Aquarium

by Yaara Shehori

  When the front teeth grew in, adult ones, not baby, they were straight and close-set. “Very beautiful teeth,” someone once marveled; Dori paid attention as if he had signed this in front of her face, when the sun was behind him. She acted as if she never had other teeth. Lili examined Dori’s new teeth up close and tapped them with her nail. Nothing was said between them, but the rift that had opened grew wider (as if Lili had banged Dori’s head into the pole, as if the teeth fell out only because of her, which of course isn’t what happened, though it seemed, all the same, that something had).

  The two of them still regarded their father with some admiration, because they didn’t have a choice, and ignored their mother, because they definitely did have a choice. And the more they ignored her, the more weeping there was. A weeping willow the stream was about to sweep away. She spent her days in the garden and tried to teach them there, she really dragged them with her, setting up two chairs opposite the sunflowers that grew there (what an idea!) and calling this “outdoor lessons.” She acted as if this were some special treat, math exercises and questions of general knowledge coated in sugar, until one of them, that is, Lili, said to their mother, “What’s the point? We’re going to read what we want anyway. I think, and Dori runs around in the marsh. Anyway, you teach us geography from your bar. Better that we don’t do anything, and you stay here,” Lili said, and looked at the garden flowering in yellow. “And we won’t tell Dad.”

  Dori couldn’t believe her sister’s audacity and waited for a cruel and terrible punishment. She waited with a pounding heart, mixed also with excitement because her sister would be locked up in the closet, there being no basement in the house, and she imagined a bird thrashing its wings over and over against the door until Dori, Dori alone of all people, could open it up and save her. But their mother simply turned around and knelt next to one of the sunflowers to aerate the soil.

  A year passed almost without incident. On Wednesdays the two of them joined in collecting the metal, until the iron wagon gradually resembled the ship of Theseus, the deck and mast long since replaced (in the village the enormous metal wheels were replaced with actual tires from tractors no one drove anymore); nevertheless, its fame spread far and wide. Almost every week, their father found metal wires no one needed. In the village, the metal practically collected itself. A thin strip of scrap metal began to stretch around the house like the glimmering lines of mucus a snail leaves behind. On one of those Wednesdays he brought them to the same field where they’d sat during their first days in the village. They again crossed property lines, although it appeared that even the land’s owner had lost interest in them; after it became clear to him who Alex was, and the nature of their family, he let them be. The sun descended like a bomber and shone in strange, washed-out colors, and this they really needed to see, their father stated solemnly, behaving like a magician who has revealed something behind the curtain, something even more miraculous than what was displayed onstage. And when the last light fell, Alex turned on a flashlight that illuminated his mouth and hands and he explained to them that what they were seeing was the result of a volcanic explosion that had occurred on the other side of the world. In a land where the mountains were high and the people quiet like their beasts of burden. Dori wanted to see these beasts, carrying on their backs boiling cubes of lava, the follicles of their hair standing up straight like flower stamens, while they looked with blinded blue eyes into the infinite and eternal. Because that was what Lili saw, she knew. She looked at the dim pink connected to the orange on the distant horizon and saw only colors. Nevertheless, when Lili pinched her, she immediately pinched her back, because that was how they did it, in order to remember this moment when they observed a beautiful, distant explosion, when the danger transformed into pure beauty and Alex showed it to them.

  And also in the years to come they would remember, the two of them, the cold of the wintry evening hour and the wind that moved the air. If they were different girls, perhaps they would have held hands, but no, not these two, because what were they? Two cold fish facing a red sun.

  Except for Wednesdays with their father, time’s grip on the week was very loose, and the days, as we’ve already said, blended inextricably into each other. Again and again Dori was encouraged to adopt a hobby. She loved to roam at the edges of the village. If she saw children in the distance she made herself not see. If they spoke to her she didn’t hear. Every day she wandered to the big puddle that filled up with tadpoles in winter and in summer dried up completely. She searched for tiny clams, crabs, and creatures with bulging eyes. When she found them she rarely dug them out. She knew that mermaids can’t live in puddles that dry up every summer. She no longer searched at all for mermaids that turn mute on dry land. And despite everything she still thought about that tree sometimes. When she thought about it she also thought about Lili, who in the meantime was already thinking her own separate thoughts, and Dori could only guess that her sister’s thoughts weren’t similar to hers at all. Not even how apples and oranges are similar, but rather, say, apples and bicycles, or, if you insist, fish and mermaids. At night Lili was tired and her stories grew shorter. There were nights she didn’t tell Dori a thing and the beam of light was cast onto the wall in vain, like a moon without a sun. But maybe they were finally happy. Finally they were a family of four half-full glasses.

  By the second year in the village they no longer resembled each other much. Maybe they never had resembled each other. Maybe it was just that the two grew up together, their hair combed into the same braid from which it always slipped free, even if one had red curls and the other nearly straight hair; that the two wore the same clothes and in fact traded clothes (the skirt that they wore over the pants; the shirt with the defective snaps; the corduroy jackets, red and blue), maybe all that was enough to affirm that they were twins. Because despite everything they still called them Ackerman. They were Ackerman’s daughters, the deaf couple’s girls. Even though the range of deaf people expanded in the meantime, and others came along (lame and blind, amputees and lunatics, all of them found a place even if they had next to nothing in common) from whom the others in the community averted their gaze. It was no longer possible to actually single out the four of them. The trailers in which these new characters resided were placed near the Ackermans’ house. The infrastructure was late in arriving but nevertheless, after one month and another two months passed, technicians in orange overalls arrived and the trailers were connected to electricity and water. In some of them, wallpaper resembling a forest landscape or a library packed with books was stuck to the walls. Someone grew potted plants on their front steps. Dori could look into the houses because the doors always stood open, except during torrential downpours, since they were always a bit stuffy inside, as she knew. She tried to pass by them without looking. She looked but without stopping and didn’t respond to any pair of strange eyes that grabbed her. She and Lili rolled on the ground with laughter when they saw them walking around like defeated ducks, though they couldn’t explain what was funny even as the tears fell from their eyes.

  The two of them grew taller and taller and the marks made on the doorpost showed that Lili was now, believe it or not, a head taller than Dori. But even if the sidewalk under their feet had switched to soil, and the two of them had abandoned their habit of climbing trees, and even if the trailers filled with characters stranger than these two neglected girls, no great changes occurred. They were who they were. Big and Little.

  Sometimes their father sat them down on the rattling chairs and threw all the usual accusations in their faces, because this was a fatherly practice. They embittered their mother’s life. They shortened her days. They had to be her right and left hand. Help her. Lili always rolled her eyes, because these demands weren’t connected to anything in particular and even their father once admitted that the girls both had two left hands, and Mother had fine hands, green thumbs, while he himself had hands of gold. This was the permanent order, which he suddenly want
ed to upset. He moved his gaze between the two of them and explained: the blood presses down on the arteries and the heart is a pump that’s liable to fail. Her heart is weak, after all, they know, they must remember. All this he said ostensibly with calm, and his fingers too signed soft angles as if he wasn’t angry, seething. And this confused Dori, who cried bitterly because of the difference between the words and what they truly signaled, but Lili, more stubborn, just looked past him. Her hair was combed back with water. Her mouth was soft and large and her nose sharp and angular. From certain angles she resembled a handsome boy. A rebellious youth. It would be reasonable to suppose that their father hated this.

  About their mother people said, “When you get hurt, she bleeds.” About their father people said, “They don’t make them like that anymore.” Not many said this, but it was said. But after he left, the window remained open and banged against the frame again and again until Dori got up to close it, and she didn’t dare draw nearer to Lili, who cried and pushed her sister, who beyond being curious truly wanted to help. She brought Lili juice from the kitchen and placed it on the floor next to her. For three days the glass stood there with a white film floating on top until someone got rid of it. Dori didn’t know who.

  They knew that he was preparing them for the great war. When it broke out they would not be confused. He said again and again: “One day we’ll leave here. But until then, don’t believe a word of theirs,” as if they had any chance of hearing those words. Dori wanted to answer and explain that they knew, they’d never be so stupid as to trust the hearing, but Lili pushed her with her elbow; it wasn’t the time. Their father continued, “You mustn’t be indifferent like them. And if you’re lucky, you’ll see the fire trails and escape.” When he signed “lucky” he meant “intelligent,” and also “industrious” and sometimes “instinctive.” Because what appeared to be a disadvantage would yet be revealed to be the opposite. And whoever stops to look will falter, and whoever relies only on his ears will miss the most important detail. And maybe no underwater piano plays for the mice that flee first, but they survive. They recognized these words; they weren’t insulted to be called mice. Their mother sat to the side and ran thin fingers through her long hair, hair black as a crow that went gray like a crow, hair that unfortunately neither of them had inherited. But one day there would be a war and it wouldn’t matter if they were beautiful or not, hearing or not. And their mother, the beautiful and the fragile, would always be hopeless. It was clear to the other three that without them, she wouldn’t survive.

  * * *

  Anton and Dori lay on the pale carpet in his mother’s house. Only the marks engraved on the corner of the massive writing table confirmed that he too had lived there once. Even though this was their regular place, she always felt lucky that he took her there, to the house of the woman she saw only once, from a distance, and she knew that try as hard as she might she’d never be able to acquire her elegance, the old money and the tart candies, like the one that rested in her mouth just then. Dori closed her eyes. She tried to impress the details of the room onto her memory, as always, to transform their elusive and fragile present into something one could grasp, write about, hold like an object. She thought about what she would tell Lili, but knew that this time the words would be lacking. She knew that it didn’t matter if Lili would answer; sometimes the facts aren’t important.

  Anton hung his old jacket on the back of the chair and Dori imagined him sitting there in his youth, handsome and angry and silent, solving geometry problems and engraving perfect lines onto the doorpost, and it seemed to her that she could see the band of sun that fell on his face then, and him trying to drive it away with a young hand, and she knew it was a false memory. Suddenly he appeared innocent and soft as a boy to her, lacking tools for life except for the money he always had. In piles. Rolled-up bills that rested in his pockets and drawers. As if he’d suddenly have the urgent need to buy a yacht with cash. She held on to this precious knowledge that was given to her like a silkworm in a box, something very soft that, at least under a certain kind of care, might transform into something else. The tea he poured her got colder and colder. It had a mound of sugar in it that slowly dissolved. They didn’t have teaspoons because his mother had gotten rid of most of the things in the house during her minimalist period.

  When he asked her with genuine interest about their survival training, about the lonely nights in the field, she was silent. He asked the wrong questions. They heard cars passing by, outrageously slow, because below his mother’s apartment a busy and somewhat dangerous street was being paved, a street that unfortunately lowered the value of the apartment. Anton referred to this only once, his concern regarding the actual value of the structure and the land, the future construction plans. This didn’t suit the anarchist he proclaimed himself to be, but, as Lili would say, the rich will be rich.

  * * *

  And in the days to come they behaved as if the lessons were proceeding in orderly fashion. As if there was an order. Lili abandoned her notebooks, where she’d written God knows what, probably nothing, and Dori didn’t go to the puddle. Their mother looked more happy than surprised, as if she had scored a certain victory, as if she had waited all that time for the rebellious girls to return from their evil ways so things could once again unfold according to a correct and proper arrangement. She announced that they would study geography and geometry and they nodded. The two of them put forth an effort in the geography lesson and their mother bought an actual atlas, a hardcover book with colorful maps of countries and conquests, minerals and precipitation. The globe of drinks disappeared as if it never had been. In the geometry lesson she gave, the shapes matched each other too, triangles and polygons and all the rest. They differentiated between the polygons in boredom as they calculated acute and obtuse angles, but boredom was good. Boredom was a sign that no one was crying, at least not right then.

  And Lili didn’t rebuke Anna at all, and their mother seemed encouraged; the redness climbed up her white cheeks. She told them about the explorers of the world, without whom they would have no geography at all, without whom they might think that the world was flat or looked like a portable bar with a zipper cutting it in half between North and South America. She spoke about Vasco da Gama and the Cape of Good Hope and the two of them traced the boats’ paths with their fingers. This was the most normal of days, or at least it pretended to be—the label of normality poked out through its clothes. After all, it was only normal at first sight, because almost a year had passed since the three of them last sat down together and memorized a chapter of something. And on this day of all days, Lili began writing down the time. The present, itself. It is hard to believe that it began then, that this was the opening chord, because certainly she wrote a lot before then; she was already used to filling notebooks with dense script. But this time she added a date and an hour and that was enough. Because immediately afterward came the next hour and it too required words. The notebooks were set in time; the clock met the pen. And there was morning and there was evening. One Lili.

  5

  “What are you actually writing?” Dori asked her once under the blanket, as meager light illuminated her fingers, and her sister spelled out a long word for her.

  “Chronicles.” And when she saw that she didn’t understand, she added, “The history.”

  Lili wrote down everything, reported on everything, events and facts, no reflections, no feelings, without fantasizing at all. Above the words the time was noted, the hour was fixed, and lucky for her she had a watch that displayed the date. And even if the watch was standing still, Lili would never have been wrong.

  * * *

  “Lili writes and Dori climbs the walls.” So their mother summarized the state of affairs. Exactly so. Lili no longer hid anything from them, not after their mother snatched a notebook out from under a pen. Lili looked straight at Dori then, forcing her to get involved. “What do you know? There are no secrets today.” And then she looked at her
mother and, without averting her gaze from her for a moment: “You really want to read? Then read.” While Lili stood with hands folded, their mother solemnly sat down at the kitchen table and read, without getting worked up by her daughter’s new toughness. She knew that underneath, the yolk and the egg white rested in their delicate membrane. Slowly and gently she browsed through the notebook, like someone looking at an album of photos taken in another land.

  And what their mother read (and Dori stood a bit behind her shoulder, because if there was nothing to hide then there was nothing to hide) was everything that had happened to them. As if the world had changed places with the notebook. Today was spread out in all its details, as well as the day before.

  At three thirty the mailman arrived no longer wearing a uniform dragging a grocery cart an electric bill in our box.

  “What’s interesting about the mailman arriving?” their mother inquired, and Dori waited for an answer that would explain everything. Lili shrugged her shoulders. “I’m writing chronicles.”

  “She’s writing the history,” Dori explained to her mother, and for the first time in days Lili looked at Dori without anger. Perhaps she even smiled at her. Who knows. And Dori smiled at Lili like she was catching her sister’s pen as it fell.

  Their mother looked at her two daughters. Her hands were empty. Dori looked at her as she dropped them to her side without knowing what to do with them. She smelled like slightly moldy cinnamon and sweat. She smelled like tea. Lili’s notebook rested on the green Formica as if Lili would never walk the necessary three steps to take it. Their mother went out to the garden, to the beet bed, without looking at them; you don’t always have to look, they too knew what she looked like without seeing her. After all, the world was steady, and they themselves were like a sound played again and again, day after day, and if you live under the bell tower you’re liable to go mad. That is, if you can hear it. Regardless, this is what Anna Ackerman looked like at that moment (and perhaps at all moments): the stained skirt flapping around her legs, the hair gathered into a braid of gray mixed with black, the feet in comfortable sandals; she had square toes that the sandals accentuated. Lili once said to Dori that she was already starting to try to be ugly and Dori didn’t understand that at all, as there was no logic to it. While Anna Ackerman went to aerate the soil around the beets, because the sunflowers had been uprooted the year before for the sake of the ugly vegetables, all understanding between Lili and Dori was instantly erased. As if it had only been written on water. Lili took the notebook as if nothing had happened and began to write, and Dori didn’t know what to do with all that water.