Free The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim Page A

aura of light that radiated from the young men. They would walk with confident, measured steps, as though they had learned to walk in a private school. Their silence added to the mystery of them. They were well mannered and dignified, but with a light touch of good humor. The people of the neighborhood fell in love with the two young men and grew accustomed to their radiant appearance every morning. Day by day people became more and more attached to the two handsome youths, and their coming and going became like the rising and the setting of the sun. The children were the first to grow attached to them: They would gather early in the morning on the edge of the quarter to wait for the young men to appear from across the wasteland. They would bet Sinbad cards on which lane the men would come down today. When “the blonds” arrived the children would be thrilled. The children would tag along with them until they reached the other side of the neighborhood, jumping up around them, laughing, and touching the young men’s clothes with their fingertips, in a mixture of fear and exhilaration. The children would be even happier when the men would graciously bend down, without stopping walking, to let the children touch their blond hair. The girls of the neighborhood fell for the blonds, and before long it was as though a sacred and secret covenant had been concluded between them and the local people.
    â€œThe days passed without either side daring to break the barrier of silence or ambiguity. Before the blonds appeared it would have been suicide for a stranger to enter the neighborhood. But now the girls would stick their heads out from the balconies and windows to feast their eyes on the beauty of the two young men and sigh with the ardent passion of youth. As soon as the men were gone they would drift off in daydreams as they listened to love songs on the radio. When the blonds were coming, the girls would take their radios out on the balcony in hopes that the radio station would play a love song at just that moment, and if a love song was on they would turn the volume right up as though the song were a personal message of love from the girl with the radio. The two young men would react to all this respectfully, modestly, and amiably.
    â€œThe days passed.” My grandfather gave a deep sigh and prolonged the
a
of “passed.”
    â€œAn old woman died,” my grandfather said. “And fifty children were born in the neighborhood, of skinny mothers and unemployed fathers. The summer passed and the men who sell vegetables made more money. The local women attributed to the baraka or spiritual power of the blonds the fact that their husbands, who worked sweeping the streets or as school janitors in the city center, had all received pay raises. The husbands, who had been skeptical about the baraka of the two men, soon stopped scoffing, when the government decided to install electricity at the beginning of winter. After all these signs of baraka, the women began a campaign to plant flowers outside their front doors so that the blonds could smell the fragrance as they made their angelic passage through the Darkness district. As for the men, they filled in the puddles so the blonds would not have to walk around them.
    â€œThere was a spark of hope in the faces of the people, and this brought out their natural color, which in the past had been coated with the grime of sadness and misery. Everyone started to make sure the children were clean, sewed new clothes for them, and told them to be more polite when they met the blonds. They taught them a lovely song about birds and spring to sing when they were with the blonds.
    â€œTo reinforce all this veneration and faith, a man in the neighborhood was suddenly appointed to an important position in the government, and he promised to pave the streets and extend the pipes to bring in drinking water. The young people told the man to ask the government to bring telephone