The Angel of History by Alameddine Rabih Read Free Book Online Page A

sure to arrive early whenever they were bringing a newbie so he could witness her great art, but when it came time to withdraw into the private rooms, they redirected their buzzard eyes, they chose to fuck my mother, they sure did. She was younger, prettier, drank Pepsi and 7UP, blushedeasily, covered her mouth when giggling, and had just the right touch of nonthreatening exoticness, just a tad. Isn’t that also why you liked me, Doc, my tad of exoticness?
    Since my mother was busy most of the time, Auntie Badeea took care of me. You would think that at some point a younger model would have replaced her, someone who would have been able to provide the house with a steadier and plumper income, but you’d be wrong. Irreplaceable she was, Auntie Badeea spoke passable pimp in a few languages including English. Idiosyncratic she was, those American men loved being around her, found her amusing if not fuckable. An outstanding cook, whenever she approached a stove, God’s stomach would begin to rumble. That was not all, she had a wonderful sense of humor, a lightness of heart, an infectious love of a good joke that I’ve never seen replicated anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, whenever she told a joke, mountains craned their necks and leaned in not wishing to miss a punch line, when she laughed, men wanted to eat her up, but no one wanted to eat her pussy. You Americans are so fucked up, Doc, so fucked up, you have no clue how cruel you are, clueless cruelty.
    Soon after Auntie Badeea finished painting her lady face, she’d joke with the customers, ruckus and raillery and merriment in broken English, goad the undecided into choosing the right girl for his next orgasm, and sit me on her lap, well, on her thigh since she was usually odalisquing. Blow on my face, my sweet Ya’qub, the powder has to dry, sing for me, she’d say, recite Abu Nuwas, I love his poetry but not as much as I love you. When the audience thinned out, she carried me to the kitchen, fed me, made me read aloud to her while I stuffed my mouth with her cooking,poetry, light puerile rhymes first, quite more adult as I grew up, but always rhymes, Arabic poetry always rhymed. She put me in her bed and I slept long before my mother finished satisfying for the night.
    Auntie Badeea usually woke to find me inventing the most elaborate games while sitting on the floor outside my mother’s door, serving tea to Sultan Ahmad, who entertained King George of Britannica, the latter so enthralled by my tea-serving prowess that he wished to steal me from my master, while I demurred and blushed and covered my mouth and giggled. After my fairly ritualized morning ablutions, brush my teeth, wash my face, under my arms, I was forced to read and write in the kitchen while Auntie Badeea sang and hovered around pots heating atop the woodstove like a mother hen with her chicks. Old Egyptian recipes she cooked, flavored with old Egyptian folk songs, she even sang Yemeni folk songs that she learned during her short stay, lovely songs, not like Ofra Haza, remember her, the Israeli singer you used to like to dance to, whom I couldn’t stand, and you insisted she was singing Yemeni songs that she heard while growing up in Tel Aviv, because that’s what the album cover said in clear lettering, yet I hadn’t heard any of those songs before, and you accused me of being insensitive and racist even, and you made me listen to her over and over and over so I couldn’t get the songs out of my head even though I hated them and I hated her, until she died of AIDS, just like all of us, she was just like us, and I felt so guilty for hating her, and I forgave her sins, but I couldn’t forgive mine. Ofra’s songs did not compare well with those of Auntie Badeea, couldn’t measure up, because Auntie’s voice was gravelly like sea pebbles on the beach, ideal forthose old melodies. Auntie Badeea’s singsong melodies bore me across the grooves of childhood.
    I sat at the kitchen table with my