A Savage Flower

by Judith Weinstock

  She heard it.

  It didn’t sound good to her.

  And Mom and Dad’s giddy joy. How can they not see. Eyal and Dana. Oh, come on.

  Total blindness.

  Blinded by the light.

  But Hila kept quiet. Didn’t forewarn. Didn’t caution. What for. They wouldn’t listen to her anyway.

  She was adamant. She wasn’t going to participate in this wedding. They can have fun without her.

  And then she heard about Cayrona Beach.

  “What beach?”

  “Cayrona. Cayrona. It’s on the north side of South America.”

  “And what is she doing there? And Orr? What has she told you about it?”

  Silence.

  And Hila decided to come back.

  Immediately.

  Now that it’s all over, Hila sits on the porch, and thinks to herself, why, actually.

  And what was she thinking when she left everything behind and came back to the place she’d so desperately wanted to forget.

  Because you don’t leave your family. That’s why.

  She answers herself, and immediately feels something inside tickling her into laughter. And she giggles.

  Dana. Mom. Dad. Her, Hila.

  Family.

  Ha.

  But she also feels that he must be answered, this little demon within her, who is now making a mockery of her within herself.

  Yes. Family.

  She defiantly validates the word in his face. Recites and repeats it over and over again, slams it into him, into that demon.

  Yes.

  When all of a sudden, out of the vast void appears a kind of strange monster, a cult, and swallows your sister along with her daughter, turns your mother into a sobbing mess, drives your father out of the house, and you realize that the family had been there all along, and is now gone.

  And you have to do something. Because it’ll become completely wiped out in a moment’s time.

  And that’s what I did, Hila repeats to herself again and again.

  Me.

  Hila.

  Without thrones and without excelling report cards.

  And Dana may not even know that it was me.

  But Dad. And Mom.

  And Ra’anan.

  And me.

  We know.

  She looks at him, and rejoices.

  Because Ra’anan has joined them too.

  He pulls up a chair, makes room next to her, and joins the conversation.

  He’s planning on travelling to Garamba, in the Congo. There, he’ll photograph and document a special species of rhinos, the white rhinoceros, who are about to become extinct. The last male has just passed away, and only two females are left. He’s received funding to document them from an international animal preservation foundation.

  Ra’anan looks at Hila, smiles, and talks about the trip. How he’ll get to the Congo, and from there to the Garamba National Park, where he’ll join the preservation supervisor, Doctor Martin Brooks, and they’ll go out into the wild together. To locate and document.

  When he finishes, in a few months’ time, he says, he’ll return to Tel Aviv. To her.

  Garamba.

  Hila thinks to herself.

  We finally got rid of Cayrona Beach. Now Garamba.

  But he’ll come back.

  To me. Maybe.

  And she smiles back to him.

  37

  Now they’re a kind of trio.

  Dana, Orr and Jacob. Sitting together on the porch, in front of our Bougainvillea flowers. Drinking juice made from the pomegranates Jacob had brought with him and squeezed for everyone. They whisper to each other. Hold hands. Smile.

  I love looking at them from the side. Seeing Dana’s eyes hanging onto Jacob with a kind of warm gaze she’d never before had.

  And Orr too.

  I see Orr slowly becoming one with the glow that Jacob emits and marks around himself.

  Because I already classify him within that rare species of people I’ve occasionally come across over the years.

  I call them Red Flowers.

  Nature has given red flowers a unique force of attraction which bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects simply can’t resist. They become magnetized to the blushing maroon in the field, as though spellbound. When the red anemones wilt, the buttercups arrive, followed by the poppies. All dazzlingly red. And the flocking will continue, to the hot red, gorgeous, irresistible. The flower will allow everyone to bask in its fragrance, to delight in its nectar, and to pass all of its goodness on, to others, to the surrounding world’s blossoming.

  There are people like that too. Not many, but a few. I’ve met them. Here and there.

  Jacob is one of them.

  Was David like that too? Why are you even comparing. How can they be compared, I ask myself. And still.

  A hundred and fifteen people resided at the Existential College Village.

  They were attracted to His Majesty through a force I’m yet to fathom, and then, hypnotized, bound and held by concealed strings of charm and the soft, sweet words poured onto them, they came out of his final Gathering, and onto the brink of their final voyage.

  Because he too was a Red Flower.

  Of a different kind, but fascinating and attractive. And savage.

  The savage flower entices and allures. The insects are attracted to the promise hidden within its red petals. The yearning for its fulfilment, the desire for the delight, brings them to the opening of a leaf in the shape of a pipe, or a vase, or a trumpet, they walk in towards the green and juicy indulgence awaiting them, and slide into the depths of the trap. There is only a way in.

  There is no way out. No escape.

  The nectar awaiting them at the bottom is the seducer’s pool of poisonous digestive fluids.

  The savage flower will digest the prey’s entire body, breaking it up into the nourishing components which the seducer requires.

  David, His Royal Highness, pumped his worshippers dry, just like the red sundew flower, turning them into empty shells. And vanished.

  Yes.

  After the state police finished investigating and checking, interviewing, searching, digging and turning every stone in the village, every plot of land, after the dozens of detectives inspected the shores and the forests, and each and every hut in the scattered villages near and far, over and over again, it became all too clear.

  King David has disappeared.

  Without a trace.

  Anyone suspected of maybe, of perhaps aiding and abetting, drivers of any and all vehicle types, pilots of tattered planes, sailors of rickety fishing boats, residents of the district, shocked village survivors. Human traffickers. Drug smugglers.

  Everyone.

  To no avail.

  The King simply vanished into thin air.

  As though he’d never existed. Gone.

  The police left the case open. Maybe he’ll be found. One day. It’s happened before. Who knows.

  Dana and Orr are going with Jacob.

  To a village.

  In the desert.

  Jacob suggests that they live with him there. Among lone ranches. Just for now, Dana says. Ilan thinks that it’s a good idea. I find it a little odd. Dana. In the desert. But she seems happy, and her nights have improved.

  What do I know, actually.

  I wonder if I ever really knew my daughter. My daughters.

  Dana. Hila.

  And perhaps all of the mothers in all of the worlds don’t truly know their children.

  Jacob comes up behind me, as I stand alone with these thoughts, near the window in the kitchen, facing the green ficus, my back to the door. He embraces my shoulders.

  “Dita, don’t worry. Dana will love living there with me.
Orr will too. I’m sure of it. The desert is wonderful and wild. When you come to visit, you’ll see all of the beauty surrounding us, and you’ll love it too.”

  I hug him back, this gorgeous Red Flower, and silently join him in hoping.

  In the evening I see Dana alone on the porch, glass of wine in hand, underneath our starry sky.

  She’s sitting there, her eyes hanging onto some distant spot.

  I pour myself a glass and sit next to her.

  We’re both quiet.

  A lot of secrets between us. She may never tell me about them, but I can sense them, the body senses them.

  My child has gone through torment. Mothers may not know everything, but they can sense these things.

  Dana sips from the wine, and continues staring at the stars.

  “Do you think they’ll find him?”

  She suddenly asks.

  And it’s clear to me.

  She means His Majesty. David. And she goes on, answering herself.

  “No. I know they won’t. Ever. He came from nowhere, and that’s how he’ll disappear too.”

  I listen anxiously.

  Dana never speaks to me about the village. About the cult. About David. Everything I know I’ve collected from others. From Hila. From Ilan, who placed his things in our room this week without saying a word, and resumed sleeping next to me as though it’s nothing.

  And the nothing is between us.

  Still.

  I remain silent. I’m tense, and I hear Dana saying quietly, as though to herself, almost whispering, “They’ll never find him. Because he’s completed his mission here.”

  Her gaze now glides over a cluster of stars in the dark sky above us, and she suddenly bursts into brief laughter, and looks at me.

  And her eyes don’t laugh along with her.

  “So, what do you think, maybe he’s hovering right above us, right at this very minute, in his mothership, between universes, at lightspeed, on the way to a new mission, to another planet. Because we don’t really want to be rescued from our lives here on our planet.”

  She sends another long look to the distant flickering above us, her eyes wandering from star to star.

  Then she disconnects from them, as though parting company, rises up from her seat, finishes her wine, turns to me and says, “It’s late. I’ll go pack my things and Orr’s. We’ll leave with Jacob tomorrow.”

  Come on, Mom, let’s go home.

  Acknowledgments

  A Savage Flower has rattled me into foreign, unfamiliar territories, ones whose existence used to be solely in the form of a whispered rumor to me.

  I’d like to thank all those who have revealed the subject of cults to me, who delved with me into depths that I’d never imagined existed, who tried to explain to me, and at times to themselves, about riddles and motives, both visible and concealed.

  The majority of you have asked to remain hidden from sight. I will honor your request.

  I’m grateful to you all.

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