The Bible claims that every lazy person should take a lesson in industry from the ants. In fact, about every third inhabitant of any given ant colony is blatantly slacking off. So, if push comes to shove, you can always just say that you’re emulating the wrong ants.
If you ever decide to tell someone about the Biblical Zoo, do so carefully. The Biblical Zoo is a complicated, emotional topic.
Even if you intend to say only good things about it, it’s easy to say something wrong, or the wrong way, or in an incorrect manner—basically, to start saying not-so-good things. Like say you start out all tender, sentimental even, but what about their terrible funding problems, their research issues, the absence of various key animals, the need to update the infrastructure? Or maybe you start out sarcastic, mocking even, but how can you forget that it’s one of the most unusual zoos in the world, that people have poured heart and soul into it, do you even know what it takes to create a quality zoo in just sixty years? We undertake world-class research projects, we get our parrots to live to a hundred and four. Or let’s say you begin to praise those same imported, exotic parrots, but what’s to praise? Sure, the parrots are right in your face, they’re placed right at the entrance, while the local Israeli animals, don’t get the slightest bit of attention, even though you’d think that they, above all, should be front and center. Take the so-called cliff rabbit or rock hyrax, for example. Not enough attention is paid to the rock hyrax, instead we get a pathetic imitation of American zoos at the expense of our authentic Israeli animals. And the rock hyrax, by the way, is cousin to the elephant and is mentioned in no less a place than the Old Testament. Or you fawn over this authentic rock hyrax, but what’s there to fawn over? There are masses of rock hyraxes in Israel; it’s a banal, ill-bred creature. It’s not at all the same as getting some bobcats and elephants or a Californian viper, or even properly integrating your Old Testament rock hyrax into progressive Western society. And so on and so forth, it’s inevitable. So anyway, be careful when you talk about the Biblical Zoo, or, even better, don’t talk about it at all. Keep it to yourself—after all, then you can brag about your internal, private zoo. Furthermore, in the grand scheme of things, it’s your personal business, these feelings you have toward the zoo, all this complicated shit. It’s you the lemurs touched—do not kiss and tell.
It’s your own private business, all that white, azure, blue, gray, black, gray, blue, azure, and white again.
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1. Bauhaus is an architectural style, outlawed by the Nazis and most comprehensively preserved in Tel Aviv, home to numerous émigré Jewish architects of Austrian and German extraction.
2. A safe room is specially equipped to withstand rocket and chemical attacks. Such rooms may be found in many Israeli apartments, especially in the South. (This and the ensuing notes are those of the author.)
3. The Iron Dome is an antirocket defense system.
4. The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo is one of three major zoos in Israel. It began as a small zoological garden founded in 1940 by Professor Aharon Shulov. As it has grown, the zoo has moved many times.
5. Vorschmack is an Ashkenazi Jewish dish consisting of minced herring, mashed white bread, and onion.
6. During the British Mandate, a part of the former Ottoman Empire was ruled by Great Britain in accordance with a mandate from the League of Nations. The state of Israel was proclaimed on the day of the Mandate’s expiration.
PART II
LONGER PROSE
AGATHA GOES HOME
TRANSLATED BY SARAH VITALI
The game goes like this: Agatha squeezes her eyes shut, squats down, and quickly presses her forehead against the radiator. The radiator is hot; Agatha endures it for as long as she can (but not for too long, or else it wouldn’t be a game, it would be torture). Then Agatha gets up quickly, stands up on her tiptoes, and presses her heated forehead up against the icy winter window with all her might. The sudden sensation makes Agatha’s ears ring; she can’t tell whether she likes this game or not, but she plays it over and over again because she is very bored.
Agatha’s parents have left the house for the entire day. They want to have another baby. Agatha is not at all opposed to having a brother or sister; she’s a smart little girl, she’d be curious to watch the kid grow up, and, besides, she really likes little kids. But so far, Mom and Dad haven’t gotten anywhere, and they have to go to the hospital once a month or so. Maybe next time they won’t even have to go—the doctors say that everything’s going well, that Mom could get pregnant any day now. But, for the time being, Agatha is cooped up at home, dying of boredom. She is eight years old and she’s a responsible little girl, which is why her parents decided to leave her home alone this time instead of dragging her along with them. This pleases Agatha very much, but it’s already been three hours; she’s gone around the whole house a few times, watched Pirates of the Caribbean for the nine hundredth time, and eaten all of the sandwiches Mom left for her. It’s funny: if her parents had been at home, Agatha would have found herself a thousand different things to do—and, of course, her parents wouldn’t have had anything to do with any of them. But now Agatha feels melancholy; she doesn’t feel like doing anything at all and she’s playing with the radiator and the window out of boredom.
Agatha’s house is right near the woods, on the very edge of a small town entirely made up of neat little white houses with well-tended yards. Now it’s wintertime, there’s snow, and all the yards are already decorated with Christmas lights, electric reindeer that turn their heads slowly as you walk by, and fake Santa Clauses. Agatha can’t see any of that now—she’s playing in the kitchen and you can’t see the yards out the kitchen window, just the woods, which are quickly turning gray-blue though the clock says it’s only three. In the summertime, Agatha is allowed to play in the woods right up until evening if she wants to, but in winter it’s a different story: there aren’t any picnics in the woods, and if you get lost, you might freeze to death. In the winter, Agatha isn’t allowed to go into the woods, not even a little bit, without Dad. On Sundays, Dad takes Agatha sledding on the little hill, but even then they only go into the woods a very little bit and then come home very quickly. Suddenly, Agatha has a powerful urge to go outside and play. She has her own key, and, besides, it’s not as if she’s not allowed to leave the house—for example, she could go see Laura or Melissa or even talk Laura’s dad into taking them sledding. But Agatha doesn’t feel like visiting Laura or Melissa—in her strange, pleasant state of melancholy and boredom, she doesn’t even want to talk to anyone. Agatha promises herself that she’ll only go out for two minutes, that she’ll only go into the woods a hundred paces and then she’ll turn around and come back right away, retracing her own footsteps, and she’ll be home before it’s completely dark, and she won’t have done anything bad, really.
Outside, it turns out to be much darker than Agatha had thought, though not half as cold. Out here, behind the house, the snow is completely smooth, like paper. First, Agatha stamps out a little circle in the snow, then a Christmas tree: heel-to-heel, heel-to-heel. To avoid spoiling her Christmas tree, she jumps as far away from it as she can and runs up to the nearest tree. This is where the woods begin. Agatha looks up at the sky, her mouth falling open in ecstasy: the sky is impossibly blue, the same magical color as the delicate curlicues painted on their evening teacups. With her face upturned, Agatha scurries forward several steps, bumps into a tree trunk, rubs her nose, and starts counting paces. She is a little bit frightened, a little bit ashamed, and extremely happy.
Agatha’s feet in their big, warm boots leave deep holes with even little walls—if, of course, she puts her feet down very carefully. Agatha imagines coming back later, stepping in exactly the same holes. Fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one…Once again, Agatha lowers her foot into the snow, but the toe of her boot gets caught on a root or a stick that has frozen into the ground. Agatha flails her arms and falls over on her side into the snow—she wants to get up, but she
suddenly starts sliding downwards and sideways: a shallow ravine that she normally would have gone around had filled up with snow, and Agatha had forgotten all about it. At first, Agatha slides downwards on her bottom, trying to grab hold of the snow with her hands in their ice-covered mittens; then she is turned over onto her side, and, finally, she tumbles head over heels. For a few seconds, Agatha lies at the bottom of the ravine, extremely frightened, but nothing seems to hurt. It’s just that everything is full of snow now—her mouth, her ears, her boots, her collar. Agatha stands up and, cussing, tries to dig the snow out from inside her collar with her fingers. Suddenly, a plaintive, muffled shriek rings out from directly underneath her feet. Horrified, Agatha jumps away; the shriek turns into a howl, and Agatha screams and presses up against a tree. In front of her, someone—yes, someone, covered in snow, with matted fur—is sitting there, curled up in a ball and whimpering pathetically. Agatha, afraid to move a muscle, tries to figure out who it might be. The mysterious creature dashes off to one side and then to the other, but he can’t seem to run away, and Agatha realizes that her right foot is planted right on the tip of his tail.
Agatha has nearly lifted up her leg to set the mysterious creature free, but she suddenly thinks the better of it. It seems as if this mysterious someone isn’t terrible at all, and is actually more frightened than Agatha herself. He sits there with his eyes shut tight, trembling. Underneath his snow-covered cap of matted fur, Agatha manages to catch a glimpse of his tiny horns glinting in the twilight and the miniscule hooves pressed timidly against his chest. Agatha quickly reaches out her hand and grabs the little demon by the scruff of the neck. He exclaims pathetically and squeezes his eyes shut all the more tightly.
“Are you a demon?” Agatha asks.
“Lemme go, lemme go, lemme go!” the little demon whimpers pathetically, but Agatha just holds onto him all the more tightly. He is smallish, not at all heavy, and it doesn’t even look like he’s planning to put up a fight. Agatha tucks the little demon under her arm the same way she would a little brother or sister and drags him off in the direction of home.
At home, Agatha still can’t believe that she’s caught a real live demon in the woods, and ties him up tight-tight-tight onto a child-size chair to start. In the warmth, the demon stops his trembling and only sniffles. He is very dirty and is giving off a very strong smell—like Melissa’s dog Trixie smells when she’s managed to have a good roll in a puddle. The wet dog smell nearly makes Agatha sick.
“Lemme go,” the little demon says pathetically.
“Just a sec,” Agatha says, and looks her captive over with an appraising eye: she has definitely decided to give him a shower, but doesn’t know how to do it without the demon running away. She’s heard of people who have managed to catch a glimpse of a demon in the woods—in fairy tales and movies—but to capture a demon, even such a scrawny one, alive? The idea takes Agatha’s breath away.
“I’ll tell my dad on you,” the demon says uncertainly. He looks like he’s about six years old. Agatha even feels a little awkward keeping such a little kid tied to a chair. Suddenly, it dawns on her: he couldn’t run away even if he wanted to!
“You couldn’t run away even if you wanted to!” Agatha says rapturously.
The demon doesn’t even try to argue, he just hangs his dirty head and sniffs. Rules are rules: if a person catches a demon with her own two hands, the demon is obligated to serve that person until the person releases it herself. Both Agatha and the little demon are perfectly aware of this fact.
Agatha unties the little demon and, jabbing a finger into his back, chases him into the washroom. They both leave gray, damp footprints behind them on the floor: Agatha, big ones, the demon, tiny little ones. Not only that, but there is melting, dirty snow dripping down off the demon. Agatha can just imagine what Mom will say, but, on the other hand, a demon is a demon. Capturing a demon is really something, after all.
As Agatha works away with the showerhead and sponge, the little demon calms down a little. He is no longer whining or sniffling, just snorting and spitting from the shampoo. Clean, with damp, soft fur, he turns out to be even smaller than he looked before. The little demon’s tiny horns are white and shiny, and he is awkwardly holding the bath towel wrapped around his body with his little front hooves. Agatha examines the bathtub skeptically—the drain is clogged with sand, withered leaves, crumpled bird feathers, and God knows what else. Agatha picks some of the trash out of the drain; Dad will have to clean the rest out himself. “But, on the other hand,” Agatha thinks, “a demon is a demon.”
“Stand still,” she tells the little demon. His soft fur turns out to be light gray, and it dries almost immediately. Agatha isn’t about to share her toothbrush with him, so all she asks is that the little demon open his mouth, at which point she squeezes quite a bit of toothpaste in. The little demon furiously spits it out and rubs his tongue with a towel, but he already smells a tiny bit better.
For a minute, Agatha and the little demon stand there, staring at one another in the middle of the topsy-turvy bathroom. Then Agatha looks at her watch: only a half hour has passed since she left the house to go a hundred paces into the woods and come back right away! Agatha does some quick mental math: her parents won’t be home for another two hours. The demon blinks pathetically and suddenly says:
“I’ll tell my dad on you.”
“What’ll you tell him?” Agatha says contemptuously, though, of course, she starts to feel a little bit uneasy. “You got caught, that’s on you. It’s all fair and square.”
The little demon sighs heavily.
“Let me go,” he says simply.
Agatha feels bad for the little demon, but she imagines her parents’ arrival: the light-colored rug all muddy, the bathroom a terrible mess, her coat, scarf, and boots all damp, and she herself, a grown-up, smart, responsible eight-year-old girl who can be trusted to stay home alone if you need to take a trip to the hospital, telling her parents that she went into the woods, caught a demon there, dragged it home, washed it in the bathtub, and then let it go. The very idea of the look on Mom’s face makes Agatha feel sick.
“I can’t,” she says. “No one would believe me.”
At this moment, the little demon suddenly makes a decision—Agatha can tell by the way he squares his little shoulders underneath the towel.
“I’ll show you where a treasure is hidden,” he says. “An enormous one. And then you’ll let me go.”
This is exactly what captured demons usually do: they show people where a treasure is hidden in exchange for their freedom. Agatha knows this perfectly well. A treasure would be much better than a whiny demon in the house, one she still wasn’t sure what to do with. If Agatha were to bring home a treasure, first of all, everybody would believe her. Secondly, fabulous wealth might just come in handy, especially if Mom really was going to get pregnant soon.
Agatha goes into the foyer and starts pulling on her damp boots. The little demon drops his towel onto the floor and runs after her, tripping over the carpet with his little hooves. Agatha doesn’t take her damp scarf and mittens—they would only make things worse. But something is bothering her.
“So where is this treasure?” she asks.
“Over that-a-way,” says the little demon with an ambiguous wave of his paw.
“Is it far?” Agatha clarifies.
The demon does some quick calculations in his head, then says:
“It’s closer to that other city.”
Agatha knows what he has in mind—her grandmother lives in the next town over. You couldn’t reach the far side of the woods on foot if you walked for three hours straight. Agatha starts taking off her boots.
“What? What?” the demon asks in alarm, running in circles around Agatha and trying to look her in the eye.
“That’s too far,” Agatha says. “It’s far, it’s dark, my parents will get home and I won’t be here. We’ll wait for my dad.”
For some reason, the prospect of wa
iting for her dad strikes terror into the little demon’s heart. He scratches his fuzzy noggin hard with his little hooves and suddenly says:
“You can ride there. Quick-quick-quick.”
“On what?” Agatha says, surprised, sitting on the floor with a boot in her hands.
The demon sighs heavily and claps himself on the small of the back. Agatha immediately recalls an image: soldiers, or witches, or even just normal people who have caught a demon can ride them wherever they want, and the demon usually flies faster than the wind, especially if you urge him on. Agatha doesn’t know what to say. The demon is even shorter than she is, but he has solid hind legs, the fur on the small of his back is shimmering, and, all of a sudden, it seems to her that sitting on a demon’s back might actually be quite comfortable. They go out into the backyard and Agatha looks up. Now the sky no longer reminds her of the curlicues on Mom’s evening teacups: it’s so blue that it’s black, tremulous, like the dark, dark velvet tacked onto the inside of grandma’s trunk, the one that sits in the basement and which Agatha is very strictly forbidden from digging around in unsupervised.
Found Life Page 21