Five Dials

Number 25b The Cork Fiction Issue 2: Cork Harder

Featuring

nathan Englander Frank O’Connor Witi Ihimaera

. . . Plus artwork (in colour this time) by Jeannie Phan, fiction from John F. Deane and Tania Hershman and a little more . . . CONTRIBUTORS John F. Deane founded Poetry Ireland – the National Poetry Society – and The Poetry Ireland Review, of which he is currently editor. He has published several collections of poetry, three novels and collections of short stories, most recently The Heather Fields and Other Stories. Nathan Englander is the author of the story collections What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, as well as the novel The Ministry of Special Cases. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank was the winner of the 2012 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Tania Hershman’s first collection of short stories and flash fiction, The White Road and Other Stories, was commended in the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers. Her second collection, My Mother Was an Upright Piano, was recently published by Tangent Books. She is currently writer-in-residence in the Science Faculty at Bristol University. Witi Ihimaera is a multi-award winning writer from New Zealand. He is the author of thirteen novels and six collections of stories. His 1987 novel, The Whale Rider, was made into an internationally acclaimed film in 2002 and an adaptation of his novella, Medicine Woman, will be released in 2013. Frank O’Connor was born in Cork on 17 September, 1903. A novelist, poet, dramatist, literary critic, essayist, travel writer, translator and biographer, O’Connor is perhaps best known for his short stories. Many of his classic stories such as ‘My Oedipus Complex’ and ‘The Long Road to Ummera’, are regularly anthologized and his study of the short story, The Lonely Voice, continues to be read by budding short story writers around the world. The Frank O’ Connor International Award is the world’s most prestigious prize for a collection of short stories. Jeannie Phan is a Toronto-based illustrator who works in acrylic gouache and ink. Her work includes the Brazilian cover of the Slavoj Žižek book First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. Her website can be found at jeanniephan.com. All material contained therein is copyrighted and all rights are reserved.

Editor: Craig Taylor Publisher: Simon Prosser Assistant Editor: Anna Kelly

Five Dials staffers:E llie Smith, Noel O’Regan, Marissa Chen, Sam Buchan Watts, Jamie Fewery, Jakob von Baeyer, Karen Bryden, Caroline Pretty

Designed by: Dean Allen Illustration: jeannie phan A Letter from the Editor On Englander and Lists

nd so, and thus, here we are in Reading • Ghostbusters 2 ANovember, second Obama term • Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood (amazing) • And we are looking forward to Amour – confirmed, leaves turning, Christmas • The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall Michael Haneke displays up, chill in the air, abandoned (bizarre) Boris bikes on the pavement of the Strand, • Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace Music a giant reindeer shrubbery in Covent • Gay Talese’s Fame and Obscurity • Melancholy piano music, especially Erik Garden along with a few shivering human • George Gissing’s New Grub Street (a Satie statues standing on the corner of Floral great reminder that no matter how • Ronnie Lane and Slim Chance Street. bad circumstances get for a writer in • Townes Van Zandt’s Texas Troubadour As promised, this is the second part of London, they can always somehow get • Old, old stuff for the renovated the Cork short story issue. We’ve got a worse.) record player: The Boogie Woogie Frank O’Connor story from the archives • The Polish Boxer - Eduardo Halfon Trio; Django Reinhardt; Junior Walker as well as fiction from Nathan Englander: • The London A-Z and the All Stars proof that sometimes, when given access • The Invisible Man – HG Wells • Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense to the writing of Englander, it’s important • Paul Thek: Artist’s Artist (and Sontag’s • Cinderella – Long Cold Winter to quickly grab the story and stick it into friend) the next issue, just in case someone out • Crafts of the Weimar Bauhaus Youtube there in the far reaches of our subscription • Michelangelo’s Poetry (via Ali Smith) • Rosie Perez taking on Mitt Romney list has not yet read his work. We’d hate • Rosie Perez dancing on old Soul Train to think that someone, somehow missed Foodstuffs clips out on his latest book, What We Talk about • Polo mints • Rosie Perez dancing in the Do The Right When We Talk About Anne Frank, which • Nicorette gum (4 mgs) Thing credit sequence he read from when we were in Cork. The • Ibuprofen • Rosie Perez dancing to anything at all story you’ll find in this issue is proof of • Benylin Englander’s devotion to the form. It car- • Strepsils Extra-Strength blackcurrant Exhibits ries more weight than any short story lozenges • William Klein x Daido Moriyama at the should feasibly be able to hold; it’s as if the • Chocolate cake Tate Modern text was hewn from stone. Read on. Be • Francis Upritchard at Nottingham amazed. To counterbalance the seriousness, Films Contemporary and to keep you apprised of our recent fix- • The Imposter – Bart Layton. • Dr Lakra at Kate MacGarry ations and fascinations, we’ve also included • Anna Karenina Verdict: mixed. another of our occasional Five Dials lists, • Sion Sono’s Himizu (remarkable Websites where all the editors write down what post-Tohoku film about recovery and • Des Jeunes Gens Modernes they’ve been ingesting, as if we’d become identity) • The Olympia Press one large culture-gulping entity. Here’s • Skyfall what’s been filling our world: • Ghostbusters Theatre: • Interesting production of Strindberg’s Miss Julie at the Barbican, en francais, avec Juliette Binoche and (thankfully) surtitles. • Ghostbusters 2 (a musical, in development)

Others • Keeping as up-to-date on the US elections as possible through its most inane byproducts - from Will Ferrell’s Obama endorsement to Best Instagrams/ GIFs of Election Day. • The Onion’s Joe Biden fan fiction

3 Memoir novella, directed by Mexican director Dana Rotberg, will be released in 2013. It will be the third feature film to be made Under The Skin from my work after Whale Rider in 2002 and Nights in the Gardens of Spain in 2010 Witi Ihimaera on the making of the filmMedicine Woman (known as Kawa for its American release in 2011). In both the novella and film I 1. A Sickly Child woman whom she heard had arrived at kept the name of Paraiti for the medicine a small village near Gisborne. ‘She was woman. When I was born, I was my mother Julia’s known as Paraiti,’ my mother told me, ‘or I have tried to recreate her late nine- first child. I was premature, a sickly child Blightface, because she had a red birth- teenth-century and early to mid twenti- with chronic breathing problems. Accord- mark over the left half of her face. Like eth-century world in the first half of the ing to her, the Pakeha obstetrician who Hori Gage, she was a Ringatu lady, a fol- narrative, which follows her travels with delivered me didn’t think I would live lower of the prophet Te Kooti’s spiritual horse, mule and dog throughout the wil- beyond my first year. ways.’ derness tribal lands of my childhood. For This was in the early 1940s, and on her According to Mum, I was bundled instance, these are the rongoa (medicines) release from Gisborne maternity hospital up in blankets and she and Dad drove of her trade: they include kumarahou for my mother took me to other Pakeha doc- through the backblocks of Poverty Bay to asthma; waoriki for arthritis; ake, kareao, tors. There was a certain amount of des- Whatatutu where Paraiti was going about miro or rimu gum for bleeding and haem- peration about this: she always used to say her work: among the stories of babyhood, orrhaging; hakekakeha or harakeke roots to me, ‘I held you in my arms,’ as if that this was the one that I could imagine fully, for blood cleansing and to promote regular explained everything. stars wheeling above, anxious white-faced blood functions; mingimingi, the mamaku When those doctors could not help parents speeding down dusty roads look- pith and punga fern pith for scrofulous me, my mother finally turned to her own ing for a scarred witch doctor, you know tumours, abscesses and boils; kawakawa Maori community of faith healers includ- the sort of thing. for bronchitis and catarrh; weka oil, kow- ing a well-known tohunga, a Ringatu This must have been around 1946, and hai and bluegum juice for bruises, sprains priest known as Hori Gage. I know all the work of such women (and men) was and aching bones; harakeke and kauri gum this because survival narratives are always illegal and frowned upon; I understood to treat burns; puwha and mimiha gum central to any family and, compared to that Paraiti had been jailed a few times and for mouth and teeth ailments; harakeke my brothers and sisters, although I was practised in a clandestine fashion. When for chilblains and bad circulation; houhere the eldest, I was the sickly runt of the my mother finally found her and delivered and tawa for colds; titoki for constipa- bunch; still am. And, of course, because I me to her for inspection, was Paraiti wel- tion; piupiu for cramp; wood charcoal for was therefore prone to all the ills and sick- coming? dandruff; koromikobuds for diarrhoea and nesses of the world, my mother’s stories No, first she intimidated my mother dysentery; eel oil for earache; powdered of my survival were dispensed with all the with her scar and then scolded her by say- moss for eczema and scabies; kaikaiatua cod liver oil, malt and other less mention- ing, ‘You should have come straight to me as an emetic; pirita for epilepsy; seaweed able concoctions and therapies which she instead of going to Pakeha doctors. Why for goitre; paewhenua for haemorrhoids; plagued me with as a boy. (Much later, it do you think I will be successful when piripiri for urinary health; fernroot and was intimated to me by another Maori seer they haven’t been?’ convolvulus roots for lactation; flax-leaf that I would not live beyond the age of Paraiti must have been in her seventies juice for sciatica; huainanga as an emetic to thirty, which seemed to affirm the doom by then. She had been a girl during the expel tapeworms; manuka honey for heal- and gloom with which my early life was Land Wars and had lived through the flu ing poultices and internal ailments of the surrounded; every year since, I have con- epidemic of 1918 and seen many changes as digestive tract; and so on. sidered a bonus.) New Zealand became colonized. Grumpy Paraiti shuns Pakeha utensils and keeps My father’s approach to my sickliness though she was, she looked at me, said to traditional ones: wooden sticks and was much more practical, even if wrong. she would treat me and, from what Mum scrapers, sharp-edged shells and obsidian He has always been robust, refusing to told me, for the next few days kept me in flakes for cutting, thorns for opening up believe in mollycoddling and instead a makeshift tent filled with steam treated abscesses, stones to heat before placing favouring fresh air, open windows, cold with herbs. Every now and then she driz- on the body, lacy houhere bark and cob- baths, and the like; he applied his own zled manuka honey down my throat. webs as poultices and dressings, palm-tree remedies to get me well including one that ‘Some days later,’ my mother told me, splints for broken bones, kahakaha fibre was popular among Maori in those days: ‘Paraiti then began to karakia, to pray, and, for bandaging and various oils for massag- dabbing benzine on a cloth and getting as she did so, she hooked her finger into ing. me to inhale it; it is a wonder I didn’t turn your throat and pulled out threads of For any major bone-setting that into a petrol head. phlegm.’ requires steam treatment, Paraiti organizes Finally, having exhausted all the Pakeha From this childhood survival story times at a makeshift spa. Her father has and Maori avenues that she knew, my came the novella Medicine Woman, pub- given her special knowledge of the various mother took me to a travelling medicine lished in 2006, and now the film of the massages to heal and knit broken bones.

4 He has also taught her therapeutic massage into a complexion of flawless whiteness. America, and Merle: A Biography of Merle for the elderly; he himself loved nothing In a film career which spanned from 1930 Oberon quotes the following (p. 28), told better than to submit himself to Paraiti’s to 1973, her electrifying beauty was high- by actress Diana Napier about an incident strong kneading and stroking of his body lighted in over fifty British, French, US in the 1930s: ‘One afternoon I was having to keep his circulation going. ‘Daughter,’ and Mexican film roles including Anne tea with Merle at her flat near Baker Street he sighs, ‘you have such goodness in your Boleyn to Charles Laughton’s Henry in when for the first time I saw this little, hands.’ The Private Life of Henry VIII, 1933, Cathy plump Indian woman come into the room And, of course, there is a sequence in to Laurence Olivier’s Heathcliff inWuther - dressed in a sari. She stood nervous, hesi- which a young boy has manuka honey ing Heights, 1939, George Sand to Cornel tantly, as though waiting for orders. Merle drizzled down his throat to clear it so that Wilde’s Chopin in A Song to Remember, was extremely embarrassed. She spoke to he can breathe. 1945, and the Empress Josephine to Marlon her mother in Hindustani. The lady hardly Paraiti is an agent of life. She saves. She Brando’s Napoleon in Désirée, 1954. People said anything at all. She was very, very heals. She prolongs. thought she had discovered the fountain quiet.’ of youth because as she grew older she Charlotte Constance Selby died with 2. Merle Oberon was a Maori seemed to become more beautiful. her daughter at her bedside on 28 April Merle Oberon achieved much more 1937.Very few people knew that the Indian However, I felt that in Paraiti’s narrative than a film career. In a life characterized by woman, called by her ayah or nanny Merle she needed a moral dilemma, something steely determination, sexual charisma and Oberon, had been her mother. Neither which challenges her purpose and her force of will, she climbed to the heights of woman had, throughout Merle Oberon’s thinking: a confrontation with all she the international jet set, becoming one of long and illustrious career, ever given values and a request not to save a life but the leading hostesses for her multimillion- sign of family affection. To have done to take it. aire husband, lavishly entertaining princes so would have destroyed the image of In the second part of her story, there- and presidents at their sumptuous home in Merle Oberon’s ‘English rose’ reputation fore, I introduce a character named Mrs Mexico. Higham and Moseley are of the at a time when women of colour faced Rebecca Vickers, a young Pakeha woman view that she dominated not only Holly- harrowing prejudices and racism. In the in her twenties, belonging to high society, wood but the society of her generation. British film industry, such a woman would who asks Paraiti for an abortion. All this . . . and yet she was the second never have made it to the front rank of Mrs Vickers and her maidservant, daughter of a Eurasian girl, born on 19 actors – and would not have survived the Maraea, in her fifties and a Maori, are not February 1911 not in Tasmania, Australia, furore if the truth had become known. what they seem to be. In particular, Mrs but Bombay, India. Soon after her mother’s death, so Vickers has a lot at stake: if the baby is This was the passage of description of Higham and Moseley tell us, Merle born, and if it is of dark complexion, peo- Merle Oberon’s mother in Higham and Oberon had a portrait painted of an ple will realize that she is a Maori. Moseley’s book which took my attention: unknown woman, with brown hair, blue This is where I have interpolated the ‘Her name is Charlotte Constance Selby . . . eyes and white skin dressed in a period story of actress Merle Oberon. It provides She is a Christian girl, part Irish, part Sing- costume of some twenty years earlier. The the heart of darkness to Medicine Woman. halese, with Maori strains in her blood . . paintings always hung in Merle’s homes .’ (Merle: A Biography of Merle Oberon, p. 3). from then on and, when asked who the I had long been fascinated by Merle The future actress was christened Estelle woman was, Merle Oberon always referred Oberon, ever since reading Merle: A Biog- Merle, her father was Arthur O’Brien to the painting as being that of her mother. raphy of Merle Oberon by Charles Higham Thompson, and the name Merle Oberon and Roy Moseley (New English Library, was fashioned out of her second Chris- And so, in the final part ofMedicine Woman, 1983). All her life she lived a lie. She told tian name and her father’s first surname, Paraiti is involved in a battle of wills with the press that she had been born in Hobart, O’Brien. Mrs Rebecca Vickers, whose life parallels Tasmania, Australia, and, in later life, When Merle Oberon became famous, that of Merle Oberon: as a Maori passing 1965, unwittingly found herself in Sydney her mother and father, as well as her elder as Pakeha she, too, has much at stake. when she accompanied her then husband sister, conspired to keep the truth of her The battle is over the life of an unborn Bruno Pagliai, one of the richest men in Eurasian origins from the public. Accord- child: how will Paraiti be able to save the Latin America, on an inaugural flight of ing to Higham and Moseley, cinematog- child and not kill it? It is also, of course, Aeronaves de Mexico. Invited to attend raphers found ways of filming her so that over whose history will succeed, identity, a banquet in her honour at Government her naturally dark skin and looks would be race, skin colour and the choices many House, Hobart, she first accepted, fainted obscured. One such was the famed Gregg men and women of ethnicity faced when and cancelled; she was only in Australia Toland, cameraman of Citizen Kane, who trying to survive within European society seventy-two hours. poured the whitest and most blazing arc before it re-balanced itself. Why the lie? Well, Merle Oberon had lights directly into her face, making her On my part, the narrative is also to a lot to hide. She was after all one of the look almost transparently fair and remov- honour my mother and the scar-faced lady most beautiful women of her genera- ing any hint of her Indian skin texture. she took me to. She was a lady I never tion, a famous film actress with a fabulous Merle Oberon’s mother Charlotte in knew called Paraiti. Dedicated to life, she almond-shaped face and slanting eyes set fact lived with her daughter in Britain and saved mine.

5 Fiction could see well into the purple mountains of Moab from where Rena stood, you would not know that things weighed Sister Hills heavy at all. You would not know it if, upon taking her periodic look over the by Nathan Englander edge of that rocky slope and spotting a skinny young man climbing its worn, I: 1973 plan, and bought the land, and decided to ancient terraces, she hadn’t buried that settle this area of Samaria together, and axe in the ground and lifted a rifle from On a hilltop not many miles east of Jeru- build from their two families a great and the dirt. salem, Hanan Cohen watched the dust mighty city on that place. Rena chambered a round. She planted rising up in the distance and knew they Rena figured that Skote, too, had seen the butt on her shoulder and set her were having a war. The roads remain the dust. And that, most sensibly, Yehudit sights on the boy zigzagging his way empty on the Day of Atonement, and had taken her baby daughter and followed­ up. When he was close enough to Rena the cloud from a convoy barrelling down her husband to the closest road when that she could have as eas­ily poked him towards the desert could mean only one he’d left to join the fight. Rena sincerely back down the hill with the barrel as shot thing. Hanan put a hand to his eyes to hoped that’s what she’d done. At the best him through the heart, he said, in Arabic, block the sun, hoping to see better. Hold­ of times, this was not a safe place to be ‘Stop chopping my tree.’ ing that position, with his beard blowing, alone. There was a walkie-talkie in the Rena either didn’t speak Arabic or and his long white robe, and the tallit on shack, and Rena called out to Yehudit, didn’t care to respond. And so the boy his shoulders, he looked – poised among but heard nothing on any of the chan- repeated the sentence in Hebrew. those ancient hills – like a man outside of nels, only broken flashes, like lightning, Again, it was as if he had not spoken. time. He walked back into the one-room of passing chatter. Rena decided against Rena, as if starting the conversation, said, shack where he lived with his wife and his crossing. She didn’t want to find herself ‘Who are you?’ three teenage sons. He undressed, put on alone on the opposite hilltop, only to ‘I am,’ he said, ‘your neighbour down his uniform, and took up his gun so that have to make her way back in the night. the hill.’ no one needed to ask what he had seen. Rena sat with her back to the door ‘Then stay down the hill,’ she said. The boys said, ‘We will come, too. and her eyes to the win­dow. She recited ‘I would have,’ the boy said. ‘But I There will be some way to help.’ psalms with her rifle in her lap, and looked up and I saw that you were doing ‘Stay with your mother,’ Hanan said. watched for any movement that might be something that can’t be undone.’ And Rena, who did not need her hus- headed up her hill. She stayed this way ‘It’s my tree, on my land, in my country. band to make such a decision, said, ‘Fol- until morning, frightened countless times Mine to cut down if I please.’ low your father to the city, and see if by the rustling of leaves on stiff branches. ‘If it was your tree, I’d have seen you at there’s any way you may serve your coun- And more so, she was terrified by what my side last year during harvest. I’d have try in its time of need.’ she could not see, the ever-widening seen you the year before that, and ten Hanan nodded, accepting. And he, gyre of frontier blocked by the tree at her years before that, and a hundred.’ along with his three boys, walked out window. ‘You weren’t here yourself a hundred towards the war. After washing her hands and saying years ago. And any­way,’ Rena said, ‘you Rena did not sleep that night, wor- her prayers, Rena went outside with the don’t look back far enough. The contract ried as she was for her husband and her axe to size up the task ahead. It was the on this land is very old.’ sons. The worry was made worse by the biggest tree in their grove, a solid four ‘A mythical claim, as meaningless as the new­ness of the place and its simplicity. metres around. Then she looked up to its one you make today.’ Centred in the middle of an olive grove, top and knew she could conquer it. For Here the boy went silent as the shad- the shack was without running water or the tree, like the men of that country, ows from a formation of fighters passed electricity.­ Whatever radio signal wasn’t was much shorter than you’d imagine overhead. Then he waited a moment swallowed by the surrounding mountains for something so tough. Rena spat in longer, for he knew they would be fol- was blocked by the trees. A home so rus- her hands. She took up her axe, and she lowed by the crack of broken sky. tic wasn’t wired for a phone. swung at the tree’s knobbly base with all ‘You will see,’ the boy said. ‘The Jewish When Rena broke her fast after dark, she had. She chopped and chopped, mak- court will return this hill to us. Anyway, she thought about hiking down across ing little progress. When she was feeling it looks like it’s the war, not a judge, that the little valley out her front door and forlorn, too tired to hack at that stubborn will decide. Tomorrow, I’d say, or the climbing the hill on the other side. For on bole any more, she’d look out past the next, this tree will be in Jordan, or Egypt, that other small summit­ sat another shack, tree over the edge of the hill at the Arab or, God willing, back home in Palestine.’ with another family. The only Jews for village below. And she’d swing. ‘By tomorrow,’ Rena said, ‘it will be at miles around. In it lived a husband and Watching this handsome mother of the bottom of the hill. And you can take wife and their new baby daughter. The three at work, her hair tied back in a ker- it, along with your family, to any country husband, Skote, was a friend of Hanan’s, chief, and reigning over this stunning hill, you please.’ and together they’d come up with the in a sea of hills, on a day so clear that one Here the boy’s face darkened, as if a

6 plane again had passed, though the sky glowing and held it out to the woman blessing He’d just sent me? And this after stayed clear. before her. And she saw that the baby I’ve left behind my whole family. This ‘If I find one single olive branch off this Yehudit carried did not sit right in her after I moved up to a forgotten hilltop, tree at the bottom of the hill,’ he said, a arms. From the way she held it, Rena after I sacrificed happi­ness to make Israel finger now raised, ‘I will plant you in its assumed that the child was already dead. whole. No, there has been a sin. There place myself. One more swing, I tell you, ‘Is she –’ Rena said. has been some evil of which I’m unaware. and a curse on your head – a curse on ‘Sick,’ Yehudit said. ‘A thousand But it is my evil. This child, alone out your home.’ degrees. I tried every remedy, said every here, utterly pure.’ ‘You are very tough for a boy with a prayer.’ And then, in the middle of her ‘And you think selling your baby will gun aimed at his heart.’ panic, she said, ‘Why did we move to this break a fever that hot.’ ‘A settler who shoots for no reason place? By whose call does it fall on us to ‘If she were not my child any more,’ would already have shot.’ rebuild this nation? Two families alone Yehudit said, ‘if she meant so little to And here the boy turned and walked among olives and enemies. I said to Skote me that I’d sell her for a pittance. If she back down the hill. He was halfway before all of this, “What if there is an belonged, in earnest, to another mother, down when Rena called to him, against emergency, and us cut off, no phones, no then maybe those forces that take interest her better judgement. ‘Child,’ she yelled. roads, only hills around? What if some- would see that it is not worth the bother. ‘Cousin! Are we really losing the war?’ thing happens after the baby is born?”’ And if she is truly no longer my child,’ ‘Do you want me to hike down with Yehudit said, owning whatever dark Rena chopped at that tree for the rest you?’ Rena said, looking for a clock. ‘We cloud hovered over her, ‘maybe what- of the morning. With each swing, she can be at the crossing before the sun ever’s com­ing won’t even know where to thought of the boy’s curse, and the boy’s comes up.’ look.’ threat, and wondered, if she felled the ‘It’s too far and too dangerous. And you Rena nodded, accepting. She rum- tree that day, if he’d really come for her can see already, the decision about this maged through a veg­etable crate full that night. But that tree was a dense tree. child’s life will be made tonight.’ of books for the one in which she and And her axe needed sharpening. And as ‘Let me hold her,’ Rena said. And she Hanan hid their money. She took out a strong as she was, her arms would need took the child, who was hot as white coal. stack of bills. This she offered to Yehudit, strengthening, or at least a night of rest, Her lips were cracked deep and peel­ing who took one worthless note off the top. to get the job done. When she knew she like parchment, her little eyes dry and ‘Shtei prutot­ ,’ Yehudit said. ‘I won’t take could not finish, Rena went back into dead. Rena did not think this child could more money for her than I would for a the shack. She cleared her mug and plate be saved. She handed the baby back to its loaf of bread.’ Yehudit then gave that bill from the table and tipped it on to its side. mother, and took up the blanket that was back to Rena and straightened herself, She then flipped it up against the window folded on her cot. preparing for the exchange. to act as a shutter, and turned her chair ‘What are you doing?’ Yehudit said. ‘I declare this child to be a daughter around to face the other side of the room. ‘Making you a place to rest, so that I of this house,’ Yehu­dit said. ‘I make no Rena sat with her back to the window, can care for the baby while you sleep. We claim to her any more.’ She passed that the gun in her lap, and her eyes set on a will take turns nursing her through the boiling baby over to Rena, and in return door so flimsy that when night came, she night.’ took that single bill in her hand. ‘I ask was able to see the stars through the gaps ‘I didn’t come for company. I didn’t only,’ Yehudit said, ‘that you consider in its boards. come to stay.’ one humble request.’ Deep into that night, there was a bang- ‘Well, what can I do that you haven’t ‘Yes?’ Rena said, her eyes wet with the ing at the door that Rena was sure was already done?’ seriousness of the exchange. the boy from the village come to get ‘You can buy the child.’ ‘In making this deal binding, I ask that her. Cloudy with sleep, she was up in ‘What?’ Rena said. you let me spare you the burden of raising an instant, the gun at her shoulder, her ‘In the way of the old country – to out- your daughter until she is a woman. I will finger on the trigger, and squeezing so smart what’s coming.­ It’s how my own watch over her as if I were her mother – hard in her fright that there was no way grandmother was saved from the Angel though I am not. I will raise her with love to stop it, when she remembered­ it might of Death.’ and school her in the ways of Israel, and be her husband or her sons coming home. ‘I’ll recite psalms with you until the put her life before mine, if you grant me In that very same instant, for it was too pages turn to dust,’ Rena said, ‘but super- the right. Do you accept these terms?’ small to split, she pitched up the barrel stition and magic?’ ‘I don’t,’ Rena said. And a terror washed and shot a tile from her roof. Yehudit put a hand to the back of the over Yehudit’s face. ‘I will loan you my Rena heard her neighbour Yehudit baby’s head and turned away the shoulder daughter until she is grown,’ Rena said, scream on the other side of that door. She on which the child rested, as if Rena her- ‘but only if you both sleep here tonight. ran to open it, saying a dozen prayers self were possibly Death in another guise. No daughter of mine can leave me so sick at once, thankful she had not killed her ‘You don’t see it?’ Yehudit said. ‘Why and head out into such a dark, cold night.’ friend. When Yehudit was safely inside else, on Yom Kip­pur, would God call my ‘Of course, of course,’ Yehudit said, with her baby, and the bolt slid back into husband away to war? To do that, and stepping forward. ‘A deal’s a deal.’ And place, Rena set the hive of a lantern to then reach into my home to take back the here, Yehudit hugged Rena, with that

7 burning baby between them – too sick to ‘A miracle,’ Yehudit said. Rena first There was no mirror in the shack for cry. Into Rena’s ear, Yehudit whispered, picked up her friend’s gun, then thought Rena to cover. The collar of her shirt was ‘Let God protect our husbands in battle. better about firing off a shot. She went already torn. There was hardly a way to And protect our country at war. Let God back to the shack and returned with a harshen her life as an appropriate sign of save this little daughter,­ and let God bless flare, pulling off its cap, and then jumping mourning, and so she sat on the crate that this house, and protect you always. And and screaming and calling to the soldier. held their books, and she grieved. She may He bless our new city, though it is She waved that flare around, throwing spent the next two days perched in the now only two hovels on sister hills.’ it high off the edge of the hill. And he door of their shack, waiting for any trav- ‘Amen,’ Rena said. ‘Thank you,’ she waved. eller who might pass and acknowledge said, and kissed her friend on the cheek. When the soldier, running double-time, her loss. Yehudit stepped back and wiped the reached the top off the hill, he put his On the third day of mourning, Rena tears from her face. ‘A silly superstition hands to his knees to catch his breath, and was comforted to see her three sons crest you may think,’ she said, ‘but I believe in then stood, wiping the sweat from his the hill. They came carrying supplies on the power of the word.’ head with an arm. their backs, and with a group of boys in Rena looked in the corner at all the ‘A miracle that you should stumble by tow. milk bottles full of water. ‘When my boys us,’ Rena said. ‘We have a sick baby, and a The sons wept with their mother and used to get those terrible fevers, I would lady who needs to get to a clinic. Do you then moved aside, so that each of the new give them ice baths to cool them down.’ have a jeep? She cannot travel this way by boys could approach and welcome Rena ‘If I had ice,’ Yehudit said, ‘I’d have foot.’ into the mourners of Zion. done it myself.’ ‘About a kilometre in from the road. It was her oldest son, Yermiyahu, who ‘There’s always a way to make do.’ That’s as far as I could go before the rise explained things. ‘These are boys from Rena took up her gun and walked out to turned too steep.’ our yeshiva. They’ve come to help us the northern edge of her property, where ‘Take her,’ Rena said, giving him a make a minyan, so that we can say Kad- there was a high boulder that caught shove. ‘Hurry down. Who knows how dish for our father at home.’ the wind. She climbed the boulder in much time is left?’ And it was her second son, Matityahu, the darkness – already familiar with its ‘I’ll take her,’ the soldier said, tucking who said, baby-faced and trying to appear every crag. She took up a jerry can she his shirt in his pants and his pants in his stoic, ‘They have taken an oath in honour kept there to cool when the tempera­ture boots before snapping to attention. ‘But of our father and his memory.’ dropped, one she’d tuck in the shade each first,’ he said, ‘which one of you is Rena And the tallest of those boys, momen- morning, her refreshment as she worked Barak?’ tarily emboldened by the report of his the land. Rena stood on that rock and Rena touched the soldier a second time, pledge, said, ‘We make this our home, screwed off the cap. She hoisted the con- steadying herself against him. ‘Then I too. And we will not so much as step off tainer in the crook of an elbow, looking guess,’ she said, as Yehudit hurried over this hill until there are ten for each one of for any signs of fighting from Jordan. She to help support her, ‘that this is no mira- us. Until our seven are seventy.’ tipped the can back and took a long swig. cle for me.’ Her littlest, Tzuki, just past bar mitz- And she was com­forted as the water sent a Rena accepted the news of her hus- vah, came up and hugged her. ‘Look, chill to her bones. band’s death and said, ‘Thank you, brave Mother, at how our settlement grows.’ soldier. Now find my boys and tell them ‘Yes, my boy,’ Rena said, slipping into When Rena opened her eyes, she found to bury their father. Their mother waits that space where every house of mourn- herself in the chair, the gun in her lap, at home.’ And here she motioned for ing for a moment turns happy. ‘And only the psalms at her side, and her front door Yehudit to start down into the valley, so weeks ago,’ she said, tickling at the down already open, letting in the morning. She as not to slow them any further on their of his upper lip, ‘did we go from hav- went outside and discovered Yehudit sit- way. ing three men to four.’ All laughed, and ting under a tree at the western edge of ‘There will be a funeral,’ the soldier said. then all turned serious as the sons took the hill, rocking the baby in her arms, a ‘There is room in the jeep for all three.’ seats around their mother on the floor. small machine pistol at her feet. Yehudit ‘Look around you,’ she said. ‘Our great The seven who were not grieving went turned at Rena’s step and smiled up at her settlement is two houses and two fami- right to clearing rocks, pulling weeds and friend, and Rena knew from this that the lies. For both mothers to leave would be planting their tents on the hill. baby had improved in the night. to lose everything we’ve started build- ‘Look’ is all Yehudit said, pointing ing. Our neighbours from down the II: 1987 out past her own shack on the opposite hill will be back up in an instant. And a hill and down into the valley beyond. more unfor­givable sin than never having It was this day that was talked about for There, appearing and disappearing, as he reclaimed this land would be let­ting land years to come. How sister hills became blended into the terrain, an Israeli soldier that is Jewish fall back into Arab hands. a city. And so moved were the people in fatigues made his way towards them, Up here, we fight no less of a battle than who heard the story, they forgot even to flashing brightest when he unfurled his the one that took my husband. Now tell ask whatever had happened to the baby map and caught the sun. me, young soldier,’ Rena said, ‘how do girl, and where Hanan was buried, and ‘A miracle,’ Rena said. we fare in this war?’ whether Rena had remarried, and if the

8 Arab boy had ever come back about that all the streetlamps and cobblestones, all There had been rock-throwing in tree. They were simply taken with the the public benches and mailboxes and the Arab village below, and with a few legend of this sacrifice and thehalutz -like skinny evergreen trees, all of that came to green soldiers stuck in the wadi beyond pioneering commitment of this woman, a stop where the roads wound up to the and overwhelmed by this kind of close- as well as that of the seven boys who fol- tops of those hills and came to an end. It quarters battle, the men of their town had lowed her sons back to settle. was – and the most pious among them run down into the fight. And somehow in The aura of this tale was strengthened couldn’t help but say it – like two green this melee, Rena had lost a son. Her Mati, by the facts on the ground. One would teats top­ping those mountains. her warrior. It wasn’t even real warfare, find it hard to believe that in barely four­ But for the additions of running water only tear gas and rocks and rubber bullets. teen years, exactly half the life of her and electricity, Rena’s shack stayed the Rena still couldn’t believe it. A mighty youngest, the settlement had grown to same. The only discernible differences son lost to boys throwing stones. such a degree. to her plot of land were the two-storey She was still sitting shiva. And in con- There were paved roads, and two pole on the southern end, on which sat trast to when she’d lost her husband and schools, and a kolel, and a synagogue. And the siren for announcing war, and, on the sat three days alone in her doorway like thanks to a Texas evangelist who had fall- north­ern tip, the stone obelisk that rose Abraham himself, it was the populace of en in love with that place (before a greater from the top of that giant boulder, as if a small city that now passed through her love undid him), their settlement had been it had somehow forced its way up from home. The town had stayed close enough gifted with a sports centre, complete with within. It was the town’s andarta. On it to its roots to revere its founder with the only ice-skating rink in the West Bank were engraved the names of the men of something like faith. as a whole. the village who had died at war. The visitor who’d travelled farthest to It was a city perfectly melded with the Hanan was the first casualty of those see her was her youngest, Tzuki, her last contours of the land, circle after circle of sister hills, and how they’d all wished he’d living son – though he was already his houses running down the sides of those remained the only name. By the time the own kind of casualty to Rena. Tzuki had hills, and echoing the foregone terraces. intifada was tearing up the West Bank, driven from Haifa, where he lived as a lib- There was a perfect symmetry of red roofs the list on that stone was too long for a eral, a secularist, and a gay. He shared an and white walls reaching down to the val- place so young. There was Rena’s oldest apartment with another boy he’d met at ley floor and edging so close to that Arab son, Yermiyahu, killed in Tripoli in ’83, as yeshiva. And Tzuki told his mother, with village on the eastern side, they’d been well as two of those pio­neering seven boys a flash in his eye, that from their balcony forced to take over the village’s fields as who’d followed him home, only to die at they looked upon the water. a security buffer. This gleaming new city his side in battle. And, just days before, on To look at her son, as much a founder was made all the more beautiful by the the back of a family already saddled with of their settlement as she was, Rena could contrast of those two green hilltops, one so much tragedy, Rena had lost her sec­ not believe how people transform in the with an olive grove and the other bare. ond son, her baby-faced Matityahu, now span of one life. There he sat, receiving The two hilltops belonging to those two a grown man. He was nearing thirty, and the town with a yarmulke­ perched on his founding families looked nearly exactly finally engaged to be married that spring. head, like it was the first he’d ever worn. as they had when those first families Of course, Matityahu’s name had yet to be Where tzitzit would go, a black T-shirt returned. All the cement and paved road, added to the other eight on that list. showed through his button-down shirt. And on his arm, exposed for all the world to see, was a tattoo of a dolphin – like the ones that mark the trash who sit and drink beer on the beach in Tel Aviv. When he’d told her of his lifestyle, she’d sworn never to meet the boy he called his partner. And Tzuki had said that wouldn’t be a problem, as he’d sworn never again to cross the Green Line from Israel proper into the territories it held. When his last brother died, she did not think he’d come to see her. And yet, here he was at her side. For this, she put a hand to his hand, and from there they wove fingers. To her son, she said, ‘It’s nice of you to do this for Mati.’ ‘For my brother and for you,’ he said. Then he stood and joined the men in the grove who’d gathered together to hear him recite the prayer for the dead.

9 III: 2000 ter than anything they’d had in their fan- surprised by her mother’s answer than cy Orna & Ella salads back on Sheinkin by the question of the lady who pulled How things change, you wouldn’t believe. Street. her. For Yehudit dropped the sock into Another thirteen years pass and those the basket and pulled the clothespin from sister hills now cap a metropolis. With Though Aheret was a pious girl who her lips and said, ‘Yes, yes. This is the one the aid of a small bridge of new land, the wore a skirt to the floor and a shirt that that’s yours.’ settlement had merged with a younger reached to her wrists, she had a worldly community to the west and now looked, allure that belied the choices she’d made. Despite the fact that the hilltops were on the army maps, like a barbell. And She’d studied at the girls’ school on the forever facing, the difference between this was exactly the nick­name the bat- hill, and done her national service help- the two families’ lives and the two fami- talions of Israeli soldiers sent to defend it ing the elderly of their town. When the lies’ fates had put far more distance than now used. Along with the new territory eldest of her younger sisters went off to the geography in between. To anyone came a small religious col­lege that gave board in Jerusalem, and when her father who still knew she was up there, Rena out, in handfuls, endless degrees in law. was sent by the settler movement to travel was sim­ply the old woman in the olive There was a mall with a food court, and across the United States for long stretches grove, while Yehudit, with her brood, a multiplex within it that showed all the to do outreach (his calling) and send took advantage of the settlement’s great American films. There was a boutique home money (a necessity), she’d stayed blooming and lived a vibrant life. hotel and a historical museum and a clinic in the house to help her mother with Yehudit had not forgotten her sister that could do anything short of trans- the littlest of her eight siblings and run founder, who, despite her great sacrifice, planting a heart. And along both edges of their home, a strange maze of additions had been dealt a harsh life. She’d gone the connect­ing roadway between old and and tacked-on rooms that, on the holi- over every few months to check on Rena, new city, there were dunam after dunam of days, when all were together, still burst at and Yehudit always acted surprised to dis- hydroponic tomatoes set in greenhouses. the seams. These humble choices found cover that she carried with her a cake or An opera­tion watered by robot, tended by Aheret unmarried at twenty-seven, which, a cooked chicken in the bag in her hand. Thai worker, and whose plants somehow in their com­munity, left her seen as an As loyal as she was to Rena, she could tell grew with their roots at the top and fat old maid. that all her troubles had turned the wom- fruit hanging down. When Aheret stepped into the house an hard. And though Yehudit took her A core group of idealists still remained with a laundry bas­ket full of clean clothes children to visit other lonely souls, it had in that expansive settlement. There were still stiff from the lines, she saw some­ been a very long time since she’d taken the families of those first seven boys, and one darting around in the back rooms of any of them up to visit Rena in the grove. the seventy that followed. There were the house. She at first assumed they were Because of this, Rena hadn’t set eyes on Rav Kook stalwarts, and old-school Mes- being robbed, until her eyes adjusted to Yehudit’s daughter in years, and the same sianists, and religious Zionists of every the inside and she made out a silhouette went for Aheret in relation to the woman stripe. But this didn’t stop the colony’s that fitted every older woman of their she knew from her mother as Mrs Barak. transformation into the bedroom com- town. ‘Gveret!’ she called, not wholly Rena had let go of Aheret’s arm to pull munity it had become. Behind the bou- impolitely. ‘Mis­sus, can I help you? What a little Nokia phone from the pocket of gainvillea-covered balconies lived profes- are you doing in our house?’ At that, the her skirt. It was a phone no different from sors who drove to Be’er Sheva to teach at woman’s ears perked up, and all her nerv- the other million phones the supermar- the big university, and start-up types who ous energy flooded out towards Aheret, kets had given away when the cell towers commuted every day to the technical park with the woman, riding it like a wave, went up. She held this out to Yehudit in Jerusalem, as well as venture capital- right behind. and her daughter, as if looking at it alone ists who used Ben Gurion Airport as if it ‘Your mother,’ the woman called. would let them read the calls inside. were the Cen­tral Bus Station, flying to ‘Where’s your mother?’ she said. ‘Tzuki,’ she said. ‘My last boy has been Europe for a lunch and making it back ‘Hanging what’s wet,’ Aheret said, and killed.’ late the same night. And there was a sub- pointed through the wall to the lines. Yehudit and Aheret, like every citizen set among those new neighbours that the ‘Come, come,’ the woman said, grab- of that country, were up to date on the founding residents, the farmers and fight- bing Aheret’s arm, sometimes leading, national news of the day. There’d been ers, could hardly understand: the healthy sometimes following, as they both rushed nothing in Lebanon or Gaza, no terrorist grown men, pale and soft in the middle, around the house. attack listed on the radio at the top of the who lived on Japanese and Indian and With a clothespin in her mouth and a hour. It was a quiet September morning. American clocks, making trades or writ- wet sock in her hand, Yehudit looked at But it wasn’t any outside force, not ing code, supporting large families with- the pair hurrying towards her and tilted politics, or religion, that did Tzuki in. It out ever stepping out into the light. her head to the side. was Israel’s own internal plague that had They came for the tax breaks. They ‘Is this the one I bought?’ Rena yelled, taken him, the one that took more chil- came for the space. They came for the pulling Aheret. ‘Is this the one that’s dren of Israel than all the bloodshed and vistas and the fresh air, and because the mine?’ hatred of all their long wars combined. tomatoes – growing backward, and also And Aheret, who had never been told ‘Hit,’ Rena said. ‘The coastal highway. without ever seeing sun – still tasted bet- the story of her near death, was more Run off the road by a boy driving one

10 hundred and eighty kilometres an hour.’ up. Standing, staring at Aheret, she said, And to Aheret, she said, ‘Daughter, come ‘Baruch dayan emet,’ Aheret said. And ‘Come along.’ along.’ then: ‘Mercy upon you, a terrible loss.’ ‘Please,’ Yehudit said. ‘You can’t really ‘Sit, sit,’ Yehudit said, overturning the want it this way? Today – despite your The woman had just buried her last son. basket of clean laundry and helping Rena sadness – is not really any different. Tzuki, The woman gone mad. And Yehudit, to sit down. ‘Another tragedy,’ she said. before this accident, was already, to you, who had been through it all with her, ‘How many can fall on one home?’ As she long gone.’ who had built this giant city at her side, said this, she stepped over to the eaves ‘A child distant,’ Rena said, ‘a child thought it would not hurt to send her and began tearing wildly at a little mint rebellious, a child cut off in head and daughter to walk the woman back, to plant, one among many at the side of the heart, it is not the same as no child at all. help her into her mourning, to stay and house. She held these leaves out to Aheret, You have always been a smart woman,’ offer comfort and maybe cook for her a letting them fall in wet clumps into her Rena said. ‘And what takes place here meal. Think about it. A husband killed daughter’s hands. ‘Go,’ she said, ‘make is not remotely equal. But in a moment, at the start of her new life. Two sons cut Rena a hot cup of tea.’ down as heroes and a Before Aheret ran off, third, already lost to her, Rena had ahold of her skirt. run off the side of the ‘No need for tea,’ she said to road. And here was Yehu- Yehudit. ‘We’re not staying dit, blessed with nine, all long.’ healthy and happy, and And here, Aheret, who with a husband she loved did not know the story who was often far from of her childhood sickness, her side but who sent who did not know of the back Jew after Jew in his deal that had been struck, stead. Benevolent, Yehu- reflected on this statement dit sent Aheret with her. along with the exchange And Aheret, only half she’d heard earlier. filled in on the story and Growing up, Aheret half comprehending, was would lie with her head in a dutiful daughter and her moth­er’s lap and beg her understood the strange to run her fingers through favours that sometimes her hair, and to tell the sto- fell to a neighbour when ries that came before remem- someone was in pain. bering. The one Yehudit As the pair started always told with great pride to walk down the hill, was that once upon a time, Aheret turned back there were in this place two towards her mother, hop- empty mountains that God ing for a signal, trying had long ago given Israel but to communicate­ while that Israel had long forgot- maintaining respect ten. And one day, two brave under this watchful families had come to settle woman’s eye. And Rena those mountains. The first said, ‘I can see the ques- had three young boys, and tion you are trying to ask, the other came up that hill daughter. The answer is alone and bore a baby girl simple. You were sold to who was, for the future of me as a child. And, for all their settlement, as great a intents and purposes, you gift as Adam’s finding Eve. you’ll have the first tiny inkling of how I are mine.’ Aheret now stared at her mother, and three times over feel.’ ‘Mother!’ Aheret called to Yehudit, knew from her face that there was anoth- ‘It was a joke,’ Yehudit said, panicked unable to contain herself. er story she’d not been told. and referring back to their deal. ‘The But it was Rena, again holding her ‘Look this way,’ Rena said, pulling at whole thing a silly superstition. You said skirt, who gave the girl a yank and said, that skirt, drawing Aheret’s eyes to her. yourself – almost thirty years ago, and I ‘What?’ ‘Look to me, at this face. Here is where remember like yesterday – you said it was your questions now go.’ just old-country mumbo jumbo, a wor- ‘It is the madness of grief,’ the rabbi said Rena then pulled hard at the skirt, not ried mother’s game.’ as Yehudit trailed after him in the super- to draw Aheret down, but to pull herself ‘A deal is a deal,’ Rena said to Yehudit. market. She’d tracked him down, first by

11 calling the shul, and then the kolel, and of the period of mourning?’ separate from the house. On her way, then the school, where his secretary said Yehudit went to answer, and the rabbi Aheret would sneak over to the boulder he’d run out to the supermarket for sup- raised a silencing hand. ‘After their ice on which the memorial obelisk stood. plies. That’s where Yehudit found him, cream, I will send up the boys to pray. She would read the names of the town’s pushing a cart tumbled full with cartons I will send up some girls to help. Your fallen by flashlight and understand that of ice cream, a treat to the students for daughter will not be left alone. And if her sacrifice was small. some chari­table act. He’d said, ‘We do harbouring such a fantasy allows Rena Yehudit came every day to pay her the right thing because it is right – that to survive this week, how bad is it to respects, and to see that the girl who had doesn’t mean a child can’t be rewarded indulge for a little while?’ been her daughter was well. She took it just the same.’ As for the story he was ‘And what if she doesn’t give it up?’ upon herself to bake a simple cake for hearing, he said, ‘When the shiva is over, ‘Then you will convene a rabbinical the final service of the shiva, so that she I can promise you, bli neder, that Mrs court, over which I myself will preside. would be there when the bereaved stood Barak won’t want to treat such a trivial And I promise you, even if it’s an hour up from mourning and first exited the pledge as a binding contract at all.’ before Shabbat that you come to me, I house. Yehudit stood there in the freezer aisle will find another tworabbanim, and we’ll Poised in the sun with Aheret at her and looked as if she was going to weep. settle the matter right then. But I will side, Yehudit watched in silence as Rena The rabbi nodded in the way thoughtful­ not bring one of the two mothers of this circled the top of the hill, enacting the rabbis do. He was a tall man, and slim, community, who has just lost her last son, tradi­tional walk that marked the week’s and even into his later years his beard had to stand in judgement today.’ close. When Rena arrived at the door stayed black. He looked twenty years ‘All right,’ Yehudit said. ‘If Aheret is once again, Yehudit wished her a long younger than he was, and so when he willing, I will let her stay until Rena rises and healthy life, then took Aheret’s hand smiled at her kindly, there was a separate from mourning.’ and said, ‘Come, my child, let’s go.’ sort of calm that Yehudit felt, a hus- Rena tilted her head, quizzical, just as bandly calm, which was very fulfilling in The period of shiva was not like it was for Yehudit had when Rena came around the the moment, with her own husband so Mati, and not like it was for Yermiyahu. house, dragging Aheret her way. ‘Where far away. It better resembled how it had been when do you take my daughter?’ Rena said. ‘I know you don’t want to say it,’ the she’d lost her husband, Hanan. The new ‘The end of the week does not end the rabbi said, ‘but it is not lashon hara to people of the city did not know Rena. bond.’ point out between us that you’re afraid And the staunch Mizrahi religious had Yehudit had planned for this moment, Rena’s heart has hardened over all these forgotten her son when she herself had rehearsing it cease­lessly in her head. She lonely years.’ cut him off. Many others in town, though pulled from her pocket the original bill ‘That is what I fear,’ Yehudit said. they did not say it, felt the boy had been with which Rena had paid her. She’d ‘Then let me pose for you a scenario punished for his evil ways, and they wor- saved it as a keepsake all these years. of a different sort. Even if she takes you ried that, in visiting his mother, such a Rena laughed. ‘Lirot?’ she said. ‘Not to rabbinical court, and you face the beit thought might show up in their eyes. So even valid currency any more.’ din over this case, can you imagine such they made themselves busy with other ‘Then I’ll pay in shekels, or dollars. You a thing holding up?’ When she did not things, and they told themselves they name your price.’ answer, he said it again. ‘Well, can you would visit on another day, until all the ‘A price on a girl like this?’ Rena said. imagine me taking her side?’ days were done. ‘What kind of mother would sell her ‘No,’ Yehudit said. Once again, the minyan at Rena’s shack daughter?’ ‘So let us remember that without that was comprised of volunteer boys sent ‘You know why I did it,’ Yehudit said. woman, as much as without you, the from a yeshiva down the hill. The main ‘To save her.’ great miracle that is our lives in this place difference was that the girls were sent ‘I also know when you did it. And I would not be. And even if she’d con- along with them to try to cheer her, and, know what has changed.’ Rena signalled tributed nothing to its founding, even of course, there was Aheret, taking care. all that was around them. ‘What did we if – God forbid – she had only taken, and When Rena addressed Aheret, she’d pay for these hills so many years before? done harm, still, can we not pity her in say, ‘Daughter, some tea,’ or ‘Daughter, Now think of what it would cost to buy this time of grief? Especially a woman a biscuit.’ And those bright student girls the city that sits atop them. Understand, who has known sadness so much more who sat with Rena could not understand Yehudit –I’m alone in the world but for than joy?’ why this woman grieved for her son but my daughter. For all the riches this world ‘Yes,’ Yehudit said. Though the ques- her daughter did not cry over her brother. contains, I wouldn’t sell her away. She is tion was not wiped from her face. To them, Rena would say, ‘A very long my peace, and my comfort’ – and here ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘what is it?’ story, how I alone sit shiva and the sister Rena stepped over and put a delicate ‘Can you tell me, Rebbe – and I under- does not mourn.’ touch on Aheret’s cheek, ‘my life.’ stand the word – but what, with my For Aheret, sleeping on a cot in that Then Rena’s touch changed, and she daughter taken, does pity mean?’ one-room shack, her only peace was on circled that hand around Aheret’s wrist, ‘It means would it hurt Aheret to stay her nightly walk to the outdoor bath- holding tight. by this woman’s side through to the end room. Plumbed though it was, it was ‘Mother,’ Aheret called, now truly

12 frightened. have preferred if they’d pulled down his passport is all it takes to make a person a And again, it was Rena who answered pants to make sure that, at the very least, citizen­ of this land. You fought your bat- the call. he had his three hairs. tles, and now we fight ours. I am thankful When Yehudit was done, she again there are avenues in this country where Three rabbis sat under the shade of the presented the single bill with which Rena one may be judged by Jewish law, as the giant olive tree. They were perched on had purchased her daughter. This, the Holy One –blessed is He – intended.’ moulded plastic chairs, a plastic table rabbis placed on their table, under the ‘You will judge me as God intended?’ before them. Rena had defied their order weight of a stone. ‘We will judge based on the law that is to appear in their court, on the grounds ‘A boy’ is what Rena said, pointing at within the grasp of humble man.’ that a case so obvious was no case at all. the young rabbi. ‘A child who has never ‘That is all I wanted to hear.’ And Rena And when Rabbi Kiggel (the man with known a world with a divided Jerusalem. stood up from her chair. She approached the ice cream) offered to bring the panel Who was raised in a greater Israel, where the three rabbis. She looked to Yehu­dit of judges to her, Rena said only, ‘My he can pray at the foot of our Holy Tem- and to Aheret, her daughter. door has been open to all comers since ple in a united city, where he can cross ‘It is not far from here,’ Rena said, before there was anyone to come.’ the Jordan without fear and stare down at ‘where Esav returned from the hunt, tired And so the rabbis drove up to where his country from atop the Golan Heights. and hungry, and traded away his birth­ the road ends, the plastic furniture tied to And here he sits in judgment on my land, right for a bowl of red lentils. It is among the roof of their Subaru, and they took in the heart of Samaria, because of the these very hills where Abraham, our their places under the tree that would sacrifices made before he was born.’ father, took a heifer, three years old, and offer the most shade. Since none of the Kiggel went to speak, but it was the a goat, three years old, and a ram, three rabbis knew to look, they did not notice young rabbi who put a hand to his arm to years old, and a turtle­dove, three years the scar at the tree’s base, grown over answer on his own. old, and a young pigeon and split them in keloid fashion, and healed up in the ‘This I acknowledge,’ the boy rabbi all, but for those birds, and left them interim twenty-seven years. said. ‘But in this life, I’ve already achieved for the vultures in a covenant with God, Across from the rabbis stood Aheret – and this court would appreciate the which gives us the right to this land as a and her mother, Yehudit. And in a chair respect it is due.’ whole. And for four hundred shekels of carried from the house, Aheret’s other ‘And what respect is that?’ Rena said. silver, Abraham bought the cave in which mother, Rena, sat facing the rabbis, wait- ‘The respect that comes with law. You he lies buried – and over which, with our ing for her turn to speak. Yehudit spoke have sacrificed,’ he said. ‘You have fought. Arab neighbours, we spill blood until this passionately and with great urgency, and And I continue the fight my own way. very day. So tell me, these contracts, with Rena did not listen. She just stared at Look at us. We live in a Jewish country, God and man, written down nowhere, the two rabbis flanking Kiggel’s side. If with a Jewish government, and yet its only remembered, do they still hold?’ Kiggel was ten years older than Rena, false, secular courts send Jewish soldiers And the rabbis looked at one another, then the one to his right was another ten to knock down the houses we build. They and the ancient rabbi on the right, the years older than that. As for the child arrest our broth­ers as vigilantes, who white of the beard around his mouth rabbi to his left, Rena didn’t believe he’d only protect what God has given. And stained brown, said, ‘Do not turn this day yet been bar-mitzvahed. Before he’d been those same judges, in those same courts, into one of blasphemy.­ Do not dare com- allowed to sit in judgment of her, she’d give Arabs the rights of Jews – as if a pare our modern trivialities to what was done in biblical times.’ ‘I ask only does the verbal contract with which God granted us this nation stand, or does it not? With respect, with hon- our, I ask.’ ‘We do not need a paper when the contracts are with God. And the ones you list that are between man and man – those, too, are recorded in the Torah, which is also, every word

13 and every letter, whispered by God into ‘We will follow the court’s ruling,’ ‘We have not knowingly done so,’ the Moses’ ear. The answer is, they are valid, Yehudit said. young rabbi said. and unquestionable, and, also, do not ‘From her,’ Rena said, pointing at the ‘Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah,’ Rena compare.’ girl. ‘From her I want to hear it.’ said. ‘Do the three of you observe the It was Kiggel who then spoke. ‘I ask ‘I am a founder of this city,’ Aheret Jewish holidays? Are you faithful in carry- you, Gveret Barak. I know you do not said, ‘the same as you two, only more. I ing out Jewish law?’ intend blasphemy, I know this matter is was born to these hills and to these hills I Once again the young rabbi answered, charged. But let us use perspective. Let us will return. I know no other place. And saying, ‘It is safe to assume.’ keep things in their right size.’ no other world. If this is what the rabbis ‘Then tell me,’ Rena said, ‘if you are It was Yehudit who screamed at this, decide, if this is the law of the land, then willing to state that my deed on this land ‘My daughter, my daughter’s life – do not so be it. My life, it’s in God’s hands. I will is sound, and ignore the Arab claims treat it as small.’ follow the ruling of this court.’ against it, if you are willing to accept bib- ‘My daughter,’ Rena said, correcting ‘Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah,’ Rena lical contracts as eternally­ valid, though her. ‘My daughter, as much as this is said. And Yehudit blanched at the news. we have no proof beyond faith that they my city, as much as this court convenes When, in her life, had a holiday been for- ever were, I ask you, very simply, every at my home. If you want to reject our gotten? Her children would all be home; year, on Passover, when you sell your ancient covenants as irrelevant, then let she’d need to start her cooking. And then hametz to a Gentile so as not to break the us talk about modern times. From the she wondered if, at her table, she’d have edict of having any trace of it under your very first day Yehudit and her husband eight or nine. ‘From tomorrow, we move roof, when everyone in your congrega- bought their hill, and my husband and I into the Ten Days of Repentance, when tions comes to you and says, “Rabbi, for purchased the one on which you sit, the God decides who will live and who will this week when it’s prohibited for a Jew Arabs in the village right there below die. Let each of you pledge to judge hon- to have even one crumb of bread in his have claimed it a false contract, a pur­chase estly, or be written out of the Book of house, sell all that is forbidden to a Gen- made from a relative who had no right to Life. Then I, too – I promise – will accept tile so that we may inhabit our homes,” is sell.’ what­ever it is you say.’ that contract real?’ ‘This is the Arab way,’ Rabbi Kiggel The rabbis conferred among them- ‘This is the tradition,’ the young rabbi said. selves. They were going to judge honestly. said. ‘And that contract is as legal as any ‘Well, is our city built on a lie? It is not They were honest men. But to take an other.’ three thousand years old, but thirty. If unnecessary­ pledge set a dangerous prec- ‘And in all your years, have you ever they claim their contract false – a con­tract edent. It was not to be done lightly – and heard of a single Gentile anywhere in the entered into the same year as the one now not an easy thing on which to agree. world stepping into a Jewish home to in dispute – do we give up our homes? ‘We’d prefer to avoid that kind of open a cabinet and take what is rightfully Do we give up our city? For they, too extremism,’ Kiggel said to Rena. his? Is there known to you such a case?’ – like the bill that flutters on your table – ‘Then you do not have my trust.’ The rabbis looked at one another, and are willing to pay back the amount they Again they conferred, and finally they their answer was no. received.’ consented, and the young rabbi said, ‘We ‘So tell me, if the selling of the hametz ‘A Jewish court,’ the young rabbi said. will judge honestly, or let us be written is based on a con­tract that’s never once ‘It is not the same what happens between out of the Book of Life.’ been exercised in all the years of your the Jew and the Gentile. And it is not the ‘Then I need raise only one simple lives in all the world over, can you still same what happens between peoples at point,’ Rena said, ‘and the case will be say that it is a valid contract in your eyes? war.’ resolved.’ Or do you admit that, really, each one of Rena looked to Yehudit and Aheret The rabbis nodded, allowing it. us – each one of you! – is in possession and then to the rabbis before her. ‘If you three pious men will grant me of hametz every Passover, and that no ‘I see,’ she said. ‘This is a false court. that you are kosher, then you will also Jew really observes the holiday as com- You try to trick an old woman in mourn- grant that the girl is mine.’ manded?’ ing, a lonely woman. Judgment has ‘One,’ Kiggel said, ‘does not follow the ‘God forbid!’ the rabbis said, all three. already been passed, hasn’t it? There is no other.’ Then the old rabbi said, ‘You find way I can win.’ ‘But it does,’ she said. ‘You’re going yourself on the edge of blasphemy once ‘No,’ Kiggel said, ‘you will be awarded to side against me because my contract again. But if there is a point to be made, motherhood, if you are right.’ with Yehudit, you will say, is symbolic. then, yes, that contract is valid, exercised ‘Promise it,’ Rena said. And pointing to Because my contract with Yehudit can’t or no.’ Yehudit and Aheret, she said, ‘Make them be considered to be a contract at all.’ ‘If that contract is valid, if you three both promise that they will fol­low what ‘I don’t want to say one way or the oth- can still call your­selves kosher, then you this beit din decides. I will not have this er,’ Kiggel said, ‘but there are many facts have to admit, equally valid is mine. Just settled by emotion. If it is a valid court, that lead a logical person this way.’ because it’s assumed that one party will and an honest court, I will have it settled ‘So, I ask you, once again, are the three never exercise her rights doesn’t mean the by what is right.’ of you kosher? Have you knowingly bro- rights are not hers.’ ‘You will,’ Kiggel said. ken the rules of what is fit to eat?’ And here the rabbis whispered, and all

14 three took out their pens and began pass- her mother had left a light burning in the Israel like none she had ever seen. The ing one another notes, looking terribly window so Aheret would know that she village below was prac­tically afire, not con­cerned. For a judge can know how his was not forgotten. with the force of Israeli aggression, but heart would decide, but his obligation is It was the second night since the ver- with the unleashing of a new kind of always to the law. And they had sworn, dict, and so different from those first days Palestinian rage. The bypass roads that these three. Sworn on their lives. A ter- when she’d tended to this woman during had sprung up throughout her lifetime rible promise to make. her week of mourning. Aheret was hope- were blocked, tyres burning at every edge. ‘And tell me this,’ Rena said. ‘When a less, and – since suicide was forbidden, a There was the sound of light arms, at first little bar mitzvah boy says to a pretty girl grave sin – she could only wish and pray intermittent and then turning frequent as as a joke, “You are my wife,” and he gives that the world, for her, would come to more Arabs than she ever knew existed her a bracelet as a token –’ an end. Let me be left out of the Book of streamed out to fight the Israeli soldiers­ ‘A divorce is arranged,’ the young rabbi Life, she thought. Let my fate be decided who’d already arrived. In the sky, coming said. ‘We have done it before. Yes, if it this week. Let the sky up above come from Jerusalem, she could see the lights is uttered and the gift received, they are crashing down. of the Black Hawks and Cobras as the married, the same as any two people in And it was, right then, as if Aheret’s helicopters raced their way. And then she the world.’ prayers were answered. saw nothing as the helicopters went dark ‘Even if neither really meant it?’ Rena Though it was not the sky that was fall- so as to enter the fight in stealth. Of all said. ‘Even if an innocent joke between ing, but the earth shaking as if it planned the ends to this country she’d imagined, two young adults at play?’ to swallow up the whole hill. There was this was not one foreseen. She did not ‘Even then,’ said Rabbi Kiggel. nothing to see from the side of the sum- think, since the time of its founding, that ‘That is all I’m saying,’ Rena said. ‘That mit on which Aheret stood. No dust rose it had ever known such violence to rise a contract up within its borders. doesn’t require That is when she either party to noticed Rena at her intend to exer- side, handing her cise its terms, an Uzi to match her or even for own. both parties ‘Do you think,’ to be mature Aheret said, ‘the enough to whole country is like grasp them. this?’ And likewise a ‘It’s another inti- symbolic con- fada,’ Rena said. tract, like that ‘Look,’ she added, of Passover, point­ing to a vehicle whose intent at of the Palestinian signing is that Authority. ‘Which it would never naive Jew thought be put into use, it was safe to give is as valid as any other in the eyes of God. up in the distance, as when Hanan had them guns? And on a holy day again they So all you’re really deciding in this case caught the armoured corps rolling down attack.’ Rena turned towards the tree and is if the money on the table before you towards the Yom Kippur War. looked down at the battle truly raging was of any value at the time the deal was It was from the other side of the below. She said, ‘Tonight it comes down. made. That is all the court is being asked. little shack that the sound of great We can never let ourselves be sneaked up If you are religious men, following reli- conflagration came, and anyone who on again.’ gious law, then there is nothing to say but hadn’t been raised on those hills might Rena rushed back to the shack. And, that the girl belongs to me.’ have thought they were already sur- wearing her festival dress, she returned ‘The same as a slave, though,’ Kiggel rounded. It took a lifetime to learn how with an axe in hand. said, a finger raised. ‘That’s how it would the specific echoes bounced off the range. ‘It is yom tov tonight,’ Aheret said. ‘For- be.’ Aheret hadn’t wanted to stand on that bidden.’ ‘Call it what you will, but the girl is side of the house ever again. That’s where ‘In an emergency such measures are mine.’ her fate had been sealed. Where her two allowed.’ She handed the axe to her mothers had stood silent before the rabbis, daughter, who did not take it from her. Aheret stood in the dark on the western as stiff as the trees around them, as abid- ‘I won’t,’ Aheret said. ‘The soldiers edge of the hill. Rosh Hashanah dinner ing as the sister hills themselves. fight. The Arabs do not yet come up the had finished. And she’d come out to the What she saw when she rounded the hill. And still, if the war shifts this way, edge of the grove to stare across to the house and passed the big tree and stood seeing it overtake us from the window hill opposite, where she could see that at the edge was a battle being raged inside won’t help us to survive.’

15 ‘Insolent daughter,’ Rena said. ‘I’ll the other reached across her chest, grab- of Rena’s current state and how it com- do it myself.’ And Rena pulled up her bing at that axe-holding arm. Rena’s face pared with her own. ‘I will call, Mother, sleeves, and she hacked and hacked at had gone slack, a racking pain clearly absolutely. But the issue at hand is, when? that tree. Rena chopped for hours, and troubling one side. And Aheret could see It is – you are right – permissible to pick no one heard a single blow echo off the on this woman – who’d aged a hundred up a phone on a holy day if it is a life- mountains, drowned out as they were by years in a night, and breathed in the most and-death situation. But the fact that you the fight. laboured fashion – a terror in her eyes. are still with us may mean the danger has This time, Rena did not stop because Aheret took mercy. She leaned down already passed.’ she was tired. She did not stop because to count out Rena’s pulse. She had, as ‘I think,’ Rena said, ‘a heart attack.’ her arms were weak. She would not let said, done her national service with the And Aheret said, ‘I think you are right. age get in her way, or the pains of her aged on those two hills, and was well But if it was big enough to be fatal, I’m body, or the shortness of breath. She did versed in the maladies that struck its resi- fairly sure you’d already be dead. What is not even heed Aheret’s calls from the dents with time. at stake now, my guess, from my limited shack when the girl told her it was too ‘Am I dying?’ Rena said. knowledge, is the extent of the recovery much and to quit for the night. Rena did Aheret thought about this. And the you may expect. That is where speed is of not stop until that tree was felled. And honest answer – she would bet on it – was the essence.’ it was the sound of it hitting that sent the one she gave: ‘No. No, you are not.’ ‘What do you say, daughter?’ Rena said, Aheret back outside in the morning light. ‘Call the ambulance,’ Rena said. looking pan­icked and confused in the dirt. What the girl found was the tree fallen ‘Yes,’ Aheret said, but it was not the Yes ‘I’d imagine, if we get you help in a over, and Rena fallen at its side. Her of affirmation, but of considered thought. hurry, you’ll be fine altogether once again. mother held the axe in one hand, and Aheret was consumed with the ques­tion You will be your old self. This is not a

16 question of life and death; what it is, is of security wall. ‘Most of it’s just fence Intifada broke out. Until then, where a question of life and quality of life. If in these parts’ is what their real estate one place ended and the other started, I leave you here by your tree until the agent says, ‘but here, because the vil- who knew?’ end of the holiday, if I wait until it’s lage is so close and because the fighting ‘Because we don’t want the politics,’ permissible to use a phone, I can’t say back at the start was so fierce, they’ve Lisa says. ‘I mean the building is beauti- that things will turn out well at all. If got a good rebar concrete wall running ful, and the area – it’s just stunning. But you think you are weak now, Mother, if the whole way. You can’t do any better we’re not settlers. And we don’t want to you think you are in pain, then under­ when it comes to security than that. And be surrounded by that sort.’ stand, just lifting a glass to your mouth no need even to think about it. Really, Here the real estate agent walks them for a sip of water will feel like carrying put it out of your mind. This stretch through what could be their new kitch- this mountain on your back. I have seen has been quiet for going on ten years. en, and what could be their new living the old people with damaged hearts and Still, no one should be unwary in these room, and presses the button that raises soggy lungs. It is not a life to be lived.’ parts. God forbid something were ever the automatic security shade. He leads ‘A commandment,’ Rena said. ‘To to start up – look, no direct line of fire, them out onto what could be their new honour your parents. You must.’ no sniper trouble, no hiding under your balcony, all the while continuing to talk. ‘Not when your parent tells you to bed. Intifada Three starts, and I promise ‘If you mean those crazy Levinger- break a holy law.’ you, it won’t make a peep in your life.’ type settlers, then not at all,’ he says ‘Permissible! No matter what.’ And ‘And Internet,’ Dmitry says. ‘Out here directly to Lisa, who listens. The words again Rena puffed out a feeble ‘Life and in the boondocks, is the building wired glance off Dmitry, who takes an owner’s death.’ for high speed?’ stance, leaning on the bar of the balus- ‘But you are still living, with all these ‘Every unit,’ the agent says, ‘and over trade and staring out, pretending that minutes ticked by. No, I really don’t see there,’ he says, pointing to the obelisk it’s already his view. ‘Are there stubborn it as such. We will ask those three wise on the giant boulder at the edge of the people here?’ the real estate agent asks. rabbis to convene after the holiday and hill, ‘hidden behind it are signal boosters, ‘Sure! There are plenty of stubborn – decide, and they will tell us if, by law, I so even if you don’t get your own router, like with all good Israelis.’ He points did what’s right.’ the whole town, free Wi-Fi, and the best to a little shack beneath the balcony, ‘Cursed girl,’ Rena said. cell-phone service between here and around which the building’s carports ‘What you mean is “cursed daughter”. Dubai. Do you want to see upstairs?’ were built. ‘The old woman there,’ he Not long under this roof and already ‘Let’s see upstairs,’ Lisa says, and then says, and Lisa and Dmitry follow his I learn from you how to get my way. apologizes for her accent. ‘You’d never finger, ‘she needed the money for sell- Never in that other house would such believe,’ she says, ‘that the two of us ing the land, but she wouldn’t, for any a thought have been born. Now listen fell in love in the same ulpan class – his amount, let the developer buy her out. close, it’s very simple: if you free me, I Hebrew so much better than mine.’ There is that kind of steadfastness. And will call right now. I will see you to the ‘The Russians learn quick,’ the real where do you get that from but the real hospital and I will – on my word – tend estate agent says, smil­ing at Dmitry. And salt of the earth?’ As if to demonstrate to you until you are back up on your Dmitry smiles a strained smile in return. his point, rolling down a ramp out of feet. I will do it, not as your daughter, On the way into the apartment build- the shack’s front door comes a wheel- but as a daughter of Israel and of this ing, Lisa looks back at the wall. ‘I mean, chair with an old woman in it, and settlement. I will treat you as I would are they okay?’ she says. ‘Do they treat pushed by a drawn middle-aged woman have before you ever cashed in your the Palestinians all right on the other behind. bond. Free me, and I call. Free me, and side of the wall? We are kind of left- ‘Do you see?’ the real estate agent says. there is a great chance you will be able wing, you know. I mean, for the space, ‘Sweet as sugar. Those are the kind of to walk again, and live again, and return we’ll live here, for the extra bedrooms, people that founded this place. That’s to a normal life. Free me, and you’ll be but, you know, we feel bad for the who the old-type neighbours will be. A able to dress yourself, and walk your- Arabs, with all the roadblocks and things sick elderly mother, and a daughter who self, and enjoy what years you have left. like that.’ gives over her life to care for her. Every Don’t you want that? A trade? Your Now Dmitry smiles a real smile. ‘She time I’m here, I see that pair rolling freedom for mine.’ doesn’t want to live among radicals,’ he around, just minding their own busi- ‘Don’t need it,’ she said, breathing out says. ‘She’s from Cherry Hill, in Amer- ness. You two will be happy here,’ he short and heavy. ‘Don’t need to take ica. They worry about equal everything says, ‘I promise. This is the kind of hill care, don’t need to walk.’ over there.’ on which to make a life.’ ‘How can you say that?’ Aheret yelled. ‘“Radicals”?’ the real estate agent says, ‘Because I have you to take care.’ completely sur­prised by the notion. ‘No, © Nathan Englander 2011 always this place, since the seventies, this IV: 2011 town has gotten along with its neigh- Extracted from What We Talk About When bours. Always friendly relations, and We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Dmitry and Lisa stand on the edge of attending one another’s weddings. It was Englander, published by Weidenfeld & the hill and stare at an endless stretch all very close over here until the First Nicolson

17 Fiction tired after the journey. ’Tis a long old road. How did you come?’ ‘Teigue Leary gave me the lift. Wisha The Majesty of the Law now, Dan, don’t be putting yourself out. I won’t be stopping. I promised them I’d by Frank O’Connor be back inside an hour.’ ‘What hurry is on you?’ asked Dan. ld Dan Bride was breaking brosna red face was turned so as to catch the light, ‘Look, your foot was only on the path Ofor the fire when he heard a step on and behind it an ash tree raised its boughs when I made up the fire.’ the path. He paused, a bundle of saplings of airy green against the sky. Green fields, ‘Arrah, Dan, you’re not making tea for on his knee. broken here and there by clumps of red- me?’ Dan had looked after his mother while brown rock, flowed downhill, and beyond ‘I am not making it for you, indeed; the life was in her, and after her death them, stretched all across the horizon, was I’m making it for myself, and I’ll take it no other woman had crossed his thresh- the sea, flooded and almost transparent very bad of you if you won’t have a cup.’ old. Signs on it, his house had that look. with light. The sergeant’s face was fat and ‘Dan, Dan, that I mightn’t stir, but Almost everything in it he had made fresh, the old man’s face, emerging from ’tisn’t an hour since I had it at the bar- with his own hands in his own way. The the twilight of the kitchen, had the colour racks!’ seats of the chairs were only slices of log, of wind and sun, while the features had ‘Ah, whisht, now, whisht! Whisht, will rough and round and thick as the saw had been so shaped by the struggle with time you! I have something here to give you an left them, and with the rings still plainly and the elements that they might as easily appetite.’ visible through the grime and polish that have been found impressed upon the sur- The old man swung the heavy kettle coarse trouser-bottoms had in the course face of a rock. on to the chain over the open fire, and of long years imparted. Into these Dan ‘Begor, Dan,’ said the sergeant, ‘ ’tis the dog sat up, shaking his ears with an had rammed stout knotted ashboughs that younger you’re getting.’ expression of the deepest interest. The served alike for legs and back. The deal ‘Middling I am, sergeant, middling,’ policeman unbuttoned his tunic, opened table, bought in a shop, was an inherit- agreed the old man in a voice which his belt, took a pipe and a plug of tobacco ance from his mother and a great pride seemed to accept the remark as a compli- from his breast pocket, and, crossing his and joy to him though it rocked whenever ment of which politeness would not allow legs in an easy posture, began to cut the he touched it. On the wall, unglazed and him to take too much advantage. ‘No tobacco slowly and carefully with his fly-spotted, hung in mysterious isola- complaints.’ pocket knife. The old man went to the tion a Marcus Stone print, and beside the ‘Begor, ’tis as well because no one dresser and took down two handsomely door was a calendar with a picture of a would believe them. And the old dog decorated cups, the only cups he had, racehorse. Over the door hung a gun, old doesn’t look a day older.’ which, though chipped and handleless, but good, and in excellent condition, and The dog gave a low growl as though to were used at all only on very rare occa- before the fire was stretched an old setter show the sergeant that he would remem- sions; for himself he preferred his tea who raised his head expectantly whenever ber this unmannerly reference to his age, from a basin. Happening to glance into Dan rose or even stirred. but indeed he growled every time he was them, he noticed that they bore signs of He raised it now as the steps came near- mentioned, under the impression that disuse and had collected a lot of the fine er and when Dan, laying down the bundle people had nothing but ill to say of him. white turf-dust that always circulated of saplings, cleaned his hands thoughtfully ‘And how’s yourself, sergeant?’ in the little smoky cottage. Again he on the seat of his trousers, he gave a loud ‘Well, now, like the most of us, Dan, thought of the shirt, and, rolling up his bark, but this expressed no more than a neither too good nor too bad. We have sleeves with a stately gesture, he wiped desire to show off his own watchfulness. our own little worries, but, thanks be to them inside and out till they shone. Then He was half human and knew people God, we have our compensations.’ he bent and opened the cupboard. Inside thought he was old and past his prime. ‘And the wife and family?’ was a quart bottle of pale liquid, obvi- A man’s shadow fell across the oblong ‘Good, praise be to God, good. They ously untouched. He removed the cork of dusty light thrown over the half-door were away from me for a month, the lot and smelt the contents, pausing for a before Dan looked round. of them, at the mother-in-law’s place in moment in the act as though to recollect ‘Are you alone, Dan?’ asked an apolo- Clare.’ where exactly he had noticed that particu- getic voice. ‘In Clare, do you tell me?’ lar smoky smell before. Then, reassured, ‘Oh, come in, come in, sergeant, come ‘In Clare. I had a fine quiet time.’ he stood up and poured out with a liberal in and welcome,’ exclaimed the old man, The old man looked about him and hand. hurrying on rather uncertain feet to the then retired to the bedroom, from which ‘Try that now, sergeant,’ he said with door which the tall policeman opened and he returned a moment later with an old quiet pride. pushed in. He stood there, half in sunlight, shirt. With this he solemnly wiped the The sergeant, concealing whatever half in shadow, and seeing him so, you seat and back of the log-chair nearest the qualms he might have felt at the idea of would have realized how dark the interior fire. drinking illegal whiskey, looked care- of the house really was. One side of his ‘Sit down now, sergeant. You must be fully into the cup, sniffed, and glanced

18 up at old Dan. ‘Them that makes the laws have their ‘Things no doctor could cure the wise ‘It looks good,’ he commented. own good reasons.’ people cured,’ agreed the sergeant. ‘It should be good,’ replied Dan with ‘All the same, Dan, all the same, ’tis a ‘Ah, musha, ’tis I know it,’ said Dan bit- no mock modesty. hard law.’ terly. ‘I know it, not in my mind but in ‘It tastes good too,’ said the sergeant. The sergeant would not be outdone in my own four bones.’ ‘Ah, sha,’ said Dan, not wishing to praise generosity. Politeness required him not to ‘Have you the rheumatics at you still?’ his own hospitality in his own house, ‘ ’tis yield to the old man’s defence of his supe- the sergeant asked in a shocked tone. of no great excellence.’ riors and their mysterious ways. ‘I have. Ah, if you were alive, Kitty ‘You’d be a good judge, I’d say,’ said the ‘It is the secrets I’d be sorry for,’ said O’Hara, or you, Nora Malley of the Glen, sergeant without irony. Dan, summing up. ‘Men die and men are ’tisn’t I’d be dreading the mountain wind ‘Ever since things became what they born, and where one man drained another or the sea wind; ’tisn’t I’d be creeping are,’ said Dan, carefully guarding himself will plough, but a secret lost is lost for- down with my misfortunate red ticket against a too-direct reference to the peculi- ever.’ for the blue and pink and yellow dribble- arities of the law administered by his guest, ‘True,’ said the sergeant mournfully. drabble of their ignorant dispensary.’ ‘liquor isn’t what it used to be.’ ‘Lost forever.’ ‘Why then indeed,’ said the sergeant, ‘I’ve heard that remark made before now, Dan took his cup, rinsed it in a bucket ‘I’ll get you a bottle for that.’ Dan,’ said the sergeant thoughtfully. ‘I’ve of clear water by the door and cleaned ‘Ah, there’s no bottle ever made will heard it said by men of wide experience it again with the shirt. Then he placed it cure it.’ that it used to be better in the old days.’ carefully at the sergeant’s elbow. From the ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Dan. Don’t ‘Liquor,’ said the old man, ‘is a thing dresser he took a jug of milk and a blue talk now till you try it. It cured my own that takes time. There was never a good bag containing sugar; this he followed up uncle when he was that bad he was shout- job done in a hurry.’ with a slab of country butter and – a sure ing for the carpenter to cut the two legs ‘ ’Tis an art in itself.’ sign that he had been expecting a visi- off him with a handsaw.’ ‘Just so.’ tor – a round cake of home-made bread, ‘I’d give fifty pounds to get rid of it,’ ‘And an art takes time.’ fresh and uncut. The kettle sang and spat said Dan magniloquently. ‘I would and ‘And knowledge,’ added Dan with and the dog, shaking his ears, barked at it five hundred.’ emphasis. ‘Every art has its secrets, and the angrily. The sergeant finished his tea in a gulp, secrets of distilling are being lost the way ‘Go away, you brute!’ growled Dan, blessed himself, and struck a match which the old songs were lost. When I was a boy kicking him out of his way. he then allowed to go out as he answered there wasn’t a man in the barony but had a He made the tea and filled the two cups. some question of the old man. He did the hundred songs in his head, but with peo- The sergeant cut himself a large slice of same with a second and third, as though ple running here, there, and everywhere, bread and buttered it thickly. titillating his appetite with delay. Finally the songs were lost. . . . Ever since things ‘It is just like medicines,’ said the old he succeeded in getting his pipe alight and became what they are,’ he repeated on the man, resuming his theme with the imper- the two men pulled round their chairs, same guarded note, ‘there’s so much run- turbability of age. ‘Every secret there was placed their toes side by side in the ashes, ning about the secrets are lost.’ is lost. And leave no one tell me that a and in deep puffs, lively bursts of con- ‘There must have been a power of them.’ doctor is as good a man as one that had the versation, and long, long silences enjoyed ‘There was. Ask any man today that secrets of old times.’ their smoke. makes whiskey do he know how to make ‘How could he be?’ asked the sergeant ‘I hope I’m not keeping you?’ said the it out of heather.’ with his mouth full. sergeant, as though struck by the ‘And was it made of heather?’ asked the ‘The proof of that was seen when length of his visit. policeman. there were doctors and wise people there ‘Ah, what would you keep me from?’ ‘It was.’ together.’ ‘Tell me if I am. The last thing I’d like ‘You never drank it yourself ?’ ‘It wasn’t to the doctors the people went, to do is waste another man’s time.’ ‘I didn’t, but I knew old men that did, I’ll engage?’ ‘Begor, you wouldn’t waste my time if and they told me that no whiskey that’s ‘It was not. And why?’ With a sweep- you stopped all night.’ made nowadays could compare with it.’ ing gesture the old man took in the whole ‘I like a little chat myself,’ confessed the ‘Musha, Dan, I think sometimes ’twas world outside his cabin. ‘Out there on the policeman. a great mistake of the law to set its hand hillsides is the sure cure for every disease. And again they became lost in conversa- against it.’ Because it is written’ – he tapped the table tion. The light grew thick and coloured Dan shook his head. His eyes answered with his thumb – ‘it is written by the and, wheeling about the kitchen before it for him, but it was not in nature for a man poets ‘‘wherever you find the disease you disappeared, became tinged with gold; the to criticize the occupation of a guest in his will find the cure’’. But people walk up kitchen itself sank into cool greyness with own home. the hills and down the hills and all they see cold light on the cups and basins and plates ‘Maybe so, maybe not,’ he said noncom- is flowers. Flowers! As if God Almighty – of the dresser. From the ash tree a thrush mittally. honour and praise to Him! – had nothing began to sing. The open hearth gathered ‘But sure, what else have the poor peo- better to do with His time than be to mak- brightness till its light was a warm, even ple?’ ing old flowers!’ splash of crimson in the twilight.

19 Twilight was also descending outside The sergeant made no comment on this There’s a man from my own parish there, when the sergeant rose to go. He fastened and another long silence ensued. a warder; one Whelan. Ask for him; I’ll his belt and tunic and carefully brushed his ‘They gave me the warrant,’ the ser- tell him you’re coming, and I’ll guarantee clothes. Then he put on his cap, tilted a geant said at last, in a tone which dissoci- when he knows you’re a friend of mine little to side and back. ated him from all connexion with such an he’ll make you as comfortable as if you ‘Well, that was a great talk,’ he said. unneighbourly document. were at home.’ ‘ ’Tis a pleasure,’ said Dan, ‘a real pleas- ‘Did they so?’ exclaimed Dan, as if he ‘I’d like that fine,’ Dan said with pro- ure.’ was shocked by the thoughtlessness of the found satisfaction. ‘I’d like to be with ‘And I won’t forget the bottle for you.’ authorities. friends, sergeant.’ ‘Heavy handling from God to you!’ ‘So whenever ’twould be convenient for ‘You will be, never fear. Good-bye again ‘Good-bye now, Dan.’ you – ’ now, Dan. I’ll have to hurry.’ ‘Good-bye, sergeant, and good luck.’ ‘Well, now you mention it,’ said Dan, ‘Wait now, wait till I see you to the Dan didn’t offer to accompany the ser- by way of throwing out a suggestion for road.’ geant beyond the door. He sat in his old debate, ‘I could go with you now.’ Together the two men strolled down place by the fire, took out his pipe once ‘Ah, sha, what do you want going at this the laneway while Dan explained how it more, blew through it thoughtfully, and hour for?’ protested the sergeant with a was that he, a respectable old man, had just as he leaned forward for a twig to wave of his hand, dismissing the notion as had the grave misfortune to open the kindle it, heard the steps return- head of another old man in such ing. It was the sergeant. He put a way as to require his removal to his head a little way over the hospital, and why it was that he half-door. couldn’t give the old man in ques- ‘Oh, Dan!’ he called softly. tion the satisfaction of paying in ‘Ay, sergeant?’ replied Dan, cash for an injury brought about looking round, but with one through the victim’s own unman- hand still reaching for the twig. nerly method of argument. He couldn’t see the sergeant’s ‘You see, sergeant,’ Dan said, face, only hear his voice. looking at another little cottage ‘I suppose you’re not thinking up the hill, ‘the way it is, he’s of paying that little fine, Dan?’ there now, and he’s looking at There was a brief silence. us as sure as there’s a glimmer Dan pulled out the lighted of sight in his weak, wandering, twig, rose slowly, and shambled watery eyes, and nothing would towards the door, stuffing it give him more gratification than down in the almost empty bowl for me to pay. But I’ll punish him. of the pipe. He leaned over the I’ll lie on bare boards for him. I’ll half-door while the sergeant suffer for him, sergeant, so that nei- with hands in the pockets of his trousers the tone required. ther he nor any of his children after him gazed rather in the direction of the lane- ‘Or I could go tomorrow,’ added Dan, will be able to raise their heads for the way, yet taking in a considerable portion warming to the issue. shame of it.’ of the sea line. ‘Would it be suitable for you now?’ On the following Friday he made ‘The way it is with me, sergeant,’ asked the sergeant, scaling up his voice ready his donkey and butt and set out. replied Dan unemotionally, ‘I am not.’ accordingly. On his way he collected a number of ‘I was thinking that, Dan; I was think- ‘But, as a matter of fact,’ said the old neighbours who wished to bid him fare- ing you wouldn’t.’ man emphatically, ‘the day that would be well. At the top of the hill he stopped There was a long silence during which most convenient to me would be Friday to send them back. An old man, sitting the voice of the thrush grew shriller and after dinner, because I have some messages in the sunlight, hastily made his way merrier. The sunken sun lit up rafts of to do in town, and I wouldn’t have the indoors, and a moment later the door of purple cloud moored high above the wind. journey for nothing.’ his cottage was quietly closed. ‘In a way,’ said the sergeant, ‘that was ‘Friday will do grand,’ said the sergeant Having shaken all his friends by the what brought me.’ with relief that this delicate matter was hand, Dan lashed the old donkey, shout- ‘I was just thinking so, sergeant, it only now practically disposed of. ‘If it doesn’t ed: ‘Hup there!’ and set out alone along struck me and you going out the door.’ they can damn well wait. You could walk the road to prison. ‘If ’twas only the money, Dan, I’m sure in there yourself when it suits you and tell there’s many would be glad to oblige you.’ them I sent you.’ From My Oedipus Complex by Frank O’ ‘I know that, sergeant. No, ’tisn’t the ‘I’d rather have yourself there, sergeant, Connor (Penguin, 1996). Copyright © money so much as giving that fellow the if it would be no inconvenience. As it is, Frank O’ Connor. Reproduced by per- satisfaction of paying. Because he angered I’d feel a bit shy.’ mission of Penguin Books Ltd. me, sergeant.’ ‘Why then, you needn’t feel shy at all.

20 Fiction two great adventurers such as we? I tried my rod. I swung. The lure flew out, true and holy, its little splash not very far out in Renegade the sea, but enough. I began to reel it back in. Father waved to me; I was content. by John F. Deane Several times I drew it in and cast it out again. I was praying hard, not for fish, not he Golden Strand stretches in a gen- form a low headland. We left the car up that, not yet. I was praying that the mist, Ttle curve from the hill road to the at the old football pitch that was laid out moving ineluctably into a soft rain, might rocky headland. The Atlantic Ocean lifts close to the sand dunes and the rabbits. not wholly destroy this day. There was and drops its tides through Blacksod Bay The goalposts were still there, leaning over a silver rapidly moving shower finger- and is never more than gently wild. It was before the Atlantic winds, creaking softly tapping on the surface of the sea before me always a source of pain to me when that as if their old bones ached. The chalk and I saw the sprat, hundreds of them, race strand was soiled with the dung of cattle marks had long been erased but the raking and leap and fall out of the water. I shout- crossing from field to field. And it was winds kept the grasses low. Beyond the ed and pointed to them. Father laughed. always a source of joy to watch, from the pitch was grassland tempered by sand for He knew the mackerel would be shoaling roadway, the small sand-dune hills behind the winds were always blowing through behind them, feeding frantically. We could the beach, the sand grown dry and lovely the sand, lifting it from the beach and win a great, a famous, catch. to the touch, where the rabbits played and shifting it in over the earth, gnawing per- I swung the rod again, excitement drag- gathered and darted quickly away into petually at the edge of the grounded world. ging my stomach. The line flew further the mysterious dark mouths of their bur- There were tiny flowers down among the out but dangerously close to the rocks rows. The marram grass grew in sharp grasses, some scarlet pimpernel lying very with their burthen of swaying, reaching little clumps and sea-edge flowers clustered low against the ground, the little plant weeds. I began to wind in, quickly. It was among them, sea-thrift, sea-campion and Father called the wild pineapple, its scent too late. I was snagged. The tip of the rod maidenhair. It was plain to see that the so reminiscent of that great exotic fruit. bent dangerously; I tugged. It would not rabbits relished their tiny realm, their feed- I walked tall and proud as we crossed yield. The hooks were fast in the weeds ing grounds, their sheltering places, their that grass towards the rocks at the end about the rock. My dismay was awful. bolt-holes. of the strand; I had my own fishing rod, Tears of frustration came, almost at once. Father drove, slowly, round the com- one my father no longer used. He had a I tried everything, shifting my position, monage that was bounded by barbed wire new one, bigger and more complicated. I dragging the line this way, then that. But fencing. From the small bridge over the had been practising at home, out in the to no avail. The line was well and truly river you could park the car and wait. I meadow, and had learned how to spin. I snagged. watched the yellow iris sway and dip with had mastered the heavy black reel, I could I waited hopelessly. Father had caught the breezes; they stood, contented, by swing the rod from behind me so that the two mackerel already and I could see the edge of the tawny water that flowed line flew out in a delightful arc, the silver- that steely bracing of his body with the beneath the bridge. Soon the rabbits would coated leaden lure would draw the green excitement. I was missing everything. The come out again, cautiously, one by one, as line far out over the meadow, then I would mackerel broke the surface of the sea in if they signalled safety to one another. It simply reel it back, slowly, jerking it now fast and fearsome eddies and the tiny sprat was beautiful to watch, these gentle folks and again, to tease the imaginary fish leaped out of the water before them. It congregating in silence, stopping, listen- among the grasses to make a lunge at the looked like a sudden, desperate silver flame ing, then hopping softly in among the lure. Oh yes, I knew how to do it. I would of water racing like a will o’ the wisp grasses and wild flowers, peaceful, but be good at it. I might even catch a fish. across the surface. Father noticed my pre- always watchful, always on the alert. I I walked beside my father, my rod dicament. I hung my head in shame. He could see the adults, their ears raised like held in my right hand, as he held his. The left down his rod and crossed the rocks small watchtowers, and then the younger breeze chilled me a little but I could not towards me. ones, playful and at peace in the shadow of admit to that. Father prepared the rods ‘You’re caught in the rocks and weeds,’ the elders. Father pointed out some of the and stood me on a flat rock from which I he said. ‘Give me the rod.’ He took the rod braver ones, the little ones who wished to could spin. The waves were slight; I was in and tried to jerk and snatch the hook from move further than the safe ground of sand no danger. He moved a little further along its snag but it was firmly caught. I knew he and sea-grasses, and how the adults quickly the rocks, took up his station and began to did not want to pull too hard; the old rod shepherded them back to safety once again. spin. I watched him for a while; his lure itself might snap or he might lose the lure, It was wonderful. It was a kind of prayer. flew gracefully out into the sea, far, far out, and it was a special one, a long whorled A breathing of peace. And I was with my and he began at once to reel it back in. He piece of lead painted silver, with a red and father in the car. He and I. Watching. How was silent and intent. This was a sacred spinning tail when it was pulled through I loved him, then, there and always. game to him, a graced adventure, a blessed the water; its three brass hooks were He took me fishing to the furthest end sport. A soft mist began to fall and a great masked by that spinning tail. ‘It’s fouled,’ of the Golden Strand, over by the rocks surge of disappointment went through me, he said quietly. ‘You should have kept where the land moved out into the sea to but he carried on; what was a little mist to it way clear of the rocks.’ He jerked and

21 tugged a while more. ‘I’ll have to wade the mackerel shoals, though they were tling. I pulled the trigger. The gun stayed out and release it,’ he said, and I sensed the further out now, diminishing. I looked still in my grip. When I went down to blame and frustration in his voice. at my father once again and saw how the see the lid, I found I had shot a hole pea- ‘But,’ I said, ‘you have no waders.’ rain collected on his face, and fell, like perfect and clean through. I did it again. He gazed out a moment on the sea. He tears. And again. At my feet, several empty car- decided quickly. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Hold We gathered ourselves together and tridges. A saucepan lid at the far end of the rod high and I’ll follow the line out went home. I was silent, and so was he. the meadow riddled through. as far as I can.’ But not a syllable of reproach or blame We stopped, later that day, near the To my horror and dismay he began to from him; he was that kind of man, and I bridge by the rabbit patch. We waited. It loosen his shoes. He took them off and loved him. But in me there was a guilt, a was a sunbright evening, warm and still. laid them carefully in a cleft of the rock deep-rooted sense of my own uselessness, A slight breeze ruffled the yellow iris in where they would remain dry before the my failure. the ditch below us. The tall scutch grasses rain. Then his socks. He rolled them up Then, next day, he began to teach me whispered among themselves. And father and put them in the shoes. He opened how to shoot. We were out in the back said, ‘There! See him! Big fellow. There the belt on his braces and I was stunned meadow again. He had a point 22 rifle; among the lean-to grasses and the trailing as he lowered his trousers; he wore I loved the cold feel of the stock against vetch, can you see him?’ I did. I had the big grey underpants and those, too, he my jaw, the straight black barrel, the two rifle out the window, resting perfectly removed. He did not look at me. I held sightings on the top of the barrel. He put on the rolled-down glass. I sighted the the rod high, the line snaking out into an old saucepan lid up on a post against old rabbit, a fine fellow for rabbit stew. the sea; I did not look at him, but I saw. the rhododendron hedge at the far end of There he sat, alert, vagrant, free-range. I His legs, his thighs, were very white, the meadow. He loaded the gun, that big saw the eager watchtowers of the ears, I even vulnerable. He moved carefully into blunt cartridge with its pale red colour, knew the powerful muscles that would the water off the rock, his right hand its gold-coloured base, all rounded and fling him, and his care, into instant flight, holding the line, following its direction, smooth and deadly. He showed me how how they would disperse with impacting his left hand holding his shirt up from to cock the gun, how to aim, one eye suddenness into their burrows. I sighted. the gentle waves. He waded out. His closed, sighting down the barrel to the Carefully. ‘Focus,’ father said, ‘on the buttocks, too, were a shocking white to cold heart of the saucepan lid. I rested soft-flesh shoulder muscles where the me and I was hurt, deeply hurt. As he the rifle on a fence, I held myself stiff and bullet bites. Remember, love the crea- moved further into the water he had to steady. I sighted. ture, caress the trigger. It is a moment of lift his shirt higher to avoid soaking it. This was easy, I felt. I pulled the trig- love, of personal friendship, of fellow- Soon he was up to his waist in the ocean. ger. There was that gruesome bang; the ship. Then, only when you’re perfectly He reached the rocks and I saw him tug gun leaped back against my shoulder, at peace, pull the trigger. We’ll have the and pull frantically. The rain was coming almost knocking me down. I looked over best of good rabbit stew this evening!’ down harder all the time. I felt it on my at the saucepan lid. It was undamaged, I sighted. I steadied myself. I lined face; I licked its flowing off my upper lip. smug and cocksure of itself, there at the up that fawn-coloured, upraised body. I Father raised his hand in a small triumph, far end of the meadow. Father laughed. could see the eye, round and small and and I saw the lure, the green gut attached. ‘I would have warned you,’ he said, ‘but black, alert, watchful, but its owner He turned to come back to shore. I wanted you to feel the difficulty, rather wholly unaware of my presence, of my I was even more hurt and more embar- than me just telling you. Now, you must eye on his. Suddenly I felt perplexed, for rassed. He moved slowly in towards me, take time. You must relax. Concentrate, I, too, relish the vision I could image one hand still holding the shirt out of and focus. You must not rush to kill; you in its round, dark eye, the vision of its the waves. He waded cautiously. I was must love what you are aiming at, caress green-grass and sand-gold world easy stirred by the ugliness of a man’s body, it gently, know its heart, its soul. Then under sunlight, I could sense its love and how unshapely it looked, the hips level- you must caress the trigger, your finger care for those small creatures close to ling with the thighs and stomach, as if loving it, gentling, never jerk it, do not its heart, I thought of him as a father, a there had been no waist to mark off the rush. Embrace the enemy, be delicate father to those soft and beautiful crea- loveliness, the proportion. I could see his about it. Caress the trigger. Caress the tures in their innocence there about him. penis, it was pinched small and bleak by shoulder of the beast you are aiming at. I could imagine the blood that would the cold Atlantic, the folds of his belly- Everything slow, slow, slow.’ stain that sand and leave the younger flesh wrinkling. I was hurt, too, by the I tried again. He was right. I took a creatures lost, abandoned and unkempt. thin line of black hair that moved from deadly dislike to that saucepan lid but I sensed the delight they took in the his navel down to his penis, down to the forced myself to think about it, how it sweet sorrel and sacred herbs of their tiny copse of grey-black hair that I had rose there in its own smug self-satisfac- surroundings and I took my finger from never seen before. I stood, holding the tion, how it was rounded and perfect and the trigger, handed back the rifle and rod, downcast and maladroit. Poor son. at home in the world. I sighted slowly, shook my head. And we sat together Poor father. The rain-gusts came, stip- gently. I imagined myself almost kissing a moment, that beloved father and I, pling the surface of the water, and still that saucepan lid, licking the heart of it and I felt embarrassed, ill at ease and the sea-sprat broke in hapless foam before with my warm tongue, gentling, gen- absolved.

22 Fiction In bed that night, you see the man’s eyes. A line from one of his poems, Never done and we are never done, rings through The Special Advisor your dreams.

Tania Hershman You happen to read an article about octo- puses. They are very intelligent, you say to ou did not apply for this job. You your job title you will have to make an your friend the other Special Advisor as Yapplied for another job, but they are effort. With your job title there might be you pour coffee. You tell him the story offering you this one. You can’t imagine assumptions. about the octopus whose brain the sci- that they would ever have advertised this entists were trying to research. They put job, though it is described simply enough. At last: an execution! In a lawless country him to sleep, inserted a probe, you say, and They do not give you time to think. You known for these things. You are provided the octopus just pulled it out. Really? says the take it. with an outline of events; you must do other Special Advisor. Just pulled it out? At home later, over dinner warmed research. A quick memo within twelve hours, Wow! Yes, you say. Then he asks if you’d from a can, you wonder what skills you your friend the other Special Advisor tells like to have dinner sometime. You are possess that made them choose you. You you, eating a chocolate digestive. Then a surprised but you agree. Special Advisors decide that it is probably best not to ask. more detailed report within twenty-four. You should stick together, you think, as you This is what they have said you are to thank him. You take your coffee and start look for a biscuit. do. When there is a summary execution, they to scour the online news sources. You said, anywhere in the world, you tell us what find out how old the victim was, how That night you have a date. Friends fixed you think. You advise. many children he had. You find out that you up with her. You are wary. You are All right, you said. he had been in hiding after numerous nervous. She is a financial analyst. When incarcerations. That he was beheaded. she smiles and says, So, what do you do? The first day, there are no summary You read that he was a poet. You look at you gulp wine, and then you tell her. executions. a picture of him. You enlarge it and stare Soon after, she goes to the bathroom. You do not have to track them down into his eyes for too long. You get up and Soon after that, there is an emergency yourself; there is a staff to do that. You pour more coffee. phone call, she simply must . . . and soon attempt to make conversation with one That night, you order pizza and as you after that, you are alone with half a bottle of them. Hello, you say. She does not turn ask for extra mushrooms you imagine a of house red. away from her screen. large man with a large knife. When the You finish it. You think of the octopus. The remainder of the first week, there pizza comes, you remove the mushrooms. You imagine his tentacle, gripping the are also no summary executions. You wine bottle, pouring himself a glass. You explore the building. You locate the fifth Your brief memo appears to have been are grinning to yourself as you pay the floor’s kitchen, toilets, smoking balcony. sufficient enough not to warrant a bill and walk out into the rain. You make coffee. You tidy your desk. response. Your boss’s secretary smiles You ask for stationery. Rubber bands. at you and you take this to be a good There is another one. The information is Paper clips. You make more coffee. sign. You work on your longer report. on your desk. An underworld kingpin, it You receive your door plate. Special You include translations of some of the seems. There is a picture of the kingpin’s Advisor, it says, on Summary Executions. victim’s poems. You are pleased with body. You understand for the first time You wonder what you will tell your this. You describe all the details you have the phrase riddled with bullets. You enlarge mother. This is not a title she can use to found on the manner of the execution: the picture but you cannot see his eyes. boast to her friends. My son the . . . You the type of blade, where and how it has He has a wife. He has children. He doesn’t do not call her. been manufactured throughout history. write poetry. Another country in which You are pleased with this, too. You insert such executions are the norm although not a You meet another Special Advisor on the the names of the murdered man’s chil- frequent occurrence. You write your brief Monday morning of your second week. dren, their ages. You give advice, with memo. You work on your report. He is advising on something else. Every wording lifted from the directives you now and then, we’ll overlap, he says without have been given. Your friend the other Special Advisor going into details. You are the only one on Unstable nation . . . has chosen the restaurant. You meet him Summary Executions, he tells you, as he no indication of pattern . . . there. You are surprised when he orders stirs sugar into his coffee. You really want strongly worded condemnation . . . wine without asking you. You did not do to ask what happened to the previous keeping a watchful eye . . . this the other night, with the failed date. advisor, but you are somehow afraid. You You send the document to print but You would not presume. But it is good tell yourself that this is foolish, that it is then you find it difficult to stand up and wine. Very good wine. Tell me more about not as if he or she might have been . . . walk over to the printer. Your knees are cephalopods, says your friend. He leans in You smile. You want to appear pleas- uncooperative. It takes more than fifteen closer and you tell him what you remem- ant, approachable. You feel that with minutes. ber: how an octopus has been known to

23 carry a large shell around with him or There is another execution. Three wom- take a long deep breath. Then you move her all day in case, at some point, shelter en. All have children. None are poets. But your computer mouse and watch the is needed. Forward planning, grins your none are warriors either. You find their screensaver disintegrate. friend. pictures, you look at their faces, you put Later, after several bottles of the excel- the pictures under a pile on your desk, There is a morning where you wake up lent wine, your new friend the other you get the pictures out from under the and decide not to go to work. You do not Special Advisor puts his hand over yours. pile, you look at their faces again. call your boss. You do not call your lover, Shock is not the right word to describe You try to get up and go for coffee. who has not spent the night because of your reaction. You cannot move your arm. Your knees are unobliging. It takes over working late. You do not phone anyone. You don’t know where to look. It’s okay, fifteen minutes. The other Special Advi- You leave your home and stand out in says your friend. No rush. He withdraws sor, who is now more than a friend, pours the street a while. You turn right and that his hand. Pays the bill. for you, says nothing, hands you choco- is when you choose where you will go. late digestives. When the others finally The researcher is surprised but friendly. There are no more summary executions leave the kitchen, the other Special Advi- The octopus does not seem surprised. for the rest of the week. You do some sor puts a hand on your shoulder. You You sit by the octopus’s tank with the cup general research. You wander around the take the coffee and the chocolate diges- of tea the researcher made for you. You building. You occasionally bump into tives back to your desk but when your wonder about the octopus. You wonder if your friend the other Special Advisor in hand moves towards the pictures of the the octopus wonders about you. You try the coffee room. You are not as embar- three women, the shaking returns. not to think of the poet, the kingpin, the rassed as you thought you would be. three mothers. On Friday morning, you sit at your When you are in bed together, you and desk, close your eyes and wonder if octo- your lover, the other Special Advisor, You and the octopus have been there for puses kill. Yes, for food, but each other? do not talk about work. You compete several hours when you hear someone You try and picture an octopus wrapping with each other to unearth the funniest else come round the tanks towards you. all its tentacles around its enemy. And news items, the oddest things humans You expect the researcher. Or perhaps squeezing. It doesn’t feel right. Your are doing. Siamese twins who make their your lover, worrying about you. But you imaginary octopus lets go. fortunes from online trading. A two- do not know the woman. She is not wear- Later that day, your friend the other year-old girl who has composed twelve ing a lab coat. She looks at you as if you Special Advisor comes to your cubicle. I symphonies. A space umbrella designed are who she has come to see. She does not have a surprise, he says. He hands you a to shift rainstorms. There is rarely a time look at the octopus. biscuit and tells you he will pick you up when you do not both have something I think we should talk, she says. I think you tomorrow. He won’t reveal any more. fantastical to share, and when you have want to meet me. laughed, when you have made love – You are confused. Is she an expert in Sixty-five million years ago, says the research- which you are astonished to find never cephalopods? Had you mentioned you er, standing in front of her tanks. You are makes you uncomfortable, inhibited, wanted to learn more? staring at the octopus. The octopus might shy – you sometimes jointly wonder at And then, as if you are slapped hard, be staring at you, you aren’t sure. That’s the world in which this can be so. Where you know exactly who she is. when their brains really started to develop, she is the normal? you ask each other. Where is You . . . you say. You are my . . . You did says. Your friend the other Special Advi- the still? my . . . sor asks more questions and you hear She blinks twice, clears her throat. She them talk about nautiluses. You hear the After a month, you are summoned for looks away and then she looks right at researcher describe one of her octopuses review. Your boss tells you that they are you. You see their faces, she says. You hear who, if the light in his tank is left on at impressed with your thoroughness. Your them. Their eyes are in you. They look out night, will short-circuit it. You smile at boss begins to say something about your through your eyes. You have trouble with your this octopus. You move your hand in an predecessor but stops himself. He looks knees. You find it hard to get out of the chair. almost-wave. One of the octopus’s tenta- towards the large windows of his office Yes, you whisper. You can’t look at her cles moves too. It may just be coincidence. and out over the city. Then your boss because she sees too much of you, so you You turn to your friend. You touch his turns back to you, a false smile on his face. stare at the octopus. Your chest is filled elbow. You smile. He thanks you again, sees no need for further with something liquid. Your heart is review until the completion of the three-month swimming. Nothing is said out loud at all. That night is the first time you go to bed probationary period. You understand that And then you open your mouth. And together. He just holds you. You have you are doing well. then you say: I see them all the time I hear never been held like this. You listen to You had questions. You had the words them I feel like they are watching me he wrote him breathe. You feel his heart pumping of a poem under your tongue. You had poems the body was full of holes they all had into you. You slowly slide your hands many pairs of eyes inside your head, look- children so many children I don’t understand underneath his chest until it is as if you ing out through your eyes towards your how someone can how someone does what did are just one four-armed and four-legged boss as if he held answers. As you reach they do the mothers the others he was just a poet Special Advisor, holding on and on. your desk, you hold on to your chair and well maybe one of them was criminal but the

24 women the women they whisper in my ear how whisper Shhhh, shhh. Your new friend, Don’t be, she says. is it that one person can do and to another and the former Special Advisor, kneels down You leave the lab together. You take what if I could what if we could what if it’s just too and you both put your palms on the lift down and then you are in the pretending not to what if underneath the suits I to the tank’s cool glass, you press your street, facing one another. You do not go into the coffee room and everyone’s polite and cheek there, and right then you cannot know how this will end. You have no on my desk on my desk there is this pile there are remember who is in the tank and who idea how this will end. pictures and they stare at me and then my legs is outside. The octopus begins to slow Then she says what she says to you and, don’t work my knees don’t work I can’t slice down, its tentacles sliding around the like another slap, you know it all. food without thinking and is this going on and tank, slipping towards its floor. Through You don’t have to, she says, and walks it just comes at me comes at me why is it com- your cheek you feel the violence as it away. ing at me as if they are doing it for me doing it ebbs away. You watch her reach the end of the to me for me his eyes his poems I can’t I can’t street, then vanish. You think of open I can’t. You hear voices and two researchers wan- landscapes, of the sea filled with every And when you are gasping too much der into your section of the lab. When type of life. You breathe in. You breathe to carry on you feel a chaos and you turn they see you, they giggle and stare. Your out. Your heart is sad but still. Your heart and the octopus is thrashing, whirling new friend lifts herself up and then she is you. You think about your mother. round its tank, tentacles whacking and holds out her hand to you. You let her You realize it has been a long long time. slashing at the walls, at each other, at the pull you to standing then you lean on the You turn and walk the other way, think- octopus’s head and your heart is paddling top of the tank, your body still unsolid. ing of what you will tell her about your as you bend towards the tank, as you Sorry, you say. day.

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