The Angel of History (20 page)

I hung on to my knight in shining armor, my hand held his arm for the entire time we stood in the circle at that bar, I did not consider whether he found me attractive
that evening, or whether he cared to take care of me, I was going home with him, he had no choice that first night: he saved me, ergo he owed me. I followed him through the dark night, oblivious to anything but him, his red hair, his mustache, wondering what color his pubic hair would be, was he uncircumcised, I stepped around winos and druggies, stepped over smelly lumps covered in filthy blankets, breathed in the stench of souls, walked and walked.

He lived one block away from us, convenient, bigger house, bigger bed, giant abstract paintings, and an in-house dungeon. Come ye and let us go down to Greg’s underworld and he will teach us the ways of our lord and master. He checked the answering machine for messages, turned on the reel-to-reel machine that was wired to the downstairs playroom, three-hour tape of the Brandenburg Concertos mixed in with Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Vangelis. He had to take it slow with me, he said once he undressed me, and he did, he kissed me before he whipped me, I tasted his tongue before I felt the exquisite flick from the tongue of his lash. The dungeon’s cold concrete floor iced the soles of my feet and I was happy to be lifted off it, Men are less sensitive to pain at night, he told me as he anchored my restraints to the rings on the Saint Andrew’s cross, you’re a creature of the dark, and the black walls made the myriad of hooks and eye rings fixed on them look like refulgent night stars. He introduced me to my gregarious nipples, Hello there, meet Mr. and Mrs. Clamp, did you know Roman soldiers used tit clamps to fasten cloaks around their shoulders? My ass met the paddle, my mouth its gag, my back the cat-o’-nine-tails, my skin its sustenance, that night, all night, Greg disinterred me, polished the dust
off my well-trampled soul, he took it slow, at least that first time. I did not scream once, I couldn’t, he had me bite a leather strap with teeth marks of novitiates, I bit and bit, he’d brought it back from a trip to Peru, llama leather, and it was black, black llama, what becomes a virgin most. I didn’t scream, but I wept throughout, I bawled as he released me and carried me back up to his bed, hugged me, spooned me, loved me, poured guidance and affection into my ears, and like all saints before me, I relished the ecstasy of martyrdom.

While the morning sun was in mid-sky, my soul afire, my mind still drifty from its ecstasy, my body returned home like a horse with slack reins. Walk of shame, my ass, I was sizzling. Self-tempted, self-depraved, that was me. I walked into our apartment thinking I would have to explain to you what happened, where I was, but you were asleep and your boy was getting dressed quietly and haphazardly, he seemed less sober than I, he noticed me only when he left your room, almost ran into me, and you know what he said? Not hello, not sorry, he asked if I could make him some coffee. I looked into your room, the sheets were half off the bed, you spread-eagled, floating atop the extra-soft mattress surrounded by an archipelago of stains, sleep drool dried on your lower cheek, your chest hair needed untangling, unconscious you were, and happy, and the window’s sunbeams illuminated your wallet on the dresser. I took it, I wanted to teach you to be wary of bringing strangers into our home, I would return it once you discovered your folly, but when you wore that inerasable grin at the kitchen table, drinking the coffee I made you, and told me that fucking that boy whore was worth two of your wallets, nay, three, well, I didn’t give it back, did I? I tore up your wallet, you died thinking the boy
stole it, but it was me, Doc, it was me, do you still think it was worth it?

As a six-year-old I considered my mother’s lace-embroidered sleep mask the most beautiful object in the entire world, the material a baby-rose satin, the lace black, a fake pearl sewn onto the bridge. I did not have to be told that asking for it would have been horrifying, tantamount to matricide, but I longed. I developed debilitating migraines, maelstroms of pain behind my eyes, any light was fatal. In the whorehouse, I was offered what I wanted as an anodyne. Here, darling, this will make you feel better. For years, probably until I left for Beirut, all I had to do was think of that lace-embroidered sleep mask and I would feel profoundly sleepy.

About a year after my mother disappeared, Auntie Badeea sent a parcel filled with keepsakes, she knew to include the sleep mask. On graduation day, when I was supposed to leave l’orphelinat de la Nativité and begin to unlock the secrets of the real world without being given a key, the other boys in the graduating class decided to offer me something more effective: a beating. Even by the high standards of the civil war in Lebanon at the time, that was no ordinary attack. I ended up needing surgery that the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Beirut could not perform because of the shortages during those years. I was flown to Stockholm as part of a mercy mission, swapped pine trees for cold birch and larch. I was not conscious for much of those seventy-two hours. The nuns, knowing that I would never return,
packed one suitcase. They did not include much, definitely not my mother’s mask. The French mother superior would never have considered that I would want such a thing.

Was it a coincidence that we began to drop dead while we had a severe drought? Who wilted first? Who? Lou—Lou wilted first, his first lesion appeared on his inner left thigh, verily the mark of Cain. A mere purple dot it was, an innocuous-seeming barnacle that tore us out of life like a page and collaged us into the book of the dead. I wanted to run as far away as possible, take me back to Cairo, to Beirut even, where bullets and mortars killed more efficiently, I wanted out, I could not bear the idea of his death sentence, and yours and Greg’s, which I was sure would follow, and mine, of course, but the maker of marks had planned a different torture for me, hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky.

Lou called me at work, no one ever did, I was startled when the office manager deigned to enter our windowless word-processing room and announce that I had a telephone call, she emphasized the word
telephone
as if it were a Martian apparatus, Lou had called Greg to get the number that even I did not know, but he did not tell Greg, not then, he told me first, and I did not know why. It had started, he said on the other end between sobs, and it certainly had, no longer on the horizon, what we were all terrified of had begun, all our delights would vanish, we were to be delivered to woe, he had a lesion. What could I say? I hung up and left
work, I could not go to him at first, I could not, I walked and walked, for hours, Castro was a street of ghosts, dead and alive, all lost in loss itself, only the impaired appeared on the street, only wisps remained of their once carefully tended mustaches, their faces the color of parched lichen, they stood accused, our comrades, exiled and stateless in our native city, they could not run away, everyone else did, turned into strangers. I walked among the canes and the walkers, immortal age beside immortal youth, inhabiting the same body, coterminous, coexisting, co-dying.

Only the day before you had pointed out the laurel next to our house, Look, you said, Daphne is dying, we had no water, her leaves were a jaundiced green, like all the trees in the neighborhood that day, but Daphne was made of sterner stuff, she withstood and did not crumble.

I could not go to Lou, I could not be there for him, I walked until the soft saffron sun disappeared in the Pacific, long is the way and hard that out of Hell leads up to light, or better yet, leads to a boutique wineshop, four bottles of pinot, and then I walked to Lou’s apartment, where he was by himself, we were all so afraid in those early days, under dim lights we drank good wine and listened to the languid hum of the four-petaled ceiling fan stirring the same stale air that every now and then reached us as if it were fresh, and he told me all about his story and all that he once longed for. He loved life, he said in a whisper that barely scratched the silence, barely heard above the fan’s hum, but the feeling wasn’t mutual. Remember me, he said, and I do, thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, always and forever, I remember you, Lou, I do.

My wife bought a new wardrobe for the party: a five-row pearl necklace choker, matching earrings and bracelet, black pumps with heels that should have been declared a dangerous weapon, and two black dresses that I wouldn’t have been able to tell apart for a million dollars, which was almost what they cost; two because “But, darling, if I gained a pound by next week, or even felt a little bloated, then this one would just not do, I’d have to wear this one.” She considered tonight the most important social event of her life, hence our life. If we did not make a wonderful impression, we could forget about unpacking and return to Muncie with our tails covering our privates.

I loved my wife dearly, and if I sometimes sounded as though I wanted to slit her throat from one carotid to
the other and watch blood spurt all over her outfits, it was because I sometimes did.

Her preparation for this evening included practicing stances before our new apartment’s only mirror, rehearsing questions that were engaging but not challenging or off-putting, and making sure to mention over and over that I should not ruin her big moment by saying the wrong thing, as was my wont when I was nervous. She assumed I would be a little off-kilter, not just because it was my boss’s party, but because it was sure to include quite a few of “the gays and the liberals.” This was the big city, with all kinds of different people living here. She insisted I did not know how to put on a happy face, which was not true. I could, my face might be slightly less joyous than hers, but only just.

“Remember your breathing exercises,” she said, forcing a smile as she knotted my tie. “Before you say anything, breathe in deep all the way to your pelvic floor, at least three times, and then speak. Not only will it relax you, breathing makes you look serious and contemplative.”

In the cab on the way to the penthouse her whole being shone with exuberance. Even the driver, one of those Indians or Pakistanis with a turban the size of a bald eagle’s nest, seemed impressed. He kept staring at her in the rearview mirror and shaking his head like the bobblehead doll on his dashboard.

My wife crossed her legs to stop them from quivering. “I know he’s your boss, darling,” she said, “but don’t let that get to you. He loves you—well, not that way, but he does. He brought you to New York, so relax.” She looked stunning; if sophistication relied entirely on looks, she would pass with the highest of grades. “Do you think he’s the most famous
homosexual in the city? After Elton John, Ian McKellen, and Brian Boitano if they lived in New York?”

The oppressive city heat was doing a number on my mood. I had slathered an inch of deodorant under my arms, yet I still felt sweat beginning to percolate in my pits. She looked unaffected, her pores would not dare perspire tonight.

“You forgot Ricky Martin,” I said.

“Don’t be snarky,” she said. “Not tonight. You’re going to love the gays tonight.” She sighed, a long foghorn note. “I wish I could have left you at home.”

I tried to interject that I was just making a joke, that I wasn’t being snarky, but she had already unpacked her compact and begun interviewing her face. “Their apartment is sure to be fabulous,” she pronounced in a garbled voice as she reapplied lipstick.

Fabulous was exactly how I would describe my boss’s home. A delightfully mild breeze replaced the relentless outdoor heat. Someone must have thought it was a grand idea to transport an entire Victorian mansion into a New York penthouse. There were three vintage gilded mirrors in the foyer alone, and enough marble busts for a few quorums and a plenum.

The hosts, dapper in their dark trim suits and matching designer beards, were effusive in their welcome. They kissed my wife’s cheek, twice each, and my boss patted my back in what passed for a hug. His much younger partner took my wife by the arm and led her out of the foyer, saying, “Now, what was a divine creature like you doing in a place like Muncie?”

For my wife, it couldn’t have been a more propitious entrance. I somehow expected a herald to shout, “The
Marquise of Muncie and her accompanying dork,” as they entered the living room and I slunk in a step behind. The room was filled with people posing under strategically placed lights and black waiters serving hors d’oeuvres. No one sat on the furniture. I wanted to find a seat, but the liberals apparently did not appreciate the comforts.

My wife held court in the middle of the room, just as she did wherever she went. “Our apartment is still empty,” she announced. “I didn’t want to buy anything until I saw how things were done here. Any decorating tips would be much appreciated. I have so much to learn from you people.”

All attention was on her, and none on the most striking thing in the room: no, not the purple velvet drapes that covered the floor-to-ceiling windows, but a giant gold cage that contained a dark man in an unfamiliar costume sitting on a cheap wicker chair and reading. I approached the cage as discreetly as possible, wondering if the man was the evening’s entertainment. I stood before him, my nose almost scraping the golden bars, but he did not look up, kept reading his book intently. He was wearing some long white dress, probably a Victorian male nightgown in keeping with the penthouse theme, but why the tattered headdress and the plastic flip-flops? He was dark, if not as dark as the turbaned taxi driver or the fluttering waiters. A long, unkempt black beard covered most of his face around a nose that would make Pinocchio blush. There were two sandboxes on either side of the cage, each a couple of feet square, looked like litter boxes, though the sand within was so pure that I wondered if my boss had had it delivered directly from some desert, and at that moment I realized that the man was an Arab and the book he was reading
was the Quran. I was so startled that I involuntarily took a step back.

“Don’t worry.” My boss had sneaked up behind me. “He’s perfectly tame.”

“But he’s reading the Quran,” I said, sounding less frightened than I was. My wife would be proud of my apparent equanimity. I breathed in deep all the way to my solar plexus and then spoke. “Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”

“Oh, no,” my boss said. He was now surrounded by most of his guests. “We took all the naughty bits out. It keeps him distracted and less lonely. This one is a safe book.”

“Not completely benign, more PG-13,” his partner said. “We didn’t want the book to be totally harmless, after all, or it would be utterly boring.”

“Less Disney Quran,” my boss said, “than Pixar.”

My wife laughed, and the rest of the congregation joined her. The Arab, however, continued to read his de-fanged Quran, oblivious to his surroundings, his eyes never leaving the page, his lips voicelessly reciting suras.

“How simply fascinating!” My wife then used the inflection she had practiced all day to ask, “Why do you have an Arab in your living room?”

“I’m allergic to cats.” My boss’s partner seemed to be an excitable fellow, and likable. The more he talked, the grander his gestures became, and the higher his voice. “It’s a terrible affliction. Whenever I’m anywhere near a feline, my nose turns into Niagara. You wouldn’t want to be near me.”

“And dogs are too much work.” My boss flicked his hand dismissively.

I wondered what the gays had against man’s best friend, but I didn’t ask, didn’t want to embarrass my wife again.

“It’s not like we could get a python.”

I saw how the lad looked adoringly at my boss, almost pleading, the look of Love with a capital L.

“Can you imagine what the co-op board would have said about that, a python?”

“So we got an Arab,” my boss’s partner said. “There are two others in the building, and 5C are thinking of getting one.”

“We have one,” said a woman with a high chignon and a humongous pendant diamond in her ample cleavage, “but her cage isn’t as fancy as this one. We’ve had her for a while, so the children are quite fond of her.”

My boss’s partner rolled his eyes in a much too exaggerated way, I thought, and as if that were not disapproving enough, he let out a loud sigh.

“Of course,” the chastised woman said hurriedly, “ours doesn’t have this one’s pedigree. It’s by no means special, just your run-of-the-mill Arab, you know, just the regular garden variety.”

“Yours is a poet from Albuquerque, Marge,” my boss’s partner said. His perfect blond eyebrows almost reached his hairline. “All she does is recite mediocre verse about her grandfather’s olive grove in Haifa, in Southwest-twanged English, no less. Please, darling, I appreciate camp, but really, how many words can one rhyme with olive before it gets tired?”

“Well, she also has poems about the orange orchards that burned during a heart-wrenching incident in 1948,” the woman said, looking around for some support. “And the children love her, I swear.”

My boss’s partner was about to say something, but my wife, her arm still entwined with his, gave him a smile
I knew too well, one that said, “Take a deep breath, relax,” except he received a gentler one.

“Our Arab was caught in the wild,” my boss said. “He had to be tamed before being brought to us, and then we had to train him. That makes all the difference.”

I had to admit that I agreed with my boss. I don’t know much about Arab poets from Albuquerque, but this thing in front of us looked like the real deal; he had the “I once was savage” appearance down pat. He didn’t seem to be aware that we were occupying the same space, let alone that we were talking about him. I doubted any Arab poet from New Mexico or New York or California could be that earnest and dedicated a reader.

“Can he do tricks?” my wife asked.

She was turning up the charm volume, and the hosts were eating it up. My boss smiled at his partner, giving him permission. “Watch this,” the young man told my wife, though I was sure he was including all of us as audience.

My boss’s partner took out his smartphone, pressed an app button, and the purr of an expensive car engine emanated from hidden speakers. Upon hearing it, the Arab seemed to wake up as if from a daydream. He kissed the front page of the Quran, put it aside, and stood up. He looked in our direction toward a point beyond, not seeming to notice us, as if we were translucence incarnate.

“Driver,” he yelled in highly accented English, “bring out the Benz. I want to buy some real estate.”

“Wow!” My wife clapped her hands in joy. “That sounds like such an authentic accent.”

The Arab sat back down, and my boss’s partner pressed the same app again. The Arab stood up once more. “Driver, bring out the Rolls. I want to buy some girls.”

“We call those the Rich Arab Tricks.” My boss nodded toward his partner to carry on. “We should all move back a bit for the next one.”

The new app produced the sound of a machine gun, and this time when the Arab stood up, his face turned crimson, his eyes grew wide, and spittle spewed out of his mouth as he shouted, “Kill all infidels, slaughter the unbelievers, exterminate all the brutes, down with the Great Satan!”

“My, my,” my wife said, her hand went over her heart. “That’s certainly impressive. He looks so fiercely beautiful. He’s like outsider art, you know, art brut.”

“That was the al-Qaeda trick,” my boss’s partner said.

“Don’t worry,” my boss said. “This will calm him down.”

From the speaker came the adhan, soft, then building volume. The Arab seemed shocked at first, perplexed. I thought I saw him tearing up, but I doubted it because the call to prayer set him in motion. The muezzin’s voice sounded exotically beautiful, for a moment at least. The speakers were obviously of the highest quality. The Arab moved toward the sandbox on the right, bent down, and pushed his hands into the sand delicately. “In the name of God,” he whispered.

“What’s he doing?” my wife asked.

“Cleaning himself,” my boss replied. “They must approach prayer in a pure condition. They use sand if they can’t use water. I thought about putting a faucet in there, but it would clash with the decor.”

The Arab rubbed the sand onto both hands, then scrubbed up to each elbow, up and down three times.

“They’re supposed to brush their teeth or gargle with water,” my boss’s partner said. “Luckily, this one is smart enough not to try that with sand.”

The Arab lifted sand in both palms, bent his head, rubbed his face.

“The second sandbox is his litter box,” my boss’s partner said. “There was an accident once. He used the dirty one to wash up. The poor thing was so distressed he almost killed himself. We had to intervene.”

The Arab took a small rug from behind the chair, laid it on the floor facing east, and began his prayers.

“They’re supposed to do this five times a day,” my boss said. “Can you believe that? Now he doesn’t have to do so many. We actually let him do this trick only when we have guests.”

We watched, all of us, entranced. I thought about making a minor joke but was unable to. The room remained silent as he knelt, genuflected, and stood up, knelt, genuflected, and stood up. My wife was right as always: we were watching something similar to art. When done, he put the rug away, sat down in his chair, and returned to reading his Quran.

“That was magnificent,” my wife said. “You must have worked terrifically hard to train him, but it was so worth it. Thank you—thank you for this.”

My boss and his partner beamed, the cheeks above their matching beards flushed, making them look much younger, like overdressed cherubs.

“He’s tired now,” my boss said. “Let’s let him sleep.”

A large velvet cloth slowly descended from the ceiling, the same purple as the window curtains, with gold tassels at the bottom. It draped over the cage, hiding the Arab behind it.

“Mistah Kurtz—he dead,” I said, but no one seemed to get my joke.

“This is amazing textile,” my wife said, quickly changing the subject. “So luxurious. Where did you get it?”

“It’s original Victorian, the last batch was manufactured in 1852. We couldn’t risk using it to cover the cage until we were sure he’d been totally tamed. He loves it now because it’s so thick, yet soft.”

The party turned out to be lovely, the canapés sumptuous. After engaging with different people, I came to realize that there was no discernible difference between the liberals and my people back in Muncie, we were the same, we could be happy in their lands.