After I left the temple, I walked out to the high valley and up the Kadisha mountains of the Lebanon range. A wild boar smelled the blood on my thighs and charged at me with his tusks. I bled and watched the river turning red all the way through the valley and down to the Mediterranean Sea. There was an instant bloom all over the land: cedars sprung like uncircumcised male genitals, and water gushed like springs between the Nile and the Euphrates. Everything seemed to thrust and climax with the beat of howlers and ejaculators who covered the land with white semen, evermore to be mistaken for sacred snow.
MARY (AGAIN)
I WASHED MYSELF and called Mary. She sounded a bit incoherent on the phone. She talked about her husband, who had threatened that if the necklace was not returned. . and she was crying, telling me I’d stolen from her and betrayed her. I assured her that I still had the necklace and would bring it back to her. I asked her to wait for me.
I took my rescue plane and flew towards her place. She hadn’t eaten in a few days, she said. And her hair was not washed; it looked lumpy. She was skinny, with bags under her eyes. I gave her the necklace and the medicine. She threw the medicine against the wall and said, This is shit. It doesn’t work. I am not crazy, I don’t need any pills for my head.
I held her, she seemed frail. I opened the fridge and took out a container of yogurt. I smelled it and tasted it and spooned some into a glass bowl and gave it to her.
I can’t leave the house, she said. I am afraid of all those creatures in their masks and their masquerades, smiling. They creep me out.
It is the Carnival, I reminded her.
No, it is hell. They are all demons underneath. I pray that they go away. I pray all the time. The virgin will help me. I will pray to her.
I asked Mary if she had someone, a friend, I could call. Parents, anyone.
No, she said. They are all gone. Dead. I’ll pray, she kept on saying. I’ll pray, because Jesus loves me.
There must be someone I can call besides Jesus, I said. Jesus hardly ever replies to calls, not for the past two thousand years.
Father Smiley. Call Father Smiley.
What is his number? I asked.
I don’t know.
Where can I find him?
In the church, she whispered.
Which one?
St. Mary’s Church.
I’ll find it, I told her.
THE CHURCH WAS closed. I went around to the little house beside it and knocked on the door. An old woman answered. I guessed that she was the secretary, judging from her glasses and her busy desk. She made me wait and then, eventually, she showed me into the priest’s office.
Mister Priest, I said.
Call me Father John.
Mister John, I said. It’s Mary. She is not well. She sent me here to see you.
Which Mary?
Not that one, I said, pointing at the icon on the wall. The angelic Mary with black hair, I said.
Her family name?
I’m not sure, I never asked, but we are friends and she is not well.
Yes, but like I said, my son, there are many Marys. I myself know several.
What if I called her Reading Mary? She always has a book in her hands. Glasses, nice. . well, nice smile, I guess.
Yes indeed, said the priest, and lifted his index finger towards the ceiling. I know who you are talking about now.
She is not well, I repeated.
I’ll come with you. Are you driving?
I am in a taxi.
Right. Let’s hurry up then, we wouldn’t want the driver to hike the fare.
WHEN WE GOT to Mary’s, the priest sat down next to her, held her hand, and said, How are you, my child?
Father, she said, make them go away. They are all devils. They are everywhere, Father. They are all talking and moving around me at the same time. The voices. .
The priest took me aside and whispered: She needs to be taken to the psychiatric hospital. I know someone I can rely on there.
When the priest asked her to come with him, though, Mary refused to leave the apartment. They are out there, Father, she kept saying.
Have no fear, I told her. Just hold on to the Father’s cross and zap them away.
The priest frowned at me, but my advice worked. Mary hugged the old priest with one hand and held the cross with the other and pointed it towards the neighbours’ doors and at every corner of the stairs and in the lobby. We managed to walk down the street and get in the car and drive.
At the hospital, Mary was helped out of the car by an attendant and she was taken away through a glass door.
The priest followed behind her, but I was not allowed to go in. I watched my Mary disappear.
BURIAL
EARLY THE NEXT morning, I picked up a clown from the street. Or at least I thought he was a clown, walking with a wobble and a smile. He was drunk but I didn’t notice: even I, a guesser who had grown up among performers and impersonators, failed to see the tragedy beneath the disguise. The clown entered my car and collapsed on the back seat. I tried to wake him but he chuckled and cried and then passed out. I feared that he had died, until I finally heard him puff and snore. I was happy he was alive, so I took off my jacket and covered him.
I drove aimlessly until I arrived at the city shore. I left the clown sleeping in the car and walked towards the river and lit a cigarette. When the bearded lady died, after a long and painful illness, I kissed her beard and left her in her bed, then I bought a shovel and returned in the middle of the night. I wrapped her in a quilt, carried her small body on my shoulders, and laid her in the back seat of my delivery car. I drove outside of town. I passed the cemeteries and all I saw was rows of marble and a legacy of stones. The herd always lies together but the Jinn passes through the night alone, the Arabs would say. I stayed in my car and waited for the dawn. I made a hole in the ground. I climbed a nearby tree and swung like a monkey; I hoofed the ground like a horse, sprinkled dust like an elephant, and mourned like an owl. I dropped the quilt like falling curtains, I applauded for the final act, I turned off the sign on the top of my roof, I covered the rearview mirror with a little piece of cloth, and I drove back to the city alone.