After September 11, I got a call from my cousin who I hadn’t seen for 36 years. When he said, “this is your cousin Eli…I got your number from….” I saw the 5 year old chubby Eli, with red cheeks and blue eyes, standing in the hot sun, holding his crumpled white hat in his hand, waiting.
I remembered how strange it looked when droplets of sweat would show up on the top of his nose not only when he was hot, also when he was angry — although this happened rarely. He had pudgy fingers with long nails that he always managed to keep clean. His sweat smelled bitter sweet.
He continued to tell me, in a deep voice I had never heard before, that he was living in N.Y, that he’d made lots of money especially during the dot com wave, and that recently he’d gotten divorced. Reverting, instantly, to an old role I asked directly “why”? He answered without hesitation “I just did not tell her enough that I loved her”.
Eli was good with card tricks. His plump fingers were quick and experienced. He learned to shuffle from his dad. His gesture of handing me a stack of cards, turning his face away to emphasize his honesty, suddenly emerged across 3,000 miles and 36 years. I was back in my role choosing a card while watching for any slip or hint he might drop. My job was to reveal the hidden agenda. I had no interest in learning to do these tricks, only in uncovering their truth.
The moment school ended I would run to the courtyard to meet him. I could always count on him to be there. He was quiet, accepting and easy to forgive. He was polite, and did not need to talk as much as I did. I remember that he used to suggest things only once. If I did not respond he would be quiet — only his eyes would get bigger and bluer. I was moody, bossy and unpredictable and my ideas often pushed the limits – the limits of the permissible, the possible and the limit of his patience. We loved each other.
One very hot afternoon after eating the usual lunch at his house: rice, red beans, sweet red juice and watermelon, we went to play outside. Later, the sun was going down and the earth was emitting back the heat absorbed during the day. It was a different kind of heat, not direct and aggressive but enveloping and containing. While bathing in the warm intricacy of our fantasies, our shadows grew longer — all was open and possible.
We found an old packet of Gittan cigarettes — the old style with the soft cover. We rolled them over our arms and became soldiers in Napoleon’s army. Eli spoke fluent French and knew more about the war than me. He was eight months older and thus one grade higher. He told me what he knew about the war and I directed the scenes. I chose to be Napoleon on the battlefield and Eli was the army. He carried the swords we found and hid them behind the bushes while I made myself a big hat with two pointy cusps from an old newspaper. Just as Eli got completely immersed in the quantity of the swords we managed to find, I switched the game.
Now we were both CIA agents on an important mission. The dangerous spy was sitting three floors above us. Mr. Cohen lived there. The cigarette packs and the old newspapers had been thrown from his floor a while ago. He would also throw empty bottles of gin and vodka. He was a drunk, but that was just a disguise. My mom told me to never look or talk to him.
“Eli, remember Mr. Cohen from Greenwald 7?” I switched the subject, and again he was right there full of enthusiasm. “Are you kidding me? On my last visit to Israel I heard that his grandson died from an overdose.” I bet I would be irked if he switched the subject like I did, I thought to myself. It was that old compliance in him that angered me for some reason.
Mr. Cohen rarely came out of his house. When I looked at him, sitting near his window, he smiled. He had a pleasant face but his lips collapsed inward. When he smiled he revealed a few teeth — dark and crooked. His eyes looked sad below his neatly combed hair which seemed always wet. I knew that he used to be handsome, I don’t know how.
But he was a spy I decided. And no other information about Napoleon seemed to interest me any longer. Eli’s eyes got a bit bluer as he considered the new idea.
I thought we should climb up the stairs, knock on the door, and ask Mr. Cohen if he had dropped his newspaper, all the while looking for incriminating evidence inside his house. Eli paused, evaluating the pros and cons of the situation, but before he said anything we heard his dad’s voice calling us.
“Why go back? It is not dark yet”, I said to Eli as he started to head back. He slowed down but did not stop. I was dragging behind him, upset to be yanked out of the new evolving idea. Eli’s dad smiled as we arrived.
“Why can’t we play more outside, it’s not dark yet?” I asked his dad. “I thought I’d show you some new cards tricks,” he said, looking at Eli. Eli shouted a yes that started loud with excitement and ended in a quiet question mark. As if he remembered in the middle of his excitement that I would not like it. I decided to give up and said, “Where are the cards?”
Eli’s dad was a tall man with a deep voice. Their small house seemed not to fit his size — it if he did not belong there. He wore no shirt. A line of dark hair ran down his chest and around his nipples. With his huge belly button and bulging stomach his front looked like the face of a screaming man. He wore boxer shorts with a blue and white pattern. A gold watch was attached loosely to his wrist, which he nervously rolled up and down his arm.
Holding the receiver tight, I could feel my ear getting red and hot. “So how is your family?” Eli asked in his booming voice — which suddenly seemed more familiar. Just like his dad, he sounds so important even when he says the most mundane thing. He is annoying me, I thought to myself, how can I cover 36 years of family history in one sentence? Instead, I said dryly, “how about yours?”
“The cards are at your nona’s house”, said my uncle looking only at Eli. “Why won’t you get them for me?” Eli was out the door before the booming vibration of his dad’s voice subsided. My uncle, then, looked at me and softly asked: “what should we do now?”
I shrugged.
“Do you like jokes?” he asked lowering himself to my height. I nodded. He took paper and a pencil and drew what looked like a long ladder and added a circle on top. “What’s that?” he asked turning the page towards me? His breath smelled sweet like Mrs. Cohen’s bottles.
I shrugged again.
“It is a Mexican with a big sombrero shitting on the train track” he said and laughed so loud, I was not sure if I was startled by the volume, or by the forbidden word — ‘shitting’.
“Hey… why are you so serious… you don’t think it’s funny? O.K… O.K, how about dolls? Do you like dolls?” he said without waiting for an answer. “I have a special doll that cries when you touch her. “Look here”, he pointed to the opening of his underwear.
I saw a purple shiny creature with a strange hat and she stood there with no expression. Where is her face? Why does she look so ugly? I almost ran out… then he said: “if you touch her she will cry… come…don’t be shy… look how sad she is.” His voice sounded choked, like he was about to cry. He touched her with such delicacy as if she could break.
A feeling of something terribly wrong came over me — a feeling that things would never be the same again — that everything is filthy. In my throat, a dark syrupy hole began to grow as my fingers tips tickled with curiosity to witness the last scene — the doll’s cry.
My legs were heavy, cemented to the floor, the blood throbbing loudly, my head light — detached.
In my mind I was running down the stairs looking for Eli. But my hand was reaching out. It touched the doll.
She spit on me, I thought, while running down the stairs. She spits.
My mother’s face sickened. She did not want any other details. Dragging her words out with seething anger she said, “You are never ever to play with Eli again.” And before I could protest this unimaginable punishment she repeated even quieter and more slowly “ Do you understand? Don’t ever play with him” and went back to the kitchen leaving a damp towel behind.
The day after, Eli was waiting for me, as usual. I looked directly at his blue eyes and said, “Don’t ever talk to me…ever again”. Nothing moved in his face, he did not ask why, and he did not protest. But I did see a few droplets of sweat accumulating on the top of his nose.
I lay the receiver on the table, but the words still came out boisterously “My parents have four grand kids all from my baby brother and…”
“Eli, I need to get off”, I said. Without waiting for an answer I laid the receiver back in its cradle and went to wash my hands.