The Corpse Exhibition

The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim Page A

Book: The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim Read Free Book Online
Authors: Hassan Blasim
Ads: Link
blade?!
    Marwan’s eyes turned bloodshot from staying up late and drinking too much, and the others got used to his behavior. They treated him as a victim of the explosion. Just another madman. His nerves would flare up for the slightest reason. His colleagues at work didn’t abandon him, and he went on devising crosswords, though he stopped writing the horoscopes. He was given a warning when he started writing very difficult crosswords, using words he found in the encyclopedia, or when he wrote, for example, “7 Across: a purple scorpion, 5 Down: a broken womb (six letters, inverted).”
    â€œ
This meat tastes salty. What’s that horrible smell? Don’t you read the Quran? Why don’t you pray? The water’s hot in the shower.” Marwan started to take revenge, taking pleasure in tormenting the policeman. He would eat and drink and do things the policeman didn’t like, like drink gallons of whiskey, which the policeman couldn’t bear.
    Marwan complained to you about the things that troubled him most. He hadn’t gone near his wife’s body, except once, three months ago. He had the impression that he was sleeping with her along with another man, and the policeman groaned and wailed like a crazed cat.
    The policeman didn’t submit to his fate readily. He also knew how much authority he had. Sometimes he would keep jabbering deliriously in Marwan’s head until his skull throbbed. The last time Marwan told me about the policeman was while they had a truce.
    The policeman wanted Marwan to visit his family. He told him some intimate details of his life so that Marwan would seem like an old friend. Yes, yes, yes. I’m not interested in all those details. When you write, you can choose the limits and call the rest our ignorance.
    Marwan sat on the sofa and the policeman’s wife brought him some tea, while his mother wiped her tears with the hem of her hijab. Marwan hugged the policeman’s little girl as if she were the daughter of a late dear friend.
    It was the same scene whenever he visited. He started buying presents for the family on instructions from the policeman, and Marwan even went to visit the policeman’s grave with the family.
    The policeman went into a deep silence when he heard his wife and mother weeping at his grave. He remained silent for several days. Marwan breathed a sigh of relief each time, assuming the policeman had disappeared.
    He punched you on the nose when you were driving the car. I know . . . good . . .
details . . . everything in this story is boring and disgusting.
    Then one day I visited him at his magazine. He was taking swigs from a bottle of arak that he hid in the drawer of his desk and smoking furiously. I started talking about our problems working at
Boutique
and the state of the country, in hopes of calming his nerves. He stopped writing as I spoke.
    When I stopped speaking, he stood up and asked if I’d go with him to visit the drunken boat in prison.
    I wasn’t even sure she was still alive. I rang the department in charge of women’s prisons from his office and asked after her. They told me she was a patient in the city’s central hospital.
    I was extremely uneasy all the way to the hospital. Marwan smoked a lot and rocked back and forth in his seat. He began pressing me to take good care of his family, his voice full of emotion.
    I told him, “What are you talking about? Marwan, what do you mean, ‘going to die’? Hey, you’re like a cat with seven good lives left.”
    He punched me in the nose. Then he lit me a cigarette with his and put it in my mouth. I had an urge to stop the car and give him a thorough beating.
    The drunken boat was lying in the intensive care ward. Just a skeleton. She’d been unconscious for a fortnight. We sat close to her on the edge of the bed. Marwan took a small knife shaped like a fish out of his trouser pocket and put it

Similar Books

A Lady in Disguise

Cynthia Bailey Pratt

Alas My Love

Tracie Peterson

Nightingale

Susan May Warren

Eternally Seduced

Clarise Tan, Marian Tee, The Passionate Proofreader

Lydia

Tim Sandlin