Authors: L.L. Fine
"I know computers," he repeated stubbornly as
Rabbi Eligad had taught him. "And I'm willing to take tests to prove
it."
"Listen…honey, I understand you might have seen a
computer before, but this is a subject quite new to the army. People who are
into computers are really experts on the subject. Obviously you are not. "
"But I'm willing to take tests!" He was almost in
despair.
She looked at him, seeing the verge of despair. What do you
do with such a strange kid?
"You know what? Wait a minute."
*
Einat did not really know why she did it.
Perhaps, because that little guy really touched her heart.
Maybe because she was tired of him, and she could not see a quick way to get
rid of him. Maybe because she wanted to show him that he had nothing to offer
in computers really. Maybe to show him that he was making a big mistake not
getting released. It might also be related to a certain reservist from Tadiran,
who’d come in to sort out the computer ordering system that wouldn’t work this
month, but who made sure to visit her office every two hours. He had blue
eyes... nice.
Maybe it was because she felt that maybe, just maybe, there
was something in the words of that little conscript. And he needed to be
tested.
And perhaps for another reason. She did not know exactly
why. But she made a little effort, of the type that can sometimes determine
destinies. Change the world.
"See, that’s Yoav. He works at Tadiran, and he’s here
to sort out our computer problem," she said.
"Yoav, this guy here says he knows something about
computers. Can you check out what he knows?"
Yoav smiled to himself. Here was the opportunity he’d been
looking for. Too bad it came just before discharge. Whatever, it would be nice
to show off to Einat a little. He still had a weekend in the center.
"Sure. What d’you know about assembly
programming?"
*
After half an hour of lively conversation, Yoav went out of
the room, puzzled but still smiling. Zomy was left behind, his throat dry and
his heart beating fast and Einat, her two bright eyebrows erect, quickly
scribbled data on a page. Finally she looked at Zomy.
"Ever heard of a unit 8200?"
*
(Seven years after the event in the conscription center)
The journey through the streets of Bnei Brak was short, but
busy. Every block had a meaning for him, each small hill, each section of the
street. Memories of a peeling balcony suite, an engraved heart. A study hall, a
soup kitchen. A clinic.
Zomy chose not to drive this time, even though he knew the
streets better than any taxi driver. This time he chose to observe. Think. The
slow progress made every house, one after another, bring a familiar face to
visit his head. Broken illusions spun in his eyeballs.
This was the first time since the first anniversary he had
dared to appear at his father's memorial service. The first year he had felt
strong enough, shaped enough, to deal with old walls, with brothers, with the
rest of the family. With his mother.
Years had passed, but Bnei Brak had been left behind.
Nothing had changed there, he felt. Nothing. No peeling plaster repairs.
Sidewalk pits were still there. Only street names had changed slightly. Not
replaced, only varied. Street this and that became three different streets,
without any apparent reason.
He thought of those years during which he surely missed
memorial after memorial. At first, his family accepted hollow excuses. Over
time, this stopped. He stopped going, stopped making excuses, no longer living
there. Did not want news from home. Did not want to speak about him, either.
Dim memory, that’s all that was left. A closed wound.
"This is the address?" asked the taxi driver.
"Yes," he lied, and paid his way. In fact, he
still had more than ten minutes’ walk to his parents’ place, but he welcomed
the fresh air. It was a lovely August night.
*
(A decade before the Bnei Brak trip.)
There was something sweet in the air. Sweet skin, honey
hair, lips full of nectar, slot full of wonderful nectar, the connection
between the end of the leg and the beginning of the buttocks. There was
something sweet, something boyish, something golden, something that flowed, and
Zomy sucked every drop of honey that flowed from it.
This was the first time he saw, felt, fondled, this slot.
The first time he became aware that such a thing could be, flexible, cheeky, so
natural. Naughty fold, created when the leg straightens, and disappeared when
she bends.
He had never seen a naked woman.
And now, as in a dream fog, eyes large as saucers roamed
over her naked body up and down, sip it slow, deep breaths. This was something
sweet, something tempting. Lustful kisses he had never before imagined were the
reasons for his heart fluttering with feelings of immortality.
He loved her.
Loved her from the first moment she turned to him, in the
little street he ruled. Loved the hidden ways along which she took him, the
mysterious adventure into which she dragged him in the stolen few hours between
the computer lessons and the evening talks with the rabbi.
He breathed in the scent of her wetness, reveled in the
unbelievable immediate response it produced in him. Breathing, closer and
closer, breathed again and again.
There was something sweet in the way she laid her hand on
his shoulder, when she brought him his supper, walking barefoot. There was
something soft and creamy, the way her fingers tangled in his hair, the way
they slid down his chest hair. There was something sweet on her breath in his
ear, whispers, arms, dragging him back, fighting exhausted strength,
electrifying their hold on the small mattress.
There was something sweet in her young breasts, perfect nipples,
upright, dark pubic hair, luminous eyes. There was something honeyed, magical
about the path leading from the meeting between her breasts to her navel, and
down it. Far below.
There was something breathtakingly sweet when her breathing
became ragged and lust streams crossed the border from her.
There was something so sweet. So pristine. So desirable and
seductive.
*
Only now, in New York, when the last breath struggled to get
out, when lack of oxygen to his brain fogged the mirrors of his mind and
flooded him all these memories, he suddenly knew.
Knew why she was so sweet, the only sweetness in the home of
Rabbi Eligad. The rabbi who was a father.
Stolen Waters are sweet, he thought.
Stolen Waters, in which he drowned more and more. As
rectangular room then, another rectangular room today. As then, with his first
love, today, with the latest lover.
Stolen water tastes sweeter.
Stolen spring water.
I survived. We'll talk.
It wasn’t easy, just so you know. Lia says I came through a
life-threatening situation, but I don’t feel that way. Difficult to write
because I cough all the time, like I have a big stone on my chest that hinders
my breathing. But I'm breathing without a ventilator, and Lia says I’ll be
fine.
Should I describe the feeling to you?
At first there was nothing. Nothing, just the intravenous
infusion. Bullshit. Then I started to feel ants in the chest. Know the feeling
when your hand falls asleep? Well, that, but inside. And I began to breathe
heavily. Not that I had trouble breathing - deep breathing, just as if no virus
had ever been administered. As if I was breathing stones. And it started to
hurt.
I was like that for a few minutes. Lia says I was
unconscious for a few hours, but I wasn’t aware of it. Instead, I visited
several other places of my life, as if I was outside my body. Talk about seeing
your life pass before your eyes!
But this isn’t exactly true. You don't see life, but the
important passages.
It all took probably a half a second in real time, but when
I opened my eyes again Lia was somewhere else and crying. I called her and she
came, but at first she didn’t respond at all, just tested the devices. I was
burning with fever - I still have a forty-one degree temperature - but I'm
clear. Very hard to breathe, though.
Lia says I need to have good lung function. So I will. I'll
tell you about it after a while because I have tickets to Israel next week, and
I'm not going to talk on the computer on this line again. Funny, it's like the
Mafia guns. Don’t shoot the same gun twice. Remember the email I wrote on
another computer? DELL earned their daily crust just because of you.
Lia went out and threw all that equipment into the Hudson.
To sleep with the fishes. What can I tell you, Liron? I'm happy, so happy.
Someday I'll celebrate this moment, but it will be when I have the energy. Not
now.
Sayonara, amigo. May the force be with you.
Oh, yes,
I just remembered I had to do something.
*
"Yoav, can you tell me what is this?"
"What is what?"
"What did you do?"
"I don’t know. What have I done?"
"Come here, come, you'll see something in a
moment."
"But I’m watching a game now, really ..."
"Yoav, move your ass over here! It's important!"
"Okay, okay. What’s wrong with your pc now?"
"Nothing, stupid. See what’s happened to my bank
account."
"Let me see... what is it?"
"A lot of zeros, see?"
"Where did you get all this?"
"I don’t know, I just checked the account
overdraft."
"There’s no overdraft anymore…"
"No!"
"Do we still have that lottery membership?"
"Not anymore. We canceled it when your startup failed,
remember?"
"It's definitely from that membership."
"But we don't have a …"
"Einat, I know! But what do you want from me? We just
got a million and a half shekels... don’t know where it’s come from. Must be a
mistake."
"Well, well, Yoav ... don’t be mad ..."
"I'm not mad, just please, stop mentioning the startup,
will you? I feel bad, already. I knew I should've stayed with Tadiran. Why rub more
salt in?"
"But hey - it’s like we won the lottery! It's great
news!"
"Are you sure we canceled that membership, Einat?"
It’s blowing my mind, because she gave me life when I was already
on the verge of death, ready to give up the last of my spirit. It’s so
accessible, at the tips of my fingers, but I don’t have the courage to pierce
the membrane that separates my imagination from my plight which is the cruel
reality between us, and I had to keep it to myself, my secret, even though I do
not really know it.
She’s so far above me that I can’t even reach her ankles,
because she is daring in a way I, in my cowardice, will never be. Because she
knows my weaknesses, because this could damage her life, because she looks at
me as no one ever looked at me before, and there’s no gaping silence separating
us, if that's how you know your destiny , and there’s nothing you can do about
it.
The world is my will, and she loves me too much to go against
it. She would hurt herself and bleed on my altar, she would sacrifice herself
so that I could go to the sky, my sky, a bow of thanks against the faces of the
clouds, fragile light rain, as the clouds disappear once again to reveal the
sun’s reality.
It allows me to flourish, to create. At night I deal with it
in my dreams, even though my body is not flourishing. At night in my dreams, I
am so tangible, yet so vague, and one night I cried out and ran, galloped,
sweated the distance between our worlds, no conflicts.
When I broke down, she was there, in action. Smoothing the
wrinkles.
She has the power of creation. And she doesn't want to make
use of it. That is worthy of me, because I deserve it, and never, never, will
we fulfill it.
(Do not ask stupid questions, just take, post it or publish
it, in fact publish it. It would make it immortal, tangible. And do not ask
stupid questions. Don't.)
Stronger than you: Hello to the seeker.
Looking for a challenge: Hello, hello.
Looking for a challenge: Stronger than me? Prove it to me!
Stronger than you: I would love to prove it to you.
Looking for a challenge: Remains to be seen. We'll live and
see.
Stronger than you: You'll live for sure?
Looking for a challenge: These days, who can ever be sure of
anything?
Stronger than you: So what challenge are you looking for?
Looking for a challenge: Meeting between powers.
Stronger than you: Explain.
Looking for a challenge: There are rules.
Stronger than you: And they are?
Looking for a challenge: 1. Without sex.
Stronger than you: Already sounds good.
Looking for a challenge: 2. Without romance.
Stronger than you: 3. And without lies?
Looking for a challenge: Great. Who here knows me?
Stronger than you: One that has no problem with no sex.
Looking for a challenge: Come on. I don't like such
nonsense.
Stronger than you: Don’t bother me with romance.
Looking for a challenge: Sigal? Is this Sigal?
Stronger than you: No. Who's Sigal?
Looking for a challenge: Doesn’t matter.
Stronger than you: But I have little lies.
Looking for a challenge: If there are lies, I'm not
interested.
Stronger than you: Even if genetics lie?
Looking for a challenge: ?
Stronger than you: LOL
Looking for a challenge: ???? Who is it?
Stronger than you: You have one guess. And it can't be
Sigal.
Looking for a challenge: I can't guess. Who are you?
Stronger than you: Then you already know this from that, and
then you know!
Looking for a challenge: Gosh, you're such a joker.
Looking for a challenge: But I'm glad to see you.
Stronger than you: Happy to see you too. And you will have
to tell me about Sigal one day.
Looking for a challenge: You can’t find out for yourself?
Stronger than you: Sure, but I don’t know what you mean by
your Sigal.
Stronger than you: You have the three at a time.
Looking for a challenge: But only one serious, with the
scent.
Stronger than you: Oh, Siiiiiiiigal. I understood. Good
luck.
Looking for a challenge: Ha ha ha! How are you?
Stronger than you: It depends. Physically, really bad.
Looking for a challenge: What happened?
Stronger than you: Haven't you read what I sent you?
Looking for a challenge: I read, I read.
Stronger than you: Then you know what happened. The problem
is that it was not a full recovery. I am currently running on a quarter lung
capacity. Now I get modified oxygen, because normal air isn't working for me.
Looking for a challenge: Oxygen? In a tank?
Stronger than you: Yes.
Looking for a challenge: Not fun.
Stronger than you: Great fun. I drag a tank with me wherever
I go, which is heavy with this wheelbarrow that goes with it. Lucky I'm not
going far…
Looking for a challenge: Sounds bad. Is there a cure?
Stronger than you: They sent me to all kinds of doctors. They
have no idea what it is, and I did all kinds of unnecessary tests.
Looking for a challenge: But is there a cure?
Stronger than you: You really don’t understand? There is no
cure, because it's a part of me now. Only a quarter of my lungs work, the rest
inactive – like they were cut off. They’re there but they can’t absorb oxygen.
Like I'm disabled. And the poor doctors, they have no idea what caused it, no
one picks up. I shouldn’t even talk about it.
Looking for a challenge: I … am sorry.
Stronger than you: What? At least I'm not dead. I told you,
physically I don't feel well, but I'm the happiest man in the world, believe
me.
Looking for a challenge: Tell me, how come you’re telling me
all this? You could be tracked by the details you give me.
Stronger than you: You could, if you knew how. But I like
talking to you from another computer altogether, a former Israeli living in the
Netherlands. I use her computer as a cover.
Looking for a challenge: If you say so. I personally don't
understand too much about it. The best thing is you're alive, you're alright.
Stronger than you: Lia says she would love to publish my
case to the world. Says it will make me a world-renowned geneticist.
Looking for a challenge: You want me to post it for you?
Stronger than you: You crazy? Tell me, are you on pills?
Stronger than you: Turn it on.
Stronger than you: Turn on the camera.
Looking for a challenge: Forget it.
Stronger than you: Do it! Well, then, I’ll turn it on.
Looking for a challenge: Negative, leave my camera, really.
Little boy.
Stronger than you: Turned it back on you!
Looking for a challenge: There, satisfied?
Stronger than you: I knew it! You're on drugs.
Looking for a challenge: Yes, I ran two lines of coke
earlier…
Stronger than you: See.
Stronger than you: I lay with her.
Looking for a challenge: ?
Stronger than you: I lay with her. With Lia.
Looking for a challenge: Awesome.
Stronger than you: Yes ... I don’t know what it means yet…
Looking for a challenge: When did this happen?
Stronger than you: Oh! Don’t ask!
*
Saul Keshny looked repeatedly at the documents in his hand.
Turned them up and down, wondered about them. Read them again, from the
beginning. Every detail, every line. He arranged the picture in his head, trying
to find a new logic, that had escaped his notice so far.
He could not. And that did not make him feel good.
Because things happened.
So, at least, that gut feeling told him. And he learned to
trust it over the years, he learned to trust it well. You cannot make such a
career, first in intelligence and then in the Mossad, without developing a
lethal gut feeling. Sharp. And his stomach was burning now, as if a flare had
been thrown into it.
Things happened.
But what happened? What just happened, he asked his papers,
and took a pill. They said, in the past, that he could cure the chronic pain he
had. It is a bacteria that causes sensitivity in the stomach and intestines,
and two weeks of antibiotics will fix it.
But then there was that case in Jordan, and his stomach
burned all night, would not let him sleep until he spotted this little lie that
was hidden between the lines. And saved some people. Several thousand people,
potentially.
So he gave up the treatment. Let it be painful, if
necessary. Saul could bear such pain. For now.
And things had happened.
Do you treat them? If so, how? He did not know.
The medical reports were full of question marks. Packed!
What was this disease, what caused it and what were its consequences? Was it
contagious? Was there a way of curing it?
Long chains of doctors were called in to work on this case.
Third and fourth opinions were given, all with different hypotheses, no one
really explaining what happened. His most important soldier nearly died from a
mysterious lung disease, and no one knew what and why.
This, in itself, was a red mark. But, of course, what
increased this by frightening proportions was the role of the soldier. And his
work environment.
Strange disease, said the report.
Here in the mountains, deep underground, in the officially
non-existent laboratory, hundreds of types of diseases were grown and tamed.
Hundreds of varieties! Who could guarantee that the strange disease did not
come from here, from one of the labs? If this looks like a crocodile, and smells
like a crocodile, and bites like a crocodile, it's probably a crocodile.
If it's a crocodile, we must kill it. Keshny wondered, for
the thousandth time, whether to declare Biological Alertness - emergency
measures. But maintaining absolute sterility between inside and out was the
second goal of this complex.
Stomach was burning like hell. Keshny gave a sigh.
So, to declare a state of Bio Alert? He would announce it
without thinking twice, if it was happening in Israel. But this mysterious
disease attacked Zomy in New York. Fucking fuck.
Actually in New York!
So if there was any virus leak, it occurred here recently.
And nothing could be done to contain it. Pandora's box was opened, and all
evils of the world were out. And in New York, of all places.
What was the name of the virus? What was the meaning of
this, if there was one, anyway?
He had been asked to conduct all necessary tests to order.
None of them developed a similar symptom, not even the doctor was in New York
at that time, though it is not clear why.
Stomach burning.
Yes, the doctor was silent. He kept her case very close to
his chest, and it had been scanned to check various similarities with the
soldier number one. There were some subtle things, nothing more. But he was not
about to ignore his guts. He went further. Both of them were in New York at the
same time, more or less?
He should check it out.
Beyond that, he examined in detail the records of all
hospitals in New York. There was no significant increase in lung disease in recent
times, not even any other unexplained viral outbreaks. Nothing unexplained,
nothing extraordinary.
Mmm, this doctor. Too silent, always.
And why, really, why was she there in New York? Really a
family vacation? At such short notice? He did not buy these explanations.
Things happened, things happened. Or else his stomach would not burn, dammit.
What could have happened there? Was it a romance that took
shape, between her and his favorite Computerman? He’d watched them both closely
in recent days. There was some tension, no doubt. Sexual tension? Maybe. Lia
was, nevertheless, an attractive woman. And Computerman was ...
Lonely?
That was the word. Zomy was completely alone. He had only
loose ties with his family, nothing from the army, and no - he looked again…
was this the last weekly GSS report? No, nothing to do with women. Not with men
either, the report noted dryly.
Or maybe it really was not anything serious? After all, it
happens that people develop disease in mid-life. His cousin recently died of a
heart attack - only 55, poor soul. So young. Went quickly. Death came almost
immediately, doctors told him. Myocardial ticker.
But a heart attack, Keshny ruminated and told himself, is
caused by a recognized disease. He, in fact, needed to get a checkup. Just as a
precaution. But this other case was not the same! It was weird! A strange
disease! Not clear! And here, it looks like he had some - well, say it clearly
- pollutant! Virus! That leaked! From the fucking lab!
Thus, he decided. There was no other reasonable alternative.
Things had happened here, and Saul Keshny was dead set to find out about them
in the end. He picked up the telephone.
*
Twenty minutes later Lia and Zomy stood, side by side, on
the unpleasant side of the chief’s office. Saul Keshny, with predatory eyes and
shining bald pate, shelled them with showers of short questions.
Zomy, used to this ping pong, answered them at the same rate
they reached him. Automatically. Almost without thinking, like a tennis player
with ball machine. Question and Answer, Question and Answer, attack, defense,
and even counterattack. Zomy was not interested in developing a dialogue. He
just killed every interesting move right from the beginning.
Finally there was a different question.
"Have you had sex?”
Zomy rocked his two eyebrows.
"Excuse me?"
Lia was too surprised to respond. She just gasped,
swallowed, and tried not to pale. Or blush. A slight vibration in Keshny's eyes
informed her that she failed. And did she see there, at the corner of his
mouth, a hint of a smile?
Zomy, in turn, could not smile even if he wanted to. He was
not yet used to the thin oxygen tube that connected the tank to his nostrils.
It blocked any possibility of reasonable facial expression, any smile was
almost painful, and generally made him aware of all the expressions on his
face.
This time it was to his benefit. No muscle in his face
moved, no vibration passed between his eyes. Perfect poker face, carved in
stone. Without special effort, he pushed his attempts to block Keshny's
scouting - but he felt, in the heat of his gaze, his face burning. It was like
looking in the oven.
And suddenly he needed more oxygen. He reached over, moved
the little oxygen tank inches towards his leg, and finally grimaced. It was the
tank that bothered him the most. The tank, and the need to keep one eye on the
oxygen clock. A diver, he thought. I became a diver in a foreign world to me.
And maybe I was always like this?
"Excuse me?" he asked again.
"I asked if you had sex," answered Kesnhy, still
looking for a reaction. "Had sex. Had sex. Sex. Shagged. Whether you
screwed …"
"OK, OK, I get it!"
Lia blushed hard. And Saul noticed.
He decided to focus on it. And moved her way. Raised an
eyebrow.
"No, we didn't have sex," she answered, finally.
And raised her eyebrows at him, defiantly. "It’s a cheek of you to ask, I
think. None of your business!"
Keshny ignored her comment.
"Both of you are nice, young, beautiful, alone in New York...
it's only natural, isn’t it? Guy meets girl. Both from the same village ... and
..." he let it hang.
"We didn't have sex," she repeated. "Why is
it important for you to know at all? This is our own business, anyway."
"Just to remind you, nothing about you is absolutely
private." His voice, which had been soft and kind, had become cold steel.
"This project came along after you came here, you know."