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

book or papers, waiting, on the wall an old-fashioned ticking clock, the only visible one since the brothel had Vegas rules, no customer should be able to see the time. I waited, time aged at a chelonian pace when I was a child, I stared at the black hands of the clock, willing them to move, to no avail, I would count to agonizing infinity and back and look up and barely a minute had passed. I remember that clock, round, the size of a salad dish, Arabic numbers on a subdued light gray, an oyster-colored background, I remember the pages in front of me, writing the alphabet slowly, the alef, the standing line, trying to make it fit within the predetermined boundaries, and glancing up at the clock once more and again, understanding that my mother had not woken up. My aunties would stir awake one by one, come down for the late lunch, and my mother would always be the last, always the last. She would be happy to see me, ruffle my most unrufflable hair, but she wasn’t a day person and it would take her a few hours to regain full cheerfulness. Her jellabiya was
puce,
I still see it so clearly, Doc, so clearly,
puce
is the French word for flea, it’s the color of bloodstains, and was Marie Antoinette’s favorite because if you squashed a flea on it, you couldn’t see the stain, but even though the whorehouse certainly had its share of fleas, I doubt my mother ever considered the connection. She rarely considered much else than what was directly in front of her, which was where I tried to be. I buzzed around her like a hummingbird around its zinnia, Look at me, look at me, her head was usually down, hair covered her face, she would grunt, hum, ah-huh, and yes toeverything I said, until she stabbed my heart with an Enough now, or a Can’t you see I’m tired, and I would slouch and begin my second phase of waiting, waiting until she recovered and bloomed.
    Slowly she perked up and began to smile, and as soon as she was able to pay me some mind, the muezzin’s call would echo from the masjid four streets away, time for evening prayers, the only ones that the entire house observed, the prayer rugs unrolled, Auntie Badeea owned the most intricate and my favorite, fine wool woven to depict a white mosque, its blue minaret topped by a delicate golden crescent, my mother’s barely a step up from a straw mat, the women all lined up facing toward Mecca, their foreheads and noses pressed the rugs thrice, while I remained still behind the murmuring hive so as not to distract their humming hearts promising devotion, I waited impatiently for the ritual to finish, hoping for a few seconds of attention, since the end of prayer was the time to get ready for work and the cycle.
    The eternal return, the men returned, my aunties preened, evening in full bloom, Auntie Badeea descended the stairs, the laughter, the merriment, my mother left with a man, other couples paired up in rooms, and Auntie Badeea showered me with adoration, What poem shall you recite for me this evening, she would ask, take care of your Auntie Badeea who loves you most of all. She loved me and she showed it, I loved her right back, but not enough, not enough, because even then, when the Austrian or Australian finished fucking my mother, when the Englishman had left a deposit in one illicit container or another, when the Russian returned to the lounge to wait for friends, to settle up hisbill or gather his wits, then the American noticed me, I was there with Auntie Badeea. Such a cute boy, the German, the Swede would say, so adorable. The man looked slightly less kempt than when he walked in, more sated, he exuded confidence and I-fucked-your-mother from every pore, he smiled at me, a smile stronger than destiny, such a cute kid, such a sweet boy. I loved Auntie Badeea, I loved my mother, but I worshipped the man, I made him my religion.

Satan’s Interviews
Death
    “Forgetting is good for the soul,” Death said. “Not just good, but necessary. How do you expect them to