The World of the End

by Ofir Touché Gafla

  When he and “Vina” started chatting, she was in the midst of separating from her husband. Six months later, they were divorced. “Vina” described the heartbreak and anguish to “Grimus.” He tried to raise her spirits, but she swore that no love was worth that kind of searing pain. Six months after the millennium, the two gave Rushdie a rest and started to cover new ground. Two people from two separate continents sharing ideas, experiences, and feelings, reveling in the notion of the kindred eye, cradled in the certainty of unconditional friendship. After six more months of chatting, they summoned the courage to reveal a fraction of what they held in their hearts.

  Instead of “Grimus,” “Vina” mistakenly typed “Ormus.” Yonatan was amazed. Throughout their time together he hadn’t dared let the rather likely scenario cross his lips, fearing that it would, perhaps, tunnel under the fortress of their friendship and scar the beautiful thing they shared. “Vina” apologized and wrote “Grimus.” Two weeks later the incident had been buried under the normal nightly chats about work, friends, and other humdrum affairs. And then came Yonatan’s turn to make a “mistake.” One winter night a friend came over to his apartment and after hours of drunken talk, teased him to bed. Yonatan thought he was pleased. It was the perfect sexual arrangement. Once a year the woman would appear out of nowhere, get drunk, sleep with him, and make haste in the morning. But that night, looking at Talia-the-Grunter’s breasts sway, he felt cheap and lowdown and asked her to leave before she had the chance to rake her fake nails down his back. She was stunned. He reiterated his request, and when she asked if there was another woman, he nodded and pointed at the computer, avoiding the inebriated hail of obscenities she directed at him. The unbearable weight of betrayal overwhelmed him and, with his head spinning, he typed, “Vina, call me Ormus.” He apologized the next day, explaining that the whiskey had been dripping from his fingers the night before. “Vina” wrote back that she understood.

  The next night she addressed him as “Ormus.” Delighted, Yonatan recognized that their relationship was hurtling toward a strange and exciting love—epistolary love. By the weekend he had already written her that the thought of the coming night keeps him alive. “Vina” wrote that her days were suddenly doused in color and that she walked around in a daze until she sat down at her computer and saw his name.

  The next two months were devoted to virtual love games in the belly of a spaceship. The two space travelers landed on a faraway star called “Gorfik” and slowly unraveled, each for the other’s eyes, a series of adventures on the fascinating star. “Vina” and “Ormus” met a host of outlandish characters who gave them magical and mysterious gifts in return for human lessons on love. On their one hundred and fiftieth night on the star, Prolificus—a creature as towering as a Sequoia tree, who widened when excited—gave them a pill that enabled the body’s organs to multiply infinitely, and the two of them conducted, to the tune of rousing applause from the Gorfikers, humanity’s first two-person orgy. A week later the two spent some time in PARADICE, the largest casino in space, and won a mind-reading competition. The prize was an organized trip to Venus. “Vina” and “Ormus” spent four nights on the love planet as guests of the Cupids, ace archers who made their stay special by teaching them to shoot at targets and hunt lonesome meteorites. The queen of the Cupids, Artemis, arranged a dazzling gala for them and invited thousands of stars and starlets that met and fell in love thanks to their marksmanship. The residents of the lonely meteorites thanked them and begged them to stay, but the couple smiled and said they would like to continue touring the galaxy. Artemis nodded in understanding, wished them eternal sweetness, and sent them off the next day at noon to tour the Honey Moon, the temple of kitsch and all things saccharine, where the two whispered a sticky stream of sweet nothings and, under the influence of the viscosity of the whole affair, decided to proclaim their imperishable love in the way of the locals of Uranus.

  For the first time since they began playing their game, Yonatan shuddered at one of “Vina’s” inventions. According to “Vina,” Uranusian couples show their love by exchanging hearts. Once the man has given his heart to the woman, he passes away for a short period of time. The two-hearted woman examines the heart and decides that the display of chivalry and self sacrifice, and the faith in her faithfulness, are worthy of her love. She pulls her own heart from her chest and dies. If their love is true and honest, a Uranusian cardiologist from the celestial board of eternal love will do a simultaneous double transplant so that the lovers will wake back to life at the same moment and, from that moment on, the two will be inseparable. They will carry the scars of the other’s heart as though it were their own. His soul torn, “Ormus” agreed to “Vina’s” proposal and the two took the Uranusian coronary oath, even though Yonatan hated the idea of “Vina” serving as the receptacle for his treacherous heart, furious with his imagination and the way it had thrust him back to the daunting present.

  The couple’s love odyssey lasted five months, five hours a day, during which they were continually impressed by the savagery of their shared hallucinations. The rest of the time “Ormus” lived as Yonatan Gur, a forty-year-old man who split his time between the bookstore he owned and daydreaming about a woman whose real name he didn’t even know. He did not feel obliged to get acquainted with the mysterious figure he had fallen for. After all, her identity was no secret—he knew what she did for a living, what she loved and hated, the texture of her most intimate thoughts, her strengths and weaknesses, her opinions and worldviews. She had even swapped hearts with him in a dubious ceremony. The rest he filled in, pleasurably focusing on the aesthetic rind of the fruit of imagination. After five months of studying the taste and licking the core, he relished the thought of the peel. His mind’s eye painted her hair blond and combed it down to her shoulders, slanted her blue eyes, filled her cheeks, thickened her lower lip, rounded her face, elongated her neck, colored her body an ivory white, traced her hips and filled them, padded her stomach with a slight pouch, stretched her legs to the arc of her hips, measured her at five foot seven, weighed her at 130 pounds, and smiled. He pulled her posture straight, lent nobility to her movements, peppered her expressions with kinetic intelligence, softened her speech, lowered her tone, harmonized her heavenly laugh, and sprayed a sweet floral scent on her neck. He didn’t want to give the woman of his dreams his flawed heart, fearing that it would exact its revenge on her even as he mocked himself for the devout seriousness with which he addressed their nocturnal escapades, light years away from his real life.

  * * *

  It’s just a game, he thought, sparking a third joint. The light mist resting on the windshield of his mind turned to a thick fog when, sitting at the computer, at the usual hour, he went online, typed in the code, asked whether they were going back to Gorfik or continuing on to a different star, and got no response. After an hour, he left her a short message: “My Vina, where have you gone? Looking for you. Ormus.” With night threatening to release its grip and dawn peeping behind its back, he pounded the computer, not knowing what to make of it. After another Vina-free night, he flooded the site with messages and begged her to make contact. On the third night of her absence, he called up the neighborhood dealer and asked for the good shit. On the fourth night, he drank himself sick. The fifth night brought with it a shocking realization. Yonatan understood that the earth had swallowed “Vina,” just like in Rushdie’s book. By the weekend, he was asking himself whether “Vina” was a figment of his imagination and, no less importantly, whether he was losing his mind. After another week without “Vina,” Yonatan let loose with three straight days of mayhem. He got drunk, got high, got laid by two prostitutes, trashed his apartment, and thrashed anyone who came close to him. Tearing through town, driving like a madman in the dead of night, two policemen doused his orgy of destruction. Yonatan spent the night in jail. The next day, he was let out, his license suspended. The return home was unsettling. Nothing, save the computer, which blinked in the darkness, had
survived his wrath. Utterly drained, he dropped himself into a hot bath. Two hours later, feeling mildly human, he started to pick up a week’s worth of debris. Carting the shards of a television screen and other trash, he noticed the computer screen flash. He brought it to life, sure of the disappointment that awaited him. Yonatan couldn’t believe he had mail. He tossed the shards away, practically crushed the mouse in his grip, and clicked nervously until his eyes hit the following, “Dear Ormus, Sorry to have disappeared. I was way busier than I had ever anticipated. There was an insane mess here. Hope all is good with you. If by chance you are home and not in the store, let’s chat at four. If not, then at the usual hour. Love you more than Rushdie. Vina.”

  Flabbergasted, Yonatan looked at his watch and waited out the next hour nailed to his chair, simultaneously reviewing their visits to Gorfik and the hellish week he had been through. In his mind, creatures with twenty arms merged with the anguished cries of a masochistic prostitute; red spaceships and howling police sirens bled into one; cold-blooded archers picked off hot-headed drug dealers; and, above all of the chaos, a Viennese strudel floated, batting its wings and screaming “Zogoiby, Zogoiby.” He woke up at one minute to four, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, tapped a knuckle against his pounding head, and met “Vina” online.

  VINA: “Ormus how are you?”

  ORMUS: “Okay, where were you?” (Yonatan: Where did you go, you bitch?)

  VINA: “You won’t believe it.”

  ORMUS: “I will.” (Yonatan: You found someone else?)

  VINA: “My boss called me into his office and made me a very tempting offer.”

  ORMUS: “Regarding?” (Yonatan: Son of a bitch.)

  VINA: “Our arts and culture correspondent in Israel committed suicide. He offered me her position for a year.”

  ORMUS: “Her position?” (Yonatan: What’s going on here?)

  VINA: “Yeah, to cover cultural events, whatever happens in the shadows of national news.”

  ORMUS: “Arts and culture?” (Yonatan: Dear God, tell me you turned him down!)

  VINA: “Yes, sweetheart. I knew you’d be surprised. You know what I said, right?”

  ORMUS: “Not really.” (Yonatan: You said no! You said no!)

  VINA: “I had only one thing in mind.”

  ORMUS: “What … what do you mean?” (Yonatan: What in God’s name are you saying?)

  VINA: “That soon we will meet, my love. I’ve never been this excited in my life.”

  ORMUS: “Me too, my Vina, me too.” (Yonatan: Are you dead set on giving me a heart attack?)

  VINA: “Now you see where I went? I wanted to surprise you. I took care of all the arrangements, found a place to live and started work yesterday.”

  ORMUS: “Yesterday?” (Yonatan: Why do I not smell that sweet floral scent?)

  VINA: “Yes, honey. It’s perfect. I mean, it’s not London, but I think I’ll like Tel Aviv just fine.”

  ORMUS: “What? You’re here … in … Tel Aviv?” (Yonatan: Oh God, you’re so close, you’re…)

  VINA: “You hungry, Ormus?”

  ORMUS: “What?” (Yonatan: How could you possibly be talking about food right now?)

  VINA: “I’m sorry. I shocked you. You have every right to be annoyed with me. I just thought you’d get a kick out of the surprise. It’s not Gorfik or anything, but it’s right here, right now. Don’t you think it’s time we met?”

  ORMUS: “Of course, sweetheart.” (Yonatan: Hell no! As soon as you lay eyes on me you’ll beat the Concord back to Paris.)

  VINA: “That’s why I asked if you were hungry. Do you want to go to dinner? If I’m not mistaken, you like Indian food. I hear there’s a great place on Dizengoff Square.”

  ORMUS: “It’s great, but you have to have a reservation there. There’s a funky little place on the south side of town” (Yonatan: What are you doing? What are you doing?), “on Florentine Street.”

  VINA: “Sounds great. Should we say nine?”

  ORMUS: “Nine’s great.” (Yonatan: What’s so great?!)

  VINA: “I’ll wait outside.”

  ORMUS: “How will I recognize you?”

  VINA: “Say my name.”

  ORMUS: “Vina?”

  VINA: “Not my nickname, Ormus, my name.”

  ORMUS: “Which is?”

  VINA: “Same as Robin Hood’s love. See you soon, my love.”

  Three hours later and Yonatan still couldn’t remember Robin Hood’s love’s name, but that was the least of his concerns. The fact that she was just two hours away paralyzed him. The man staring back at him in the mirror looked miserable and indistinct, bowed and diminished, surprised and alarmed—a man who never dreamed of fantasy and reality meeting, who feared that the latter would demolish the former, and would, as usual, exact its price. Yonatan nodded his head sullenly—the man looking back at him would never be Ormus. Ormus isn’t bald, isn’t fat, doesn’t have watery eyes framed by heavy black rings; his nose isn’t reminiscent of a trunk; his lips aren’t paper thin; he has a discernable neck; he isn’t short; no moles dot his cheeks; and his teeth are straight and white.

  Yonatan thought about “Vina” and the way she would be blindsided as soon as she laid eyes on him. In one stroke, his belief that the soul projects its beauty onto the exterior was erased: Even a good soul’s warm glow has its limits. He knew how the story of their great love would end—Vina would want to keep him close as a friend and would berate herself for embracing such cheap superficiality. The last thing Yonatan wanted was for his love to look at him and be wracked with guilt by the fact that nature had reared its ugly head. Even he was deterred by his own reflection. No. He would stay home and spare her the terrible punishment that falling in love with him had entailed.

  The black pants, blue button-down shirt, and brown blazer clothe the sobbing yet dry-faced Mr. Gur. His burial gowns mock him, make him laugh, and raise the obvious question of why he chose to shed the mothballs if he had no intention of meeting the woman. Yonatan doesn’t respond. He’s preoccupied, diligently brushing his teeth, cursing the toothpaste glob on the front of his jacket, then washing it off. He’s certain that this night will go down as the most supremely pathetic of all and that it’s merely for the sake of marking the milestone in the extemporaneous history of his life that he is scrubbing the back of his neck and face, daubing the area behind his earlobes with cologne more suited to slaying insects than women. He leaves his apartment at eight thirty, planning to head down to the neighborhood café and forget the entire affair. He hails a cab and asks to be taken to Florentine Street, trying to keep his cool in the face of the cabbie’s diatribe. After ten more minutes of steady one-way talk, during which the driver never once stops kneading the issue of the terrible terror attack that had killed dozens of people only an hour before, Yonatan apologizes and says his head is exploding.

  The driver shuts up but keeps a hostile eye on him. Yonatan doesn’t care. Curiosity has killed his pride and he is going to see her. Not to meet her. Just to satisfy a childish desire that a bigger man would have been able to squelch. When they arrive, Yonatan feels sick. His contorted features wipe the hostility from the driver’s tired face. He asks if he’s alright. Yonatan nods, gets out of the cab, and looks at the restaurant from the far side of the street. Three women are reading the menu hanging in the restaurant’s front window. It’s hard for him to tell which one of their backs belongs to “Vina.” He coughs and remembers her name isn’t “Vina.” After a minute of consultation, two of them enter the restaurant, leaving the third behind. Yonatan waits for her to turn around. She’s burrowing into the menu. She’ll probably order the chicken tikka massala, he thinks, and hides behind a tree. A minute later, he gathers some strength and, in an act of cowardice, yells “Vina” and then ducks down, his eyes devouring the sight of her as she turns around. Yonatan pinches his arm, forcing himself to believe. The strip of asphalt between them can’t hide the smooth blond hair, the slanted blue eyes, the full cheeks, the thick
lower lip, the round face, the long neck, the rounded hips, and the nobility of her bearing. She still doesn’t see him. He yearns for her to spot him and strains to remember her name, but his thoughts abruptly trail away. The sharp tightening in his chest doesn’t let up, and even when he’s ready to stand up and show himself, his body maintains the upper hand and hurls him to the sidewalk. He clutches his heart, begging for air. Shocked by his own helplessness, he sneers, cursing the mutant son of a bitch, which has picked its moment perfectly. He closes his eyes, then remembers, and whispers, “Marian, Marian.”

  8

  Father Tongue–A

  Ben knew he was right as soon as he set foot in the multilingual labs. For a woman like Marian—who helped the foreign diplomats’ kids through the deep sands of English in the morning, coached local actors hell-bent on Hollywood through the labyrinths of diction in the afternoon, and drafted the hardest crossword puzzles she could muster in the evening; a woman who went dictionary shopping on a regular basis; a woman who freely admitted she violated the vows of marriage with Shakespeare; a woman for whom there was no better place than these rooms, which housed every possible constellation in the universe of language—this was heaven. As soon as Ben realized that his wife, who had something akin to an allergic reaction to procrastination, would have chosen the labs as her place of employment, he recalled the orientation speech and beamed with pride, certain that she aced the requisite exams. She must have blown them away with her knowledge of, and sensitivity to, the nuances that divide and link the different languages. He imagined the ongoing, interdepartmental quarrels over Marian’s services and was awed by the range of possibilities that must have been set before his intellectually curious wife. Unsure of which department she had chosen to endow with her skills, he decided to poke around all five departments.