A Brilliant Novel in the Works

by Yuvi Zalkow

  “What are we to do with our Shoshana?” her parents asked. Their two sons were strong, devout men, capable of becoming great rabbis and even more capable to work with their hands in the earth. And their three other daughters were sweet and quiet and lovely. They loved to read stories and were great help in the kitchen. But Shoshana. She was the daydreamer. Reading a story wasn’t good enough. Baking the challah wasn’t good enough. The Tanach wasn’t even good enough. She wanted to see the world for herself.

  They were poor people and they were tired people. All of them living in a one-room house and sharing an outhouse with four other houses. But an unhappy Shoshana was far worse a thing than poor and tired and cramped. And the Arab man selling fruit at his fruit stand was a nice man. A fair man. And not so far from their home. And so Shoshana’s father took Shoshana. If it would make her happy, then it was worth it, even if he did it grudgingly. “When I was a child,” he said, “we did not disobey our parents.”

  #

  “Shoshi!” her father cried. “We need to get home! What are you staring at? It’s almost Shabbat.” Each time, he swore that this would be the last time he took her to see the Arab man. What a daydreamer she was! But she loved it so much. How could a father deprive a daughter of such joy?

  For one year, they went almost every day to the Arab man to buy fruits and vegetables. This man had the best figs and tomatoes and olives and cantaloupes in the city. Even though this man’s wife had recently died of cancer, he was still full of kindness to his customers. Every time they went to him, the Arab man smiled at them. They had a rapport with him. The Arab man told them proverbs from his world: the eye cannot rise above the eyebrow; your close neighbor is better than your faraway brother. And Shoshana’s father told him proverbs from his world: don’t approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side; may your enemies get cramps when they dance on your grave.

  Although the Arab man was smart and he was charming and he was wise, these were not the qualities Shoshana paid the most attention to. What she paid the most attention to was the way he licked his lips between sentences. And the muscles on his forearm. And how charmingly he was losing his hair, a widow’s peak, even though he was still under thirty. And she especially loved the way his face wrinkled beside his eyes when he smiled at her.

  And then her father got sick. Too sick to leave the bed. And so he requested for Shoshana to come to his bedside. “Shoshi,” he said. “Your mother needs dates for the charoset.”

  Of course, it took him a long time to arrive at this request. With his two sons away, he decided that he had very little choice other than to ask his tomboy of a daughter to help in this way. And perhaps the fever was affecting his thinking. “Go quickly,” he said. “Hurry the way you would hurry if you were running home from the bayt knesset after prayer.”

  Shoshi jumped at the chance. She jumped in the air beside the bed of her sick father.

  “Bevadai,” she said.

  #

  When she arrived at the fruit stand, it was as if the Arab man had been expecting her to be alone. He wasted no time in saying what was on his mind. He handed her the dates, and he held onto her hand as she reached for them. “Shoshi,” he said, “I want to marry you.” His hand was warm and sweet and sincere.

  Shoshi pulled her hand out from his grip, for fear that someone would see. And then she put her hand to her heart, the way anyone would upon feeling this way. With this beautiful Arab man looking at her. She could tell that he was stretching his knowledge of the Hebrew language to say this. She could also tell he had practiced this line a hundred times.

  She smiled at this man and she said, “Eem loh achshav, ei matai?” which is what Hillel said almost two thousand years prior. If not now, when?

  This fruit seller made a fist and banged his fist on his fruit stand with joy.

  “But,” Shoshi said, “I will marry you only if my father recovers from his fever.”

  The Arab man nodded. It seemed a fair negotiation.

  “You must pray for him,” Shoshi said. “I want you to pray for him.”

  “My prayers,” he said, “are different than your prayers.”

  “It does not matter,” she said. “A prayer is a prayer.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I will pray.”

  They smiled. It was a quiet moment in this land, as this Jew and this Muslim stood next to each other, with only some fresh fruit between them.

  “I must tell you,” the Arab man said. “I plan to move away from this city. I will move back to Ramallah. And then to America one day.”

  Shoshana wasn’t surprised by this statement. Even though she had no idea where this America landed on a map. Even though she knew she would probably never speak to her family again. She felt this was her destiny.

  “What is your name?” this beautiful girl asked of this beautiful man.

  “Yousef,” he said to her.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Ethnic Plot Device

  We sit for a while, savoring the story. The story itself is great. But I also realize that Yousef is a great storyteller.

  I sit up to stretch my jeans and say, “I’ve got something odd to ask you.” I grab the manuscript from my backpack and drop the pages on the table. I let it hit with a hard bang. “Would you be willing to help me with my novel?”

  I flip around through the manuscript. I’m feeling confident and proud of this manuscript in a new way. The words on these pages suddenly seem like they don’t suck. And I’m thinking that with Yousef ’s help, there’s a chance they could not suck even more.

  “I need to take this thing to the next level,” I tell him, “and I thought maybe it would be a good distraction for you as well.” It seems like the perfect collaboration. Especially now that I see how this connection to multiple worlds is in his blood. This goddamn guy could save my novel for sure.

  He picks it up. He lifts it up and down as if weighing it against all the objects in the world. His face gives away nothing. He could just as easily be investigating a cantaloupe at the market.

  And then he says, “No.”

  I begin to thank him for helping me out. “This will be great,” I say.

  “I said no. I won’t help you.”

  “Oh.” All of a sudden, the cantaloupe turns out to be too

  soft. Or too hard. Or whatever the hell cantaloupes feel like when they’re not worthy. What I’ve got on my hands is an unworthy cantaloupe without a plot.

  “Look,” he says. He opens the book right to the scene of Yuvi and Yousef in the hospital waiting room. I have no idea how he suddenly knows about this novel. Maybe when I was rummaging around his apartment, he was rummaging around my novel. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” he says, “but you’re trying to use me as some kind of outsider who comes in to teach the main character a lesson. It’s a bit contrived. It’s like a high school creative writing story.” He closes my failed cantaloupe and pushes it back toward me. “I don’t think you want that. You’ll have to find another way to save your book.” He stands up. He walks toward the door and opens it. It’s even worse than a NO. It’s a NO AND GET OUT. “Anyhow,” he says. “I’ve got enough going on in my life without being used as some kind of ethnic plot device.”

  I don’t look up at him. I take my novel and quietly put it in my backpack. I quietly zip up my backpack. And I start to walk out of his apartment. Before he closes the door on me, I turn around and throw out another cantaloupe for his consideration: “Can we be friends?”

  “No,” he says, and then my ethnic plot device closes the door on me.

  As I start walking down the stairway to leave the apartment complex, the door opens again. It’s too dark to see him but I still look back up. He says, “Well, maybe friends. But first, figure out how to save the novel on your own.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Palookaville Pee Pee Party

  So it’s not like I’m saving the world, but my first endeavor in doing so
mething productive after too many months spent lost in my novel is to babysit Maddy while Shmen and Ally go to a big-screen showing of On the Waterfront.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Shmuvi.” He grabs me when I enter the apartment and he hugs me so hard that my face is pressed into his shoulder and I’m worried my glasses are going to be crushed from his appreciation. I can smell a hint of alcohol coming off his skin. Or maybe it’s my imagination.

  After this display of affection, Ally’s normal hug seems unfairly simple. “Thank you,” she says. There is something sweet and something sad about her. In her hug, I can sense the woman who had me touch her favorite horse’s belly.

  “I’m sorry about Fatty,” I say to her.

  “I know,” she says. She looks down at her toes as she speaks to me. “At least you got to meet him before it was too late.”

  “And touch him,” I say. “And ride him. And fall off of him.” I smile even though I am not sure if it is legal to smile when talking about a dead, loved horse.

  Ally looks at me again, like she’s about to say something sad, but then she says, “And wet yourself on him.”

  Maddy giggles. She says, “Shmuvi peed on Fatty!”

  “True,” I say. And it’s a relief for me, because I don’t need to wonder anymore if Ally noticed. It’s better to know that you have every right to be ashamed about something. It’s better than not knowing.

  Shmen puts his arm around Ally’s shoulders as they walk out the apartment. He says to her, “Now there’s a juicy story for the road,” and they walk away. His limp is more pronounced— it almost looks like Ally is helping him stand up.

  After I close the door, we can still hear Shmen quoting Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” speech. I watch Maddy listen to it closely. She studies his words more seriously lately, like she is trying to understand what’s ridiculous and what’s important and what’s a little bit of both. When Shmen’s voice fades away, she says to me, “Where is Palookaville?”

  #

  I make macaroni and cheese for Maddy and I have her sit next to me and tell me how school is going. But she doesn’t want to talk about school.

  “It’s Saturday, Shmuvi! Why do you care about school?”

  “Okay,” I say. “How about you just tell me about your favorite subject.”

  “Recess,” she says, “and then lunch. Now let’s talk about dolls.”

  This is an area that I’m not so experienced in. But once she explains to me that her doll Dorothy Mae eats little orange pellets and that you can dye Jenny’s hair any color you like and that Baby Betty really pisses and shits herself, I feel more knowledgeable.

  Part of me is thinking about Shmen, worrying that things are getting worse and I haven’t done enough to help. And part of me is thinking about that visit with Yousef, ashamed about the stolen photo and for trying to use a Clevelandian man that way. And part of me just wants to see this doll take a shit without worrying that we’re watching her every move.

  As I sit with Maddy on the floor trying to get her doll to piss herself, she says, “Why didn’t they get a babysitter?”

  “I am the babysitter,” I say, proud of my promotion from novelist to babysitter.

  “No,” she says. “I mean like an adult.”

  “Well, I am an adult,” I say, a little less proud.

  “No, you’re not,” she says. “You’re just Joelly’s brother.”

  “That’s it,” I say, and I wiggle my fingers in an I’m-going-to-get-you! motion. “I know a girl who is in big trouble.”

  And then I chase Maddy around the apartment while she giggles and when I catch her I tickle her until she is on the floor laughing. Babysitting isn’t so bad.

  #

  One strange thing about hanging out with Maddy is that she says the word “shit” just like it’s a regular word. And I guess with such an advanced shitter and shit-talker like Shmen, it’s inevitable. But it’s still strange to hear it said that way by an eight-year-old.

  So I tell her that she can say Shit all she wants, but she better not say Pillow Cushion. I saw this suggestion in a magazine while waiting for the dentist. Using a meaningless phrase is supposed to distract the child from saying the bad thing they won’t stop saying. I even started using this technique on myself.

  But after my Pillow Cushion brilliance, Maddy says Shit more than thirty times in the next three sentences.

  So to hell with it, I figure, and I start saying Shit myself. And when she says, “Will you carry me? I want to be tall.” I say, “Sure as shit I’ll carry you!” And I carry her. Shit! I even run around the apartment. Shit! And she loves it. Shit! She pretends I’m her very own horse. And why not? I can be a horse for a little while.

  I keep carrying her and she keeps giggling and there is this tremendous warmth inside of me. And it’s not just inside me. It’s outside me too. I look at Maddy and I smile. And it’s not just warmth. It also feels wet. Warm and wet. And then Maddy says, “Uh oh.” And when I put her down, I see that she has pissed all over my shirt.

  Maddy goes into the bathroom and locks the door and starts crying. I remember Shmen telling me she’s had a bout of uncontrollable peeing lately and that they don’t know why.

  Through the door, I tell her of all the times I peed in the wrong places. And I tell her the story of my best friend Ezra who peed in the middle of a birthday party. And I tell her the time I peed on my father and the time my father peed in his pants at age seventy-five. But she isn’t comforted by my tales of incontinence.

  Then this little girl comes out of the bathroom without pants, with just a shirt. “I want to be alone,” she says, and she goes into Shmen and Ally’s bedroom to lie down.

  “Okay,” I say, feeling like it was me who did the peeing.

  I go in the bathroom and I take off my shirt and I lean into the tub and I wash the pee off my shirt and I wash the pee off her pants, which have already been thrown in the tub. It seemed like it was going so well and now I’ve got a mopey, pantsless eight-year-old on my hands. I imagine Ally coming home and me saying, “Oh, it went great. Your daughter is pantsless and in your bed. Can I have my money now?”

  I nearly walk into the bedroom to comfort Maddy, but I decide to leave her alone. Sometimes, you need to give shame a little space before trying to get rid of it.

  It all feels so complicated. Kids, I decide, are much different than words, which rarely urinate on you. As I wash all this urine off our clothes, as I think about how messy kids must be to raise, as I think about all the messy times with my dad and my mom, and as I think of those days with Ezra, and as I worry if Shmen is getting worse, and as I worry about how I’m going to get this novel cleaned up, and as I feel like it all is too complicated to bear, and as the smell of urine won’t go away, I suddenly feel ready to have a kid with Julia.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Traitors

  When she picks up the phone, I say, “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” I do it like they do it in the movies. I don’t say hello. I don’t give any introductions. I don’t clear my throat. I just say what I need to say.

  “He’s moving out,” Ally tells me. “I gave him a requirement and he couldn’t live up to it.”

  “What do you mean? You have to look out for him.” I can’t imagine that this is really Ally, the person who takes care of the Fatty Lumpkins of the world. Shmen is like a thousand Fattys.

  “I have to look out for Maddy,” she says. “I can’t live with a man who vomits in my daughter’s bed while reading bedtime stories.” She says it like all the boundaries in the world are so simple. And maybe they are.

  Ally tells me that Shmen is moving into a nearby apartment. That she’ll still do what she can to help him. They aren’t even breaking up. This relieves me and makes me think that they’ll work things out. Especially if I can get him drinking less. But in the same breath, she says that she’s working toward having Maddy less attached to Shmen.

  “Traitor,” I tell her. But I say it so
quietly and so empty of confidence, really I’m just trying out that word to see if it works. And it doesn’t quite work.

  “Yuvi,” the traitoress says, “we can’t force Shmen to take care of himself.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  End of Business

  There’s a growing pile of pages on my desk.

  I’ve been unable to spend time with Shmen. He is away from his house most of the time and even though he still calls me late at night, it’s clear he doesn’t want to hang out with me or Julia, which freaks Julia out even more than me. He keeps saying he needs more time but he doesn’t say what he needs time for. It’s like he is building a nuclear weapon in that apartment.

  Julia walks into my office and looks at the pile. She probably thinks it’s for her, which it sort of is, but I’m still too scared to share it. It’s not ready. It’s never ready.

  But also, I just thought of a way to get another perspective on this book. And it doesn’t even require begging a Palestinian/ Clevelandian man who’s smarter than me. It doesn’t require anyone but me. And my manuscript. And a shitload of clothespins.

  Julia kisses me on the crown of the head. And then she takes the whole pile off the table—all thirty-seven chapters. She takes the pile before I even have time to think about whether or not I’m ready to give it to her.

  “Now,” she says, “let me see what the hell else you’ve been writing about all these months.” Her smile is a sneaky one.

  Julia puts the pile of papers in her purse, which gives you an idea of the size of her purse, and her heels click their way to the front door.

  “Wait!” I say.

  The clicking stops.