Doctor, I can identify my feeling at that moment as a desire to kiss, to stand in front of the station gate like the people who give out free newspapers and adverts, to stand in the way of people in a hurry and to stop them to kiss their hands, their shoes, their knees, their bags. And if they allowed me to bare their arses for a few minutes, to kiss them too. Excuse me, madam, can I kiss the sleeve of your coat? Please, sir, accept from me this kiss on your necktie. Kisses for free; sad, sincere kisses. And very often, doctor, I don’t just want to kiss people, I want to kiss the vestiges they leave on the pavements: kisses for cigarette butts, for a key that an old woman lost, for the beer bottles the drunks left behind last night, for the numbers on discarded receipts; kisses that combine the maternal instinct with lust, as day and night are combined in my head.
Then suddenly, doctor, these desires evaporate completely, as happens when a clear sky is invaded by a gang of fat and insolent clouds. Something like torture occurs as if a brutal jailor were pulling out my fingernails. Doctor, I feel as if my jaw has turned into an animal’s jaw and a tail has sprouted out of my arse. Doctor, fear runs riot in my throat, which dries up and seeks out a drop of water at any cost, even at the cost of human dignity. Thirst and hatred are mixed up in my head, which turns into a trumpet playing sadistic anthems. So now, all of a sudden, I want to take back those free kisses of mine. I want to cut the balls off that man in a hurry who lights his cigarette at the station gate. I want to dig my nails into the face of that child whose mother is pushing him towards the station. A child to whom they’re teaching travel and fear. Another child, doctor. Another sleepless hiatus between night and day.
Doctor, I was born in Baghdad. My grandfather was a peasant farmer who moved to the city. My grandfather thought the streets were like the waterways in the southern marshes. A car hit him and he was killed. My father was a soldier until he passed away from a stroke. My mother couldn’t read or write. My mother mourned in war and in peacetime. I was sitting one midday in July reading Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s Rain Song. My brothers had become policemen, jailors and people who pray. So by the rules of authenticity I should write a realistic novel about the life of water, about lamentation and the grandchildren of Ali ibn Abi Talib. I should devote my time to studying tradition in order to understand the endeavours of the lice that make my scalp itch. My grandfather came to the city to carry a picture of the leader. My grandfather who ran away from hunger and mosquitoes.
Doctor, you know there are two types of poison — natural and synthetic — and they are classified according to where they come from or their chemical properties. There are caustic poisons, inflammatory poisons, neural poisons and haematic poisons. The caustic ones damage the tissues directly, the inflammatory ones burn the mucous membranes, and the haematic ones prevent oxygen reaching the blood. I also know that poisons usually reach the body through ingestion, inhalation, stings or sucking. Oleander, jequirity, castor beans, datura, colchicum and hemlock are examples of poisonous plants. Venomous stings and bites are the speciality of scorpions, snakes, stinging fish, and salamanders. The most important symptoms of poisoning, which differ according to how long the poison stays in the body, include the emission of breath with a smell that resembles that of alcohol. You know best, doctor, but let me finish speaking. I was born with this defect — my breath has smelled since I was a child, and the smell is this rotten, vicious tongue. The other symptoms my life has brought me are: dilation and contraction of the pupils, a burning in the throat, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, convulsions, delirium, cyanosis of the skin, a defect in feelings of love, fainting or narcolepsy, as well as drowsiness. If someone is poisoned with medicine, you can grill an apple and give it to the victim while he gets to hospital. But cider vinegar is used as an antidote in cases of poisoning with rotten fish or salted mullet or tinned sardines. It is drunk after the stomach has been evacuated through vomiting. There’s no need to panic over bee stings or mosquito bites. We take out the sting and rub the spot with garlic, leek leaves or basil. As for when one human stings another, fellow human, it’s definitely an unfortunate end and we console the victim at the point of death. By that stage not much is needed, just to light a small candle to drive away the demons that might try to tear at the body of the dead, or to blow quickly into the mouth of the dying person, which helps him in those moments to uncover the vast accumulation of delusions by which he lived.
Doctor, I sit in the cafe for hours and hours until my arse hurts. The young woman who was leaning over her papers and writing has gone out to smoke a cigarette in the doorway. Her pen fell when she stood up. I fell in love with the pen, a pure, honest love for a pen lying angry next to the table leg. The pen of a beautiful young woman who’s gone to smoke a cigarette lies there alone, hating its short life. Every movement, doctor, every gesture, however simple or insignificant, gives me the love headache. So I try to look instinctively spiteful. But what does that mean? I don’t know. As you can see, I behave like an alcoholic for whom alcohol no longer holds any pleasure. Didn’t you notice? I’m embarrassed by the idea of these little love stories of mine leaking out to others. Once I told a friend that I thought about the shirt buttons of someone sitting in the cafe more than I did about the country’s wars. I wasn’t pretending to be poetic or mad. But the way he looked at me was like an insult.
Doctor, I’m sure you haven’t heard the story of the poisoned fish. Do you think I’m some madman talking to you about poisons for no reason? In the beginning of the siege years, in 1991, the story of the father and the fish spread across the country. He had bought a large fish, with some vegetables and some pickles. He grilled the fish himself and prepared the salads. Then he ate with his six daughters with tearful eyes and a troubled heart. Of course his daughters didn’t know that he had poisoned the fish. The man couldn’t see any other way to prevent his daughters from turning to prostitution. He sold plastic bags in the market and what he earned wasn’t enough to live on. He died in the certainty that his wife, who was buried in the Najaf cemetery, would understand. Many people didn’t want to call that a crime. But I was thinking about daydreams — the dreams of the man’s daughters as they ate their father’s delicious fish. I don’t know if other people have daydreams when they eat in silence. I know there’s no fixed time for such reveries. That’s what makes them different from ordinary dreams, which are part of a system, though not a democratic one. It’s one of the distinctions of the Daydream Republic. The story of the man was a warning that alarmed people in the early years of the siege. The fish tail on which flies gathered in the rubbish bin wasn’t poisoned. A fat cat took it and fed it to her kittens on the roof of the man’s house. How I wish there could really be such a cat. Any tragedy that isn’t permeated with details invented in an exaggerated and lachrymose way doesn’t deserve to appear in the great tragic theatre. Now do you understand what I mean, doctor? The fish tail is another comma. There’s a bony comma in my head that prevents me from sleeping. You’re right. It’s your turn to talk now, doctor. At the time, people didn’t talk about the kind of poison in the fish. Instead they talked at length about hunger and the honour of their daughters.