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

“You want to see me get dressed?”

“Yes,” she says. Playful. God, she’s so happy .

He smiles back. He likes it. He gives her the glasses .

His image becomes clearer still. It didn’t look hazy before. Stephanie’s mind must have embellished intelligently, accurately, and unconsciously .

He dresses, now turning this into a mock striptease show, teasing her, dancing with his clothes as he slowly gets dressed. He’s having a riot. He’s so funny .

Once he’s dressed, I replay this. As slowly as I possibly can without having her thoughts dissolve into nothing. It’s not just the way he looks, it’s what she feels, too. It’s so amazing. I feel what she feels. As slowly as I possibly can .

Once that’s over, I surf to another time, another place, and see him getting undressed, and another time I see her practically ripping his clothes off. I play that slowly as well .

I surf to each spot I can find, to see his body from all possible angles. I see him above her, as they’re halfway through sex .

I see him lying down .

I see him getting out of bed, on the way to the bathroom. She checks out his ass, the way his legs look from behind. I see what they look like from the front .

I see her examining him while he sleeps. His hair rumpled; his face even more trouble-free than usual; his eyebrows with a single grey hair; his nose, his nose, his button of a nose; his mouth squished by the pillow; his chin needing a shave; his neck and the wrinkles she sees he’ll have in ten years. She pulls away the covers to reveal his chest, smooth and hairless like a nine-year-old’s. She peels the blanket from him softly, going down and down and down his body, until she examines his every appendage, his every hair, even his little toes. She takes care to put the cover back on each spot she’s through with, so that he won’t be cold .

I don’t know how much time all of this took, but I have to see one thing. One more thing before I go back to my room.

I want to see her.

I see her standing in front of the mirror before she goes into the shower. She looks at her thighs, checking for fat. She looks at her stomach. She turns around and looks at her behind. She plays with her breasts, moving them to one side, then to another. They’re uneven. Everyone’s are uneven, but she doesn’t like the way one is leaning, lopsided, looking dead. She has no idea how perfect she looks .

But looks change. I surf to other showers, to other times she took off her clothes .

And for some reason, I now center on her face. Every morning, when she wakes up, the first thing she does is go to the mirror to look at her face. Every time she’s alone and goes by a mirror, she looks at her face. How tired does she look? Can you see the fight on her? Can you see how hard it is?

No, you can’t .

I find a time when she goes on a date, that even she believes herself to be presentable and good-looking. I play her face slowly, looking at every flaw, at every inch, at every … at everything. I burn her face into my memory .

— No, you don’t look tired, I tell her —

And everything vanishes.

Yeah. Can’t talk to her. That was stupid.

I look at the time.

Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh. My. God.

Ten minutes to eight. Professor Bendis’s class is about to start. I stayed here the entire freaking night, and I’m going to be late for his class. As quickly as humanly possible, I put Stephanie back in. I can’t believe I did this. I shut the freezer door and take the key out of my pocket. The entire night! I open the door, go out, shut it, and—Bendis is standing there—I almost scream.

“Ah, Ms. Watson,” he says in his calm voice. Oh, shit, I forgot. Class convenes in the morgue ! A few more minutes, and everybody would have been here. “Working extracurricularly. Excellent.”

Bendis turns around. I follow his gaze. Greg is coming. Bendis turns back to me.

“No reason to wait outside,” he says. “Let’s go in.”

Greg looks at me as I follow Bendis.

“What?” I say.

“You’re wearing yesterday’s clothes.”

Oh, god.

“Did you get lucky last night?”

Oh, god.

“Ms. Watson.”

“Yes, sir?” I just wheeled her back out of the freezer.

“Do you know the name of her childhood friend?”

“Margaret, sir.”

“That’s right. She believes her father has what sort of complex?”

“Peter Pan, sir.”

“That’s right. Step back. We won’t cover anything you don’t know today. Mr. Willis, step forward.”

Bendis doesn’t let me touch her again during the entire two hours, but the truth is that they do cover things I already know.

The rest of the day I go through the motions all day, doing my best not to fall asleep. But when the last period’s over, I go to my dorm room.

I lock the door twice, and put a chair behind the handle to make it impossible for anyone to come in without waking me.

I finally get out of these clothes and take a shower.

I’d like to see Stephanie again. Her emotions are so powerful inside me.

But I’m dead tired.

I collapse in my bed, cover myself with the blanket, and fall asleep.

“Ms. Watson,” Bendis’s voice is like a hammer. We are all standing over Stephanie’s body.

“Yes, Professor Bendis.”

“How did this girl die?”

My heart withers under his stare. “What?” It’s never crossed my mind.

“You knew so much about her yesterday. Can you tell me how she died?”

How did she die? She’s around my age. She can’t be more than twenty-four. “No, sir.”

Bendis looks at the rest. “Anyone?”

Rebecca behind me, raises her hand.

“Yes, Ms. Anthony.”

“She committed suicide.”

What ! I turn to look at her. It’s ridiculous!

“That’s right,” he says, and I spin my head to look back at him. She can’t have! Her life is so perfect. She’s so….

“How do you know?” Bendis says. “Did you go through the actual moment with her?”

“No, sir. I didn’t see it when I was in her head.”

“Then how?”

“Her hands,” she points to the hands that are now covered. “She slit her wrists. I saw it yesterday, when Alexandra removed the sheet.”

What!

“Very good. Sometimes we lean on our abilities too much and forget to look at the physical evidence. There’s a lot to be learned just by looking and reasoning.” He looks at the entire class again. “Did anyone else notice this?” Silence. “Has anyone gone over any moment from her last days?” Silence.

I can’t believe she killed herself. It’s just not possible.

“Well, barring incontrovertible telepathic evidence, does anyone have any ideas how this happened to her, just from the physical evidence before us?” I look at the body, and then I notice that Bendis hasn’t removed the sheet from her body, on purpose. We can’t even see her face.

“Slitting your wrists,” I hear Megan behind me. Bendis looks at her. “Sir,” she amends herself. “If I may. Slitting your wrists is usually a… I heard that it’s a cry for help, sir. There are easier and more effective ways to kill yourself.”

“That’s right. It was a call for help. Unfortunately, as we see before us, no one heard it in time.” He purses his lips. “Each of you has been in her head at least twice, now, on two different occasions. You had your free roam of her mind. And not one of you saw a problem, a call for help, a deep depression, a hint of the event that ended her life.” There’s silence, again. “Today we are going to learn to look for signs of trouble, for calls for help, for tendencies toward extreme emotions.