Call Me Zebra(67)

“Why would the Catalans, who so wish to distance themselves from Spain, want to claim Christopher Columbus as one of their own? Why would they have erected a statue in his honor at the Port of Barcelona? The ego!” I said, resuming my lecture. “The ego! It renders all of us incoherent!”

The tree bowed again. I had never encountered a more deferential tree, a tree with more moral integrity; it was dignified, wise beyond its age, destined to take its place in the highest ranks of the intelligentsia. I decided not to bother with the third tree. For once, I thought, why not end the night on a good note?

I spotted a rock in the moonlight. I picked it up. It made for a great pillow. I lay down on the bench. Taüt settled between my legs. We slept badly, but we slept.



Hours later, through my slumber, I heard Ludo’s sighs of despair. He had arrived to greet me with his petulance.

“Mamma mia, mamma mia,” he mewled.

I opened my eyes. There he was, walking in circles around the bench. His hands kept flying up to his head, his fingers anxiously working his curls or pulling at his earlobes before dropping down to rest at his sides, as stiff as sticks. I let him exhaust himself. Eventually, he gave in, sank into the bench, and stared into the distance with his dilated pupils.

“What’s this?” he finally groaned, pointing at Taüt.

It was a dreary day. It had rained on and off through the night, and the ground looked like it had been punctured. My temperature had been dropping and spiking in cycles. I gazed at Taüt, half-asleep. He looked more haggard and unwilling than ever.

“This?” I rejoined groggily. “This is Taüt!”

“Why does it look like a rat caught in a drain?”

“He,” I corrected.

Ludo rolled his eyes. In the morning light, the stone buildings of the Old Quarter looked chalky, straw colored.

“Besides, your supposition is preposterous. Have you ever seen a rat with a sulfur crest?” I turned to Taüt. “Show him,” I emitted laterally to the bird.

The creature fanned open his crest with moderate difficulty. His feathers were sticky from the dampness in the air.

“Look,” I said to Ludo. “You could take that crest to a flamingo show and fan yourself with it if you wanted. A rat!” I huffed dismissively, rubbing my temples to soothe my headache. I’d had a mild fever through the night.

A group of drunk men ambled into the parking lot adjacent to the overlook, directly in front of Ludo’s door.

“Here we go,” Ludo mumbled under his breath. He was at his wit’s end. Nothing unusual there. In the short time I had known him, one startling fact had become clear: His cup was always full, about to spill over.

“Returning from the house of the Tentacle of Ice?” I posed. His hair was uncharacteristically tousled, a clear sign he’d engaged in frigid and mechanical sex acts with her.

His mind grasped the notion with a delay. When it did, his tongue mischievously pushed up against the gap in his teeth. I had forgotten about that crack, that window into the void at the center of his wide, handsome face.

“No,” he lied, averting his gaze. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. When he looked at me again, his tongue had settled neatly on the floor of his mouth once more.

“A corpse in a coffin,” I murmured.

“What?”

“I’m referring to your tongue,” I said. “We should get it moving again.”

One of the drunks, a man with a round red face and eyes so small and shiny that they looked like they had been lacquered and squeezed, bellowed something incomprehensible into the air.

“Mannaggia a te!” Ludo said. “Bunch of loiterers!”

The drunk’s friend, a skinny man with a wrinkled face, pulled his pants down and spread his butt cheeks open. “Say it to my anus!” he yelled in Catalan.

I was pleased to see that there were holes and crevices everywhere I went. A good sign. I turned to Ludo, and asked: “Aren’t you going to invite me upstairs?”

“Upstairs?”

“I’m not your whore,” I said.

“My whore?”

“Produce your own language,” I commanded. “It’s the only way forward.”

I felt his body go rigid. His muscles clenched to his bones; his jaw clasped down. The usual.

“Listen,” I said. “You spent a great deal of time sliding in and out of my vagina in Quim Monzó’s apartment. Surely you remember?”

He nodded reluctantly. The drunk’s skinny friend, unable to get a rise out of us, pulled his pants back up.

“The decent thing to do would be to invite me upstairs, offer me a cup of tea, introduce me to your friends. I traveled through the rain all day and night to get here.”

“It takes an hour to get here from Barcelona,” he said sternly.

“Ah,” I said. “Always the corrective.”

The swollen, shiny, red-faced man bellowed again, like a wolf at midnight. But it was morning. The day’s show had only just begun, and here we all were, taking a jab at it before it dragged us down with its dead weight.

“The early bird gets the worm,” I said.

A terrible pause ensued.

Then Ludo muttered, “You refused my love.” The words slipped out of his mouth despite himself. He seemed embarrassed by the admission, by this uncharacteristic loss of control. He sat there solemnly searching the ground, the corners of his mouth quivering. I was startled. I couldn’t bear to see him that way, as if he were about to weep.