The World of the End

by Ofir Touché Gafla

  Ben nodded and looked at the slip of paper only once they had exchanged thumbprints and parted ways. Since then his lips had rehearsed what had been written hundreds of times, much like the actor who sat next to him on the express multi: “October 1700. First right from the central station, second left, then second right—Worldly Rest.”

  38

  In the Dark

  PMD—Post-Mortem Depression. That’s what the alias in charge of the Incurable Disease ward called Marian’s condition. Three consonants that encompassed the full measure of her postmortem decline: the initial shock, which almost all of the deceased experience upon arrival in the Other World; the illusory acclimatization stage; the primary shock stage; the denial stage; the sinking stage; the frozen stage. Or, in other words, as the alias put it as he smoothed his frizzy beard, the inability to come to terms with the withdrawal from the previous world and the trenchant refusal to accept the new world as the only framework of existence, or, even, as a framework for existence. “Ironically,” 270 added, smiling generously, “the two population groups most susceptible to this worrying mental illness are diametrically opposed:

  “The larger group is comprised of those who suffered their entire lives and mistakenly believed that death would put an end to their existence, and so, they cannot deal with the fact that the Other World extends onward toward eternity, and rather than rejoice at the second chance they’ve been given, they defiantly reject that reality, treating it like an inexplicable but certainly malicious plan designed to compound their disgust at their existence. Since they so abhor the misleading state of their being, they embark on a silent campaign against the ‘puppeteers’ behind the deceitful existential conspiracy, are ensnared in it, and thereby avoid the final, seemingly inexorable measure. They feel cheated and betrayed, left to dangle against their will between the uselessness of their current situation and the uselessness inherent in an act that will not produce the desired results. On the fringes of that group is an especially strange subgroup of frighteningly realistic folks who simply refuse to believe in the existence of the Other World and all of its fantastic elements, insisting instead on trying to convince everyone who crosses their path of its overwhelming inconceivability. Most of the time, these folks come to Worldly Rest after they’ve compulsively destroyed several stolen godgets and attempted, in vain, to print currency bills in order to ‘get some reality flowing through the veins of this grotesque universe.’

  “The second group, which, statistically speaking, represents only one percent of the larger group, is comprised of people who experienced great joy in their lifetimes and in death have come to realize the good with which they were endowed, and subsequently, have trouble divorcing themselves from the past. The transition to a new world is, from their point of view, an unwanted new beginning and, consequently, they show nothing but a keen contempt for the forced grappling with death, which stripped them of their joie de vivre. These patients claw through their personal biographies and sanctify the masterpiece that began with their birth and ended with their infinitesimal death. As opposed to the Disappointed-By-Death patients, who suffer from active depression as a result of their paranoid frame of mind, the Formerly Joyous patients sink into a passive depression that prevents them from extricating themselves from the imprisoning trance of their memories. That being said, one should exercise caution around them, as they are the most dangerous and can react in an extreme manner if they feel threatened.” The expert added sympathetically, “This latter group is the one to which you wife belongs.”

  Ben smiled. “Marian would never react as extremely as you say. She’s not a violent or dangerous woman. She is the most…”

  The expert cut him short. “Marian almost killed her own child.”

  “Liar.”

  The alias grinned. “I wish. In another world this story would have ended terribly.”

  “What story?”

  “Your wife, Mr. Mendelssohn, is addicted to the tapes of her life. She steps away for a moment, goes to the kitchen, the child stays by himself in the living room and looks for something to amuse himself with. He plays with the buttons on the Vie-deo machine. He erases a week. He erases the wedding and the honeymoon. That’s what the kind grandmother told me. Marian returns to the living room and discovers what the child has done. She loses it. Goes wild. A week of her life, and not just any week, has been stolen from her. She pounces on him and starts to strangle him with all her might. The grandmother finds the daughter in an indisputable position. She understands that the woman needs help. Marian does not make a scene when we send a special multi-wheel to her house, along with four orderlies who ask that she come with them. ‘The tapes’—that’s all she says, that’s all she cares about. She takes them with her; she doesn’t mind moving to Worldly Rest. After all, everything that happens after death isn’t really happening.”

  “And how does she explain the week she’s lost from the tape?” Ben asked, shocked at his own equanimity just a moment after learning about Marian’s sickening metamorphosis.

  The alias played with his facial hair again, this time tugging on his beard with a gentle, tranquil motion. “A technical glitch. On the other hand, she remembers what happened in a distant part of her memory. The experience is rather tricky, Mr. Mendelssohn. She didn’t forget that she strangled the child, but the fact was insignificant as far as she was concerned. As I said, anything that does not pertain to the past is rendered superfluous and worthless to her. The fact that she met her biological mother in our world, the fact that she found her only son in our world, the fact that he erased the week and the fact that she reacted with fury, all these facts are immaterial, relegated to the far reaches of her brain and even there are doubtlessly buried under mountains of exhaustively chewed-over information. A colleague of mine once described this phenomenon as Regurgitating. And that, in essence, is what all passive PMD patients do. Introspection, followed by conclusions, is not why they watch their lives. They simply live their lives anew, as spectators.”

  “And that’s why this ward goes by that awful name? Do you really think Marian’s depression is incurable?”

  “Post-Mortem Depression is like no other depression. Unfortunately, none of the fashionable potions psychiatrists prescribe these days work on the human body in our world.”

  “So what exactly are you doing here?” Ben snapped. “In what way are you and the other members of your staff helping her out of this terrible depression?”

  “We let her be.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “As opposed to other mental illnesses, which can be cured or alleviated with games, discussions, drills, and a whole host of other therapeutic means, PMD is best not tampered with, and believe me when I say I speak from experience. Aside from the futility of struggling frantically to make conversation with patients who are divorced from reality, even if they manage to break free from the prison of their memories for a short while, they will view any violation of their privacy as an impingement and will only crawl deeper into their warm shell of estrangement. History has taught us that the best way to deal with them is to simply let them be, and, to my delight, I can report that some seventy-five percent of patients from the second group show a full recovery.”

  “When you say recovery…”

  “I mean accepting this world and coming to terms with the final separation from the former one. I mean being born again, and pardon my contradiction in terms.”

  “Why then is the ward called ‘incurable diseases’?”

  “Because we do not take any invasive measures. From our perspective, as a medical institution, we do not offer any cures, aside from the necessary solitude.”

  “But how does one get better if the sum total of the treatment you offer is zero? I’m sorry, but I’m just having a hard time understanding what prevents a depressed individual from merely wallowing in his misery. I mean, isn’t that one of the great and infamous temptations of those with suicidal or self-pitying tendencies, and d
on’t for a second think that my wife fits into either of those pigeonholes, but…”

  “I know, Mr. Mendelssohn. On one of the few times I happened to visit her in her room, I saw a few scenes of the two of you together, and it’s all too clear to me that she was an energetic and altogether impressive woman—further evidence of how dangerous this disease is. And still, there is no better way to treat those afflicted by it. For all intents and purposes, the dying space we give them is unlimited. You want to rot in front of the TV screen for forty years? Go right ahead. And regarding your question about curing patients, I know how ludicrous this might sound, but, in the end, they just get sick of it. They get sick of their existence in the bubble they’ve so meticulously cultivated and they just pop it and go free. We had an eighty-nine-year-old PMD patient here who sat like a sloth in front of the TV for seventy-four years … seventy-four years she refused to move, and then, one fine morning, she just got up and left.”

  “Maybe she went somewhere else to punch in a seven over three?”

  The alias smiled compassionately. “If there’s one thing PMD patients don’t believe in, it’s death.”

  Ben nodded in understanding. “The worst figure relates to the time that passes from the diagnosis till recovery. Can you say why it takes so long?”

  “Of course. In most cases they’re so enchanted by their ability to watch their cherished lives, that during the first two years or so they skip through the tapes and watch particularly moving moments, the milestones, if you will, of their existence. Once they’ve seen the special moments enough times, they sink into a painstakingly detailed documentation of their lives, watching it all in real time.”

  “In real time?”

  “Yes. You lived forty years, then you spend four decades of your death w—”

  “Have you ever considered destroying the tapes? Just putting an unflinching wall in their face?”

  “Mr. Mendelssohn, you’ve been in this room for ten minutes. We’ve been living here generations. Any idea that comes to your mind has already been tested, evaluated, and reevaluated. For your information, the destruction of the tapes is a crime if perpetrated by anyone other than the owner of the tapes, and the temporary confiscation of said tapes for healing purposes has led to nothing more than the aggravation of the divorce between the patient and their surroundings.”

  “And what about me?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sure I could help heal Marian. After all, I know her better than anyone else.”

  “You know the former Marian better than anyone. As for the new incarnation, allow me to be skeptical about the depth of your knowledge and utility of your meeting her.”

  “I don’t believe she’s changed so profoundly.”

  “Because, like her, conceptually, you’re still stuck in the previous world.”

  “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “Mr. Mendelssohn, we both know you have nothing but the best intentions. Let’s just hope you were wise enough to prepare for the worst.…”

  “The worst is already behind me. From here on out things can only get better.”

  “You insist on seeing her, then?”

  “Did you think otherwise?”

  “I thought I might deter you from making this mistake.”

  “Mistake? What’s mistaken about truly wanting to see your wife?”

  “The refusal. The stubbornness. The childishness. The lack of comprehension. The ignorance. The woman you will see is not your wife. As far as she is concerned, death has rendered you absolute strangers.”

  “And you’re trying to protect me from the chilling confrontation with the naked truth?”

  “That’s somewhat parabolically put, but not too far off the mark. If you want my advice, I say go back whence you’ve come and try to understand that there’s no use in this romantic nonsense. I have full respect for your surging martyrdom but it is fundamentally gratuitous. You are absolutely unaware of the dimensions of the ensuing disappointment, and that’s leaving aside the cliché about a hundred years being like a drop in the sea of eternity. Do you really expect that if and when she recovers she will leave this place and come running straight into your arms, weeping with heartbreaking longing? Do yourself a favor and imagine your reaction when she looks you over coldly and says you are part of the past, like the tapes she destroyed, like this place. The damage you will bring on yourself will be immeasurably greater. All I ask is that you take a clear-eyed look at the whole picture.”

  “You don’t have such a great view of the whole picture yourself. After all, you base your entire prognosis on other stories and are dangerously close to a criminally crude generalization when you ask me to leave without having seen my wife.”

  270 sighed with learned desperation. “People always make the same mistake. They convince themselves that their story is different, unique, special. Good luck.”

  * * *

  Ben trailed behind him, head down, eyes examining the gleaming floor. He tried to forget everything he had heard from the moment he set foot in the cursed hospital, if it was possible to so label this serene hotel, with its expansive views of empty, manicured lawns and its ghostly tenants in their noisy rooms. From behind each door came the sounds of vitality, bubbling conversations, intimate quarrels, lovers’ moans, dozens of horrifyingly accurate sound bites from scenes shot in one take, no rehearsal, no help from a prompter, pure improvisation, unpolished by screenwriter or director, a stylized fantasy, because behind the doors there wasn’t an iota of life, behind them life was being recycled with the diligence only death can deliver.

  The firm partition the sick placed between the two worlds enraged him; all of a sudden everyone had become a righter and decided to end their stories where they saw fit without seeking the advice of an expert; all of a sudden everyone had seized the fine excuse offered by death and shut the book with limp hands, unwilling to write another word, sitting in their sofas and reading the dead words ardently in a pathetic imitation of a conclusion. Marian, too, was among the righters. She, too, had sunk into the depths of the couch, tossed away her writing instruments, and brought about a premature end. His task was complex and difficult. He had to emancipate his love from the talons of the past and show her that their future lay before them. He had to prove to her that he, of all people, who used to jangle a chain of keys and lock stories up for others, could cut an ingenious key of his own, which would open the glorious horizon for her, would ever so carefully unlock the firmly sealed ending.…

  Before he had a chance to fully unravel the thought, his tour guide stopped suddenly, offered a second “good luck,” and turned on his heels. Ben examined the orange door. At first he had no idea how the alias knew Marian’s door from all the others, since there was no name, number, lock, or any other identifying sign on it. Only when he looked up and down the hall and saw at least twenty doors, each in a different shade, did he understand that each patient had been given their own color, and thought to himself how intentional it was that the woman who so hated orange had been put in this specific room. He decided not to dawdle, fixed his hair with four jittery fingers, closed his eyes, and put his ear to the door, straining to hear what part of life his wife was listening to at the moment, as though his timing vis-a-vis her viewing would influence the nature of the meeting. There was not so much as a murmur within the room. Maybe she’s watching us sleep, he thought, and knocked on the door. Answered only by a deep silence, he put a sweaty palm on the door and pushed gently. The submissive panel of wood opened with a soft sigh and he entered the absolute darkness. He called her name hesitantly and then again, confidently.

  * * *

  “Benji?” The tired voice stripped the darkness away.

  He turned his head toward the source of the familiar voice and answered, “Yes.”

  The long silence that greeted him did not leave him bewildered, and he asked pragmatically, cloaking the tremble that went up and down his body, “Where’s the switch?”<
br />
  “Leave the light off,” she suggested coyly, giggling.

  Ben smiled as he felt his way through the darkness until his nostrils were flooded with the bittersweet smell of perfumed skin and he bent down and patted the open space longingly. His wandering hand stopped when it recognized her small, upturned nose. He took a long moment to reacquaint himself with her welcoming face, and in the midst of the most luminescent blindness he’d ever known, a soft dainty hand took his and led it with deliberate leisure to her belly button. His hand glided around her belly button in circles, sending forth ripples of pleasure, Marian’s signature sign of desire, one of many secrets from their bedroom lore, and an unmistakable one at that. She pulled him toward her with sure hands, her body rising to meet him, bewitched and bewitching, a mound of flesh and blood craving to rub up against a longed-for skyline, to realize the only remaining dream, the impossible, the inexplicable. He was shocked by the purifying warmth that spread beneath his skin, the feeling of a man who has come home after a long time away, and even if the house is cloaked in darkness he is still able to pick out its scents, the trapped air in the closed rooms, the history smiling possessively from every corner, lying in wait and appearing suddenly, the house which is a detailed map of every movement and meditation. An instant after he opened the door and dared to enter, Ben already found himself wandering through the rooms, verifying that absolutely nothing had changed during his fifteen months away, opening one door and slamming another, pulling up blinds and drawing the drapes, straightening chairs, realigning the furniture, clearing away obstacles, making lanes, and, surprisingly, she did not reject him like a miffed dwelling, she accepted him with the passion of longing, and the moment was invincible, an unmatchable summit meeting between the home and the dweller, especially when her fingers sensed the sinewy tissue on his body, the slenderness she was so fond of that had been coated with unimaginable brawn. He could not have fathomed a warmer welcome, storming the contents of the house with impressive greed, leaving his mark on every object, shaking the walls, oozing with pleasure at the moaning roof held captive between his lips, huddling in the fissures between the damp tiles and skillfully skipping between every goose-bumped brick.