived at my building, landed my car, and ran up the stairs. I rushed inside and banged on all the doors, but no one opened. So I went inside my apartment, sat at my desk, and decided to write a letter to the janitor and the neighbours. I relayed my condolences for the loss of the janitor’s mother and I informed him that I was leaving this place immediately and for good. I included the next month’s rent cheque because it was the end of the month, and I urged everyone not to chase away the mice or throw away the books in my library. I invoked death, knowledge, and the importance of books, and then, as an added incentive, I hinted that the library had a financial value and, in case even that didn’t work, I threatened the janitor with the poetic justice of fire and arson, elucidating my hint with an extravagant drawing of a large explosion and menacing men wearing rodent masks, long tails, and no clothes.

But I knew that all would be futile. I signed my letter and took up my father’s carpet. I closed the door and went downstairs to deposit the letter in the janitor’s box. And then I unrolled my flying carpet and I flew above the city. I veered into a side street, went through an alley, and finally escaped the crowd.

Once I reached the river, I flew under the bridge. So long! I cried as I steered the carpet towards the narrow road and headed south to a small town of factories and workingmen. I landed safely. I left my carpet hovering at the doorstep and I entered the motel where the Magdalena girls once offered themselves to the killers of beasts. The Turk at reception was still there, in the same position as the last time I had visited this place. I asked him if the tall Arab was upstairs. Yes, he said. It is the end of the month. He is smoking at the window and the door of his room is always left open.

I took the stairs up. I stepped inside the room and saw the Arab at the window. I told him not to wait anymore, not to grieve, because she was dead and she was not coming back, and I left the room and flew again.

About the Author

RAWI HAGE IS
a writer and visual artist. His two critically acclaimed novels,
De Niro’s Game
and
Cockroach
, have been translated into twenty-nine languages. Born in Beirut, he lives in Montreal.

About the Publisher

HOUSE OF ANANSI
Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”