The World of the End

by Ofir Touché Gafla

  Turning Back the Wheel

  “Adam,” Shahar called out in a childish voice, his fists monotonically pounding the tabletop between them.

  Adam approached his brother’s chair slowly, his red eyes riveted on the sore sight before him. Eyes wide, hair disheveled, shoulders stooped, stubble sprouting across his face, Shahar grinned luridly as he watched his brother draw near.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” the actor whispered hoarsely.

  “Your throat,” Adam said, sitting down, “clear your throat.”

  “I haven’t spoken for three days,” Shahar said.

  Adam nodded. “I know. They told me you didn’t say a word to anyone, not even the lawyer.”

  “What took you so long?” Shahar asked. “I told them you were the only one I was willing to talk to.”

  “They wouldn’t release me,” Adam said, looking down at the dirty floor.

  “What do you mean?” Shahar asked, gazing at him curiously.

  “I’m here with a police escort. They arrested me yesterday.”

  “What are you talking about, Adam? The police arrested you? Because of me?”

  “No, Shahar, nothing to do with you,” Adam said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “They came by yesterday morning. There was a complaint. To a sex crimes unit or something. I told them it was nothing. That it was all platonic. But just as they were getting ready to leave, this policewoman asked to use the bathroom. When she got back, I realized something awful had happened. While I was talking to the other two, she walked into the room ‘by mistake.’”

  Looking at the confusion on his brother’s face, he repeated. “The Room.”

  Shahar shook his head in disbelief. “I always say lock the door. I’m always saying…”

  “You’re right,” Adam said, placing an unsteady hand on Shahar’s agitated one. “I acted irresponsibly. This is what you get when a policewoman opens the door to a room and sees a wall of naked children. They marched me straight to the back of the patrol car. Read me my rights. And since then I haven’t had a moment’s rest. They took all of the pictures and made me give them the names of each one of the kids. Then they put me up on the national list of pedophiles and said they wouldn’t let me go until each and every one of those kids had been spoken to and had convinced them that they hadn’t been touched.”

  “Oh God, this isn’t really happening,” Shahar said, rolling his eyes back. “Who filed the complaint?” he asked after a brief pause.

  “Tom’s mother,” Adam said, twisting his lips in derision.

  “That annoying kid again?” Shahar said, kicking the table leg. “Will he ever leave us alone?”

  “It’s not him, Shahar, it’s his mother.”

  “Oh, please. And last time? In the amusement park it was his mother’s friend. I told you then and there that kid is trouble.”

  “Shhh,” Adam hissed, “they’re listening to every word.”

  “What are you talking about? There’s no one here,” Shahar said, pointing to the glass window.

  “Don’t point,” Adam grunted. “They’re sitting behind the glass. It’s like on TV. What do you think, that they let me meet you out of the goodness of their hearts? Shahar, they know it’s the only way to get you to talk.”

  “Adam, about her…”

  “Don’t say anything about her, Shahar, they’re listening to every word.”

  “I have to,” Shahar said, clenching his teeth. “If they do what they said they’re going to, I won’t have a choice. I’ll have to tell the whole story.”

  “What? Shahar, what’s going on? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “I’m scared shitless, Adam.”

  “You can’t let them get to you.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about them. She’s the one who scares me. They said they were going to bring her in for a confrontation.”

  “What’s keeping them?”

  “She flew out of the country and they’re waiting for her to get back.…”

  “Okay, confront her, what’s the big deal?”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Shahar yelled, eyes popping. “I can’t be in the same room with that woman. Every time I close my eyes I see her chasing me. The one time I managed to go to sleep I saw her chasing me on one of those old turn-of-the-century unicycle-type things. Wheels, Adam, that’s all I’m able to see … wheels, circles, spheres.…” And then without another word he spun around in his chair, examined the cracked wall, and began to trace circles in the air.

  “Shahar, enough,” Adam said, swatting his drawing finger out of the air. “Look at me. Listen. No one is chasing you!”

  “Easy for you to say,” Shahar protested, “your little brother did it all for you. Well, I got news for you. Turns out big brother doesn’t see everything. In your case, all he sees is half the picture.”

  “What do you want?” Adam asked. “You sound like a lunatic. Shahar, buddy, let’s agree on one simple fact: The reporter who came to our house, the one you attacked, was flesh and blood, not a ghost, right?”

  “I don’t know what she was,” Shahar said.

  “No, no, no, Shahar, that’s not good enough. You’re getting confused with that damned script. The woman from the movie, the fictitious one, she’s haunting you. Her! The reporter who showed up, at the worst time, looks exactly like…”

  “No,” Shahar cut him off. “She doesn’t look like her; she is her!”

  “That’s impossible,” Adam said. “If she died, and you’re responsible for her death, how could she show up on your doorstep one year after the fact. Unless, of course, she miraculously survived the fall, which would clear you of any guilt. You can’t be held responsible for the death of a living woman. That’s why you went so crazy three nights ago. You wanted to finish it off.”

  “I can’t listen to your idiotic explanations any longer,” Shahar said, pushing the table away and abruptly rising. “You keep trying to distort the truth because of them.” To Adam’s amazement, he turned to the glass, yelling, “I killed her in her previous incarnation! Yes, friends, you waited three days to hear me open my mouth, well then, here’s the director’s cut.”

  “Shahar, please, calm down. You’re out of control. You’re spewing nonsense.”

  “Pay no mind to the crybaby behind me. Adam is a tortured pedophile. A moral one. It doesn’t matter. The two go hand in hand, no? Torture and morality. That’s Adam: most guys hit and run—not my brother, he runs the kids off and then hits it alone in his room. Who’s the wiseass who lit a cigarette and asked smugly, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’”

  “I’m begging you, Shahar,” Adam said, rising from his chair, approaching his brother deliberately and directing his cries at the one-way glass window. “You are responsible for the mental health of the incarcerated. He needs a psychiatric evaluation. Did you see him drawing circles in the air like some kind of psycho? He’s not…”

  “Enough already, idiot,” Shahar said, pushing Adam strongly as he tried to pull him away from the window. “Come near me again and you’ll be sorry.” He turned back to his invisible audience and giggled. “You see how I must constantly restrain him? Watch that he doesn’t cross the line? Like that other morning, when I saw the look in his eye and knew that hunting season was on. He seemed more stressed than usual and I had a good idea as to why. Three months he’d made do with the pictures, didn’t lure a single kid to the house. Tried to kick the habit. You got to give him credit for his powers of denial. On the night that I attacked that ghost bitch he even had a woman over at the house. But on that critical morning, it was clear that the twelve-step program to kick the kid-addiction had gone down the drain. He was burning up inside. Barely finished his morning toast. His leg was bouncing like a sewing machine. I asked him if I could tag along. As you see, even pedophiles need nannies. He said there was no need. I saw that my instinct was correct and said we’d meet at the amusement park. I showed up an hour later, dressed as a beggar. You remember From Hand to Mou
th? The one that won me the prize? Back then I used to go around like a beggar, to try and get used to the feeling of nothingness. I’d come home once a day, in the mornings, for breakfast with my brother. That’s it.

  “Anyway, I showed up that day to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. We stayed in eye contact and everything was working just fine till she showed up—a school teacher who was there with her students and another teacher. I didn’t know what she wanted from me. Turned out she was offering me a ride on the Ferris wheel as a way of raising my spirits. You know who I mean. She was all over the papers. Her parents sued the park’s management and won just a few days ago. Amazing what lawyers can do. At any rate, I accepted her offer. To be honest, I was a bit proud. Everyone was sure I was a real homeless man. We got onto a rather empty section of the wheel. She said she wanted to hear me and with all the noise around …

  “You already know where this is going. She asked me about my life and I served up some of the character’s back story. As soon as the wheel started to spin, everything changed. Everything. She started talking about the hypocrisy of our society, a society that scorns people like me and ignores truly dangerous characters, who, thanks to their sheep’s clothing, walk around freely, unmolested. I tried not to laugh till she pointed at the businessman with the fancy attaché case, standing near the hotdog stand. She said he didn’t fool her for a second. I asked what she meant, and she said she knew that behind those dark glasses was a pair of predatory eyes. From that moment on, everything sped up. I didn’t even have time to think. She looked down to point Adam out, but he was in the middle of a conversation with some kid, and all of a sudden she started to go crazy—‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it!’—then she started to yell the kid’s name. Who can hear a woman shouting at an amusement park, you ask. And you’re right. But at that moment it seemed possible. Especially when they started to leave, Adam and the kid, and my idiot of a brother put his long arm around the kid’s shoulders in an innocent hug that drove the teacher mad. When she realized there was no way anyone was hearing her, she stood up, tried to draw attention. I didn’t know how to stop her when she started waving her arms. I had no choice. I couldn’t bear the thought that my brother would be tried for seducing a minor. Before she found her voice, I grabbed her legs, lifted a little, and pushed. It all happened in a matter of seconds. I couldn’t believe how easily her weight relented and, more so, how no one seemed to notice. Only about a second before she landed did people become aware of what was happening. Then all hell broke loose. The wheel stopped at the perfect time, though. I hopped off and flew the hell out of the park.

  “You want to hear the great irony? Half an hour after I got home, the two of them walked in, giggling, on their way to the computer, while I scraped the makeup off my face as fast as I could, not believing that over the course of the last hour I’d gone from an innocent man to a murderer and, worst of all, the motive for the crime was sitting in the next room totally unperturbed! I could go deep into my state of mind at that time, but I have a feeling it doesn’t interest you one bit. So that’s it, end of story. I’ve spared you the need for evidence and witnesses. The perfect confession, no? I thank you for listening.”

  Still standing in front of the glass, he bowed deeply, till the applause in his ears subsided. A weary grin hung off his face. He turned toward Adam and sighed. “Believe you me, Adam, this kind of relief is worth murdering for.”

  For the first time since he had assumed a fetal position on the floor, Adam looked up. “You’re a sick man, Shahar.”

  Shahar put a hand out to him. “Get up, Adam, the show’s over. They’re going to come in here any second, and you don’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing you like this.”

  Adam got up unassisted and plodded back to his chair. He sat down and stared at the wall. Shahar mimicked him.

  Ten minutes later, the door opened and the investigating officer strode in, accompanied by five yawning policemen. The brothers wondered what had detained them. As soon as the investigator opened his mouth, it became clear. The stern-faced ranking officer turned to Shahar and asked him, in a tone that hid years of fandom, “Well, Shahar, now that we’ve let you see your brother, you ready to talk?”

  Shahar exchanged a surprised look with Adam and then donned a weighty expression. His voice measured, he said, “Sure, but I haven’t got much to say. I attacked that woman for no reason. I have no idea what made me act that way.”

  The officer glared at him, remained silent for a minute, and snuffed a cigarette out on the floor. “Take him away,” he told two of the uniforms. As they pulled Adam to his feet and out of the room, the investigator asked, “You sure she didn’t do anything? Maybe say something that pissed you off?”

  Shahar shook his head. “She didn’t get the chance.”

  “Maybe you knew her from somewhere else?”

  Shahar shrugged. “Sorry, but I’ve never seen her before.”

  The investigator caught the shard of a smile on the actor’s lips as Shahar looked over his shoulder, but by the time he turned his head, he had missed the one that passed across Adam’s face, already on the other side of the door.

  28

  Four Undertakers, a Client, and a Liar’s Chair

  Two friendly undertakers laid Keren to eternal rest in a glass sarcophagus. When they were through, Ben thanked them for taking his tight schedule into account and allowing him to go to the front of the line. The undertakers produced angelic smiles and, before turning to the next body, winked at him, saying there was no need to get too down, for she was now in a far better place.

  Ben took the miniature key from the golden-haired undertaker and turned the lock on the sarcophagus three times, as asked. The bald undertaker took it back from him, placed it on his tongue and, throwing his head back, swallowed, convulsing slightly.

  Looking at Ben’s expression, the golden-haired one clarified. “Just another safety precaution against tomb raiders, necrophiliacs, and postmodern artists.”

  Ben thanked them again and headed out, a faint smile on his face as he thought about the last time he’d visited the strange cemetery. His smile faded, though, when he considered the investigator’s likely response to his current condition. He had gone to see all of his close family members and come up empty. The little man would offer a heartfelt apology and say he had done everything in his power to locate the missing woman, but even an old hand such as himself had never seen a missing-person file go as cold as this one. Ben would look at him, eyes glazed, and thank him for all the hard work. A few more hollow sentences would pass through their lips, followed by a firm handshake and a final farewell. Then loneliness. Then the futility of searching for a needle in a haystack, fighting windmills. His brain would comb through an inventory of clichés. With time, his fierce determination to find his wife would become more and more self involved and …

  A bitter cry echoed through the hall, violating the deathly silence. Turning around, Ben saw a woman lying flat on top of a young man’s body, probably her son, pounding his chest and slapping his face in a desperate attempt to resuscitate him. The man by her side, perhaps her husband, looked around and begged her to stop. She refused to be calmed and began flailing at him, alternating between weeping and laughing, unintentionally providing rather amusing entertainment to the other visitors, who dealt with their loved ones’ second deaths as a simple but brutal fact, an attitude the anguished mother was reluctant to adopt.

  Ben nodded at her sympathetically, and rather than stare at the distraught family like everyone else, he looked back at the undertakers one final time before leaving. The image that caught his eye was far more intriguing. Farther down along the hall, he spotted one of the undertakers talking to a man who had his back to Ben. He was wheelchair bound, and as Ben strode in his direction, he wondered who this particular athletic paraplegic was burying.

  The bald one handed the key to Robert, pointed to the lock, and mumbled a few words of explanation. Ben didn’t kn
ow why he felt himself go weak at the sight of the distant dead man, and only as Robert swiveled the key a third time and handed it back to the undertaker did Ben get close enough to the proceedings to feel the sweat stream down his back and the hammer stroke of his pulse throb mercilessly in his temples—the undertaker took the key, opened his mouth, and lost his balance as Ben tackled him to the marble floor, grabbed the key out of his hand, and stood up, looking down in amazement at the Mad Hop, strewn on his back, frozen in a position of sweet sleep, his mouth slightly open like a child waiting for a surprise with his eyes closed, his hands tranquilly folded over his belly, his bearing, chillingly euphoric.

  “What’s going on here?” Robert called out, his tone going from annoyance to surprise when he recognized the man standing over him and the equal measure of surprise on his face.

  “I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Ben said.

  The golden-haired undertaker helped his stunned colleague to his feet. “Why’d you do that?” he asked.

  “That’s my friend there,” Ben said, pointing at the Mad Hop, “and there’s no way he opted for eternal sleep.”

  “You’d be surprised to hear how many people find that option a viable one,” the golden-haired one exclaimed. “Everyone can choose their own escape to…”

  “Oh shut up already!” Ben snapped. “The guy lying in that coffin did not opt for eternal sleep. No way. Anyone takes a step in the direction of that sarcophagus and we have ourselves a big problem.”

  “Ben, why make such a scene,” Robert asked in a soft voice, “when we both know there’s nothing that can be done? I feel your pain and your anger, but what choice do we have but to accept the frustrated investigator’s fate?”

  “Frustrated? Samuel wasn’t frustrated.”

  “Not as a man, my friend, but as an investigator. By the way, was he able to track down your wife?”

  “No, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

  Robert laid a hand on his star. “I’m sorry to put things so bluntly, especially when I’m the one responsible for your acquaintance, but the Mad Hop hasn’t solved a single case in the last ten years. Not one. And in the end, his stubbornness has exacted a very steep price.”