4

Vulgarity

I’VE BEEN STARING BLANKLY AT the wall for two hours like some useless old creature, as flaccid as the tits of an old bitch. It’s not a pose that suits someone who has to act fast and wisely, but that’s the way I am, and I have never claimed to be a man whose status has been misjudged by history. There is one question I’ve asked myself I don’t know how many times: Who will walk in his funeral procession? It doesn’t matter who walks in his funeral procession or what status they have. It would be best if no one saw him off and he walked alone to any cemetery in the neighborhood, determined not to come back and make me feel disgusted yet again. Good. I’m talking about him as if he really has gone to the other world and hasn’t been snoring nearby throughout these two hours. I’m worried he might have fallen into a coma and I’ll have to pursue my mission to the end, like a faithful dog that never leaves his master. The hospital is the best place for him, and I wouldn’t want my intuition about his imminent demise to prove mistaken again, so let him go back there and recover, because my desire to dig his grave with my own hands knows no limits. The poor guy deserves a rest and I too deserve a chance to relax. I’m not even fit to look after myself and recently I’ve been gripped by a real fear of growing old. My life must stop soon and I must somehow disappear, but not before he passes away of course, otherwise I would no longer be a faithful dog. I worry about growing old and facing time alone in the last round. I’ve adapted to living alone permanently, but to die alone would be more than I could bear.

I’ve tried hard to make sure that the one third that the two thieves left us wouldn’t run out or at least would last us as long as possible. My frugality has been admirable and I’ve been relatively successful. The old man lives at subsistence level so I’ve spent the greater part of it on myself. My love for life has been reactivated to some extent. I’ve spent five crazy nights like a newlywed. I bought perfume and fruit. I fed the old man well of course: it was his money. I was completely exhausted. It was hard work. Discovering the world of women isn’t easy at all. She disappeared after that, as usual. There was no light from the balcony opposite and the shutters haven’t been opened at night for her silhouette to tempt my lust. I felt as if I were fast asleep and I dreamed about a woman, then I woke up to find my pants wet. Even her features remained unclear, as if she had just flitted through my imagination and I hadn’t really seen her. I was extremely cautious and nighttime also has its flaws. The margin for maneuver is very limited and death plays well in tight spaces. Yet I tried hard in a way. I asked the bookshop guy for help finding a male nurse and he was decent this time and didn’t ask for anything in return for being humane. I brought a nurse to attach the tube to the dying man’s arm. After he taught me how to adjust the rate of flow, all I had to do was change the bags of solution. I’m kinder than expected to him, but he won’t have a chance to thank me for what I’ve done for him, even if he wants to.

In the morning I went out to the café and left him lying on the bed like a breathing corpse. It was one of the few times when I felt I wanted someone to help me. I found the café closed. I crossed the street, headed to another café, and ran into the imam. He ignored me when I greeted him. He continued on his way, so I followed him and asked him to visit the old man in order to help him recite the shahada, the profession of faith, before he dies. He hardly gave me a chance to speak. I started calling out to him as I followed him, but he shooed me away like a fly after asking me why I hadn’t been praying in his mosque. I was about to tell him he could bring anyone he liked to the apartment without paying anything. All I was asking was for him to stay with me and advise me on what to do. I wanted him to recite some Quranic verses for the old man, because I only remember a few myself and I hadn’t prayed since I stopped working for the pig. I didn’t dare pick up a copy of the Quran. The five nights of fornication and the empty cans of beer in my apartment would need more than a token act of penitence. I had little sense of guilt and that was the major obstacle. Neither of us promised each other anything. I went to the mosque a little before the evening prayers, did my ablutions as a true worshipper should, and edged forward till I reached the front row. The imam saw me but didn’t react. Just to prove my good intentions, as I did with the pig before, I wanted the imam to understand what I had done. A very reasonable price for saving the old man, whose soul was being tormented to no purpose. I was worried he was like me, lost and astray, and that he needed to hear the word of God, even from a man whose faith had been three-quarters compromised by contact with that woman’s blue nightshirt.

I came back unsuccessful and then another night descended on me, with the old man waking up every two or three hours. I gave him some water to drink. He opened his eyes with difficulty, then sank back into a distant world. His breathing was heavy and he sounded like someone climbing a mountain with a heavy weight. Life is like a deep pit and it requires unusual effort to climb out of it. I forgot the question about who would attend his funeral and despised myself. I’m pathetic and really unbalanced and this breathing corpse deserves to be thanked. He has restored my humanity and God has given me another father, albeit in the form of a man about to die. A more vital question has been troubling me since sunset: Who will dig the grave? I don’t know where the cemetery is or whether he has any relatives who can dig his grave. He doesn’t have anyone asking after him. It’s a tragedy when someone dies without anyone noticing his passing, like an animal that dies in the wilderness. I’m going to have many more problems with him after he dies than I have while he’s alive. He’ll have to be carried to the hospital as a lifeless corpse, a medical certificate will have to be issued to say that he died of natural causes, and then the procurator has to approve a death certificate. Then there’s the burial permit from the municipality and I don’t know what. With all that to do, I would be visible like everyone else, unable to keep out of sight of anything, and the boundaries between me and the world would dissolve, leaving me exposed. That’s unthinkable. If he dies, I’ll arrange for him to be buried immediately in the cemetery or some other piece of ground, somewhere unlikely to be discovered. That’s a challenge that goes way beyond any compassion I might have toward the poor old man or loyalty to his son, an almost-friend who emigrated and left no tracks.

I woke up at dawn, checked him and found he hadn’t died. I won’t say “unfortunately” because there are many challenges. It wasn’t long before someone knocked on the door. It was the imam, sporting a white cloak like an angel judging the goodness of our intentions and fulfilling his implicit promises. He sat by the old man’s head. His eyes half open, he solemnly recited the Quran. He recited many verses. He recited and sometimes looked at me, and for some reason I imagined that he wanted the old man to die. The apartment might be vacant then and he could make a very profitable deal with me, and later I would train under him—exorcizing djinn isn’t a trade that’s impossible to learn. I would dress up in white and become an angel like him and embrace the life I was escaping from. He finished his recitation and asked for some water. I brought him a bottle of mineral water. He recited over it, muttering at length, and then told me to give the old man some of it to drink. The old man’s eyes glazed over again and he went off into his own world. The angel left after that, leaving the devil that was me living his ordeal. Another tedious day and I’m pretty much like a frog that has just reached menopause. Time is passing and it makes no sense to linger any longer. It occurred to me to take the old man and throw him in an old people’s home. They would know how to look after him there. I hurried out and spoke to the bookshop man who sells oblivion. I put the suggestion to him enthusiastically but he dashed almost all my expectations. It’s difficult, was the frustrating conclusion of his thoughts on the subject. Nonetheless, I thought it might be possible. Bribes open every door and his condition doesn’t offer grounds for hope. He wouldn’t stay long in the old people’s home and he wouldn’t feel anything. He’d probably die within a few days. That’s if death is gracious and comes a little late.

All my dark emotions took a back seat and I felt very sorry for him. He really was a poor guy. His voice was very weak and I could see him rolling his heavy eyes. He had stopped calling for Mourad. His life was slipping away and his death was close. This was a decisive night. Would he hold out till the morning? What a lot of questions I had. Kada al-Bayaa, the police informer, had started watching me. He hadn’t done that since that time when he followed me to the station, hung around in the square, and pretended he was waiting for someone. He has the senses of a police dog. I asked the bookshop man if I could depend on him. He didn’t give me any specific advice, but said, Be careful. The poor old man won’t have a funeral and no one will hear he has died. He disappeared from sight years ago and his passing won’t pique the curiosity of those who had forgotten him even when he was alive. Only a man without principles is fit for a task like this, I said, as I encouraged myself to go ahead with the plan I had devised. Looking out of the kitchen window, I saw Kada and asked him what he was looking for, but he didn’t answer. I gestured to him and he came over to my place. A real dog, he is. This man you can see is dying, I said, pointing at the old man, and he needs a grave. His son is abroad and has abandoned him and I can’t handle it for reasons from the past. The legal procedures require documents and I don’t have an ID card, and I don’t want to be anyone at all. He listened to me in silence and lingered as he worked out how much he could charge for doing me a favor. I told him about the idea of putting the poor man in an old people’s home, although it’s almost too late. We should let him die in peace, he said cunningly, and then I left him to think. The cemetery guard is his friend. That was good news for me. We would just have to make sure no one asks any questions about the dead man. He thought of him as dead and went on talking. The fear is that Mourad or one of his relatives might come back and ask about the grave and who buried him. Mourad will never come back and the dead man doesn’t have any other relatives, I assured him confidently. He smiled. I waited to hear how much money he would want in return, but he didn’t ask for anything. The burial would take place at night and we would go in through the back gate of the cemetery. You’ll be with us, he said. I agreed in principle. Won’t we say some prayers at the grave side? I asked him. The cemetery guard is addicted to various psychotropic pills but he does pray sometimes, he said, trying to reassure me. Damn! His coldness annoyed me. He sounded like a criminal who had killed people and committed other heinous acts. I wanted to throw him out immediately. The alternative was to disappear and leave the old man to his fate until he died, and then the smell of his body would take care of the rest.

Did I look to Kada like someone who has a fortune? The bastard asked me for a very large sum of money. The old man has plenty of money in the bank, he said in a cunning tone, and it wasn’t fair that it should all go to me. I didn’t tell him we were almost broke. I left some space for greed to keep him interested. It occurred to me that I might really seem to him like someone who has a treasure or massive wealth and that’s why he would cooperate with me. We agreed he would take care of everything, with me at a distance. They would dig the grave, buy the shroud, and wash him. That’s my job, he assured me. Then he asked me when I would pay him. Logically I should have replied, I’ll pay when the man dies, but I wanted to leave the door ajar again, so I said, Don’t worry, very soon. I saw he was lukewarm about it. Something had dampened his initial enthusiasm. Perhaps he thought the job wouldn’t materialize. He’d lived in the neighborhood for many years and maybe he knew that the old man had come close to death several times and then hadn’t died, and if he didn’t die there wouldn’t be a job and he wouldn’t make any money. I was terrified of that: he might take advantage of my absence and kill him, so that then I would have to deal with his death, and then I would inevitably ask him for help and would be asked to pay a large amount that I didn’t have. For some reason I made a slip of the tongue: I’m going to receive a quantity of gold and I’ll pay you whatever you want, I said with feigned confidence. His eyes lit up. A large quantity? Yes, the deal isn’t quite done but I’ll do it soon. After that we spoke for some minutes, then he went off, showing complete sympathy for the sick old man and assuming I would believe him. I rather regretted it. He might kill me when it occurs to him that I promised him an illusion or he might denounce me to the police. I heard the old man snoring loudly. Then the snoring stopped so I ran back to his room, but luckily he hadn’t died yet.

No doubt the crow that dug the first grave in history would have laughed at me. What’s the problem? You can dig a grave anywhere and have done with it. Giving advice to others is easy and that same crow probably ended up lying dead in the sun at the mercy of the worms, with no other crow to bury it. After midnight facts seem clearer. Who can give me an assurance that, when he discovers that I’ve lied, Kada won’t denounce me to the person who employs him and then get paid for it? Who cares about an insect like me? Who would pay even one dinar to find out which shithole I was hiding in? It was a stupid move on my part to tempt him, very stupid. I warned him not to try monitoring my activities again and explained that if he visited me too often it might attract the neighbors’ attention. Even so, he came back looking cocky and everything about him told me he was a mean bastard. He asked me to let him stay the night in the apartment. That was total blackmail and in fact it was the first price I paid for my foolish move. He disappeared and came back half an hour later, accompanied by the cemetery guard who would supposedly be our partner in the plan to sort out my whole predicament. He also brought a woman, who turned out to be none other than the woman in the blue nightshirt, the woman that the imam falsely claimed was his second wife. She isn’t just his. The local men also have shares in her and I don’t rule out the possibility that the bookshop man and Mubarak are among them. She’s employed by an old woman who looks like a devil and behaves like one, I expect. The woman brought her to the entrance of the building as she did the first time. She waited a while and then left. I didn’t need to spy on them and I didn’t even wonder what a cemetery guard was doing with a woman who was a common prostitute. It’s the apartment’s fate to be a den of iniquity and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Kada didn’t stop watching me. He looked at me suspiciously and I felt I was in his power. For the first time in my life I wished I was a killer. Some scores can only be settled by murder. I closed the door on the old man firmly and went out to the café. This time I found it open. The inquisitive gang were all there and in the middle was Mubarak, who had come back from being away and avoided looking at me. Maybe he regretted being too hasty. He shouldn’t have told me anything about his plan before checking I was fully prepared to take part. Who said I wasn’t prepared? I was worried he might have gone ahead without me and then come back. He look sullen and, when our eyes met, I read in his eyes a message that seemed to say, What a coward you are! As if I had ever claimed to be brave in his presence. Kada winked at me, suggesting we shared some big secret. I don’t rule out him being gay. A mere dog. I got involved with him and the miscalculations between us had piled up. Finally he left and I was worried he might take advantage of my absence and go and kill the old man. I followed him to the door and saw him head in the other direction. I went back to my seat in the café. I’ve started avoiding the apartment. Minutes passed and Mubarak sat down with me. Casually he asked me when I would settle my account with him. Very soon, I replied nonchalantly. The bill had mounted up for a month or more, I don’t remember. I showed him I was displeased and saw it as an inauspicious start. He wanted to put pressure on me to agree. I’m willing, I said, but he didn’t reply. Then he went off to his group. We waited many minutes till the inquisitive group left. I pretended I was engrossed in a newspaper and unaware of what was happening. The way they looked at me gave them away, but what I discovered was really interesting. None of them had told any of the others that they had had dealings with me. Mubarak and I whispered to each other. He had gone away in recent days to inspect the abandoned cemetery in the place he again refused to name before the time came, although he was sure that no one knew his big secret. I told him I couldn’t leave the old man alone and we agreed to find someone to look after him during my absence. He insisted I pay the person who looked after the old man, as well as the taxi fare to the town closest to the cemetery. I agreed and didn’t dare say I was broke. I was so worried about Kada that I agreed. I had done without beer for a while and, before leaving, the bookshop man looked at me as if I had broken a sacred agreement with him. Money doesn’t interest me in the least and my memories of the mute woman with the hairy legs have almost disappeared, just as her voice disappeared earlier. I was worried Kada might seek revenge on me. He’s willing to kill despite his docile appearance. The boundaries between me and the rest of the world were going to collapse—in fact, they had collapsed. I realized that when I found it hard to leave the café and go back to the apartment. I was serious about the adventure with Mubarak. I wanted to pay Kada, bury the old man, and have done with it.

Does an unsuccessful crow such as me have to pay the price for failing to hide its flaws? I stood by the café door and wondered where to go after arranging the old man’s burial, and if I had to leave, what would force me to pay the money? I could leave the old man and make a new life for myself with the gold. No one has ever died and gone without a grave forever. I was very confused and the pangs of that something inside me were very intense and severe. Several times in the past I had been about to abandon him, but those pangs were an effective deterrent. They made a deep impression inside me. I was sure that Kada was lying in wait for me. He took me by surprise, standing at the door with Mubarak. He wanted to know who I was dealing with, and he’d already searched the apartment. He was looking for clues that would help him track down the alleged gold.

I came back from the café and found the old man in a critical condition. He wasn’t going to hold out much longer and could soon be considered dead. It isn’t hard to face an obvious fact like death when you’re a man who’s lived in the shadows in some sense, and who has never wanted to look like one of those he saw among the living. Even so, my options were limited and I had to decide. Should I honor the dead man by burying him, or should I save myself? I imagined I’d heard him breathing a little earlier, but in fact his eyes had glazed over, his mouth was open, and that was it. I couldn’t guess what he felt when his time came. I had turned up a little late, and the situation left me rather colder than I had expected. I remembered how cold I was when my garbage collector friend was crushed to death under the wheel of the garbage truck. In this case the death was commonplace, the most likely outcome. I had wanted to give him a gentle death. My heart had recovered its kindness, or almost. I imagine he wanted to prove to me that he would have the last word and that, despite his weakness, he could make such an important decision without me. Maybe I should go with him and see what it’s like to be dead. Why hadn’t I thought before about trying out death, if only once? He was completely still and his body had started to go cold. I preferred to leave him alone for a while. It was his right to sink into the moment without anyone disturbing him, since death is more intimate than life. He passed away after using up all his diapers and all he left me was his body and the last bag of rice that we had. Rare generosity. I’m the sole heir of a dead man who’s lying destitute, without even a sad tear for his sake. I expect the angels made sure he recited the shahada, if they weren’t too busy with someone more important who was also dying. He’s as unlucky as me and everyone beats him to everything. My conscience is senile and its fangs have fallen out. He kept watching me as I packed my bag, the same backpack I brought with me when I first came, but without the books or the laptop. I felt I was betraying someone, though I didn’t know exactly who and I didn’t care. He wasn’t my father in any case and the emotions I tricked myself into feeling in order to bear with him died when he died. I admit I’m a failed crow and I’m right not to commit myself to any promise that I can’t fulfill. I’ll just become a dog. I’ve paid the instalments to Mourad in full and also to my notional father. This night is a landmark night and it deserves a special celebration if that devil of a bookshop guy will agree to sell me some booze on account. I’ll celebrate the fact that yet again I’m just a dog and I’ve been relieved of a burden. On my way back from the café I saw a police car in the neighborhood. It definitely didn’t come for fun, so now it’s time for me to leave this place. I’d kill myself before they could get their hands on me. When you go mad nothing is taboo. I packed my bag minutes ago. I have no destination but I’ll wait till it’s pitch black and then leave. I’m thinking of finding Mubarak and encouraging him to prove with his gold that my luck isn’t always bad. All I have to do is leave the apartment door half open so that the neighbors will find out tomorrow that the old man is just a rotting corpse. Then I’ll go back where I came from. I may go back to Serdj El Ghoul, because I miss my brother Ammar, and visit the forest of death where life called me back from the brink and postponed the moment of death. I’m thinking of going back to work as a garbage collector, if I’m given the chance. I spent the happiest days of my life amidst the garbage. I admit I was just a piece of rubbish living in its rightful place. But I’m incapable of making any decision. I served this corpse gallantly, but unfortunately he won’t be able to repay the favor by giving me any advice, however trivial it might be. I miss my aunt. She also died and left me. Her presence stood between me and all the doors of hell. I’ve been remiss about visiting the graves of those who gave me boundless love and who had to die because of that. I really do have in mind to go back where I came from. The remnants of the good sense I escaped with, in order to face the madness of the world around me, have now run out and no spoils are worth the effort any longer. In the courtyard outside that mental hospital I’ll tell them I’m sorry and they’ll know how to make me dopey and embalmed, so that I’m always happy. I’d have to renounce the idea that life is worth escaping to. It was a seductive adventure and yet I had to be that mad in order to plunge back into life. I jumped off the high wall, almost broke my foot, and went through hell to save myself from those devils wearing bright white coats and to win my name back. I completely failed to do that, but now I long for them and I want to embrace them one by one. I’m driven by a desire to ask them to help me disappear again, so that I’m no one at all, not even me. Who am I?

That fat nurse is the only person I’ve wronged in my life and she deserves a long apology because I tricked her in the name of love for the sake of an illusory escape.

I took several steps to the kitchen window. The darkness had descended but I spotted Kada standing behind a large tree in the middle of the square, playing with his phone, and pretending as usual that he was waiting for someone. I went back to the dead man, looked at his dead face, and realized that any joy we had experienced, or any happiness that had ever filled our hearts, would be meaningless if this was how we ended. My fear that the bastard might jump out on me in the dark was unjustified as long as he hadn’t found out where the gold was. Even so, my heart started to pound. More minutes passed. I had calmed down completely. When I heard someone knocking on the door, I went to open it without a care in the world, and I saw him through the peep hole.