The Decameron Project

by The New York Times

  I am sorry there is no what you call a toilet. We ourselves utilize all ingested nourishment for fuel, so we have no need for such receptacles. We did order one what you call a toilet for you, but we are told there is a shortage. You could try out the window. It is a long way down, so please do not try to jump.

  It’s not fun for me, either, Madam-Sir. I was sent here as part of an intergalactical-crises aid package. I did not have a choice, being a mere entertainer and thus low in status. And this simultaneous translation device I have been issued is not the best quality. As we have already experienced together, you do not understand my jokes. But as you say, half an oblong wheat-flour product is better than none.

  Now. The story.

  I was told to tell you a story, and now I will tell you one. This story is an ancient Earth story, or so I understand. It is called “Impatient Griselda.”

  Once there were some twin sisters. They were of low status. Their names were Patient Griselda and Impatient Griselda. They were pleasing in appearance. They were Madams and not Sirs. They were known as Pat and Imp. Griselda was what you call their last name.

  Excuse me, Sir-Madam? Sir, you say? Yes?

  No, there was not only one. There were two. Who is telling this story? I am. So there were two.

  One day a rich person of high status, who was a Sir and a thing called a Duke, came riding by on a—came riding by, on a—if you have enough legs you don’t have to do this riding by, but Sir had only two legs, like the rest of you. He saw Pat watering the—doing something outside the hovel in which she lived, and he said: “Come with me, Pat. People tell me I must get married so I can copulate legitimately and produce a little Duke.” He was unable to just send out a pseudopod, you see.

  A pseudopod, Madam. Or Sir. Surely you know what that is! You are an adult!

  I will explain it later.

  The Duke said: “I know you are of low status, Pat, but that is why I want to marry you rather than someone of high status. A high-status Madam would have ideas, but you have none. I can boss you around and humiliate you as much as I want, and you will feel so lowly that you won’t say boo. Or boohoo. Or anything. And if you refuse me, I will have your head chopped off.”

  This was very alarming, so Patient Griselda said yes, and the Duke scooped her up onto his… I’m sorry, we don’t have a word for that, so the translation device is of no help. Onto his snack. Why are you all laughing? What do you think snacks do before they become snacks?

  I shall continue the story, but I do counsel you not to annoy me unduly. Sometimes I get hangry. It means hunger makes me angry, or anger makes me hungry. One or the other. We do have a word for that in our language.

  So, with the Duke holding on to Patient Griselda’s attractive abdomen very tightly so she wouldn’t fall off his—so she wouldn’t fall off, they rode away to his palace.

  Impatient Griselda had been listening behind the door. That Duke is a terrible person, she said to herself. And he is preparing to behave very badly to my beloved twin sister, Patient. I will disguise myself as a young Sir and get a job working in the Duke’s vast food-preparation chamber so I can keep an eye on things.

  So Impatient Griselda worked as what you call a scullery boy in the Duke’s food-preparation chamber, where she or he witnessed all kinds of waste—fur and feet simply discarded, can you imagine that, and bones, after being boiled, tossed out as well—but he or she also heard all kinds of gossip. Much of the gossip was about how badly the Duke was treating his new Duchess. He was rude to her in public, he made her wear clothes that did not suit her, he knocked her around, and he told her that all the bad things he was doing to her were her own fault. But Patient never said boo.

  Impatient Griselda was both dismayed and angry at this news. She or he arranged to meet Patient Griselda one day when she was moping in the garden, and revealed her true identity. The two of them performed an affectionate bodily gesture, and Impatient said, “How can you let him treat you like that?”

  “A receptacle for drinking liquid that is half full is better than one that is half empty,” Pat said. “I have two beautiful pseudopods. Anyway, he is testing my patience.”

  “In other words, he is seeing how far he can go,” Imp said.

  Pat sighed. “What choice do I have? He would not hesitate to kill me if I give him an excuse. If I say boo, he’ll cut off my head. He’s got the knife.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Imp said. “There are a lot of knives in the food-preparation chamber, and I have now had much practice in using them. Ask the Duke if he would do you the honor of meeting you for an evening stroll in this very garden, tonight.”

  “I am afraid to,” Pat said. “He might consider this request the equivalent of saying boo.”

  “In that case, let’s change clothes,” Imp said. “And I will do it myself.” So Imp put on the Duchess’s robes and Pat put on the clothing of the scullery boy, and off they went to their separate places in the palace.

  At dinner, the Duke announced to the supposed Pat that he had killed her two beautiful pseudopods, to which she said nothing. She knew in any case that he was bluffing, having heard from another scullery boy that the pseudopods had been spirited away to a safe location. Those in the food-preparation chamber always knew everything.

  The Duke then added that the next day he was going to kick Patient out of the palace naked—we do not have this naked on our planet, but I understand that here it is a shameful thing to be seen in public without your vestments. After everyone had jeered at Patience and wastefully pelted her with rotting snack parts, he said he intended to marry someone else, younger and prettier than Pat.

  “As you wish, my lord,” the supposed Patient said, “but first I have a surprise for you.”

  The Duke was already surprised simply to hear her speak.

  “Indeed?” he said, curling his facial antennae.

  “Yes, admired and always-right Sir,” Imp said in a tone of voice that signaled a prelude to pseudopod excretion. “It is a special gift for you, in return for your great beneficence to me during our, alas, too short period of cohabitation. Please do me the honor of joining me in the garden this evening so we can have consolation sex once more, before I am deprived of your shining presence forever.”

  The Duke found this proposition both bold and piquant.

  Piquant. It is one of your words. It means sticking a skewer into something. I am sorry I cannot explain it further. It is an Earth word, after all, not a word from my language. You will have to ask around.

  “That is bold and piquant,” the Duke said. “I’d always thought you were a dishrag and a doormat, but now it seems, underneath that whey face of yours, you are a slut, a trollop, a dolly-mop, a tart, a floozy, a tramp, a hussy, and a whore.”

  Yes, Madam-Sir, there are indeed a lot of words like that in your language.

  “I agree, my lord,” Imp said. “I would never contradict you.”

  “I shall see you in the garden after the sun has set,” the Duke said. This was going to be more fun than usual, he thought. Maybe his soi-disant wife would show a little action for a change, instead of just lying there like a plank.

  Imp went off to seek the scullery boy, namely Pat. Together they selected a long, sharp knife. Imp hid it in her brocaded sleeve, and Pat concealed herself behind a shrub.

  “Well met by moonlight, my lord,” Imp said when the Duke appeared in the shadows, already unbuttoning that portion of his clothing behind which his organ of pleasure was habitually concealed. I have not understood this part of the story very well, since on our planet the organ of pleasure is located behind the ear and is always in plain view. This makes things far easier, as we can see for ourselves whether attraction has been generated and reciprocated.

  “Take off your gown or I’ll rip it off, whore,” the Duke said.

  “With pleasure, my lord,” Imp said. Approaching him with a smile, she drew the knife from her richly ornamented sleeve and cut his throat, as she had cut the t
hroat of many a snack during the course of her scullery-boy labors. He uttered barely a grunt. Then the two sisters performed an act of bodily affection, and then they ate the Duke all up—bones, brocaded robes, and all.

  Excuse me? What is WTF? Sorry, I don’t understand.

  Yes, Madam-Sir, I admit that this was a cross-cultural moment. I was simply saying what I myself would have done in their place. But storytelling does help us understand one another across our social and historical and evolutionary chasms, don’t you think?

  After that, the twin sisters located the two beautiful pseudopods, and there was a joyful reunion, and they all lived happily in the palace. A few suspicious relatives of the Duke came sniffing around, but the sisters ate them too.

  The end.

  Speak up, Sir-Madam. You didn’t like this ending? It is not the usual one? Then which ending do you prefer?

  Oh. No, I believe that ending is for a different story. Not one that interests me. I would tell that one badly. But I have told this one well, I believe—well enough to hold your attention, you must admit.

  You even stopped whimpering. That is just as well, as the whimpering was very irritating, not to mention tempting. On my planet, only snacks whimper. Those who are not snacks do not whimper.

  Now, you must excuse me. I have several other quarantined groups on my list, and it is my job to help them pass the time, as I have helped you pass it. Yes, Madam-Sir, it would have passed anyway, but it would not have passed so quickly.

  Now I’ll just ooze out underneath the door. It is so useful not to have a skeleton. Indeed, Sir-Madam, I hope the plague will be over soon, too. Then I can get back to my normal life.

  he couple had arranged to meet Chrissy near the Battle Monument. She had met them once, five years ago, when she served as the buyers’ lawyer at the closing of their house. Soon after, the wife contacted her about estate planning. Chrissy sent them material and never heard back. She had forgotten them until the wife emailed again, apologizing for having disappeared. “We’ve set our hearts to follow through this time,” she wrote.

  They were not the first procrastinating clients. People told Chrissy about the distress of appointing guardians for their infant children, of making decisions for their future selves. She herself had neither a will nor plans in place—nothing wrong with that. A doctor could smoke or, like her father, drink himself to oblivion. No one says you have to live up to the standard defined by your profession.

  * * *

  The magnolia trees lining the avenue were at their peak. Chrissy picked up a palm-size petal on a bench. Magnolias are such confident flowers. The petals, even fallen, feel alive.

  Years ago Chrissy and her two best friends dug a hole and buried an envelope under one of those magnolia trees. Inside they had written notes, to be read again when they turned 50. To mark the solemnity of the event, they each put a single earring in it. Chrissy’s was an opal unicorn.

  None of them remembered the envelope when they turned 50. The memory only came back to Chrissy now.

  “Jeannie?” a man a few steps away said tentatively.

  Chrissy said she was not Jeannie, and he apologized. Was he meeting Jeannie for a date? They would have to take their masks off, she thought, to make a good impression. And how could they trust each other if they took off their masks?

  * * *

  The couple had no trouble recognizing Chrissy, nor she them. They were the only three people near the sculpture of General Washington. The couple apologized that their two friends, the witnesses, were running late.

  Chrissy preferred punctuality. She disliked small talk. Still, she asked the couple about their life under lockdown. The husband nodded courteously and strolled away. He probably hated small talk, too.

  “And the children? Which grades are they in now?” Chrissy said.

  The wife glanced at the husband. He was farther away, studying General Washington. “Ethan is in sixth grade.” There was a pause before that answer came.

  Did they have one child? Chrissy remembered two, from the small talk five years ago. But it was true that only Ethan’s name was in the wills. Perhaps she had mixed them up with another family.

  “You must be thinking of… Zoe?” the wife said in a lowered voice.

  “Right…,” Chrissy said. She knew then what the wife would say, and was relieved that the witnesses arrived just then. Zoe was dead. Chrissy wished she had not asked about the children. Such an innocent question, but there was never a truly innocent question.

  * * *

  The signing took no more than 10 minutes. The couple was healthy. Neither had been married before, or had children outside this marriage. No complications, that was how Chrissy thought of clients like them. Yet they all came with some complications. Often Chrissy preferred not to dwell upon them.

  As the couple and the witnesses walked away, Chrissy called out to the wife: “Mrs. Carson.”

  The husband and the witnesses walked on, in a triangular formation with the right distance in between. Chrissy wanted to say something about Zoe. The wife had mentioned the name for a reason.

  The wife gestured to the papers in Chrissy’s folder. “Strangely uplifting, isn’t it? Signing our wills on a sunny day like this.”

  “It’s a good thing to do,” Chrissy said, an automatic response.

  “Yes,” the wife said, and thanked Chrissy again.

  They would part then, and they might not see each other again. Chrissy would forget this meeting, as she had forgotten what she wrote to herself as a teenager. But someday she would remember this moment, and she wished that she had said more than a platitude, as she wished she had remembered the note to herself, or she had said something to her father about his drinking.

  “I’m so sorry,” Chrissy said, “about Zoe.” The most banal words, but there are never the right words. That’s an excuse for saying nothing.

  The wife nodded. “Sometimes I wish Zoe had been less resolute,” she said. “I wish she had been like me or her father. We’re both procrastinators.”

  And yet no teacher or parent would encourage a child’s procrastination or indecision, Chrissy thought. Why did she and her friends believe that decades later, they would still remember the notes, and they would still be interested in them? The confidence in life’s consistency, for a young person, easily turns into the despair at life’s unchangeableness.

  “But you’ve followed through this time,” Chrissy said, pointing to the folder. A platitude again, but platitudes, like procrastination, have their meaning, too.

  Translated by Jessica Cohen from the Hebrew

  hree days after the curfew was lifted, it was clear that no one was planning to leave home. For reasons unknown, people preferred to stay inside, alone or with their families, perhaps simply happy to keep away from everyone else. After spending so much time indoors, everyone was used to it by now: not going to work, not going to the mall, not meeting a friend for coffee, not getting an unexpected and unwanted hug on the street from someone you took a yoga class with.

  The government allowed a few more days to adapt, but when it became obvious that things weren’t going to change, they had no choice. Police and army forces began knocking on doors and ordering people out.

  * * *

  After 120 days of isolation, it’s not always easy to remember what exactly you used to do for a living. And it’s not as if you’re not trying. It was definitely something involving a lot of angry people who had trouble with authority. A school, perhaps? Or a prison? You have a vague memory of a skinny kid just sprouting a mustache throwing a stone at you. Were you a social worker in a group home?

  You stand on the sidewalk outside your building, and the soldiers who walked you out signal for you to start moving. So you do. But you’re not sure exactly where you’re headed. You scroll through your phone for something that might help you get things straight. Previous appointments, missed calls, addresses in your memos. People rush past you on the street, and some of them look g
enuinely panicked. They can’t remember where they’re supposed to go, either, and if they can, they no longer know how to get there or what exactly to do on the way.

  You’re dying for a cigarette, but you left yours at home. When the soldiers barged in and yelled at you to leave, you barely had time to grab your keys and wallet, even forgetting your sunglasses. You could try to get back inside, but the soldiers are still around, impatiently banging on your neighbors’ doors. So you walk to the corner store and find you have nothing but a five-shekel coin in your wallet. The tall young man at the checkout, who reeks of sweat, snatches the cigarette pack he just handed you: “I’ll keep it for you here.” When you ask if you can pay with a credit card, he grins as if you just told him a joke. His hand touched yours when he took the cigarettes back, and it was hairy, like a rat. A hundred twenty days have passed since someone last touched you.

  Your heart pounds, the air whistles through your lungs, and you’re not sure if you’re going to make it. Near the ATM sits a man wearing dirty clothes, and there’s a tin cup next to him. You do remember what you’re supposed to do in this situation. You quickly walk past him, and when he tells you in a cracked voice that he hasn’t eaten anything in two days, you look in the opposite direction, avoiding eye contact like a pro. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s like riding a bike: The body remembers everything, and the heart that softened while you were alone will harden back up in no time.

  ofty Brogan worked as a fishmonger in the Saltmarket. People said he was the fastest skinner in Glasgow, but he couldn’t do jokes like the other guys. This manic lady came to the stall every morning and told them she wanted kippers. “I’m Geetha from Parnie Street,” she said on that particular day. “And my name means ‘song.’ ”

  “You’re in the right place,” Elaine the boss said. “Lofty here’s a lovely singer, aren’t you, darling?” He wrapped the kippers in some greaseproof paper. The boss had lipstick on her teeth. “Come on, Geetha,” she went on to say, “why don’t you change it up a bit today? We’ve got all the stuff here for a fish stew.”