Monument Maker, page 20
He woke in the early hours. Outside there were sounds, unimaginable things moving, a clanking sound, a terrible dragging noise, flies buzzing, and, off in the distance, howling. As the sun came up he walked out, into this festering village, which was still smoking, he said, still smouldering, he said, unbelievably, and he sat down in meditation amidst the ruins. If you cannot meditate in a village that has been turned over by a death squad, then you cannot meditate at all. He closes his eyes and he hears this sound, in the distance, getting closer, rising up, from inside the cavity of the body, he says, rising up inside but still somehow outside of him, it is getting louder, it is the OM, he thinks to himself, this shit is real, he says, the OM is real, this charnel OM, rising up in protection, this beautiful drone underpinning and containing and supporting everything, holding things up, and he feels an incredible sense of calm, even as he can hear wild dogs turning over the carnage, even as he can smell the rotting corpses, still, he feels a tremendous sense of calm as the tone gets louder and louder and then he opens his eyes.
A rider is approaching. A man on a motorbike, approaching so slowly that Rehberg cannot believe the speed is enough to even hold him up. He watches as the silhouette gets closer and closer, slowly, endlessly, it is as if it is floating as it enters the environs of the village and makes straight for him, slowly, like a levitating fakir or a Buddhist two inches above the ground. Rehberg draws his weapon. The rider pulls up a few yards away and dismounts. He removes his helmet and puts his hands in the air. It is Pierre.
Another summer.
2. BROTHERHOOD OF JOURNEYS WITHOUT END
Rehberg introduces himself as a theologian and a soldier of fortune. Pierre introduces himself as an art historian, an explorer, and a lover of stone. Pierre has been buccaneering, that’s the term he uses, across Egypt, Ethiopia, Palestine and the Transjordan, where he took a hammer and chisel, completely illegally, to a small section of the Temple of Isis carved into the side of a mountain near Petra. He removes a small Isis figure from the satchel of his motorbike and hands it to Rehberg. Obviously, nature has to exist so we may rape it, Pierre says. He is quoting Picasso. Primitive weaponry, Rehberg says, in return, and they both laugh and come to an immediate understanding. Then Pierre shows him a stone head that he recovered somewhere in Egypt, he says, a stone head severed at the neck and with that same beaded Sumerian/Egyptian hair or headdress style and with a perfect nose and with blind open eyes and with a strange childlike smile on its lips. Rehberg is, of course, startled. Does it talk? he asks Pierre. Of course, Pierre says; stone speaks.
They walk through the camp and survey the carnage. Rehberg explains that he has been staying in the camp in order to learn how to meditate. Pierre tells him that meditation is the perfect waste of time. Exactly, Rehberg says. But what do you intend to do after you master it? Pierre asks him. It’s a good question, Rehberg admits. Then he tells Pierre how he danced with the corpse of his friend, how he held his dead body in his arms and allowed him to evacuate all over him, that was the word he used, evacuate, all over him. Pierre tells him of the Buddhist practice of sleeping in graveyards in order to get to know, and so to conquer, the fear of death. Rehberg has never heard of it before and is astounded. Which is to make of your heart a mighty fortress, Pierre says, and once again Rehberg is perturbed and amazed at the confluence of these parallel streams, the Blue and the White Nile, he thinks, and on, into Egypt.
I have been attempting to destroy all of the compassion inside me, Rehberg tells Pierre, I have been attempting to kill it stone dead, he says. But stone isn’t dead, Pierre tells him. Stone speaks. At this point Rehberg doesn’t dare reveal that mummified heads speak, too, from the bottom of terrible wells.
I, too, have no compassion left inside me, Pierre says, as they sit over a meal of charred feral goat, by a firepit, in the night of this desert, in the company of corpses. Africa has taken it all from me, he says. Rather, he says, I came to Africa in order to give it all away. The Blue Nile and the White Nile, Rehberg thinks to himself, as he looks up at the stars in the night sky. I have determined to get out of the way of God’s plan, Rehberg says. Then getting out of the way is part of God’s plan, Pierre says. No, Rehberg says, and he attempts to rephrase it, I have determined to be done with the judgement of God’s plan. Everything is perfect, he says, but the balance is precarious. There, Pierre says, and he picks up a handful of sand and allows it to run through his fingers. There, I have loaded the dice, he says. You have done no such thing, Rehberg says, for it was God who commanded it, and they both laugh, and bite into the foul charred goat with relish and look around in the night and imagine all of the corpses strewn across the desert as the word of the Lord and a sentence in heaven, a book, already written.
Rehberg and Pierre press on, deeper into Africa. Pierre tells Rehberg about the Karo women of Ethiopia, who he has been spending time with. They are the most beautiful women in the world, Pierre tells him. I doubt it, Rehberg says. No, Pierre says, really, they scar their own faces using broken glass and then pack the wounds with gunpowder in order to make a pattern of suffering on their faces in the name of great beauty. Wow. Okay. Have you ever made love to a woman whose face was as a constellation of perfectly formed scars? Pierre asks him. Only unwittingly, Rehberg shrugs, and they both laugh. They practise what they call Cleopatra’s Grip, Pierre tells him. They hold you inside them and they refuse you release and their faces, too, hold you in torments of passion and repulsion. It is the best cure I know, Pierre tells Rehberg, for lack of faith.
Rehberg rides on the back of Pierre’s motorcycle. They come to the village of the Karo where Pierre has been staying, with huts made of grass and sticks and small wooden compounds filled with horned cattle. It is Midsummer’s Day.
Rehberg sees the Karo women for the first time and he is awestruck. They are the most beautiful women in the world, he says, and it is all he can do not to reach out his hand to touch their constellated faces. It is as if the suffering stars themselves have come down and are risen, in the flesh, he says. The women gather around the motorcycle and take turns sitting on the seat and posing. Rehberg takes the small silver crucifix from around his neck and gifts it to one of the girls, who puts it around her head and hangs it from her ears so that now the crucified Christ dangles from her nose. Everyone laughs. The men are aloof and keep their distance. Pierre greets one of them and disappears inside a hut with a satchel from his motorcycle, leaving the women to stand and stare at Rehberg, some of them coming so close to his face that he can smell their fetid breath, which stinks like a boneyard. He imagines Pierre having sex with them, putting his tongue in their mouth and tasting their rank insides, and he gets an erection. There are celebrations in the village tonight, Pierre announces when he exits the hut. Behind him a tall black man emerges with a semi-automatic pistol strapped to his side. I just made a very good deal, Pierre winks, but when Rehberg asks him what the deal is he is evasive. Trading in contraband, is all he says, and he nods towards the pistol. The night is coming on.
The village elder appears dressed in an Adidas T-shirt and wearing the corpse of a cow. The sand all around is stained with its blood. A man with two mangled stumps for legs is dancing on the spot. A group of women with the scarred faces have set a long table where the insides of the animal are served blackened by the fire. Rehberg and Pierre are given tumblers of a clear, pungent liquid that feels as if it is pickling their insides. This whole village is a hospital. Afterwards someone produces a cassette recorder and they play a sort of endless and unvarying guitar music that repeats itself over and over again while the women dance by kicking up the sand and the men clap and sway. The tall man with the pistol is drunk and occasionally shoots a round into the air in time with the music. At a separate table a group of men are drawing hands from a James Bond 007 Tarot deck. The Tower, Rehberg sees The Tower, we are the destroyer of The Tower, he thinks, he feels drugged, nauseous, and he looks to Pierre, who is happily conversing, in God knows what language, with a man on the other side of the table wearing a baseball cap with a picture of what looks like a spark plug on it. He has a glass eye, or just a glassy eye, or an open eye, a clear eye, Rehberg can barely think straight. His left eye is a marble. The man with the stumps is crawling around under the table and scrabbling for scraps. The guy with the glass eye (is it?) and the spark plug hat (?) kicks at him as he passes. What happened to him? Rehberg asks Pierre and Pierre asks his friend. Spider bites, he says, and he draws a finger across his stomach as though he would disembowel himself. There is a commotion at the other table as a man with a long kimono and a bullet belt pulls a pistol on the man reading the cards. He has drawn Death, and he is angry. These morons think Death means death, Pierre spits, and he shouts something mocking towards them, The Hanged Man means death by upside-down hanging, you simpletons, he says, something like that, but luckily no one can hear him. I knew The Hanged Man, Rehberg says, but he is slurring his words. What? I knew The Hanged Man, only his name was The Ostrich, he says. What? The Hanged Man is bitten in the head by the spider, he says. What? The man with the spark plug hat (or is it a boat, on fire, or is it a coffin, giving off light?) laughs and says something to Pierre, who shrugs. Then he addresses Rehberg directly. You know the game of the spider? the man says, and now his head is the eye of the spider in the dream and his eye is the head of the spider and in his eye the weeping heads are begging for release. Yes, he says, I know the game, yes. You want to play? the man asks him. Yes, Rehberg says, yes, I want to get back into the game. What are you talking about? Pierre asks him. Do you know what the game of the spider even is? I know, Rehberg says, I know because I have seen it perched on my own chest but was afraid to move. I want to get back into the game, he says. The game is to put your hand in without disturbing the spider, the man says, and the faces are weeping, and begging him, in his glassy eye the faces are begging for release. I want to play the game, Rehberg says. The man with the lightning box (?) on his hat stands up and says something to the group. There are gasps and mocking comments and laughter and the women are talking amongst themselves and are pointing. Okay, the man with the coffin on fire (?) says, let’s do it. And now there is clarity.
You’re insane, Pierre says, this is pointless, you have no idea what you are doing, he says, and he speaks to the man in God only knows what language in an attempt to convince him that his friend is drunk and is crazy and has no idea what he is talking about. Get out of my face, Rehberg says to Pierre, and he gets up close to him, so he can smell his rank breath. Pierre shrugs, and shakes his head, but he backs down. Rehberg is led to a sandbank along the way. There are two burrows next to each other, running into the earth. Baboon, the man says, and points to the burrows. Huh? Monkeys? Rehberg asks him. Spiders, the man says. Baboon spiders. Then: make your choice, he says. The men are gathered around him. The women are straining to see. Make your choice. Then it comes to him, Rehberg says, faith and awe, he says, and he hears these words, spoken, from each of the burrows, from the bottom of deep wells sunk endless into the earth he hears the disembodied words faith & awe. It is the Lion of Judah, speaking.
Choose, the men are shouting, choose one, and things are rising to a pitch. Faith, he says. I choose faith, and he puts his right hand into the left burrow. Nothing happens. There is a feeling of soft silk, it is surprising, like sliding your hand into the panties of a yielding woman. All around there is perfect silence. No one dares draw a breath. Faith, Rehberg says, I have chosen faith, he says, and he looks around the silent group, and away from his hand, as he buries it, elbow-deep, in the burrow. Then he holds it there. And nothing happens.
For long seconds nothing happens.
Then the spider bites him, and he screams in pain and in terror, and withdraws his hand with a suppurating hole in its centre. And now there is panic and confusion.
Holy shit, someone says, he will die. Rehberg is holding his hand out before him and already the poison is making its way up his forearm. He evacuates all over himself. He vomits, and staggers, and he shits his trousers. He is a dead man, someone says. Pierre catches him and holds him up. Get a knife, Pierre is screaming, get me a fucking sword, he shouts. He calls for primitive weaponry.
Already the tissues in his arm are breaking down, his blood vessels leaking, the skin blistering. Hold him down, Pierre shouts, and a group of men leap on him and pin him to the sand. A man bursts from the crowd with a blade the size of his forearm. Pierre raises it above his head and brings it down again and again, breaking the bones and sawing through the flesh until his arm hangs loose enough to be torn from his body. Rehberg is unconscious, or he might be dead, and the sand is stained with his blood and his gore. Everyone stands around and looks at each other in awe, and in confusion, all except for the man with the twin stumps, who is pissing himself laughing. This whole village is a hospital, he mocks, and he spits on the ground and turns summersaults.
And now there is an inexplicable gap in our story.
3. ERA OF SAD WINGS
Let’s jump straight in, shall we. Let’s be damned with time and show up, again, on the doorstep of my old boyfriend and make a right nuisance of ourselves. Hey Danny, I’ve gotten nowhere to live cause of I got kicked out my house for being too in love with you, poet, let’s say to him, and see where that lands us. Let’s wear a beret, an actual beret, and a raincoat, like a French love affair, and with lingerie underneath, like a French commercial, like a French advertisement for wildness and beauty, let me show up like that. Read us a poem, Danny, you are so hot. Danny, your mother died a few months before. Danny, do you remember? That’s what makes you the first poem of my life. Loving and dying were ideas to me then, they were words on a page, your poetry. And your belief, your arrogance, your unbuttoned shirt, is the name of the game, still.
Still, lie there on your back and we will make it alright. Lie there on your back, unbuttoned shirt, unbuttoned and with sleeves pulled back over your bare shoulders, your chin with its red rash on it, your nose is bonkers, your dark hair down over your bare shoulders, too, the cigarettes stubbed out on your stereo, pockmarked with burns, you smell of chewing gum and shower gel, your sexy skinny body and the way your cocked popped out your pants—cocked popped, I remember that right—cocked popped right out like elastic, force, like hot boy in a council house it’s me, to a soundtrack of the Stranglers you’re fingering me and turning me on, it’s me, baby.
What wonderful situation should I return to next? But there must be a build-up, no?
So far away, was Edinburgh, was Edinburgh, to me. I am stood there in the station like in awe and confusion. All awe is me, naive, smart as fuck, but with a lot to learn, okay, coming up: one hell of a lot to learn. Believe me.
Now I’m stripping at a titty bar in the Pubic Triangle and I am learning things fast; like how to roll customers, how to play them. Plus I’m learning about ice cubes, how you put them in your mouth when you suck them off in the toilets, I’m learning about how they feel good and are hygienic too, when they’re not too clean down there how ice cubes can be hygienic, and fun, and I’m giggling now, with the memory, I slipped one up my ass, I put ice cubes in my ass one by one and let them melt in me and trickle out, what an ice-cold feeling.
I’m a ceramicist by trade, I’m a ceramicist, is what I tell my customers, an artist gotta eat, I tell them. I’m a ceramicist only after I see Picasso painted one of his plates, they have it on display in Edinburgh when I arrive there in awe and confusion only without direction, that’s one thing I was lacking as I got on the train, and then I sees this plate, Picasso has painted a plate, I tell myself, well how bloody simple, I say, to paint plates to your own design, and to eat off them too, I say, and that’s me right there: sold, and hungry.
Penny Apostrophe is my fantasy name, honey, only it reads Penny Apo’strophe, then Penny von Strophe, then Hildegard von Strophe after I heard about the woman who was as soft as a feather on the breath of God; that’s me, I said, as I felt the breath of men on me, their hot stinky breath on me and blown this way, and to that.
Danny enters the picture again. Danny enters stage left, and stands there, radiating, Danny you were a radiator. There were two types of men in my life that I fell for all along: radiators and powerhouses. Max was a powerhouse. Danny was a radiator, whose chests you cuddle up on, whose hair you muzzle in, whose pale white bodies you grasp so tight. Maximilian Rehberg and Hildegard von Strophe, we were made for each other, baby. But wait, I’m still being made, and Danny is radiating:
He is reading from Nietzsche. Danny is reading from a section that he says is about faith, is the definition of faith, and he is reading about living according to no ideas whatsoever, which is to live unlimited, which is never to be as less than life, he says, as less than life was his exact words, I don’t think they were Nietzsche’s, he is reading me this in a bedsit near the Meadows, by candlelight, and I am curled up on his chest and muzzling, and nuzzling, what’s he say about the death of God, he says that God is dead and science too, because God and science are ideas and ideas won’t take us any further into revealing our true names to ourselves, that is what he is saying, that our true names are given to us in what we do, that we find ourselves in action, not in thought, and don’t mistake the two either, he says, and he is giving me all sorts of ideas so I feel conflicted but no, I immediately crush them and move on, we are at the period where our true names are revealing themselves in actions and we are living together like two artistic criminals, without a safety net, which is to say yes to exactly what is in front of you, to admit that, yes, okay, I chose all of it, I knew what I was getting into right from the start, so I can hardly bitch about it, can I, which is where fun things like ice cubes come in, which is where fun details intervene, which is called aestheticising your life, which is what Danny says we should do, Danny says, he says that we should all just relax. It’s the 1980s, and a long way till 1991.
