The Instructions (161 page)

ADAM LEVIN

THE INSTRUCTIONS

sleeves gripped by scholars, seven hostages—one from each wave—

slouched to look captured on each of our borders. Emmanuel and Samuel headed up columns adjacent to the central one, headed by Brooklyn, who carried the megaphone, calling out orders. June and I marched northwest of the middle—columns twelve and thirteen, row eleven—so we couldn’t be seen by the cops who were flanking us, nor by those who, eventually, trailed us. Those in the choppers, of course, could see us, but from that point of view we could not be distinguished from any other soldiers, not with our hoods on; not unless they knew we’d hold hands—they didn’t.

The march proceeded as seen on TV.

As we crossed Rand Road, Brooklyn ordered the first wave of hostages freed, then freed a wave for each block we traversed. In crocodile tears, the freed hostages ran all thirty-plus yards to the news crews and cops to the west, north, and south of us.

Three blocks east of the two-hill field we met the second army, led by Itzik Leslie Bienstein-Pikowitz, a seventh-grade boy from Hillel Torah Day who Shai Bar-Sholem used to bunk with at camp. At Brooklyn’s command, this Itzik halted and parted his army. We got in front of them, returned their Good Yontifs as they lined up behind us, and the hostages on what had been our rear border were passed back westward, to our new rear border.

We picked up the march til Sheridan Road.

A ravine divided the road from the beach, and the third army’s frontline—Feingold foremost—was in the ravine, their rearguard’s heels a yard from the water. Eliyahu ordered them to halt 1529

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and part, then ordered the second army part and flank us. We freed the last wave and crossed the ravine, advancing eastward til we all stood on sand, a thousand soldiers in forty columns, and June and I went to the front, the shoreline.

Eliyahu of Brooklyn gave me the soundgun. I unfolded my scripture and gave it to June. We revolved to face the soldiers, our backs to the lake. A chopper overhead, helped out by a cloud, was blocking the sun. The sun was descending. The sabbath was coming. In Israel, the sabbath was already there. I knew that I’d spend the next sabbath in Israel, that that’s what it was that my mom thought I wanted. I’d known for some minutes, ten or fifteen. The house of Yakov. It was no kind of code. It was barely a metaphor. My mother’d arranged us a haven in Israel on the single condition that no one else died. Someone else died, though.

Nakamook died. They would let me stay anyway. Of course they would let me. Of course they would let me, and my mother would make me. All of this occurred to me right around the time the army crested the high hill.

I’m going away for sure, I’d told June.

“I know,” she’d said, “but it’ll be fine. We’ll miss each other, but we already do that. We already miss each other more than we don’t, right? It’s not like we’re used to seeing each other. And you’re not the kind of boy who other boys mess with, so we don’t have to worry that that’ll happen. You’ll read a lot of books and write me letters. I’ll write you back, and read the books you read, and try to learn Hebrew, and visit you every time I can. The juvie’s in 1530

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Bolling. It isn’t that far. And I know my mom’ll drive me, I’ve figured it out: if my boyfriend’s in juvie, he’s a criminal, true, but I’m not having sex. I won’t even have to say that—that’s just how she thinks. Gurion. Gurion. Hey. Gurion. Hey Gurion—what? Don’t.

Not Benji. You have to wait to think about Benji. You’ll ruin him forever if you do it right now. Trust me. I know. You know that I know. You’ll ruin everything. You’re ruining everything.”

I—

“No. Listen. You have to listen. If you think about him now, you’ll make him one way. You’ll make him simple. You’ll make him a story. His death will be the climax. You’ll bend who he was to make sense of his death. You’ll have to edit most of him out to do that. You’ll forget he was a bully, or forget he was your friend.

You’ll forget he was a dickhead a lot of the time, or you’ll forget there was kindness in his dickhead heart. And that’s not the worst part. It’s not even close. The worst part’s the story you’ll make of the world. If you make him a story right now, Jellybean, right now when its fresh, when his death seems the climax, you’ll bend the whole world so it fits that story. It’ll be unavoidable. You’ll make the world a story that’s able to contain him, your edited version, your Nakamook story. His death will be the climax of the story of
everything
. The scholars will be secondary. The Side will be secondary. I will, too. The purpose of the world will be to kill Benji Nakamook, and you will be reduced to a witness, Gurion. Don’t do that to us. Don’t make this a lie. It isn’t a lie I’ll agree to tell.

You’re going away. You’ll be locked up. Think about that. How 1531

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that is suck. That’s what you were thinking about before I tried to comfort you with the story of what it would actually be like—the letters and the books and the visits and baked goods. Did I mention the baked goods? I’ll bring you baked goods. I’ll learn how to bake. I’ll listen to Hebrew on tape while I bake. But take my whole story with a grain of salt. Doubt what I’m saying. Doubt what I said. Worry about that. Go back to that. Don’t think about Benji. Think about us. Tell yourself I’m probably living in a fantasy. Tell yourself that June, even though she means well, won’t follow through, or at least that she might not—that June, herself, the first time you met her, told you that no one could promise forever, and despite what it looks like, she probably hasn’t revised her opinion. Can you do that? Do that. Do that, okay? Doubt me a little and we’ll be alright.”

Okay, I’d said.

“Good,” she’d said.

“There is damage,” I said to the thousand soldiers.

The ones who’d been jumping to get a better look at me settled on their tiptoes, quiet, listening.

A gust off the lake blew a hiss through the soundgun and flapped my scripture, which June held high, and water crept up and splashed at our ankles. Our hands, abiding the shiver, squeezed, and we took a step forward—that’s all there was room for; the beach was packed tight—and got splashed again.

“There was always damage,” I said to the soldiers, as the cloud and the chopper that were blocking the sun began drifting apart, 1532

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“and there will be more damage,” I said to the soldiers, as a ray from the sun touched a chink in June’s retina, and she, refusing to lower my scripture, let go of my hand to cover her face in order to avoid misting gooze on the soldiers, and proceeded to sneeze a sneeze no one heard, for the noise of the lake being riven was deafening.

No one quite saw what they thought they were seeing, and to this day few see what’s truly before them as they marvel at the footage the helicopters shot and choke on huzzahs or cry out,

“The horror!” or cry out, “Moshiach!” or postulate U.S. government conspiracies or Hollywood-Zionist-Media ploys or remark with false calm on aberrant tectonics, lunar events, anomolous plate-shifts, barometric hyperflux, electomagnetic energy bursts, non-contiguous molecular planes, destabilized particles, rogue nuclear states, comets, sunspots, or paratidal deviance.

It’s true that a valley had formed in the lake, that the valley was the width of our forty columns, and its miles-high walls, half a foot thick, occluded by foam and sand and stones and baf-fled fish and swaying vegetation, were smooth as glass on their valley-facing sides, and it’s true that the walls cast all their spray outward, and its floor was level and as smooth as the walls, and it’s true that the valley, from its moment of creation, stretched east through the lake past the vanishing point, and it’s true that the soldiers marched into the valley while I remained standing just east of its mouth watching my east-marching army recede, and true June was standing just southwest of me, and it’s true I reached back and took hold of June’s hand, goozed though 1533

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it was, and true that as soon as our palms pressed together the walls of the valley began to splash down on the heads of the soldiers, threatening to drown them, and true that I then let go of June’s hand and all the falling water and debris it contained once again became walls, and it’s true June thought I’d been icked by the gooze and she wiped off her hand before grabbing mine again, and true that, again, the walls began to splash down, and that this time I didn’t let go of June’s hand, but that all that was falling again became walls. It’s also true, however, that I’d moved my feet. I’d moved my feet just a couple inches west, a couple inches outside the mouth of the valley. That’s something nearly everybody fails to see.

And it’s true we held hands for the next few minutes, standing in place while the scholars pressed east, deeper and deeper into the valley, and true that what we said was not prolific. The lipreader-dictated subtitles are true. It’s true June said, “You have to go.”

It’s true I responded, Fuck Him, I don’t.

It’s true she said, “Please.”

It’s true I said, No. Enough is enough.

It’s true that I tried, one last time, in hopes He was bluffing, to enter the valley holding June’s hand, and it’s true that the walls began to splash down, and it’s true I removed my foot from the valley and that all that was falling again became walls.

And it’s true the police, some fifty police, had, by then, begun to close in. It’s true that I told them, as they’ve faithfully reported, that if they came any closer I’d stop what I was doing.

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I’ll stop what I’m doing
is exactly what I said.

And they came no closer; that is true.

And it’s true the implications of what I’d said were that I was holding the valley open, and that the valley would close and drown all the scholars if I were to cease to hold it open—it’s true I implied I was performing a miracle. And it’s true I knew that’s what I implied, and true that’s what I intended to imply. It’s also true my implications were false, and true I knew my implications were false, and true as well, and finally true, that there wasn’t any miracle—a feat of God certainly, a spectacle stinking of divine interference, a holy stunt sure, but not a miracle. Only a test.

“Please go,” June said. “This isn’t a test. I mean it,” she said.

“It’s not like when I kicked you and made you bring my sketchbook. I won’t love you less if you go,” she said.

I said, ‘Fuck Him,’ I said.

I raised the soundgun.

“Wait,” she said. “Let’s wait then,” she said. “This part we don’t have to rush, okay? Let’s wait here a minute and look at the valley.”

And it’s true we waited and looked at the valley, and it’s true it was more a chasm than a valley—a
valley
a space between graded planes, between hills or mountains that might be worth trying to climb if you wanted—but still it was less a defile than a valley—

a
defile
a thin breach through which only one person could pass at a time, a space that an army would have to break ranks in order to trek—and yet I’d been thinking, before June said
valley
, that it 1535

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was a defile, and that seems important, how I’d formerly thought of it, especially in light of how I came to think of it, and maybe it is, except not like you think, but only because I’d decided to call it whatever June Watermark thought we should call it.

We looked at the valley, looked into the valley, and all of the soldiers, some hundred yards east, forty columns of soldiers, twenty-five deep, were looking at us, and soon Eliyahu walked up to the mouth and said, “Nu? Are you coming?”

I told him we weren’t.

“I’ll tell them,” he said, and returned to the soldiers.

As soon as they were all within range of the soundgun, I delivered them the blessings of the Gurionic War and the blessings of what would become
The Instructions
.

The soldiers, in their columns, then followed us west, and once the last row had emerged from the valley, the walls of the valley buckled and plunged.

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Coda

THE INSTRUCTIONS

And men of conspicuous height and fitness popped out of a window-blackened SUV in the evergreen copse

inside the ravine into which I had walked hand-inhand with June and forced on me and another scholar who was roughly my shape (or, in one version, a lookalike boy they’d brought along with them) a clothing switcheroonie to misdirect the cameras. Or else they were barrel-chested, thin-haired men in rumpled khakis and schlubby parkas who looked like dads in their late-model Dodge or Ford sedan, and they offered either bribes too big to refuse, or grave, fascistic threats that, however cartoonish, cowed each and every member of the on-site media into shooting all that footage of the scholars being boarded onto the buses and taken to the commandeered gym at the J to be processed and questioned and retrieved by their parents.

Then a chloroformed handkerchief or tranquilizer dart or a video on a laptop- or PDA-screen showing both of my parents or one of my parents chained to a rail and held at gunpoint, or a 1538

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gun put to June right there in the ravine (or in the SUV or late-model Dodge or Ford sedan), or promises of protection and pleas for cooperation uttered in fluent, even beautiful Hebrew, after or instead of the threats to my parent(s) or June, in the ravine or the pertinent vehicle (in the trunk or backseat of which—behind tinted windows—my mom was or wasn’t hidden or hiding, handcuffed and bound at the ankles or not).

And a million-dollar chamber in an undisclosed locale in a secret facility somewhere out west where my brain was examined with a billion-dollar scanner while a holodeck-quality VR-device worth seventeen billion ran me through a set of provocative sce-narios and found that, under battlestress, as well as in the throes of sexual pleasure, I emitted a stream of “omega wave packets”