police. Poor man. No sense of humor at all.
***
The addressee was born to the one who was born to her, which is why the old woman keeps hoping that the very first time the story is retold, at least, it will remain faithful to the original. And even if the content of the time capsule is never revealed in full, the spirit of the story will continue to roam. Stories have ghosts too, after all.
When her time comes, the old woman will be lowered into the earth, into the familiar darkness. She’s not afraid. Unlike those who find refuge in the light, she has been there. She emerged from the darkness, and has remained in the darkness.
And pretty soon, she’ll be going back there. If there is one promise that is always kept, that’s the one.
***
The old woman took her chances, and the granddaughter did not turn her back. Which doesn’t mean that there won’t be setbacks, but never mind that for now.
Even if the story is devoid of love, the closer it gets to its inevitable ending, something fills it in nonetheless. To love – a verb which she uses sparingly – is such a heavy burden. But without it the story would have no meaning. At the end of their conversation, the old woman intends to ask her granddaughter to search for her mother and father on the internet. People say that this net is spreading into the world beyond this world.
***
Just before the end, the story poses the most complicated challenge of all: how to overcome old age? Because she, of all people, must not change or turn into an old lady. After all, if she changes, how will her father and mother recognize her when they come back? She couldn’t bear the thought that the promise might be kept for someone else.
Inside her, it is true, time has become fossilized, but on the outside it has taken its toll.
***
Darkness falls. This commonplace natural phenomenon has never ceased to amaze her. Sometimes one side is completely dark while the other retains a pale pink haze. But whether she closes her eyes or leaves them open, the old woman meets up with the darkness all at once.
She is standing in the stairwell of a Tel Aviv apartment building, flicking the light switch again and again to keep it on, until she hears her granddaughter’s voice from below. An echo rises from the entrance hall, over the old bomb-shelter.
Grandma, I’ve reached the ground. Good night.
***
The story should be recorded in full, the old woman hears a voice within her, echoing the public demand to tell it before it’s too late. Those who can tell such stories are numbered. But she and others like her will never be the perfect storytellers. All they can offer is the shell. We’ll have to settle for that. One thing that the old woman’s hands remember well – because a flame burns on in her fingers to remind her, oblivious to the main Memory valve – is the slough of the snakes. Scaly, coarse, refusing to crumble. The little-girl-who-once-was envied the snakes.
A shell of a story, or a slough. No more.
***
The old woman gave in, and agreed to share a small portion of her story. Not because she thought it would be of use to anyone, but because in her heart of hearts she was hoping to uncover something which she herself had not known before.
Now she regrets having been hostage to the story for so long. The rage and the yearning have deprived her of the ability to express what she was feeling. And she is feeling so much. At this very moment, in Tel Aviv, the old woman is slithering into herself.
Despite the story.
***
One time the old woman crossed over and entered the confessional. It happened a few days before her conversation with her granddaughter.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
For the first time in her life she had said Father. In her conversation with her granddaughter, she would try to say Mother too.
In St Anthony’s Church in Jaffa the priest sat behind the screen and did not rush her. In talking to his flock – foreign workers who have come all the way to Israel to provide bread for their children – he told her that an evil spirit once attacked St Anthony, patron saint of the poor and the ailing, the brushmakers and the household pets. The saint lay in his black cave, mortally wounded and mistaken for dead. He