Motti (9 page)

They'll clink glasses full of Diet Coke for the New Year. “This is for a sweet year,” she'll say, “by whatever means necessary,” and they'll laugh. Every year they'll do this. They'll have lots of little jokes like this. They'll be one of those couples who make other couples jealous, old now, sitting, say, on a bench on a street next to a governmental office and holding hands or him stroking her hair absentmindedly, for fifty years now he's been stroking her hair absentmindedly, and they know one another inside and out, and after all these years they are still so beautiful in each other's eyes. And Ariella, she…

This line of thought, this strand of thought, Guard B cuts off. “You holding up in here, man?” he asks Motti chummily through the barred hatch on the door. We didn't expect this chumminess. After all: a guard. “It takes some getting used to here, I know,” B smiles at him. “If there's a problem, if you need something, just say the word. We're also here to help,” and Motti responds, and means it, “Everything's fine, uh, man.”

And when he says this, at the same actual moment, Menachem turns over in bed and turns his back on Edna, so she won't see his eyes that are suddenly red, so she won't hear his heart go wild on him because he thought about Motti, because he thought about his great debt, because he thought who knows what's happening to Motti now, what's with him there, maybe they're raping him in the ass, stealing cigarettes from him, you know, the kind of things they do in the big house. But Motti is okay. Just fine. And he's quieter than he was until now. It's hot in the cell, so hot there, and the food isn't the kind you get used to, but in his head he takes off and goes, one two and he's already on his way, a space of infinite possibilities opens up to him like a giant sail and he sails to wherever he wants. Whereas Menachem doesn't sail anyplace, just gets out of bed slowly and goes down the hallway, and sits down next to Laika who's breathing deeply in sleep, lying there like her bones were magnetized to the floor, and he pets her—she wakes up and turns her head, then goes back to dozing, disinterested—and he sits next to her for hours on end, he thinks, even though actually only four or five minutes have passed, and then he goes to the bathroom, washes his face, urinates, looks in the mirror, returns to bed, turns over and over, thinks about Motti, what's with him, what's happening to him there, must suffer terribly, oh, the debt, this heavy debt, a chain that binds him to the world and there's no escape, he feels it on his ankles, it fills his lungs until the air is pushed out, this a debt that can't be paid off, enslavement worse than the mortgage, even, he's almost angry now, how can you be expected to fall asleep like this, when's Yom Kippur coming, maybe he'll fast this year, he turns over and over, eventually falls asleep, in his sleep completely normal dreams visit him, whereas Edna, who's physically very close to him, the blanket over them like a protective tent, in her dream she's entirely abandoned in space. Again the same dream: just her in a spacesuit, her spaceship gets farther and farther away, only the glass of the helmet separates Edna from the nothingness. This dream comes to her from that movie they saw together, a man is tossed out among the stars, carried far away from the ship, cord cut, damn Menachem for taking her to such a fucked-up movie in the first place, for years now it hasn't left her head, in her dream she's thrown into a black nothingness. And it's not the suffocating that's scariest, but rather this drifting, completely alone, in the emptiness and the cold, you can kick and shriek and lash out with your hands, it's all pointless, soon your air will run out, a few hours all told, and despite this maybe it's better to just remove your helmet and wait for your lungs to explode from the difference in pressure (in order to not break the cosmic law of the equilibrium of pressure the dreaming Edna will explode from the inside like a hot dog cooked too long; the little bit of air in her lungs will transform into ice crystals and float far away). There isn't anything anywhere, and the meaning of the dream outside the world of dream may be the reason for her sticking with Menachem and all that. It's easier, they say, not to drift off alone until death, and it's not just a matter of comforting or distracting yourself; it's also sticking a foot in the door to the future we won't see, here are our faces renewed in the faces of our children. But where does all this get us, where does it get us if Edna is still drifting through the nothingness but now hand in hand with her small family, how fragile everything is, all the time looking each other in the face, waiting to see who would be hurled into space without a suit and who will explode first, she or Menachem, maybe the children, God forbid. But she doesn't remember them. I don't mean the children. She remembers them well enough. I mean the terrible dreams. She won't remember when she wakes up. Lucky.

“You know,” continues the Guard, who already went away down the corridor after a moment of uncomfortable silence and then returned, leaned against the wall next to Motti's door and played around with the toes of his feet in his shoe, maybe his athlete's foot is starting up again there, “I didn't really know my father.”

“Really?” asks Motti, this thickheaded candor surprising him, and justly.

“Swear on my mother,” the Guard says seriously. “He would drink like a fish. You wouldn't see him for two years, suddenly he would show up in my room to cry and curse. His whole life he never learned to read. Poor guy.”

“Poor guy,” agreed Motti.

“Yes,” the Guard agreed too. “He kidnapped me, took me to the forest once. Damned if I know where he found a forest here, but he kidnapped me and took me there. In the end, I escaped.”

“Sounds complicated,” said Motti, because you have to say something.

“Complicated,” confirmed the Guard. “He was a miserable person. I feared for my life around him. Do you know they built an island in the middle of the Yarkon River? There's a whole story about it, I'll tell you some time.”

“I'd be happy to hear,” said Motti politely, though islands didn't interest him much.

“So I'll tell you some time,” repeated the Guard. “There were some real scenes.”

“Great,” said Motti.

“Yeah. Okay, I've got to go now, okay? Tell me if you need something.”

“I will,” promised Motti.

“You look like a good guy to me,” said the Guard. “Too bad you wound up here.”

“Too bad,” agreed Motti.

“So good night, right?”

“Good night,” said Motti.

“Drunk driving, huh,” said Guard B.

“Yes,” said Motti.

“My father would drink a lot too,” said Guard B. “I said that already.”

“You did,” said Motti.

The Guard walked off, then returned, was quiet, walked off again.

Motti waited another moment. So, an island in the middle of the Yarkon. Then he wandered around and around in his narrow cell like a puppy looking for a place for himself, even though in the end he didn't curl up sleepily but rather sat down on the stool, sat down and curled up there, cheek to the cold wall, and in spite of everything a sort of moan escaped from his mouth and his body slackened. Sat there and relaxed. A wall is a wall, what is there to say. Were he to close his eyes, he could imagine that Ariella is still on the other side.

And we're so cautious. So cautious even in love, especially in love, fearful of losing control, ashamed that we're not losing control. But if we lose it, everything will collapse. Our boundaries, our beautiful boundaries, the wonderful limitations that make us the people we are, that give form to our books, to our good books, to our bad books, to our families, to our wolf packs, with the people and the dogs and the other beings inside them, with our TV news and the articles in our newspapers, with our paintings and the musical works we send off like interstellar dispatches, full of hidden ideas, with performances, even, with the strange ideas we hold on to, afraid to let go, with our odd logic, with the things that seem acceptable to us, for instance transporting people from continent to continent in order to work for us for next to nothing and afterward sending them back again, and other things as well, for instance going out each and every morning to feed cats in the street, to pet iguanas, dropping proclamations from light aircraft, diving, parachuting, striving, changing, regretting, watching reality television.

And if it was up to me, I would write fragile books that from their first pages would be like those Chinese vases, thin as eggshell, so thin they're almost just the idea of a border, marking out the world that they contain and marked by it as well, from within and without. So it's possible to break them into a hundred little pieces and glue them together again crooked, and that's what I would do, glue them with children's paste, use masking tape even. It's possible to work on this gluing hour after hour, work on this unsightly reconstruction, full of love. In the end it would be possible to use them for something, these deformed things. To put a flower inside, to caress them (these vases, the books) without fear. See, they were already broken.

Listen, my brother, said Menachem, you know they don't allow people to bring beer in here? A full six pack I brought you, the whore at the entrance is drinking them right now for sure.

Nonsense, said Motti.

So what, asked Menachem, how are you holding up?

Holding up, said Motti. No big deal.

They're treating you okay, wondered Menachem.

Just fine, answered Motti. They were quiet for a moment.

Is Laika okay? Asked Motti.

Just fine. The kids are crazy about her, answered Menachem. So you're holding up, yeah?

Holding up, repeated Motti.

We need to come up with a plan for you, declared Menachem.

A plan?

A plan. What you'll do when you get out of here. What you'll do with your life, what you'll achieve. Goals, Menachem pointed out. Prioritize goals. Be proactive. Decide what you want and go for it, you hear? Here, he said. Look at me.

So, said Motti.

So what, asked Menachem.

I'm looking at you, said Motti.

Hah! laughed Menachem. You bastard, what a bastard. I'm crazy about you. Maybe, he continued, maybe you'll come work with me. I'll fix you up with something, it's a great start, I'm telling you. Did you lease your place?

No, answered Motti. Someone in my place, digging through my things…that's not…I don't want that.

Definitely not, agreed Menachem.

And it's not that I have bills to pay, added Motti.

Definitely not, confirmed Menachem.

Other than property tax, corrected Motti.

Other than property tax, agreed Menachem again, thought for a moment and then said, I'll cover that for you, man.

Thanks, said Motti.

Nothing to it, said Menachem and peeked at his watch. Nothing to it. So what, he strained to laugh, did you see the ass on that guard? I'd give it to her in a second.

Um, said Motti.

When you get out of here, promised Menachem, I'll get a thousand whores for you. At the same time, yeah?

No need, said Motti and looked at the table. Just take care of Laika, okay?

No question, said Menachem. And the property tax as well, yeah?

And the property tax, agreed Motti.

Good, said Menachem and looked again at his watch intently. I've got to go, Edna's birthday today.

Of course, of course, said Motti. I didn't know it was today. Send her congratulations from me, yeah? You didn't have to come today if it's her birthday and stuff.

Nonsense, said Menachem and got up. Today's Wednesday, no?

Wednesday, confirmed Motti.

So we'll see each other next week, yeah, man?

Of course, of course, said Motti.

Or maybe not next week, said Menachem suddenly. I was thinking about taking Edna abroad for a bit. A few days, you know. She deserves it.

Deserves it, said Motti. Definitely deserves it.

But the Wednesday after that I'm here, yeah?

I'm not going anywhere, said Motti.

Of course, of course, Menachem said now. You know that I owe you, yeah?

Nonsense, said Motti. You're like a brother to me. You are, you know.

And after Menachem left, Motti thought, I should have prepared him a list for Laika. Write down the things she loves to do, so she won't be miserable. (And in the back of his mind a voice also said, no, I shouldn't have prepared him a list. So she won't love him like she does me. So she'll want to come back to me when I get out. He quickly silenced it, this voice.)

Because he, Motti, is her owner. Even the municipal documents say so, in writing. Therefore it's necessary to tell Menachem if she likes raw sausages or leftover steak, if she likes when you throw her a ball, so she'll fetch it, or if she doesn't understand why you've taken it from her and thrown it, the small ball that she gnaws so diligently. Did he tell Menachem not to let her out on the street without a leash? Certainly he told him. No need for a muzzle, for sure he told him that too, even though now he doesn't remember.

“In short,” Guard B said after he returned to Motti's cell and sat down, folding his legs and hoping for a glass of cold, freezing, water, except that kind of thing can't be found in prison, and he looked at the vague and stupid marks drawn on the plaster, “In short,” he said again, even though there was nothing short about it, “Jimbo sits there, see, with those pictures, and cries like a little boy. Look, he says to me, even though I'm already looking. Look at that sweet girl, how did I leave her? Oh, oh, my girl, he says. I promise you I'll return soon. And how many pictures he had! Well, not many, actually. Maybe five. And that's my wife, he tells me for maybe the thousandth time. Pretty, no? Prettiest in the neighborhood. Or prettiest in the village or wherever he came from. Oh, oh, my wife, he says. He had a tendency to repeat himself, you understand. Oh, oh. Lucky that there are cameras, no? Think how it would be if we all just had to remember. In the end we wouldn't recognize anyone. Here,” he says, “look at me. Every time I imagine my family, I see someone else. That's how it is. So many years have passed.”

“So many,” repeated Motti unintentionally.

“Lots,” confirmed Guard B, “Lots and lots. No one left. Just me. Alone. Alone like a dog is alone. Dad I already told you about, Mom, you know. I had a little sister, but she's gone too. Choked on a chicken bone. Got stuck in her foodpipe. And that was the end of her. Comma.”

“Oh, she went into a coma?” asked Motti.

“No,” said the guard. “Died right there, on the spot.”

“So that was the end of her, period, you mean,” Motti said.

“No, no,” countered Guard B. “Hadn't gotten her period yet. She was so young. Wasn't ten years old when she went.”