Little straw sandals wrap around her tiny feet.
“Mommy, you’re thin.”
“Yes. Aren’t I?”
And embrace again.
“You can both go to your room now, Dana,” Dina tells them, glancing at her watch.
“The Gathering starts at 19:45 on the dot. We’re counting on you, Dana.”
She looks at Orr warmly, and smiles, farewell.
And Dana is as though dreaming.
She’d been drawing this moment in her mind for days and nights. How they’d meet. How they’d embrace in a hug of that’s it. Finished. How she’d carry her far away from here.
And there they go, carelessly gliding, hand in hand, on the path leading to her hut, together. Mother and daughter. Like back in Tel Aviv. Like everywhere and anywhere. And Dana gazes at her, in disbelief. How she’s grown, Orr. Orr.
Orr chatters away. Mommy, look at that flower. That bird. Mommy, I saw a sea.
Dana holds Orr’s little hand tightly, not remembering when she’d ever experienced such all-encompassing joy.
They reach the little wooden deck before the hut’s entrance. The doors in the village aren’t ever locked. The Caesar says that there’s no need.
Dana opens the door, and notices in alarm the figure sitting on the grass mat of her wooden bed.
“Daaaaaaaaddy!” Orr rejoices, runs over and leaps onto Eyal. “Daaaaddy!”
And they’re both embraced, kissing, and laughing.
“My Orrieta! My Orr! You’ve grown so much!”
Eyal caresses Orr, wrapping his arms around her tiny back. And laughs. Orr laughs too. Strokes his face and laughs out loud. Daddy. Daddy.
Dana stands at the entrance, looking at them in shock, motionless.
Eyal has already distanced himself so much from her daily life here that she’d already been tempted to believe he’d be the same with Orr. That she too has been erased from his biography. And that it would remain so.
Wrong.
He believes in David wholeheartedly. Worships every word that man utters.
His Royal Highness has ruled that children are to be taken to a separate group education, suited to the new lives they’ll soon experience. Expropriated from their parents’ custody. For their own good, obviously. And Eyal immediately handed Orr over to him, without a single further thought, with no doubts. As though depositing his fancy expensive car with the finest mechanic, placing the keys in his hands with the utmost confidence, and walking away. Didn’t show any visible interest in anything happening to her there. David knows what he’s doing. Once the treatment ends, he’ll resume caring for her.
Dana suddenly comes to her senses.
“No, Eyal. Not now. Go get ready. Orr and I will come to the Gathering in the evening.”
She says serenely, but with an assertiveness which Eyal hasn’t heard from her for months. He hesitates for a moment. Seems to have trouble deciding.
Dana can see the cogs in his head, locking one into the other, slowly turning (he always did have trouble making decisions, she recalls), and she waits.
“OK. You know what, I’ll wait for you two at the entrance to the Gathering hall. Don’t be late by a single minute, you hear me? Quarter to eight. And we’re sitting together!”
She nods her head, not uttering a word. Eyal hugs Orr, and gets up to leave. He pauses at the front door.
“Remember, quarter to eight on the dot. And I’ll send Aviram over to you ten minutes beforehand. He’ll bring you two there.”
“No need for an escort, Eyal. What for? We’ll be there on time.”
Eyal straightens himself up, gathering up what seems to be the remains of his crumbling masculinity, and rules decisively.
“Aviram will escort you over to me at the Gathering. And that’s final.”
And leaves the room.
Orr looks at her, an unanswered question radiating from her eyes, and hugs her silently.
And Dana realizes, her wise little girl has matured over there, at the boarding home.
So Aviram, the infamous celebrity psychiatrist from Tel Aviv, who’d been expelled onto their heavenly beaches due to the terror of the Israeli police and tax authorities, a submissive slave for hire at Cayrona Beach, the servant of a few masters. He’s the one to escort her and Orr over to the Existential College’s execution square.
Not good. Not good.
She won’t be able to escape from there with the child without causing a ruckus. Not good. She checks the time. She may manage to reach the hidden opening that Jacob had told her about. They’re both skinny enough to pass through it. She might make it there in time. She has nearly two hours left.
She opens the front door and looks around.
The paths are still pretty empty.
She returns to the room, finds Orr sitting on her grass mat, and looks at her. Dana’s certain that Orr realizes more than she lets on. Because she remains silent, but suddenly reaches her hand out to her, grabs tightly onto her and rises up.
“Come on, Mommy.”
Dana takes a fabric bag, puts a banana in it, two slices of bread, a small water bottle, and holds Orr’s hand while they stand at the front door for a moment. There’s no one on the paths. And then she rushes with long strides, dragging Orr along, and they both hurry towards the hidden opening in the fence at the edge of the village.
Dana’s filled with conviction. Determined to get there. Get out. Get out of here. Escape, never mind where to. She’s too busy right now to think about the district police officer who, if he were to find them, would immediately send them back to the village with a police escort.
She’s almost running. Orr stumbles over her own sandals, but doesn’t say a word, and continues running along with her.
And there it is. The thorny bush covering the opening.
Jacob had told her of its existence. She didn’t ask him why back then, and what for. They understood things without any explanations.
There’s an opening that leads out. At the edge of the village. Covered by a thick bush with thorny leaves. It’s there, and that’s it.
Now she and Orr will leave through it. Escape.
From everything. From this evening’s fateful Gathering. From the King’s mysterious bottles, from the spaceship that is to transport them to distant universes.
From all of the evil.
She leans down, and asks Orr to do the same. Holds onto her fabric bag as a shield from the thorns, and tries to shift them aside. The limber branches give way and allow them a slight gap.
“Crawl, Orr. Crawl out. I’m right behind you.”
Orr obeys and starts crawling through the gap. Dana grabs her little sandaled feet, gently pushing them forward. Now she carefully pushes herself in, head, shoulders, hands reaching ahead to feel out. The bush, it turns out, is wide, covering a little tunnel with bright sand peering from its other end.
“Just a little bit more. We’re nearly there.”
She encourages Orr.
And then she hears the voice. And the laughter. And recognizes Aviram.
“You really thought it would be that easy, huh?”
He’s behind her and is now pulling her legs. Back out towards him.
And he’s not alone. Dana glances backwards, and David’s two guards appear on both sides of Aviram. They’re not laughing. Their faces are sealed. And they’re now pulling Orr’s legs.
The little straw sandals, they’re the ones to break her, and the crying bursts out from her, growing stronger, unstoppable. Orr is pulled out, crying and squirming, releases herself from the grip of the Caesar’s guards, hangs onto Dana’s neck, and they both try to wipe away the tears, each other’s.
“Mommy, don’t cry.”
“Here, Orr, look, I’m not crying.”
Aviram makes Dana stand up, she sh
akes the sand off her robe, and holds onto Orr’s hand. And now what.
“You’re lucky that David told us to return you to your room. If it were up to me, I’d shut you both in a guarded room until the Gathering. But he said for me to return you there. Come on, follow me.”
And Dana walks with Orr, Aviram and the two guards back to her hut. There are no people on the paths, but she imagines pairs of eyes fixing onto them behind every window.
Dana gets it now. Whether they’re guarded or not, she isn’t going to drag Orr through another attempt. But she decrees not to give up.
It’ll be fine, she tells Orr over and over again while walking, trying to clean the little robe covered in bright sand.
34
The hut isn’t guarded.
“I’ll come to pick you up at 19:30,” Aviram announces firmly and leaves them, the two guards following him.
And she’s alone again, with Orr.
It’s a little strange to feel fear and happiness diluted together. She’d never thought it possible. But it is.
Because she’s filled with joy over Orr.
And she’s scared.
“You know what, Orr, let’s lie down and rest for a bit.”
“Let’s!”
Orr’s happy. Takes off her sandals, looks at the little robe dirtied by sand, stares at Dana dubiously.
“It’s alright. Doesn’t matter. I’ll clean you up a bit more, and we’ll lie down in our robes. So that we’re ready.”
“Mommy, do you know that we had Gatherings at the boarding home? Dina the nanny did them. She told us that we’re going to fly to another planet. Prettier than ours. Do you know what a planet is, Mommy? Do you want to tell me a story about it?”
“Let’s lie down for a bit. Maybe we’ll tell a story later. We should save some energy for tonight.”
And they both lie down on the grass mat, holding hands. Orr doesn’t let go of Dana’s hand for a single moment, tries to shut her eyes, opens them again, looks at Dana, as though wanting to make sure she’s really still there with her, and shuts-opens-shuts them again.
And Dana’s thinking. Aviram is coming to get them soon. They’ll go. There’s no choice. If they don’t go willingly, he’ll drag them there.
What is David really planning?
Dana no longer believes in spaceships, in special landing sites - though she’s very familiar with a large and top secret area in the village that was indeed prepared for this very purpose - only, there’s no Mother-Planet, and they won’t be flying off to distant universes.
But the little bottles. What are they…
David says that it’s a substance that transforms, perhaps paralyzes, perhaps freezes the body. Prepares it for the rocky voyage through light years.
She knows that there are countries which allow the freezing of people using a special substance in order to bring them back to life years later. But they’re already corpses. Not living people. They believe that one day, once a cure is found for the disease which had killed them, they’ll be thawed out, treated, healed, and resume living. Dana had never believed in that.
And David wants to freeze people alive. Or preserve them in some other fashion. Who knows.
The group members believe each and every word of his.
Even now, while working for him in the village, emptied of all materialistic and financial assets they’d ever owned, sufficing with little and modest food, gray work clothes and a robe, unfurnished huts, seeing him nourished and growing plumper in front of their very eyes, they still worship him.
They feel that he’s the father whom they need. A compassionate, patient, generous and wise father, sometimes rageful and jealous and reprimanding and vengeful and punishing.
Because that’s what fathers are like.
The great, omnipotent father, the one and only. Sheltering them beneath a gigantic wing, under which they can finally feel protected.
More than that. They belong.
She hears Aviram’s voice, “You’re ready, right?” And she realizes that she’d fallen asleep, and wakes Orr up too.
“Give us a few minutes.”
They get ready in the little bathroom, wash their faces and hands, Dana combs Orr’s hair, enjoying its washed silkiness, smooths out their robes, and they leave.
The two guards are also waiting outside. Their faces sealed, in utter silence.
Dana and Orr hold hands. They walk towards the large brick building.
Other huts’ doors open wide, and the group members, washed and clean in their white robes, pour out, scatter around and begin filling the paths. All heading in one direction.
Dana’s heart is pounding wildly. Where are we really going. The first of the Gathering-goers are already crowding at the large entrance to the hall.
They look to be gushing with excitement. Festive-like. Some are smiling. Like at some wedding. Some are very serious.
Dana nods her head to say hello to a few of them. There’s Clara, Mikey’s mother. Clara’s laughing, embracing the son given back to her. And there’s Vered. Giggling, as always. A little nervously, Dana thinks to herself. But maybe not. Maybe it’s joy.
And she also sees friends whom she hadn’t noticed for a long while. Ones who had started this shared journey with her, back in Jerusalem, years ago. When they had still been a small academic group of the chosen few.
That’s what she’d thought back then.
Motti. And Erez. And Meir. And Benny.
She’s spent such a long time living within herself. Her eyes only directed inwards. Into herself. Impenetrable to the outside. Refusing to see others. Faces, names. All one single mass in front of her.
She hasn’t noticed them for months. And now she suddenly sees them again.
They’re all showing up here tonight. One by one.
Ready for the big moment.
They enter the hall. Eyal rushes over to them, grabs Orr’s hand, and pulls them over to the pillows at the front of the seating area. Near the stage, the throne.
Dana inhales the large fragrant candles, bold-flamed, that burn all along the walls.
Scents of heavy incense.
The hall is dimly lit, slowly filling up. Rugs and mats cushion it from wall to wall. Pillows placed on the rows all around, and the members take their seats on them. A murmur fills the air.
“David will be arriving soon,” Eyal says, not managing to hide the excitement sizzling within him. And Dana thinks to herself, does he really believe it?
Yes. She knows.
Eyal has always believed in him, in his King David. From the moment he met him, he, who used to be Leo Levi, the orphan of Antwerp, raised by his grandparents, he felt that he’d finally found the father he’d never had.
In Jerusalem.
Father knows best. Devoted. Protective. So what if he, little Leo, has relinquished every bit of money in his possession, gladly, one must admit. And so what if everything that had ever been registered onto his name has long been registered onto His Majesty’s name. What does it matter. This whole earthly-possession-thing is nonsense anyway.
He shall continue to serve the King so long as he lives and breathes. That’s clear to her, to Dana. Because he is the son. And David is the father. And that’s what it’s like between father and son.
The three of them now sit on one vast joint pillow, and wait. The murmur subsides a little. Everyone seems to Dana as though they’re waiting joyfully, but also very tensely. Here, in just a moment’s time, the miracle will rise and occur. Here, in front of their very eyes, along with them, it shall receive shape and color and sound and something great and sublime never to be seen before will come down upon them, carry them up and sweep them away with it.
Like the biblical Elijah who was carried up to the heavens in the Lord’s Chariot of Fire, Dana recalls her elementary school bibl
e studies, in the Tel Aviv of her childhood.
She hugs Orr tightly. Presses her onto her chest. Her heart. They are one body. She can almost hear their hearts beating in unison.
Eyal is detached from them. His eyes are fixed on His Majesty’s vacant throne.
And then they rise. All of them.
Professor Doron Sadeh enters the hall, his hands holding onto the handlebars of a wheeled cart, like the ones used for medication rounds at hospitals, packed full of gray cardboard boxes, set neatly in rows.
The little bottles.
Dana shudders.
Doron stops the cart, stands next to it and waits.
His Royal Highness enters.
Indicates for all to be seated, and reclines in his throne. Dori takes a seat on a lower chair, at the side of the stage.
And Dori, Dana wonders, what about him? Does he really believe all of this mumbo-jumbo?
And mutters to herself, and what about you, you believed it too, didn’t you?
She interlocks her hands around Orr’s little body in an unbreakable embrace.
The silence in the hall is absolute. Complete.
“The moment of truth has arrived!”
David booms.
Dana feels herself and Orr shuddering in a shared tremble.
David now seems more non-human to her than ever before. Terrifying. Inexplicable.
In that sense, he most definitely is an alien.
“Our voyage begins!”
Where is he leading them. Where to. She has a sudden terrible urge to get up and run away from there. This is the moment. She and Orr. Run away. Run away. Not be here, in this horrid place.
Everyone around her is hypnotized within the dim lighting, the scent of incense, the flickering flames of the candles. Their eyes all fixed on David, awaiting with bated breath.
Eyal’s eyes too. He seems to have utterly forgotten the existence of the two figures embraced, right here, at his side.
Everyone else’s existence.
No one but him, and his King.
A Savage Flower Page 18