Joshua Cohen - Witz

No more dream.

Employers, they’d been surrogate parents of sorts; strange, how a eulogy recipes itself right away…Wanda goes to them to knead their flesh into life.

No longer to rise.

After one night spent under observation, made ill with the urban up at Kennedy Memorial, then the others at home, all of them recuperative, though without sleep and dreamless, then after another dinner, Shabbos again and its last, less guests this night save the newborn, whose appetite — which is that of twelve regular guests or more, always more who knew who invited whom — only approaches in grandeur His size, always huge the both of them, and demanding, and hungry still and thirsty for the teat since gone cold, a milky mold left atop a platter wobbly.

His Hanna, stilled — nothing more to cook or clean, nothing more to do.

Wanda trips to the next rooms, Rubina’s and that of Simone and the same, then the next rooms, that of Liv and Judith and then that of Isa and Zeba, and the same…then the next rooms and the next, then the next hallways, now through a left perpetually spiraling still left maliciously dark and forever, to the two shared rooms of the rest of them whose names Israel’d always forget and of whom Hanna would always remind, and the same: those aged ten and twofifths, those aged nine and onesixth, as they’d remind you, as if; dressed as they’d been told to dress not for night or for bed but for the morning that’d never be next, trying on their new dresses and skirts and blouses and sweaters purchased and tailored lastminute, fitted especially for the occasion impending, the bris tomorrow, to be, their only brother’s one and only circumcision, or so they’d hoped, or so they’d not even thought of it, to hope and the same. They hadn’t even undressed for bed, modest unto the end: brushed teeth, flossed, tucked in, Shema Israel and goodnight, Laila Tov and again, in yet another left, this off the hallway that lies furthest to the left, almost lost in the recesses of orientation, of night, its turn opening out into the one lone room just above the backdoor, the last exit, the final escape, to be used In case of fire, meetingpoint outside, let’s regroup the backyard’s the plan, between the rust of the swingset and the moldy spiderweb hammock; this the room of the newborn, shushwhispered about, tiptoed around, and also the most spacious, the one with the most light, a room to grow into, itself a posthumous birth, stilled in its fall from the house’s main bulge, a promontory pregnant, cloudcarried high above the cars and the doors for the cars, the garage and the flooring of oil and dirt. Jealous Him not such rarefied privacy: Isa and Zeba’d been moved out, though their submission’s been bribed with lobelove, the promise of piercings for ears. A thimble trash for diapers soiled, alongside a table for changing up against one wall, with a chest of drawers at the other, next to the desk, cedar, too; atop that, a bureaucratic clutch, foldered His birthcertificate, hospital paperwork, a sheaf of greeting cards and deflated balloons pressed up against dying flowers, silvered photographs saving just the last week, instant mementos, posterity developed then doubled; atop that, a passport application for Him they’re intending to fill out any day now, you know, if they’d have to get away, or only wanted to.

Wanda slivers open the door, admitting the light Adela’s shied on in violation, the hallway streaming its perfectly acceptable known into the darkness of a room at midnight past, framed in drapery that resembles anything sweet and girly pink: the taste of sunrisen marzipan, of icecream melting, cotton candy or saltwater taffy, and then set high enough on the wall that He couldn’t crawl out of it, and He could crawl, and also walk, especially when hungry like always, the window’s open and outside lights from the street mingle with the hallway light in through the doorway, in their diffusions dusting sleep across the still face of the eightdayold.

Wanda rushes up to Him, futz the tip of the toes exposed, uncovers His stomach, without navel, it’s said: in later accounts, as if the cord had been attached to His tongue instead, its own limb. Wanda soothes at His beard, smoothes down a stray hair of His moustache. And then, says His name, what His name would’ve been had He lived to be named tomorrow in the midst of His family, friends, and professional others, sanctified amongst the trays of fish, basketed loaves, and cases of liquor; held high above the assembled by hands their winish fingers and mouths reeking of herrings; what His name is still: as it’s said, Hanna and Israel had settled on Benjamin Ben Israel Israelien, or so — it’s been passed down — Hanna had told only Wanda surviving upon her return from the hospital, in the course of conversation idled in the kitchen, over a soup said they’d intended to name Him Benjamin, to be foreshortened to Ben after a paternal relative irretrievably distant, other relatives’ names apparently having been gendertwisted or otherwise incarnated by twelve daughters preceding; Benjamin the namesake one of the only relatives not represented among the portraits hung on the wall of the stairwell down to the basement, however finished it might have been claimed. Security Officer Bundy appears behind Wanda, holding Adela in the doorway, too close for the light. Wanda turns, bears Adela and the officer out on her breasts, then turns to pronounce Him again. Benjamin, attempting to lift Him up in her arms, Benjamin…as weak as raked leaves, stormshook, the floor trembling a pile a burn in that breast — it’s impossible; the strain, the weight, that and He’s soiled Himself, slippery gripped in a flow from His sex.

Benjamin, Wanda says again, that hot mouth opening up inside of her, as if speaking her life into His.

Though, something’s amiss. Whether an unpropitious disposition of furnishings despite what’s been paid in consultancy fees, or a draft of winter in through the opened window to make amid the sheets, pneumonia — or maybe the scalding knob of the door sealed shut to her palm, Adela singed.

Benjamin, He isn’t crying.

What else to do but check the diaper, not yet rag material, an old shirt of Israel’s — soiled in blood, Wanda’s thinking, dirtied in guts.

As she goes to peel the shirt from Him, she’s recalled — there’s a mush from the roof, a great tearing of hooves.

As she turns to Him again, He’s scratching at eyes, kicking His legs out, and tearing.

The Gatekeeper mandated to his hut, dumbly wondering of Misses Herring, who wouldn’t have gone to bed without her brushing and combing — if he should remind her he thinks, use the Development Line, phone her up and say only, Scrub…just then, his extension exploding.

Eight members of the Maintenance Staff, they’d been picking huge wax out of the Development Menorah, anonymously donated, about to be yearly retired, when their radios go staticky mad.

A switch flicked.

And lampposts turn searchlight — vigilance…the perimeter’s secured by a force that’d make any Third World proud, or jealous.

It’s amid these cries and officialdom’s echoes that He calls to her His first word — a word first whispered, then spoken, then shouted out from the halo of gut. He screams, Ima, which is the language for Mom, what Hanna’d preferred to be called.

To lick His own tongue… Ima , as opposed to just any ordinary Mom, Moms, normal Mother, Mommy or goyishe Mama or Mam, Hello Muddah, Shalom — and this when Israel’d left only a short while ago, after an alarmset, a prayer if abridged, then kiss kiss kiss at the cheeks and the chins; he’s gone, but still Ima, His Maker. No need to justify, a woman’s there soon enough, whomever she is — no need to care, just that He’s in her care, in the nest of the nipples.