the arab

The Arab hesitated, and then twisted the handle to the gate. No result. It was locked, as he had feared. This is called expected disappointment, a phenomenon that originates from an excess of hope or an excess of self-loathing. The Arab suffered from a paradoxical combination of both.

The Arab was six feet seven inches tall and had whisper-pale eyes. Not even he could remember why they called him "the Arab". His last name was Kallinski and he could not remember his first name.

Picking at his yellow-white beard stubble, the Arab turned away from the gate to the Duchess' estate and walked down the hill towards the village. He remembered the accordion player in his hometown cafe, and his eye rims glowed salmon-pink with incipient tears.

Below him, the village. A man towed a trailer full of indignant black-faced goats from a whining mud-splattered Fiat. The butcher and the greengrocer pulled rattling iron blinds down over their shop windows. Lamps began to go on in the town's low houses, making puddles of light in the seeping vibrant blue of late spring dusk. The church bells rang out the end of mass, not the beginning--a curious tradition of the village dating from the war against the Turks. Or was it the Teutonic Knights? Or was it the Aragonese? The Arab couldn't remember, but the deep bronze clang and vibrating hum of the bells did make him think of something else, though he didn't know what it was. A sort of pulling him towards the village. The knowledge of a task left undone, or the last words in an interrupted conversation. The lingering consciousness of something whose form has melted away, leaving only its undefined but insistent presence.

He arrived at the main street and began to walk through the village. Wrinkle-framed eyes of disapproving peasant grandmothers drilled from behind curtains but were incapable of tearing into his air of indifference. He approached the tavern, where two farmers with bulging pink cheeks and tremendous mustaches divided their attention between beer mugs, cigarettes, and the occasional word. He felt the flask in his pocket. Still quite full, no need to go in.

The pull on him became more suggestive. He quickened his step until he arrived at the church. Entering, his lungs filled with heavy damask incense air and his eyes sparkled with reflections of golden icons glittering in the light of the hanging oil lamps. The church was empty and damp. It was not long, but its four aisles in the form of a Greek cross were high, the walls covered with mosaics, gold, silver, ruby, lapis lazuli, agate, and sapphire showing lives of saints and martyrs--stories of devotion, violence, and suffering running up the heaven-sent walls until they reached the distant vault above. A priest came out of the sacristy and tidied the heavy books at the lectern, the altar candles casting weird shadows from his cylindrical cap and long black beard.

The Arab sat down, his gaze on the Virgin and child, their wood-dark faces surrounded by a blaze of gold. Their expressions cold and fixed, staring out past him towards eternity. He had a flash of understanding, then shed a few tears. Forgetting everything, he felt his head become heavy. He stretched out on the bench and fell asleep. His heavy snoring resonated off the mosaic on the Byzantine dome that floated above him, mixing with the ghosts of chants and whispered supplications of the faithful. He was at peace.

the lion in the machine

The first roar was faint and distant and could have been mistaken for any one of the creaks and groans offered up by the strained metal and aging cogs of the big machine. We paid no attention to it and continued to play chess by the control board. Every so often, after moving a pawn or a knight, I would leave my hand beside the board and Paul would gently stroke it as he considered his next move.

The second roar was louder and more distinct. Paul and I said nothing, but we both turned to look over the dials and meters to see if they registered anything. Nothing. We sat back in our chairs. Then came the third roar, terrifying, echoing in the great metal cylinders of the big machine. The Greek cross hanging over the control board vibrated slightly from the sound. Paul motioned for me to stay at the controls as he put his jacket on. The lion roared again. God knows how long it had been trapped inside, it must have been hungry and maddened by the labyrinth of steel tunnels and the absence of sky. Paul said there was a good possibility this lion was St. Jerome's lion, and since he still had a few traces of religion left we had some reason for hope. He turned the turbines down to low, grabbed a copy of the Vulgate, and stepped into the hatch.

The sound of his boots on the catwalk slowly died out, but I could still hear the occasional roar. It might take him some time to find the lion, sounds were hard to track in the interminable tunnels of the big machine. I had to relax, be patient. I wandered around the control room, peeking in the cabinets. In the first aid kit I found, under some used gauze blackened with blood from long ago, a deck of tarot cards.

I knew nothing of reading tarot cards, but I was aware at least one card bore the image of a lion. I thought if I lay the cards in a particular form and the lion card appeared, I might be able to surmise something by the cards surrounding it. I laid them out in a square. No lion card. I continued to lay them out, this time in a circle over the square. Again, no luck. I laid them out in a cross, an octagon, a rhombus, like the numbers on a clock, like the windows of Versailles, like the flags of different African nations. How many cards were there in a tarot deck, I wondered? I kept trying and eventually succeeded in drawing the lion, which I placed it in the center of the pile. The mass of overlapping forms made any reading impossible --the lion was awash in a flood of swords, queens, disks, hanging men, cups, hermits, wands, lovers... I heard the roar again and shuddered.

I noticed Paul had left his locker door ajar. I opened it and ran my hand down the stripes of his dress shirt, remembering the last party we had thrown, how we'd danced clumsy waltzes as Pepe played Strauss on the squeezebox, our steps resounding on the metal floor of the big machine dining hall. Then I saw the skull on the shelf at the top of the locker.

I was afraid. Even if we were lucky and it was St. Jerome's lion, how could Paul have a chance without the memento mori? What should I do? I couldn't go down the hatch, I had to watch the controls. Besides, what if I came across the lion before I found Paul? With my bad Latin and no religion?

Another roar thundered around me, shaking the coffee cups and the doorframes. I felt a tear fall onto my cheek. I couldn't listen to the lion, I couldn't. Fully knowing how much I was endangering Paul, I went to the panel and turned the turbine up to full. The control room filled with a deep rumble, and I sighed with relief. Any lion's roar would now be swallowed up by the unforgiving noise of the big machine.