Zion's Fiction

by Zion's Fiction- A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature (retail) (epub)

  Stephanie. Stephanie….

  Have you ever been as alone as I am now?

  My hand hovers a few millimeters from her cheek, almost touching.

  Have you ever been as desperate?

  I almost touch her.

  Have you ever needed someone to love you so desperately?

  My finger doesn’t touch her, but something in the air is—

  She collapses on the bed, feeling violated.

  My finger wavers in the air and the contact is broken.

  Jesus. I need to breathe.

  That was like staring into an emotional mirror. She is everything I’m not, and yet she is everything I am, only more. Her emotions are more powerful than my lame ones. She has unreachable depths, whereas I only travel in the shallow end. She has an ability to deal with pain, while I … I don’t even know who I am.

  Help me, Stephanie. Help me!

  The door creaks when I open it. I can hear my breath. My chest is tight. Her back is turned to me. She’s typing on a computer.

  “Professor Parks?”

  She swivels in her chair. “Ms. Watson?”

  She stands up, extending her hand. I practically jump backward, belatedly realizing that she is wearing gloves.

  She pulls back her hand and sits back down. “How can I help you?”

  “I … It’s not important.”

  “I didn’t ask you if it was important, I asked how can I help.”

  “I … I have a question.”

  “All right.”

  “I … uh.” If I ask her, she’ll know I’m unstable and kick me out. But if I don’t, I’ll go crazy, and she’ll kick me out. But if I ask her, she’ll know I’m unstable. But if I don’t, I’ll go crazy. But if I ask, she’ll know I’m unstable. But if I—

  “Ms. Watson?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “You had a question?”

  “No, no, I don’t. Thank you.”

  “Trust me, Ms. Watson,” she puts her hand on the table and stares into my soul. “You had a question.”

  “Well, I did, but it’s not important now.”

  “Still. I want to hear it.”

  Oh, damn.

  “Ms. Watson?”

  “Well, see, if I ask it now, it’ll be magnified and it’ll seem like this huge thing, when it’s this really, really small question.”

  “I see. That’s fine.” She swivels back, and starts typing again. “You have a question for me, Ms. Watson, and you’re not leaving this room before you ask me a question. I don’t care if it’s the question you came in here to ask or another question. But you’re going to ask me a question.” And on she types, not looking at me.

  “I have another question,” I say.

  “All right.” Her back is still turned. She’s still typing something on her computer. “Ask away.”

  “It’s a theoretical question.”

  “Good.”

  “Is it possible … ?” Something in me sinks. She’s going to know.

  “Is it possible?” she reiterates.

  Just plod on. Just plod on. Just plod-plod-plod on. “For someone….”

  “For someone,” she repeats softly, as she searches for a function key. She finds it and presses it, “A-ha!”

  “To become the person you’re…. To have her thoughts overtake you?”

  Parks swivels on her chair, looks at me, and says simply, “No.” She turns back to the screen. “There. You’re free to leave now, if you want.”

  “Thank you.” She’s all right.

  I’m near the door, when she says, “Alexandra?”

  Alexandra?

  “Yes, Professor Parks?” She’s facing me, leaning closer. I can feel that her mood is soft and smooth.

  “It’s like this. Your brain is your own. You cannot become a different person. When we feel someone else’s thoughts or emotions, we simply find the corresponding thoughts or emotions in us. If it doesn’t exist in us, then we can’t feel it. Everything goes through your mind, and every emotion is actually yours. That’s why even with telepaths we don’t know that the pain someone else feels is the pain you feel. We still don’t know if we see the color red in the same way. Because when we read someone’s mind, we interpret it through our own mind and emotions. So, no, it’s not possible to become someone other than yourself. It is possible, however, that you need a gigantic hug.”

  I laugh and look down.

  “Well, I’m not allowed to hug you.” She stands up. “But I am allowed to feed you.”

  I look at her, surprised.

  “I’m on my way out to the city. There’s a fantastic fish restaurant there, my treat.”

  “But …”

  “I’m not going to touch you. I’m not going to read your mind. I’m not going to delve into your business. I am going to feed you.” She saves her document and turns off her screen. “And anything we say …” she turns off the light in the room and leads me out “… will not be held against us. All right?”

  “I … I don’t….”

  “Say ‘yes.’” She likes me. I can feel it.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  She’s got a ten-year-old Mazda that smells new.

  Inside the car feels like outside the Academy. I lie back and sink into the seat.

  She drives us around the Academy and toward the gate.

  The same guard that let me in that first day is there now. He opens the gate as we approach.

  I look at him. I don’t think he can see me through the tinted glass.

  We are outside the Academy. We are outside the Academy.

  I shut my eyes and melt into the soft cushions.

  Bright lights. The smell of smog. Young men and women walking the streets in immodest clothes. Civilization. It’s like I’ve been in the jungle for two years.

  The restaurant is full of people, but there’s still room inside and outside. I ask Professor Parks to sit outside. I want to soak in the atmosphere.

  “You have no privacy when you’re a telepath,” Professor Parks says after we’ve ordered. “Normal people can relish in not knowing. We can’t afford that luxury.

  “When your boyfriend makes love to you, he touches you, and you see everything he feels and everything he thinks about you. It’s never as perfect as you would like. It’s ugly and spotty and sketchy. When you’re insecure, you touch him and you know he doesn’t like you as much now as he did yesterday, and that if you tell him what you know, he’ll like you even less. You see the parts about you he can’t stand, and you see the parts he can’t get enough of. You know what he fantasizes about you, and you know when he fantasizes about someone else. And when he makes love to you, you see your body while you’re doing it, and you know that your right breast looks strange, that you gained two pounds, that your legs don’t look flattering from most angles, that you need to shave again, and what your breath smells like. And you know that what he really likes about you is that you remind him of the buxom sixteen-year-old babysitter he used to have when he was a kid, and that, even though he doesn’t know it, he’s still in love with his first girlfriend, with whom he’s never been able to get along.

  “And the hard thing is to learn that it’s always like this. Even ‘as good as it can possibly get’ is like this. You have to learn that this is the truth and that this is normal. You have to abandon the lies when you’re a telepath and start living in the real world.”

  A waiter brings our drinks. She thanks him and he walks away.

  “We have to face each mask and make it vanish. We have to clear everything. All the subterfuge we feed ourselves with. We have to dig under all the tasks we set for ourselves, under all the complexes and falsehoods and false reactions we have set up while we were growing up. We have to learn to clear everything away. Sometimes it feels like you’re wiping your entire personality away. But then you realize—you have to realize—that whatever’s left, that’s you, that’s really you.

  “If yo
u go through it, Alexandra, if you go through the entire four years—and I know you can—you wouldn’t believe the person you’ll become. You wouldn’t believe the strength that comes from having no secrets, from knowing so much about yourself. From knowing that when you speak, you don’t lie.

  The waiter brings in the food. The Professor has sea scallops and I have Alaskan king salmon. On her. She recommended it.

  “Thank you,” she tells the waiter. Then, as he leaves, she makes a face and drops her fork. “Bathroom.” She smiles at me. “Be right back.”

  I nod.

  I take the opportunity to look around and look at the people in the street. Shirts made of nets, crazy tattoos, wild haircuts, teenagers younger and younger, looking older and older.

  Two minutes ago, the couple behind me got up and left. The couple in front of me, behind where Professor Parks sat, is getting up now. We’re going to be just the two of us outside. It’s getting cold. But I just want to keep looking at the people, to feel the whiff of haphazard thoughts whenever one of them gets too close. To look at what they’re wearing.

  Michael almost bumps into the couple that’s leaving on his way out of the restaurant. That was awkward. He smiles his usual worry-free smile, and—huh?

  Michael?

  Those same features, that same face, that—

  I never thought of him as alive. But of course he’s alive. Of course he’s real. They’re all real people. Everyone’s still alive, except Stephanie.

  I stand up. Michael keeps his back to me, makes sure the woman is fine, and exits the restaurant. Once on the sidewalk, he comes in my direction. As he passes near me, I get a perfect view of those clear, lovely, baby-blue eyes. The eyes that shine “happy” at you when you wake beside him in the morning.

  He looks at me then looks past me.

  He didn’t recognize me. But why should he? I sit back down. I won’t look back. I won’t look back.

  Professor Parks returns.

  “So,” she says. “Can I tell you something about myself?”

  We get back into her car. It’s twenty minutes till we’re out of the city, another ten until the scenery becomes green again, and another ten before we’re at the Academy’s gate.

  We don’t talk much.

  The gate opens automatically for her.

  “Wait,” I say. She looks at me. “Can I get out here?”

  “What?”

  “Since I’m out, I’d like to go see some people I know.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have a few dollars on me. I can get around. Just drop me here.”

  She thinks about it for a second, then says, “Sure.”

  I let myself out. “Thank you,” I lean back in, the door still open. “Thank you.”

  She smiles and crinkles her eyes. Then she looks forward, and says, “I’m tired. See you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” I say again and close the door.

  She drives through the entrance, and the gate slowly rolls shut again. The guard looks at me, but keeps his distance.

  I look around. I don’t have a cell on me, and I don’t know the number of a cab company.

  I walk over to the guard. “Excuse me,” I say. “Can you call me a cab?”

  “Where are we going?” the cab driver says.

  “Back to the city,” I say. “1421 North Shadeland Avenue.” Stephanie’s home.

  I ring the doorbell. No, no, I should go. Go, I should go. Just go, just go, just….

  Someone touches the handle on the other side of the door. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck, fuck, fuck me.

  The door opens slowly. I put on my best smile.

  I see Mom’s face in the doorway, looking up at me, wrinkled, old, the way Stephanie couldn’t see her. She literally has half Stephanie’s face, something Stephanie never noticed.

  She looks up at me, with her green eyes, and they’ve almost lost all of the shine and softness they had when she was in her late twenties and Stephanie was only a kid.

  “Yes?” she says. Her voice is a rasp. Did I wake her? No, she doesn’t go to sleep before midnight.

  “Yes?” she says again.

  My mouth is dry. I lick my lips. Help.

  “Who are you?” she says. “I …”

  I’m sorry, Stephanie’s Mom. I’m sorry.

  “What’s your name?” Her voice grows more suspicious, and it’s back to sounding like the voice I know. “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Alexandra Watson.”

  “What are you doing here? It’s late.”

  “I’m … I’m … Stephanie!”

  Her eyes dim at the mention of her name. “What?”

  “Stephanie. I….”

  “You knew Stephanie?”

  “Yes.” Yes! “I was … I was her friend. I was her best friend.”

  Something happens to her mom’s eyes that Stephanie doesn’t recognize. Does she see the lie? It’s the truth. I’m sorry. “I’m sorry.” I am sorry.

  “Come in,” she says.

  “I was in New York. I just got back to Indianapolis a couple of minutes….”

  “Come in,” she says and moves aside, clearing the way for me.

  Jesus. I know this living room. I know its smell. The memories give the living room a claustrophobic feeling, hemming me in on all sides.

  She grew up here. I’ve seen the walls change over two decades, I’ve seen the room shrink as she got older. The wallpaper was ugly green when she grew up, until her mom replaced it with elephants, and later still with brown geometrical shapes. I’ve seen five different television sets where the current one sits.

  “Charles,” she says. And he turns around.

  And Charles, Stephanie’s dad, sits there on the sofa in front of the television set. He looks at me. Perfectly shaven. Not typical for this time of day. They must have had guests.

  They had. Obviously they had. They’re in mourning.

  “This is Stephanie’s friend,” Sylvia introduces me. “Uh….”

  “Alexandra, sir.”

  I offer my gloved hand. He shakes it.

  “You’re … Stephanie’s friend?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “From the university?”

  “Yes, yes. We took communication studies. We had the same classes, and we just….” I blank out. I just shrug, “You know.” Her mother nods in understanding. Her father is looking at me. “She told me everything about you two. Charles …” he nods “… and Sylvia.”

  “She told you everything about us?” she asks.

  Oh, no. “She told me everything about everything. We talked for hours.” Sylvia looks around, wiping her moist hands on her clothes. Oh. She didn’t catch me in something, she was making it about herself again.

  “Would you like…. Would you like something to drink?” Sylvia asks. “We have tea, we have….“

  “Tea would be great, thank you. With nothing in it.”

  Sylvia turns and goes to the kitchen.

  “There were a few people here earlier,” her dad says. “But they’re gone. I’m not sure what we can offer you….”

  “Oh, Charles,” her mom shouts from the kitchen. “She just flew in. We’re not going to drive her out….”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I don’t know what we can …” and I can see that he changes his mind in mid-sentence, and says something else, “… talk about.” He breathes deeply and turns around. “We have a few albums of her over here,” he points. “And … her friends did some sort of a shrine in her room. It’s …” he points “… through there.”

  I look up. That familiar small corridor that leads to Stephanie’s bedroom on one side and to her parents’ bedroom on the other. “Can I look at the albums?”

  “Of course.”

  He leads me to a little stand near the TV, filled with albums. I sit on the floor and take an album. He sits back on the sofa, and mutes the television. I take an album and look at him again. He’s still watching TV, he just
muted it.

  I open the first page. Stephanie at seven days, I’ve seen this picture a million times. She’s as cute as can be, the perfect baby.

  Baby Stephanie breastfed by her mother on the porch. Oh, my god, look at Sylvia. She’s not even my and Stephanie’s age; she’s younger. She’s a little kid. In a couple of years, when Stephanie will have clear images of her mother in her memory, she’ll be this huge giant of a grownup. We’d never seen Sylvia like this.

  Four-year-old Stephanie running through the tall grass. I remember the day they took the picture. Mom kept telling her to run and run, and Stephanie did, chasing after a butterfly she made up, performing for her mother. She’s so carefree, so happy. I’ll have to check with Stephanie, later, and see what changed, how could she have grown up and had the happiness sucked out of her.

  Stephanie’s first bike. I remember the day Dad took the training wheels off and had to run after her for an hour.

  The entire family at a beach in San Diego. Look at Dad. He’s like he’s a different person. Pretty handsome, too. His legs were like elephant-legs to Stephanie. She used to run in between them as if they were a tunnel.

  Sylvia’s coming closer. I turn around and look up. She’s holding a cup of hot tea.

  “Thank you,” I take the hot tea.

  Sylvia sits on the edge of Charles’s couch, looking at me.

  “How did you two meet?”

  “I met her during our first day as freshmen. On the way to western lit.”

  “You became friends?”

  I nod. “She was an amazing woman. She was my best friend.”

  “Did you…. Did you know about…. Did you know she was going to….” She trails off.

  “I know about Michael,” I say. And she looks into my eyes. Oh, my god, she’s asking me if I could have stopped it. “But…. By phone. And…. All I knew was that it was big. I didn’t know that it was this big.”

  She sits by me. I sip the tea. It’s too hot. I want to look at the album, but she’s looking at me expectantly. She always gives this look when she has something to say but would rather force the other person to ask her what it is.

  I look at her for a few more seconds, and when she says nothing, I turn back to the album.

  I can’t take it. I can’t take her looking at me. I can feel her desire to say something. I can feel her pain all the way over here.