The Others

by Sarah Blau

  We sit side by side in ballooning silence, but I slowly come to realize that it’s not exactly unpleasant, it’s more of a to-be-continued kind of atmosphere, and just as I wonder whether he’s feeling it too, he says, “Tell me more about this Gali person.”

  I remain silent.

  “Doesn’t feel right, Naama’s daughter suddenly appearing out of nowhere.”

  Still, I say nothing.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” he says.

  “They say a coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” I just can’t help myself.

  “After what I’ve seen, trust me, there is no God.”

  Something in his voice suggests he wants a conversation on the subject. “Let it go, Micha, she’s not your killer.”

  Are you sure?

  “Are you sure?”

  “It has to be someone who knew us from college, and Gali wasn’t even an idea in her mother’s head back then.”

  “Don’t let her age fool you,” he says.

  “Enough.” I get up from the couch. He tries pulling me back down, but I stay standing. You won’t bring me to my knees.

  “I understand it’s difficult for you to accept this, but I saw the bodies, Sheila! It was ritualistic, ceremonial, something about the theatrical brutality was almost…” He hesitates for a moment, “almost kitsch. And the symbols, props from your costumes in both murder scenes…”

  “What props? What symbols?” I blurt out. “I know they stuck the doll in Ronit’s mouth, but what did they do with Dina?”

  “They left something behind, next to her chair,” he replies. “A tambourine.”

  I collapse on the couch, dumbstruck and drained. Thrump! Thrump! Thrump! There’s something about that final and irrefutable proof that saps me to my core.

  The thought about that small, vicious tambourine placed there as a clue – for whom? for me? – sucks the air out of the room. Micha takes me into his arms, and the tenderness of the gesture finally brings out the tears that were caught in my throat all day. He hugs me and pulls me tighter into his chest, and I can’t help but think – so this is how he wants me? Like this? Weak and submissive? Thrump! Thrump! Where’s Miriam? They’re supposed to want you strong and mature like Miriam, they want you half-mother half-teacher, half-femme fatale, half-aunt, and you like that and you give them just what they need, what you think they need. But now you can’t and don’t want to give him that, not when he’s holding you and kissing every inch of your neck, firmly, forcefully, and this time he’s not stopping and he won’t, and I don’t need you all to tell me it’s a mistake because I already know; I feel it with every fibre of my being, my teeth are set on edge. The sins of the fathers visited upon little old me.

  16

  WHEN I WAKE UP in the morning, he’s no longer there.

  He did mention yesterday something about an early morning appointment, but at the time I didn’t think much of it, still unaware of what the evening had in store for me.

  I move slowly, my back starting to ache again, but it didn’t last night. I sit down – carefully – with my coffee and replay the images in my mind.

  More than anything, it was the tenderness that surprised me, and the intimacy. There was no mother–child or teacher–student dynamics, nothing that even resembled it. Although there was something there, lurking beneath the surface, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And there was also that moment, in the middle of the night, when I woke up and found him staring at me with an intense look in his eyes. He looked like a big cat and reminded me of the time I housesat for a friend and woke up in the middle of the night to a giant cat sitting on the pillow next to mine, watching me. I screamed so loud he ran far, far away. Thankfully, the cleaner came the next day and found him.

  You didn’t scream last night, but maybe you should have.

  The images keep playing like a slow-motion reel in my mind, fragmented seconds and sounds, and those warm hands. I let the memories have their way with me, and enjoy every moment of it. I extend a lazy hand to my mug, the one with the “To the Best Mum in the World” inscription, Maor and his insipid jokes, Who’s laughing now, huh, child? I take a sip of coffee and pause.

  You dumb woman.

  My hand starts shaking, but I manage to lower the mug onto the table without shattering it.

  Dumb, dumb idiot.

  I start calculating the days, the timeline! When exactly did my last period start? When?

  Mother of all dumb fucks!

  I flip through my diary with trembling hands, find my special marks (my periods aren’t as regular as they used to be, but they still appear once every month or so with dogged persistence), and there it is, the date, which now serves as an all-clear siren. Thank God, I wasn’t ovulating yesterday. Or at least I don’t think I was.

  I lean back with a sense of relief, like a woman who just dodged a bullet.

  And now back to the usual waiting game.

  It’s truly amazing how it never changes. Same stage, same play. In the starring role, the phone, now resting in my lap like a purring cat, only this cat ain’t purring, which is precisely the problem; it’s quiet as a corpse. And I’m waiting for it to come to life, because they have to be the ones to show the first sign of life. Always them.

  It takes him an entire day, but in the evening I finally hear the beep of the incoming text. That was fun. I stare at the three words for a few long moments, and only then realize it’s not the fun text I was hoping to get. It’s an “I don’t want you to think I’m a jerk” text, and nothing more.

  Lighten up, Sheila! Stop being such a Debbie Downer, you did have fun together, right? Fun shmun. That text implies that it’s going to be not-so-fun very soon. I read texts like the blind read Braille; I feel the text, I read the text behind the text, which is why I reply to this one with the exhaustive and profound detail it deserves: a winking smiley.

  What can I say, we’re the Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir of text messaging.

  At least my conversation with Eli is more substantial. It’s the one thing we were always good at.

  To be honest, the bulk of our relationship consists of stories and interpretation, what-ifs and the advice we give each other. (My advice to him will never be one hundred per cent honest, given my secret desire to see his romantic relationships tank. Although considering my romantic track record, even my most honest advice probably wouldn’t prove too useful.) When I tell him about last night and remember how he poked fun at me the last time we talked about Micha, I can’t help but feel a little proud. But he’s no fool, Eli.

  “That’s not a very encouraging text. And also, that was yesterday and he hasn’t sent another one since.”

  “Thanks for pointing out the obvious.”

  “I’ve sent that text to a few women myself, and it was always when I wanted to be as nice as possible without leading them on.”

  “You’re a real saint,” I say, and my eyes wander back to my phone.

  “Sheila, you’re not going to obsess about this, you hear me? I won’t be able to take it,” he says, because he could barely take it last time. “And next time, if you’d be so kind, try to do without the pregnancy scares.”

  The only words my mind registers are “next time.”

  “So you think there’ll be a next time?” I ask, and he sighs. “Don’t worry, you don’t get pregnant so easily at my age.” It’s the only instance in which the phrase “at my age” gives me a tingle of satisfaction, instead of making me gag.

  “And if you did get pregnant?”

  The question catches me off guard, it’s not something he’s supposed to ask. I start reciting the usual answer, but somewhere in the back of my mind, a black door opens to a staircase leading to the unknown… and bam! The door slams shut.

  “Eli, I’m not pregnant.”

  You’re sure?

  “So you want me to start vilifying him now, or should we wait a bit longer?”

  “Let’s wait.”

>   “Sure thing,” he replies and winks.

  I have no intention of sitting around waiting. Nope, not this time. This time I’ve got things to do, things and then some! I pick up my mute phone, call Gali and tell her I’m on my way.

  Turns out she’s still living at her aunt’s, the same one who took her into her home after what happened.

  I walk up the staircase slowly, each step awakening another memory – how desperately I wanted to go see the two-and-a-half-year-old Gali. How I missed her, her chubby cheeks, the way she pronounced my name, “Tila,” with her sweet little voice. I missed her terribly, but couldn’t go see her.

  Her father, Naama’s husband, announced that if he caught any of us even in the vicinity of his baby daughter, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. So I stayed away. And there was also that awful guilt, which was entirely yours, Sheila.

  The door flings open and I find myself, with neither notice nor preparation, standing before Avihu, Naama’s husband. The widower.

  We eye each other, and the first thought that pops into my mind is how much he has aged. Avihu looks like a puffier and slouchier version of himself. His face is doughy with bluish-black crescents under his eyes and a mouth so sunken it looks toothless. But the blistering gaze is still there, and perhaps even more fiery than before. I always felt there was a certain violence bubbling inside him, but it was the pent-up, reined-in kind. Looks like the reins are off.

  We continue to stare at each other, and I’m wondering what the appropriate greeting is for a person I haven’t seen in sixteen years. Avihu solves that one for me.

  “You?” he half asks, half states.

  I try to crank out a smile but my mouth keeps flatlining. He takes a step closer to me, and I take a step back.

  “What are you doing here?” He takes another step towards me, and I take another step back.

  “I came to see Gali,” I reply, and feel like I should have said those words twenty years ago.

  “You’re in contact with Gali?”

  “No, not really, it’s just that—” I start stuttering.

  “Get the hell out of here. Now,” he hisses the exact same words he spewed at us at Naama’s funeral, in the exact same terrifyingly low and hushed tone. Back then everyone told us you don’t judge a person in his time of grief, but I knew that’s exactly when you should judge a person’s character, because that’s when they show their true colours. The truth is I had wanted to get the hell out of there, but Dina grabbed my hand and made me stay until the end of the service, until the last stone was placed on the grave.

  And since there’s no Dina here to make me stay, I decide to skedaddle. Just as I turn to walk away, Gali appears in the doorway.

  “Sheila! Just in time,” she says, breezes past her father and pulls me in.

  I expect him to say something, to show even an ounce of the aggression he directed at me, but he just turns to silently stare at us as Gali drags me to her room and closes the door. I see you even behind the closed door.

  “He wasn’t very pleased with that, was he?” she says, flashing me that smile that makes everything look so easy and simple, and I can’t help but smile back. If there’s one trait I’ve always wished I had, it’s that breeziness. But alas, I’m stuck with the gift of making everything more complicated than it has to be.

  That was fun. Ha!

  I’m surprised to find her room clean and tidy.

  Naama was messiness personified; whenever I asked her to keep something for me in her bag, a leather satchel bursting with papers and God knows what else, I’d always get it back stained and grimy. But Gali’s room is spick and span, despite its strange smell.

  “Meet Jezebel,” she says, pointing to the source of the smell, a red cage holding a small, trembling hamster. “She’s pregnant, see?”

  I approach the cage for a closer look, although I have absolutely no idea what an unpregnant hamster should look like. While I’m not sure what I’m seeing, the anticipation in Gali’s voice gets me going. It always did. Tila! Candy… you brought me candy? I did, but eat it quickly, so your mummy won’t see…

  “Look how cute she is,” Gali says.

  “She is cute,” I reply, “but I can’t tell that she’s pregnant.”

  “That’s because I’m making sure she keeps fit. She’s a new tenant here.”

  “What are you going to do with all the baby hamsters?”

  “I’ll raise a new family,” she smiles, no, that’s not a smile. “Want to feed her?” She dumps a pile of foul-smelling seeds in my hand. “Put it in her bowl.”

  The moment I lift the cage’s lid, Jezebel starts quivering and almost pounces on me. Why is she so hungry? I stare at her digging into the seeds, ravenously stuffing her cheeks, and recall that time when I was young and offered to take the turtle from the school petting zoo home over the summer break. It wasn’t long before I started to feel a niggling anxiety that something wouldn’t live to see autumn.

  Even as a child, the unqualified responsibility for the welfare of another living being terrified me.

  “I didn’t know your father moved back to Israel,” I say.

  “He didn’t, he’s just visiting.”

  And of course Murphy’s Law made sure we’d meet. I wonder what I’m supposed to say next, but as always, Gali’s one step ahead of me. “Don’t worry, he won’t do anything to you. Didn’t you just see what a doormat he’s become?”

  “Gali!” God knows where this urge to discipline her just came from. “That’s not nice!”

  “Whatever. I know you never liked him, so don’t bother pretending.”

  It’s true. From the very first moment he and Naama met, I couldn’t stand him. I didn’t even attend their wedding, although that wasn’t because of him. You didn’t get to see her in her white bridal dress, and you didn’t get to see her dangling from the black rope.

  When their relationship became more serious, Naama and I started drifting apart. I told myself it was the price a woman pays when her best friend falls in love, but deep down I knew there was more to it. I remember the message she left on my machine, breaking the news of their engagement. Remember it word for word. I can’t believe I’m saying this to your machine, but it happened! Avihu proposed! I knew the moment I heard the message that I wouldn’t go to the wedding. I couldn’t even bear to picture it. But it took me a long time to admit this even to myself.

  “So, let’s talk about my mother, shall we?” Gali produces a tiny camera, handling it with surprising skill. Did the hamster just let out a tiny scream or is it my imagination?

  No, it’s the sound of an incoming text. I never realized how much it sounds like a scream. I swoop down to pick up my phone only to see that the text is from Eli: Well, how are you? he writes, and I feel like killing him. I could murder anyone who sends me a text that isn’t Micha. That’s how I am.

  And then Gali points the camera at my face, and I’m so busy calculating whether the lighting and angles are flattering – should I ask her to hold the camera higher so as to eliminate the double chin effect? – that I almost fail to hear the question directed at me in that pleasant tone of hers, “So how have you been doing in the sixteen and a quarter years since you killed my mother?”

  17

  I STARE AT HER, hoping that if I blink she’ll disappear, or at least the question will.

  But she’s still here, standing in front of me with her pretty eyes, her mother’s eyes, giving me an encouraging smile.

  Just as I try to make out what’s hiding behind that smile, my phone beeps with an incoming message again, and this time I know it’s from Micha, I can feel it in every cell of my body, but when I reach for the phone, Gali barks at me, “Don’t answer that, answer me first.” Her voice is steely and sounds just like her mother’s did that fateful night, The knife! The knife! Give me the knife!

  But unlike that night, when I was struck mute, I look her straight in the eye and say, “Are you for real?” and after a moment of sile
nt hesitation, the rigid mask cracks and she smiles at me. “I was just messing with you, Sheila.”

  I am not amused. I feel like shaking her, bending her over my knee and spanking her like in the Victorian novels I used to read as a kid. Bad girl, Gali! Take that! And another one! And another!

  Instead, I say, “It isn’t funny,” and lower my gaze to my phone. The text is indeed from Micha: How are you?

  Not again with this how-are-you business! Let me tell you how I am, Micha: remember Gali? Naama’s daughter? Naama who was my best friend and then some? So Gali, who I used to babysit way back when, the Gali I loved more than I ever loved any human being before or since, and to whom I felt close in ways I couldn’t explain even to myself – well, that same Gali just stuck a camera in my face and accused me of killing her mother.

  That’s how I am.

  “Sheila, I’m sorry, it was like a half-joke,” she says with half-remorse. “I thought you had a sense of humour.”

  Our eyes lock. POP go the soap bubbles, bursting in my face, and I pull a pretend angry face, “What did you do, munchkin? I’m gonna get you!” I chase after her, but oh, no! I slip with banana-peel theatrics, legs high in the air, and get a barrage of soap bubbles blown straight into my face with that sweet ring of baby laughter. “What did you do to me, munchkin? You just wait!” And again, that tiny, heart-melting laughter… Yes. I used to have a sense of humour.

  “I don’t get what you’re trying to do,” I say.

  “I wanted to see how you’d react.”

  “Well, you saw.” My tone is officious and pedagogic, and I see Gali has picked up on it, hiding the start of a smile. The corners of my lips instinctively curve upwards, but I pull them back down. Not yet.

  “It was just to give the video a funny twist, and you’re the only one I could try that with.”