I woke just before my alarm went off at 5:20. Eating good savory fuul in bread as I passed the Cairo Opera House, handing a pound to the beggar woman who sleeps on the bridge, I was the first one to the boathouse. The sun was inches above the buildings above the Nile. Of course the fisherfolk were already in the water. Gradually athletes and athletes-to-be and coaches showed up. I stayed until 9, rowing or sitting in two different boats. It was the first time I or Karim learned anything, the big-bellied jovial coach sitting in the bow of the tippy four-man boat instructing us. He told me my shoulders were too tense and I realized in 29 years no stranger had read in me such an accurate physical detail. It wasn’t easy; I banged my pinky on one clumsy sweep. He ordered me to look at Karim’s back rather than my oar so I was forced to extend my senses through the oar, to feel it splash too low as I rolled forward, swinging it back, or break free too easily.
We rowed, hardly aware so intent we were, under the bridge humming with cars, and back under. Then he turned his attention on the other two rowers, so Karim and I hunched forward, oars nestled up against our bellies to drag the water’s surface, and watched large clumps of dislodged water plants float past, trailing rainbows of oil, looking like sea monsters in the hazy glare.
We let off the two rear guys and let in a girl and a boy. She stepped in behind me as a dockmate held the slender boat steady, and I heard him ask her name. “Rinfahim,” she said sweetly, and the confounded man blurted several attempts at the unusual name as she laughed and repeated it. “It could be an actresses,” she said and I could hear her smile. I knew she was claimed, for she had sat next to one of our fellow rowers while waiting, both somber as tombs of love, and she was so damn young but that was why I loved being near her, hearing her voice half-shy still, a whisper of breeze amplified by a microphone accidentally at hand, and musical laughter not at all intending melody, as the big coach fell in love with her, standing in the bow, leaning against the cord around his belly, springing any joke into his instructions just to provoke that music, his wispy hair crested up by the breeze over his massive, granite head, his gestures and smiles those of a conductor pouring affection over an adored musician who knows she is adored, and provoked to song. Then I knew what it was for the old to love the young: midway (in two ways) between the girl and the craggy captain.
“Bravo alaiki ya Rin!” he would bellow at her, echoing in me slumped forward, looking sideways and seeing only her oar flash out of the water, not needing to see her face. A big bunch of plants slipped by against the boat and out of it the coach plucked a pink flower and put it beside himself and I smiled at the coincidence of my mind and his, allegedly as distant as two banks of a cultural canyon – and at how alive I felt there on the River Nile.
I also ran a mile waiting for another boat. The only people out on the street at 7 am were men in ill-fitting uniforms with machine guns, and two fisher-folk waifs. The exercise, the girl behind me in the boat, and the coach giving her the stray flower, and being out on the polluted, free water, made me very happy the rest of the day.
Showing posts with label 1998. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1998. Show all posts
Sunday, June 3, 2007
cairo barbershop
The sun throws a square on me. A dog barks from a rooftop in the hellish white landscape yawning out beyond my window. He is lonely; he pestered a woman. She brandished a brick. He was cowed. Last night when I went down on the street perfumed smoke lay in the busy air; the Eid holiday is coming and goats and cows munch grass before butcher shops. This morning, I throw open the windows -- the scent of burning plastic invades our rooms.
Sitting in the barbershop the insistent waver of Umm Kalthum’s scratchy voice lulled me out of the magazine I was reading. Two men were playing backgammon. They were in their thirties, tossing the dice, rapidly responding. One man tossed the dice with a downward swipe of the wrist. I smiled to myself, felt lulled by or into the atmosphere, heard a third man comment on their quiet game. When the barber motioned me to the chair I sank further into it all; the dregs in the tea glass in front of the mirror were as rich a golden brown as my silence. The barber too, inquisitive a moment, was silent once he ascertained my attitude of indifferent confidence in his ability.
His scissors clacked constantly like a hovering bird plucking at my hair; closing my eyes I felt the metal beak touch my brow a moment and fly clacking away again. Still the music plucked away at me and her voice smoothed me right back down. He touched the buzzing shaver to the back of my neck. A spray of water tingled over my scalp and his hands rubbed my hair wet. In the mirror were our two faces; we communicated silences, mine of contentment, his of focus. He drew my part slowly several times, with an architect’s precision for line. I heard the group of men joking. One finds a culture’s genius of male communion in obscure places.
Walking home I saw the men sitting in shadows, half inside doorways, saw the group of boys digging down into a sandpile, saw two boy grease monkeys carrying a metal frame, saw a middle aged couple walk by thick-middled preoccupied with the most mundane of worries, heard two street sweepers conferring under a tree, heard a breeze walking across treetops, crossed the line into our neighborhood and saw the sheep and cows tied, saw the carcasses hanging from hooks, lit by strings of cheerful lights.
Sitting in the barbershop the insistent waver of Umm Kalthum’s scratchy voice lulled me out of the magazine I was reading. Two men were playing backgammon. They were in their thirties, tossing the dice, rapidly responding. One man tossed the dice with a downward swipe of the wrist. I smiled to myself, felt lulled by or into the atmosphere, heard a third man comment on their quiet game. When the barber motioned me to the chair I sank further into it all; the dregs in the tea glass in front of the mirror were as rich a golden brown as my silence. The barber too, inquisitive a moment, was silent once he ascertained my attitude of indifferent confidence in his ability.
His scissors clacked constantly like a hovering bird plucking at my hair; closing my eyes I felt the metal beak touch my brow a moment and fly clacking away again. Still the music plucked away at me and her voice smoothed me right back down. He touched the buzzing shaver to the back of my neck. A spray of water tingled over my scalp and his hands rubbed my hair wet. In the mirror were our two faces; we communicated silences, mine of contentment, his of focus. He drew my part slowly several times, with an architect’s precision for line. I heard the group of men joking. One finds a culture’s genius of male communion in obscure places.
Walking home I saw the men sitting in shadows, half inside doorways, saw the group of boys digging down into a sandpile, saw two boy grease monkeys carrying a metal frame, saw a middle aged couple walk by thick-middled preoccupied with the most mundane of worries, heard two street sweepers conferring under a tree, heard a breeze walking across treetops, crossed the line into our neighborhood and saw the sheep and cows tied, saw the carcasses hanging from hooks, lit by strings of cheerful lights.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
beijing station's forlorn birds
We sat in the fourth row above the rising violin bows and gazed at the angels of light leaping lightly across the stage, rising a moment on a toe, other leg suspended curving -- . . . never to fall.
But in my heart were the faces of the girls at Beijing Station. Red lips drew my eyes as I bounded the last two steps out of the subway and she was so close the almost-blank thick face could not have not seen my glance. Past her I stopped to wait for the others. Her thick torso was enwrapped in a dress; small breasts pushed high. Who was she waiting for? Like an invisible thread strung in a split moment my glance pulled her slowly around to find me standing there, to give me a glance.
It makes me so sad, this being born master and slave.
Our laughter wrapped us and trailed out behind us like a cloud of aura in alienness sloughing off bits as we wove through the clusters of poor folk not laughing sniffing the bits of cloud of our cheer. In the thinness of our filmy cheer I saw other women like the one at the top of the stairs. They had not gone so far as to wait there by the people rivering up out of the ground, nakedly waiting someone like a bride in an arranged marriage awaiting without any escort a groom recognizable only by glance, a groom not even aware until that moment his destination. They stood near their men or went about in pairs, forlorn birds. I saw their shiny gold elastic holding their hair severely back. I saw their black smooth pants stretched taut across their crotches. I saw their shoes, soles three inches thick holding them tottering above the earth. I saw their lipstick burning an outline of lips beyond the bound of their real lips, like a stamp clumsily smashed home like a giant, I saw their wrists circled by bangles manufactured in giant factories I saw canyons of misery. And theirs wasn’t the only misery there but it was the only misery screaming itself across the canyon of cool grey sky and milling faces outside Beijing Station, seeking to draw more faces’ response: even if the response be just misery glancing echoed back off walls of rocky men.
But in my heart were the faces of the girls at Beijing Station. Red lips drew my eyes as I bounded the last two steps out of the subway and she was so close the almost-blank thick face could not have not seen my glance. Past her I stopped to wait for the others. Her thick torso was enwrapped in a dress; small breasts pushed high. Who was she waiting for? Like an invisible thread strung in a split moment my glance pulled her slowly around to find me standing there, to give me a glance.
It makes me so sad, this being born master and slave.
Our laughter wrapped us and trailed out behind us like a cloud of aura in alienness sloughing off bits as we wove through the clusters of poor folk not laughing sniffing the bits of cloud of our cheer. In the thinness of our filmy cheer I saw other women like the one at the top of the stairs. They had not gone so far as to wait there by the people rivering up out of the ground, nakedly waiting someone like a bride in an arranged marriage awaiting without any escort a groom recognizable only by glance, a groom not even aware until that moment his destination. They stood near their men or went about in pairs, forlorn birds. I saw their shiny gold elastic holding their hair severely back. I saw their black smooth pants stretched taut across their crotches. I saw their shoes, soles three inches thick holding them tottering above the earth. I saw their lipstick burning an outline of lips beyond the bound of their real lips, like a stamp clumsily smashed home like a giant, I saw their wrists circled by bangles manufactured in giant factories I saw canyons of misery. And theirs wasn’t the only misery there but it was the only misery screaming itself across the canyon of cool grey sky and milling faces outside Beijing Station, seeking to draw more faces’ response: even if the response be just misery glancing echoed back off walls of rocky men.
dirty words with mr. wang
In the back room of a restaurant – wallpaper simulating bricks around the doorways, plastic strips hung in the front doorway letting in chill night air – Mr. Wang shook his head disgustedly. “I can’t imagine two men kissing. I can’t imagine saying, ‘Brian, I love you!’” Inwardly I smiled for in the states he has “the look” which would bring scrutiny from gay men. His limber, perhaps flimsy body, seems blown about by wind. He has big glasses and eyes on the side of his face which one time, when he bunched his lips, made him look remarkably like a rat. He is curious, it seems, and he is not a malicious man.
It wasn’t long before I was describing the holes men dig in bathroom stalls through which to protrude their protuberances of pleasure. Once he came back with some sheets of paper to jot down terms as I watered him with colorful slang. “Beat the monkey,” seemed to tickly his fancy the best; I wracked my brains for words long since heard and perhaps never used by me. Probably even at the time I thought they were crude or silly but for some reason they were a bridge between this bookish, goofy English teacher and I. Our tea grew cold; we talked and laughed. When I found
he had paid the bill on the sly I demanded the owner return me his money and let me pay. This is the guy who absolutely refused compensation for the bike I had borrowed and gotten stolen, the guy who makes sixty dollars a month, the guy who wears long underwear knit by his mother, who had not eaten a bite of dinner – he pushed me protesting outside, my face slipping through the thick plastic strips.
We wandered past streaked humble windows of “small food” establishments and rounded a dark corner. “I drank too much tea,” he said, peering toward an anonymous brick structure, “I have to piss out. . .Now which side is it for men?” He took out his lighter and held it up, revealing a small cement plaque saying, “women.” We did not get far into the entrance, a putrid stream trickling through the dirt down to the road seemed to indicate an impromptu urinal right there – the lack of light inside and the astounding inaccuracy of Chinese anuses had discouraged night pissers from tiptoeing far into the hell hole, which is both slippery slopes and good intentions. So we stood at the entrance and pissed toward the wall.
Toward home, walking down a street lined by fort-like homes turning cold shoulders to the outside, he repeated his satisfaction with his new vocabulary. “This is very useful,” he said.
“But you can never use it,” I said.
“In secret, its very useful,” he insisted. He leaned toward me and whispered, “Do you know ‘kan chuanzi’? It is like, ‘beat the monkey.’”
“What?” I said.
He uttered the phrase again, louder, for me to repeat, and slapped a hand over his mouth, staring around. “It means, ‘split a slat.’” I repeated it several times, enjoying the new knowledge.
“Oh, do you know, ‘one-eyed warrior’?” I asked. He stopped, fished out his pen and wrote it on a paper in a faint light, laughing.
This is the same Wang who, a few weeks ago as we sat with his wife watching a bowling contest on TV, leaned over and said confidentially, “Did you know bowling is good for the stones?”
“No. . . “ I said, puzzled.
“Do you know stones?” he asked.
“You mean ---“ I said glancing at my crotch.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Why – where’d you hear that?” I asked. “Are you sure its good for them?”
“Francis Bacon wrote that,” he said, “Maybe I can remember it. . . . no.” He ran and brought back a book and, indeed, Francis Bacon 400 years ago hypothesized that “bowling is good for the stones, and hunting for the liver.” Then I taught him the double meaning of ‘get busy,’ and his wife, roused to curiosity by our laughter, asked in Chinese, “What’s the meaning, ‘get busy’?”
“It means you have a lot to do,” he said, raising his eyebrows at me, lighting a cigarette.
“Are you smoking again??” she said fiercely.
Saturday he brought me to his wife’s hometown, at the foot of some barren hills. After we drank tea in the spacious, clean house and I took a shit in the warehouse-sized bathroom with no door, we walked out across the fields toward the hills. Mr. Wang exclaimed, “I forgot my cigarettes! Wait for me here.” I waited on a bridge over a river as he asked a little boy in school-issue green sweats the way to a store. We reached the nearest hill and started to climb, Mr. Wang, smoker and non-exerciser, lifting his feet as ambitious as a mountain goat. When we stopped to rest he turned and saw a group of boys sitting at the bottom, watching us. They had followed us across the fields. He waved his arm once and the boys sprang to their feet immediately and started climbing, as if they had been puppies, or soldiers tuned to an officer’s slightest gesture.
I hung to Wang’s heels and finally we sat on the grassy ridgetop, which led, dipping and rising, barren like some Scottish peaks in my imagination, to the north. The boys were soon with us, and they leapt with vigor to everything: searching the trees for nuts, chasing the length of cassette tape they threw trailing through the air, setting afire the dry grass. Mr. Wang said, “You know I’m a teacher, don’t you? Don’t be burning the grass, what if it spreads to those trees? What does your teacher tell you?”
“To sit quietly. . .to value labor.”
“Well then,” said Mr. Wang, “Don’t burn the grass.” The boys obediently followed the letter of the law and simply set fire to their boxes of matches. One boy seemed to be the leader, in a striped red and white shirt, green sweatpants pulled high up his belly and knit blue undies hanging out the top. His head was shaved bristly and Mr. Wang rubbed it affectionately, and patted his belly. “Very good,” he said, “nice and fat.” He pulled up the boy’s shirt and poked his belly button and nipples. Wouldn’t that be considered child abuse in the US? The boy had a big grin and a foul tongue for such a little boy. Mr. Wang kept breaking out laughing at things he’d say. “tear your eggs,” and “fuck ass,” were how he translated them.
Mr. Wang stood behind Xiaofei and lifted him by his head; he looked like a rabbit grinning in pain. “This game is called, ‘pull up the carrot,’” said Mr. Wang. The boy sat next to him and played with the scanty wiry hairs on Mr. Wang’s white calf – his pant legs were pulled up. I pulled up my pant leg and beckoned the boy over, and he marveled at the dense hairs.
“What do you like to eat?” I asked him, resurrecting my Chinese from dormancy.
“Big chicken legs!” said he. I made a grab at his leg as he went by.
“Like this one?” I said.
He yelped, “Hey, that’s my leg, not a chicken’s!” For a while Mr. Wang encouraged the boys to stand on their heads, and do flips and cartwheels, which they did wholeheartedly, and Mr. Wang removed his sport jacket and flipped and stood on his head. I had to try too, raising my legs slowly into the air, blood rushing to my head, legs wavering, toppling on my back in the rough grass and pebbles. I also tried cartwheels, ridiculous attempts of flinging my legs about like noodles, the boys laughing. The boys cursed each other and Mr. Wang smiled affectionately.
“Rustic boys,” he said.
Coming down the slope, Xiaofei said to another boy, “I’ll cut a fart so stinky it’ll kill you!” I tried joking with him as Mr. Wang did, grabbing his hood from behind, making him protest, “I’m not a donkey!” or rubbing his bristly head, tugging his ears. He hung onto my shirt tied around my waist as we walked back through the village and suddenly the memory of Bobonaru, East Timor came back to me, and another group of boys, nimble as goats and also humorous, and a teacher. What reminded me of them was Xiaofei saying, “Your shirt’s tied around you like a skirt,” and that boy long years ago (in 1994), carrying my big boxer shorts spread across his shoulders, saying, “This is like a skirt!” I thought of the good teachers around the world.
The boys said good bye once and followed us “secretly” and finally bid us another farewell at the big green door of Wang’s in-law’s house.
It wasn’t long before I was describing the holes men dig in bathroom stalls through which to protrude their protuberances of pleasure. Once he came back with some sheets of paper to jot down terms as I watered him with colorful slang. “Beat the monkey,” seemed to tickly his fancy the best; I wracked my brains for words long since heard and perhaps never used by me. Probably even at the time I thought they were crude or silly but for some reason they were a bridge between this bookish, goofy English teacher and I. Our tea grew cold; we talked and laughed. When I found
he had paid the bill on the sly I demanded the owner return me his money and let me pay. This is the guy who absolutely refused compensation for the bike I had borrowed and gotten stolen, the guy who makes sixty dollars a month, the guy who wears long underwear knit by his mother, who had not eaten a bite of dinner – he pushed me protesting outside, my face slipping through the thick plastic strips.
We wandered past streaked humble windows of “small food” establishments and rounded a dark corner. “I drank too much tea,” he said, peering toward an anonymous brick structure, “I have to piss out. . .Now which side is it for men?” He took out his lighter and held it up, revealing a small cement plaque saying, “women.” We did not get far into the entrance, a putrid stream trickling through the dirt down to the road seemed to indicate an impromptu urinal right there – the lack of light inside and the astounding inaccuracy of Chinese anuses had discouraged night pissers from tiptoeing far into the hell hole, which is both slippery slopes and good intentions. So we stood at the entrance and pissed toward the wall.
Toward home, walking down a street lined by fort-like homes turning cold shoulders to the outside, he repeated his satisfaction with his new vocabulary. “This is very useful,” he said.
“But you can never use it,” I said.
“In secret, its very useful,” he insisted. He leaned toward me and whispered, “Do you know ‘kan chuanzi’? It is like, ‘beat the monkey.’”
“What?” I said.
He uttered the phrase again, louder, for me to repeat, and slapped a hand over his mouth, staring around. “It means, ‘split a slat.’” I repeated it several times, enjoying the new knowledge.
“Oh, do you know, ‘one-eyed warrior’?” I asked. He stopped, fished out his pen and wrote it on a paper in a faint light, laughing.
This is the same Wang who, a few weeks ago as we sat with his wife watching a bowling contest on TV, leaned over and said confidentially, “Did you know bowling is good for the stones?”
“No. . . “ I said, puzzled.
“Do you know stones?” he asked.
“You mean ---“ I said glancing at my crotch.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Why – where’d you hear that?” I asked. “Are you sure its good for them?”
“Francis Bacon wrote that,” he said, “Maybe I can remember it. . . . no.” He ran and brought back a book and, indeed, Francis Bacon 400 years ago hypothesized that “bowling is good for the stones, and hunting for the liver.” Then I taught him the double meaning of ‘get busy,’ and his wife, roused to curiosity by our laughter, asked in Chinese, “What’s the meaning, ‘get busy’?”
“It means you have a lot to do,” he said, raising his eyebrows at me, lighting a cigarette.
“Are you smoking again??” she said fiercely.
Saturday he brought me to his wife’s hometown, at the foot of some barren hills. After we drank tea in the spacious, clean house and I took a shit in the warehouse-sized bathroom with no door, we walked out across the fields toward the hills. Mr. Wang exclaimed, “I forgot my cigarettes! Wait for me here.” I waited on a bridge over a river as he asked a little boy in school-issue green sweats the way to a store. We reached the nearest hill and started to climb, Mr. Wang, smoker and non-exerciser, lifting his feet as ambitious as a mountain goat. When we stopped to rest he turned and saw a group of boys sitting at the bottom, watching us. They had followed us across the fields. He waved his arm once and the boys sprang to their feet immediately and started climbing, as if they had been puppies, or soldiers tuned to an officer’s slightest gesture.
I hung to Wang’s heels and finally we sat on the grassy ridgetop, which led, dipping and rising, barren like some Scottish peaks in my imagination, to the north. The boys were soon with us, and they leapt with vigor to everything: searching the trees for nuts, chasing the length of cassette tape they threw trailing through the air, setting afire the dry grass. Mr. Wang said, “You know I’m a teacher, don’t you? Don’t be burning the grass, what if it spreads to those trees? What does your teacher tell you?”
“To sit quietly. . .to value labor.”
“Well then,” said Mr. Wang, “Don’t burn the grass.” The boys obediently followed the letter of the law and simply set fire to their boxes of matches. One boy seemed to be the leader, in a striped red and white shirt, green sweatpants pulled high up his belly and knit blue undies hanging out the top. His head was shaved bristly and Mr. Wang rubbed it affectionately, and patted his belly. “Very good,” he said, “nice and fat.” He pulled up the boy’s shirt and poked his belly button and nipples. Wouldn’t that be considered child abuse in the US? The boy had a big grin and a foul tongue for such a little boy. Mr. Wang kept breaking out laughing at things he’d say. “tear your eggs,” and “fuck ass,” were how he translated them.
Mr. Wang stood behind Xiaofei and lifted him by his head; he looked like a rabbit grinning in pain. “This game is called, ‘pull up the carrot,’” said Mr. Wang. The boy sat next to him and played with the scanty wiry hairs on Mr. Wang’s white calf – his pant legs were pulled up. I pulled up my pant leg and beckoned the boy over, and he marveled at the dense hairs.
“What do you like to eat?” I asked him, resurrecting my Chinese from dormancy.
“Big chicken legs!” said he. I made a grab at his leg as he went by.
“Like this one?” I said.
He yelped, “Hey, that’s my leg, not a chicken’s!” For a while Mr. Wang encouraged the boys to stand on their heads, and do flips and cartwheels, which they did wholeheartedly, and Mr. Wang removed his sport jacket and flipped and stood on his head. I had to try too, raising my legs slowly into the air, blood rushing to my head, legs wavering, toppling on my back in the rough grass and pebbles. I also tried cartwheels, ridiculous attempts of flinging my legs about like noodles, the boys laughing. The boys cursed each other and Mr. Wang smiled affectionately.
“Rustic boys,” he said.
Coming down the slope, Xiaofei said to another boy, “I’ll cut a fart so stinky it’ll kill you!” I tried joking with him as Mr. Wang did, grabbing his hood from behind, making him protest, “I’m not a donkey!” or rubbing his bristly head, tugging his ears. He hung onto my shirt tied around my waist as we walked back through the village and suddenly the memory of Bobonaru, East Timor came back to me, and another group of boys, nimble as goats and also humorous, and a teacher. What reminded me of them was Xiaofei saying, “Your shirt’s tied around you like a skirt,” and that boy long years ago (in 1994), carrying my big boxer shorts spread across his shoulders, saying, “This is like a skirt!” I thought of the good teachers around the world.
The boys said good bye once and followed us “secretly” and finally bid us another farewell at the big green door of Wang’s in-law’s house.
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