Mesopotamia Page 25

  “The insignia they bear are mostly lions, jackals, and fighting cocks,” Bob continued, “which are supposed to represent the government’s firm commitment to further social upheaval. Although many reforms have been implemented smoothly and effectively, the problems of post-­totalitarianism and xenophobia still haven’t been eradicated. This new, post-­totalitarian state has knocked all the social ladders out from under me, so I have no hope of moving up. I’ve been dealt a bad hand—I’m forced to waste away in the back alleys of the ghetto, fecklessly contemplating the ills of social inequality and religious intolerance.

  “And those assholes,” Bob exclaimed, crying and alternately tugging at Aunt Amalia’s arm and leg, “are gonna keep me down, they’re never gonna give me a chance.”

  Aunt Amalia was listening, biting her lip anxiously. Lilith was patting Bob on the back, which made him sob even more theatrically. It was only after midnight had rolled around, another bottle of California wine had been polished off, and Bob’s tall tales had escalated to the realm of two-­headed state employees responsible for education and burning witches in the central market, that Aunt Amalia had finally had enough. She suggested that everyone go to sleep, preferably in separate beds. Leaving the dining room, she assured Bob that he’d come to the right place, and that America, the cradle of multiculturalism, would make a real man out of him—if he acted like one, of course.

  He couldn’t even look at the pasta the next morning.

  That’s how his Philadelphia summer got under way. He didn’t have much of anything to do because nobody had offered him a job yet—he had two months left until his flight back home, two months to explore the unknown and absorb his new reality. During the first few days, Bob took some pictures by the Rocky statue and stopped by the Ukrainian Cultural Center. Its young members, who had been born in exile, were discussing Ukrainian nationalism. They took Bob for an Irishman because of his thick accent and red sideburns, but they had no idea how this fuckin’ Irish guy could know each and every member of the Ukrainian Parliament. They arm-­wrestled a bit and sang some nationalist songs. Bob made a big show of not wanting to join in, but it didn’t last—pure, Irish-­bred love for Ukraine filled his passionate voice. Bob fell asleep toward the end of the meeting, slouched over in his chair. The other guys called him a cab, but they didn’t know his address. They went through his pockets and found his cellphone. He had a picture of the Rocky statue as his wallpaper, so that’s where they dropped him off.

  Late at night, after his relatives had wandered off to their respective quarters, Bob would read emails from his family and friends back home.

  “Dear Bob,” his dad wrote, “never come back to this godforsaken city, no matter what! Do everything in your power to stay in the country of enduring democracy and stick by that brother of mine, life’s really run him into the ground. This city doesn’t deserve to be loved and remembered by you. It’s already kicked me around enough. It’s taken my faith, hope, and Party card away from me. Don’t ever come back here again! But if you do decide to come back, please see if there are any Chinese guys down at the market that can get you some cheap blades for my lawnmower.” His mom’s emails didn’t have the same degree of pathos, but they were just as troubling. There was talk of a default and another planned power outage.

  “Supposedly, the ATMs only dispense large bills with some mysterious markings on them. Apparently, some mutated strain of E. coli was found in the city’s reservoir. I don’t know, Bobby—the government has been consecrating the water and all, but what’s the use? What was the point of all that social upheaval of theirs? I’ve heard the city fathers have all gotten Chinese passports, so it’s only a matter of time before they hand the keys to the city over to the Communist Party of China. Rumor has it that there will be a sugar and flour shortage soon. Life is chock-­full of mirages and mysteries, and you have to have nerves of steel and a cool head just to get through the morning news—the things going on chill you to the heart. Anyway, your family and your ever-­hospitable homeland wait eagerly to embrace you once more.”

  Zhora, his other cousin, who was employed at a 24-­hour pharmacy, wrote the most interesting emails, giving him the full rundown. As a fully qualified practitioner of medicine, Zhora wrote in an eloquent and didactic tone, and he didn’t turn up his nose at the opportunity for the occasional lyrical digression. He told Bob that their neighbor Thomas had started dating a girl who used to be a prostitute. Everyone in the whole apartment building was concerned. Well, and it looked like Mark, a distant relative of theirs through Aunt Maria, was doin’ his cousin.

  “You never know what unexpected turn fate will take next,” Zhora wrote, referring to these odd relationships. “Just don’t let it rattle you, and you’ll be all right. Make sure to say hello to Lilith for me. She’s such a sweetheart.”

  There was no need whatsoever to remind Bob about his cousin, though. Lilith had taken up residence in his heart and wreaked havoc. She’d be on his mind when he got up in the morning and she’d be on his mind when he turned in at night. In the morning, he’d lie there on his air mattress and listen to her getting out of bed and rushing to get ready for school, searching frantically for her clothes and phone and putting on her makeup. At night, as he lay there listening to her blabbing away on Skype and falling soundly asleep, his broken heart would nearly stop. He’d listen to her pajamas rustling and the movie stars and pro soccer players talking in her dreams. He saw her come out of her room, scantily clad, a few times. One time she asked him to do up her bra in the back, but he wasn’t up to the task. Also, Aunt Amalia happened to be walking down the hallway right then, so they all felt a bit awkward. He’d occasionally see her panties hanging in the kitchen, which he took as proof that God and all the saints really did exist. Sometimes she wouldn’t get back from hanging out with her friends until early morning. Aunt Amalia would start scolding her, and Bob would lie there on his mattress, mad with jealousy and boundless sympathy. They had a small Fourth of July celebration, just for the family. Lilith wasn’t really into it—she hardly even spoke to Bob and outright ignored her parents. Bob was hitting the dry California wine hard, engaging Uncle Alex in a discussion of how the American democratic system affects the stability of the oil market. Aunt Amalia had been drinking since she got up, so she was definitely on Bob’s side. That’s how it was that summer. Aunt Amalia would back Bob, but Lilith wasn’t coming around. Bob slipped into a serious funk. He stopped in at the Ukrainian Cultural Center a few days later. They took him for an Irishman once again, but this time they beat him up instead of singing with him. The sun hung high, seemingly detached from the city of Philadelphia. The air was saturated with utter hopelessness. He wanted to hang himself, preferably in her room, preferably not for long. He tried writing her love notes and camping out by her door at night. But all his efforts were in vain—summer was trickling by, dragging all his hopes and dreams away. Lilith was out sowing her wild oats, only coming home when she needed some fresh clothes.

  Somewhere near the beginning of August, with a mere four days remaining before his flight back, Aunt Amalia suggested they throw Bob a going-­away party. She and Bob were the only ones in attendance. Lilith blatantly snubbed them, while Uncle Alex got held up at work. He did call, though, telling them to start the festivities without him. Amalia drank and griped about the trials of family life—the callousness of men and the ingratitude of children. Bob backed her up as best he could, saying, “Yeah, yeah, callousness, ingratitude, and God knows what else.” Amalia decided to call her daughter a little before midnight; she immediately threw a fit, yelling, crying, and making empty threats. Suddenly, she passed the phone to Bob.

  “What’s going on back there?” He heard Lilith’s serene and slightly cold voice. Bob looked around the room. Amalia was crying in the corner, her fingers clinging to her menthol cigarette. An empty serving dish crowned the table.

  “We’re having a party,” he told his cousin.

  “Okay, here’s what w
e’re gonna do. You put her to bed. Then you go to bed, too. I’ll be home shortly.” Her voice didn’t sound as metallic, and, moreover, Bob understood what she was getting at. “Of course,” he thought. “This is it. She’s planned everything out; she’s thought everything through. She means, ‘Go to bed, but don’t fall asleep. I’ll be home shortly. I just can’t wait.’ Did she actually say ‘I just can’t wait?’ Obviously she did. I heard it with my own two ears.” Bob helped Amalia ascend the steps to the second floor, and as soon as she collapsed on her bed, without even taking off her housecoat, he raced over to his room and started getting ready for Lilith. He put his dirty laundry away, took some dishes to the kitchen, lit a candle—setting some magazines on fire in the process—soused everything with water, hastily tried to air out the room, struggled to close the window (he just couldn’t figure it out), and then finally lay down in his drafty room. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then forty. Despair was gradually tightening its grip on him. His eyes grew tired of staring into the dark. Suddenly, something squeaked in the hallway. “The door! The front door!” he thought, immediately recognizing the sound. It was her. Timid steps pattered down the hallway; somebody bumped into the wall a few times, the door to his room squeaked open too, and a warm, female figure slid through the gloom and landed next to him. Before he could launch into his rehearsed speech about the insurmountable thirst for love and about temptation which, once yielded to, could not be renounced, he caught a glimpse of slightly faded curls, Aunt Amalia’s curls—he was truly horrified when he noticed the menthol cigarette in her right hand, overcome with despair when he felt her left hand creeping down his stomach. But before Aunt Amalia managed to do anything nice or anything that would be of any use to him, his nerves snapped, breaking like guitar strings, and all the wistfulness and penitence that had been accumulating in him for the past few months came bursting out, severing all of Aunt Amalia’s hopes for a long, sleepless night, severing all of Bob’s aspirations to dig down to some golden intimacy. To her credit, Amalia didn’t say a word. She merely settled in next to him, pulled yet another cigarette from the pocket of her housecoat, and started waiting. Bob talked the whole time, trying to adopt a flat and self-­assured tone—not making any excuses, yet explaining everything to her, trying not to look silly, but still aiming to have them laugh it off.

  “Extended abstinence,” he explained. “Meditation and vows of self-­denial. We warrior monks handle cold steel weapons more often than women, so it should come as no surprise that such an unfortunate mishap occurred. But do not, on any account, reproach yourself,” he told Amalia, “don’t assume any of the blame—you did everything right, you did everything you could, you did everything as you’ve grown accustomed to do, you poor, hapless woman.” It’s just that he’d grown accustomed to slightly different types of relationships and a different degree of passion, which he’d demonstrate presently—Bob spoke with a great deal of confidence, since somewhere deep down in his heart, which had been broken and haphazardly pieced back together, he felt a certain eagerness to continue this struggle to which he was already committed. So he intercepted her left hand and placed it on his stomach. Amalia was about to get frisky—she even put her cigarette aside—but as soon as she touched what Bob had been pontificating about for the past forty-­five minutes, everything played out much as it had the first time around. Dejected, Amalia merely wiped her hand on her damp housecoat, while Bob despairingly scrunched himself up under a heap of pillows to hide his shame and hopelessness. Suddenly, the front door squeaked open. This time it actually was Lilith. Bob heard a cold, crystalline jingling somewhere beneath his throat. That was the last remnants of his heart breaking. Amalia got up and stepped out into the hallway, making no effort to be discreet. She asked her daughter something and told her something. Lilith laughed buoyantly and then headed to her room. The inside lock of her bedroom door slammed down with a thud in the silence of the house.

  In the morning, Bob informed everyone that he had to leave right away, since he’d arranged a bunch of important business meetings in NYC before his flight back home. He simply couldn’t waste another minute of his precious time. He thanked everyone for their hospitality, offered to pay for the broken shower head, and promised to write. “No big deal,” he thought feverishly. “I’ll camp out at my classmate’s place for the next three days. Just get as far away from this shameful debacle as possible.” Oddly enough, his relations were saddened and moved by having to say goodbye, encouraging him to come back anytime, even tomorrow, if he wanted, trying to talk him out of leaving at all, tempting him, and providing him with unsolicited advice. For some reason, Uncle Alex was the one who was beating himself up the most over Bob leaving them. Lilith was the least affected. Amalia walked him to the front door and gave him a tender kiss on the lips.

  “Women, it’s all because of them,” he thought, as the train ripped past the grim outskirts of Philadelphia toward the expansive horizon. “It’s our interactions with them and our interest in them that change everything in our hearts. Life never makes any guarantees—in most cases it asks you to take it at its word. When you do trust it, when you open up and leave yourself defenseless, life sweeps away all your hopes and dreams like a raging river sweeping away a fishing village. My path of conquest across America, that wild land to which submission is utterly foreign, was severed by a woman’s tender yet firm movements, by the exceedingly deep and smoke-­filled breaths of one woman and the slightly immature—scratch that—the incredibly childish, reckless abandon of another. Who will rescue me from this sad predicament? Who can I depend on? My family won’t be able to help me at all—it’s not their job to fix my premature ejaculation. My friends won’t solve my problems; they’ll merely commiserate with me for a while, then dump their own troubles on me. What stories could they tell? What advice could they give? One of them is sleeping with his first cousin, and one of them is dating a former prostitute. What do prostitutes have to do with me?” Bob pondered, getting even more riled up. “What is prostitution, when you get right down to it? Undoubtedly, it means your life’s a complete wreck, that you’ve fallen and given in to meekness. Then what is it about those women that attracts us? What compels us to lend a helping hand? What drives us to find common ground with them? Society’s scorn for them? Undoubtedly, it’s society’s scorn for them. Courageous and valiant men are the last to pay any heed to society’s sanctimonious double standards. It’s just the opposite, they defy religious and moral dogma. They find women who are no less courageous and valiant, then they stick with them, since it is alongside these women that they experience the fullness of life and the depth of feeling. What kind of people decide to become prostitutes? Those blessed by fate. Strong, complete individuals. Tameless lovers, happy brides, children showered with love. Heroes of Socialist Labor, straight-­A students. Mothers with many children and inexhaustible reserves of tenderness, widows who adopt orphans and love the dry breath of champagne. So who else should I be thinking about?” Bob wondered, bouncing around in between train cars on his way to NYC. “Who else should I exalt in my daily quest to get in touch with my spiritual side? After all, most of them lead much more meaningful lives than I do, lives charged with social significance and public-­spirited activism. I’m sure that their ranks are mostly filled by environmental activists and politicians, managers of institutions of high culture, and church choir singers. Undoubtedly, most of them are well-­versed in the fields of political economy and public relations; undoubtedly, most of them tend to identify most closely with the neoliberal model of economic development and the Bologna Process. They are all fascinated by choral music and team sports; they all successfully juggle their interests in surfing, tennis, and healthy morning runs. In the morning, they gather at their local swimming pools and gyms to praise providence for the opportunity to be part of time and space, for the joy they derive from being immersed in the dark river of this epoch, for the sweet honey on their lips and the roses at their feet, and the joy of so
cializing with the most renowned visionaries and inventors of this heroic age.” Suddenly, Bob understood that he was raving, possibly even out loud. It’s a good thing there were only black people around—they could never understand him anyway. White people couldn’t understand him either, as a matter of fact. Nevertheless, he was coming down with something, which was to be expected, much like the rain in November. He had to nurse this cold. He had to get back home.

  At the train station, a few meek yet cheerful Chinese women sitting at a fast-­food joint located on the floor above their noodle place caught his eye immediately. Their porcelain necks bent over their food, as if enacting a movement they had been trained for, seemingly serving as a testament to female placidity and submission. In the subway, he came across a group of Italians examining a city map so excitedly and arguing so heatedly that one would have thought they were reading one of the early Futurist manifestos aloud. They emitted heat and the smell of tender, nearly imperceptible sweat, which reminded Bob of swimming in the rivers and manmade lakes of his hometown, the little booths to change in, and the August beaches with all their sun and unsanitary conditions.

  His classmate wasn’t picking up the phone or responding to texts. Bob found his address online and went by his place, but he was out, just as Bob had expected. “No biggie,” he thought, trying to keep his cool. “I’ll camp out here until tomorrow. He’s gotta come back eventually.” His passport, return ticket, and last hundred bucks were in his shorts pocket. He didn’t feel like springing for a hostel. Bob dragged himself down the city’s hot streets, believing he’d soon receive a sign from above, his faith in mankind’s higher vocation never wavering. A wild Puerto Rican girl’s black flowing hair slapped him as she crossed an intersection. On his way out of a small Greek restaurant where he’d bought a bottle of water, a scantily clad German girl with fair hair, soft peach fuzz on her lean body, a rock-­hard stomach, and a piercing dangling from her nose like a band attached to a tame dove’s leg pressed up against him. He was lugging his suitcase around—it was getting heavier as the day progressed—dreaming about taking a short respite, hot tea, and a woman’s cold skin. He stumbled across the local Ukrainian Cultural Center in the early evening. Some Poles got him sloshed. A few drinks in, he tried paying for himself and his new friends, but the Poles refused to accept his offering, assuring him that it was an honor to carouse with such a hellishly jolly Irishman and that Ireland was Poland’s sister country.