by Nava Semel
Her door on the third floor was wide open, and the light was trickling out. Dim, pale, trembling, but still it was light.
She was standing in the doorway and I couldn’t make out her face because I was blinded from opening my eyes all at once. Now they opened without difficulty, as if they’d never been shut tight.
I said Grandma, Grandma, and that name seemed real to me. As real as can be.
Grandma, give me your hand. I can’t see you.
Then I hugged her, and I felt her hugging me back, and her face was so close.
And I could feel her beads too, close to my heart.
But then I had the strangest thought. Stefan the Rat. Now I called him by his name. You see, Miri, I’d found ... a kind of consola ... I was so happy that there was something human in the pit with her.
Part Three
The Poems
From: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, December 31st, 2009, 5:48a.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: death&life
Listen, Cookie, last night I hit on this site – really weird, horrible, disgusting – you’ve got to check it out. The poems are totally crazy, I mean they have nothing to do with anything, at least not anything we know. I have no idea who wrote them or why, and maybe it doesn’t even matter.
The poems – or maybe they’re words that have come undone – just showed up while I was surfing some house-pet sites. I always wind up discovering the most important sites by accident. I tried to resist at first, even tried some evasion tactics, but it was stronger than me, and against my better judgment I found myself inside. Then, curiosity got the better of me and I tried to figure out who was behind the little girl and the rat, but I couldn’t. And it isn’t that tracking people down is a mission impossible, but I don’t have the right qualifications. Maybe you can crack it. I mean, you’re the real hacker around here.
The poems are in Hebrew, but in Latin fonts, from left to right, and you’ll see that the order keeps changing. Only the last one is always last. I translated them for you, though I’m sure you’d be able to understand them even without my help.
The writer – I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman – decomposes the world into the most basic concepts, but presents them the other way around. You’ll sense it – the innards pouring out.
And there’s no going back.
The little girl and the rat are deep inside me now, and I can tell I’ll never be able to put them behind me. Couldn’t even eat or drink since I fell into it. All day long I sat there at my PC and sent it out to my whole address book. And once you go into the site, I’d like you to pass the poems on, to your own mailing list.
I think it’s important for as many people as possible to get to be the other way around.
It’s really easy to get into the site. Simply write www.girl&rat.com, and you’re in.
On second thoughts, I have an idea about how to get this material to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Remember the chain letters, where all sorts of people you don’t know send them to you and you just delete them? My grandmother told me that when she was little, in the last century, they used to send them by snail mail. If you wanted to make sure the message got passed on, you’d add a header and a footer saying: “Unless you pass this on, you will suffer a terrible fate.”
You’ve got to admit, intimidation is a very effective way of making sure that things don’t get lost.
The more I read, the less I understand, but it doesn’t matter, because I’ve already linked up with whoever lives in this upside down world, and you don’t have to understand everything. It’s enough to feel things. Like the two of us do, even though we’ve never met.
You won’t believe this, but I even printed the poems out. Hard copy. Which I never do. Because I had this urge to feel the words themselves, to know that whatever appears in writing really does exist. I turned off the PC. I even unplugged it and lay there in the dark. Suddenly it seemed as if the words were actually appearing on my body – like a luminescent tattoo.
The nausea didn’t stop until daybreak.
In the morning, my parents found it all, and freaked out. My mother screamed that the material was warped and that the poems were sick. And as far as my father was concerned, whoever had created the site was a basket case, and should be kept as far away from human society as possible, because whoever it was had been an accomplice to a sordid plot. My parents even threatened to go to the Internet Squad and have them block access – which is why I’m writing to you right away, to make sure we circulate these poems to as many people as possible before they close in on us.
When they scream at me, I simply turn my back.
I sit there looking at the pages – real paper – and read it from the end to the beginning and back again, even though it’s obvious that the end isn’t really the end. I lie there, and someone is digging. At a depth I’ve never seen before. And I didn’t really mean to ... I mean, it isn’t mine, and suddenly it is. Without meaning to, I saw my own world decompose into the most basic concepts, and I’m a little girl and a rat too. I can remember it all by heart already, just in case it gets erased, though it doesn’t make sense for anything that’s been transmitted from person to person to ever be erased.
I couldn’t resist adding a line of my own because I have a strange feeling that that’s just what the poet, or the owner, or whoever it was would have wanted. Because only by reacting will we remember.1
I think people can hear me all over the world. All day long I’ve felt like crying, but I’ve got to tell you, Stash, that I’ve never laughed like this in my whole life. Suddenly, I could hear a strange sound coming out of me, as if a weird creature was laughing somewhere in the dark.
Ending
I so much want to be dead
How can I get to be dead
It isn’t enough to want to be dead
And it isn’t enough to be dead
Because even when I am dead
It won’t be over
Arithmetic
One two. That’s that.
One child. One rat.
More Arithmetic
Guess what it found:
One child in the ground
Addition – Subtraction
Mother, Father, Servant – three
A little girl – a family
Servant’s gone
And Father, Mother
Gone one after another
Little girl, no one’s around
Lives alone beneath the ground
Big – Little
I have a big pit outside me
I have a little pit within
The big pit is mine
The little pit is the Stefan’s
Why
Why potatoes?
Because.
Why lice?
Because.
Why darkness?
Because.
And why the Stefan?
How Many
How many potatoes?
This many.
How many lice?
This many.
How much darkness?
This much.
And how much the Stefan?
Male – Female
Lucky you’re a he-rat
And not a she-rat
Lucky you’re a he-animal
And not a she-animal
Because only a he-rat
Can get out and move on
And every she-rat
Is prey for the Stefan
Up There – Down There
Up there
Farmers
Further up
Birds
Furthest up
Parents
Down here
Jews
Further down
Children
Furthest down
Children
Of Jews
Mother – Father
Mother said be a good girl
And Father said noth
ing
Father Rat kept quiet
And Mother Rat said nothing
Too bad I wasn’t born to them
Far – Near
Jesus is distant
The Stefan is close
And Mother
I have to forget the most
The Other Way Around
What is better
A pit with a living child
Or a grave with a dead child?
Or maybe the other way around –
A pit with a dead child
Or a grave with a living child?
Easy
It’s easy
To get rid of a child who is small.
With a rat
It’s not so easy at all.
Body Parts
Mother
Has no eyes
Has no arms
Has no legs
Has no lips
Mother
Just has a back
The Stefan Has
no eyes Has no
arms Has no
legs Has no lips
The Stefan just has a tail
A Hug
The lice are free
To roam the place
From my hair
To my forehead
And all over my face
I lie there
And I feel them tug
On my face
On my body
For me that’s a hug
Mouth
I give you the name
First just Rat
Then My Pet
Then I give you one with panache
Like Stanislaw or Stash
Tell me yours, Little Girl
You implore.
The Stefan’s mouth
Calls me the Whore
Skin
A hole-child
Is running out of skin
Tail
I have a friend with a tail
And he has four legs
The Stefan also has a tail
It’s between his two legs
Head
When The Stefan climbs down
This is what I do:
I bang my head and hope
There’s a child on the other side
With a rat-pet too
Porridge
Mother pig
Cooked some porridge
And this little piggy had none
Food
Dear Rat,
Make sure you eat it all
To keep from being small
Might makes right
And a giant bite
You’ll swallow every crumb
For me you’ll have your fill
Eat straight out of my hand
And show me you can kill
Hide And Seek
Hide and seek
Just count to ten
No one will find me
Ever again
Catch
If I run away
He gets even more wild
That’s the game that we play
The Stefan, the child
Pretending
Let’s pretend
I’ll be the rat
And the little girl’s you
Cause I want to be
The scary one too
Isn't It Lucky
Isn’t it lucky the rat can bite for me
Isn’t it lucky he can scratch for me
He can pass on diseases
He can crawl around too
And do all the things that I can’t do
Colors
Green is what comes out of your mouth
Red is what comes out of your legs
Brown is what comes out from behind
Black is light
Cold – Warm
I’ll never be cold
For dirt is my blanket
I’ll always be warm
For I’m covered with blood
Dolly
I once had a dolly with braids
Who knew how to close her eyes
They cut off her braids
They gouged out her eyes
And now she’s a dolly that’s bald and blind
Looking for a girl of a different kind
Lullaby
Once upon a time
There was a little Jewish girl
And she had
Little Jewish hands
And little Jewish eyes
And a little Jewish mouth
And a little Jewish body
And a big hole
A Riddle
Where’s the little girl?
What little girl?
Was there ever a little girl?
Saint
When Stefan the Saint
Was as small as an elf
He was snatched from his bed
By Mister Satan himself
A horrible monster
Was what his parents found
Their sweet and cuddly baby
Disappeared in the ground
I want the first Stefan
To come and hunt down
Mister Satan who owns
The bed-pit in the ground
Cause if rats were creatures
That Saint Stefan adored
He’d have Heaven summon
A hundred saints or more
Silence
When the Stefan thrashes
Bashes
Slashes
The animal sounds
Come out of the ground
And I
Vomit in silence
A Ladder
Up
And down
And up
And down
See-saw
See-saw
Time
The Stefan comes down
The Stefan goes up
Yesterday is what came before
Tomorrow is what comes next
Down comes the Stefan
Up goes the Stefan
That’s how time marches on
Sun
Maybe the sun doesn’t go up
And the night doesn’t go down
Maybe beyond the pit
The world doesn’t go round
And darkness isn’t black
And the sun doesn’t set
And I’m the only one left
But I don’t know it yet
A Tree
At the tip of the root–
The one close to the sky–
There’s a bird made of sand
Up and up it will fly
And tell them everything
Rain
If anything grows there
It’s all thanks to me
Cause my body
Makes
Rain
Water
When you flow over me
Tell someone
That the little girl...
A Name
A little girl without a name
A place without a name
People without a name
Clean
Clean is when a rat licks me
Clean is when no lice hug me
Clean is when nothing comes out of me
And the cleanest I’ll be
Is when I cease to be
A Promise
I’ll pee
I’ll shit
I’ll die
I’ll give off a stench
That’s all I can promise
Afraid
I don’t know any more
If I’m afraid
Because if I stop being afraid
I’ll no longer be
Happy
The happiest day that lies ahead
Is the one when I find out
The Stefan’s dead
Steps
Three steps
Forward
Three steps
To the left
Three steps
Back
Three steps
To the right
That’s how you’re blessed
Maybe if I do it
The pain will be less
1 Even if we don’t quite know what it is that we’re supposed to remember.Back
Part Four
The Dream
Night of 31 December 2099
Stash
You’re dreaming and you’re not dreaming
I’m not dreaming, but maybe
Y-mee Prana
K-0005275-149
I’m infusing Girl & Rat into your dream right this minute. I had no choice but to break into your REMaker. Every legal and conventional way I tried to beam my discovery to you just didn’t work. My official brainmails were cybercepted, and you didn’t answer my private b-mails either. You were rebuffing me, with the skill of an info- screening pro. Not that I really stood a chance anyway. You made no bones about it: to you, my research is nothing but a “trivial hobby”, “prying into the dustheaps of humanity”. For someone who directs the Pan-Euro Anthropological Institute, you should have been able to see why the story of two cubs, a human one and a rat one, should interest you, or me, or anyone else at the Institute that keeps us together, shapes our life and gives it a purpose.
But now you have no choice but to dream of Girl & Rat.
And of me too.
I must break into your Dream Machine. I have no other choice.
It’s my discovery...
I’m setting out on a voyage, Stash.
The archaic word voyage is very appropriate here, and it’s no metaphor. I didn’t choose it to wax poetic either. I mean it in the oldest sense – transporting the body from place to place. It’s hard to imagine that this was the natural way to do it less than a hundred years ago. I know I’m breaking the rules of research protocol, but there isn’t much time and this voyage is crucial. I’ve got to get going.