by Iddo Gefen
Alvin paved his way to the mattress in the corner of the room. He put down the box but wouldn’t look at the hamster-rabbit, still holding a grudge.
“Jesus Christ,” Prudence whispered, rubbing her chest in a vigorous circular motion. “Jesus Christ. They’ll find us in the end. You understand how dangerous it is?”
Alvin nodded, even though he didn’t actually understand. He didn’t know who exactly was looking for them. In the past, Prudence had mentioned cops who wanted to kick them out of the country. She explained it was the only reason they were staying in the station, because it was the one place they wouldn’t dare arrest them. But with time, the cops turned into the homeless and hookers and criminals, who turned into the baddies, who finally turned into vague, nameless, faceless figures. Alvin had already begun to doubt that anyone in the station was actually looking for them, or even knew of their existence; but he didn’t dare ask Prudence, because more than anything else, he feared confronting his mother with a question she couldn’t answer.
Prudence got up from the floor and let out a loud sigh. She crossed the room with small steps, made it to the corner where the toilet bowl stood with a green hose suspended above it. She pulled up a small chair, turned to face the wall, and started undressing, stacking her clothes in a pile on the chair.
“Don’t look,” she told Alvin, and turned on the cold water. Alvin quickly averted his gaze, lay down on the mattress, and stared at the ceiling. The lighter fell out of his pocket. Alvin stared at the naked woman for a few moments, and flicked the wheel a few times. It took him several attempts until a feeble flame appeared.
He lay on his side, drew the flame to the box. A smell of burned plastic took to the air. He snuck a quick peek at his mother, who was still showering with her back to him. Then he drew the flame to the box again. It burned a small hole into the plastic. The hamster-rabbit looked up at the spark and immediately scurried to the other side, pressing herself against the wall. Alvin gently turned the box around and drew the flame to the plastic wall again. Once more the hamster-rabbit fled to the opposite corner and froze.
“Idiot,” Alvin said, drawing the flame to his pet. She tried to escape but he wouldn’t let her. She started squealing in that annoying whistle of hers. Her tiny hairs got torched one by one, exposing her pink skin again. When the flame started singing her skin, she stopped fighting. She curled up into a ball in the corner of the box. Silently.
“What’s that smell?” Prudence yelled and turned off the faucet. “Why does it stink in here?”
The lighter fell from Alvin’s hand, hitting the CD cover. He didn’t say a word. Prudence turned on the faucet again. He looked at the hamster-rabbit and felt regret. He started petting her, surprised by how quickly she gave into his touch again. She drew her tiny nostrils to his fingers. Alvin tore her a small piece of the lettuce she was standing on, and she nibbled it eagerly.
3.
PRUDENCE TURNED OFF the water, wrapped a towel around her body, and sat down next to Alvin. Tiny droplets slid off her black hair onto the mattress. She gazed at the three gilded Jesus paintings that hung on the wall, then asked Alvin if he thought she was pretty. He said yes, and she stroked his back and instructed him to open the fridge and eat the sambusak leftover from yesterday. He suggested they share it, but she didn’t answer. She watched him slowly work through the cold pastry and collected the sesame seeds that scattered across the bed.
“I bought you a gift,” he said between bites.
“What are we celebrating?” she asked, and he quickly pulled the CD out of the hamster-rabbit’s box, his hands slightly shaking.
Prudence ran her hand over the cover, and for a moment Alvin thought he spotted a smile. A rare occurrence that usually presented itself when they went up to the seventh floor, stood by the big glass windows, and basked in the warm sun.
“Nice,” she said.
“It’s the Bealers,” he replied. “Your name, it’s because of them.”
She didn’t say a word, only blinked heavily. Alvin leaped out of bed, plucked from the junk pile a broken boombox they had collected a few months back. He placed it on top of the small fridge and plugged it into the socket.
Prudence reached out a long arm and grabbed Alvin’s shoulder.
“No noise,” she said. Alvin insisted they listen only for a few moments. Prudence said no. Eventually a compromise was reached.
“You can play it,” she said, “but with no sound.”
Alvin snatched it out of her hand, carefully opened the case, and inserted the CD into the stereo, making sure no sound came out, fearing his mother would change her mind. He went back to sit by his mother. They sat shoulder to shoulder, gazing at the blue digits changing on the display. The CD kept skipping. Alvin sat up straight while Prudence brushed her hand through his hair. Finally he got tired and lay down on the bed. He stared at the hamster-rabbit who lay next to him, until he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
When Alvin woke up she was no longer there. He tried falling back asleep. Unsuccessful, he opened his eyes again and noticed the hamster-rabbit’s box perched on the boombox. He jumped out of bed and leaped toward the box. It was washed clean. Empty. The air halted at the tip of his nose, refusing to enter his body. He searched behind the fridge but there was nothing but broken glass and a piece of chocolate that had melted and congealed. Then he started canvassing the room, rummaging through the junk, tossing aside clothes and pans, exposing the dirty tiles. He stomped his feet on the floor, kicked a kettle. Then he turned around, and only then spotted his mother. She was sitting on a plastic chair by the door, pressing her face into the small slit between two cardboard squares, looking out. He walked up to her. “Where?” he asked.
Prudence didn’t answer.
“Where?” he asked again, tugging on her pants, hard. “Why did you take her away?” he cried. She didn’t even notice him.
Alvin walked out the door and stood in front of her. He saw her eyes staring at him, filling with fear, then her hand reaching out and pulling the cardboard squares together until they concealed her completely. He waited there for a few minutes and gave up.
4.
HE LOOKED EVERYWHERE; behind the pay phone on the first floor, under the bench by the number 5 bus stop, between the display racks of the phone shop on the fourth floor. He asked every person he knew, from the man-with-the-bags to the old-lady-with-the-orange-scarf. He felt the words dissolving on his tongue. No one understood what he was talking about. A hamster-rabbit? What’s that? And he, the whole time, throughout the entire desperate search, didn’t know if he wanted to find his hamster-rabbit because he was worried about her or because he wanted to punish her.
It had been hours, and the missing hamster-rabbit refused to be found. Alvin was slowly coming to terms with the loss of his first and only pet, promising himself that by evening he’d forget about her. Passing the supermarket for the third time, he spotted her. She was going up the escalator to the fourth floor, sniffing the rail. Alvin broke into a run. He cut past three people on the escalator even though his mother said he should always wait patiently. He turned left and saw the hamster-rabbit slinking underneath the tables of the pizza parlor, nipping between the legs of the security-man-whose-son-died-in-the-war and slipping through the door and out of the station.
It was the smell that made him realize he was outside, the acrid scent of petrol and diesel coming from the buses and taxis. Alvin coughed and looked around. The words he knew could describe and define only some of the things he saw. The people zipping past him. The honking of the vehicles and the tall buildings. The problem was the things that were similar to what he knew, but not exactly the same. The buses that seemed particularly small, each with a slightly different color and shape. The signs brightening up the street in red, yellow, and green. The trees, which were significantly bigger than any tree he had ever seen inside the station, sprouting and spiraling into the sky, which was also different. Something about its clarity. As if it was
a cleaner blue than the one he saw through the windows of the station. But before he had time to contemplate all this, he felt fear lunging at him. He was staring into the unknown.
Amid the jumble of background noise he heard the hamster-rabbit’s whistle and then saw her, not far from him, trying to flee the stampede of feet surrounding her. A fat soldier with a big duffel bag accidentally kicked her, knocking her to the curb. He bent down, tried to see that she was okay, but the hamster-rabbit had already crossed the road, and Alvin hurried after her.
“Stupid kid,” a driver who almost ran him over yelled. Alvin kept running, pulling away from the bustle of the main street and arriving at a big, oddly shaped parking lot. He couldn’t see the hamster-rabbit but her whistles still filled his ears. He lay down on the cold asphalt, scanned the objects around him. It took him a few moments before he spotted her again. She was standing in front of him, next to a pair of brown sandals sporting dry, cracked feet. Then a chubby hand reached out and scooped up the hamster-rabbit, carrying her out of Alvin’s view. He got up from the floor, sidled up against a minibus, and peeked through the front windshield. Not far from him stood a short, dumpy woman in an oversized black shirt. She had dark curly hair, a double chin, and small round glasses perched on the tip of her nose. He came around the minibus and stood in front of her. He watched her gazing at the hamster-rabbit with a serious expression, holding her in her wide hands, petting her with big, circular motions. The woman whispered something to the animal. She was about his mother’s height, but clearly older.
When she saw Alvin standing close to her she jolted and almost dropped the hamster-rabbit. Her face flushed. She started shouting and it took Alvin some time to understand what she was saying. “Is this yours? … I mean … I’m sorry … I just saw her and … sorry, really.”
She handed him the hamster-rabbit but he didn’t take her, just kept listening to the small animal’s whistles. They were light and calm, nothing like the noises she made when he held her.
“She’s not mine,” he said. Then he asked, “What’s your name?”
“Shabtai. I mean, Anita,” she replied. “Sorry, my head isn’t screwed on straight today,” she said and withdrew into her silence.
“Maybe you know what animal that is?”
The woman pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and stared at the animal, studying it up close. “It’s a guinea pig, I think,” she told Alvin with a loud, clear voice.
He thought it was a funny name. Guinea pig. “You take her home?” he asked.
Shabtai-I-mean-Anita hesitated and started to giggle. “I think so. I mean, why not? I have room for it. A little company could be nice,” she mumbled and immediately backtracked. “Unless you want her, of course.”
Alvin lifted his hand to pet the hamster-rabbit, but changed his mind. “No,” he replied, then turned around and ran back toward the station. He thought he heard Shabtai-I-mean-Anita yelling something, but he wasn’t sure.
Having crossed the road, he slowed down his pace and stopped by the big dumpster at the entrance. He wondered whether the trees inside the station would eventually grow as tall as the trees outside it. Then he looked at the people in the station. He decided he wouldn’t move from his spot until he counted ten wearing a green shirt. He stood there for nearly an hour. After spotting the eighth person in a green shirt, he noticed his mother passing by. She was holding her bags, moving swiftly, and bumped into the cleaner with the orange vest who was pushing a big metal cart. A collection of computer keyboards and umbrellas scattered across the floor. Prudence bent down, tried to gather the loot while swarms of people surrounded her from every direction. Alvin entered the station and ran toward her.
Flies and Porcupines
SINCE THE DAY YOU ENLISTED, Yonatan, I’ve been trying to catch time. Literally catch it. I reach out with both hands, wait for a few moments to pass between my fingers, and quickly close my fists, trying to grab as many chunks of it as I can. At first I didn’t catch anything, because catching time is truly tricky. After all, flies are a lot clumsier and I’ve never managed to catch a single one.
* * *
I remember the day I told you about it. It was a Friday. You came home exhausted after two weeks of guard duty. We were all sitting at the table, and Mom and Dad wouldn’t even look at their plates until you finished wolfing down two whole servings. After dinner we sat in the living room and you started telling us stories. About how Itai spent his entire shift talking on the phone, and about Rozner the commander, and how you and Roee played tricks on him all day. And you went on and on about how nothing happened on that base, truly nothing, and that it was even safer than it was here at home, up north.
* * *
Later that evening you milled around the house and I followed you like a shadow. You shaved for a night out with the guys, but really you did it for Meital, who didn’t like feeling she was petting a porcupine. And then, when we heard a switch go off in their bedroom, you drew closer to me and whispered that now you could tell me. Someone had almost infiltrated the outpost while Itai was on guard duty, and it was pure luck that Rozner happened to be on patrol and caught him. And that in two weeks you might be sent off to Gaza because there was a shitstorm going on over there. And you told me not to tell them a thing, because Mom was stressed out enough as is, and it wasn’t good for Dad’s blood pressure. But that I needed to hear it, because in a few years it might be me.
* * *
And I tried to commit everything to memory. Every piece of advice and warning, and every word out of your new military lingo. I even remember the tricks you played on Rozner. Finally, when you were about to go out, you asked me if I was making any progress with the girl I had told you about, and I explained I’d been busy. And when you asked what I had been busy with, I stood in front of you and mumbled awkwardly that I was trying to catch time.
“The last thing a ten-year-old needs is time,” you said. “What could you possibly do with it?”
And since I honestly didn’t know, I said I’d been meaning to stop anyway, which only ticked you off even more. You immediately demanded I show you how I tried to catch it, so I reached out, fingers spread wide, and you examined the distance between my hands, the speed of my catch, and strength of my grip.
“Well, no wonder you can’t catch any, you’ve got no patience,” you announced, and even though you were supposed to have headed out long ago, you demonstrated with your big hands how you have to wait for time to settle between your fingers. And the moment you caught a chunk of it, you shouted at me to bring a bottle, and I ran to the kitchen while you continued to wrestle with the chunk that almost slipped from your fingers, and only at the very last minute we managed to push it into the bottle. Panting and sweating, we looked at the bottle and saw the chunk swirling inside it like a guppy in a fishbowl. Then you told me you had to get going and that I shouldn’t worry. “I’ve got plenty of time on my hands with all those guard duty shifts; I’ll save some for you.”
And then there was that day, when Mom wouldn’t stop watching the news, and Dad just sat silently in the living room. And I, who was kind of bored, fooled around with time, trying to do what you taught me. And after a few moments, I felt it. It almost slipped between my fingers, nearly invisible, but I knew right away I was holding a chunk of time in my hands. I pulled it closer to me so it wouldn’t escape, and Dad, who couldn’t figure out what I was doing, started yelling at me to stop behaving like a child. Then Mom approached me and said he didn’t mean it, but I knew he did.
From that moment on, I wouldn’t stop catching time, tearing off bigger and bigger chunks of it. I think time didn’t like my stealing from him. I tried explaining to him that he was infinite, and that all I needed was a few small pieces, but he wouldn’t listen. He fought me over every tiny particle. At night the chunks would start acting up, trying to escape from the bottle, but I’d hold the cap down hard, wouldn’t let them get out. I kept filling up the bottle throughout your entire sh
ivah. Everyone was there. Your whole gang came with Roee. Rozner stopped by too, even cried a little. Meital couldn’t make it, but don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll visit eventually, because despite what you may think, I know she always loved you, even when she felt like she was petting a porcupine.
Everyone came to pay their condolences, and I tried to appear mature and serious, but I didn’t actually pay them any attention, I just kept trying to catch time. Even after the shivah. And when I stuffed that last piece in the bottle, I went to your room. The room no one had gone into in over a month. I passed by your guitar, the pile of Pink Floyd records on the floor and the copy of The Lord of the Rings lying on your nightstand, with the bookmark a few pages from the end. I walked up to the board Mom made you for your birthday. I looked at it real close, studying every photo a thousand times. I touched the board, dragged my finger across every photo, comparing them to one another, searching for the right one. Finally I chose the one we took on the beach on your birthday. Everyone was in it. Mom and Dad in the middle, you hugging Meital with one arm, and with your other, slapping me on the back. And we were all doubled over with laughter, because the American with the baseball cap who took the photo didn’t quite understand which button to press.