by Sarah Kassem
“Cool,” replied Cristobal and asked if he could with him one time. Viktor promised that he would hide him in the breast pocket of his jacket one day and take him.
They stood at the barbed wire fence and watched as a few men put a tent together in the glow of some headlights. A pair of black ravens or crows or blackbirds – Viktor could not tell them apart – came flying over, sat down on the field, pecked at the soil and crowed from time to time. They looked steadily in Viktor and Cristobal’s direction.
“What are they saying?” asked Viktor. Cristobal floated in the air and looked intently at the black birds.
“They say that there is a big yellow python in the circus.” He listened intently and then said: “And some iguanas.”
“What’s an iguana?” Asked Viktor.
“Like a lizard, but much larger. And they often have a beard on their chin or their head.”
“Are they bad?”
“Viktor! All reptiles are bad. Just remember that,” whispered Cristobal.
Viktor nodded.
“But the ravens say that the python just works and lives with a woman. They called her Pythia.”
“The snake?”
“No, the woman. I must report that. We must add Pythia to the database, if she’s not already there. That’s only a stage name, so we need to check her family and friends. If she’s an ally of the Reptiles Association, then her friends and family may also be infiltrated so we have to be careful and add them to the enemies list as well.”
Viktor thought about it. “Are my family and friends also infillerated?”
“Infiltrated!” Cristobal corrected him. “So far, not yet. They’re all clean. But we keep it in mind now that you’re particularly vulnerable. If you notice that someone likes to talk about reptiles or owns a reptile, you must report it to me immediately so we can protect you.”
Viktor thought about Marco, who knew a lot about reptiles. He wondered if maybe Marco was dangerous and made a mental note to watch him closely from now.
A wind came and blew coolly across the field. Cristobal climbed into Viktor’s breast pocket and they went back slowly. Viktor had to stop a few times so Cristobal could sniff flowers or drink nectar. He flew in the gardens of some houses and talked with a couple of small brown birds who followed them from tree to tree.
Testa
Viktor stood next to the car with a bicycle pump in his hand, and his floating tire and water wings lying at his feet. He watched as his father attempted to stow the coolers, barbecue and drink crates into the trunk.
“Viktor, you’ll have to deflate that tire and those wings. We can’t take them like that,” said his father while heaving two crates into the sparse space.
“But I’ve just pumped them up!”
“Even so, you’ll have to let the air out, they’re much too large to fit. We can pump them up again when we arrive.”
“But... but they’re already done!”
Viktor’s father stopped and looked at his son. “They’ll never fit like that. Look, they’ll end up taking up too much space.”
Viktor looked helplessly at the rubber ring. “I have to let the air out?”
“Yes please,” his father said, returning to the packing.
“Why?”
“Oded!” called his father. Oded came running out of the house. “Stow these things in the car, please. We have to fit everything.” Oded rummaged in the luggage compartment in order to try and find some more room, moving the coolers, beverage crates, barbecue and two travel bags, all with no success.
“Viktor, you need to get the air out of those things. There’s no way they’ll fit like that. Large swimming devices plus a small car equals no room for everything. Large has to be made very small to fit into small.”
Viktor pondered on that and found it all very complicated. “What?” he whined, not understanding.
At that moment his mother came out of the house and stood in front of the two open trunks. She put her hands on her hips and looked at everything with a frown.
She watched Oded as he tried to strategically place all the items.
“We don’t need the crates. Take the bottles out and put them under the seats,” Helena said. He took out the crates and stuffed the bottles under the seats.
“Viktor, air out, now” Helena said.
Viktor bent down and quickly let the air out of his swimming devices.
“You take this car,” she said to Immanuel. “I’ll be in the front. The back’s for small, thin people: Viktor, Gem, Hala, Andala and Hamid. Oded, you drive the other car. Grandfather in front, in the back the rest.”
“Five in the back?” Viktor’s father asked, startled.
“Yes, they’re all very thin, they’ll fit.”
“But there’re only three seats and three seat belts!”
“Viktor and Hala share a belt, Hamid sits in the middle. And then Andala and Gem share a belt as well.”
Malek and Andala wanted to sit together, Viktor and Gem wanted to share a seat belt, and Hala wanted to sit with her mother. But all such qualms fell silent as Helena announced “We’re leaving!”
The thin, small people squeezed themselves into Immanuel’s car according to Helena’s instructions. Viktor was fully pressed against the glass, Hala appeared to have lost her limbs, Hamid had dislocated both his elbows against his chest, and Gem sat half on Andala and half on Hamid.
They drove off, passed the Reconquista where Rocco, who was sweeping the road in front of the bar, waved to them.
As they turned onto Pacific Street, Hala whispered to Viktor, “I have to pee.” Viktor whispered back, “Me too!” But neither of them dared say anything.
They drove past the fields and the circus. Several small tents were set up and the skeleton of the main tent stretched its iron frame toward the sky. Once they were on the freeway, Helena rolled the windows up, turned on the air conditioning, and searched for a station on the radio. She turned the dial from beginning to end and back again, then stopped at a station where “Somewhere over the Rainbow” by Kamakawiwo’ole was playing. Viktor knew the song and had even seen a picture of Kamakawiwo’ole. He had been creeped out by that picture. Oded, who had been there when Viktor had seen it, had told him that Izzy was very nice and talented and already dead. After that Viktor liked the songs.
Immanuel and Helena were talking about something boring, Hamid and Andala were talking about something that was even more boring, Gem was sandwiched between the two of them and Viktor could not see him as he couldn’t even bend forward. Hala peered over Viktor’s shoulder to try and look out the window, but she couldn’t see much because Viktor was bigger than her. He tired to lean back and press himself into the seat while Hala leant forward a little and smiled gratefully at him as she looked outside.
Viktor looked at Hala’s face. She had the same golden-brown skin color as Maricel, Gem, Donna and Andala. He thought that probably all the people in the Philippines had such skin. Viktor had looked the Philippines up in his children’s encyclopedia and had been horrified when he read that it was a broken country. It was totally broken, completely shattered and tattered. There was a large part at the top, a small part at the bottom, and in the middle it was broken up and consisted of lots of small pieces. He’d then run quickly into the living room and taken out the atlas and looked at a large map. He knew that all the Filipino people he knew came from Quezon City, and so he found the city on the map. It looked like it was on a part of the country that would vanish soon and he thought it was no wonder all the employees from the Philippines had left and come to Hedera Helix. Viktor had then looked at Bahrain to see if everything there was in order. Unfortunately, he’d realized that it was an island, and Viktor was creeped out by islands. Islands with all their water were a suspicious matter. If you wanted to run or to get away, then you couldn’t as you’d end up in the sea and drown, or you’d be eaten by sharks. Or crocodiles. Bahrain also appeared to break apart at the top, and Viktor came to understand wh
y Hamid and Malek had come to Hedera Helix. Viktor had then looked up Hedera Helix for safety’s sake, but it was not an island, thank God, and as far as he knew there was no danger that it would begin to break apart. Once Maricel had told him while he was playing with Gem and Hala that they would take him with them the next time they went home for a vacation. Viktor had politely declined and said he would no doubt have a lot to do from school so he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere.
“Look,” whispered Hala and pointed outside. In a wheatfield was a large scarecrow. There were a lot of black birds standing on its arms. “What is he doing?”
“It’s a scarecrow,” Viktor said.
“But what is he doing?”
“It’s not a real man. He’s stuffed with straw and he’s there to keep the birds away.”
“Why?”
“So they don’t eat the fields.”
Apparently the scarecrow’s tactics weren’t working as, if they were, the birds would no doubt not be sitting on its arms. In addition, Viktor knew that birds were not stupid. They visit people and forge alliances, they can tell if people are good or bad. He also knew that black birds belonged to the armoured brigade, and he suspected that the league would not have any stupid birds for a brigade.
Viktor craned his neck and looked at the sky. He saw birds there, high in the sky and seeming to follow the car. He then saw a few flocks somewhat lower in the sky, flying in V formation. Cristobal had told him the evening before that the gulls and owls had explored and analyzed the beach of Lantana Camara, and come to the conclusion that there were no crocodiles there and so Viktor had been given permission to go. This had relieved him of an added pressure, the problem of how he would have told his parents that he couldn’t go with them to the beach.
“I go on vacation and take my car,” said Immanuel Abies before he explained to them the rules of the game. It took a while for Viktor and Hala to understand how the game worked.
“I go on vacation and take my car and my bag with me,” Helena said.
“I go on vacation and take my car, my bag, and my swimming rings with me,” Viktor said.
“I go on vacation and take my car, my bag, my swimming rings and my swimsuit with me,” Hala said.
“I go on holiday and I take my car, my bag, my swimming rings, my swimsuit and my toothbrush with me,” Hamid said.
“Why do you take your toothbrush?” asked Gem
“Because you have to brush your teeth. You never brush your teeth?”
“But we are only there today, we’ll come back in the evening. Why do you want to brush your teeth there for one day?” asked Gem.
“Shut up and play on. I can also say that I take my bath with me,” Hamid said.
Gem looked at him confused. As he continued, he forgot the bag and bathing suit and lost the game. “This is boring,” Hala whispered in Viktor’s ear. Viktor nodded.
“I need to pee”, she whispered.
Helena turned around quickly and glared at her. “Hala, you have to pee?”
Hala nodded.
“We’ll stop at the next truck stop,” Helena said.
“The next one is in 52 kilometers. There was a sign just before.”
“Can you wait half an hour?” asked Helena.
Hala shook her head bashfully.
“Stop when you can then, we’ll have to go to a field,” Helena said.
Immanuel Abies drove a few more minutes, then stopped at the roadside. Oded parked the car behind them and came running up. “What happened?” He cried.
“Some of us have to pee,” sighed Immanuel and lit a cigarette. Hala ran to her mother and they went into a sunflower field. Helena asked, “Who else?”
Viktor shook his head.
“Viktor?” Helena asked with raised eyebrows.
Viktor ran into the field and peed. He looked up and wondered why sunflowers were so big. They were huge, nearly four times as tall as he was. He saw a couple of birds flying over him and heard a couple of deep crows from the field.
As he went back to the car, he saw Grandpa Gideon peeing as well. Gem had found a large black beetle and he came running up with it, Hala screamed and Viktor clung to the leg of his mother. Maricel slapped Gem’s hand and the large beetle flew into the sunflowers.
“Children, what a beautiful day!” declared Grandpa Gideon, putting his hands on his hips and bending backwards to strech his back and to look up at the sun. Viktor felt that he looked like a sunflower. Grandpa Gideon was very tall and long-limbed and towered over everyone.
The road was very quiet, only a few crickets chirped in the grass aside from the occasional crowing of a raven.
“Can I have a sunflower?” asked Hala.
“When we come back, we can stop and you can get one,” Helena said, and directed her into the car.
“Can I as have one as well?”
“No. Viktor! Get in!”
The sun shone on Viktor’s side of the car and he kept his head to the sun and closed his eyes like Grandpa Gideon had on the field. Behind his eyelids pranced a few light spots and everything was made of gold.
Eventually, the landscape changed. The sunflowers and wheat fields gave way to a gentle, hilly landscape of sand and shimmering purple heather plants. After a while, Immanuel exclaimed, “Look there!” pointing to a point on the horizon. Everyone craned their necks to look, and, after a while, Viktor saw something blue glittering in the sunlight.
The small, shiny blue spot on the horizon grew steadily till it filled the entire field of view.
“The sea,” breathed Hala.
They parked at a small bay, got out and Hala jumped up and down and shouted, “The sea! The sea!”
Viktor took his swimming rings and water wings and the pump, Gem had to carry two bottles, Hala her tiny pink bag and Oded carried the rest He struggled with the heavy barbecue and coolers, unstrapped the umbrellas, which had been fastened to the cars’ roofs, and rammed the rods in the sand. Then he found a few shady pools of water in the rocks and put the bottles there to keep cool. He put the barbecue on, and stowed the cooler in a few more shady spots he’d found. He pumped up the tires and the swimming armbands. Then he wanted to spread the mats on the floor but Helena knocked them out of his hands and snapped at him that he should stop immediately, for today he would for once learn how to relax.
The women were just coming out from behind the rocks where they’d changed and they already had their swimsuits on. Viktor analyzed their breasts. Helena won, she had the biggest and Viktor was very proud of that.
Viktor ran on the beach and had to hop from one foot to the other because the sand was very hot and shells lay scattered everywhere. His mother gave him his beach slippers. Then she ordered him to sit on the blanket and she covered him with a terribly smelly cream. When he complained, she said that it did not stink, that is was an aloe vera fragrance. Viktor decided that his mother had bad taste where scents were concerned.
Viktor remembered that the last time they’d been by the sea he’d had very bad sunburn and in the evening he’d had to put stinky yoghurt on his face and on his shoulders. As such he also made sure that he was covered in cream. He then moved and told Oded not forget to do his shoulders and that everyone should make sure they put a lot of cream on their noses.
Then they went into the water and Viktor was careful to always stay close to his father or to Oded. The sea was at first very cold and Viktor gasped, having difficulty breathing and thus he wanted to go back to the beach, but after a while the water felt warmer. Viktor watched as his toes sank into the sand and the waves sloshed against his feet. He went in a little deeper and watched the sparkling water swirl around his knees. A few drops of water glistened on his thighs, shining in the sun. He bent down and dipped his hand into the water and brought it up to his nose to smell it. It smelled salty and when he licked his finger they tasted salty too.
He ventured further forward and when the sea was up to his chest, his father picked him up. He sat on the hip o
f his father who then bounced him up and down. Viktor cried when he got water in his face, and his eyes burned and he swallowed some water, but when his father laughed, he knew he wasn’t going to die, so he laughed and clung to his father’s neck.
He looked at Hala, who was clinging to Oded’s neck, and Gem, who was sitting piggyback on Hamid. They went even deeper into the sea. The waves were stronger and they rose and fell in the water. Viktor tried to swim by himself, but he struggled with the waves and his head kept going under till he thought he would die, but his father picked him up. Viktor rubbed his eyes, which were burning terribly from the salt water and he coughed, the water in his nose hurting. His father hugged him so tightly that Viktor thought his bones would break and he then kissed him so hard that Viktor thought his cheek would be torn into a hole.
“Look, gulls,” called Immanuel, pointing to a pair of seagulls sitting on the water that were being rocked back and forth by the waves. Viktor wondered if the gulls were normal, or if they were the league gulls patrolling the beach and stopping the crocodiles.
When they were back on the beach, Viktor went to his mother and wanted something to drink. Helena was wearing a green bathing suit with a floral cloth tied around her waist. She had a strict bun tied at the back of her head and the rest of her loose hair was tucked on the top of her head with a clamp, a few strands fluttering freely in the breeze. After he had satisfied his thirst, Viktor hugged his mother and she squeezed him tighter than his father had and once more Viktor thought he would shatter and explode.
He sat down next to Hala. Gem and Oded were building a castle and Hala asked Viktor if he wanted to go with her and collect shells. Viktor noted that shells were dangerous and that they could cut his feet which would cause him to bleed. Hala begged him and took his hand and pulled him and he had no choice but to go looking for shells in the sand and among the rocks.
Viktor picked up a shell, but it moved between his fingers and he saw something slimy retreat into it and he screamed in terror and threw it away. Hala said that it was a live shell, like a snail, and that an animal lived inside. He looked at it as it lay on the sand then suddenly began to move. Viktor was creeped out by that.