by Lavie Tidhar
There must be a logical explanation to all this.
I want so much to feel that glow again.
He was like . . . I can’t even remember the colour of his wonderful, wonderful eyes. I can’t remember what they looked like. What he looked like. I just remember that . . .
I rolled and rolled, after he threw me away, until I stopped on something that I suspect is an overturned trashcan. It doesn’t smell good. Luckily, my eyes are turned the right way, south and up, up Dizengoff Street, almost straight to the peak of the mountain. I can see the truck — it’s a fire truck, I hadn’t noticed that before — driving away from me. I want to shout, to ask the man to come back, but he won’t. I know that. I also know that he felt something for me, that there’s some kind of unique connection between us. There must be. I think . . . I think I am destined to bring him back.
The truck is becoming hazy now — or am I crying? Are those tears, or is there something, like a cheap special effect, blurring everything? If these are indeed tears, why am I seeing the rest of the street sharp and without distortion?
Note to self: Check this MP3 recording for the voice of the man. In the time it’ll take us to meet again, it will be the only memory of him that I have.
Erase the rest of this recording.
*
There’s a rumble. Another building coming down. Things roll down the slope. Something hits me, and I fly. Down the hill, away from my man. Round and round and round we go.
VIOLENT CHANGES, A DOCUMENTARY (VIDEO RECORDING, PART IV — HAGAR)
So we get dressed and there’s a bit of awkwardness still there, I mean I don’t know what came over me, I don’t even know the guy, I’ve never done anything like this in my life — but then, you have to put it into context, don’t you? Extraordinary times and extraordinary measures, who said that? Am I rambling?
So it’s a bit awkward but . . . it’s kind of nice too. And he wants to hold my hand. Which is disturbing my filming but still . . . it’s nice. And strange. But nice. I think. We’re going uphill. Everything is at an angle, and here and there there’s still the sound of things crashing, buildings falling down, the noise startling in the quiet. Occasionally something comes rolling down the slope — loose fencing, car tires, an Uzi, a potted plant, a dead cat, a frying pan, an old issue of Penthouse, a black Chasid’s hat looking like a flying saucer, a dirty-laundry basket made of bamboo, a paperback Amos Oz novel, a TV remote control, a goldfish, a photocopier rolling like a boulder, a Coca-Cola sign, burger wrappers, a door, a little clay figure of the sort school kids make in art class . . . Daniel reaches out for that last one. It’s an ugly thing, a grotesque little figure like some sort of primitive fetish figurine, but painted in garish gouache colours. It’s a head. It looks like a toad. I almost expect it to blink. I hate toads. Frogs too. Daniel says, “It’s a head.”
“Yes,” I say, a little testily, “I can see that.”
“No,” he says. “It’s a head.”
“Daniel, I already told you — ”
“Hagar — ”
“Dan — ”
I finally look up. And there’s a human head coming down the slope towards us. It’s disgusting. I make sure the camera captures it. The head bounces and rolls and comes to land at Daniel’s feet. I think I’m going to be sick.
“I told you,” he says.
I hate when people say that.
“I hate when people say that!” the head says. “Oh, no, please don’t — ”
But I’m sick all over it.
“You bitch,” the head says. I blink back tears. The head looks fuzzy through them. My sick is woven through her thin, mousy-brown hair. It’s a fat-looking head. Brown eyes stare up at me accusingly. “Are you going to clean me or what?”
“Daniel,” I say, and I can’t help notice the note of hysteria creeping into my voice, “I’m not touching this thing.”
“What do you want me to do?” he says, all calm, and I could kiss him.
“Get rid of it,” I say.
“It? It?” the head says. “I’m a person, not an it. Well.” It seems to reconsider. “Half a person?” it says hopefully. Daniel picks her up by the hair. “Hey, watch it!”
“Are you filming?” he says, and then, “Hagar, put yourself together! Are you filming?”
And I think, of course, and I take a deep breath, and I’m myself again, a professional, and this is work, nothing more. I’ve seen worse. I point the camera at the head dangling from Daniel’s arm. “What’s your name?” I say.
“Oho, so you’ve decided to be polite now?” The head looks at the camera. “I do appreciate it, though. You don’t know what it’s like, being a head. And I’m not disembodied, thank you very much. I prefer body-challenged.”
“She is certainly that,” Daniel says, and sniggers, but neither of us pay him much attention.
“My name,” the head says, “is Naama. Allow me to introduce myself properly. Let me see. Where to start. Well, I obtained my master’s degree from Oxford University back in — ” The head blinks and stops. “But that doesn’t matter!” she says. “Forget about me. Did you see him?”
There is something lonely and desperate in her voice. I say, “Who?”
“Him! The man in the truck! We — ” The head blushes, and her eyes blink rapidly, and for a moment I think I’m going to be sick again. “Turn me around!” the head says. “I have to see him!”
And I know who she means. As much as I don’t want to. And I say, “I think we lost him a while back, Naama — ” Then Daniel does this motion with his head, this sort of “look up” thing, and he twists the head to face the rising mountain, and by instinct I move the camera with him and there’s the fire truck, with that, that man inside it, with his head poking out of the window, and —
The fire truck, burning, is slowly rising in the air.
THE FIREMAN’S GOSPEL, PART VII (ELI — APOCRYPHAL?)
I never suspected there was a direct correlation between height above sea level and all-in weirdness. Not much chance of getting high in flatland Tel Aviv. Not without drugs, anyway.
At first the Hawk and I just went, not too fast but steadily, over everything in our way. We merrily squashed through what looked like the entire content of a butcher shop, the tires making nice sucking noises over the ludicrous amount of raw beef. No matter, I bet it was kosher anyway — and I prefer my food to be free of the tyranny of religion. Then we went through one of those little Cafés that litter Dizengoff Street, and it was all sloshy and bubbly, and I was enjoying the thought of meat mixing with milk on the Hawk’s tires. This was all pretty normal.
Then there was the tourist bus. It was green, heavy, and looked brand new. It was stuck vertically in the road’s asphalt, standing on its grille, like a pencil shoved into a belly button. I saw, despite its darkened windows, some people crawling inside it.
I didn’t slow down. I went right at it, anticipating a nice audiovisual effect when it fell. I was more disappointed than annoyed when the Hawk and myself went right through it without making a sound.
I stopped. I looked back. The Hawk’s rear part was still burning quietly, though the flames looked closer to the cabin now. This was somehow reassuring.
In the background of the relative silence, I now noticed the return of the static. I looked at the radio unit, which appeared to be on, despite me remembering distinctly that I shut it off.
“Oh, God,” I said. “Not again.”
“I am thy . . .”
“Shut up.”
There was a second of quiet. Then the static whispered something like, “Put thy hand upon thy bosom.”
“So now you’re in love with me too?”
“And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign . . .”
“So all this is a sign now? I don’t buy that. I don’t buy you,” I said.
“Ciao,” I added, and moved my right hand to gently squeeze the power button off.
The cabin was in flames. I was in flames. They smelled cold and tasted yellow and were bittersweet in my ears, like cheap red Chinese sauce. I still sat in the Hawk’s cabin, but not on the seat.
Instead, I hovered in the air, my head touching the ceiling. Out of the windshield I saw only flames, and a red-red sky.
I looked sideways, and saw the world turning slowly around me.
Below me. I saw the top of the mountain now, the ruined Dizengoff Center, from above. The Hawk was flying.
“Thy hand upon thy bosom . . .” said the static, and suddenly the Hawk jolted crazily forward, upwards, accelerating, crashing me into the seat.
In the haze of blood going to my head, just before losing consciousness, I remember just one thought:
This God person is actually real?
THE BOOK OF DANIEL, PART IV
Daniel dropped the head. He didn’t even notice. He was staring at the burning, rising truck. It hovered impossibly in the air before shooting upwards, up and up and up, becoming a speck of dust against the mountain.
“Do you mind?” a voice said. Daniel looked down. “Shit, I’m sorry — ” he said. Then he looked again.
The head hovered above the ground. “What — ?” Daniel said.
The head looked confused. Then it twirled around. “It’s him,” the head said.
“What?”
The head stopped and stared at Daniel. Brown eyes, podgy face. A spot under her chin. Quite unattractive. “I know,” the head said.
“You know what?” Daniel could no longer see the truck. He had a sense of acute wrongness. The mountain seemed to expand around them, to fill up the world.
“I know,” the head said. It sounded just a little bit smug. “I understand now.”
“What?” Daniel yelled.
“Everything,” the head said — quietly, with immense dignity. “I understand it all, now.”
“At least that makes one of us,” Daniel said.
The head turned 360 degrees and came back to look at him. “I pity you,” it said.
Daniel grabbed the head by the hair and spun around and around. The head yelled, “Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing!?” — and Daniel let go, releasing the head.
“Daniel, what the fuck are you doing?” Hagar shouted. He ignored her and watched the head arc through the air, a beautiful, entirely satisfying sight, tracing a curve over the steep slope of the mountain until it connected with the ground far below, bounced, sailed through the air again, bounced a second time, rolled, and finally disappeared from view. He still had the strange child’s clay-thing, he realized. And it resembled the head too closely for his liking. He let it go. It fell at his feet and rolled away. Somehow, it made him feel clean. Purified.
“Are you nuts?”
“Just cut it in editing,” he said, and he laughed. He felt like something was laughing through him.
“Daniel, please stop.”
But he couldn’t. The laughter wouldn’t go. It grew, it burst out of him, it shook his whole body, shook the ground he was standing on, shook the —
“Daniel, the ground!” She grabbed his hand. Her touch sobered him. The ground shook. Coming at them down the slope were the remnants of the Dizengoff Center. “We have to run.”
“Run where?” he shouted.
“We can’t go back,” Hagar said. Just then something came at them down the slope, crashed into Hagar, and took with it her camera. She screamed.
“Hagar, no!”
“I have to get it back!”
He grabbed her and pulled her after him. “We could die!” he shouted. Above their heads, thunder like distant explosions was coming near. Lightning flashed.
“Everyone else is already dead!” Hagar said, and stopped.
He pulled harder, ran up the slope, pulling her. “But we’re not! Come on!”
She followed him. Around them, the remnants of the city centre were falling down, crashing, rolling, as if the mountain was shaking the last foreign elements off its side. They ran through a storm of bricks and glass and people and a poster of Independence Day and two flying turtles from what must have been a pet store, past mobile phones and notebooks and oranges that came at them like grenades, past handbags and Italian shoes and combs and a set of false teeth and a McDonald’s sign that nearly took their heads off. Above them the sky darkened and lightning flashed and where it hit there was a burning smell, and the thunder echoed around them and the rain came, washing away the city, a downpour that silenced everything and they struggled uphill, running, crawling, falling in the mud, like two insects climbing an elephant’s back, and when they couldn’t go any longer they fell on the ground and lay there, holding each other, while the rain fell and fell and fell.
*
When Daniel awoke, the city was gone. They were on a high plateau, and above their heads a multitude of stars shone cold and bright and unknown. The peaks of other, distant mountains were just visible in the distance, dusted with snow. There was no city. There was no Tel Aviv, no seafront promenade, no yeshiva and no rabbis, no restaurants, kosher or otherwise, no orange-juice sellers, no girls in denim shorts, no cell phones ringing, no —
No sound, in fact. The world was silent. The world was laid out around Daniel like an unknown map. Somewhere there were seas and islands and volcanoes, waterfalls and valleys and chasms, deserts and jungles and living things . . . living things. He touched Hagar’s shoulder, gently, and she opened her eyes. She stared up at the sky for a long time.
When she rose it was with a new silence, and it was echoed in Daniel. It was a silence like an abyss, deep and profound, a silence belonging to this new world, not the old. They held each other’s hands. The map of the world stretched out before them, full of blank spaces. Unknown. They linked their fingers. They didn’t speak, but they knew each other’s mind. They took a step, and then another, and another. Above their heads the stars stared down, mute and strange and old.
P A R T T H R E E :
O N E Y E A R L A T E R
MORDECHAI: ONE
I have uncovered and decrypted the secret writings of the Kinneret cult, which was active near the Sea of Galilee since about 300 BC until well after the time of Christ, and had more to do with the latter’s performance than the New Testament would care to admit. I have located the hidden cave in which the actual miracle of the container of oil had occurred, the one celebrated to this day as Hanukkah — and in fact I have the actual container. I know the exact words Moses intoned to open the Red Sea. They were omitted from the Bible, of course. I have studied the reasons for the great earthquake that demolished Safed in the nineteenth century, and that had less to do with the will of God than with the actions of a certain Rabbi whose name it is not yet time to reveal, though I can mention that he is still alive. An article I wrote about my quest for the remains of the Golems of Prague was published in the daily papers. My book on the lost Ark was soon to be published — you’d be amazed if you knew how close Spielberg and Lucas came to the real answer — and how far.
There are several self-styled colleagues of mine, though they are hardly worth mentioning: Aharon Reueli is a crook, with his so-called “discovery” of the “actual” Shimon Bar-Yohai grave; Yehonatan Atzil is a buffoon, researching, if such a word can seriously be applied to him, the clearly non-existent sect of Bethlehem; and of course Meir Sassoon, author of the unjustly famous The Secret History of the Endor Witch, who is clearly insane. Therefore I am, without doubt, the only Israeli historian of the supernatural worthy of serious consideration.
Imagine, then, my feelings when the greatest supernatural event of the last three thousand years hit Tel Aviv, and I was out of town.
*
Early in the morning that day, I took the train to Haifa. I went there to buy some books for my research, in one of the second-hand bookst
ores in the Hadar area. I also had to visit Aunt Nehama, my mother’s sister. I don’t like Aunt Nehama much, I must admit, but Mother insisted. I was there, drinking an unwanted cup of tea and trying to avoid a rather unappetizing cake, when the radio started going crazy.
Unfortunately, at that moment I was in no position to describe what exactly happened in Tel Aviv that day, as I was not there. Fortunately, though, I’d survived, and could now begin my research. Even more fortunate: it was quite safe to assume that Reueli, Atzil and Sassoon were all dead, and there would be no interference.
As we sat there and listened, Aunt Nehama became more and more nervous, worrying for Mother’s safety. In the end I had to shut her up, so that I’d be able to concentrate. After some time the radio started repeating itself, as contact with Tel Aviv was lost. This happens every time there’s a bombing or a disaster of some sort: the radio and television people have only a very small amount of information, and they repeat it endlessly, like a badly scratched CD. Having had enough of that, I untied Aunt Nehama, set her nicely on the couch and went out to find transportation back to Tel Aviv.
This proved to be a little more difficult than I thought it would be.
*
The first weeks after the event were chaotic. Riots, demonstrations, shootings, people running amok. It took some time for everything to settle down again, and even this relative quietness had many undercurrents. I spent all this time at Aunt Nehama’s apartment, only rarely going out to persuade the neighbours upstairs to let me use their shaky Internet connection for research. Only when the mobs were swept off the street, first by the police and then by the army, did I dare to go out.
