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

Oh my god.

“What….” I can’t say it, but I have to. “What was it… about?”

“She was depressed because Michael broke up with her. And I came in… to help. And she yelled at me. All the anger and pain she had for Michael, she took out on me.”

“Sylvia, I mean…. She was depressed. Because of Michael.” I find the most harmless way to phrase it, and I say it with the softest voice I have, “It wasn’t about you.”

“I knew she was depressed,” her voice drops to a whisper, although there is no one else in the room. “I knew she had depressions. I thought….” She bites her lips. “I thought she might kill herself.” She waits for a response. I don’t give any. “I told her how much it would hurt me. I told her that’s not what you do to people you love. I told her how hard we would all take it.” She grabs my hand and stares into my eyes. Thank god I’m wearing gloves. “And she did it anyway. She didn’t reason, she didn’t wait for it to pass. She did it anyway. I told her how much it would hurt me, and she went and did it. She did it to hurt me.”

“No, Sylvia. I know Stephanie. She would never do anything to hurt you. This was about…”

“You know her from now. I’ve known her a lot longer than you. It was the same argument we’ve always had, only now she found a way to blame me and to keep on blaming me forever. She wants me to walk around blaming myself for the rest of my life. That would make her feel good.”

No, no, you’re getting it all wrong. “Sylvia,” I gently caress the fingers that touch me. “We talked about you a lot.” There’s a flash of danger in her eyes. “No, nothing bad. She said nothing bad. She loved you, and I know—I know, Sylvia—that what she did, it wasn’t meant to show you a thing. If anything, it was meant to show you that it wasn’t about you.”

“She wanted to hurt me…,” self-pity gushes out of her, “…and she did.” Her mouth turns into a cynical smile. “Well done.” It’s still all about her. It’s still all about Sylvia, and nothing about Stephanie, nothing about Stephanie’s pain.

“Sylvia,” I’m fighting myself to keep my voice soft and encouraging. “You’re talking as if this was just another argument with you two, just a bigger one. But this is so big. Can’t it be that it was about something else entirely?”

“You weren’t here,” she states emphatically. She turns her back to me and gets up. “Anyway, what does it matter now?” She straightens her clothes, and whispers. “I’ll never forgive her.”

I want to cry. She committed suicide—Stephanie gave her life—and you can’t even hear what she was saying. It was in front of your face, and you’re treating it like it’s the same old same-old, damn you!

“What does it matter why she did it?”

We both turn around. Charles is standing by the door. He’s looking at Sylvia, speaking to her, not to me. “It was the easy way out.”

“The easy way out?” The words are out of my mouth before I realize I’m talking. “It was the bravest thing she ever did!”

Sylvia looks at me, shocked, but Charles, behind her, says, “Brave? It would have been brave to stay alive another day. She didn’t. It would have been brave to go to the university again. She didn’t. It would have been brave to strive, to survive. But Stephanie…. She ran away. From responsibility, from friendship, from pain, from facing her fears. She ran away. The way cowards do.”

“But…. You don’t know what a bad state she was in. You don’t know what great pain she was in.”

“How much pain could she possibly have been in? Her boyfriend broke up with her.”

“To some people, that’s life and death.”

“I’ve known heartache. Trust me when I say you can walk away from it alive.”

“When she went through it, Charles, her pain was so huge, it was so awful, that she killed herself. Otherwise, like you say, she would never have killed herself. The fact that she did take her life shows you how awful her pain was.”

“No. She killed herself because she was a coward. It had nothing to do with her depression.”

That bastard! He won’t admit it!

“I really think we should not be talking about….” Sylvia steps between us.

But I practically shove her aside. The man drives me so crazy. “You never believed she felt what she felt! You’ve been delegitimizing her emotions since she was a kid! She killed herself to show you how strongly she felt! She killed herself because her pain was so great that none of us could understand it!”

He snorts. “I thought you said she killed herself to show me how strongly she felt.” He looks down, and I can feel how much he needs a smoke. He looks back up and says softly, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” God, how he needs a smoke. “She was weak. She was always weak. She always ran away from problems. She never had the heart to face them. That’s what happened.”

What the hell is this? The Spanish Inquisition to your recently dead daughter? It’s like she died for nothing! It’s like she lived for nothing! Weren’t any of you listening when she cut herself and bled to death!

“Look.” I hear tears in my throat. “She was the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”

He shrugs. He doesn’t care to talk to me anymore.

“Look,” I force him to look at me. “Give me one time that she ran away. One incident!”

He half turns away. “What does it matter?”

“Because!” And it sounds like I’m speaking each word separately as I say, “You don’t remember her right. You don’t understand her. You have to remember…” and I almost lose my voice “…who she was!” I feel tears coming, and I can’t stop them. “There’s a great hole in the world, and it’s shaped like Stephanie! She’s gone and the world has changed and none of you can see it! She’s gone and the world is different!”

“Alexandra….” Sylvia takes a step toward me.

“The world is different,” I back away, half-screaming, tears streaming down my cheeks, “but you’re both the same! What’s the matter with you people!”

“Alexandra….” Sylvia gently brushes away a tear from my cheek. I get a whiff of paranoia—a fear so powerful it taints every image I see. I shove her hand aside quickly, and, backing away, I fall onto Stephanie’s bed. The familiar sheets embrace me. The mattress bends to fit my body again. Sylvia takes a step closer. I turn around, and scream into the pillow.

“Leave us here,” I hear Sylvia say.

The feeling I get from Charles grows distant. He’s walking away.

“Take as much time as you need, dear.”

She stays for a minute, her hand on the back of my shirt. Eventually, she stands up and walks away. She turns off the light and then shuts the door.

I take a huge whiff of the pillow and stretch out on the bed. I take the blanket, fork it in between my legs, just the way she used to, and hug it.

Stephanie! Stephanie will show them. She’ll show them.

There are birds chirping outside, and light blinds me when I try to open my eyes.

Oh my god! I sit up, ramrod straight.

What’s the damned time?

I almost choke. Five thirty! And I’m not even…. And I slept in my clothes…. And I slept in her room…. Hi, room…. And I yelled at her parents…. And I need to see Stephanie…. Dammit, I need to go.

I stand up and straighten my clothes. I straighten the mattress and the bed.

They couldn’t possibly have left me here without looking in. Sylvia must have come in to check on me at least once and seen me asleep. She let me sleep in her daughter’s bed. Jesus.

I don’t want to see them again.

I cling to the door, trying to feel if anyone’s there.