urine, in her own vomit, in her own excrement. Hemorrhaging herself. The tears she’s learned to stifle, because unlike the other bodily discharges, tears can be a giveaway. Her very life depends on her complete control over her body. Quite an insight for a five-year-old. To this day she never sneezes or coughs.
The blood – that’s beyond her control.
Mother in Heaven doesn’t know what they do to little girls under the ground. If she did, of course she’d come down to earth, and if she doesn’t come down – she just doesn’t want to know.
Ave Maria of the Lice.
Ave Maria of the Snakes.
Ave Maria of the Worms.
Ave Maria of the Stefan.
Maria is just like her mother – turning her back.
***
I’ll stick it in your mouth.
Swallow it.
And again, swallow it.
Always swallow.
***
A human blob in the dark, keeping her breathing to a minimum. In the days that followed, or in the nights, to be precise, she started mumbling the Latin words. Ave Maria, turn me into a rat too. The happiest creature in the world.
***
She’d always hoped that old age would bring some relief. Above all she’d hoped it would take the edge off the rage. Time had not kept its promise, and her rage remained as razor-sharp as ever, matched in strength only by the yearning. Every day, every hour, her mother turning her back. Even now, when she is forty years older than her mother had been then.
Had the old woman told her story earlier, she might have been able to stifle her anger just a little. So many times she had wanted to forgive her parents, but the rage wouldn’t let her. Not even the guilt could take the edge off it.
It is rage that is forcing the story off course. How inarticulate and evasive the story sounds to her as it breaks free of her, removing itself from her grip. As the old woman observes it helplessly, the story keeps egging her on, insisting it has been disabled, and refusing to be hers any longer. But the old woman, sobered and perhaps brave too, won’t let it break out of the darkness without a battle. The rage continues to seethe, because without it she would cease to exist.
Her granddaughter is indeed young, but she’s already at an age where people are capable of working out the codes and deciphering the truth. And although she’s decided to get the story, no matter what, the pages of her notebook are blank.
The old woman marks a little victory. The story is missing its target after all.
Because more than she does want to tell it, she doesn’t.
***
Night after night, or day after day, in the shell of her wilting body, with every sense she possesses, the girl who was wrought detects the steps coming down, approaching, and even in their absence – which isn’t to last – she is on the alert, knowing that the Stefan is sure to arrive.
Suddenly the story folds inwards, to its core, where the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
But this is not a Bible story.
***
Even if we assume that the story is not make-believe, it may well be that its time axis has gone awry. Decomposing time into units and rearranging it – that’s no small feat for a child. One night can be an eternity, and what was tagged as the past turns out to be the present. Strange, but only now that old age is gnawing away at her – not simply overtaking her, mind you – does the old woman grow more acutely aware of the twists and turns along the time axis. The elements of the story have been fused into each other, which is why the darkness and the Stefan are liable to take up no more than a small fragment of the story-line, in complete contradiction to their dimensions in reality.
The key points along the way, then, are not shortcuts but time capsules. Darkness. The farmer’s wife. A rat. Ave Maria. The Stefan. Darkness. A rat. The Stefan. Ave Maria.
Darkness.
The Stefan.
Darkness.
***
Open your Jewish legs.
More.
Much more.
A Jewish hole.
That’s what you are.
***
While she was waiting for her granddaughter, the old woman vomited. It’s just the heat, she excused herself. Tel Aviv deifies the light. In this city, light is the be-all and end-all. Her guts were boiling. Even before getting on course, the story is already bursting out of her body.
Her flesh is simply growing slack. Old age, that’s just how it is.