The People of Forever Are Not Afraid (2 page)

And there are benches, of course, right there at the end of Jerusalem Street, and you would think you could sit and look out at this view, except you can’t. Because if you did, your back would be to the view, and you would be staring at house number twenty-four on Jerusalem Street, and all you would notice are the underwear hanging to dry and an orphaned dog leash on the yellow grass and the recycling bin out on the porch.

And he would bring people there, Dan, and he would ask,
what is wrong with this picture what is wrong what is wrong
, and no one could tell him and he would grow mad, grow loud, and he would say that if it weren’t for people like him the whole village would fucking die, we’re that stupid. He can be arrogant. And then the person he would bring there from the town, his classmate, his mother’s friend, his sister, his younger sister, would sit there staring at the yellow grass of house twenty-four for a while and say, “You said you wanted to hang out. I don’t understand.” But I understood.

In seventh grade, after I left Avishag’s house, Dan jumped at me from behind an olive tree. Above him there were imported sycamore trees and birds, and the birds were invisible but swished around so quickly in circles they made spots of light dance around him, like in a discotheque. He moved one step closer. And then one more. He was so close I could see two eyelashes that had fallen off and were resting on his left cheek. I looked down, embarrassed, and noticed that his feet were bare and long. I snapped my fingers under my neck, nervous. He was so tall, just like Avishag. Or maybe I was short.

“Do you want to hang out?” he asked.

When I sat on that bench I just felt tired for a second. I turned my back around again and again to look away, so Dan wouldn’t see how excited I was, so I would have something else beautiful to think about. And then it hit me.

“So a person comes and he has two benches and they tell him, ‘Use cement and plant these benches in the ground,’ and he, well,” I said. I just wanted to have something to say, but Dan’s green eyes were beaming, and his thick eyebrows were going up and down.

After that we sat there for a while on the ground, looking at the red blankets and caves ahead, and I told him all my secrets. That night I think I loved him a bit, but I don’t know if it was true love because I only loved him because he loved me, or something I said. You could see that he did by the way he was rocking back and forth and also because when I showed him the notebook he promised he would write in it one day, something fucking smart.

I never spoke to him again after that night. Two months later he told Avishag one of my secrets. Two years after that he went into the army, and when he got back, instead of working in the company in the village that makes parts that go into machines that help make machines that make airplanes, or going to professional school so he could later be paid more to work in the company in the town that makes parts that go into machines that help make machines that make airplanes, he just stayed home and drew pictures of military boots. I know because my sister went there last week to play with his littlest sister, and when she came back she said there were sketches of boots and boots and boots. The entire kitchen wall was black with them, and heavy.

“Dan said he misses you,” my sister said. “He said you don’t hang out with him anymore,” she added and made kissing sounds, and then turned the volume of her
Bully the Snow Man
cartoon louder so I wouldn’t be able to yell at her.

If you wrote something in someone’s notebook, one thing you would also do is come to a party if they invited you.

By the time we reach the cellular tower I am almost sure
that it was Dan who wrote in the notebook. He wrote between my definitions of “RPG children” and “IAF.” I guess I still care. I guess he must still care.

I know it sounds unlikely, but I just know he just waltzed right into the class like Superman and wrote in the notebook when I was in the bathroom and then stepped right out of the gates of the school. I would ask Avishag if he came when I was gone, and I wonder why she doesn’t just tell me, but I also know she must have her reasons—people who have brothers have reasons—and besides, I am only almost sure and almost sure is better than risking knowing something you don’t want to know.

I can’t believe we haven’t thought of trying to get reception by the cellular tower before. We are close enough to the cellular tower for it to shade us from the sun up on this rocky hill, and we are screaming, because even with the little reception it gives us it is still hard for people to hear us.

There are a lot of rare commodities in this village. Privacy, public transportation, 5 percent milk. But the rarest of all is an empty house. Every so often someone’s parents go for a company-sponsored retreat in the next town over and get massages and swim in the hostel’s pool. But that has never happened to my family, or to most of anyone we know. Most times parents go out for coffee at another house, agreeing to be out of the house until after eleven, and pesky siblings agree to have sleepovers. That’s how an empty house is created, and then you can have beers and smoke and make out and not feel embarrassed.

But there seem to be no empty houses for our class to party in today, none.

We’ve called twelve people already, and there are wet
circles underneath our arms, but we can’t go home because my sister is at home and Avishag’s little sister is at home and we can’t let them hear us planning this, just like in two years they won’t let us hear them plan parties. Besides, I never go over to Avishag’s house anymore now that Dan’s back. She won’t let me go there.

My sister would hear us if we went to my house, and she is the worst. You can hear anything on a landline. When my mother is on the landline, no matter how late at night, I can hear everything she says, even when she whispers, and I can hear it if she cries.

“ARE YOU SURE?” We are shouting into our cell phones.

Yes, Tali Feldman is sure. Her mother doesn’t want to let her have a party when the house is empty because she is worried about her daughter’s friends breaking more of her Romanian tea set, and Noam’s mom doesn’t want her daughter to have a party when the house is empty because she is worried about her daughter breaking her trust, and Nina’s mom doesn’t want her daughter to have a party when the house is empty because she is worried about her daughter’s friends breaking her daughter’s hymen, because she is a little on the religious side.

We also find out that Lea is having a party, that she has an empty house because her mom and dad are going to get a massage at the hostel in the next town over, but that her mother says I am not invited because last time I broke a chestnut pot and Lea told her it was me. The real reason is because Avishag and I are the only ones who are not super afraid of Lea, because we played with her before she was super popular, when she still played with people instead of just playing people.

I told Dan on the bench that day all my secrets. One of them was that Avishag and I still played with dolls. This is something we kept a secret even from Lea, ever since we were in fifth grade. It was actually better to play with dolls when we were in seventh grade, since we could think of things we couldn’t when we were younger. The dolls could puke yellow Popsicles and then cover another doll in it, before burning it. They could invent a cure for cancer or pick up smoking or go to law school. It was a lot of fun.

When Avishag found out I had told her brother about us playing, she walked into class right at eight in the morning and opened my backpack and threw my sandwich on the floor, right there for everyone to see, and she stepped on it, and she was screaming. The tomatoes oozed yellow and red liquid on the floor when she jumped on them.

“Gross,” she shouted. “He is my brother you sick, sick bitch. You have a boyfriend! Who do you think you are? I don’t even know you.” It was rare then too, that she cursed.

We acted for a while like we really didn’t know each other, because really we didn’t, I would agree on that, but I didn’t know anymore if there was anyone I did know. Emuna took Avishag’s seat next to me in class. Avishag switched to sitting next to Noam.

Then Dan went into the army. It was regular that he did, because he was eighteen, and it was regular that Avishag and I forgot about the words she said about him. But I know she thinks she doesn’t even know me. I’ll always know that.

“Are RPG children like those tiny RPGs that don’t need a launcher?” she asks before we leave the cellular tower.

“No,” I say. “You are thinking about the Soviet hand grenades that were also called RPGs, but no one used them by
the time it was the Peace of the Galilee War. You are thinking about the past. I’ll let you copy all the definitions later.”

We leave the hill with the cellular tower at around four in the afternoon and go home, unsuccessful at finding a place for a party. My mom usually gets in from work at five. I watch the national children’s channel until she comes.
Chiquititas
and
Wonder Shoes
and
The Surprise Garden
. Shows even Avishag would think I am too old for. When I hear my mom’s car outside I run into my room and lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. She doesn’t knock to ask how I am, and I am glad, because all I want is some quiet.

I can hear her whispering on the phone. I stare at the ceiling for about an hour, maybe two, trying to imagine what it would be like if I were forced to stare at this ceiling for my entire life. What type of details would I notice? I ask myself, and the voice in my head sounds suddenly like that of Mira the history teacher, Avishag’s mom, and then it is my mom, and she is in my room. Her teeth are stained with nicotine and her back is hunched forward.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says. “I need some help.”

I don’t answer.
I
need some help. If she wanted to, she could know that I want an empty house to have a party I can invite Dan to tonight. But she only wants to know what she wants to know.

Last Monday she asked me if I was sure I didn’t want to try adding turkey to my sandwich.

“I have been screaming at you to pick up the phone for five minutes,” she says, and hands me the phone. “I can’t live in this house and be treated like a maid anymore.”

“Are you there?” Avishag asks through the phone.

“Did Nina’s mom finally give permission for a party?” I ask.

“Listen,” she says. “Dan fell down and hit his head.”

I was on the landline the whole night talking to Avishag. All of the other girls stayed at Lea’s party. She made people stay, even after they heard something was up with Dan. I didn’t care about that. And I didn’t care that my mom could hear me or that my sister could hear me or that my dad could hear me. At first the thing that was up was that Dan hit his head so Avishag was worried, and then the thing was that he was badly injured in the head and in the hospital but Avishag’s mom told her not to go, and then the thing was that he was accidentally shot in the head, and then the final thing was that he and a couple classmates went to the cellular tower hill and they called this girl, or that, but then they played Russian roulette because no one answered. I mean, no one but those in the town had cell reception and almost everyone was at Lea’s party, and that was the thing. At six in the morning the thing was that Dan had died.

But I don’t believe any of these rumors. I think he just went up that hill and blew his fucking brains out all by himself.

At seven in the morning I walk over to Avishag’s. She lives in Jerusalem Street 3 and I live in 12, and that’s why we became friends. I pass by one nearly identical house after another. I pass Lea’s house, the olive grove, then the house of the British Miller family. The houses look exactly alike except Avishag’s
house has a red roof and the rest are green. Also, when you walk into her house there are seven bookshelves, because her mom, Mira, is an intellectual, because she is a teacher or because she is originally from Jerusalem the city, not the street.

Avishag’s eyes are closed, so I hold her nose to make her wake up. That’s how I always used to wake her up when we were little, but when I do it now I realize I can’t wake her up like that anymore. Not now. Not ever. She doesn’t shout at me when she wakes up; she doesn’t say a word.

I remove the pillow from under her black, damp hair. I put it on the floor and I put my head on it and I close my eyes.

But after about an hour I wake up. I go downstairs to the kitchen expecting to find the chocolate milk and cereal waiting on the table, but there is nothing on the table at all. Even the chocolate milk and chocolate-spread sandwich Mira has out on the table for her youngest girl every morning are not there.

I expected them. I swear, of all things, this is the most shocking.

In my house my mother organizes a tomato and tea for me and tomato and bread and tea for my sister in the morning. When we wake up she is always gone because her work starts at seven. Work used to start at eight, so she used to be able to drive us to school, but in tenth grade the town started a bus service to ease morning traffic and make it so that moms can come to work an hour early. Now there is always just that same note.
Do your dishes after lunch
. She leaves lunch in the fridge, two plates covered by other plates, rice and lamb from Sunday to Tuesday and rice and okra the rest of the week. They taste fresh even though we have to microwave them.

I go back to Avishag’s room.

“Avishag,” I say, shaking her hard, “where’s your mom?”

Avishag keeps her eyes closed. Still half sleeping, she arches her back and fine-tunes her bra. She passes her long fingers on her golden necklace, and she is so dark in between these white sheets, it is as if she is too present, and then she opens her eyes suddenly.

“I think she decided to go back home,” she says. “She said she would before we even heard that Dan … before we knew everything.”

“Go back home?” I ask. “But she is your mom.”