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

So. Gali likes to play with fire. I’m proud of her, she reminds me of myself back when I used to juggle a flame or two. Back when I thought I was immune to burns.

The difference between the Eretz Israel Museum and the Bible Museum has never been clearer to me. I hear the familiar human din of shouts, beratements and giggles coming from the instruction hall. The sounds become louder as I draw closer, and cease abruptly when I appear in the doorway. The silence is not the comfortable kind.

After Ronit’s murder, Efraim gave me a few days off, “to calm yourself down,” although to me it looks like the person who needs calming is Efraim, who’s now looking at me as if he’s just seen a ghost. (I know, I know, there has to be a better metaphor out there.) Finally, he pulls himself together.

“Sheila! Good to have you back. How are you feeling?” He manages to sound sincere, and a few of the instructors approach me, asking in unusually high-pitched voices, “Are you hanging in there?” “Are you okay?” and “Do you feel ready to give instruction classes? Are you sure?”

Only Shirley is shaking her head at me from across the room. She seems distant and I wonder what’s going on with her, but not enough to actually ask. As I’ve mentioned, that’s the kind of friendship we have.

Afterwards, on our break, she tells me the process is moving forward.

“I chose the father,” she says, and without knowing why, my heart sinks. Without knowing why? “All that’s left is an HIV test,” she grimaces, “and then I can start.”

HIV? Of all people, the innocent and phlegmatic Shirley has to take an HIV test. I’m not sure she’s ever had sex. I mean, whenever the subject comes up, her stuttering, fragmented replies are so incoherent that I’ve stopped asking.

I picture her in that small, disgusting examination room Maor and I sat in when we went to take the test. It was early on in our relationship and it felt exciting, like everything else that had to do with him. Let’s just say that today I see things in a very different light.

“So who’s the daddy?” I ask, knowing I didn’t push hard enough for an American sperm bank, the kind that would let the kid know who his biological dad is, would even let Shirley herself see a picture of him and listen to his voice instead of settling for the very basic and limited data provided by the Israeli sperm bank. Anything could be hiding behind such data. But then again, an awful lot could be hiding behind the man you’re sharing your life with. There’s no telling what kind of father he’ll turn out to be, just like there’s no telling what kind of mother you’ll turn out to be.

“At first I wanted a blue-eyed blond,” Shirley says with a dreamy, faraway voice. “The kind of guy I’d want to date. But they suggested I choose someone that has my colouring.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. Fair skin and dark hair. A software engineer.”

“Smart move. Analytical skills, mechanical aptitude,” I reply with a smile, not sure whether I’m full of admiration or feeling a recoiling of sorts, and assume both are correct. In some way, the very option of having a baby via sperm donation is exactly what’s keeping me from having it. If it wasn’t an option, if that road was blocked, something inside me might have rebelled and tried to have a baby the usual way. But the mere option has set me free, I am the master of my fate and steerer of my destiny, what do you have to say about that?

We notice Efraim approaching and change the subject, although I get the feeling he knows exactly what we’re whispering about. In his distracted and discombobulated way, Efraim is au courant with everything that goes on inside and outside the museum, which is the reason I tense when he waves me out into the hallway with him.

“Are you sure you feel ready to come back?” he asks. “You’ve been through quite a shock.”

“Ready, willing and able,” I reply, and while I’m not sure I’m indeed one hundred per cent ready to come back to work, my bank account sure is.

“If it’s a matter of money, we can sort that out.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He smiles at me. That kind of monetary generosity instantly rouses my suspicion. With all due respect to other types of generosity, this one is the only one that truly counts.

“Look,” he continues, “I’ve been hearing all kinds of rumours. People talk.”

“What are they saying?”

“No one thinks you’re involved, obviously,” he rushes to clarify. You don’t say.

“But the rumours…”

“Efraim, has no one told you rumours are good for business?” I attempt a smile.

He doesn’t return it.

“I do want you back, honestly, and you can return whenever you want, including today. I just don’t want people bothering you, prying, asking unpleasant questions. I’m only trying to protect you.”

And these words, instead of further arousing my suspicion, make me want to bury my face in his crumb-littered plaid shirt and cry. My loneliness hits me head on. I realize how much I want someone to protect me, and how there’s no candidate who even comes close.

It happens when we step back into the instruction room.

One of the computers is open on the homepage of a new site, and I notice an illustration that seems familiar. The headline is screaming “exclusive details about the ritualistic murders!” But what is Lilith doing there, in that crude sketch? And why does she look so much like Ronit? And then it dawns on me. It’s a sketch depicting the way Ronit was tied to the chair during the murder. The baby doll wasn’t glued to her hands, it was stuffed into her mouth.

Yes, hog-tied, sacrificed, Mother Ronit with a baby rammed into her throat, and when I grasp the meaning of this gesture, my knees buckle and I