The Endless Week, page 19
The female nurse combs the grandmother’s hair. She puts oil on the ends and they shine, she doesn’t even have any white hairs. The male nurse presses a switch and the bed lowers. He takes out the grandmother’s dentures and her face caves in. The male nurse says: False teeth don’t imitate real teeth. False teeth imitate false teeth from the past throughout the history of false teeth. False teeth carry on the history of false teeth since their invention. Everything made imitates that which has been made before. All objects carry on the history of the object’s construction. He says: I’d like to remove my brain the way you remove dentures. I’d like to soak it. I’d like to take out my brain before I go to sleep. I’d like to leave it to soak in a glass of clear water. The female nurse kisses the grandmother’s right eyebrow. She says the word: Brow. The male nurse says: The words brow and brain are similar, but different. The female nurse nods, but she’s stopped listening. They look at each other and they wait. They start talking again. The female nurse loses an eyelash. The male nurse catches it. They say that baby skin regenerates. They say: To grow, babies have to shed bits of their skin. They lose pieces of themselves. That’s the only way to have a shape. The grandmother blinks twice. The male nurse leans his head against the grandmother’s cheek. The female nurse leans her head against the other cheek. The male nurse reaches out his arm, he presses the side of his phone. He shows the photo. They say: We’re good. They post the photo on the network.
*
Everything seemed to be waiting for something. Jonathan said: Your brother is searching random names on the internet. He’s saying your grandmother is molding. He’s researching mold and blood. He’s contacted a mold specialist. Your brother writes him long messages, but the mold specialist responds: K, Ok, Yes. I feel like your brother doesn’t want to talk to me anymore.
Sara lies down on the steps. They fall silent. Two dogs appear. They run toward each other. They run into each other. They form a moving ball. They disappear.
Jonathan says: I watched a documentary about people in Japan who don’t want to leave their houses, hikikomoris. I noticed their skin turns green, some of them are white, but others turn green. In the documentary, a guy was wearing a red sweater, and I don’t know how to explain it, but the sweater was green. Others are transparent, it’s like their bodies are being erased. I saw a wall through a guy in the documentary. When he talked, his bedroom wall appeared behind his face. He hadn’t left the house for thirteen years. His father said: My son has disappeared. He’s speaking to you from the world of the disappeared.
Jonathan says: If you put the AC and heat on at the same time, will it get hot or cold? What do you think? Sara doesn’t respond. Her eyes reflect the screen. He says: Just imagine the man who was on the brink of inventing the word brink. He couldn’t even say he was on the brink of inventing the word brink. Sara doesn’t respond. Jonathan puts three pills in his mouth. He looks at his phone, he looks up, he looks at the square, he looks at Sara, he moves his legs. He says: Did you know there’s a type of tree that leans toward New Caledonia? You can plant one anywhere, it always leans toward New Caledonia.
Sara stays silent. Jonathan speaks. He says: Sometimes, when I see the sky, it makes me want to kill a random person. They fall silent. A woman comes and sits by them. She’s wearing an apron that’s too short and her knees, swollen with arthritis, look like the heads of two children. She pulls out an apple, some thread, and a needle. Sara says: She sews fruit every morning.
The woman puts her glasses on. She ties a white thread around her finger. She pulls the needle and sticks it in the apple. Jonathan films it. He asks: Why are you sewing fruit? The old woman doesn’t respond. He asks the question more loudly. The old woman doesn’t respond. He walks up to her, he yells the question in her ear. The woman lifts her needle, she pokes Jonathan’s hand. He bleeds a drop. He films it. The old woman has black eyes. She says: Why do bees make honey? She turns around. You can see her elbows moving.
*
The grandmother’s body is here, but you could put it on a boat and the wind would carry it away. You could put it on a stone, in quicksand, she would disappear or sink. Does that change anything? If dust fell on this grandmother, that dust would remain. You could wrap her in clothing or wrap her in branches, she wouldn’t say anything because she can’t say anything. You could throw her in a river or in a parking lot. Would that change anything? You could leave her alone at home, leave the house forever and leave the grandmother behind. The nurses could stop coming, the father could disappear, the children could leave, the grandmother could stay alone, a tube in her mouth, soup in her stomach, everything would enter and exit in a natural rhythm. No one would change her bedding. It would rot like everything else, to the rhythm of nature, to the rhythm of the Earth, the animals, the stones.
Yesterday, the pain left. It crawled around the room. It kneeled. It was quiet. Its shape turned against its skin. It turned onto itself like a spiral. It was looking for pain, because pain loves pain.
We often think one pain cancels out another pain. We often think a big pain cancels out a small pain. We bite our arms to lessen our leg pain. But pain swallows pain. A big pain swallows little pains. Little pains don’t disappear, they participate. I told the pain: You, you just look like a spider with two legs.
Pain makes fast and slow movements inside a person. I could see it in the shadows, I felt sorry for it. I said: I know you. Its eyes were light, maybe it didn’t have eyes at all, but it looked at me. The pain didn’t stop shaking. When pain attaches itself to someone, it surrounds them. I said: You are the loneliest thing in the world. I wished I could throw it a coin, give it a euro, but pain doesn’t understand anything. It doesn’t understand facial expressions. I said: Are you hungry? I would have given it a coin so it could rest or eat, but pain only settles inside of people.
The person suffering thinks about pain, but pain only thinks about itself. It always reminisces about pain. It’s obsessed. Pain is empty. When it settles in, pain detaches the person from the person. When it comes close, it wounds. It has no friends, it has no family. But it’s pain that gives things their shape. Plants bow with pain. Pain makes the world. Inside a uterus, faces are formed from pain. When you try to pull an arm, when you try to pull out a limb, pain appears. When you try to stick your tongue all the way outside your body, pain prevents you. It knows the measurements. The pain was long, it hid its face. I said: I’m not going to insult you, I feel sorry for you. Doctors look for pain’s starting point, but pain is a wheel and its beginning is everywhere. Pain is serious. I said: You always act the same way, whether it’s with a child or an old woman. You’re always yourself. But you don’t have anything that’s only for you. You don’t have anyone. Suffering doesn’t belong to the people suffering, suffering belongs to suffering. And my pain sighed. My pain made a noise like a scratching insect. Its eyes moved. And my pain disappeared.
2
Little creatures live on our faces. Because they’re so tiny, we can’t see them. Every day, tragedies take place on our faces, wars take place, catastrophes. Creatures murder each other on our faces, they betray each other, they beg. Creatures unite in a circle around a nose, they execute another creature. We don’t know what’s going on. Creatures have trials on our faces, they sentence each other, they kill each other. When they’ve lost all hope, these creatures jump from our faces, they commit suicide. Sometimes, it’s a normal day on whoever’s face. The creatures go to work, they walk, they cook, they take care of their children. They have lives, histories, but we don’t feel it, we don’t feel anything on our faces. We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t understand the creatures that live on our lives, we don’t know them. We don’t talk to germs, to mites. We don’t know what they think. We don’t feel them living. Jonathan could feel something like a film of blood over his eyes. When you close your eyes, you think you’re seeing nothing or night, but you’re seeing yourself. We close our eyes, we cover them with a film of blood, a film of skin, a muscle. That’s our skin, that’s our blood, our eyelids. We don’t close our eyes, we cover them with a part of ourselves. Jonathan had woken up because a dog placed its paws on his eyelids. The dog had lain down on Jonathan in the park and it had warmed his stomach.
When he opened his eyes, the dog got up. Jonathan whistled. He threw grass at the dog, but the dog had disappeared. Jonathan threw grass toward the sky, but the grass fell back on his face. He didn’t feel it. He had eyes and a mouth, but he didn’t have a face. He had eyelids and eyebrows, but not a face. The light in the sky shined on the grass, it surrounded the trees and the flowers, it penetrated the earth and flies went by, their wings shining in the air. Jonathan put his hand in his pocket, his phone was gone. He couldn’t look at his phone anymore, he couldn’t write to Salim, he couldn’t write to anyone, because God doesn’t exist. God takes phones, he gets revenge by making them disappear. He punishes people because they don’t let him exist. God collects phones. He shouts on the phones, he says: And why wouldn’t I exist? Explain it to me, why wouldn’t I exist? God keeps phones lost at parties, on trips, or in the street. God’s the one who loses them. God is surrounded by phones in a black room. All the screens light up his divine face. God has long fingers, he touches the screens. The light bathes his person, it’s as if he exists in the contours of the light. He doesn’t respond to messages. On the phones, he puts things in order, he erases old pictures, old photos, he erases the past, he erases videos. God makes nothingness.
They’d pulled him by his jacket and his jacket was gone. Jonathan had left his jacket behind, but he wished he’d left himself. He didn’t have a jacket and he didn’t have a phone, but he had the smell of strawberry. He’d doused himself in strawberry syrup. He’d dashed behind the bar after a bottle, and he’d dumped it over his own head, over his own hair, on his own pants. He’d covered himself in strawberry syrup. They’d kicked him out. They’d treated him like a drunkard and a druggie, he was sticky. He remembered the daylight when he’d left the bar. He walked in the streets and the streets sped up. The sky slowed down. Because the streets were empty, he could tell they were beautiful. But he didn’t know his own name. It didn’t last long. He thought: What’s my name? and he didn’t know the answer.
Then he might have fallen asleep against a chain-link fence. Maybe in the park. Maybe with the dog. Maybe when we mix up our intentions, they cancel out. He was taking a piss. He was taking a piss against a tree. The cold reminded him of his childhood when he ran in the forest while his mother slept. The Earth was so big, so long, and so little liquid left his body, so little piss, so little height, so little self for an Earth, so long, huge, you can’t stretch yourself that wide. Even if you spread out your body, it wouldn’t cover the Earth. If we crushed our bodies with a rolling pin, they would only make a little rug. If we dumped all our blood in the sea, it wouldn’t change color. Jonathan wished he could flood the Earth and water the plants so they would unfold, rise up from his liquid.
He looked up and saw a lasso in the sky. A lasso in the sky in space. He felt his heart behind his tongue. The lasso turned in the sky, it was hitting the sky, as if the sky were getting beaten, as if it were being punished.
A hand touched his shoulder. It was a man with a scar on his forehead, he said: I don’t like the sound of piss. You’ve been pissing for five minutes, asshole. Jonathan zipped his fly, then he said: Did you see? And he pointed at the sky.
What?
The lasso in the sky, did you see it?
The man’s eyelids hung, he said: Can’t you see I’m drinking? That’s all I do. Do you want to wake up in a coma with your eyes taped shut? That’s my life. My mouth feels like I just went to the dentist. My mouth is always like that. The veins on the man’s forehead bulged. He pressed his two hands against the tree. They became white, red, he pulled off a piece of bark. He put it in his mouth and he chewed. Jonathan felt liquids coming out of his ears, like liters of liquids that weren’t liquid but pieces of liquid thoughts. Wordless thoughts that ran from his ears. The man said: Did you know that alcoholics can burn? He was opening and closing his mouth, his face like a beast. He said: Spontaneous combustion, pal, didn’t you know? Now you won’t be able to say you didn’t know. If someone asks, you can say: I knew it. And thanks to who? Jonathan rubbed his hand over the upper part of his face and he said: Did you see the lasso in the sky?
What did you say?
In the sky, there, did you see it?
Listen carefully, there are people you can’t talk to because their brains are like pudding. You know what I mean? A vanilla pudding. Have you seen those? Vanilla or caramel, asshole, do you need me to draw you a picture? Cafeteria pudding. From what I’ve seen, you’re just a guy who pisses too long and too hard. And that bothers me, you bother me. Drunks speak for themselves. I get to speak, and you get the hell out of here.
*
The water went down his esophagus. He was trying to go down with it, but he couldn’t follow. The water went into his body, but he didn’t know the way it went. It sank down, but he couldn’t disappear with it. He couldn’t go down. He wished the Earth’s crust would open so he could land in a texture close to velvet at the bottom of a hole with no edges, at the heart of the world, in a black substance capable of snuffing anything out, of absorbing people. He wished he could write a message to Salim, but he didn’t have a phone. He said: Where is he? The roommate responded: In your room. He’s sleeping. He’s growing. You sleep when you’re growing. At his age, I was growing, it made me sleep. I slept a lot. One time, I slept for several days, my parents prayed, they were worried. They kneeled next to my bed. When I opened my eyes, my father would wink at me. Every time I opened my eyes, I looked at my father, he winked at me.
Jonathan asked: Did he find his mother?
The roommate responded: I don’t know, but we should measure him.
The drops fell. The ceiling curved. Jonathan’s pills were becoming diluted in a bowl on the table. They formed a sort of white and gray paste. Jonathan said: We should repair this leak.
It’s stuck.
What do you mean?
The roommate said: It’s settled in.
We should call a plumber.
I just told you, it’s settled in. I called the plumber, he came, believe it or not. He sorted everything out, the dripping stopped. I gave him five stars. But an hour later, the water started falling, huge drops, worse than before. I called him again, he came back. He was a serious guy, we talked a lot. He has problems with his son who’s disabled. He showed me photos of his son who’s disabled. The roommate mimed something like hooks with his hands in front of his face. He let his head fall to the right while twisting his mouth and he burst out laughing. He folded his hands in front of his face, he stuck out his tongue to the side, he made sounds like a dog panting. He said: Did I do it right? It’s a problem with his brain. The plumber told me everything. His son has problems in his brain. He needs to have doubles of everything. It’s a rare disease. When you give him just one thing, he has an attack, and it’s serious, he’s epileptic, he could die. The plumber needs to give him two of everything. He can’t forget. He has to give him two glasses of water. Because the kid’s in a wheelchair, he has to have two wheelchairs. Two pairs of pants. Two jackets. Two pairs of underwear. Two pairs of shoes. One for him and one for nobody. Two beds. Two plates. Two bibs. He eats every meal two times. That’s six times per day. That’s a lot of work. Sometimes, the plumber shows him his hands to calm him down. It soothes him. He shows him his two legs, nature is well designed, right? Nostrils, arms, testicles, it’s soothing for him. The plumber touched our ceiling with a monkey wrench. The plumber looked at his monkey wrench and he said: There’s nothing I can do. As if the monkey wrench were speaking to him, as if it were giving him instructions. He looked at the monkey wrench and he said: I did what I could. He said: Plumbing is like everything else, it has its limits. You’re at one of the limits. Got it? We’re at one of the limits. All water in the world is connected, that’s what the plumber told me. That’s why it punctures, it weighs things down, so it can reunite, it can meet. Our water is meeting with neighboring waters. It meets up with the other water in the neighborhood. The city water. Our water has met the sea, sludge, soup, he told me, water flows, it evaporates. If you hit water, it absorbs the blows. There’s nothing we can do against it. We’re at a limit and I’m getting used to it, we need to get used to it. When you think about it, there are advantages. To get hydrated, all you have to do is open your mouth. If you imagine people dying of thirst, you won’t want to complain anymore. And you don’t have to bother showering, it’s as if you were living in a shower. And in terms of decor, it’s really pretty. In people’s houses, the decor doesn’t move. In general, you’ll notice, there are picture frames on the wall that don’t move. But at our house, everything moves, everything changes like landscapes or something. We’re lucky.
