“Rav-el I, the King of the Nabateans, who reigned in the City of Avdat.”
“What period?” I could have guessed from his clothes that we are dealing with the Ancient Era, but I do not know how ancient.
“Let’s say that since my death, I have witnessed the glorious Nabatean Kingdom turn to dust under the feet of the Romans.”
If I am to rely on my memory of my History lessons, I am facing a man who was born at least two thousand years ago, and now looks about the same age as my father.
“Weren’t the Nabateans nomadic tribes?” I inquire.
“They were,” Oved replies, “but when I was born, they had already moved into the cities.” He says this with a touch of mockery.
“So, if you are from Avdat, what are you doing here?” I ask. I don’t know much about the history of the Nabatean tribes. For some reason, our History teacher preferred to concentrate on Hannibal and his elephant wars against Carthage than on the tales of King Rav-el the First—though I know that Avdat is in the Negev, which is quite a good distance away from Zichron Ya’akov. Though, if I get a response, I will also be able to understand how I have landed up here. But the desired answer doesn’t come.
“I’m not from Avdat, even if I was born there. I’m not from any place,” Oved replies, and also goes out, leaving me alone in the darkening room.
***
Oved became known as a man without faith in the Mediterranean region of the Incense Trade Route, but that was not true. Oved believed. He just did not believe in the same things that the rest of the people believed in. He did not believe in the family of gods, that same anonymous bunch that controlled the powers of nature and the trade route and were the foundation of the belief system of the members of his tribe. He did not believe in the omnipotence of the people of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel, nor in the hidden powers attributed by the Egyptians to mountains and rivers. Oved believed in three things: physical strength, clear thinking, and movable assets. These were his Holy Trinity (a concept he learned many years later from a Jesuit monk he met in one of the Dead Sea caves), and he did not hesitate to make use of any of the three, preferably in that order, to get what he wanted.
He learned the importance of physical strength at a young age. It sufficed to observe the bands of wolves and jackals attacking their prey. The strong ones were those who ate first and got the best parts, while the weak had to be satisfied with what they were left with. The lashes of his father’s belt that struck him each time he went astray, taught him that the hand that holds the whip belongs to the one who makes the rules. Oved was never fond of hard work, and from the dawn of his childhood, preferred idleness, which caused countless conflicts with his father, and resulted in many beaten and painful limbs. Later, Oved’s contempt for labor set him on track for a flourishing and profitable career that caused an even greater number of wounded and aching limbs. To his gratification, they were not his.
He learned the importance of clear thinking from his grandfather, who was a wise elder of the tribe. Because of age and poor health, his grandfather remained in the city even when most of the men set out in convoys to buy and sell goods and trade Egyptian fabrics for spices and incense from Aram. His grandfather had many stories of the trading voyages he participated in, but Oved did not get to know the character behind those tales. He was the youngest son of the family and had only seen his weak-sighted grandfather sitting on a stool at the entrance to their mud hut, drinking herbal infusions to sooth his leg pains. But in spite of his poor vision and failing legs, his grandfather was clear headed, and sharp of thought. Many came to him to get his advice, whether in making a financial decision, solving family disputes or tending to a medical problem. When Oved was not busy disturbing others and causing upheavals, he would sit on his mat and listen in to his grandfather’s conversations.
Once, a member of the tribe came to seek his advice regarding a marriage proposal he had received for his daughter. The prospective son-in-law was the son of one of the simpler families of the tribe, and thus the bride price offered was accordingly low. The father of the bride told Oved’s grandfather that the low bride price offered was insulting. His grandfather listened patiently, stroked his white beard, turned his head to one side, sighed deeply and then advised the father to reject the proposal.
“Why did you do that?” Oved asked after the man departed. “He himself is a simple man, he won’t get a better offer than that. Besides, his daughter is not at all beautiful.” The grandfather laughed at Oved’s last remark.
“You’re right. He won’t get a better offer, but even if he doesn’t have money, he has pride, and his pride was injured. If I had told him to accept the offer, he would have gotten even angrier and would have refused it to save his honor.”
“So, you advised him to do what he would have done, anyway.”
“Right,” his grandfather replied.
“But that’s not good advice,” Oved insisted. Had his father heard this conversation, he would surely have reprimanded Oved for his impudence, but Oved knew that his grandfather would not be angry with him.
“It is good advice,” his grandfather responded calmly, “because it has earned me his trust, and the next time he gets an offer of marriage for his daughter, he will come back to me.”
“And what will you tell him if that offer is also low?”
“I will advise him to accept it.”
“But why will he agree to accept next time?” Oved persisted
“Because next time, I will tell him that the bride price may be low, but the suitor is talented and intelligent, and will certainly prosper in the future and reward his father-in-law.”
Oved was still not convinced. “And what if the son-in-law does not turn out to be talented and intelligent?”
“He will be,” the grandfather insisted.
“How do you know that?”
“One who observes, knows,” the grandfather replied and Oved knew what kind of observation his blind grandfather was referring to.
Oved learned the importance of moveable assets the first time he had to flee and take them with him. Land, palaces, or even herds of cattle may represent honor and status, but they were not portable and could not be hidden like gold and precious stones, both of which Oved carried and hid in large amounts.
Indeed, he lost all of it, but that was a thought he chose to ignore. Since he had plenty of time to think, he preferred to choose his memories in a way he would find them pleasing. He was not going to let this new young girl spoil that.
A moment before the house grew dark, he went up to discuss it with Milka.
***
Milka heard the screams while she was closed away in the attic, her preferred place in the house, and it was generally agreed that this was her room and should not be invaded. Being the most senior inhabitant afforded her a certain status, or it was a matter of pity. In either case, she tended to keep to herself most of the time, something that met with no opposition from anyone. Sometimes, she would hear rollicking laughter from Oved as he would share the stories of his feats with the others, or Benny’s songs that attested to his changing moods and, quite often, Helen’s cries would fill the entire expanse of the house. Mostly, Milka preferred to ignore them and continue with her activities, except that this time, the screams were louder than usual, and the words “Who are you?” echoed between the walls.
Someone new had arrived. Milka wavered between panic and curiosity. The range between them had always led her on—with an uncontrollable attraction accompanied by alarming fear. But the lure was more powerful than the dread, and she went down below. The screams were coming from the drawing room, where they all stood in a circle around the young girl. Milka did not participate in the getting acquainted conversation that was in progress during the intervals between Helen’s fits of screaming. She remained on the side and studied the girl. She could not yet put her finger on w
hat precisely was different about her. Different from the other residents of the house. Different from the other spirits and souls Milka had met. And this difference was what equally aroused the levels of both her curiosity and her fear.
Now she wanders around uneasily in the attic. The more she thinks about it, the more disturbed she is by the girl’s presence. She doesn’t belong here. She was not supposed to arrive. The others, yes, all of them and herself, too, are the kind that remain. Of that, she has no doubt. But the girl is different; someone she has not yet been able to define.
“We are spirits. Lost souls. Just like you.” That was how she had answered her, and she hadn’t lied. She never lied. Even if she sometimes chose to ignore the truth. There are mendacious spirits. She had learned that the hard way, but she, in spite of her many sins, is not one of them. Not during her life, and not in death. Yes, she mused, we are all both lost and erring souls, but our errors aren’t the same.
She sensed Oved’s presence even before he entered through the wall. She always felt the presence of spirits. His appearance did not surprise her. She had assumed he would come. Although Oved was flippant and arrogant, he was sharply discerning about people, which could not be said of the other occupants of the house, and to go by the expression on his face, he also felt what she was feeling.
“So,” he asked. “What do you say?”
Milka just shook her head. She didn’t know what to say and, as opposed to talkative Oved, she preferred to remain silent in such circumstances.
“It’s weird that she came here,” Oved pointed out.
“A disconnected soul looking for something to hold on to,” Milka replied with the same explanation she had given him many times in the past for that same incomprehensible attraction of the souls that remain here to stick to one another. But Oved was not asking in order to get answers. He knew that, like him, she had no answers.
***
I want to check out my surroundings, but it’s impossible to see anything. The darkness is total, and the house makes its own muted sounds as if it were humming a rhythmless refrain. I wonder how large the house is. Does it have more levels above the second floor, and are there other residents besides the ones I have already met? I will have to wait until morning. In spite of the lateness of the hour and the unusual day, I don’t feel tired. It seems that the dead do not feel worn out or hungry, nor do they suffer from shortness of breath. But I do feel something else. A kind of coldness enwraps me. In one way, it’s like an icy blanket, and in another way, the coldness is from within me. It is a kind of physical feeling that is also intangible. After all, I try to remind myself, I don’t have a body anymore. So, how come I feel so cold? Perhaps it’s like the stories of amputees who report feeling pain in a limb they no longer possess. Perhaps my awareness has not yet registered that I am dead.
Whatever will happen, this first night has already taught me that spirits can suffer, at least if I go by the collection of characters I have already met here. Benny, without a doubt, appears to be suffering, although according to my Dad’s stories, he was like that in his lifetime, too. Leah seems to be wrapped up in sadness, Helen is also not particularly happy, and even Oved’s gaiety seems to be a cover up of something. As regards to Milka, she arouses an unpleasant feeling I find hard to define.
Helen claims this is her home. To judge by her clothes, the furniture and the style of the house, she’s about a hundred years old, although she doesn’t look more than thirty. But it’s also safe to assume that Oved is two thousand years old. I wonder whether they keep adding to your age when you’re dead. If they do, then Benny should be around sixty. Leah looks like the women in pictures from the early days of the country’s establishment, while Milka looks about a hundred years old and like a character from a biblical play. Will I also remain in my present state for eternity? Stuck at the age of sixteen for thousands of years? Or is it more accurate to say I will be a thousand years old in the hologram body of a sixteen-year-old? I have been dead for less than twenty-four hours, and already death doesn’t appeal to me. If I had known that this is what it would be like, I would have preferred to continue living. No doubt the atheistic education I grew up with has imploded along with the theory that death is just a final end without any continued existence. Unluckily, this has proven to be an error.
I spend most of my first night of death deep in thought. I have always been a reasoning creature, but now, my thoughts are much more troubling. For the first time in my life (really, how am I to express myself now that I’m no longer alive?), I am worried. Really perturbed, not by a general and diffused concern about the future of the planet, which is disintegrating as the sun threatens to burn it out completely, nor by a small worry about a great big pimple growing on my chin just before we’re supposed to pose for our annual class photo. I am thinking about existential fear that arises from a terrifying sense of uncertainty. Until now, I have lived in a world of clear and familiar lawfulness, and even if this legality implies that most of the rules are not to my advantage, I still understand what I am dealing with. But now, I have been thrown into a reality where nothing is clear to me.
When I turned nine, my mother launched her media career. She got a regular segment on a radio program on a local regional station, where she gave psychological advice—though not a substitute for professional therapy by a qualified specialist—to desperate listeners who understood that there was truly no difference between what they would receive for four hundred shekels an hour for individual therapy at her clinic and what they get free of charge in two minutes on the radio. For two years, I tuned in to her program. Not to listen to my mother, but to hear the people who call her up. I found it riveting. What an inexhaustible collection of anxieties, insults, angers, uncertainties, and personal and family complications. No other television or radio program could supply such rich and authentic drama as Dr. Irit Reizner’s.
Among my mother’s active listeners are several regulars who call once in a while. I especially remember “Anonymous from Kfar Saba,” who was fired from his job as a lab technician and didn’t manage to find another position because each time he attempted to begin working in a new post, he was filled with a paralyzing anxiety of the unfamiliar. I never got to do the rounds of many labs, but I start with the premise that there aren’t significant differences between one lab and another. Nevertheless, for “Anonymous from Kfar Saba,” each of them was a new and unfamiliar world that intimidated him. At the time, I found the character of the tragi-comic character of the anonymous, unemployed lab worker rather amusing. Now, I remember him and fully identify with him. The world around me is the same world I existed in until a number of hours ago. The sun sets according to the same laws of physics, the dust settles on the floor by virtue of the pull of gravity, and the landscape is the same as it was during my sixth grade school trip. Not far from here, perhaps two kilometers away, people have gone to sleep and will soon wake up as usual, but the reality is something else, different, weird and not clear. And just like that anonymous listener, in this threatening uncertainty I now also feel that what would help me most would be to hear the calming, know-it-all voice of my mother.
The night drags out endlessly. There is no way I will be able to suffer a thousand years of such nights. When the morning begins to light up and the house slowly takes on the dim form of walls and spaces, I notice Benny passing in the hallway.
“Hi, King Ben.”
Benny stops and looks at me vacantly.
“That’s what my father would call you, the King. Like Elvis, only Mediterranean. He was a big fan.”
My father’s dream was to be a film director. He left his parents’ home in the north of Israel on a communal settlement near the Lebanon border, and went to work doing deliveries for stores on Tel Aviv’s Allenby Street to save money to study cinema in New York. He chose that area because of its closeness to the Mograbi Cinema. In the end, he didn’t fly to New York. He met my m
other and went to study law and economics because he thought that would impress her more. He was right.
Anyone who knows my dad the way I know him, will find it hard to see the young filmmaker under his respectable suit. But, occasionally, on a Friday night, when the spirit grabs him, and by chance he isn’t working, he pulls out one of his old video tapes looking for ‘masterpieces, they don’t make anymore’ to cherish. Mom says that when the Mograbi theater burned down, he actually wept.
Benny is not particularly impressed to learn that he has such a big fan. He shrugs it off disinterestedly. As one who ended his career in a miserable anonymous apartment in Netanya, when not even his mother knew his movies, I expect him to show a little more enthusiasm on hearing about his sworn admirer, but Benny shows no signs of emotion. There’s no doubt about it; he is a seriously depressed guy. But I do not have too many options, and after the terribly quiet night I spent, I am in desperate need of someone to talk to, so I ask Benny to take me on a tour of the house.
The house turns out to be smaller than I imagined. On the ground floor, on one side of the entrance hall, there is a large living room and a study containing a huge rotting and dusty desk. On the other side there is a dining room, a pantry and a kitchen that has a large sink but no sign of a plumbing system or running water. Very surprisingly, Benny, who turned out to be able to speak in whole sentences, explained that the house was built for Helen and her husband in the early 1880’s, when her husband was appointed to be the official responsible for the Zichron Ya’akov settlement on behalf of Baron Rothschild.
“Do you know that the place was called Zichron Ya’akov after Baron Rothschild’s father, whose name was Jacob?” he asks and is very disappointed to discover that I know.
The House of Lost Spirits: A Paranormal Novel Page 4
