The Endless Week, page 4
careful
if you drink
from the wrong glass
you might turn out
wrong
He posted the five lines on the network, he tapped the screen twice. Followers shared his words. Some followers left hearts. Some followers laughed. Some followers posted faces with a smile, faces with a teardrop, they posted faces with twisted eyebrows, with a tongue, red faces, black faces. He saw a hair on the floor. He’d lost it without realizing. Hair is a part of the body we can’t control. He wrote to Jonathan: Nobody feels their hair. If hair could speak it wouldn’t say anything. He wrote: Light is damp. When you look at it, you can tell it’s damp. Jonathan replied: Yes, and he wrote: I feel like water forgives me when I drink it. Salim wrote: Yes.
*
Sara could drink lying down, she was always lying down, outside at night on the stairs, downtown, in the square, on the bus, she needed two seats, she stretched out her legs. On the floor, in her room, on her bed, on her brother’s bed, in the hall, anywhere, it was her natural position. Her weight planted somewhere.
When we lie down, our mouths are on the same level as our feet. Our feet are on the same level as our hands. When we lie down, our organs are aligned. The father said: Sara, you’re going to become flat like people who believe the Earth is flat. And she’d say: They aren’t flat. The father sighed heavily, he said: Maybe not, but you’re going to become flat like the Earth in their heads. You’re going to get the floor dirty, I washed it. But the floor is going to get you dirty because it’s not clean because it’s the floor. You’re not listening to me. You’re going to get your back dirty, it’s going to get disgusting. Does anyone want a disgusting back? Think about it. A back covered in dirt. Who wants dust on their back? Who? Well? Who in the world wants a gross back? Think about it. You turn around, people see your back, and they hate you. That’s what happens. Who wants to be hated? Who’d rather be hated? Anyone? Who? You’re going to carry dirt around on your back wherever you go. You’re going to spread it all over the house and the house will be dirty in places we can’t even imagine. Who wants a dirty house? I’m asking you, a big house like ours, a big dirty house, a huge dirty house. Who wants that? Who? A dirty old school? Who wants that? You’re going to get sucked into the floor. Little by little, the floor will suck you up. You’re stuck to it like glue. You’ll see, if the floor sucks you up, you’ll see where that gets you. Because nobody knows where that gets you. We don’t know where that gets you, but you can explain it all to us once you’re under the floor. You can tell us where it gets you then. Where that’s gotten you and your brother, always lying down, always on the floor, always flat.
She rolled her eyes, she sighed, sometimes she fell asleep. She’d fallen asleep on the floor of the gymnasium. She dreamed there was a dead man in the house. The dead man moved without moving. His body slid forward as if on oil. She’d seen the dead man doing nothing in the fridge. She got up at night in the dream, she opened the fridge, the dead man was standing there. The sound of the fridge grew, it grew, it took up all the space. It locked her gaze to the gaze of the dead man. The scene went on for a long time. The dead man had a tender face. He took his eyes off her, he looked around as if it were a job, an activity. He diluted the house with his eyes and the house went soft. He looked at each thing and each thing softened. She’d felt love for the dead person in the dream. He tried to touch her. She tried to touch him. But they diluted each other. They pushed through the walls of the house, through the neighborhood. They wheeled their arms in the air, their ligaments dislocated. She wished the dead man could run his hand over her eyes. He smiled at her.
Sara opened an eye, the grandmother blinked. Salim came in and the female nurse caressed the grandmother’s forehead, she said: She’s not doing well, she’s not going to hold out much longer. The male nurse said: A few days. The female nurse said: Her blood’s the problem, and the grandmother burped. Salim said: Is there something we can do? The male nurse said: We can give her the blood of her child. Salim said: I can give her my blood. The female nurse said: No, she needs the blood of her child. You can’t skip a generation. The body has rules. Sara said: Our mother isn’t here anymore. The male nurse said: Her blood is rotting. Salim asked: How many more days? The male nurse said: Maybe a week. Salim said: Our mother is in town. Sara said: She won’t give her anything. Salim lowered his head, he scratched his neck.
*
The father often sent emails to his children.
He gave them advice. He looked for sayings on the internet, proverbs. He copied them and arranged them. He gave them to his children so they could understand life.
Sara, Salim, it’s me, listen closely to what I’m about to tell you. You must know these ten things. Read carefully all the way to the end:
1. To God, nobody stinks.
2. When you cry, there will always be a wasp to sting your face. The sadder you are, the more you get stung, it’s the law.
3. Lean on canes, never on people.
4. Every man blows his nose.
5. Everything looks like a nail when you’re holding a hammer.
6. Bread bakes slowly when you’re hungry.
7. People come into your life, then they disappear from your life for no special reason. Don’t go looking for a special reason.
8. There will be miracles, it’s inevitable.
9. During a flood, there is always one person stand- ing on the roof of their house yelling: This place wasn’t supposed to flood.
10. If you throw a cake in the forest, when you go back to the forest, you will find a cake. Share.
3
A long time ago, a man was slitting children’s throats in the village. He’d drag them under a bridge, he’d cut their throats. A few years ago, when the grandmother could still speak, she said he’d killed birds. He took their warmth in his hands, he made them sleep. Then he pulled out their beaks. He always had beaks in his pockets, hundreds of beaks. He’d wiggle his fingernails in the beaks, you could hear the clicking.
He was a heavy man, he wore five or six jackets, four or five pairs of pants, eight pairs of socks. He didn’t wash. He walked forward, he sighed, he was tall. Every day, he had a bird in his hand, a bird that was dead or dying, it depended on the time. People walked past him in the village, they said: Hello. And he would open his hand, he’d show them the cadaver. His face had no expression. Some people said he had died, killed by a guard at a labor camp, and then come back to life, but not completely, not all the way. So when children started disappearing, people suspected him. Some men followed him. One evening, they came upon him under a bridge, his eyes closed, a child in his arms. It’s a shame, because the child was already dead, his throat cut. It’s a shame, because the man could have just looked at his knife and looked at the children. It would have been enough just to mix the two images, he didn’t need to actually cut them. If you really think about it, deep down, it’s not worth it to kill or hit. If we’re overtaken by the desire to kill or hit, it’s not worth moving our hands, even lifting them. We look at the cheek. We look at the palm of our hand. We mix the two images. The mind quiets. When we think of heat, the body produces warmth. When we think about our sleepiness, our bodies rest. We look at an animal, we concentrate, we assume the rhythm of the animal’s heart, we understand it. But dead animals no longer have heartbeats. We can no longer understand them.
A black smear glided in front of his face, he lowered his head in the video, he looked at the floor, he said: It’s a bird. He took his camera, he filmed the bird, and he said: See, it’s a bird, I think it’s dead, it’s a dead bird. That was the end of the video.
The bird was the size of a thumb, its beak open, it was warm, you could see its tongue, it stuck out, small and gray. He took it in his hands and pressed down. He pressed the round stomach to get the heart working again, liquid oozed from the beak, viscous, transparent, sad. Where did this bird come from? How was this possible? How could a bird fall from your bedroom ceiling? A dead bird. A little dead bird that falls from the ceiling. A dead bird fallen in his room.
Salim wrote: I don’t know where to put it.
Jonathan wrote: You can’t keep it, it’ll get worms.
There aren’t any worms at my house. It won’t be able to get worms.
Jonathan wrote: The worms are going to come from the bird, because it’s dead.
Maybe I’ll keep it in oil. I’m going to put it in a jar with some olive oil, because oil doesn’t rot.
Why would you do that?
To take care of it.
You shouldn’t keep it.
Why?
Because it’s going to give you all sorts of diseases. Put it in the ground.
And Salim stopped responding. After several minutes, he wrote: For certain birds, the weight of their feathers is two times greater than the weight of their bones. The sword-billed hummingbird possesses a beak that is longer than its entire body. Some birds, like pigeons or greater flamingos, suckle their young, the milk doesn’t come from mammary glands, but from the crop, a little pocket in the esophagus. The hummingbird lays the smallest eggs of any bird, the eggs are about one centimeter long. Birds sing before they’re born, they communicate through the shell. The mother transmits a sort of password to her babies through the shell, and when they’re born, they sing the password and she recognizes them. The pelican is the heaviest bird capable of flight, it weighs between ten and fourteen kilograms.
Jonathan wrote: It doesn’t help to look up all these things about birds, you should just bury it. Ask your sister. Do you want me to come over? I can come.
Salim wrote: No.
He sent a message to Sara. One minute later, she came into his room. He opened his hands, she touched the bird. It was damp, she said: Did you put water on it? He said: No. My hands perspired around it. He showed her the video of the falling bird and she watched the video of the falling bird. She looked at the ceiling, she looked at her brother. He said: Can we put it in a jar of oil? She responded: No. We’re going outside, we’re going to bury it.
*
Outside, the light of the streetlamps didn’t spill over with light. It stayed close to the light. The light was a bubble around the light, it didn’t touch the ground. The streets were dark. Salim tried to walk straight, perfectly straight, he tried to have a normal, perfectly standard expression on his face. The grass on the edge of the sidewalk was in shadow. He said: In houses, you don’t walk straight. Outside, you walk straight. In houses, you walk in a circle, I’m out of practice. There’s air, isn’t there? In the air. There’s a lot of air, isn’t there? Don’t you think? Sara didn’t respond. He said: Do you know the story of the man and the street light? She didn’t respond.
One night, a man lost his keys in the street, he was looking for them under the street light. However, he knew that he’d lost them somewhere else. He was sure of it. But he was looking for them under the street light. Do you know why? She didn’t say anything.
Because it’s easier to see. What if we go back and put the bird in some salt and vinegar? Could we put it in the bath tub? I’ll take care of it.
He was holding the bird lightly in his right hand, he said: I feel like I’m in front of us and following myself when we’re walking. You know, like if I were farther up the road. Maybe there is a part of us that walks up ahead, an invisible part. It walks in front of us. We follow it. It’s one millimeter in the future. One millimeter ahead. And we always follow it, don’t you think? She said: No.
They were walking on a long road lined with chestnut trees. Leaves fell every now and then, everything was quiet. A bird flew off, and you could hear its wings. Salim said: I know we’re not laughing right now, okay, we’re not laughing, but every time someone laughs, I laugh. Even if it’s not funny, if someone laughs, I laugh. When I send a smiley, my face smiles. When I think about it, I realize I’m smiling. It’s like with vomit, if someone vomits in front of you, you vomit. It’s like yawning, if someone yawns, you yawn. Mouths are weird, the mouth part I mean, isn’t it a weird space? The mouth. It’s like mouths imitate everything they see. Did you know that a rock explodes if you heat it up? She didn’t respond.
Do you know what face you’re supposed to make when you want to look normal? A normal face, you know what I mean? Salim’s nose was leaking, he said: Try to see what I mean.
She gave him her scarf so he could wipe his nose, he put it on his head. He looked like a sainted woman bowing her head in the night. A flock of bats flew over the village, they were screeching. He said: There’s a house in Mexico that cries blood, it cries drops of blood every day, I saw a video, do you think it’s true? She said: Maybe.
They stopped in front of the church. Through the window, in the vestry, they saw the priest dressed like an ordinary man. A candle lit his table. He was scratching lotto tickets, but he wasn’t scratching with his fingernail, he was scratching with his hand, with his whole hand, like an animal. She said: Do you think he’s winning? Salim said: Yes.
Then they left the main road, the ground became dry. Their feet kicked up clods of earth. In the park, she said: We’re going to put it here. He slowly placed the bird on the ground at the foot of a little tree. He touched the earth, it was warm, they made a hole. Mist enveloped their hands. They covered the little thing with its open beak. They covered it with earth, and Salim said: Burials are slow. It’s slow, I’d never thought about it. Nobody runs during a burial, nobody moves fast, even the words are slow in burials. Everyone speaks slowly. We’re going back now, okay? And as he spoke, it almost felt like the fresh smell was coming from his mouth and face rather than the grass.
They were kneeling. Sara tapped her phone screen, a rapper sang:
Oh, my brother, my brother,
Keep my eyes far from this situation
Free me from my stress through visions, oh
Free me from my stress through bitches, oh, my brother,
Hundreds of dollars will rain on our graves
Rain on our graves
Rain on our graves
Rain on our graves
My brother, my brother, oh please
Free me from my stress through bitches
Free me from my stress through visions, oh
Bring my hand closer to the light
Bring my hand closer, my brother
Your crab head, my brother, free me from my stress through bitches
Free me from my stress through visions, oh
Hundreds of dollars will rain
Rain on our graves
Rain on our graves
Rain on our graves
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh
Your crab head, my brother,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah
Free me from stress, oh
Your crab head, please, please, oh
They were silent for a bit, and Salim wished for the earth to be good, for it to be good and light for this bird and other creatures. For them to be like pearls scattered underground. For the earth to be good to the bird, for it to be his blanket, for it to be discreet, an earth that’s discreet and good and kind. For the bird’s body to rest under a canopy of cream, wool, and soft animals. For the earth to turn and return him. For the earth to swallow him whole.
The earth swallows the dead, it breaks the dead, it breaks their bones. Let the bones of the dead crack. Let the earth make joints for them, draw them down, and shatter them into confetti. Into dead-person confetti. Let it pull them into the crust inside of continents, then under the continents, then all the way down to the Earth’s core. May all the dead descend, and let them descend. Let the earth break their arms into twenty pieces of arm, let it break their legs into twenty pieces of dead leg. Let the earth multiply them. Let it multiply the dead and help them. And may the trees grow, let them be the dead for our eyes, for us, for our living eyes. The dead grown just for us. Pieces of their bodies. Their dead-person bodies. Their legs broken into 1,000 pieces. Their arms broken into 1,000 pieces. Let them form buds, boughs, and branches.
The magpies were chattering in the park. Salim shook the tree. The tree’s parts were like the broken arms of a child. The broken legs of a dead child, its little broken arms, frozen in the tree. Salim looked for a stone or some wood, but he could only find a can, he stuck it in the ground like a cross. Sara pointed out something in the distance. It was a man, rising in the dark, on a swing in a corner of the park. She said: Look, it’s the neighbor’s son, the electroshock one.
What’s he doing?
He’s swinging.
*
In front of the middle school, Salim coughed.
The middle school was a cold thing in the village. The sky seemed darker around it. Every day, a few years ago, Salim had to wake up before the sun, splash his face with water, and get dressed. He had to go inside of this large building, and he had to sit in an ugly room. They said his name, and he had to say the word: Here.
Every day, he had to contain his face so his face didn’t come out of his face. Every day, he locked himself in the restroom so he could become horrible. He stretched out his mouth to become horrible. His nostrils, his eyes. All alone in the bathroom, he deformed his face. He made his lips bleed, he flushed the toilet, he spit in the water. He spit, he came out, he thought about it, he said: Have I done anything wrong? I haven’t done anything wrong.
