21

Benghazi

8 p.m.

I’M SPEAKING FROM THE MORGUE. And I didn’t say this is death until I saw it with my eyes in the mirror. You came with the truck, right into the barbershop. The shirt was new and the pants too. When I sold the ring I bought these things and only the barber, who was delighted to see the cash, was left. He said: “Sit on this chair.” The chair’s leather and soft, and only respected customers sit on it. It’s opposite the door, and the breeze reaches it. But it was the truck that came in, instead of the breeze. I saw death in the mirror coming from outside the shop, getting closer. I said: “This truck’s coming. That might be its reflection, but if it keeps going like that, it’ll come all the way inside the barbershop.

In my mouth there’s foam. I speak now from the storeroom under the ground. Where they put me a while ago. I don’t see what’s around me but I hear every movement. The wall’s complaining because it’s been standing for so long and says it’s decided it will collapse in two days. Its neighbor tightens its upper arm since it has been fighting with the owner of the building. Oh, there’s a line of ants passing near my legs and talking about the nice day they had. A rat says to its neighbor its children haven’t eaten anything today and they’re getting close to me and smelling my neck. The water at the bottom of the storeroom is singing monotonous songs because it’s only good for that. The driver looks over at me and tells the barber he knew the truck brakes would fail one day.

There’s also glass from the mirror in my head. And a piece of razor. But nothing else that will allow them to identify me. No papers, no contracts, none of the things that allow people to identify each other. And until now, no one recognizes me. If my uncle was here, he’d recognize me. They lift the cover, then look over and put the cover back on my face and move away (and by the way, the stench of the cover is unbearable.) My head’s split open and in it are mirror shards, soap, foam, a piece of the razor, crushed like worn-out flesh.

After the driver left the morgue, the barber took it on himself to put his hand in my jacket pocket to take out the paper with the horse numbers. Will they recognize my name and address from the horse numbers? The name, address, and profession, all this, at my uncle’s. With the heat of this exceptional year, my body will decompose quickly if someone doesn’t come to identify me. Or my wife doesn’t come to bury me. Or the other one, as they call her, Zina. Is she in the square now, watching the mobs and hearing the songs? And who married who on this happy night? Did our turn come? Did they leave us a place among them to play music to honor us? The square’s hot now and the fires are lit. Every groom takes his new wife to the tent and for all the things that come after that.

For her, I bought a shirt and pants. For her, I went to the barber. Will she too come and raise the cover to identify me? By waiting for this or that woman to come, I’m left waiting. Even for my corpse to rot. None of those who looked at me recognized me. The barber, the carpenter, and the transient, all of them said: “This man? We haven’t seen him before.” When they left, the barber put his hand in my pocket and took out the cash and I heard it go into his pants pocket. My family has no news about it at all. Seven girls, maybe eight, with their mother and huge debts. I didn’t leave them anything else. Horses, dogs, and girls. The debts and the debtors remain. They don’t die. We earned this at least. The most beautiful thing in this world is to die without repaying your debts. I’ll see their miserable faces when they look over me too. They’ll identify me from the first glance, but after it’s too late. They’ll spit in my face. That’s all they can do. Even though I have a split-open head, and am dead on top of this, I won’t care even if they care about me. The money the barber took. I don’t feel any pain. The pain is outside. I’m relaxed because I won’t pay those wolves a thing. And until now, no one appeared, not even my wife, to take my corpse from this cold place. There are two big rats in the corner consulting with each other but I don’t pay their consultations any mind.