People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy
Page 11
Brendan’s hand lifted, folded its fingers suddenly closed and his mouth pulled to one side in the wry sketch of a smile; Menachem, she realized, had been reaching to adjust his glasses, a nervous habit more than ninety years too late. “When I’m not . . . with you,” he started, choosing words as delicately as stepping stones, laying out for a living soul the mechanics of possession, occupancy, that they never discussed, “it’s what I said, Clare, it’s dreaming. Or it’s a nightmare. For a soul to be without a body, without a world . . . I don’t think I even believed in souls when I was alive,” and this shrug she remembered from an afternoon of fading storm-light and streets cobbled with rain. “But I am not alive. And maybe I know better, maybe I know nothing; I know that I was in the place like a snuffed-out candle, where angels take no notice and even demons have better things to do, and you were there. In a graveyard, but there. With me.
“Clare, if there’s one thing I want in this world, in any world, it’s not to have died—I wanted so much more life, isn’t that what all the dead say?” If she should have assented, argued, she had no idea; she listened, and did not look away. “But I would have died an old man before I ever met you. I wonder if that would have made you happier.”
Clare smiled a little, though it was not a joke. Do you love me? Four words tangible and thorny enough on her tongue that for a moment she thought she had actually asked them, the chill and sting of sweat across her body in the seconds before he answered, and a high school musical flashed through her mind instead. Golde’s squawk of disbelief, Do I what? and the scathing dismissal of her advisor in college, took Tevye and made him into a chorus line—tra-la-la-la-la, pogroms ain’t that bad! One of her own great-grandfathers had lost a brother in a maelstrom of shouting students and iron-shod hooves, taken a saber cut across his temple that he carried like a badge through two marriages, past quarantine in Holland and all the way to his New Jersey grave. Those same politics had no more than grazed Menachem, set him alight with ideas, left him for the angel of tenement bedclothes to destroy. Broken branches on the Tree of Life. She wondered if it looked like a birch sometimes.
He was close enough now that if she reached out her arms, she could have held him as in dreams, in the flesh. He had kept the distance between them; she had moved, bare heel down onto the varnished pine as hard as onto folded cloth and something inside that crunched, snapped, would cut if carelessly unwrapped. Menachem was silent, no dares or teasing, cleverness proffered to coax her into laughter, her smiles that had paved the way for him in this alien, unpromised land; quiet, as he had been in rare moments when she saw through more layers than that day’s borrowed skin, as he had waited in the cemetery that existed nowhere but the fragile regions of dream. She could send him away now and he would never return, she knew this as though it had been inscribed on the inside of her skin, precise and fiery hand engraving on the level of cells and DNA, deep as belief. She needed no name holier than his own, nothing more mystic than the will not to want; and wherever the soul of Menachem ben Zvi v’Tsippe fled, it would be none of Clare Tcheresky’s concern.
She said, knowing it had never been the turning point, this decision made long ago and the dream only its signatory, smoke from the fire that was every soul, “I should never have touched you.”
Menachem’s cheerful slyness moved over Brendan’s lines and freckles, resettled into a twist of sadness around the corners of his smile. Perhaps he had said these words before, perhaps never; no matter. “You still haven’t.”
This step she could not take back; the glass broken once and for all. “Then come here,” Clare said, “come to me.” As softly as though the words might summon a storm, make one of them vanish like a drying tear, she whispered, “Dortn vel ikh gebn mayn libshaft tsu dir,” and turned her hand palm-up.
Brendan’s fingers did not close around hers, the dybbuk like an armature within his body, moving him; if he had reached to embrace her, she would have stepped back and screamed like a siren and maybe never stopped. But behind the pupiled lenses of his eyes, a color that was no color swirled, faded, bloomed outward and Brendan fell to his knees, painful double-barreled smack of bone against flooring and she would have reached out to catch him, but nothingness still spilled from him in streams and veils, flesh on flesh too easy a betrayal, and she had only room for one in her arms right now. Like trying to gather an armful of smoke, overflowing, reaching out to pull down a cloud: all vision and no weight. No chill against her skin, nothing like body heat, only the steady bleed that she watched disappear when it touched her outstretched arms, her fingers spread wide and her unguarded chest and throat, one skein even drifting against her face so that she saw through it, for less time than it took her to release the breath she had held, into a dull gleam of clouds and pewter, a crumble of ambiguous darkness like soot. Tattered glimpses of what lay between dreams, those of the living and those of the dead, and she would never close her eyes on only one world again. On hands and knees now, Brendan coughed, hoarse and racking, and his body jerked as though all its muscles were climbing away from one another under skin and cotton and nylon; tarantella of sinew and flesh that chattered Clare’s teeth, fingers buried in a lightning bolt and not enough sense to pull away, but the last nothing haze was soaking into her hand and gone.
Dimly, through sheetrock and posters, she heard music starting up, the same electronic slam from this afternoon. After all the buildup, what a finish: walking three apartments down the corridor whose doors were all painted the same monotonous sage-green as the banisters and stairs that cored the building, and walking back again without ever asking them to turn down the noise, the endless party that always seemed to be happening behind 5G’s door once the sun went down; one ordinary night, with dybbuk. Her head felt no different, if dizzy, her fingers flexed and folded like her own; only someone might have hung lead weights from all her joints when she was not looking, so that she sat down abruptly on the floor beside Brendan, one hand out behind her for balance and the back of her knuckles brushed against the rumpled sleeve of his windbreaker. No danger, now. When she looked over and down at his long, sprawled form, merciful blackout or the next best thing, Clare realized that she was still looking for the little giveaways of gaze and movement and inhabitance, tell-tale pointers to the presence beneath his skin. She had never considered what it might be like to look for them in herself.
She parted her lips to speak Menachem’s name, closed them instead. Beside her, Brendan stirred and groaned, “Oh, God,” a vague mush of syllables and sense; his face was pressed against her floor, his eyes still shut. Gently, she touched his shoulder and said his name, as odd to the taste as Menachem’s might not have been. Still she tried to sort through her thoughts, to find what she would say when he opened his eyes, what comfort or acceptable explanation, this last time with Brendan.
The last few days of the month, as the fragile rind of feather-white moon and the stars she could not see for the city’s horizon glow pronounced; coincidence of lunar and Gregorian calendars, and some of the nights had begun to turn cold. Clare had hauled an old quilt from the top shelf of her bedroom closet, periwinkle-blue cloth from her childhood washed down to the color of skimmed milk, and occasionally woke to a sky as wind-scoured and palely electric as autumn. The day before yesterday, she had worked her last shift at The Story Corner, said goodbye to Lila until next summer and turned a small percentage of her paycheck into an Eric Kimmel splurge; some of the stories too old to read to her class in a couple of weeks, most for herself, tradition and innovation wound together as neatly as the braided wax of a candle, an egg-glazed plait of bread. Cross-legged on her bed, she read two retellings of Hershel Ostropolier aloud to the little pool of lamplight that made slate-colored shadows where the quilt rucked up, yellow and steadier than any dancing flame. She had lit a candle on the windowsill when the sun set, but it had burned down to the bottom of the glass; wax and ashes melted there.
When she leaned over to lay the book down on the jackstraw h
eap accumulating near the head of her bed, her shadow distorted to follow, sliding bars of dark that teased the corners of her vision, and she made a butterfly shape with her hands against the nearest wall. Out in the other room, Blood on the Tracks had finished and Highway 61 Revisited come on, Dylan’s voice wailing right beside his harmonica, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Homeless, nameless, roving: Clare had never been any of these things, but she knew something of how they felt; and she sang along as best as she could find the melody while she stripped off her clothes, black-and-white Dresden Dolls T-shirt and cutoff jeans, unremarkable underwear and socks all tossed into the same milk crate in the far corner, and stood for a moment in the lamp’s frank shine before turning back the covers. Another chill night, wind like silver foil over the roofs, and she would have welcomed some warmth beside her as she tucked her feet up between the cool sheets; but she had chosen, she might sleep cold for the rest of her life, and she was not sorry.
If she pressed her face into the pillow, she could imagine a scent that did not belong to her own hair and skin, her soap that left an aftertaste of vanilla: slight as a well-handled thought, the slipping tug of reminiscence, a memory or a blessing. Zichrono liv’rachah. But her eyes were already losing focus, the Hebrew wandering off in her head toward smudges of free association and waking dream; Clare turned over on her side, arm crooked under the pillow under her head, and said softly into the shadow-streaked air, “Zise khaloymes.”
A murmur in her ear that no outsider would ever pick up, lover’s tinnitus with the accent of a vanished world, Menachem said back in the same language, “Sweet dreams.”
Together they reached out and turned off the light.
My life gets lost inside of you.
—Jill Tracy, “Hour After Hour”
Fidelity: A Primer
Michael Blumlein
I. Born Torn
Lydell called me with the news that he was torn. This, of course, was no news at all. Lydell has been torn since birth. This time it had to do with his sons, Max and Ernest. The boys were twins, and still in utero. Lydell couldn’t decide whether to have them circumcised or not.
He’d done the leg-work. When it came to so deeply personal a matter, he was nothing if not thorough. Uncircumcised men, he had found, did have a slightly higher incidence of infection, but the infections were usually trivial and easily treated. Balanitis, where the foreskin became red and inflamed, was uncommon. Phimosis, where the inflammation led to scarring, trapping the penis in its hood and making erections and intercourse painful (if not impossible), was likewise rare.
Circumcision, by contrast, was a uniformly traumatic event. What effect this trauma had was debatable, although the preponderance of evidence suggested long-lasting and not entirely beneficial sequelae. After all, such a grisly and disfiguring procedure at so young and tender an age. At any age. Was this absolutely necessary for a man to be a man? Some thought not.
As to the issue of pleasure, there seemed little question. The greater the amount of intact skin, the greater the concentration of nerves. The greater the concentration of nerves, the better the sensation. And while sensation itself did not guarantee pleasure, there was certainly the chance that it might.
On the other hand was tradition. Lydell was a Jew. Jews were circumcised. Judith, his wife, thought the boys might think it slightly odd if they were not. But she could see the advantage in it, most notably the avoidance of unnecessary pain and trauma. If pressed, she would probably have cast her vote with letting the poor things’ tiny penises be, but in the end, she deferred to her husband, who not only had a penis but strong views as to its proper handling and use.
Lydell consulted a rabbi, who advised him to search his soul. He suggested he remember his parentage and lineage, and if he still had doubts after that, to take a good hard look in the mirror. In addition, he referred him to the Old Testament, First Kings, Chapter 3, which spoke of King Solomon, the great and illustrious Jewish leader, who, when faced with two women, each claiming to be the mother of the same infant, advised them to share the baby by cutting it in two. The false mother agreed, the true one did not, and thus was the question of motherhood decided.
Lydell pondered the well-known tale. On the face of it, the message seemed clear enough: be clever, be insightful, value life (and love) above possessions. But the lesson seemed difficult to generalize, and Lydell sensed a deeper meaning that was far from transparent. He puzzled it day and night, up until the very hour of the boys’ birth.
They came out strapping and healthy, with dark, curly hair, brown eyes, and flattened little baby faces. Identical faces, at that. Identical bodies. They were, in fact, identical twins.
It was a transformative event for Lydell. Both the birth and the fact that they were identical. A light seemed to shine from above (it was a sunny day). Suddenly, the path was clear. Ernest and Max, Max and Ernest: the very sameness of the children held the key to the solution. An individual was a precious thing—perhaps the most precious thing in the world. Just as the true mother would not permit her only child to be split asunder, so Lydell would not allow his two sons to grow up indistinguishable from one another. They were unique, and thus would be uniquely set apart.
One would be circumcised (this fell to Max). The other (Ernest) would not.
Judith took issue with this, strong issue, but Lydell would not be deterred. He was resolute, and she had little choice but go along. She soothed herself (or tried) with the belief that somehow, somewhere, he knew best. The penis was his territory: she kept telling herself this. It was her mantra during this difficult and trying time. The penis was his.
II. Poolside, Where A Stone Tossed Years Before Creates a Ripple
He had a lingering medical problem. She had a difficult marriage. They met at the pool where their children were taking swimming lessons.
Her eyes were large and compassionate.
His hair was to his shoulders.
He wore a silver bracelet and held his wrist coquettishly.
She favored skirts that brushed the floor.
They sat on a wooden bench with their backs to the wall, watching the children swim. They spoke without turning, like spies. Pointed observations delivered in a glancing, off-handed way.
She was a devoted mother.
He was a solicitous father.
He had a daughter. She, two sons.
The swimming lessons lasted thirty minutes. To him this was never quite enough. He worked alone and felt the need for contact. He wanted more.
She was often distracted by her sons, delighted by their antics and their progress. She would clap for them and call out her encouragement.
He sensed in some small way that she was using them as a buffer, or a baffle, to deflect his interest in her and hers in him, to disrupt their fledgling chemistry.
They spoke about their jobs. About their children’s schools. About religion. She was Jewish. They spoke about the Holocaust. She decried the lingering hatred. Decried and understood it. She was interested, in theory, in forgiveness.
He listened to her closely and attentively, often nodding his agreement. He showed his sympathy and understanding, smelled her hormones, won her trust.
At the end of the lessons they parted without ceremony, sometimes without so much as a word. She wrapped her sons in towels and escorted them to the dressing room, waiting outside the door until they were done. He did the same for his daughter. Afterwards, there was candy and then the walk to the car. Often the five of them walked together, though they rarely talked. The kids weren’t interested, and the grown-ups had had their time together. Half an hour, session done.
III. Brain Work
His name was Wade. He’d been married twenty years. There was a family history of mental illness, notably depression (a grandmother) and manic-depression (a great aunt). Another grandmother suffered from feelings of inferiority. Wade’s father had a number of compulsions, none incapacitating, while his mother, heroic in so many ways, lived with
the anxieties and minor hysterias typical of a woman of thwarted ambition with too much time on her hands.
Wade himself, like his great aunt, was a victim of mood swings. A year previously, after a brief bout of mania followed by a much longer one of despair, he started taking medication.
It was a good year for medication. Sales were booming, and three of the top ten drugs on the market were specifically designed to treat disturbances of mood. This represented an enormous advance from the days of his great aunt, who had to make do with electric shock (it served her well), insulin shock (not so well), and prolonged hospitalizations.
Wade tried Prozac, but it left him feeling muzzy-headed, about as animated as a stone. He tried Zoloft, with the same effect. Paxil likewise left him feeling like a zombie, and in addition, it robbed him of his sex drive.
He was too young to go without sex. At forty-six, he felt he was still too young to be a zombie. So he stopped the medication.
Eli Lilly called him. Pfizer called him. SmithKline Beecham called him, too. They sympathized with his problem. Sacrifice was difficult. No man should have to give up his manhood. But likewise, no man, particularly no American man, should have to be depressed.
Ironically, after stopping the pills, he got better. He was no longer victimized by sudden bouts of mania, nor was he paralyzed by depression. He was able to work, to care for his daughter and be a decent husband to his wife. He was sane again, and functional, in all ways except one. He remained impotent.
This happens, said his doctor. Give it time. This happens, said Lilly, Pfizer, and Beecham. Read the small print. We regret the inconvenience. We’re working on a cure.
Months went by, and he didn’t recover. His penis didn’t get hard, not even in the morning when his bladder was full. His penis, poor thing, rarely stirred.
IV. Virtue and Necessity
Judith had no intention of having an affair. She believed in the sanctity of marriage, most especially her own. That said, her husband had of late been going through one of those times of his. One of those intense and trying times of self-intoxication, when he couldn’t see beyond himself, couldn’t think or talk about anything but him.