If I Told You Once: A Novel (12 page)

I was getting closer to it with every step. That was why the scene inside the egg grew clearer, more detailed. I could see curtains in the tiny windows, fish in the lake, I could see leaves on the trees, and dragonflies.

Making footprints in mud was not the same as footprints in snow.

I saw men plowing in the fields. I saw women bent double under great loads of dry branches; they looked like dead trees with legs, creeping along.

I thought of Shmuel, and wondered how I was going to conjure up some papers, and wondered what his sister would think of me.

It was past midnight when I spotted the city in the distance.

I reached it near dawn. I walked in its streets, among the tightly packed buildings. Steep shingled roofs, crooked chimneys, narrow staircases that led nowhere. I could hear my heart beating because the place was so utterly silent.

Not a single shutter creaking on its hinges.

Dust lay in the streets, so thick I left footprints in it.

A rustling made me jump. Only a scrap of paper blowing down the street. I saw a face but it was mine, reflected in a shop window.

My footsteps echoed.

I saw a wagon without wheels, propped on bricks. Broken shoes here and there in the streets. The great bells in the bell tower had no clappers.

No garbage in the gutters except smashed clocks and spools of thread all unwound. A wooden toy dog with a red tongue.

It doesn’t matter, I said. As long as the ship is here.

I tried a door, it would not budge.

Maybe I was too late.

Shmuel, I said. And I started to run.

Down one street, up another. The dust so thick it muffled my steps. The gutters full of wooden spoons and combs with broken teeth.

I saw stronger light ahead. I thought it must be the docks, the sea, light reflecting off the water.

Would they be waiting? Or was I too late?

I thought I could hear the water, now.

Buildings blocking me at every turn. The sun getting ever higher in the sky. It’s a trial; if I can’t navigate a few city blocks, why should I be allowed to go halfway around the world?

Then I was running toward the brightness, the street straight and empty. I left the gloom of the buildings and plunged into the open air. My feet now were pounding on the wooden boards of the docks, louder than my heart.

Racing to the edge, seeing nothing but the end of the dock, a mad dash to reach it before I took another breath. And going so fast I nearly went over, and caught myself at the last moment.

I looked down. And down. And down.

Head spinning. Feet kicking out over endless empty space.

Such a vast terrible sky.

My love. How could you leave without me?

I had never seen such a limitless sky. So empty, not a cloud in it. And yet the light was tainted, soured, like the light during an eclipse.

The end.

I looked down, and the dry updraft blew in my eyes but I looked again because I could not believe it; looked down, and down and down at the dry ocean bed hundreds of meters below.

For there was no water.

Only an endless deep canyon. The dock I stood on jutted out over the emptiness like an unfinished bridge. I could not see the end of it, the horizon was a dusty haze. I could not take it all in.

You would need eyes on either side of your head, like a fish, to see it all.

Looking down I saw the ships, far below on the canyon’s floor, listing and broken like fallen birds, tattered sails still hung from some of the masts. Their hulls were pointed toward the horizon, as if they might still sail away. But great holes had been torn in their sides and the wooden innards spilled out.

Skeletons, some of them.

Dust.

I glanced back, at the long wooden dock leading to the dark city clinging to the side of the cliff.

Shmuel, I said.

If I had seen birds flying over it, that at least would have given me hope.

No birds.

You could not imagine crossing such a void. There was not even a crossing cloud to hitch your fancy to.

The dock swayed beneath my feet. It rested on impossibly long spindly pylons, like spider’s legs, sunk in the ocean bed far below. I saw now how rickety it was, hastily knocked together as if by children. I looked between my feet and saw the old boards bending and giving beneath my weight, nails tearing through the wood like it was flesh.

The dock sagged, and below, the pylons were slowly kneeling.

I ran then, feet pounding, and the dock softly collapsed behind me and fell into the abyss below. The canyon was so deep, and the dust so thick, that I did not hear the pieces when they struck the ocean floor.

When I reached solid ground and turned hack, there was nothing left.

*   *   *

I ran then, in a blind panic. I thought I would be trapped in that hateful place forever. The promises I had heard about the land across the sea were all lies. False hopes and an eggshell full of misread visions. A mirage on the horizon.

The land I had seen so clearly existed only in my head.

I ran, bells jangling in my hair, my eyes nearly closed, until a farmer driving a wagon full of hay drew up even with me. He offered me a ride but I flailed on, unheeding.

He rode beside me, staring. Finally with a decisive grunt he leaned from the seat and his massive arm came swinging down like a scythe, and back up, and I found myself facedown in the hay.

I must have slept.

When I woke I opened my eyes to a riot of color, to the frenzy and noise at the heart of a city. The narrow streets were crowded, masses of people moving about, their voices rising in a babbling wave. I had never seen so many people in one place, so many faces, all different, peering over the sides of the wagon. The gutters here were crammed with refuse, rotting vegetables. Buildings rose on either side, confining the din, and women leaned shouting from windows, and I could not keep my eyes on any one thing, there was too much to see as the wagon kept jerking forward.

I smelled bread baking, and smoke; I smelled fish, I smelled spices and garbage. Pale-faced boys ran by, whacking each other with sticks and shouting. Dirty water rained down on the street from dishpans, a girl drew on a wall with chalk, flies buzzed, and nearby a horse raised its tail and released a golden load.

What relief.

I jumped from the wagon at its next pause and my knees ached. I wandered through the marketplace, and merchants thrust potatoes and carrots under my nose. Long underwear and stockings fluttered in the breeze. Through these streets I walked for hours, circling, and then I looked up and saw that I was near an open space, an expanse of air and light.

And as I made my way toward the light I smelled salt, and fish, and saw gulls circling, heard their cries and the shouts of sailors and the slap of water, and the creaking and rubbing of the boats against the dock. And then I could feel the very ground beneath my feet thrumming from the pounding of the water.

I stepped out finally to where I could see the harbor, and I could see the sea stretching out into the distance. Nothing can prepare you for that. It was a vast shining plain, a sparkling desert, it was the sky made corporeal.

Far on the horizon the sea met the sky in a thin blue line. I had never seen anything so perfect.

The ships were enormous, hulking, they were not the graceful winged things I had expected. The docks were swarming with activity, men loading and unloading goods, running about and shouting. I walked among them dodging elbows and great splashes of water. I saw people walking up the gangway of one of the ships and I ran to watch.

People were calling out to one another, waving, crying, holding children tightly by the wrist. I saw no familiar faces. I watched the ship fill, scanned the crowds packed on the decks. I shouted, but my voice drowned in the others.

I watched as it set out over the shining waters. The sun had laid down a golden path for it to follow.

I had not expected everything to be so big. There were so many people, too many, always in motion, always changing; how could two ever find each other?

I thought of wolves in the forest, marking the trees with their scent.

I waited three days by the harbor. I walked up and down the many docks, watching the sailors and the rats. I sat on coiled rope as thick as my arm. I watched people streaming past, coming and going with their luggage and plans. Every time I looked at the water, at the horizon line, my heart leaped up.

And then on the fourth day I saw a face I knew.

He was so far away down the dock I could have blotted him out with my thumb.

He turned and saw me and his eyes widened; and then he was nearly knocked flat by a flood of flopping silver fish that poured from one of the fishing boats next to him.

He came running, slipping, his boots covered in fish scales.

Here was his face now, what a shock to see it again, black hair standing up on his head. I had to touch that face, it was hot and damp with sweat and his eyes were red. The pulse pounded visibly in the side of his throat.

He was puffing too hard to speak.

His familiar smell. How tall he was. I had carried his image in my head so long I’d forgotten how he was in life. How tall, and how long his hands were, hard calluses on the fingertips. His head blocked the sun, he blotted out everything, the rest of the world shrank.

I’ve been here looking for you for two weeks, he said.

This is the right place then?

Yes. Of course.

Then I must have gone to the wrong place at first. I must have gotten lost, I said.

He said: But earlier you told me you knew this place, you knew exactly where to go.

I said nothing. I did not want him to know how ignorant I was. I had my face against his jacket, a button digging into my eye.

You should not have gone off by yourself, he said, it’s a miracle we found each other.

I could feel his voice buzzing in his chest.

I found your clothes scattered all along the road, he said, I was afraid to think what had happened to you.

He put his hands on my shoulders then, held me at arm’s length.

Did you get the right papers? he said. Did you buy a ticket, like I told you?

I looked at his eyes. I was thinking: they are bluer than the sea. But then the sea is not blue at all, is it?

You didn’t, did you? he said.

His eyes hardened then, more metal than blue. He turned, took my hand and pulled me along. He hurried me back to the city streets while behind us the ships rained forth boxes and barrels and bales of foreign things, and sailors swung from the rigging like monkeys.

We stopped in a square, before a bronze statue of a short fat man in ruffled clothes. Pigeons clung to his head and shoulders. He stood in droppings.

Listen here, Shmuel said. Do you want to come with me, or not?

More than anything.

Yes, I said.

Then why didn’t you get the papers like you told me you would?

I whispered: I don’t know how.

He sighed. That’s what I thought, he said.

I waited.

Look here, he said finally. I have my sister’s papers, here, and her ticket, already bought. But she can’t go now. Why don’t you come in her place?

Why can’t she come? I said.

She’s … she’s ill, he said. She’ll be all right, but she can’t make the journey now.

What kind of sickness?

He said: I don’t know. I don’t know. But she can come later, with my parents.… I’ll write to them. I’ll send them the money. When I write to them they’ll understand …

When did she get sick?

I don’t know! She’s sick! It doesn’t matter! All that matters is that her papers are here, and you are here, and you’re coming with me. Yes?

I looked at him. His jaw was clenched, he grabbed at his hair. It was not at all like the graceful distress he suffered on the stage.

I said: Can I do that? Isn’t it a lie? Isn’t it wrong?

Wrong? he said. That depends on what laws you’re going by.

I said: I’m coming. But your sister—

My sister! Here, take this, he cried and pressed the envelope to my chest and let go; I caught it before it fell. They’re yours now, he said, you’re my sister now. How does it feel?

He caught my arm, and whirled me around in a desperate gaiety. How does it feel to be my sister, he said.

I was looking only at his mouth now, his teeth so fine and white, shining like smooth stones in moonlight; stones laid down in a path I would follow anywhere, whether deeper into the forest or all the way home.

*   *   *

Again and again I tried to tell him about the city of dust, the grounded ships like wounded birds.

You must have imagined it, he said. You must have been dreaming.

I said: No. Impossible.

There is no such place, he said.

I insisted. I don’t know why. In that city my worst fears had been realized, they had sprung to life all around me. In my frantic dash through those dusty streets I had hoped and prayed that it
was
all a dream.

But it had not been. My throat was still sore, I still found pockets of dust in my clothes. The terrible empty sky was not something I could have imagined on my own.

Now that I had left it behind I should have been able to forget it. But I couldn’t.

I did not want to.

I felt I had been granted a reprieve.

I did not want to forget this gratitude. Did not want to get fat on my good fortune, complacent as a cow.

We sailed on one of the enormous dark ships we had seen in the harbor. It was utterly crammed with people, hardly a breath of air between. An entire village packed like summer vegetables preserved for storage.

As the ship pulled away from the dock I stood on the deck, pressed against the railing so tightly I could not raise my arms.

I heard a hoarse cry and a splash as the ship slid out to the open sea. Heads turned, people pointed and shouted incomprehensibly. Behind us by the docks I saw arms thrashing, water churned to white. Above or below or in spite of the noise, the ship’s engines, gulls’ cries, waves, voices all around, through it all I heard the swimmer’s grunts.