Carnival A Novel by Rawi Hage

Author:Rawi Hage
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780393072426
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2013-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

SALLY

THE DRUG DEALER left a message on my phone. The fucker never says anything but Yeah, we are on tonight, same, same, and he hangs up.

I waited for him at eight at the usual place. We drove around and checked on a few dealers of his. He shook and slapped a few hands, and then he wanted to stop at a strip club for some business, as he put it. Wait here, I’ll be back in an hour, he said. Park in the back alley, I’ll tell the bouncer that you’re with me. Just keep cool, I’ll be back.

I waited and watched as the dancing girls arrived. They carried their bags on their shoulders and waited for the bouncer to open the door and let them in. Neither acknowledged the other.

I knew a dancer named Sally once; I used to wait for her every Thursday and drive her home late, after her shift was over. She was smart, well-read, she was studying French literature at the local university, and we hit it off. First we talked about books, because she saw a book lying on the dashboard of my car. I believe I was reading Jean Genet at the time, Our Lady of the Flowers. And when she saw it her eyes brightened. A reader, she said, and smiled.

Sally grabbed the book, flipped through it, and said, Listen, I have nothing against masturbation, but don’t you think the act is a bit overdone in this novel?

What else is there to do when you have a free spirit and you are confined to a small world of jailers and walls? I said. What else is there to do but to summon the world and lament and masturbate beneath your jailer’s nose, and break his keys and his chains?

Sure, I guess, whatever keeps you sane, said Sally. It’s a masterpiece in its lyricism, but it gets suffocating, claustrophobic. I can’t imagine being kept in a cell, I’d die.

And then she asked me about my working hours. I said, I have no particular shift. My hours are flexible. I work here and there for as long as necessary to cover the car rent and the gas, and so that I will be left with a little change.

Are you hungry? she asked.

A little, but I would love to see your bookshelf first, I said. Unless you prefer to see mine.

I have a feeling that your collection would be a bit intense for me tonight. The last thing I need is another image of a metal bar. I danced around one all night. Is pasta okay?

Yes, I said, and we talked about our lives some more. She wanted to be a professor of literature. She’d never believed in loans and debt, so to support herself and pay her tuition, she worked Thursdays as a dancer and a couple of nights a week as an escort. She was strong and had rules: she never kissed her clients on the mouth, she made it clear that they

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