by Ruby Namdar
The distant voices are out of sync with the vision, like the uncoordinated sound track of an old movie. This split-second delay has a grating, nerve-racking effect and makes him acutely, violently ill. His stomach is turning; a vile-tasting acidic bile climbs up his esophagus, burning its way up his throat and into his mouth. If only the sound were synchronized, it would be like watching a Hollywood movie. The blood would be ketchup, the screams special effects. All would come to its appointed end and be forgotten, after which one could rest. But the horror goes on and on, replicated each time with the same nightmarish exactness. A large, hairy, muscular hand grips a baby’s soft skull, swings it in a perfect arc, and smashes it against a stone wall smeared with clotted blood and grayish-white bits of brain. The little head bursts open with surprising ease, splitting along the touchingly vulnerable, heavenly-smelling soft spot of the cranium that anxious parents fret about in the first few months of a baby’s life. Her eyes bulging with terror, mouth opened wide, the young mother stands paralyzed with horror, screaming as loud as she can. Her scream is inaudible. Either it has died within her or the horror it contains has driven it to frequencies too high for the human ear.
2
July 8, 2001
The 17th of Tammuz, 5761
One a.m. Andrew woke with a cry. He looked around wildly, unsure of his whereabouts. He was upright in bed—he must have sat up in his sleep—sweating and aching as if after some great exertion. Reluctantly, he let his mind take him back to the frightful scene from which he had been snatched. “What?” he gasped. “What?” A high-pitched sob, almost a howl, burst out of him—the uncontrollable sob of a terrified child—and turned into a fit of dry, hiccupy moans that came faster and faster until stopping as abruptly, as if running into a wall inside him, leaving him breathless and dazed. The silently screaming young mother would not go away. She remained before his eyes with a horrendous clarity. Why didn’t she scream? His own helplessness made him want to cry. Why don’t you scream, damn it! Why? It was somehow his fault. He must open his eyes. He must! They mustn’t stay closed a minute longer. If they did, it would go on all night. It would go on forever. He had to get out of bed, go to the sink, and splash cold water on his face.
Andrew threw off the blanket, jumped out of bed in a single motion, and staggered to the bathroom, his skin bristling from the artificial cold. Although he knew that turning on the light would help him wake up and throw off his nightmare, something in him insisted on clinging to the horror of the dark. He groped his way to the sink and stood there, forgetful of why he had come. The baby’s soft skull split in two like a ripe watermelon, splattering over the stone wall. Keep your eyes open! Don’t shut them whatever you do! But they were open. They were open wide and getting used to the darkness. The dim shape in the mirror was his reflection. What was he doing here? Right: he had come to pee. He went to the toilet, lifted the seat, and began pulling down his pajama bottoms. His eyes were closing again. Too tired to stand, he lowered the seat and sat, swallowing a groan of defeat. He felt as bruised and exhausted as if he had been beaten. Every muscle was sore. His whole body felt black-and-blue.
Andrew’s urine flowed slowly. He wasn’t used to peeing sitting down. He cradled his head in his hands, feeling his sharp elbows dig into the pale skin of his thighs. How tired he was. He was dying for a sip of water. Its coldness would wash away his dream. Yet he did nothing about it. Sticky with sudden perspiration, he rose, pulled up his pajamas, and hobbled back to bed without flushing the toilet or wetting his face.
The visions began again as soon as his head touched the pillow. The little skull glides slowly on a perfect, silent arc toward its foreordained end. Its tiny brain spills out of it intact, dashed against the wall. Andrew felt nauseous. Afraid to throw up all over the bed, he jumped up and ran to the bathroom, colliding with the furniture. He quickly lifted the toilet seat, kneeled, and leaned over it until his head was almost touching the water. The smell of fresh urine made him feel even more violently ill. He retched and spewed a quick, sharp stream of vomit. Its filthy porridge splattered into the yellow water, spraying his face. The sickening smell set off another, longer fit of vomiting. It was as though his churning stomach was trying to eject itself from his body. Another minute passed. The paroxysms weakened. There was nothing left to throw up. Pushing against the cold toilet, Andrew rose heavily. He went to the sink, turned on the hot water, and scrubbed his face and hands until they were red. Although the water grew increasingly hot, he could not tear his hands away from it. In the end he snatched them away, red and itching, and switched on the light to make sure he was really awake. Bloodshot eyes, sunken in their sockets, stared at him from the mirror—set in a pale, puffy face covered by a gray bristle of beard. He had just shaved that morning—where had it come from?
Another, less intense wave of nausea racked his empty stomach. His muscles and joints felt like jelly. Too depleted to turn out the light or even cover himself, he dragged himself back to bed and lay in another round of nightmarish semi-sleep. Again and again the little head was smashed against the wall while the wild-eyed mother screamed silently, trapped in an endless cycle of horror. Cold, jarringly rapid tremors of fear ran through him. His mind tried desperately to protect itself against the horrific vision—to weave soft, silky threads of numbness around it, like an oyster forming a pearl around a sharp-edged object irritating its tender innards. Finally his visions grew more abstract, their details fading until all that was left was a skull’s elliptical course and the circle of a screaming mouth. And yet a part of him refused to be sedated. It fought back, seething within him. Horror was everywhere: hanging over him, hiding around the corner, creeping under the floorboards. There was no respite from it. At any moment the illusory bubble of silence might burst, releasing a black wave of terror that would submerge him completely.
3
July 10, 2001
The 19th of Tammuz, 5761
Nine a.m. Andrew had been sleeping for more than twenty-four hours straight. His violent stomach virus had left him so limp that he could barely make it to the bathroom and back. He couldn’t swallow a thing. Just thinking of food or water made him gag. He had thrown up several more times during the night, and his loose bowels kept expelling a gruel-like liquid that was halfway between stool and water. Later that evening, he felt better. Though he still hadn’t eaten, he managed to drink and keep down a glass of water. The night went by passably and in the morning, despite feeling weak and running a slight fever, he was strong enough to get out of bed, shower, and put on fresh clothes. Sitting on the living-room couch, he slowly sipped a cup of tea (coffee was still out of the question) while staring dully out the window at the gray, depressing light of a summer morning. The day was as foggily dreary as was his mind. The night’s horrible visions—the effect, so it would seem, of his virus—were almost gone, their place taken by other, more familiar images. Ann Lee’s lovingly mocking smiles. Her braids falling on her shoulders as on the day he saw her in the Hungarian Pastry Shop. (Lately, she had been wearing her hair in a more adult fashion.) The clear, ironic vibrato of her voice over the telephone. The hint of a smile on Andrew’s face changed to an uncertain scowl as he remembered their last meeting at Beauty Bar. How hard and cold she had been. She was no longer playacting as she was on that absurd, tragicomic night at Cipriani’s. This time it was for real. She had reached the point of no return. There was no other way of understanding her words. A piercing sorrow shot through him. He shut his eyes and opened them again. The elegant but dreary apartment was like a gray prison cell, a desolate land to which he had been banished. He would never be able to stay in here alone until August. He would go out of his mind.
August! What would happen in August? It startled him to realize that he had gone on thinking of August as if Ann Lee were still coming with him to Cape Cod. Their separation had come as such a shock that it hadn’t penetrated. All their—his—summer plans had revolved around their three weeks on the Cape. It would be the
longest vacation they had ever spent together—except, of course, it wasn’t happening. What was he going to do? Go to the Cape by himself? Bury himself in the solitude of an empty house, once so happy and filled with life, that would be as airless a dungeon as his apartment? Cold, heavy fingers gripped Andrew’s heart, their hard tips digging into its tender tissues. How could he have not thought about August? What was he going to do? Invite friends? The very idea of picking up the phone and dialing someone made him ill. Not go to the Cape at all? But what would he do all month? The city, in August, was infernal—night or day, it made no difference. You couldn’t go out. No one would be around. Everyone would be gone, taking advantage of the long academic vacation: in summer homes, on family cruises, abroad. He alone would be stranded in an empty apartment, by himself in a huge ghost town of a city. If only there were someone to talk to. If only he could talk to Linda now.
Linda! Why hadn’t he thought of it? He would go to the Cape with them! With Linda, with Rachel and Alison, with good old George! There was plenty of room. He would sleep in the cottage, rent a car to be independent, and join them for meals now and then. Andrew laughed aloud with childish glee. He would eat well, sleep well, run on the beach every day. He would rent a bike and go on long, healthful rides with Rachel and Alison. He and Alison would finally have time together. Just thinking of her and her puppyish frown of concentration gave him a warm feeling, something to look forward to. They would go clamming, have picnics on the rocks by the sea, pick fresh corn at Morning Glory Farm and boil the sweet cobs in a big pot—three minutes and not a second more! He would buy fresh pies from the bakery every day: peach pies, raspberry and blackberry pies, and, best of all, those wonderful wild blueberry pies whose fruit maintained their texture even when baked. He would encourage them to stay for August, George, too, of course. Why shouldn’t they? They would still be on vacation. Why return to the hellish heat of the city when they could remain with him in the most wonderful place in the world?
The apartment grew bigger and brighter at the mere thought of this possibility, and filled with rich oceanic grays and vivid maritime blues. The mist rolled in from the sea, shrouding the horizon with a dreamlike glow. A monochromatic play of color fanned out on the shoreline, shimmering on the wet sand, reflecting the early evening sky. Andrew’s heart swelled with bliss and longing. It would be their best summer together, the best summer of their lives! Elated, he rose from his seat and ran to the telephone, his fingers quickly dialing the beloved number that they knew by heart, the number of their house in Cape Cod.
4
As usual, Linda picked up the receiver at the first ring. Euphorically, Andrew began to tell her his plan. There was a heavy, foreboding silence at the other end of the line. Andrew, his enthusiasm undampened, went on describing all the wonderful things that awaited them on Cape Cod. Linda interrupted him curtly. The friendly, bantering tone they had used with each other since deciding their divorce was amicable disappeared all at once. Her strained, grating voice made her sound years older, almost an old woman. His heart sank.
5
I honestly don’t know what makes you think you can come waltzing into our lives whenever you crave some domestic bliss. Doesn’t it occur to you that I might have plans of my own? A life of my own? Do you really think I sit by the phone waiting for you to call? Waiting for you to decide that you’re sorry for what you did to me—to all of us—and come home? You know, for such a smart man, you’re awfully stupid. You never did understand what you did to me, did you? What you did to Rachel, to little Alison! She was a tiny thing when you went off to live your picture-perfect life across town, at a safe distance from us. And do you know what the worst part of it was? The shittiest part of it all? It was that you never even let me—any of us—feel angry. God knows how you did it, but you got us all to play your game of the devoted papa bird who visits the nest now and then for an hour or two. I went along with it, too, I admit. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because I convinced myself that it was good for Alison. Maybe I did it out of weakness. But you, you should have had the decency not to exploit that weakness to create your own convenient little guilt-free, responsibility-free reality. You know how long it took me to get over what you’ve done to me? You know what strength it took to build a new life for myself? I can’t believe you can think of coming up here now to spend the ideal summer with your ideal family after smashing everything to pieces. Are you fucking insane, Andy? Are you fucking out of your mind?”
6
Andrew went on clutching the receiver, forgetting to put it back. His cheeks felt as hot as an oven. His giddy joy of a few minutes ago had gone as quickly as it had come, leaving a cold black pit into which, with one big spasm of pain, he was now falling.
Something was beeping. He stared blankly at the receiver, then put it down automatically. For a long while he stood there, shocked and unable to move. The awful things Linda had said ran through his mind without registering. The flush in his cheeks spread to his burning ears and neck. He felt a deep shame, a humiliation greater than any he had ever known—and with it, a paralyzing sense of guilt. The insidious thought occurred to him that Rachel might have been by Linda’s side. Could she have heard it all and done nothing to stop her mother? Not even asked to talk to him herself? Andrew started to say something out loud, to whom he didn’t know. His voice shook so badly that he couldn’t understand his own half-articulate words. He shut his mouth tight, afraid of what he might say. His upper lip quivered like a small boy’s. His face sagged. He took a deep breath, desperately trying to get hold of himself. A dam inside him was about to burst and flood everything. He mustn’t let it! Nothing would remain intact if it did, nothing would survive such a cataclysm.
Andrew clenched his hands into fists, his nails cutting into his soft skin until it nearly bled. The pain was warm, comforting. As long as he felt it, he was still in control. He wished that the pain would settle in and stay there, maintaining its intensity, never losing its sharp edge. Yet it had already begun to recede as his alarmed body dispatched hormones to the disaster site, protecting itself. Little by little he unclenched his predatory nails that were loath to release their prey. Raising his hand to eye level, he stared dumbly at the deep, red, crescent-shaped marks he had made in them before hobbling to the couch, feeling weightless as though in a dream. Slowly, he sat down, leaned back against the pillows, took off his slippers, and hugged his knees to his chest as if trying to get as close to his feet as he could. Then he resumed looking at the dull gray light shining through the window.
7
Hell, hell on earth! Ironclad skies hang low above the heavy, gray, rasping air. The pavement melts beneath the feet, but the heat-stricken homeless people, still wrapped in their midwinter rags, lie on it helplessly, unable to move. Their maggoty bodies swell from day to day like giant larvae in which wasps have laid their lethal eggs. West Nile virus has claimed three victims to date, all slum dwellers. The crime rates have soared all month long in synchrony with the temperature. In Queens, the longest power failure in the city’s history is now in its fourth day. Subway service has been completely disrupted and there are long lines at the bus stops. Bengali, Yemenite, and Pakistani grocery store owners, their refrigerators disabled, dump defrosted, rotten meat in the street, where it stinks like decaying corpses. Ambulances sound their sirens until they are hoarse. Police vans wail like stray dogs. Yesterday, a poor little woman, three feet tall and wearing nothing but a ridiculous-looking pink tutu, walked slowly westward on 42nd Street—hunched over with despair and weeping bitterly, tears running down her misshapen face, swallowed in the folds of her shriveled cheeks.
8
July 21, 2001
The 1st of Av, 5761
Eleven thirty a.m. The heat wave clung to the city, but Andrew, who had not gone out for three days, was having recurrent chills. The air conditioner was getting noisier. It had been running for seventy-two straight hours, recycling the stale, stuffy air of the apartment through clench
ed teeth. An empty cup stood in the sink. Andrew had drunk his coffee quickly, as though performing a chore. His laptop had not been turned on. Half the day had passed without pressing the power switch and getting down to work. The last few days gave him no peace. They hung over him day and night like the unrelentingly overcast sky. The more he thought about them, the less sense he could make of them. He was lost in an infinite labyrinth, holding a torn thread leading nowhere.