From a Sealed Room

by Rachel Kadish

“No,” I tell Gil. “You’re wrong.”

  Pebbles shift beneath his sandals. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t understand, you’re right about that.” In the cooling air, my face feels naked. But I stand opposite him and I don’t back down. “Still, why do you assume I can’t? Why the hell”—my words grow louder—“does everyone assume I can’t understand?” Everyone except her. Astonished by my own nerve, I instruct him, “Tell me.”

  He doesn’t answer. He faces the shelter and holds the binoculars against his chest.

  “No one has a right to insult the memory of my father.” He might be addressing me, or the shadows gathered around the low smudge of firelight. “No one.”

  From the shelter comes an indistinct voice, then laughter.

  He pulls back one foot and kicks at the ground, hard. I hear a stone tumble into the darkness.

  “Do you know what the air feels like when people are burning tires?” The demand is aimed at the group beneath the shelter but is loud enough to reach only me. Gil steps closer, this time. I shy back despite myself. “You want to understand, Maya? I’ll tell you.

  “It feels so thick and hot you can’t breathe. It feels like hell come alive. It feels like hate in the air. Pure hate.” He takes my wrist. “I’d see the other soldiers patrolling in that haze, and we looked just like the fiends the Palestinian boys spray-painted on the alley walls. And the adults, they made no effort to hide the truth in their faces. They wanted us dead. We weren’t human, to them. No more than they were human to us. None of us human. Only figures, stumbling. Stumbling in acrid black smoke—I spent my first evening at the post throwing up.

  “And when they weren’t burning tires, you could feel everyone waiting for the next encounter. Every child’s shout, every creaking shutter might be an attack. You’d sit on your jeep with your cigarette, and after a while you got so sick of staring into all that misery that you didn’t even care. You ate your sandwich and drank your coffee, then you got up to walk your next patrol and let it all burn a hole in your stomach.”

  Gil’s words are rough with tears, but he speaks on without concealing his distress. “And one day it was so hot, and the politicians were debating new settlements again. We didn’t care about any goddamn debates, we just wanted a shower and something cold to drink. And the sun was hell and we sat on the hood of the jeep and the officer was dressing us down over the radio to show initiative.” He swings my arm lightly as he repeats, “Show initiative.”

  “What did he want you to—”

  “Nothing moved. Flies would land on our lips while we were talking, and the other guys wouldn’t even brush them off.” His revulsion is palpable. “But that afternoon, something moved.”

  “Gil, it sounds horrible,” I murmur.

  “I moved,” he says. “I got up off the jeep. I held my gun in parade position, and I stepped sharp, just like they taught us in basic training. I marched to the middle of the street and I looked up for a good long time while the other guys cracked jokes at me. Then I emptied my gun into that glorious blue-and-white patriotic sky. And I reloaded.” Gil is whispering. “Three cartridges. I spun around and I shouted and shouted and shouted, just to hear that thick air shake. Just to crack it open, that fucking smug sky overhead.”

  His laughter is soft, but proud. My mind will not take in his words; I try to slow the drumming of my pulse.

  “My father died for this country.” He says it like a mantra.

  “And do you know what a Profile 21 discharge means in this country? Do you have any idea the hurdles and psychological tests they put you through? Not to mention the time in the military prison. But I didn’t give a shit. They even hauled in my commander to interrogate me. I told him, ‘I showed initiative. Didn’t I?’”

  My mouth takes the shape of a question. “Gil, why didn’t you—” Gil is stepping forward, he doesn’t wait for me to finish. He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him as he begins to walk. His steps are long and swift. We move pressed together like lovers down the brambled hill, up a second rise.

  “A family of war heroes, we are,” Gil says casually, as if describing the scenery outside a car window. “Just ask my mother, sitting with the other martyrs’ widows on the reserved benches at Memorial Day ceremonies.”

  “But your father did die in the war. He is a fallen hero.”

  “Yes, he did die in the war. Yes, he did.” Gil’s steps slow; he loses his balance on the rocky ground and I support his weight. “I never stopped believing in my father. I loved my father. No one has a right to insult him. No one has a right to dare insult him.

  “But you see”—Gil speaks close to my ear—“he wasn’t a war hero. He was a fuck-up. Just like me.” Gil lurches forward again. “Did I tell you that I botched the psycho-technic exams on purpose? That’s a lie. I didn’t care about how I was going to do, but that’s beside the point. I walked into that room, Maya, and I was afraid. I sat in a chair and I thought: I’m sitting inside the machinery of the army. By the time I’d answered a few questions I could almost hear the gears grinding all around me. My mind froze. I couldn’t have solved the rest of the problems if I’d tried.”

  I realize, as he speaks, that I’ve won. I’m not just an American girl, the cracking of his voice tells me; I’m something more. Trusted, worthwhile. Accepted.

  Terrified.

  Together we angle down a slope, only our racing legs keep us from tripping into the low bushes.

  “Gil, I can’t hold you, you’ve got to stand up.”

  “Did you hear what I said?” His shoulder drags on mine, a crushing weight. The tin cup I clutched in my hand bounces away. “She used to pray that he would die, can you imagine that? She used to sit on the bathroom floor and take me in her lap, clasp my obedient little hands in hers and pray for him to die. ‘Merciful God, let a bomb land on his head and end our suffering, so my boy and I can make a new life.’”

  “I can’t hold you up, Gil, please.”

  “It wasn’t a bomb that landed on his head, in the end. It was a shell fragment. A pointless, insulting shell fragment from our own side. But the God of my mother is an economical God, and saved the big bombs for enemy tanks.”

  We veer up a rocky incline until momentum abandons us and we stand, teetering, on the hillside.

  “Maya,” he says. “I’ve failed. I don’t understand the blacks. I knew it while I was drawing them. I never understood their faith. I wanted to simply love them for it, but I hated them for it, too. If a critic looks at those drawings and he’s smart, he’ll see I still don’t understand them.”

  No, I want to tell him, you understood one of them. But he is talking. “Faith is for idiots,” he snorts. “But I believe in you, Maya. You’re the only one I believe in.”

  My knees give way. Together we fall. I land on sharp stones and for a few seconds I can’t breathe. Gil sinks down on top of me, no strength in his long limbs.

  “Gil,” I say at last.

  He’s kissing me.

  “Gil, the rocks are hurting me. I need to move.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” he says. In the starlight his face is open and filled with wonder.

  “Gil—”

  “We’re a team, you and I. Aren’t we?” His kiss on my forehead is desperate. His arms lock around my neck and he speaks into my hair, his mouth wide against my skull. “Maya, I need you.”

  There are more stars here than I have ever seen, crowded into the sky as if they found safety in numbers. “Gil—”

  “You’re my chosen one, Maya,” he continues in a singsong. “My chosen American girl.”

  His form shifts above me, blocking my view of the stars. He reaches for my cheek. I shake my head; it is enough to dislodge his hand. He reaches again. “Maya.” He kisses me. “Come closer,” he says.

  My body is already pressed against his.

  “Closer,” he breathes. I shift in vain, trying to see past him to the sky.

  “It’s been so long,” he
says.

  Panic floods my veins. “Not right now.”

  He takes my wrists, flips them over my head in a quick motion and pins them to the dirt. “Maya,” he whispers.

  “Gil!” The cry doesn’t carry far into the night. It doesn’t loosen his grip. I twist my arms uselessly. “Let me go.”

  “What, in Jerusalem you wanted me, now you think I’m not good enough? A few lousy hours with your cousin’s macho friends, and now you turn on me, too?” Holding both my wrists in one hand, he takes my jaw with the other and turns my head for a better look at my face. “You too, Maya?” Betrayal registers in his voice; he speaks with the spite of wounded authority. “You need a war hero, maybe? Like the ones back there, laughing at me?”

  “No, Gil. I don’t. It’s just that right now isn’t—”

  He lets go of my jaw and slams an open palm to the ground, so hard I imagine it bloodied. “Maybe you’d rather fuck one of them instead?” I can feel the pounding of his heart. “I trusted you,” he accuses. “You’re my everything. I chose you, you chose me.” The words threaten to choke him. When he speaks again, I am startled by the finality of his tone. “What an idiot I’ve been. I should have known you could never believe in me.”

  My mind tells me to lie as quietly as possible, but without warning I am fighting. I kick against the hard ground, jolt to one side and somehow free my arms. I strike at his shoulders and chest with my fists. Surprised, he shoves me down as easily as though I were not resisting at all.

  Around us the night is quiet. There is only his breathing, and mine, and now his whispered curses. Once again some impulse races through me, and I buck beneath him. My heels scramble on the stony ground, and he grabs at my legs and misses. I am almost loose, I will run to the hilltop and down into the valley, to the safety of the group gathered beside the pool. The cool air feathers against my face, the stars are bursting with freedom.

  Gil’s arm lifts my hip, and I am dragged backward, my head striking nettles and stone. His other hand is already beneath my shirt and squeezing, stars flash and shudder overhead. Still no sound escapes me, I discover I am incapable of words. My knees slide on rock, my face stings with tears. He pulls down the zipper of my jeans; his hands are hard and move quickly on my skin. He doesn’t bother to undress himself fully, once more he pushes me down with a fury that is like panic. “Maybe you’ve already picked out one of the commando boys,” he is saying. Brambles circle my neck like jewelry, my back is studded with rocks. The sky is heavy with stars; Gil’s weight crushes me into dust. There is a thick, lacerating pain that promises to lift me out of my body.

  He has finished.

  “Maya,” he says.

  This man’s voice means nothing to me. My ears refuse it.

  There is a long silence.

  He cannot get me to stir. He tries to roll me onto my side, but my body is limp and will not cooperate. He kneels and stares into my face. My eyes slide past him. “Maya.” He shakes me gently, then more desperately. A sob of loneliness tears out of him: “I love you. Don’t you know how much I love you?”

  Finally he sleeps, one arm over my bare stomach.

  For what might be hours, I study the slight rise and fall of his arm that correspond to my every breath.

  Later, after he stumbles toward the campground, I stand. I gather my clothing. I pull my jeans over the cut skin of my legs. Once I’ve started moving, I don’t allow myself to stop; I know dimly that if I do, the pain will grow louder and I won’t be able to move again.

  I make my way over the hill. In the valley there is no movement. The sleeping forms of Dov’s friends are hidden. The beams of the shelter stand watch over nothing but darkness.

  The water of the pool is colder than I expected. Crouching on a rock, I scoop handfuls and spill them over my face and scratched arms. Then I remove my shirt and jeans. The water drips down my stinging legs, muddies my bare feet. Patiently I rinse, again and again. Enough water and makeup will erase the marks of this night, just as they have erased the marks of every other time Gil has raised a hand to me. In the morning I will be hollow-eyed and invisible. The others, eager to be fooled, will look at me and see nothing; I’ll thank them for making my lies so much easier, and hate them as well.

  I rinse my clothing piece by piece, and start to put it on wet.

  It’s not enough. Careful to make no sound, I take off my underwear and lower myself into the pool. The water is only waist-deep, and the bottom is rough rock. The shock of the cold on my burning skin makes me light-headed, but I wade forward.

  Near the center I stop moving. Ripples spread to the stone walls, then disappear. Holding myself very still, I see that the pool is an enormous black mirror. I lay one hand on the skin of the water; the sky rocks in response.

  The stars between my fingers sway more and more slowly. As they stop, I allow the truth. I allow myself to know that things will not change. That my lies can save no one.

  My mother is still sick—this time I don’t resist the thought. And all the pretty stories I tell won’t protect her. They won’t protect me, either. Because there is one other thing I know, with absolute certainty: One day Gil will kill me.

  But what stuns me as I shiver in the clear water is not any of these things, for I understand that I have always known them. It is the quiet in myself. Here I stand in this pool of stars, waiting for something to jar me into action. I have spent all my strength on lies. Now, when the next step ought to be very simple, I am betrayed by my own weariness. I’m too tired to do anything about the truth.

  All is quiet. One moment passes, then another, and nothing changes. These stars between my fingers are forever out of reach, but if I am patient and stand absolutely motionless, I have the illusion of closeness. The longer I stand here, the closer they seem. Soft. Spread like a lush carpet on this solemn black mirror. I lift my hand, and in a moment the portrait of the sky is intact, as if I had never been here at all.

  When I find Gil on the far side of the pool, he is snoring lightly. Hesitating, I stand over his slack face.

  Beside him is another sleeping bag, which he has laid out for me on a spot cleared of rocks. My teeth chattering, I slip inside.

  You have wandered so long, Lilka says. On this cat-scattered street she walks beside me, cool and fresh in her school uniform. You deserve to rest.

  I did not find Her, I tell Lilka. I failed. I was to find the American, and She would bring us our future. But I lost Her in this city. She will not come for me. Now I have lost all of you forever.

  Don’t cry.

  I can’t stop.

  Don’t cry, Lilka tells me. I can’t bear a crybaby.

  She will not speak to me any longer. I hang my head as I pass down this narrow street.

  Each step, a shooting pain.

  Halina walks alongside me now. She is so hard to see, only in the corner of my vision does she appear. She strides faster and faster with her anger, I cannot keep up with her. Halina wait. She paces ahead of me, her thin hands soar. They with their stupid ambition, she is saying. Mother and Father had to climb their way to the top, they wanted to force me to marry that old man. But I would not. They could not defeat me. They cannot.

  Halina, in camp the Germans used your chemicals. They used your signs and symbols and they slaughtered.

  Even that Lilka Rotstein was a traitor for her own glory, Halina rages. I struggle to catch a glimpse of her face, my fury-pale sister. So Lilka had to spill secrets, had to tell on my younger sister. She wanted only the celebrity, never thought about the consequences.

  Halina will you look at me? See how memory has burnt its track on my brain.

  Halina covers her mouth and giggles, she is talking to a boy at University. Inviting him on an outing. My sister Shifra will be there, and she’s a bit strange, Halina tells the boy. But don’t let it alarm you. She’s just a kid, with some harmless fancies. She’s quiet a lot, and likes to make up stories. You’ll grow accustomed to it.

  See how memory h
as burnt its track.

  I tried so hard, Halina. I tried to hold on to every story. I could not let you be lost, and so I saved every detail. But when the One we awaited came, I could not make Her hear.

  See how memory burns.

  You rush ahead of me. Halina, I call after you. Blacks stop and stare from under heavy brims but I do not care. Halina, I call. Halina we were right about Karol. He did not abandon us. After the war, after the American camps, I returned to our town. And Karol’s mother heard of my arrival and came to the boardinghouse where I stayed, across the street from our old house where now a red-faced man refused to open the door. New yellow curtains hanging in our bedroom window, Halina, bright cheerful fabric. And Karol’s mother, with a basket full of eggs and cheese, she pushed past the muttering crowd gathered about the boardinghouse. My son would have wanted me to see after you, she said. How quickly she spoke, her eyes turned from me. If he had survived the war he would have made you his wife. When I took the basket from her she touched my fingers, gingerly she tested my flesh only to discover it real. You’d best be on your way, she said. I wouldn’t stay on in this place if I were you. I nodded to her, I did not make her tarry, for I understood what this visit cost her. If you need anything, she said. And this time she squared herself and looked me in the eye. Then she turned and was gone.

  Halina you should have seen it; we were right, Mother and Father were wrong. Eggs, eggs and balls of cheese the size of potatoes. Food I had only dreamed for years, food even the Gentiles had only dreamed.

  I must tell you, Halina, though it pains me. They turned Father’s shop into a storage room for feed. The Rotsteins’ balcony, covered in pigeon waste and screaming children. And the faces of the crowd outside the boardinghouse, hate underneath their thick lids. They wanted to know nothing of Jews returned from the dead, wanted to know only their own survival: only their still-beating hearts and bellies wrenched with hunger, and the new houses they had inherited as reward for their own suffering. I would not wait for the red-faced man to open the shutters to our old home. A girl was going to Palestine. I let her take me.