Lies from the Attic

by Tamara Avner

  “You’re out of your mind”.

  “Oh, sweetie. I invited all my Arab friends from Beit Safafa, Beit Hanina and Abu-Tor, all my neighbors, the girls from Tai-Chi, from the ‘body-mind’ center, the conscientious objectors from Yesh Gvul, my pottery class, the bi-lingual kindergarten – I invited all of them to try and do things differently this year”.

  “But you’ll all end up standing through those same two minutes just like everybody else. You girls will be standing at attention alright, only upside down”.

  “That’s it, exactly. We’ll be upside down. And you’re welcome to join us and remember your husband and your grandparents and everyone you’ve ever known, whose life has touched yours. It’s perfect, isn’t it? You must admit… For one day, for just one day, we’ll be standing at attention for all those Palestinian fighters too”.

  Stark raving mad.

  “And why do you say ‘we girls’? Men are also invited”, she continues.

  “Aha. In that case, is that boyfriend of yours coming?” I tested the waters.

  “Umm, no. He won’t be able to make it”. She takes some more of that stinking hand cream, whose stench is barely camouflaged by the slightest hint of aloe, rolls the tube up to the nozzle (how the hell does she get the cream inside the tube?), pressing it so that it all comes out like a long, winding worm and rubs it on her neck in long strokes.

  I tried standing on my head again, this time against the wall, something true yogis simply abhor. I more or less nailed it, but I could feel the blood rushing to my head, how everything was upside down, especially her – a little uglier when I look at her from the calves up, and her home, with all the statues that somehow seemed to make more sense from this perspective, her husband Shaul’s face that seemed a little jovial from this angle, the old city walls and the inverted olive trees. I felt ridiculous.

  “You should keep working on this at home. Just a couple of times every day and you’ll make good progress. You’ll be energized for the entire day. It pumps all the blood to your head and strengthens the lymph nodes. As far as I can see, you’ve put some weight on your thighs and your stomach lately, haven’t you?”

  Bitch.

  I’m positive that the mistress hasn’t been this excited since her husband’s merry old Shiva eight years ago. She hugged-hello and kissed-hello every single person who showed up at the park’s southern area, her blushed cheeks making her look like a baboon’s behind. The tight leotard she wore so that come show time, when she’s on her head, it won’t fall off, revealing everything, looked like a colorful condom. All the guests knew exactly what was what and they all walked over to her to get the blessing of the high priestess of Alternative Memorial Day ceremonies. Some of them I knew by name, and I had already met Gideon, Sharona and Hesky at the Sheikh Jarrah demo. Even her Arab women friends showed up, hijabs covering their heads and black kafiyas around their necks, like those statue protectors I once saw at the Land of Israel Museum, that kept statues from harm when they were not on display and only Allah knew when and if anyone cared to look at them ever again.

  All of Jerusalem put on a festive appearance, pardon my French, for the approaching joy of grief and thrill of triumph. I couldn’t stand it. I felt a growling rising from deep inside my stomach and the only thing I could think about was that I have to get something to eat in order to stop thinking about the atrocities about to be committed here. Naturally, all the Jewish owned shawarma joints were closed so I had to hop over to the nearby Salah’s Shawarma and wolf down a nice lafa just to calm my nerves.

  I made it to the bleeding heart Olympics opening ceremony with a full stomach.

  You can already guess nothing good is going to come of this.

  Nothing good came out of it and that’s an understatement.

  At two minutes to eleven we stood up, all twenty-five to thirty of us, mostly women of course, smack in the middle of the Sacher park lawn. We maintained absolute silence. Some of the participants went ahead and entered a semi-meditative state and others simply stretched their limbs, waiting for the circus act to start. Everyone stood in a long line, about a foot and a half apart. I was right at one end, feeling my stomach gushing and gurgling. I was ready to give up. What do I need all this for? But as I was deliberating whether to stay or to go, the siren went off – closer and clearer than ever before – and I simply kneeled on all fours, hands stretched out in front of me, head fixed solid between my shoulders and before I knew it I was up in a headstand. Somehow, the open air and the soft ground made it easier for me. It only took a minute until I started feeling the lafa I stuffed myself with only thirty minutes earlier starting to come up and instead of trying to keep it down I just let it all out with one great burp while falling right on top of some short haired blond with a crop top that was billowing an inch or two above her undershirt bra, making her collapse on top of the man who only just managed to stabilize himself next to her, and he got the three Arab women next to him and that’s how, no more than thirty seconds into the siren’s wail, the entire alternative domino formation set up by our dear mistress came crashing down with a loud sigh.

  “But you must be so disappointed in me…”

  “Don’t even say that! If it happened that means it should have happened. What about you? Are you feeling better now? You must have been anxious about the position, anxiety goes right to your stomach…”

  “No, no, I’m fine. Are you sure you’re not mad?”

  “Forget all about it, Iris. It was an experience. Next time you should bring Yoni’s parents and sister along, too. Now, you’re coming home with me for some Reiki, you look positively exhausted”.

  That feeling of nausea came crawling up my pipes again. I can put up with a lot of shit. Projections of anger and envy, violence, the psychological transference of patients – all the past demons that they drop on my shoulders, so that I would contain them, work through them and mend their broken psyche. I can take people being disappointed in me, I can even take contempt and hatred, real low-down hatred for who I am and everything I stand for or show the world. Just not compassion. Just not kindness. Anything but that.

  I suddenly woke up with a dagger between my eyes.

  A metaphoric one, naturally.

  I fell asleep on her couch after she treated me with Reiki or Theta Healing or some other celestial combination.

  When I woke up, the television was on, surfing the tidal wave of Channel Two’s grief and bereavement broadcasts.

  I sat up.

  I know that look. It’s the crazy woman look, from the movies, they all have it right before they snap and jump their victim. I know it like the back of my hand and that’s exactly where disaster struck from.

  “Who are you?” she said, almost whispering.

  “What…? What do you mean who?”

  She nodded towards the television.

  Some young woman with short hair and a hyperactive baby on her knees was being interviewed; with moist eyes, she showed the reporter and the viewers the last text message she got from her husband, who was killed in “Cast Lead”.

  “That is Iris Lanker…” The Salmonella whispered.

  God help me. This is the last thing I need right now. Of all the widows in all the world, this particular one had to show up right here in the middle of Ruth Solomon’s living room, while I’m lying on her couch on goddamned memorial day, after throwing up all over everyone who showed up for her alternative ceremony.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “If that is Iris Lanker… Then, who are you?” She asks dramatically.

  Come on, come on. Think-fast. Think-fast. That’s what you’re good at.

  “Oh, his sister is also called Iris, such a strange coincidence… Yeah, come to think of it, she mentioned something about being interviewed…”

  “Shut up, okay? Just shut up!” She yelps in that low gravelly voice of hers. Highly unflattering. Especially for a woman whose motto is being calm and peaceful in the face of all of life’s
adversities.

  How does the old line go? If you can’t beat them, join them. Like a skillful feline, I leaped to my feet and tried winning her back with her own lingo. “Never mind that, Ruthie, my identity is not the issue here, identity is only an envelope, only a shell that we impose on our true, eternal essence…”

  “Get out of my house”. Now her voice had a shade of offended social worker to it too.

  She stood up. I did the same.

  “I’m asking… I am demanding that you leave this house, I don’t care who you are”. She stresses each and every syllable, in that trembling voice reserved solely for social workers on the brink of a meltdown, after their patient just took a dump all over them, while they are trying their best to draw clear boundaries from now on.

  So I did, I left her house.

  It’s like this.

  Remember Yaniv Swissa?

  So, we’re no longer on speaking terms. At some point, his social pariah senses must have told him I was having two simultaneous relationships, one with the master and one with the dog, and he decided to split. The umbilical cord that gave me online access to Oded’s universe was finally cut. Seeing that I was also shamefully cast out of the Salmonella’s paradise, I had to go back to passive stalking, which takes up so much of my time and just as much of my energy. I’m barely at the office, relentlessly struggling to keep all the balls in the air: all the information about Zvika in one hand and my personal informer Oded in the other.

  I am barely getting through to Oded anymore. He’s been screening my calls and after several attempts at calling him from blocked numbers and getting dry responses, he stopped answering those as well.

  So here I am, dialing his home number.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes, hello. Oded, please”.

  Silence.

  Classical music is playing in the background.

  “Who is calling?”

  “It’s about this case he is handling, I need him to confirm that he got the material I mailed him and I can’t reach him at the office or on his cell”.

  “I see”.

  “It’s super urgent”.

  Silence.

  “Oded doesn’t live here anymore”.

  Oded doesn’t live here anymore.

  Oded doesn’t live here anymore!!!

  “You stupid cow! What did you do? You idiot!! What did you do?!”

  I hung up.

  Once again, for the umpteenth time this month, I am leaving my office in the middle of the day. I’m driving up to Jerusalem and all the armored cars on the side of the road, sad remains from the War of Independence, are gaping their toothless mouths at me and having a good laugh at my expense.

  I arrive at his street. It’s four thirty in the afternoon. His car is gone, of course. I drive to his office and walk down into the underground parking lot. His car isn’t there either. I call his office and he really is out, but I can leave a message at the beep. It’s six thirty by now.

  I drive up to her street in East Jerusalem. The phosphorescent reds and oranges of twilight glint off the window panes. At the end of the street, children are making too much noise playing with an old tire. I’m checking for any signs of life in her apartment.

  I call his cell. No answer. I call again and again and again. I keep trying for over an hour almost, but he won’t pick up.

  Using the sharp end of my car key, I carve a big heart on my arm.

  Three kids are trying to fly their kites in the evening breeze blowing through the wadi that opens before me. The kite strings get tangled together. Stupid kids. Time after time, they dash like toy tanks down the wadi. Time after time, they come back holding a tangle of kites which they spend long minutes disentangling.

  And then I see them walking under the grapevine canopy that hangs between the first two buildings on the street. They’re walking together, plastic bags in their hands, he’s got a cigarette, she naturally doesn’t. My car is parked on the dirt surface right behind her house, at the edge of the wadi. I duck inside so they won’t see me and I can feel the ceiling closing down on me. Oh god, take me now. Just get this nightmare over with.

  Which do you prefer? To die of love or of the agony of loss?

  To die in the happiest moment of your life or when hell is stuck in your throat like a sunflower seed?

  Which do you prefer? To die in a fire or by electrocution?

  Stoned to death or flayed alive by iron combs?

  Which do you prefer?

  Then I raise my head and peek through the window that’s still full of dirt from the last heat wave that finally broke in filthy dusty drizzles. By the time I pull myself together, they’re already gone. I get out of the car and stand a little farther away from the house. Even though it’s already May, it’s so cold that my legs are shivering. The children are trying to set an old tire on fire and the smell of gasoline sticks in my nostrils, making me sick.

  Frost or boiling water?

  Someone turned on the light in her kitchen and then her living room too. I dial his number again.

  He won’t answer.

  I hope that motherfucking Oded Stenger dies today. He’s walking around in there, enjoying the hospitality of the wicked witch of the east, feeling like the king of the world, pissing in her toilet, putting his hand on her waist, kissing her and never picking up the phone. And all this takes place under the nose of her late husband Shaul’s photo, as he looks on and sighs. All this, right in front of my own dry eyes.

  You know those houses that seem to speak to you? You know, when you look at a house and you can see its soul through its curtained eyes, you can see its locked mouth out in front and every brick of it is telling you – leave, you fucking psycho, you don’t belong here. Go away, this is a lover’s nest, go get your own place. You know how houses are sometimes talking heads that venomously whisper at you to pack up your miserable life and get the hell out of there?

  I’m dialing her number.

  I can see her silhouette standing still in the kitchen while she answers – picking up the receiver from the wall.

  She stresses the first syllable of “Hello”. I feel my entire face burning away, I can see my grey eye-shadow dripping on my blouse. She hangs up.

  I call again. This time she doesn’t pick up.

  Next thing I know, my pants feel all wet. I turn on the car’s internal light and I can see blood dripping from the fresh cuts on my right arm, the un-bandaged one. My keys are all covered in blood.

  Except that this time, it won’t dull the pain.

  It’s the middle of the night and I’m being called in for interrogation again, this time to the Office of the Military Police Chief in Tel HaShomer.

  He offers me the role of bait. They have some serious suspicions about Stenger. He’s a self-hating Jew, for one, but he’s also a devious sun of a gun and they can’t seem to pin a single piece of evidence on him. The Palestinians whose case he’s been litigating in Nazareth have been quoting the fine print of IDF security protocols and citing use of illegal weapons left and right, the judges are all appalled, calling the entire chain of command to testify as expert witnesses and the mighty IDF is caught with its pants down. Everything is in breach of the law of war and Supreme Court rulings and the only person smiling is Oded, who shrugs his shoulders and claims that he found all those records lying around in some house that was occupied by soldiers in Khan Yunis and that some careless officer must have neglected to burn them or dispose of them properly.

  All this time, Palestinian terrorists have been exploiting certain weaknesses in the security arrangements of a bunch of outposts, a matter that made it all the way up to the Chief of Staff in the most hush-hush top secret manner, with grave concerns that this material had ended up in enemy hands. They have no idea what other information might have crossed over the lines and they can’t even get a search warrant because they don’t have a shred of evidence against Stenger.

  They want me to tip him off about the secret code to t
he Military Prosecutor’s safe. They’re going to schedule Stenger an appointment with him, hoping that he will seize the first chance he gets to extract a fake folder classified as super top secret that they planted therein.

  No deal. I tell the chief that he’s playing a dirty game, that I have no intention of playing along with their illicit methods and, just to let him know, that any evidence obtained through such means will never hold up in court. Finally, I ask him if he had never heard of the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ theory, which may not be that well known in our country, but is starting to leave its mark on various court rulings.

  To put it lightly, the man does not care for academic lecturing. “That’s below the belt”, he tells me. He doesn’t like people talking to him about anything that doesn’t involve either sex or power. He keeps threatening me that I’m going to go down, that they know everything about me. Simply every-thing.

  I hold my ground. Let me die with the Philistines, I tell that hot blooded Moroccan who’s drooling in my face.

  This is going to cost you.

  It might, but at least I go to sleep at night with a clear conscience.

  You’re making a mistake, you dumb bitch, I know this system a little better than you, don’t you think?

  Maybe, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror every morning.

  He presses his bald head against my face and I get a whiff of his acute body odor. I recoil and he grabs my hand and bends it backwards. I let out a cry of pain that sounds like the call of some exotic bird.

  You think that hurts, you little whore? I’m going to show you what really hurts, and he pushes me into a corner, pinches my right breast and presses his hard member against my thigh. He’s got a Rumplestiltskin smile all over his face and his black eyes glisten madly.

  Something goes bump around the parking lot. He seems to panic and, taking me completely by surprise, he grabs his cell phone off the desk, turns off the neon light and leaves the office.