Песах Амнуэль - Zion's Fiction - A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature

Without noticing, I think “mother” a split second before I touch her. Automatically, my mother’s image is in my head, especially the way she’s starting to look her age. I have her height, I have her build, I have her face. I know that’s what I’m going to look like when I’m old.

And there’s an image of my mother, tired, and for the first time I can see that she’s fifty. And suddenly I understand that whenever I look at her, I see the image of who she was when I was five. I haven’t seen her real face in years.

She’s shorter and smaller and older than I am. And worn. She’s worn. You can see the fight on her face. I don’t want people to see how hard it was to get to this place. Please don’t let me be as wrinkled—

No, that’s not me . That was Stephanie. Stephanie’s mother. Stephanie’s thoughts. I look up at Professor Bendis. Her thoughts fade into nothing, even though I’m still touching her.

“From there on,” Bendis says. “You move to a place that is ‘linked’ in some way to this memory. For example. You can easily move from ‘mother’ to ‘father.’”

Mother, tired, for the first time I can see that she’s fifty —

—Dad is fifty—

I see his fiftieth birthday. Dad sits on the sofa, watching television, while Mom frets over the spread-out dinner table .

I see it in his eyes. I’ve seen in it in his eyes all day. He claims he doesn’t care, but that number hits him where it hurts: he still thinks he’s young. He still thinks he’s twenty-two. Dad thinks he’s Peter Pan .

He thinks he still looks twenty-two just because he weighs the same.

The doorbell rings. Mom looks up —

“From there,” Bendis continues, “you can move to ‘mother and father fighting.’”

The doorbell rings. Mom looks up, and I can feel the pressure, the sweat. She’s not ready—

— Mom shouting at Dad, I think —

“ It’s inconsiderate,” Mom is practically shouting .

“ But it doesn’t make any sense!” Dad’s tone becomes even calmer than it was a second ago. “I never notice if people are making a noise when they chew. You’re being unreasonable .”

“ It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to you. I find it disgusting. I find it abhorrent. That’s what I feel. You know it makes me feel bad, and you’re still doing it .”

“ But there is no reason in the world why it should bother you. You’re being hysterical for nothing.” So cool, I sense Stephanie’s thoughts, dipped in disgust. So ignorant of feelings. Why can’t he understand her? Why does he do that? Why doesn’t he understand?

“Understand her!” Stephanie wants to shout. “Just for once, understand—”

“From there,” the professor’s voice breaks into Stephanie’s emotions, “to ‘Will I fight like this with my husband?’”

“ I want a man who understands me,” Stephanie says. She’s lying on the bed—I can sense the location in her mind and feel the covers on her stomach. Margaret is lying beside her, also on the stomach, resting on her elbows. And although I didn’t pick it up from Stephanie, I can see from Margaret’s face that these two are now more or less sixteen. They’re alone in the house. I know that .

“ He has to be kind,” Stephanie goes on, and I feel in her what that emotion means, how nice it would be. “And considerate.” Yes. “And he will love me.” Yes. “And give his life for me.” Yes. I feel exactly like that .

“From there to ‘Marriage is not for me.’” The professor’s words, although calm, land on me like a wall of bricks. Stephanie’s mind vanishes to me.

Of course marriage is for her! I just felt it! She was ready for marriage and she was only sixteen!

The professor is looking at me. “Problem?”

“No.”

“From there,” he continues, “to ‘Marriage is not for me.’”

I close my eyes, preparing, knowing I’m looking for something that does not exist.

“— Kind. And considerate. And he will love me —”

— Marriage is not for me —

“ When I finally find a man, a man I’m ready to settle down with and who is ready to settle down with me, I will not let him marry me .” She’s lecturing Margaret. I can’t see the buildings, but the gyro inside all of us says that they’re at the university. This is probably a couple of years ago. “ Marriage is an institution that started out in barbaric times. Women were slaves at worst and cheap labor at best. When I find a man —”

—Did you find a man? I ask her—

Her emotions run away from me and I lose her. She’s gone.

It takes me a second to realize you can’t ask dead people questions. I need to find the right thought in order to—

“You see?” The Professor notices my concentration has lapsed. “Unlike our own minds, the minds of the dead are open books. All you have to learn to do is to navigate. Do you understand, Ms. Watson?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Then tell me her middle name.”

I look at him and I don’t understand.

“Her name, Ms. Watson. What is her middle name?”

I concentrate and touch her again. “My name is…” I think.

“My name is…” Stephanie stands in front of the class. Her inner gyro puts her at first period in Mrs. Craig’s class. She’s in the first grade. This is her first day of school. “Stephanie Jean Reynolds and I live in 1421 North Shadeland Avenue.”

“That’s enough,” Mrs. Craig says. “Thank you, Stephanie.”

Stephanie nods and sits down .

I break my touch with her and look at Professor Bendis. “Her middle name is Jean, sir.”

“All right. Very good, Ms. Watson. Step back.”

I nod, and move back.

Professor Bendis calls on another student and puts her through the wringer. And then another, and then another. He asks each of them a different question, he guides each of them through a different set of memories. But he doesn’t touch Stephanie again, not even once. In the five seconds he touched her, he accessed more information than all of us did in two hours.

And through all of this, Stephanie’s immobile face rests there, unmoving, still perfect though dead, while the rest of the world frets around it. I watch it rock slightly, only a millimeter in every direction, when someone touches it. Everyone touches it at a different spot.

Mark touches her on the cheek. Suzy on her shoulder. Greg hesitates, and touches Stephanie’s temple.

And Stephanie jiggles ever so slightly whenever someone pulls his fingers away, as if her face and the finger were glued together.

The class is done after two hours. We’re all in a hurry to get to the next class. Professor Bendis reminds us that tomorrow we should reconvene here and not in class.

While they leave, I have to put the body back in the freezer.

I move as slowly as possible, waiting until they’re almost all out the door and their backs are definitely turned to me. As I slip the sheet over her face, I touch her for only a second, making it seem like an accident. And as I do so, I concentrate on the flutter you get when you’re in the beginning of a relationship, the butterflies in the stomach you feel when it’s the real thing, when…

Stephanie sits there, alone in her bedroom, her cheek squished against the wall. Her gut burns, physically burns, with what I know to be fear and insecurity. Her feet—now in socks—feel as though they’re a hundred times more sensitive than she’s used to. Her feeling of butterflies in the stomach is ten times stronger than mine .

She thinks about yesterday, about the kiss they had, the buzz it gave her, and it feels like blood actually fills her eyes and blots her eyesight. She slides her cheek down the wall of her bedroom slowly, playing that kiss again, exhilarated, fearful .