Other than those foolish broadcasts, they left her alone. She wandered for long hours in the farmland, emanating restlessness even though she tried hard to smile at everyone she saw, local or stranger. But there was a purpose to this wandering, because it wasn’t wandering at all, but a search. Without saying it explicitly, not even to herself, she searched for him. Dori stuck her hands in all the holes and openings (the very existence of which scared her when she was a girl, to the point that Lili, who knew that her snake-fearing sister walked on tiptoes in fear of a scaly head bursting forth from wherever, found half a sack of plaster and sealed up the many holes in their old room). Sometimes it seemed to her that she recognized his scarf, worn despite the summer, or his heavy gait. They met in another world, which from day to day she struggled to believe ever existed, and if it had, that it was meant for her too.
During the first days on the farm they stopped her every few steps, kissed her on the forehead, patted her shoulders. She tried hard to tolerate it, all that extra touching, as soft lips rested on her forehead and hardworking mouths kissed and moist palms drew near and the smells of many bodies threatened to be absorbed by hers. Then she again weighed whether to inform them that she had come only for a limited time and for a certain purpose, however vague. She meant to explain, but there was no value in this anyway. They saw in her what they wanted to see. As the days passed, the pats and the kisses turned mainly into abundantly warm nods, and those who knew her as a girl were satisfied with a quick hello.
On that afternoon, when she left the improvised studio, saying goodbye to the white plaster lion’s head, she wasn’t looking forward to meeting the snotty, clear-eyed band of children who set out each and every day on their adventures. They were so different from the children that the two of them had been, with bare tummies and tanned limbs and dirty faces, with the running and the trampling. She searched for Dima among them as well, as if he had shrunken down to a child again. As if she could identify him from among all the children.
The children looked at her, checking if she was one of them or not. The girl whom she met at the studio, her hair straw and a baseball cap with an image of a cat on her head, laughed at Dori and Dori laughed at her. Also at the other children, who looked at the two of them with clear admiration; it was clear that they were sharing some joke, maybe because of that chocolate, maybe because the girl was Lotti’s second niece, the younger of the two. Blonde as wheat, deaf as plywood, like Lotti would never be.
She turned to the girl and spelled out the name “Dima,” checking if he had made it there and, if he had, when he left. Because he’d explicitly specified the aim of his trip (to the farm, to Dori’s father) in the letter he left for her, as if he had caught from her and Lili the letter-writing disease. And if he wrote that he went, then that was what happened; Dima didn’t tend to lie. He said that at the farm there was the clarity he needed, he wrote that he had good reasons, he invited her to come visit and lay down the past wherever it was. Buried. Obviously he wrote this with other words. Shorter. Simple. But that was what Dori read on the morning after that night.
But Dima hadn’t followed her in the evenings, Anton had. Even then, Anton didn’t follow her every time. Not always. Only sometimes. Only when they agreed on it in advance. And when she saw him sitting alone in a café that was included in her excursion, she turned around and left. This was the agreement between them, the main method of compromise: a journey of cafés with Dori in exchange for all the journeys with Anton, a liter of deafness for all the nocturnal sojourns that cut through her flesh, when he loved others, when he forgot for a moment that she was there, forays that she hated but never intended giving up on. It was clear he wanted them to hand out the cards together. He and she, as she had done with Dima.
“Anyway, you’re pretending,” he said, as if his cuspid-revealing smile could make this sound like a joke.
“No,” she said, and not for the first time. “I’m not.”
But Anton refused to understand and in fact Dori never explained to him her permanent need for humiliation, the compulsion to be that girl she despised with all her heart, the one who acknowledges deafness not as a strength but rather as a disability and defect, who offers up her deaf ears on a platter, who puts herself on display. Time after time she absorbed those stolen glances, the pity and the criticism. Anton didn’t know how much this pain overwhelmed her, lifted her up and degraded her, how much then of all times she felt like Dori Ackerman, flesh and blood, as if who she was meant to be was truly resurrected in these moments. From his perspective this was a small, sweet sting operation. He thought it was sweet, like picking flowers from the neighbors’ garden, and mischievous, like selling them in the town square afterward. He liked this streak in her personality, even though in his opinion it was too restrained. She could have added a slight limp, an eye patch. A deformity that would only have made her beautiful, and if not beautiful, then interesting.
He, who appreciated free enterprise and business thinking, didn’t understand why Dori amassed jars full of coins and bills on her writing table but he couldn’t touch them and she wouldn’t take from them even when she was short on money. Dori described Anton’s thought process to herself. From his perspective, cooperation between the two of them would only help, certainly from an economic point of view. Anton, who knew how to elicit trust and interest, would certainly bring about an increase in profits by his very presence. What was preventing him from joining, other than Dori’s stubbornness? He could be deaf like anyone. Like her. He already tried Dori’s plugs, the yellow ones, the pink ones, the green ones, her noise-canceling earplugs, the way certain men try on their lovers’ undergarments. This excited him, but he wanted more.
With Anton’s eyes fixed on the back of her neck she went to distant cafés, carrying with her a pile of cheap toys to pass out in exchange. Rag-doll monkeys with googly eyes, smiling rubber balls, hair bands, and clothespins. She always hated the pseudo-bartering, as if they were actually buying the cheap lighters from her, as if fair business was being conducted, a transaction between equals and not panhandling. But it was better when Anton was behind her. She hoped that his eyes would focus on the worthless merchandise and not her.
* * *
At the start of that evening Anton walked behind her like a shadow, and whoever saw them knew that the shadow was much more successful than the source. His supple gait appeared to be imbued with purpose and interest, whereas Dori walked quickly and bent over, the bag banging against her back, her hands in the pockets of her pants.
She stopped in a café with a branching tree standing at its center and tiny lights hanging from it. The tree, under which the round tables took refuge, was meant to cause the café patrons to forget that the place wasn’t a small, independent business but rather part of a thriving chain of coffeehouses. Next to one of the tables a grandfather in the presence of his young grandson pointed at the artificial tree and said, “It’s an almond tree,” and the boy raised his eyes in amazement and Dori smiled. The second time Dori smiled that evening was when she stood opposite a young woman, almost a girl, with a white scar stretched across the length of her right cheek. Strange, but what Dori thought was that this was apparently one of those flaws that Anton had mentioned, one that made the woman beautiful or at least interesting. And perhaps the woman appeared interesting because she actually looked familiar to her, even though she couldn’t determine from where or when. She smiled at Dori with very white teeth and Dori smiled as well, a smile she never smiled when the cards were in her hand. With her finger the girl drew a line from ear to mouth, asking if she was deaf, and Dori, to whom the question was presented with such directness, was dumbstruck. The rest didn’t surprise her. She had long expected it. She thought it would be much more violent than that air horn the girl lifted up and pointed at her left ear. The girl’s movements were slow and formal and Dori could have simply ducked down and left, but she stayed.
The fist that crushed her stomach was nothing but
the pure sound, the thundering, shrieking noise, not music, no, the opposite of it, the sound that sheds blood from the eyes of horses and their riders, under whose auspices all sorts of calamities occur. The girl continued pulling on the trigger even once Dori shrieked from pain and perhaps sang from pain because sometimes the singing and the shrieking took turns, no, not music, something else and Dori folded over, her legs under her chest, until she slackened and lay on the ground, until she was silent, until someone from the café intervened, removing his hands from his ears and standing up to them, because the noise was terrible for everyone, even for those who didn’t have the siren pointing straight into their eardrum. And that same someone grabbed the girl, who didn’t resist at all, and warned her not to come back. Dori didn’t know who it was, maybe Anton, it had to be Anton, who in fact took her home afterward and waited until Anati got her into bed before leaving.
Before Dori fell asleep in her bed, Anati and Anton argued in the doorway to the entrance about the identity of the girl with the air horn. Anati said that it was definitely one of Dori’s father’s psychos and that when she met them back then at the zoo she already could see that they’d be trouble, and Anton said that Dori must have invaded someone else’s territory and that it was an economic conflict, pure and simple. Only Dima, who knew to come to her even though no one called him, placed his hand on her forehead. Dori usually shrank away from contact like this, as if ants were marching across her skin, but there was relief in that heavy hand. Still in that fog, when the blood still hadn’t quieted in her veins, she knew that she hadn’t paid the full price. Then Dima squeezed out of her a promise that she would never, absolutely never, go back there again.
She left the house early in the morning. Her ears still rang, but she could walk without swaying. Dima sat on a bench in the street and looked at the sparkling chimney, at the smoke that was rising beautifully like in an English mining town, and Dori didn’t know if he was waiting for her, even though of course he was waiting for her; after all, it wasn’t possible that he was there just because. He had a home somewhere, he didn’t live on the street. Her bag was very heavy and she held it in her hands like a baby and he took it from her in silence. They walked on the paved path and Dori recalled her and Anati’s old joke about the cat heads and recalled that night when they got drunk together and it suddenly became clear to her that these weren’t paving stones but actual cats instead she was stepping on, squashing them with each step, and she refused to continue walking until Anati promised her that the cats were already dead and there was nothing to fear. Dima and Dori walked to the fountain in the small square with the broken mosaic, not far from the main street where kids get drunk and pass out during those dark hours when the filth isn’t yet visible in the sunlight and anything can happen.
When they arrived Dori took the bag from him, undid the laces, and took out nine jars packed with coins and bills. She stood them side by side on the edge of the fountain. Without looking she took out a silver coin and tossed it into the water. The sound of it striking the bottom could be heard clear and faint against the background of the sleeping street. “Now you’ll have to come back here,” Dima signed, a sentence that didn’t suit him, as if he had suddenly begun to believe in destiny instead of sticking to impartial Marxist thinking, but Dori just shrugged her shoulders. She removed the top and spilled the contents of the first jar into the water. Perhaps it was the proximity to the main street, perhaps it was the homeless who lay on benches there and woke up from the noise of the coins, but by the time the contents of the third jar were emptied into the water a crowd of curious people had gathered. At first they just stood and looked until one of those kids who arrived from the main street with wasted eyes interrupted the magic and jumped into the water, gathering up coins in his hands, trampling in the cold water with cries of joy, his hands sailing after bills. The others didn’t lag far behind. Dori paused between jars, giving everyone an equal chance, and they understood that these were the rules, and each time only once the coins splashed into the foul water did they begin the hunt. When the ninth jar was emptied Dori stood up and said, “That’s it, that’s everything,” and Dima looked at her as if asking for another promise that this chapter was over for them, that she’d agree with him that almost anything was preferable to this transgressive begging, and Dori again shrugged her shoulders as if that was the only movement she remembered. Dima escorted her home and was already on his way to the farm the next day.
“He’s on a mission,” the girl signed to her with a look of importance.
“When’s he coming back?” Dori asked, and the girl only shrugged her shoulder and added, as if speaking on behalf of many others, “We don’t know.”
ANTON
We’re walking in the street. It could be any street, but it’s a particular street in a particular neighborhood. A neighborhood that fell from greatness. A neighborhood that people pass through quickly, hands in pockets, a neighborhood that gets poor results on measures of air pollution and hate crimes. She cuts through the old commercial quarter, the nails in the soles of her boots tapping against the paving stones, tick-tick-tick, on the way to a better neighborhood. Recognizable music emerges from the cafés, a calming beat that was composed in countries poorer than ours. This melody could be a soundtrack for anything, accompaniment for attack planes or a company manufacturing soft drinks. And for her too. She walks before me, at a precise distance of five steps, her back a little bent. Her face is tilted downward as if she’s looking for a dropped coin. Someone like her should walk upright, like a book is resting on her head. But in her case it wouldn’t matter. She would never straighten up; she’d stop and read the book. You understand, I know her. Perhaps I even like her.
The way she cuts across streets, staring at headlights with frightened eyes, like cats and old people do—this way still pleases me. It’s a sign that she hasn’t given up, that she still fears an unnatural death. I, by the way, cut across streets with eyes closed. Nothing ever happens to me.
A man follows your sister in the street like someone who pants on the phone, who breathes heavily down your neck. Maybe even worse than that. You understand who this man is. Amen, I tell you, Lili. Amen and amen. From any distance I could recognize the back of her neck and the hair resting on it in dark strands. She knows that I’m there but only throws me a glance from time to time, hoping that I’ve given up and left. And despite what’s clear to you now, I’m not crazy; I need you to pay attention. I’ve already learned that with you only anger cuts through the numb feelings, raises the dead. So you can start getting angry at the pervert clinging to your little sister. Get angry and get up. Hold on, we’re not done.
In the first café there are nine tables. Human beings sit around six of them and drink coffee. Someone eats a pastry. Someone is eating his heart out, Dori would say and would maybe be right too, but at these moments she doesn’t talk to me. Three couples, an additional table with three, and two loners, one of whom is me. She leaves a handwritten card for everyone and places on top of it a stitched doll for banishing bad dreams, a doll stitched in a rising third-world country to resemble folk art from the sinking third world. The stupid doll reaches us by way of these worlds, landing on the coffee table. At two of the tables they take a finger-sized doll and leave money without looking at her.
Imagine me, if you can, and maybe you can’t. From your perspective I probably never existed, but imagine me. Not as the one who follows her from café to café, but me with fingers crossed, bent over a pile of letters you sent. Imagine that I’m the writer and the addressee. That I sit in all the seats, drinking the last sip of coffee in the cup, wearing the hats you left empty. Just imagine. But I’m no one, a ghost, a devil wearing a jacket. Nevertheless, imagine me and do it slowly, with pleasure, even. I’m the one writing you.
You’re completely awake now; your skin is trembling. You didn’t know that this is what your little sister does and you certainly didn’t know that someone is following her. You
would call the police, but you’re on the other side of the globe, beyond the zipper. I know that too. I even know about the fake globe that you learned geography from, the zipper that cut through the Americas, the place where her finger would rub against the defective edges. Maybe it would be better if you felt some sympathy for me. We’ll start over, maybe I’m a boy who lives in the forest, picks berries, sees angels going up and down a ladder, grows wings. Yes, I’m trying hard now, getting carried away. You won’t even think that I inspire confidence or empathy, you’ll puke from all this. And that’s okay. Just keep reading. Nod your head and say, “Total psychopath.” I accept it. No problem.
Love is the only point. Your sister said this to me before morning came. She sat on a tall chair, upright and serious with a mixture of expectation and acceptance. I saw her and it was as if the night itself was a thick substance that was about to drip down onto her, as if night was all that there was and the word love was the only word in the world.
Aquarium Page 22
