When I was born Avi was six. My mother waited for me to grow before she explained Avi’s condition to me. But what is the right age to explain to a child that her brother has cerebral palsy? I learned about Avi’s illness mostly by watching and comparing him to his twin. Their differences were facts and those facts made them who they were. Just like Avi had black eyes and Yaron had green. I did not need an explanation.
My brothers were inseparable. Like two peas in a pod, only one was green and the other not. Most of the time, Yaron helped Avi and Avi accepted the help. This unspoken contract left us all uninvited, either to participate or to comment. My mother told the story about their silent bond in a voice she kept only for very special occasions. She would sweeten the painful memories with her wispy, somewhat cracked voice that welcomed us into the warm womb of mystery and conspiracy. With her ever-burning cigarettes accumulating in a handmade ceramic ashtray on our gray formica table, she would whisper the story, which wasn’t about Avi’s illness, but rather about the real question — why Avi was born different.
It was a hot summer day in Jerusalem. I had my gymnastic uniform on; short blue pants with an elastic band around the thighs, and an orange teeshirt with the school name on the back. I was seven when I first heard the full story — a story she recounted oftentimes to my brothers. I had just finished lunch, the shades were closed to keep the blazing sun out, half of a Jaffa orange was left peeled in the living room. I sat on the cool tile floor, a bit tired, a bit bored.
My mother wore a light green dress that complimented her tan skin. The blue veins on her bare arms seemed especially pronounced from the heat. Her hair was collected and raised up with a wooden pin, leaving a few ends unbound. She sat on our orange sofa with her feet resting on the worn turkish ottoman. She lit a cigarette looking both concentrated and contemplative. With the first inhalation her cheeks contracted, her eyes closed, and her head tilted slightly backward. I liked to watch her having so much pleasure. She exhaled the blue smoke slowly as if parting forever from a lover. The smoke tasted bitter and stung my thoughts.
Avi was shorter than Yaron, uncoordinated, with deep dark eyes, and a funny laugh that often turned into spastic rampant jolts. His muscles got stiff at every turn and he could not jump in spite of endless attempts. He would bend his knees, his face would turn red, his fists would open, but he always stayed stuck to the ground, not moving an inch. Only his mouth would contort as if he were laughing but in the middle changed his mind to crying. By the time he was ten he had learned the multiplication tables up to 20 by heart, mostly because it was so difficult for him to write. His handwriting was angular and carved and often he would tear the page with the excess pressure he put on his pencil. His whole face would writhe and little sweat droplets would show on his forehead.
Avi loved to tell me about incredible facts, always surprising me with captivating scientific data and always ready to elaborate. When I rejected his logical explanation he would turn to science books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, anything to make the unbelievable believable. One day, playing chess, he asked, “Do you know what would happen if you took one grain of rice and put it on one square of the chess board then doubled the amount on the next square… then doubled it again?” His face got red from excitement and he tried to speak a bit faster, knowing that my patience for his riddles was short. His whole body would tense up and his muscles would flex. He sounded like someone trying to talk after getting a Novocain shot from the dentist. He kept on going… “So you put eight grains on the third square and…”
“Avi, stop. It is your turn now. Who cares for rice?”
“But listen;” he tried desperately, “it is really interesting …just tell me how much rice would be on the last square?” he begged.
“…I don’t know!” I said with great impatience, “maybe a thousand grains?”
His face twisted with pleasure and he said, “Remember there are 64 squares.”
“OK, a million.” I said.
“Not even close,” his eyes narrowed, hiding a smile.
“So tell me!” I said curtly.
“Well,” he paused to savor his delight; “there is not enough rice in the whole world to be on the 64th square.”
“Nonsense, that’s stupid.” I shrugged it off angrily.
“No, really” he said. “Think about how much 2 to the 64th power is…”
Annoyed, I walked away.
Years after, I still can’t fathom such a big number on the 64th square. I miss Avi’s innocent glee at the unbelievable. He taught me about the universe, the stars, desert mirages, prime numbers, biblical numerology, ESP, the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar, and the secret language of the whales.
Yaron was handsome and strong. He was composed and popular. His shirts matched his short khaki pants, which matched his olive smooth skin. His worn sandals looked effortlessly trendy and his big green eyes were serenaded by long dark eyelashes. Yaron’s smile was serene; Avi laughed while drooling. Yaron always took two of what ever was served to him; one for Avi, one for himself. Most importantly, Avi was not to be ridiculed for the way he talked, walked, and laughed. It was the unspoken rule. Yaron watched with eagle eyes.
Yaron loved to catch butterflies and put them in a box. He was meticulous and serious. He sat for hours pinning his butterflies to the bottom of a box, displaying their beautiful wings. He loved anything that could fly. With incredible patience and accuracy he would put together model airplanes, gluing together small plastic parts as if performing surgery. Calm and collected, he would decide which part went first to create a perfect looking airplane.
On very hot days my mom would tie a scarf with a few ice cubes to her forehead, turn the music off and pull the shades down. It was an inexplicable pain that overtook her. A migraine day, and we could not predict how long it would last. On these days my dad would say, “Your mom has a migraine,” and we knew we needed to disappear. She had space for either the migraine or us — no room for both. She had a migraine the day she told me the story. Only on that day, when she told me the story for the first time, did I feel that she chose me over the migraine, or rather allowed both to coexist.
“Avi was healthy during the whole nine months of my pregnancy.” She spoke softly. “He and Yaron were good brothers from the beginning. They never fought over space… I didn’t even know I had two till the last day… they felt like one… and I was really tiny. People thought I was still in my third month on the day of the delivery. I could not eat much. I kept on having nausea till the last day. Maybe I didn’t know I had two inside — but I knew that whatever was there — was healthy.”
As she spoke, we did not look at each other. She paused to breathe through her cigarette while I traced imaginary lines on the tile floor with my finger, back and forth, compulsively. “I kept on working till the last day of my pregnancy. Right on my due date I started to contract, and your dad took me to the hospital on the bus. They were almost out before we arrived. The troubles started at the hospital.”
She paused, and I wondered if we had arrived at the edge of what was allowed for me to know, and whether I was leaning over a cliff, unable to grasp the dimension of what lay in the dark below. I didn’t know if I wanted to look as the words were exhaled slowly, wrapped with thick curves of smoke forming a beautiful dance. “If the bus had taken another ten minutes all would have been well, they would have come out in the right order. What was the hurry…?”
I was rubbing the tile so hard; as if these repetitive lines could stop time and the story would end there. But I also wanted to know. I wanted to see the abyss, as it was. It felt like one of Avi’s unbelievable facts one can know yet not fathom. The image of my mom giving birth to two healthy babies on the bus was painfully beautiful. The version of Avi coming out sick had no narrative. Deep dark abyss covered with blue smoke.
“The nurse pushed my shoulders down. ‘You can’t see what’s going on down there anyway,’ she said, ‘just push and stop yelling.’ Two doctors came running to my room… why did I need two for God’s sake..? The light blinded my eyes. The pain became unbearable. I screamed, ‘Leave me alone!’ but they ignored me… only more doctors came to look inside me like I was a suspense movie. Your dad was in the waiting room… and… and that was the end of it. They looked at me as a piece of meat. One of the doctors said, ‘You have two in there and they are stuck… they can’t decide who is going to be first.’ I could not believe I had two… I screamed again, ‘Go to hell, you all!’
‘Keep on pushing, don’t stop,’ the other doctor yelled. If I had had an ounce of energy left I would have spit in this bastard’s face. What did he know about pain?” Anger took over the ruminative tone. She took more frequent but shorter puffs.
“Then, before I fainted, Avi forced his way out; only with his legs first, while Yaron was pushing on his head. Yaron pushed so hard the umbilical cord wrapped around Avi’s head and stopped the flow of air, and Avi…”
“But Ima,” I stopped her, “Yaron loves Avi and he is so patient…. He never pushes,” I said in a strangled voice while the hope for a different ending evaporated into a hole in my stomach. I wished I had never looked into that void.
Without looking at her fingers she rubbed the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, methodically denying its air. “That’s why,” she whispered mostly to herself, “that’s why he is so patient.”