“Well, this time make an exception. You earned this,” Marian said, her voice rising.
“I’m sorry,” Ann said, “I can’t.”
“You aren’t being offered a choice,” Marian said, giggling over her consternation and pushing the gift back in Ann’s direction.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” Ann said, making a show of pushing the box back across the table.
“Ann, you’re starting to act really weird,” Marian said. “It’s not some fourteen-carat rock. It’s a simple token of my appreciation. It will never change the fact that I will always feel indebted to you.”
“You don’t owe me a thing!” Ann said, pounding the table, rattling the glassware and drawing the attention of the other diners.
Marian, looking hurt, rose to her feet, fished through her wallet, pulled out three one-hundred-shekel bills, smacked them down on the table, and signaled for the waiter.
“What are you doing?” Ann asked.
“None of your business!” Marian said, shouldering her pocketbook. She took the jewelry box, lodged it in the nurse’s lap, and made for the exit.
It took Ann a long moment to react. By the time she caught up to the reporter, she was on the sidewalk, hailing an approaching taxi. Ann reached her, panting and upset, and tried to shove the little black box back into Marian’s bag.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Marian shouted, snatching back her bag. The violence of the movement ripped the thin shoulder strap and sent the contents of her pocketbook tumbling onto the sidewalk.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Marian muttered as she gathered her things, pushing away Ann’s hand as she made a last-gasp attempt to get rid of the gift. Hugging her bag to her chest, Marian got into the cab and slammed the door. Ann, not wanting to meet the reporter’s eyes, kept her gaze on the sidewalk, where she found a small makeup kit. As she picked it up, she noticed another item that had dropped from the bag. She picked up the facedown picture, looked at it indifferently, and felt shock descend on her like a drug. Still staring at the picture, she felt her legs fold under her and, seated on the sidewalk, she started to whimper.
A cop on foot patrol asked her if she was okay, finally snapping her out of her shock. She nodded, picked herself up off the curb, and started to stumble down the avenue, ignoring the wispy chain that slipped through her fingers and into the outstretched hand of a weary homeless person, who could not believe his luck when he awoke.
22
Gaymorrah
On the twelfth day of his death, Ben woke up from dreamless sleep to a morning comprised of equal parts fear and excitement. He was happy to meet up with the most flamboyant of the Mendelssohns, whom he missed sorely since the latter had succumbed to the terrible disease. Ben recalled Uncle David saying that he always knew the untamable workings of his sexual appetite would ruin him, but never, in his wildest dreams, did he imagine that a woman would snuff out the eternal flame of his erotic escapades.
Amidst a stormy sex life of daily conquests, David dared go without protection a single time, and that was because he didn’t think that the strange and foreign gender, which never aroused him before, could pose a danger. One night, during a wild vacation in Ibiza, inebriated and snubbed earlier by a Spanish hedonist, the man-slayer felt an unnatural excitement in his loins when the beautiful Finnish tourist laid a hand on him. The pill that she slipped under his tongue before dragging him off to her bed didn’t hurt either, and he, in a daze, went at it till his consciousness waned.
Two months after the last of his friends’ rolling laughter had died down, once they’d finished asking him to retell of the peculiar encounter at every get-together, David opened the paper and spotted a picture of the Finnish prostitute. The article detailed how the HIV-positive hooker went on a rampage, determined to punish the stronger sex collectively, instead of settling the score with the one who “gave” it to her. The headline, “Cold-blooded Killer,” took on a chilling new meaning, and David swore off the fruit of life for an entire month. The test results were unequivocal and brought with them the realization that the party was over, or at least restricted to a small segment of the population, since, despite his soaring libido, David had a black-and-white conscience and was unwilling to endanger the healthy. David kept up an active, albeit limited sex life and began to tell his confidantes that he thought perhaps it was high time to find his long-lost Jonathan. The search for a soul mate stood in direct contrast with one of the central pillars of his outlook on life: that men, of all stripes, sizes, and colors, were to be enjoyed equally. Consequently, seeking out a single lover drained him of his ardor for the sexual act. A few months before the disease surprisingly raided his body and developed into a life-claiming case of pneumonia, he told his nephew, Ben, that, merciless virus notwithstanding, it was clear to him that he was next in line. “The Mendelssohn curse, you know.” When he died, on a glorious fall day, his friends carried out his final wish and conducted a funeral procession that passed by the six sports apparel stores he owned. His close friend, Doron, spoke in a wavering voice and said that David’s last words before leaving this world were “Back to the closet.”
But Ben was well aware of the implications of going to seek out his wild uncle. David Mendelssohn was the last close family member on his list. Having grown familiar with failure, Ben knew the chance of finding any valuable clues about Marian’s whereabouts was negligible, especially as David lived in a county of men who preferred their own kind. His mother encouraged him not to lose hope, saying that if there was one place where a woman would certainly stick out, it was there.
Traveling to Gaymorrah was discomforting. The onslaught of offers he received from the fleet of hungry eyes made him squirm in his seat. It only got worse once he turned around and told one of his potential suitors that he was sorry but he went for women. Three dead ringers for Jimmy Somerville shattered the silence on the multi by bursting into a rousing rendition of “Woman In Love,” sweeping up the rest of the passengers, who rocked the vehicle with their ridicule-laced pathos.
Fortunately, the journey came to a close before they finished their torturous falsetto rendition of the tales of the romantic lady. Ben surveyed his surroundings in complete shock. The multi’s last stop was on the summit of a mountain, beneath which stretched a wide-shouldered, colorful valley brimming with activity. Ben gave silent thanks for the change in surroundings and fell in line with the rest of the people traipsing down the clover-colored hill. A few moments later, Ben’s enthusiasm for the view died down, and he opened his eyes wide at the sight of the simple pink closet, in the center of the vast lawn. Ben got up on his tiptoes to try and see why guys were waiting in line to go through a door guarded by two fiercely muscular men when it was clear that the pastoral valley continued on well beyond the threshold. Within an hour he reached the front of the line and the hulk on the right was addressing him. He spit out a confused “What?’ and listened to the bored voice say, “Welcome to Gaymorrah. It’s my pleasure to announce that you’re on the doorstep of the largest gay county in the Other World. Not far behind you, you’ll find the Sexually Baffled Arena, where you can hang out with groups of still-undecided guys and have a go at your first male-male sexual experience, in the event that you did not have a normal adolescence. If you want into the closet, let me have your left wrist please.”
Ben offered up his left hand and then looked closely at the navy blue XY that the guard had stamped on the inside of his arm. As the doors opened, the guard gave Ben a gentle tug and pulled him inside, into the immense darkness, not giving him a moment to get his bearings. Ben saw the doors close behind him, realized he was by himself in the closet, but couldn’t figure out where all those ahead of him in line had gone. Totally confounded, Ben felt a slight shudder in his leg and, as the floor dropped beneath him, he screamed, understanding, only midway through the freefall, that the closet was actually an elevator.
After a three-minute plunge through terra incognita
, the lift came to a stop. Before Ben’s eyes had a chance to adjust to the dark, the ground beneath him opened again, only this time he felt a strange pushing motion, moving him, like a suitcase on a vigorous conveyor belt, into another, parallel elevator shaft. He sailed up through the dark, came to a stop, and walked out of another pink door. His exit was applauded by his fellow passengers, who were waiting for their procrastinating friends.
Ben overcame his initial embarrassment and stared half amused, half bewildered at the line of identical circles that continued on to the horizon of the populous city. He spent two long minutes blinking at the erect stone phallus at the center of the nearest circle as it sprayed a fine mist of water from its open end onto the nearby citizens, who were engaged in animated conversations at the foot of the long-nosed totem pole, their upper bodies sprinkled with aqua as they worshiped the sun, courtesy of their godgets. An older man walking in the opposite direction fixed Ben with an unequivocal stare and said, “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, sweetie.”
In response, Ben asked him if he could direct him someplace.
“Sure, where do you need to go?”
“To the Gaily Male,” he said.
“Oh, that’s simple,” the old man said, sucking his finger and pointing down the long avenue of phallic symbols that cut across the line of the imaginary horizon. “Keep going straight till you hit the third fountain. Make a left and you’ll see it.”
Ben made it to the right building in a matter of minutes. He passed on the elevators, preferring the enlivening jaunt up the stairs, at the end of which he found a wholly ordinary newsroom. Hardworking types typed away furiously on their obedient laptops, while some hollered into their telefingers, and others raced between the towering stacks of paper on the desks, yelling like brokers on the commodity market floor, flinging bits of information into the densely packed room, items ranging from blatant gossip about celebrity hookups and breakups to sorrow-filled announcements about those who died a second time over, by accident, suicide, or murder.
Ben tried to avoid any unwarranted attention, crossing the room quickly, seeking out the desk manned by his uncle. Finally, he caught sight of the tall man with the closely cropped black hair, the slanted green eyes, the long thin nose, and the square jaw beneath the thick lips that were the focus of plenty of jokes. Judging by the singsong in his voice and the pandering of his smile as he spoke on his telefinger, he was on his way to yet another conquest. Only once Ben stood right in front of him and smiled warmly, did David notice him.
“Eddie, Eddie, please excuse me … you have no idea who’s standing here in front of me.… Eddie, I’ll talk to you a bit later,” he said and threw his arms around Ben, eliciting loud cheers from the reporters.
“Perverts!” David yelled playfully. “He’s my nephew!”
“Now who’s the pervert?” one of them called out, setting off a ripple of laughter.
David, much impressed with the brawniness of his formerly rail-thin nephew, said that, momentary shock aside, he wasn’t surprised to see Ben in this world. Ben picked up on his reference to the “curse” and, trying to put off the question he had come to ask, spent hours chatting with his beloved uncle, who told him, among other things, about his job as a sportswriter for the paper, specializing in track and field, a discipline he’d already grown to love in the previous world. Smiling slyly, he added, “When you showed up, I was just in the middle of setting up a meeting with a sprinter from Trinidad that’s built like a black God.”
“So, I see you’re back to your old ways,” Ben said, joining his uncle on a tour of the flashy city.
“Back to my old ways?” David said, blushing and bowing his head as they passed an acquaintance from a forgettable night. “Ben, a renaissance is what I’ve had since I arrived here. One can sleep with the whole world—well, half of it anyway—and no longer has to worry. Thanks to that Finnish whore, I rediscovered the joy of sex, and if I come across her one day I’ll slap her on one cheek for the suffering of the previous world and kiss her on the other for the pleasures of this one.”
Ben laughed and hung on his uncle’s every word. “That massive structure over there is the Gay-ser, a building built with a nod to the ancient Roman baths, which serves as a spa favored by all those lovers of amphibian activities. Behind the acropolis-like façade are springs with supposedly unusual healing powers, and in fact the volcanic waters are intended to still the stormy souls of the insane, to quote my old pal Hesse. You know how it goes, in corpora sano, mens sana. But between us, some pretty sane swimmers have long ago flippered their way over to the Gay-ser and taken over the territorial waters of the lunatics. Even I sinned and took a rather pleasant dip with a Russian gymnast … oh, Dimitri, Dimitri.”
David continued to point out the eye-catching sights. There was Gayhinnom, the city’s largest sauna, a Gothic building with ornate chimneys that pumped fake smoke up and over the blackened roof, in order to give the building the appearance of being aflame, and, to its left, the strange pagoda that housed one of a few dozen sadomasochist temples, run by a disciplined group of male gayshas, who enjoyed catering to the needs of the queens.
“What’s the tall building at the end of the street?” Ben asked, pointing to the bluish structure ahead.
“The Gay Schläfchen, a hotel for straight people who come to visit gay friends and relatives. Maybe you’ll find it interesting, considering that every gay man has at least one good girl friend and most of them stay there. Some men stay there, too, but most of the rooms are occupied by women who prefer not to impose on their gay friends.”
Ben tried to remember if his wife had such a friend and, without giving it a second thought, asked his uncle if he’d like to get a cup of coffee in the lobby of that establishment. David shrugged. “Oh, hell yes. I’m happy to see you’re on the mend.”
* * *
A gaggle of smiling women approached Ben on the way to the hotel’s main entrance, unabashedly bumping into him under the guise of drunkenness. David chortled in appreciation of their brash forwardness. Ben smiled peevishly, without a flash of interest.
David cracked, “Hon, in Rome, you know, but don’t get carried away with the interpretations.”
“Excuse me?” Ben asked groggily, still stuck on the sentence about being on the mend.
They walked into the clamorous lobby and sat in a far corner. From there Ben could survey the women as they crossed the blue carpet on their way in and out of the unimpressive building, which very much resembled scores of uninspired hotels the world over, save the array of sleep-inducing blues: the ceiling, the chandeliers, the tables, the cutlery, the doors, and the long front desk were all stroked with different touches of indigo. Slightly disturbed, he looked into the cup of coffee that his uncle had brought him.
“Would you please stop staring into your cup like some coffeeholic and start paying attention to the world around you?” David said, turning his attention to the three sweetly smiling women seated nearby.
Ben brought his cup to his lips, his eyes fixed on a new group of women striding into the hotel. David followed his gaze. “What’s going on, Ben? Why are you ignoring their invitations? Wasn’t that why you wanted to come here? These women are drooling all over you and you’re doing your best imitation of a eunuch.”
“I’m a bit surprised by how eager you are to get me to respond to these women’s come-ons when you know full well that there’s only one woman in the world for me.”
“Oh,” David groaned, shaking his head, “you’re talking about the lovely Marian.”
“Yes, I’m talking about her,” Ben said, “of course I’m talking about her. Who the hell else could I be talking about?”
“All the others,” David said, nodding in the direction of the threesome, which had just grown into a sextet, all of them engaged in unspoken competition for his graces. “I thought you were over the whole Marian thing.”
“That’s what you meant when you said that shit about being on the
mend?”
“Of course. Your mom told me that Marian died a while ago. I didn’t think that a year and a half after her death you’d still be…”
“In love, David, same as I was on the day we met,” Ben said.
“How can you be in love with a ghost? Too much time’s gone by. I’m sure she’s over losing you.”
Seeing the wounded animal rise in his nephew’s eyes, David diluted his statement. “I don’t mean to come off as cruel, it’s just that I can’t see someone as wonderful as Marian living like some old, forlorn woman. It’s got nothing to do with how she feels about you. She proclaimed her love for you from just about every mountaintop, but she got here way before you. What do you expect her to do? Sit with her hands in her lap and wait for her knight from the land of the living?”
“That’s why I came to see you. I wanted to know if you’d heard from her. If she’d visited you…”
David smiled sympathetically. “Sorry, darling. Till I heard from Deborah, I had no idea she was dead.”
Ben nodded, mumbling, “That’s what I thought.”
David tried to think of some appropriate gestures of sympathy, but they all felt strained, especially as he watched Ben spring out of his seat, his face reduced to a convulsing muscle and his eyes casting terror in the direction of the coiled pack of women.
“You alright?” David asked, pondering the fast-moving clouds traveling across Ben’s face.
Ben marched over to a nearby table and barked at the six smiling women, “What the fuck are you looking at? What do you want?!”
David couldn’t believe the way the women continued to track him, utterly undeterred by the attractive man’s display of bubbling rage, when it dawned on him that all the temptresses in the indigo room were ogling his nephew with glossy eyes and incontrovertible poses, weaving unseen webs around their recalcitrant prey. Ben looked around to make sure his eyes were not leading him astray. Fifty women were employing all of their God-given wiles. Perhaps it was the black hole that glared in Marian’s absence, a void that couldn’t be filled by fifty blue orifices, the poignant unfairness dictated by the vast supply and the monogamist’s meager demand; or it could have been the foreseen frustration provoked by his uncle’s laconic response, which starkly stated that he had almost reached the end of his search; either way the result was the same. Before his uncle had the chance to restrain him, Ben opened his eyes wide and, with the kind of impulsiveness that characterized his dashing epilogues, forgetting that, in art, an act of madness draws rave reviews, but in life the same act elicits derision, he roared and flipped over the nearest table, then ran to the one just beyond that and sent it cartwheeling across the lobby. Pleased by the panic-filled room that had been rendered devoid of women within a matter of seconds, the one-man mob—and a single uncle, who was transfixed by the rampage of his gentle peace-seeking nephew—roused the schläfchen from sleep, breaking lamps, tossing chairs across the room, flinging plates, smashing vases, and ignoring the staff, who would not accept such behavior even from a heartbroken man and managed to get a hold of him, not letting go even as he thrashed at them as though they alone were responsible for his current state, until they carried him away from the scene of his tantrum, holding his head still and photographing him, placing his Polaroid in an album alongside other undesirables and marking him with an X, which, for the rest of his days as a dead man, will bar him from entering the peaceful hotel.
The World of the End Page 22