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

“Charles,” she says. And he turns around.

And Charles, Stephanie’s dad, sits there on the sofa in front of the television set. He looks at me. Perfectly shaven. Not typical for this time of day. They must have had guests.

They had. Obviously they had. They’re in mourning.

“This is Stephanie’s friend,” Sylvia introduces me. “Uh….”

“Alexandra, sir.”

I offer my gloved hand. He shakes it.

“You’re… Stephanie’s friend?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“From the university?”

“Yes, yes. We took communication studies. We had the same classes, and we just….” I blank out. I just shrug, “You know.” Her mother nods in understanding. Her father is looking at me. “She told me everything about you two. Charles…” he nods “…and Sylvia.”

“She told you everything about us?” she asks.

Oh, no. “She told me everything about everything. We talked for hours.” Sylvia looks around, wiping her moist hands on her clothes. Oh. She didn’t catch me in something, she was making it about herself again.

“Would you like…. Would you like something to drink?” Sylvia asks. “We have tea, we have….“

“Tea would be great, thank you. With nothing in it.”

Sylvia turns and goes to the kitchen.

“There were a few people here earlier,” her dad says. “But they’re gone. I’m not sure what we can offer you….”

“Oh, Charles,” her mom shouts from the kitchen. “She just flew in. We’re not going to drive her out….”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I don’t know what we can…” and I can see that he changes his mind in mid-sentence, and says something else, “…talk about.” He breathes deeply and turns around. “We have a few albums of her over here,” he points. “And… her friends did some sort of a shrine in her room. It’s…” he points “…through there.”

I look up. That familiar small corridor that leads to Stephanie’s bedroom on one side and to her parents’ bedroom on the other. “Can I look at the albums?”

“Of course.”

He leads me to a little stand near the TV, filled with albums. I sit on the floor and take an album. He sits back on the sofa, and mutes the television. I take an album and look at him again. He’s still watching TV, he just muted it.

I open the first page. Stephanie at seven days, I’ve seen this picture a million times. She’s as cute as can be, the perfect baby.

Baby Stephanie breastfed by her mother on the porch. Oh, my god, look at Sylvia. She’s not even my and Stephanie’s age; she’s younger. She’s a little kid. In a couple of years, when Stephanie will have clear images of her mother in her memory, she’ll be this huge giant of a grownup. We’d never seen Sylvia like this.

Four-year-old Stephanie running through the tall grass. I remember the day they took the picture. Mom kept telling her to run and run, and Stephanie did, chasing after a butterfly she made up, performing for her mother. She’s so carefree, so happy. I’ll have to check with Stephanie, later, and see what changed, how could she have grown up and had the happiness sucked out of her.

Stephanie’s first bike. I remember the day Dad took the training wheels off and had to run after her for an hour.

The entire family at a beach in San Diego. Look at Dad. He’s like he’s a different person. Pretty handsome, too. His legs were like elephant-legs to Stephanie. She used to run in between them as if they were a tunnel.

Sylvia’s coming closer. I turn around and look up. She’s holding a cup of hot tea.

“Thank you,” I take the hot tea.

Sylvia sits on the edge of Charles’s couch, looking at me.

“How did you two meet?”

“I met her during our first day as freshmen. On the way to western lit.”

“You became friends?”

I nod. “She was an amazing woman. She was my best friend.”

“Did you…. Did you know about…. Did you know she was going to….” She trails off.

“I know about Michael,” I say. And she looks into my eyes. Oh, my god, she’s asking me if I could have stopped it. “But…. By phone. And…. All I knew was that it was big. I didn’t know that it was this big.”

She sits by me. I sip the tea. It’s too hot. I want to look at the album, but she’s looking at me expectantly. She always gives this look when she has something to say but would rather force the other person to ask her what it is.

I look at her for a few more seconds, and when she says nothing, I turn back to the album.

I can’t take it. I can’t take her looking at me. I can feel her desire to say something. I can feel her pain all the way over here.

“Um….” I face her again. “Can I go to the bathroom? I’m a bit….”

“Sure,” she stands up. “Through there.”

I put the cup down, get up, and walk through the corridor.

My hand hangs on the handle, and I look around. They can’t see me from here. Behind me and to the other side is Stephanie’s room. I can say I made a mistake, that I didn’t know where the bathroom was.

I shut my eyes.

Who cares? I don’t.

I walk to the door of Stephanie’s room and open it slowly.

Oh, god. It feels like her. It smells like her. It’s slightly bigger than I thought, but that’s because I’m shorter than her.

That smell. Slight draft of dust from the bookshelf mingled with a whiff of Margaret’s perfume. She was here recently.

Her bed is to one side. I can still see stuff under Stephanie’s bed, a hint of the teddy bear she’d had since she was a kid. I bend down and look. She dropped it there a few hours before Michael broke up with her. After Michael broke up with her, it didn’t matter.

I bend down, and pick it up. It’s tattered, but still soft and familiar and friendly.

I put it back in its place.

“The bathroom’s over there,” I hear Sylvia at the door.

“I know,” I turn around. “I just saw the room. I had to come in.”

She walks in and sits on Stephanie’s bed. “You remind me of Stephanie.”

“I do?”

“Something about you looks like….” Oh, gee. “Oh. You blink like her.”

“I what?”

“You blink like her. No, it’s not that. It’s when she was embarrassed, she always blinked to cover it, and crooked her head, just like you’re doing now.”

I catch myself. I never used to do that. I must have picked it up from Stephanie. And, more embarrassed than before, I do it again. I’ve been picking up the way she moves.

“I think I got it from her. It’s easy to pick up.”

Sylvia shrugs. “Well, it makes you look like her.”

I feel myself going red. “Thank you.”

I look around.

I can’t look at the room when she’s here. But I feel closer to her, now.

“Sit,” she taps the bed beside her.

I sit next to her.

We just sit there, silent. I stare at a spot on the wall ahead of me, afraid to make a wrong move.

It’s so silent, I can hear her breaths. I can hear that they’re harder than they used to be. I feel the rhythm change in the way she breathes. I try to breathe as noiselessly as possible. The fridge in the kitchen kicks in again. Her father is turning on the television sound. I hear the sofa creak beneath him as he changes position.

“Well,” Sylvia says.

I lower my eyes. “I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say. And then the tears come, “I miss her. I miss her.”

And beside me, without touching her, I feel Sylvia’s bitterness a second before the words reach me. “She did it to spite me.”

My heart stops. “What?” And I look at her.

“We had an argument. That last day. A few hours before.”