Mesopotamia Page 27

  “Are you sure you’re not on drugs?”

  Somebody was already waiting for him outside, at the arch leading back to the brightly lit street. He was a large Surinamese or Ethiopian man—it was hard to tell because it was so dark and foreboding in the courtyard. Bob stepped out of the building, and the guy simply blocked his way.

  “Well hello there, punk,” he said as Bob tried dodging him. “You knew I was coming for you. You’re not gonna get off that easy.” Bob stopped. The dark-­skinned man was barely visible, so it seemed as though emptiness was meshing with emptiness and emptiness was speaking out of emptiness.

  “All right, now empty your pockets,” he said to Bob. “I know you’re a boxer and all. You think I’m dumb or something, don’t you?” Bob didn’t think he was dumb at all. Bob couldn’t even see him—he could only hear him. But the man’s self-­assured tone made him realize that he simply couldn’t back down. Also, he couldn’t count on anyone else in this part of the world, amid this darkness and emptiness. He realized that fate, that conniving witch, had thrown him so far away from home that there was nothing left beyond him—the universe was breaking off, coming to an end; a little distance away it was simply absent. The only way to go from here was back the way he came. But first he had to settle things with this Surinamese guy—Ethiopian guy, rather.

  “I don’t have anything, you know that,” he said wearily.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking ’bout. Empty your pockets, otherwise you’ll be stuck here.”

  “All right, screw you. I’ve got something for you.” Bob produced a slightly tattered, yet rather fragrant parcel from some secret pocket in his shorts—clearly something precious, something carefully and skillfully wrapped in tabloid journalism, printed in some otherworldly language, a language from the other side of the planet that nobody here could use to communicate or profess their love.

  “Death,” Bob wrote as he waited to board his flight, “often throws us for a loop. Sometimes we take its presence as a sign that it has come for us, but sometimes its appearance doesn’t have anything to do with us. Death is just as present in our lives as love, trust, or nostalgia. It comes up out of nowhere; it moves along its own route, so you shouldn’t even dream about being able to alter that route. All you can do is believe and hope. All you can do is love and accept life the way it is—as something unbearably incredible . . . or rather as something incredibly unbearable.”

  LUKE

  At the end of August, she called again.

  “Did you hear about Luke? Throat cancer. But he doesn’t want to get any treatment.”

  “Yeah, I sure did,” I answered. “Is that what you’re calling about?”

  “Yep. His birthday is the day after tomorrow. He wants everybody to come to his place. I think he wants to say goodbye. Are you going?”

  “Well, since he asked, I’m definitely going. What about you?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. Let’s go together.”

  “All right,” I agreed immediately. “You driving?”

  “Wasn’t planning on it. I was gonna take the train. That’s why I’m asking you to come along.”

  “Good thinking. Who drives to a birthday party? Ya can’t drink.”

  “Come on, Matthew, you think I’m gonna be drinkin’? I’m three months pregnant,” she said indignantly.

  She was waiting for me by the ticket office. Long hair pulled into a tight bun—reliable, safe, comfortable. Sneakers, denim overalls, warm sweater. Showing, but just barely. Serious face. It was sunny, but she’d dressed as though we were heading out on a long, nighttime hike through the mountains. Standing next to her in my threadbare T-­shirt, I felt like a beachgoer hanging around in a hotel lobby. At first, she just extended her hand formally, but then she quickly dropped her air of restraint and wrapped her arms around my neck—not going far enough to give me the wrong idea, but expressing enough genuine emotion that I wouldn’t forget where we were going.

  “Do we need to get him a gift or anything?” I asked, without letting go of her.

  “A gift? Like what?” she answered, clearly surprised.

  “Flowers or something like that.”

  “You might as well buy him a wreath. We’ll pick up some wine at the store by the station,” she added in a conciliatory tone, pushing me back like she was propelling herself off the side of a pool.

  She chose her seat in the half-­empty train car, on the sunny side, facing the direction it was moving. She sat down and watched as we rolled out of the station, leaving the last of the city’s seemingly endless chemical tanks behind; the greenery of its streets and parks blotted out its brick buildings, the leafy horizon suddenly burst out from behind factory fences, the suburbs cropped up, more stations popped into view, and passengers—fishermen, secondhand dealers, and people heading to their cottages—were milling around out there, exposed to the afternoon sun. The train pushed forward, past pine trees, quietly, as though it was afraid of attracting someone’s attention, freezing momentarily at railroad crossings and making longer stops at sand embankments. She wasn’t saying anything. I couldn’t quite remember where we’d left off or decide how to go about resuming our ongoing conversation. We passed some lakes and wove in between some clusters of cottages. A forest came into view through the window; the sky was generously heaped with low-­hanging clouds. Then suddenly there was so much sky—it was everywhere. “Man, August is almost over, time flies,” I thought.

  The train stopped; we stepped out onto the platform. It was quiet; wide, slanted rays of sunlight tinted the air gold, making it difficult to see things as they really were. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. There wasn’t a living soul in sight. Just the right time to pay a ceremonious visit to the dead. We picked up some boxed wine at the store by the station and headed down a sandy path along the tracks. She was walking up ahead, although she didn’t know the way. Her gait had changed—she mostly looked down at her feet, as though she was afraid of going off course. This went on for quite a while. She stopped to rest a few times. A pebble got in her sneaker once; she leaned on my shoulder, hopping on one leg, laughing and shaking it out. We reached the village; I asked for directions, and we started looking for Luke’s place. The road deposited us right beside a riverbank, a little below a confluence, and the current looked like marble—light veins crisscrossed with dusky ones and murky water with clear. We were completely lost at this point; it was time to ask for directions again; she took out her cell and called someone.

  “Well,” she said, pointing at the house across from us. “This is it.”

  It was behind some old trees; you couldn’t even see it from the road. There was a fence, there were a lot of flowers, there was silence. We opened the gate and walked across the yard. It seemed like Luke hadn’t been neglecting it; his lawnmower was clearly still seeing plenty of use. The yard looked like a soccer field—admittedly, one nobody was permitted to play on. The house wasn’t too big; it looked like it had been assembled from disparate parts—decent-­looking window frames and doors lugged there from somewhere else. Red-­brick foundation, speckled with white. Wooden beams and metal fasteners. It was as though somebody had knocked down a few buildings and assembled them into a single new one, and not a great one, either. She walked over to the door and pulled, but it wouldn’t open. She knocked. I peered in through the window. There was a bed by the wall and an empty table covered with tissue paper by the window. An apple fell off a tree, its descent heavy and steady. We looked around. There he stood, looking back at us, not saying anything. His face was more wrinkly now, and he’d apparently trimmed his own beard. A dark green shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, battle-­scarred jeans, worn at the knees, sneakers fissured by constant walking. Puffy eyes, bitten lips. Black hands, long fingers, yellowed nails. Skin the color of dry clay. Sixty years behind him. Death and dissolution up ahead. It was four o’clock now. There wasn’t much sun left for us today.

  Twenty years ago, he didn’t
have that beard, and he had dramatically fewer wrinkles. His hands were the same, though—darkened by hours of labor, paint under the nails, palms all cut up, and veins bulging with tension. It looked like he’d been finger painting. Not much else about him had changed—always in jeans, even at gallery openings and formal events, always in sneakers, always standing behind you, as if to say, “I’ve got your back if you fall.” He was young and belligerent twenty years ago, not afraid of anyone and never asking anyone for any favors. He didn’t seem to be afraid of anyone now, either . . . but nobody was afraid of him now, either. Back then, twenty years ago, he was a force to be reckoned with; there was just no ignoring him. In the eighties, he worked at a children’s center in some basement downtown. He taught kids how to draw. The nineties were tough economically, but kids still wanted to draw, so he kept teaching them. The center was shut down toward the end of the decade; he’d been out of work since then, and he seemed to be doing just dandy. Everybody in town knew him. He had a ton of friends. Even the cops got along with him. He had a lot of lovers, too. I personally knew a few of them. They brought him food and fresh clothes when he was working in his studio. They’d clean his shoes and console each other whenever he left town without a word to anybody. His son from his first marriage had his own business, always looked nice, and really loved his dad. Luke didn’t put his art in any shows, but everyone had a couple of his pieces hanging up at home. He’d spent the last couple of years building that house. He bought somebody’s orchard and nested between its trees. His son helped and offered to build him a regular house; he even offered to pay for everything, but Luke turned him down, saying he wanted to do it all himself. Some friends helped him out anyway; sometimes his son would come and move bricks for him—he’d turn his phone off for the weekend so nobody would bother him. Luke was in no hurry; he seemed to like the process of building something. Last year, his son brought in a construction crew and they finished the job in a month. In the spring, Luke decided he was going to live there, or, more precisely, die there.

  “Luke!” she shouted, and rushed toward him.

  He chuckled in response as she wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on him. I followed her inside. He lowered her onto the floor and hugged me too.

  “You’re the first ones here,” he said, still laughing. “Hope you’re not the last ones, though.”

  We weren’t the last ones, that’s for sure. His son pulled up in his Jeep, packed to the brim with food. He brought Luke a tiny children’s tape player and loaded it up with batteries so his old man could listen to his favorite music no matter where he wound up—like a hospital bed, just for instance. He brought two of Luke’s old friends along with him—Zurab, the blind-­as-­a-­bat old-­timer who’d lived with Luke in a communal apartment on Revolution Street, and Sasha, a tall, skinny guy who’d commissioned Luke to decorate some public cafeterias way back in the eighties. It seemed like Zurab didn’t really know where he was, but he greeted Luke courteously, giving him a long, firm handshake, patting him on the back, and even shedding one rugged tear from one half-­blind eye. Sasha was a lean guy sporting a military haircut, his signature thin graying mustache, and a jacket, black like that of a chimney sweep. He knew exactly what was going on, so he tried to keep his feelings and need to show compassion in check, hugging Luke and Zurab and jabbering away about something or other.

  Eventually, Luke’s son couldn’t take it anymore, so he said, “All right, you guys catch up while I go get the spread ready.” He started carrying some grocery bags over to a large empty table under the apple trees covered with the same tissue paper.

  “Let me give you a hand,” she said, getting down to business.

  “Don’t worry,” Luke said. “Let them get everything ready. Come take a look at my apple trees.”

  Zurab and Sasha stepped forward; I was about to follow them, but then Luke reached out and held my elbow gently.

  “How are things between you two?” he asked, voice low, nodding toward her setting the table.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “She pregnant?”

  “How can you tell?”

  “You just can. Pregnant women are calm and reflective. She never used to be like that. What do you think about all this?”

  “Don’t know what to think.”

  “It isn’t your kid?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Whose is it then?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Does she know?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Stick with her. If you quit on her, you’ll regret it. Try to hold on to her. She’s worth it. All right, c’mon, let me show you my apple trees.”

  Warm apples lay in the grass. Luke picked up a few, holding them in his hands for a moment, and then putting them back on the ground.

  Everybody started trickling in. Maria, who was everyone’s acquaintance, showed up, tired after work, with a big bouquet of flowers. Zhora had made the long haul out here. I hadn’t seen him since spring, when he was constantly griping about his trainee program at the 24-­hour pharmacy by the metro. He wasn’t sure if they’d be taking him on full time, but they did. Everything went smoothly; Zhora looked confident and happy and kept giving everyone unsolicited medical advice, which was a bit inappropriate under the circumstances. Nobody really acknowledged the circumstances that had brought them together that day, though; everyone was taking in the fresh August air, the river flowing by a few dozen yards away, the ripe apples, and the evening sky. Zhora’s cousin Bob had tagged along with him. His hair neatly combed, dressed in a fancy suit, he looked like a young Protestant missionary. Bob had recently returned from a trip to America, but from the way he was acting, you’d have thought he’d just returned from the depths of hell, or someplace much worse. He was bubbling over with stories to tell. He gave Luke a bottle of dry California wine. Sasha Tsoi, a young rebel, the son of Korean exiles, an active member of the poetry club at the Jewish Center back in town, and Bob’s best friend, showed up soon after and bestowed one of his manuscripts upon Luke. Luke promised to read it when he had the time. Pasha Chingachgook limped over with his wife, Margarita, who was carrying a big basket of fish; she immediately scurried to the kitchen to start cooking, leaving Pasha to hobble around by himself among the trees. Alla the Alligator, the apple of everyone’s eye, and the muse of the poor and the humiliated, made an appearance, sending them all into a frenzy. She brought a chocolate cake and hugged Luke, holding on for a long while. He looked at her, his gaze full of tender sadness. I remembered that a billion years ago, at some drunken party, Luke had confided in me that he was the Alligator’s first man, that he’d taught her everything she went on to share so generously with all her friends and acquaintances.

  “She came over wearing her mom’s dress. Can you believe that? She didn’t have any grown-­up clothes,” Luke said.

  “How’d you know it was her mom’s dress?”

  “Well . . . I was with her mom for a while.”

  Alla was with Yura, my old friend, a former guitar player, with a finger missing on his left hand. He had a resentful yet open expression on his face. He wouldn’t drink with us, saying that he was taking medication. He didn’t specify what it was for, but everyone already knew—TB. Luke’s friend Kira came, too. She looked sad and lonely, a silver ring dangling from a chain around her neck. She’d also brought Luke flowers. He asked why she’d come by herself. Kira explained that she and her girlfriend had split up, but that everything was fine and she didn’t want to get into it. John showed up late. On paper, he was the assistant director at a factory in town. He’d rented out one of the labs there to Luke so he could use it as a studio. He greeted everyone rather dryly and stiffly and shook Luke’s hand for a long while. He slouched even more than he used to, and it seemed as though he’d lost even more weight. A few more people had come along with him. I’d seen one of them at a protest in support of somebody or other, I couldn’t remember who. One of Luke’s friends, a girl from
his past life, buried deep in his memory, came with John. The last one to show up was some really young girl with long, dyed black hair. She was wearing a brightly colored dress and light sandals. She only said hello to Luke, because she didn’t appear to know anyone else here. Nobody recognized her, either. At first, they all focused their attention on her, whispering to one another, and exchanging significant glances. Luke noticed, and it made him feel uneasy, so he invited everyone to the picnic table. The girl took a step off to the side and stood alone under the apple branches, and everyone instantly forgot about her. Then she joined them at the table, sitting there and drinking wine, not saying anything.

  Everyone started getting rowdy; a heated argument broke out. Bob was especially loud. He sure had some stories to tell his fellow Ukrainians now that he’d had some firsthand experience abroad, felt the otherworldly breath of fire; now he was presenting the incredible details of his recent voyage to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, to the cold heart of America, interrupting everyone, leaning confidentially toward everyone, and choking on a barrage of words. Eventually all the other side conversations stopped, because everyone realized it’d be best just to hear him out and give him some sense of affirmation instead of interrupting and shouting over him. Luke sat there smiling, his eyes shifting from Bob to the girl who was sitting on the other side of the table.

  “Two hot ocean currents sweep against the shores of America,” Bob said. “This dictates its climate and the complex character of the locals. This affects its flora, as well as its fauna. In America, animals living in the wild are quite serene, and most of them are tame. Foxes trot briskly into the suburbs and sleep at bus stops, howling at the moon come nightfall, which is quite a nuisance when people are trying to sleep. Birds weave their nests on people’s balconies and in children’s strollers. Turtles infiltrate the cities’ sewer systems, where they live out their famously long lives. Hot ocean currents burst through the soil in the interior of the continent. Take New York for example—it rests on hot water and damp clay. The streets smell of sulfur, and the sun hides away in a warm haze. Twilight is constantly hovering over the city—black seaweed and tall, orange grass grow beneath it. There’s only one city that can compete with New York when it comes to twilight—that’s San Francisco, obviously, the city founded by none other than Saint Francis himself, who initially came on an official visit but wound up settling on those sandy shores to strengthen the natives’ faith and light up the city at night as Russian and Chinese commercial ships sliced through the ocean’s blistering heat, heading toward the shore.”