The Others by Sarah Blau (e reader for manga txt) 📕

For the first time in my life, I considered swallowing it.

I’m sweeping the apartment with a new silicone broom; I bought it yesterday, dragging it with me all the way home, attracting the curious gazes of passers-by, as if they expected me to ride it. They should be grateful it’s a shiny, sterile silicone broom and not the giant straw witch one I got for fancy dress at Purim. Although, it is possible that no one was actually looking at me and that I was merely imagining the scrutinizing stares, and even more likely that it was just that damn guilt following me around like a gloomy companion.

The apartment is full of dust; I cough and my eyes well up. My image in the mirror seems too flushed and dishevelled. Not good. I have to look calm and collected for the visit; the detective might have sounded young, but not stupid.

Most importantly, I have to stop with the remarks that come pouring out of me when I get nervous; sometimes I think it’s momentary fits of Tourette’s. Otherwise there’s no explaining why, when the detective sensitively enquires whether I’ve been feeling afraid since the murder, with all the frenzied fuss kicked up around childless women, that instead of muttering a feeble yes, I feel compelled to share that “The scariest thing about this whole business is that they finally made a mother out of her.”

No, the silence on the other end of the line did not bode well.

A brief knock on the door and in he comes, almost tripping on one of the boxes I failed to move aside in time, and now he’s smiling awkwardly while reaching out for a handshake.

He’s young. Unreasonably young, with that boyish smile that brings a dimple to his left cheek, just like Maor’s dimple. Like Maor he’s carpeted in fine stubble, and those bright eyes, just like Maor’s, study you to reach private conclusions he has no intention of sharing.

Oh, yes, it’s definitely there, the resemblance, especially in the particular green of their eyes, and the lashes that go on forever, and the crooked smile aware of its effect on you.

This time it’s a real resemblance, not the imagined kind right after a break-up, when every man (including the old broom salesman) looks like a doppelgänger of the absconding lover. Don’t go there, Sheila, be smart.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Micha,” he says, his hand still suspended mid-air. I notice a tattoo of a sentence in thin Rashi script across the tender part of his wrist. I can’t read it, but I don’t need to in order to make my observation: erstwhile prince of the religious Boy Scouts. In my mind’s eye I see the absent kipah resting atop his head, the excessive self-confidence making up for a late-blooming masculinity.

“Moving out?” he casually enquires while sitting down on the freed-up part of the couch, his eyes casting about, studying the contents of the open boxes.

“Just moved in,” I reply while we both simultaneously catch sight of the small baby doll poking out of the box behind the door. You idiot!

“Still playing with dolls?” The light-hearted tone doesn’t fool me. His eyes are devouring the doll, its one eye closed and the other looking straight ahead with an icy blue stare. It looks like someone punched her.

“A gift from my ex,” I reply. “Sort of a joke.”

“And what does it mean? The expectation of a baby together?”

A baby? Dream on, Sherlock.

“Not exactly,” I say, dragging out the words. “More of a joke about him being a baby.”

“Well, most women think all men are babies.”

And there it is again – his Boy Scout guide’s smile, instantly delivering me back to my days as enamoured Girl Scout, because some patterns are so deeply ingrained in us that we immediately fall back into them, like eternal roleplay, and your part never changes, no matter who you are or how old, because the role was tailor-made for you from day one.

“He really was a baby,” I explain. “Only twenty-six.”

“Huh, nearly my age.”

And already he regrets sharing this information, but his mind starts racing, doing the math, because if Dina and I were in college together, that means I’m at least how old…? His mind is busy calculating, his eyes sweeping over me and that mouth quietly mumbling a few polite words that whiz right past me… Because I instantly recognized that wandering gaze of his, and I know all too well what’s running through his mind. I know that if he wasn’t on the job right now, he’d already be informing me that he too had dated an “older woman,” because they all do at some point, especially the cute ex-Orthodox hotties, and it always ended “not so well, but we’re still on friendly terms.” Pfff. But he wouldn’t say that, would he? He’s here to try to glean information about the murder from the victim’s best friend – former best friend – isn’t he? And he seems like someone who can watch his mouth.

“I had a relationship with an older woman too.”

Well, well! You do surprise, kid, although I’m not so sure you did in fact date an “older woman,” because a real older woman would have taught you not to call her that, a real older woman would have had your dumb, pretty head if she heard you talking about her that way. Obviously, you would have had to pretend you’re both the same age, and if you accidentally let a wayward mum slip, you had to immediately laugh it off, I was just kidding, Mum.

“I mean, not older,” he rushes to correct himself, “just older than me. She was about your age, thirty-something?”

Okay, stupid he ain’t.

“I’m forty-one.” You’ll be forty-two next month, and you know that; each year counts, and you know that too.

“So my girlfriend was your age.”

Hmm… he isn’t backing out, interesting. I wonder whether this is some kind