It's a Whole Spiel

by It's a Whole Spiel- Love, Latkes

  The girl followed. She had long, dark hair and dark eyes that bore into Tzvi’s even from the shore. Her long skirt soaking didn’t stop her approach, and though Tzvi wanted to swim away, he was pretty sure he would tire from escaping before she would tire from chasing.

  “You can see me,” she said. The waves lapped at her chest, sharp angle of her clavicle poking out from her off-the-shoulder blouse.

  Tzvi nodded, unable to make eye contact.

  “Why did you run from me?”

  “My Hebrew’s not great,” he said, though he didn’t strain to find the words, and his accent, which had been perfected by his mom’s modeling, gave him away. “I’m on vacation,” he added.

  “Good for you.” A large wave made them both rise up, their feet leaving the safety of the sand. Tzvi loved that feeling, which was closer to flying than anyone ever recognized. “Have you always been able to talk to us?”

  “I think so.”

  “But you don’t like it.”

  Tzvi didn’t say anything. He looked past the girl, who was maybe a little older than him, toward the beach. His friends were buying Popsicles from a guy on the beach yelling out “Artik!” loud enough that his voice carried over the crashing waves. Two black women played paddleball on the beach, the thwack loud and satisfying.

  Tzvi sank his head beneath the waves, letting the water wash over him. When he resurfaced, the girl was still there, looking out at the horizon. “You can go if you want,” she said tersely, but not unkind. So he did.

  Two full weeks in Tel Aviv, shawarma for most meals so they could spend more money on evening drinks and a little bit of hash bought from the Canadian who hung out all the time at the dive bar. They kept meaning to go to nightclubs, but the bar was comforting, and there were enough girls around there, or at least the potential of girls. Plus, here they could speak to each other in Spanish and hear each other’s laughter.

  It was Tzvi and Gabriel again, on the patio now. Inside, Victor and Ariela were playing pool against Eitan and Roni. There was a thin haze of smoke, though it was hard to tell if the smoke from outside was making its way into the bar or vice versa. Gabriel lit a cigarette, a habit that only a few of them had had before arriving in Israel. But so many more people smoked that it was hard not to get wrapped in it. Tzvi himself almost craved one now, the beer coursing through him making him forget how much he hated the feeling of inhaling smoke.

  “I can’t believe I haven’t even made out with anyone yet,” Gabriel said, resting his arm over the patio’s banister. “We should be going to nightclubs.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  Gabriel exhaled, a billow of smoke joining the haze from the bar. “I hate nightclubs.” He laughed. “But I think I hate not making out with people less.” Neither one made a move to get up, their eyes on all the people around them. Aside from the soldier the first time in the bar, Tzvi hadn’t seen a single dead person enter, and it made the place feel like exactly the kind of refuge he had wanted from the trip. He wasn’t worried about making out; life would be long enough for sex. “You don’t?” Gabriel asked.

  “I don’t what?”

  “Hate not making out.”

  Just then, two American girls walked up the steps to the bar, passing by their table. Gabriel said hello, but not loudly enough to be noticed, apparently. Tzvi laughed, feeling good. Then the quirky owner came by with a couple of whiskey shots for them, saying that your first time in the bar you got a free drink. He’d forgotten how many times he’d given them free drinks already. Tzvi and Gabriel groaned, then laughed together, their conversation fading. Tzvi felt a confession building on his tongue.

  He had never told anyone about his ability to interact with the dead, had never particularly wanted to. Even if he were believed, what good could possibly come of it? But now, here on this warm night in Tel Aviv, in the company of one of his best friends, the alcohol coursing through his veins made him feel like it would be freeing to share, to open up. What else were nights like these—trips like these—for if not late-night confessions?

  Just as he was about to speak, the American girls came back out onto the patio holding beers, looking for empty seats. The only two available were at the boys’ table, and they came over and asked if it was okay to sit down, causing Gabriel’s face to light up like the sun and the moment for the confession to pass by.

  Nothing came of the encounter, and though Tzvi felt more disappointment about keeping his secret, he told himself that he needed nothing more from his trip than nights like those, Gabriel’s face lighting up.

  They went to Jerusalem to please their parents. They sent all the appropriate photos from the Western Wall. Jerusalem was full of the saddest ghosts. The ones he’d feared seeing on the plane. Little Arab boys from decades ago, dirt still on their cheeks, the kind of innocent dirt of boyhood that was not dealt out by life’s shitty hand but rather earned by the bravery to still live with joy in terrible circumstances. These boys were at least not alone, cared for by women in wigs and ankle-length skirts. Death took away all distinctions between Muslim and Jewish, between people; the ghosts banded together. This was cold comfort, and Tzvi was happy to leave Jerusalem behind.

  They canceled their remaining days at the hostel there and took a bus to Eilat, where they were sure sex would finally enter the story of their trip. But then they signed up for scuba diving certifications, which meant no drinking for a few days, a development they all half-heartedly complained about, though each one of them was ready for a break from that particular vice. Tzvi made a habit of waking up early and going to get iced coffee, people-watching on the boardwalk. The dead would always spot him, and though he still didn’t encourage conversation, he could no longer bring himself to flee. Anyway, there was nowhere to flee. They were everywhere. The joys of the trip made him comfortable with this lack of escape, and he settled into the knowledge that he’d be moving on soon, and though the ghosts would follow, it wouldn’t be these same ones.

  When the scuba course was over, Ariela and Victor hooked up in the bunk bed below Tzvi, thinking he was asleep. The soft noises of sex and the bed straining against their weight felt at once too intimate and somehow wonderful. He didn’t want to ruin the moment for them, though, so he remained perfectly still, not wanting to impose, not wanting to be present, and yet curious about what every single noise might have meant, trying to picture each little alien act. He was mortified and thrilled for his friends, the two contrasting emotions nestling comfortably within each other.

  Two weeks later, on the last night in the kibbutz in Degania, two Argentinian girls traveling together took an interest in him and Gabriel and insisted on spending time with them after their shifts cleaning the chicken coops. The girls poured the boys more cheap wine, and they played a game that was basically just a string of confessions. They started off with innocuous, silly facts (broken bones in childhood, a hidden talent for hula-hooping), and then, because they were teens let loose on the world, hungry for others, the confessions became more intimate and more sexual (a clichéd fantasy to have sex on a beach, an admission to masturbating quietly in airplane bathrooms). Tzvi again felt a building desire to admit how he saw the world. He thought for a moment that in this setting, he would not be laughed at or thought of as crazy. That they would take the confession as simply as they would if he admitted to being a virgin.

  Then Sofia grabbed Gabriel by the hand and led him away to privacy, leaving Tzvi alone with Mona. Before he left, Gabriel turned back to look at Tzvi again, such a cheesy smile plastered on his face that Tzvi was sure of life’s goodness. Ghosts existed but so did that kind of joy, so what was so scary about the dead?

  Mona looked a little like the ghost girl who’d followed him into the ocean in Tel Aviv, her eyes intense and intimidating. A pang of regret hit Tzvi, wishing he had asked the girl a few questions or let her talk longer. Then he refocused on Mo
na sitting next to him. They small-talked for a little while on the back patio, surrounded by night and silence, just enough laughter to make them feel close to each other. Mona bit her lip and pulled herself onto Tzvi’s lap, straddling him. They held eye contact for three seconds before bursting into giggles, and the next thing he knew they were kissing.

  On the flight to Budapest the other boys wanted all the details. Gabriel went into the progression of the evening, whispering so that the girls couldn’t hear, though they were just as eager to know. Tzvi was happy to be across the aisle and not have to provide his own account. The sex had been clumsy and uncomfortable and wonderful, a blur of sensations and awareness about the sensations. There had been no ghosts around, and Tzvi would hang on to the details of the memory for the rest of the trip, and for years after. Mona’s nose ring, a simple golden stud, glinting in the moonlight. Her body against his, sticky with sweat, giving off these little jerks as she drifted off into sleep and he lay awake in the weak breeze. The way her Argentinian accent reshaped words he thought he was familiar with. He didn’t know if he had objectified her, or if she had objectified him, or if sex was the object both had wanted, and they had simply used each other to get it.

  Europe was a different kind of beast. Tzvi was surprised to find that he hadn’t been sad to leave Israel. Parental connection and Mona notwithstanding, he had looked forward more to the cities of Europe from the start, its hostels and coffee shops, the fortunate fact that he wouldn’t speak most of the languages.

  The group had been traveling for nearly two months together and had started to get sick of each other. They spent a week in Budapest and then, unable to agree on what to do next, they split into smaller groups, promising to meet back up in Ibiza later. Eitan, Roni, and Daniela headed off to Amsterdam for that particular kind of debauchery. Ariela and Victor decided to go on a couple’s trip to a lake in Switzerland. The group’s interests were scattered, some of them happy to check off the tourist sites the books recommended, others focusing all their efforts on girls or boys.

  So it was Tzvi and Gabriel for a few weeks on their own. They took trains to Prague and Berlin, hopped over to Stockholm, then back to Berlin. Gabriel had gotten the taste of sex and couldn’t think about anything else. He brought Tzvi to nightclubs at midnight and stayed until seven in the morning, then slept until three p.m., at which point he’d open dating apps on his phone or go downstairs to the hostel lobby and wait to find girls to talk to.

  “You’re addicted,” Tzvi joked.

  They were at a beer garden at a park in Prague, overlooking the entire city. There were a ton of people gathered around, enjoying the cooling late-summer weather and cheap beer. A lot of ghosts here, but they had plenty of company too, and if their eyes met Tzvi’s and recognized him for what he was, they didn’t come rushing to him.

  “What better thing to be addicted to than human connection?” Gabriel said. There was almost always a cigarette in his hands now.

  “Is that what you’re after, then?”

  “Of course. The fact that it’s fleeting or mostly physical doesn’t make it less of a connection.”

  “I think by definition it does, but I’m not gonna judge.”

  “No?” Gabriel craned his neck to follow the trajectory of a group of Czech teens passing a joint between them. “How come?”

  Tzvi tried to articulate his thoughts but settled on a shrug.

  There were times when Gabriel went home with a girl or nights when Tzvi wasn’t up for the whole cycle again, and as a result he found himself alone more than he had ever been. He thought a lot about Mona and the girl from the ocean. He joined hostel pub crawls and practiced how to say “excuse me” in whatever language they spoke where he was, in theory to break into conversations, but it never seemed to be that easy. The living were less receptive.

  The sneakers he brought with him started falling apart from the walking, and for the first time in his life he sat for hours on end with no agenda and no itch to move on. The dead sought him out, his static solitude easier to approach now.

  Maybe it was loneliness that made him not flee, maybe it was the fact that the trip wasn’t exactly what he’d thought it would be. Not worse, by any means. But not the version that had existed in his head in the months leading up to it, or even in the first few idealistic weeks at the start. Maybe it was sex that had changed things, or maybe nothing had changed, and he’d simply grown tired of fleeing from the ghosts all the time.

  At a photography museum in Berlin, Tzvi struck up a conversation with a ghost who looked to be in her forties, silver strands standing out in her black hair. She smiled at Tzvi and pointed at the woman in the picture, then said something in German.

  “Is that you?” he asked, in English.

  The woman smiled, taking his ability to see her and talk to her in stride, as if there were nothing special about it. “I was in university here,” she said. “A lot of life ahead of me there, but not as much as I thought there would be.”

  “Does it make you sad to look at this?”

  The woman clicked her tongue. “Why be sad that I lived? I love this picture.” She took a step closer, crossing her arms over her chest. “I come to look at it every day. I wish I’d been in more pictures in my life.”

  Tzvi stood with her for over an hour, listening to her make statements like these, getting a sense of her life through the details she unloaded, the stories she told about growing up in East Germany. “I died right before the wall came down,” she said. “It was easy to cross that way.”

  Later that week, Gabriel found a girl he liked and decided to stay a little longer in Berlin rather than continue on to the Balkans, so Tzvi went on his own for the first time in his life. And suddenly the ghosts were all he had. He came to realize that all they needed were the same kinds of things the living needed, the same things he craved: to be seen, to be heard. He didn’t learn much more about death, but he saw how much the dead needed these interactions and how easily he could provide them. For two weeks, Tzvi did the exact opposite of what he’d done all his life: he sought out the ghosts.

  He stayed with the ghosts on park benches and corner cafés and the cemented shores surrounding the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. They would communicate in their broken English, the cracks in each tongue following different fault lines. An old woman in Kosovo wept to him for an hour, then wiped her ghostly cheek and hugged him, thanking him in her Slavic tongue. Tzvi sat and watched her go, feeling like he’d found the purpose of his trip.

  In Ibiza, all seven of them reunited to party. They checked into a loud and overpriced hostel, now well versed enough in euros to know they were getting ripped off. They were all starting to catch flak from their parents about spending, and though for Tzvi, Asia and its affordability was next on the agenda, it felt like the grown-up thing to do was to care about money. Not that they’d actually stop spending it. Victor and Ariela had broken up in Switzerland, and Victor had decided he’d had enough of traveling and was going back to Mexico to apply to schools and work for his dad, so this was to be his last hurrah.

  The beach clubs were chaotic flurries of party flyers littering the air and shirtless men, some younger than Tzvi and the boys, some significantly older, all of them seemingly grabbing at women, either with their hands or with their words. The air was thick with music and people shouting. The floor was thick with discarded plastic cups and spilled mojitos, the sand swelling under the weight of the partyers.

  They all bought drinks and were quickly separated, the party pulling them in different directions. Tzvi squeezed himself past bodies until he found room to breathe, near the shore. It was amazing to look out at these scores of people and see how many dead were among them, without anyone other than himself noticing. Even at a glance he could spot dozens of them in the crowd. Some dancing, some leaning back and watching, some just standing in the middle of it all as if they were
waiting for someone to run into them, for someone to start a conversation with them, flirt with them.

  Ghosts hung on to life. Tzvi had learned that long ago, but it hadn’t quite sunk in like it had over the past four months.

  The water lapped at his ankles. He was holding his flip-flops in one hand, his drink in the other. The sun beat down on his neck and shoulders, which had burned early on in the trip, then darkened to the point that he was sure he’d never lose the tan. Not far from him on the beach, he saw a ghost standing much like he was at the edge of the water.

  He was young, dressed like so many of the people at the beach club, a tank top and swim trunks, cheap plastic sunglasses resting on top of his head. He didn’t notice Tzvi’s approach, his eyes glued on the thumping mass in front of him. He appeared to be deep in thought, so Tzvi stopped nearby, not wanting to disrupt. He watched girls throw their arms into the air, watched boys keep their elbows at an angle as they tried to keep up. Puffs of weed smoke rose up from the crowd and curled skyward. The DJ danced in her little booth, fiddling with the equipment in a purposeful way that did not seem to affect the music at all.

  Tzvi was about to break his silence when he saw Gabriel approach. They’d caught up briefly at the hostel but hadn’t had one-on-one time. He was glad to see his friend but cast a furtive glance toward the ghost, as if an apology was necessary.

  “I’m surprised you’re not chasing girls,” Tzvi said with a smile, raising his glass to cheers with Gabriel’s beer.

  “Right now, just chasing after you. I thought I’d gotten sick of you, but turns out traveling without you isn’t quite as fun. All those moments between hookups really drag on.”