The Others

by Sarah Blau

  We sip our coffee in silence.

  “At least it tastes better now,” she says. “Remember the disgusting soy milk at college?”

  Do I ever. I remember Ronit with her lactose intolerance, always having to add canned soy milk to her coffee. I once accidentally took a sip of her coffee, and to this day I can still feel the awful aftertaste in my mouth, like the liquid that pools at the bottom of a can of mushrooms.

  “Are you still in contact with Ronit?” she asks casually. She must have experienced a similar recollection.

  “No,” I reply with the same blasé manner. “You?”

  She shoots a quick glance at the picture of Miriam, and once again I recall the last time we all met, vividly remember the sound of the tambourine, its beat. How did we fail to notice it was an entirely different rhythm, dark and thick? Thrump, thrump! Blood, blood, the end will come, little hands will never drum!

  “I see her every now and then, on the occasional panel,” Dina says, and my mouth instantly fills with the taste of canned mushrooms. Bitter.

  Ronit, the third member of our special group – special and then some! – had become an actress. She may not have broken into the top league of actresses in the country, but she has found enough success to pinch my jealous heart. I resent her for her humble achievements, and of course blame Dina for that too.

  “You’re still giving lectures at the Bible Museum?” She surprises me.

  “How do you know I work there?”

  “A few years ago they asked me to give a lecture there, and the director told me you work in my field.”

  Her field! For a moment I consider slamming my mug in her face, just hard enough to graze that high forehead, just to wipe that complacency off her face. But I wouldn’t dare, of course, you never did have the courage! Look at us, so civil and pleasant towards each other, sitting here with legs crossed, she with her perfectly filed manicure, me with my hooves, talking like the polite, good friends we once were. And we were friends, weren’t we? She did refuse to come lecture at the museum, didn’t she? At least she has the sensitivity not to rub her success in my face.

  “Your director barely agreed to pay a quarter of my usual fee,” she says. Sensitivity, my arse.

  “He also sounded like a fuddy-duddy from hell,” she adds.

  As always, her observation is spot on.

  Efraim, the museum director, was indeed a horrible Conservadox. It seemed as if he dedicated most of his life to battling feminist scholars who tried to desecrate the sanctity of his museum. Since a sizeable portion of the museum’s budget relied on donations from the US, and since a few snappy liberal ladies sat on the board, he had no choice but to display goodwill and open-mindedness to “all movements and denominations.” When donors visited, he’d ask me to conduct the tour and to give free rein to all my subversive ideas, which would normally make him itch all over. But I guess Dina was more than he could bear, since she never gave that lecture.

  “At the time I thought it could actually be interesting to bump into each other,” she says.

  Yes. Interesting indeed.

  “I never understood why you went and buried yourself in that dinky museum.” She takes another sip of her soy-milk coffee, pumping hormones right into her bloodstream, sitting in front of me bloated and glistening, smug and self-satisfied, looking like a heifer about to calve.

  “You never understood?” I say, barely finding the strength to speak.

  “Yes,” she carries on, “after all, you were brilliant, you had real strokes of genius. I thought you’d break into the big leagues, like me.”

  She leans back, sliding her arse further into the white armchair, her small hands still wrapped around her mug. My hands, in contrast, ball into fists. Wanting to injure, but once again failing to work up the nerve. Because what could I possibly tell her? That my biggest stroke of genius was stolen from me? I still remember the shock that ripped through me when I saw that seminal article in the journal. The title was “The Childfree Women of the Bible,” and it caused a fiery wave to wash over me. Horror, shock, surprise, and yes, there was even pride there, I was foolish enough to feel proud of the puny acknowledgement she threw my way at the bottom of the article: “For the inspiration.” I’ll show her inspiration!

  But I don’t say a word, not yet, and neither does she, studying my face with mocking scrutiny, searching for something she won’t find, probably knowing I won’t dare come out and say it, just as I didn’t then or during the many years since.

  And it’s not as if I wasn’t urged to do something, to say something, for heaven’s sake! Eli headed the persuasion campaign. “You have to call her and demand an explanation, or at least more serious credit,” he kept imploring, but I refused. It’s hard to understand, but I couldn’t bring myself to call her, even to imagine the scenario. (Back then, I mean. Over time the image of me screaming at her on the phone, demanding justice, has become frayed around the edges, worse for wear.)

  It’s possible that was ground zero. Yes, there. My inability to face her swelled into an inability to face the world. It was easier to choose avoidance, that slow drifting towards “que sera, sera,” everything slipping through my fingers. But in this life, when you avoid one thing, another (usually revolting) one will come take its place.

  And that revolting thing is now sitting in front of me, bloated with satisfaction, wanting to say something but unable to because it’s licking from its tiny fingers the white cream filling from a pack of Oreos that has somehow eluded me. It’s sucking its fingers now, this disgusting thing.

  “Maybe I didn’t make the big leagues,” I raise my voice, “because some bitch stole my best idea and turned it into an article.”

  She blinks at the word bitch.

  “I wouldn’t call it stealing,” she says after some thought.

  “Oh, no? So what would you call it?”

  “Come on, Sheila, we hung in a group, were together 24–7, you know how it is, ideas get around. Someone came up with the idea that even back in biblical times, it was possible some women didn’t want to become mothers, and I took it from there.”

  “Someone came up with the idea?”

  “Fine, it was you,” she replies and sips her coffee, a giant gulp that sounds like a burp. “But I gave you credit, didn’t I? I thanked you, told everyone it was an idea I came up with together with a college friend.”

  “Who even notices the stupid acknowledgements?” I get up, my feet sinking into the soft white carpet, forever white. “You robbed me, Dina, and you know it! And that’s not even the worst thing you did, and we both know that.”

  There. I said it.

  “Oh, so now you’re going to blame me for everything?” She kept her voice low, and that made the words sting all the more. “You’re going to blame me for being stuck in some crummy museum no one’s heard of, getting a measly two hundred shekels for some half-arsed lecture about Sarah the matriarch? You’re going to pin that on me too?”

  She’s still sitting there, arse-deep in the armchair, while I stand in front of her. The picture of Miriam on the wall before me, my ears pounding with the beat of the tambourine, Thrump, thrump! Thrump, thrump! Only this time it’s war drums, having been silenced for too long.

  “You stole my idea, you always stole from me, robbed me of much more than an article. You stole from all of us, from Ronit, from Naama!”

  I know the mention of Naama’s name will shut her up. And indeed, she blinks again, doesn’t dare take another sip of coffee, sitting completely still with sticky fingers, staring ahead. I know exactly what’s going through her mind, who’s going through her mind, the corpse exhumed and put on display here on the white carpet.

  Unfortunately, Dina could never be silenced for long. She slowly gets up, with her usual air of gravitas, buttocks swaying as she approaches me.

  “Now you listen to me,” she says in a tone somewhere between threatening and consoling, “I did you a favour, Sheila, we both know you wouldn’t ha
ve done a thing with your half-baked idea, but I sat and researched and wrote and actualized and coincidentally happened to do you the biggest favour anyone has ever done. Now you have someone to blame, an address for all your failures! Must be nice, loser!”

  I stare at her in disbelief. Loser?

  I can’t believe we’ve sunk so low – loser? That the mask of politeness has been ripped off so quickly; why do we even bother keeping up appearances if they shatter so easily? Loser!

  I guess Dina was thinking the same thing, because now she pulls herself together, hands balling into fists, wants to say something but decides against it. She returns to her chair and then slowly leans forward, reaching for her mug, wanting to take a sip, or at least draw the mug to her lips, but the cup is see-through and we can both see it’s empty.

  She tucks a loose strand behind her ear – what thick, lush hair! How does a woman her age have such luxuriant hair? And I notice her hand is shaking.

  “Look,” she says, “this is really not what I meant to happen when I initiated this get-together, I just…” She searches for words. “Let’s behave like adults, we’re too old to sling mud at each other. It reminds me of an article I once read that people without children preserve some infantile aspect within them, and I think we both proved that just now, acting like two little girls.” She smiles, and it’s her regular, self-assured smile again.

  And that smile, the familiar smile of that twenty-year-old student, shatters before me, and Dina, unaware of what’s going on inside me, proceeds to wax poetic that “It’s awfully biblical what just happened here, truly primal, how for a moment we were like two biblical characters fighting over a birthright… it reminds me of an article I’ve been wanting to write about core essences, imprinted in our DNA.”

  And she holds forth, unfolding the biblical analogy her mind has conceived, as if she has already forgotten those terrible words uttered only moments ago… she is already someplace else, immersed in her idea, and I realize that everything that has just transpired between us barely touched her, not really, because she doesn’t care, don’t you get it? She never did, you’re the one whose soul has been scorched by every article she published, and you kept waging this ancient battle inside you, always saying one day, one day… but the day has come, and here she is, sitting in front of you, arse planted in the armchair, and you, as always, a flat-out loser, the kind that keeps her mouth shut while letting the Dina Kaminers of the world piss on her head.

  “So you’re going to teach me the Bible now, Dina?”

  My voice sounds wet and ugly even to me. “Maybe it’s time I teach you something? Something for you to steal for your new article? And I’m saying here and now that you can keep all the credit, happily, are you listening?” Oh, yes, she’s definitely listening. “So my idea for essences imprinted in the DNA goes something like this – just like they went and fucked our biblical Dina, you went and fucked me, deep and hard, how do you like that analogy?”

  No, it wasn’t easy for me to come out with the “fucked,” but it was worth it. Her mouth was agape with surprise. I knew my vulgarity would shut her up. Vulgarity always had that effect on her. That’s just how it is; when little religious girls hear the word “fuck,” they clam up real fast. Even I need a moment to compose myself.

  Dina is still silent, then she gets up, goes to the fridge, pours herself a glass of water and gulps it down, then comes back into the living room and takes another Oreo, licks her lips and bites into it peacefully, her gaze resting on the picture on the wall, and the corners of her mouth start curling into a smile. That smile!

  “You know what, Dina? I hope you drop dead.”

  My voice is hushed, but it doesn’t take more than that. That old fear sparks in her eyes.

  5

  I RUSH BY the wax pavilion, following my conversation with Eli, ignoring the figurines’ inquisitive eyes. I’m not in the mood.

  Last night I tossed and turned in bed, replaying my meeting with Dina, knowing there was something that eluded me there, something important. Some word that was said, a clue suspended mid-air, something deep and dark, impalpable, like BO.

  A moment before falling asleep, my body already cold and slack, I felt the answer teetering on the edge of my consciousness, like when you’re about to sneeze, but the fleeting moment passes, it’s right under your nose, silly!

  The figurines lock their wax eyes on me, none of them smiling.

  The collection was donated by one of our bigger benefactors abroad. At first there were a few who tried to object on the grounds of “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” and there was a vociferous article in the local paper and an attempt to organize a protest against “blasphemous” sculptures “in the Bible museum no less!” But as always in such cases, when it comes to a serious benefactor, the collection stayed right where it was. Normally, I actually like walking along the pavilion, but these days are anything but normal, and the figurines look especially grouchy.

  Our mother Leah seems grouchiest of all, with those dead eyes of hers, placed next to a figurine of our father Jacob, and her big brood of kids are all slung from her arms like cherries on melting ice cream. The artist obviously took his interpretation of “tender eyes” a little too far, rendering her expression a unique combination of cross-eyed and blind.

  Our mother Sarah, standing by the figurine of our father Abraham, also frowns at me, looking old and more wrinkled than ever, especially since she’s holding the little wax hand of baby Isaac. Sarah’s Egyptian slave Hagar, of course, has been sculpted as young and beautiful, “too beautiful,” a visitor once remarked disapprovingly. I agreed with her, finding her generous and perky wax breasts annoying as well.

  As usual, I pick up my pace as I pass by the figurine of Miriam the prophetess, feeling that same old peevishness over the fact that they chose to immortalize her in her famous scene, as a little girl peeking through the reeds, looking over baby Moses, who, for some reason, was shaped as a pig in a blanket. At least he got another figurine as an adult, while Miriam has been frozen in time as an anxious child. What about the powerful prophetess she grew up to be? What about it, indeed.

  Today I rush past her even faster than usual, a few more figurines and I’ll be out of the pavilion. Here’s David and his wives, a smug redhead surrounded by a group of beautiful women, and next to them, at some distance, sits a proud, sad woman, her small crown atilt. All the other women are carrying a chubby wax toddler in their arms, while she settles for the crown and a hungry expression. It’s Michal, daughter of Saul, the only one among King David’s wives I was ever partial to. But the lecture about her is in scarce demand, or as some instructional coordinator from the South once commented to me, “Who wants to hear about that barren hag?” before asking to sign up for the lecture “Four Mothers – Birthing a Proud Nation.”

  Adam and Eve are waiting for me near the exit, clad head to toe in fig leaves.

  Efraim saw to that, brought kids over for a special arts and crafts workshop to churn out dozens of ornate fig leaves, and glued them on himself. I remember watching him, gluing on one leaf after another in silent wrath. By the time he was finished, Adam and Eve looked as if they were wearing dark green scuba suits.

  At least he was spared the sculpture of Lilith. A few years back the girlfriend of one of our benefactors decided to donate a sculpture of Lilith to our collection. Unfortunately for Efraim, the girlfriend was a renowned New York sculptor who argued it was ridiculous not to include the first woman created in the Garden of Eden in the exhibition. Efraim tried to fight it, explaining that it was more homiletical exegesis than biblical figure per se, but as usual, the big bucks tipped the scales.

  I was standing next to Eli when the truck arrived and unloaded the New York Lilith, and together we watched Efraim lose his cool. She was naked, Lilith, tall, gigantic, hairy and stark naked. (Later the sculptor explained that she actually did try to be considerate and glue on her long dark hair so it would cover the more ris
qué bits, but the glue wore thin along the bumpy journey and revealed the sculptor’s hyper-realistic styling of body parts.) And if that wasn’t enough, she had her teeth sunk into a tiny baby. She looked like a predator.

  I wasn’t surprised, knew all the myths describing her as the enemy of mothers and devourer of babies, and even the sculptor explained, once the tumult died down, that her intent was merely to criticize the manner in which Lilith’s character had been vilified: that she would never dream of eating her young, and that her only crime was her unwillingness to become the mother of a controlling man’s children; but for Efraim it was a real lifesaver.

  He knew that fighting liberal loons over exposed body parts was one battle he stood to lose, but over a woman devouring live babies? Come on.

  Letters were sent, phone calls made and Lilith the cannibal was duly dispatched overseas to appear in the exhibition “The First Woman – The Last Mother,” the sculpture’s last known address.

  But if you take a close look at the wax figurine of Eve, you can still see the crack that split open in her shoulder when she was moved in order to make room for Lilith, and got crushed against the wall. The shoulder area has since been restored, but the injury is still visible.

  It’s just how it is with Lilith, always leaving a trail.

  My phone rings. I look at the name flashing on the screen and my heart skips a beat. You idiot!

  I debate whether to answer right away or prolong the anticipation, then remind myself this isn’t the usual tug of war we’re playing here.