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

I look at him. I don’t think he can see me through the tinted glass.

We are outside the Academy. We are outside the Academy.

I shut my eyes and melt into the soft cushions.

Bright lights. The smell of smog. Young men and women walking the streets in immodest clothes. Civilization. It’s like I’ve been in the jungle for two years.

The restaurant is full of people, but there’s still room inside and outside. I ask Professor Parks to sit outside. I want to soak in the atmosphere.

“You have no privacy when you’re a telepath,” Professor Parks says after we’ve ordered. “Normal people can relish in not knowing. We can’t afford that luxury.

“When your boyfriend makes love to you, he touches you, and you see everything he feels and everything he thinks about you. It’s never as perfect as you would like. It’s ugly and spotty and sketchy. When you’re insecure, you touch him and you know he doesn’t like you as much now as he did yesterday, and that if you tell him what you know, he’ll like you even less. You see the parts about you he can’t stand, and you see the parts he can’t get enough of. You know what he fantasizes about you, and you know when he fantasizes about someone else. And when he makes love to you, you see your body while you’re doing it, and you know that your right breast looks strange, that you gained two pounds, that your legs don’t look flattering from most angles, that you need to shave again, and what your breath smells like. And you know that what he really likes about you is that you remind him of the buxom sixteen-year-old babysitter he used to have when he was a kid, and that, even though he doesn’t know it, he’s still in love with his first girlfriend, with whom he’s never been able to get along.

“And the hard thing is to learn that it’s always like this. Even ‘as good as it can possibly get’ is like this. You have to learn that this is the truth and that this is normal. You have to abandon the lies when you’re a telepath and start living in the real world.”

A waiter brings our drinks. She thanks him and he walks away.

“We have to face each mask and make it vanish. We have to clear everything. All the subterfuge we feed ourselves with. We have to dig under all the tasks we set for ourselves, under all the complexes and falsehoods and false reactions we have set up while we were growing up. We have to learn to clear everything away. Sometimes it feels like you’re wiping your entire personality away. But then you realize—you have to realize—that whatever’s left, that’s you, that’s really you.

“If you go through it, Alexandra, if you go through the entire four years—and I know you can—you wouldn’t believe the person you’ll become. You wouldn’t believe the strength that comes from having no secrets, from knowing so much about yourself. From knowing that when you speak, you don’t lie.

The waiter brings in the food. The Professor has sea scallops and I have Alaskan king salmon. On her. She recommended it.

“Thank you,” she tells the waiter. Then, as he leaves, she makes a face and drops her fork. “Bathroom.” She smiles at me. “Be right back.”

I nod.

I take the opportunity to look around and look at the people in the street. Shirts made of nets, crazy tattoos, wild haircuts, teenagers younger and younger, looking older and older.

Two minutes ago, the couple behind me got up and left. The couple in front of me, behind where Professor Parks sat, is getting up now. We’re going to be just the two of us outside. It’s getting cold. But I just want to keep looking at the people, to feel the whiff of haphazard thoughts whenever one of them gets too close. To look at what they’re wearing.

Michael almost bumps into the couple that’s leaving on his way out of the restaurant. That was awkward. He smiles his usual worry-free smile, and—huh?

Michael?

Those same features, that same face, that—

I never thought of him as alive. But of course he’s alive. Of course he’s real. They’re all real people. Everyone’s still alive, except Stephanie.

I stand up. Michael keeps his back to me, makes sure the woman is fine, and exits the restaurant. Once on the sidewalk, he comes in my direction. As he passes near me, I get a perfect view of those clear, lovely, baby-blue eyes. The eyes that shine “happy” at you when you wake beside him in the morning.

He looks at me then looks past me.

He didn’t recognize me. But why should he? I sit back down. I won’t look back. I won’t look back.

Professor Parks returns.

“So,” she says. “Can I tell you something about myself?”

We get back into her car. It’s twenty minutes till we’re out of the city, another ten until the scenery becomes green again, and another ten before we’re at the Academy’s gate.

We don’t talk much.

The gate opens automatically for her.

“Wait,” I say. She looks at me. “Can I get out here?”

“What?”

“Since I’m out , I’d like to go see some people I know.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have a few dollars on me. I can get around. Just drop me here.”

She thinks about it for a second, then says, “Sure.”

I let myself out. “Thank you,” I lean back in, the door still open. “Thank you.”

She smiles and crinkles her eyes. Then she looks forward, and says, “I’m tired. See you tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I say again and close the door.

She drives through the entrance, and the gate slowly rolls shut again. The guard looks at me, but keeps his distance.

I look around. I don’t have a cell on me, and I don’t know the number of a cab company.

I walk over to the guard. “Excuse me,” I say. “Can you call me a cab?”

“Where are we going?” the cab driver says.

“Back to the city,” I say. “1421 North Shadeland Avenue.” Stephanie’s home.

I ring the doorbell. No, no, I should go. Go, I should go. Just go, just go, just….

Someone touches the handle on the other side of the door. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck, fuck, fuck me.

The door opens slowly. I put on my best smile.

I see Mom’s face in the doorway, looking up at me, wrinkled, old, the way Stephanie couldn’t see her. She literally has half Stephanie’s face, something Stephanie never noticed.

She looks up at me, with her green eyes, and they’ve almost lost all of the shine and softness they had when she was in her late twenties and Stephanie was only a kid.

“Yes?” she says. Her voice is a rasp. Did I wake her? No, she doesn’t go to sleep before midnight.

“Yes?” she says again.

My mouth is dry. I lick my lips. Help.

“Who are you?” she says. “I…”

I’m sorry, Stephanie’s Mom. I’m sorry.

“What’s your name?” Her voice grows more suspicious, and it’s back to sounding like the voice I know. “What’s your name, girl?”

“Alexandra Watson.”

“What are you doing here? It’s late.”

“I’m… I’m… Stephanie!”

Her eyes dim at the mention of her name. “What?”

“Stephanie. I….”

“You knew Stephanie?”

“Yes.” Yes! “I was… I was her friend. I was her best friend.”

Something happens to her mom’s eyes that Stephanie doesn’t recognize. Does she see the lie? It’s the truth. I’m sorry. “I’m sorry.” I am sorry.

“Come in,” she says.

“I was in New York. I just got back to Indianapolis a couple of minutes….”

“Come in,” she says and moves aside, clearing the way for me.

Jesus. I know this living room. I know its smell. The memories give the living room a claustrophobic feeling, hemming me in on all sides.

She grew up here. I’ve seen the walls change over two decades, I’ve seen the room shrink as she got older. The wallpaper was ugly green when she grew up, until her mom replaced it with elephants, and later still with brown geometrical shapes. I’ve seen five different television sets where the current one sits.