She didn’t expect me to say it to her myself. She’s not one whom love would slap in the face without reservations. Look at me, I who love neither man nor woman. I who call out “who’s there” just to hear the echo. This is Dori’s version of my life, I understand. But sometimes she’s certain, with a kind of cold desperation, that I’m in love not just with myself but with everyone except her. With her friend, with my mother, with you. But you and I, we haven’t met, we’re shadows passing through each other’s life. Only outlines.
I read your letters, but I don’t believe you. Don’t believe a single word. Dori says you have the scent of milk. But she’s the one who smells of chalk and milk. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe she was always smelling only herself.
* * *
Once we traveled together, I had an American car for a couple of days. It was like a ship with a massive prow, so your sister said, but she didn’t ask anything about it. It was a holiday and she looked like herself, like always, dressed a bit wretchedly, wearing a headband with the ears of a mouse. After an hour we stopped at a commercial center on the side of the highway. Dori went inside to get us coffee and I looked through the windshield. All the cashiers in the place had identical ears, the same mouse ears from the movies. I saw everything. I thought she’d notice and remove her ears, holiday or no holiday, anyone would do that, but she began laughing. She became quite happy over the fact that at any moment she could have replaced one of the cashiers.
Perhaps I love her, but I had the good sense not to tell her. I’ve never in my life seen someone who is gripped by non-love like her. Since then, your sister has closed the door, and I’ll admit that closed doors fascinate me more than wide-open windows. But I don’t pass through. Not through the window and not through the door.
In her eyes I’m Anton, a spoiled child. Someone whom she’s better without. Someone whose departure they applaud when she says goodbye to him. After all, my mother and I are rich and lonely, swimming the breaststroke through stocks and bonds. Did she write you? We own homes and she’s homeless. There’s no reason to tell her that it’s because of the creditors that we move among the apartments that were once in our possession. There was money and there were debts and only the latter expanded. Simply, we have nothing. The bank owns the apartments and we reside in them for the present, thanks to a kindness that someone at the bank has extended to my mother and a clause that could be nullified at any moment. If they need an apartment for hosting, we’re out with a suitcase. In another era they would bury me in the potter’s field.
Even as an extremely poor person, I’m not an innocent or honest man. My acts until now don’t testify in my favor. So be it. I don’t save my mother either, letting her bite her lips, allowing the two of us to be impoverished until the end of time. No, I’m not lifting a finger. But I’m writing to you because after everything it has become clear that it’s my task to tell you the truth. Apparently I’m the only one who remembers you and I’m also adequately honest to write to you—Lili Ackerman, who turned invisible. The world has forgotten you. Impossible not to envy you for this.
Anyone with eyes in his head would understand everything from the beginning, would see how things developed and not be surprised the day your sister left and went to your father. This person would know that your father’s nonsense still has power over her. Odd that you didn’t arrive there before her. Odd that you didn’t see. Yes, it may be that I couldn’t watch Dori until the end; I was voluntarily blind before her. But you I know. I may be the last who still differentiates between the two of you. I’m doubtful you can do that yourself. You remember, we already met before. Blue boots but you didn’t have a coat. The air was cold. You looked to the other side when someone kissed my hand, my neck. Now too my neck is often kissed. You understand, I’m never alone for long.
* * *
Bye, Lili. I’m not bursting into your life but rather saying farewell to the two of you. The door is already open, but I don’t intend on staying. She indeed left me, but nevertheless it was me who let her go. She left me, I admit, but only because she left you first.
Anton
ALEX
At this time no one causes him injustice, voluntarily or involuntarily, anymore. At this time injustice is caused because the world is waiting for its tiny prey that in truth looks like an old exalted man who lies in his bed but in fact isn’t so old, in fact this is a small boy teetering on his toes, a boy who’s about to fall off the edge of the world. There are many mothers, big and small, they are like soft columns surrounding him and the bed is very white because worried hands stretched over it the whitest of sheets, like his beard that now appears to his blurry, swollen eyes like a disguise and he wants to tear it out but the belated pain arrives at once and a hand hushes him the way one hushes a child, enough now enough already. They gather around him and he wants to get up and escape and play with a ball outside, he once had a wonderful ball a splendid ball with strong seams where is it? No one knew how to kick hard like Alex, throughout the neighborhood they were amazed by Alex’s kick and someone whistled and called out Alexander the Great and he kept on kicking with a massive smile on his face and yes he still heard then he heard. This was before he met Anna this was before the school for the deaf that came to him after the diving accident that took his ears from him, angry mad and irate and he discovered how easy it is for him to establish a monarchy, ugh where’s that ball dammit it seems to him that he’s swallowing it now a soft and sticky ball a ball that fills his whole mouth it’s impossible to breathe impossible to swallow impossible not to vomit, out with it here’s Alex my good boy it’s only the fever puke it up here’s a mother hen cluck cluck cluck she cackles she’s looking for grain for her children the—doesn’t matter, the hand cleaning his mouth is unfamiliar to him, a stranger’s hand wipes his mouth, it was good to hurl it to throw it into the air poof like a balloon or an airplane, high up in the sky, tears fall onto the sheet, pigs, only pigs cry like that, he looks up and the room is too full give him air he wants air the hands spread out and round heads burst forth like balls and rest under his hands and someone draws out a sign, bless them and Alex blesses. Blessed may you be. Here’s Ogden. Good Ogden. Here’s Lotti. Good Lotti. Here they are the good people scarecrows children of scarecrows stinking from so much good, he needs his mother now he wants to drink. I’m Dima someone says, signing his name slowly as if Alex is a fool trust me he says but Alex doesn’t trust why would he trust maybe he actually has the ball bloated chicken that he is, phooey, phooey Dima, but the hands are like demons signing alone blessed may you be and Dima returns to shadow. Like at the theater he thinks and enjoys it because who doesn’t love the theater, someone stands at the edge of the room the light falls on her in a straight beam her clothes are pink like a sunset her hair, what’s this, it falls from her head like a snake, impossible to see her face but it’s his Anna who isn’t good but she’s his, he waits for her to caress him on the neck and feed him a small raisin cake, no, he needs water to drink water or tea or cherries in water, he once tasted cherries but he can no longer recall their taste, blessed may you be his hands draw out. Anna doesn’t come to him. Someone signs saint, Anna also signs saint and cries, he wants to turn his head and see the holy man but he can’t. The holy man should come and sit next to him, what doesn’t he see that little Alex is sick? Here are his hands. A man’s strong hands. Not an old man’s. Whose hands are these? Strange. There are many hands in the world. He’d count the hands if only they’d give him time. Two women at his side. This one from here and this one from there. A smell of milk and smoke. A smell of chalk and a flower whose name it’s impossible to recall but he remembers. Maybe it’s his mother why his mother is very late when will she return already, the anticipation flows over the tongue like a candy, yes it’s Mother, twice it’s Mother, he doesn’t hear her but he actually knows what she’s saying, his mother calls him Father, the second mother is silent, funny, so funny to call a child Father, it’s from the metal, one mother sig
ns, it’s his heart says the second one. He knows it’s not the first time they signed to each other, his dear mothers, the world is white like sugar like a pillowcase like snow like a blanket, go forth Alex Ackerman fly away already heavy white bird fat dove that you are, fly over the living lands and all the best to you Alex to the Ackerman home who was once Alexander the Great.
Once upon a time there was a girl who walked opposite a calf and the calf mooed. Once there were two girls. Like a pair of mismatched shoes. Once upon a time they grew and were young women. Perhaps this happened many times. Not so educated. Not so successful. But here they are. Once upon a time Dori signed to her sister in the weekly broadcast, “Come home, Father is sick,” and she didn’t know it was already too late for this because Lili carrying her oversized belly is already on the plane, counting the hours, hurrying home, saying the word “home” in a few languages and in all of them it sounds strange and familiar to her. Their father was about to die. They had nothing to do but wait together for the death pangs.
Their holy father lay in his white bed, covered in pillows. Lotti surprised them with her good taste, with the complete and pure majesty that suited all the ritual’s rules. She sat stooped next to him, seizing a dominant corner but adequately remote in the picture. Opposite them stood dozens of plastic chairs and in them were people crying bitterly. Anna leaned on a wall and rubbed her eyes emphatically. Her shoulders shook. His face was red but his white beard still pointed toward the ceiling like a flagpole.
“These are the daughters.” Lotti signed the obvious. “Let them approach.” At the foot of the bed were gathered toys the children had brought, offerings before a sacred tree. Lotti’s nieces sorted the toys with great care, moving a broken train car from here to there. Lili and Dori didn’t grant them even a glance. The faces of those present wore true suffering, as if head- and stomachaches, shriveled intestines, and constricted lungs had attacked them all at once. But this was their father’s power; they felt it in their flesh. Heartbreak and body-break were one. Dori and Lili stood across from each other in summer dresses. Lili’s belly protruded and Dori was thin as ever. They didn’t look like sisters. Not exactly.
Lotti declared to the two of them with mournful solemnity, without distinguishing between Lili and Dori, “He’s on borrowed time. He was waiting only for you.” Revulsion spread across her face but maybe it was just a twitch. In fact, Alex Ackerman’s daughters seemed to be gangly and budding as if the years had fallen from them and the two stood as teens, holding hands before the whole world, before a bright future, but they didn’t hold hands and each one of them could only speculate about her sister’s youth.
Dori was the first to approach the white bed and Lili caught up to her and stood on his other side. One of them carefully caressed his face and her sister signed, “Hello, Father,” even though what she meant to say was “Hello, Sir King,” and in response her father will raise himself up on his elbows and that same glimmer of scorn will appear in his eyes while his hands will say, “Hello, my dear daughters, where have you been and what have you done?” and perhaps she wanted to hurl harsher words than those at him. Even with the pregnant stomach it was hard to distinguish her, even from the plastic chairs arranged in a U shape, and in any case Lotti had no intention of looking at them. “There was never a cellar,” Lili finally said, signing the made-up cellar opposite the face of the boy from the cellar and perhaps opposite her sister’s face. Dori looked at them alternately but the father was silent as he had been silent up to that moment and blessed them with his heavy hands, blessed may you be.
* * *
And they were truly blessed. “He left you everything,” Dima said. “I saw to it. All the papers are with me. This farm is yours.”
“I don’t want it,” Dori said, such that Lili didn’t even have to say a thing. Indeed the two of them only wanted to say how good it was to have Dima here, how they had missed him.
“You lost weight, Dima,” Lili said, laughing, and Dori agreed. He’d lost weight and grown taller. He’d grown a mustache. But despite the heat that prevailed there, he still went about with a scarf wrapped around his neck. It wasn’t foppish. It suited him. The three of them trod through a puddle outside the cultural center that had almost dried up, stealing glances as if they had just met for the first time. “First we’ll destroy it,” one says, and gestures with her hand at the old structure, and the other recoils, “Not the lion,” and her sister understands and approves.
“But what’s with your child?” Dima tried again, and looked at Lili’s belly only in order to quickly remove his gaze as if it were improper. “In any case,” he added seriously, “you have to worry about him, Lili, you’ll be a mother.” Dima looked at her with admiration, as if the coming motherhood infused her with holiness. Everyone became holy there, in the Ackerman family, even though holiness was the last thing one would think to attribute to any of them.
And Lili, who didn’t think that it was time to remind Dima about his beliefs about abolishing inheritance laws and justice for all, raised her chin and pointed at her belly. “In any case, this one here’s a girl.”
Evening had already fallen. At noon the two of them blinked at the sun that flooded the land in a white light. The sisters sat, hands in laps, without adding clods to the soil that had been gathered onto the dead body, without touching. They sat on a knoll of dirt beyond the short brick wall, beyond the city of dead that had grown and grown since they were small and scared each other with ghost stories. They gazed beyond the wall, looked back without really seeing Lotti and Anna spar over the role of the grieving widow. Lili’s belly was solid as a rock. As a house. Dori rested her hand on the belly for a moment and her sister let her. She extended her legs over the dirt and looked at the flowers of the dress clinging to her. Soon she won’t have anything to wear. Soon she’ll have a little girl, quite tiny, who’ll look only at her, who will demand from her pure love. Dori said that the original plan was for Alex to be buried in the cultural center. Lotti wanted to transform it into a mausoleum; after all, Alex Ackerman was already a public figure, she claimed, and in fact much more than that. She was already envisioning the pilgrims and their offerings. But in the end the Ministry of Health intervened. “The long arm of the establishment,” said Lili, as if right then they weren’t burying their father, the man who taught them everything.
It was a well-attended ceremony. Many of the mourners never met the deceased during his life but this didn’t lessen their grief. Some of them arrived because of Dori’s broadcasts, but when they saw her face-to-face, a young woman sitting, a bit disinterested, far from the entrance to the cemetery, they didn’t recognize her. The cemetery was so full of people that the number of living was greater than that of the dead and some of them could only find a place beyond the fence, where they gathered in groups and Dori and Lili could count the hair follicles of the curious. Other than the words of the head of the council, which were spoken aloud and focused on his involvement in the community, and the long, rhyming poem that the dear friend Idit read, the handful of eulogies were carried out in their language and aroused a combination of wonder and admiration among those in attendance. It seemed to Dori that she saw Georgia and Ada standing next to each other. Anton’s there, she thought for a moment, even though this wasn’t at all possible, but in truth it seemed that he was glancing at her, his face covered in a beard as if he was one of the pious, wearing a leather jacket, his face defiantly calm. Lili’s strange friend Uriel Savyon arrived as well. At least one person in the crowd recalled the boy he was, the boy she knew not only from Lili’s letters, but from his coming to visit her once in the boarding school. They spoke about stars; this she remembered although she didn’t know why he was so interested in the solar system. Without a doubt Dori was getting carried away, she was putting every person she knew in the village cemetery. She was even able to recognize among the guests a few of the tigers or waterfowl that had arrived from the zoo.
Dori looked at all thos
e present because she was still waiting for Anati to come and swing open the cemetery gates, scream at someone and swear, smash someone’s car, even though that same morning Dori had begged her not to come. “It’s not a wedding, Dori,” Lili said to her with reproach, guessing her thoughts as before. “You don’t have to welcome the guests.” But she wasn’t insulted. She was no longer a letter whose contents her sister could guess without opening the envelope. After all, Lili spoke with Lili and Dori spoke with Dori, and that was it. What was spoken between them, very very little, was as minuscule as the edge of a fingernail. But even if these words were a bad bit of business, the world still whispered blue letters, like the notes teenage girls write on their wrists and backs of their hands and middle fingers so they won’t forget and then immediately forget anyway.
When they sat next to each other on the knoll they now saw that their hands were very similar, the same long fingers, the same reddish roughness in the palm. In fact both their hands perfectly resembled the hands of Anna Ackerman. Something they got from her, this was certain. “Until mine swell up,” Lili said. “Next month I’ll be as big as a balloon.”
“Like a ball,” Dori suggested.
“That too,” Lili agreed.
The strangers who arrived heard that the great father, Alex Ackerman, had two deaf daughters. At the end of a brief uncertainty, those present understood that the great man’s daughters were none other than the two serious girls in the brown dresses who stood by the grave. No one bothered to correct this impression and announce that the deaf girls who on that day were combed and dressed with a sure hand were related to Lotti, who stood over them, stroking and patting their combed heads.
Aquarium Page 23
