Free The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim Page A

strange and incoherent enough. It was on top of the bull’s head that Marwan discovered his vocation. He solved the crossword puzzle in the newspaper in an instant. After that he got a notebook and pen out of his bag and set to work writing his own crossword. He smoked six cigarettes before he finished his first puzzle. It was made up of synonyms from nature. From the rock he stared up at the treetops and said, ‘Writing crosswords is much easier than solving them.’  
    ‘Perhaps it’s like the real world,’ I said, blowing smoke and pretending to be a dreamy young man.  
    ‘What a philosopher,’ he said sarcastically. Then he gave an absurd, euphoric yell that filled the valley.  

    That night he told you that ‘the drunken boat’ was his relative. Why did he hide this from you for so many years?  

    We were separated when we went to university. Marwan’s family moved to another part of the city. He went to study agriculture, with dreams of ending up with a piece of land where he could plant pomegranate trees. I went to the faculty of mass communications. We would visit each other constantly, exchange ideas, laugh, smoke and drink a lot. We would also exchange gossip about ‘the drunken boat’. We heard that some pimp had cut off her ear because she stole a ring from a customer who worked in State Security. She got her revenge on him three days later. He was lying asleep on his stomach so she sank a carving knife deep into his arse. She was given a jail sentence.
    Marwan got married in his first year at university. It was passionate love at first sight. The fruit of his love with Salwa was two children, and the fruit came while they were still studying. When they graduated, Salwa stayed at home to look after the children and Marwan went looking for work. Things weren’t easy for someone who had just graduated in agriculture. Meanwhile, I started to have articles published on historical esoterica, which I had been writing since I was a student. After I graduated, I began work straight away at the magazine, Boutique . We would vent our need to rebel by writing on ideological and social themes. I got in touch with a colleague who was working in the popular magazine Puzzles and told him that Marwan was skilled at writing crosswords and astrology columns. Marwan was angry with me for lying about the astrology but he had no options other than to work at the magazine. He started writing crosswords and even began swatting up on astrology.  

    He sent you a text message that read: Fire Sign – You’re compatible with all the signs. Your blood group breathes disappointment and happiness. You stick your tongue in the woman’s mouth in order to cool down. The fog that burns on the ceiling is the steam of sweat. You buy pins and coloured pictures from the shop. You pin them on your flesh when you receive a guest. The firewood comes to you throughout the night, wrapped in nightmares. When you wake up you have a bath on fire. You eat on fire. You read the newspapers on fire. You smoke a cigarette on fire. In the coffee cup you come across prophecies of fire. You laugh on fire. You have your lungs checked at the hospital, and they find a spring of errors that looks like a tumour. You dream of the final act: it goes out.

    I bought a stuffed scorpion from the toyshop and went to visit Marwan in hospital. The doctor told me that Marwan’s injuries weren’t serious. They had extracted some fragments of window glass from his scalp and said he would be fine. Salwa, his wife, was anxious and frightened by Marwan’s mental confusion. Like her, I asked the doctor various questions about Marwan’s mysterious condition. The doctor asked me, ‘If you’d gone through a terrorist explosion like that, would you come out laughing and joking?’
    ‘Maybe!’ I said, looking at his pointed nose.
    He gave me a contemptuous look and took Marwan’s wife to one side.
    The doctor was wrong; Marwan wasn’t just suffering from shock.