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

“Sarah.”

“And her mum?”

“Bella.”

“And her mum?” Dina’s voice has lost its feigned drowsiness, and I recognize that subtle quality creeping into it.

“Sheila!” I call out triumphantly, “You didn’t think I’d know, did you?”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you know,” she admits, “but that’s only because you’re a narcissist. If you weren’t named after her, there’s no way you’d know your great-grandmother’s name.”

Ronit is giggling behind me again, but this time I know it’s not because of the butterfly. Dina props herself up on her elbows, the curtains of her dark straight hair parting to reveal her fair skin. She looks like an Inuit with a pair of bulging black spotlights for eyes.

“I’m willing to bet neither of you know the names of your great-grandmothers,” she says to Ronit and Naama. “I actually conducted a little survey here on campus, and almost no one knows, or even cares to know. And yet everyone’s so worried about leaving something behind, living on in people’s memories…”

Dina scoffs. Ronit and I join her, and all our snickering soon turns into hysterical giggles. I remember that laughing fit on the grass, and I remember the butterfly, yes, there was a butterfly there, I’m sure of it now, and the three of us laughed and laughed until our sides hurt.

It’s a shame that by then Naama wasn’t laughing along with us.

The bead eyes of the wax figurines are glimmering in front of me. “You came back to us,” they’re saying, “and this time it’s for good.” When Efraim called to ask me to come back to work, I had no idea how happy I’d be to see them again, and now I realize I missed them a lot more than I missed my colleagues.

And here they are before me, my dear old friends, shiny and polished of dust (maybe I could book the museum cleaners for a one-off emergency gig at my place?). I move slowly from one figurine to the next, until I reach Michal’s.

The crown is perched on her head more crookedly than usual. I straighten it and study her beautiful, sad face. I think I’m starting to understand the reason for her sadness, and it has nothing to do with her not having kids, and everything to do with the dude she married, because that’s what happens when a princess marries a shepherd. Especially when her deepest desires – even those she isn’t aware of – aren’t compatible with his. Compatibility is everything.

Almost despite myself, I think about Micha, What’s the matter with you? Whatever you two had it was over before it started, and I also think about Maor, and about how they’re both twenty-six, they’re always twenty-six, frozen in time while I keep getting older.

I peer into Michal’s morose eyes and realize that if I’m not careful, I might end up like a frozen wax figurine, a dried-up old hag coated in epoxy for posterity. Even the lonely, desperate boys won’t want you.

Something inside me snaps. I whip a pen out of my bag and start doodling tefillin straps on Michal’s left arm. It’s a razor-point Pilot pen and I’m carving the black lines into her wax skin when one of the security guards decides this is a good time to see what’s going on at the other end of the pavilion (my end), so I skedaddle before I get to see whether Michal’s eyes are less gloomy now.

Efraim is all smiles when he greets me at the entrance to the auditorium.

When Eli called to say Efraim “absolutely can’t wait” to have me back at the museum, I found it hard to believe, but there he is, quivering and jubilant as a groom under the chuppah.

“Ah, the prodigal daughter!” he trumpets, and Shirley rolls her eyes behind his back. Sometimes I envy Efraim for his oafish tactlessness. Makes life a lot easier.

Shirley looks different, a kind of squished, more haggard version of herself, and I wonder if she’s made any progress with the sperm bank, or maybe even had the insemination, but I don’t smell any traces of hormones or new life.

Before I take a step towards her, Efraim pulls me aside.

“Guess what,” he says, even his beard bouncing with excitement.

“What.”

“‘Bible, Books and Beyond’! They want you!”

For a fleeting moment, I feel the pinprick of excitement. “Bible, Books and Beyond” is the most prestigious of all national Bible conferences, the holy grail for Bible lecturers – an annual, three-day event packed with lectures, concerts and various “attractions.” I always turned my nose up at the conference for being “commercialized to the point of charging admission.” Deep down I knew though the real reason was that I’d never been invited to take part, and I’d already given up any hope of ever being invited, but here it is, the moment has come.

“What do they want me to talk about?” I ask, but mid-question I realize what the answer’s going to be.

“The childfree women of the Bible, of course,” Efraim informs me with that harmless-uncle tone of his, but behind the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes narrow, gearing up for war.

“And this lecture needs to be ready when exactly?”

“It’s not just a lecture, it’s going to be with live music, a finalist from last season’s ‘Israeli Idol,’ that girl with the short hair!”

“When?” I repeat the question.

“Next week.”

“Wow, do they always organize their impressive conferences so quickly?” I play dumb, but Efraim is smart enough not to answer, and lets me finish, “Or am I a last-minute substitute for a lecture they actually scheduled long ago?”

I ask that last question so loudly that a few heads turn in our direction. They know.

“Well, of course you’re standing in for someone,” Efraim replies, “and it’s a terrific opportunity for you!”

“And for the museum,” I add. “So who am I standing in for?”

Who do you think?

“Dina Kaminer,” he replies plainly, smiling as if that’s the best thing about the invitation, and then, without missing a beat or batting an eye,