by Sarah Blau
“Just a group of friends from college, you know, nothing special,” I say, and I am not in the least prepared for what happens next.
“Stop lying!” he shouts and almost knocks over the table, his jugular bulging. “Can’t you see I’m trying to help you? I don’t even understand why I’m trying so hard!” A tiny drop of spit lands on my chin, and I don’t dare wipe it. “Sheila, you’re rapidly approaching the point where I won’t be able to help you, do you understand that?”
No, I don’t.
“What kind of group was it, Sheila?”
Why am I getting the feeling he already knows? I hear the chant wafting through my head, Forever four, never less, never more!
“Tali Grossman says it was a serious business. That you had nicknames and code words, that you used to perform ceremonies like some medieval cult or illuminati-type shit. What exactly were you doing there?”
“Taliunger is a jealous liar,” I blurt out, “she always was. I thought you were too smart to believe her wild fantasies. What do you think, that we pranced around naked during a full moon? There were no ceremonies.” Just that one time.
And suddenly I miss Dina, who always knew how to put her in her place with a scathing look that said, Taliunger, shut your fat piehole. Who would have thought I would ever miss Dina? Who would have thought I’d have to bother myself with Taliunger again, as if I was still twenty? But that’s what you are, aren’t you? Twenty. Or at least you think you are.
“Did your group have a name or not?”
“It did.”
The Witch of Endor is giving me a cautioning look, Don’t tell him, don’t tell this man a thing!
“The Others,” I say. “We called ourselves the Others.”
Once again, I see Dina’s, Ronit’s and Naama’s faces, before… before that night, before all the deaths, paragons of youth and otherness. There’s Dina lying on the grass, her hands resting on the small tambourine by her side as she smiles at Naama who’s sprawled next to her, limbs loose and slack, hair splayed on the grass, Naama’s auburn hair, and Ronit who’s approaching us, arms akimbo, hands on flawless hips. Ronit smiles at me and wants to say something, but her mouth is full of blood. I open my eyes straight into Micha’s face.
“And what was the purpose of this group, if I may ask?” he enquires after a lengthy pause.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“We thought… I mean, this freshman year at college,” don’t tell him! I’m searching for the words, not sure I’ll be able to explain, don’t tell him! “We took a course together and just clicked.”
I recall the grey blob from the Women of the Bible course, the one who started it all with his sages of blessed memory, and all the mothers and children, and how Dina said without blinking an eye, “We’ll have other ambitions,” and we laughed and laughed. Because that’s how it is when you’re twenty, everything makes you laugh, until it doesn’t.
“And then what happened?”
“We just thought maybe not all women have to get married, or have kids, or…” My voice trails off. “And that maybe we didn’t have to either.”
“And then?”
Don’t tell him!
“And then, as you can see, that’s exactly what happened. We didn’t get married and didn’t have kids, that simple.” I wish it was that simple.
“But… but why?” His mouth hangs agape in enquiry, but he doesn’t look so boyish and innocent any more.
“Because,” I answer, “because we were young and we wanted something different out of this life.”
“And did you girls get what you wanted?”
I fall silent. Very, very silent.
“Did you, Sheila, get what you wanted?”
Tick-tock, tick-tock, no tot, no tot.
“And maybe,” his tone changes, “let’s just try a little thought experiment: maybe you actually blame them, Dina and Ronit, the whole group, maybe you think it’s their fault that you never got married or had kids, that you essentially wasted your life. Does that sound right? Only as an experiment, of course.”
Tick-tock, tick-tock. We lock eyes. Only as an experiment, sure. Where’s the “I’m trying to help you”? Where’s the “I’m on your side, Sheila”? For a moment he seems almost enthusiastic, like any man about to get a promotion because he caught the serial killer terrorizing the nation.
“I did not waste my life,” I say.
“Let’s carry on with the experiment, okay? Look at yourself,” he says and sweeps his gaze across the room, lingering on the hairballs lurking in the corners. “Look at your life. Are you happy?”
Happy?
“Is anyone?”
“Don’t change the subject, Sheila. Are you happy with your life?”
“Would kids make my life better?”
“Let’s assume they would,” he says, and it stings. I reach for a cookie, ignore the dust sprinkles and take a bite. It’s dry and bland, like those rice crackers you give babies when they’re teething, and for some inexplicable reason, the image of the mysterious redhead from the party drifts into my mind, raising her wine glass in my direction. Cheers!
“With all due respect for your thought experiment, I didn’t murder anyone, and you know that,” I say. “What bothers me is that you’re not considering that it could be the other way around, that maybe the fact that all my college friends have died and I’m the only one left means I’m next. Is that so far-fetched? Why aren’t you looking into that?”
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“We’re looking into all leads,” he says, but his tone says something entirely different.
“And if you’re searching for suspects who knew both murder victims, then there were a few of those at the party. Neria Grossman, who hated Dina, and Taliunger, who hated both Dina and Ronit, and who knows who else was there.”
Once again the young redhead’s face floats into my mind, and I remember the glance she cast at Ronit who passed by her in the hallway, a glance full of loathing that lasted no more than a second. I didn’t pay it much attention at the time, but now it’s back with clarity and meaning. So why am I not telling this to Micha? Why am I not giving him her description? What’s stopping me?
“I told you, we’re pursuing all leads,” he says, his tone oddly formal.
“You don’t say, Mister Officer,” I reply with a high-pitched simper.
“I do,” he says, “and don’t try to sound like a little girl, it doesn’t suit you.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t.”
He gets up and stands inches away from me. “Sounding like one doesn’t suit you, but having one would have,” he says. “Would have suited you perfectly. I think you could have made a great mum.”
And the moment he utters those words, I suddenly realize who the red-headed girl is, and can hardly swallow my shock.
14
I BARELY HAVE any friends. I’m not too torn up about it, but it does make me wonder sometimes.
Because the old Sheila, college Sheila, was one-of-the-gang Sheila, my whole identity was enmeshed and entangled with that of my friends, without any partitions or border fences. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. Today I know that’s exactly the type of friendship you ought to steer clear of.
I do have Shirley, from the museum, but she’s a work-friend, not the kind you actually invest in, even though it’s exactly the type that – due to close proximity and shared daily toil – can transform into a true friendship. Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen here.
And there’s Eli, but Eli’s a man.
Even technology seems designed to facilitate my relative solitude. Uber reduces the need to rely on rides from friends (even though I’m starting to get sick of sourpuss drivers who moan when I type in a Tel Aviv address, as if I’ve just asked for a lift to the Bermuda Triangle), and the “handyman” app eliminates the need to ask friends for help around my apartment. I once tried asking Eli to come by and help with a tiny repair, but the bizarrely intimate
vision of him labouring with a drill was too embarrassing for me, and I think for him too. I didn’t give it another try.
I go through my mental list of “friends,” and realize they’re all dead. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Now I pick up my pace on my way to meet the daughter of the person who was closest to me. She was my best friend, but in the moment of truth, I failed at being hers.
The Eretz Israel Museum is silent and still.
It reminds me of the Bible Museum, but a lot more formal and dignified; here you won’t find the director scampering between the displays while barking orders (often conflicting ones) into two phones at the same time.
From the outside, the modest folklore pavilion resembles our wax pavilion. I almost expect the figurines to steal peeks at me through the glass panes, You can’t escape us! But no, all I see through the window is the thick shock of auburn hair I should have recognized the moment I laid eyes on it.
“Hello there,” says Gali Malchin, the redhead from the party. Gali Malchin, daughter of Naama Malchin, the fourth and my personal favourite member of the Others, the one who went and hung herself in her bedroom one day.
“I missed you,” she smiles at me, and it’s Naama’s wide and gorgeous smile, from the days she still used to laugh.
I can’t utter a single sound. All my memories come crashing into each other in my head. The knife! The knife! Get the knife away from her! Gali is still smiling, but she steps away from me and lowers a stack of papers onto the table between us. Guide fact sheets. I’d recognize them anywhere; they’re always the same, whether the instructor is an eighteen-year-old girl doing her national service or a forty-year-old woman. Tell me, that’s your first thought when you see Naama’s daughter after all these years? Really?
She bends and pulls a heavy stapler out of the desk drawer, her movements as nimble and lithe as her mother’s used to be. I have no doubt that had Naama lived to maturity, she would have preserved her pliability.
But she didn’t, Naama, she remained young, whereas we, the three Others, kept growing older and rotting as if it was our God-given right. But now it’s just you.
I sense Gali’s scrutinizing stare and wonder how much she knows. Something in the way her eyes narrow at me tells me she knows more than I’d like her to.
“Ronit told me you’re in the museum guide business too,” she says, her clenched hands stapling papers, click! Her voice betrays not the slightest emotion when she mentions Ronit.
“What were you even doing at her party?” I ask.
“She didn’t tell you?” Click! goes the stapler. “I’m doing a memorial video about my mum and I wanted to interview her.”
Click! Click! Click! The sense of betrayal resurfaces like a slap in the face. “So why didn’t you come to me?” I ask, since I was her mother’s best friend, me, not Ronit, and old rivalry that even death couldn’t end rears its ugly head. Me, not Ronit. Me. Me. Me.
Gali takes a step closer to me. “I didn’t come to you because I wanted you to come to me,” she says and flashes that beautiful smile again, and it’s only now that I notice one of her teeth is crooked, lending her an elf-like appearance. “And here you are.”
The memories pulse through my mind, the plump baby reaching out to me in the dark. “Who wants a hug? Who wants a cuddle?” That tight squeeze, and those chubby arms wrapping around my neck, and a milky scent engulfing me like a cloud, and my heart opening like a womb, and there’s that beloved smile, with the pink gums and that tiny crooked tooth, oh, my little, beautiful jellybean, you came back to me.
Three older instructors burst into the room in a frenzy of rippling scarves and rattling necklaces strung with chunky, colourful beads.
“That’s our national service girl,” the oldest one among them says to her friend, pointing at Gali. “She’ll show you.”
Gali raises an amused eyebrow at me and approaches the computer.
“Could you explain to me how to tag friends on Facebook?”
The woman making the request isn’t particularly nice, but neither is Gali. While drily explaining to the woman where to press, she looks up and throws a smile my way. I return a co-conspirator’s smile, but then remember that I get mixed up with those tags as well, that I’m not what you’d call tech savvy, and what’s more, I’m closer in age to the unpleasant asker than to Gali. That’s exactly your problem, you’re still clinging to youth.
I take a step nearer to the table and freeze when I see Lilith’s familiar face staring at me from the fact sheets. It’s an earlier version of her, hair wild and dishevelled, mouth agape, toned legs and hooves for feet. You actually thought you could get away from me?
“Nice drawing of her, isn’t it?” Gali’s voice floats over from across the room, and if earlier I wondered how much she knows, I just got my answer.
She truly was a good friend, Naama. She knew how to be one. She didn’t have Dina’s intimidating edge, or Ronit’s flirtatious irony. She was just Naama, kind and good-tempered, with auburn curls and a lisp, and that wide smile. But that’s life, the good ones are always the first to go.
I consider Gali, who’s explaining to the technologically challenged lady with the DIY jewellery why she “can’t find her photos in her feed,” and know that despite the physical resemblance, she doesn’t take after her mother. I recognize her subtle cruelness towards the older lady, her convoluted explanations, deliberately making it much more complicated than it needs to be. I know that any moment now the older woman will give up and rise from her chair, and Gali will flash me that elfish smile of hers. I wonder whether I should be afraid of her, and whether I should have been afraid of her mother.
Thrump! Thrump! Thrump!
Dina’s hands pound the tambourine, Naama’s face is twisted and wet from tears. She’s screaming words I can’t understand, and the knife flashes in her hand; is it possible that Dina’s laughing? No, she’s not, her face is pale like Ronit’s face, like my face, when Naama turns to me and screams, “How could you? Tell me! How could you?” and the voice isn’t Naama’s, but the hand holding the knife is.
“My group’s here, you want to join me as co-instructor?” Gali asks, and without waiting for me to answer, she hands me the stack of fact sheets and as we make our way to the exhibition gallery, I notice that our steps are completely in sync, and wonder whether she’s doing it on purpose.
This gallery is much more impressive than our sparse display rooms. Here they have giant vitrine cabinets exhibiting a vast selection of Judaica pieces, the neon lights lending them an eerie, otherworldly glow. The menorahs, shofars, candlesticks and Seder plates all glint in an ominous light, but the strongest light is shining from the direction of the amulet vitrine across the room. I don’t need to look, I already know what type of amulets are displayed there, and I want to turn on my heels and run. Is she doing this on purpose? Was it all planned? Gali looks calm and composed, leading a group of religious teens into the room with an authoritative air, steering them straight to… wouldn’t you know it, the vitrine showcasing protection amulets against Lilith.
The curator has chosen to position them by the fertility amulets. I’m surprised to find that there are significantly more protection amulets against Lilith and the possibility of her harming babies than fertility amulets that help produce said babies. But then again, fear will always trump hope.
“Girls, we’re in Lilith’s turf now,” Gali says. “Say hi.” The girls giggle, they clearly like Gali, who continues to explain to them in a pleasant and almost scientific tone about Lilith’s creation in heaven and her relationship with Adam, and I’m rather taken aback to hear her say that “To this day, Lilith is considered the enemy of babies and the star of men’s wet dreams.”
The girls’ ears perk up and the room reverberates with murmurs until one of them works up the nerve to ask, “What exactly do you mean?”, to which her friend elbows her in the ribs.
“I mean that Lilith is considered a sperm thief, teasing sleeping men
into nocturnal emissions.”
Hmm. A national service girl talking about sperm theft? Nocturnal emissions? Very interesting. I catch her sneaking a side glance at the gallery door and realize this information doesn’t exactly appear on the fact sheets, and indeed, when one of the chunky-necklaced instructors appears at the doorway, Gali immediately switches subjects and presents a conservative exegesis of Eve and Lilith and female roles and blah-blah-blah.
So. Gali likes to play with fire. I’m proud of her, she reminds me of myself back when I used to juggle a flame or two. Back when I thought I was immune to burns.
The difference between the Eretz Israel Museum and the Bible Museum has never been clearer to me. I hear the familiar human din of shouts, beratements and giggles coming from the instruction hall. The sounds become louder as I draw closer, and cease abruptly when I appear in the doorway. The silence is not the comfortable kind.
After Ronit’s murder, Efraim gave me a few days off, “to calm yourself down,” although to me it looks like the person who needs calming is Efraim, who’s now looking at me as if he’s just seen a ghost. (I know, I know, there has to be a better metaphor out there.) Finally, he pulls himself together.
“Sheila! Good to have you back. How are you feeling?” He manages to sound sincere, and a few of the instructors approach me, asking in unusually high-pitched voices, “Are you hanging in there?” “Are you okay?” and “Do you feel ready to give instruction classes? Are you sure?”
Only Shirley is shaking her head at me from across the room. She seems distant and I wonder what’s going on with her, but not enough to actually ask. As I’ve mentioned, that’s the kind of friendship we have.
Afterwards, on our break, she tells me the process is moving forward.
“I chose the father,” she says, and without knowing why, my heart sinks. Without knowing why? “All that’s left is an HIV test,” she grimaces, “and then I can start.”