Imaginary Men (17 page)

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Authors: Enid Shomer

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Anthologies (Multiple Authors), #Literary Collections, #Literary Criticism, #test

BOOK: Imaginary Men
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Page 106
white concrete. A small sign above the mailbox bore the same star as the calling card. In small script next to it were the words
Specialist in deep muscle massage
.
He had hardly pressed the buzzer when the door opened and a dark young woman took his hand, saying, "I'm so glad you could come."
"Thank you," he mumbled. His legs felt as if they were dissolving at the knees.
"Over here. Let's sit. I have made a small salad and we'll drink dry hock wine. You like hock, don't you?"
"Yes." He picked up a pillow decorated with metallic Yemenite embroidery and clutched it to his stomach.
"That was made by little deaf girls," she told him.
He looked around the room. "What was?"
"The pillow. The one in your lap. Would you like to eat now?"
"Yes." He was suddenly very hungry.
As he picked up his fork a large gray cat leapt onto the table. The utensil clattered to the floor.
"Oh Melech!" she chastised the cat. She removed him and set him gently on the floor, then came and stood behind Yosi as he leaned to retrieve the fork.
"Wait," she said, placing her hands on his shoulders. He froze. "You are very tense." Her fingers began to play his neck tendons like a keyboard. He let his head droop forward onto his chest.
"That feels good," he whispered.
She picked up the fork, letting her breasts graze his back as she leaned down. Then, with her arms around his neck, she wiped the fork with a napkin and pierced a tomato wedge.
"Open, please. Make big the tunnel for the choo-choo train." The fingers of her left hand stroked his lips. His mouth opened as if by reflex. She fed him the salad one piece at a time.
"That was delicious," he said, after she had wiped his mouth with the palm of her hand.
"Now it is my turn," she said, pretending to lift him from the chair.
"Your turn?" His eyes darted around the room.
"You feed me salad now," she explained. They traded places, and he imitated her perfectly. When he got to the last slice of cucumber he let the fork fall on purpose. She smiled, as if she knew what would
 
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happen next. The hard surface of his pants pressed against her arm as he straightened up and fed her the last morsel.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
"And then what happened?" Sharon asked. She was standing in the barn doorway, a pail in one hand, the other hand on her waist.
"I'm embarrassed," Yosi admitted. "I know I promised, but . . ."
"What?"
"She is wonderful, my little Star. I am learning from her so much."
"Learning? Tell me."
He began to whistle and pull on Tsiporet's udder rhythmically. The cow's eyes looked waywardly at both of them as the fresh milk streamed into the bucket.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
In the following weeks Yosi received letters every Sunday addressed in purple ink from Star. "Next time you come, bring me pictures from your childhood," the first letter requested. Another time she sent him green tea from Japana thin tissue-paper sack placed inside a note: "Steep this four minutes in boiling water," it instructed. ''Next week kelp."
Yosi took a steamy shower every Thursday morning, shaved and readied himself like a bridegroom for his weekly visit with Leah. He had lost a few pounds, and his hair was slicked down now, leaving only a saucer-sized bald spot. Her insistence on touching his face convinced him that he was not as ugly as he had thought, that there was something exotic about his small gray eyes and fleshy ears.
Only Sharon knew what went on during his visits, and even she did not know everything. Nevertheless, she learned a great deal: the fourth week, Yosi had shaved Leah's legs for her; the sixth week he had licked honey from her breasts. She had given him a manicure and explained how the muscles in his arms worked. One Thursday morning, as Yosi left the dining hall in a cloud of hair tonic and cologne, Samuel had joked, "Look at him! A regular Mr. Hollyvood!"
 
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<><><><><><><><><><><><>
As Yosi pried the cow's mouth open, Sharon forced a large pill down her gullet. "You are not bored," he asked, "working with the cows?"
"No. Do you get bored with them?"
"They are like sisters," he said simply, replacing the lid on the bottle of capsules. "We must watch the next few days for the worms," he reminded her.
"Yosi, do you ever get bored with Star?"
He grabbed a shovel from its hook on the barn wall. "I am like Ton-and-a-Half, you know? Besides," he said, stabbing the shovel under a fresh pile of manure, "I love her."
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Sharon carried a chair under each arm from the storage room to the main hall. "Where is everyone?" she asked Naomi, setting them down with a thud and a sigh.
"Outside, kibitzing."
"Looks like they're having their own meeting out there," Sharon observed.
"Yes." Naomi sat down at the end of an incomplete row. "It's about Yosi."
"But Yosi is in town. It's Thursday"
"I know."
"Oh, I see." Sharon frowned.
"They're just jealous, of course. But they want to quit sending him to the prostitute. They say maybe he's rehabilitated by now, ready for a real girl."
The rising inflection of Naomi's voice made Sharon suddenly realize that this was a question.
"A real girl?"
"You know him well. He talks to you."
"You're not thinking of me with Yosi?"
Naomi patted Sharon's arm. "No, I don't mean you and Yosi. I meant he confides in you. Maybe he's told you something? Has he got his eye on someone here at the kibbutz?"
"I don't think so."
"I've known Yosi since he was a baby." Naomi wiped her neck
 
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with a handkerchief. "I only want what's best for him." She stared into Sharon's eyes, her forehead grooved with concern. "I don't want you to betray any confidences, exactly. Just tell me," she whispered loudly, "what's going on with him? What goes through his mind?''
"How good Leah is to him."
"The whore?"
"I don't think you ought to call her that."
"Aha!" Naomi exclaimed. "You've met her then?"
"Of course not. But Yosi's told me"
"What?"
Sharon scrutinized Naomi. The freckles on her forehead, run together from the summer sun, suggested the shape of a land mass on a map. Asia, perhaps. "He loves her."
"I'm so glad for him." Naomi threw her arms around Sharon. Then her teeth bit into her lower lip, and she shook her head doubtfully. "We have a problem."
"We do?" Sharon followed Naomi's eyes to the doorway where a crowd of men had assembled. She could see their knobby legs as they shifted from one foot to the other and scuffed at the ground.
"The best defense is attack." Naomi held Sharon by the shoulders. "Are you willing to help?"
"Yes."
"Then here is what we will do." Naomi's eyebrows arched as she pulled Sharon closer. She unfolded a chair. The sound of its legs scraping the floor smothered her words as the hall began to fill.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Lev took up the usual business: first, a report on the grapefruit crop, a discussion of the new picking schedule. The allocation of money for a phonograph for the children's house was next. The poultry committee complained again about the unreliability of the itinerant chicken sexer and recommended employing one from nearby Kibbutz Shemesh in exchange for violin lessons with Samuel.
"Anything further?" Lev asked.
Shimon stood. "I wish to say I think it's enough, this sending Yosi to the prostitute. It's time for him to find someone on his own." The room remained quiet, so he continued. "I know practice makes perfect, but it isn't like he's going to make a career of it. We're not paying
 
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for him to become a concert violinist." The crowd fractured with laughter. Naomi's finger drummed on her ample thigh.
"Now?" Sharon asked her.
"Not yet."
"We never intended it as a permanent solution," Shimon went on.
"You can't cut a man's water off just like that!" Samuel objected, snapping his fingers for emphasis.
"We could wean him gradually . . . say, three more weeks," Shimon replied.
"That sounds reasonable," Doctor Zalman agreed. The
chaverim
buzzed briefly, an intermittent and unenthusiastic buzz, like the sound of a fly dying.
"Do I have a motion?" Lev asked.
"Now!" squeaked Naomi.
"
Rak rega echad
!" Sharon bellowed. "One minute please!" The
chaverim
were stunned first by the voice, then by the translation.
"Our newest member has the floor." Lev's voice was solemn.
"Thank you," Sharon said. Silence descended on the members like a sheet thrown over a bird cage. "The other night, when I was coming from the barn, he put his hand on my breast." Now the silence filled the room in heaps and drifts, engulfing her words. "And my leg,'' she added, "high up."
"Oh no," Miriam sighed.
"This sheds a different light," Doctor Zalman said, rubbing the side of his face as incredulity gave way to thought. Sharon glanced at Naomi, who was intently tracing the lines on her palm with a thumbnail.
"We could be the first kibbutz with a maniac on our hands," someone yelled.
"He could be working up to something bigger," the doctor said. "What did you do?"
"I told him," she cleared her throat with a low rumble, "that he must not do these things, because I don't feel romantic about him. I told him it was a serious matter. He was very ashamed." Naomi's plan was brilliant, but Sharon didn't quite know how much to embellish the story. She kept talking. "Actually, I felt he was trying to tell me something"
"Exactly!" Naomi was on her feet. "Doctor, wouldn't you agree there is a pattern to his lapses?"
 
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"A pattern?" the doctor echoed.
"First it was me," Naomi continued. "And who am I? Almost his mother, may she rest in peace. That's who I am. And now Sharon. And who is she?"
They looked at her blankly. Then, as if one candle after another were being lit, the room perceptibly brightened.
"Like a sister, perhaps?" Shimon ventured.
"Right. You see, he only does it to people he loves and trusts, people who would forgive him."
"Still" Miriam objected.
"No. Listen, what does it mean?" Naomi raised her arms toward the ceiling. "He's sending us a message,
chevrai
"
"Of course!" Samuel interrupted. "It's like the handwriting on the wall. But this time," his index finger wagged at them, "the handwriting is on, if you'll forgive me, the breast!"
"I know what the handwriting says." Naomi folded her arms and smiled broadly. An unspoken challenge radiated from her stout figure.
The buzz in the room was deafening, the sound of an airplane engine warming up.
"Would one of you prophets be so kind as to translate it then?" Lev asked, clapping his hands for order.
Naomi turned to stare at Shimon seated several rows behind her. He stood up slowly. "I, too, read the writing." He took a deep breath. "It says" he watched Naomi as she wiggled two fingers alongside her ear, "it says that we should send him twice a week."
"And?" Lev prompted.
"I so move," Shimon said hurriedly, "that the kibbutz send Yosi to his appropriate prostitute twice a week"
"Indefinitely," Naomi added.
A biblical "for eternity" from Sharon was muted by the enthusiastic clucking which filled the room.
The vote was again unanimous. At tea afterward, they congratulated themselves on the wisdom of their solution. Solomon himself could not have done better. In the barn, Tsiporet pulled hay from her rack and chewed it slowly as she waited for Yosi's hands.

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